Took an early train from Nagoya to Iga City. Nice slow train ride.
Iga City is known as one of the birth places of Ninjitsu. The train for the last transfer to Iga City has a Ninja paint job.
We ate a picnic in the park consisting of hotdogs with onions and some inari. I was a bit thirsty so I went over to one of my favorite vending machines in Japan.
We visited the ninja house and ninja museum in Iga’s Ueno park. The house was interesting, showcasing all the architectural tricks a ninja would use to enter, exit and observe visitors. There were also secret weapons stashes. The museum explained the origins of the ninja, ninja weapons and ninja costumes. They also had a somewhat silly ninja stunt show for children. After the show I spent an extra 100Y to throw shuriken at a foam target and managed one bullseye.
On they way back to Nagoya from Iga was stopped at the Rumiko sake factory to pick up a bottle of their newly released Nama Zake. I also tasted a sake that had been barrel aged in wood for 14 years. After the sake factory we passed through a district famous for ceramics whose main output appears to be ceramic tanuki… Racoon Dog idols with gigantic testicles meant to bring good luck and good health.
We got back to Nagoya and ate dinner at the Marusai, a fish restaurant. We had some special toro served on the bone and scraped at the table. I ate some sazae sashimi and a toro donbury. We also had a couple of fish heads and some hoke.
Back in 1996/1997 I worked on Titanic at Digital Domain and made friends with an exchange artist from Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting Station named Sori. In 2001 at Sony Imageworks I made friends with another exchange artist named Tadao. I’ve kept in touch with them over the years and try to visit whenever I’m in Japan. It’s great to see that Sori is now a film director and Tadao works with Sori as his visual effects supervisor. They are a great team who work on great projects together.
I went to luch with Tadao at a bento place owned by a famous theater actor, grabbed some coffee and went to OxyBot Studios to see what they are up to. I met the staff and saw some great work being done. Sori and Tadao have surrounded themselves with a friendly and talented group of artists. I’m looking forward to their future collaborations. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to catch up with them during this trip.
Took the Shinkansen Hikari to Nagoya to visit relatives. There was a bit of confusion at the train station. I was told to meet them at the “Gold Clock Tower” but they were waitng near the “Silver Clock Tower”. No biggie.
Had a great home made lunch of salmon sushi, inari and oden with plenty of beer. That night we went to Korona World. It’s a sort of family entertainment complex with a multi-plex, arcade, restaurants and karaoke but the centerpiece is a sauna and bath house. I guess it’s not considered an onsen because the water source is not a naturally heated spring. In addtion to a wide array of indoor and outdoor baths they have the largest sauna I’ve ever seen. It’s a huge room with three adjunct “stone sauna” rooms. In the middle of the main room there are large steel doors with rail tracks coming out. There’s a fence around the tracks and a parabolic reflector above. On a schedule, the doors open to reveal a giant oven. There are two mining carts full of rocks basking in the oven. The carts enter the room and the doors close behind it. A rush of heat bounces off the parabolic reflector and fills the room (click the link to see the video).
We finished up with another round of baths and I was ready to crash out for the evening.
Departed SFO for Narita via Seattle. Had planned to wake up at 4am for final packing and get to the airport by 5:30am but overslept and woke up at 5am. Managed to get out the door ten after five and made it to the airport just after 6am. Went to the international terminal but found out that my flight to seattle was, in fact, domestic… duh. Jammed through the airport and checked in with just moments to spare. Had a four hour layover in Seattle and got to Narita in one piece on Dec. 10th.
Dec. 10th
Got some Yen from the ATM and picked up my rental cell phone. Made it to Shibuya on the Narita Express. Pain in the ass schlepping bags through Shibuya Station. Could not find the elevators. Somehow manages to get a small but bloody cut on my hand but there was no pain so I didn’t notice for a while. A confused Gaijin with a bloody hand wandering around Shibuya station. Got my bags down the stairs but had to push them back up over the crossing near the West exit to the hotel. Settled in for a moment before heading out to meet Tak and Mihai from Digital Frontiers in Naka-Meguro for some sushi.
Had a great dinner at “Yoshi Zushi” よã—寿å¸
Mixed sashimi platter – Yuzu Ika, Toro, Hamachi, Aji, Ebi, Small white fish whose name I forgot. Drank a lot of beer and nihon-shu.
Second course was yaki-miso shirako, fresh shiokara , hotate with uni sauce and kujira steak.
Finished up with some engawa, tamago and aji nigiri.
Went to Karaoke with Mihair & Justine until 4am. Brought along a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask to share. Belted out some punk and metal and generally hammed it up for a good time.
My proposal for a crowd animation course at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 in December in Yokohama, Japan has been approved! I’m really looking forward to organizing this course and attending the conference. We’ve got some stellar talent presenting at this course representing work from Pixar, ImageMovers Digtial, Digital Frontier, Massive Software and OLM Digital. More info to come!
Last night after a wonderful tasting of Laphroaig, my friend Chris busted out with some amazing Kit-Kat bars he brought back from Japan. My personal favorites were the baked potato and buttered corn flavors but we also had soy flavor, mango flavor and green tea flavor kit-kat bars. Oishii!
I bought a few rather interesting toys in Japan. All of these were picked up at Kiddyland in Omotesando and many can also be found up on-line at Strapya World.
Aero Spider:
Bandai Company: Tuttuki Bako, Tangible Interactive Game 2008
Please watch “The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief“. It’s a wonderful documentary about host boys in Osaka. It starts out kind of happy-go-lucky but spirals into a world of relative sadness as it turns out that most of the women customers of Stylish Club Ryakko are themselves hostesses and sex workers who need to buy the affections of host boys over thousand dollar champagne calls since their own attempts at normal relationships have gone the dysfuntional route.
Last night was had one of the most interesting dinners I have ever tasted. We ate at an izakaya in Kyoto called Okariba. The taisho, Aoki-san, hunts his own wild game, forages his own mushrooms, grows his own vegetables and raises his own bees and locusts. On the menu last night:
Grilled Wild Boar Skewers
Steamed Bear Shoulder in lemon shoyu
Bear rump
Smoked goose
Misoyaki Vegetables
Grasshoppers
Bees and bee larvae
While shitake mushrooms
Grilled pan fried tofu
Black Snake Whisky
Red Snake Whisky
Okinanwa Snake Whisky
Giant Killer Bee Whisky
Wasabe Leaf Salad
If you ever make it to Kyoto and are a serious carnivore this is the place to go for a unique experience. Aoki-san was charming and welcommed us to try each dish with an explanation of it’s origin including when and where he bagged it. His hunting rifles are proudly on display in the restaurant.
If society ever falls apart, I have a feeling Aoki-san will be right at home.
