Groovin'

One of the things that might not be immediately obvious when you first arrive in Japan is the fact that many streets and outdoor shopping arcades have "Muzak" playing most of the time. I don't know if they've newly installed speakers, or if they just weren't turned on previously, but I noticed that they were playing music on my way in to school today. I got to bop along to the musical stylings of Little Richard and Fats Domino on my way in.

Red beans and ... fries?!?

I stopped off at my semi-local Wendy`s today, in the mood for a treat from the motherland (Actually I went there cause you can get a variety of burgers for about $1 CAN) and I noticed a rather inconspicous sign on the table, advertising an seemingly innocent looking "hamburger". The text on the sign read something as follows: "Instead of meat, we`ve added delicious sweet red bean paste". Once I was done with all of the dry heaving and fainting spells, I came to realize that Japan truly is the land where East meets West.

Day at the office

I seem to be quickly settling in to this whole Research Student thing; I've got my own desk, and my own computer and everything. Since this is an engineering environment, my professor asked me to install Linux on my PC. A simple enough task given a few simple prerequisites; one of which is an installation CD. Everyone that I asked for a CD from responded with, "Which Linux are you looking for?". Apparently there are now 7 million distributions, and our lab used about 3.8 million of those. I still haven't installed any but that's due to other issues.
I instead spent most of the afternoon trying to review some of the umpteen thousand things that I've forgotten since I left school. Today was linear algebra, a subject I did pretty well in back in the day, but between eigenfunctions and linear mappings, characteristic equations and rank-nullity theory, I was a little overwhelmed. Let's see what fun tomorrow brings. :)

What a week?!

It's been a pretty busy week this week for me, and I don't expect them to be too much easier from here on in.. So far I've: moved from Fukuoka to Tokyo, discovered that all "Tokyo" airports are actually nowhere near Tokyo and require at least an hour train ride, got lost about a half dozen times, dealt with super-shady real estate agents trying to pawn apartments that nobody wants off onto me, lost my bank card, started school, and discovered that my favourite beef-on-rice fast food chain has changed their menu and removed my favourite dish. In short, it's been busy. But it's been fun. Mostly. Well different at least. Here's to the next phase of life in Japan.

Temping ain't easy ..

Anyone who has ever been to Japan should be familiar with those annoying people who stand outside of the train stations and departments stores shoving flyers and tissues into the hands of unsuspecting passersby, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Well.. I got me a new part-time job as one of those annoying people. I hand out flyers for an English school. Its not that bad.. I get to pretend that I'm
"Flyerman", without the leather jacket, and without the Uptown Theatre, and without the eye contact; Japanese people are exceptionally good at ignoring things. Especially when those things are shoving flyers in their faces.. I have to say though, I'm a big hit wiht the over-40 ladies set. I think its cause lots of peoples' mothers want them to study english... I hope...

Nagasaki

Nagasaki photos

I managed to get in a little side trip to Nagasaki this week, which was a nice little break from routine. Of course I made a stop at the Nagasaki Atomic bomb museum, and the Peace Park, but I was also able to check out the sites of some of the few remaining Dutch inspired buildings in the city. (Historical note, during Japan's isolationist period, the country's borders were closed to all foreign influence, with the exception of occasional contact with the Dutch through the port in Nagasaki).
I also managed to get a taste of some Nagasaki champon, which is basically noodles in soup, with bits of pork, mussels, octopus and/or squid, and vegetables. Not a bad little meal, though I would have liked it better if it was just the pork.

Acceptance

Whew, looks like another long while between updates, despite my promises to update more often.. Well I have the excuse that I don't have internet at home, I suppose. Well today's topic is "acceptance". Acceptance of life, liberty and the pursuit of "happyness" (which I saw the other day, and is an awesome movie, but for some reason is called "The Power of Happiness" in Japanese)..

Actually, I lie, its all about my acceptance to the Tokyo Institute of Technology's research student program starting in April. I'll basically be doing research in the fields of robotics and control systems, possibly emphasizing human/machine interface systems. I'm really looking forward to it, and I've been looking back at some of the material that I studied back in the day at school, and realizing, that this crap can be pretty tough stuff. Oh well, wish me luck.