I’ve never been to Japan, so today I tried to cheat by visiting Grand Central Station, where ‘Japan Week’ is underway.

But somehow I left with even less knowledge than I went with.

Ryan met me at Grand Central – about three minutes too late to save me from being hit on by a boy named Boris who was young enough to be my son. Still shaken from the ordeal, I scuttled to Vanderbilt Hall, the exhibition space that has been known to host art shows, squash tournaments and world records.

From Thursday until Saturday, it’s home to ‘Japan Week’ (yes, a three-day week), which is showcasing Japanese food, drink, design and performers. It’s running every night until 11pm so I was a little disappointed that when we arrived at 8pm, it was already looking pretty sparse.

We started with the design side and saw these pretty things.

Then on to the food – including treats from Minamoto Kitchoan, which you might remember I loved last year. Unfortunately, all my favorite ones were gone.

That was pretty much it, strangely. Even stranger was how the most fun I had was at the Delta stand. As far as I gleaned, the only reason it was there was because they were giving away free round-trips to Tokyo. And they also had these really cool chairs that went all the way back. I gave it a whirl.

Meh. Where was the hubbub? The tables of treats? The gifts I could buy? It was all so sterile and we left after about 10 minutes.

Grand Central, you’ve been a winner for me on more occasions than I can count, so I can forgive you for this one slip up. But let’s not let it happen again.