Mecha Inaka – Mountain-top Frisbee

Well after a week of recovering from night shift induced jet lag we are moving on to our next experiment. This one whilst not as time consuming is no less intense. We are working on the UVFEL, a prototype to the XFEL, this week. It is similar in terms of brilliance and intensity to the XFEL but it has a much longer wavelength, around 60nm.

This basically put a much higher limitation on achievable resolution however we are hoping that we can still use it to test the feasibility of imaging on an XFEL. For these experiments our equipment needs to be much hardier, to maintain the high coherence of the UVFEL beam the sample chamber needs to be under a pretty serious vacuum, so the chamber is made of aluminum and about an inch thick, i.e. it was a pain in the bum to set up.

Once set up the arduous task of aligning the various internal components begins. The sample stage, beam stop, slits and windows need to be aligned to an accuracy of micrometers using very sensitive motors. This again took hours, as at the time we didn’t have the beam passing through the chamber. It basically meant we were working past 1 o’clock on a Friday night for the umpteenth time, I remember when Friday nights were fun…I think.

 

Right anyway now that we are set up we can actually do some very exciting science, I promise. Using the UVFEL we are trying to image silicon membranes with nm sized patterns printed on them. Now these can actually be imaged through another technique, but if we can gain the same level of image resolution using the diffraction pattern produced when the sample is exposed to a single pulse of the FEL beam then it validates this as a method of imaging.

In principal we could then move onto other samples that can’t be imaged using current techniques. The main limit to any high resolution imaging techniques is radiation-induced damage. The FEL gets around this problem due to the high speed of each pulse, imaging the object faster than it is degraded, hence why we need to get a good resolution diffraction from a single pulse.

The actual data acquisition isn’t particularly interesting sadly. We spend hours meticulously scanning the membrane surface until we find the images printed on it and then, to be crude, zap it. The sample may then last for 50 pulses or only 1 before disintegrating, each one costs about $1000 so we hope it's the latter.

Due to the massive power consumption of the UVFEL beam it can only actually be maintained for a limited period of time in a day, between 10am and 7pm. This is nice, it means we can actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. Of course we also have many of the higher ups breathing down our necks checking the experiment is going well, again due to the massive power consumption of the UVFEL beam.

Ok stepping back from the science now time to talk about the weekend. Given that we had a big week coming off I thankfully had the weekend free. It appears that free weekends aren’t a right they’re a privilege so I’ll take them when I can. I actually got up stupidly early on Saturday to play some DnD with friends from Durham. Mega geeky for sure but to be honest I was happy just to chat with those guys. Haven’t seen them for ages and they are a good laugh.

After that I pegged it to the bus to meet Sam and Arnaud in Aioi. They were planning on heading to a Shopping mall out in Otsuu and Ignace had kindly offered to drive. It was a good chance to get away from the mountain and closer to civilization so how could I say no. I was also planning on going to a mini Frisbee tournament on Sunday and so needed a green sports top.

Ignace drove down to the station with his girlfriend Moe and picked us up before heading back onto the motorway for Otsuu. It was a fun trip with much wisecracking about me being English. I keep getting asked ‘how do you say this in English’ or ‘what’s the English word for this’. Most of the time I can honestly say I don’t know, also my English is terrible and I’m not the person to be learning from.

The shopping mall was called JUSCO and was medium sized. It was so hot by the time we got there, like maybe 32 degrees, we were very happy to be inside with all the lovely air-conditioning. Inside it was, well a shopping mall, nothing to be blown away by but it does beat wandering around Aioi.

Our first stop was the sports shop, Ignace and Moe needed to pick up some running gear and I needed a new shirt so it was a good first stop. I won’t really bore you with the details of shopping, lets be honest sports outlet stores all look the same. I was done pretty quickly and Sam mentioned he could use some new shoes so we moved on leaving Ignace and Moe in their sports gear odyssey.

Arnaud took us to a discount shoe shop called Asbee, which apparently sounds very similar to something funny in French though it’s totally slipped my mind. It made me giggle just because it sounds so much like ASBO. Ah but Engrish and Fraponese are hilarious. Actually I’ve seen many more examples of Fraponese than Engrish so far, maybe just because I’m around French speakers a lot, or maybe the Japanese just think it sounds sophisticated. Either way it’s pretty funny.

So in the shoe shop I was blown away. The brands aren’t much different really but the number of styles is ridiculous. They have the stuff we have but it’s just, well, shinier haha. In fact there were some really spectacular shoes in there, like the high heel converse, and some really minging ones, why a nation needs so many crocs I’ll never know. A special mention goes out to the Airwalk batman range, hella cool shoes and I took a picture just for you Bazman.

After much faffing from the staff Sam managed to get a pair of shoes he liked and we headed back to the sports store. Ignace, Sam and Arnaud bean conversing rapidly in French and I tried to pick out what I could. Not a lot it would seem and I must have been pulling a stupid face because I was immediately met with a good ripping. Ignace then proceeded to speak in very slow broken French, I think I need to start brushing up so I not the butt of many jokes next time I’m with all three of them.

Joking aside it turned out Arnaud and Sam had both missed breakfast, tut tut, and I’d been up since 7am so was pretty hungry also. Ignace thought that Moe would take a while longer so suggested we go eat now. We went back downstairs to check the restaurant. First though we stopped to have a look at the T-rex on the first floor. Alright it as a guy in a scaled down T-rex suit posing for kids but fascinating nonetheless. The theme music of Jurassic Park was playing in the background, ah that tune makes me happy, love those films.

So next the dreaded question, “Where should we eat?”. God I hate making decisions about food though everyone asks me since I’m the one with restrictions on what I can eat. Screw that, just pick somewhere and I’ll find something I can eat I’m actually not that fussy.

So we went to a ramen-ya on the first floor. It looked pretty good and there was a short waiting time to go in, always a good sign. They had the usual plastic dishes outside and it looked like a good selection to me. I went with a standard miso ramen with “moyashi toppingu” (bean sprout topping). Sam and Arnaud got the places “osusume” or recommendation. I believe it was called “Paiku”, no idea what that means but it seemed to be some kind of beef, and therefore no good for me anyway.

The ramen was good though and once we were fed up we hit Caldi. Ah imported food shops you are so expensive but so nostalgic. I have no idea how much I spent but it is worth it. I ingredients for some Italian cooking (including olives), something I’ve not had in ages, can’t wait. I also got some Bengal spice tea, my favorite of all teas and it makes me think of home. There was plenty of other cool stuff in there but I had to pull myself away before I spent a ludicrous amount of money.

Our final stop was Joshin a big electronics store at the far end of the mall. They had pretty much anything electrical you could want and maybe even some you didn’t, or at least didn’t know existed. My particular favorite was a circular fan made by Dyson, it just looked so cool, not sure if it makes any difference though.

As well as all this wall-to-wall electronic craziness Joshin, and a fair few other Japanese stores I’ve been to has it’s own theme tune. With a twinkling chorus of “Jo Jo Jo Jooshin” and a wailing electric guitar it was infectious, and nauseating, all at the same time. Incredible. I briefly wander into the videogames section but unfortunately all the display consoles were occupied, maybe next time.

Sam bought himself a wireless router, which he’d been after for a while, it would apparently cost 1000 yen a month to rent one from his IP, mental. We met up with Ignace and Moe afterwards but they still had more shopping to do so we departed for the train. Arriving at the station it seemed like there had been a major accident in Kyoto and all trains bound for Himeji were delayed.

I swear I have the worst luck with these trains. Arnaud and Ignace have told me they’ve had maybe 1 or 2 problems in the whole time they’ve lived here. I’ve been on 4 trains so far delayed by more than 30 minutes, lame. We managed to get home ok in the end, a train pulled up just as Ignace offered to come pick us up naturally.

I made it home safe and sound and tried to get to bed early. It was a big day on Sunday as I was going to a Frisbee tournament up in Wadayama. It’s pretty far north of where I live and that meant getting up at 6:30am, oh the things I do for Frisbee.

I actually had a close call as my alarm didn’t go off leading to a mad dash or the bus. I arrived at Aioi with plenty o time to spare so I grabbed some scran from the train station before meeting Arnaud to head into Himeji. In Himeji we met Yuko who had apparently been up since five, I quickly shut my gob about the act I’d had to get up at 6:30.

The train to Wadayama was pretty amusing. There is apparently only 1 train that runs on that line because it’s “mecha Inaka” (very countryside) and not many people use it, a bit like the bus I have to get down the mountain. We started out on a 2-car train that was old enough not to have automatic doors and set off on the long journey north. Whilst it isn’t that far we were riding a local train so the journey itself took over an hour and half. The views were kinda nice though and I was so tired anyway.

About halfway we switched to another train, this time with only 1 car and it what looked like desk fans on the ceiling to act as air conditioning, old school or what. At the station a friend of Yuko’s named Kakashi picked us up and he drove us to his house.

I’m going to take a moment to just appreciate his house. It was awesome, one o the advantages of living in the countryside in Japan is you have space to build big housing. According to Yuko Kakashi was loaded and this was his second house. Also he’d designed it himself. As you come through the front door the first thing you notice is a climbing wall. That's right this guy has built his own climbing wall in the front hallway. Epic.

Just after myself Arnaud and Yuko had gotten changed the rest of the team began to arrive.  I was rapidly introduced to quite a few people and so subsequently forgot the vast majority of their names. A few of the guys had their own names rather than nicknames, which always helps.

We then moved onto the field. And I mean literally a field. Gatson, the captain of our team, told me that they had been cutting down metre high grass yesterday and we needed to clear it before we could play. I did not sign up or this and apologized to Arnaud, I don’t think either of us were expecting serious manual labor. Again the things I do for Frisbee.

After around an hour of clearing up some of the other teams started to arrive so we could finally take a rest. There was a air smattering of foreigners in the other teams and in act one team composed entirely of gaijins. The vast majority were English teachers from the states or Canada.  I guess that makes sense with Ultimate since it originated in North America and doesn’t actually appear to be that big in the Kansai region.

It’s cool as it means I’ll always bump into other English speakers, but in a way unfortunate, as I feel this really skews the Japanese’s impressions of westerners. The overwhelming majority that they meet will be in their early to mid 20’s and North American. One guy I met called Jarred from Australia shares this view I think. He picked out that I was English and when I asked him how it was apparently because I’m not loud and obnoxious enough to be American.

With the field finally cleared it was time for a spot of lunch. It turned out the Arnaud had missed breakfast (again tut tut) in his rush for the train, he’d been out drinking till late last night. On top o that he’d not managed to grab any food before we got here. I had a few onigiri with me though fortunately so I shared my lunch with him.

Now onto the games. They were a lot of fun, well Frisbee is always fun, but they were relaxed. It was good to get playing again although the skill level wasn’t particularly high, as I said before it’s just not as big out here as I’d hoped and it didn’t seem like any of the teams played together that regularly. That being said there were still some awesome plays made and Arnaud even managed to et himself a layout D, not bad or a Newbie. Hopefully he’s had a good taste and is eager or more.

We played one game on and one off and had three games in total so as always the journey time was more than double the actual playing time. Roll on Tajima in two weeks I can’t wait. The players of the team we played for, Disc-o, were all pretty cool people. Gatson, whom I’m guessing has been settled here or a while, seem to be in the role of coach and captain, giving speeches in Japanese between games. I think sentiment of “swing the <expletive> disc” require no words for me so I didn’t need a translation.

Tired, sweaty and covered in some monster insect bites it was time to head home. Before that though someone had suggested a trip to an “onsen” (Japanese hot spring). I kind of wanted to get home, but on the other hand I’d not been to an onsen yet. I didn’t really have much say in the matter anyway and I was willing to suck it up and pay taxi fare.

The onsen was apparently “Yume” (famous) although I don’t remember its name. This was a definite experience to say the least. First we bought our tickets from, of course, a vending machine and then proceeded to our separate bathing areas, “otoko” for guy and “Onna” for ladies.

The first thing you do at an onsen is strip completely nekkid and have yourself a good wash at these little sit down showers. It was a little bit weird but I’ve long forgone modesty thanks to years of communal showering. Once clean you then  go into the spring area itself and soak in the lovely warm waters. This one was fairly fancy and had adjoining hot rooms and saunas.

I’ll be honest nice though it was on my tired legs I was getting a bit fed up after 20 minutes, natural or not I still don’t really like baths that much. I hauled myself out and headed got dried up and headed out to the main entrance where I was informed I could keep the towel I’d used, unexpected souvenirs are the best.

Once everyone was thoroughly chilled out we headed back to the cars and were going to a “Kaiten-zushi” (conveyor belt sushi) place or dinner. I’m not proud of it but my heart sunk, my old anxieties were flaring up. I’ve been getting better at eating out but I think it was just the large umber of people I didn’t know making me anxious. I’m not sure what it was entirely but I suddenly decided I ‘wasn’t hungry’ and became really moody and complained about needing to get the last bus or something.

Fortunately for me, I guess, the place was fully booked and wouldn’t have a table free for about 30 minutes. I must have had a right gob on because it was somehow decided that we’d drive back to Himeji to try and get me to the station in time for the last bus. However we only had just under an hour.

Getting back entailed some exceptionally awesome and most likely illegal driving on the expressways. I can’t remember who was driving the car, I think it was Takashi-san though I’m not sure. Either way it was a hell of a trip and frequently “giri giri” (sketchily close), but we managed to get me to the station with 5 minutes to spare. “Sugoi”

I’m not proud of it but I was glad to duck out of the meal. My head still needs some sorting I think. Don’t worry I did eat when I got home. Anyway it was a bit of a let down to what was essentially an awesome weekend. Now back to work. I’ve actually got myself some editing work checking the “Engrish” of grant applications for my colleague Komura-san. Should be good experience I hope, plus it's a nice distraction from my lit review.

Mata atode mina-san.

Bye bye beamtime, hello bed.

Ah the experiments are finally over, and I'm so glad to be out of the synchrotron at last. The weather is God-awful but getting drenched was a refreshing change of pace from the constant 23 degree, 0% humidity of the ring. I think I as starting to go a bit mad being stuck in there for so long. But after many ups and downs, possibly more downs over the past six days we're done. Or at least until next Monday haha.

The final day was actually spent working on something a little bit different. We removed our CDI chamber for the hutch to set up the beast in the picture to the right. This series of tubes and needle tips is a liquid injector for use in imaging experiments and is the brainchild of Dr. Park. We were essentially just commissioning, trying to line up the very thin liquid jet with the very thin x-ray beam.

The injector itself works by forcing liquid through a very fine capillary at high pressure to produce a stream of liquid droplets. A gas nozzle fitted alongside the needle is used to make the liquid stream even finer through a process known as aerodynamic focusing. The gas flows parallel to the liquid jet and as it exits the capillary it converges and pushes the liquid jet to a finer point. This reduces the size of the droplet to a few microns in diameter. As they are so small they should theoretically only contain a single particle, provided the concentration of sample is low enough and the sample size is between 30nm - 1 micron.

To test the equipment out we used gold colloid particles as they are very electron dense and scatter X-rays very strongly. Of course once more the major problem here is alignment, the droplet stream and X-ray beam has to pass through the very thin droplet stream to get a signal, no easy task. We managed to obtain some data but sadly, due to some earlier issues with motor controls, not enough. Maybe next time.

So one of the cool things to come out of working nights is I’ve been leaving the ring in time to see all the deer that are resident in the mountains. I’ve been trying to snap a pic of them for ages and I managed to get one of a stag in the distance. Maybe when I’m on nights again I’ll finally get a good picture, but they move so damn fast.

I'm quite glad its all over. The experience was great but my stomach has not loved me, in fact I'm in agony today. I am however getting used to reading food labels now, amazing how fast you can learn something when pain is an incentive. I thought I'd share this little one as it made me chuckle quite a lot. This is from the back of a "Jiamu pan" (read jam butty) that one of the guys bought last night. The highlighted katakana reads "nachiraru chi-zu". God only knows what hat is and why it's in a jam sandwich, I'm sure it and my belly wouldn't get on though.

Anyway everyone has been in a bit of a daze today and I am in fact the only person left in the office. The guys set off for the airport to drop Chan off, can't believe he's flying straight back to Korea after an experiment, and myself and Shimada-san were left to do the final clean up. After we were done we set off to the cafeteria. This week is special power rangers 'kare raisu' week. Each day is a different colour/flavor and you guessed it, I'm allergic to all of them :(. If it doesn't contain milk it has shrimp, if it doesn't have shrimp it has butter, if it contains neither its beef I just can't win.

I bumped into Ignace whilst I picked up some scran and had a good catch up. He's been here for about 7 years I think and his Japanese is amazing, he was quickly chatting away with Shimada-san. Just as I was about to tuck in to my tofu and minced pork stew I plucked out a shrimp. Dammit but why is nothing ever clearly labeled. With some help from Ignace I exchanged it for some fried chicken, less of the racial profiling you.

Not to end on a bad note here are a couple of things I picked up that I could eat. The first is called “Tomado Sendei”. Unlke most senbei it;’s not made from rice but wheat. It’s name is derived from the fact it looks a bit like  a tomado drum I think and it basically tasted like a fortune cookie. Next was some “monaka”. This is any sweet filling sandwiched between two thin wafers. This one was anko jam. I think they showcase the Japanese emphasis of aesthetics over taste, not that they taste bad but they look incredible.

Anyway my bed is calling me, Mata Kondo.

Oodles of noodles, string and cello tape.

The mere mention of those two common household binders, string and cello tape always makes me think of Moving to black water by Reuben. Such a quality song and one close o my heart. Well all of Reuben’s work is actually since it evokes such strong memories of friendship. It’s good to hold on to fond memories like that. I must admit I’m starting to get a little homesick, especially with how crazy busy I am at the moment, I can’t believe I’ve been here three months already.

Anyway enough of my moaning that's not what you want to read about is it. This week we have had yet another slot of beamtime and we’re currently four days in. I decided to take the night shift this time around in the hopes I could easily get in touch with people from home. Alas it was not to be as most of the time has been spent working. What has made things worse is that I’m still struggling to get something delivered back to the UK, so I’ve had to work extra hours since the admin staff are only in work 9-5:30.

The reason beamtime is so mental is because it is very precious. With only 50 experimental hutches and millions of prospective users world wide, experiment time at a synchrotron is very precious. As such we try and make the most of any time we are assigned and this means performing experiments around the clock. Straight off the bat I won’t lie, it’s not fun, it does awful things to your body, but it is very interesting.

For this series of experiments I’ve not been working on my own project but helping the experiments of other members of my group, development of a Coherent diffraction-imaging (CDI) chamber. This has again meant long hours stuck inside the controlled atmosphere and artificial lighting of the ring. Fortunately the weather outside has been rubbish so I’ve not been missing too much.

Now I’ve talked about the theory of CDI before but here is a little refresher. Essentially you are using a very fine X-ray beam to probe the structure of small biological samples, usually a few microns (0.001cm). When the beam interacts with the sample it is scattered. The various types of scattering give different information. The small angles give information about the overall shape and size of the sample, whilst the higher angles will give you an impression of areas of electron density, and from this you can infer internal or surface structures.

Now of course this is just the theory and what I’ll discuss now are the practicalities. Firstly you have to make your X-ray beam coherent. Coherence describes light in which all the photons are travelling in-phase, or parallel, to each other. Picture a 4-lane motorway with four cars that are all driving side by side, then imagine that their paths bend to the left and right rather than being a straight line, but the cars remain side by side. This is kind of what coherent light would look like.

The problem is that when X-ray photons are emitted it is not coherent but in random bunches. To make it coherent we must filter out the unwanted photons and retain just those travelling in the direction we want them to, in the previous sample this would be the restricted lane of the motorway. This is achieved by placing a series of mirrors and slits in the path of the beam to filter the unwanted photons giving us a single beam. This is then reduced in size by passing it through a small aperture called a pinhole. Typically we reduce the beam size from 1mm to about 10 microns.

The crucial part is that all these focusing elements must be precisely aligned, as x-rays will scatter when they interact with any matter. This will give us a lot of ‘noise’ when the final beam eventually reaches the detector. The way we’ve gotten around this problem is to have each element mounted to a very fine motor stage all held within one chamber. Using computer software and a photodiode to detect the x-rays, the various optics components are aligned one by one.

This process is very time consuming and actually took up the first two days of our experiment. This is again why it is so important to make full use of the 24 hours we are given. We were in fact slowed down at one point. A new component we’d purchased for the chamber had not been designed quite right. It was too heavy and under the high vacuum the chamber is maintained at it cracked the Perspex hutch of the chamber. Nightmare. The group made some quick blue-peter style repairs and fortunately the equipment has been working fine since. Who said science needed to be high tech ey.

The next step is to mount samples and fire X-rays at them. The first stage, actually finding the sample also takes some time. A stepwise movement of the motor stage the sample mount is  mounted on allows the beam to scan its entire surface and the resulting patterns are recorded. Usually a signal from a sample will jump out but it requires a bit of focus and experience to be certain that what you are looking at is what you expect to see.

The main issue is that the image recorded does not look like your sample generally. The X-ray detector simply records the position and intensity of a diffracted photon. The trouble is that X-rays can interfere with each other and where there were three photons there can suddenly be one much brighter photon. The pattern produced is said to be in reciprocal space (i.e. 1/real space) and so the exact positions of electron density cannot be determined. Fortunately there are some characteristic patterns that occur due to regions of symmetry so that if you know the rough shape of your sample you can guess the kind of pattern it would produce.

 

Only once you have gone through all this can you start getting data. This is actually the dullest part as you simply expose the sample for a given period of time at a fixed position and combine all the patterns recorded by the detector. Of course our samples are tiny and we are trying to hit them with a tiny beam so getting to this stage takes a lot of time.

As I said I’ve been working the night shift this week alongside Daewong and Dr. Kim from my group as well as Chan, a member of Dr. Kim’s old group in Korea. Once again I’m the only a) none engineer and b) none Korean and so I have been left out of the discussion quite a lot. It’s frustrating but it can’t be helped as everyone is pushed for time and explaining things to me in English takes a while. Not that these guys don’t speak English very well but putting together complex ideas in your native tongue is hard enough, it’s about 5 times harder in another language.

Chan has actually been really awesome. He took the time out to explain in English some of the things that were going on as he could see I was feeling a bit left out. I’m starting to get a much better handle on how these experiments work now and his instruction was really helpful. Also since he’s a PhD student and learning these things himself, I hope I’ve helped further his understanding to. I think I’m going to be working alongside him again over my 2 years so it was good to get to know him a bit better.

The major thing that has sucked about working nights though has got to be the food.  I’ve been reacquainting myself to the eastern, and a personal, obsession with the instant noodle. I actually stopped eating them for a while whilst I was at my worst, god knows why “men ga daisuke desu.” (I love noodles). In fact I do remember my dad once telling me that when I was younger I was practically made of noodles I ate them so much. The same probably holds true now. There are an incredible variety of pot noodles over here because there are just so many ways to eat them.

 

So far every conbini I’ve been to has an entire section dedicated to instant noodles, we’re talking two aisles of a corner shop having nothing but noodles. There are so many types of Ramen, Soba and Udon to go for so you could theoretically live off it without getting bored. So far my firm favorites are “Kitsune udon” (Fox udon), which has strips of deep fried tofu and Korean style spicy ramen. Chan actually brought a load of cartons from Korea with him, sadly they all contained shrimp and I couldn’t try them.

Of course pot noodles are no substitute for real food, even if the quality is vastly higher than those found in the UK. I can’t wait to get to some proper Udon/Soba/Ramen-yas and try some real hand made noodles, something I’ve disgracefully not managed yet. Either way I’m feeling the effects now. Pot noodles aren’t great as their ingredients lists are massive. I hate having to scrutinize food labels, it holds bad memories for me, and when you can’t read the language it is even tougher.

This has of course meant a few allergy fails, mainly from the use of shrimp powder in the soup bases. “Onaka ga ittai” (my stomach hurts). Amazing though it is I am actually missing the cafeteria and I can’t wait till I can eat something that only contains about 4 ingredients again.

This whole experience has actually reminded me of my gaming days, throwing the old body clock to the wind and keeping the mind active at ungodly hours. Unfortunately the strange hours have disrupted my eating patterns another source of pain. I’d forgotten how sensitive I was sadly as I’d gotten into a nice rhythm. Never mind it’ll be over soon, plus it’s been fun subsisting on junk food for a bit.  

Two snacks of note, Biro no bino a kind of crisp made from pea starch instead of potato, they were interesting not crispy but not soft, an interesting place in between. The other was warabimochi a traditional Japanese sweet. This is a kind of jelly made from braken starch that you coat with “kinako” (toasted soy bean flour) and “kuromitsu” (literally meaning black honey but its actually treacle).

It is helping me dealing with some of my neurosis actually. For one these guys are nearly all super skinny yet I see them packing away noodles and rice cakes and so on. I know I don't actually want to be skinny, I don’t care about getting fat consciously, but unconsciously something’s still there. Either way being around Chan and Daewoong has put me a bit more at ease with food. Also I’m being forced to be flexible with my eating, something that's been a struggle. You can’t eat on the ring so it’s been a case of just having to eat when I can.

It’s nice to know I’m getting there. It would have been easy to fall into bad habits this week. It’s been stressful and disruptive and I recognize these as major triggers for myself. Instead though I’ve been able to let go and just experience and learn from these experiments. I can say one thing for sure being a Synchrotron scientist sets me up for being a great globetrotter, I’m going to be able to switch up my body clock on demand soon.

“Dewa ijou desu” (well that's it). Not so many exciting travels or cool pics but hope you enjoyed reading all the same. Oh also I spent some of my birthday money purchasing some rather swank new T-shirts from some web comics I’ve been reading. “Chou Kakokii ne.”

Ja ne. 

Wild western weekend

Gah bureaucracy, I’m getting pretty tired of it. The hustle and bustle of Japanese business and industry, and the insane work ethic coupled to it, is not due to high efficiency and a desire to progress. No. It’s because we spend 80% of our bloody time doing paper work.  Seriously I think the Japanese only work such ungodly hours because they spend half their daytime either in meetings or filling out forms.

It’s taken me over a week to sort out getting parts shipped back to the UK for my research, every time I think I’m done a new form gets thrust in my face. This people is the true reason Japanese business men spend all their time in work, even though there are like a billion and one secretaries, who in fairness do a great job, they’re just appears to be a disproportionate amount of admin behind every trivial action.

Alright rant over onto more interesting stuff. The coming week myself and my group will be performing more experiments at the synchrotron., so I decided to pack in some interesting things before I had to brutalize my body clock by working said ungodly hours.

First off I heard about an interesting meeting that was happening in Kobe. It was a joint workshop between Spring8, where I work, and the Centre for Developmental Biology (CDB), the Riken campus in Kobe. The premise of the meeting was to bring together the scientists who would be providing the hardware for biological imaging (Spring8), and those who could provide interesting targets (CDB). It also gave me an excuse to go off site, something I’m always willing to do.

So I was up early Tuesday morning and on the now all too familiar Shinki bus to Aioi. I am admittedly getting rather fed up of the tinny, electronic female voice constantly telling me about the next stop (“tsugi wa tekuno kuo, tekuno kuo desu”) followed by the even more annoying English announcer.  In fairness I can understand why its necessary as the Japanese seem to have a rather frequent tendency to fall asleep on public transport, something I’m sure would lead to getting robbed in some parts of the UK.

I won’t bore you with the details of the train ride to Kobe but the trip to CDB was a bit more interesting. The CDB is located in an area of Kobe called “ポートアイランド”or port island. This is the larger of two completely artificial Islands constructed off the coast of Kobe to maximize the limited land in the area.  On the Island itself are, amongst other things, some nice parks, many scientific facilities and, rather bizarrely, an Ikea.

To get there you have to take an over-ground monorail called the port liner. It was pretty fun actually the views were pretty good due to the nice weather and it was nice to see Kobe from another angle. The CDB institute was actually at the far end of port Island so I got to see a good portion of it as I rode the port liner. The parks look interesting and I believe there are a few museums here to. Deffo a good place to visit when I have more time I think.

The CDB institute itself was very impressive, about 7 stories high and from what I could tell full of many interesting labs and facilities. Sadly I couldn’t get a tour, I was here for work. The workshop itself was actually a bit of a disappointment. Attendance was very poor from the Kobe institute, frustrating since we’d made the effort to come all the way over here, and they seemed to have a very limited understanding of our work or why we were here.

Now considering the same company, Riken, owns both these institutes I was a bit shocked. Talking with my boss Dr. Song on the train on the way back though it seemed sadly this isn’t a new thing. Apparently collaboration is still a bit of a dirty word in Japan, they are trying but many of the older generation of scientists are loathe to share their work. This is something that needs o change though, especially with work on the scale that we are hoping to perform.

So the following day was another all day conference, remember what I said previously about meetings? This was a very informative and relevant one in fact. We were going to be discussing the design of a sample chamber to be used on the new XFEL, which will be called MAXIC (Multi Application X-ray Imaging Chamber). The Japanese love this name as it actually sounds very similar to Magic when said with their accent.

I can’t say much more than that unfortunately due to afore mentioned reluctance to share ideas. It was an interesting meeting though, but long. I actually took the opportunity try something only released in Japan, Pepsi dry, apparently less sweet for the more mature pallet or something. It was rubbish in all honesty, tastes like smart-price or Tesco value coke. I definitely won’t be trying it again. It is one of the many examples of western business catering to eastern tastes.

Ok now for the exciting news. The XFEL has finally lased, hurray. Ok that may not men much just yet but I’ll explain. The L part of XFEL stands for you guessed it, laser. Now in order to produce an XFEL you need a really powerful electron beam, which we have, and a really powerful X-ray beam, which we also have. The tricky part is these two need to be perfectly aligned, their angles can only diverge by micro-radians (μrad). One μrad is about 0.03 degrees, so we are talking about some hefty fine-tuning here.

When this is done however the beam will become coherent, all the waves will oscillated in tandem, causing a massive expansion in both brightness and intensity. The scientists at Spring8 achieved this for the first time on Tuesday the 7^th and this was definitely time for celebration. The whole facility came together for a few speeches and drinks to toast the major success “Kanpai”. This is of course Japan so this milestone was celebrated for maybe 30 minutes before everyone headed back to work, there was paper work to do dammit.

The rest of the week was spent preparing for our experiments commencing on Tuesday so I’ll skip ahead to the weekend. It started off with a nice surprise actually, I received a new T-shirt from my climbing buddies in Liverpool (cheers Jane and Sian), and some desperately needed HP sauce, ta mum. Sometimes home comforts are just what you need and my frustration with the Japanese system was a bit high just then.

Earlier in the week Arnaud had asked if I’d like to join him and a colleague named Stratos (I think I’m so bad with names) to go and see pirates of the Caribbean in Himeji. Hell yes I was in. Admittedly I wasn’t overly excited about the film, the last 2 were so bad, but then I hadn’t been the cinema in ages and I was missing the experience. Also this incarnation of POTC was missing two key annoyances, namely Orlando “was a good wood elf cos he’s a tree” Bloom and Keira “Sure she can act but she can’t give a speech” Knightly. That could only be an improvement.

Before the film we decided to go get lunch. After much faffifing that for once I was not the cause of, we settled on matsu-ya, which is a kind of Japanese fast food joint that does “kare raisu”. Looking at the menu I realized I might have a tough time figuring out what I could eat, and given we only had 20 minute to the film I decided there wasn’t time and copped out.

Instead I went to subway. Score one for the western world at least we know how to make a sandwich. It was actually still an interesting experience, there were subtle differences to the subway I knew and love. For one the bread selection is fairly limited, they only had traditional, wheat, honey oat and sesame. Also the salad is a little different, no olives or jalepenos, but instead spring onion and broccoli. I think, though I didn’t check, some of the Italian meats also weren’t present but you could get avocado, egg and prawns instead.

I went for a simple egg butty and picked one of the sauces, there were a lot more to choose from, I think it was spicy tomato. Back to the cinema I went then and with just enough time to grab some mikan juice and Peanut flavored candied “Imo” (sweet potato) from a hundred yen shop. The cinema was rammed as always with a mass of crazy merchandising at the entrance. They do love to merchandise over here.

The film wasn’t half bad actually. We watched it in 3D though it wasn’t particularly necessary. One thing 3D does amazingly well though is subtitles, they are in a different plane to the action, which is great when you want to ignore them, as was the case for me. It was interesting to watch a film when you are the only member of the audience for whom English is your first language. I found myself laughing a fair bit more than everyone else and had an interesting time trying to explain the “Churn the butter” euphemism to Strados.

On the way back to the train we swung by another 100yen shop as I needed a sieve so I could wash rice properly. Whilst inside we browsed through the snack section, Arnaud pointed out some of his favorites and I showed him some of mine. He was impressed by the amount of stuff I’d tried considering I’m allergic to half the things on the shelves. I try not to be picky about what I eat since I’m constrained in so many ways, what’s the point in restricting myself further. If I can eat it I will try it.

 

All in all it was a very normal day and to be honest just what I’ve been needing. On the trip back the three of us had a massive geek out and started talking about video games. Turned out the Stratos was a big fan of some of the classic Ps2 games and was a fan of action platformers like me. We had a great little chat about perspectives in game play and what was more realistic, first person or the over the shoulder third person. I think it’s a moot point but it was fun all the same.

Sunday saw the return of the rain but luckily a rather large portion of it was spent indoors. I was again spending the day with Sam and Arnaud. I know right who would ever think a Brit would willingly spend time with the French? Seriously though forget stereotypes these guys are both straight up nice and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them.

We got to Aioi with plenty of time before the train to Kakogawa, our destination for the day as it was the location of another climbing gym. This meant we had plenty of time to grab some scran so we went to a ramen-ya recommended by Arnaud. It looked really nice but for fear that Ramen would sit too heavy on our stomachs we opted for some “cha su-donburi” and some gyoza and “kara-age” or Japanese fried chicken. Sadly the cha su was more like ham and was topped with rather lackluster kimichee, but then it was cheap so I shouldn’t expect too much. The gyoza and chicken were lovely though so I’d like to try this place again and buy some ramen next time.

Suitably fuelled up we boarded the train for Kakagowa. The plan was to meet up ith my friend Yuko and Arnaud’s friend, funnily enough called Yuko, and head over to the Gym. We arrived just on time and found Yuko by the ticket gates. She had been having a bit of a crazy week learning how to teach some new classes in her gym but was still as animated as ever.

Just as we left the station the good old unpredictable weather struck. It had been lovely in the morning which I’m guessing was the reason why Sam had left the house in just some shorts and a t-shirt. It started tipping it down, for the nth time since I’ve been here. It doesn't rain that often but when it does it’s intense and last generally the rest of the day. Myself, Arnaud and Yuko all had brollies and raincoats at the ready. I guess being from the UK has it’s perks, I’m ready or rain.

The gym itself was actually part of a shop rather than being a dedicated climbing gym. It was small but like rock garden made very efficient use of the space. In fact I’d say the problems were a little better lade out, though the crowding could sometimes make moves a bit tricky. I think this place was fairly popular as it filled up quickly. It was never too much of a problem though there were a few close calls as an errant boulderer fell from the holds and nearly squashed poor Yuko.

Sam was fairly new to the whole thing though he seemed to have a good go at it, gotta love enthusiasm. Arnaud on the other hand was pretty proficient. I get the impression he’s good at any sport he tries. I had fun trying to match him on some problems but in the end he was just stronger and fitter than me. I’d also knacked my finger again playing basketball earlier in the week, much to my frustration, and admittedly I didn’t shut up about it.

After about an hour or so we were all pooped and so sat down to res for a bit Arnaud friend Yuko spoke very little English and I think really struggled ith my accent, I’m not the easiest person to understand. I can’t wait till I’m more fluent and can converse as freely as I’d like. I guess the key is just to keep practicing really. Working with mostly Koreans this is of course quite difficult but I resolve to take any chance I can get.

About three hours after we’d arrived we decided to head back. Yuko, the Yuko I’d invited, said she had to get back to her Gym in Umeda for 8pm and so needed to get a train soon. The weather had not improved, in fact it had gotten worse, so tired and now wet we traipsed back to the station. Sam suggested we go get a drink, and Arnaud suggested a nearby Mr. Donut.

 

Everyone looked at me as chances were low I could eat anything. I’m not bothered though, I’m getting pretty used to it now, and rather than be awkward I told them to go, I could find something I could eat surely. Sadly no but I settled on a melon soda. Not the best but a wonderful shade of luminous green that I’m sure is doing wonders to my insides.

Donuts and drinks finished up we said goodbye to Yuko and then mooched around in the station for another 20 minutes before our train arrived. Arnaud and Sam had found a bakery and gleefully went to check it out. I guess you just can’t keep the French from their baked goods. I went to a nearby conbini to grab a snack and got this innocuous looking mochi, which I sadly didn’t noticed contained “クリム”, stomach fail again.

I also snapped a picture on one of the many quirky flavors of Kit-kat on offer here. This one is “zunda” flavor a type of green soybean from Fukushima and I’m led to believe a portion of the profits from their sale will go to aid victims of the earthquake.

Arnaud and Sam were rather pleased with their purchase of some pretty nice looking French bread. Equally interesting was the paper in which the bread was packaged. It had some fake articles written on it in French, or at least a Japanese impression of French. They had a good giggle over it, I guess it’s the same for me with the various examples of “Engrish” I see about the place.

All in all it can be tough being a stranger in a strange land. Some things have finally been getting to me, mostly the whole excuse of “that's just not how its done in Japan.”  I’m all for integration but sometimes it’s been really frustrating me. It’s nice to have made some friends who can sympathize and have, or are going through similar experience, it’s making t all the more bearable.

Mata Jikan mina-san.

Nani ga ue?

It’s been another weekend of adventures for me thanks mostly to the reappearance of the good weather. Admittedly most of the week was fairly dull, stuck in an office writing reports, hurray. To make up for that I’ve had some exciting culinary adventures instead. Now that I’ve managed to get my kitchen fully decked out with the crockery and utensils I need I’ve been delving into the world of Nihongo no ryori (Japanese cooking). It’s nice to try out new styles, plus the ingredients are pretty easy to get a hold of.

First dish up was toridon. This is an abbreviation of tori-niku donburi (鶏肉丼) This is a rice bowl dish (the donburi) where chicken is stir-fried with veg and served over hot rice with a raw egg, the heat from the rice cooks the egg. My own attempt came off all right I think. Next was stir fried tako (octopus). This was an experience. Octopus is a little trickier to cook than expected, you first have to simmer it to soften the meat, then strip the weird film from the flesh. Well worth the effort though. Finally I tried out my steamer to cook a bit of fresh salmon, with a couple of siumai and some veggies simmered in miso. I’m quite happy with the way the last dish turned out.

Snack wise not bought so much. I tried out some okonomi-karindou, basically loads of different types and shapes of karindou, it all tastes the same though. Also a new word in my vocabulary is Shuga (ginger). I’m a huge fan of the stuff, always have been so I’ve been giving some ginger flavor stuff, including some crystallized ginger, a try. Very pokey but very tasty. Last of the snacks were some doubutsu (animal) cookies. These looked and tasted great. Sadly I once again had a katakana fail. I couldn’t see the milk kanji (乳)so I figured they were safe. Sadly one of the ingredients was shortening and my stomach has been tender since. Damn you Japan and your ambiguous food labels.

Right so enough about food and on to more about my travels. Last Wednesday I attended a Japanese language exchange at the Center for Advanced Science and Technology (CAST) near where I live. This was organized by a group of retired members of the local community interested in meeting foreigners and sharing insights into Japanese language and culture with them. It was a lot of fun, a great way to practice in a friendly environment. I got chatting with a lovely Josei (lady) named Naomi-san.

When asked what I’d like to learn I told her I was very interested in Kanji. Every one seems to look at me as though I’m mental when I tell them this but I just can’t stand not being able to read anything, in particular bills and other letters. So she started me off with a few sample sentences and recommended I pick up some kids books for next time.

Now living up in the back end of beyond does have some distinct disadvantages, namely the street lighting is terrible. It gets really dark around here at night. I do have a decent light on my bike but it’s still apparently not enough. On my way home I smacked into a rather ridiculous 1-foot wall that protrudes into the pavement, I think it’s set up to kill cyclists. I was fine, thankfully many years of skateboarding and ultimate have taught me how to fall.

Sadly the bike did not get off that lightly. I popped the front tire, which wasn’t too hard to fix but I’d also done something to the front fork, which was now loose. I couldn’t get it checked till the weekend so I made an improvised a quick fix with some string and cellotape, thank-you Reuben for the inspiration. I was gutted obviously but more so because this bike had been given to me in good faith by Masunaga-san.

Determined to get it fixed I learnt some basic phrases, namely “kore wa kowarete iru.” (this is broken), “naosemasu ka?” (can you fix it?) and “Asobi” which is to have play or give. Armed with these key phrases I went to he local garage. The guys there were awesome. After playing around with the front fork a bit, removing the compression ring and fiddling with the bearings, they decided the best bet would be to bash the top head tube with a hammer to move it down slightly. This seems to have done the trick, a stroke of luck since I’d feared the front steering tube, a rather expensive part, was bent and would need replacing.

Relieved at the fix, I’m gonna have to buy those guys some beer at some point, I headed down to Aioi for some shopping. I’ve been severely lacking Internet access at home for too long and today I was going to sort that. I got to the KDDI shop at around 11:30 and it took two hours to process. I have no idea why. I had already filled out the paperwork and paid for the thing. Japanese just love admin I feel, everything here takes twice as long for some reason, I’ve yet to encounter that much praised Japanese efficiency.

Ok moaning aside I at least had one of my goals sorted. Next I needed to look for some kids books to use as reading material. The only place I’d seen for books in Aioi was the local co-op department store. They had a few but they were so expensive it didn’t seem worthwhile. By this time the ol’ tummy was a rumbling. Normally I'd grab some scran from a conbini but I was getting a little fed up of that. I was in Japan damn it, time to eat at some proper restaurants. Admittedly Aioi is very small, I’ve compared it to Birkenhead before and the similarities still stand, minus the pollution and smack heads.

What I mean is that quite a lot of shops and resteraunts are closed down on the main high street. Instead I took to the back streets and as luck would have it I came across a tiny little okonomiyaki place. It had maybe three teppans (large flat griddles) ad enough seating for about six people. It was by a very excitable old lady, how do I keep finding these places, and she had maybe 2 other customers.

So initial questions out the way, “Dochira kara kimashitaka?” (Where did you come from), “Sensei desu ka?” (are you a teacher), I could finally order. This okonomiyaki was ‘Hiroshima style’ (Hiroshima-yaki) apparently. Ingredients, in this case cabbage, beansprout and yakisoba, are pile between layers of batter and finally flipped onto a fried egg. It took a bit longer than Osaka style but it tasted amazing. The whole experience was a good laugh, the other customers seemed to be regulars and they were gabbing like the old ladies meeting they were.

So full up I paid and moved on, I’ll definitely be going back though to try out some other toppings. I carried on wandering the back streets and low and behold I came across a second hand bookstore. Yatta. It was full to the brim with light novels, normal books, ehon (picture books) and manga (comics). I was sorely tempted by the complete series of Ushio and Tora for 5000 yen. Might not sound like a bargain but when you consider that's about 40 odd 300-page comics I think you’d agree it was a great deal.

Sadly at the moment these manga are a little outside my reading ability, but it was easy to get lost in there. This place was ippai (full) of reading material, there was barely room to walk.  Japanese books are just so much more aesthetically pleasing than those in the west. Occasionally at home you will get a book with a nice cover but here it’s standard. There were many books dedicated to Doraemon, whom I belive has been designated an 'anime ambassador'. I though these books would be a good place to start but they were still a bit complex. In the end I settled for a book about Tanuki (raccoon dogs) and one about Sun goku (the Japanese name for sun wukong the monkey king). Due to the title of this blog that second purchase was almost guaranteed.

The day was drawing on and there were still a few more items on my checklist. Sometimes it’s nice to break from your standard path, it makes a mediocre shopping trip into a major exploration. One thing I noticed is that this side of Aioi was considerably rockier. I think project climb Aioi needs to happen at some point. Maybe when I’ve gotten myself a partner who lives nearby. Also I came across this big collection of crockery down a side street. Why was it there? Who was it for? What was its purpose? I have no idea but it was fun to contemplate ridiculous reasons.

My next big shock came when I reached the port. I saw two guys skateboarding, something I haven’t noticed anywhere in Japan. As I got closer I noticed they were adults not kids. Getting even closer, and to my surprise they both appeared to be over 50. Uso (no way).

I sat down and watched for a little bit and one of them came over to me and asked if I knew how to skate. “Hisashiburi da na.” (It’s been a while) I told him but gave it a go. His trucks were a tad loose but I could still ollie even after about 7 years. Mad I know. I had a proper chat with the guy. His English was amazing.

It turned out he had lived and worked in the emirates, Dubai, and had met a lot of English people. He was a lot of fun and we had a good chat about loads of things, the current situations of our respective countries, travelling, politics and how rubbish politicians are. He also taught me a new word “mondai” which means problems. That one will come in handy. I said my goodbyes and headed out to the shopping outlet to pick up the last few items on my list, breakfast stuff and a new spoon. After that it was time to head home, I’d killed eight hours somehow.

Sunday started bright and early, emphasis on the early. Last week I’d planned on going hiking with Arnaud and some of his friends but it had been rained off. The spurt of good weather had lead to the trip being rescheduled for Sunday, hooray. The downside was to get to the station on time I’d have to get the 6:50 bus, gotta love living in the sticks.

I met up with Sam at the bus stop and he looked as thrilled as me at the early start. We set off for Aioi station to meet Arnaud. Upon arrival we were introduced to Michael (pronounced Mik-hail) a PhD student here for one year from the Ukraine. He was also working at Spring8 and had been here 7 months already. After a few initial hiccups with him thinking I was French we got on pretty well. He was unusually using the visit to Japan to practice his English, which I was amazed to hear he had only been studying for 3 years.

We boarded the train and set off for Ashiyagawa station where we would be meeting the rest of the hiking group. As it got closer to 10 o’clock the weather was just getting better, it looked to be a good day to go up some mountains. The rest of group were predominantly made up of JET’s (Japanese exchange Teachers) and their former students. It’s nice to have meet ups like this I guess to take a break from speaking Japanese all the time.

The group was pretty diverse in fact, the organizer was a lady named Kelly, later nicknamed K-dog by myself and some of the other guys, who was from California. Also from California was a guy named Ryan. There were a pair from Austin, a guy named Len who proved the point that someone always has a bigger camera, and a girl whose name I’ve completely forgotten. Next up a guy from New Zealand called Gerard and Lewis an Aussie whom I’m guessing was part aborigine, these guys understood sarcasm thank god.

There were of course a few locals also. Yuka who worked in Himeji and was a close friend of Gerard’s, Next Anna whose English was incredible, I found out later she studied in the states for 4 years which explained a lot. A guy named Tomomitsu who was a friend of Arnaud’s and lastly Takehiro a former student of Kelly’s and the group’s youngest member.

A lovely diverse bunch as I said and great craic the lot of them. So we were all assembled by about 10:30am we set off for the hike. I was informed that the region we were passing through them was one of the most expensive n the prefecture. I can totally believe that it was “ded posh”. Well I think you just need to let the pictures I’ve taken speak for themselves really.

At first I was storming ahead with Sam and Arnaud but felt it would be a good idea to have a chat with some of the others. I had a really good time talking to Ryan actually. He was pretty laid back and had a similar sense of humor to myself. He and Kelly were very close to my age and it was nice to finally talk to people about something other than work. Kelly it turned out was full vegetarian and so sympathized with my food plight, if you have a picky diet Japan will not accommodate you haha.

Anyway there were a large number of school Kids about on the way up to rokku garden which concerned me slightly. When I say school kids I’m talking like 6 to 8 years old. This was a hike right? I guess it was more about the company than how challenging it would be anyway. At the start of the trail was a gateway with a shop and a few restaurants, I half expected a turnstile. I’d heard this trail was popular and I guess Snowden has a railway track so I shouldn’t complain.

The heat was picking up as we set off but fortunately the tree cover was pretty thick, keeping us fairly cool. I was amazed to see Lewis had grabbed himself a a beer from the shop, lets not go down the stereotyping route. We had a nice chat with Gerard as we scrambled over some rocks about rugby and it’s vast superiority to football. I also shared an interesting tidbit I’d learned a few weeks ago. It turns out the term soccer actually comes from English public school boys, you know the kind that use the term ‘ruggers’ tales of interest.

The trip to the top was fairly straightforward, in fact there were even ladders at one point. Of course my inner monkey meant I couldn’t resist going off the beaten track every now and then. There was just too much bare rock about and I am a crag slag after all. I did scramble up a nice rock face near the top and was rewarded with a truly amazing view. Len also followed me up. He said he couldn’t resist climbing things as well.

The problem with going up is you have to come down and there weren’t many obvious ways to do so. I managed to skirt around the rock face and found a path down. I unfortunately hadn’t considered Len. He followed me but well he’s a lot bigger than me and must have slipped and hurt is hadn’t. He was aright but I felt pretty guilty sometimes I do need to be a little less reckless I think.

Either way we all made it to the top for some phenomenal views of Kobe and Osaka, and just in time for lunch to. The disadvantage of the easiness of the route was that the summit was jammed. there were very few places to sit and enjoy lunch. Eventually we managed to find a spot on some rocks that would accommodate us all. During our lunch we spotted a “yama neku” (mountain cat), though it was more likely a very lost moggy. Also at some point someone’s bag was nicked by a “inoshishi” (wild boar). I had to giggle at that it was just not a sentence I’d expected to hear.

All fed we decided what to do next. Some of the group wanted to carry on to Arma onsen. Whilst I was well up for some hot spring action it was already 1 o’clock and the hot springs where another 2 hour hike away. Maybe another time. Instead we started to make our wa back down. The ascent was much more straightforward and culminated in a shrine and another nice panoramic viewing area.

All in all it was a fun outing and I’m glad Arnaud invited me out. It was nice to meet more new people and also good to interact with some none Japanese or Koreans. I know I should embrace the culture but until my language skills come along the majority of conversations will only last about 5 words before one person doesn’t understand something. Plus it was nice to not have to talk slowly for a change, that does get a bit annoying.

On the way down myself K-dog and Ryan were having a natter about the annoyance caused by Japanese paper work, oh don’t get me started, when someone noticed a rather peculiarly named drink. Say hello to white water for men. Japan is filled with a wide range of inappropriately named products. I hope to find more and report them back. This one is definitely top of the list right now, especially as one of the ingredients appeared to be sex milk, according to the kanji. Sadly it was sold out, most likely because other tourists had found it hilarious and bought some.

At about 2:30pm we reached the hankyu station and it was time to say our goodbyes. I’d had a lot of fun, I’ll definitely need to keep in touch with these guys. It was nice to talk about stupid things, quote family guy and not worry about the hundreds of hours of beamtime I had coming up.

So by my reckoning the station we were actually not too far from nakatsu station. Arnaud had told me earlier he’d be interested in playing a bit of Frisbee, Sam was also in and we also brought Tomomitsu and Yuka along for the ride. It was only about 5 stops away and Japanese trains are incredible so we’d be there in no time. I text ahead to Yuko to check there would be people about, though I wasn’t too worried the weather was pretty good.

As we got closer to the field the wind picked up slightly. Nothing by UK standards, some of the conditions I’ve played in are truly horrendous, but Arnaud voiced his concern. I said it would be fine. It was at this point I got a call from Yuko, apparently over 30 people had showed up today. Amazing. I was really excited and couldn’t get to the field fast enough.

There were two pitches set up and loads of people I didn’t know. Graham and Dennis had actually showed up today which was cool. I’m hopefully going to a tournament with them later on so it was nice to finally play with them. As people started to get more tired we opened up the game to a full pitch and the fun really started. It was nice to get the ol legs pumping and play some real ultimate, even managed to get a layout score in.

Sam and Arnaud also really enjoyed themselves and said they were definitely interested in getting something started closer to home. Definitely good news for me. Whilst the Osaka guys are nice its just so much travelling, plus we needed to leave at 5 to get the last bus home. Still I hope they’ve been bitten by the Frisbee bug, just need to work out a way to spread the word.

All in all it’s been a great weekend. Met plenty of new people and I’ve gotten to know Sam and Arnaud much better. They really are wicked guys and we’re all in very similar situations. I shared my IPod with them since Arnaud asked what kind of music I was into. I was very impressed that Sam knew quite a few of the bands on there, and also claimed to have all of Rhianna’s albums. Absolute legend. On the way back to the train we also saw this killer bike, it had like six fenders, mental, and definitely needed to be photographed.

Dewa mata ne mina-san