Hot, hot, hot July

July was a much more interesting month for me in comparison to June. In June there is a lot of work to be done(not that July will be easy) but since summer vacation starts at the end of the month, there are more fun activities going on.

To break it down, at the beginning of the month, I had my first scientific conference here in Japan. It was just a double poster-session, so besides creating a poster, it was not difficult. The conference was held in the city of Kitakyushu, which is famous for several things like the manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, Kokura Castle, and more infamously having a large yakuza population. I was unable to experience the latter two, but that may or may not be a good thing.

From my lab only two members and two teachers attended, so it was a rather short day-trip. My only complaint is that we had to leave really early in the morning, and we arrived too early for the conference (maybe this is not bad as as I make it out to be, but the fire alarm in my building went off the night before at 2 a.m. and I couldn't sleep after that so I was TIRED). However, I appreciate being prompt, especially when you take the shinkansen (bullet train) from Fukuoka to Kitakyushu, it only takes about 30 minutes! That may be hard for you to tell how quick it is, but it is normally a 2-hour drive to get to Kitakyushu if there is no traffic problems.

The poster session was 2 hours long, where other students and teachers come to ask you about your research, but as a foreign student, I had to attend two of these sessions. They were also spaced 4-hours apart, so me and the other attending student had some spare time to look around the city. However, the weather was terrible, so we could only attend the nearby indoor places.

We went to a small manga museum during the few hour break and had lunch with our lab PI, so it was actually quite a nice time. However, the main part of the trip was the poster part. I really wish I could have met some other students, but since my poster was in English, too many students were too shy to approach and ask me questions. Maybe next year I will be able to communicate better about scientific terms in Japanese.

Also, during the summertime in Japan there are many festivals in which to attend. Sometimes depending on what the festival is for, you can do quite a lot of different things like games, dancing, enjoying food, watching fireworks, etc. I was lucky enough to meet up with one of my Berea friends, Sachi, and go with her to one of these festivals. Sachi is really a wonderful and generous person, so I was quite surprised that when I finally met with her, we did much more than just attend a festival.

 After meeting, we had plenty of time before the festival started so we did some sight-seeing at a very old shrine near the main campus (Hakozaki) of Kyushu University. The Kashii shrine was built in honor of a emperor which died in that area almost 1000 years ago.

 The shrine was very beautiful and had many nice gardens, but unfortunately also had many mosquitoes. My legs and arms were almost completely devoured, but Sachi remained untouched. After visiting the shrine, we stopped and had a light dinner before finally driving to Gion, the area in which the festival was held.

I only managed to get a few photos (most of them blurry) because there were so many people in one narrow street! Especially after it became dark, there were so many people coming and going, it was almost impossible to stop and take photos. I was lucky I didn't lose Sachi in the crowd, but fortunately for me I am not hard to spot in crowd of Japanese people, especially with my giant red tote-bag. Sachi also sent me some of her photos to share of her and her students (she teaches English) so will upload these next chance I get.

 I ate lots of food at this festival. Some of them exotic (like grilled squid), some of them not so much (candy apples, shaved ice) either way, I ate way too much for my own good. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant time, and most importantly, I got to watch fireworks. I really enjoy fireworks, so I was most disappointed when I missed my favorite holiday, Independence Day, in the United States. However, I have been told by several people fireworks in Japan are considerably cheaper than in the USA, so when you go to see fireworks, an hour-long show is quite normal. It was also very nice to be able to sit in a complete crowd of strangers, and be able to admire at the same level as them. I don't know if you understand what I mean by this statement, but often perspectives on daily life matters in a foreign country are so completely different, it's hard to see the world the same. But with a few things, it seems like no matter the culture, the view or opinion is the same. Here, fireworks seemed to be one of those things, that everyone admires (or is afraid of). While I was unable to film the whole thing I did manage to get a small video of part of the fireworks display:

 So I had a really wonderful time at my first Japanese festival, so I must thank my good friend Sachi for taking me! As any summer festival, it was hot and crowded, but sometimes experiencing that is a good thing. Next time, I would like to go to a larger one, but we will see if I will be able to or not soon.

Hope to post more exciting news for the upcoming summer months!

May Flowers... May Tsuyu

Sorry, for not posting about May during May, but it was not the most exciting month. I spent most of the month doing experiments and applying scholarship applications, so I can't say too much out of the ordinary happened. One would think being in Japan would somehow make school life more exotic and exciting, but in all honesty, lab work is lab work, and paperwork is paperwork (and Japan sure likes lots of paperwork).

However here are a few nice things that happened to me during this May:

Itoshima coffee hour started again for this semester! It's a nice community gathering held every Friday where students and a few older women from the community get together and talk. Every so often we have a potluck, so there is always a lot of tasty homemade food to eat. I really enjoy going to this meeting, but unfortunately during this month, my part-time job falls onto the time of the Coffee Hour, so I am unable to go. They are all very nice people, and it surprises me more students don't come to these kinds of events.

 Also, my good friend Haejoo's husband is a very good piano player. He has played almost his entire life, and after graduating school was unable to play (most Japanese apartment buildings won't let you have keyboards even due to the worry about noise complaints... and yet brass instruments are okay). Because of this, he has been taking lessons in a studio in which a piano is available for practicing. He had his first mini-concert this month, so I was invited along to Tenjin to see his performance. Of course, before going to Tenjin, my friends and I went to a really cool  restaurant for lunch. It has a fixed menu, but you have HUGE amounts of food to choose from, and the fish are kept in tanks right next to the tables. Talk about fresh fish! :

 While the concert was being prepared, my friend and I looked around Tenjin in the various stores. The places all seem very hip and trendy, and I can understand why it is so popular among young people to go visit these kind of places. However, unless you have a lot of disposable cash, it seems like there is only shopping. The only pictures I have of the stores, was of one of the displays inside the mall, where people had designed wooden bridges.

 

Not much happened after that, except the Chemical Engineering Department party. While I am not technically in that major, my laboratory is considered part of that Department, so all the lab members should go. To be honest, at first I thought this would be a very formal event, but I was mistaken. If there is anything to expect from the Japanese in such party situations, it is that A LOT of people will get drunk...

This became quite clear when it was time for the different laboratories to introduce themselves to the department. It is traditional that the newest members of each lab go up and explain a little about what their laboratory does, but I certainly not expecting what happened. A few labs had skits, jokes, and even costumes for their lab intros:

And if you will notice... these are all men being goofy on stage. I am happy to say none of the scientific women in this department took part in the madness (unless you count the one guy in the dress).

 So after this party, I am afraid not much else happened for the month of May. I think people are already starting to get a little tired from classes and experiments, and now the weather is making that atmosphere worse. Japan, like many countries in South-East Asia has a rainy season. Here they call that season 'tsuyu'. So, for roughly six weeks or so, it is expected to be nothing but cloudy, warm, humid, and rainy... luckily since I lived in Florida at one point in my life, humidity is not a problem, but I am guessing for a lot of foreigners the humidity in Japan is quite overwhelming.

Now it's already June! I have two scientific conferences coming up, so I will be very busy the next couple of weeks. However, if I manage to do anything interesting, I will make sure to keep note of it.

To all my friends and family, please know I love and miss you!

Start of the New School Semester

Here in Japan the real first month of school is in April. The fiscal year, classes, new jobs, etc. all start in April. Needless to say, this made this month a little bit busy for me. Of course, none of it was particularly interesting, there were some good experiences to come from this month.

First, a new school semester means new students! The laboratory received seven new students, including another foreign student, so I am no long the only exchange student, or only one of two girls. Of course, the first week or so was just orientation for them, so I didn't really get to see them much, however the laboratories always have a party to introduce the new senior to the graduate level students. This year, we had it at  a motsunabe restaurant. If you don't know what motsu is, it's basically pork organ fat... and while that sounds a little disgusting, it's delicious when in a stew with vegetables. Anyways, all our new students introduced themselves, and the lab (as usual) drank an incredible amount of alcohol...

 After that party, I have to say not much exciting happened. I had a lovely birthday party for one of my friends, but since it was a Sunday, it was rather informal. April is a busy time for most people, especially students who are getting adjusted to new classes and teachers, so few exciting events come during this time.

As far as experiments, we had our first official meeting of the year to display our data in front of the Professors. I still can't say difficult scientific terminology in science Japanese, so my presentation was in English... so only the professors understood. The worse part was that, even though English was okay, I only told them that my cells died twice. It's been extremely frustrating dealing with the cell-line I had been assigned. We had an infection of mycoplasm (microorganisms) in most of the cell-lines used in the lab. To remove the mycoplasma, you must treat them with special antibiotics for 3 weeks. The first time, I did this I noticed the cells were becoming fewer and fewer in number, and I expressed this problem to my lab mates. Two days before the antibiotic treatment was over, another microorganism (some sort of yeast) had taken over the culture and killed the cells. The second time we attempted this same treatment, almost the exact thing happened! My lab members are taking over the culturing for now, just in case I was doing something incorrect, but I find it odd both culture attempts, at the same time during treatment, died of the exact same thing. If it happens a third time, at least they know it wasn't me being a novice cell-mother.

Other than that, April has been a relatively uneventful, though beautiful month. Our weather has been unseasonably cool, but so far this has made the flowers much happier. After the cherry trees were gone, all these wild poppies and azalea bushes started blooming. While I have lived in places where there are plenty of azaleas, I haven't seen them quite as flourishing as I have here in Japan. I took a walk around my neighborhood, just to see them shrubs in bloom. There are so many of them on top of each other, you can actually smell them as you walk down the street.

It's sort of neat to see the old-style houses mixed in the new ones. In the US it's rare to see a really old-style house outside of maybe a historical district, but in Japan, many people build brand new houses in this very traditional style.

Until something else interesting happens, I hope these nice photos hold you over. Maybe something exciting will happen in May!