Tuesday, February 20:

Booth set-up.  This takes about three hours because our biggest challenge is to get the LCD projectors to point the right way and make a large enough image.  Our instruments are much easier to set up…

Dinner: Shabu-shabu, and a taste of the glaring difference between regular beef and “wa-gyu,” the marbled Japanese beef that almost melts on your tongue. 

Wednesday, February 21:

First exhibition day, with a good number of visitors, a lot of whom are Korean.  The latter fact has something to do with being right next to the Korean pavilion.  Whether our location there also keeps Japanese away is an open question. 

Dinner: We took the Yurikamome to the Joypolis area on Daiba and trekked through the waterfront buildings until we got to the restaurant Gonpachi.  The waiters there followed the Japanese synaesthetic principle that lively and genki waiters give the impression of fresher food.  By the end we were helping them shout “Haiyou!” every time one of them shouted out an order such as “Namabiiru icchou!”  We started plotting how we could apply these principles to our booth.  The food, small shared portions of yakiniku and tempura and tofu, added up to a most filling dinig experience, but to me the matcha-milk-shochu cocktail was the take-home winner. 

Thursday, February 22:

Several friends from Nippon Steel Company visited our booth, which was the personal highlight of my day.  Aside from talking about impending visits we allso talked technology and Joël even met his diploma advisor at the Swiss pavilion. 

We had dinner downtown in Shinjuku this time, at another traditional Japanese restaurant.  Sashimi, whale bacon (better than the other whale we had – the Japanese are clearly benefiting from the scientific purposes behind their whaling), horse sashimi (YUM), smoked pickled daikon radish, and numerous other delicacies again filled us up until we didn’t think we’d have to eat the next day.