Wally's Yamasa Journal

As I said on my Yamasa home page, I work for the Vancouver Port Authority and, my company has a representative living in Yokohama. I was curious to see the Port of Nagoya and meet a counterpart there while I was in the region so I asked our company rep to provide me a contact name. He returned my request with a full day itinerary for a port visit on this day, including a private presentation, lunch, a tour of a container terminal, and a visit to the aquarium. My Japanese friends are very generous so I should be more careful about what I ask for here. My relatives are also like that when I visit.

With my itinerary, I was also given specific instructions about which train, including time, to take from Okazaki station and where to meet one of their representatives when I got off. When I got off at Kanayama Station, Mitsuda-san was waiting for me at the exit gate.

Junko Mitsuda is a researcher in the Port Promotion division. She led me to the subway line near the station where another 15 minute train ride took us to the Port office building. There, I was soon introduced to Hitochika Yonezu-san, chief of the research department.

I presented my hosts a couple of boxes of the chocolates I brought with me. Food from the home country is usually the best to give to people here. Aside from giving a taste of the place you come from, Japanese homes usually don't have a lot of storage space.

While it was apparent both of my hosts spoke good English, I told my hosts that I would try my best to use my Japanese during my time with them. We spent the rest of the morning in one their meeting rooms discussing the presentation, going over the materials they gave to me - reports, statistics, port briefs - and sharing information about our respective ports.

One thing I admire about the ports in Japan is that they have a much closer relationship with the regional citizens and governments such that the Nagoya mayor and Aichi governor take turns being the Port president. Of course, they are much more dependent upon them since Japan's an island nation that has to import much of its food and resources. The relationship goes the other way as well. The Port here also owns and operates many recreational facilities including the aquarium, a waterfront park and beach, and even a pair of golf courses. Mind you, there looks to be an amusement park here, with the port standard giant ferris wheel, but Nagoya doesn't have a Universal Studio mega-park like Osaka does.

My hosts walked me over to the Aquarium restaurant for lunch then we walked back to the office to pick up a company vehicle to drive to one of the main container terminals. It was interesting that three major current issues I see in Vancouver look to be the same here:

• Security - with the global concerns over terrorism, security was fairly tight at the terminal including container scanners similar, in principle, to what's used at the airport. Yonezu-san, when I was first introduced at the office building, virtually apologized to me for the lack of security when I entered the building.
• Booming Trade with China - when we arrived at the container terminal, there was also a Chinese delegation of about 20 making a visit. Japan imported more than twice as many goods by container from China in 2002 than it did from number 2, the US, and that doesn't even include Hong Kong.
• Container Terminal Expansion - with ship size growing and more and more international trade being done by container, the Port has two major container terminal expansion programs in the works.

After the container terminal tour, Yonezu-san dropped Mitsuda-san and I off at the office building. Mitsuda-san walked me back to the aquarium for a walk through which included a dolphin show. The aquarium here is massive. It would take a full day to get a thorough look at all the displays including a penguin habitat with at least a hundred birds.

Mitsuda-san took me back to Kanayama station where I made a brief attempt at shopping before I decided I didn't have the energy for it. When I arrived at the JR platform, though, a train was pulling out so I decided to go ahead and take it. Not a bright idea. It wasn't bound for Okazaki and although it went in the same direction, it took me awhile before I realized that the train forked off to another line.

It wasn't that I didn't know I was taking my chances. I was actually feeling a bit adventurous at the time. Besides, I feel safe enough in the train system to not feel threatened if I got lost. I also felt sure enough that if I did end up in the wrong place, I would be able to work my way back to Okazaki. Also, since the fare system is based on which station you enter and exit from, not on how far you travelled, as long as I don't leave a station, a longer-than-planned trip would only cost me time. In this case, it was an hour, but I had enough reading material to keep me occupied anyways.

I didn't get back too late which was fine since school starts the next day. I would soon find that I won't be able to be so carefree with my time.

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