Day 11 – The Future, Sustainability and Art
April 25, Osaka
Today was another light day. We woke up late, did some laundry and some light packing. Our last full day at our Dotombori apartment. The boys went downstairs to konbini to get some breakfast while Juli and I just chilled. Afterwards, the boys and I headed to the Expo.
Since we came later in the day, the lines weren’t as crazy, so we got through pretty quickly. It seemed like there were mostly school children at the Expo today, so we could finally see the scope of the place. We could never hope to see it all…it as just too massive. There were 184 countries represented at the Expo and it would take weeks to see them all. Still, we would try. It was like the whole place was a giant museum with innovations and ideas for the future.
First stop - wood art
We weren’t entirely sure what we we witnessing at first. We saw a short line and got into it. The videos were in very fast Japanese, and showed a man scratching a surface, painting it, putting something on it and wiping it over, before carving it again. Apparently, he was doing some kind of traditional carving. He wore the wood down and covered it with a certain laquer that would turn it black.. He would then carve it, revealing the white wood underneath. Ok? After witnessing the how, we were ushered into a dark room. WOW. There were maps made with this technique and a full globe that was absolutely beautiful – absolutely breathtaking. We stayed in the dark room admiring the art for a while before heading out.
Next was Monaco
to see what their focus was on. (Wildlife) It was cool to see how seemingly little innovations they made (like the type of concrete they use near the ocean) was big picture going to help the oceans in the future. (whatever recipe they were developing was created so coral could attach to it) There was a section that children could play with and physically see what happens to wildlife when humans encroach on their natural habitat. It was neat learning about it and super creative…like nice. Who thinks of that?
Now, Elijah and I had seen the preliminary sketches of Saudi’s pavilion years ago when the Expo was first announced, and so we were very excited to see it in real life. It was WAY bigger than we thought it would be, and it was great to see how creative they are/plan to be with water. Their innovation was water recycling and it was done is such a creative way using natural resources like specific seaweed and fish. There was a certain ma grove tree that absorbs far more carbon than full rain forests – and take a quarter of the time to grow. They also had a section on 3D printing coral that real coral could attach to, cutting the time for reefs to regrow in half. They also gave us a sneak peak of the Neom project which was fun to see.
We went through several other exhibits that focused on the oceans, sustainable fishing, creative farming or beautiful art exhibits. We loved every moment we were there, but there was no way to see it all. We went back to our favorite spots from the day before (the giant fog machine) and I got my bag before heading back home.
Food at the Expo was naturally super expensive,
so we headed back to our favorite sushi joint. Because it was lunch time, there was no wait. We went up, got our ticket and sat to eat. We tried a bunch of our favorite stuff and a bunch of new stuff that we hadn’t had before (all delicious) I love the set up – use the tablet to order specific sushi, open that e table for chopsticks, sauces, ginger and tea, grab a cup from the top to fill with hot water – dude, it was a dream.
After lunch, we went home to finish packing. We needed to send our luggage to meet us at our final hotel as for the next week we would be jumping across the countryside. We cleaned and packed and then hauled our luggage down a block back to the Yamato store. This turn in was way easier than the last one – scan a barcode, fill in the information (which as an A-type, I already had the phone and reservation number saved in a spreadsheet) and the employees do the rest. Tickets printed. Barcodes saved and our luggage was off to meet us at our final hotel.
We did good. So we decided to treat ourselves with junk food along Dotombori. The glass berries were too sweet for me, but I’m down for some match vanilla icecream. We got our treats and walked up and down Dotombori one last time,. We stopped at a gacha machine for Elijah (he got a Pokemon) then it was time to our konbini to recharge our Suica cards (transportation cards) and get more cash (still a very cash-based society) and headed up to our apartment for one last night of chillness and silly YouTube videos.
