Asia '69 Exhibition 24 Oct
Allah Day (Friday) - everything closed. Another attack of the "eastern Lethargy" after an excellent night's sleep on two codeine. Woke at about 10:30 and read till nearly midday. Rose, had brunch (raw onions and cheese) and went off to "do" Asia '69. It turns out this was the first ever exhibition at the new Tehran International Exhibition Centre. We saw the British, Australian, US, Swiss, Russian, German and Japanese pavilions. Of these the British was a good building, and the show was good from the trade point of view, though not very imaginatively set out. Australian was too much trying to sell Australia. The US was all about communications and computers - poor for commerce. The Swiss watches were unbelievable; they make more than eight times as many as Russia, the next highest nation, and their pavilion, though nothing to look at was airy and very well laid out.
The Russian pavilion was amorphous and made no impression. The German one was not as impressive as one would have expected from such a leading industrial nation, nevertheless their industry is fantastic. Mercedes had their own stand by themselves. Apart from the absence of their sensational new fast back this was a great tribute to a great firm. The Japanese exhibited their motorcycles outside by themselves. Honda had a four-cylinder 750cc - wow! and Yamaha and Kawasaki and Suzuki were all represented. Inside there was an exhibition of the stuff they produce, though not particularly well displayed.
Regrettably we had arranged that we should be back at 5pm in case Fran and Kaye called, so we had to leave about 4:45 - so we didn't see any Iranian stuff or the Indian or Malayan pavilions. Never mind, it was kind of hard on the feet, and what we did see was fascinating - especially to me.
When we got back to the Wave we had to bounce a VW and a Fiat 1100 out of the way so that we could unpark. The driving here is disastrous, and even Brian is being affected and seems to have become colour blind. We stayed in for quite a while waiting for the birds, but they didn't come so we went out with Neal and Shirley to "their" restaurant and had aubergine and rice - not really a very happy choice - not nearly as good as Turkey. The meals cost 30 rials each. Then Neal and Shirley said they were going to see "Jungle Book" in English. Great. We took them and Frank (a Dutchman) and Barbara (Canadian from Montreal) up Pahlavi to the cinema, which was in darkness "closed for emergency repair". Despair.
Down to the boozer opposite the university. Then, on the way down Shahreza Avenue, a taxi dribbled out of a side street into the rear side of the poor old 'Wave' which suffered a minor dent. The taxi driver was lucky to get away with all his teeth. Oh, to bounce his machine into the gutter! The man's a complete nincompoop. Back to the hotel where Barbara, Neal and Shirley came for coffee. After sitting looking most dejected for a while Barbara treated us to an amazing monologue. By, that girl can talk. She finally left us about 1:30am - having told us quite a bit about the possibilities of teaching English. Then Neal talked about drug taking, principally LSD, until about 3am. His powers of description are pretty graphic.
