Simply Be Present

Written Tuesday, June 9, 2009 – 9:43am

I woke up and got to work at 9am, at which point I was just browsing the internet for a bit. At 9:10am the lab professor tells me that there’s a lab meeting (sort of a journal group) starting at 9:15am and we’re all expected to be there, so I head to the room. I had not eaten breakfast, and I had my rice ball (onigiri) on my right hand and my lab notebook on the left, since I didn’t know if it was rude to eat then, I just held it with my stuff. I thought the meeting was going to be until 10 or so, but it went until 11. At that time I was so hungry, I couldn’t wait to get out and eat my rice ball. Turns out that right after the Monday meetings there’s lab clean-up. Damn…

I mopped a room, and apparently all those years of practice at home and in CROEM made me a really good mopper (is that even a word?). People in the lab were saying things in Japanese like: “It’s so clean!” and “Omar clean all this by himself? Wow, it’s too clean.” etc. I felt good, it was sort of like, if I don’t do anything productive in lab during the week, at least I can mop the room well. That kind of trades off for my use of the internet.

Anyway, after that I just did a few things in lab. I prepared a 5M NaCl solution for PCR cloning, and put some cells in coomassie blue solution for SDS tomorrow. I then froze them, of course.

After that, at around 7pm I was getting ready to go home, but two other people from the lab told me that there was going to be cake for someone’s birthday at 9:30, and it was a surprise. So I just went to get dinner at the ‘student center cafeteria’, which is really cheap and delicious, and then went back into lab until 9:30. I thought the cake was going to be from everyone in the lab, but a bit later one guy from the lab, who is the youngest one here (23 years old) and wants to practice English with me, told me that the birthday celebration was going to be soon, and told me to follow him. It turns out only ~5 other people had been invited to it, I felt so special! Anyway, there were small cakes for everyone there, and one bigger one for the birthday boy. A bit later the birthday boy came in and we sang ‘happy birthday’. The Japanese do sing it like: “Happy Bathday, to you” or at least that’s how it sounded to me. And they clap while singing it. It was cute.

The cake was delicious and I stayed with them until 11:00ish and then headed back to the train. I finally got home at around 12:20am and then checked a few things, and went to bed. It was really nice to socialize with that group my labmates. They were a lot of fun, and we nicked name each one of them (or rather, I did. I was the one who finalized their nicknames). One is “Crazy-San” and another is “Shy-san”. These names were chosen by their friends who told me they were crazy and shy, respectively. The others we made up were: “san-tyan”, “masaya-san”, “bootsu-san” (sort of like a boot), and “Señor Potto-san”. That last one was the coolest, of course. “Señor Potto-san” was the birthday boy, so for that night only he was also “Tanjoobi-san” which means Mr. Birthday.

Anyway, it was a very interesting day. I had my first experience sitting through a lab meeting in Japanese in which they were discussing three papers and I could only understand the English words they would say. This is kind of what it sounded to me: “lalalallalaa calcium lalalalalala signaru lalalala lalala la lala hai lalalala”. It was a lot of fun to sit through that. At the end of each paper the professor asked if we had questions, and when he asked me I simply said: “Nani mo wakarimasen desita” or “I didn’t understand anything.” Everyone laughed and we kept going. It was also fun having my first experience hanging out with a group of Japanese people.

Oh, I had to introduce myself in Japanese to other people through a video conference, that was interesting. I was like… hai… “I’m Omar, from MIT. I come from Puerto Rico.” is that good enough? Haha, it was fun being on the spot for that second.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. It’s time to get back to work

June 7, 2009 – 9:30 pm

Today I woke up and first thing I did, yes, I went to the internet café and checked my e-mail, bank accounts, etc. I then proceeded to buy an onigiri (rice ball) and then headed out to my first day of adventures in Osaka. I met a friend of a friend, and he took me to a few places around!

First we went to this place to have lunch, and I’m such a horrible person that I did not take pictures of the food or remember the name of what I ate… I can just tell you about it. It was like a 2-eggs omelet over rice with bacon, corn, and a cheese sauce. It was really delicious.

After that we went to see the Osakajo, it’s a castle in Osaka. I took many pictures and you can see them in facebook, of course.

The link is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085882&id=712370&l=533d4c8e9c

After that we went to a mall, and after a bit headed back home. On my way home I was looking around for where I wanted to eat dinner, and I made up my mind that I would have something that looked delicious and that was not something I would just take home and eat there. So I looked around, and there it was, right in front of my eyes all this time and I had not noticed it, a lovely sushi place.

The concept of this kind of sushi places is the following, you sit around a big table, and the chefs iare in the middle. They make any sushi they want and they put it on this moving platform that goes all around the table. If you see something you like, you pick the plate up. In each plate there are usually two pieces of sushi, and depending on the color of the plate is how much they cost. Blue was 100 yen (about $1), yellow was 240 yen, and silver was 320 yen. I was going to be a cheap bag and only eat a few, but then I decided I’d rather have a full sushi meal than eat part of it and then go buy something else cause I wasn’t full. I ended up getting completely full, including eating two of the most expensive sushi, and paid a total of 1600 yen (~$17) and considering that in Japan you usually don’t tip, this is the cheapest and most delicious sushi meal I’ve had at a restaurant, ever. Oh, I love Japan.

Also, more good news, I found out there’s an open wireless internet connection quite close to my apartment (near the back door) so I’ll using that when I need to post something quick, rather than go to the other place 15 mins away from here! I also found out that Skype for the iPhone lets me actually place calls for free to other skype members, and the same rates as if I were using a computer. The iPhone application is very well designed, I must say, so I’ll be using that to talk to my family when I can’t get online through MSN Messenger and use a webcam.

That’s all I’ve got for today, there are many pictures online. See that there’s a picture of KFC, and I didn’t take a picture of McDonalds but I’ve seen like 3 of those too. KFC is open since like, 7am, which is kinda weird…

A few other things I’ve noticed in Osaka!
Older people also run bikes, all the time. And by older I mean, not just adults, but men and women that could be my grandparents!
In many areas cars traffic in the same streets as people and bikes do. I find it quite dangerous and interesting. Even in what seems like the interior of a shopping street, there are cars. I always think that there’s something approaching me from behind… and I’m usually right.
Japanese people seems to love coin machines (those casino-like ones), and arcades. There are many, many around here.

June 7, 2009 – 2:39am

After waking up at 8:00am, I went through my morning routine and headed to work. It was Saturday, so I wasn’t sure about going to work, but I decided to go since most of my co-workers would be there, and I wanted to use the internet for free. I got to lab at around 9:30am and talked to some people online. At around 11am my boss, the associate professor in the lab, came to talk to me. He is really funny, and a really nice person, so I had a great time talking to him. He also seems concerned about my well-being and me having people to spend time with. He asked me if I had friends around here, etc.

A guy came to my desk yesterday and introduced himself, I asked him if he was doing research in that lab (it didn’t seem that way since he was dressed in a suit) and he said that no, he just goes there to sell tips, pipets, and other things to the professor. He was a really nice guy, and when I stopped talking to him he went back to the associate professor. I’m sure the professor told him to introduce himself to me, which is funny. I wonder if the professor was sitting there and told him: “that foreigner needs friends, go talk to him.”

Anyway, my boss asked me things about what I liked to do, and what I wanted to do, and he suggested a few things I could do in the project. I told him that it sounded good since I had applied those skills before (PCR, cloning, etc.) and that if I had any questions I’d ask the post-doc I’m working with. He seemed satisfied with this answer, and after we talked for a bit longer he went back to his desk to discuss something with another researcher in the lab. I then plated some cells, and afterward went to lunch. Lunch was delicious and cheap, as usual.

At around 3pm I decided to head back home since I was a bit tired and did not want to spend my Saturday in lab. I got home at around 5pm and I was so tired I just laid on bed for a bit… which turned into me falling asleep! I woke up at 1am. Haha. So much for having fixed my sleep schedule this week, now I went back to a completely messed up sleeping schedule. I’ll try to sleep in an hour or so.

So at around 2am I decided to go out and see how lively it was around here at that time. I went down the street and called my mom a few times, but she didn’t pick up. After a bit I just kept going and walked around. There are quite a few places open at night, some food places, some karaoke bars, and some 24 hours convenience stores. I kept going, and when I crossed an underground ‘bridge’ at the other side this woman came to ‘talk to me’. When I said I was doing fine she offered me a ‘massage’ and said that ‘it will feel good, for sure’. This woman looked pretty cute, and I wondered why she was offering massages in the corner of a street by the train station at 2am, but I just told her not to worry, I was doing just fine as it was. She asked me where I was from and told me that I was cute, like three times. I felt good for a second, and then realized that she probably tells that to everyone she offers a massage to. Oh gosh, the oldest profession, mastered by a selected few around the world – a self-selected few, that is.

I kept going and then stopped a bit further down to call my parents from a different phone. I called home and my stepfather answered, so I talked to him and my brother for a few minutes. Then I tried calling my mom again, this time she answered. Turns out she was talking to someone else when I called before, and she thought my call was one of those random phone promotions since the phone number was weird. I talked to her for a while and she told me to call my dad, so I did. I talked to my dad for a bit longer and then headed back home. On the way back home the same woman offered me a massage… she really didn’t get it, I had NO interest in a massage…

I told her that I was fine, not to worry, and told her to have a good night. I am so polite. A few seconds later this man was walking past me (in her direction) so I decided to see how he would manage the same situation. Turns out he just kept walking as if she hadn’t talk to him at all. I guess when you have been offered enough massages in your life you learn that it’s easier not to pay attention to the offers at all. Sort of like my mom not answering the phone cause she thought it would just be someone trying to sell her something… I guess life teaches you something every day. I just felt bad completely ignoring such a ‘cute, nice girl’.

So that was pretty much the summary of my day. On the way to work this morning two men were walking down the street and when I looked at them they greeted me: “Konnichi wa! (good afternoon!)” and I greeted them back. One of them stopped for a minute and asked me where I was from, and what I was doing here, and then wished me good luck! He was so nice.

Mm… I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that I love the water heater in my apartment. I turn it on and with a control set the exact temperature I want the water at, so when I shower/bathe I don’t have to adjust the temperature by opening both the cold and hot water – I just open the hot water hose and the water comes out at the temperature I want. Sigh… just thinking about it makes me want to go bathe. ~

Also, I think there is something special about water in Japan. When I shower or bathe, the water feels so nice on my skin. I don’t know what it is, but it just feels more like I’m bathing in a natural water pond than at home. Maybe that’s just my mind making things up? Not sure.

Friday, June 5, 2009 – 10:37pm

Today I woke up at a even more normal time, 6:30am, and got ready to go to work. As I usually have been doing, I wrote my post about the day before, and then left to work. It was my first 雨の日 or day of rain (rainy day) at Osaka and I noticed that Japanese people bike while holding their umbrellas open with one hand much more frequently than people in America.

On the way to work I bought two rice balls wrapped in seaweed, and then kept going to work. Once I got to the kita-senri station I walked to the front of the station office and wondered if I should go in and ask about the monthly pass or not. I was a bit afraid, as usual, but finally gathered the strength when I thought about the money I would be saving. I walked in and said: “通勤定期を買いたいんですけど。。。” which translates to: “I want to buy a commuter pass but… (where would I do that?)”. I was quickly told to go to a young lady sitting next to the exit, and I proceeded to tell her that I needed a commuter pass. She gave me a form with a lot of Chinese characters all over the place, and I told her that I wasn’t good at reading kanji or rather, that I was weak at kanji. She proceeded to show me another form that had English stickers on it that indicated what I had to write. I wrote my name and birthday, and then I told her that I had to look up my address cause I hadn’t memorized it yet, and she just took the form and told me to not worry about it. She also asked me if I had a phone and I explained that I didn’t have one while I was here in Japan. I also told her that I wanted the one-month pass. After paying for it (the equivalent to ~$96) I left with my brand new monthly pass! I was so proud of myself that I wanted to just get on the train and go back home to try it out. I resisted the temptation and walked my 20 minutes to get to lab.

Today I took a nicer route from the train station to lab. Once I got to lab I got online and started checking my e-mail, facebook, etc. After an hour or so, my post-doc and I talked for a bit and then discussed what we were doing that day. I then proceeded to go back to my e-mail, etc. and then I read papers for a few hours.

I went to lunch at a small student center close to my lab. The food at the student’s center dining is delicious! I ate the 大学ランチ (University Lunch) which included a small miso soup, a bowl of rice, and a big plate of curry chicken (which was amazing!) all of 430 yen (that’s ~$4.50!). When I first started eating it I was so surprised! It felt like I was eating at a restaurant, but I was only paying a fraction of the cost! So good. That’s one of the best meals I’ve had in my life, especially when you factor in the price. Haha.

I went back to lab and kept reading papers. Then soon after we picked a few bacterial colonies from our E. coli plates and put them in 10 ml of medium so they grow a lot more. Then I went back to my desk to read more papers. While sitting there, I talked with a few other people in the lab, and it was great. They asked me many questions like where I study, where I’m from, if my classes were in English or Spanish, my age, etc. Then they said: “you’re 19?! so young!” which reminded me that I was among people that were probably 30 and looked 15. I kept talking to them, doing my best to communicate everything I wanted to say in correct Japanese. It was great, I even showed to them where Puerto Rico is on a map, etc. They were so nice.

After a few hours a few people started leaving, but mostly people who have a part-time job there, not scientists. I used that time to talk online for a bit, check some things I needed to check and then go to Bank of America and check my bank statements. I was then reminded that I had to pay my credit card, and that I couldn’t do that cause it had been blocked when I tried to get money from the ATM with it rather than with my ATM. I thought I’d had to pay just to call, but beautiful and amazing Kimさん told me that you could make free calls to 1-800 numbers through Skype! I had just downloaded Skype a few minutes before, so I took that as a sign from God and took my laptop with me to the seminar room next door and called the bank. They pretty much asked me the story of my life, and then decided to unblock my account so I could actually pay. I went back to online banking and paid my account.

A few hours after, at around 8:00pm, I decided to head home. I didn’t fully decided if I wanted to go to lab Saturday, but I decided to just go home and make that decision on my own. After all, I was told I could do an American schedule (9-5 Monday through Friday) if I wanted, and I’ve been working from ~9:30am until after 7:30pm every day. I might take it off tomorrow or not, not sure yet. Anyway, what I did decide was that instead of getting something off the street at any place and take it home and eat there, I would stop at the ramen shop by the train station exit and have my dinner there. That ramen shop only has tall chairs around the service counter/dining counter.

When I got to my station, I got off and walked towards the ramen shop. I stood in front of the door and just looked at the plates outside and what they said. I couldn’t read the Chinese characters so I just stood there and contemplated different ways in which to order and let them understand what I wanted. While I stood there I looked in for a bit after being there for like 5 minutes, and saw someone looking towards the door and smiling or laughing, and I thought “omg they are making fun of me for just standing here.” I walked away from the ramen shop, but then realized that I had to face the fear if I wanted to eat the damn ramen. I went back and went into the store and sat near an area where there were a few images with dishes that I wanted. I then ordered “that thing over there… the miso ramen, and this other thing what is it called?

After a few minutes I had my dinner in front of me. A large bowl of ramen and a side dish of 6 pan fried dumplings. It was delicious, and both things together were less than $8. While I ate two women were drinking beer and sharing some appetizers, and there was a man working in the ramen shop that seemed not to like them. They kept laughing every time he did something and he just kept a serious face. It was funny to watch. I then walked outside and decided that since it was Friday night, and I was still contemplating the idea of working Saturday, I would reward myself with a donut from Mr. Donuts across the street. I must say though, that although tasty, $1.30 for a donut is a bit much.

Anyway, that was it for today. I’m tired, so I’m going to sleep now. I walked really fast on the way back from lab to the station, and I think it didn’t take me more than 15 minutes when last time it had taken me a bit over 20 minutes. That was nice.

Anything else I haven’t mentioned? Oh, people smoke at small ramen shops and at Mr. Donuts (which is like a Dunking Donuts, but more delicious).

I woke up at 5:30am, which is good news for me since the day before I woke up at 4am so it feels that I’m making progress towards finally having a good schedule in place. I went through my morning routine and then headed towards the station. I stopped at Lawson to get some rice balls for breakfast (two of them) and had some tea from the one I bought at ‘Don Quijote’ a few days ago. I took the train from Juso Station to Yamada Station, and then switched to the monorail until I got to Handai-Byoin-Mae Station (Handai-Byoin-Mae translate to ‘In front of the Osaka University Hospital). The whole trip cost me about 500 yen (a bit over $5). I kept panicking about commuting costs for a bit, but decided to give it a rest and went in to lab.

When I arrived at lab at around 9:15am, I went and changed my shoes to the lab ones, and while doing so one of my lab mates yelled across the hall “ohayoo!” (good morning) and I looked and notice it was to me. I quickly replied, “ohayoo!” and finished changing my shoes. It felt nice to see people greeting me, kind of like they recognized me as part of the lab. Other people in lab said “ohayoo” or “ohayoo gozaimasu” (the more polite greeting) during the morning, and I quickly replied to them in the same way.

In lab, I checked my e-mail and quickly opened one from the person in charge of the program that placed me here. In her e-mail she told me that I could take the train from Justo to Kita-Senri station, instead of getting off at the previous station, Yamada, and then walk for 20 minutes to lab. That would save me having to take the monorail. The new trip would cost me 260 yen each way, down from almost 500 yen. I gladly accepted that as my new commute.

In lab that day, I had lunch with my supervisor again and we talked about many different things, mostly about differences between costs in Japan and Boston. It turns out, they are pretty similar. Food in Japan seems to be a bit cheaper (or there are cheaper options, rather) but commuting in the train seems to be a bit more expensive. Monthly commuter passes are only worth it if you go between two stations round-trip at least 20 times a month. I’m guessing this represents huge savings to some people since it seems that people in Japan tend to work 6 days a week!

I talked to the two Chinese in our lab. They both speak English.  Turns out one of them has been in the lab as a technician for a few years, since she finished her graduate studies and post-doc at Osaka University. It was interesting to learn that her two brothers are actually living in Boston, one working at Harvard University and the other at Boston University. It’s funny how I’ve met two people in two days that have had some sort of connection with where I live, etc. We talked for a few minutes, it was a very welcoming and nice chat. As usual when I start speaking Japanese people ask “Where did you learn Japanese?” and “You’re fluent, aren’t you?!” to which I quickly respond that I’ve been studying the language for two years at MIT, but no, I’m far from being fluent! Some people go on and praise my Japanese skills for a bit longer, and then we move on to more interesting topics.

Anyway, after I was done with lab, at around 7:30pm I decided to head to the Kita-Senri Station, which I had never been to. I decided that I wanted to save 220 yen, so I would, at night, roam my way around until I got there. I had a general idea of where it was in reference to my lab, so I would have to just walk in the west direction for as long as I could. There was a path that, according to the map, was not going to be street, but rather a smaller dirt path. I headed down in that direction and was delighted to see more of the Osaka U. campus. When I reached the front gate I realized that’s where I had to take the path, so I did. I was walking through a dirt path, and I second-guessed that that was the right path a few times, but I just kept going. Then I got to a place where you could definitely tell was not a train station, but since I was told that walking from the lab to the station would be about 20 minutes, I just kept walking, head held high, and just pretending I was not lost. I finally was about to turn around when I saw a map. It was all in Japanese, but I could identify the train station name 北千里駅. I was almost there! I would say, though, that I thought part of the path I walked was a bit sketchy. Some areas here (and some buildings at night) are not nearly as well illuminated as those in the US, so it was a quite dark in some places.

I finally made it to the station, and to my delight, the station was huge! It has like a mini-mall inside the station. There are cellphone stores, restaurants, a supermarket, an amazing 100yen store (like the dollar store in the US, but better), etc. I was so amazed by it. It was great. It was Osaka’s way of letting me know that yes, walking from lab to Kita-Senri Station every night was a wise decision, and not only because I would save some money, but because I would have even more dining options.

I then tried to figure out how to the a monthly commuting pass, but it was too late, it closes at 7pm (it was already 8pm), so then I came home. I bought some fat noodles with chicken on the way here and ate them at home while watching TV, then headed to bed.
Quite an eventful day considering I was at work for over 10 hours.

Some things I’ve noticed about Japanese people:

they are always nice and happy, at least employees are.

at stores every employee that sees you leaving the store will yell thank you at you. “Arigatoo Gozaimasu!” “Arigatoo Gozaimasu!” etc.

Some of them dress ‘normal’ while others completely ‘different’.  Men more commonly carry bags around that men in the states would consider to be women bags or purses, and are more often found carrying colorful cellphones.  Also, a lot of people, especially at stations, do wear the ‘masks’ to be protected from the flu.

Japanese people don’t seem to eat or drink anything outside ‘eating areas’… no one at stations eat snacks, etc.

Some pictures of the great Kita-Senri station are posted here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085364&id=712370&l=3769d32933

I was standing on the 2nd floor, there were three more floors above me.

I woke up at 4am and was completely awake, damn jet lag.  I decided to go through my morning routine (bathe, wash my face, brush my teeth, floss, etc.) and then wrote the blog entry for the day before.  After that I decided that in order to get to my lab, I needed to see the instructions about how to get there first.  Not having any internet connection in my room, I headed down to the free wireless spot I found around this area.  The internet is actually provided by an inn in their lobby, but I just sit outside by their little garden and use the internet there.  I checked my e-mail to find the directions to get to Osaka University, and checked a few things online.  Turns out I had to take the train from the station, and then switch to the monorail.  I was reading this at 7am, and according to the schedule I was sent, I should be taking the 8:49 am train.  And yes, trains in Japan are ALWAYS on time… in fact, I could have gotten off at my destination just by looking at my watch and seeing if it was time to be at the station, no need to listen to the announcements!

Since I had no idea how to use the train system, I headed down to the station at 7:15am and stood in front of one of the ticket vending machines, just to realize that no, I couldn’t read a thing.  All those Chinese characters (kanji) all over the place were not my friends, so I just stepped back, and waited to observe.  After a bit I figured it out, you put the money in, then select which ticket you want by the fare you have to pay.  The way the tickets work is that you put them in when you walk into the station and you get your ticket back, then when you get off you have to put it in again at the exit and it checks that you paid the right amount depending on how far you traveled in the train.  I think that is genius!

Anyway, I bought my ticket, and walked in just to observe how people lined up to take the trains, where the trains are, etc.  Turns out that there are specific places to line up because the trains always stop at the same exact place.  Furthermore, some stations (on the monorail) have fences with only a few open areas so you know where the door is going to open when the train stops.  There’s also two different kinds of trains, designated as 2ドア and 3ドア and you can see in the announcement which train is next and then go form a line in the designated areas for those trains.  I found the whole thing to have such an amazing organization, that I started wondering why the Boston MBTA has not hired some Japanese workers to teach them the way of working things out.  It’s crazy.

That being said, my commute to work only was quite pricey!  The reason is because I have to take the Hankyuu train line first until I get to the monorail, and then switch to the monorail for which I have to pay a different fare.  My trip to work added up to 480 yen, which is about $5.05 using today’s exchange rates!  After that, my trip back home was 500 yen (it was a slightly different route), making the round trip over $10!  I was quite chocked… so this is where all my money is going to go!

That being said, I’m trying to figure out what’s the cheapest monthly commuter pass that I can get in order to make my trip not so expensive.  I saw online at the monorail website that they have some ‘link passes’ that let you use both the Hankyuu line and the monorail, which is exactly what I need, but I couldn’t figure out what the monthly price would be for that!  I also need to go to a specific station to buy it, so I should probably figure this out cause it’s costing me $10 a day.

Anyway, I got to the station near my lab, and while I waited for the person who was going to meet me there this man, who was probably around 60 years old considering that he looked 40 to me, stopped and asked me where I was from.  He then proceeded to ask me how I learned Japanese and we had a nice conversation right there in front of a conbini (convenience store).  Turns out the man spent a year in the US many years ago, and he then spent a year in México!  That man knew English, Spanish and Japanese.  I thought that was amazing.  He even sang a piece of a Mexican melody he remembers and asked me after every sentence if it made sense to me.  It was perfect.  I thought he was great.  He was there for his daughter’s semi-annual health check at the hospital, and said he doesn’t go to that area more than twice a year.  I thought it was amazing that I met him the only day I would have had a chance to meet him (he lives about an hour away from there).

Soon after that I made it to my lab with the post-doc I’ll be working for.  He introduced me to the secretary and they explained me how a board, that says if you’re in the lab or not, works.  When you’re in, you move a magnet to the left, when you leave, you move it to the right.  All of our names, including mine, are on the board.  Now that I’m talking about this… I think I forgot to move the magnet when I left last night! L  I hope my post-doc or the professor in lab moved it when they left since I said good-bye to them.  I have to be more careful with that today.

After meeting the secretary I was told that I have to take my shoes off and put on these flip-flops that they had for me at a small stand.  Of course you keep your socks on.  I don’t like wearing shoes all day, so I loved that.  I was also given a key to the lab, and got introduced to the professor in charge of the lab, who then went and introduced me to the PI (Principal Investigator, or Professor).  The PI knew that I was coming to the lab, but wasn’t even sure who I was or when I was coming.  He was, however, extremely nice to me and quickly made me feel welcome.  He also gave me this book, which is like 450 pages long, that is the lab progress report from 1990-2005.  I was just given 15 years of work, and I only hoped they didn’t expect me to read that anytime soon!  After that I went to the lab and the assistant professor explained to me the projects that are going on in the lab, and the important things that have been recently published by them.  He explained all this in English, so my brain stopped burning for a little bit.

After the professor finished explaining these things to me I went to the post-doc I’m be working with and he decided to forget that no, I can’t do science in Japanese, and proceeded to explain to me a lot of things in Japanese.  He could see my face of… what are you saying?… so he explained a few things using some English keywords.  I understood most of it because I had studied it already, but my brain was about to give up and go to sleep.  After that I had a lab tour, and observed one step we had to do that day for our project.  It was great.

Meanwhile I got my computer online, which was a relief, and was able to do a few things like communicate with people and check my e-mail frequently.  I missed being connected to the world.  I then kept reading papers, manuals, etc. and talked to my post-doc a few times.  We had lunch together with another guy in the lab, and it was nice to see that he talked to me a lot, he showed some interest in knowing things like where I was from, what year I was, what was I studying, etc.  We talked for about 30 mins and then headed back to lab.

In lab I talked to my post-doc about working hours.  Turns out, he works from ~9am-9pm Monday through Saturday.  That’s more than 70 hours a week!  I was like… oh no.  But he quickly said that I could leave at any time during the afternoon since he knows that I am not there to publish papers like most of them are. Well, he said it a bit differently, but that was the essence of it.  He also said that a 9-5pm schedule for me would be just fine since that’s normal in the US.  I don’t think we discussed if Saturdays would be part of my weekend or not… so I guess that’s something we’ll discuss Friday.

Anyway, the people in my lab are great.  I really like the atmosphere.  At 6pm my post-doc told me that I could head out if I wanted, that it was perfectly fine, but I just kept looking for information online, mostly about prepaid cellphones, train passes, and wireless internet services in the area. I finally gave up on some things and left at 8:30 pm.

On the way back home I missed the train I intended to take based on the directions I got from Google Maps, so I freaked out for a second, but I quickly realized that the train system is actually quite intuitive, and I made it to Juso Station (the one near my place) by 9:30pm after having to figure out the trains at each station.  I also figured out that the semi-express train from Umeda Station stops in Juso, which is great.

I walked home then, and stopped at a conbini to get dinner.  I realized I was being lame because there are so many restaurants around, but I was too tired to care since I had woken up at 4am, and the food in the conbini is actually really cheap and good.  I had dinner for $3.

I came home, ate my dinner, had some tea, and went to sleep.  Concluding my great day. I’m looking forward to go back to lab today, since I’m actually very interested in reading more about the project I’m working on.  Turns out that taking both biochemistry and genetics this past term were very wise choices since they have come in very handy when understanding the concepts of this project.  Genetics has been more handy, but biochem also helps.  Also, that bio lab I took sophomore year is the best.  Every technique we are doing these next few weeks I did back then when working with DNA and E. Coli back in sophomore year.

Thanks for reading!

More pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085364&id=712370&l=3769d32933

御丸

Oh, as a bonus, I was able to upload the video I took while at the convenience store my first day here in which the employees were randomly shouting “Irassyaimase Konban wa!” etc.  You can’t see much, but you can hear it, it’s great. J

It’s posted here:　Family Mart near Juso Station, Osaka, Japan

Yesterday, as I roamed the city, I discovered that people in general tend to be nice.  I also discovered the city!  I only walked around small streets in my first night out, but now I actually saw banks, etc.  Many many big things.  I went to the post office to take money out of the international ATM, etc.  Of course, I had my second gaijin moment while I was walking at this ‘J-mall’ or ‘Friendly Street’ which is like a mall, except that it’s not really indoors.  It’s more like, many shops in the street and then there’s roof between the buildings, so you get the feeling that it’s sort of indoors, but not really.  The streets look like they are only for walking, but they are not.  People walk, bike, and drive in the same streets, so you have to be careful.  I, being a careless gaijin, crossed a street without paying attention and realizing that there is actually a traffic light that you, as a pedestrian, need to obey.  I only realized by the honk of an angry woman who had the right to go.  I learned my lesson, pay more attention.

After that I walked the streets paranoid that I was in the way of someone (some bike, or car, or something) so I looked to the sides and behind me as often as once every 5 seconds.  After a bit I calmed down and just enjoyed the mall.

My breakfast that day were two rice balls, with the seaweed cover and a filling that I didn’t really ask what it was.  They were both delicious, and each cost me 100 yen (which is ~$1.05), while a bottle of tea cost me an extra 100 yen.  My breakfast was a total of 300 yen.  Not bad.  I think the woman from that shop is going to become a good friend of mine by the time I leave Osaka.

For late lunch, at around 3pm, I had some ‘grilled’ noodles with soy sauce and chicken.  These cost me 450 yen (~$4.75) and I thought they were pretty good.  I got them from one of the random food shops on the street nearest to were I live.

I went to a supermarket called ‘Don Quijote’ and it seemed like a merge of a supermarket, a video store, and a electronics store put together.  Oh, and an accessories shop, too.  There was food (I got a big bottle of tea of about 2L for less than $2), detergents, alcohol, batteries, alarm clocks, TV’s, purses, glasses, watches, etc. etc.  The electronics were quite cheap compared to the comparable ones you get in America.  A really nice flat TV of I think 26” was something like $550, I think.  An alarm clock which also displays the humidity, temperature, and date, was no more than $30.  What I found interesting about this store was that they had a mix of expensive things and really cheap things.  There were $20 purses next to $400 bulgari purses.  And that trend was repeated among other things, watches, wallets, etc.

In the afternoon I went back to the Internet Café and checked for Free Wi-Fi spots around Osaka.  I luckily found one close to the ‘Lucky Street’ area, so I ran down there and used the internet for a  bit.  That’s how I was able to post my first blog entry and set of pictures.   I was also able to get in touch with a few people over e-mail, reply to a few e-mails, and talk to Jess Kim online about how she was doing in Tokyo.  That one is living at a sakura house so she actually has internet access in her room!  Lucky.

Anyway, a few hours later I went to the bank to get some more cash, and I came to my room in the afternoon somewhere around 7pm.  I fell asleep on my bed soon after and woke up at midnight, so I just rolled over and went to bed again.  I woke up at 4am to bathe (yes, not shower, bathe), and go through my morning routine.  I got floss yesterday, so I was finally able to floss.   Now I have a beautiful, healthy gum once again.  Now it’s almost 6am, so I’m going to head out to the free wi-fi spot to check my e-mail and see if I got one from my lab supervisor with the information on how to find the lab I’m supposed to report to, today.  For some reason I feel I should have figured that out earlier…

I’m also calling my mom, cause last time I called her it was after midnight at home.  It should be 5pm now so she must be awake.

Thanks for reading!  I’ll try to not make this posts gigantic any longer.  Pictures again posted on facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085364&id=712370&l=3769d32933

御丸

I’m sorry this entry is a bit long, but it was an eventful day!  This entry was written this morning (June 2nd at around 6am) when I was in my apartment with no internet access.  Now that I found a Wi-Fi spot, I share it with you all.  I’ll write another entry soon, to update on many things, but let me just say that I’m liking Osaka so far! 

Photos posted here (no editing done yet, didn’t have picasa on this laptop):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085324&id=712370&l=472baa7a3f

Adjusting to the Time Change

In preparation for my cross-pacific flight and in order to adjust to the time change of 13 hours I did not sleep much the night before my flight to Japan.  I was not going to sleep at all, but I fell asleep for about 3 hours the night before.  I woke up panicking because suddenly everything was bright “OH MY GOD I LOST MY PLANE!”, but no, it was 6am.  I got to the airport on time and everything seemed just fine.

When I got on my second plane, from Washington DC to Narita Airport in Tokyo, I slept around 6 hours, and then I decided to spend the rest of the trip (around 9 hours) reading and somehow keeping myself awake since at that time it was around 7am in Japan.  I finally went to sleep at around midnight local time, after having slept 9 hours in two days.   For some reason I’m now awake, at 6:30am.  I was expecting to sleep about 9 hours, but I guess I’m still adjusting.

Airport Experience

Being on a plane for 15 hours wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.  The longest I had been on a plane before this flight was ~5-6 hours from Boston to California, compare that to 21 hours traveling from Boston -> DC -> Tokyo -> Osaka, and adding to that the time it took us after that to get some cash and to make our way to the apartment building, it was a tiring day.

Something interesting I noticed, in all of my flights I was seating by non-Japanese people.  It was interesting considering how many Japanese people there were in my flights.  On my flight from Boston to Washington DC I sat next to a lovely woman from South Africa who was flying back home a few days after, but in the meantime she was going to explore DC.  In my second flight, from DC to Tokyo, I was between a girl from Thailand  and an American guy who lives in Japan.  In my last flight I was next to a friend from MIT and next to him was another non-Japanese woman.

I must point out, the food on the plane was quite good!  The service was also great.  The seats were normal, which was sad considering we had to seat there for such a long time.  I wanted to seat in one of those comfortable seats in business class… they looked nice.  I traveled with All Nippon Airways (ANA).

Apartment

‘My god, they do not lie when they said apartments are tiny in Japan!’ was my first thought as I walked into my apartment.  I felt like a giant considering that the front door is exactly my height.

That being said, the apartment is actually quite nice.  In my room there is a twin bed, a couch, a table, a TV and VCR (there were also some movies left here), a TV stand, a shelf, and a closet.  The kitchen has a stove, fridge, microwave, and there are assorted bowls, plates and eating utensils.  I thought that was quite nice.  The bathroom is probably the tiniest bathroom I’ve ever seen if we exclude the ones inside airplanes, maybe.  It is interesting that it’s setup to encourage baths rather than showers, which is quite a Japanese thing to do I‘ve heard.  I think the last time I took a bath rather than a shower was last summer at home after I was exposed to direct sunlight for too long at the beach and it was possible to fry an egg on my back.  I might take a bath tonight ~

I also have a small porch, and there is a washer there so I don’t have to g to the Laundromat.

Convenience Store

Although I was quite tired when I got to Japan, I wasn’t ready to go to bed until I found a convenience store to get essentials (shampoo, soap, toothpaste) and more importantly an Internet Café so I could check my e-mail.  I walked down the street and found out that there are many places to eat around here.  They seem quite nice and also cheap!  The average small place seemed to have meals priced at around $5, and they seemed fine to me.  There are also two small convenience stores within ~5 minutes walking, and I found an internet café there too.  There’s also a train station, an arcade, and a Laundromat.  It’s quite a convenient location.

I walked into this convenience store which had a quite interesting dynamic.  There were maybe about 4 employees and about 6 customers in the store when I walked in.  The interesting thing is that at every second one or various of the employees would say something out-loud in a very energetic tone.  The most common thing they’d be saying was ‘Irasshyaimase, konban wa’ which is a common way to say welcome to customers, they seemed to be saying this at everyone and no one in particular simultaneously.  They seemed to say it even when no one was walking in, it was just a constant stream of ‘welcome’ and ‘would you like something?’  I recorded a short video in which you can’t see all that much since I wasn’t too bold about recording, but you can hear the crazy dynamic going on.

Here’s the video I recorded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHqdiypaScE

Internet Café

Soon after going to the convenience store, I had my first ‘Gaijin’ (foreigner) experience in Japan when I walked into an internet café and just roamed around.  Contrary to most places, a lot of people seemed to be smoking in there.  I was not expecting that!  Then, after walking around for a minute or so, an employee came my way.  It was a young, nice Japanese guy with brownish/orange hair, and told me that customers were not allowed to enter that area until they placed their order in the front desk!  I apologized quickly and walked out to the lobby a bit embarrassed and just looked around in confusion for a second and he told me “hai, sore deguchi desu” pointing out to the exit.  I wasn’t ready to leave so I finally said: “How expensive is the internet?”  And quickly realized that I was asking quite a broad question.   How much does the internet cost?  I wasn‘t really planning to invest towards buying the whole internet.  What I wanted to ask, instead, was how much it costs to use the internet there.  The employee could figure it out, though, so he pretty much just asked me for how long I was planning to use it, ‘about 1 hour’, and said that that cheapest would be 400 yen for an hour (~$4/hour).  Since I didn’t know of any other way I could get online, and it seemed that the place was quite popular, I said that it was fine.  I immediately took out a 1000 yen bill to pay, but the employee told me that I should pay at the end after using the service and he proceeded to show me where the computer was located.

Using the computer was an experience on its own.  I didn’t ask if I could use my own laptop, so I was using their computer with an interesting Japanese keyboard.  The keyboard was OK to use when typing roman letters since they keys were positioned in the same way, but when typing Japanese it was completely different.  Rather than what I usually do, which is type the romaji (roman letters) and let it convert to Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji, in this case the keyboard had one key for each hiragana character.  It took me the longest time to figure out where a few keys were, and I couldn’t even type beyond the first two lines of a message when I gave up and decided to write it later.  It reminded me of my first time typing, when writing my name would take me 10 minutes just cause I couldn’t find the keys even when they were right there in front of my face.

O… m… … a… r… space bar … e… back space… E… d… u …, etc.

Something interesting about the Internet Café is the wide-range of options you have.  The computers you can get can be in the not-so-private section, in which your computer is on a small cubicle and you have someone right next to you and behind you, etc.  You can also get a separate cubicle with a door which is completely private.  In those you can have a computer, or a computer and a TV, and maybe even a video game console, I think.  It was quite interesting!  You can also have more than one display or TV, etc.  I think there’s also a non-smoking section, I’ll ask about that next time.

Another thing is, there are food and drinks you can get while you are there.  They have a wide range of appetizers and drinks for you to buy inside the café, and I saw it was quite common for people to get something.  I didn’t try the food or drinks, though, cause I was already a bit reluctant to the idea of having to pay more than $4 to use the internet for an hour.

There was also a manga section in the café, and that was probably the 5th place with lots of manga that I had seen that day.

Finishing thoughts

One thing I must say is that the quality of customer service in Japan seems to be quite superior to that in the states.  Employees are always smiling and attentive, and they are very polite.  I also found that as soon as they noticed that my Japanese is just okay, they would always point out at something or show me something to indicate what they were asking.  At the internet café, for example, they asked me if I had one of those ‘frequent customer cards’ while they held one in front of me.  I said no while simultaneously the employee who had attended me at the beginning pointed out that it was my first time there.

It‘s all been a very different and good experience.  It seems like this will definitely be a very enriching experience and I’m excited about it.  I just need to figure out how to use the internet at work so I don‘t have to pay at the internet café.  I also heard that there are some wi-fi hot spots, so I might look into that.

Today I’m looking for the Post Office, which according to the information I got should be nearby as well.  At the post-office there should be international ATMs so I can withdraw some more money.

Oh, something else, Japanese seem to be very interested with the whole GM bankruptcy and what Obama decided.  It’s been on the news since yesterday night.