Wandering

Today, I had very few plans for what I wanted to see and where I wanted to go. I set out for Ikebukuro to return some ping pong balls I had bought to teach the Italians how to play beer pong. We had played and the balls were still in good shape, so I cleaned them and returned them. I had thought that I might want to walk around Ikebukuro a bit or eat lunch there, but once I was done my errand I decided to leave.

The taste of last weekend's döner was still fresh in my mind and the weather was so much clearer today that I decided to give Harajuku another shot. I figured I'd get lunch and see if I could find some cos play people or greasers (there are legit greasers who hang out in Yoyogi park on Sundays).

So I got my döner and headed back to the park. I saw more cos play people than last weekend, but ended up walking into the wrong part of the park. I just kept walking farther into the park and was hoping that I could make a loop back to where I had entered, but alas I never made it back there. No, after entering the park, I embarked on what would be a 3 hour journey walking around Tokyo.

Further into the park, I caught sight of Takashimaya Times Square, a giant building in Shinjuku. Harajuku is just two stops south of Shinjuku, so I figured I'd start heading north again and see where it would take me. I contemplated trying to walk the whole way back to Komagome and probably would have done it if it hadn't started raining around 5 pm.

I set out from the park with a vague idea of where I was headed and set the plan to just walk towards the tall buildings of Shinjuku. The plan ended up being a good one because soon enough I was back near the Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku. Luckily for me there are area maps all over Tokyo near train stations. Once I reached Shinjuku, I reassessed the lay of the land and looked on the map for streets that might lead me home. I saw a few that looked like maybe they would work, but I wasn't sure. Instead, I just started walking towards a river that was on the map.

I wandered through parts of Shinjuku I hadn't seen yet. I saw a bunch of cool sky scrapers and Shinjuku Chuo Park (which is just Shinjuku Central Park, since chuo means central). I saw a bunch of skaters and watched a dude juggle a soccer ball while jumping rope. I was mega impressed. I continued through the park to the river and decided to follow the river since there was a path along either side of it. I followed the river for a few kilometers and checked the maps posted along side the path. I saw that the paths led to Takadanobaba, which I knew was a stop on the Yamanote line. I figured I should head there and then decide where to go.

Along the river path, there were a few public bathrooms. The men's room of one of these bathrooms had completely open urinals. I mean, people walking down the path could look right in on the urinals.

So needless to say, I totally used this urinal and enjoyed the fresh air. I wandered the path and kept going towards Takadanobaba. I relied on the area maps and my sense of direction. In Tokyo you're never too far away from some type of public transportation. A few weeks ago I was able to get the Tokyo subway map onto my iPod, so that was my back up plan. If I got utterly lost, I'd just look for a subway or train station and head back to the nearest large station. It never came to that though.

I made it all the way to Takadanobaba and was prepared to press on, but it started drizzling. I jumped on the JR line and headed home. I took the photo below from Takadanobaba. You can see the cocoon building, which I had walked right by in Shinjuku.

Spanish Restaurant

Laura and I headed out to dinner with Carlos and his friends tonight. All I knew was that we were going to meet near Omote Sando. When I got there I waited with Carlos, Adrianna, and Laura. Eventually their friend Alberto, from Spain, came and we waited for the others to come. We then headed in to the subway station to wait for the remaining members of the party, who included I-chun, Surjith and a Japanese guy I didn't catch the name of. The other guys were all from the chemical engineering department at Todai. I-chun was doing a short post doc at Todai and in January is heading to NYU to do another post doc.

We headed to a Spanish restaurant that Alberto had found and vouched for it being the best Spanish restaurant in Tokyo. He said there were really only about 3, but this was hands down the best.

The owner was a great host and was fluently speaking Spanish with Alberto, Carlos and Adrianna, English with Surjith, Laura and I and Japanese with the last guy. He was from Spain and from the sound of his accent he was from Catalonia (it didn't hurt my detective skills that the restaurant was also called El Catalon or something like that). He had that slight lisp that I know is common in that area of Spain.

The food was great as well. The owner took the time to explain the origins of gazpacho and paella to us. Apparently, the poor make the best gazpacho because they keep it simple. You start with cold water, then you add some tomato and a few other spices, like salt and pepper and that's about it I think. (I'm writing this well after the fact, so my memory is failing me.) He also explained how you make sangria out of cheap wine because the fruit makes it taste better. Then he showed us how to drink out of a wine skin. I almost had a chance to drink out of a wine skin, but I was sitting on the wrong side of the table. I learned that eating rabbit is much more common in Europe than I thought. I had eaten some on Poland and my Polish friend's dad had explained to me how he and his brother had raised them to sell for pocket money when they were young. I'm not sure how easy they were to get in Japan though.

The restaurant itself was also pretty cool. There were messages written all over the walls from people that had been there. The waiters all seemed to be Spanish as well. Sadly, the building was going to be torn down and the restaurant was going to have to move.

The entire night we had been talking about where we lived and it became more necessary when it was time to leave and make our way home. I had been told that I-chun also lived in Komagome, so we started talking about where we live in Komagome. Long story short, we live in the same building. So I had some one to head home with on the last train.

After dinner, Laura, Alberto, I-chun and I headed to Shibuya, which was a short walk away. We were going for a last drink. We tried to go one place, but decided it was too loud to talk. We ended up going in one of many tiny bars in Tokyo. There was room for about 10 people in the entire place, which had 2 floors. These places define "hole in the wall."

We had our drink and just barely made the last trains home.

Last weekend: Sunday

At long last I made it to Harajuku today. Steve, Matteo, Laura and I went to try to find some cos play kids and basically gawk at the freaks. Harajuku is well known as a place young people go on weekends and dress up as comic characters. It was one of last destinations on my list of places in Tokyo to see before I left.

As it turns out though, we picked a bad day to look for cos play kids. It was a bit rainy, but that probably didn't matter too much. Actually, when we got to Harajuku we discovered that there was a giant dance competition called Super Yosakoi. It seemed to be sort of traditional Japanese dances mixed with some more modern stuff.

There were stages all over the place. We'd walk away from one stage and find another. This happened about 5 times. We'd go to leave the stage and see something else and we'd just find a new place where they were dancing. They even had a whole street closed and were dancing up the street following huge trucks with PA systems. On the trucks were members of the dance group who's only job was to sing. The odd thing about these groups was that they all danced up the street to the same song. The people on the trucks all sang their own variation of this song. The majority of the song just consisted of them saying "hey" on the downbeat, but there were a few other sweet parts where they would sing "sore, sore, sore, soreee" (that's sore -ray, not a muscle ache). The remainder of the lyrics to the song can only be described as what sounded like Japanese old school hip-hop. The guys would sing pretty fast and melodically.

There was one group that had more of a ska feel. They sang a different song. I took some video with my camera just to record the song, but I think it was so loud that it overwhelmed the microphone. You can still make out the melody, but not too well.

Anyway, we walked around Harajuku all afternoon. A few other highlights included finding a döner stand and me speaking German to avoid taking a survey or something. The döner stand was probably my favorite find in Harajuku. I was so psyched to see it that I made everyone walk back to it for lunch. The guy who ran it was really nice and was wearing a red cowboy hat with the symbol from the Turkish flag on it. As it turned out, his wife is Italian so he was able to speak Italian with Steve and Matteo. I devoured my first döner so fast that I had enough time to get a second one before the others finished their first. I got it with a mix of spicy and garlic sauce because I didn't know how spicy it would be and drink options were limited.

The speaking German part came after the kebab. There were people on Omote-sando Dori trying to stop us to ask us questions. I'm not entirely sure what for since we didn't stop. I avoided some of them and was aware of their presence. When one finally did get me, I just spoke to her in German, which I think really confused her. She was guilty of a crime I myself had begun to commit, namely, assuming all white people you see in Japan speaks English. I just stonewalled her with German and continued on my way.

In our wandering around Harajuku I learned that Shibuya is really close by and that's where we got the train home from. Actually, we took the train to Shinjuku and went bowling first. The bowling was pretty much just like home, except all the score keeping was in Japanese and it was on the 7th floor of a building. Also, this particular alley used animations of penguins during your turn to show splits, spares, strikes, etc.

Last weekend: Saturday

Saturday was not terribly exciting last weekend. We went to Asakusa and to the Asahi Sky Room and to Senso-ji temple (all stops I got to make as tour guide on my 3rd time to Asakusa). This time however we did see a guy with a monkey that he trained to do tricks. I was pretty conflicted about it because it seems like a crappy life for the monkey, but it was still entertaining.

The point of going to Asakusa was to take a boat cruise down the Sumida River to Odaiba, which is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay where a bunch of people from the lab live. Sadly we weren't able to get the boat that was fashioned to look like it was a spaceship from the future. That future boat is what people would think of or expect to see in Tokyo. We just got the regular boat and cruised on down the river. The boat went under at least a dozen bridges over the river, each of which had its own character, most of which were painted bright colors. We even went by the backside of the Tsukiji fish market.

When we got to Odaiba we had to take a monorail across to yet another island. We didn't meet up with any of our friends, but we at least got to see where they live and take the monorail that they have to take every day to leave the island to go to campus.

In Odaiba there was some type of festival going on. There are some really ridiculous buildings. I think I have some photos up of them. We wandered around and ended up getting in to a line, which we found out was a line to enter a toy store. Once inside said toy store, we basically stood in a line to snake our way through the store. It was surreal. We basically wandered around and took in the sights, which included a miniature Statue of Liberty.

We went into a mall and I bought some strange flavored Pringles at a Toys R Us. We then found the food court, where Laura and I both got Cinnabon. Steve and Matteo weren't quite as excited for the Cinnabon and got some tempura instead.

More wandering ensued and we eventually took the monorail back out of Odaiba and headed back to Akihabara. We grabbed some Becker's burger and looked for a place to get some sake, which was quickly accomplished down the street from Laura's new apartment. We had some sake, which was served in the ever popular bamboo shaped carafe and cups. I've encountered this style carafe before. It's made to look like it's just a piece of bamboo that's been cut and has a natural cap on the bottom to keep drinks in. I have no idea if it actually was bamboo or not, but it seemed more likely that it was plastic.

It was after this evening in Akihabara that I decided it would fun to walk back to my apartment using my newfound knowledge that I lived on a road that lead directly between the two places. It was raining slightly, but I had nowhere important to be.

If I hadn't walked I might never have noticed the temple I passed on the way back. Or I might not have been lucky enough to follow a completely drunk guy for a few blocks, watching him stagger and stop on the sidewalk a half dozen times, before I had to just pass him and keep going. I walked Hongo-dori the whole way home.

Last weekend: Friday

I'm going to do my best to recount the events of last weekend. You can refer to my photos for a better idea of what I did. I'll also note that I was with my friend Matteo, who has Nikon D300, so I took fewer photos and am banking on copies of his. On a further tangent, Matteo takes copious photos of Japanese children. Sure they're cute, but if other people find his camera, he might have some explaining to do.

Friday night, we went out to Gyu Kaku, which is a barbeque chain. There happens to be one by my apartment that I have now been to 3 times. The English speaking waitress knows Laura and I now because she is always the one to serve us, since she's the only waitress with good English. Now when I say barbeque I don't mean that they serve you barbeque food like ribs, steaks, etc. I mean that they bring a charcoal grill to your table and you grill up meat that you order. You can also order vegetables, which is a big part of why we like the place. It's pretty difficult to get many vegetables here in Japan, at least in restaurants.

So we took Steve and Matteo there because we promised them it was good and we knew they have an English menu. Laura and I start by ordering some of our favorites. Steve and Matteo picked few things as well and we began cooking. As it turned out, our first grill was a bust and it had to be replaced. Our favorite waitress was nowhere to be seen when we walked in, but she eventually came and found us. She hooked us up with a fresh grill and kept checking on us to make sure things were good. She even offered to move us to a new table, since the grill sits inside the table and there is a whole air flow system built into each table.

We grilled what we could and managed to make due with a bum table. The waitress asked Steve and Matteo if they were also from University of Tokyo (which I'll add is like the MIT of Japan, people get really impressed when you say you are working there). Things were going well, but I was developing a headache. It kind of sucked, because I was having a good time and didn't want to bail and I was comforted by the knowledge that I was only 5 minutes walk from my apartment.

Laura and got pretty full on the first few rounds of food, however Steve and Matteo had other plans. They decided they would order one of the big plates of meat; one that serves 3-4 people. Laura and I protested, but the food was ordered anyway. So I'm sitting there with a headache, wanting to leave, but stuck eating more meat after I was already full.

The big plate of meat comes and goes. I'm still feeling pretty awful, but I wasn't as full as I thought so the meat wasn't a big deal. I just want to leave and go home and sleep off this headache, which seems like it might be a migraine. What happens when the meat runs out? Steve and Matteo order another plate, almost the same size but this time they listen to our protests and get a smaller plate. So we're now several plates of meat each into this meal, I'm dying with a migraine and more meat is on its way.

We get through the next plate of meat and I'm thinking I'm finally in the clear. No. Now it's time for dessert. I really can't blame them, because the dessert there is really good. You can get these fish shaped things that look like waffles, but you grill them and they're filled with some form of red bean paste. Despite that potentially unappealing description, they're pretty tasty. The guy at the table next to ours folded an origami crane out of the paper envelope that the fish are served in.

I did eventually make it home and subsequently passed out. I woke up the next morning feeling much better, but not looking to eat any meat for a while.

And now for something completely different

I was just having a conversation with my sister and I had to share it because it was ridiculous. We're talking about politics and about John McCain announcing his VP choice.

pontoon: so joe biden's speech has a catch phrase that sounds just like an infomercial to me
pontoon: people keep repeating it and it sounds like "set it and forget it"
Kristen : mccain looks like he's announcing sarah palin as vp
Kristen : which makes things interesting
pontoon: whhooa
pontoon: nice curveball john
Kristen : she's only 44, too
pontoon: nice work trying to get the woman vote
pontoon: this totally proves the point i made earlier
pontoon: that republicans love exploiting interesting members of their constiutency
pontoon: like colin powell, condoleeza rice
pontoon: etc
pontoon: now a female VP candidate
pontoon: they know how to play their cards
pontoon: how people don't just see it as slight of hand I don't know
Kristen : it strikes me as a little opportunistic, i know.
Kristen : they're pointing out now that being from the middle of nowhere (she's governor of alaska) she's also big on rural issues. it will be interesting.
pontoon: weird
pontoon: so they'll lock down the pesky alaskan vote
Kristen : like we were saying earlier, though, she's been govenor for 1.5 years. how does that prepare you to be vp??
pontoon: i can already see the "barack's folly" headlines
pontoon: it doesn't i didn't that barack was also in the IL senate for a full 6 year term
pontoon: and taught a constitutional law class at the unversity of chicago
pontoon: for like 4-5 years
Kristen : oh, yeah. but that would be like george kenney running for president
pontoon: or longer
pontoon: nah, it would be like hank salvatore
pontoon: george is just a rep
Kristen : true. hank's been around longer though
pontoon: ha, yeah, i know
Kristen : and has his own rootbeer line
pontoon: but i'd say that 6 years in a senate is better than 4 years as governor
pontoon: or 1.5 years
pontoon: ha, so the republicans had to pick someone young
pontoon: to offset mccain's age
pontoon: and they picked a woman to show how progressive they can be
Kristen: yeah, i don't know what she did before. all the info they have is that she's 44 and is the first woman and youngest person to be Alaska's govenor. i'm assuming she was in local government first
pontoon: probably
pontoon: it's hard to become governor if not
pontoon: this is such a ploy
pontoon: not to discredit her qualifications
pontoon: but come on
Kristen : ooh, she was runner up in the miss alaska pagent at some point in her life
pontoon: no offense to her, and I don't like saying it, but hilary is the only woman who could realistically be in the white house
pontoon: as president or VP
Kristen : i agree. condoleeza or maybe nancy pelosi could possibly do it
pontoon: because I'm not 100% sure she's not a dude, and that's why she's so good at what she does
pontoon: maybe them
pontoon: but they don't have the popularity of hilary
Kristen : hillary is kind of an anomaly
pontoon: and there's no way in hell, the republicans are going to capture any of hilary's supporters
pontoon: from barack
pontoon: those women are wayy to liberal to go near mccain even with a female running mate
Kristen : ooh, her husband is an eskimo
pontoon: ncie
pontoon: nice
pontoon: this is totally the old republican trick
Kristen : one of her sons has downs syndrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin
pontoon: bring out a woman who is married to a minority (interracial couple), a woman, young
pontoon: and parade her around in front of everyone to prove that not all republicans are stodgy rich white people
Kristen : i disagree - andy's parents LOVED hillary (his mom being a lawyer and all) and they were really disappointed she lost. Obama is very liberal; if you have more moderate woman who feel this is an important issue, you might get them
Kristen : oh, another son is in the army
Kristen : she's like the perfect running mate
pontoon: ok, i think this woman is a robot
pontoon: and probably will win the election for mccain
pontoon: with that laundry list of things that have nothing to do with running a country
Kristen : he's supposed to be deployed to iraq in september. she's also a lifetime member of the NRA.
pontoon: holy crap
pontoon: totally a robot
pontoon: or she's a republican mad lib
Kristen : maybe she is a robot and they created this page yesterday
pontoon: they might have just put everything republican into a hat and picked out what her description would be
pontoon: she probably is a devout christian
pontoon: husband a minister
pontoon: converted half an eskimo village while working as a missionary
Kristen : she is. she was also a sports reporter on a local anchorage stations and was a commerical fisherman
Kristen : SHE IS RIDICULOUS
pontoon: also that down's syndrome son is her ticket to the pro life upgrade armor
pontoon: for her robotic body
pontoon: probably gave birth to him in a blizzard
pontoon: while driving herself to the shooting range
Kristen : yeah, the wikipedia page says as much. and no blizzard, but she did return to work 3 days later
pontoon: of course
pontoon: she's the T-1000
Kristen : just read the wikipedia page. she's like davy crocket
pontoon: must be
Kristen : that baby is only 4 months old!
pontoon: what, ok the dems need to play up her motherly duties
pontoon: not saying that she's unfit, but that she should be spending the next 4 years raising her kid
pontoon: holy crap she's 44 with a 4 month old
pontoon: is that the one with down's syndrome?
Kristen : yeah
pontoon: should someone maybe have told her that chance of birth defects increases with age
pontoon: so instead of raising her special needs son, she should be vice president
pontoon: makes perfect sense to me
Kristen : her eskimo husband can help
pontoon: i suppose
pontoon: but it takes a village
pontoon: they probably have one of those though too


Apparently I'm not the only one who sees the robotic connection. See the first item here.

My latest earthquake

I sat through my latest earthquake last Wednesday. I was sitting in the lab going over details for our testing and I felt some shaking. So the shaking continued and it sounded like there was a truck driving by. Laura and Dr. Gallagher were standing on the shake table, which is isolated from the rest of the floor so that when IT shakes, the rest of the building doesn't. So since it's isolated, they didn't really feel the earthquake.

So I've officially noticed 2 earthquakes. There have been about 4-5 since I've been here.

Lack of posts

I must apologize for my lack of posts recently. I got really burned out on recounting multiple day adventures. There was just so much to tell and trying to remember it all and type it out became a chore. Now, however, I'm avoiding doing work for my research, so I have a renewed energy for writing. I'll skip the pleasantries and get back to the stories.

My bathroom

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. I wanted to describe the my bathroom. I know it's a little weird. For some reason, maybe energy savings I don't know, one of my bathroom lights likes to go out after a short amount of time. Sometimes they alternate which will go out. Other times they'll alternate going out. First one goes out, it come back, then the other goes out. Granted my bathroom is the size of a large closet, so one light serves me fine.

I do however have a problem when both lights decide to go out. I have no idea how or why this happens, but it does. You'll be in the shower for a little while and all of sudden, no light. Now my bathroom being an over-sized closet, there are no windows. Some light can come through under the door. I've gotten to the point of just not caring any more. I can just leave the door open and get light that way. I have even just showered in the dark since I know where everything is. Nothing is more than an arm's length away anyway.

Hoagie

The only thing that got me through the boring day at work yesterday was knowing that I planned on making a hoagie when I went home. I had planned to make one on Sunday night, but got to lazy to collect all the ingredients. So yesterday right after I got home from work, I went out to the stores and got the necessities.

The grocery store provided me with tomato, lettuce, cheese, pepper and meats. Lunch meats are not easy to find in Japanese groceries stores and the ones you do find are limited. I got some form of sausage and what looked like maybe turkey. I should have known it wasn't turkey since the package said it was ham, but the packages called everything ham, so I thought that might have been a brand or something. I also got mayo, or what I thought was mayo, but if I had bothered reading the package would have seen was butter.

I then headed down the bakery to buy two loaves of bread I had been eying up to use as rolls. I'll say now that they worked very well. I'm glad I have that bakery because otherwise these hoagies would have been less satisfying.

I got home and began preparing everything. I have picture I'll add later. My 1 sq. ft. of counter space was in full use while I was making these sandwiches. Luckily I have a sharp knife and cutting board in my apartment, because the cutting board gave me more space since I could place it over the sink and the knife was just really useful.

Having cut the roll and prepared the lettuce and tomato, I looked to my "mayo" to start the sandwich. It was then that I realized I had gotten butter. I could not tolerate such a mistake and left everything mid-preparation to go procure some mayo. I went to the drug store this times, since I had searched the grocery store already with butter as my closest find. I'm sure they carry mayo, but I just wasn't going to spend more time looking there for it.

I found the mayo quickly in the drug store and returned to my work. I layered everything on the roll, topped it off with some pepper and cut it in half so that it would fit on my plate. I sort of wish I had oregano or hoagie oil, but I have to move in 3 weeks and I would not use that up in 3 weeks.

It was just the other day that I was talking with my Italian friends Steve and Matteo about my limited cooking abilities. I likened myself to Arthur Dent in Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless. If transplanted to a foreign place or in Arthur's case planet, the best skill I have to offer from my home is the ability to make a good sandwich. So I played Arthur Dent last night and got a little taste of home while watching Olympic baseball and softball (somehow both games were Japan v. Canada).

Katakana

I stumbled across this website while trying to find "Happy Anniversary" in Japanese for my parent's anniversary card. It really helped me get a better handle on Katakana, the Japanese alphabet for foreign words. I still need some practice, but I've already gotten a lot better and it's much more comforting to be able to read at least a few things in Japanese, since I'm constantly surrounded by words I can't read, let alone understand.

Katakana can be tricky though, since even if you can read the characters, you might still be clueless as to what the word is. You basically have to remember that the Japanese only have a set number of syllables to work with, so a lot of words end up with extra letters in them. Also, it's important to know that there are no "l"s in Japanese. L is usually replaced with some form of R, like "ri" or "ru" so remembering that tends to help. Context can also be useful for these situations.

I'm hoping to start on Hiragana soon so that I can read even more. Hiragana is the Japanese alphabet for Japanese words. It's about the same difficulty as Katakana I think, but I know absolutely no Hiragana, so I'll be starting from scratch.

Wikitravel.org

I'm not sure how I found this site, but it has been extremely helpful so far in Japan. I've definitely gotten some good info from it and you can't beat the price. I would say that sometimes the directions provided aren't the greatest, but I think it's more like Wikipedia in the sense that it's a good starting point. You find the names of places and then you investigate a bit further to find more details.

Otagi Nenbutsu-ji

Kyoto is supposed to have something like 2000 shrines and temples. I don't doubt this number, but I will say that I got burned out on temples and shrines a few days ago. Given that I'm not Buddhist or Shinto, these shrines and temples hold basically no meaning for me other than a cool building. Sometimes you get to see monks or other cool stuff, but you can't usually take photos inside, so that sort of makes them slightly less appealing and distinguishing. They all sort of look the same in the end, if you'll pardon what might be some cultural insensitivity.

Despite this feeling, I had seen a shrine in Wikitravel that they highly recommended and said that it was left out of most guidebooks, but very much worth the trip. It was in Arashiyama, which may or may not still be in Kyoto city, but was very much suburban. There is also a Monkey Park in Arashiyama where you can feed monkeys, so the trip to the area seemed full of promise. The monkeys were a secondary objective since we had even less of an idea where they were in Arashiyama.

We set out on the train and arrived with no problems at Arashiyama station. It was then that we realized that despite the temples in the area and the touristy things, the usual visitors to these places are Japanese. Thus we found no English maps or directions at the station. We did find a map with pictures of different places. One of the pictures looked sort of like where we wanted to go, so we decided to start walking towards that one. There were other temples on the way and we figured that they would make good resting points. We had read on Wikitravel that you could get to this shrine by the #62 or #72 bus, but we didn't quite know where to catch said buses.

Shortly after setting out from the train station, the first temple came into view. We were pretty happy to see that as we had learned from other tourist maps, was pretty small. The distances were manageable and this particular map may have actually had a north arrow. (In other parts of Kyoto we had found maps, tourist maps mind you, that were not north oriented. They were very confusing until we realized that for some reason north was actually towards the bottom of the map).

The first temples proved to be pretty nice. The Buddha statue there was like 600 years old or older. They discovered 50 years ago that the statue had fake organs inside made of silk. We walked around the grounds a bit, saw some more typical temple sights and continued on our way.

While the map we had was scaled oddly, it was at least accurate and we were able to navigate pretty well. We eventually found the shrine pictured on the map and went in. As it turns out, it was not the shrine we were looking for. It was interesting, but after giving it a brief once over, we decided to keep looking for the other shrine so we asked the people at the entrance where the other shrine was. Fortunately for us, it was nearby.

Walking up the road, we came to a fork. This fork had been unexpected so we picked left. We walked a little ways up the road, realized we didn't see any taxis heading up the road, so rather than walk farther we turned around. We then took the right fork, which did have taxis, indicating that there was something actually worth heading towards.

At long last, we reached Otagi Nenbutsu-ji and it was worth the trip. There are 1200 carved statues made between 1981 and 1991. They are all different interpretations of what the founder of Buddhism looks like. They are also, all waist high and basically caricatures. Here are some highlights:

Kyoto

I was able to go to Kyoto for 4 days using my JR rail pass. Our official reason for going was to visit Prof. Iai of the University of Kyoto. The trip was very long and so much happened that I put off posting about it. Now that I'm trying to post about it I'm feeling overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task. I think I'll try to write up an outline to whet your appetite. (I'd like to add that I just found out where "wet your whistle" came from. In Olde England, you used to call to waiters with a whistle. When you wanted more drink, you would "wet your whistle" and blow on it to call them.)

I stayed in a Japanese style hotel room the first two nights. Tatami mats and futons. I have photos on my Picasa account. You can see what I mean by Tatami mats and futons. That hotel was near the Heian shrine and the Budokan (The oldest standing martial arts training building in Japan. Don't be too impressed, it's only a little over 100 years old. Most building here burn down or fall down in earthquakes). At the Budo Center, I watched guys practice with their samurai swords. My friend Matt told me that it can actually be faster to attack by drawing your sword for each strike.

I went to a ridiculously nice tempura restaurant with Laura for lunch. We spent $50 each, but ended up with a 7 course tempura meal in our own private room to eat in. We also had basically our own waitress. It was sweet and I'll post pictures of it as soon as I can.

We found a restaurant run by an American ex pat with his wife and son that served the "best meatball sandwich in Japan," or at least that's what Wikitravel told us. It's a distinction isn't that hard to earn, but they definitely earned it. It was really good.

Our second hotel in Kyoto, which was paid for by our travel grant, was right next to Kyoto tower. We were also right across from the Kyoto train station, which was awesome and had 2 underground malls connected to it.

Rikuzentakata

I spent Saturday going to visit my friend Sarah, who just got to Japan to teach English for a year. I had to take the train for four hours north of Tokyo to get to where she lives in Rikuzentakata. I had to transfer from the Shinkansen to the local train about half way and the local train, despite being named the Rapid Dragon, was neither rapid or dragonlike. It was basically a glorified trolley. The ride was pretty nice and I got to see more of rural Japan.

The weather in the north was about 100x nicer than in Tokyo. Cool breezes and sunshine. Less haze in the air from humidity (and smog probably). I had to wait a few minutes for Sarah, but the nice weather made the wait okay.

Sarah finally came and we headed back to her apartment, which is much bigger than mine and cheaper. She also has one of few apartments in her town that has a heat in the winter (I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that's what she said). I dropped off my bags and we headed back out to Lawson, the only convenience store in town and I don't mean the only chain in town, I mean the only store. There was also a grocery store, etc., but this was the only convenience store. Coming from Tokyo, where convenience stores are on every corner, this was a big change. We got some lunch and got some supplies for the hike we were going to take that afternoon.

We ate lunch at her apartment after spending way too much time trying to figure out how her microwave works (the buttons are all in Japanese). The plan was to hike to the top of the mountain behind her apartment. She had a map that showed some trails, one of which went to the top of the mountain.

We set out with the mountain in the distance as our goal. I learned that day that when you see a mountain in the distance and you want to get to the top, you should plan better. I also learned that mountains are called mountains for a reason, they're freaking tall.

After an hour and a half of climbing up a gravel path, we finally reached the trail head. Once we had gotten up to certain point on the mountain, we at least got a view of the valley where the city is. You could see the sea and the mountains on the other side of the city. The place is in a terrible position from an earthquake standpoint. On one side you have the sea and its potential for tsunamis and on the other you have mountains and the potential for land and rock slides.

We headed back down so that we could be sure to get back before dark. Those provisions we had bought for the trip never got used. I had actually forgotten to bring mine. We got back with plenty of sunlight to spare and went to find a restaurant.

The entire day we had been navigating using a photocopied, handmade map that had been given to Sarah. We went to where we thought the restaurants were and picked one. We went in, sat down and realized how difficult it would be to order without any English or pictures. The waitress/owner informed us that one of the dishes was meat. It ended up being yakitori (chicken meat). It seems assumed that foreigners tend to prefer meat to fish, or at least that's what they assumed for us.

I, for some reason, decided to order something that I knew would be in a bowl, because I recognized the Kanji. This was a mistake. Our food came and Sarah's looked really good. Mine had the customary egg on top that gets put on most bowl meals. I also have no idea what the contents of the bowl were other than rice. It might have been mushrooms. It might have been oysters. I have no idea. I decided that had I at least known what it was I wouldn't have cared, but not knowing whether it was oyster, clam or mushroom made it harder. I did okay though and ate most of it. It was part of the adventure of being in a town in the middle of nowhere.

I left early the next morning to head to Kyoto. So I got to here the chime that Sarah said they play every morning at 7 am. Every morning, in the streets of the entire town, they play a chime that sounds sort of like a grandfather clock. Glad I don't live there.

Shinkansens

I had my first opportunity to take the Japanese super express trains this weekend. The "bullet" trains are pretty famous, but I had no idea that they are basically the standard for travel in Japan. If you have to travel any normal distance, you take a Shinkansen because they go pretty much everywhere. They make Amtrak trains look like Soviet surplus. The cars are huge, there is food service in the cars and you get a ton of leg room. I would prefer to travel by train too if we could have Shinkansens. They definitely beat airplanes in size and comfort.

I have a rail pass from Japan Rail for the week that basically lets me go anywhere in Japan that the trains go and luckily most trains within city areas are also run by Japan Rail. So once you get somewhere you can still get around with that pass, with some limitations.

13 Hour Time Difference

I've been discovering the pros and cons of being at a 13 hour time difference from home. Mainly, it's not too hard to figure out what time it is at home and people at home can pretty easily figure out what time it is here.

In general, though I am able to find time to talk with friends at home, there is no way to avoid the afternoon dead time when everyone is asleep. Some afternoons I have things to do to keep busy. I'm at work and then I'll get home and eat dinner so that by the time dinner is done, people will be awake. However some afternoons, like this one, get very long. Sitting at my computer, doing searches through databases of journal articles puts me to sleep. I exhaust my usual methods of time killing rather quickly. Also, don't think that having no one online to talk to just counts for instant messaging. I don't get any many, if any, new emails, messages on Facebook, and no one is really posting anywhere. So I checking my email gets old because there is nothing new.

I do like being able to have the evening and mornings to talk with friends at home. It's pretty convenient. I have found a few silver linings to this situation. Having friends in multiple time zones helps delay these effects. I am also lucky enough to have enough friends in college, who are still on late night schedules and also help me kill time.

Why I'm even in Tokyo

It occurred to me that I might not have ever explained to some of you why I'm even in Tokyo. I may have just said I was doing research. Well, I think I'll try to give a better explanation now, since I finally do have an idea what we're trying to do.

First, I'll say that some of my work does not require me to be in Japan at all. I could do it from anywhere with an internet connection.

I'm working on a literature review for the 10 year update to the ASCE Ground Improvement manual. What that means, is that I look through databases of technical journal articles for ones that seem pertinent to the topics that will be covered in the manual. I then read the articles and try to summarize all of their contents in a few pages or so to give practitioners an quick and dirty idea of what each type of ground improvement involves and some potential pitfalls they should avoid.

Second, the reason I am in Tokyo is because at the University of Tokyo they have a 1g shake table. What this means is that you can build scale models of structures and foundations and soils and then mimic an earthquake. The professor who runs the lab, Prof. Towhata is world-renowned for his knowledge of earthquakes and is frequently called in to advise on earthquakes all over the world. He also has experience with the stabilizing grout we plan to use in our tests. We're hoping to test some piles in a loose sand and see if treating some of the sand with a grout will have any impact on the pressures created by the seismic forces. A lot of the more technical details are a bit beyond me, but I'm sort of here as a pair of hands and to help build the model.

Towhata-sensei himself

Hopefully that made some sense and helps explain what I do all week when I'm in the lab. I could provide a lot more details, but they would probably just be confusing.

Lab Summer Trip: Part 2

The second day.

We got breakfast at the hotel and I further learned that the Japanese haven't quite mastered breakfast foods yet. The spread looked remarkably similar to dinner, however this time there were scrambled eggs and some rolls with jam and butter. I opted for some lettuce (the Japanese think lettuce by itself is enough of a salad) and the rolls. I think banked on the hope that we'd be stopping at a rest stop at some point in the morning, at which time I could procure some actual food.

We piled on the bus and head out to see the remnants of an earthquake from 2004. This day turned out to be much more interesting, as we were taken to different construction sites and got to walk around and hear about the different ways they were repairing after the earthquake.

We saw a lot of soil nailing and retaining walls. We also saw a lot of erosion control measure, from revetments to flood control dams. We also got to visit a few tunnels, I'm not entirely sure why we visited the tunnels, but they're underground so I guess that counts. The one tunnel had been hand dug by the people who lived near there and didn't like getting snowed in in the winter. The tunnel was pretty dark even with flash lights, but you could still see the marks on the walls from the pick axes. For the most part, the tunnel had dirt walls, though some parts had shotcrete or chicken wire on the ceiling.

We ate lunch in Yamakoshi Village, where they are known for bull fighting. Bull fighting in Japan however is not at all like the Spanish version. In Japan, the bulls literally fight each other. The village was also a major koi farming area, with the best fish selling for 1-10 million Yen, which is about 10 - 100 thousand dollars. After the earthquake, everyone had to be evacuated because the landslides had stopped the river and caused flooding. We saw video of dead koi and cows stuck in mud that had to be left in the village. About 70% of the residents have returned in the past 4 years.

For the sake of story telling, I'll omit the remaining details and just say that we headed back to the hotel and found that we had some time until dinner would be served. My roommates and I went to our room and were thinking of playing cards. Jina came over and said that she wanted to go take photos of the rice fields further down the road from our hotel. That suggestion slowly gained more followers until we all ended up going to take photos. It was a good time and I got some good photos.

After dinner, we had another party. It started much the same way the previous night's activities had begun. The Japanese guys drinking and playing games and everyone else socializing. They actually use Rock, Paper, Scissors as a drinking game. I'm not positive how it happened, but I was volunteered to show the Japanese how we drink in the US. I was told to show them out to shotgun a beer. I accepted the position with slight hesitance because we were in a carpeted room and I didn't want to make a mess. I asked around for a key, since I didn't have any on me. I got a room key and the first full can of beer I could find and proceeded to prepare the can under the watchful eye of the Japanese kids. I shotgunned the beer and put the can on the table. A few of the kids near me checked the can to see if I had finished it all, which I had because otherwise it would have been spilling out of the can.

Having seen this feat of drinking, they proceeded to call me "professor" because I had taught them something. They then tried to repeat my performance, with mixed results. Since they didn't chug much, they weren't quite ready to drink the as fast as I had. Most were able to finish the beer though, a few couldn't, but I would say that was because they were already drunk.

I spent the rest of the evening lying low, because I really didn't want to drink too much since we had to get up and take the bus home the next day. After that however, I think I've earned some cred with the guys in the lab though. It was quite the ice breaker I guess.

International Lab

As it happens, civil engineering is one of the few subjects taught at the University of Tokyo in English. This attracts many international students. I've experienced first hand just how they handle teaching in English and basically, the professors say everything twice. Once in English and once in Japanese. If it's very simple English, they don't bother translating.

So, being a foreigner myself, I've found it pretty easy to befriend the other foreigners, if only because they speak good English. I have found them all to be very friendly. My first week there, I was sort of looked after by Ivan and Wayway. Ivan sits next to me and is from Russia. Wayway is Chinese, but from England, so she speaks English perfectly well and of course has a British accent. Ivan is married to a Japanese-American woman from Guam and Wayway is engaged to Frenchman.

Our lab also has Carlos, who sits next to me in the lab and is from Colombia. Umar and Aziz from Pakistan. Amin from Iran. There is a Sri Lankan guy, there was a visiting professor from Egypt, and another guy, I think is from maybe Nepal or somewhere in that area by the look of him.

I should also add Matteo and Stefano, two grad students from Pisa in Italy. They only arrived last weekend and are only here for the summer as well.

The other geotech lab seems every bit as diverse as ours. There is Co-san, who is from Korea, Adrianna, who is also from Colombia, Gabriele, who is from Italy, Choco, from Indonesia, Jina, who is Korean but was born and raised in Paris.

In this photo: Choco, me, Co-san, Laura, Jina, Carlos, Adrianna, Gabriele

The conversations took place in multiple languages at times with everyone of them working on their Japanese. Gabriele's girlfriend is Japanese and apparently now only wants him to speak Japanese with her. Co and Jina would talk in Korean sometimes. Carlos, Adrianna and Gabriele would speak Spanish. When the other Italians were around Gabriele would speak Italian with them. At times I felt I needed to put my iPod on and listen to just English because I was getting language overload.

Lab Summer Trip: Part 1

I spent the last 3 days on a trip with the other students in my lab and the students from the other geotech lab at another campus. It was a fruitful 3 days and I really enjoyed getting out of Tokyo and seeing more of Japan.

Not everyone from both labs went and my two friends Ivan and Wayway weren't going, so I wasn't sure what to expect since I had had limited interaction with the Japanese students and I was going to have to room with four other guys for the trip. Luckily one of them was Carlos, who sits next to me in the lab and is from Colombia, was going and he knew the other guys. Basically the rooms got separated between English speakers (ie. non-Japanese) and the Japanese. It made sense since Japanese are all friends and the basically by default the non-Japanese are friends.

Going into the trip, I hoped that I could become better friends with the two guys who arrived earlier this week from Italy. Like me, they are only in Tokyo for the summer and seemed like nice enough guys.

We met at the lab on Wednesday morning at 6:45am and got on a coach bus. Our first destination was Niigata because there had been a major earthquake there in 1964 and we were going to see some historical sites. As it turns out, in the subsequent 50 years they had rebuilt the areas that were damaged (what a surprise), but we did see some interesting things.

Riding on the bus was an interesting enough experience. I think we stopped at every rest stop that we past. It seemed like every hour we were stopping again. At the first rest stop, I should have known that the bathrooms would be nice because there was a guy dusting the light fixtures on the outside of the building. Sadly I had left my camera in my bag that day, so it spent the day in the luggage hold of the bus and I spent the day without it. I more than made up for it on Thursday.

During the course of the day, I was availed upon to settle questions of English words for things. Like the English word for a dragon fly. I amazed them when they asked me the word for hypnotist. I told them what it was and then also explained about the verb hypnotize and the subject hypnotism. This was far too much for them and they assured me they would quickly forget such complicated things.

Wednesday night we got to the hotel and my suspicions were confirmed. It was a ski resort, literally on the slopes. I hadn't been sure what other type of hotel would rent rooms big enough for 5 people in the mountains in Japan. The room only had 2 beds, but there was an area about 6 Tatami mats and some futons for you to sleep on. I somehow ended up with a bed. I'm guessing they were being nice to be because I'm a visitor. Also, throw away your conception of what a futon is and replace it with fairly thick, roll up mattress.

Choco (more like cho ko, than chocolate), one of my roommates for the trip taught us a card game and we spent the time before dinner playing cards and trading off taking showers. There was also a party that night for everyone to socialize at. We had a big private room and drink and snacks were provided. Again, the room was fairly segregated in Japanese and foreigners, since we were sitting at 2 different tables. The Japanese girls were always more willing to sit and talk to the foreigners, but the guys were more interested in hanging out with each other.

I also got to talk a bit more with Stefano (Steve) and Matteo. We sort of talked about drinking for a bit. They taught me an Italian toast, which is roughly equivalent to "chug." It means "drink until the glass is empty." I'm a bit disappointed that in all the years that the English language has existed, we haven't come up with anything better than "chug," at least not that I'm aware of. The rest of the night went pretty well and we all headed to bed around midnight.

Evening came, morning followed.

RPGs

Today, I had a realization that helped me make more sense of those old Nintendo RPGs like Dragon Warrior. The hotels in those games and even still some newer ones would ask you if you wanted to "Rest" or "Stay." When you said Rest, you would designate an amount of time you wanted to stay. If you said Stay, it would be an overnight stay. I think I remember a game where Rest did basically nothing but kill time. You wouldn't regain any life or anything, it would simply be later. I actually think this may have been one of the newer Zelda games.

So if you have read my previous posts, you might see that I have already posted about hotels here in Japan where the same options are available. The "Love" hotels are the main example, but also I've heard of places on Mt. Fuji where you can pay to rest inside, or pay to sleep there. I'll hopefully know more about those later this month after I climb Mt. Fuji.