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...