A Familiar Face in a Foreign Place

I know we haven't posted in a while but we decided to wait until we had some good pics to post, and well...DO WE EVER! I got tons of new pics, and lots of stories to tell, but where do I start? I know, how about Sunday, June 26th. That's the day we got up at 4:30 in the morning. We would have gotten up at 5:30, but since we went to bed at 3:00, I was a little groggy when I set the alarm. We didn't realize our mistake (Did I say our? I meant my mistake. Ow! Let go!) until we were already dressed and awake. So with one and a half hours of sleep under ours collective belts, we headed out to catch a few trains and then a shinkansen (really fast train aka the bullet train). After an hour or so of riding the rails we disembarked in Nagoya. Why Nagoya you ask? Cause that's where we met......wait for it......Joe and Leanne! YAY! We've been here for three and half months, and you have no idea how awesome it was to see a familiar face. After all the hugs were finished, we caught a cab to our Ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel) so we could drop off a few bags and grab a subway to AICHI! Do you like my dramatic use of capital letters so far? When ever I read capitalized letters I like to SHOUT them out. Which I suggest you do as well. Especially if you are reading this at work. SHEEP ARE FUN!

Why Aichi you say? Well they have this little thing going on here called The World Expo. Expensive to get there. Expensive to get in. Expensive to buy anything, but it was well worth it to hang out with some friends and see some cool stuff. There were thousands of people there, and you pretty much had to wait an hour to see just about anything. We decided to do the world pavilions first seeing as the lines were fairly short. We diplomatically decided the UN was the first pavilion to see. Then we saw several others including, Mexico, Peru, India, Tibet, USA, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, several others I can't remember and...oh yeah, Canada. So we're at the Canadian pavilion standing in line, waiting, when one of the staff (who is walking around with a TV screen mounted over her head (attached to a backpack (is it OK to put brackets inside other brackets?) ) showing images of Canada) comes walking over to us and says "Hi, where are you from?". "Canada" we say in unison. "Why are you standing in line?" she says. "That's what we do." I say. "Didn't anyone tell you you don't have to stand in line at your own pavilion?" At which point we stared at each other in awe. With the exception of Leanne, the rest of us were not accustomed to being given special treatment just for being Canadian. We were ushered past the line, into the theatre area and given special AICHI EXPO CANADA pins. They weren't even selling them there. They called us "easy access Canadians" and then we watched the show which, while not really informative, was visually spectacular. It was the best visual presentation of all of the pavilions we saw, and it was one of very few pavilions that wasn't selling cheesy souvenirs near the exit.
After seeing the world, we decided to see some of the technology displays. I LIKE GUM!

We really wanted to get in to see the Toyota pavilion, because they had an enormous robotics display, but every time we looked the line was a minimum of two hours. So we decided for a couple of one hour lines instead. One of them was the Waterworks show where we watched some guy dressed like a mad scientist doing some tricks we have all seen before at the Science Center. The only thing that made it a little exciting was that we wore 3-D glasses because all of the walls on the set were shot with 3-D projectors. Otherwise? Not worth the wait. Then we decided on another hour long line to see the fire show at the Gas Pavilion. A man on stage talking to characters on TV screens while he did some really bad magic tricks and then a lot of gas jets bursting flames all over the stage. We kept hoping one of them would hit the magician. Except for Leanne, she had fallen asleep. After leaving that debacle, we debated warning the others in line, but eventually decided we needed some redemption so we headed for the Japan pavilion. We had heard it was quite good and boasted some excellent sights, including a complete 360 degree theatre. We got to the pavilion and the sign said there was a 70 minute wait to get on. After some discussion the girls decided to wait in line while Joe and I went to get food. Just as we stepped out of line, one of the Expo staff members spotted our shiny new pins and beckoned us over to him. He asked where we were from (in pretty good english), if we wanted to see the Japan pavilion, and then he told us to call our friends (Colleen and Leanne) over. They were a bit confused, but when they reached us the staff member reached into his vest and pulled out four reservation tickets, which allowed us to jump the line and get in immediately. YAY! Once we got in we realized that even if we had waited for an hour it would have been worth it. There were so many cool things to see, and the 360 theatre was even better than expected. It was a bridge that went through the middle of this giant spherical room (kind of like X-men's Cerebro, for all you geeks out there). Once the doors were closed the show started. It was amazing. First it looked like we were floating just above the clouds inside the earth's atmosphere, then we descended through the clouds and saw birds going by us. We headed towards the ocean and then went under the water and headed down and down, watching fish swim by. Eventually the water started to change and then we were in outer space, flying through the stars towards earth, until finally we stopped right where we started, hovering in the atmosphere. The whole time it totally felt like were actually moving, because it completely filled your entire range of vision no matter where you looked (except when you looked at the bridge, but there were glass floor panels). Once we left the theatre we headed down a ramp into a huge area that felt like we were bugs in big back yard. They had a fish tank there where there were tropical fish and fresh water fish in the same tank. They used these microbubbles of oxygen in the water that allowed both types of fish to breath. Very cool! Oh man there's still so much to talk about, and I feel like this blog has gone on way too long already. So to sum up the rest, giant ice cream, bio-lung (a giant oxygen producing ecosystem thingy), wooly mammoth bones, more ferris wheels for Colleen and more tourists (local) than you'll ever want know. Except these guys. To check out all of the pics from the trip click here.

The only other new pictures I have added are in the food section (more Kit Kat), and the toys page (more Mario toys). That's all for now, but Canada Day is coming up and we plan on partying up with Joe and Leanne and spending some time at Universal Studios Osaka. We will have more pictures to send out for next week. Until then, have fun and have a great CANADA DAY!

Okay I'm done, Carl.