Main Dish: Osaka Expo 2025

My supervisor and I made a journey to Osaka for the Expo! Our plan was to run straight for Italy, then see what other reservations we can snag and what lines we can get through. I managed to get into the Italian Pavilion after just a 30 min wait-a big win for a pavilion that famously takes hours to gain entry, while my supervisor, who was only 10 min behind me after snagging a limited edition Myaku-myaku transit card, had to wait the expected hours. (Worth it for that cute card though)

The main architectural structure of the Expo is a massive ring made entirely of wood. An expression of the expo’s main theme of sustainability and renewability, it was built to be torn down completely and recycled afterwards. The design brings to mind the Japanese style of construction using boltless, screwless, wooden joinery techniques. The interlocking wooden beams gave a feeling of incompletion, or transience, like the skeleton of a house before it’s covered in a proper facade, or before it’s torn down.

My favorite pavilion was a clutch same-day reservation my supervisor managed to get us-the signature pavilion called Earth Mart. The pavilion’s theme was of the Japanese word of grace before eating, “itadakimasu,” which directly translates to something like gratefully and humbly receiving the food set before you. Every art piece was centered on finding appreciation, respect, and eventually play and innovation in our food and also taking time to think about where our food comes from. Engaging in what you eat, being aware of every bite and what it means to eat, understanding the ecological miracles (and human effort) it takes to put these ingredients on a plate-these were all well-timed lessons for me as I had just restarted a mindfulness practice.

You can learn so much about people by looking in their fridge and their pantry. One of my favorite installations in Earth Mart was a wall of large grocery lists detailing how much a single family consumes of each item of their typical grocery run. Every item on the lists reflected the culture and environment of the family’s country of origin, their lifestyle, their socio-economic status, their preferences, their traditions.

The Japanese language loves its four-charater idioms. Another thematic phrase of this entire pavilion was summed up by one such idiom: 一食入魂. When you eat, you are consuming life. This life becomes a part of yours and prolongs your own existence.

The pavilion is home to new batches of umeboshi, pickled plums, that have just begun the pickling process. Apparently, all the visitors of this pavilion can redeem a small portion of this batch in 2050. (Where will I even be in 2050??? On a hoverboard, I hope)

“To eat is… to gather at Earth’s table and to live together.”

Just outside the pavilion was a row of interesting restaurants… that were mostly closed. I did manage to get a little ice cream snack, which earned me VERY hungry, VERY jealous stares from every single child I passed on the way to my next destination.

My other favorite was, surprisingly, the France Pavilion. But not the installations inside. Just outside of the exit of the pavilion is a cluster of gorgeous recreations of sculptures depicting roman deities, draped and wrapped in symbolic red ropes, perhaps symbolizing the bond between France and Japan. The unique enjoyment of a 3D art form like a sculpture, as opposed to a painting, is finding a new story or a new mood by even a slight change in your angle of viewing. I spent a good amount of time considering these works from various points of view while letting the crowds exiting the pavilion wash past in an endless stream.

Art remains one of the most compelling things in life for me. While the day was long and taxing (from waking at 4am to catch the first train to coming home around 10pm), it was all worth getting to interact with works that inspired me to consider and reconsider. I’m extremely grateful to my supervisor, whose planning superpowers I heavily relied on, for giving me this opportunity to enjoy slowing down and appreciating artistic expression amidst the rush and the bustle.

Sides

You either die a pedestrian or live long enough to succumb to car ownership 

I bought a car!

I unintentionally carried on the CIR tradition by buying the same make and model as my predecessor-a gunmetal-silver Honda Fit with low mileage and a functional 2/3 split back-seating to carry people and crash pads!

I was very insecure about my atrophied driving ability and the flipped steering wheel so I sheepishly asked my section manager (who came with me along with my supervisor to provide his extensive car knowledge) to do the first test drive. Then I decided to Just Do It tm and got into the drivers seat for the second test drive. Everything was fine except I kept predictably getting the wipers mixed up with the turn signal, which gave everyone a little laugh.

Some ideas for car:

• ROCKS

• Beaches!!

• Hiking, especially the Kahada Valley (bonus recon for my job)

• Toba’s scenic ocean highway (my section manager’s suggestion for a fun drive)

• Kumano? Owase? (Recommended by my predecessor, a connosiuer of good nature views. These also happen to be near climbing areas.)

(I’m realizing I’ve been fortunate to live in many places with access to both mountain and beach. I can’t live in a place without the two.)

Cutting down fastest-case commute time to the climbing gym from 50 min -> 15 min (!!) is an incredible win, but a part of me will miss the bike/train/walk. It was a nice moment to read and get some light aerobic movement in, but this means I will have more freedom to fit movement and peace in other areas of my daily life. (The stress of sprinting to make the train will not be missed.)

*As of writing, in July, I have acquired the actual vehicle! It took about a month from purchasing to driving it home.

Everything but the…

I had a craving. It resulted in me biking a poor tub of ice cream home in the humid heat. I had to act when I realized that I went a whole year without ice cream stocked in my freezer (this would not do). I surveyed the naked vanilla scoop I popped into my designated snack bowl and decided it needed a little something, so I dumped in everything from my pantry to create what might be the busiest bowl of ice cream I have ever had the pleasure of eating.

Ingredients: vanilla ice cream (sourced from New Zealand?), medjool dates, almonds, walnuts, cashews, peanuts, sunflowers seeds, olive oil, frozen blueberries, pinch of salt, dark chocolate chunks, a drizzle of pb, chopped banana (the fact that pb makes everything better still reigns true)

Review: The ice cream was surprisingly not as flavorful as I wanted it to be! I did see the local milk brand’s ice cream (shoutout to Ouchiyama, I’m a huge fan of their whole milk), but it didn’t have vanilla, which was my primary condition this round. Ouchiyama will be my next ice cream acquisition.

Media

• All The Things You Are - Strong Songs (Podcast)

An episode dedicated solely to one of my favorite jazz standards! Happy birthday to me!

• Pretty Good At Drinkin’ Beer - Billy Currington

I non-ironically identify with the line “I was built for having a ball” except by “ball” I mean birdwatching in a nice patch of forest.

• Eno Knows “What Art Does” - The New Yorker Radio Hour

“Children learn through play. Adults play through art.”

• Persuasion - Jane Austen

Classical music has the vibe of inaccessibility to the masses, but it is so pervasive in this media-dominated world that it strikes me as possibly the most widely appealing and recognizable genre of music.

Next Month’s Menu

It’s getting hot in here (as it is in the US as well). Perhaps I will take my yet-to-be-named vehicle to the beach. 

Your ice cream devouring, art-loving, fresh car owner,

Alex