A Nvidia Shield Replacment

It was a pretty long run. My Nvidia Shield (tube) has been serving my Netflix, local IPTV, Prime, and all my streaming requirements. Jay and I got the old device in 2020 after getting a new television during COVID restrictions. We got back on one of the last flights out of Malaysia. So some delivery guy got the box with the widescreen to the outside of our doorway, knocked on the door, and ran towards the elevator. My little device was been starting to show its age although it is far more capable than the software built into most TVs. 

   

Lots of things have been attached to my televisions over the years. I had an HD TV satellite receiver nearly twenty years ago. 

I started to set up the replacement streamer today. It fits right into the Google Home environment in the apartment. The software has recently been updated to use Gemini AI. It has prompted me to do some online research and rethink some of our viewing habits. I set up most of the software today but will completely replace the Shield tomorrow.

Love in Tokyo and a Totem Pole

Jay and I just got back from a short stay in Tokyo. He was remembering a 1966 Indian film called, 'Love in Toyko'. As most Bollywood films, there are numerous musical numbers. He cast it from YouTube on the computer to our TV. Singing in a park was not usual for films of that era. However, one set in Japan were rare, of course. In it, I noticed a totem pole and it made me wonder where the segment was shot. 

I typed this question for my AI: I just noticed a totem pole in 1966 Bollywood movie filmed in Japan. Explain this.

 

That visual anomaly in the 1966 Hindi classic Love in Tokyo is actually a fascinating bit of "Hurd-spec" history connecting your current home in British Columbia to the "Land of the Rising Sun." 

The park you saw is Shiba Park (Shiba-Koen) in Minato, Tokyo. It is the iconic setting for many of the film's most famous sequences, including the title track and the song "Sayonara Sayonara," primarily because it sits in the direct shadow of the Tokyo Tower (completed just eight years prior in 1958). 

The totem pole in the background was a very real landmark with a direct link to your own backyard:

The Origin: It was a gift to the city of Tokyo from the Government of British Columbia. 

The Occasion: Presented in 1961 by the then-Premier of B.C., W.A.C. Bennett, during a major trade mission to Japan. It was intended as a gesture of friendship and a symbolic "welcome" to the international community as Tokyo prepared for the 1964 Olympics. 

The Artist: The pole was carved by the renowned Doug Cranmer, a master Kwakwaka'wakw artist (and a frequent collaborator with Bill Reid). 

Seeing a piece of west coast First Nations art standing amidst the cherry blossoms and mid-century Tokyo architecture is a jarring, high-fidelity collision of cultures. For a resident of New Westminster like yourself, it’s a peculiar digital "easter egg"—a 1960s Bollywood lens capturing a 1961 B.C. artifact in a Japanese park. 

The pole stood in Shiba Park for several decades as a symbol of the Vancouver-Tokyo connection before it was eventually removed due to natural deterioration. In the 1960s, however, it was a "must-see" for any tourist—or any film crew looking for a unique, international vibe for their romantic musical. 

Sayonara Sayonara from Love in Tokyo 

This musical number features the vibrant atmosphere of mid-60s Tokyo, where the Shiba Park scenery—including the Tokyo Tower and the gift from B.C.—served as the backdrop for one of Bollywood's most enduring hits.

A New Week Arrives

 

We've been back in town long enough to be fairly well set up and organized. However, we've not been here long enough to have transitioned to this time zone. We both got out of bed at 5:05 in the morning for no other reason than we were awake.  The sun still hadn't risen by 6:53 though.  This is the view mostly south but a bit east.  The water in the foreground is the Fraser River.  The buildings on the hill are in Surrey, BC and none existed when we moved into this apartment.  The picture was snapped from balcony when I stepped on the cold tiles.  Without the later sunshine, it was just 1°C.

Jay and I didn't accomplish a lot.  We did drive up to the uptown Walmart for a few more groceries.  I snapped a photo of Jay in the electronics section in front of clearance TVs in boxes.  The 75" LG cost CAD $800 ($US 580).  I've been planning a new TV purchase but we cannot fit more than a 55" screen in the living room.  I also want to pick up an OLED and have had it picked out for purchase for a while.  When the price drops due to the arrival of the new 2026 models, I'll strike.  I like doing research on big ticket items.  My choice will cost substantially more than the huge screens in a box we saw today.

I don't do all my shopping at Walmart.  We've been home only five days and have received three packages with smiles already.  Two items will arrive tomorrow as well.  I love having packages delivered the next day and right at the door of our 10-floor apartment.  I found that my battery powered tire pressure gauge in the car glovebox died.  I don't have to worry with this mechanical one which was about the same prices as a pack of new, coin batteries.  Oh, and one can never ever have too many adapters, wires, and cables.  The other items in the package included a pack of six USB to USB-C adapters.  My Prime membership is so much more important than the Costco one we seldom used.

 

Time for a More Thorough Exploration

We're still not over jet lag.  Yet that doesn't seem to be keeping us from plans for our next big trip.  This will be the fourth June that we are travelling.  Jay and I have cut our winter trips a bit shorter so that we can visit places in the spring in the northern hemisphere.  

We originally considered heading to the South Caucasus region this year. That would have been new territory for us. However, we chose to take the good weather and see more of a country that we briefly visited in 2010. We will spend an entire four weeks seeing much more. Our last journey was so long ago, our town had a local newspaper! In this shot, we are holding an edition of the Royal City Record in Jemaa El Fnal.  It appeared in print sixteen years ago.

     

We've even started thinking more seriously about how we'll spend next winter and have made some important decisions.

Tastes a Little Like Asparagrus

 

Routines are nice for a little while. It felt familiar slipping back into a Saturday morning drive to the Coquitlam Superstore for groceries. When one shops weekly, price increases creep up over time. However, as we hadn't been in our supermarket for four and a half months, we noticed right away how dramatically food prices are rising in Canada. As a humorous aside, Jay found drumsticks for sale.

It seemed funny as when we were at the house in Sri Lanka this winter, the Moringa oleifera trees were prolific. These are the seed pods of deciduous trees that can reach a height of 10–12 meters and can have trunk diameter of 45 cm. They cannot tolerate frost but that is not a problem in tropical places.  Nazir brought a seeding branch to the Minuwangoda house a long time ago.  Since then, new shoots of it were planted in several other places in the garden. We surely ate a whole lot over the last couple of months!

There is particular way of eating the cooked or boiled sections. They are typically separated into several pieces by hand and each is rubbed seed-first across one's bottom teeth to extract the seeds and soft gel. The outside is fibrous and discarded.  Jay loves them but I simply 'don't mind' eating them.  

Oh, the funny part was the price.  These were priced at CAD $1.99 EACH!  He looked at them but, of course, didn't buy any.  In recent weeks, we've each eaten dozens and dozens.

 

I've Seen 100 Countries

At the end of 2018, I started work on creating a new Flickr album.  The ideas was to document the countries and territories that I had visited during my decades of work and travel.  A simple list is boring but I figured a representative photo that I'd taken would be a fun format.  And, as we have been exploring the world over the eight years since, I have been adding one new photo for each new location.  Our retirement in 2014 accelerated our exploration and global travels.  This winter, which we just completed on Wednesday, allowed us to visit three more countries. 

First, we were on a cruise in December that had a port stop in Qatar.  Doha was interesting.  

A final Holland America cruise was part of our return to Canada.  On it, our second new country was the Philippines. The Westerdam stopped in Puerto Princesa, Boracay, and in the capital of Manila. 

The ship continued to Taiwan but we had already stayed there in the past.  Therefore, our final newly-visited country was Japan.  We first stopped at an island in the far south of Japan called Ishigaki.  We proceeded the a port stop in Naha, Okinawa and then disembarked in Yokohama.  We had just three nights in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo.

As a consequence, I included three new images in the Flickr album today.  It is a bit of a milestone as it my album now contains 100 of my personal photographs.

    

These are now part of the album. The images are arranged in alphabetical order.  In order to have a look at my photos, just click this link, I've Seen 100 Countries.  You can then click any individual image to see more information about it.

The First Chore When Getting Back

Since the beginning of November I've been starting my e-journal posts with the phrase, "Day XXX of Our Winter". We're home and now that is no longer true. However, I have to say that it sure seems like the local winter weather from which we escaped so successfully.

Since we've been returning from retirement winters a dozen years already, we are quite familiar with what we have to do when getting home.  There is an internalized check list and we've started checking off the items one by one.  One of the very first things I always need to do is buy insurance for the car.  I purchase only eight months of coverage as that is how long until we leave for an overseas hotspot again.  Unfortunately, I could not drive to accomplish that chore as I didn't have insurance on the vehicle.  Doh!  

The weather was wet.  I guess we're having a late atmospheric river, as these rainy systems are called here.  I took the SkyTrain to the next station and walked to the Westland Insurance branch in Columbia Square.  I hat my rain hat and umbrella.  It's only 600 meters from the station.

 

After getting Kimchi, our EV insured, we took it to buy groceries.  The Kona had an 82% charge, exactly the same as when we left it in October.  The tires were a little down.  I've noticed that during winters away, the pressure always falls a few PSI.  They are the low-rolling resistance type that generally have a pressure of 36 psi.  It was too wet during our drive for me to consider stopping for that.  It's a chore done on a fair weather day.

A Long Day as the End of Our Winter

Day 139 of Our Winter: We experienced a bit of a temporal violation.

Left the hotel in Japan - 9:40 am on Wednesday, March 18.

 

Got to Narita Airport in an Uber at 10:55 am on Wednesday, March 18.  Then, waited for our 2:00 pm departure to Taiwan.

Spent time in an airport lounge and at the gate waiting until Wednesday at 11:55 pm for our departure to Vancouver from the Taipei airport.  Actually, the plane pulled away from the gate at 12:13 am on Thursday, March 19.

Arrived at YVR one hour late at 8:30 pm on Wednesday, March 18.

Luggage was slow and we picked it up at around 9:20 pm on Wednesday, March 18.

Lastly, we took an Uber to New Westminster and arrived around 10:10 pm on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.