The Sun Rises in the East

Sooo more than a week has past and so I thought that I am long overdue for an update.

Two Friday ago, I took a plane ride at about 5am to get to Rice University in Texas. The plane ride was alright with a stop over in Charlotte, NC. When I first got to Texas, the air was hot at humid. Sooo uncomfortable. Nevertheless, met up with Morgan Lai, another participant in the program from MIT and we took a cab to the Abercrombie Lab at Rice. Seeing everyone for the first time was strange but nice. Our day was filled with orientation activities like ice breakers to get to each other better. I finally met Prof. Kono the chief PI for the program and I spoke with him in Japanese. The best part of the day was going to the after party at his house. The weather was terrible when were getting there because it was pouring cats and dogs. Luckily, the Hilton, the hotel that we were staying at had a driver to get us from and to his house. His wife cooked traditional Japanese food with some American dishes too: takoyaki, sushi rice, tamago, sausages... delicious... Though, a funny moment during the night was when Prof. Kono left his barbeque on and somehow the sausages caught fire and his backyard was filled with smoke. The Hilton hotel that we returned was AMAZING. The beds were so soft, and the room was so big that we even had a living room.

Last Saturday - Plane Ride... nuff said.

Last Sunday - Arrival in Japan. Azabu-juban, the part of Tokyo where I am currently staying, is a nice neighborhood home to many foreign embassies and foreigners. That night we toured the local area. It is quite a ritzy place with up class bakeries, supermarkets, restaurants. We ended up eating at a Ramen shop. I ordered Go Moku Ramen which means five eye ramen, but I just think that it corresponds to the five different ingredients that you put into it. The hotel that I am staying at it quite nice as well. There are 3 small restaurants in it and I have a small but cozy room.

Last Monday - Today we met our Japanese teachers. Our Japanese study program is taught by the teachers of AJALT, the same makers who made the "Japanese for Busy People." Since I had taken Japanese before, I had to take a written exam as well as a speaking exam. It really wasn't that difficult. Just a simple introduction and an explanation about where I live. After, we went to the observation deck of Tokyo Tower. My school is actually right next door to it, which is amazing. We get to see the Tokyo Tower everyday on our way to class. Apparently there is a small shrine in the Tower itself because it was originally built on shrine grounds. Afterwards, we had lunch in the Tower. I got to use my Japanese for the first time to help, Elyse, our resident vegetarian, to make sure if her "Remi Lunch" had meat in it or not. Finally my $50,000 education paid off. Afterwords, I went to Akihabara. It was nothing special since I had been there before. Though I did see some perverted cushions that had pictures of anime girls with their breasts raised on the cushions themselves.

Last Tuesday - More morning classes. First Nanotechnology Lecture by Prof. Kono. That was pretty cool to get an American engineering lecture in a foreign country. I also toured about this neighborhood a bit more... Nothing too special.

Last Wednesday - Woke up at 3am to go to the Tsukiji Fish Auction. I went with Elyse, Norman, Cody, Kirby, Kevin, and Silvia to the fish market. We planned on jogging the whole way until we realized just how out of shape we were. We thought that we might not make it because only 140 people are allowed to see the auction each day. There is an earlier group of 70 that goes in at 5:00am and a later group that goes in at 5:45am, but tickets began to be given out as early as 4:30pm. It was totally worth it. The Tuna were humongous and were completely frozen. The auctioneer was also soo energetic. He says words so strangely and quickly that I didn't know what he was saying. One whole row of 8 Tunas were sold in less than a minute. It seems that also that buyers has special hand gestures that they use to indicate their prices. After, we ate some of the freshest sushi at a sushi restaurant that morning. The Tuna and Salmon were melt in your mouth good. Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel for breakfast and later headed to class. After class because we had a free afternoon, Elyse, Matthew, and I went to Odaiba. We took the monorail and got a new view of the Tokyo bay area. Our purpose was to visit the Nihon No Kagaku No Mirai Kan or in English The Museum of Emerging Science and Technology. The museum was somewhat interesting but it seemed to be geared towards children since there were many simple scientific concepts such what makes us up as people (DNA) and earth science, etc. Some of the cooler exhibits included that on nanocomputing, the model of the ISS space station, and a machine that represented the internet that could send messages to four different ports across the room as a 8 bit binary word but with black and white balls. There was also this cool special exhibit on Japanese horror that I really wanted to go see but I was too cheap because it would've cost 700 yen extra. Afterwards, we went to see the planetarium show entitled "Tender is the Night" It was pretty cool to see the night skies from different countries around the world such as Germany, Brazil, the US, Japan, etc but it was also pretty funny since the english narration was soo artistic. I mean cmon look at the name, it was called Tender is the Night. The Japanese name was Yoru Wa Yasashii. That literally translates to the Night is Nice.

After the museum, we headed for Joyopolis/ Sea Shore Mall. Since on the way we saw the Fuji Television Building, we dropped by and got some creme filled hot cakes.... Delicious. At the Sea Shore Mall, we found a store called the Condomanium, and guess what it sold? Condoms... The store window had a drawing of 3 characachures of condoms called the pyrophylactics as if they were the beatles of condoms. Very very funny. Then we went to see the little Hong Kong. Its amazing how realistic they tried to be with the exterior.

Ok I am really sleeply right now so that I will end it like this. NIGHT!