Kindness and Cockups. Kobe and candy.

Phew what a week. Shigoto, shigoto, shigoto (work, work, work). Sadly our beam time has not thrown up any concrete information so it seems I spent almost 60 hours awake for nothing. Ah well it was our first time so I wasn’t particularly hopeful. I have to say I’m so glad I was into Lego and Mechano as a child as I seem to have spent a good portion of the last week with an Alan key in hand. As Liam pointed out to me experimental hutches are like giant Mechano sets.

Anyway other than that this week hasn't been massively interesting. Besides work I got my alien residency card, which has opened the door to some cool things, namely I could now get a keitei (mobile phone). I have also got my hand on a nice road bike for…FREE. Unbelievable right.

So that brings me on to the title of the blog. Kindness. The level of generosity and patience I’ve experienced from people here has been unbelievable. After mentioning I needed a bike Ignace, the French guy I mentioned earlier, sent me a template message to send out to inquire about a second hand bike. I got a response nearly straight away, and all though I insisted on paying, the kind person offering the bike to me would have none of it. Sugoi (amazing).

This also brings me back onto my first cock-up, so it turns out that mailing list I used to send out the message shouldn’t be used in this way. I got a short sharp telling off. Still we don’t learn unless we make mistakes and I always resolve to only make them once.

So the next kindness, you can see a theme emerging here ey. The money I had brought with me finally ran out on Tuesday and due to an error processing my bank account I had no bankcard with which to process my wages. Bit of an issue since I’d hoped to go away on Friday with the free day holiday. Fortunately for me the secretarial staff where amazing and managed to get me my flight reimbursement money in cash. I do believe I owe them some cake.

Speaking of cake I thought I’d take a brief moment to talk about sweets. Someone the other day asked me what the sweets were like in Japan and I sadly couldn’t tell them. As I may have mentioned before I’m a bit funny with food and I have a horrible feeling I’ve lost some weight since I’ve been here. So I decided to investigate Japanese sweets further. Traditional Japanese sweets are called Wagashi and here are a few I’ve come across so far.

Mochi: Essentially a ball of glutinous rice flour covered in sugar and usually stuffed with something sweet. Most of the time this is Anko, or sweet red bean paste. Whilst not overly sweet these things have an amazing gooey texture and I can’t get enough of em.

Dango: Similar to mochi but stickier and on, well, a stick. Kind of like a sweet kebab.

Yokan: These are blocks of agar mixed with Anko and sugar. It’s similar to jelly but not quite so rubbery. Very tasty.

Taiyaki: This is again filled with anko. It’s essentially fried pancake like batter pressed around anko in the shape of a fish. I think they do other filling as well. You seem to be able to get them in many street markets.

There are also many cookies, including these nice black sesame seed ones I picked up yesterday. Fruit jellies and hard sweets to, I’m a big fan of the raw cane sugar things. And of course many odd flavors of chupa chup, including matcha (green tea) flavor.

Ok so yesterday. Now this was a fun day. I’d been emailing back and forth with a member of Osaka’s Frisbee team called Yuko for a while and had found out she was also into climbing. Yuko is a lot of fun. She’s very lively, I think that may be down to her job as a personal trainer, and is also very curious about England. She had told me she new of a nice place to climb in Kobe so we agreed to meet up on Friday as it was a national holiday.




On my way to the bus stop I noticed there was a festival going on just own the road from my flat. Had to go have a look around really. I’m not sure exactly what the occasion was, possibly just because it was Showa day, but it was pretty fun. There were loads of food stores, people selling locally grown goods and also some displays from the local school kids. The music and dancing was a lot of fun to watch.

I stayed for a bit but I was getting on for time and didn’t want to keep Yuko waiting. I set off on the now familiar trip to the station and took the train to Kobe. Unlike Osaka, Kobe station was a lot smaller and I easily found Yuko. We wandered for about ten minutes to the rock gym, introducing ourselves a bit more along the way.

The gym, called Kobe rock garden, was pretty small but lots of fun. It was all bouldering but that's not a problem, it was a god way to get back into climbing. I was a little confused at first. The grading system and how the routes were planned where very different to hat I’m used to. Also the starting footholds weren’t so great, but I eventually got the hang of the place (no pun intended).

Ah it was fun to be climbing again and it was nice to do it with many other enthusiasts. Although they didn’t speak much English the staff were very helpful and I think explaining climbing moves transcends language. Yuko got chatting to a couple there that were about our level and we all tried problems together. It was fun and there was much cheering whenever one of us reached the top hold.

After a good two and a half ours of bouldering I was getting pretty hungry. We got changed and Yuko led me down to the main shopping area of Kobe on the port. It seems really nice don there, much less busy than Osaka and actually reminded me of home a bit. I think I’ll have to look around Kobe again when I’m not so rushed, there seems to be quite a bit to do.
So onto the food. Yuko picked out a hamburger restaurant with a great view of the river. Hamburgers aren’t normally my thing, I’m not so good with beef, but it seemed impolite to disagree with my host so I just went with it. Now in Japan hamburgers are done a bit differently. As you can see from the picture they’re generally served like a stew with a thick onion gravy. It was good but a bit heavy and I think it sat on my stomach a little ☹.

Right so well fed we had a good chat about loads of things, mainly travelling and Frisbee though. Lots of talk about Frisbee in fact. Yuko told me all about a tournament coming up in July which should be cool. Apparently in Japan, and contrary to what I’d been told, things are the same as Britain. There is a real struggle to get women playing the sport. Yuko it seems really wants to expand the team in Osaka so they can enter more tournaments around Japan. I’ll have to help with that I think .

We left the restaurant and had a quick wander around the nearby shopping mall. I had asked her earlier about getting hold of a phone and noticed some signs up in one of the shops we passed. In we went and after a few initial exchanges we realized the salesperson spoke perfect English. I managed to get myself a good deal on a 2-year contract, half price with the 2-year contract, so I’m sorted phone-wise. Or rather I would be but my train was actually due to leave before the phone would be registered eep.

I had planned o meet up with Yuko again on Sunday anyway so she offered to pick up my phone whilst I legged it to the train station. Now I realize that this was a bit of a silly thing to do given I’d only met this person once, but my experiences so far have only been positive, plus as I’ve sad before Frisbee players are generally all right. So off I dashed.

Alas it was for nothing I missed the last bus home and had to get a taxi, which was outrageously expensive. Cock-up. It probably would have just been cheaper to stay in Kobe. Ah well never mind. Anyway I’ll finish there. Currently there is an open day going on at work but that's for another post. I’ll leave you all with a few pictures of my home cooking, including something I have dubbed okonomibreakfast, okonomiyaki batter mixed with fruit.

Dewa matta mina-san.

T minus Beamtime and Bye-Bye Liam.

Phew what a hell of a week. It’s amazing to think that I’ve already been here san-shu (three weeks). I guess I’ve just been too busy to get home sick. So the science has finally stepped up a gear as we have moved things onto the beamline to finally try and do some imaging. Suffice to say I am now far more familiar with the innards of Josie than I ever planned to be, but more on that later.

First things first something a bit more exciting. On Getsuyoubi no yoru (Monday night) myself Cheung and Liam were taken out for a meal by an old friend of Cheungs, Yaki-san, to a local izakaya. Izakaya’s are a little akin to british gastropubs, in that you order drinks and eat food, but are probably a lot less rubbish.

Needless to say there were plenty of Kanpai’s shouted (cheers), as the beer, sake and other Japanese alcohols were drunk. I even tried out some sake myself, though since I A) hadn’t eaten before I started drinking and B) arima nomimasen (hardly ever drink) it went a little to my head. An interesting taste though.

The food was excellent anyway. Yaki-san ordered for us. The first starter was raw, that's right raw, chicken. An interesting texture and it was in a very nice spicy sauce. This was followed by pork and beansprouts, grilled chicken with rock salt, some really nice fish (species unknown) deep fried octopus, tofu soup, yaki gyuuniku, thinly sliced beef that came with it’s own grill for cooking. The whole thing was finished off with a mound of ice cream, sadly I couldn’t eat it but I did have some of the sweet yam chips that came on top tasty.

Anyway twas a fun night and a really fun way to experience food however totemo takkai (very expensive). The final bill came out at 16,000 yen. As I missed about 3 course and didn’t drink too much I got away without paying to much and we agreed to cover Yaki-sans bill for hosting us.

Anyway back to the lab, back to reality. As I’ve stated earlier this week, anything + Jimi Hendrix = cool so:

 

Protein haze all in my brain,

DIT just ain’t running the same,

Actin funny and I don’t know why,

Oh josie why do you make me cry.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered the Beta5 has not been behaving this week. Our troubles started on Tuesday. Buoyed by the good results on Monday we decided to move onto our trickiest sample, Thyroglobulin. This beast of a protein is about 5 times larger than any of the others we’ve trialed in the machine.

It originates in the thyroid gland of all humans and is the precursor protein of many hormones secreted by the thyroid. It is also the body’s main store of the element Iodine. This is actually the reason the release of radioactive Iodine during nuclear power station leaks and explosions is so dangerous.

The thyroglobulin will take up the radioactive iodine that enters the body and concentrate it at the thyroid, leading to large doses of radiation in one tissue, and ultimately cancer. The issue of iodine tablets is actually an effort to saturate the bodies thyroglobulin with iodine so none of the radioactive iodine can bind.

Interesting though that is our main reason for using it is because it is huge. In fact it may well be one of the largest proteins that exists as a single strand. Proteins are made up of chains of individual molecules called amino acids. The sequence of these amino acids is important in determining the overall shape and function of a protein. Most large proteins exist as complexes of various, separate chains, kind of like an adders nest. Thyroglobulin on the other hand would be the mother of all anacondas.

The practical upshot of this for us is that due to it’s larger mass we should see more scattering when it interacts with x-rays, the more dense an atom or molecule, the stronger it will scatter. Or at least in theory, previous attempts have not shown much.

The reason having a single chain is good is because of the nature of our experiments. During the process of ionizing samples into a gas, a complex would simply fall apart as most of the interactions that hold it together are electrostatic, similar to the forces that hold a negative and positive magnet together. With a long chain this isn’t a problem.

Sadly the system has not been designed to withstand the high concentrations we use and so the bulky thyroglobulin has a tendency to unfold, clump together and block the DIT’s plumbing. So we spent Tuesday and Wednesday dismantling the thing and trying, in vain, to remove the blockage. No joy though sadly but in a moment of inspiration Liam managed to jerry rig a new probe tip, the part that was blocked, out of a few suage locks and some old syringe tips. Sugoi.

Onto Thursday then. It was time to move the, semi, working DIT onto the beamline itself. This was no small feat as it is a major piece of metal. Through the use of a crane and some major elbow greasefrom Takaaki-san, Sako-san and the rest of us we got Josie into her new home. Next job was to set up the pipeline.

The kind of experiments we are performing are known as SAXS (small angle x-ray scattering). Possibly one of sciences more awesome acronyms. Back to x-rays. When x-rays interact with matter they scatter, as I keep banging on about but it's a pretty central idea. These scattered x-rays fire off at all angles and depending on the angle different pieces of information can be inferred.

Small angle scattering tends to be weaker than high angle and holds more information on the shape of an object. To detect small angle scattering you must position your detector a long way from the sample. The distance allows the scattered rays to extend further away from the direct beam. Too close and the small angles will be indistinguishable from the central beam as it will just saturate the detector. How is this achieved I hear you cry? Why with a stupidly long vacuum tunnel that we call a ‘camera’.

Here at BL45XU we use a camera length of about 2m. It is actually this camera that caused us our second major headache. Keeping the pipe under vacuum is critical, without it the x-ray beam will diminish through interactions with air molecules. Sadly we had a leak. This resulted in a long night of hard work from Takaaki, in fact he ended up working till 6am the following morning.

So onto Friday and thankfully our luck was changing. Takaaki after pulling one hell of an all nighter had set up the optics for the experiment. This consists of a few different pieces. Firstly there is the monochromator. This is essentially a set of mirrors that ‘tune’ the x-ray beams released from the synchrotrons to a given wavelength. Next are a series of pinholes and slits, these are to restrict the size and focus the beam onto your sample.

All of this must be aligned perfectly and the use of lasers and photographic film is required since x-rays are invisible. It was a pretty long process. In the meantime some spare parts we’d ordered for the DIT finally arrived meaning we could fix the dodgy probe. All that was left now was to zap some proteins.

So after 7 months of hard work, and 3, 65 hour working weeks in Japan, I finally got to go into the experimental hutch. It’s a pretty cool feeling, if you are a massive geek like myself. The hutch is a large metal chamber full of all kinds of electrical connections, gas valves, pipes and so on. To actually use it there are loads of failsafe mechanisms that must be triggered before the beam comes on, lots of big buttons to push.

Last night, at about 10pm we ran our first sample, Cytochrome C. No joy sadly but that was to be expected, it's a pretty small protein, about a 30^th of the size of thyroglobulin. Hopefully all the hard work will pay off.

To move away from science a bit, today also saw the departure of Liam from Japan. He is one of the two people who came out here to help me with Josie and an electronics expert. That aside though he’s also been great craic and I’m sad to see him leave.

Yoshi-san, Yoshitaka-san to give him his full name, whom we met early last night offered to take us out for lunch and also take Liam to the station. This guy is a great character and I can see me having some fun times with him in the future. He’s a little manic, always busy and full of stories about the various places he’s lived and worked.

 

After blitzing our way through the mountains on the expressway we trawled through Himeji in search of somewhere to go. In the end Yoshi-san settled on a cheap sushi-ya just outside of the city center. He said it wouldn’t be proper sushi but it was reasonable and fun.

This place was like the stereotypical sushi places, loads of plates on a massive conveyor belt. Yo sushi springs to mind but this place was about half the price and three times as tasty. Yoshi san had us trying all kinds of delicious things, plenty of raw fish of course, also cuttlefish, eel (Unagi) and a weird omlette thing made with dashi. Also we tried Uni (sea urchin) at my request. I’ll be honest it was an acquired taste, it tastes like New Brighton front smells I’ll not lie, but it had to be tried.

The sushi-ya was awesome fun and Yoshi-san refused to let us pay. I have to sya I’m loving the communal attitude to food out here it makes all mealtimes a pleasure and it’s always a giggle. Anyway it was a lovely way to send off Liam and I hope he gets back home safely.

Dewa, shigoto ni modoru (well, back to work). Also here are some pics of my second cooking attempt. This one was more successful, home made okonomiyaki yum yum.

The Quest for Shingu and Going Feudal

Alright first off I’m not going to lie, shingu is the Japanese word for bedding so the purpose of my “quest” isn’t the most exciting. Still Taoism teaches that the journey rather than the destination is important so please indulge my inflated sense of the grandiose.

So I had a sort of lie in on doyoubi (Saturday). In other words I woke up at 8:30 am, definitely working too hard. Anyway I had a long list of kaemono (shopping) to get through so the plan was to first head to Aioi. As I left the door I realised I’d not had much chance to explore my local area so I decided to go for a yomp around Harima first.

I actually have to admit this place, whils a little empty, is actually really nice. Just next to me is a little koen (park see how I’m subtly teaching you all Japanese :P). It’s kinda cool and has this massive slide, yes of course I went down it. Chikaku ni (nearby) are a couple of schools, a high school and a primary school, both of which had an outdoor swimming pool, mad. I may have to inquire about their availability to the public. I also found a rope climbing frame thing, which of course I climbed and the view from the top was pretty cool.

It was getting on for time and I headed over to the bus stop via the rook of the primary school (everything is more of an adventure if you are climbing something). I also noticed how awesome one of their walls could be for bouldering, this definitely needs further investigation.

Moving on, watashi wa basu de Aioi ni kaemono o shimashite (work that one out yourself). Again I’ve complained a few times about this place being void of anything to do but a second look with a different perspective and it’s actually pretty cool.

First time round  I hadn’t wandered into Aioi far enough to rely get a feel for it as a space. It’s actually quite nice once you get beyond the main little shopping bit and the giant co-op. A little further up th road Aioi revealed itself to actually be a port town (hmm smells like home). I noticed there was a shingle sort of beach running around he bay area so I hopped over the bridge to check it out. Plenty of nice views and some more interesting looking rocks (I know obsessed but I’ve talked about this before). I also saw a bunch of cockle pickers on the shore.

So anyway continuing on to a aka biru (red building) I’d seen up ahead I found a local market. I think cooking is going to be an issue in Japan, I literally have no idea what over half the things they sell actually are. Could make fo some interesting experimentation though. By now I was pretty hungry and luckily I pretty much bumped into an okonomiyaki stand. This means ‘grilled as you like it’ and is kind of half way between a pancake and an omelette with cabbage and pork belly. Sound tasty? It was and whats more the chef geve it to me for nowt. I think it was because of my enthusiastic response when he told me he was selling okonomiyaki, definitely going back.

Just a bit further up I found a massive retail park. Only I could venture forth in a new country and find what is essentially the Japanese equivelent of home bargain. Japan is full of hyaku-en shops (100 yen) and they are way better then poundland let me tell you. Also nearby was a cheap supermarket and a home clearance store. Win. So now my cupboards were stocked and  I had bedding, goal achieved.

Nichiyoubi (Sunday) was upon us. I was up early as I’d been so shattered the night before and had gone to bed about 10:30. Well I thought that was as good an excuse as any to salute to the sun.

As I’ve alluded to before I’m a pretty active guy and sadly out here I haven’t been able to do a lot of the sports I love (yet!). One thing that has kept me rooted though is Yoga. Self practice can be performed anywhere and as well as building off stuff I’ve learnt I’ve also downloaded a load of podcasts.

I’d decided to follow along with one of these that morning. Interestingly the theme was integrity, and how the building blocks of integrity are not just personal but also from those who have influenced your life. This gave me pause for thought about all the yoga teachers I’ve had over the past few years and so I thought I’d write a short bit about each of them as a tribute, it’s my blog so why the hell not.

Glynn: This guy was my first teacher. I Started yoga with him and he was a lot of fun/completely bonkers. At the time I was very much in a strange state of mind, disorder being in full swing. However Glynn taught me about the strength in flexibility, not just in loosening the body but letting go of the rigidity in my mind also. The subtleties of strength are not easily defined by how much you can bench.

Bill: What a lovely guy he is. Bill allowed me to regain the joy of exercise with others. His classes always drew a great crowd I think down to his warm personality. He also taught me how important the foundations are in yoga practice.

Helen: Helen opened up to me the subtleties of adjustment that are always present within a posture. From her I’ve learnt the importance of dedication and attention to detail in everyday life.

Debbie: I think she has taught me more about myself in just over a year than I’ve managed to glean in the previous 21. Through practicing with her I’ve managed to recapture many elements of my true self. The idea of “feel the fear and do it anyway,” that she introduced me to has become my way of life, part of the reason I made it out here in the first place. This has been crucial for me as I was formally so ruled by anxiety. She has also taught me the playfulness inherent in physical practice as well as the importance of inner strength to truly flourish outwardly.

Right anyway enough of my rambling. After yoga it was time for my first official meal in my new flat. I like to call this one east meets west, I was so happy to find some Granola. I really miss cereal and I don’t care how expensive it is.

Fed I nipped down the road to the bus stop to meet up with Liam and Cheung. We were taking the day off to visit Himeji as it was Liam’s last real free day and he wanted to get some sight seeing done before he left. We got to the train station just fine and I went up and ordered tickets, it’s nice being able to do things in the native language.

Liam had wanted to go around Himeji-jo but sadly it is under intensive regeneration at the moment so there isn’t much to see, more on this later. A quick chat at the tourist information desk led us to Shoshazen Engyo-ji, a large zen Buddhist temple at the summit of mount Shosha and also the site were scenes of the last samurai where filmed. Well it was touristy and you got to go up via the Mt Shosha ropeway, an aerial lift line. Sounded like fun to me.

Ah watashi wa yama ga daisuke desu (I love mountains). The view from the top was beautiful and fortunately the weather was good. The site itself is over 100 years old, and spanned a good 2km so there was plenty to see. I kinda went off on my own here as Liam and Cheung moved a bit too slow. There were plenty of steep ups and downs which no doubt kept those monks mega-fit as they visited the various shrines. As you enter the first thing you come across is the bell of benevolence, or as I now know it the bell of incessantness as it peels every 30 seconds as another visitor gives it a bash.

At the main temple site I purchased a candle and some incense and said a quick dedication to family and friends. I bumped into Cheung and Liam there and we set a plan to meet back at the ropeway for 2 o’clock. So I pushed on to the main hall, Daikodo. I believe this s where a lot of the filming in the last Samurai was done (I should watch that film at some point.) Anyway it’s really impressive. I tried to go in some of the buildings not realising the signs said no entry, I was hastily shoed out by a stern monk, “Shitsureshimashita gomenasai” (Sorry for my intrusion).

My wanderings continued on to the summit naturally. At the top I found a shrine that I can’t remember the name of but the sign said it was where Shoku Shonin, the temples founder, gained superhuman powers. Nearby I found what to most would look like an old wall. To me it looked like a series of bouldering problems, well I am a monkey. When no one was about I had a quick scramble, I wish I’d had my boots though, plenty of good handholds but the foot holds were a little sketchy so I sensibly backed off.

I have a predisposition for going places I’m not supposed to stemming from my natural curiosity. Sure it gets me in trouble but it’s a whole lot of fun. Anyway I’d travelled round the whole are now so it was time to head back to the ropeway. No more exciting things but I’ll leave you with some nice pictures of the many deity and Buddha statues scattered throughout the place.

 

We got the bus back to Himeji and, due to Cheung banging on about it, went a picked up some free rental bikes. It was getting late though and I demanded we get food first. I frantically searched for somewhere to by Oden, it’s on my list of foods to try, but sadly no luck. I settled for some sushi, not sure wht the fish was but it was quite nice. We actually bumped into a lady from Adelaide in the supermarket. Apparently it's a sister city of Hmeji and she comes out ever year to teach English.

 

Fed and watered we took to the streets on our crappy rental bikes, they were far too short and my feet kept clipping the front wheel. A short pedal up the road was Himeji castle. As I said much of it is being renovated so noot a whole lot to see. We unfortunately got there a bit too late, the city zoo inside was closing up, I was gutted. If you are ever in Japan and hear Auld lang Syne being played, it means get the hell out we’re shutting.

The park surrounding the castle was still pretty though, many sakara and people going mental for Hanami. A short tour and we headed back into Himeji to drop off the bikes and do a bit more exploring. We stopped in a couple of shops for a few bits and bobs and I got some tofu and peppers in for dinner. We also walked past a cinema with a cool mural depicting king-kong. I had a closer look just to see what was on and now have a date for my diary (such a geek).

 

So another knackering day and I headed back home to my apartment. My first attempt at cooking in japan, also lead to my first cooking disaster haha. I burnt about half of my Tofu stew but what wasn’t burnt tasted ok, food is food and I was hungry.