University of Tokyo

I had my first day on campus yesterday. I met Prof. Towhata and the grad students in the geotech lab. I also got a desk to sit at. So far in the lab, there is an Asian girl named Wayway, who is from the UK. A guy named Ivan, I'm not sure where he's from. Carlos, from Columbia (the country not the University or the district). There are also Japanese students, but I'm not sure of all their names yet.

I'm going to need to start wearing my Reefs to the lab though, because I have to take off my shoes at the entranceway and my Starburys were annoying to take off yesterday. The campus is pretty nice, though the buildings are a bit old. I was at the other campus with Todd the other day and that was really new and modern.

In addition to being my first day on campus, I also took my first ride on the Tokyo Metro. I had to take the Namboku line a whopping two stops from Komagome to Todaimae. It was croweded, but I didn't need to get pushed on or anything. Now is also as good a time as any to talk about the door closing jingle they play. Every station has it's own little music that they play to let you know that the doors will be closing very soon. I didn't quite know what was going on until I Googled it and found some videos on Youtube. On the JR line there are no signs explaining it. However on the subway I found some signs like this one:

There was also this sign:

There really is a lot of wind generated. They have a second set of doors in the station that keep you from the track area. I had thought that these doors were to prevent people from being buffeted with wind as the trains come, but now I can see that it also probably lowers the amount of track maintenance from things (or people) falling on the tracks.


It turns out that the university is on Hongo-dori, which is also the street that I live on. Yesterday evening, I just walked home from the lab. It was only about a 40 minute walk. I passed a few random temples or shrines on my way home.