Osaka Episode 3 – Revenge of the Otaku

So I told you all about Friday but that isn’t the complete story. For the first time in a while I had an entire weekend free, I know incredible or what. So what to do with all this unusual free time. Well my initial Idea had been to sleep. God knows I needed it after the mental and physical battering I’d received. Sadly it was not to be.

Late Friday night I’d received a message from Yuko saying she was meeting some old friends in Osaka to head out to an ‘Izakaya’ (read gastro-pub) and some bars, and would I be interested in joining them. Hells yizzle I would. “Doko desu ka to nan-ji kara”, essentially when and where. Obviously I don’t know Osaka so the location of said pub was of little use. I got in touch with one of the other Frisbee people, Graham, and arranged to meet at the Hankyu station.

 

So off to Osaka once more, I do like that city and there is still plenty I haven’t seen, plus I hoped I could squeeze in some more Frisbee on the Sunday. Anyway I set off just after lunch to go get a train from Aioi. The trip to Himeji was uneventful, however at Himeji disaster struck. For some reason, not sure what as I could not understand the PA systems message, all of the rapid express trains for the next hour and a half were cancelled. Nightmare.

So I was stuck in the boiling hot station, it was about 28⁰ , as the number of people began to grow the train was going to be rammed so I could forsee a rather uncomfortable journey ahead. I went to one of the food stores downstairs and picked up an Imagawayaki. This is a kind of Japanese cake made on a griddle. Batter is first half cooked then some anko is scooped onto the centre then the whole thing is flipped to completely enclose the anko and cooked further. It tastes a bit like a waffle and the filling is suitably gooey.

Anyway finally It was time to leave and after about an hour in a sweaty train I was in Osaka. My first priority was to head towards the hostel Yuko had recommended I stay in for the night. It seemed like  straightforward walk and wouldn’t take too long.

Sadly I ran into a shop called Sofmap in a depato that was on the way. Dammit but this added an extra hour to my walk. This place is one of the major electronics chains in Japan and was stuffed full of computing, media and gaming gear. It also had a healthy selection of manga and anime to browse. Ahh Otaku heaven. Since my headphones had broken (sorry dad they just stopped working) and the ones I had purchased at a 100yen shop where rubbish I thought I’d better get some new ones. I settled on a pair of Sony phones that claimed to have a deep bass sound. Perfect for my needs and only 1400 yen (about 11 quid).

Ok so I could of spent much longer in here but I needed to get a move on. New phones installed I bopped down the road to some awesome dub mixes ‘d found on the mad decent podcast, got to love the bass. It wasn’t to far to the hostel but I dawdled a bit. This was an area of Osaka I’d not been to before and the architecture was really cool, and very unusual. Plus the weather was good and I still had an hour or two before I was meeting Graham, so no rush.

 

At this point the weather was really heating up. I went to a nearby conbini, they really are everywhere, ‘benri ne’? I could of used a drink but I kinda wanted something colder. To the frozen treats section I went. Sadly nearly everything was icecream based, including the rather bizarre Jun Cheese ice cream. Yup cheese not cheesecake. I settled on a rather tasty lemon sorbet thing and was again on my way.

So it turned out my hostel was in Fukushima haha. Not that Fukushima of course and I really shouldn’t laugh. Anyway it was called J hoppers and amazingly well situated I must admit.  It was on a very trendy road full of little bars and resteraunts and right next to a convenience store. The staff were also really nice and it turns out the hostel was set up to allow Japanese and internationals to meet and share their stories. I like the sound of that, in fact I was told they were having an international night tonight. Sadly I had to be on my way. Maybe next time, they have a few hostels around the region including one in Hiroshima and there is a reward system for frequent visitors. Like Arnie I would be back.

So next it was time to meet Graham and co. The meeting place was a giant TV screen called Big Man in Umeda Hankyu station. The reason for the name, basically it was written on the screen, who knows why but it’s a very famous meeting place in Osaka nonetheless. I had to dash as I'd wasted far more time in Sofmap than intended and cut it very fine, I’m so glad I have a mobile phone now.

So I met Graham and two Japanese ladies called Yumi and Ena. I introduced myself in Japanese, an error as they then reeled off a load more and I had no idea what they were saying. Anyway Ena was holding an Aldi bag, which made me laugh a lot. I had to quickly explain myself. Turned out that she had been all over the world. In fact all of Yuko’s friends had done a lot of travelling absolutely putting me to shame.

The final member of our group, Sushi (I’m 99% positive this is a nickname) joined us, I’m still a little confused as to whether he’s Japanese, American or French, either way he seemed very confused on his origins and had also lived everywhere. We went just down the road to Chaya machi the trendy area of Osaka to find the Izakaya.

We went up to the 5^th floor of one of the many tower blocks in the area. It was absolutely chocker with restaurants of all different kinds. The pub we were off to was basically took up the entire top floor. It was rammed. Before entering you had to take your shoes off, another point of amusement for my hosts as I struggled to get my massive shoes into one of the shoe lockers. I’m still unsure of the conversion to Japanese sizes so I just said ‘ookii’ when asked how big they were.

We had a booth reserved and at first it looked like it was proper Japanese style with a really low table and pillows to sit on. Sadly no, the table actually hid a rather large pit where you could stretch your legs out western style. Obviously came the horrible question of ‘so what do you like to eat?’ God I hate that question. I told them I wasn’t fussed so long as t didn’t contain “gyuuniku” (beef) or “ebi” (Shrimp) as I was allergic. They seemed cool with that and promised to warn me if anything would be dodgy.

So in came the food and you know what for once I wasn’t nervous. Everything is just so unusual to me and I think my curious nature gets the better of my anxiety. I tried a bit of everything that I could. There was a close call with a cheese stuffed surimi but I managed to stop in time. One interesting item was “Fukahire”. They kind of looked like crisps but Yumi informed me it was shark fin. A controversial item I know but not that bad. I don’t think I’d make a habit of buying it as the taste doesn’t outweigh the ethical hang-ups.

Yuko arrived a bit later with another friend, Maki and the get together was in full swing. The flow of food and conversation was constant. I managed to throw out a few Japanese phrases here and there, much to everyone’s amusement. My vocabulary isn’t great but I like to think I understand enough of what people say to not be fully left out of conversations.

Anyway everyone was so well traveled that their English was excellent. The only real problem was my accent, which is very toned down now. I decided to see which accents they preferred and threw out a few of my better imitations, which drew a few laughs, I think they liked Scottish best. I was then informed, by Sushi, that I wasn’t like most ex-pats in Japan, who are apparently either teaching English, looking to pick up Japanese girls or had nothing better to do. I think that was a compliment I’m not sure but it’s always good to be unique.

Anyway back to the food. “Tsugi wa” (next was) some rather nice flat fish, simply but well cooked and also teriyaki octopus. I informed Yumi of my love for octopus “tako ga daisuke desu” prompting more laughing. I really can’t get enough of the stuff though. Next up was fried chicken cartilage. I know a bit of a weird one, not mega tasty but a really nice crunch. This prompted a fun discussion about the pronunciation of cartilage, and its similarity to cartridge with a Japanese accent.

Ok back to the food, I wasn’t lying about the constant stream. We had some rather nice spring onion and squid pancakes, a selection of yakitori (grilled Chicken skewers) some Korean style pork, read spicy, and then a skewer selection. I have no idea what they all where but we played rock paper scissors to decide who ate what. I ended up with a fu one, which is apparently like tofu but made from wheat not soy.

That's about it for the dishes I can remember, there where more including desserts but they were boring and I couldn’t eat them anyway. Last amusing thing was a cocktail named “Pichi pichi pichu”. Apparently Pichi pichi is Japanese slang for a women’s soft skin and “pichu” means peach shockingly. It’s so nice talking to natives my age actually since I can pick up the language as it should be spoken. I need to start extending my slang vocabulary.

So as I said Yuko’s friends had been everywhere, all over the Americas, Europe and Asia. I told them about my trips to Africa and they where impressed however, apparently most Japanese people just don’t go there. Southern Europe, France, Greece, Spain and Italy seemed to be a firm favorite destination. I can understand Greece actually I think the food tastes are similar.

Back to food I had a quick discussion about the lack of lamb anywhere. It would appear that it just isn't suited to the Japanese cooking style, Ena said most people in Japan really don’t like the smell. It was explained to me that beef was the predominant red meat in Kansai, the most famous of course being Kobe, whereas in Tokyo it was mainly pork. Something to bare in mind when I purchase kare raisu I think.

Food all finished up we moved onto some bars. The first place was Hub, the british Pub. I was not impressed. I hadn’t travelled 5000 miles to go to a ‘local’. It was pretty horrendous and blissfully too popular, we couldn't get in. So we moved on to a more Japanese style bar. This time the table was about 2 feet from the floor.

This was a lot of fun actually. Amazingly just as we arrived a game of bingo started up. Unreal right. This was a far cry from the super speed bingo of Granny hall fame in the Uk. The guy calling out the numbers was an absolute laugh and was loving the fact he had foreigners in the audience. He claimed he’d help us out and kept going on about me looking like Charles Dickens or something, maybe lost in translation.  None of us won sadly “nai” but it was a good giggle and a nice way to end the night.

So after a “Mata aimashou” lets meet again I headed back to the hostel. I picked up some sugar-coated anko on the way to make up for the lack of pudding. It had gone twelve when I got there so most people were in bed in my room. I tucked in for the night as quietly as possible. The big downside of rooms in Japan is the thin walls. At four in the morning a gaggle of Aussies blundered their way to their rooms blind drunk. And they wouldn’t shut up. After about ten minutes of ruckus I’d had enough and went outside to tell them to shut up since no one else was going to.

A few hours kip and I was up at eight, I think my sleeping pattern still isn’t quite right, thank you beamtime. I had a chat with some old Japanese dude who was sharing the room. He was off to a rock concert in Osaka. He asked where I was from, “ah the Beatles” (eye roll), what I was doing in Japan, the usual stuff. I think he was off to help out in Fukushima and was just stopping off for some music, fair enough really. I did however learn a new phrase from him “ii tabi o” kinda like happy trails or bon voyage.

So I wanted to play some friz but that wasn’t till 2 so I had to find some things to do. I grabbed some breakfast and then had a quick chat with the lady at reception. She recommended I go check out the sky garden, a twin skyscraper and the biggest building in Osaka, apparently the views were amazing and it was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Sounded good to me.

Oh but I had forgotten one thing. It was the rainy season, you think we know rain in Britain, hell no we don’t. So the sun was out when I left but within five minutes it began to rain, and rain and rain. “Watashi wa nuremashita” (I got wet). It literally got so heavy I couldn’t continue and I had to take shelter in a local conbini. I was drenched from head to toe “tanoshikunai” (not fun).

The stop did however mean I bumped into a guy from Leiscter. He had been living in Osaka for two months but had been travelling the world for the past four. He had moved out here with his Canadian girlfriend whom he’d met in Australia. Confusing ey. I we had a nice little chat comparing our initial experiences of Japan, talking about places to visit and so on. The rain eased up after about 15 minutes and we went our separate ways. I do love random encounter like that though.

So nearly an hour after I’d set out on my 15 minute walk I arrived at the sky gardens. It really was flipping huge. At it’s base was a rather nice, albeit at the moment sodden, garden at the bottom. A feature of particular interest was the upwards waterfall, I think it needs no more explanation than that. The foot of the building was also quite cool. There were loads of restaurants in an area made up to look like a street in 1940’s Japan.

I moved onto the lift and rode it up to the 39^th floor I think. The lift itself was transparent and ran up the middle of the two tower blocks. The views were pretty cool though the rain did diminish it somewhat. From the 39^th floor you then take an escalator to the 40^th floor. From here there was a nice viewing gallery to get a good look across Osaka, both the city and the nearby river. It was stunning. I didn’t go onto the terrace sadly it was 700 yen and I didn’t feel like paying to get wet.

Sadly Frisbee was cancelled due to poor weather, what happened to if it ain’t raining it ain’t training, so I needed to figure out something to do. I started making my way back to Umeda station as Yuko had mentioned she needed to head there and maybe we could meet up.

It got to about lunchtime so I stopped at yet another conbni. I’d picked up some yakitori and Korean ramen on the cheap on the way. “Itadakimasu”. The Korean recommended was just a pot noodle really but the noodles are better quality and it was nicely spicy in the wet weather. All conbini’s seem to have kettles and an area to eat which is awesome.

I moved on to Umeda and decided to explore one of the massive department stores, the rain was still pretty rubbish so staying indoors seemed a good bet. I checked out the 10^th floor, which had a load of sports gear, for a Yoga mat. Sadly they were all a bit too pricey, I’ll find one eventually. Checking out the store directory I noticed the 13^th floor contained the “Pokémon centre Osaka”. I was intrigued and so rode the escalators upwards.

Wow this place was a bit of a shock. It was rammed, I mean everywhere in Osaka is rammed but I could barely move in here. There was a central area with loads of Pokémon toys, clothing accessories and other similar things that was overflowing with kid’s and their parents trying to grab the latest swag. Nearby was an area where tournaments were being held, both the trading card game and the console version. What struck me was the number of people wandering around on their Nintendo DS’s. Not just Kid’s but adults, in fact in some cases whole families were playing Pokémon together.

It would seem Pokemania is still alive and well here in Japan.  I was struck by a wave of nostalgia and I was sorely tempted to buy a copy and a Japanese DS right there and then to join in. Fortunately I channeled Nan at that moment and my inner cheapskate got the better of me. Maybe when I can read Japanese a bit better. Next door to the Pokemon centre was the ABC cooking studio where you pay to go in and well cook. Mad. It also seemed like a popular attraction.

So I’d killed about an hour and a half in a shop, mental, time to move on I thought. Yuko had unfortunately been dragged into work to help out with a class so I was still on my own. I checked out my travel guide and read about a shopping complex called Hep5. It was apparently where the trendy Japanese youth hung out. I’d not been exposed to any really crazy Japanese fashion yet so I figured it might be a nice place to do some people watching. Plus it had a ferris wheel on top so might be worth a giggle.

 

Hep5 was a big red building with about 8 floors. The Entrance has a massive whale statue hanging from the ceiling. The significance I’m not sure of but it looked pretty cool. Looking round most of the shops seemed to be squarely focused on the fairer sex, however the 7^th and 8^th floor were labeled as “Sega Joyopolis”. If that isn’t an enticing name for a video game geek I don't know what is.

I ascended the many escalators to joyopolis and was set adrift in a sea of ufo catchers. These are another massive craze in japan and are a far cry from the naff ones you get in New Brighton brightland arcade. They have everything. From the normal teddies and sweets. To pillows, bags and even useful electronics. One that I walked past had a subwoofer. Totally crazy. I changed a 1000 yen note into coins and had a go on a few. Well you’ve got to really. I also found an arcade machine called “The ocean hunter”. I used to sink many a pound into this thing when I was younger and so I sat down for a bit of a reminiscent play. It’s still solid.

I moved on and then disaster struck. Feeling around in my pockets I’d lost my wallet. Bad times. I walked up to the nearest help desk and said “Sumimasen. Watashi no seifu o sagashitte iru. Wasuremon desu.” Excuse me I’m lucking for my wallet, I’ve lost it. Thank god I’d commited that one to memory. I informed the lady that it was Kuroi (black) and had an Id card with my name in it. After a tense ten minutes an attendant holding my wallet, “Uwa Honto ni arigato gozaimashita” truly thank you very much. My heartbeat went back to normal.

I then went onto the top floor where there were a load of immersion games. They are basically like the simulators you sometimes see at summer fairs but there were a large variety, ranging from a jungle adventure shooting one, a hang glider simulator to the more bizarre cocktail bar simulator. I moved on to a large array of pachinko machines. These are a Japanese obsession. They are basically like one armed bandit slot machines except instead of the “one arm” little ball bearings are fired from the top and roll down toward an opening at the bottom of the machine, if they fall into the opening the slots start to turn. I had a go on a Neon genesis Evangelion one, didn’t win anything though but the lights were pretty.

Time was getting on sadly so I had to say goodbye to Hepfive, I’d totally forgotten to go on the Ferris wheel as well. I met up with Yuko and we wandered the shops for a while before I went to the station. She also gave me the “manju” (Japanese cakes) that she’d bought me from Tokyo. These things looked amazing, far too pretty too eat. Sadly they looked much better than they tasted, a bit bland to be honest

I decided to leave a bit earlier this time, I was determined not to miss the bus this time, and I didn’t hurray. I ended what had been a fun weekend with a lovely squid (yeah you heard me) Kare raisu. I’d also picked up some rather tasty sweet ginger Senbei (rice cakes) as well as something called mereokaki. Not sure what they were but they tasted a bit like shredded wheat.

Ja Mata mina-san

Hoshi o miru to Korean BBQ

Anyang haseyo (Hello in Korean).

Whew and so concludes another mega week. As I alluded to last time I got sucked into another series of experiments straight after my last one ended. Oh joys. I was basically shadowing my new lab group whilst they performed their own experiments meaning yet another streak of sleepless nights, not to mention many missed meals leading to much snackage, including my first Japanese pot noodle.

Some other snacks of note where the karindo,  basically deep fried pieces of dough coated in brown sugar somewhat like a solid doughnut. Also the mini anko doughnuts and the Kanro malt sweets were tasty to.

In fact I haven’t done much of the focus of my title (“Hoshi o miru” means look at stars) as I was getting back to my flat at like 5am whilst it was getting light again. I did however have a fantastic moment on ‘Suiyoubi’ (Wednesday) I saw a herd of deer, is that the right collective noun? Tabun ne.

Anyway it was a really special moment, I was knackered, slightly delirious and very sleep deprived and maybe 15 or 20 deer shot across the road through the mist just in front of me, “totemo kangeki shimashitta” (I was really moved). Didn’t manage to snap a shot unfortunately as I was too sleepy to think straight but it just really hit home how isolated and close to nature my new home is.

Now don’t get me wrong my new lab partners aren’t absolute facists. They at no point forced me to stay and do crazy hours but they are just all so into their work that it was hard not to get sucked in. What was a bit of a struggle is the fact they are all Korean. I can’t speak any of the language and it is in fact really difficult. Like seriously I don't know where to begin with it, the pronunciation is somewhere between Chinese and maybe Hindi? I’m not too sure but it meant I was left out of a lot of conversation.

So anyway I sat in and in fact even got to have a go at some data acquisition. The technique is like trying to hit a needle with a needle, point on, at about 200 metres. “Sugoku muzokashi yo” (hella difficult) and also very engaging, unlike my own experiments these are quite low on automation so the brain is always running. We were working in shifts though.

It was nice anyway I got to know everyone a bit better, in particular my new boss Dr. Song. This guy is really plugged in, laid back but focused. I think it will be a real pleasure to work with him.  I also spent a fair bit of time chatting to another Korean PhD student called Yoonhee. She, like myself, is in her first year and also studied biological sciences at undergrad, so is as bewildered as I am by a lot of the underlying physics in CDI. She is going to be working on a similar projectto me and will be visiting Spring8 a lot. I said I’d help her with learning English, she has to take tests as part of her fellowship, and she said she’d help me with Korean, a good deal I think.

But it’s not all work with these guys. As I now know they really know how to have a good time. We concluded the experiments on Thursday morning and packed everything away. Daewoong had taken it upon himself to organize a trip out for the whole lab to celebrate the fact we were finished. He’d suggested having a BBQ party at a local observatory in Nishi-Harima. Korean BBQ’s are pretty famous in Japan and in the name of integration I couldn’t really say no.

I’m not going to lie my anxieties were high about this. I know they shouldn’t be, I should be way over this but something about BBQ’s still make me apprehensive. The large amounts of generally ‘unhealthy’ food is probably the reason in my mind anyway. Still different place, different cultures, different foods right so I just went for it.

On Friday after our lab meeting, I gave a presentation about my work, we left to go stock up on food before leaving for the lodge. Daewoong had asked me if there was anything I would like. I told him get whatever so long as it isn’t shrimp or beef. I’m rubbish at deciding on things to eat so I was staying way out of it. This sadly was a bit of an error, but I’ll get to that later. Masses of meat and beer where purchased and we crammed it all into a tiny fridge in the lodge.

So why an observatory anyway? Well basically it was a really nice area way up on a nearby mountain. It also provided cheap accommodation in the form of a Japanese style lodge, straw mats and futons. It was a good place for a BBQ party. Plus later on in the night we could go to look at the stars through the massive telescope.

So first off I went for a wander around the local environs. It was really high up so the views were great. There was also a little adventure course for the kids and yes shamefully I had a go on the monkey bars, how could I not, what's this blogs title again. I also came across a little playing field. There seemed to be some kind of foreign exchange camp going on as there was a load of American and Japanese kids playing footie.

Daewoong asked me how I knew they were American, I’d told him I’d picked up American, Australian, and English accents within the group and he seemed impressed I could distinguish between them. I told him how, because they were load and obnoxious, I hate to stereotype but it was most definitely true in this case. Myself Daewoong and Dr. Song’s son watched for a few minutes and then headed back to the lodge for some food.

So a Korean bbq, not a burger or sausage in sight. Essentially you just dump a load of very thinly sliced meat on the grill and pick out what you want, maybe wrap it in some lettuce and dip in some sauce. Sadly Daewoong had bought stacks of beef…and nothing else. Gutted. Thankfully for me Shimada-san, another member of the group was really nice and went off to buy some things I could eat, “Honto ni arigato” (truly thank you). In the meantime I picked at some onions, grilled onions are deffo the bomb, and tried some Japanese beer, which for the record is rubbish.

About an hour later Shimada-san returned. He had loads of delicious things, there were some thin strips of pork belly, a load of salmon and a kind of flatfish similar to monkfish, all of which were proclaimed “ooishii” (deleciouos). Shimada-san had also picked up this kind of lemony soy sauce for the fish, which was amazing. My anxieties lessened a bit and I just enjoyed the company and sharing the food, oh and maybe I lied about the sausages. We also cooked up some sweet corn and some sweet potatoes and generally had a good laugh. I also tried out a Korean dish called Kimichee. This is pickled vegetables mixed with anchovies and a bucket load of chilli sauce. Soo nice, I love spicy food something which doesn’t seem so popular in Japan.

Well fed we trekked up to the observatory. Dr. Kim had mentioned he was really excited about this, he’d always wanted to see the stars through a telescope. He said looking at distant objects fascinated him, whether they be very far of galaxies or very tiny atoms. I guess that's what happens when you go anywhere with an optics lab. The observatory was sadly packed full of those same loud Americans meaning our opportunities to have a peak were limited.

 A brief glance at m3 was all we managed. Sadly I can’t tell you what that was , m1 is the crab nebular but that is as far as my knowledge of astronomy extends. We turned around and went back to the lodge.

I decided that it was pudding time. My plan was to introduce the lab to something from my childhood, barbequed bananas. Amidst many a funny look I wrapped a few nana’s in tinfoil and put them on the grill. There’s something about the sweet mushy texture of a cooked banana that I really like and I think it got a thumbs up from a few of the others.

So food all finished Dr. Song went off to put his son to bed and I had a good chat with Dr. Kim and Dr. Park. Dr. Kim had mentioned being a fan of the Beatles earlier, which got a massive eye roll from me. However it turned out I’d offended him a little, which I was truly sorry for. Apparently they had been a massive influence on his musical taste and he really was a true fan. It actually moved us on to taling about albums and how a well organized album is the merit of a true artist. So although our musical tastes differ widely our opinions on what makes a good artist are actually very similar.

Dr. Park it turned out was actually quite keen on Liverpool to, though for other reasons. He is very into his classical music and in fact owns a CD produced by the Liverpool philharmonic orchestra, whom he’d really like to hear play live. I told him I’d look out for any relevant conferences happening in Liverpool to give him an excuse to go over.

He’s also been to see many places in Japan over the past few years. He gave me a few pointers on great places to visit and when to visit them. Obviously he highly recommended Kyoto, the old capital where there is so much to visit. But he also knew a bit more about some of the smaller towns in and around the area and in neighboring Shikoku island, a place I really want to visit. He mentioned that one of the towns was very famous for it’s onions and apparently makes some of the best ramen in Japan, definitely worthy of my time.

Once Dr. Songs son had settled down we began to clear up a bit and then moved back inside. Daewoong had brought the labs projector with him and we settled down for a film. I think we started with battle for Los Angelas, a pretty gung ho humans kill aliens film. I was too tired to really pay attention and it was soon switched for What I can only describe as being a feudal period, Chinese Poroit. I couldn’t understand anything, it was all in Korean, so I said my good nights and went to bed. All in all it was a great night and a nice way to bond with my new lab group.

Frustration, Farewells and Frisbee.

Uwa, what a week it has been. So much going on although sadly not too many interesting adventures to report back on. Tuesday saw the start of our second slot of beam time. Following on from the time off we’d been putting in 12-hour days, or more to make sure our equipment was in tip top condition. With the team now reduced to two the work was considerably more demanding.

Josie, I’ve now learned the nickname is derived from a basterdisation of bad girl in Japanese (Josei warui), was as always playing up. We spent a very large amount of time tinkering with various components, removing parts, refitting and cleaning. Basically I think I’m now well prepared for anything purchased from IKEA due to all the time I’ve spent with screwdriver, Allen key or spanner in hand.

Anyway somehow we did manage to get the DIT running in a way that would mean we could collect some good data by the time Tuesday rolled around and as we were already set up on the beam line alignment was fairly straightforward. We started as before with cytochrome C. The DIT was behaving itself for a change and we were getting very promising mass spectra. Unfortunately we still weren’t seeing any scattering, but as I’ve mentioned before, that was expected due to the small size of the molecule.

After a few hours sleep, we finished up around 2am the previous day, it was time to move on to thyroglobulin, a.k.a the devils protein. This is where are troubles normally started. However rather uncharacteristically Josie was on best behavior. We seemed to be trapping Ions well and so we could begin scanning. All the hard work and toil from the previous five days had paid off and we were able to solve any problem Josie threw at us. Or so we thought.

After our fourth data acquisition disaster struck. Cheung commented on a faint burning smell he’d noticed in the hutch, initially it was very faint and neither Takaaki nor myself could smell anything. Now however it had grown much stronger and the DIT was suddenly unable to perform mass scans.

A quick investigation of the equipment and we discovered the source. There appeared to be a faint glow from the underside of one of the control boards. Not good. We shut everything down and began to dismantle and low and behold one of the circuit boards was completely fried. It turned out that one or more of the transistors on the DIT’s control board had failed, dumping 2Kv of electricity into the resistor and melting it. With out the transistors the fine-tuning of current through the DIT could not be achieved and so it wouldn’t work.

Disheartened we dismantled the device and boxed it up to be shipped back to Manchester. A pretty rubbish end to what had looked to be a promising slot of beamtime. Ah Shikata ga nai. There will always be next time.

So we still had one day left. Rather than waste it we decided to act upon one of Cheung’s earlier ideas of using x-ray fluorescence to detect ions in the trap.

A bit of background. Atoms consist of multiple smaller particles. Predominantly these are protons, neutrons and electrons, there are actually even smaller particles but they aren’t relevant in this explanation. It is he electrons which where our focus. Electrons exist in orbitals or shells around the central nucleus of an atom, similar to the way our planets orbit the sun. When stable the electrons of an atom will exist in discrete shell at a given distance from the nucleus.

It is possible however, through the use of high-energy photons like x-rays, to cause the electrons to ‘jump’ to an orbital further from the nucleus, where it will have a higher energy. This is unstable and eventually the electron will move back to it’s favored orbital, a process called relaxation. When this happens it’ s extra energy is given off as a light, hence x-ray fluorescence.

It happens that all atoms fluoresce at a discrete frequency and so this process can be used to distinguish which atoms are present in a compound. For our purpose we had a protein containing an iron atom, cytochrome C, so if we could get a fluorescence signal for Iron we could determine its presence in the DIT. The intensity of the signal would also give us some indication of how much iron we had.

So how did we actually go about this? Well we got a very small sample of cytochrome C in solution (about 20μl) and put it into a sample chamber. The chamber has two 30μm thick windows allowing an x-ray beam to pass through. We then set up a detector just off the path of the direct beam so we could measure the fluorescence of the scattered x-rays, the direct beam would simply saturate the detector, as it was so powerful.

And so the result? Nothing, zilch, nada. Unfortunately our protein sample would be too dilute to give a strong enough signal with the equipment we had available. Still it wouldn’t be called research if you didn’t repeatedly search for something right. It was interesting to set up a new experiment at any rate.

Ok that's the boring science stuff out the way anyway. As I may have mentioned I’ve been working crazy hours at the moment, not finishing till maybe 1 or 2 am most nights and I haven’t been able to take any time off since golden week. Now like 90% of the western world I’m concerned about my weight, although not in the same way as most.

Weight is something I struggle with, I don’t want to let it define me as it has done in the past and so I am trying to break the habit of worrying about it or analyzing it. Still I’m well aware that all this work will be taking it’s toll on my body and o I’ve been making an effort to try some more Japanese snack foods so here is a quick list of some of my recent encounters:

Kuri Shigure: Although the name would suggest they contain chestnuts (kuri) these are actually little cakes made of rice flour mixed with white bean paste and sugar. They are very soft and pretty sweet. They kind of have a muffin like texture and the bean paste isn’t particularly prevalent, making them a great little pick me up.

Soba meshi: This is actually named after a real dish that combines leftover noodles with leftover rice to make a dish of fried rice and noodles. The stuff I got was like the snack version. Think a kind of Japanese Bombay mix. The Worcestershire sauce flavor was pretty heavy but gave them a nice savory kick.

Muichaimashita chestnuts: These were cooked Chinese chestnuts I grabbed on a whim. They aren’t sweetened at all and our quite smooth in texture. Not bad as a snack but I prefer other nuts, they could be good with a bit of a sugar glaze I reckon, or possibly used in cooking.

Ramune: apparently a very popular drink in the summer months of Japan. It wasn’t particularly delicious but the bottle was really pretty to look at.  The bottle has a marble in the neck so the whole drink fizzes up with each swig. It was pretty refreshing although not that tasty, it was bubblegum flavored and I’m not a fan, I’ll have to see if there are other flavors available.

Karaimo: These things were really nice actually. They are candied Japanese sweet potatoes. Think of that what you will but in essence they taste just like treacle toffee. I’m a massive fan I’ll definitely have to invest in some more I think.

Brown sugar candies: Erm does what it says on the tin. Hydrated brown sugar, closer to small chunks of muscavado but not as densely packed. Airy with a faint hint of molasses, another winner.

Ok that's pretty much it for that section. I’ve also managed to get a bit of home cooking done as well, fed up as I am of food from the cafeteria. My latest forays include making my own sushi rolls (maki) and more oden. I’d managed to get a few more traditional ingredients to o in it such as konnyaku (a kind of jelly made from a yam like root vegetable) and surimi (mashed and formed white fish think crab sticks minus the crab), and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). I’m a big fan of oden it’s just so easy when I’m knackered and late in from work.

Anyway after the poor ending of my own beam time I’ve actually not had a proper rest. I had a Skype meeting with my supervisor and he’s requested that I join in with my new lab group in their current slot of beam time.

My new group is all Korean, I know I’ve spent all that time learning Japanese to end up in a Korean lab. They’re actually really nice but it obviously makes taking part in experiments difficult. Whilst their English is incredible they generally talk to each other in Korean so I constantly have to ask what is going on.

Frustration aside the experiments are interesting if somewhat long winded. It’s nice to see the practical side of the Coherent diffraction Imaging (CDI) that I’ve mentioned previously. It’s always good to see things set up properly and their equipment does look very impressive, though somewhat smaller than I’d imagined.

Unlike in my own experiments the most time consuming step here is the actual alignment of the x-ray beam. For the purposes of CDI the beam must be very small, somewhere in the region of 10-15μm. This is because the samples they are using are larger but they are not looking at an averaged image of many samples, but an image of just one sample.

The samples are mounted on a thin silica membrane and fixed in place and this is analyzed under a high power light microscope to determine the samples horizontal and vertical position. It will then be placed in the path of the beam and the beam adjusted until it passes through the sample. This can take hours or days of minute adjustment, so many more sleepless nights for me.

The focus of this set of experiments is not actually the sample itself but a new piece of equipment. Daewoong, a PhD student like me in our group, has been developing something known as a cry-chamber. This will cool the samples to temperatures of about -80⁰.

The reasoning behind this is to extend the time period over which a sample can be imaged. When the high energy x-rays interact with the sample some of this energy will be transferred to the electrons of the sample in the form of kinetic energy. Over the time course of an experiment the electrons will very rapidly drift apart until the sample essentially disintegrates, the process is know as a coulomb explosion.

By reducing the temperature you restrict the movement of the electrons and can therefore extend the time period over which you can obtain a reliable image. This is vitally important when the samples in question are either highly complex, or very small.

It seemed that the first few days of experiments had gone about as well as mine. With their original set up they had spent 3 days trying to align the beam correctly but just couldn’t seem to produce the right profile.  What had I said about research earlier? Anyway the problem seemed to be related to the focusing mirrors they were using. Once they were replaced they were well on their way to start imaging some interesting samples.

On another rather sad note the other member of the team who came with me from Liverpool was finally leaving on Sunday. He’s been a great help both in terms of his experience as an x-ray scientist and his general practicality. He’s also been a great laugh, he has a crazy sense of humor and a tendency to say very inappropriate things.

I’d hoped to go for a meal or something to give him a good send off but alas no such luck. We in the end settled for a couple of drinks in the users lounge with Takaaki as well, I’d bought him some beer earlier to say thank-you for his hard work. I’d managed to get the day off on Sunday if I worked the night shift, so hopefully I could see Cheung off in Osaka.

Disaster. After about 3 hours of sleep I seemed to have woken up too late and missed Cheung's departure I was gutted. Still I carried on with my planned visit to Osaka. I’d arranged to meet up with Yuko again and go play some Frisbee, finally. It’d been 8 straight working days so I needed a break. I picked up a bottle of soukenbi cha. This is a type of mugicha or barley tea only it contains about 11 kinds of different grain. It; very refreshing on a hot day and my favorite kind of bottled tea, also caffeine free.

As I was leaving the station and trying to figure out where to go I heard a familiar voice. It was Cheung. It seem he’d over slept as well and had taken the same train as me. I was really happy I could see him off properly. I helped him get to his hotel and we said our goodbye, he was bound to Kyoto for the day, as his flight wasn’t till later that night.

Farewells said and it was time to explore a bit before I met Yuko at 2pm for a bit of friz. Osaka I huge as I’ve mentioned before so I couldn’t afford to go to far. I had a look around some of the massive department stores though. The one I ended up in was entirely dedicated to electronics and had 14 floors, unreal. A good browse later and it was already nearly 1, time to get some food before setting off to Nakatsu train station.

I’d wanted to try out some more proper Japanese food but the food court was mega busy and I still can’t really read the menus. In the end I settled for some onigiri from a convenience store. Admittedly they are still good quality, it’s not like corner shop food back in Britain, and they even had a little seating are where I could eat, win.

So fed I departed and headed back to the Hankyu station to catch a train, it’s literally only 2 minutes to get to Nakatsu by train but the walk is actually quite far. I met up with Yuko no problem and we set off for the pitch.

The wind was up sadly but the weather was so warm that I didn’t much care. The pitch was a grassy area alongside a load of baseball fields. Baseball is huge in Japan and there were loads of teams about, either playing matches or just training. I think there were some local Sunday league games going on or something.

Anyway it was like something straight out of an anime I'd watched called FLCL. We were playing just alongside the river next to a railway bridge and had a really nice view of the Juso district and the sky tower behind us. Members of the team slowly filtered in. They seemed to be from all over the place, and admittedly I’ve forgotten most of their names. Thankfully I wasn’t the only gaijin, although it was also nice to practice a bit more Japanese.

We played for a couple of hours. It was a good laugh and so nice to get running about again after such a long stint indoors. I just wish I hadn’t been so sleepy. I wasn’t playing that great but then it was no serious thing really. Quite a few people had never actually played before, just thrown around a bit, so I soon had my coach head on. I tried not to let my competitiveness take hold when it became turnover central, this was just for fun after all.

Sixes with no subs w still tough though, lots of running about. It came to 5 o’clock and besides being tsukareta (tired) I also needed to head off. We took a few silly pics of what was apparently the Japanese “style” of wearing a sash, I’m not convinced, and then I headed back to the station. 

Just before catching my train I swung by this awesome little japanese style bakery. There had been something I'd wanted to try since arriving in Japan but hadn't yet got round to. It was a kind of cake called a melon pan. Don't be fooled by the name it contains no melo. It is acctually a sweet bread with a cookie like topping giving it a nice crunch, the name comes from the fact it looks a bit like a melon. From the research I'd done it was apparently best to buy them fresh and not packaged as the main appeal was the crispiness of the topping. I'll not lie I don't see the appeal. It was alright not mega sweet not overly doughy but at least I've tried it.

It would have been nice to stay and chill a bit but I was determined not to get stuck in Aioi again, the outrageous price of taxi fare was not something I wanted to deal with again. Alas it was not to be. My train was delayed, I still don’t know why all the announcements were in Japanese, and so I arrived in Aioi an hour later than planned, and ten minutes after the last bus left. Yet another takai visit to Osaka.

Demo tanoshikatta desu (But it was fun).

Dewa matta