Friends from Afar

Don’t you love those moments when things just seem to come together. Anyone who has been following me for a bit will no doubt have noticed that things haven’t exactly been going my way of late. Well that has changed in the past couple of days. Suddenly my proteins expressing exceptionally well. I fixed the piece of equipment I broke and whilst writing my 2^nd year report (a daunter at 25 pages) I’ve had a bit of an epiphany regarding my PhD direction. 

It’s remembering days like this that get me through all of the other rubbish. It’s easy to get into a spiral when things go wrong. They say that bad things always come in 3s, or 4s in oriental culture as that's the number associated with bad luck. I think I’ve had a bit more than three but my luck has turned, maybe it’s thanks to the Korean shaman treatment from one of my colleagues (link). I have been working stupid hours again recently but when things are going well it’s easy to throw yourself at it.

Capitalizing on my uplift I tried to make the most of the past weekend before my free time evaporates once more. First stop was into my local city, Himeji, for the Yukata matsuri (浴衣祭り). Now from an outsiders point of view this may seem like an excuse for pretty girls to dress up in pretty outfits and wander the streets gorging on food from the various yatai’s dotted about the place but in fact...nah that’d be a lie that's exactly what it’s about.

Many of Japan’s numerous festivals are deeply rooted in history and intertwined with the Shinto religion. This is not one of them. Well sort of. The festival commemorates the moving of the Osakabe shrine from within the castle grounds to downtown Himeji. This made the shrine available for all the people to worship at.

The movement was commemorated with a festival. Normally people would have to wear their formal (and expensive) kimono’s to such an event, however due to the suddenness of the ceremony many did not have the time or money to make such items of clothing. The feudal lord at the time permitted them to wear their less formal Yukata and it has remained that way for the past 260 years. Of course this isn’t well known and what most people think of is the abundant street vendors, I think it has the most out of every festival in the Kansai area.

Well it was certainly interesting. Besides the usual Japanese festival fare there were many other foods and games on offer, some I’d not heard of before. Sadly I had other plans later on that day so I had to rush off. I doubt I’ll get to it next year but to be honest it was ridonkulesly crowded and there wasn’t much going on besides the street vendors.

In Osaka I met up with some of the friends I’d made surfing. They own a bar out that way and since I had plans to be in Kyoto the following day it was a good excuse to make the journey. It was tiny though so we spent most of the night on the stairs outside. Whenever I’m in Osaka I feel like my Japanese comprehension has gotten worse, or maybe it has just gotten worse who knows?

I hadn’t really thought about where I was staying that night so I headed back to Umeda to scout out somewhere. I remembered being here last time and seeing a very cheap night deal at one of the mangakisa’s (internet café’s) that seemed as good a place as any, though not before netting my first ever win on a UFO catcher.

 

Internet café’s in Japan are something else. Besides renting sitting space and a computer you also get access to a library of comics, movies and all you can drink soft drinks and coffee. They are almost always open 24hrs and I think they do the most business between the hours of 3am to 8am. A night pack gets you a reclining chair and a blanket to get some shut-eye for about 1100yen. Or you could just be like me and stay up all night watching films and dossing around on the Internet.

The following day I set off for Kyoto. I’ve said it many times before. I love this place. It has none of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, nor the Concrete Jungle feel of Osaka. Well it is massively steeped in history with a ridiculous number of world heritage sites so not so surprising.

My friends are currently on a yearlong tour of southern asia from their honeymoon and they were looking incredible. It was so nice to see them looking so happy and healthy. I basically had no plans for the day as I figured they had plenty of things they wanted to do. I was right fortunately.

First on the list was to try our hand at 弓道、Japanese archery. The “shooting range” was absolutely tiny, a dinky little shop tucked away behind the bushes in northern Gion with only three targets. It was very interesting however, considerably different to western archery.

For a start the bows (called yumi) are like 2 metres tall, it was bigger than me at any rate. Secondly the grip is about two thirds of the way down the shaft, compared to being in the middle in the west. This makes holding the bow a little clumsy at first as the weighting takes a bit of getting used to. Finally the method for drawing is very different. The string is drawn with the thumb whilst the arrow rests on the index finger.

We were ushered inside by a wonderful Ojisan who seemed very happy to have oversees customers. Small though the place was he spoke exceptionally good (albeit very specific to his purpose) English so I’m guessing he gets a fair few people passing through. After a quick demo and some patchwork instruction we were sat down on the cushions and firing away. It was pretty reasonable, 10 arrows for 800yen and hopefully I’ll go back given the chance. I even managed to hit the target with my final shot.

Finished up we did a bit of temple hopping before lunch. I can’t remember which ones, there are like 1000 in Kyoto, but I do remember the gardens of the second being particularily amazing. There were also some incredible trees, old and oddly shaped, inside. It got us talking about how amazing it is that in Japan even in this day and age they have a reverence for nature. In the UK we’d just level it, here they work around it, even in the major cities.

 

For lunch we hit a famous Okonomiyaki place in central Gion. The front of the store has a statue depicting a little boy having his trousers yanked down. That is nothing however compared to the menu. Each table has a large European style menu book and when opened it reveals...a giant picture of an okonomiyaki.

Having only one thing on the menu is pretty amusing when the name of the food translates literally as “your grilled preference.” Tasty all the same and very different again to Osakan and Hiroshima style. I do love all the quirky little regional differences in dishes around Japan.

We had a great chat over lunch about our travels so far. It is amazing how much just seeing a little bit of the world changes your out look on life. I could see the changes in my friends and it helped me see the changes in myself. Sometimes I don’t realise it and I think it’ll really hit home when I get back.　

One thing I think it has done for me is made me more mindful of all the little things around me. When everything is so different, when everything is outside of you comfort zone, it all stands out. I’d like to take that back with me. All three of us agreed that spending so much time away from home has made us realise how little of our own country we’ve really seen. I think travelling is any time spent outside of the known. Any little venture into the unknown is a journey and we take them everyday.

I’ve not been sleeping much again recently but insomnia does make for wonderful introspective time and so I’ve been doing a fair bit. I need to travel more, that much is true. Even though my course has less than a year left I’m not sure if I’m ready to come back home just yet. I miss my friends and family sure, but how will life feel when everyday is just that bit more normal. Perhaps normal is just a perception; time is just what we make it maybe? Who knows but I think there are more places left for me to look to really find out the answer.

長いだけど、継続的な関心をしていただきありがとうございます

Mata nee.

博多で博士と会った。

Another long gap in the blogging, I seem to be making a habit of it lately. This time it’s for a little less stressful reasons than beamtime however. I’m currently sat in the very swank Hilton SeaHawk hotel in Hakata Japan for a scientific conference.

I was really excited about this for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was in a Hilton hotel. My god everything in the place looks so expensive I don’t half feel like a bit of a bumpkin. Secondly this was my first real international conference and not only that my first conference within my new field. Many of the big names whose papers I’ve been rending over the past year are here.

At the start of the conference I was pretty daunted. As I said I’m pretty new to the field and most of the people here have made massive contributions. Also at least 90% of those in attendance are physicists. I’m still a little bit behind in that department and the conference has taught me I have a long way to go.

That being said I can still follow the talks and I’ve learnt more in the past couple of days than I'd managed in about a month. Admittedly I didn’t give a talk, just presenting a poster and I’m quite glad I’m not since I didn’t really have much to present. Anyway it’s been a great week, the vast majority of people at the event are European and I even got to meet a couple of PhD students from the UK working in a similar field.

 

The last day was a real highlight. I spent the farewell banquet sat next to Professor So Iwata, an absolute legend in my field. He’s pretty young but his contributions have been massive. To top it off he’s a cracking guy, really down to earth and just into the experiments that he does. I’m not sure if it’s the long time he’s spent working and living in Europe but he is a very untypical Japanese researcher.

We also went on a bit of an excursion. This was a real typical Japanese, in that it was exhausting we got bustled about and didn't see very much. It was interesting nonetheless. We set out early for a three-hour bus drive to Mt. Aso, the largest active caldera in the world. The central area actually consists of five peaks; Neko, Naka, Eboshi, Kishima and Taka, with Naka being the only one accessible by road.

This seemed like it would be really cool and the tour guide cheerfully told us all (in Japanese though it was kindly translated) the history of the mountain range. According to legend a giant once tried to break through the Aso range to distribute fresh water and fertile soil to the people below. He kicked it three times and whilst not successful in breaking down the range he did managed to create a road.

 

We moved to the top via a cable car that spewed out some of the most esoteric facts I’ve ever heard, even in Japan. I really won’t bore you but it was a detailed break down of the cable cars construction and history. Sadly the top was a let down. The crater was too active and spewing far too much sulphuric ash to safely stay near by. A little gutted we were all bundled back into the bus.

Next stop was a traditional Japanese bbq place. This really was BBQ indoors. We had grills set up with hot coals underneath and the it was just a case of get cooking really, I love how in Japan the more expensive a meal is the more likely you are to have to cook it yourself.

Following that it was back on the bus for another two hours to check out the Daizaifu Tenmangu shrine. This shrine is dedicated Sugwara Michizane, known as the god of learning so fairly appropriate I thought. I’ve been to a few shrines before now but this one still impressed. The three giant bridges leading to the entrance where quite a sight; a large arched one followed by a flat bridge and then another arch representing the past, present and future.

There also many cow statues around the temple, a rather unusual motif in Japan. The legend goes that Michizane died in disgrace and his body was pulled to his burial site by an ox driven cart. The ox however stopped at one point and refused to budge and so it was believed that this was Michizane’s spirit indicating where he wished to be buried. It is said if you have an ailing body part and you rub the corresponding body part on the cow it will become better.

Our final stop was out into the streets of Hakata for the famous Hakata Ramen. The noodles here are a lot thinner than normal ramen noodles, much more similar to Chinese egg noodles which is probably a reflection of Fukuoka’s close proximity to China. The soup is also pretty special. Like most ramen noodles it comes in Tonkotsu (pork bone) based broth. In Hakata however it’s really thick and almost looks white. Extra fat? Maybe. Extra delicious? Definitely.

On the second to last day we finished the morning talks a bit early so I went for a little wander. My initial plan was to try and check out the Fukuoka tower but to be honest the sea breeze was so gorgeous I got lost in my wandering. I think being on the coast again is making me homesick. Anyway after about ten minutes I came across a sign for a place called "Robosquare". I've been here over a year and yet I've encountered so very few robots. This place was like a mini car emporium displaying some of the funky robots being developed in Fukuoka, including robo pets, cleaners and a crazy dancing Ipod stand. Definitely worth the short walk.

Coming out of this I’ve learned a few things about conferences that I’ll share with you here:

 

1.  The old guys speak the loudest – I guess it’s a given, they’ve been in the field longest so they have the most to say. They also love to argue.

2.  The phrase ‘we can discuss it after the talk’ actually means ‘you clearly didn’t understand my question and your rubbish answer is taking too much time.’

3.  People like to talk about their own fields, regardless of how relevant it is to the talk that's just been given.

4.  Generally there is no bad blood though.

5.  The secretaries are always super stressed don’t bother them. This is a golden rule.

Sadly the last one I failed on pretty bad. Having a few allergies is always a problem and stupidly I didn’t notify anyone in advance as nobody asked me (what happened to that being an adult thing?). It wasn’t a issue till the last day and I think in the UK it wouldn’t be a big deal. In Japan though culture around food is very different and I think returning or refusing stuff is a major no no. Live and learn I guess, just wish I’d stop sticking my foot in it.

 

Anyway going forward it’s been a great week on the whole. I’m coming out of it with a bit of a fresher mind and also a more concrete idea of where my research can fit in to this field, which is no bad thing.

Mata neee.

Being an Adult

Ah 久しぶりです。This past month has been somewhat mental. Between all the work (oh so much work) and the other writing I’ve been doing I’ve had very little time to blog. Nothing serious mind just some short fiction but I did manage to get my first story published (a whole $5 is mine to do with as I wish.)

Now to the meat of this post. As I said lots and lots of work so no real adventures, and to be honest not much sleep either. Still when you aren’t sleeping it does give you plenty of time to think and I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.

The thing is it was my Birthday recently; I’m nearly a quarter of a century old now. I’ve never liked the run up to my birthday and I think these days I just assume the worst and get into a bad frame of mind. Quite a few mishaps have occurred between my last post and now and I put it down to bad birthday luck.

But that's crap. 90% was my own carelessness and the other ten, well it just couldn’t be helped I think. The thing it got me thinking about is what really makes you “an adult”? When do you cross that line? I always thought it was something to do with making it out on your own, being accepted by others and respected and so on, and yet sometimes I still feel like a kid.

The thing is due to my own carelessness I’ve lost or damaged some things at work recently. Now these things happen I know but I truly am week to things, facts figures, faces, quotes, no problem. Things, forget about it (and I do). Either way that's not the problem. It was how I handled it.

Now obviously I was upset and what made it worse was a dressing down from the administrative staff. I’m sure I’d of had it worse if I was Japanese but they were still pretty stern. Suddenly I felt about ten again. The trust was gone, I’d let them down and I felt incapable.

I’ve got a real thing about letting others down, it really triggers my mood and I need to get a handle on it. Thinking on it though it is childish. Sure you can let people down but I think the ‘grown up’ thing to do is accept it, apologize sincerely and then get on with it.

Most people are pretty tied up in their own lives you see. These little mishaps impact them so little in the long run. I do want to keep a low profile though and I’ve not helped that this month, sticking out is not a good thing around here. Maybe I’m just trying too hard these days, definitely I’m working too hard. I can’t please everyone and I should just accept that.

Do we ever really grow up though and in the end what does that mean? I haven’t the foggiest. Independence? Nah everyone needs help sometimes? Not screwing up? Haha with my scatterbrain that’ll never happen. Screwing up and setting it right? Yeah that’s probably more like it. Maybe being n adult isn’t about controlling your life but taking ownership of it.

 

So where do I go from here. Well just keep doing what I’m doing I think. I guess I’m still busy and I’m still a scatterbrain so I’m sure accidents will happen again. The key is to accept it, be mindful of ones self and hope for the best ey?　There are still plenty of things I can do and am capable of. Maybe I should write them down one day. When the brown stuff hits the fan I've always been someone that gets stuff done at least. Anyway I’ll be back with something more interesting next time I’m sure.

Ja mata neee.