Not Attending the World Exposition

While I’m talking about things I’m not doing, I suppose I should mention that a few weeks ago the World Exhibition shut down, and I officially missed my chance to attend.

For the past 6 months, the world Expo was just outside of Nagoya city, only an hour from my apartment. Since people travel from all over to attend, it seemed a shame not to go when it was so close to me.

And yet in the end, I let it just pass me by.

The Japanese have a saying: “jibun ni makenai” or which means “not lose to yourself” or not give in to your weaker instincts. Sometimes with these type of things it’s difficult to know which way you would be losing to yourself.

For instance on one shoulder was a little voice saying to me: “there you go again Joel, wasting your life away and letting all these opportunities slip through your fingertips. This is a classic example of how your laziness is allowing another great opportunity to slip away from you. You should get out there and enjoy the expo.”

And yet on the other shoulder, another voice was saying, “there you go again Joel, just doing things because other people tell you to. The expo probably sucks. It’s probably a lot of people just standing around in long lines for cheap little tourist trap pavilions, but you want to go anyway because you’re a lemming and you just follow the crowd.”

Both laziness and a tendency to follow the crowd are part of my weaker characteristics, so it seemed that either by attending or by not attending I was giving in to my weaker characteristics.

Almost all the reports I heard from the expo complained about the heat, the crowds, and how boring the expo was. And yet part of me felt I should go to the expo anyway just because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have it right at my doorstop.

The expo was supposed to be crowded everyday, but insanely crowded on the weekends and public holidays, so these were to be avoided. I worked on every other day. The solution seemed to be summer vacation.

Every Japanese person I ran this by seemed to think it would be a terrible idea. “It will be even more crowded during summer vacation,” they said.

“Really, but the average person doesn’t have summer vacation,” I argued. “It’s just people who work in the schools. Even then, the Japanese schoolteachers and the students are busy with sports and club activities. It’s just the ALTs who have the summer vacation.”

Most Japanese people were unable to rebut this, but remained firm in their belief that summer vacation was the worst time to go. Sometimes someone would mention housewives bringing the younger kids, or old people traveling more during the summer.

At any rate, it turned out my desire to see the expo was not as great as the desire to see the girl friend, so I headed down to Kyushu as soon as school finished. I toyed with the idea of returning a day early to see the expo, but that was just idle thinking. No one ever returns from summer vacation any earlier than they absolutely have to.

And so I missed the Expo. Maybe someday I’ll regret not taking advantage of it when it was so close, but all reports I heard were simply about long lines, heat, and disappointing exhibits. At the moment, I’m not too upset.

Link of the Day
The Japan Times had an interesting article remembering Lenny Bruce. It got me really curious to hear some of his stuff. Of course I'm much to young to remember Lenny Bruce, but you can find anything on line these days. Click here to hear some of his comedy.

On a completely different note, I always try and give a shout out to my family when I find them online. Here's a shout out to my younger brother, from the Colorado Police Blotter.:

Saturday, Sept. 3
12:25 p.m. - Speeding. Kyle Scott Swagman, 22, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was issued a summons for driving 44 mph in a 30 mph zone in the 100 block of Main Street.