9 January, 2006, Kobe, Japan

No work again today because of a national holiday. Banks are closed, but most everything else was open. We bought train passes for getting to the chapel, they run about $115 a month for a 20 minute ride each way, and they are good for just that route - to and from work. Any other side travel costs extra, but they are valid weekends. This still works out to be cheaper than the exorbitant rate Dola would have to pay to park his car near the “Weekly Mansion”. He can leave it at the University for free.

Dola had other commitments today so we three foreigners got on the train to Himeji, about 50 miles down the coast. The train system is complex with several separate lines and different levels of express train that don’t stop at every station. We don’t yet have a train map that names the stations in Romanji, so it can be a task to figure out the route to take and which ticket to buy from the vending machines. We did manage, the phrase book does include “Is this the train for…..? Thankfully, Dana is not shy when it comes to asking strangers for help.

Preserved at Himeji as a UN World Heritage Site is a castle built in the 16th century in the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It has been beautifully restored and is awe inspiring. It boggles the mind to think the incredible stone foundation was built without machinery of any kind. Approaches to the castle included three ring moats, only one of which survives. One must pass through many gates to reach the central donjon, each gate leads to an easily defended courtyard and every courtyard has a different layout to confuse intruders. It occurred to me that treachery and treason would have been the only way the castle could possibly have been taken without cannon, which they did not have.

The area around the castle was filled with young women in traditional dress and young men in suits, all having their pictures taken, and doing a lot of giggling. It turns out the holiday is a sort of National Coming-of-Age Day when teenagers who have turned twenty are accounted adults. A nice form of recognition of a life passage, I think, like our debutant balls of old.

Tuesday, January 11, 2006

We were fairly giddy with anticipation this morning waiting for the container truck to back up to the retaining wall we used as a makeshift loading dock behind the University Chapel, not having the ramps that usually come with the moving vans we normally ship organs in. We’d started out the morning with our first attempt at getting to work by train. It doesn’t look too tough, there’s just one change, but not all trains are created equal. There’s a local, an express and a limited express, and for the Mikage to Uozaki hop only the later will do. Then the change to the Rokko Liner which runs out to the island where Kobe International University is. The Rokko Liner, probably because it goes by the Kobe Fashion Center and a number of other foreigner magnets, has a recorded woman’s voice that helpfully announces the stops in English after they’ve been called out in Japanese. Her diction is extremely correct, something akin to the way one might speak to a very slow-witted person.

When the container arrived at 9 o'clock we assembled our four helpers to begin unloading. This is my 27th or 28th installation and I think this may be the smallest unloading crew I’ve ever worked with. I dispensed with the customary Henry the Fifth-style safety lecture, although it might have been more appropriate than usual ("We few, we happy few…") and I’ll bet there was many an organbuilder in his bed in Gloucester who thought himself cursed he was not with us on this day. The sun was bright and the temperature in the low fifties, perfect for heavy lifting among the palm trees on the shore of the bay.

Everything went in through a ground level window that had been removed from the chancel for the occasion, and we only struggled with the largest crates which proved to be a bit heavier than the eight of us could readily lift. However, there were no serious mishaps and no evident damage. Even though the container was completely full when we started, over ten tons, everything was off the truck by late in the afternoon, so I don't think the demurrage charges will be too high, and we got a good jump on organizing the stacks and stacks of parts, thanks to Jason, Dana, and Dola’s care in separating the parts as they came in. I spent the day in the truck.

As if that weren't enough, we decided to go a few towns east after work to the Ebisu Festival at Nishinomiya. Ebisu is a Shinto saint, often portrayed as a round-bellied mediaeval fisherman with a wispy beard. I don’t know much about him, but judging from the street scene we encountered upon disembarking the train, he must have something to do with lots of good food. Imagine the biggest ethnic festival you've ever seen, in the North End of Boston say, then triple it. It might have been eight or ten blocks from the train to the shrine, and all those streets and some of the side streets were closed to cars. Both sides of the street had double rows of food vendors cheek by jowl, selling fried squid, octopus balls, red bean pastries in the form of a fish, roasted corn on the cob, chocolate covered bananas, foot long hot dogs, soft sweet fried dough balls, Korean barbeque, omelets, dried fish, salted roasted fish on a stick, chicken on a stick, Kobe beef on a stick, lamb or chicken in Pita pockets, and candied apples, plums and cherries. And that’s only the stuff I could recognize for what it was.

One could only shuffle along at a steady pace with the surrounding crowd pressed tight on every side, and then, if fortunate, break free into a eddy around a vendor doing enough business to have a line formed at his stand. Dana had his camera out early on and had snapped a gigabyte worth of pictures by the time we were swept in the gates of the shrine with the throng. We were all dusted atop the head by a priest wielding a big paper mop by way of a blessing as we walked up the steps of the temple, then passed by an enormous dead tuna into whose mouth people were trying to stuff coins as they passed by or at least trying to touch it, (I swear I’m not making this up), but the crowd was held back by half a dozen nervous looking policemen who locked arms red rover fashion to protect the tuna. Then we were swept down the steps and into a side courtyard where the paper prayers that one may post at the temple are sold and then back out onto the street amongst the vendors. What a way to have supper.

Wednesday, 11 January

Unloading went so well yesterday we were able to get right to it this morning. The blower and bellows for the organ go above a closet and doorway to the left of the organ niche. Jason began demolition of the closet ceiling while Dana and I did layout and Dola continued unpacking. We cut the holes through the walls of the niche for organ access and the wind supply and prepared the floor frame and rear wall steel which will be bolted to the wall by the construction company assisting us. The fastening of the 21 foot tall organ to the wall of the chapel is of great importance because of the seismic activity here. The same fault that provides the hot springs we enjoyed so much last weekend also killed 5,000 people here just ten years ago. Were it not for the earthquake museum and a few signs showing pictures of the devastation, one would hardly know so much destruction had occurred so recently. Everything has been repaired or rebuilt, houses, apartment buildings, the elevated highway that runs through the center of the city, everything. FEMA could learn a thing or two from these folks.

Dola and I spent much of the afternoon in an almost fruitless search of all the local home centers for plug-in fluorescent tubes for the organ maintenance lights. Twenty watts is about the best we could do and that seems rather dim for a fixture that costs about $30. We will ask the electricians for sources when they begin their work next week, but nothing we’ve seen here comes close to the GE 33-watt Bright Sticks we can get at home for half the money. It was fun to go through the tools sections of all the stores, there is a great variety of hand tools to be had here.

We knocked off about 7:30 and returned to the conveyor belt sushi place for supper and once again ate too much. This time we were a little more active in asking for the particular pieces we enjoy most. It can be confusing to try to remember all the names, and then be able to pronounce them properly, but one can go a long way on "The same again, please" or just "Me too" when someone else orders a good one. I know now that the crunchy tiny fish egg maki I like is Tenobi and the cucumber maki is Kapa, then there’s the sea urchin I don’t like, which Dana calls Loogi.

Thursday, 12 January

The fellows providing the fasteners to the building arrived first thing this morning and immediately had problems drilling holes into the concrete wall behind the organ where we had specified 6 anchors. There is so much reinforcing steel in that wall that they were hard pressed to find places where the could drill a 20mm hole four or five inches deep. But after some modification on our part and a few changes in technique on theirs, the job, including another six in the floor, got done. They used a chemical anchoring system based on a piece of 16mm stainless threaded rod. Once the hole is drilled in the concrete, a test tube-like epoxy-filled glass container is inserted, then the threaded rod is hammered in and spun. The hammering breaks the tube and the spinning mixes the two parts of the epoxy that had been separate inside the divided tube. No pre-mixing, no muss, no fuss, and no epoxy gun to clean. Best of all, the anchors were ready to bolt up in an hour. Boltmate brand.

Once they had left us to ourselves with many a 'Domo arigato', we tackled getting the bellows up through the access hole in the wall and hung in place above the closet. The rental lift proved unequal to the task of lifting the bellows and two people; overload warning beepers making a hell of a racket. But by stripping the bellows of its accompanying wind duct and some clever angling we cleared the wall by almost a full inch and the bellows is now in place. That left us time to begin raising the frame, and by day’s end at about seven-thirty in the evening, we had all the structural posts in place, and the Great level steel assembled. Then we used the lift again to put the Great windchests in place without any struggle at all. We had also installed the six largest pipes in the organ against the back wall. Since they are made of wood it is quite safe to do so at this early stage, and far easier than when the rest of the organ is built. Six down, one-thousand six-hundred ninety-eight to go.

Friday, January 13

A big day today if measured in poundage assembled. We added the steel structure for the second level and the swell chest as well, then more large pipes. We needed to put enough weight on the frame to have it bear sufficiently on the posts and floor and overcome its own innate stiffness in order to begin the leveling process. We had already set up a transit for earlier rough leveling, but now we went through each of the eight posts that will carry the 20,000 pound instrument and leveled them all to within 1/16". Once the bottom of the posts were level we could begin making sure the entire frame was plumb and square and then finally tightened all the bolts that hold the frame together, heretofore left just snug.

At lunch, since we were in search of a post office and a cash machine, we went back up island one stop on the train to Island Center where the shopping area and the Fashion Mart are, and made the mistake of succumbing to the siren song of Wendy's for a quick meal. I know some of you will be saying that we are crazy for eating American fast food when we are surrounded by all the exotic and wonderful Japanese fare, and I am amazed myself at how quickly the mind and the belly begin to crave the familiar. Even though at home I might eat at Wendy's or BK twice a year, it just seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn’t. Dana, who'd been a little sleep deprived anyway, felt sick almost right away, and I was less than zippy myself.

Turns out that the Japanese Post Office has cash machines that accept Cirrus, and one can exchange dollars for yen there as well. But we fell afoul of the forms that must be filled out and the obtuse nature of bureaucrats the world over, the fellow I encountered even had the usually uber-patient Dola shaking his head. It is best to use one’s cash card in the machines, which all have English available. They spit out yen and one's account at home gets charged in dollars at slightly more than the going bank rate. One needs to carry a fair amount of cash here, many smaller restaurants and shops do not accept credit cards, and many, many things, from train tickets to hot coffee in cans come out of vending machines. Thankfully, there’s a 500 yen coin, worth almost five bucks US.

In the afternoon we installed all the key action and stop action and finished the wind system assembly as well, except for the last connections to the bellows. The installation of the coupler stack was a complicated operation because it is connected to so many things which must all align perfectly. But modular assembly is by far the best in the long run, and a little persuasion with an eight ton jack did the trick. We worked until eight, partly because we had taken a hour and a half at lunch, but also partly because the momentum of installation takes over and it is difficult to stop. When the organ is taken down in the shop a list is kept of the order of disassembly, which can then be read backward to guide reassembly. Crossing items off the reverse order list is so satisfying, and the thrill of watching the organ take shape in its final home so appealing, that it can take half an hour to get everyone to down tools and go home.

Saturday, January 14

The coffee shop we frequent must open late on weekends so we might have been a little slower in getting started this morning. Dola brought a coffee maker for the chapel and we’ve been sampling various brands. There are two sorts of coffee here, Blendo which is rich and flavorful, and Americano, which isn't.

The scissors lift proved to be just the thing for putting the swell box together. There was a breath holding moment when we erected the sides and slid the roof on. Normally I visit a site to measure before the design begins, but in this case I was depending on someone else’s measurements, and no matter how much one trusts one’s colleagues, there is that niggling doubt in the mind. Especially when the margin of error is an inch and a half in 21 feet. However, today, what we call the "AutoCAD Moment" arrived and passed without incident.

Jason began work on prettifying the hole we’d cut in the wall to access the upper levels of the organ through the closet to the side, while Dana, now recovered, began routing wire and mounting the switching system that controls the stops. Dola and I began unpacking and readying casework, and called in the other two when lifting time arrived. In this fashion, we assembled nearly the entire upper case by about five o’clock and realized we’d never stopped for lunch. So we quit early to celebrate the weekend and went to a very nice Chinese restaurant on the island.

During dinner we quizzed Dola on why it is that we are not to be allowed to work next Friday, Saturday or Sunday. As it happens, it is the weekend for university entrance exams, something like super SAT’s. There is so much riding on these exams that the government sends in national guardsmen to ring the university, ensuring that only those who are authorized to be on the campus may enter. This is what is known as "Exam Hell". The anxiety surrounding these exams, which can determine the course of one’s life to a frightening degree, is huge. It is apparently part of the reason that the crowds at the Shinto shrines for the Ebisu festival were so overwhelming, young people are looking for all the intercession they can get. The upshot is: we won’t be allowed on campus, period, and will therefore lose two more working days next week. Normal installation work weeks approach and often top 60 hours, but not this time. We decided to go in for a "half day" tomorrow, nine to three, and then squeeze in a little sightseeing. It will mean that by next Thursday we’ll have put in ten days in a row, but will then have three off, maybe we’ll go to Kyoto.

Sunday, January 15

Lots more progress today. The largest case pieces, the 21-foot side panels went up with very little fuss. We built a device to hold the bottom edge to the wall as a "footer' and then attached the block and tackle to the inside of the front edge. They eased into place with an almost audible “snick”. It is so pleasant when a top heavy 300 pound part glides in so nicely. No such luck when we tried to add the blower to the already crowded space that houses the bellows as well as part of the building’s air handling system inside the wall to the left of the organ. The blower for this organ is a squirrel cage fan powered by a one horsepower electric motor. The whole unit might fill a 2-foot cube and weigh 100 pounds, but when it needs to go through a 23 1/2" square opening eight feet up a wall inside a 3' x 4' closet, hijinks will definitely ensue. It is in there now, further the deponent sayeth not.

We managed to knock off by four o'clock and braved exploring without Dola’s assistance around the Sannomiya-Motomachi area, easily the most colorful part of the city, stopping in on our friends at Starbucks and the little Gyoza-and-nothing-but-Gyoza shop for snacks before tempura and the like in the pedestrian mall in Chinatown.

It was a fun and productive week. Next week we'll try to continue building the organ while the electricians wire the maintenance lights and blower motor, and try to plumb the depths of cultural questions such as why everything is so well wrapped here, why there are faucets on the top of the toilets, and how the windows on the Rokko Liner train fog up as we get close to apartment buildings and then go clear once they are passed. Stay tuned.

Greg Bover