Yesterday something like this happened. I was walking along a well-travelled sidewalk in Osaka city, and some lady comes up to me and starts yelling in my face. Not the semi-bored selling-yelling that the store employees do trying to lure people into their shops, but a full-on angry “I hate your guts and I’m going to let you know it” kind of yelling. My reaction was stupefication. I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at her. It was one of those Star Trek “does not compute. does not compute. illogical. illogical.” moments that is usually followed by the evil robot self-destructing and Kirk getting the green girl. Afterwards I started thinking about this. I think my reaction in Vancouver would have been different. In Vancouver we are all, on occasion, approached by crazy folks. When it does happen my reaction is the instant onset of a fight/flight thought process. I put on my “I don’t take kindly to this crap” demeanour in an attempt not to look like a victim candidate, and do an unconscious evaluation of the likelihood of either escaping or winning a fight should the necessity arise to choose between the two (no, I have never actually fought anybody). But here, in Osaka, that doesn’t happen. My reaction is instead more along the lines of: “…… wha?”

While on the topic, I had another weird random street encounter about a week ago. I was again walking along the sidewalk and this guy walking the other way stops right in front of me and throws down a huge bow. Not the standard everyday bow, but one of the 90 degree big-time serious bows. I stop, confused, and think “a-ha, somebody behind me.” Turn around, nobody there. Turn back, dude is still bowing. WTF. Pause. Options: 1. talk to him and try to figure out what he is doing. 2. run away. Chance of success at option 1 is very small, so I take option 2.

I will never find out what these people were doing. My best theory is that there is some guy wandering around Osaka who resembles me, and is in the habit of pissing off middle-aged women and earning the deep respect of middle-aged guys. I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, we do all look kind of the same.

Going back a few months, when I arrived in Japan, the team members described their idea to me. The idea is called “Funbrella” or asobrella in Japanese (I think. Maybe ansobrella). It is an umbrella that can record and play back the umbrella experience. There is a magnet and coil (basically a microphone/speaker) built into the structure of the umbrella, and if you go outside when it is raining it will record the vibrations of the rain hitting the umbrella. Then later on you can replay the tactile experience of holding an umbrella in the rain. Or, you can hook two umbrellas together over a network and “feel” the other person’s umbrella experience. Pretty crazy I think, and cool.

What I thought at the time, however, in addition to the idea being crazy and cool, was that there was no way it could work. The vibrations caused by the raindrops are far too small to be picked up by the microphone. You simply won’t be able to record anything meaningful. So, I wished the team members the best of luck, and hoped that if things didn’t work they would at least be able to learn from the experience.

Well, it turns out that I was totally wrong. I went to Gifu, tried out the funbrella, and the thing is freaking amazing. It works shockingly well. You hold onto the thing, they press a button on an iPod, and you feel the rain hitting the funbrella. Or they press another button and you feel marbles. They press a different one and you feel natto hitting it (natto doesn’t feel like much). The other demo is the networked funbrellas. You can hold one funbrella, hit the other one on the top, and it feels like you are hitting your own funbrella. Spooky, and excellent.

So, I was wrong. The team members were right, and I applaud them for having the vision and perserverence to carry the project through. Unfortunately they didn’t win the grand prize. That went to another excellent project, Yotaro, a virtual baby made out of rubber that has a genuine runny nose and wriggles around.

So we collected our Mikoshi and pulled it back to the apartment for a bit of practice. The pulling is pretty easy, but carrying is tricky as you have to maneuver it up on your shoulders without tipping it and crushing anybody. It is especially important as there are a number of small boys mounted on top of the thing, and they are quite fragile (although a second set is brought along just in case). The practice went well, and we proceeded out into the neighbourhood, bringing Mikoshi cheer to various areas.

There were a number of stops where we would ritually carry the Mikoshi in a circle, ritually put it down, the boys would be ritually carried out, we would ritually spin it wildly in a circle, then the boys would ritually be put back in. All a very strictly defined process in that fantastic Japanese manner. It is probably worth mentioning that I think the carrying of the Mikoshi in general may be the ideal Japanese task. In the carrying process no individual can make anything happen independently. The thing is simply too heavy and the momentum too great. The group must come to a consensus and act in a coordinated manner in order for something to happen, and a poorly coordinated group will simply fail.

Now, you may notice something odd about the folks carrying the Mikoshi: they’re all dudes. It seems that carrying this thing is considered very manly, and it has never crossed anybody’s mind that a woman might want to carry it. Now, women can participate in the event, but they are relegated, along with the children and more effeminate men, to the less-cool Mikoshi-like things which trail behind the main Mikoshi.

We were finally done our rounds, and we retired to a meeting room (no girls allowed) to eat too little food and drink too much drink. People were at first a little reserved, but as always it only takes half a beer to crack the facade, and everybody is best friends, even if they don’t have a clue what the other person is saying. In the photo here you can see me right about at the point where I was trying to explain that no, actually Celine Dion is terrible, I’ve never read “Anne of Green Gables” so I really can’t comment, and Bryan Adams is acceptable in small doses (why can’t they have seen Trailer Park Boys or something Canadian and interesting?).

At this point things went downhill a little bit. Friendly samurai dude brought out some “Scotch,” which is in quotes because I have never seen a colourless, odorless (except alcohol) Scotch, let alone a single malt which is labelled simply as “Islay” without any distillery mentioned. So, it was terrible but it was a kind gift and I drank it so as not to offend him. Then Kitamura-sensei and I crashed in his apartment for a bit, and I stumbled to his bathroom and may have made a bit of a mess, I’m really not sure. At one point I remember waking up and seeing his 13 year old daughter looking at me lying on the floor. I wonder what she was thinking (stupid Canadian guy doesn’t know how to drink). It was 5 in the afternoon when I was roused to consciousness. I made it home and slept forever. The next day I made it through “East of Eden” in about 15 hours. It was good, and sad.

Oh, and to the weird guy with poofy hair: apparently you have a wife and a kid, but based on the frequency and intensity with which you were hugging me you may want to take a few moments to self-analyze and see if you may be better suited to a different lifestyle.

One of the first things I learned about Osaka is that it is quite large. My first weekend I decided to walk across it. Well, I wouldn’t have tried if my map had had a scale. It turns out that my little planned stroll was about 10km in distance. That might not be so bad, except I was constantly getting turned around. So, I ended up wandering aimlessly. Not so bad, actually, as I discovered some interesting things, including what are certainly the best Dance Dance Revolutionaries I have ever seen.

I was a bit better prepared for my next outing. I went to Osaka Castle with a Taiwanese guy who lives in the same building as me. The displays in the castle were good at educating me about Japan’s extremely bloody history, but as an actual living historical record the building was a bit lacking. If I were able to give a piece of belated advice to the Japanese warlords of centuries past it would be as follows: building defensive fortifications (i.e. castles) out of wood and paper is not such a good idea. Yeah, the most recent castle (of many) built on the the site is from 1931. Aside from the castle itself there was a very cool monument with a plaque saying something like “Here in 1572 the holy monk Kitayama hung his robe upon a pine branch, praying that his order might flourish.” (all paraphrased). I thought that was very cool, and they even had the stump of the pine tree in question. When I hit the big time maybe somebody will install a plaque where I hang up my coat.

A bit about my lab now. All the people are extremely friendly and welcoming. I think I’ve been assimilated successfully, at least to the point where I can interject with the odd “majide!?” in a conversation and get a chuckle from those involved. They threw me a nice welcome party, with an unusual assortment of foods and an odd contraption (pictured) that spins noodles around a little whirlpool, and the other night we had a barbecue and drank beer in the parking lot. Last weekend was a bit notable as my boss took me out and fed me some awesome yakitori, a fair amount of beer, and chicken sashimi. Chicken sashimi is an odd thing. If you are curious, raw chicken liver is squishy, whereas raw chicken stomach is a bit crunchy.

Next weekend I will be helping carry a float in a Mikoshi festival parade. I’ve read that every year a few people get killed in these things (presumably crushed during the float combats), but my understanding is that our local version of the festival is relatively peaceful. We will see.

My second weekend was more fun. I headed to downtown Osaka with not much of a plan, and ended up wandering randomly. I ended up in Yodabashi, which turns out to be the ultimate “Garth Store,” selling pretty much all I’ve ever wanted. Watches on the first floor, cameras on the second, TVs on the third… you get the idea. It is also an amazingly intense environment, with employees up on ladders yelling at people to come on over and buy this or that. I get the impression that in general Japanese take shopping very seriously, and go about the activity with intensity.

While I was in Osaka I went into some random restaurant place because it had an appetizing picture of rice and beef in the window (I ignored the McDonald’s next door. Yay me!). The restaurant inside appeared to be the equivalent of an American truck stop. Pretty low budget, with stools crammed together around a bar area. The guy came over and while I was trying to figure out exactly how to tell him I wanted the rice and beef bowl he says to me “beef only!” So, yeah, this restaurant serves only one thing: rice and beef. It makes ordering easy!