Nihongo-a-Go-Go :: Mandy's Journal

Tokugawa Museum

This weekend, after paying off all the bills *dies* and cleaning the apartment *resurrects and dies again* we headed off to the Tokugawa Garden and Museum. The Tokugawa Family was the group in charge of Nagoya for quite some time in the Edo period (and before, I believe...I don't quite remember). We headed up to Ozone (pronounced "Oh-zone-ay"), which is the closest subway stop, and is also Aimee's homebase for work. It was a bit of a walk, and we had to trek through a strange little street festival. I think the excitement was about a Dragons' game, but I'm not exactly sure.

When we got to the entrance, we got a ticket to the gardens. I sort of thought that the gardens would be more extensive, but the amount of water was nice. A big pond, and a few little streams, lots of beautiful bright koi, and bridges. The one thing lacking in many Japanese gardens is trees, which would be nice when the strong sun is beating down, as it was today. Still, a beautiful little pocket in the midst of an industrial area.

The museum itself was a bit smaller and more limited than I'd expected, but still pretty cool. Of course, I couldn't take pictures inside, and it was more of a historical gallery than one of art. I guess it depends on if you look at artifacts as art or pieces of history/anthropology. Anyway, we saw armor, spears, and looooooooots of painted scrolls depicting many of the shrine festivals inside Nagoya Castle town. There was also a replica of a daimyo's tea hut. The tea ceremony in the 18th century had become very elaborate and some people, including warrior lords, decided that they sort of had to go back to their roots. So they changed the ceremony (wabi), using more primitive vessels and building tea huts away from their expansive and luxurious houses. These huts had thatched roofs and were deliberately rustic.

The other item of extreme interest at the Tokugawa museum is a book manuscript they have. They have the one surviving copy of "Tale of the Genji," an ancient novel written by a noblewoman about the amorous adventures of a prince. The copy is too fragile to be displayed continually, and I believe it's only brought out once a year. But they have an interesting display of exact replica pages. The paper is beautiful, varigated and sprinkled with gold. The artwork is very unique; I forget the name of the style, but the people have very round cheeks and long silky hair. Sort of huggable, I thought.

After buying some postcards (have no fear, Mom! There is one for you!) we headed back to the apartment. On the way, I noticed some unique signs. Heh, first of all, I don't even need to tell you what this prohibits. See? Japanese signs are so clear they just blow up the language barrier.

And the second...this is for you, Boog. Do you want to know what this tiolet-lacking little boy is the mascot for? A pharmacy. With a working tinkling prince at the front entrance. There simply are not words...

Stay tuned for this week's adventures...not sure where yet, but they should be exciting!

Expo...a lil bit lame

Well...the World Expo in Aichi, Japan, was as everyone described it; a little bit...disappointing, but there's good food and the country pavilions are fun.:)

We woke up early, though I must confess to having ignored the alarm for a good hour. We had no trouble getting there, but by the time we did, there were no available reservations for any of the corporate pavilions, such as Hitachi and Toyota. Which we expected, but had hoped for; there are dancing robots. *swoon* What we didn't expect is that everything else in the Japan section, such as the 64-foot kaleidoscope and the Mammoth, were also done by reservation and by 11 am, all the reservations for the DAY were given out. Pretty lame, eh? We were feeling pretty down after we'd wandered around and could get into nothing. And, all the nature was fenced off...then we saw the Seiko clock.

It was noon, and this clock plays awesome music and a panel opens in the side. Mechanical dolls move and dance and turn gears and pull chains. Absolutely lovely. We though, maybe, just maybe, the day could be improved. :)

So, we abandoned the corporate and Japanese areas (*sigh* No mammoth for me...) and headed to the Global Commons. Many countries from all over the world are represented. We didn't get to any of the Asian ones, but we did make it to North America, South America, the Middle East, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Africa. And the pavilions were interesting, though very few of them stayed really true to the theme of the Expo, which was Harmony with nature. Many of them seemed to be all about promoting tourism for their country. Ah well.

We went to *deep breath* Bulgaria, Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Ireland, Egypt, Ukraine, UK, USA, Argentina, Cuba, Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, etc), and Andean Amazon (I don't remember the exact countries). I can't post about all of them, but I will try to give a little bit about the really interesting ones.

Our first was Bulgaria, and now I know that Bulgaria is important in the rose, honey, and yogurt economies. See? I learned lots! Mostly we were in there because the line wasn't too bad, and it was air conditioned. :) But we ended up getting rose-flavored frozen yogurt, which was good and very fresh and yogurty. I wanted to try a meal called...kashikavalka? Something like that. Anyway, it looked good, but we wanted to get going. Next we went to Turkey, which was my very favorite pavilion. The theme was showing Nature's influence in the art, and it was lovely. The inside was set up like a dome, with little lights in the ceiling. There was a wooden structure, lotus-like, that went around a round area with a fountain in the middle. There were also examples of the beautiful painted tiles often found in mosques. I couldn't get any pictures that really did it justice. The music was also beautiful.

In the Tunisia pavilion, there were some guys making little clay pots who would write your name in Arabic on it. We got some for free, with little hearts on them, because we could speak a little French. Many people treated us wonderfully because we were non-Japanese and so they could speak English with us. Though there were some wonderfully sweet middle-aged Japanese women who waited in line with us for the Ireland pavilion (there was a band, Bru Boru, and dancers!) who held their parasols over us because we were in the sun.

Jordan had an interesting exhibit displaying the properties of the Dead Sea. As I'm sure you know, it's so salty nothing can live in it, and if you jump into it to commit suicide, you'll be sadly disappointed. Since you'll float. You can't tell from my pic very well (*shame*) but there was a big tank and these guys were just floating in it. Just laying there. Very very comfy, I think. The Morrocco pavilion was set up like a bazaar. You could even haggle, but only in Japanese. Aww...It was all very Kismet. :)

Next we headed over to the Egypt pavilion (actually, I'm doing this sort of out of order, but bear with me). It was set up all pharoah-style, probably because of all the renewed interest in King Tut. They had many replicas of famous artifacts, such as the famous golden burial mask and the bust of Nefertiti. Again, super cool music, and I bought a belly dancing hip scarf with all sorts of jingly coins. Because...how could I say no when the seller tied it on to me? Then we went to Ukraine, where I was sooooo embaressed. Heh, I didn't do anything stupid, but I felt so bad that I was one of these people, yet I could say anything to let them know that. I could say hello in Ukrainian, and that's it. Very very sad...I want to learn Ukrainian now, really badly! There was no dancing at the pavilion, but a cute band, with a bandura and a guy who could do that groovy Ukrainian bird call stuff. I also bought a ragdoll there. And something for Grandpa, shhhhh. :) There were also these statues, but I'm not sure what they are or what they represent. Ancient gods, perhaps? Must do more research.

By this time we were hungry, so we decided to try out some Romanian cuisine. We ate at a little restaurant that made me feel like I was in a Mel Brooks movie, but the food was good. I meant to write down the names, but I forgot. I had sole breaded in cornmeal, with some salad and mashed potatoes with veggies in them, and some creamy caviar on bread. Cornmeal and potatoes seemed very prominent, along with tomatoes. Pretty good though! I was hoping for someone dressed up as Vlad the Impaler, but instead there was this cute guy in traditional garb. Very bright, isn't it? Adorable boots...and you can't see it, but there's like a fan of peacock feathers on the side of the hat. Heh. After dinner we headed for the UK pavilion, which was one of the only ones that really stuck to the Expo's theme. They showed technological advances that were influenced by real things in nature. I really liked the gecko tape, which lets people climb walls, and this onscreen book that you could turn the pages of by waving your hand. The walkway into the pavilion was lovely as well, with actual green growing things and...modern art. :) I didn't get it, but it was a breath of fresh air.

Woo...my little fingers are getting as tired as my legs were yesterday. Lastly, we went to the North, South, and Central American pavilions. Cuba's was so open and airy, with a fancy bartender and was selling Cuban cigars. We got some delightful hibiscus juice from the Honduras pavilion. It was a beautiful pink sunset color and very sweet. Wish it was available elsewhere. And, of course, we had to check out the US pavilion. It was huuuuuge, of course. :) The main attraction was a ten minute 3-D projected move about Ben Franklin and his learning from nature. The show was sorta silly, but way fun; when there was lightning, the seats rumbled. When it rained, there was actually water sprinkling the audience. After that you walked through a hall about flight in America, from a perfect replica of the Wright brothers' plane to the a sorta shoddy replica of the Mars Rover (seriously, it was covered in copper gift wrap). It was nice to hear English again, and talk to someone with a Boston accent, though. :)

All in all, not a bad day, though there were some lingering disappointments. It's a huuuuuuuge area, and impossible to cover in one day. And not very friendly to tourists; without reservations, you can't see any of the big ticket items. Meaning, if you're a tourist who didn't know about it, you'd have no chance at all. However, seeing some trees in Japan is always nice, and I did learn stuff (Bulgaria is a big producer of honey, roses, and yogurt!). So...not a wasted day, though I wish it had cost a little bit less.

Stay tuned for next weekend's grand adventure...though we don't know what it is yet!

ZOOOOOOOOOOOo!

Well, we looked at the calendar a few days ago and realized that not only do we have just ten weeks of work left. We also only have ten weekends in which to get stuff done. And we have sooooo much stuff we want to do before we go home. This weekend, we headed off to the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens.

Hmm...well, it cost 500 yen to get in, so about five dollars. It would have cost more had we wanted to go up into the Sky Tower, and though the view was probably great, we opted out. We were more into seeing animals. The grounds were huge, but the animal enclosures were disappointingly small. And a bit behind the times. Kind of like zoos in the 60's, or something. But the animals were all healthy, and in beautiful condition. Just made me a bit sad to see them in smallish spaces. I'm not a fan of zoos for that reason already. The polar bear and elephant areas were nice, as was a vivarium with small nocturnal mammals, reptiles, and amphibions that was up at the top of a hill. Anyway, I tried to get pics that didn't make the animals seemed closed in...*sigh*

First we walked past a rhino enclosure, which wasn't too bad. However, in the heat of the day, one rhino was sleeping and another was playing in a thing of water...with his rear end facing us. So...no pic. However, all of a sudden, a THIRD rhino walked across. Just like I'd practiced in Pokemon Snap, I got a nice, relatively centered pic of the fast moving pokem-um, creature.

We moved on and saw the lions and tigers, which all seemed hot and bored out of their minds. This tiger was lounging in a little stream when we walked up, them got up to check out the people standing around. He didn't seem to appreciate some of the people infringing on his territory. I've never heard a shriek quite like the one the woman made when he sprayed. He was a proud, proud beast.

After this amusing bit, we headed over to look at some small local bears and goats, including the huggiest bear I've ever seen. Can't remember the name to save my life, unfortunately. We also saw a bear that is the largest land animal in Japan. It was really rangy, maybe shedding for summer? But it was uuuuuuuuugly. Then we moved on to see some animals that were having fun. First, the penguins totally stole our hearts. There were three kinds of penguins in one enclosure, that was set up like an iceberg home with little caves, and water all around. They were fast little suckers. The penguins with the yellow were very dignified, and they totally disdained one of their number, who promptly disdained them and went to take a shower (first pic). And the other, lone penguin of his species was this crested one. He was so the oddball, sort of like the mad scientist penguins. The others kept their distance.

The seals were really cool too. The spotted seals were a bit mellow, and seemed to enjoy swimming underwater on their backs. The other seals were really zippy, and while we were drinking ramune in the shade near their pool, became very vocal. We figured it was seal drama.

The pride and joy of the Nagoya Zoo is its koala exhibit. This exhibit is the result of cooperation with Australia, and it is a really nice little home for these adorable little guys. We couldn't use flash, even though it was a little dim, not wanting to scare the poor things, so the pic came out a bit blurry (it was through glass). But he was so napping in his eucalyptus. So cute! I also bought my one souvenir--a big coin, with an enameled pic of two hugging koalas, that say Higashiyama Zoo on it in Japanese. Then we figured out how to use the other machine to stamp the date and my name onto it. Heheheh...so touristy. So nice and loud when the metal was being stamped.

We went through the rest of the zoo pretty quickly (it closes early). We particularly enjoyed the house at the top of the hill. It was more modern and it had all sorts of adorable mammals and reptiles. Oh, I just love my reptiles! Here is a...I believe it's called a gaviel. It's some kind of alligator/crocodile. If anyone has any info on it, I'd love to hear it. It was a cool looking animal.

The sun was hot, but we were prepared; we wisely slathered ourselves in sunscreen. Watch out for next weekend, when we go on to make history. Finally...we are going to the Aichi Expo. *cue dramatic music* See you later!

Public service announcement

Note:
I am editting some things on my blog program. If you are unable to comment in the next few hours - or can't see the blog at all - it means I messed something up or things are in progress. Thanks! (Aimee)

Blargh...

Well, I'm sick again, and it's the rainy season. Not a good way to start an entry.:) Summer is getting on in Nagoya, bringing with it extreme humidity and temperatures, and extremely changeable weather. I keep forgetting to make sure I have my umbrella with me, regardless of how brightly the sun is shining when I leave for work in the morning.

I only have ten weeks of work left here...kinda strange. We got our tickets to come home, and in a few weeks, Aimee and I will be putting in our resignations. Very very weird.

Work has been nondescript, though I had a heartwarming moment yesterday. Many of the kids classes have been shifted again, and one of the kids in my Monday Senior class was moved to a class immediately after his normal one. So he was arriving as his friends were leaving and was a little upset/confused. I was teaching the next class and went back to prepare for it. The kid, Kouhei, called me out, and through my limited Japanese I understood that he wanted to know who his teacher would be. I pointed to myself and told him, "I'm your teacher." And his face just...lit up and he was totally content. When I got into the class, he was then thrilled that it was only him and another boy, Hirotaka. And then Kouhei asked me, again in Japanese, if I would continue to be his teacher. I told him yes, though really Naomi is supposed to teach them. He was thrilled. I had such a good class; I think I really will keep it. It's just for this month.

I also learned in Voice today that a traditional summer food in Japan is eel, though the mode of cooking it varies with the region. Here in Nagoya, they often put the eel on a stick, steam it, then fry it on a grate after it's been brushed with a special sauce. The reason why eel is a summer food? The weather in Japan in summer is very humid, and very draining. The Japanese people of long ago believed that eating eel would revitalize them, and the tradition has just stayed on. The woman told me that many businesspeople will munch on eel after work to get a little bit of a boost. I've had eel in makisushi. It's actually pretty good!

Another summer treat here is shaved ice. You can buy an ice shaving machine (hand cranked) for about 7 bucks, and the bottles of flavoring for about 2-5 bucks. I'm seriously considering getting some! It sounds like it would be a blast. Though I must confess to not wanting to get the cans of beans that some people like with theirs. I love the sweet beans in my bento as a little dessert, but I just can't eat them in ice cream like foods.

I'll try to have some pics next post. We're considering going to Inuyama Castle, the Higashiyama zoo, or the Tokugawa art museum this weekend. Stay tuned!