The malls in Nagoya are really nice and they sell all sorts of stylish stuff. I had the chance to walk through a few of them.
Here is the atrium of one of the malls I walked into. They had some type of paper decoration hanging from the ciling which looked really nice.
They had all sorts of trendy stores. The picture above is a pic of some a trendy hobby/decoration shop selling some really funky clocks. The clock is made out of gears upon gears spinning to make the hands turn. Really interesting to watch.
The outside of a store called "Nano Universe!" Perfect, I thought I'd pop in to see what these people knew about Nano Technology...
Much to my "sha-grin" it turns out that it was a clothing shop. Maybe they make really really small clothing :P
Well I have about 80 other pictures siting on my tour of Nagoya to post so those will have to wait for the photo album... but I ended up visiting a school of design and a science of museum (which was quite rudimentary but very interesting... I saw how they made a tornado :P).
After 10 hours of entertaining myself I finally could meet up with Alex afterwork and hit a chinese restaurant to grab some food. We also we ran into some of his co workers. Whom are very sociable people.
Alex and I chowing down on some food.
The both of us go way back, actually more way back than I realized until my mom showed me pictures of us in the same Japanese class when I was 5 and he was 4. We would later meet up again in High school and in the Richmond Orchestra-- the world is a definately small place.
After finishing off dinner, we hit dropped by an "Izakaya" which is the Japanese version of a spanish "Tapas" restraunt (and with alcohol). Ran into more of his co-workers and friends. I am envious that he has such an awesome crew of people to work with.
I borrowed a futon from one of his friend's room and crashed in his room for the night.
The Next Day:
Woke uo at about 6:45 and got ready to head out to the Expo. We ran into a guy that was staying with one of Alex's coworkers whom told us that there were even people sleeping at the front gates of the Expo. From what I heard from Alex, line ups to the corporate pavillions (Hitachi, Toyota and etc... all of them Japanese corporation) are over 4 hours long! Alex took the staff entrance to the Expo, unfortunately I wasn't so lucky and had to go through the ordinary gates.
My camera batteries lost charge that day so I couldn't take pictures.. thought I did take pictures on my cell phone (need to find a way to download the pictures directly to my computer).
Though originally Alex had planned to give me a personal tour of Expo in Nagoya but it turned out that he had a seminar in the morning and had VIP duty in the afternoon at the Canadian Pavillion. Waht happened instead was that I ended up borrowing his staff pass and got easy access to all sorts of pavillions (except for the corporate pavillions which were way too busy... what is means is that I didn't have to wait in line for other global pavillions if they had line ups :).
The pavillions I visited were Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Korea, Canada, America, China, South America, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Germany and a few more here and there. All I cans say is that after seeing all those pavillions is that I want to travel around the world more. There are so many different interesting things in different parts of the world.
At the Candadian Pavillion, Alex gave me a personal introduction and got me in through the VIP door. I also met some of his co workers that day (and the day before) and they were really friendly people. Got along really well. At the end of the tour, I even got a pin only given out to Canadians that visit the pavillion, yay!
A few things to note Sri Lankan and traditional Mongolian clothing are quite nice looking. I also liked Moroccan interior design. I have to look back at my pictures in my cell phone but I really enjoyed looking at the global pavillions.
One thing I wanted to note about the Expo was that the corporate pavillions were the most popular. The thing about this is that an Expo is really supposed be an international exposition... I just thought that it was a sad waste to see all the Japanese tourists at the Expo only spending time waiting in line for the Japanese corporate pavillions. What happened was that in the morning, there was a mad dash for the corporate pavillions... when the wait times got as long as 4 to 5 hours long, then people started falling back to the other pavillions, I thought that was kind of sad.
I talked to various staff from all over the world and it was very refreshing to listen to different perceptions of the world. One interesting thing I heard from an Pakistan staff member working at the Pakistan pavillion was about the Japanese and their herd mentality. When there isn't anyone looking at a display, then all the Japanese visitors walk by... if there is someone looking at the display then people start dashing up to the display to see what is so interesting. The process continues till you have a big fat mob looking at something possibly mundane. It's the craziest thing.
One thing I thought was the most wasted on the vistors at the expo was the lack of attention to information presented at the pavillion. At the expo is looking some something flashy to see, whether it be the corporate pavillion (all about futuristic technology... though the Expo's theme was all about "Nature's Wisdom"), or flashy movies put on by some of the other country pavillions. It's was all about the chutzpa and the big lights for some of these people. Ordinary screens with clips about the country and presentations about different countries were lost upon many visitors. I thought that was particularly sad.
Party!
Here is the best part of the Expo. I got to attend an after hours party hosted by the New Zealand staff members. This party was by far the best party I've attened *ever* in my life. They kicked off the night with the New Zealanders in traditional warrior clothing performing war chants and dances followed by singing. They even ended up sining a Japanese song at the end of the performance. One of the ladies of the NZ crew pulled out sort of a Morning star kind of object, doused the end in gas and lit it on fire and did some sort of dance while spinning around the lit morning star. Very cool.
There were cheap drinks, excellent snacks (like roasted muscled and more) and they had a band playing in the backround with a huge dance floor. There was a pond near by which people started jumping into and dancing inside. It blew my mind.
The people at the party were great. The one of the friendliest bunch I've ever see. All you have to do is walk up to them and say "hey where are you from" and you've got a conversation going and who knows, you might get a friend out of it. It's that easy! The people there are exceptionally chill. Compared to going to a usual club, people at a club are so anti social. I was exceptionally happy to be hanging out with really great people.
We were out till really late, probably until about 3~4 am before heading back to his appartment. Good times, good times indeed.
Well that's all for now. Need to pack and get ready for my trip to Taiwan tomorrow. I'll try posting from there if possible!
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