on expo

i teach 2 days a week at ecc hoshigaoka school, which means its my "base" school. its also on the yellow subway line on the way to expo, which means i get alot of students who either work at the expo or go with their families/boyfriends/girlfriends alot. so inevitably i end up talking about the expo alot...and ive never been yet. i feel i already know what expos all about, ie: waiting in line for 5 hours for the hitatchi or toyota pavillions, the greatness of the germany pavillion, the disappointment of the australian pavillion, the gondolas, the robots, yada yada yada. i feel less of a need to go now than when i got here simply because ive heard too much about it.

on a related note, itll be interesting to see what kind of a city nagoya is when all of the foreigners working at the expo leave. i got to japan basically on the exact date the expo started and itll end at the end of september, so some say that nagoya will go from a lively international town to just another japanese metropolis (nagoya has a reputation among some for being rather boring). while some may mourn the loss of the odd new zealander or austrian, i for one wont be crying in my cornflakes. if i wanted a city with places to go every night id move to osaka. i would prefer a japanese city thats loaded with japanese people and the special status that a foreigner in japan warrants. i noticed it when i went to nara in may...people stared at us and treated us nicely. at the moment im just another rude foreigner...maybe thatll change once the expo crowd leaves and the city calms down for the winter.