"I'm turning Japanese, I really think so...."

I couldn't help but think of this song to start this trip out. I'm heading out to Nagoya, Japan for a few days and then off to Yokohoma and Tokyo. I've always wanted to visit Japan. The people from Prima, a conference about multi-agent systems, invited me to speak as one of the keynote speakers. I will be talking about how I use Massive Software in the film and commercial industry using multi-agent systems.

My first night I am a bit overwhelmed with the language and signage. Arriving in Nagoya, I look for the train station Metsuitsu. Good thing for the clear icons of trains and the station labeled in English. Okay, now where am I supposed to go on this line? Nagoya. I'm staring at the map and all I see is the standard colored lines with numbers at each stop. Hmmm, where is Nagoya? Which number is it? A Japanese man in full uniform approaches me. "Where you go?", he says. I respond, "Nagoya". He brings me to the machine and says "one three zero", which means that is how much I need to put in the machine. I put in 1000 yen, a paper bill, press the 130 button, and out comes the ticket and my change. I'm on my way.

Takauki told me that the train will drop me off at Nagoya and my hotel is one top of it. I arrive at Nagoya station with a full pace of life down in the subway. There are tons of signs pointing to other trains, lots of trains. Shops fill the area. I'm looking for hotel signs. Nothing. I will just walk and walk and now I'm outside. Ooooo....there it is!

I get to my room, look out the window with this awesome view of Nagoya. It's huge. When I arrive at my room it is near 8p on Sunday. I left around 830a on Saturday. Yes, I spent the whole weekend flying.

When I wake up the next morning, I see this wonderful sundrise.



Monday night, which still feels like Sunday because Dallas is a day behind, I decide to get some sushi. It's gotta be good here. It turns out that just below the hotel are many floors of restaurants and shops. I find a sushi place. I'm seated at the bar with a video screen in front of me. Actually, there are screens in front of each seat at the bar! The waitress presses on a button on the screen to change everything to English. Great! She quickly demostrates this monitor to me by clicking here and there on the screen. Wow...how great is this? All I have to do is click on what I want and how many. Then click the order button. Check out the video here of my ordering.

Tuesday is my talk at the Prima Conference. The talk goes for about 50 minutes smoothly without a hitch. I'm followed up with questions for the next 2 hours about Massive Software. The people are from 20 different countries. I had people asking questions from Japan, Netherlands, and Korea.

I hang out after my talk and continue to do work remotely for Radium. I'm finishing up some character rigs for a commercial we want to deliver by Christmas.

That night, Prima has their formal dinner at the Garden Restaurant Tokugawaen. I've been told that this place is very famous and quiet nice. It's beautiful and very traditional. The restaurant overlooks a wonderful Japanese style garden, with a large pond surrounded by vegetation.

The food is amazing with 5 courses, each better than the last. The scallops and the beef were my favorites. The beef was so tender that it didn't even come close to how beef normally tastes.

I'm at a table with Paul and Fiona Scerri, Joaquin, and Sabrina. Paul is the one who invited me to the conference. Joaquin works for Yahoo and lives in Santa Clara. He also lived in Japan and gave us all kinds of pointers and culture information about Japan. Facinating. Sabrina came from Spain. Speaking with Fiona, I asked her what to see and what she was seeing tomorrow. Kyoto. I never heard of Kyoto. Well, Joaquin says it is a must see. Ok....I'm going. It's a bit pricy, but I'm sure it will be worth it.

After the dinner we head down to the garden to walk around. The grounds are so beautiful and relaxing.

Buda-pest
I walk down the stairs of the plane leading me to the tarmac and a huge shuttle the size of a subway car. We get carted away to the terminal in a matter of minutes. I immediately notice the interesting language on the signage when I step into the terminal. I am definitely fullfilling my number one requirement for my travels: the primary language is not English. This is 2 countries in a row living up to this. I don't even know what they speak here. Is it Hungarian?
I breeze through customs, grab my roller bag and head out to find my taxi that should be waiting for me. Just as I approach the loads of people waiting and some holding signs, a small and purposeful woman of middle age approaches me. "Are you Mark?" "You must be . . ."
She quickly states, "Csilla". Oh, that's how you pronounce it (chill-ah). I was about to say either shilla or silla. Csilla is one of the producers of the studio that hired me for training. She introjects "I wasn't going to be here, but then I thought how confusing it is to come into a new country and I just wanted to make sure you were taken care of." How sweet this woman is to personally pick me up on her busy day.
The cab ride into Budapest immediately reveals a drastic difference in the landscape from what it looked like in Israel. It's green everywhere and tree lined streets almost covering the street at places. It's a bit humid but comfortable with a slight breeze. Csilla fills me in with my hotel details, some basic things to see in the city and what is available for the weekend. The language spoken here is Hungarian, the currency is the Forint, and the population of the country is about 10 million with a bout 2 million in Budapest alone. There is a huge summer concert going on, but it's in the west side of the country a few hours away. I won't be making it out there.
We arrive at my hotel, the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal. A beautiful 5 star hotel with a gorgeous marble filled lobby. Csilla joins me to check me in and make sure everything is covered. She bids me farewell, leaving me with a 7 day metro pass. I throw my things into the well appointed room on the 4th floor. Time to head out to see this new city.
The first thing I notice is how colorful everything is compared to Israel. I didn't even realize how accustomed I have become with the cream and light tones of Isreal until now. This city already has a strong sense that I'm in Europe, from what I've seen in pictures and movies. This is my first city on the continent of Europe. Here we go!

Animation Lab

Here is my final collection of all the people I shared 3 amazing weeks with in Jerusalem. I missed snapping a picture of a few people that were out and about, but this covers most of the studio. You are all amazing and talented people. It was an honor to be with all of you for the past 3 weeks. I have learned so much about the studio, the city, and the culture of Israel. Thank you for being such kind and warm hosts. You made my experience of Jerusalem and Israel a very memoriable one. I shall always remember all of you. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. Miss all of you! Good luck on a great picture.

Blading in Tel Aviv
Kurt and David tell me that every Tuesday night at 1030p in Tel Aviv, a ton of rollerbladers go out. This sounds fun. Kurt lends me his blades while he is out of town in Germany. Matteo, David and I meet up at the square where all the bladers are meeting. I'm thinking there is going to be around 50 or so. More like 200! The leaders tell us about the course we will take, all in Hebrew. Luckily I have Matteo as my translator. Thanks Matteo! We take off right after the course is discribed and the basics covered. We head straight into the street. We take up the whole 2 lanes of traffic. So great!

Whoa! Man down. Only a few blocks into it. I almost ate it. Close one. We continue on. We are heading north and then cross the freeway over the bridge. Now we are in the neighboring city of Tel Aviv just north of the city. This is about when Matteo needs a little break. By the time we finish our break, the bladers are gone. By now, we've been going for an hour straight. We head back. Ahhhhh...this hill is way to steap with no real brakes on these blades. Wham! I go down trying to stop myself on a rail/fence thing. Butt hurts a bit. Minor scrap on my left hand. My back though felt like a twisted a bungee cord up and let it go. After we get to the car, Matteo drives me to the shuttle to grab one back to Jerusalem. It only costs $15 USD from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This was totally worth it.

The golden dome
I've been looking at this dome for the last 2.5 weeks from afar. I can see it from the Dan Boutique Hotel deck too. Just yesterday I found out from Malcom that you can go up to it. So I get up at 6:30 to make it down to the old city one last time. I meet Malcom around 7a. This only guy in front of us tells us about his travel through a Palestinian city where some famous biblical person is buried.




They let us in right at 730a. The place is so quiet. Hardly anyone around. I immediately notice the drastic difference between the old city I just left a minute ago and this space, which is still a part of the old city. Slow pace. No vendors. A short stroll from the entrance and there it is in front of me. The Dome of the Rock, up close and personal. There is such a great sense of peace. I want to sit here for hours. The dome is made of real gold, donated by someone from Egypt.

A close look at the tile work reveals the detailing put into the exterior of the building. Walking around the building I find the entrance. Now if I could only pull off that I'm Muslim so I can sneak a peak inside. You can only enter the the mosque if you are a Muslim.


Time to go to work. I head out around 830a. I know I have about a 30 minute walk ahead of me to get to Animation Lab.

After 850 steps

After climbing for 30-40 minutes, we run out of stairs. A small u-turn to the right from the stairway and then the monestary is standing if front of us. It's huge! This is bigger than the treasury. How did they do this? So much detail and no room for mistakes.



We start to head back down from the monestary. Looking in the far distance, I can make out where we started in the valley after the treasury.



This bedoine girl is about to setup shop with her mom along the stairway up to the monestary.




The last thing to see before we head out. The pathway we started on 6 hours ago is below our feet again. I thought his was a big highlight when we started. Now it looks so small compared to what we have seen.

The big reveal.

Our guide puts his hat on a little carved rock in the wall. "Stare at this rock. It's a magic rock. Now back up while staring at this rock." We take steps backward slowly. Eight or so steps later, "Now turn to your left". This is what we see after walking down this narrow passage for the last half hour....
This is the 'Treasury'. It became famous in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.











Check out the amazing preserved detailing.







You can get a sense of scale here. It's about 5 stories, maybe 6, tall. The little black figure on the stairs, in the middle, is a person.

A carving or two.

Here you can see a human with the bottom part of camel legs with the body above the gap. My head comes up to about the human's thighs.

Yoshi and I are doing a prayer to a carving on the opposite wall before we head furuther.

The last picture, their is a channel on the right side. The channel collected water from where we entered the valley all the way into the main part of the city. Ingenious.

Scale please.

It helps to see people next to the rocks.






Here we see a fish carved from the rock.






Or...is it an elphant after walking a few more steps?





The rocks are turning more red now.

Petra.....as big as Paris?? Wow!

Our tour guide meets us at 6am promptly at our hotel. The sun is barely peaking out as we walk 5 minutes to the entrance of Petra.

Only 5 more minutes and we see our first carving in the side of a mountain getting touched with the sun's rays. Our guide says that Petra is like a woman, she changes her dress 5 times a day. Petra does it with the sun. We are heading into the tall walled city.

At most of the places, the walkway is only 10 feet wide but 5 stories tall.

Let's check out the entrance to Petra – the old one.

Leaving the hotel, we arrive at the gate to Petra only 3 minutes later. It's closes at 6p. It's 620p. Oh well....we are going tomorrow. It would have been nice to see the sunset on the city. We go to the tourist office. The guy hooks us up with a guide that will meet us at our hotel at 6am. The park opens at 7am. If you have a guide, you can get in earlier. Great! This will be 1 extra hour we don't have to bake in the sun later. Everyone says...the earlier the better because of the sun and heat.

Movenpick

Only 15 minutes down the road, the driver drops us off at the Movenpick Hotel. They have a metal detector and x-ray machine too. I'm getting accustomed to this now. The hotel is amazing. It doesn't reflect at all the surrounding area. It's a 5 star hotel sitting near decent buildings of Petra. The room is great. Even has a nice plate of chocolates waiting for us.