Fan Expo '08

There is a word "Otaku" in Japan.
As our teacher Don mentioned about "nerds" in the class, "Otaku" is similar word of nerd with a little more positive image. And today, I had been surrounded by LOTS of OTAKUs at the event "Fan Expo CANADA 2008."
Oh my god, this is quite an event.. unique, different world, and.. LOTS OF OTAKUs!!!
..including my husband Luke :-/

* * *

Do you know what the cosplay (= costume play) means? Some people wear things the characters in movies or TV shows (or magazines) wear. Take a look at pictures below, you might recognize some characters.


Left : Darth Vader & General Grievous from Star Wars
Right : Lara Croft from Tomb Raider & Catwoman
Superman, taking a picture of Wonder Woman and Something I don't know.. (Our friend Derek taught us later that it is "Namor" from the comic the Sub-Mariner.)
Looked like Superman and Namor are friends and Wonder Woman had a partner who looked like an usual civilian.
Anyway, all three comes from American Comics.


Left : Storm Troopers from Star Wars in wedding style..
Right : Mommy's trying to pull back a Little Yoda(!?) waking away.


Left : Awesome-o (Cartman was wearing in South Park to fool Butters)
Right : Ghost Busters
So, how many of them did you know?

For the science fiction fans, meeting the actors of SF movies/shows seems to be a huge treasure. This year, many actors were at their booths with their pictures. People were lining up to wait for their turn, and paid them to get their autographs on their photos. As you imagine, Luke and I got pictures with 2 actors and autographs of them. Both of them are famous in the SF TV show "Battlestar Galactica."


"William Adama"


"Chief, Galen Tyrol"

BUT, of course it is NOT FREE.
There were at least 10 actors sitting and responding crowds. These people spend hundreds of dollars happily for taking pictures with them.. which we can not afford. We had to choose carefully with asking our wallet, because costs are different depending on actors.

For the picture with "Chief," the donation to the Canadian Cancer Society was required, instead of paying to his management company or whatever. Isn't it nice of him?

For the pictures of other actors, we had to do some sneaky job. You know you can not walk into them and ask them if you can take pictures of them, of course the answers would be NO. So we tried to get closer as possible, and took the pictures below without flashes.


A.I. Data from Star Trek TNG
* TNG = The Next Generation


Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager


He's gained weight... or aged?
Sam the Hobbit from Lord of the Rings

Last time when we went to the similar event two years ago which was only for SF fans, we saw Gorge Takei from Star Trek and got his autograph. He is a Japanese American and told me in Japanese that his root is in Yamagata prefecture (very countryside), Japan. Some of you may know, he came out from his closet as a gay few years ago, and he uses this fact as joke sometimes on some shows. Humorous and funny guy.
* You want to see? Click HERE to my Japanese blog!

The event "Fan Expo" has several categories , such as horror, comic books (manga), TV games, and animations in addition to the science fiction. Many booths are there in the convention centre, and you could see those things..

Horror Section;

You can actually buy those special effect parts.
F.Y.I., "the brain hat" is $250 though..


Left : Life-size figure of dead body.. wwww
Right : Look at his eyes!! All black!!


The mask of Joker from Batman the Dark Night)
You may recognize some other masks..

Comic Section;

The mask of V for Vendetta


Left : the figure of Hellboy from HellboyⅡ
Right : You also can be a life-size figure!!
(This is Jason, our friend)

Now, are you interested in this world?
Or you want to keep staying away? ;-)
Or maybe you can't wait to expose yourself in there?
Wait for next year and keep checking their website!!

( <-- I don't even know who they are imitating.. probably some characters from manga (comic), animation, or game.)

Cafe Crepe

On Queen Street West, in front of the City TV building.
Enter and get one step ahead, the mood of 50's atmosphere surrounds with big old movie posters on walls and well-polished geometric patterned floor, and appeals to the senses if you tripped to some cafe in Europe. At the same time, the fresh-baked sweet aroma cocoons everybody in floaty bliss -- this is a cafe, "Cafe Crepe."

Some reviews says that "Cafe Crepe had brought everything Parisian from France into Toronto." Mmm, the word "Parisian" itself, sounds very soothing, even though I have never been to France.

You may imagine that their specialty is crepes, but also their espresso is very good. I love espresso-based drink such as cappuccino, mochaccino, or latte, and they use illy coffee beans (Italian coffee brand, uses Arabica beans - "considered to have a richer taste and lower caffeine content than Rubusta beans," Wikipedia).

Look at this cappuccino!!
To get to its liquid part, you have to use a spoon and dig in this huge amount of form milk, which has 5cm thick and 3cm higher than the edge of the cup, tastes even sweet without adding any sugar -- if you want this, order "large size." ;-) You'd better be sure that you are extremely hungry.

This is their mochaccino. The difference between cappuccino and mochaccino is chocolate syrup, and whipping cream on top (you can order with no whipping cream - who would?). My husband loves this mocchachino because it's much sweeter than other mocchachino he has ever had. Oh, the mochaccino in this picture is "regular size," F.Y.I.

My recommendation for the crepe here are the savory crepes. Crepe probably sounds like a sweet dessert for you, but cheese and vegetables (of course meat too - sorry, Leo) make crepe beautiful meal. The crepe dough(?) itself is moist in center part and crispy at its edge. Especially in this picture, I know it may look too simple or boring, but it would blow you away to the heaven.
Try it anyway! You'll thank me.

And here you go, for SWEETS LOVER!



Dark Chocolate & Banana
(whipping cream -$0.50, vanilla ice cream -$1.00)

They also have some sandwiches and grilled sandwiches (Panini). I am not a big fan of big amount of bread and buns usually; however, I accidentally ordered grilled Panini instead of crepe with Swiss cheese, ham, and tomato because all ingredients look alike, only differences are skins, outside. But -- oh, my gosh, it was an amazing mistake. Sooooo good. The cheese was melted nice and hot enough and it was a gorgeous combination with the ham and tomato, pressed between fresh baguette sliced in half with buttered around.
It is reasonable, fills your tummy with happiness!!

Order their outside counter and take it with you. I would be great spice for your explore on Queen Street West Village which has bunch of artistic shops like pop-culture shops, antique shops, furniture shops, and galleries!!

Cafe Crepe (Map)
238 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 1Z7
Tell : 416-260-1611
Sun-Thu 9am-10pm
Fry-Sat 9am - midnight

Affogarto - Cafe Demetre -

Affogarto = "drowned"
As the name of this Italian dessert suggests, Affogart is basically the style to have ice cream (usually vanilla) with some liquid; espresso shot, liqueur, coffee, tea, etc.
The most popular liquid for this dessert is espresso shot. This is called "Affogato al Caffe" and this espresso is for pouring onto the ice cream, not for drinking directly (you can if you want). So you can enjoy hot espresso, frozen ice cream, and cold milky coffee taste all at once.

I love this dessert as much as I love the combination of creme brulee and cappuccino, but I had never seen this in Toronto. It is easy to make as you imagine, so I used to make it for myself whenever I bought nice, rich vanilla ice cream, such as Haagen-Dazs.

Two weeks ago, Luke and I watched a movie "Step Brothers" with his friends Derek and April. (It was hilarious movie!! - you will laugh until your muscle hurt) After the movie, we went to a cafe Demetre in Eglinton area for some coffee and chat.
I used to live the neighbor of this Demetre. My friends loved to come here to have various kinds of desserts, and I used to order one like the picture below, because they did not have any smaller. To eat this, I had to skip breakfast or lunch.


BUT this time, I found the Affogato I love!! Good size, rich taste, deep aroma - maybe too much to say.. :-) Anyway, this made my day gorgeous. Luke said that I was smiling the whole time I was eating my lovely Affogato.

If you love the taste of coffee, try this.
It would be able to melt you!!

Demetre (Uptown)
188 Eglinton Ave., East
Toronto, ON M4P 2X7
Tel : 416-485-4610
Open for 14:00 - 23:30
(Fri & Sat 14:00 - 1:30)

Capital Punishment

Twice a week, there are opportunities to talk about sensitive issues. One of the topics of this week was "Capital Punishment."

I'm going to mention the history of Canadian capital punishment.
Canada decided the day of abolition of death penalty for murder as July 14, 1976, by the result 130:124 of free vote; however, Lester Pearson (Liberal) canceled all death penalties as a matter of policy, when he won as a prime minister in 1963. (The last execution in Canada was occurred on December 11, 1962.)
Since then, first-degree murderer is given a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

This is the map of "Capital Punishment Laws of the World" (Wikipedia, January 29, 2008)

As you see, many countries in the world are still having capital punishment legally, such as China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and many states in U.S., etc.

Many of the students who had joined this debate, were focusing "justice" so that capital punishment should be legal in Canada too. While listening their opinions, a big doubt was emerging into my head.
If murder - terminating somebody's life, - is unforgivable act and the biggest sin as human being, why can the government kill somebody? That does not make sense. In other words, as well as murderer is an object as capture and punishment whatever the reason the murderer had for terminating somebody's life, the government should not be allowed to kill the person whatever the reason is.

On the other hand, I understand how the people related to the victim or society feels massive loss, sadness, and hatred, but does the "eye for eye" justice really work for those people? Will they be happy or satisfied even though the victim will never come back by eliminating the murderer? Revenge can even create the same feelings on other people like family of "the criminal," and they sometimes strongly believe that the system made mistake.

Also, some people say that capital punishment reduces the crime rate. Well, yeah, it can plant the seed of fear on some people as "Don't wanna die? Then don't kill" (except some serial killers or psychopaths - they kill people without caring their own lives). But, society can not learn the true meaning of the preciousness of human life and why no one has the right to kill somebody. It sounds the same to me as that "I can not steal that bicycle because my parents will be really upset." What will come next? "You know what? I think I can steal it if I would not be caught!"

One more reason I think we should not have capital punishment is, the death penalty by mistake, as I mentioned above. It actually happens in the world and many cases were found as innocence, after those "criminals" were executed (see "Wrongful execution").

According to the writer of the ORBIS, "Since 1973, when the supreme court affirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty, the United States has executed just over 1,000 people, while more than 120 have been released from death row."
What is the justice for them? Should their family do revenge somehow? When is this cycle of anger and sadness going to end?

What surprised me was the fact that people were executed even though their "crime" is not murder or attempted murder.
In Iran, a 16 year old girl was raped by a 51 year old married man. She was arrested by the criminal sentence that she did not tell anybody about the rape. Her neighbor testified that she was immoral since she was already (corporally) punished for being alone with a boy when she was 13 years old. She could not prove the fact of the rape; furthermore, she took off her veil and threw it away in court. From her looks, the court decided that her age was 22 years old (!!) and she was given death penalty and her execution was performed the next day after the court's decision without any notice to her family. The man who raped her had only 95 times of corporal punishment. This case was reported by BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) in 2006 to the world for the first time.

As long as capital punishment exists, wrongful execution exists too, since only the murderer and the victim know the real truth. As you may know, the true criminal can be non-criminal, if their lawyer cleverly does very good job for them. Sometimes innocent people can be criminals, depending on the prosecutors.

But I still can not answer fully to the justice for victims. Because the level of how we feel can be different and sometime the time makes different. After going throw their hard time to face their loss, some of them start to wish the same thing will not happen to other people.
I would be glad to know what you think.

For further information and statistics, see Amnesty International website.

Nostalgia

After we said goodbye to Ruben, who was our classmate and had to go back to his country Mexico at the end of July (it was a very sad moment), Ayana, Maria, Rafael and I went down south to explore the hot, hot summer.

At the beginning we were going to visit Toronto Island on that day, but we realized that we did not have time to go there and come back in time for the baseball game.
So we decided to walk around the waterfront area and spend some time there; it ended up as a great chatting time about general stuff and a discussion about some English grammar (we are so good students!).

Did you know that there is a beach at Harbourfront?
I've lived in Toronto for about 3 years now, but I didn't know about this beach.. Whenever people say about "beach of Toronto" I thought they meant one of two; the beaches, or the beach in Toronto Island. But this beach had sand, and people were sitting, reading, and playing with their kids or lying down to get tan when we visited. Some were under yellow parasols and avoiding the sun, and some were just exposing themselves wherever they liked.
Walking around and looking at them made me feel a little weird. It was an ideally beautiful beach in the middle of such a metropolitan city; however, I could not wipe this feeling out from my head, even though I grew up in the town in front of the Pacific Ocean and beach should have been familiar view for me.

Of course. This beach is artificial. The sand on this beach is surrounded by concrete frames and not touched to the lake. You usually see people or children playing at the edge of the water if this is a real beach. No wonder everything looked too organized here, this is a part of the port park in Harbourfront.
Even though this is artificial, I could smell "waterfront." People in Japan express this smell as "salty scent," (Ayana sensed it too!) and it gave me a flashback of the beach in my hometown.

* * *It is called Shonan-Kaigan ("Kaigan" means coast), and has a shallow beach so people can easily swim, play and sit on the sand. The color of sand is not as beautiful as this artificial beach in Toronto, because it contains pieces of volcanic rock from Mt. Fuji (picture above) and magnetic iron ore (In some areas of this beach, you can actually see the magnetic attraction!), which make the color of the sand darker.


In the bottom picture, the sand seems to be sent from some other country, although it is still the same beach as other pictures. There is beach sports competitions every summer in this particular area, such as volleyball and lifesaving, and the original sand (the top picture) could hurt people's bare feet. Also the sand monument (art) competition is held by students and local artists every year.

Well, I should stop around here.. Otherwise, I would get home sick. Home sick? Maybe it is more like nostalgia. I am very glad that I found this beach in Toronto even though artificial, and I will visit again sometimes when I become very sentimental.