Days 1&2 - Twitchy Taiwan, arrival in Japan & Teaching in Tokyo!

Yokohama City

Hello Everybody,
.... and welcome to the adventure that was the 16th World Occupational Therapy Congress held in the beautiful city of Yokohama Japan.
The most obvious place to start such an adventure would indeed be at the beginning, but given the fact I needed 4 FLIGHTS (Wellington-Auckland-Sydney-Taipei-Tokyo) to get from New Zealand to Japan, and some divine intervention to get me across Taipei (in Taiwan), this could be a long long start!
I'd not even arrived in Japan when I was faced with the first challenge of having no more than 2 hours to touch down, collect luggage and pass through immigration from Airport 'A' in Taipei, and then get to airport 'B' - a 50 minute bus ride away. Having been refused my request to be seated at the front of the plane on a pretty empty flight (to allow me to get off quickly), I was told I had to sit in the back of the plane with almost every single other passenger. The reason for refusing me a move to the front of the plane??? - Weight!!! - yes they said the plane was too empty so the weight needed to be distributed properly. Quite an insult!
I eventually required the intervention an airport security guard who let me use the 'diplomatic express channel', then some generous taxi passengers who let me jump to the front of the queue, and then an old Taiwanese taxi driver who drove like this was the last fare of his life - getting me to airport 'B' in 25 mins. Needless to say I tipped him well!

On arriving in Yokohama, already sweaty and dehydrated I did not need long to find my first on-street vending machine! I  had heard all kinds of stories about what you can find in these kind of machines (including women's used underwear - not sure how true that is!?) but I was simply glad for a cold drink!

After a shower and little sleep lifted my spirits and got me re-energized despite a little disappointment when I arrived at the hostel to find a hobbit sized Japanese room ,with no bed and one shower for 20 rooms, on the 5th floor (with no lift). Still I'd been to worse places, and it was sure better than a kitchen in Argentina!
I was delighted to find that Yokohama was a very tourist friendly city. My habit of wandering in a direction I know I need to go in served me well as I found the metro station just down the road. Two Japanese school kids showed me how to purchase a ticket - I found on my travels that kids are always more willing to try and communicate than adults - ad this proved to be the case here too!

Downtown Yokohama

The central city was easy to navigate as you just head to the 'big wheel' in the picture above and the conference centre as directly behind that! I was quick to enjoy the feeling of walking around the city in a short sleeve t-shirt as it was much warmer than in NZ! the local street food I bought may have looked a bit like dodgy, but it tasted great!

Hungry Dan

Here's a few more pictures from downtown...

After a really lovely evening of walking around the city, eating in china town - which included another funny game of lets converse without words by pointing, nodding and smiling and hope we understand each other - I ended up being forced to eat 6 small dishes of food, - They insisted I order 6 dishes despite me pleading with them to order only 4! And being the only person in the restaurant as the staff waited politely for me to finish the food. If you are wondering why I waited to eat all 6 dishes, it was because there was genuinely a sign on the table that said, 'order as much as you like, but eat it all, because you will pay for what you don't eat' - explain that to me!!!!

MONDAY - TEACHING IN TOKOYO

I was joined in Yokohama by my long time on-line friend Jouyin Teoh, an OT from Malaysia who I was meeting in the flesh for the first time in Japan. Jouyin is an even bigger 'net-worker' than I am through social media. She had invited me to join her speaking to some first Year OT students at the Tokyo University of Technology, under the wonderfully wise teaching of Professor Nara.
Before heading to the University we decided to have a little look around Tokyo which as you can see from the photos below included some shopping fun - much to the amusement of the locals sat having coffee watching us pose in the 'beautiful people' section!   

Taking in some more Historic Tokyo scenes, we were able to find such famous landmarks as this theatre below, amid the tall and modern towers that surrounded this vast and huge city!

The Royal Gardens found just across the way from the pretty central Royal Palace were as pretty and well maintained as you might expect. There was a real sense of tranquility in these little gardens as you can clearly see from the very chilled out wildlife on the rocks!

The Emperor's Palace was in an equally beautiful setting and yet so close the the bustle of central Tokyo.

Food in a new country is always a challenge as my next attempt to purchase food in a Japanese food establishment proved. It was here I was introduced to the concept of buying my food ticket from a machine outside of the restaurant (I was thankful for pictures to guide me), before walking into the restaurant and handing the tickets to a waiter and crossing your fingers hoping that whatever is brought out to you, looks something like the picture on the machine you ordered from!

We made our way to the metro station by the University at 4pm as agreed. This was by far my favorite metro station in all of Tokyo & Yokohama because the music they played on the platform as trains were leaving was the theme music from Harry Potter! (Well it may not have been exactly, but in my head I was as Hogwarts!) I thought the music played on stations was just a nice touch until it was pointed out to me, that the tempo slowly increases the closer the train gets to leaving - to subconsciously encourage people to move quickly onto the train.... now that's clever right!?

Anyway, having actually dragged myself away from my own fantasy land we required some help to get to the University. A woman passing by stopped to help and went beyond attempting to give us directions, but insisted on actually walking us to our destination! (Memories of Vietnam came flooding back - whereby people want to actively help you, even if they aren't sure how to help, as she actually took us the wrong way before stopping to ask for directions herself) 

We were greeted by the inspirational Professor Nara, who had assembled relatively large group of students in a room for us. I was quite nervous prior to the presentation. Not about talking - that I can do in my sleep, but more about being a sweaty and disheveled looking mess as my body was not adapting well to the humidity and heat. I had brought a change of clothes, which at least gave me the appearance of something other than a raving madman!

Riveting Presentations...

The students were... well as you'd expect, polite courteous and needed a fair bit of prompting to ask questions. I wondered if like in Vietnam and other countries, they were not wanting to make mistakes with their English to a native speaker.  Dr Nara made us very welcome and after sweating a bit more and a few photographs with the students it was time to help prepare a room to be set up for the next day's Kawa Symposium day which I had volunteered to help out with!

With the 1st Year OT students from Tokyo University of Technology

On returning to Yokohama with the Harry Potter theme tune now firmly stuck in my head, we were greeted with the wonderful sight of Yokohama by night and the glow from the big wheel by the conference centre. Despite the heat in the 'shoebox' room I slept soundly with the excitement of seeing old friends the following day and the opening ceremony - which was going to be attended the the Emperor and Empress of Japan! - Now that's what I call magic....

Yokohama by night

Regards from Japan!