Life in Japan

Kyoto (Dec 16-18)

2005-12-18T21:34:00.000+09:00

As my last sight-seeing trip here in Japan, I went to the city of Kyoto. I had to force myself to go, despite the fact that I'm currently "travelled out" and am ready to go home and see family and friends again. But not going to Kyoto when coming to Japan, is like not going to Paris when you visit France. Kyoto is the city in Japan with the most famous temples and shrines. And a bunch of them are considered UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

So the day after I arrived in Tottori to drop off my luggage, I took a bus to Kyoto. It's only about 3 hours away and it only cost me about 3000 yen which is approximately $30 US one way. I stayed at the J-Hoppers Travellers Hostel next to the infamous Kytoto station. It only costs abou 2500 yen a night and the conditions were amazing. And most importantly the rooms were warm and comfortable. It was suprisingly clean and quiet. I defintely recommend this hostel to whomever goes to Kyoto in the future.

I was quite happy to go to Kyoto to get away from the Tottori snow storm for a few days. The weather in Kyoto was cold, but yet it was sunny so it was perfect. And some of the reminants of the fall colours were still present so it really emphasized the beauty of everything. And to top it off the day I left on the 18th it started to lightly snow. So to top off the gorgeous fall colours, the sprinkle of snow added a glow to the fantastic landscape. So heres where I went. I covered a lot of stuff that I wanted to see.

The interesting thing was during the night of the 17th, I bumped into a friend of mine from Tokyo, Chris, whom I went to the Hokusai art exibition with, and who I didnt get time to meet before I left. It was such a coincidence to get to see him. So we went to Toji temple together in the morning.

Dec 16th
- Arrived at Kyoto station
- Kyoto Imperial Palace (Kyoto was previously the capital city of Japan)
- Kyoto Lighting Festival in the Arayshiyama area

Dec 17th
- Ginkakuji temple
- Path of Philosophy
- Kiyomizu temple

- Giro area (the central area in Kyoto with all the ancient streets and famous for the geishas)
- Shijo area (the heart of the city with all the clubs, restaurants and shopping centres)

Dec 18th
- Toji temple

- Kinkakuji temple (the temple made of pure gold)

- Ryounji temple
- Nanzenji temple

Overall I thought Kyoto was an amazing city. For sight-seeing that is. The landcsape is super gorgeous and relaxing. So I would say its made more for the old folks. I dont think I would want to live there if I were to move to Japan. After living in Tokyo, nothing can compare. Sigh... I miss Tokyo sooo much. As they say in Japanese... natsukashii (good memories)!!!!

Fuji Mountain

2005-12-11T22:39:00.000+09:00

Today, the last Sunday I have in Tokyo, Teresa, Richard, Teresa's boyfriend Kenney, and I went to the Fuji Five Lakes area in the prefecture west of Tokyo. Our main motive was to go see Fuji mountain. I really wanted to hike up the mountain, but we were out of climbing season.

A view of Fuji mountain just outside Kawaguchiko station

It took more than 3 hours commuting each way (from Tokyo station to Kawaguchiko station) but it was worth it. We left Tokyo at around 7 am and arrived at Kawaguchiko station at 10 am. I got off the train and was blown away. We stayed around Kawaguchi lake (one of the "five lakes" next to the mountain). When we arrived we went up these liftcars that took us to the top of a hill to have a better look at Fuji mountain and took tons of pictures. Even though that was mostly what we did, it was totally worth it. Its like nothing I've ever seen before. This was the last place I wanted to see before leaving Tokyo. It was a good thing we went early because at around 2 pm the mountain disappears into the clouds.

But there wasn't much to do in the area other than enjoy the view of the mountain. Nearby there were tons of tiny museums and even a place dedicated to put on a show performed by actual monkies. We found a lot of stuff quite expensive for what it was worth so we didnt go in. So ended up going to a blueberry farm and we learned how to make blueberry jam. mmmmmmm peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.. i miss those.. hehehe

Us going up the lift-car

Yummy lunch: famous local food of the Fuji area called "Hotto"

Us making blueberry jam

Last Weekend in Tokyo and Mixed Feelings

2005-12-10T12:59:00.000+09:00

It's my last weekend here in Tokyo and my last two weeks in Japan. I've had so much fun here the time just flew by. I'm having mix feelings. Part of me really really wants to go home and see all my friends and family. But part me is going really miss Japan. It's been my home for the past 9 months. No matter how much I complain about the difference and the conservatism of the culture, I have seriously gotten used to it. I found out that I'm a person that likes "settling down", as in when I move somewhere I like staying there and adapting to the life instead moving around everywhere. I have definitely formed a bond with Japan.

I watched the movie "Lost in Translation" starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson last night. It quite enjoyed it because I could relate to it very much. It's about the two characters arriving in Tokyo and getting somewhat frustrated at the culture but in the end didn't want to leave, but yet wanted to go home. There was much more to the story but I still could relate to it.

I'm also dreading packing. So much junk has built up the past four months here in Tokyo. And I hate throwing out stuff so moving back to Tottori is going to be an adventure.

Shinjuku, one of my favourite places in Tokyo to hang out. I will miss it

Visiting the Host Parents in Ishikawa, Japan (Dec 1 - 4, 2005)

2005-12-04T23:57:00.000+09:00

During the Japan Tent conference in early August, I promised one of the host families to visit them after I move to Tokyo. So I finally did it. They were the sweet old couple that lived in Noto city of Ishikawa prefecture: Sadatoshi and Teiko Gyoda. They're both in their mid-70's and are as active as ever. They're both very active senior citizens and are in great health.

It was kinda weird for me to go from such an urban and crowded environment like Tokyo to a REALLY rural area like Noto. I found out that I'm definitely a city boy and enjoy the city lights, noise and crowdedness.

So I took a plane from Tokyo Haneda airport to Noto. Seeing them again was very nice. They treated me like I was their own grandson. So when I arrived they told me that we were going on an onsen (hot spring). So I was like okay sure, thinking it was somewhere local.. that sounds good. They ended up driving over 2 hours from Noto down south past metropolitan Kanazawa (the capital city of Ishikawa prefecture)to some southern city. I was so amazed at my host mom for driving for so long without getting tired. And shes over 75 years old. She told me shes been driving since 1950 so it was no problem for her and that she enjoys driving. We arrived at a traditional Japanese style hotel. The hotel room was like my dorm room in Yokohama but of course much larger, with a living room, shower, the works. Then we headed to dinner at the hotel. It was this gigantic buffet with all-you-can-eat crabs. It was mucho yummy. And boy do they both LOOOOVE drinking. My host father had 3 glasses of beer and a half a bottle of Japanese liquor. My host mom drank orange juice because she drank too much the night before. hahahaha. Afterwards my host father and I went to the hot spring in the hotel and enjoyed the steaming hot pool of water. I was more careful this time to prevent myself from getting a big headache.

Me and my host grandparents at the hotel in Ishikawa prefectureYummay dinner I'm getting fat from all the eating... I'll lose it once school starts again

Supposedly it snowed the night before but it seemed to have melted. The street snow/ice-melting sprinklers were on in the roads. The next day after breakfast, we headed to Kanazawa city and went to the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of History. It was very interesting and thank goodness there were English audio guides available. I even got to dress up in ancient samurai armour. The both of them are very into art, culture and history so we ended up spending over 2 hours in the museum. By the time we left and headed back to their house in Noto it was already 7 pm. So we had dinner and chatted about our lives, Japanese politics and current events. Their house was freeezing cold. In Japan there's no such thing as central heating. And being out in the boonies, they needed to place portable heaters all ove the house. The last time I came here, it was the complete opposite: it was steaming hot. Why wont the Japanese get with the times and build their houses with central heat and air conditioning?! I couldnt take a shower that night because the house was too cold so my host mom recommended me to take one later.

Road snow/ice melting sprinklers

The next day we headed off to somewhere local. Well it ended up being over an hour away so I dont know how "local" it was. hahahaha. It was actually snowing an area on the way to where we were going. This is the very first time I've seen snow in Japan. It's nothign compared to the level of snow we get in Canada though. We ended up at the Ishikawa Nanao Art Museum. They had paintings and drawings from famous artists. The art was very gorgeous and it took me a while to fully appreciate it. My host parents absolutely loved it. We ended watching this hour long video about the paintings in the museum after we finished browsing. The drive home was nice because the snow was gone and there was a goregous rainbow in the sky. After returning to their house and had a gigantic dinner: Japanese hot-pot, my host father set up a hot bath. The water was scalding hot so I had to release some water and put more cold water in. My host father told me that in Japanese culture, what I should have done instead was, without releasing any water, let the water up to the tip of the tub when I get in some water spills out. This helps get rid of the grime of the previous person that took the bath. In Japan they use the same bath water for everybody, unlike western countries. So the next day after breakfast we headed off to the airport and said goodbye to them. Even though it wasnt the most exciting weekend, I had a great time with them. They are after all senior citizens so I can't expect too much out of them. And after all, the purpose of this trip was not to come sight seeing but to spend time with my host family. I will definitely keep in touch wih them through letters and phone calls after returning to Canada. They are absolutely an amazing couple. I consider them my Japanese grandparents.

End of the Year Office Party

2005-11-30T23:40:00.000+09:00

So our ITS team at the office had a party to celebrate the end of the working year. And also to have a goodbye party for Matsuzaki. She's taking time off until next year. It was a great night getting to hang out with everybody. Once again, Ishikawa fell asleep and everybody, notably Hamanaka and Matsuzaki, starting playing pranks on him by drawing all over his face, like darkening his eyebrows with a permanent marker. It was quite humerous.

At one point they asked me how I communicate with my friends and family back home in Canada. So I told them I use a webcamera and a MSN messenger (the concept of chatting). This was a complete shock to them. It was like they heard about webcams and chatting for the very first time. The Japanese are not internet savvy at all. Their form of communication is all based on the mobile phone. All foreigners think that Japanese has all this amazing technology. There is a lot of neat technology, but the general Japanese public still falls behind in how to use the available technology. So overall I feel its just a partially false and over-exaggerated stereotype. Like how all foreigners think Canadians eat maple syrup all the time.

It was a great time. Free food, lots of alcohol and a chance to further bond with my co-workers.

The ITS team: (Left side of table, back to front): Me, Suzuki, Tsuji (used to be in the ITS), and Aoki. (Right side of table, back to front): Takaishi, Fujitaka, Kuroda, Ishikawa, and Matsuzaki

Hamanaka and Matsuzaki pulling a prank on Ishikawa

Japanese Tea Ceremony Class with Rotary Club

2005-11-26T21:53:00.000+09:00

Today, the Tokyo Rotary Club organized a class to teach students how to perform the tradition Japanese Tea Ceremony. My friend Hiro is the Vice-President so he was kind enough to invite me to experience it.

I had done it many times, once in 1993 when my Grade 5 class took a field trip to the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre in Toronto, the second time was in July of this year at the Japan Tent conference, and last month, I went with Hiro and the rotary club to an unofficial public tea ceremony. BUT, this time it was extra special cause it was an official class with a professional sensei (teacher). So they taught us how to properly fold the napkins, how to properly wipe the bowls,how to walk, bow, move properly around the tearoom, and how to properly drink the tea. There are soooo many rules. It was quite an interesting experience.

The class took place in the famous Konnichi-An teahouse (Today's Teahouse). The teahouse is over 400 years old and is used by many high Japanese dignitaries like Prime Minister Junchiro Koizumi. The name "today's" teahouse was inspired by a poem telling everybody to live life to the fullest. Make good use of your day, don't delve too much about the future or the past. I completely agree with this philosophy.

I can now say I took an official class on the Japanese tea ceremony in Japan's most famous teahouse.

The sensei

My friend Hiro (right). One of the vice-presidents of the Tokyo Rotary club

Life's Many Conumdrums

2005-11-25T21:17:00.000+09:00

Ever since I moved to Tokyo to start my work term, I've had more time to myself to read novels and think. I've read almost 7 novels since September. I mostly do it on the subway to and from work.

So I just finished "Elenor Rigby" by Douglas Coupland, who happens a Canadian author. The story was very light-hearted, whimsical, humerous, and yet it was very thought-provoking. The main character, Liz Dunn went through life, as we all do, with problems. Yet throughout these problems, she manages to stay above the frey and brush off these problems without the slightest thought. By the end, she learned a lot about herself and vowed to change. I'm not going to go into detail but I do recommend everyone to read it.

After the amazing and emotional ending, I had to take deep breath. I was on my way home from work today. Having so much time to yourself isn't always the best thing cause it means you have more time to think about your life problems, your faults and your failures. The thought-provoking story didn't help much either.

Sometimes I feel that I'm the only person in the world with serious emotional and life problems. And I ask myself why does life have to be so complicated. But then as I looked around me on the Tokyo subway train and I realized that everybody has their own problems and obstacles to deal with. Everybody has their happy times and their sad and complicated times. I realized I am not alone in this world. Life is not easy, we have to work hard and make difficult life-changing decisions.

I guess being in a foreign country has really made me realize my own strengths and weaknesses. I'm really thinking too deep into this. But I think self-actualization is important. Learn to know yourself better and life's many conumdrums won't seem as bad as you think they are... well at least I think they wont be.

Hokusai exibition

2005-11-20T23:52:00.000+09:00

Today, my friend Chris and I went to the Tokyo National Museum for Hokusai exibition.

Hokusai (1760 - 1849) is Japan's most famous and most well known artist. He lived during the Tokugawa period (1600 to 1867) in a Japan of traditional Confucian values and feudal regimentation. His most famous work, which Im sure everybody has seen before some time or other, is the "Great Wave".

They had shipped from famous museums from all over the world, orginal works of Hokusai. The exibition was spectacular. Though I pictured the original paintings to be much larger than they turned out to be. But Hokusai's artwork had soo much detail and was so elegant, that it blew me away.

I wasn't allowed to take any pictures. So I bought some postcards and I took pictures of them.. hee hee.

"The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa". Hokusai's most famous painting

"A Mild Breeze on a Fine Day ". Another famous Hokusai painting
"Dish Ghost (Sara Yashiki) "
"Beauty Being Inebriated"

Afterwards, I visited the Tokyo National Science Museum. They had a special exibition called Pearls - A Natural History, which was partly organized by the world famous Mikimoto company that produces pearl jewelery. It discussed the different types of pearls, and how pearls are formed, and displayed famous examples of pearls from all over the world. From the hat of the King of Nepal to Marylin Monroe's necklace. The one that stood out to me was the Miss Universe tiara.

Miss Universe tiara

Yokohama Int'l Triennale of Contemporary Art & Ramen Museum

2005-11-12T23:07:00.000+09:00

Every morning when I'm commuting to work, I see these ads advertising the Yokohama 2005 Triennale of Contemporary Art. I've been tempted to go for the past few weeks, but have been to lazy to get off my ass. But finally I went to today. It was really really interesting. It was located in the stunning harbour front of Yokohama. Suitably, the triennale was held in warehouses near the port.

The entire exibition was titled "Art Circus (Jumping from the Ordinary)". Its goal is to reconsider and revaluate the function of art and the power of art in modern society. It featured contemporary works by artists from all over the world. There were very few paintings, mostly just random creations. Photos weren't allowed for most of the exibition, so I took where I can.

Sculpture beforing entering the front gates

Front gate

Path which takes me to the front entrance of the exibition

Bar in the shape of an anus. I couldnt stop laughing. It was erotic, disturbing, humerous and artistic all at once.
This picture is dedicated to Gary.. hahahahahahahaha

After the Triennale, I decided to go to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. Basically its like a little theme park where they have restaurants and a tiny museum on ramen noodles. The entire place is decorated such that it looks like the 50's and 60's. They had approximately 8 different restaurants each offering different styles of ramen noodles from all over Japan. I had three GIANT bowls. I was soooo full. It was a really neat experience. I'm defintely gonna come back to chow down on more ramen before I leave.

Random Japanese Festival

2005-11-06T23:36:00.000+09:00

So I went to buy gifts for my family and friends at the market in Sensoji shrine in the Asakusa area of Tokyo. Suprisingly, out of ALL of Tokyo, Asakusa is the only place where you can find Japanese souvenirs. Tokyo is more of the modern clothing shopping type of city. So.. as I was browsing stuff a parade or a festival of some sort suddenly starts. A whole bunch of old ladies dressed in Japanese traditional wear start dancing in two lines. I was really impressed with their moves considering their age. This is so typical of the Japanese. They really enjoy their festivals. I think its a really nice part of the culture. We should have more random things like this in Canada.

(Click here for a video of the parade)

Imperial Palace

2005-11-04T22:42:00.000+09:00

Since I'm living in the capital city, I vowed to make a trip to the Imperial Palace here in Tokyo. The Imperial Palace is the official residence of the Emperor, the Empress, and the rest of the Japanese royal family. The tours were only offered during weekdays, so I had to take a morning off work.

The tour was okay interseting. The architecture was nothing really special compared to other stuff Ive seen elsewhere in Japan. But I guess the whole purpose of this is just to say that I've been to the Imperial Palace. And I got to see the famous stretch of windows that the royal family usually greets the public from.

Sakashita-mon GateThe former Privy CouncilFujimi-yagura (watch tower)Kunaicho Chosha (head office of the Imperial Household)Kyuden Totei Plaza

Me lookin like a secret service agent

The window which from the royal family greets the public (like in the photo, which I didnt take, below)
One of the royal gardens behind the building

A sea of dried lotus flowers in the castle moat, which usually would be in full blossom during the summer

Tokyo Motor Show

2005-11-03T23:50:00.000+09:00

So on October 28th I went to this extremely boring ITS Japan conference/seminar for work (Since I belong to the ITS - Intelligent Transpot Systems- dept at Nippon Koei). Basically all it was was people making presentations and talking non stop for 3 hours. I went with Ishikawa from work. And to top it off, it was all in Japanese, so I was only able to catch a bit of it. Both of us ended up sleeping/napping for most of it. hahahahaha. We were joking aftertwards that that was one good thing that came out of that boring conference. BUT, we got free tickets to the Tokyo Motor Show.

So today, a Thursday and a Japanese national holiday (Japan has shit loads of national holidays.. today was "Culture Day"... hahahaha everyday is Culture Day in Japan for me), so we didnt have to work. So Ishikawa, Tsuji, Matsuzaki, and I went to the Tokyo Motor Show which was held in Chiba prefecture. Ishikawa picked Tsuji and I up from our dormitory and we met Matsuzaki there at the car show.

Overall it was very interesting. I found it to be somewhat similar to the Toronto Car Show but of course it was bigger and with female models posing with the vehicles. Most prominently, there were much much much more concept vehicles. It was really neat. You didn't need to know a lot about cars to enjoy yourself. They also had tons of simulators and 3D ride type things. I got to try the Honda simulator. It was the first time I had gotten behind a steering wheel in 8 months. Kinda scary ay? hahahahaha. At certain pavillions there was dancing and Japanese girls speaking with an overly-enthusiastic tone (so perky you want to throw up). But overall, i had a great time. It was also nice being able to bond with these guys from work.

Ishikawa and Tsuji

Perky Japanese dancing

I thought these handicap aided cars were the neatest. I was especially inspired because of my Aunt Winnie. Shes an amazing driver, so this gives me hope that she can continue to drive and go places when she gets older.

Nissan Pivo.. isn't it adorable.. or in Japanese... KAWAI!More perky dancing Bad boys bad boys, what cha gonna do when they come for you

Nippon Koei Research Centre in Tsukuba

2005-11-03T16:27:00.000+09:00

According to my boss, Fujitaka, every newbie at Nippon Koei must make a trip to their Research Centre in Tsukuba (west of Tokyo... also called Tsukuba Science City). So yesterday, Fujitaka
and I made a trip by train down to the centre. Supposedly, Nippon-Koei is the only civil engineering consulting in Japan that has such a large research centre.

It was this GIGANTIC building with a HUMONOUS testing site around it. Basically the building where I work at is just the office/client consulting area in downtown Tokyo. But here, in the research centre, is where all the technical stuff takes place. They do stuff such as water dam scale modelling and testing , sewage system modelling and testing, water resources/soil quality engineering testing, etc... It was quite neat. So I spent the day listening to presentations and taking a tour of the facilities. I was really impressed.

I would go into the technical details about my trip but that would just bore everyone reading this.

Scale model of a dam to be built in Kagawa prefectureSewage system modelling
Model of a River "Fish-way". To be built to guide fish traffic
Soil mechanics laboratory

Giant centrifuge (like the one astronauts use) used here to model the forces that would be present on a slope. Overall its used for landslide prevention engineering.

Unofficial Japanese Tea Ceremony with Rotary

2005-10-30T16:11:00.000+09:00

When I went to Nagoya in June for the Aichi World Expo, I had met the Vice-President of one of the many Tokyo Rotary clubs, Hiro Sakamaki. He is also the president of his own Environmental Engineering consulting firm. We chatted quite extensively so he gave me his card and told me to contact him when I arrive in Tokyo.

So a couple of weeks ago (day of Oktoberfest) I went out to lunch with him and his fiancee. They were extremely kind. I had thought it would be some type of formal/business oriented type thing so I dressed up fairly decently. Then when I arrived at the restaurant, him and his financee were dressed in casual clothes. He was in a baseball cap, with torn jeans and stuff so I was so overdressed hahahahaa. But it was quite a delicious lunch. Nepalese and Indian food..mmmmm... Then we went back to his place to have coffee. His toilet... get this... when you sit down on it, it starts playing music (Destiny's Child - Bootylicious... very suitable) and in the bowl are spinning disco lights... I was so surprised... it was quite humerous.

So yesterday he invited me out again, this time with his Rotary club, to a Japanese tea ceremony. So I also got to meet the other Vice-President and the President. Supposedly every season or so, in Japanees culture they are suppose to go through the tea ceremony. And its very very orchestrated with strict rules. The ladies serving the tea have to walk a certain way and are suppose to enter and exit a certain way. I experienced it when I went to the Japan Tent conference, but this was more formal. Quite an educational experience indeed.

Akikawa Valley - Nippon Koei Social Outting

2005-10-23T00:06:00.000+09:00

So my entire department, not just my ITS team, went out for a company social outting in Akikawa Valley, located east of Tokyo. It was a lot of fun.

At first when we arrived, Tsushima and Hamada, the two freshman who live in the dormitory with me, organized a scavenger hunt. Lucky me, I was put on a team with my supervisor Fujitaka, the big boss of the department Ishibashi, and some other dude I don't know the name of. Basically what we had to do was to hike around Akikawa and take pictures of specific landmarks. Along the way we also got to stop to eat a Japanese delicacy called "Konyaku" a type of sea jelly. It was super yummy.

My boss/supervisor, Fujitaka, and I

Me, the other dude, and Ishibashi enjoying our konyaku

Me being silly with my Konyaku

Me, Fujitaka, and Ishibashi enjoying our Konyaku

Hamanaka, the other ITS manager, taking a picture of his scavenger hunt team

The fall colours in the leaves were starting to come in so it was absolutely gorgeous. After the scavenger hunt, all the teams ended up near the shore of a river where Matsuzaki and Ishikawa, both from my ITS team at work, were preparing a HUGE BBQ for everyone. I aboslutely love Japanese barbeques. Unlike the boring hamburger and hotdog bbqs we have at home in Canada, Japanese BBQs have EVERYTHING. They dump everything on the grill and its super yummy. I always over eat at Japanese BBQs.

mmmm Japanese BBQ

After the BBQ, I went into a car with Hamada and Tsushima back to the dormitory.
I enjoyed myself. I got to know a lot of my coworkers better.

"24" Marathon

2005-10-21T23:52:00.000+09:00

So my friend James introduced me to the American TV show "24" (on FOX) starring Kiefer Sutherland. We watched season 4 of the show. I watched the first 4 episodes at his place the first time (we had to rent from Tsutaya - Japan's Blockbuster). I was immediately hooked. Its such an exciting and suspenceful show. Its TOTALLY addictive. For those of you who are not familiar the show, each season of 24 takes place in a day and the each of the twenty-four episodes in each season represents an hour.

I went to rent the next 6 episodes myself because we were both busy. But for the rest of the 14, my friend Hiro kindly lent me his DVD set he had bought over the internet. I went back to James' place and we watched 14 hours of 24 spread out in two days. The DVD's ended up being in PAL format (UK format) so it was in black and white on James' Japanese DVD player. But we were so addicted we didnt really care. We ate KFC while watching.. I havent had KFC in ages... It was finger lickin good.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

2005-10-19T20:57:00.000+09:00

So I was just working at my desk diligently when all of a suddent the room started shaking. I was like holy shit. Its an EARTHQUAKE!!!! I ve always joked with people ever since I arrived here in Japan that I want to experience at least one earthquake before I leave. And that wish came true. It was like a Disneyland ride. It was nuts. The hanging lamp in my room started swaying back and forth back and forth. While it was happening, I had to message someone on MSN and Emily Johnston and Laura from my class happened to be online so I was chatting with them about it.

I'm very impressed with Japanese infrastructure cause the power didnt go out, the internet didnt go out and the phone lines were all working perfectly. I guess they experience them enough here that its kinda like a snow blizzard is to us.

Even though it wasn't a heavy one, I was quite shaken up afterwards. Like having the entire building shake back and forth on you is quite frightening, especially if you havent experienced before. I grew up in Toronto, where NOTHING happens other than snow storms.

I checked online earthquake reports afterwards and it was a 6.4 magnitude at the hypocenter near the coast of Honshu, Japan. And we felt the earthquake here in the greater Tokyo area at a magnitude of 3. A 3 was already that crazy, I could only imagine what a 6.4 feels like since the severity grows exponentially as the magnitude increases.

I have attached a picture of the earthquake report below

Mommy and Daddy comes to Japan

2005-10-17T21:28:00.000+09:00

So my parents decided to take a vacation to Hong Kong and come visit me in Japan along the way (October 13- 16). So I took Friday off work and met them at their hotel in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo. I haven't seen them for almost 7 months. So it was very very nice to see them again.

And knowing the stress monkey that I am, I was super stressed out in planning their visit here. Basically I had to plan all the sightseeing. I wanted to give them the best visit of Tokyo but considering they only had two full days in the city I had to cram a lot in. And since I haven't done much sightseeing myself in the city, I was kinda learning in the process myself. Thank goodness for my friend James who has lived in the city for almost two years to give me some sightseeing suggestions.

There's a lot of photos of places I dont have cause theyre on my parent's camera. So heres where we went in the four days.

Day 1- October 13th (after meeting them at their hotel)

Shibuya - Dinner and browsing

Roppongi Hills (giant skyscraper with a 360 degree view of Tokyo and a contemporary art museum)

Day 2 - October 14th

Sensoji Temple (Asakusa Kannon Temple)

Boat Cruise along the river running

Hama Rikyu Gardens

Odaiba area (with a stunning view of the Tokyo skyline)
My Dormitory

Yokohama Harbour front

Day 3 - October 15th

Nikko (in a city about 1.5 hours away from Tokyo with gorgeous temples)

Akihabara Electric Town (with all the Japanese electronics)
Ginza

Shinjuku
Dinner at a traditional rotating sushi bar restaurant in Shinjuku

Day 4 - October 16th

Tsukiji-Shijo Fish Market
Yasakuni Shrine (the controversial Japanese soldier shrine)

Most of the trip was taken up by transportation. The tourist attractions are all located at points far away from each other. But that's all part of living in Tokyo: the commuting. So my parents got to experience the different forms of transportation here and the complete madness of pulic transit in the densest city in the world. But one amazing that came out of the commuting was that we got to have a lot of wonderful conversations about what's happening at home and what I have been up to. It was defintely, as my father puts it, a family reunion.

My dad sitting next to old ladies on the JR train

________

The Yasakuni Effect
A special part of the trip I would like to talk about is the trip to the infamous Yasakuni Shrine. For those of you who don't know, Yasakuni Shrine is the shrine that commemorates the Japanese war dead (all the wars, not just WWII) and happens to contain a few war criminals from WWII. And this is the controversial shrine that upsets China and South Korea everytime Prime Minister Koizumi visits it. My dad is a very knowledgeable and educated individual and is extremely interested, like myself, in history and politics. So he really enjoyed this part of the trip.
So I want to talk about something that I experienced during our visit to Yasakuni Shrine I call the Yasakuni Effect. Being from Chinese origin, this was the very first time I had felt awkward being in Japan. It started when we first entered the shrine and my mom commented on how she felt slightly uncomfortable being there due to the war crimes against our ancestors. My dad, on the other hand took this visit more as an educational experience and decided to look past the controversial history. Parts of me agreed with both their stances. I unexpectedly felt offended being in the shrine. I never thought I would actually feel this way since I've been living and educated in Canada for most of my life and being the third generation in my family since World War II ended. It was a feeling that hit me by surprise. I studied all this stuff in high school, and I usually just took it as an event in history, and like my dad, looked past the controversy. But I couldn't help but feel angry at what the Japanese did to my ancestors. For the first time I felt sympathetic toward the remarks made by the Chinese and Korean governments. The shrine also contained a really extensive museum that took the visitor throughout the history of the wars that Japan has engaged in. So me and my dad went in and thank goodness the displays contained English. I actually learned A LOT from the museum. And my dad, being Chinese and our family's history (mostly my grandfather) with Japan, my dad finally got to see what "the other side" had to say and how the "other side" interpreted history. I didn't really blame my mom for not wanting to go in cause I completely understood her feelings. But my curiosity and extreme interest in history and politics kind of overpassed my anger and discomfort.
The interesting thing was that the very next day after our visit, on October 17th, Prime Minister Koizumi made a trip to the shrine. And as expected, China and Korea made a lot of noise in international news.

_______

Overall, I could have organized their vacation better. I was really upset at myself as there were a lot of places I wanted to take them to ended up being closed. They kept telling me that the purpose of their trip was to come visit me. But I was still really disappointed at myself. Considering that they payed so much just to fly here and that it was my dad's first time in Japan, I wanted to give them the best experience possible.

I can't wait to see them, the rest of my family, and my friends again when I return to Canada in late December. Japan has definitely become part of my life, but I miss Canada!!!

Oktoberfest in Japan

2005-10-13T17:54:00.000+09:00

So I went out with Richard and Ana on Sunday in Yokohama. I took them on the same route I took along the habour front a few weeks ago. They were really impressed as I was when I first went to Yokohama.

So near the end, we stumbled up this festival going on in a big white tent. It was OKTOBERFEST in Yokohama. We couldn't believe our eyes. Waterloo has the second largest Oktoberfest in the world second to the ones in Germany. So we were really surprised to see that there are actually festivities going on in Japan. I didn't bring my camera, so Richard took all of the photos. It was crazy. The Japanese go wild when there is alcohol. Ana got this really tall glass of beer and I bought some sausages. It was quite impressive considering that its Japan. They had a German band and they even altered one of the traditional German Oktoberfest drinking songs to suit the Japanese crowd more. It was quite humerous. The last time I went to Oktoberfest was in Waterloo two years ago with Rob, Sara, and Rob's friend Kim.

I'd like to give special shout outs to all our classmates who are doing their exchange in Germany and wish them a happy and mucho drunken Oktoberfest. Of course our imitation Ok-fest is nothing compared to yours.

(photos courtesy of Richard)

Myself, Richard, and Ana at Oktoberfest Yokohama

Its soooo Japanese to do something so corny as a train during Ok-fest. But it was fun nevertheless

mmmmm weiners in a bento box

Breaking into the Tokyo Social Scene

2005-10-13T12:21:00.000+09:00

So I have finally broken into the Tokyo social scene. My friend James, from Canada who happens to be teaching English in Tokyo, took me out clubbing the other day in Shinjuku. Shinjuku, like Shibuya, is a huge shopping/night life district here in Tokyo. The stupid thing about partying at night in Tokyo is that if you miss the last train, you are forced to stay out until 5 am the next day. It completely kills your weekend cause of fatigue. I completely dont understand why the trains here in Tokyo don't run 24 hours a day like they do in New York considering that it is the most dense city in the world.

So I ended up meeting other cool people. Jed, Chris, and Ryan are all from the USA. They're a fun bunch to hang out with. They introduced me to a few other people. So we all go out drinking, clubbing, karaoke, and partying the past two weekends. I have never partied so much before in my life.

Jed at Moss BurgerChris at Moss Burger

Chris and Ryan on the JR trainJed and I on the JR train

My parents are coming to visit me next week! YAY! I havent seen them in like 7 months. And I get to do my Tokyo sightseeing all in one weekend!! Considering I have been avoiding it for the past two months this would be a great chance to get it all done.

Global Festival Japan 2005

2005-10-01T23:18:00.000+09:00

A bunch of Tottori University students along with Professor Kip Cates, the professor who helped organized the Hunger Banquet, came down to Tokyo today to attend the "Global Festival Japan 2005". And knowing that I was in Tokyo, he invited me to join them. Professor Cates introduced me to a Tottori student named Tetsuda so we ended up hanging out with each other throughout the conference.

The Global Festival is basically an International Development related conference/festival with a huge set up located in Hibiya Park. EVERY Japanese NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) and developing nations with embassies in Japan had booths set up. And the food was amazing. Developing nations from all over the world had different food stands set up as well. Mondo yummy. Considering my deep interest and passion toward international development this was right up my alley. I got the opportunity to gather tons of literature from many different NGO's. The festival also had this stamp collecting thing where we had to go these specified booths and do some activity or answer some quiz questions. We had to get 13 stamps in order to get a prize at the front gate. I received this really nice Fair Trade necklace and this really awesome African painting.

Me standing in front of the "UN High Commissioner for Refugees" booth

The "World Bank Group" booth

Bangladesh embassy booth doing an activity about water sanitation Me trying on a pregnant suit in a booth that talks about the health and wellness of pregnant women in developing nationsI was browsing a gallery filled with photographs. This jumped out at me. This little African girl wearing a white band made out of cloth to display her hope that the world would be free of poverty some day. The White Band Project is a global campaign for "Make Poverty History"
Me with my White Band

Me and the students from Tottori University. Tetsuda is standing to my right

This conference definitely rejuvenated my passion toward international development. I have so much career paths I can take after graduation so I'm kinda lost in terms of what to do. But it will definitely be something related to do international/human development.

First Pass at Tokyo

2005-09-30T01:20:00.000+09:00

Since I just got back from a long week vacation filled with temples and shrines, I wasnt ready to start sight seeing of traditional Japanese stuff just yet. But I decided to start tackling Tokyo's major city spots.

I started with Shibuya. Shibuya is this one of the many GIANT shopping/nightlife areas that contains tons of department stores, restaurants and the world's busiest Starbucks. It also contains one of Tokyo's busiest nightlifes. It remains busy until the last train at midnight everyday. It was actually kinda difficult to shop for men's clothing. In all the department stores Ive been to, there are like 6 floors of women's wear and 1 of men's. I'm not complaining cause I'm not a big fan of shopping and I cant afford the department store stuff anyways. It also has a huge HMV with different floors devoted to different genres of music. There were actually a classical music floor and a jazz music floor. It was quite exciting to find a floor devoted to my all time fav music genre. I spent almost an hour there just sampling and listening to Japanese-made jazz music.

Shibuya

Festival passing by the streets in Shibuya
A shot of the Shibuya main intersection from the worlds busiest Starbucks

So during Ana's birthday, I took Ana out to a restaurant in Shibuya called Alcatraz (named after the famous high-security prison in San Francisco) located in some basement. The elevator down was uniquely designed like the Tower of Terror in Disney World. It was a very Halloweenish restaurant. Its basically this jail and evil/mad/psycho-doctor themed restaurant where when you enter, the hostess and the waitresses, dressed as nurses, handcuffs you and leads you to your jailcell. Throughout our meal they put on many acts, like mad doctors running around, sirens, speakers broadcasting creepy messages, etc... At one point this mad doctor with a clownmask came running toward our table with two dildos in his hands. It startled Ana.. hahahaha. The food was kinda questionable.. warm caesar salad made of cabbage??? hmmmm... yeah... In reality, only the Japanese could do such perky restaurants like this.

Alcatraz theme restaurant for Ana's birthday

During the last weekend I went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art where there was an Egyptian exibition that was brought over from the L'ouvre in Paris. The exibition was in French and Japanese so I had to rely on my French to actually understand stuff. hahahaha. But overall it wasnt too exciting cause we see a lot of this stuff in museums in Canada so it doesnt wow me at all.. The Japanese seemed to be wowed and amaze with it... well they get wowed by a lot of things.. hahahaah. I went to other parts of the museum with neat paintings and sculptures. I really enjoyed it. But sadly I got sick by the time I left. I felt a cold coming on.

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exploring Yokohama

2005-09-19T23:58:00.000+09:00

Since I actually live in Yokohama, I decided to explore it first before Tokyo. The day after the Radwimps concert, Tsuji took me to the area around Yokohama station. The Yokohama area is absolutely GORGEOUS. Yokohama has one of the largest ports in Japan, so it has a stunning harbour front. So Tsuji and I went up the Yokohama Landmark Tower (a skyscraper). It has the fastest elevator in Japan (750 m/min) with an amazing 360 degree view of the city from up top. On a good day you can even see Fuji mountain from afar. Of course its not as tall as the CN Tower, but the Japanese landscape is much nicer to look at.

Yokohama Landmark Tower

View of Yokohama city from The Yokohama Landmark Tower (taken with my horrible cellphone camera)

Yokohama station shopping centre

So a week later, I decided to go explore Yokohama on my own. I really didnt know what to do so I just randomly explored. Then I found the Motomachi shopping street. It was quite amazing. A ton of name brand stores. And of course my fav, the Gap and the Japanese version of the Gap, UNI-QLO. But I didnt spend too much time shopping. I had two goals, buy new running shoes and replace my earring that finally broke after so much travelling. Afterward, I stumbled onto Yamashita Park. It had an absolutely breathtaking and romanting boardwalk along the Yokohama port waterfront. The buildings had a European taste to them so it gave this part of town a bit of a flare. Considering it is a historical port city, Im not surprised at its European influence. At the end of this breath taking walk takes you to Yokohama Chinatown, the biggest Chinatown in Japan. All my Japanese collegues tell me how Chinatown is sooo cool. I went and I was like meh... whatever... basically it was filled with overpriced food and stuff I can get back at home in Toronto or Taiwan for like a tenth of the price. For example a small dish of noodles costs 1200 yen ($12 US). I can get the same thing in Toronto for $5 Canadian. So I spent like a total of 10 minutes in Chinatown. hahahaha.

Yokohama Chinatown

Motomachi shopping street
Harbour front Yokohama

Red Brick Warehouses now transformed into cool little shops and cafes

Chinatown after dark

Overall Yokohama is a stunning city. Has a lot of character. If I were to move to Japan, I would defintely live here in Yokohama. There arent much more interesting areas of Yokohama other than here, so basically I'm done exploring Yokohama. But I will defintely come back to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere.

Federal Election... Japanese style

2005-09-11T23:30:00.000+09:00

So today was the infamous Japanese federal elections. Coincentally its held on the same day as the 9/11 anniversary. Well, for those of you who don't already know, this election was called because the lower house in the Japanese legislature rejected Prime Minister Junchiro Koizumi's proposal to privatize the postal system here in Japan. Since he had a majority government, some members of his own party had to rebel and dissent and vote against it in order for it to have failed. Koizumi said screw all of you and called an election. He and his Liberal-Democratic party (the right of center party here in Japan) coalition with a few other parties ended up winning an even larger majority taking almost 3/4 of the lower house eating away at some seats of the main opposition party the Social Democratic party (the left of center party). So he basically can do whatever he wants now. This election victory gave Koizumi sweet revengean and an excuse to tell his dissenters and opposition "I told you so.. dont mess with me". HAHAHAHA.

And the political junky that I am, I stayed up almost all night watching the election coverage. It was quite exciting.

Liberal-Democratic Party campaign poster featuring Prime Minister Junchiro Koizumi

Election coverage early on in the night with the two major party leaders on LCD screens. you can see the Liberal Democrats are already kicking ass.

Social Democratic Party Leader, Shakai Minshuto (the main opposition leader)

Some third party leader who was in a coalition with Koizumis LDP

Koizumi marking down at party headquarters the winner of a certain riding

Radwimps Concert

2005-09-10T22:32:00.000+09:00

On September 3rd, during the first weekend in Tokyo/Yokohama, Hamada (one of the two company freshman who lives with me at the dorm), Matsuzaki (one of the two females on the ITS team with me) and Tsuji (another co-worker from Nippon-Koei but different department) took me to a concert of a punk-rock band called The Radwimps in downtown Yokohama. The name at first sounded really corny but it grew on me.

The Radwimps (www.radwimps.jp)

Their new album: "Radwimps 2"

Before going to the concert Hamada lent me his Radwimps CD "Radwimps 2" their latest album. I was totally expecting something really cheesy but it ended up being really awesome. And when we actually went and saw them live at the concert, they were even more awesome. They sounded soooo good live. Rarely do bands or singers sound better live than they do on recordings. All the girls in the crowd were yelling "AKIRA!!!" (Akira is the lead singer of the Radwimps).

Hamada and I at the Radwimps concert

The mood of the crowd in the concert was extremely calm considering it was a hit punk rock band. There was a balcony where people were actually seated. Matsuzaki and Tsuji were seated up in the balcony. They had VIP passes of some sort. The bottom level were might as well have been sitting. They were all standing without any movement whatsoever even during the hit songs. Then you had the front of the bottom level where people were bobbing their heads and bouncing up down. There was only a tiny tiny mosh pit near centre stage (consisted of like 5 people hahahahaha). The craziness of rock concerts don't compare to the ones in Canada at all. I almost got my head knocked off two summers ago during the Finger Eleven concert in Waterloo with Shruthi. Then we all went for dinner. They treated me again cause they knew I was a poor student who cant afford extremely expensive meals.

Workterm at Nippon Koei

2005-09-10T21:30:00.000+09:00

So I started work the day after I moved into the dormitory. Work in the first week was slow but really interesting. I am in the "Intelligent Transport Systems" (ITS) team at Nippon Koei. Basically my team provides engineering consulting for technology to improve in areas of transportation and transit. An example of a system is the "otaske keitai" which is basically a cellular phone/GPS system that is used to help senior and handicap citizens. If a senior/handicap individual needed help, all they would have to do is request for help through their mobile phone and the system will find in a database any other semeritans nearby whom are willing to help. Another one is the landslide prevention/notification system. If there are any landslide activities along a road, the system will detect it and inform drivers through display signs. These are just two of the many projects going on in our team. Fujitaka, whom is a former student of Kita-sensei (prof. Kita) from Tottori University, is my direct supervisor and one of the two managers of the team. Hamanaka is the other manager. Hamanaka is a complete riot. Hes one of those guys that joke around all the time and can really brighten up a room. Sitting next to me is Mochizuki. Basically my boss tells me to help Mochizuki with any work he has. And the rest of the ITS team include Matsuzaki (who took me to lunch the first day, shes amazing), Ishikawa, Takaishi, Suzuki, Aoki and Kuroda. Everyones really cool and theyre all relatively young (mid 20s to mid 30s).

My name tag

Work has been interesting. to get familiar with the projects, Fujitaka told me to write some comment-based reports about them and provide my ideas about the projects. He told me write them in Japanese, so it took twice as long for me to write these reports. But it turned out alright. He also got me started on GIS (Geographical Information Systems) training using ArcGIS software. I'm glad to be learning some new skills. Mochizuki frequently goes on business trips to Southeast Asia to do experiments with probe-vehicles and traffic management systems. So he has brought back a shit load of data for me to dissect and analyse.

So basically every lunch hour I go out to lunch with the men of my team. I two females, Matsuzaki and Kuroda, stay behind and eat with the rest of the females in the department/floor.

Okay so heres where I start ranting about a part of Japanese culture that ticks me off: the gender inequality. Its completely absurd. I thought it was bad in Japanese households, but its even crazier in the office setting. In Japanese culture when you go on business trips, you are suppose to bring back little treats for your coworkers. So from what I have observed, the men come back with the treats and they tell fellow female coworkers (of the same rank and status) to pass them out for them. Its completely stupid, just get up off your ass and pass them out yourself for heaven's sake. And, when the men need to photocopy stuff or fetch coffee for meetings they ask the women to do it for them too.

Anyways, my team went out for welcome dinner for me. It was a hoot. They were teaching me Japanese drinking games and I was teaching them the Western/Canadian ones. A lot of them are very similiar.... well they're universal so I wasnt surprised the Japanese play them as well. They kept asking me what I enjoy eating. And I told them, as I tell everybody, that I basically eat everything or am willing to try anything new. So they kept ordering these Japanese delicacies that usual foreigners would squeal about and I just kept eating them. They were shocked. Near the end of the party, Ishikawa started falling asleep. So we were decorating him with food that wasnt eaten.. hahahaha. They're all such a fun crowd.

Mochizuki (top) and Hamanaka (bottom left) pulling a prank on Ishikawa (bottom right) after he dozed off

Suzuki, Mochizuki, and Kuroda (from left to right)

Myself, Takaishi, Suzuki and Mochizuki

September, 2005 - The Beginning of a New Japanese Experience in Tokyo/Yokohama

2005-09-09T14:51:00.000+09:00

So after my three weeks of vacation I was ready to start my new phase in Japan. I had to head back to Tottori for a few days to collect some stuff and prepare my luggage for Tokyo. My laboratory, as a goodbye party, treated me to dinner at the "Beer Garden" near Tottori station. It was basically a buffet dinner with UNLIMITED beer. I got tipsy, but I made sure to not get too too drunk since I had to depart early the next morning.

My Tottori University lab mates at my farewell party at the "Beer Garden"

So on September 1st, I moved to Tokyo to start my workterm at "Nippon-Koei Co., Ltd.", the largest engineering consulting firm in Japan. But considering the properties values are super high in Tokyo, the company placed their male dorimtory in suburbian Yokohama (the city just south of Tokyo - kinda like Kitchener-Waterloo)

It was quite crazy trying to lug my TWO gigantic suitcases and my two backpacks across Japan. I had to take the Super Hakado train from Tottori to Shin-Osaka station then I had to transfer onto to the Shinkansen bullet trains to Yokohama station. Then from there I had to transfer to the local subway/JR trains. Then, its not over yet, from there, I had to take the bus to the company dorm. The bus driver was getting all pissed that I had giant suitcases, but I didnt give a shit cause I was so tired by this time.

The company dorm is cozy little place. Basically I compare it to Village 1 at UW. We each have a room, we share showers, washrooms, and theres a cafeteria. But the difference is the food is AMAZING and laundry is free. This old couple runs the dorm. The wife cooks meals for all the rookie employees that live there. Its 150 yen ($1.50 US) for breakfast and 400 yen ($4.00 US) for dinner. These meals are GIGANTIC. I cant get enough of them. I am sooo gonna get fat by the time I leave Tokyo. My room is a cozy little rectangle with a desk, a tatami mat with a fouton and tons of drawer/shelf space. Its tiny, but its enough for me. Its not like Im going to be doing much in here but sleeping. I wanted to set up in the internet in my room. Boy did it take forever. Japanese red tape is crazy. I kinda expected it when I was making the calls to get it set up.

Nippon Koei Male Dormitory

My cozy Japanese style room

Suburbia Yokohama, the neighborhood where my dorm is located

The dinners at the dorm... HUGE!!

The night I moved in, the gentle man running the dorm introduced me to Hamada and Tsushima. Both are newcomers to Nippon Koei and had just started only two months ago. We had dinner together the first night and they offered to go with me to work the next day. Thank goodness they did. Commuting to work is an adventure in itself. I totally would have gotten lost if they didn't Heres my the routine I have to go through every morning

Get up at 6 AM get dressed and catch the bus to "Tsunashima" station (on the Tokyu Toyoko line)

Then from Tsunashima station I the Toyoko line train to Musashi-Kosugi station (3 stops away). This train is usually PACKED with people. They specifically hire people to push and squeeze people onto the train. I have never experience claustrophobia until I moved to Tokyo. Its insane. I call it "an orgy with 21 million people you really dont want to have an orgy with"

From there I have to transfer trains to get on the Tokyu Meguro line which merges to become the Tokyo Subway "Namboku" line to finally arrive at "Yotsuya" station 35 minutes later. Then from Yotsuya, I walk about 5 minutes to our office building.

On the way home from work at Yotsuya station

So all in all it takes approximately 1.5 hours to get to work. Then coming home, reverse that process.

The Tokyo/Yokohama transit system is the biggest in the world. It's GIGANTIC!!!. There are basically three major transit companies in Tokyo

JR (Japan Rail). Its huuuuuuuuuge. Its the train system with cars that basically work like subway cars. (click here for the gigantic JR route map - a clearer version of the one below)

Tokyo Metro/Subway (click here for the tokyo subway map)

Tokyu Lines (that borders Tokyo/Yokohama)

and there are a bunch of other private companies. So these companies are basically stacked on top of one another to create a GIANT web of transit options. Its nuts. Its mucho easy to get lost or make the wrong transfer. Unlike the one-fare system of the TTC in Toronto, you pay according to where you want to go, the closer the destination station, the cheaper fare is.

South Korea (August 20, 2005 - August 27, 2005)

2005-08-29T16:11:00.000+09:00

So after Taiwan, I entered the 3rd and last week of my vacation away from vacation to another oriental-pacific country, South Korea. My flights from Taiwan were interesting as they were during weird hours (arrived in Incheon at around 3 am in order to get cheaper prices) so I had to do a lot of sleeping at the Incheon International Airport (the intl airport 'near' Seoul). I strategically locked my suitcase to my backpack and used it as my pillow but from what I was told, like Japan, South Korea is supposedly really safe..... well not as safe as Japan, but safe enough. By this point I was already "travelled out" from two weeks in Taiwan, but I still had tons of fun in Seoul. This was my first trip that I travelled alone.

I stayed at this really ghetto youth hostel I booked online before I left Tottori. It was nothing like what it said it looked like on the website. It was called "Travellers 'A' Youth Hostel", yet when I arrived, all the ladies who ran the place didnt speak a word of English or any other language for that matter other than Korean. And the facilities were not really up to shape, however, it was extremely close to a subway station. I did meet A LOT of other youth in the hostel and made a bunch of new friends. And ALL of them had some relation to Japan. They were either foreign students, like myself, studying or teaching in Japan or were Japanese.

The youth I met at the hostel

This trip was quite an eye opener in terms of both finding culture differences and self-development. Like China, this is another country that has a questionable relationship with Japan due to World War II events. But yet, like in Taiwan, most of the older generations (baby boomer and older) spoke to me in Japanese when I arrived. Like the Taiwanese, the store keepers are very agressive in terms of trying to get you to buy their food/products/services. From growing up in Canada and after living in Japan for almost half a year, I not used to being harrassed by store owners to buy stuff... but the constant "in your face" agressive nagging from the shop-keepers in Korea as I "browsed" drove me absolutely insane. All I heard when I walked past the food stands was "兄さん美味しですよ" ("oni-san oishi desu yo" - "its delicious my brotha" in Japanese) from the Korean shop ladies. Speaking of Korean ladies, don't even think about messing with the senior citizens. Korean grannies are agressive.. you don't want to get in their way. I was in line buying a subway ticket in Seoul, and I felt something poking me in the back... it was a granny poking me with her umbrella, telling me to move over and hurry up. A girl from England in my hostel told me she was lining up for a buffet and a Korean granny was poking her with chopsticks also telling her to hurry up. I was cracking up when she told me this. Usually on the subway in Canada and Japan, someone will usually get up and give their seats to the the elderly without being told. In Seoul, I witnessed a granny literally telling some teenager to get their ass off the seat as soon as she walked into the train. It was quite humerous. You don't want to mess with them.

Streets of Seoul in the early morning

Korean lady selling food

So in the 7 days I was in Seoul, I went to see tons of places. I went to a bunch of palaces in downtown Seoul: Changdeokgung Palace, Gyeongbokgung Palace, and another one I don't remember the name of. I also went to see the "Blue House": the South Korean presidential palace, the Seoul Fifa World Cup soccer stadium, the massive COEX Mall, the "88 Olympic Park" (the park/area with all the stadiums and venues for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul), the Seoul Museum of Cotemporary Art, the Kimchi museum, and I went to a bunch of the famous districts in Seoul: Itaewon (foreigner area with all the nightclubs), Dongdaemon, Namdaemun, Jongno, Apgujeong-dong Street (the Rodeo drive of Seoul with the whole chain of overpriced name brand stores ... theres a funny story... I was walking down the street and I all of a sudden hear these school girls shreek and chasing after a car carrying posters.... it startled me with the high frequency squeeking of female voices after seeing a celebrity.. but as I walked down a street, I was given a whole box of KrispyKreme donuts for free... they were opening up the first store in S. Korea. I was like wooo hoooo free food!!! ), and I also went hiking in Bukanshan National Park. It was extremely crappy compared to Taroko in Taiwan and the parks in Japan so I didnt stay in the park as long as I had planned. One night after all the sightseeing places were closed, I decided to spend hours at a Jazz bar in Itaewon, I was soooo relaxed. I absolutely love jazz music, it actually makes me happier when Im down. And in terms of food, I attempted to try all the Korean delicacies... but sadly, I soon found out that my stomach doesnt handle Korean food too well. I believe its the fact that EVERYTHING is spicy and its Kimchi ALL the time: for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So near the latter days of the week, I had to go western style and have burgers and fries. But theres a Korean fast food chain called Lotte Burger. Their burgers are AMAZING.

Changdeokung Palace

Nam Dae Mun Market

My kimchi dinner... look how gas-inducing it is

Changing of the guards ceremony in front of Gyeoungbokgung Palace

Gyeoungbokgung Palace
National Folk Museum in the Gyeoungbukgung Palace grounds
Ancient Korean king and queen gowns

The "Blue House", the South Korean Presidential Palace
Seoul Tower

Myung Dong district
Rodeo Drive of Abgujeoung district (equivalent of Rodeo drive in the States and Ginza in Tokyo)
Its meeeee... King Kong
My free box of KrispyKreme donuts
Abgujeoung
Jazz club I went to the night after Panmunjum

Children playing at the fountain near Seoul City Hall

Food festival at Seoul City Hall

Seoul City Hall
One of the 3 ancient city gates located around the city

Olympic Park - venue for the 1988 Summer Olympic games in Seoul

Seoul Olympic Museum
Kimchi Field Museum in COEX mall

Hyundai Department Store
=Hiking at Bukhanshan National Park

Seoul World Cup Soccer Statdium

In Seoul, I took the subway EVERYWHERE. Its crazy how much time you waste on trasportation when travelling. The subway is very convenient in Seoul, but it took me a while to get used to it. So one day, I was walking up the stairs after getting off the train, and all of a sudden I see these Korean soliders in all camaflouged with face-paint pointing rifles down the stairs. It freaked me out half to death considering I've never been pointed at with guns before. I asked the conductor later and he told me they were doing "terrorist-handling training". And just my luck they point the guns at me. hahahaah.

Dongdaemun Stadium Subway Station

The highlights of the trip dealt with the history and politics of the region. I took the "Panmunjum DMZ (De-Militarized Zone)tour" which takes foreign tourists (no natives allowed)from Seoul to the border between South and North Korea. 8/9 of my bus contained Japanese tourists and there were 6 of us who were English speakers. It was such a strict tour: you could point at soliders, take pictures at certain areas, and there was specific dress code. The area is heavily guarded with South Korean soliders (called the ROK soldiers - Republic of Korea soliders), and US soliders. I got to see so many neat areas such as the "Bridge of No-Return" (which is a bridge that connects from South to North korea, but the other side in the north supposedly contains a shit load of landmines and is supposed guarded with North Korean soliders... you dont want to be trapped in that communist state), "The worlds most dangerous golf course" (once upon a time contained landmines... which is in the South Korea territory... our bus passed by it but werent allowed to take photos), and the "North Korea propaganda village" (an uninhabited town built by North Korea for the use of propaganda and to broadcast communist propaganda messages to the South). There is also a village that is built by South Korea, but its not used for propaganda, and its actually inhabited by farmers (its a dangerous area to live in, and they are only allowed to farm 2 hours a day.. so supposedly these farmers dont have to pay taxes). It was super strict... when we were at the tower looking over the Freedom House and looking over to North Korea, we werent allowed to point to not cause any conflicts with the North. It was quite the interesting tour. It defintely was the highlight of my trip. (Click here for a small video clip of Panmunjum)

My tour group having lunch: Korean BBQ before heading off to Panmunjum

Memorial area before entering the high security area of Panmunjum

My visitors pass into the high secuirty area

In infamous Panmunjum DMZ area (the S. Korean Freedom House on the right)

North Korean building (the white posts is the official border between North and South Korea)

ROK (South Korean) soliders on guiard

North Korean building... you can see a North Korean solider standing out front
North Korean propaganda village

The South Korean building which the border runs through where the North and South have their meetings

The negotiation table

Me with a US solider and two ROK soliders
South Korean soliders standing on guard behind the aqua-coloured South Korean buildings facing the grey North Korean building ( I took this shot from the bus... I'm surprised how well it turned out)
"The Bridge of No-Return"

So the next day I made a trip the Korea War Memorial Museum. There I actually learned the details about and got to see many artefacts from the Korean War. And I also learned how the Panmunjum transitioned from just being the 38 degree parallel to the DMZ that it is in now. It was quite educational and political. I loved it. It also brought in the involvement of the other Asian-pacific countries that I have some connection with: Japan and China. But underneath it all, it emphasised an underlying problem that continues to haunt a race of people seperated by a history of complicated politics and war.

The Korean War Memorial Museum

The Korean War Armistance Agreement

The Korean War communist surrender document

The desk on which the armistance agreement was signed

On the 4th day, I took a trip to a small town called Pyeongtaek (about 40 minutes south of Seoul) which contains one of the largest military bases in Japan. I was there to visit my friend Christopher whos in the US army. He showed me around the base. It was like a small town in the US. They had everything from movie theatres, US fast food chains, rec centres, etc... In his room, he even had American cable TV and a phoneline that dials locally to his home town in Maryland. It was nuts. It was a completely different world. He also told me about the social-interaction (or the lack of) between the Korean ROK soliders have with the US soliders. Chris is a president of the main organization that organizes events for soliders, so he had special access to many areas. But stupidly, I completely forgot to take pictures. I was still in the Panmunjum DMZ mindset of the no-photo-high-security areas.

My train ticket to Pyeongtaek to visit my friend Christopher at his U.S. army base

In one of the last nights, I went with a friend I met at the hostel, Cathii from Australia, to go watch a musical called "Nanta". It was spectacular!!! It was all actions with no dialogue. Basically what it was, was they told a comedic story out of facial expressions and music from cooking utensils. It was amazing. The next night after the musical Cathii draggged me out clubbing with one of her friends she met at her new hostel (she moved hostels cause of the ghettoness of the one I was staying at... I didnt bother moving).

NANTA, the musical

Cathii and I after the show

Cathii and I posing with the cast of NANTA

The South Korea trip was quite an experience. It was very lonely at first from sight-seeing all by myself. Being alone gave me too much time to think about my life and I started to get all anal about myself. But as I met more people as the days went by, it became tons of fun.

The three week vacation was defintely one of self-actualization and development. I look back at the distance that I travelled and the amount of places Ive been to, I cant believe how much more independent I have become. And through interacting with people from other cultures and going through a lot of the crazy obstacles brought on by travelling, I got to learn a lot about myself, my stengths and weaknesses, and my own personality. But most significantly, I got to travel to the two major countries on top of Japan and got to experience the different cultures.

A lot of people ask me why I didnt go to Thailand and or some South-east asian country. Well for one... Im not really a "lets lie on the beach and sun tan" type of guy.. Im more of the lets go move about, sightsee, and explore relics, museums, etc... Secondly, I was already in the Asia-pacific region so I might as well visit the countries nearby. And lastly, if I were to go to Thailand, I would extend trip to other southeast asian countries as well. Ill concentrate on one region at a time.

I was kinda glad to go back Japan. When I landed in Osaka, I sighed to myself, "Home Sweet Home!!!". It startled me when I realized I had said that.

Taiwan (August 7, 2005 - August 20, 2005)

2005-08-29T16:10:00.000+09:00

After Japan Tent, I went back to Tottori for a few days then on the August 7th, I flew to Taiwan to start my 3 week vacation.

I decided to spend two weeks there and spend my last week in South Korea. My Taiwan ended up being one of my most memorable trips I have ever taken. My friend Roy, currently studies politics at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan so he was kind enough to spend two weeks with me being my tour guide. There were a lot of things and cities, that if I were to have travelled on my own, I wouldn't have seen. And what also made the trip extremely interesting was the fact that Roy is an even bigger political junky than I am, so we made stops at tons of political hot-spots.

ITINERARY
August 7 - 10: Taipei
August 10 - 12: Tiensiang (Taroko National Park)
August 12 - 13: Taichung
August 13: Lukang
August 14 - 18: Tainan
August 16: Kiaoshung
August 18 - 20: Penghu Islands

August 7 - 10 in Taipei

So I arrive at Chiang Kai Shek Intl Airport in Tiaoyuen and I get off the plane hearing everybody speak Chinese... well mostly Mandarin and the Taiawanese dialect. At this point, I haven't heard Chinese spoken in almost 5 months. And the sad thing is, I don't know any Mandarin... only Cantonese. BUT as I entered the city, a lot of Taiwanese thought I was Japanese so they spoke Japanese to me. This blew my mind.. I was actually relieved that the older generation understands some Japanese (Taiwan was previously under Japanese rule) cause I now have two back up languages. And Roy, a native Francophone Canadian, is fluent in Mandarin, so basically I have nothing to worry about.

After I met up with Roy, we took a bus from Tiaoyuen into Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. There we stayed with Roy's friend Oliver and his roomate Martin for three nights. Unlike a lot of areas in Japan, Taiwan night life goes until very late. The night markets are wild. Even though I found it to be a bit dirty and dingy (Ive been spoiled with Japanese cleanliness), it was an amazing experience. And the FOOD is amazing and dirt cheap. Bubble tea in Taiwan costs about $0.10 Canadian (whereas in Canada its about $5.00) and the night market. Roy is a vegetarian so we ate at a vegetarian buffet (Chinese vegetarian food is super expensive in Canada)... delicious and cheap. Other delicacies include smelly-tofu, Taiwanese shaved ice, "mah lat" hot pot (spicy hot pot), and other stuff I dont know the names of. The one thing that I found extremely annoying as soon as I walked the streets of Taiwan is the lack of traffic control. There are scooters EVERYWHERE. They weave in and out of traffic like animals. And the cars honk at any pedestrians that get int their way, even if its not their right-of-way. And the large number of scooters did help the air quality at all.

In terms of sight-seeing, we went to many politically-related places. Roy gave me the history and background to a lot of the controversies and politics (mostly Pro-China vs. Independence stuff... e.g. changing the name to Republic of Taiwan from Taiwan, Republic of China) behind Taiwan so it made these visits extra interesting. We visited the Presidential Palace, the KMT headquarters (the pro-China political party), "908 Taiwan Republic" - a private and independent organization which promotes Taiwan independence, Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, and other relics.

Oliver and Roy at vegetarian buffet

Myself and Martin at vegetarian buffet

Roy in front of smelly-tofu stand

Myself and Roy in front of Huwei fort

Me in the streets of Taipei (in front of election signs)

Me in front of a bridge

Taiwan night markets

Taiwan Grand Hotel

Taiwan presidential palace

Chiang Kai Skek Memorial

KMT party headquarters

August 10 - 12: Tiensiang (Taroko National Park)

So on August 12th, we said goodbye to Oliver and Martin and we took a train to Tiensiang. Which is a small rural town in the east-coast of Taiwan. It was so rural that, certain public transportation vehicles only ran once a day. So basically Roy told me that we had to hitchhike. I have never in my life hitchhiked before, so I was kinda scared especially with those stories we hear in the western world about what happens to hitchhikers. But Roy and I basically had no choice but to hitch hike from the train station to the main gates of Taroko National Park. When we got off the pick-up truck that we hitched hiked on, I took my first glance at THE most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen in my life. These mountains are like those you find in tranditional Chinese paintings. They were extremely magestic with a great presence. And I thought the mountains in Japan were beautiful. Next we had to find another vehicle to take us into the park near to where the hostels were. We found local couple who lives in a town on the other side of the park, so they offered to give us a lift. This time, I flagged this car down. My hitch-hiking skills were improving... hahahahaha. The scenery inside the park was even more amzing and the mountain side roads look like those you see in movies and episodes of Road Runner cartoon and the coyote falling off the cliff. So when we arrived we had to search for a hostel, so we finally found a catholic daycamp for children that also provides accomdation. Even though its not a religion that Im particularly fond of, we didnt have much other choices. This area was even more rural than the area around the train station, with the exception of a really fancy hotel that didnt really fit into the rest of area. For the next two days, we had to hitchhike around the park to find the amazing hiking trails. On our way to a trail, we managed to stop a Mercedes Benz. This lady was super kind and offered to drive us to the trail. I joked with Roy that we were moving up the hitch-hiking class: from a trashy pick-up truck, to a Mercedes Benz S-class. The trails were absolutely AMAZING. Even though they were super duper steep and exausting, the scenery was totally worth it.
During the third day at Taroko, August 12, it started raining. We decided to leave cause there was no way we were going hiking on the steep and rocky trails with the increased risk of landslides due to the rain. We didnt finish all the trails we wanted to, but we didnt have much choice. So that morning, in the POURING rain, we left for the streets outside the hostel to try to hitch hike out of the park. This time it took us a bit longer to find a car that would stop for us since we were soaking wet in our bright yellow ponchos. Until this awesome family of four, mother father and their two young sons offered to pick us up. We wanted to go to Taichung next, and they were heading in the same direction as we were. They were generous enough to feed us. I guess they thought we were lost youth without much money. hahahaha. This was the longest car ride EVER. Roy, myself (both SOAKING wet from the rain), and the two young boys stuck at the back for 6 full hours. I was also freezing cause the road to Taichung goes up the mountain than down again. The climate at the top of the mountain is very much different than at the bottom. We got out to eat noodles near the top, and I almost froze my ass off.
Six hours later, we finally arrived in Taichung and said goodbye to the family for taking us allllll that way. NOBODY in the western world would ever ever do that. I guess its the culture differences.

Roy and I in front of the entrance of Taroko National Park

Me trying to hitch-hike into Taroko National Park

Us with a group of Taiwanese we randomly met

August 12 - 13: Taichung (via hitch-hiking)

So we finally arrived in Taichung after the loooong gruelling car ride. This time we met up with another one of Roy's friends named Erica. We are in Taichung for one night to basically pick up Roy's new laptop. Erica and his roomate has two scooters, so Roy drove one and I sat with Erica on the other. It was pouring rain and it was my first time sitting on a motorcycle-type vehicle so it was an adventure. And I got to see the night life of the city along the way. So twas fun. So around 11 pm we went to a night market to grab some dinner, ice cream, and some Taiwanese shaved ice. By the time we went back to Ericas we were all so tired and we just crashed in bed.

Me and Roys friend Erica

August 13th: Lukang

After leaving Taichung, we wanted to head to Roy's hometown in Tainan county. But there was a man we met at the "908 Taiwan Republic" Pro-independence organization in Taipei who invited us to go to a lunch in a small town named Lukang just a bit south of Taichung. So we decided to make a stop there... It was a small little town with lots of culture in its buildings and people. We went to the restaurant the organization was holding their dinner at and ate tons of food. They also had a lot of candidates for the upcoming municipal elections swarming around passing campaign literature. The organization made tons of speeches, which I didnt understand a word of. They also had a suggested anthem and flag for when and if Taiwan does becomes independent. So it was a nice experience even though I just sat there.
Afterwards, Roy and I went walking around the little town. The streets were very historic so it was a nice stroll around the city. And I decided to walk down the night market and try tons and tons of food that Ive never tried before. We left the town around night time and took the bus to Tainan.

Roy and I at the "908 Taiwan Republic" (promotes Taiwan independence) organization dinner

Me pretending to rip the campaign poster of Ma Ying Jiu (KMT leader and Taipei mayor)

The streets of Lukang

August 14 - 18: Tainan

So we arrived in Tainan at around 2 am in the morning on the 14th at Roy's place. He teaches English as a part-time job so he lives in a room above one of the schools. Its a really nice place but of course he had to abide by the strict rules of his landlandy/boss. It was nice to be back in the city where there are actually resources where we don't have to hitchhike. hahahaha...
Anyhoo, unlike Taipei, Tainan doesnt have a subway system so Roy went to his local bike shop and bought a used bicycle for me and for his future guests. For the next few days he took me around the city on our bikes, and he showed me his university: National Cheng Kung University. Its supposedly one of the top univeristies in Taiwan. For a couple of days, Roy had to go to work so I was on my own to travel around the city. I had got lost a few times, but I managed to find my way back. Tainan is one of the oldest cities in Taiwan so it had tons of relics and temples to see. The night markets here in Tainan are amazing. Here I tried smelly-tofu for the first time. It was quite yummy actually. And I stuffed myself with tons of other deliciousness. I never rode a bike soooo much before in my life until I arrived in Tainan. And it was one of those racing bikes so I had to arch my back for a lengthy period of time. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed myself in Tainan.

Roy and I eating Taiwanese shaved ice

Smelly tofu and noodles at a Tainan night market

Me at the Tainan Confucious temple

At a nice park in Tainan

The National Cheng Kung University gates

August 16 - Kiaoshung

On August 16th, while Roy was at work, I took a trip to Kiaoshung city south of Tainan. When I arrived, it was quite an adventure trying to find out what bus to take to go this mountain (I forgot the name) with an amazing hiking trail that supposedly had a nice view of Kiaoshung city. I was going around asking everybody and finally I was led on to this one bus, which ended being the wrong one. So I had to get off once again and change onto another bus. I finally went to climb the mountain and intersetingly there were monkeys along the hiking trail. I stopped at one point to take a picture of a pack with baby monkies and the mother started snarling and hissing at me so I decided to leave. I didnt want to be attacked by monkies in a foreign country. So after the mountain I took a bus to this beautiful lake that is surrounded by these two pagota towers and other religious looking sculptures. I was enjoying myself walking around and snapping photos, until it started raining. It was poooourrrrring like crraaazy. Since I got this lake from the moutain, which I had gotten to by getting lost.. hahahaa. I didnt know how to find my way back. So finally I decided to stop walking and go ask somebody at a gas station. They pointed me to a bus stop, even then I didnt know if that was the right one. Luckily there was someone there who actually was nice enough to guide me back to Kiaoshung station on the bus. By the time I got near the station, the rain had died down so I decided to go walk around the shops near the station. Then I took the train back to Tainan.

Mountain hiking trail with monkies

Pagota and sculptures along the lakeside in Kioshung

August 18 - 20: Penghu Islands

Our last stop of our Taiwan trip was the Pescadores (Penghu) Islands located on the western shore of mainland Taiwan in Taiwan strait. So on the morning of the 18th, Roy and I got up and we had to rush to catch the ferries. We brought our bikes with us on the ferry so we can actually travel around the islands. The ferry ride was interseting. It was soooo rocky that I had to go to try to sleep in order to prevent sea-sickness. But, typical of Chinese/Taiwanese culture, they blare corny karaoke versions of songs in the passenger area. I was going to rip my hair out, but luckily, I was able to fall asleep. So around 2 hours later, we arrived at the port of Magong city, the largest city in the islands. And just my luck, it was pouring rain. My host father in Kanazawa told me about something called an "雨男" (ame otoko) which means "rain boy" as in wherever the rain boy goes, the rain follows. And I am totally the rain boy.
We spent most of the 18th travelling around finding maps and what the intersting things to do on islands are. Basically there are three main islands that are accessible by our bicycles from Magong city. So we decided to travel those three within the next two days. In the first night we biked around the first island... in the rain.... that was an adventure. It was crazy. Biking uphill and downhill. We got to explore the many different areas of the island... in the rain. But it was quite lovely nevertheless. By the time we arrived back in our hotel/motel room we were both super duper tired and soaked with rain.
The next day was even a bigger trip. Luckily it stopped raining. We started off early in the morning biking starting our trip to the other two islands. The landscape was amazing. There were windmills, gorgeous seasides and this amazing bridge that connected two of the islands. By the time we hit the tip of the last island it was completely dark. At the tip was a military base with a famous lighthouse. By this point my butt was hurting and I was super tired. So we started making our voyage back which ended up being the longest ever. Taiwan is known for their stray dogs wandering around everywhere. So at the point I was super hungry and tired and exausted so I started to bike slower, then all of a sudden out of nowhere, this stray dogs jumps out of the bushes in front my bike. Instinctly, I got this surge of energy and started peddling like mad. The dog was chasing after me until it finally gave up. I was quite shaken up by this. At this point Roy was way ahead of me. By the time we arrived back in Magong, I had no energy left in my body. I had never been so tired before in my entire life. We biked almost 30 km. Finally on this very last night in Taiwan, I got to try the "mah lat" hot pot, which my dad kept telling me to try. I scarffed it down like an animal considering I was super hungry and out of energy at this point.
The next morning, we decided to travel around magong city to explore its attractions.

Roy on the ferry arriving at Magong

Famous oil tanks on port-side Magong

About to cross the famous bridge connecting two islands in the Pescadores

Whale hole

And by late afternoon, I had to take a plane out of penghu islands back to Taoyuen to transfer onto a plane to my next stop of my 3 week vacation to South Korea. I said goodbye to Roy and thanked him for everything he has done for me those two weeks. It will go down as one of the most memorable trips I have ever taken. This was my first time going to Taiwan. It was interesting to see the differences in culture between the oriental countries in Asia. Next stop Seoul, South Korea.

Japan Tent (July 29th, 2005 - August 5, 2005)

2005-08-29T16:09:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the lack of updates the past two months. During August I was backpacking in Taiwan and Korea and for all of September I was without personal internet access to my laptop. So please bear with me as I slowly update everyone on my activity the past two months.

So school in Tottori finished in late July, in August I began my full month of travelling.

Well lets start off with the Japan Tent conference. Every year during the summer in the Ishikawa prefecture a conference is held for international students from all over Japan called "Japan Tent". As described on the website, the conference "is a gathering of foreign students from all over the world under "a friendship tent" where heart to heart exchange can take place overcoming nationality and language barriers". So this year, from July 29th to August 5th, Anastoria (from Jamaica), Kin (from Myanmar), and myself represented Tottori University to take part in the conference. Well we also acted as ambassadors for our countries.

Lemme just say that this was THE best experience I've had in Japan. There were 350 international students from 80 different countries. Isnt that amazing? So basically how the conference works is we get to experience Japanese culture by travelling to different areas of Ishikawa prefecture and staying with two different host families. This year the theme of the conference was "The Spirit of Artisans". So we got to experience a lot and see a lot of Japanese arts, crafts, and professionals.

On the first day. we arrived at the Bunka Hall (some sort of convention centre) in the city of Kanazawa (the capital city of Ishikawa prefecture). We were put into groups according to our delegate numbers. I had one of the most amazing groups ever. Everyone was super nice. Anastoria, Kin and I were glad that we were not placed in the same group as one another. Itll give us a chance to meet new people. I enjoy conferences like this cause it forces everybody to get to know one another. All the delegates ranged from first year undergraduates (approx 19 yrs old) to PhD students (in their 30's). It was very interesting cause there were many different native languages in the room ranging from English to French, to Mandarin, to Cantonese, to German, to Japanese, etc... So in order to communicate with each other, we were forced to use Japanese.

Opening Ceremonies

The opening ceremonies were interesting... like typical Japanese style, they over-exagerate everything. For example, when the master of ceremonies came on stage, they played optimistic ceremonial music. It was just too funny. Then it was followed by three speakers who spoke in really fast and fluent Japanese. Approx only a third of delegates were really fluent in Japanese, so most of us fell asleep.. hahahaha... a nice way to start off a conference. Anyways afterward we all headed to a hotel banquet hall were we had a big welcoming buffet with Japanese performances. There I met tons of people, but get this... there were only 3 Canadian delegates including me... THREE ONLY!!!! But there were 19 from Myanmar (Burma). I found that quite odd. Anyhoo. I got to meet the three Canadians. One of them, Liz, a Taiwanese Canadian, happens to have studied at Waterloo in years past. and Atikune, a Nigerian Canadian studied at UofT. The three of us agreed that the multicultralism here resembled Canada and that its nothing new for us. I also met tons of other people there from many different countries. It was the perfect environment for mingling: 350 people who dont know each other, 80 different cultures, and alcohol. hahahaha.

Welcoming dinner reception

A bunch of us posing after the dinner

Canmy from Hong Kong (the only other Cantonese Chinese speaker I met at the conference)

Sebastian from Tanzania

Nick from the USA

Afterwards everyone was split up into different hotels according to our colour groups. A group of us all decided to go out and have some fun so we went to this dude named Peter from Finland was holding in another hotel that was hosting Japan Tent delegates. We all drank, ate, and partied the night. Twas fun.

A bunch of us at the hotel party after the first night

On the second day my group headed off to some really really nice traditional japanese house somewhere in the city. The group consisted of a lot of people that I hung out with the night before and got to know very well. So it was fun. Everybody was super nice. At the traditional Japanese house we watched a professsional chef make little figurines out of vegetables (in accordance to the Artisan theme). And also demonstrated how to display food in a very artsy way. Very neat and very much facinating. However, I'm the type of guy who appreciates good taste over good presentation. So if someone were to cook for me, as long as its yummy, you dont have to make flowers out of radishes or put it on a nice dish or anything like that. hahahaha. Anyways after that we lunch at the traditional house we went to do the tradition Japanese tea ceremony. I remember doing this before back in grade 5 during a field trip to the Canadian Japanese Cultural Centre. It was quite interesting. Too formal if you ask me. I just want to drink the tea. hahahhhaa.. The Japanese and their formalities sometimes drive me nuts.

At the traditional house in Kanazawa

Professional chef demonstrating how to make food into art

Lunch at the traditional house

The traditional Japanese tea ceremony

After that we were going to meet our first host familes. Our group was going to be split into two. Half of us will be heading to the northern city of Wajima, and the other half to the most northern city of Noto. I was placed in the Noto group. The bus ride took about 2 hours and we finally arrived in Noto city hall. There we were to one by one introduce ourselves and then get placed with each families. Everybody else in my group was put into pairs except for me. I was placed in a host family all by myself. Which is a good and bad thing. Ill explain later. My host father and mother was named Sadatoshi and Teiko Gyoda. They were a retired couple 74 and 76 years old respectively. That night they drove me home to their gigantic house in rural house. They told me to go take a shower and afterward have dinner. They were THE nicest couple ever. Like a grandfather and grandmother. But I called them mom and dad as they were very young at heart. They fed me sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much food. I was sooo sooo full to a point where I felt like my stomach was going to explode. It was a long day and I was very tired but I was too too full to go to bed. And my host parents wanted to chat and drink with me. So they were telling me their life story and I was telling them mine and we just kept drinking and drinking. My host dad was especially happy cause he told me that hes never had a son before in his life and his dream was to be able to drink with one, but instead he ended up having two daughters. I was chatting with him for a long time and then he told me he was a high-ranking Engineering company executive before retirement. I was super impressed. The host mother was an extremely kind lady. She reminded me of my grandmother. So I ended up becoming very close to both of them. We had amazing conversation. Very close and personal. They both are very talented individuals as well. My host dad, on top of being an engineer, is a poet, a painter, and a caligrapher. My host mom does art made out of sewing, shes also a poet, and is one hell of a cook. Both of them are the most active late 70 year olds I have ever met in my life. They are both very very young at heart. I think Japan Tent paired me up with the best host family. Before I went to bed, my host father offered to give me a cup of coffee.. And being the biggest coffee addict that I am, I of course accepted. But he added a whole of whiskey in my coffee. Thats a combination that I havent tried before. I ended up not sleeping alllllll night. Alcohol + caffeine is not a good mixture.

My host family's house in Noto

My host parents: Sadatoshi and Teiko Gyoda

So I woke up with the biggest stomach butterflies ever. And I was super duper sleepy and super duper full from last nights dinner. And to add to it all, my host mom decided to make a HUUUUUGGGEEEE breakfast. And to be polite I treid to eat as much as possible. And she served me milk. I get gassy from milk. So my tummy after the breakfast was worse than it was last night. Nauseous and sleepy, just as bad a combination as coffee and whisky. So today my host mom and dad took me sight seeing around the Noto area. My host mother is one of the most craziest drivers Ive ever experienced. Being nauseous and sleepy, the crazy driving didnt help my situation at all. So they ended up driving me around the entire tip of Ishikawa prefecture (Noto area). They took me to an art teachers house, gold leafing design, museums, historical sites, temples etc.. etc... that were in line with the theme of the conference. I really enjoyed myself. But I would have enjoyed it more if I wasnt sleepy and nauseous. They were both super kind. That night I ended up having the most amazing conversation with the host mother. My host dad enjoys She reminded me sooooo much of my grandmother who past away three years ago, I almost bursted into tears. Then I found out that this was both of their second marriages. Both of their previous spouses died at a young age. They met each other at a poetry writing class and got married in 2000. It was the most romantic storey ever. It just comes to show that its never too old to find love. And she told me that she suffered from breast cancer a few years ago. But overcame it with being active and positive thinking. Both of them, who are in their late 70s, are both super young at heart and are more active than a lot of people I know who are in their 40s and 50s... Its quite amazing.

My host mom, the crazy driver

My host mom and I with my host dads art teacher

Host mom and dad

At a museum (lifting a structure used during festivals in Ishikawa prefecture)

At a museum

At a museum (in festival costume)

At the most northern point of Ishikawa prefecture

At the most northern point of Ishikawa prefecture (sign pointing to Shanghai, North Korea, and Vladvistock, Russia)

Beautiful hills of Noto

Salt mining field

Historical house in Noto

Temple in Noto

With Host parents at a rotating sushi bar

The next day, the Japan Tent delegates and their host familes were to all get together to do activities. So what we did that day was we went to make clay jewelery. I made a little cell phone hanger. Then we went to make takos (Japanese kites) and followed by a planetarium. It was very fun getting to spend time with fellow Japan Tent delegates and my host mom and dad. This was to be our last night with the host family, so we had this HUUUUGEEE farewell dinner at this banquet hall. All the important people were there, the mayor of Noto, the premier of Ishikawa prefecture. It was quite the spectacle indeed. Then we proceeded on home and we had another drinking session with my host mom and dad. It was more emotional cause it was the last night and we exchanged gifts. They gave me a Japanese poetry book which had one of my hostfathers haikus published in it.

Me and my host parents with Alfredo (from Honduras) and Mai (from Thailand), and their host mom

Me and my cell phone keychain

My Japan tent group at a museum in Noto

My host parents and I holding up our kites

Everyone flying our kites

My Japan Tent group at the farewell dinner with our gifts

The next morning, all the Japan tent delegates said goodbye to our host families. My host mom was crying and I have both of them a big hug. They were really hospitable and extremely kind. i couldnt have asked for a better host family. So the 8 or so of us left Noto and we met up with the rest of the group who went to Wajima. We sat on a bus for about 2 hours chatting with each other and reflecting with each other on our host family experiences. As soon as we arrived in Kanazwa we were let off the bus we entered this big convention centre with all the delegates there. It ends up that we were here to meet our next host family. I was hoping that I would have some time to chill and socialize with fellow delegates but no... my new host mom shows up super early.
This time my host family lived in the city of Kanazawa. They were the Kinoshita family. The host parents were in their early 40s with sons at 14 and 16 years old (Hisayuki and Fumiya). The host mom and dad were both elementary school teachers and their 14 year old son was a middle school student and 16 year old son a high school student. And yet again... I was on my own with this host family. Some host families had three Japan Tent delegates but I was the only one. This host family was quite different from my last one. They were busy. Having two teenage sons, they were constantly driving them everywhere to play basketball, tutoring, school, etc.. etc... So they had very little time for me. But they did the best they could. For the next few days they took me to the Kanazawa Contemporary Art Gallery (which happened to have the Human Body exibit thats always in the news), a ninja temple (a temple with tons of secret passageways, hidden staircases, and other coolness), they taught me origami, more temples, Kenroku Garden (the famous garden in Kanazawa) and an ancient street. They were really nice to me nevertheless and also very hospitable. The funny thing was that their two sons were really picky eaters so when I told her that I basically eat everything the host mom was really surprised. Whatever food is put in front of me, I eat it. Especially yummy Japanese food. Since I wont be here forever, I might as well take advantage of the delicacies of home cooked Japanese food.

My Japan Tent group on the bus leaving Noto

My second host family, the Kinoshita family, (left to right) host mom, Hisayuki (younger host brother, 14 yrs), myself, Fumiya (older host brother, 16 yrs), and my host dad

The Kinoshita house in Kanazawa city

My room at the Kinoshita house

Me on the a traditional Japanese street in Kanazawa city

Me on a student run rickshaw service

Me on a student run rickshaw service

Me with students from the rickshaw club at some university

Me on the traditional street in Kanazawa

Me at a geisha house

The front of the Ninja temple

Kenroku Garden

In terms of Japan Tent events, I was placed in a group that went to a brewery and we had a chance to taste tons of different types of sake (Japanese liquor). Andrew (from Australia) and Derry from Ireland , kept drinking and trying different kinds to a point where we were all tipsy. hahahaha. It was quite funny actually. I also met a ton of new delegates there. The alcohol was a great excuse to socialize with other people. I felt like a professional sake taster. hahahaah

At a major alocohol/beer brewery

At a major alocohol/beer brewery

Sake tasting with Japan Tent delegates

Sake tasting with Japan Tent delegates: (back) Christine (from Australia), Andrew (From Australia), myself, (front): Derry (from Ireland), and Jana (from Czech Republic)

Sake tasting with Japan Tent delegates: Andrew (From Australia), myself, Christine (from Australia)

On the second last day, we headed back to the Kanzawa bunka to listen to more speakers. This time there was a panel of a professor, a professional fashion designer, and a famous chef. Then followed by a panel of delegates, who were fluent in Japanese, to go on stage and reflect on their Japan Tent experience. But in the end it was basically a major snoozer fest for those of us not fluent in Japanese.

Panel of Japan Tent delegates

Later that evening, Japan Tent held a giant farewell party in front of Kanazawa castle. Everyone, including host familiies, were given coupons and we were allowed to try foods from many different nations. There were performances on stage and it was just a big exciting event. I was running around all over the places taking pictures with people and getting their contacts. And spending time with my host family. So it was very hectic... hahaha. Near the end there was this big huge dance and everybody was carrying their home country's flags. I was proud to be Canadian. It was one of the best nights and an amazing way to end this amazing conference.

Japan Tent delegates walking to the farewell party

Rachel (from France) and I at the farewell party

Japan Tent delegates waiting for farewell party to start

Kin (from Myanmar and Tottori University) and I at the farewell party

Amelia (from New Zealand) and I at the farewell party

Zoe (from Tasmania)(centre) and I at the farewell party

Aimee (from the USA) and I at the farewell party

Vera (from Albania) and I at the farewell party

Myself, Mai (from Thailand), and Jana (from Czech Republic) and I at the farewell party

Liz (from Canada) and I at the farewell party

Ronit (from Fiji) and I at the farewell party

Catherine (from Switzerland), Yl(from Cambodia) and I at the farewell party

Atikune (from Canada) and I at the farewell party

Sebastian (from Tanzania ) and I at the farewell party

Me waving the Canadian flag at the farewell party

Anastoria waving the Jamaican flag at the farewell party

Tazkia (from Indonesia) and I at the farewell party

Christine (from Australia) and I at the farewell party

So the next day was the final day of Japan Tent. My host family early in the morning took me to do some arts and crafts. We all went to some gold leafing place and made chopsticks look all nice and... gold... for a lack of better words. It was very interesting. Gold leafing is a specialty in Ishikawa prefecture. Then afterwards they took me to a nice soba restaurant where I got to watch the chef make soba. The meal was super yummy and delicious. Afterwards we headed off with my luggage to our final desintation at Kanazwa station. There everyone gathered in this really humid area of the station and they gave a farewelll speech and everybody was giving each other hugs, exchanging contacts, signing t-shirts, taking pictures, etc.. and I also said goodbye to my host family. This amazing week all slowly came to an end.

My house family and I doing some gold leafing

At a soba(a type of Japanese noodles)-making restaurant

Me at the goodbye ceremony at Kanazawa station with my luggage

Japan Tent delegates at the goodbye ceremony at Kanazawa station

Jonatan (from Mexico) and I at the goodbye ceremony at Kanazawa station

Amelia (from New Zealand), Jonatan (from Mexico) and I at the goodbye ceremony at Kanazawa station

A few Japan Tent delegates and I at the goodbye ceremony at Kanazawa station

Host family at the goodbye reception at Kanazawa station

I still had some time before my train back to Tottori was arriving. Almost everybody left but some people were still standing around so myself and Amelia (from New Zealand) went for a drink. We lost track of time and almost missed our train. On the train ride back, Anastoria and I were chatting and chatting and reflected on our amazing experience. It made the ride back much much faster.

Overall this conference was amazing. I could never imagine big conferences like this happening in Canada, even though its so multicultural. I guess you need the upbeat and over-exaggerated happiness of Japanese people to hold something like this. It was the MOST well organized event that I have ever been to in my entire life. New friends, new connections and a new optimism for my travelling ahead of me. Wow what a week it was!

Tottori, in conclusion....

2005-07-26T21:03:00.000+09:00

So with a blink of an eye, our days in Tottori are coming to end. At first, to tell you the truth, I found this city a bit unexciting, but now as the months flew by, I made many many new friends, new contacts, and pursued many new initiatives and experiences. I will miss it very much. I believe this coming work term for "Nippon Koei International Engineering Consulting Co. Ltd." in Tokyo/Yokohama (two really huge cities) will be more lonely than this past academic term in the small rural town of Tottori.

My beloved bicycle. I'm gonna miss her sooo much. Without my awesome pastel blue bike, Tottori life would have been super difficult. Will miss you!

I think one activity that I will miss the most is teaching English. I bonded very well with the students and what made me so happy was that they developed a deep motivation to learn English. The one important key that I found for the students is to allow them to speak and practice. It's the exact same thing with me and learning Japanese. Sometimes after class, the students and I would go to dinner at the school cafeteria and they'd teach me new words in Japanese and I do the same in return for them in English. I'm really going to miss everyone there. It was such a very close and welcome community feeling. I was glad to be able to make a tiny difference in everyone's lives.

My students from the English that I teach almost every weekday. What an amazing experience: new friends and a new passion

So school has finished. I didn't talk much about schooling itself here in Tottori cause there wasn't too much to talk about. However, we finished all our final exams last week and our design project was a huge success. Our design project was a device which automatically adjusts the brigtness of an LCD monitor according to ambient lighting conditions. The whole team worked together very well and we applied the knowledge that we had gained from previous courses. Our systems education has come into handy... I hadn't realized how powerful it was until now. The Japanese professors and students were really really impressed with our design project and our presentation. Yokomatsu-sensei told me that most students here in Japan, while presenting something in front of an audience, read to themselves instead of engaging the atmostphere. And they were really impressed with how we followed the design process to come up with our prototype. I personally have to thank Professor MacGregor for that. If she hadn't grinded us in SYDE 161, I don't think we would have the user-centred design process engraved into our heads.
I would have to thank all our Japanese professors for putting up with our questions and requests... hehehe Suzuki-sensei, our thermodynamics professor, thank you for being so patient and kind with us. Tanimoto and Koike-sensei, our engineering economics professors, it was a very smooth course without and bumps, we thank you greatly for that. Kitamura-sensei, our models/controls professor, your class was an amazing experience as it challenged us to put our Japanese to the test along with the courses' challenging concepts. Kawai, Koyanagi, and Sato-sensei, our optimization professors, thank you for the amazing experience and kindness. And of course Yokomatsu and Tanimoto sensei for being amazing and understanding Introduction to Design advisors. Last but not least, Kita-sensei, the entire exchange won't exist without him. Thank you Kita-sensei for negotiating with professors, finding our co-op jobs and of course being extremely patient with our questions and requests.

(Left to right) Will, Teresa, Suzuki-sensei (thermodynamics prof), myself and Richard

The one place I am really really going to miss is the laboratory. It was my home away from home. My room in the International House had absolutely nothing in it, so I spent most of my free time in the lab studying and chatting. As I said in my first blog, I belonged to the Coastal Engineering laboratory within the department of Social Systems Engineering. I got to know the three sensei's very well: Kimura-sensei, Matsumi-sensei, and Ohta-sensei. The grad students were extremely helpful: Tskamoto-kun, Ishibashi-kun, Fukuda-kun, and Manabe-kun. The undergrad students were always there when I needed someone to chat with: Nakamura-kun, who was always there till early in the morning with me, Murata-kun, popping into the lab at weird times of the night. Abe-kun, one of the most kindest, most welcoming members of the lab. What a wonderful character. Nishida, Ryota, Ideguchi, Ayaki, Kinoshita, and Fujii-kun also for being very kind and hospitable. Without everyone in the lab, my experience in Tottori would have been very much less exciting.

Some of the lab members during my last day in Tottori
(in front kneeling from left to right) Murata, Ryota, and Nakamura
(back row from left to right) myself, Matsumi-sensei, Nishida, Ohta-sensei, Tsukamoto, Ishibashi, and Manabe

Me at my lab desk

And the International House. It was great getting to know fellow international student studying here at Tottori with me representing over 20 countries from all around the world. It was amazing getting a chance to communicate with others from other countries using he mutually common language of Japanese. Not only was a great opportunity to practice the language, I also got the chance to learn and hear about the different cultures. Even tough I had to live in front of the cockroach infested kitchen, which as a result caused my room to have cockroaches, it has made me a stronger person. I will miss it very much.

My room door at the International House

Parting is such sweet sorrow. Goodbye parties were very sentimental as I say farewell to the many people that helped shaped my amazing experience here in Tottori. First, Gaku (from the rowing club) and Shintaro took me out to the fireworks festival in another city in Tottori prefecture. They were amazing. Much more creative then Canadian fireworks I have to say.

After the fireworks, Teresa's lab (the main lab: the lab of the professors that organize the exchange) took us out to drink as a farewell celebration. All five of us went and it was certainly very exciting.

The five of us at the farewell party with members of Teresa's lab

Then the night after, Kimura-sensei, the head professor from my laboratory, invited all of us over to dinner. His wife was kind enough to cook for all of us. Richard, Teresa, and myself ended up going and the meal turned out to be amazing. And we had an amazing conversation bouncing thoughts and ideas back and forth with the sensei and his wife about life, the cultural differences and everything .

Teresa, Richard, and I with Kimura sensei (the head professor from my lab)

The next day, in the morning, Gaku and Shintaro took me 'jinbei' shopping (Japanese traditional male outfit). I ended up finding a cheap one at Jusco (Japan's Walmart... but of course much more expensive). Then he took me to an onsen. For as long as ive been in Tottori, I havent been to a hotspring. Tottori is known for their hotsprings, so I was determined to go to at least one before I leave. I went to one in Okinawa. It was okay. Again... like last time, I left the onsen with a huge headache. I don't think my body is built for onsens... hehehehe...

Then after that Kita-sensei, the director of the exchange, took the four of us out to dinner (Ana went on vacation somewhere) to this traditional vegetarian Japanese restaurant on top of a mountain in Tottori. The food was spectacular and it was completely an experience all in itself. It was nice enough that he organized this entire exchange, but also take us out to dinner is even more kind of him. This exchange would have occured without him.
Then after that, we went out to celebrate Richard's 22nd birthday. It was lots of fun. We went out to drink at a bar named "Reset", then afterwards we went to Karaoke till around 4 am. Sugoi ne.

Richard, Will, Teresa and myself holding gifts from members of Teresa's lab

Us celebrating Richard's birthday

And on the very last day in Tottori, my friend Tsukasa, (a student in my English class and a the friend who took Ana and I surfing) took me out to dinner. He is one of the kindest Japanese guys that I've met during my four months here. He'll be heading to Waterloo for the summer "English for Success" program that runs every summer at Renison College for students every year. So its kinda interesting that he's going to my home university and that I'm here. I guess that is the idea of an "exchange" hahahahaah... anyhoo...

My friend Tsukasa and I at dinner during the last night in Tottori

So whats next? Well after this week, I will be heading off to Kanazawa city, in Ishikawa prefecture, for the "Japan Tent" conference (with Anastoria from Jamaica, and Kin from Myanmar). There I will be spending a full week with about 300 international students from all over Japan experience Japanese culture and staying with a host family to experience everyday Japanese family living. I am can't wait.
Then afterwards, I will be travelling for two weeks to Taiwan. With my friend Roy, a Canadian currently in his third year of study at Tainan Univeristy, will be starting off at Taipei and we'll work our way around the small island country. Then afterwards I will be travelling alone to Seoul, South Korea for a week to explore the city and surrounding areas.
Then after that, I will come back to Japan and start my work term in Tokyo for "Nippon Koei Co. Ltd.". I will be housed in the nearby big city of Yokohama (in Kanagawa prefecture). So every morning, I'm going to have to commute about 1.5 hours to work by train. That's going to be fun.
In the last week of December, after the work term is done, I will travel back to Tottori to give a final presentation about the entire exchange experience, and of course to say goodbye to everyone that has made this experience unforgettable.

In conclusion... Tottori, even though is an extremely small and quiet town, it's close knit community has made my experience extremely special. I learned many life lessons and learned a new language. I learned to not see the obstacles that come my way as hardships, but rather as challenges that will only make me stronger. Life is short, when experiences like this come along, I learn to get the most out of it. These past four months will forever be engraved in my memory.

(PS. I wont be able to update this online journal until I settle down in Tokyo/Yokohama. I'll be back in September :-) )

Nagoya, Aichi - 2005 World Expo

2005-07-23T16:44:00.000+09:00

From Thursday July 14 to Saturday July 16th, I was at the World Expo in Nagoya city in the Aichi prefecture for the "Goodwill International Assembly for Green Building and Living" conference (http://www.jgbc.com/English/IntlernationalAssembly.pdf) put on by the Japan Green Building Council.

Japan Green Building Council
(http://www.jgbc.com/English/indexenglishtop.htm)

I was there with a whole bunch of Tottori University international students, around 20 of us, to represent our countries and do presentations about environmental issues that affect our home countries. So I had spent the last week scrambling between finishing our design project for school (which turned out to be a huge success) and finishing this presentation about Canada's environment. Considering I was the only Canadian that attended the conference, I had to spend more time preparing the presentation. It wasnt so much composing the content that took so long, it was mostly translating everything into Japanese. But I got it done and I was satisified. It feels nice when you can actually take ownership of things like this.

Special thanks to Takeda-sensei (Professor Takeda) for taking his time to edit my presentation. It's greatly appreciated.

DAY 1: Thursday July 14, 2005 - The train adventure

So the first day was a HUGE adventure in itself. It was both funny and a learning experience. I was especially looking forward to this trip considering it was completely free. We didnt have to pay for anything. We all got up at 5 am in the morning to meet at the Tottori University train station at 6 am. So, considering I was up the night before working on the design project, I was super duper tired. I got up, packed everything, and headed off. When I arrived at the train stop, I realized that I was the youngest person there. The rest of the Tottori gang ranged from 24 yrs to 45 yrs old. So I was the baby of the group.. hee hee... So we had to take a local train from Tottori Univerity train stop to the main Tottori City train station, then from there, we take another inter-city train from Tottori to a city called Himeji. Then from there we take the infamous Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train) straight to Nagoya. The schedule was really tight, so we all had to rush like animals.

So heres the interesting part: So we all got on the inter-city train from Tottori City train station headed for Himeji. Unlike local trains, where if you had missed your stop, you can get just get out and head back in the other direction. But with this train you can't do that. You can sort of see where this is heading. So I had gotten into the train first and I was sitting next to this lady from Mongollia, Siqingaowa, who is studying for her Ph.D. at Tottori U. So we got chatting and considering the lack of sleep I had gotten the night before I decided to take a nap. Considering it was a 2 hour train ride, I didn't see it being a problem. The train car that we were in only had one exit and I was sitting on the other end. So when I woke up from the nap, I saw that everybody from Tottori had already gotten up and got their things ready, whereas Siqingaowa and myself, had just woken up. Everyone was in a rush cause we all needed to catch the bullet train to Nagoya. So we had to dash up and start gathering our things. So by the time I had reached the door, it was already closed. I tried opening it with my hands, cause in Tottori city, some of the local trains required individuals to open them manually. But this wasnt the case: the train started moving... I was in awe at this point. Considering that this was an inter-city train, the next stop after Himeji was Osaka, which is an hour away. Thank goodness a professor and Siqingaowa was still on the train with me. I couldn't believe what was happening. We were both semi-freaking out at this point. What I didn't understand was why didn't anybody bother to wake us up. What I was worried about the most was missing the events that were going on at the Expo. So I gave Anastoria, my friend from Jamaica who had gotten off the train successfully, a call. At this point she told me that they were already on the Shinkansen (bullet train), but with one blunder: the professor who had also gotten trapped on the train with me had the bullet train tickets for EVERYBODY in the group from Tottori University. In Japan, unlike Canada, you show your tickets when you GET OFF the train. So when they arrive in Nagoya, they cant leave the train station until we get there. Thank goodness the professor made some calls and sorted everything out. The three of us can leave from Osaka and be at Nagoya only 7 minutes later than the rest of the group. I felt like I was in a movie. On the way to Osaka, I got to see a lot of scenery of the big cities like Kobe and parts of Osaka. It was very interesting. So we got off at Osaka and caught the bullet train to Nagoya. And luckily, we got to ride on the fastest bullet train in Japan: the Nozumi (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2018.html). It was a very smooth ride, I didnt even realize that it was going at a speed of around 300 km/hr. I was quite pleased as I got the chance to ride on the infamous Japanese bullet train FOR FREE. I heard that the tickets are super expensive: about $100 US one way. So after learning our lessons, I didnt sleep on the shinkansen and remained alert.. hahahaha. I was suprised that it only took an hour to go from Osaka to Nagoya.

At the Shinkansen (bullet train) station in Osaka (after getting trapped in Himeji)

On the Nozumi, the fastest model of the Shinkansen (Bullet Train)

Meeting up with the rest of the group in a Nagoya local train (left to right: Hong Seok Gyu from S. Korea, Professor Danya Aklog from Ethiopia, and Anastoria from Jamaica)

So we met up with the rest of group in Nagoya at around 10:30. And we went to our 5-star hotel, which we were staying at for free. I was paired in a room with Ajay from India. I didn't realize how diverse of a group we are until I really sat down and took notice at what countries we are all from: Canada, Jamaica, South Korea, Mongolia, Bangledesh, China, Myanmar (formerly Burma), India, Ethiopia, Nepal, Pakistan and Mozambique. The conference started off in the hotel and the three keynote speakers took the stand: an architect from Spain, an environmental engineer from Vienna, and a Japanese environmental engineer. We were the only "school group" there. The rest of the attendees were business executives from all across the world. So that night we had a dinner party. We were supposed to wear our countries "traditional costumes". So, in the Canadian spirit, I wore my University of Waterloo sweather, my Canada flag hat, a Root's lanyard, and a Canada flag on my belt to top it off. The food was AMAZING. It gave us a chance to mingle with the others. The international students from Tottori U were brought on stage to introduce themselves to the group. So afterwards a whole bunch of business execs approached me and started chatting with me. They were impressed that I'm from Canada, am studying engineering, and can speak decent Japanese. I didnt realize how "high up" in the corporate ladder this people were until I got their business cards. They were presidents, vice-presidents and executives from Engineering firms in Japan. So that night was a great success: amazing food, and an amazing networking opportunity. What an amazing first day. And we havent even gone to the Expo yet.

Me at the hotel seminar room where the opening ceremony was held for the conference

Part of the gang from Tottori at the conference dinner

The Tottori U international students on stage introducing ourselves (in Japanese)

Siqingaowa (whom I was trapped on the train with) and myself at the dinner

The S. Koreans (Sung Ji Youn and Hong Seok Gyu) and myself

Part of the gang after the dinner with Professor Waka

That night after the dinner party a bunch of us headed out to downtown Nagoya in an area called Sakae(where all the main store, parks, and shops were) by the subway to check it out. Considering it was night time, there wasnt much still opened. So we went on a ferris wheel located right in the middle of downtown and we got to see the city from a birds eye view. Nagoya is a gorgeous city. The night lights are amazing. BUT, it still doesnt compare to Hiroshima. So when we left downtown it was around 11 pm. The subway trains were still PACKED. Japanese businessmen are scrambling to catch the last train home after a night of drinking...

On the Nagoya subway at night (packed with people)

Part of the Tottori gang at the entrance to the Ferris wheel in downtown Nagoya

Guo Nan, from Mongolia, and myself on the Ferris wheel

Me in front of Nagoya "Central Park"

DAY 2: Friday July 15, 2005 - At the Expo

So we got up at 6:15 and had breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was AMAZING. There was soooo much food. And it was all soooooo good. I havent had such a great breakfast in a loooonnnngggg time. So I pigged out. I didnt care if people were staring.. hahahaha...

So today we finally headed over to the expo. We took the local subway to the station closest to where the Expo is located. The expo itself isnt located in the heart of Nagoya, so after we got out at the subway station, we had to take the "Linimo" to the Expo site. The Linimo is this new technology of monorail-like cars that run without a driver and are powered my magnetic energy. The concept was neat but there wasnt anything special about it the experience when we were riding it.

The Expo front gate was PACKED. We were there at 8 am and already there were thousands of people waiting in line to get in. Thank goodness we were given VIP passes to get in from "behind the scenes". These special passes arent too special, according to Waka-sensei (the main professor who organized the trip) considering that we werent really here at the Expo to see the Expo, but instead, we are here to give and listen to presentations.

Us lining up get on the Linimo to the Expo site

Us lining up get on the Linimo to the Expo site

Expo front gate packed with people

Me with my VIP entrance pass

There were so much attractions I wanted to see in the park from corporate pavillion/rides to country pavillions. Examples of the main attractions were the 'Nature Contact -Hitachi Group Pavillion", the Toyoto Group Pavillion", and the fully intact wooly mammoth that was found in Siberia a year or two ago. So at 11 am we went to a part of the Expo called the "NGO Village" and watched fellow schoolmates do their presentations. It was scheduled to finish at noon accounting for 10 minutes per presentation for the 8 that was presenting that day (I was scheduled to present the next day: July 16th) . But it went over time till 1 pm. Afterwards was supposed to be our free time around the park, but we were forced to watch some Japanese drumming ceremoney and some aerobics show. We were all kinda annoyed cause we all wanted to go see the park.

Us watching the presentations

The Toyota and the Hitachi corporate pavillions (which I had no time to go see)

The Japan Motor Association pavillion (which I also had no time to go see)

So finally at 2 pm we were allowed to go explore the park until 6 pm. Basically this whole entire trip we are only given 4 hours to see the Expo itself. Considering the whole thing was free, I wasnt gonna complain too much cause I'll just come back sometime in the first week of September. Considering that the line ups to the main attractions were minimum 1 hour, we decided to go explore the country pavillions instead. First I decided to go to feel at home and explore the Canadian pavillion. I informed the people working at the Canada pavillion there that I was Canadian, and I was given special treatment as a" VIP member". I was able to skip the line-up to get in and I also received the a "Expo Canada" pin. I was also invited to go into some VIP room, but considering the amount of time I have to explore the rest of park, I graciously declined. The Canada pavillion had a really impressive light show that displayed the lives of 6 Canadians from different parts of the country. It was really neat. They also had RCMP officers marching around taking pictures with tourists. Then aftwards I rejoined the group to go see the Asia area of the park. Most of the Asian countries didnt have much to see other than little stores and museum like things. The China and India pavillions were pretty neat. I had Paksitani food for lunch: curry with nan. It was very delicious. After finishing Asia, we went to see the USA pavillion. Anastoria and I, since both of us speaks fluent English, decided to pretend to be American and get VIP treament into the USA pavillion. So we approached one of the men at the gate and Anastoria, from Jamaica, told them she was from the Bronx and I told him I was from Manhatten... lol... he kept interrogating me where in Manhatten, and I ended up naming some place where this guy lives... its insane... Out of all the cities in the USA, I decided to choose a city where the man in charge lives. hahahaha. Anastoria couldnt stop laughing. But he let us in anyways. The USA pavillion wasnt so impressive. Just some video effects show about Benjamin Franklin. After doing the Canadian pavillion, this was nothing. By the time that was done, it was already 6 pm. So we all headed back to main gates and met up with the rest of crew. On the way to gates I saw the "human robot" that was being advertised on Discovery Channel before coming to Japan in April. It was cool. When they talked to the robot, it talked back.

Me in front of the super duper fast futuristic trains of Japan

In the Khazakstan pavillion

Me with an Indian police officer at the India pavillion

Me in front of the Canadian pavillion

The human robot (as previous advertised on the Discovery Channel)

So at night, we went back to our hotels and we went out for dinner in Sakae (downtown Nagoya). This time we went to an Indian restaurant that is actually run by Indian people. We ordered many types of curry and nan (indian bread). It was super duper yummy. But considering it was my first time eating "genuine" indian food my stomach started getting gasy... hee hee... But it was extremely yummy. Very delicious. You can always count on me in trying new food.

Gorgeous night light Nagoya

DAY 3: Saturday, July 16, 2005: Rush, rush, rush

So today Waka-sensei told us that we should get up earlier considering that its a Satruday and that even more people will be going to the Expo. So we did the same routine as yesterday, but this time much quicker and more effcient considering we did it yesterday. So after the giant breakfast, we left for the expo at 6:45 and we arrived at around 7:30 which is about an hour and half before the official opening. Since we had VIP passes we got to go in before it was actually open, but sadly we had nothing was open and we had no time to go see the cool pavillions. The schedule was solidly packed. We headed over the NGO village to finish up the presentations.

My presentation was the second one so I was a bit nervous. Usually during these presentations I'm not nervous, but this time I'll be presenting in Japanese. The only difference from the day before and that day was that no one was allowed to go overtime. We were on a tight schedule to present, lunch, present, and leave Nagoya. So during my presentation, I had to rush a bit. Near the end, I decided to change back to English so I can speak faster and cover all the material in my presenation. But overall it went very well. It was an amazing experience and it was worth all the work that I had put into it. Becuase I wrote it myself and because I was the only Canadian there, I felt extra proud that it went well. But the one thing I regretted was that I tried to cover too much material. I should have concentrated on one area of Canada's environment problems instead of all of them.. hahahahaa.

Me presenting about Canada's environmental problems (in Japanese)

Ajay, my roomate, presenting about Indian culture

So after the first set of presentations, we had a lunch break. Anastoria had bought this "Expo Passport" thing, where you go around to the different pavillions and they'll give you a stamp. So durign lunch we had approxmiately 1 hour so we decided to run back to the Asia pavillions and get all their stamps. It was sooo exciting cause we were darting throughout the Asia pavillions area from country to country getting their stamps. I felt like I was on the reality TV show "Amazing Race". I managed to see all of the Asia country pavillions, including the ones that I didn't see yesterday. It was very adrenaline pumping.

Myself, Anastoria (from Jamaica), and Sung ji Youn (from S. Korea), posing with a Korean lady in traditional wear

S. Korea pavillion

Qatar pavillion

Iran pavillion

Saudi Arabia pavillion

The fan I used to put my pavillion stamps on

So we afterward, we ran back to the NGO village to finish up the rest of the presentations. Siqingaowa, the Mongolian lady, with whom who I was trapped on the train with, did this really aesthetic traditional Mongolian dance during her presentation.

The entire Tottori gang in front of the NGO village after presentations
Back row from left to right: Siquingaowa (from Mongolia), Sharma (from Nepal), Nadar (from Pakistan), Zahoor (from Pakistan), Daniel (from Mozambique), Jia (from Mongolia), Seok Gyu (from S. Korea), Kelali (from Ethiopia)
Front row from left to right: myself (from Canada hehe), Lu Lin (from Mongolia), Kin (from Myanmar), Professor Waka (from Japan), Perveen (from Bangladesh), Monica (from India), Anastoria (from Jamaica), Guo Nan (from Mongolia)
Taking the picture: Professor Danya Aklog (from Ethiopia)
Absent: Ajay (from India)

After the presnetations, we headed back to Tottori. Luckily this time we didnt get trapped on any of the trains. One thing I forgot to mention about Japan is their disgusting habit of excessive cigarette smoking in public areas. On the Shinkansen, on the subway, everywhere.. I guess we are quite spoiled in Ontario, where people can't smoke anywhere. But still, the second hand smoking was a lot to handle. Very disgusting indeed.
The following are links to videos of us on the Shinkansen:
(Video 1- on the platform)
(Video 2- in the Shinkansen)

Everyone on a local Nagoya train

Me at the Nagoya Shinkansen (bullet train station)

Everyone at the Nagoya Shinkansen station

Everyone on the Shinkansen (on the way back to Tottori)

Me eating my dinner at a train station noodle hut in Nagoya

REFLECTIONS

Overall I would have to place this short three day trip up on top of my list. Even though it wasnt too long and that I didn't get to see too much of the Expo, it was uforgettable. The fact that I got to travel with a diverse group of people from 11 different countries and got the opportunity to represent Canada and present to others, in Japanese, about the environmental problems that happen in our country is very rewarding. On top of that, the 20 or so of us socially bonded quite well. Even though I was the youngest there, everyone treated me as an equal, with respect and importance. Getting a chance to hear and learn about the other cultures was invaluable. It has also helped me get rid of the many narrow-minded stereotypes about other countries that exist in Canada. Its great to be in a venue which brings the world's people together in peace.

Crazy Month Ahead to Finish it Off

2005-07-09T01:23:00.000+09:00

So I don't believe that we are in our last few weeks here in Tottori. In approximately 3 weeks, the 5 of us will be heading off on vacation, each to different locations of the world. Then our four months in Tottori will come to a close.

This past week has been extremely busy. I have been chosen to represent Canada at a conference titled "Goodwill International Assembly for Green Building and Living" (Website: http://www.jgbc.com/English/IntlernationalAssembly.pdf) which is being held at the World Expo in Nagoya (Aichi prefecture) from July 14th - 16th. I was the only one out of the five of us Canadians who applied cause they didnt want to do all the work that goes along with it. But considering my future career interests and being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I couldn't let it pass me by. So Ive been a busy-bee making a PowerPoint presentation about "Canada's Environment" and translating it into Japanese. I think its going to be an excellent challenge for myself to go beyond what I have ever done before: represent my country and do a presentation in a foreign langage (AT THE WORLD EXPO!!!!). Its a lot of work, but I think its worth it.

And on top of that, this week, we have a group design project to work on and a whole bunch of exams to study for before we leave. So its going to be really hectic and craaaazeeee I tell ya.

So its official. I'm going to be working in Tokyo for Japan's Number #1 Engineering consulting firm named "Nippon Koei Co. Ltd." (Website:http://www.n-koei.co.jp/english/) for my co-op term starting in September. I was thinking to myself how different life is going to be in Tokyo compared to Tottori. From small/rural town Japan to the largest city in the world with approximately 10 million people. Its insane. I guess we get to see the best of both worlds while we're here.

And on another goodnote, I got accepted to again represent Canada at an international students conference called "Japan Tent" (Website: http://www.japantent.com/japantent_e/index_e.html) which will take place in Kanazawa (in Ishikawa prefecture) from July 29th to August 5th. According to the website, "Japan Tent is a gathering of foreign students from all over the world under "a friendship tent" where heart to heart exchange can take place overcoming nationality and language barriers." Again I was the only one out of the five us Canadians that applied. I guess whenever I travel, I try to take the most out of the culture as I can. This conference is a week filled with Japanese culture activities and an amazing chance to meet people from around the world. Furthermore I'll be able to stay with a host family so I'll be living with with an actual Japanese family for the week. Transportation, food, accodation, allll free. So I'm super excited for this. Anastoria, my friend from Jamaica, also got accepted to represent her country. So that makes it that much more exciting.

So I signed up to meet with a host family in Tottori through the Tottori International Exchange Centre to experience Japanese culture. Considering that I'm super busy with school and other things, I only had the chance to have dinner with them. So on Friday, July 2nd, last week, I went to dinner at the Sakaguchi family household.
The family is EXTREMELY involved in Intenrational student events in Tottori and they were super friendly and kind. The mother named Yumi, is always at the international student events and was soooooo happy that I was coming over for dinner. Her son, Yuki, is a 17 year old high school student in Tottori aspiring to become a lawyer. His younger sister, named Mai, is a 14 year old student in her last year at a junior high school. The father, Shigeo, a prosecutor assistant, comes home to be with the family every weekend from working in Okayama prefecture. Also at the dinner that night was Yumi's sister, Mika, her son Susumu (14 years old), and daugher Eiko (12 years old).

Host-mom Yuki (right) and Host-sister Mai (left) preparing dinner

Dinner at the Sakaguchi family household

Me and the Sakaguchi family (from left to right): Shigeo (host-father), Yuki (host-brother), myself, Yumi (host mom) and Mai (host-sister)

The dinner was amazing and when I told my host-mom Yumi that her food was very delicious she was very happy. Yuki, a very well rounded young man with a lot of aspirations, serenaded all of us with his guitar during dinner. It was great. Shigeo, the father, is soooooo great to talk with. He definetely livens up a room. Then I find out that Mai, is the badminton champion of Tottori. It was such a positive family environment. Considering I haven't seen mine for almost 3 months, it was very pleasent to be back in such an environment. From 5 pm to midnight I was chatting with EVERYONE in the family. Other than when they asked me questions about how to say something in English, to my surprise, I didn't speak a word of English. I was sooooo shocked at how much my Japanese has improved. The family was also shocked at the level that I'm at considering I've only been here for three months. They told me that I am welcome to visit them anytime I want to. Before I leave Tottori, and when I come back during the last week of December, I will defintely visit them again. The whole family was extremely kind, energetic, and welcoming.

So yesterday, the Tottori International Exchange Centre put on a culture event for a national Japanese festival called "Tanabata". Tanabata, also known as the "star festival", takes place on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year, when, according to a Chinese legend, the two stars Altair and Vega, which are usually separated from each other by the milky way, are able to meet. One popular Tanabata custom is to write one's wishes on a piece of paper, and hang that piece of paper on a specially erected bamboo tree, in the hope that the wishes become true.
And not surprisingly, Yumi and Mai were there helping out. They were sooo happy to see me again. So we went to do some origami and write wishes on a pieces of paper to hang on the bamboo trees. I wrote "I wish everyone in my family back in Canada the best of health" or in Japanese "家ぞくみな元気".

Mai, Yumi, and myself at the Tanabata festival

Mai (Sakaguchi family host sister) and myself hanging origami on a bamboo tree for the Japanese "Tanabata" festival

Me holding up the piece of paper wishing everyone in my family back in Canada the best of health

The piece of paper wishing everyone in my family back in Canada the best of health."家ぞくみな元気"

So that was the crazy first week. More to come in the next couple of even more crazier weeks.

Hunger Banquet, Birthday Celebrations, and other events

2005-06-30T11:51:00.000+09:00

So it was June 23rd, last week, and I officially turned 22. Sigh... life just flies by soooo quickly. It seemed like it was only yesterday when I applied for universities and delivered the Valedictorian speech for high school commencement. And I would have NEVER imagined myself spending a palindrome birthday half-way across the world in Japan. My friend Gaku from the rowing team had a birthday dinner for me. Ana, Gaku, and Gaku's friend Shintaro were there to celebrate with me. I felt overwhelmed cause I totally didn't expect this. Gaku bought a cake for me and had these streamer things. It was extremely nice of him to do all that for me. After that night, I went home and found two birthday cards in my mailbox, one from mommy and daddy, and the other from my good friend Gary back in Canada. I was so emotionally overwhelmed. A flood of emotions of memories of home swept over me. Then it just hit me that I have never been away from Canada for such a long period of time before in my life. I'm not really homesick, but theres always the phrase "Theres no place like home" and I can't deny that Canada is the best place to live in the world. With Bill C-38 passed, Canada is becoming more and more socially liberal and accepting of different minority groups. I am proud to be an ambassador of a country here in Japan that promotes the rights of these minority groups and advocates the importance of equality, open-mindedness and acceptance, not as a straight vs. gays vs. male vs. female vs. white vs. black vs. catholic vs. muslim, but peacefully together as humankind.

My Birthday cake: which says
アーサー
おたんじょうび
おめでとう
which directly translates to:
"Arthur
Birthday
Congratulations"

Gaku, myself, Shintaro, and Ana

So these past two weeks have been EXTREMELY busy. Last Saturday, June 25, I had to run back and forth between two events in the city with my friend Anastoria from Jamaica (who happens to also be in the rowing team with me): The Tottori University rowing regata (hosted by our club), and a Sweet Potato planting event (Japanese culture event for international students). The Tottori University regata was only for students who are NOT part of the rowing club, so I wasn't rowing that day. I was only there to help run the event and there wasn't much to do but help teams get in and out of the boat. So after a bit I went over the potato growing field next to the Tottori U International House where I live. It was super hot that day. The sun was literally BLARING down upon us. It was a totally fun experience planting the sweet potatoes (yams or in Chinese: "fan suu"). The event also made me realize why I'm not a farmer or why farming/agriculture is not for me. Its physically exausting with many hours of hard work and patience. The Japansee television station decided to interview me. I had trouble understand what he was trying to ask me cause he was speak really really quickly. Luckily Waka-sensei was there behind the camera translating some of the questions. Its so funny. In Tottori, there's so little going on that an International students potato picking event made top news. hahahahahahaha. So after the clip was broadcasted, everyone from my lab and my clubs told me that they saw me on television. Everyone made such a big deal out of it.

26th annual Tottori U Rowing regata (in the background is Koyama pond: the largest pond in Japan.. hahahaha)

My friend Anastoria (from Jamaica) and myself

Tottori International Exchange Japanese Culture event: Sweet Potato Planting

Sweet potato mmmmmm.. yams

Sunday, June 26: So the infamous Hunger Banquet FINALLY arrived. The organizing committee had to be there by 9:00. The event took place at a community facility in downtown Tottori (near Tottori station) which is about a 10 minutes train ride from where I live (Koyama area of Tottori City). Some fellow committee members decided to bike there so I decided to tag along... and boy was it a loooooong bike ride. It took us about a half-hour to arrive in downtown and it was super warm and humid on that day as well.
So when we arrived we helped set up the two rooms: one for the education part (Part 1 of the event) and the other for the hunger banquet simulation (Part 2). Moki, Piro, and I were the MC's for the education part of the event. The keynote speaker for the event was a lady by the name of Midori Takeuchi. She's a Japanese medical worker who travelled to hunger ridden countries across Africa. Even though I didnt understand a word of her keynote speech, I got a chance to speak to her after the event alone and I told her about my aspirations in life and how youth these days are growing up in a bubble. She wholeheartedly agreed with me and gave me her business card and asked me to keep her updated on my future international development initiatives.
So after the education was finished participants filed into the main room (each randomly taking a colour-coded card: each colour representing an income-level group [low- green, middle - blue, high - red] ) where the simulation took place. They were seated, treated, and fed exactly like they would in the real world. 60% of the participants were placed in the poor group, 30% in the middle income group and 10% in the rich group. The low income group (60 people) sat on the ground and were given a limited amount of plain rice and leaves to eat the rice with. The middle income group (30 ppl) were given curry on rice and sat on chairs, but had no table. The high income team had a full course, first class meal, with waiters, live entertainment, and even a security guard. Throughout the simulation, "happenings" or scenerios were enacted. For example, a person from the high income group goes bankrupt and is placed in the low income group, or a high income participant dies from over-eating (diabetes, cardiac arrest, high cholesterol etc...). There were protests, begging and stealing from the low income group. The event ended with discussion/reflection groups and a video from the 1980's "USA for Africa" recording of "We are the World". Overall the event went really really smoothly and was a huge success.
A lot of people ask me, "Since I won't have the chance to travel to underdeveloped countries and directly help out, why bother particpating in such events, discussion groups, forums, etc...?". I tell them that your role locally in your community is where it begins. Educating fellow members and educating yourself about the pertinent issues that affect the world community , educating yourself and others to ask the right questions is just as important as going abroad and volunteer for a sustainable development project. Thus I am more than glad to devote my time and effort to plan such meaningful event where our main purpose is to raise awareness amongst the community of all ages, and to raise money for credible NGO's. Like the "Make Poverty History" campaign at UW, I feel it is vital for EVERYBODY to be aware and care about problems that are going on in other parts of the world. As the lyrics from Michael Jackson's "We are the World"

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
so let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

This is true... this a choice we're making. The choice of whether to turn our backs and ignore the problems facing fellow humankind. Are the starving children across the world in any way shape or form less human than we are. Do they deserve to have equal and feasible access to education, clean water, food, and infrastructure as we do in the developed world? Of course they do.

Links

Tottori University Hunger Banquet
Make Poverty History Campaign
Sarah McLachlan: "World On Fire" music video (Development-related video made specially for Engineers Without Borders)

Piro and I, 2 of the 3 MC's for the Education part of the Hunger Banquet

Moki, Piro, and I, the MC's for the Education part of the Hunger Banquet, listening to Murata-sensei speak (wife of Cates-sensei)

The middle-income group

The high-income group being served lavish meals with a Do Not Enter border around them preventing other income levels from entering

The border between the high income group and the low income group equipped with a security guard

The low-income group eating rice out of leaves and fruit they stole from high income group. Midori Takeuchi (in the red outfit), the keynote speaker of the Education part, also took part in the simulation

Birthday Trip to Okinawa

2005-06-27T21:29:00.000+09:00

So Ana and I took a trip to Okinawa to take advantage of the Air Nippon Airlines birthday half price special. Back during Golden Week in Hiroshima, we met this Irish girl named Dee (Deirdre) who happens to be an English teacher in a smaller island (Kume island) west the main Okinawa island. Since we had a place to stay we decided "Why the hell not?".

Okinawa prefecture, for those of you who dont know, are the southern most islands of the country that aren't accessbile by any other means other than by plane. Okinawa is world famous for the place where people live the longest and where Karate was started. So I thought it was a worthwhile investment. And I've also been told that its one of the most goregous places in Japan, with absolutely stunning beaches and tropical weather. I've asked a few Japanese mainlanders if they've ever been to Okinawa, and most of them have said no. I guess it's the same idea if someone were to ask me if I have ever been to Newfoundland.

DAY 1: Thursday June 16th, 2005 - En route to Naha city (那覇), Okinawa prefecture (沖縄)

So the night before we didnt sleep cause we had to catch a really early bus (5:50 am) out of Tottori station en route to Itame airport in Osaka (about 3 hours away from Tottori). We had to catch a 10:00 am flight to Naha city (the capital of Okinawa prefecture). I decided to pack lighter this trip considering the lesson I learned when we went to Hiroshima during Golden Week so getting there wasn't too bad. The flight took approximately two hours. When we stepped off the plane, the first thing I noticed was that the Okinawan people look completely different from those on the mainland (they look more Fillipino than they do Japanese). Considering how secluded the island is from mainland Japan, I am not suprised. Supposedly, Okinawa has a lot of influence from Hawaii.

After gathering all the tourist information pamplets, we took the monorail to our youth hostel named "Cam Cam". The system is very convenient and very clever: having the main monorail line connected to the airpot. On the monorail I saw this poster for a Japanese version of "Mama Mia!" the musical.

"Cam Cam" youth hostel

Streets of Naha

Mama Mia! the muscial... in Japanese

I found it quite funny cause the cast is made up of Japanese men and women. So do they sing ABBA songs in Japanese? hehehe. Im curious to find out. Anyhoo, approximately 15 minutes we arrived at our main station. Considering that the Japanese "rainy season" was SUPPOSE to be over two weeks before we didnt expect it to rain. But guess what? It was raining. After stepping out onto the streets of Naha, the first thing I noticed about it was how run down it was and different it was from Hiroshima. We arrived at our hostel, got our stuff set up. We were placed in these little compartment bunks, which I found very cozy and it helped keep my privacy. We changed into dry clothes and then we decided, since it was raining, to make it our shopping night. So we headed out to "Kokusai-dori" (International Street)(国際道理), the main shopping street. It was basically a few kilometres of restaurants, stores, and bars. The stores were very "Hawaiian", "beachy" and "islandy" (as to be expected). Supposedly the Okinawan "mascot" are a pair of lions called the Shisa which are supposed to bring good luck.

Ana at Kokusai-dori

Me in front of a store on Kokusai-dori

We headed to this cool little local market place where there were "street-side" styled restaurants. We had "Okinawa-soba" for dinner. It was absolutely yummy.

Okinawa soba mmmmm

local market restaurants

me in front of meat market

Me pretending to be a "Fugu" (a fish that only professionals can cook due to its poisonous liver)

Arthur the Okinawan

After Kokusai-dori, we headed back to the hostel to change and get dry up from the rain. The typical Canadian that we are, we decided not to bring umbrellas only to get soaking wet. We decided to head to his bar named "Paul and Mike's Place" which is a famous bar for international foreigners. Since there was a military base here in Naha, many marines station themselves there.

So here where it gets interesting. That night, Paul (one of the owners) was bartending that night and he happens to also be Canadian. A couple was sitting next to us and Ana mentioned how they looked really familiar. So we went to chat with them and it turns out that we were in the same restaurant in Hiroshima called "New York, New York" at the exact same time. What a small world. So then these two US marines came in, Chaz (what kinda name is Chaz) and Tommy, and sat next to us and we all started chatting. Us "anti-war" Canadians starting picking their brains (not that there was much to pick from). They were, not to be mean, kinda "air headed". One of them, after being based in Okinawa, was going to be sent out to Iraq in a month. So we asked him if he agrees with the war? He says him and his fellow navymen "are programmed to kill" and that "President Bush did the right thing", even though he agrees that US is mainly there for the oil. At this point I was shaking my head inside to how "brainwashed" and "uneducated" this guy seems to be. "I dont know what its like in Canada, but in the U.S. we are democratic and citizens have rights and I am fighting to protect the rights of those citizens". Like come on. I try my best not to laugh at the ignorance of Americans, but this is just too funny how isolated these people are. The Bush administration seems to have done a great job in brainwashing citizens with the "war on terror" in a country who's freedom was never really under attack. 9/11 nothing to events like the Rwanda genocide and the AIDS crisis in Africa. Considering that the amount of deaths of US troops in Iraq is inching closer and closer to the amount of deaths in 9/11 one has to question the motive of this war.
Then he goes on to say that "I will fight to protect my country's freedom after what happened during September 11th 2002". Then I proceeded to ask, "wasn't it 2001?" Ana started cracking up laughing her head off. Then I proceeded, "shouldn't you at least know actual date of the event that is reason why you are about to head off to another country to kill innocent people?" Chaz said that after going through the mandatory "post-war" rehab (de-brainwashing session) program, hes gonna head back to his family in Boston. So we told him that we are going to find him in Boston after hes done (if hes still alive that is) and have him speak about his experience and his "post-brainwash" feelings about everything. So that was that. It was the most humerous night.

We headed back to the hostel and a bunch of other Japanese youth and this old hippy Japanese war veteran invited us to drink and chat. There I had the Okinawa alcohol called "Awamori" for the first time. I was tired so not long afterwards, about 3 am, I hit the sack.

Me and the people at the "Cam Cam" youth hostel

DAY 2: Friday June 17th, 2005 - Ferry to Kumejima (Kume Island- 久米島)

Map of Okinawa prefecture (and where we travelled to)

We got up and we caught a ferry from Naha to Kumejima to meet up with Dee (our Irish friend who we met in Hiroshima). Kume island is supposed to be one of the most beatiful places in Japan. The ferry ride took 3 HOURS!!!!! There was a tatami room for everyone to sleep. I said I wasn't going to get sea sick but I ended up feeling queezy since the waves were just too intense. So we slept for the rest of the ferry ride.

Ferry to Kume Island (Naha port)

Ana sleeping in tatami room of ferry

Me on the deck of ferry looking out to the East China Sea (before getting seasick)

Our lunch: Okinawa cheeseburger (meat patty and egg wrapped in seaweed and rice)

When we arrived at Kume at around 5:30 pm, Dee was on the docks ready to greet us. Dee is a member of the JET program (Japan English Teaching) and was stationed in Kume. Sadly when we arrived it was raining, so we couldnt see the "turqoise-water" that we see all the time in brochurs. Dee said that the island is GOREGOUS on days with good weather. So anyways she drove us around the island and took us to the infamous beach on the island with the turtle rocks. The landscape was absolutely stunning and gorgeous. I couldn't EVER imagine living in a tropical paradise and here she is, an Irish 23 year old, living in a part of the world where very few foreigners have ever travelled.

Dee and I on the beach (w. turtle rocks)

After seeing the beach we headed over to a restaurant where she introduced us to her fellow JET teacher friend Andrew, who happens to be from Vancouver, Canada, and to her Japanese friends Aki and Aki's fiance who's name I forgot. Three other okinawan ladies ended up at the party and I forgot their names as well.. lol... I am really bad with Japanese names. We tried many unique dishes such as "fish heart", "chicken gizzard" and of course many cups of awamori (Okinawa alcohol). Okinawa is also popular for "bitter mellon" (foo gwa), which supposedly is exclusive to Okinawa, but I have it all the time in Canada so I knew that wasnt true. In Kume, everyone buys a bottle of alcohol, puts their name on it, and continues to drink it the next time they return to the bar/restaurant. Its a cool little system, but sadly it would only work in a small island like this. The air conditioner at this place was blaring and we had just got out from the rain so I was like "uh oh".

Ana and the other Japanese ladies at the restaurant

Andrew holding up a bottle of awamori

Bottle of awamori (prepared by mixing with water)

Shelf w. bottles of awamori w. customer's names written on them

After the meal, we headed over to this little Jamaican-style bar for a few drinks. Dee and Andrew made us try a shot of "Spirytus" which is Polish vodka composed of 96% alcohol. It went down soooo strong and it smelled like rubbing alcohol. I felt the burning sensation running down my system. And not surprisingly afterwards I started feeling tipsy. It was extremely fun night having a chance to experience local island life. We headed back to Dee's place and went to bed.

Click Here to watch a video of us taking the Spriytus shot

Bottle of Polish vodka called "Spirytus" (96% alcohol level)

Dees guest bedroom

DAY 3: Saturday June 18th, 2005 - Spa Galore and more Awamori

The next day I woke up with the sniffles. I knew the wet clothing and blaring air conditioning will do some damage. Dee took us to this little restaurant for lunch. The food was amazing. I was thinking to myself that if I were to miss one thing after leaving Japan, it would defintely be the food.

restaurant where we had lunch

After the restaurant we went to the Kume Island turtle museum which happened to be next to the beach with the turtle rocks. It was kinda tiny and uneventful, but we go to see cool giant tortoises nonetheless.
Then afterwards Dee took us to this AMAZING spa next to the turtle museum called the "Bade House". So you walk in and there is this GIGANTIC water area with massage jets, hot tubs, an area with individual stations where people can watch a screen and do water aerobics, a steam room (not a sauna), and an outdoor hottub looking into the gorgeous ocean. It was cloudy so it was the best weather, but it was still beautiful nonetheless. After the pool area, being the only male out of the three of us, went to another side of the spa with a hot spring (famous Japanese 'onsen') and a dry sauna. It was kinda odd and awkward considering that everyone was naked but I got used to it. An English student of mine told me that the nakedness in hot springs acted as an "ice-breaker". hehehehe. So that was a great experience.

Me at the Bade Hause spa enjoying a piece of cheese cake

After the spa, we picked up Andrew and we headed to someones house for an indoor BBQ to "welcome us to the island". The house belonged to a friend of Ken (who happens to be a friend of Dee). Ana and I felt so special and it just comes to show how warm hearted people are here. We're just visiting the island for two days and they're holding a BBQ for us. I was blown away. Everyone was super duper kind and the food was great. I drank more awamori and I tried raw horse meat for the first time. I also got a chance to play the Okinawa guitar called the "sanshin". The one thing that disheartened me about Japanese people is the division in gender. Ana told me about this, but I had to see it for myself. Basically in most families the woman does EVERYTHING. They cook, they clean, they take care of the children and the men just sit around drinking beer, having fun with the rest of us, and ordering the wife around. I was appalled! I was thinking that this would never be accepted or tolerated by women back in Canada.

Food at the BBQ

Me attempting to play the Sanshin (Okinawa guitar)

After the bbq party we went back to the Jamaican bar. EVERYONE was there and everyone who we met the past two days from the island was there. We drank more awamori, cocktails and chit chatted. It was super fun. So I thought at this point (around 1 am) that the night was over. But noooooo... Dee took us to ANOTHER party.

The group at the Jamaican bar

Myself, Ana and Dee

This time we ended up at some local small island karaoke bar. The owner of the bar was some 50 year old lady who came over to talk to us. ALL night she sat next to me, lifted up her dress and was touching my legs.. I was soooooo uncomfortable, but at the same time I was shocked and in awe that was being hit on by a cougar...... in Japan.....hahahaaahahahahahha ... I spoke about it to Andrew afterwards and said it was normal for older women to start hitting on younger men at little karaoke bars like this. Basically it was tons of fun AGAIN drinking more awamori. The night lasted till around 4 am. lol... mind you we had a cold too AND that we had to catch the ferry back to Naha at 8:30 am. Before heading back to Dee's place to sleep, we said goodbye to all the nice people we met and whom we had a GREAT time with. We said goodbye to Andrew and we exchanged emails to keep in contact. All three of us were super tired. めちゃつかれた!

All of us at the karaoke bar

DAY 4: Sunday June 19th, 2005 - Shuuri jo Castle

So today we got up super early with just 2 hours of sleep to rush to the harbour to catch the 8:30 am ferry back to Naha. Unlike the ferry we took TO Kume, this ferry will take 4 hours instead of 3. Before we boarded the ferry we said goodbye to Dee and thanked her for the hospitality and welcomed her to come visit us in Tokyo (during work term) or in Canada. As the ferry left Kume jima, I stayed up for a bit to watch the goregous waves to reflect on the experience in Kume. Everyone told me about "Okinawa time" where if one says, for example, meet for dinner at 6 pm, everyone will be stylishly late and arrive at 7. lol... Everything in Kume and Naha is sooo laid back and relaxed compared to mainland Japan and in Canada. I grew up always trying to experience the most that I can and take the most out of life always wanting to do more more and more. But I guess that moment of reflection made me start reevaluating my "always-on-the-go" tendancies. Soon I started to feel sea sick again and I went to sleep in the tatami room. Sooo at around 1 pm a ship worker woke us up. I got up to realize that EVERYONE had left the ship except for us. hahahahahaha. We completely overslept. We stepped off the ferry and the weather WAS FANTASTIC!!!

So when we got off the ferry back in Naha we headed off to our new hostel named "Coco Shanti". It was located in this little path off of Kokusai-dori. We unpacked our stuff and decided to hit up a beach considering that we didnt see much in Kume. There was ONE beach in Naha city called "Namioue Beach". So we decided to go see it. When we arrived, it turned out to be the DIRTIEST and most ghetto beach I have ever seen. It was facing these industrial ships and a highway filled with traffic. The beaches in Tottori are even 100x better than this. Even Canadian beaches are better. So we decided to leave.

Namioue Beach

We decided instead to check out Shuuri Castle which was used by the Kings (emperors) of Okinawa before it became part of Japan. In Okinawa there is a HUGE influenced by the China so there is a unique mix of Chinese and Japanese culture. The castle was gorgeous and was where the G-8 summit was held in 1998. We walked through the castle and we ended up taking pictures dressed in traditional Okinawan outfits. So that was interesting being able to see two rival Asian countries back in WWII mix in a colourful array of harmony. Okinawa, unlike mainland Japan, has a close and friendly relationship with China.

Entrance to Shuri castle

traditional okinawan outfit

A throne fit for a king

After the castle we headed back to Kokusai-dori, did some shopping, then we head back to our hostel. There fellow Japanese youth invited us to drink with them and to eat with them. So we hung out with them for a few hours before heading out again. Supposedly we are the first foreigners ever to use the CocoShanti youth hostel. So they treated us with extreme kindness and were really really really impressed by our fluent English. It was hilarious.

Everyone at the "CocoShanti" youth hostel

So after hanging out with them we headed back to "Paul and Mike's Place" for a few beers. Paul was there bar tending again and this time we also met his buddy named Wayne. We also met two US mariners (not navy marines... just sea workers on a ship doing research) and I had a nice chat with one of them. Really kind people and weren't airheaded like the two navy guys we met here the other day. At around 3 am, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

"Paul and Mike's Place": a bar for foreigners

DAY 5: Monday June 20th, 2005 - Attempted Beaching

So in an another attempt to find a nice beach and in hope that today's weather was going to be as nice as the day before, we decided to head to Manza beach. But since it was too far away we decided to head to Moon beach instead. The bus ride was two hours in length in a small town north of Naha called Nago. When we arrived we hit up the beach... then guess what happened "IT STARTED RAINING". We are having the worst luck in the world. Everytime we hit up a nice beach, it starts to rain. But luckily we got a chance to see some of the nice turqoise, clear water we wanted to see so bad. But since it started to pour we couldnt stay there for about an hour and half or so and we had to head back. The bus ride back was cold and wet, but we survived. The beach was absolutely goregous nonetheless. It just seemed awkward for me to imagine myself living in a "beach-oriented" city. It seems soooo opposite from Waterloo and Toronto that I just CANT picture myself living here other than for vacation. I guess not living here makes it more special and more "paradise-like".

"Moon Beach" in Nago city, Okinawa

We headed back to Naha, did some more walking around town and went back to the hostel to shower. We were sooo tired this day and since Paul and Mike's was closed for the day, we decided to hit the sack earlier than usual. After dinner we walked around for a little bit visiting more stores and we ended up at a Karate dojo. Since Karate was invented in Okinawa, it was a very neat experience to see an "authentic" Karate dojo first hand.

Karate dojo (Karate was invented in Okinawa)

DAY 6: Tuesday June 21th, 2005 - Sightseeing craze

Considering that this is the last day of us being here in Okinawa, I decided to get up super early, 8:30 am, and cram in a whole lot of sight seeing before we catch our flight out of Naha at 4:15 pm. So in the morning Ana and I went to the Tsuboya pottery village. Okinawa is famous for its pottery and we got a firsthand chance to watch them make those giant lion statues and how they molded them out of clay. We walked along the ancient Tsuboya village and saw some really old abandoned kilns (used to "bake" clay into pottery). It was really neat.

Click here for a video from the pottery making factory

Me in Tsuboya 'pottery' village

The famous Okinawa Shinsha lions (found in pairs: male has mouth open to scare away predators, and the female is smiling to promote friendship)

Store in Tsuboya 'pottery' village

Pottery making factory

Ancient outdoor pottery kiln

After Tsuboya village Ana decided to head back to the hostel to get some rest cause she was really tired from the day before. I gathered my stuff and headed off to do more sight seeing. My next destination was the old underground Japanese navy headquarters. During WWII Pacific war Okinawa had a huge battle with the United States, and before conceding defeat over 200 Japanese soliders committed suicide in this underground navy headquarters. I absolutely love exploring places of history like this. Even though it was kind of morbid, I feel it's an important part of history that needs to be remembered and not forgotten.

Stairs leading down the old underground navy headquarters

Leading commander headquarters (Command Onta)

Wall filled with grenade marks when the soliders committed suicide

Afterwards, as my last stop before heading to airport was the Fukushu-en Chinese Gardens. This garden was built to commerate a partnership and friendship between the city of Naha and the Chinese city of Fukushu (friendship built up from trade agreements and sharing of resources). The garden was beautiful, but by this time, the sun was blaring on me and I was super tired. I walked around the garden took some photos and decided to head to the nearest monorail station.

Fukuen garden

Me looking very tired in the last few minutes in Naha

But before I boarded the monorail I went into this shopping mall to get a cold drink and there was this little market and in EVERY stand there were free samples of food they were selling. It was amazing. Basically what ended up happening was me not having to pay a yen for lunch. And I got to try a whole of Okinawan food for free too. hee hee.. So after thaat I boarded the monorail and headed to meet Ana at the airport.

Reflections

Overall this trip was amazing, despite of the bad luck we had with the rain on the three days that we went to beaches. We got to explore a part of Japan where tourists wouldn't normally travel. We explored an island off Okinawa mainland and got to experience local life and met many new friends. This trip, like Hiroshima, had a nice balance of culture, fun, hardships, and new friendships.

Okinawa prefecture license plate