Testing Testing 123

Once again I’ve been neglecting to write in this blog and I’ll be honest it is the same reason as always. I’m rapidly learning that a picture is worth a thousand words because the figures for my paper are taking for-ev-er to get right. Furthermore I was locked away in the bowels of hell (the Spring8 experimental hall I kid) for a good nine days doing crazy things with x-rays. As you can imagine not much time for anything else.

In fact there has been one more thing that has been keeping me busy the past few months. A fair while ago I had decided that my Japanese language progression was getting a bit stale and so as an incentive to do better I enrolled myself into this July’s Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). There are several levels (1-5) of difficulty with N1 being the most difficult test and N5 being the easiest. I felt that the N3 would present enough challenge without being overwhelmingly difficult given my limited time resources.

This was way back in like April however and sadly I didn’t take the studying too seriously, due to other workloads, so by the time June came around I realized I’d done almost no studying. Panic! Well actually no. Stress is nothing new to me these days and in all honesty there was nothing really riding on this exam than my own pride. I guess I should look at things more seriously than that but if I failed I failed and I was the only one to answer to.

Either way I had spent 1 or 2 hours a day practicing kanji and switched any of my personal reading to Japanese. I felt that might give me a bit of a chance on the vocabulary and read sections at least. As for the listening section? Well Kansai-ben is way more incomprehensible than standard Japanese and I’m even getting the hang of old man Japanese these days so I was confident with my listening comprehension.

On July 7^th (yup a Sunday) the big day finally arrived and I made the arduous journey to Kwansei University, Nishinomia campus where I would be sitting the exam. This meant about 3 hours of travelling by train and bus with a large number of transfers. Still I guess all the hustle and bustle distracted me from any potential exam nerves, though I’ve always been a bit zen just before exams, since there is not much you can do on the day anyway.

The University itself is one of the oldest, and richest, private universities in the area and all that money really shows. The campus is really impressive with pristine, neatly mown lawns and well refurbished beige bricked buildings I almost felt like I’d wandered into an Ivy league university.

As I arrived I started to feel the buzz of nervous tension from the other examinees waiting to enter the halls. I was like being in the final year of university all over again. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of examinees were from south east asia and many groups of friends were huddled together chattering in their own languages. It’s times like this that it really hit’s home just how small a minority native English speakers really are in Japan. The weirdest part for me was observing friends of different nationalities talking in together in Japanese. This is of course perfectly natural but it still took me by surprise. I guess this is what it is like for none native English speakers in most corners of the globe.

The test itself wasn’t all that long, though with all the formalities it seemed to take forever. I won’t bore you with a blow by blow but I do think it went ok and my results should come in soon. To wrap up here are some of the more interesting (to me) observations I made on the day;

1.     It seems like it is natural instinct for a lot of SE Asians to give and receive items with two hands, though this observation maybe biased as we were in Japan and that is customarily how things are done here.

2.     Seating order can be confusing. The seating order in the halls went from right to left and in columns with the lowest number at the top. Felt really weird to me but hey different strokes.

3.     Japanese inefficiency is everywhere. I seriously felt the urge to get up and show the instructors how to collect in all the papers in at least a third of the time. It was nonsensically slow. Maybe I’ve just been coding too long.

   4.     Natto spaghetti is not and never will be delicious and I refuse to believe and Italian would ever honestly enjoy it. Reading paper you are a pack of lies.

   5.     A sign with a little chibi man telling people to shush is about as effective a deterrent as a feather duster for warding away lions.

   6.     A short break should be longer than 10 seconds and not contain ridiculous music.

That’s it for now.

Mata neee.

Tokyo Day 5 and 6 – Back to the future and books from the past

Wow sorry it really has been a long time since the last post in this series. Once again I’ve been getting steadily more and more busy. With publishable results comes, as one might expect, the need to publish. Most of the writing of my journal article is finished however it would seem that about 90% of the battle is getting the figures done to a reasonable standard. Anyway that’s not what I’m writing this blog for so I’m going to finally finish off this Tokyo visit series.

Now much though I do love my parents there are times when I’d like to do things at my own pace so we agreed to do a half day break from each other. With plans to meet each other later on at Roppongi hills I got myself up early to get back to Odaiba and finally visit Miraikan (未来館).  

Mirakan is the National museum of Emerging Science and Technology, the naming is a shortening of “Nihon kagaku miraikan” which is a bit of a mouthful, and houses many of the latest big developments in Japan’s research. As a member of RIKEN it would be rude of me not to go really since my organization probably contributes to some of the displays.

The first stop was the Dome theatre, a dome shaped planetarium. I have a strong sense that Japanese people have a real fascination with the stars, there are so many planetariums in this country, and you know what I’m not complaining because I love them to. This one was particularly special as it has 3D projectors and 270⁰ screen meaning you really feel like you are in amongst the stars. The best 3D I’ve ever seen hands down.

After a 20-minute movie I strolled around the exhibits. The top half of the museum is dedicated solely to real ongoing scientific research in an exhibit called explore the frontiers. It was quite nice to read about all the varied research going on across the country with nice little cornered off sections like; Our Solar System, The Universe, Life, Medicine and so on. In fact over half of the floor space was dedicated to something space related but I’m not complaining too much.

The section that impressed me most was definitely the Earth Environment space, called more specifically – Earth, Environment and Me. It showcased some of the wonderful things currently being developed right now that are moving towards making our exploits on the planet more sustainable. The exhibits were colorful and well laid out, god bless the Japanese propensity to the aesthetically pleasing, and the English was excellent. In fact I think it’s the most informative of all the museums I’ve been to as most of the Japanese information was well translated. Further more whilst there is a lot of stuff for children there is also a lot of extra information available if you want to delve deeper, and that is also translated.

 

Some of the displays themselves were really impressive in their ability to convey their message. I loved all the Rube Goldburg machines that illustrated things like the flow of carbon or the changing of the ages of earth. Besides these some other displays that stuck in my mind was the genomic harp, a series of light panels representing the 23 chromosomes of the human body. When you pressed a button corresponding to a particular trait lights would flash showing the corresponding genes positions on the chromosomes, very cool.

In between the 5^th and 3^rd floor is a giant suspended, revolving sphere, called Tsunagari. Onto it is projected a map of the world that can be changed to display maps colour coded for various different global trends. Alongside this is a walkway that is lined with images of all the Astronauts who have ever been sent to space, ordered by the year they were up there. Have you ever heard of Valentina Tereshkova? I know I hadn’t but she was the first woman in space, way back in 1963.

 

The third floor is a little less based on hard science but it is nonetheless interesting. This area is called “Create Your Future” and is focused on where we are headed in the next century. My favorite area, besides the robots because who doesn’t love robots,  was “The drive force of innovation”, a display devoted to where ideas come from. There is a large mural displaying some of the best human inventions from ancient times to the present day as well as area exploring the different ways in which we come up with new ideas. Mixed in there are also some amazingly inspiring quotes about the human mind.

There is much more I could talk about as this place really is the best museum I’ve been to in the country easily. I could feel the pride for Japan’s scientific frontiers without and of that creepy nationalism I got in the natural history museum. It was very cool and I was even treated to a dancing robot display before I left to meet up with my parents.

So out of Odaiba and off to Roppongi. Unusually I was bang on time and I met up with my Mum and Dad without any problems. I think being able to be in touch constantly this time around really helped a lot, my lesson had been learned from 2 years ago.

The plan for the evening was to check out the Mori art gallery near the top of the Roppongi hills tower complex. The complex is massive and the art gallery on the 50 something floor is equally expansive. The reason for us going there was an exhibition of works by Alphonse Mucha, of whom my dad is a big fan. I’ll not pretend to be particularly knowledgeable on Art Nouveau but Muscha is one of the big names so I’ve at least some of his work before. I’m not going to embarrass myself by trying to play art critic so I’ll just say I enjoyed the exhibit.

 

Afterwards we went up to the sky deck for some very spectacular views over Tokyo. Up is always better if you want to get a good impression of this city. What amazed me is the diversity of architecture across Tokyo. Sure it is mostly a concrete jungle but every now and then you see some wonderful curves to contrast those hard angles and some lush green to offset the dull greys.

For my final day in Tokyo I wanted to visit a friend out in Tsukuba, I think travelling to visit friends is something I will make more of a habit of when I return to the UK it’s such a rewarding pastime, but first there was one place I’d been longing to visit for quite some time.

It is no shock, I’m sure, to learn that I have a supreme fondness of the written word in any language. I’ve spent much time over the years wandering aimlessly through libraries and second hand book stores so when I heard there was a place in Tokyo where there were a ridiculous number clustered close together, I had to go.

Jinboucho (神保町) in Chiyoda sits neatly in between several of the major Tokyo universities and for this reason many of the big Japanese publishing houses set up shop nearby. Now we all know that your average student is pretty strapped for cash and so I’m sure it’s not surprise to learn this place has become known as “Book town” due to the approximately 150 used bookstores that line it’s main high street.

 

There really are books of all kinds here. Reference books, magazine stores, antiques, battered old novels, you name and you can probably find it in Jinboucho. Many of the shops have so many volumes in stock that they quite literally spill out into the streets, with boxes and shelves strewn willy nilly. It is a bit of a far cry from the usual pristine order of many Japanese establishments and I’ll be frank it was a welcome change.

I could have lost myself there in the musky smell of ancient tomes for over a decade but sadly I did have other things to do. Now knowing this place was home to a lot of th old Japanese publishers I wanted to check out some Ukio –e (Japanese wood block painting) prints for my parents. The best place for this is undoubtedly Ohya Shobo, one of the oldest stores in Jimbocho. The place is lined wall to wall with prints and originals, as well as some very old maps and books dating back to the 18^th century. I think I could have emptied my bank in that shop but instead I settled on a couple of copies for my parents. I think I’ll go back to get a few more before I leave.

 

After that I set out on a separate mission. This time I intended to find some books of old Japanese fairy stories (In Japanese of course). Not really being able to read too much kanji I was a little bit handicapped but I did eventually come across something and I’m currently reading it for practice, and personal interest of course. I do love a good folk tale and these are all centered around a particular area in northern Japan called Kurobe, home, besides all the crazy creatures in the stories of course, the world headquarters of zipper producers YKK apparently.

I eventually had to tear my self away and go visit my friend, my backpack was starting to get a bit heavy and if I didn’t leave soon I was going to have spent all of my money for sure. That being said on the way out I did make one final purchase. I came across a bookstore selling English books very cheap and picked up a copy of the Han Solo adventures, once a star wars geek always a star wars geek.

Well that about does it for my Tokyo adventures. I still need to write up some stuff about Okinawa so have that too look forward to, then hopefully once I have my paper and Japanese language proficiency test (eep) done and dusted I’ll hopefully be off on more adventures.

 

Mata ne.

Tokyo Day 4 – Yohohokohama

Ok I know I know, I promised clowns in the previous post but the writing got away from me so I’ve had to make it a separate post. So what’s all this about clowns then? Well being outside of your own country throws you into the paths of people you’d likely not encounter otherwise I feel, you are limited in some ways by the people who you are able to easily associate with and in some ways that broadens the scope of possible acquaintances. What I mean is back home you associate with who you know. Once outside your preconceptions of people are necessitated to expand, kind of like the first month or two of University really.

Anyway my friend a clown at the Kinoshita circus and we met whilst they were on tour down Himeji way. We only actually met face to face once and yet through the power of the Internet, various conversations through the medium of facebook, we realised we had a fair amount in common, a creative streak and a love of all things geekery and a friendship was born. So when I mentioned I would be nearby, the circus was in Yokohama at the time, she asked if I felt like coming over. Why the hell not ey.

Yokohama is the capital of Kanagawa prefecture and lies just south of Tokyo. It is one of the largest suburbs in the world and is particularly historically famous as being the site of the first American fleet landing in Japan, the beginning of Japan’s opening up to the world from centuries of isolation.

 

As such there are two things that I found really stood out about the city. Firstly there is quite a thing made of Yokohama’s port roots with many maritime museums and a striking influence on its architecture. The other is an invasion of quite frankly European sensibility in some of the buildings. Looking at some of the old stone buildings I could have almost been back in the UK, I’d guess most of them sprung up around the Meji era when the emperor had a bit of a thing going for Europe.

Anyway enough about that, onto the circus. The big top was mercifully very easy to find, you’d think it would be but then remember the scale of everything in Japanese cities. It seemed like the show would be pretty packed, odd since it was a Thursday afternoon in a working week during term time, but well everyone needs downtime I guess. When we came to pick up the tickets I was pleasantly surprised to find they were free of charge, always good to know someone on the inside, and we merely had to pay for our seat upgrades.

So all sorted out we had a few hours to kill and decided to go for a stroll. The circus was located in Naka-ku of Yokohama, only 5 minutes from the main station. It was a really chill place and, after the hustle and bustle of central Tokyo, it was nice to step the busy down a notch. If we didn’t have our day planned out already it would have been nice to spend a bit more time wandering. It is the former central business district something that was evident by the large administrative buildings everywhere, though now it is more well known for its huge Chinatown and annual Jazz festival.

After a hunt for a post office and international ATMs we wandered out towards the prom, you know seaside town roots we just can’t help it, and then into a rather fancy looking central mall to stop for a much needed coffee. In fact we ended up in something called a “Dog Cafe”. At first I thought this was like a joint café and dog fashion shop but it is in fact a place where you can share a cuppa and a treat with your beloved 4-legged friend. Some people even came in with dogs in prams, mental.

Revitalised at last it was time for the show. Now the circus was, well a circus. I’ll admit I’d not been to once since I was maybe 8 years old and would have had no inclination to had it not been for my friend. Still it was a good giggle and our seats were awesome. My friend and her partner were sadly just filler between the ‘main’ acts but to be frank (she’ll hate me for saying this) they were the best part. As I mentioned our seats were awesome, in fact a little too awesome as I was dragged out for some audience participation, I should have expected as much.

It was fun but my only gripe was the animals. I was a little surprised, as been expecting them to be such a main focal point. I guess when you think of the circus classically you think of lion tamers and stuff but, well I’ve only been like once before and I think big animals are banned in the UK. Still Japanese people have totally different perceptions when it comes to animal rights, I’ve seen it on many occasion and since for many people here there is very little opportunity to travel this may be their only encounter with such animals. Doesn't mean I’m happy about it though.

Anyway moaning aside it was a nice reunion and after quick costume change we met up again by the river side. Whilst waiting for my friend to get into her civvies we bumped into the lion tamer and his son. From appearance during the show we thought he was central European or something but much to our surprise and amusement he was a real Geezer from Oxfordshire.  After about ten minutes of listening to him bemoaning the cost of “Faackin’ PJ tips” we were off to do what you do in any major Japanese city. Climb the tallest building and see everything from above. In Yokohoma this would be the very stunning and aptly named Landmark tower. I don’t know what it was about the building I liked in particular; maybe it just had nice angles.

A quick ride up to the observation deck and you are treated to some spectacular views across the bay and into Yokohama. The city is really quite a sight, metropolitan zone after metropolitan zone as far as the eye can see, can you tell I’m still not used to this big city stuff? One funny observation was the sheer number of helipads on most of the skyscrapers. We speculated that they were either for emergency earthquake evacuation or relics of the 80’s bubble economy and the extravagant spending of top Japanese execs, awesome either way. The trip was capped off nicely by a lovely sunset and also a bit of eavesdropping on a local baseball game through one of the pay binoculars, we could see the pitchers throwing from the mound up close which was quite cool.

After some deliberation, not much really, we settled on a Hawaiian restaurant for dinner, marking yet another day of avoiding Japanese food as my dad was quick to point out. I can’t remember what I ate but I do remember it being some tasty white fish. By the end of the meal my folks were pretty exhausted so they headed back the hotel giving me a bit of time to catch up with my mate.

We spent the night doing what I do best wandering, aimlessly. Fortunately her sense of direction is waaayy better than mine so we didn’t end up aimlessly lost. There isn’t much to Naka-ku once the lights go down so we headed back towards central Yokohama and where greeted once more to hordes of Japanese men in business suits.

I managed to drag her along to a game centre. I love these places and the collisions of social backgrounds that occur there in. We couldn’t help but gawp at the businessmen, suited and booted, shaking their things on dance dance revolution machines, or the chain smoking forty year olds battling it out on beat-em ups against teenagers. I was feeling a bit rhythmic so we had a go on a Taiko drumming game. The idea is to pound along to the rhythm of various popular J-pop sings on giant fake taiko drums. I lost badly; my former African drum teacher would be ashamed.

A common feature of Japanese game centres is Crane games, or UFO catchers whatever you want to call them. These are several times more awesome in Japan because the prizes are actually good and also obtainable. I mentioned there was a trick to them and since I was met with disbelief put my money were my mouth is. I became the proud owner of an oversized mushroom called nameko.

We ended the night at Yokohama station with coffee, a good chin-wag and a lot of people watching. It amazes me how similar our experiences of life in Japan have been, considering how different our working backgrounds are. It seems that there are just so many rules and conventions deeply entrenched in the Japanese mindset that it bleeds over into everything. I was particularly saddened to hear about what a rough deal the Japanese circus workers had when compared to the performers from outside the country. They literally do everything, from tent pitching and cleaning, taking tickets and performing. I’m amazed they don't collapse mid show. Anyway now is not the time to vent so I’ll leave it at that. Yokohama was cool and I most definitely plan on going back.

Ja mata ne