Rocking out at Big Rock
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 in: News, Travel
When I went climbing with Ryan, he was telling me that there was another climbing gym that might be closer to my house than Aim, called ” Big Rock.”
Not only is it closer to my house, it’s only a few stops away on the train, and is maybe 4 blocks from the train station. That’s what I call an easy approach! As I left the station (中小田井駅), I saw another foreigner walking with a couple Japanese people. This situation can be a little awkward at times. There’s something about being a foreigner in Japan, especially rural parts where you don’t expect to see other gaijin, you almost take the Japanese perspective and are a little bit startled. Today I was feeling pretty good about everything and gave him a hearty “Hi there!” to which he mumbled a response and shared a laugh with his Japanese companions after our paths crossed. Oh well, I guess he was just as surprised to see a foreigner in suburban Nagoya as I was.
Not two blocks from gym is a park with some pretty good candidates for slackline trees. I’ll have to come back here sometime. Moving on!
Big Rock is considerably larger than Aim, with mostly bouldering but it does have some high walls for ropes. The same plush crash pads line the floor, and the walls have the familiar grease smears from months of use. The gym isn’t quite so well-kept as Aim, but the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed. I felt a lot more comfortable talking to the other climbers (many of whom were really strong!) and made a good friend in Tomo, who had studied in Arizona for college and spoke excellent English. He’s familiar with the outdoor climbing in the area, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to go out before I go.
I got back to Iwakura and met up with Hiro and Shinya, and we went to a Yakitori place near the station. As we ate delicious grilled foods and discussed the way kids are raised in Japan, we enjoyed a “champon” of alcohol, the crown jewel being a glass of Kubota Man-juu. This sake is $15 (or was it $30?) a cup, and I’d say worth every penny. It was amazingly smooth, and when I drank the remaining sake from the Masu (wooden box the cup comes in), I could taste the difference the pine made in the flavor. It was a truly smooth drink. Even though I might never have it again, I learned a new way to savor the good things in life. Today was full of moments like that.
That same night…
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 in: News, Travel
After our climbing adventure Ryan had to head home for dinner, which left Conrad and I with nothing to do for the rest of the evening. A voracious reader, he’d been reading a fantasy series, almost ready to move on to the next book, but it’s hard to get ahold of English novels around these parts. We checked the large bookstore in Nagoya station to no avail, so we found some chairs outside a fancy cafe to flip through his Lonely Planet guide. Inside the building was so warm, we soon found ourselves stripping off layers of clothing. I believe the only thing preventing people from coming out to tell us to leave was our rough-and-tumble appearance. Conrad is a beast, and I hadn’t shaved since I arrived in Japan two weeks ago.
We found some other bookstores in the Guide, and I also caught a glimpse of a really interesting Shrine that hosts one of three national treasures that were supposedly passed down to the first emperor of Japan by the goddess Amateratsu herself (in this case, it’s a sword). Only the emperor himself gets to see these artifacts, which is probably for the best; chances are, the objects in my imagination are way cooler than they look in reality. We took a subway to Jingu-mae, which I first thought would lead us to a bookstore and then a park in which we could drink the bottle of wine Conrad had brought with him from Ise, but then I realized I had subconsciously chosen the train station for Shrine instead. We shrugged it off and found that the entrance to the large park surrounding the shrine was right outside the station. Fortune had shined her smiling face upon us once again.
We briefly visited the shrine, but were far more impressed with the Cypress and Camphor trees, many of which had been raised by monks over a thousand years ago. The biggest tree in the park was an enormous camphor, lovingly surrounded by a fence a wrapped in a decorative ceremonial rope. Nearby was a large storage of rice wine; the significance of that escaped me, but who am I to argue?
We found our way to another station to take us near Sakae, more in the downtown area of Nagoya, to continue our search for a good bookstore. We found ourselves in a very fancy shopping mall, walking around the Rolex and Montblanc stores, pretending we were the kind of people to drop $15K on an accessory. Eventually we found out we were in the wrong building (as if we didn’t already know) and found the Maruzen down the street, which fortunately had the books we were seeking.
On our way back to the station, we stopped so Conrad could get a photo with one of the poor girls handing out tissue packets, advertising what looks like “full release” massages. She was dressed in a kigurumi (stuffed animal suit), which was the main reason Conrad wanted the photo. Immediately thereafter, an American approached us and asked if we knew where the Hub was.
Wait, did he just said, “the Hub….?”
Three years ago, the Hub was my main bar back in Takadanobaba, near the school. A western-style pub, it caters mostly to the foreign crowd, but is also popular amongst Japanese people too. I knew it was a chain, but I didn’t know there was one in Nagoya. We must find it!!
It took a bit of walking and a lot of asking, but we finally found the hub, and our night began. We took a seat next to an Iranian whose name I can’t remember or pronounce, but he had lived and worked in Japan for over a decade. His English wasn’t very good, so we ended up conversing in Japanese for most of the evening. After a while, his Jamaican friend Bryan showed up, and that led to some more interesting conversation. A lot of drinks were passed around, and my evening began to deteriorate into a collection of memories fit for a bullet list:
- drinking TARANTULAS (omg I missed that drink)
- Trying to get Tyler a date
- Trying to convince people to go to late-night karaoke
- Arm wrestling a former world champion, failing miserably
- Hanging out with some randoms, convincing them to come to karaoke
- Actually being able to sing “One more time, one more chance” by Masayoshi Yamazaki by reading the lyrics
- Getting treated to some delicious 3am Ramen at Ichiran, laughing at all the other drunk people
- Waving goodbye to our new friends
- Realizing we never got anyone’s contact information as the cab pulls away
- Wandering around looking for a manga cafe or some place comfortable to sleep for a couple hours
- Settling on McDonalds
- Waking up to the sound of Spanish backwards
- Realizing we were surrounded by Brazilians.
- Catching an early train back home, actually making it to bed in one piece at 7:30am
- spending the entirety of the following day in bed, realizing that “I’m too old for this shit”
- Feeling great on Monday, ready to do it all over again!
Aim for Adventure
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 in: News, Travel
OK! this is what I actually meant to write about. Having some time off, I got in touch with Conrad and Ryan, two old Pipeworks friends who happen to live in the area. Conrad is a JET teacher in a nearby prefecture, and Ryan is an expat living here in Nagoya, doing some sort of systems management for Ikea (which is pronounced イケア, “ee-kay-ah” around here. Say Ikea and you’ll just get blank stares). Back home, we were merely climbing acquaintances with a passing familiarity. 
Here, we are brothers, bound by our common trait of not being Japanese. Back home, people do judge you based on how you look, including your cultural heritage, but here, the distinction is much more clear-cut. It’s not about determining which category you fit into, you simply either are or are not from around here. If you aren’t from around here, you are gaijin, an outsider. Welcome to Japan, enjoy your stay; when are you going home again? It’s just another cultural peculiarity to get used to when you’re here. For expats like Ryan, I’m sure he’s gotten used to a variety of these things over the years. It’ll be interesting to pick his brain over this…
Anyways, where were we? OH! Going climbing! Ryan squeezes climbing into his busy schedule by going the first Saturday of every month with a few coworkers, and this time I’ve invited myself and Conrad along. Conrad has been getting a different Japan experience as an English teacher in Ise, a couple hours from any major city. I wasn’t sure if he would be able to come, since it’s so far, but he leapt at the opportunity to come out and hang. The 2 hour train ride was a small penance to pay for a familiar face and some good exercise. I can’t blame him for getting a little cabin fever, stuck in a small town where he only knows a handful of people, and a majority of them are preteens.
We met under the golden clock at Nagoya station and jumped on the metro. A winding path from the station led us to the gym, a strictly bouldering affair with a small reception area and a second level for hanging out and reading manga. The climbing area floor was covered with the plushest crash pads I’d ever been on. The climbing wall was finished wood, peppered with holds, some of which were drilled directly into the wall’s surface. Japanese climbing gyms set a little different than they do back home. The holds on the wall are a near-permanent fixture; they just move the tape around for the most part, or have books for members to diagram problems they make for themselves. It takes some getting used to.
I can’t overstate how good it felt to get some climbing in after my relatively sedentary week of sitting in front of a computer. Being able to hang out with these cool guys was a big bonus as well. We climbed until about 2 or 3pm and returned to the big station in Nagoya. Ryan had to get home for dinner, but Conrad and I had nothing to get back to, so we decided to wander around for a bit. That story will have to wait…
What IS that thing?
Monday, February 15th, 2010 in: News
So you’ve probably noticed the new banner for the site… and wondered what the heck it means. Well, I’m not sure if I explained this before, but Griddable is an anagram for my last name, Baldridge.
The resulting shape from all the lines criss-crossing shows where each character started and ended up, becomes a metaphor for the intersecting paths of our lives as we dance across this blue marble. Now the secret is out!
Where are you!?
Friday, February 12th, 2010 in: News, Travel
So a lot of people have asked me “where are you exactly??” I think I came up with a good answer. How about I invite you to my ‘hood?
Click on the image above to check out my neighborhood on Google Maps!
So, you might not know where Nagoya is, let alone Iwakura. I’m in a little suburban area of Nagoya, the capitol of Aichi prefecture. More specifically, I’m living in the house on the left, with the blue roof. My room is the second floor on the left (can you see me waving?). Across the street, the white building with the green roof is the neighborhood grocer, run by Hiro’s aunt and uncle, the source of our amazing meals. Our offices are on the second floor. So as you can see, my commute is not too bad, in a land where people spend more than an hour getting to and from their offices every day.
Of course, 2 minutes of walking a day is just not enough to justify the mountain of delicious food I get to consume thanks to the kitchen below our office. Now you know why I’m worried about gaining weight!
Yatto! 休日
Friday, February 12th, 2010 in: News, Travel
our ママチャリ biker gang
Finally, a day off!
Hiro is going to Fukuoka for the weekend for another Hobby Fair, and to visit some business contacts and yo-y0 pals, which leaves us with the weekend wide open! The guys took Friday off to go see the new One Piece movie. I opted out, and instead found a cafe and worked through some of the articles on Framing Analysis that my friend Leo gave me before I left. Inspired by the dense academic tomes, I began to diagram the different ways a Social Movement Organization utilizes framing methods to draw interest and recruits, and then started to write my own little article about how framing analysis theory can be applied to graphic design and corporate identity branding. Exciting stuff!
Well, maybe not to you, but I sure felt productive getting absorbed into it. I was reminded of my meetings with Leo; we always have new and interesting ideas to discuss, and it always feels so groundbreaking, like we’re pressing theories forward into uncharted territory. I’ll have to send him an e-mail when I’ve pounded out my little article. Sometimes you find people in your life that challenge or stimulate you to expand your understanding of things. Don’t lose track of those people, they make life interesting.
That’s not actually why I sat down to write this post, but that’s what came out. I’ll just leave you with a shot from the kaiten-zushi place where we had dinner. Yum!
deliciousness comes on a conveyer belt
My Week So Far
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 in: News, Travel
I think I might have a little jet lag. As exhausted as I was when we got back from the Hobby Fair, there’s no other explanation for waking up at 6am and being unable to get back to sleep. I took the opportunity to do something productive, and after a yoga session I started sorting through my photos and videos from the previous day, polishing up the past couple posts. Even then, it was still only 9am. Mercifully, Hiro woke up and we made our way over to the office. Near the entrance is Hiro’s dad’s office, where he teaches 囲碁 (Go, one of the oldest board games. I might try to pick up a new hobby while I’m here) . Empty boxes were piled in the main room, artifacts from all the new equipment and furniture with which they’ve been stocking the office.
The office itself is a smaller room lined with enormous computer screens and bulletin boards, with an air purifier on one end to counteract the combined effects of the kerosene space heater across from it and five people occupying the space all day. There are bookshelves but not much vertical space is utilized yet. I would later learn that it would be my responsibility to remedy this. In addition to design, photography and English tutoring, I’ve been brought aboard for what’s known as “DIY” in Japan. In short, I’m also the dedicated handyman for the company. Apparently, there’s an impression that Americans are handy. I’ll try to live up to my reputation. 器用貧乏だからさ。
Jun and Shinya are sharing the living space adjacent to the office, pretty much the perfect size for one or two people. Hiro will be taking over the space once the boys secure an apartment nearby. Below us is the family store, a cute little neighborhood market his aunt and uncle run. They provide us with lunch and dinner on weekdays, an aspect of the job that I didn’t expect to be such a delight. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing the food is, all I can do is post photos for you to feast with your eyes. Considering the nature of our job involves a lot of sitting around on our butts, I’m going to need to develop a serious workout routine to keep myself from getting too fat. Yoga in the morning just isn’t going to cut it! I might have to take up running, or do some karate training in the afternoon. Fortunately, I’ll be meeting up with some former Pipeworks members this Saturday to get some bouldering done. Lucky lucky!
I’ll post more about the work itself when it’s closer to being launched publicly. We’re making great strides towards getting things in order, but we’re playing this one pretty close to the chest. Stay tuned for more details.
World Hobby Fair
Monday, February 1st, 2010 in: News, Travel
Sunday, February 1st. We need to wake early in order to get moving, today is a big day. The World Hobby Fair is coming to the Nagoya dome. A free event showcasing the latest and greatest toys, games, and knick-knacks, with 40,000 people milling around the floor of the giant arena. Now, imagine the kind of line to get into some event. We got to the Nagoya Dome station and there were already event coordinators shouting which way to go. We emerged from the subway station and saw the beast: a line tens of thousands of people long, wrapping its way through the city like a serpent, choking traffic and generally annoying everyone in and around it. Through all the twists and turns as we walked to the end, crying children and impatient parents were mixed in with the excitement and anticipation of the event that lay ahead. Hiro stopped and asked one of the event workers if this was indeed the line for admission to the showcase, and not the merchandising area. はい、そうです。申し訳ありません。Yes, it is. I’m terribly sorry.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN9YdOB0H8Y
It took us half an hour to walk to the 最後尾, the very end of the line. We had walked beyond one of the subway stations we passed on our way there. Nagoya dome popped in and out of view as we rounded corners and went through tunnels alongside the steady stream of people facing the opposite direction. We picked up a few friends along the way who were tired of waiting alone, so they joined us at the end of the line. As the crowd heaved forward, more people arrived to fill in the tail, ensuring that the end of the line would never move forward. The wait? Roughly 150 minutes, according to the guy holding the 最後尾 board. This prediction would be relatively accurate, as it was nearly noon by the time we entered the dome itself.
Rounding the corner at the top of the stairs leading down to the arena floor, we were greeted by familiar characters floating idly in the form of giant balloons, jostling for attention above the swarming crowd. Our north star was a giant red yo-yo hovering over the Bandai stage, beckoning us to take shelter under it. Bandai Namco, one of the largest toy companies in Japan, has foreseen another yo-yo boom, and has thrown its hat into the ring in a big way, joining forces with YoYoFactory, Yomega and Duncan to drum up interest, and fronting quite a bit of capital to do a huge marketing push, replete with advertisements, TV spots and event performances like this one. They’ve allocated 200,000 yo-yos just for promotional giveaways, thirty or fourty thousand of which were handed out at this event alone. The stage itself was an impressive display; Bandai doesn’t do anything half-assed.
Flashy lighting, a huge display, and an energetic MC greet the children crowded around the foot of the stage. A yo-yo player from each company comes out in turn and shows off some tricks. Shun from YoYoFactory, dressed in blue, for the hip hop crowd. Rei in red, for the rockers. Ryuji in a black and white suit, for the young host crowd. The performances themselves didn’t include any terribly difficult tricks, but the choreography was tight and impressive. They had a Bandai employee, an American dressed in a referee outfit, come out to show the international appeal of the yo-yo. 
He spoke Japanese with a thick American intonation, grating on my ears a little. This isn’t because I expect anything more from my fellow foreigners, but given that he’s a Harvard graduate and a regular 社員 for a Japanese company, he probably speaks perfectly fine Japanese. The accent is for the sake of the audience, who apparently wouldn’t be able to recover from the shock. Ah well, it’s all part and parcel of being a gaijin; you can let it bother you or you can accept things for what they are and move on with your life. For some people, this role is their livelihood. Just look at Bob Sapp.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2IirivWMEk
After the last major demonstration of the day, we decided we were done with the event and headed for the door. Our reward was Yama-Chan, an izakaya chain known for featuring Nagoya dishes. We enjoyed tebasaki (a fried chicken) and motsu (some kind of entrails). They even got me to try natto omelette, which I admitted wasn’t half bad. Exhausted, Shinya and I both laid our heads down and took a nap while everyone else finished eating and chatting. We had barely made it home before I passed out in my room, totally spent.
Tomorrow, the real work begins!
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着陸成功！
Sunday, January 31st, 2010 in: News, Travel
I’m writing the first half of this from the lounge in Narita Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Nagoya. I’m still considered on an “international” connecting flight, even though I’m safely over the ocean and on the right island. This of course means that I still have to deal with Japanese customs and immigration in Nagoya. Hopefully they won’t have too much trouble with my one-way ticket. I’ll be here for a while, and it was too expensive to buy a ticket to some other country before I left for Japan. Hell, I don’t even know which country I’m going to first. I might put off language school for another month so I can go hang out with my Grandpa in Shanghai in April, which means I might bounce over to Taiwan or Hong Kong first. In fact, having to plan my language acquisition in China has been a thorn in my newly found itinerary-free lifestyle. I’m tempted to drop the whole thing and just look for a school once I get there. Really all I want is a nice family to stay with to teach me a little Chinese. Know anyone?
The flight itself was impressive. JAL does right by their passengers, even in the cheap seats. The food was decent, the service was friendly and prompt, and the plane itself was very quiet and comfortable, compared to previous experiences with other airlines. Unfortunately, the presence of TV screens behind every seat made it easy for the passengers to ignore each other, and I already began to feel some of the mental isolation I remember so vividly from living in Tokyo. Aside from short, polite exchanges, my neighbors to either side were absorbed in their own materials, and I was left with my books and thoughts, and the in-flight movie selection. I watched UP in Japanese. 冒険はそこにある！
As we neared land, I switched the screen to the camera on the nose of the plane and watched the white clouds fade away and the sunlight on the ocean scroll like movie credits, signaling the end of our voyage. I sailed through security for the 45 minute connecting flight to Chuubu International Airport in Nagoya. Once we boarded, we drove in circles on the tarmac for what seemed like forever. I was getting ready to stop and ask for directions to the runway; I tapped the shoulder of the guy across the aisle and said 運転するほうが早いのかな、It might be faster to drive. This led to a brief single-serving friendship with the young orthopedic surgeon returning from two years studying spinal cord injuries in New Jersey. Pleasant guy, I welcomed him home as we parted ways at the customs gate.
Immigration and customs were a breeze. No one even asked me about a return ticket, and the customs agent seemed more interested in contraband and drugs than anything else. I’m a good boy, so I didn’t have to lie about anything. I got settled into the express train to Hiro’s station, and when it smoothly pulled away from the airport, I realized how much I missed Japan’s fabulous transportation system. Hiro and Shinya (the current 1A world champion) were waiting for me at the station. We went up to 魚民 (Uotami), an izakaya chain, and had us a feast. These guys can really put the food away! Jun joined us later, and we kanpai’ed to my safe arrival and the work that laid before us.
Good thing, the World Hobby Fair is being held tomorrow at the Nagoya Dome, and we’re all going.
Last day on Earth
Thursday, January 28th, 2010 in: News, Travel
So, tomorrow morning I load up the car with dad and drive down to San Francisco to hop on my plane. I’ve already covered the sentimental stuff in my last post. It’s been an emotional couple of days, and there’s never enough time to get everything done. I’m going to miss you all, but I hope you stick around and comment on my posts to let me know you’re still out there.
My going away party was a blast; it didn’t turn out quite the way I had expected but it was still very fun, and served its purpose in bringing together some of the awesome people I know. I’ll be posting a “last week in the states” album soon, so stay tuned. This site will eventually get some images!
Until our paths cross again
-David
