The first week in Kinokawa

So far things are great in Kinokawa.  After the professor picked me up from the airport, he brought me to campus to show me the lab and to meet people around campus.  It is a pretty small campus, only a few buildings, and we have our own building!  It is just big enough for a wet lab, dry lab, NMR room, instrument room, and a room with a view (the back patio that looks down over the cities of Kinokawa and Iwade).

After getting the tour of campus, we went to the house.  The professor has a traditional style farm house, and about 10 acres for crops.  My first day, he put me to work, not in the lab, but helping pick fruit.  He has tons of Biwa trees, so we gathered a bunch of those before dinner.

I didn't really do much in the wet lab last week, as I was to give a lecture on Friday.  While I had the majority of my data slides already prepared, they suggested showing pictures of where I am from, the campuses I have been to, etc.  It was only for a small group: 4 undergraduate students, a graduate student, a postdoc and 2 professors.  More proof that I am working here :)

On Saturday, I just really needed to go do something that wasn't on a schedule, related to work, or learning the language.  Owning farmland, the professor and a number of other residents around the area pay to have rights to these small water reservoirs throughout the hillside.  He said he has been paying on this one for years, but had never actually seen it.  So we set out on a little adventure to find the professor's water.  He knew approximately where is was, then once we got to the top of a small hill we found it.

The professor needed to work some more on a paper, so he told me to go and find a small shrine that is a few blocks away from the house.  This is the Nu-jinja shrine.

Sunday, I set off an another adventure of my own.  Professor told me there the Kokawa temple grounds were about a 30 minute walk from the house.  So I put on my sneakers and started walking armed with the GPS on my phone and the professor's phone number.  After around 25 minutes I found this old staircase that I wasn't sure where it headed.  So I thought I would chance it, and climbed up about 10 flights of stairs.  Once I got to the top I was relieved to see this sign...

Somehow I had found the back entrance to the temple.  So I made my way to the main entrance, a big red gate the professor had shown me a few days earlier.

The temple grounds were huge!  I probably spent about and hour and a half just walking around.  But before I started I had to get some ice cream to cool off, it was probably in the 90s.  Soft serve ice cream seems very popular here, my favorite is the green tea flavored.

Apparently these are very old grave markers.  Professor said they are so old that they are unnamed and it is not quite certain to whom they belong.

Some of the residents of the Kokawa temple...

This is the gate to the main temple.  There are many smaller ones and numerous shrines on the grounds as well.

I was just wondering around the grounds.  There were many people by the main temple, but not so many higher up.  I am not quite sure I was allowed to be walking around where I was, but some people saw me and no one said otherwise.  I was really curious about the painting with the rabbit below, but later learned it is the year of the rabbit.  The information center at the entrance had all sorts of little stuffed rabbits, so it makes sense now.

About half way back to the house, I saw this group of people playing what looked to be croquet.  The professor said it is similar and called it gate-ball.

Another small temple on the way back to the house.  The professor didn't know too much about it, just that it was old and recently rennovated.

So after 3 hours of walking, 3 bottles of water, and a very bad sunburn, I made it back to the house.  The professor said he was a little worried I was was gone so long, but I had called to let him know when I arrived at the temple.  He actually didn't even know about the staircase that I found leading to the temple.  There was also a small park at the top, which he knew of but had never been nor did he know you could access the temple from it.

Soon I will get some pictures of the lab.  I am really struggling to learn the Bruker NMR, it is very different from Varian so I am not sure yet that I like it.  Though many people have told me once you get to know it, it is much easier to use.  We'll see...

Homestay and end of orientation

Finally have some time and an internet connection to be able to post some more pictures!  So last Friday before we left for our weekend homestays, we did poster presentations of the work we have done and what we plan to do for the summer.  Below is proof I am doing at least some work over here :)

After the poster presentations our host families came to pick us up, and took us home for dinner.  My host family lives in Yokosuka.  Below is my host father (from here on referred to as too-chan) preparing sukiyaki for supper.  I had never seen it done at the table before, and once everything was cooked, we dipped it in egg then ate.  Very delicious.

After dinner, my host mom (from now on referred to as kaa-chan) presented me with this miniature kimono and a stand to keep it on so it hung properly.

Saturday we took the train to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu.  For 10 yen you can go inside it!  Afterwards we had lunch in the garden behind the stature.

After lunch we got back to the train station, but it was crowded.  We arrived early, so we missed some of the traffic then.  But the next train we got on, we were packed in like sardines.  At every stop, still more people got on.  It was really uncomfortable being sooo close to so many people.  It was impossible to move.  However, the journey was worth it.  We took a very nice walk (in the rain) to the Kamakura-hachimangu.  Kaa-chan says I was very lucky as I got to see two different weddings happen.

After a long day of exploring, some people came over to the house and we had a sashimi party.  The food here as been excellent.  The presentation of the food makes it hard to want to eat it because it is so pretty, but knowing how good it tastes eventually makes me give in.

Sunday, our last day together, they took me to see a lot.  Before we left the house, I got a nice picture with Kaa-chan and Too-chan.

We took a nice drive around the Miura Penninsula, and crossed on to Jogashima Island for a lunch break.  

After we returned to the mainland, we stopped at the monument for Perry's landing.  This spot is where Americans first landed in Japan on July 14th 1853.

Next we took a drive to the Kannonzaki lighthouse.  I wish there was more time to spend there.  It looked like there were all kinds of trails for hiking.  Here is some small shrine, that is about all I could understand :)

After a short hike to the lighthouse, we climbed to the top of the light house and Too-chan took our picture from below.

Kaa-chan got a call that Kotoka (her granddaughter) wanted to say goodbye.  So we stopped by to see her and I got to meet her other granddaughter as well.

We also stopped at Verny Park.  On the right side were U.S. ships and the left were Japanese ships.  Kind of hard to see, but I tried to get both in the same picture.

Our last stop was at the botanical garden in Yokosuka.  So many pretty flowers, and paths to walk around looking at them.

They took me back to Sokendai in time for dinner.  It would have been nice to have had more time with them.  Everything we got to see was great, but it also felt a little rushed.  We had one more day of Japanese lessons and lectures on Monday, then on Tuesday all the fellows parted to their respective host institutions.

I made it to Kinokawa.  I am staying with the professor in a beautiful old Japanese style farmhouse until my apartment is ready.  It is amazing out here in the countryside, and I will get some pictures of it up soon.

The start of orientation

We left Narita on Wednesday to come to Hayama where we are having orientation at the Graduate School Soken-dai.  But before I left I had to take a picture of the Christmas-themed hotel across the street from where we stayed.

About a hundred of us fellows got into three buses and had about a two hour journey from Narita to Hayama, where we have our orientation at the Sokendai graduate school.  After the welcome orientation, we were checked into our rooms, and it is an amazing view from our balcony.

After a fabulous lunch (a variety of fresh tunas over rice, which I should have taken a picture of), we had more orientation and took a group picture.  Hopefully, they will give us a copy of that.  In the evening, there was a welcome reception, where they provided us with quite a feast.  Note the enormous fish head, that we picked the meat off of.

I tried to stay up at late as I could, but was passed out by 9:30pm and as a result woke up at about 3:45am and couldn't get back to sleep.  Today we had an amazing breakfast, followed by our first Japanese lesson, then an amazing lunch (pictures of the meals are below).  They are feeding us sooo well here.

After lunch, there were special lectures.  The first from an astronomy professor here at Sokendai, and the next a cultural lecture on music from a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.  There was a performance as part of the second lecture with three instruments: the koto, the shakuhachi, and the shamisen.

After dinner we had a "cultural experience", and some of the host families were joining us for it.  I had been emailing with my host mother for a few weeks now, and she told me to look for her in her green hat.  So this morning I had written to tell her to look for me in my green skirt to complement her green hat :) We found each other right away, without needing the name signs.  My host mother came with my host father, their granddaughter, and a close friend. During the cultural experience I was able to learn some origami and calligraphy, as well as attend a tea ceremony and drink some of the matcha tea.

We parted ways for the night, but after lessons and lectures tomorrow they will come back to pick me up for the weekend home-stay, which I am very much looking forward to!