Nara and Kyoto in size XS

The first weekend here, i went to Nara.

Although NAIST is called the Nara Institute of Science and Technology - Nara itself is actually some 30 mins away. It really is, as most ppl that have been there will tell you, just friggin loaded with history. I took a walk with Akemi and Aki (she single-handedly keeps up the whole database for the lab - very funny lady, but she hates english - that's another story). So we took a short walk from the train station to the Great Buddha temple and the 5 story pagoda (you can see it in the background of that picture of me with the crappy red umbrella)and some other temple I forgot it's name already (got my fortune there) . The Great Buddha really is a friggin monster - there is a picture I will upload sometime soon of this huge pillar with a whole about a foot and a half tall and a foot wide that if you can fit through it to the other side then you will have a healthy year. This would soooo not work in the US - it makes sense though, if you're a friggin HUGE lard ass then you are not gonna fit in there and chances are you are already an unhealthy motha. Also, you have to take into account that most Japanese ppl have a slim and (for women) petite build - so again, children are more apt to go through the hole and those lil monsters are usu pretty healthy anyways.. resilient little monkeys.
Oh, and it was also friggin wet as all hell allllllll day oh and we went to a cute cafe that cost bout $10 for coffee and cake.

Kyoto... well this could actually be much more detailed b/c this might have been more of a omg omg experience than anything else so far - so maybe i'll put in details in other posts. (yes this long post IS abbreviated miss bina)

It's by sheer luck that natsuko (grad student that oversees me) was going to go to kyoto anyways for a conference - so I was able to go with her for my first and second times on the train to kyoto - b/c otherwise I think I might have gone to Tokyo by accident somehow (tokyo is waaay the fuck on the upper side of japan). Trains on japan - well it's bad manners to talk on your cellphone, esp loudly in public - and ppl don't look at anyone at all - so that's kind of odd (thank buddha for mp3 players). But even though it could've been horribly tense, the ride was a lot of fun b/c natsuko is the shit, seriously. We laughed our asses off so hard at our own difficulty at understanding each other that we missed the station change twice!! (on the subway and on the train). Seriously, without her my side of the lab office would be empty.. oh that's right it is anyways.. hah! (that's something else tho)
The kyoto station is the size of a friggin airport, all with a subterranean mall (i have no idea how big that mofo is.. there are friggin mirrors at the ends of some halls, there's no way to tell where it ends) - i ate dinner there and accidentally ordered a bowl of noodles big enough to feed the population of Andorra la Bella (look it up)

The first time around, it took me so long to figure out the trains and that the guide map was deceivingly disproportionate that I only got to see one place - Sanjusan gendo. Which literally translated is the 33 shrine... err.. which is confusing b/c there are 50 replicas of the buddhishivita (so bad at remembering that spelling) and one huge buddha man and 28 guards still intact from like the 700s a.d. (none of those numbers look like 33) But it's sooooo awe inspiring - really.. it was amazing. All of those are perfectly intact and are the exact same number there were all those years ago. The details were amazing and every single sculpture was a friggin embodiment of art and humanity all in one (well the 50 replicas.. were the exact same thing, but each one of the guards was kickin). oh.. the shit of it is that no pictures were allowed (i donno if frenchy took em or what.. but there's one of the guard/gods and the amazing amount of replicas)

The second time around i planned better. i went to the kyoto museum of art (not that great of a monetary investment on my behalf, it was very small and had only a handful of pieces on the permanent collection although still quite pretty). i went to the Nijon palace - gorgeous amazing.. totally cool, and incredibly huge. I found out later that the main bldg of nijon palace does not exist anymore but they had the original place where the shogun had quarters and received visitors and it was awesome.. they had mannequins in full guise to help imagine how it would've been back then. even though you could barely see the patterning on the walls, it used to have super ornate ceilings and beams with colors so bright that it's written that ppl said going into the building of this guy was like seeing the colors of heaven. all the walls had amazing patings on it.. tigers, lions, falcons, flowers, birds. Oh and I absolutely loved the sliding doors with these huge 2ft red tassles (sp?) behind which were the shogun's body guards (one in each room of where the shogun would stay for long periods of time). And the floor outside of the shogun's more personal quarters is actually 'engineered' to squeak so everyone can hear everyone - and if you got invited to where it didn't squeak it was like omg the shogun trusts me.. lol

and I went to kyomizu temple... i don't know much about it's history as of yet b/c it was a spur of the moment visit ... but the pictures will speak for themselves.. once they can speak on my website..


The second day at kyoto, natsuko took me to this awesomely gorgeous place (which i didn't take any pictures of the inside!! i know bad!!) but it's called "Ask a Giraffe" How the shit is that??? that is so friggin cool and funny.. tis supposed to be an American-Japanese place.. we had fried chicken there lol.. but not like your KFC stuff.. but with this odd sauce/spices on it.. and it was too salty (which is very american).. the food was alright.. but the ambience is just amazing.. i felt like kicking myself for not bringing my sketchbook - but that's ok.. each day i have less and less time to feel bored.

Pictures!!!! sort of...

Finally!!! Linet has uploaded pictures!!!

well... i sort of have, I uploaded ASM pictures... soon I will upload some Colombia pictures and in the end I will upload Japan pictures....

since it's taken me about 2 months to upload the ASM pictures... please don't hold high hopes for uploads in under a week...it's for your own good

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36303292@N00/

Up to Friday 16th

Sabrina has brought to my attention, the fact that I need to update!!!

After the japanese pub, it was three days having to do with my lab work...

For those of you who actually don't give a crap about the scientist stuff you can skip until you see the next series of "*"

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I'm supposed to be working on determining the synthetic lethals in the glycolysis pathway. Mainly looking at the pathways leading to the creation of each one of the enzymes in this pathway.

Ah, so maybe I forgot to say that what Dr. Mori's lab does. This is a link to the Pubmed article that has a 'Review' or summary of what the lab does : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14761306&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_DocSum

basically he's trying to do a large-scale E. coli K-12 tools and data generation/compilation. One of the projects is to create a library of knock outs of every single one of the 4,400 genes in E. coli (that one is finished). The other that is being completed is a library of clones with His-tags, GFP, and KanR on each, complete with incorporated restriction sites so you can customize the clone once you have it. They're also in the process of gaining microarray chip -on-chip technology to apply that to all the genes. As well as biochemical analysis on the remaining genes whose protein functions have not been confirmed or elucidated. All these preparations would leave the entire world with a wonderful sea full of tools for all sorts of molecular genetics and biochemical experiments in E. coli and other organisms (duh e.coli is used as a tool for everything)

Along with all of that, Dr. Mori's lab is working with other E.coli labs (like Dr. Hu's at A&M) and other bioinformatics labs (like Dr. Tsai's at A&M) to compile all bioinformatic and experimental data ever created regarding E. coli (it's going to be called EcoliHub I think). They'll even have links to everything. So say you're looking for the gene in E.coli that encodes for an OMP, links to the sequence, papers, protein structure, protein-protein interactions, flux measurements, etc... will all pop up. Not only that, but registered ppl will be able to comment on data and papers that is available on the server, that way allowing for a more global way of editing content and a better way to assure that everything is being done well. Ah, also, part of EcoliHub's idea is to have a single user-friendly format for each type of data - so, so soooo useful.

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Other than the technical stuff, well i have to find two genes I can use as my positive control for the experiment. So, instead of just using the ones that my overseeing gradstudent suggested, Dr. Mori said I should look through all the literature available on synthetic lethals to find all possible combinations to use..... which, if you search "synthetic lethal K-12 coli" you get 4 papers only one of which seems useful.. so if you cut back to "synthetic lethal coli" you get 165 papers... bah!!! I'm on #90...

also, I had to brush up on localized transduction via P1 phage and conjugation via Hfr strains. Which is necessary, but a little confusing... The theoretical part is easy enough to follow.. but trying to read the actual lab directions it's hard to focus on what should go where... anyways..

ah, and i have to read another 6 or so papers pertaining to lab work.. so I've already read the one that I linked above and one other one... heh.. kind of have been putting it off... iknow bad bad

i've no excuse except that sometimes i just get so damned sleepy trying to deal with this jetlag thing.. and other times i've gotten real kind of scared/unsure about whether or not i can do this whole scientist thing... (but then today i totally picked up a molecular genetic book and read 30 pages and thought it was a great read.. heh)

During this whole figuring out what's going on time, I met Natsuko - which as I might have said before, is the grad student that will be guiding me through this stuff. She's very nice. In Japan, everyone is very polite and most always careful of not disturbing anyone else's privacy/work/harmony etc... Natsuko is definitely one of those ppl where even her manner of being reflects taht she's very polite and respectful... it doesn't mean she's dull or fussy or annoying, in fact she's rather funny, works very hard, has a great style of dress and seems well grounded. She accompanied me to Kyoto the two times that I've been there and each time we've had great conversations that include a lot of laughter over my japanese and her english. I asked her once what religion she belonged to when we were on that subject, and she said she didn't know, that she didn't practice it often (I was explaining the word religious) but she shrugged and said she guessed she'll find out when she dies.

Some of what I will have to do, will require making Knock outs.. which.. means that i'll be
'knocking out' genes from a bacteria's genome (in simplified terms) . This I will have to learn from Tomoko-san. She is also very cool, I dont' get to talk to her much though.... mainly because she doesn't speak english. But she's very relaxed, wears tomboyish clothes, is very funny (even if i don't understand the jokes) and always seems to be happy - also a hard worker - and she has a little girl (hopefully i'll get the picture posted - i just accidentally took it on uber high resolution and might not load b/c it's humongous). She says that she thinks she was American in a former life because she loves to hear ppl speak English. I'm invited to spend a night or so at her house one of these days, it's apparently pretty large and is in farming area. :) I hope my japanese gets better by then.

During my first few days I also got to know Akemi-san well, which I think i mentioned, she's Dr. Mori's secretary. She recently told me she'd only been with the lab for about two years. And that she was hired mostly due to her English skills. She lived in the US from when she was 13-23 years old and still retains a lot of her English. She's incredibly nice, also very polite, but lots of fun. She's like a Japanese version of my mother, except for that she doesn't like all seafood just some. :) She's been extremely helpful with everything and always asks me to call her after I get back from going touristing alone.

In general everyone treats me wonderfully well. i feel like the younger sister/ daughter and I only hope i'm not butchering the politeness part - sometimes i forget you're supposed to keep bowing to the person until they're out of sight if it's someone you deeply respect (which is usu the older ppl.. which is everyone in the lab haha)

Even though at first i forced myself to be on my tiptoes for all the social parts, like eating and walking and talking and greeting/goodbying type things.. I've realized i've integrated it a lot more into my lifestyle than i thought.

I've also started integrating halted English... lol.. I tend to pick up accents wherever I go.. and since most ppl here speak accented or halted english, I think i might go back with similar speech... it's kind of cute (when other ppl do it)

Some of the phrases most often used around here is "Sou desu ka?" and "Sou desu" pronounced ::so-dess-kah:: which means "is that so?" and "yes"/"that's true"
also "Wakarimashita" and "wakarimasu" and "wakarimasen" and "wakatta"
::wah-kah-ree-mash-ta:: ::wah-kah-ree-mass:: ::....mass-en:: ::wah-kah-ta::
all conjugations of the same verb i think...
the first is in past tense and means "oh I see"
the second in present tense "i get it now/i understand"
the next in negative " i didn't catch that/ don't understand"
and the last one.. i haven't asked anyone to explain it to me but i think it's a less formal version of "i understand"

sigh.. ok i'll stop here, next is Nara, my first attempt at laundry and my kyoto days

japanese pub

sometimes i hate it when i come to realizations that involve my mother being right.. or my very clearly understanding my mother... as much as i love her, i think there is still quite a bit of the immature teen in me that would like to rebel (against the evil forces of my benign mom???)

well, i realized that I cannot depend on time I do not have. it wasn't a desperately negative realization like "omg i can die any minute" or "shit guys! there is no way i can get zees zings done... fire ze missiles!!" so i'm gonna write a short blurb about the pub and be done with it - i don't think i can rely on having time later on to write extensively on it.

So, by the time Dr. Mori said that we should all go to a Japanese pub I was exhausted (it was about 4am tx time) but ofcourse I said yes - he added that it was very traditional - and i had just begun to make friends with everyone.

the place doesn't really pop out at you from the outside except for a red lantern. it's pronounced something like "fishi baum" which can mean either fish sauce or fish root... *shrug* The place was full, not crowded, just comfortably, cozily full and just kinda grooving along this great vibe of activity - i know very 60s of me but that's how it felt.

the table was long, dark, worn wood, and so were the 'benches' [side note: I can understand why japanese aren't known for their butts - the so called 'cushions' don't offer much help after more than 30 mins of sitting time]
the walls were covered from wall to wall with a collage of these odd fish-prints... that are actually fish "prints". The fish that you catch, you stamp on a paper with some ink ergo a very awesomely artistic record that 'you da man' - really this is much better than taking a picture b/c there's no discussion as to how 'big' the fish was. The lamps were very cool, they looked like a piece paper pinned together in a non-symmetrical conical form - very understated.

the atmosphere was loud, happy and chill at the same time. The food was awesome, it was the first taste of slightly higher class sushi that i'd ever had. I must've eaten 4-6 different types of fish, 2 types of shrimp, oysters, eggplant, seaweed salad, onigiri (rice ball in seaweed wrap), squid, some sort of shellfish, and one type of pan-fried fish (all else raw baby yeah!). I should add that I haven't been sick yet. I had a nice tall mug of good beer, stronger taste than in US (boo on keystone light) ; distilled, chilled sake (much better than at kyoto's in c.s.) packs quite a taste but goes down smooth as silk, milk, a bedspread or a kilt...sry; and plum sake - which is one of my favorite alcohols now!!! ooooh sooooooooooo yummy.. i had it on the 'rokus', way wayyy too easy to drink. We talked about how Colombians and Americans eat their fish vs. Japanese... and that yes i had indeed eaten raw fish before, but that htere is no comparison to the quality or variety of sushi offered in Japanese restaurants (or even a pub).

I learned through observation that when in a setting where there is more than one person drinking, you never pour yuour own drink - be it beer from your own bottle, sake, juice from your own juice bottle (one of the guys has a mutation in that enzyme whose name I forget that impedes breaking down alcoholic drinks - he gets headaches, sick etc.. with little alcohol)... it is not a "golden" rule per se that can never be broken... but it is good table manners to offer to pour the other person's drink... i've never noticed anyone 'asking' theirs to be poured... and i've seen some pour their own.. still, i find it a cute 'rule'

i also found out that Oguchi san (one of the new grad students) has a "strong" alcohol tolerance, as does Mori sensei - good ole Dr. Mori can handle his drinks quite well and everyone seemed to be a happy drunk :D I'm sure the outting must've cost a great deal of money, but whatever it was, Dr. Mori spent his money wisely b/c everyone was so much closer, and everyone left so much happier and oh it was general wonderful feeling. I began to feel less and less 'foreign' - if that's at all possible.

i totally crashed on my bed that night- mos def. and the next day i was supposed to 'start' at the lab.

--ooh suspense--??

tidbit about kintetso

Kintetso (well i can't remember if it's kintetso or kinetso.. something like that)
is a company that owns a railroad line, a department store that is located by the main railroad station (and maybe more), their own baseball team, and an entire amusement park!!!

i know for all my business-geared friends that may not be big news.. but i've never seen a company name literally stamped in so many obvious places with such varying functions/interests. molto interesante

well i must remember to write about the pub and Nara and my usefulness around here... but a tidbit before i go, tomorrow i travel kyoto alone!!! gasp!! (well someone will go with me on the train and come back with me, but otherwise.. solita!)

heart attack

oh dear kamis.. i watched the first 30 mins of the japan game yesterday and if it weren't for the computer I'd be disturbing the peace all up in here!!! this shit was bad! i mean not that the team was bad, the defense could use some help. But it was constantly 'near goal here' 'near goal there' from both sides, thank friggin goodness our goalie is the shit...

unfortunately i was not able to stay up for the brasil game.. i know i know, what kind of a south american do i pretend to be neh? But, I tried, it's just that to watch tv i have to sit on my bed.. and everyone knows what bed+linet=..... naptime! yeah

at least brasil did good 2:0, predictable that they would win, but i'm glad they got in more goals than last time.. and my nippon.. only 0:0... too bad.. i mean great that they didn't lose, but I think they deserved a goal. ;)

Shopping, BBQ - japanese style

First day, I think I woke up around 5am... and hated it... grrrr!!!!!!! It was way too damned hot, thanks to that no good light that I had no idea how to turn off. And then I remembered i was in Japan.. and before I had turned in at my new place I'd run by the store (to buy my bkfst for the next day) with Dr. Mori:: do you drink alcohol?..:: ... are you sure you don't need to buy beer?:: ergo the six-pack of beer taking up 1/5 of my fridge hehehe... I was informed later on by Akemi (coolest secretary ever, only comparable with Daisy of course) that "Dr. Mori likes his alcohol" - and by Japanese standards he keeps it down like a mofo (i take pride in my PIs :D )

I did have a horrible burp come out of me, to add to my slowly ebbing discomfort.. just to remind me of that weird fermented crab thing I had the night before. Even though I was so exhausted I could've prolly just rolled out of Dr. Mori's running car onto deliciously soft pavement to fall asleep - i accepted his invitation to go to a sushi bar nearby ::can you eat raw fish?:: he asks hehehe.... and boy did I put it away.. I ate everything and anything, sometimes I asked what it was.. but after a while. i just figured, it's some form of marine life, egg, or soy beans.. and if it tastes strong it's fermented.. oh well. like i said, the only thing I really didn't dig.. was that fermented crab innards deal. meh whatever... thanking the kamis that be for allowing me to pick safe breakfast foods for the day.

Dr. Mori said I could come in whenever I wanted.. so I took my damn sweet time.. tried my best to hide things where I could (in a small place, if anything looks slightly in disorder, the whole place is a mess). I set up zis vonderful blog.. and tried to see how the TV worked.. after prolly 30 mins of flipping through 3 channels I took a look at the "Guidance of Guesthouse Sentan".. tah dah.. TV info (thank goodness it had the japanese symbols with it or I'd have noooo friggin clue what buttons to push) and after a few minutes.. i upgraded to 8 channels, well 7 if you don't count the really fuzzy one, or well 6 if you don't count the weird sort of NAIST channel that gives you video of some odd classroom w/o audio. Of course, all of them in japanese. But to my luck and amazement there was a really kooky one with morning exercises, followed by a situation-by-situation learn english (situation was you had to tell someone "Don't worry" "I'll pick you up" and "I'll be there soon") w/ a very very very cute guy doing the talking.

After an hour or so of hopelessly flipping through those 6 channels.. I hit with one that covers the FIFA CUP!!!!!!!! sooo exciting.. of course.. it's in japanese... so since my flag identification skills are a little rusty since I haven't been around my brother for a while... I've been deciphering the katakana symbols (which all look the same) and then checking my accuracy with the fifa.com site hehee.. too bad the tv resolution isn't very good (uruguay was extremely hard to figure out)

I went to the lab accompanied by Akemi, who I finally had the chance to meet. She's a little shorter than me, with short hair, cool-looking glasses, slim (everyone is slim, except for beer guts here and there), and she's sooo damned cool and funny :) She's helped me with everything, really, very awesome, patient, and down to business lady.

But no matter how interesting Akemi was, there was just nothing to do in the lab on the first day. Natsuko (the grad student I am now working with ) was busy at the moment and had not been briefed by Dr. mori on what I was going to do. Dr. Mori was swimming in work, and of course Akemi had stuff to do.. so she said she'd take me shopping after lunch.

Lunch is an interesting affair.. but nothing more impressive than what happened later on, so if you're outrageously curious I might skype about it... or i may write about it later on if i ever have an unexciting day here. Ah, the highlight is that a non-english speaking japanese lady that ate lunch with us.. said that my chopstick skills were very good :D (the cramp in my hand is worth it!! yessss!)

LIFE (name of store)
Akemi took me shopping for necessities (soap, food, etc..) and thank goodness she went with me.. because bottles of clear looking liquid is not always water.. and flasks of white looking granules is not always salt - just to mention a few. The place is AWESOME though, I love seeing a variety of foods and drinks.. and Akemi's answers to my "what's this?" never disappointed me. I even bought this thing called Calpis... which sounds like piss.. but tastes like what a tropical fruits / tutti frutti drink might taste. Unfortunately for my cereal-loving friends.. ie. ula, there were maybe 8 different kinds of cereal.. only one of which looked chocolatey-enough to possibly taste like it. hehe (when i go back there and i have time, I'll take a picture of this sad state of carbohydrate affairs) Oh and I guess they dont really eat bread here, because the sliced bread I bought had only 6 half-inch slices in it (and that was the largest pack). And i kept on noticing that random things had english names on them... sometimes they weren't quite representative of what they were plastered on... but all very amusing nonetheless. like a Vanity-look-alike magazine that was called "Very"... oh and of course 80% of translated things have great quirky errors in it...
:) soo cute

Apparently, the japanese educational system has a lot of the written/reading part engrained in the system.. but actual use and speech of english is not very enforced at all (this explains a lot)

By the time it was 3pm i was soooo exhausted I had to go back to the dorm and take a nap... I checked the Texas time - 1am... no wonder.. it was sleepy time for me. But i was told to go to the lab around 5:30pm - a BBQ to welcome me to japan, welcome 3 new students to the lab, say bye bye to 2 post-docs and one pregnant lady was to be held.

There were these four adorkable little kids running around 5-6 I think... they were sooo cute.. especially this one girl with cowboy boots and a shirt saying rebel hehehe. The BBQ consisted of each person holing a bowl with some odd soy-based sauce (did not taste like bbq sauce)
and using their chopsticks to flip around pieces of meat, chicken, squid, and vegetables on a grill. Although I do not recommend this to anyone that is scared of contracting something from raw food... then again I would not recommend going to Japan to that same person either... It was delicious. And as a finale they cooked chinese noodles with pieces of pork and some veggies on a long pan that covered the bbq grill.. very yummy. Halfway through the BBQ Dr. Mori asked each of us newbies and the ppl that were leaving to introduce themselves and say a little something in japanese and english. Only 2 ppl were able to do the english part easily (me being one of them) but the rest did an admirable job, and only one of the new grad students was too shy to try anything past mumbling a 'mm name is'; I of course, stated my name in japanese and shrugged and laughed that I had no idea how to say anything else.. everyone just kind of nodded in agreement (i think this is default for 'i have no idea what you just said' because the other 4 or 6 ppl that could keep up with my english speed didn't nod) Oh and Dr. Mori said he was trying to get everyone together to go to a very traditional japanese pub... i was of course, excited...

this is getting long so I'm going to write the pub part in another post..

of course, before the bbq was over, one of the other ppl in the group (everyone was amicable, and even if we couldn't communicate it was a great friendly atmosphere) asked :: is it ok for you to eat raw fish?:: (obviously concerned about me going to the pub)

my room

and on the left are my famous remote controls... all for just one little room, if you can (and i haven't told you yet), try to see if you can guess which one is for what

if you can't see what it says.. it says "our number one priority is health and beauty of our customers."... after seeing this... I immediately got to plucking my eyebrows.. heheh


(bare with me.. i'm slowly trying to figure out this whole pictures thing)
on the right is my room.. well one side of it, let's see if I can get the other three views fixed in



YAY!! i did it... gosh that was hard work... ok....

too many pictures

So, I'm waiting forever to upload my ASM, Colombia, and first few days in Japan pix.. and my library says it already has 1.3 GB.... I think I'm going to start looking into investing into an external hard drive.. cuz hrmmmmmmmmmmm yeah

oh man.. last afternoon.. i got to my room around 5pm.. started watching the France vs. Switzerland (i think they said Suissa - it was in japanese) game which started out very well... fell asleep... and was waking up at odd intervals until 6am (right now).... yeah i love to sleep, and I can on command, but this crazy jet lag just has me dead tired!!!

and I didn't even get to finish all the stuff Dr. Mori (Mori sensei) asked me to research before we got started on the project... grrr.. it's quite a lot too... I'm supposed to look through all the literature for all the possible synthetic lethal combinations that have been proven.. HAH.. we'll see how long that takes..

skipping

So I'm gonna skip info on ASM, Colombia, and the flight for a minute to tell you guys about my first night in Nippon.

So I arrive at the airport and first taste of japanese life is that the customs guy doesn't understand my english and wants me to tell him about NAIST - he seriously took five mins on me alone!! well no big deal, I guess now he knows "what is IST stand for?" :D always with a smile. and it was hot!!! (I arrived at Osaka, which I think is the 2nd or 3rd largest city here, Tokyo of course being the first).

My PI (principal investigator) Dr. Hirotada Mori, met me at the airport - so I figure he must have gotten there by car right? Not quite...

He explains that we have to travel for about 2 hrs to get to NAIST.. what else can I say but "ok". First, we walk for a bit and reach a train station... we come to a ticketing area and there are these cute machines that look like las Vegas slot machines w/o a handle with a whole bunch of NOTHING on them... I see a map at the top of the machines, very large, with a whole bunch of symbols I can't identify - thank goodness for Dr. Mori. We buy the tickets and go through the little ticket readers to get on the train (which I couldn't tell which one we were supposed to catch either). And Sammy was right, there are vending machines everywhere! on the train, by the train, on the street, everywhere!

The first train was nice, it had nice seats like an airplane (even if airplane seats are not in any way very comfortable). While on it we went through a large part of Osaka. The biggest building I saw? An apartment complex that was two large buildings put together. I think there must have been anywhere from 40-60 floors with about 60-100 apartments/floor/building.. soo many people!!! and there were many bike parking lots and narrow two-way streets everywhere - I haven't seen anything wider than that yet. I suppose Dr. Mori was wondering if I was overwhelmed by the amount of ppl, he kept on asking if it was too crowded - but really, I just looked at it as if all that seemed crowded was just one big downtown of New York city.

We got off of that first train and went into an underground train station, which Dr. Mori informed me that there was such a large network of train stations + ammenities in Japan that Japan had the largest underground 'city' of just train stations. He said it was very easy to get lost around there (right when we reached this huge compass that was tiled into the floor). And yes, it was crowded. From there we got onto another train (slowly getting a clue of where we were going) this one was a regular one I suppose, with handles and seats so you can stand. Everyone wore something entirely different (I was looking at the female fashion ideas to see if I would look outrageously out of place): one girl wore what I would think are severely non-matching shoes with pantyhose and pants underneath a huge baggy dress; most of them were dressed very femininely with high-heeled shoes, soft colors and pricey-looking purses; this one girl had an actual Barbie shirt on, and during the ride she took out a Barbie handkerchief to cover what I can only surmise was a yawn (i couldn't tell, she had no facial expression change); most of the guys wore similar things but had wildly differently stiled hair.

School is still in session here, so I saw a lot of ppl with that typical uniform that they show on anime shows (yes I am guilty), but the skirts are nowhere near that short.

We finally got onto one last train (again, if it weren't for Dr. Mori, who knows what part of Japan I would have lost myself in (thank goodness for it being an island!). From there we walked a bit to an apartment parking lot where we took Dr. Mori's car to NAIST. No, I saw no big ridiculous assed trucks as in Texas - ewww. But all the cars seem to have those great foldable side mirrors - so cute! Oh, and rules are that everyone drives on the left side, crazy... I had "no we're going the wrong way, watch out!!" on the tip of my tongue the whole drive there. NAIST is nestled in a very green area, that is somewhat isolated, but very nice and surrounded by a really nice neighborhood. I noted on the elegant looking, small houses, and Dr. Mori informed me that they cost at least a million dollars each - heh.. maybe I should buy 3 while I'm there hehe.

When we got to the campus, Dr. Mori showed me to the Guesthouse Sentan, where I was to stay. It has a fitness center facility, about the size of a raquet ball court at A&M; a place to do laundry (for free), a place to rent necessities (pajama, cooking pans, rice cooker, killing knife, vaccuum, a pole for drying wet clothing, etc..

The room itself is quite nice, about the size of 1/2 the handicapped dorm rooms at Lechner. It has very nice-looking dark wood furniture: an entertainment center/mini closet with TV and DVD/VCR; a desk with lamp, phone and LAN connection; a small table and cute little green chair, an odd little rectangular seat which opens up to reveal space for a laundry basket; an even narrower closet to put your shoes in at the entrance; a relatively spacious bathtub with a deep tub; a small kitchen area with fridge/freezer, microwave, and ceramic heating plate; a small but comfy bed and a small balcony area; a lot of buttons and remote controls with labels in Japanese (!!!) Overall the room is very nice, if the remote controls and buttons weren't so damn confusing!!

There is a remote for the TV, DVD/VCR, air conditioner + who knows what, the main light in the room, and digitalized buttons system for the kitchen sink, bathroom sink, shower, and tub water options (including how far to fill it). Another cool thing, is that the electricity of the room is turned on when you put the room key card into a slot in the foyer part of the room ( so cool). The only thing is that, on the first day, I had no idea there was a remote control for the main light, and could only turn it off (there were no switches to be seen ) if I removed all the electricity!

Dr. Mori had to explain to me how the water buttons worked - all of which I forgot, because everything is in symbols (it's ok.. i push a lot of buttons and tah dah ! hot water, which is what matters neh?)

I took a quick shower, and then Dr. Mori invited me to dinner at a local sushi place nearby. Supposedly, it was the most casual way to eat sushi. There is this rectangular sort of bar in the center with chairs and some booths located along the outside and between the chef and the customers these conveyor belts carry along plates of sushi and sashimi and random other things. It's kind of fun, cause you just pick whatever you fancy and it's easy, no need to wait for the waiter hehehe. Oh and at each spot that you can sit, there is this faucet where hot water comes out so you can make your own green tea - very cool and cute!!! The system for the waiter to know how much to charge you is that each plate has a specific color which stands for a particular price, and you stack the plates that you use on the side so the waiter can tally up colors - very smart. I was sooo exhausted and still kind of unbalanced (bumpy plane ride) that I just literally hit the bed and conked out until 4:30 am the next day...

well I'll leave you here, it's 9:18am already and I need to get ready for my first real lab day... yes I know, kind of late - but Dr. Mori said I could come in whenever I wanted so feh, why not take a little time for me? (oh business day here starts at 9am and ends at 5pm)

starting somewhere near the beginning

The start of my 2006 summer merits at least some intro for those of you knew to this story:
Orlando American Society for Microbiology (ASM) 106th annual meeting:: My supervisor, Dr. Summer, practically stated that I needed to go to this meeting. This would require me presenting my own research at a conference with thousands upon thousands of experts and equals and geniuses and well... a little scary to say the least. But I did it, yknow... why not? I'm just a little undergrad, if I make a mistake it's easily forgivable - I'm learning right?
Colombia family, food, hiking, soccer, beaches, food, food, food:: I'd already had both Orlando and Nara figured out, when my dad decided that instead of sending us for a vacation to the usual beaches of Aruba - he'd send us to Colombia as my mom's anniversary gift (25th). So, had to squeeze it in somehow!!!
Nara, Japan Internship at NAIST under Dr. Hirotada Mori:: Some of you might now that I have certain goals pertaining to my life. One of those is going to Japan, another is becoming a successful scientist, so I can discover things in genetics that no one's ever discovered before! Ok so seriously, i thought "what better time to go to Japan than when I'm an undergrad?!" I mean, if I actually get to gradschool I'm sure I'm going to need ultraconcentration and probably won't be planning (much less paying) for extravagant trips. And I had no internship as of yet - so why not an internship in Japan? Easier than it sounds.
By pure stroke of luck, and my characteristic penchant for talking too much, I ended up talking to Dr. Hu (took molgene with him) at the AgCafe lunch line about that I was looking for that internship in Japan. Longer story short, he talked to Dr. Mori in Japan, who accepted me and will be receiving me at the Osaka airport on Monday.

Other than that, it's starting to hit me that I'm supposed to be older than I how I act, and that a lot of my friends either graduated or got married... and that I feel more underprepared for the first than for the second. Well, here goes my (hopefully) regular updates on this summer.