Ocean and I had a delightful afternoon hike around the Minogawa Reservoir yesterday. With the boys out of the house with friends and Nadia still not feeling well, it gave me the perfect conditions for an afternoon with my daughter.
Ocean is not happy about hiking with Dad, but the sandwich was good!
I had to drag her out, but by the end of the walk, I think she was enjoying it. The hike took about 90 minutes and it was not too strenuous. The weather in October in Osaka is ideal for being outside. It is so nice to have such a large wilderness area on our doorstep. Walking and talking while being surrounded by tall trees and lovely ferns is so very peaceful and recharges my batteries and clears my mind.
A nice trail goes around the Minogawa Reservoir
I now know where to consistently find Japanese macaques in the park. Once again, they were near the reservoir.
I am catching up on blog posts. I visited Dubai last spring.
It was my first time to the global city of Dubai. The largest city of the United Arab Emirates marked country number 64 on my life list. I was here on business so only had 23 and 1/2 hours on the ground. The trip was special because I got the opportunity to fly business class on Emirates, rated by many, the best business class airline experience in the world. Being in education and having a large family, I usually fly economy so it was a nice change. Probably the best thing about it besides the obvious fully-reclining seat/bed and space is the lack of waiting in lines. Before my flight, I went to the business class lounge with the extra time I save with skipping the lines through immigration and at the gate. Who cares what section A-B-C-D is boarding when one can leisurely stroll through the first and business class entry and board the plane without worrying about people coming behind you. It is a bit of a different world. Of course in my opinion, not worth the amount extra one pays, but it is nice.
A typical daytime view in Dubai
Although I wasn’t in the country long, I did have most of the afternoon and evening to go to the famous Mall of the Emirates and Dubai Mall. People in the Gulf region love to shop and the malls were absolutely massive. It felt like the economy is booming here, with thousands of shoppers with lots of bags, tens of booths advertising investing in apartments, including one offer that gave free access to the Trump International Golf Course. I can’t get away from hearing that man’s name. Lots of ostentatious wealth displayed with Ferraris, BMW, etc. Walking around the hotel in the morning just after my arrival, I saw several very drunk or stoned people laughing and shouting coming out of the nightclub. This was at around 5:00 AM.
Civic life centers around the many shopping malls in the city
It truly is a global city with so many nationalities represented in the tourists and workers. I talked to Russians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Moroccans, South Africans, Jordanians, etc. who were working retail in the stores, serving as tour guides or working at the hotels as chefs, porters, etc. The captain announced the pilots and flight attendants were from 9 different countries. The language of the city is English, which is a refreshing change from Japan. I was able to talk to people.
The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world and so I decided to take the tour. I went to the 148th floor, over 800 meters high. It was a spectacular view, similar to experiences I’ve had at the Tokyo Tower, CN Tower Toronto and the Umeda Sky Building here in Osaka. Huge skyscrapers next to it looked tiny. It was quite crowded and I paid extra to avoid a 3-hour wait. I bought my ticket online in the morning and was disappointed to see the long wait times.
Shopping is King! This was in the luxury section of the Dubai Mall with a higher % of locals
General Observations
Dubai was much more modern and larger than Bahrain, the only other time I’ve been in the Gulf region. I saw more Western influence in Dubai, with lots of tourists and expatriates.
The contrast between women covered completely in black, Arab clothing to women walking around in tight shorts and tank tops is always striking. Japanese women generally carry themselves meekly and it was nice to see confident women strutting brashly around the mall.
The high during the day was 39 Celsius which is normal for spring here. Between the extremely high temperatures and lack of sidewalks or bike paths, you rarely see people walking.
A haze covered the blue skies and I was reading about Saudi Arabia having high levels of air pollution.
I think most Arab men have beards because they can. I noticed both Arab men and women are hirsute. If I tried growing a beard, it would be patchy for a long time, but Arab men have full, uniform facial hair.
The view from the top of the Burj Khalif
I always ask myself, could I live in the place that I visited? I really didn’t spend enough time here to give a definitive answer. Wilderness and nature are important to me and I would have to see if theArabian/Persian Gulf and the Red Sea and flat desert landscapes could satisfy me.
More people are active at night due to the daily heat.
The amount of wealth that has come to the Arabian peninsula with the discovery of oil is astounding. You can see much of the consequences of this in a small area like Dubai. I wonder what the long-term consequences will be on the people of the Emirates.
Every time I visit Tokyo I see something new. Of course, it is the largest metropolitan area in the world so it would make sense that there is a lot to explore. The Japan Council of International Schools meets in different schools every year in Tokyo and it gives me a chance to see different areas.
This week I spent the night in one of the richest and most exclusive residential and shopping districts in the city, Azuba and Roppongi. I was really curious to see the area because the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) is always holding events there. There are many embassies and foreign residences in these suburbs. I arrived late on Monday evening after taking the shinkansen after school. It was an absolutely perfect night for a walk, with a fresh early autumn air and a clear night.
Japanese Garden juxtaposed with the Roppongi Hills Shopping Complex
I was staying in a small business hotel in Azabu and walked over to the Grand Hyatt Tokyo Roppongi Hills. There are hundreds of designer boutiques, high-end shopping stores, restaurants, etc. The mall is beautifully designed with gardens, nice views to the city, etc.
Asahi TV studios are also in the complex
I have been to Tokyo many times and the city still fascinates me. I didn’t have a lot of time to see the area because of work, but I did get to feel the swanky luxury of one of the most exclusive areas in the city.
It was my final Falcon Cup as a father yesterday! Ocean is in grade 5 and she will be in middle school next year. The Falcon Cup is the annual elementary soccer tournament held at Canadian Academy on Rokko Island. I love coaching young people and it was such a delightful day in the autumn sun. Coaching the elementary soccer teams also gives me an excuse to spend more time with Ocean. Her team lost a tough game, 0-1 but then came back to win 4-0 in the second game. In the elimination round, they lost 2-3 to the top OIS team.
Ocean is ready for defense!
Ocean is a pretty good athlete. She is tall, slender and coordinated with pretty good strength and speed. She does lack a bit of aggressiveness, I think because she has such an empathetic and level-headed nature to her. You can see from the video highlights that she is active and contributes to her team.
Even though we did not win any trophies yesterday, all 5 of our teams won at least one game and most importantly, the kids enjoyed a day of exercise, teamwork and experiencing the ups and downs of winning and losing.
I would like to thank CA athletic director Sim Cook for hosting the tournament and my coaching partner, Trevor Jones, for his work with the students and being such a good guy.
Most municipalities in Japan have distinctive manhole covers, usually featuring characteristics of the area. We live in Minoh and the famous waterfall and maple leaves are portrayed. Often they are also colored and it shows the attention to detail that public spaces receive from city officials. I know several expats that collected photos of the covers from the different towns they visited.
I continue to cycle often in the morning. This is at the top of the suburb of Saito Nishi. A new highway can be seen in the distance just under the cloud-shrouded hills of the Minoh Quasi-National Park.
Yesterday I devoted to Oliver and we had a good time together. We went on a bike ride around Expo Park, did some errands in town and went for a short hike in the hills. With three children, I find myself spending more time with Owen because our interests are similar but I am trying to make time for Oliver and Ocean, too.
Every year we take the new teachers to a traditional “tachi” – stand “nomi” – drink or in English, Standing Bar. Standing Bars are unsophisticated, cheap places aimed at salarymen on their way home after work. They are usually located near train stations and offer simple cold beer, sake, ume (plum wine) and the Japanese version of bar food, izakaya, or deep-fried meats and seafood with edamame.
I took the photo above of a standing bar near Osaka train station. You come in and find a table and in this one, a boss lady takes your order, making you order food with your drinks. As you can see, the decor is spartan, although I saw this retro beer sign that I would have loved to have in university in my apartment or if I had a bar in my home, it would be a great conversational piece.
Asahi Beer Promotional Poster
As you can see in the photo standing bars have a predominately male clientele, although there were a couple of women and even a mother with her baby in a stroller when we first arrived. I do feel that men here spend too much time at work or socializing with their colleagues after work and not enough time with their families, however, it is nice occasionally to check these places out. They only open from around 5:00 PM and close early in the evening.
Summer is my favorite time of the year. I experienced long, cold winters and cold wet springs and autumns growing up in pre-global warming northern Michigan. The brief respite of the “tropical trumpet” as ecologist Tim Flannery calls it, during July and August was such a respite from the usually inclement weather. It also coincides with school holidays and as a busy educator, I find summer a time to reconnect with myself and my family. As I am writing this on September 1, I am feeling a bit of melancholy and looking back at the peaceful and sweaty days of July and early August. I’ve been so busy with the start of the school year that I did not write much in August, so I am catching up with the end of our summer family activities.
Nadia, Ocean and I attended a big summer music festival called Summer Sonic. The tickets were expensive (14,000 yen – $130 USD) and we were kind of grumbling about being tired and not wanting to go, but what a mistake it would have been to stay home. We all had such a fantastic full day of music, dancing and spending time together! It was well worth the price. It was the first time in years that I’ve attended a summer festival. We went to the first day of the 2-day festival and there were 4 stages with 6-8 bands performing on each one. We walked between venues and the concert times were staggered so we saw an amazing range of music. We caught all or some of the sets of the following major pop music artists:
Walk the Moon, Alessia Cara, J Balvin, Beck, Tom Misch, Rex Orange County, Portugal The Man, St. Vincent and Jess Glynne
It was a super hot, humid glorious summer day so the water stations and air conditioning of the Sonic Stage, inside the Osaka Evassa basketball arena helped us keep cool. There were many highlights.
Beck – I forgot how much I liked him and he was a true entertainer, providing a good 90 minutes of delightful music. It was the best overall performance.
J Balvin is massive on the pop charts for his reggaeton/hip-hop style of music. I had never heard of him, but loved his more traditional Colombian cumbia and salsa-inspired songs.
St. Vincent reminded me of Talking Heads and I loved her visual style and dance grooves in her music.
Lots of energy from Walk the Moon and Portugal the Man. Both groups had huge pop hits, but I felt both really wanted to play arena rock and Metallica-like hard rock respectively instead.
Ocean absolutely loved Alessia Cara, whose target audience I think is teenage girls.
Ocean and her BFF, Alona enjoy Alessia Cara
In between shows, we went to the food court/village and had some super greasy but delicious hamburgers. The concert was held in Maishima Sports Park, an artificial island in the port area of Osaka Bay. The professional baseball team Orix Buffaloes have a training grounds there and the professional basketball team Osaka Evassa’s arena is also located there. It was a distinctive place to hold a festival and despite the tens of thousands of people, it didn’t feel crowded at all. Japanese culture keeps things orderly and the need for security and seeing young people fighting, vomiting or causing havoc was not happening, thankfully.
In the civilized section of the stadium!
The highlight of the day was bonding with my daughter Ocean, my wife Nadia and our friends! What a great way as a father to spend time with a pre-teen girl! We will definitely go back next year if possible. Having two teenagers in the house keeps us “hip” to pop music and culture and keeps us young!
Harrison hunting in Montana (courtesy of the New York Times)
Jim Harrison is one of my favorite authors, partly because many of his novels are set in my birthplace of the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. The UP is a sparsely populated area the size of Maryland that forms the southern shore of Lake Superior. It is in my mind, a distinctive place in homogenized suburban America and has a culture of its own. He is from the northern part of lower Michigan and a graduate of Michigan State University. He is most known for the novella that became a movie, Legends of the Fall.
The Big Seven is one of his last books, written in 2015, a year before he died of a heart attack. It is not one of his best, but it was an enjoyable read. He goes back to a recurring character, Detective Sunderson, a retired state policeman and the detective that lives in Marquette, Michigan. It is a crime novel dealing with a violent, poor family living in the western Upper Peninsula. I love his references to life in the UP, like pasties, and his description of the people, places and lifestyle there. You can tell he knows the area. The detective story is a page turner, not for the crimes itself, but for what was going on with Sunderson.
I do have problems with the book. The main character Sunderson is in his late sixties, eats too much and drinks a lot, but is picking up women constantly. I just don’t believe so many beautiful young women are into retired, out-of-shape, alcoholics. He also constantly describes Sunderson’s drinking habits. Some of it felt like filler and a good editor would have helped him.
The title comes from the Seven Deadly Sins. Sunderson is trying to write an essay or novel on his “eighth sin” of violence but is slowed by his drinking and laziness.
Jim Harrison was a literary figure like one of my favorite authors when I was young, Ernest Hemmingway. An adventurer with a zest for the good life whose writing set in places like the American west and northern Michigan. The book made me consider going back to Hemmingway now as a middle-aged man to see how my perceptions of his writing have changed in the last 25 years.
The Itsukushima shrine on Miyajima Island is one of 18 United Nations Cultural Heritage sites in Japan. The Shinto shrine has an unusual Torii (gate) in the tidal bay that draws hundreds of tourists daily. Besides the gate and temple, the island is dramatically beautiful with sharply rising green hills and rocky outcrops. There are also breathtaking views of the islands of the Seto Inland Sea. After the Atomic Bomb Dome / Peace Park, it is the attraction to see in Hiroshima.
Oliver giving his best “Blue Steel”
It was a super hot day with temperatures close to 100 F. In my previous visits, we usually hike to the summit of Mount Misen, the highest point on the island, but instead took the cable car up to the top. The views did not disappoint, but we were ready to cool down after walking around at the top station.
Ocean under the Torii as the tide is going out
We stopped for ice cold Summer I.P.A. on tap at the Miyajima Brewery and they really hit the spot. Before leaving the island, we had to try the Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. The four-hour drive back to Osaka went well. We recovered this weekend. It has been nice to have my uncle visit in this last week of summer holidays.
Nadia & Jack sample some of Suntory’s best whiskeys
I am not a big drinker but I do love the science behind fermentation and distillation. We visited the Suntory Yamazaki Whisky distillery in Kyoto on Wednesday. I recommend the tasting tour if you enjoy whiskey. Note that in Scotland and Japan, whisky is spelled without an “e” and in Ireland and America, we add the “e”.
Whiskey comes from barley and after fermentation and distillation, it is a clear liquid. The distinctive color of whiskey comes from tannins in the storage barrels. The longer it stays in the barrel, the darker the color. Turning barley, water and yeast into whiskey only take a week, but aging in barrels can take up to 30 years.
whiskey library
The elusive Yamazaki 18 Whisky was not available for sale. It is the crown jewel whiskey in the Suntory range of whiskeys. We hope to find a bottle for my uncle someday.
I particularly liked the whiskey library on the premises. The researchers at the distillery try different methods and blends to come up with better tasting products. They also sample other whiskeys from around the world. Visitors can buy these test whiskeys and they come in really cool bottles.
Babe Ruth visited the brewery in 1931
After lunch in a restaurant near the distillery, we went to a sake museum in Kyoto. After navigating the narrow streets of the city, we eventually arrived at the museum. Sake takes more processing than beer and wine and there were informative displays going through each step. The highlight was a sign that commemorated Babe Ruth’s visit to the brewery.
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