Planes, Trains and MagLevs (aka, World Expo - Aichi)

Behold the power of travel agents. They are wonderful here in Japan. They get you good prices and make wonderful things happen - like last minute trips to the World Expo...

The circumstances probably weren't ideal, but they worked out beautifully. We took a late flight to Nagoya and stayed in the airport that night. Now, when I say "in" the airport, I mean it. Our hotel was connected to the arrival lounge. It was very easy for some weary folk to get in and get settled.

The next morning, we woke up, checked out, and walked across the lobby to the train station. We got our tickets to a central station (not Nagoya station, but one stop shy) that would allow us to hop to the World Expo express train. We ditched the luggage in a locker. The express train was CRAZY crowded and we ended up standing for most of the ride. It was pretty long, too. We got to the expo and decided to wait 30 minutes for the mag lev train instead of 30 minutes for the bus. The 30 minutes was closer to 60, but we got to take a 6 minute ride on a mag lev. It was very quiet and pretty smooth - much nicer than a normal train ride where you have to hold on for dear life to not fall into the other passengers.

When we got to the Expo, Chrys worked on sun screen while I bought our tickets. Then, we headed for the line to get in - UGH! That was the longest line all day, I think. Maybe it was the anticipation of what we could see, but not get to. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the fact that Ryanne was screaming until she passed out from exhaustion. I would have killed for a lightweight sling at that point, but instead I had her stretched out in my arms. Silly me.

Once through security (bag search, metal detector, xray), we stopped just to look around. There were people everywhere. It's probably the largest crowd we've encountered yet. We pulled out our maps and decided to walk towards Toyota's pavilion. They had the robot show that we had been told was a don't miss - as if we would with an "obot" obsessed daughter.

It was pretty easy to find and pretty close the entrance. We were in the process of trying to figure out when and where we'd have to be to get tickets when someone walked up to us and asked if we spoke English. He introduced himself and showed us his Toyota badge. He asked if we'd seen his show. We said we were very interested, but hadn't gotten tickets. He asked us to follow him. We ended up seated (poorly, but seated) in the show that started about 5 minutes after we walked in the door.

It was... Amazing! They had walking robots which is something that I have a fascination with, thanks to Chrys. They played horns. Chrys thinks it wasn't really them playing; I believe they are capable, but agree that it might have been recorded for the show. They also had some rolling robots that played horns and drums. They played "When the Saints Go Marching In," which was somewhat bittersweet for me in the aftermath of Katrina. Then, there were the acrobats on ropes from the ceiling, and the concept cars. Oh, the concept cars. They are mostly upright for slow motion and recline as your speed increases. The light ropes on the sides allow for color customization. They were beautiful. Then the walker that you ride. They brought out only one and...whoa. I just wish we could have ridden it - well, that Chrys and Roo could so I could take pictures. Roo was mightily impressed with it all and we had a chorus of "ooos" at appropriate times. Mostly, she sat there staring and taking it all in. She didn't get bored, remarkably, and it was a 30 minute show. (I think. I lost track of time, myself.)

After leaving that, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves. We hadn't expected to see the one thing on our "must hit" list within 10 minutes of entering the park. Given that, we wandered. We had an "American" lunch outside their pavilion, but the line was too long to go in. We went to the kids play area where there were more robots for Roo to touch and pose with. She had a great time with that. We visited a couple of the country pavilions that had short lines - Norway (where they showcased daily life of 4 citizens, a Stokke Kinder Zeat, the Baby Bjorn, and a few other random items), Ireland (pictures, big Celtic cross replicas and a band of Japanese playing Celtic music), Cuba (just Chrys and Roo went in, but he said it was beaches and Latin music), and others that I don't remember. Mostly, we walked around, amazed at the size of the thing, and avoiding the 6 hour lines at the Hitachi pavilion. Part of me wishes we could have seen more, but I still don't know what we would have seen so I'm ok being ignorant. I did go back and wait in the line to get in to buy souvenirs for various people. There wasn't a line to get in, but it was very crowded so you grabbed what you could when you saw it. Going back for something was pretty out of the question. The line to check out was over 30 minutes and my poor feet didn't like that much at the end of the long day.

When we left, we took the bus back to the train station. The train took us back to our luggage and then to Nagoya station. We caught a cab to our hotel for that night - the Westin Nagoya Castle. The view was amazing. More on day two in another post.

I know why Japanese women wear heels, but...

I have come, over the course of my time here, to decide that 3" heels would actually make using the squatter a bit easier. For those of us that have lost much of the ability to squat with flat feet, that little tilt would offer so much more stability when Western toilets just aren't available. I'm sure there are a host of fashion reasons, too, but I'm trying to look for practical ones.

Given that, I still don't understand why a 3" stiletto is the shoe of choice for some place like Disneyland or the World Expo. Western toilets abound. There is no practical need for the shoes. They're going to be walking...miles...and those things just aren't that good for your feet.

I'm sure they become accustomed to it after a long while. Maybe they're even looking at me in my tennis shoes and beat up Birkenstocks wondering how I'm comfortable in something so unflattering. At the end of the day, though, when my feet are dying despite my tennis shoes, I just have to wonder how these women can walk by me in towering heels and not just collapse. Maybe I just don't have the personal fortitude to pull it off. Even so, I'm not sure I'd want to.

Ack! They changed my trash sacks

Months of buying the clear ones with the green writing, as deciphered by previous dwellers, gone. I had even figured out the obscures ones - like the one for pots and pans, broken mirrors, and batteries. All ... gone.

I went to the store the other day and now they're all clear with colored writing. No more bright yellow PET bags. No more blue writing for cans. There was still green writing, but no pictures of lettuce and fish heads to tell me it's for burnables (what most of our trash is).

Alas, this story does have a happy ending. I was able to read the label that said もえるごみ(combustible trash) and get the clear bags with red writing. They've got handles on them now. Maybe they're not so bad.

Quite the dilemma

So, you're living in a country halfway around the world from your real house. You know you won't be going back there for at least a year. Where would you put your house keys? Someplace safe, right?

Yeah...that's the million dollar question. Unfortunately, you really only start to think about it *right* before you go.

Painting ceramics

I'm not an artist. I can learn how to copy things, but I've never considered myself terribly creative. That's not to say that I don't have original thoughts...I'm just not terribly creative at representing them most days.

I've talked about Arita before, too. I've wanted to go back and see what the ceramic shops offered when it's not flooded with people for Golden Week.

That said, I talked to Mrs. K about wanting to head up there and she said she'd love to come with me. We started up there about 10am, parked at the Daiso (100円 shop) and started walking.

We started down the main street toward the train station. There were surprisingly few shops along that road, now that it wasn't covered in tents. Nevertheless, I found a few small gifts and a new pincushion in one at the corner.

Then we went back down the road toward the main entry. That proved to hold a wealth of shops that we never touched during Golden Week. Most of them are pretty small and very crowded with similar items, even from shop to shop. What amused us most was seeing the same item in multiple shops - as we went down the road it got more and more expensive.

The first biggish shop that we came across, we were greeted downstairs and invited up to a second floor gallery of sorts. This had the nicer pieces that were sold singly instead of the large groups of what I now assume were 'seconds' (not that I can find anything wrong with any of them). We noticed a bucket on the corner of one of the tables that had bare ceramics in it and inquired about painting. She managed to tell us that she allowed customers to paint them and showed us prices. Have I mentioned yet that we had both kids with us? Yeah, they loved running around the gallery while we tried to drink coffee. We didn't stay to paint.

When we got to the end of that street, we turned back for lunch. After tuna pizza (yeah...don't ask), we headed back out with our map and started looking for the 'rest' of the stores in the town. We walked for what seemed like forever before we ended up in another cluster of them. This was after reassurance from several shop owners that we were on the right path. Turns out there are a LOT of shops once you walk past empty stores to the 'rest' of town and we could barely scrape the surface before it was almost dinner time and we were ready to go home.

The next weekend, the husbands watched the kids and we journeyed to Arita solo. Our first stop was the little shop. We painted - I a mug, Mrs. K a tea cup. My first side ended with a pretty abysmal looking (in my opinion) cat, but I am pleased with the second side. The owner gave me a cup for inspiration and I sort of copied the design. It's not identical, but it looks cool. The cup's a gift - the person that gets it will now know the story behind it. Mrs. K painted these cool wavy flowers/grains on hers - I was impressed.

There was some discussion about how to get the cups after they were fired. The owner offered to send them to us and we insisted we'd come back. It's only 45 minutes from Isahaya, after all. She wanted my number, convinced I spoke better Japanese - HA! I managed to get her to tell me that they'd be ready in September - just so I knew when to expect the call.

We wandered more through the part of town that we got too tired for before. We found many more interesting shops. We see many that look more like galleries and they're always closed on Sunday. Hopefully we can catch a week day when they're open. I saw the plate I passed by back in May, but it was MUCH larger and about 10x the price so I left it there. Hopefully I can track it down again in November (when they have another festival with great bargains and less crowd).

I got the call a couple of weeks ago that the cups were ready. Not quite September, but pretty close. We were very busy and didn't manage to get back there until today.

The cups look neat. They shrink quite a bit (I think the owner said 10%, but it looks like more). We decided we needed to try it again.

This time I started with some Maple leaf looking things on a tea cup. I decided to get elaborate on the next side, but I won't spoil the surprise. Yeah, this one's a gift, too. Mrs. K did butterflies and another cup that I didn't get as much chance to look at as I was tied up in what turned out to be a very time consuming second side. I managed to get that she'll have more plates available in October. Why I want those is yet another secret - mean, aren't I? We also noticed how relaxing it was to sit there with cups, paint, coffee and quiet. It's an amazing experience.

We wandered more through the further parts of town. I found a contender for the plate that goes home - just in case I don't find the blue sakura again. Of course, I'll have to remember which shop it was at and hope they're open. We stopped for cake at a little shop - delicious. There, we flipped through a book on the various painters in Arita. I commented on how silly it was to pay 2500円 for a book with horrible maps that was just a big ad for smaller galleries. Of course, now I want the book so I can track down some of those galleries, despite the bad maps. The book inspired us to new locations, though, so off driving we went.

This time, we ended up at a large gallery that had many artists' wares and many steps of grandeur. They even had Royal Doulton stuff there. The gallery had something we'd wished for whilst we painted in more blue, too - a painting table and *colors*. We may have to do some painting there, now. The colors enticed us to sway from our loyal place.

Finally, we gave up and headed home, despite seeing many new, exciting looking shops on our way. I don't know that we'll ever see all, or even most of this town, but we're going to really try. Worst part, to me, is that we've done all of this and haven't even touched the pottery town in Nagasaki Prefect. Who knows what we'd uncover there.

Oh, and since we have to go back to pick up these cups, we'll probably paint again. Chrys wants a coffee cup - seems his current favorite has developed a crack. I know he'll break it someday, but I'll do it anyway and enjoy every minute. Anyone else? Choices are coffee cup, tea cup (Japanese, no handle) and sometimes plates - slightly more variety if we end up at the color place, I think. I promise nothing of quality, not even specific designs, but it'll be one of a kind and full of love and guaranteed to make me relax.