More cherries (& some monkeys)

Around here, the Sakura season lasts about 2 weeks, at least when taking advantage of the different blooming times at different locations. Needless to say that the events from two blog entries ago weren't the only cherry-related events I would be attending: A week later, we went to Arashiyama (嵐山, the "stormy mountain") in Kyoto, which refers to a very beautiful area a little outside of Kyoto. There is a river including a prominent bridge, and alongside the river are some trails and parks that are perfect to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

A trip to Arashiyama would not be complete without visiting the "Monkey Mountain", a mountain containing a big monkey compound. The top of the mountain is about the same height as Kyoto Tower if I remember correctly. After climbing there, one enters something like a reverse monkey cage: Here, the people go in the cage, and the monkeys gather around! This is quite funny, one keeps wondering who is watching who at this place.. Though I guess the monkeys mostly came there to be fed from inside the cage.

interACT Signing Ceremony

An event that's already a few weeks past: on Apr 9 the interACT agreement, as part of which I'm here in Japan right now, was officially signed with NAIST. It was quite a big event in fact, we had some important visitors from Germany (the KIT president and two professors). After the signing ceremony itself, there was a lab tour for the German visitors, and also a meeting of Michael and myself (the first representatives of this new cooperation) with the president. I hope it has also left an impression on some Japanese students, so that we might meet some of them in Germany sometime!

Sakura sakura

Looks like I'm running behind a bit writing posts, there's just too much going on these days. Well, 2 weeks ago we went for the お花見 ("o-hanami", flower viewing, of course referring to the famous cherry blossoms).
Around that time, the cherry blossoms had finally decided to show. A bit late, but fortunate for me, since it allowed me to witness the complete cherry blossom season this time. The scenery we chose couldn't have been nicer: The big park around Osaka castle, which is a great place to go any time of the year, with lots of green, spots to walk or rest, and of course the impressive castle itself. Adding all the cherry trees in full bloom to a place like this made it easy to understand why cherries are such a big deal in Japan. That being said, it's not surprising that we were not the only people among the 2.6 million Osaka-jins that decided to use a sunny Sunday afternoon to visit the park..

The second お花見-related event I want to write about is our lab picnic last week. Staff and students drove to the nearby Keihanna Park, and brought one of those big blue plastic sheets to sit on. Each brought their own obentou-lunchboxes which we then enjoyed while talking and watching the cherries.  Here are some pictures:

ここ どこ？

Koko doko ("here where?" = where am I?). Like last time, I live in Ikoma, which is in Nara Prefecture (next to Osaka). Ikoma is a tiny city of just about 120,000 inhabitants (yep, in Japan that's tiny). Actually, I don't even really live inside that tiny town, it's more like a quiet spot across the mountains which still happens to belong to Ikoma. This quiet spot is part of a larger area where my university as well as a number of research institutions are located in what is called Keihanna Science Town.
Michael has created a nice map which you can find here:

My University is called NAIST, which is short for Nara Institute of Science and Technology. In Japanese it's 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学 (Nara-sentan-kagaku-gijutsu-daigakuin-daigaku), but even the Japanese don't want to pronounce that... NAIST is a rather small graduate school, and there are about 1000 master's and doctoral students in the fields of computer science, biology, and materials science. Despite (or maybe because of) the small size, it has gained a pretty good reputation for it's computer science program, and I think it was a good choice to come here. At my lab, there is one professor and 3 assistant professors who are in charge of around 20 students, so the supervision is very good. It's really more like a team working together, there's less of a distance between professors and students like in Germany.
Well, here are some pictures of my room (especially noteworthy: the cleaning sign for my door. No cleaning, taking out the garbage, or changing sheets for the next 6 months!).

This is the university and my lab:

First Impressions

I had the chance to buy an SD card reader on Sunday at Yodobashi Camera (which is probably the most enormous electronics store I'll ever see, with 7 or 8 stories!). So, here are just a few pictures of my first days.

747-400, pretty impressive airplane:

On Thursday night, my first night in Japan, despite me being all jetlaggy, we already set out to breathe some Osaka air (and eat the obligatory Okonomiyaki-food):

Most students had been attending a conference in Kyoto during the week, so I didn't meet most of them until Friday evening. They were all really friendly, and on Friday night we had a little lab party (Okonomiyaki again!). It was supposed to be a birthday party for Michael (the other German from Karlsruhe) and also my welcome party.

Re-Intro

Dear all,

because of several requests I have decided to revive this blog to share some about my life in Japan. It will be in English from now, although it may not make much of a difference because I mostly want to share photos anyways.

Well, once again I have arrived in Japan! I did some math, and found out it was actually my 9th time sitting in an airplane towards Japan, and I have already spent something like 374 days here! So, I guess it's not really a new experience anymore, since I've already had the chance to collect lots of impressions about this country before. Still, I'm sure life here will be exciting, as I'm living and working in a new environment, get to  know new people, and have yet many things to learn about Japan. My hope is also to get my language skills up to a somewhat fluent level, and also be able to read most things around me (if only there weren't soo many Chinese characters to learn..).

My first impressions so far are pretty great: A warm welcome, great lab & University with very nice students, awesome apartment (more like a hotel room, actually), quiet environment but still close enough to the places of interest (namely, Osaka).

I'd post some pictures, but I must have left my camera cable back in Germany, so that won't happen for a little longer..

So long,
Matthias

Live in Japan

Nach langer Zeit endlich mal wieder ein Post. Es ist soviel passiert dass ich garnicht weiß wo ich anfangen soll.. Am besten der Reihe nach: Ich hatte ja das Glück, in zwei Bands spielen zu dürfen: Einer Muse Coverband und einer Sum41 Coverband. Hat superviel Spaß gemacht, mit Japanern zusammen Musik zu machen, vor allem bei den drei Auftritten: Erst eine Art "Werbeauftritt" in der Universität, dann beim Neujahrsfestival, und als letztes in einem Club. Ein paar Fotos, und außerdem Videos vom Festival:

Muse - New Born (Cover)

Sum41 - In Too Deep (Cover)

Eine Nacht im Tempel

Ist zwar schon zwei Wochen her, aber besser spät als nie kommen hier ein paar Bilder von Koya-san, dem Ursprungsort einer der Hauptrichtungen im japanischen Buddhismus. Ist ein kleines abgelegenes Örtchen auf einem Berg, es leben dort ca. 4000 Menschen, davon 1000 Mönche. Wir waren dort mit den japanischen Professoren und ein paar Deutschen und haben in einem der Tempel übernachtet. Die Herberge war traditionell japanisch, mit Tatami-Zimmern und Futon-Betten, einem Kotatsu (niedriger Tisch mit Wärmedecke), japanisches Bad, traditionelles Essen. Allerdings vegetarisch, die Mönche dürfen kein Fleisch oder Fisch essen. Frühmorgens mussten wir dem Morgengebet beiwohnen, das aus ca. einer Stunde Sprechgesang bestanden hat. Später durften wir noch das schneebedeckte Örtchen inklusive der diversen buddhistischen Einrichtungen erkunden (das erste Mal dass ich hier Schnee zu sehen bekam). Auf jeden Fall mal ein Erlebnis der besonderen Art. Nach dem ganzen fleischlosen Essen wurden wir anschließend dann noch zum Kobe-Rind eingeladen!

Das letzte Wochenende

Mir ist aufgefallen, dass ich hier fast nur über meine Wochenenden schreibe. Das ist eben auch, wann die interessanten Dinge passieren. Letztes Wochenende zum Beispiel, habe ich zum ersten Mal ein "Onsen" live miterlebt, das sind die berühmten heiße Quellen die es hier überall gibt. Praktisch eine Ansammlung von Becken mit verschiedenen Temperaturen, zum Teil überdacht, zum Teil im Freien. Dazu noch verschiedene Arten von Sauna. Ich glaube, da gehe ich noch öfter hin ;-) Nächste Woche ist schon in Planung, mit anderen Deutschen und ein paar der Dozenten.

Samstag war dann das Band-Festival in der Uni, wo wir aus irgend einem Grund "headlinen" sollten (ist eben schon was besonderes, einen europäischen Gitarrist dabei zu haben..). Bei 22 Bands hat das ganze entsprechend lange gedauert. Aber war sehr spaßig, demnächst kommen hoffentlich noch ein paar Videos.

Sonntag waren eine Freundin und ich bei einer japanischen Familie auf einer "Okonomiyaki-Party" eingeladen (das ist was zu essen). Es sollten noch ein paar andere Ausländer kommen, aber die hatten abgesagt. Hat auf jeden Fall sehr lecker geschmeckt, so Art japanische Pfannkuchen, bzw. manchmal liest man auch japanische Pizza als Übersetzung.. hat aber mit beidem nicht unbedingt viel zu tun. Wird in der Pfanne gebraten, aber unter anderem mit Fleisch & Meeresviechern, Seealgen, und viel Soße und Mayo. Was ich auch immer wieder bemerkenswert finde ist aber die japanische Gastfreundschaft: Man wird extrem zuvorkommend behandelt, bekommt tausend Dinge angeboten, alles mögliche zu essen, usw. Dafür muss man sich natürlich hinterher auch zig mal Bedanken und leicht verbeugen. Außerdem wurde ich noch gebeten, ihnen "Freude Schöner Götterfunken" beizubringen, jedenfalls die Aussprache, das wollen sie demnächst irgendwo vorsingen. War sehr amüsant ;-)

Und noch ein paar Bilder: