I officially arrived in Japan on Tuesday afternoon after a 14 hour flight from Houston. Lucky for me, the 757 was pretty empty so I could stretch out and nap. I always get a window seat so that I can look out the window when I get bored. So near the end of the flight when we were flying over Japan, I looked out the window. There were few clouds to block the view and to my surprise I recognized the view... I checked over at the map of where the plane was and yeah we were flying over the damaged nuclear power plants. From 40,000 ft, they didn't seem damaged to me nor could I see any remnants of the tsunami., but I'm sure it's still damaged.
So I landed in Osaka and went through customs. It was very painless. They had a foreigner line, which was much much shorter than the Japanese line. There were obviously very few foreigners flying to Japan...sad to see, but a bonus for me! I went to go pick up my bag and that was the end of only English being spoken to me. I met up with the MK shuttle that was taking me to Kyoto and there I was greeted with a piece of paper with my name on it. After I nodded my confirmation, they pointed me to a chair and told me to wait. The shuttle came in about 15 minutes and I got on to another 1.5 hour ride to Kyoto. My shuttle companions were very indifferent to the view outside, but I was enjoying the view. There were cherry blossoms everywhere, which I am glad to not have missed! I finally arrived at my new apartment and met with Dr. Yamamoto (Dr. Tabata's assistant professor). My day was not over yet! (I don't sleep much on planes so I have been awake for 22 hrs by this point) I was introduced to the landlord, was shown around the house, and signed paperwork. Dr. Yamamoto then showed me how to get to the lab, showed me the lab bike, and where to get food (at 8:30pm). After that, I was informed that I should show up to the lab at 10 am. So after 25 hours of being awake, I could finally get to bed.
By the way, the bed that I got is a futon, similar to ones you can get at ikea, but it definitely isn't as comfy as the japanese futon my parents have. So I'm on the 2nd floor of this house and my room has a skylight (it doesn't open though). Japan doesn't adopt the daylights savings time which the US has, so unlucky for me it gets extremely bright in my room at 6:30 am. And guess what, I end up waking up at that time...So after my 25 hr stint, I got 9 hours of sleep.
At this point I was thirsty, so I went downstairs to get a glass of water. I swear that I will kill myself going down these stairs. They are very very steep, almost to the point of it being a ladder. A picture of the stairs are in my album.
I also went down to look at the shower to figure out how it worked. Prior to my arriving in Japan, I was emailed a flyer listing the amenities of the house (which was built in 1900). It listed within the flyer that the shower was coin operated... I have never heard of this so was kind of apprehensive. Lucky for me though, it isn't coin operated, although it does remind me of my american grandma's old shower. All tile floor with just a shower head in a small room.
After cleaning up, I went and found some breakfast, this gave me a chance to practice my japanese. It ended up with me point to the item and requesting it in broken japanese and the cashier replying back in broken english. I did end up getting breakfast, which was very satisfying. I decided to head over to the lab after breakfast, giving myself enough time to get there, just in case I got lost. Dr. Yamamoto's directions were very easy to follow though and I had no trouble finding it. My only issues were looking the correct direction while crossing the street and the bicyclists. I have stepped out into the intersection while looking the wrong direction, only to realize that a car was approaching me from the opposite direction. However, the drivers here are very careful and I haven't gotten runned over yet. But, the issues with the bikers...They are all over the sidewalk and cruising along at high speeds. I am more scared of being runned over by a bike instead of a car.
Once I got to lab, I met up with Drs. Yamamoto and Tabata. We discussed a potential project for me, which ended up being the following: Create varying stiffness hydrogels coated with collagen type 1, Create a cationized polysaccharide for use in transfection, Combine a BMP-2 plasmid with the transfection agent, Bind the plasmid/transfection agent to the collagen coated hydrogels and seed MSCs (mesenchymal stem cells) onto the hydrogel, Determine if the MSCs osteodifferentiate. This project combines many aspects of Dr. Tabata's lab and thus I am working with many of his students. We hope to get a paper out of this work. Ganbatte!
My desk in the lab, and the lab in general is small as compared to my space in Houston. The desks are in the lab itself and people eat at their desk. I am seated right next to the lyophilizer, so it's hot and noisy. They plan on moving me in a couple of weeks. We'll see if I want to move by then... The lab space and corridors are very narrow. If you plan on working in Japan, you cannot be a giant or a fatass. You will not fit. I feel clumsy as it is and I'm small for an American.
That day I met several of the lab members and the post-doc (Koong [first name]) I will be working on my project with. She is Thai thus she is good at speaking English and has made me feel not stand out as much. I have also met several other lab members (there are about 20 or so), one (Gunji [first name]) is from the same place as my mom. Gunji and another lab member (Makoto [last name]) took me out to lunch at the best chicken-katsu place in Kyoto. The food was on the same size of an american meal and cost 1600 yen (85 yen is $1). I have already learned some new techniques from another lab member (Inoo [last name]). She has taught me how to make polyacrylamide gels and how to swell them.
Another peculiarity of the lab is that every day at 5 pm they perform a small lab cleanup. This involved cleaning out the trash, refilling pipet boxes, and putting glass beakers away. It seems to be a lab bonding experience. They are also very good at recycling. There is a waste basket for hard plastics, soft plastics, paper, glass, and cans. They fit all these buckets in a small space, so us Americans should have no excuse. I think we are just lazy. The lab also has interesting lab meetings and group meetings. On Tuesdays is journal club from 7 to 10 pm, on Thursdays is a small group meeting (just like IRMs for Dr. Mikos), and on Saturdays is a group meeting where everyone discusses what they have done that week and what they plan on doing, there are 2 presenters presenting their research, and an outside speaker presenting their research. The Saturday group meeting lasts from 9:30 am until 2 pm. There is no food or drinks allowed in the room and the students never ask questions during any of the presentations, only Dr. Tabata asks the questions. I am unsure why this is. Plus when each student tells what they have performed that week, the first 3 sentences or so are in English and the rest is in Japanese, unless the student is proficient in English and in that case they present almost all their weeks worth of work in English. I think this is the method that they have in practicing their english for conference presentations. Every lab member I have met with seems to be practicing their english on me, since I am the only lab member that has English as their native language. They still have some issues understanding me and explaining somethings, however their writing is almost flawless.
This past Thursday I bought a cell phone. Due to prior criminal activities, prepaid phones require a foreigner to present their passport as well as a hotel bill with its address on it or a apartment contract with the address on it. There was only 1 phone available to purchase, but it is still very nice. I has a mp3 player on it as well as email, texting and an infrared port. Even their basic phones are nicer than the ones in the US... I also bought groceries that day. I got a 5 lb bag of rice, japanese sausages, and 2 fuji apples. Food here is expensive, especially the fruit. The apples were 100 yen each..., but they were the most delicious apples I have ever eaten.
This past Friday, the lab had a welcoming party for me. It started at 6pm and they had sushi platters (delicious), gyoza boxes (tasty), chinese fried rice, pizza hut pizza (corn pizza, potato pizza, ground beef pizza all of which were good), aaaand McDonald's fries (tastes the same as back home). They also had a lot of beer, 2 bottles of wine, and soju. Me being the "alcoholic" helped them drink it, since they became drunk quite quickly. Only Dr. Tabata, Saito, and I were the ones drinking heavily. In the middle of these celebrations, Dr. Tabata stopped it and told me to get up and say something. So me, even being tipsy, thanked them profusely for inviting me into their lab and for all their kindness. Dr. Tabata also asked me whether I was understanding his students well and apologized for his bad english. At which I said emphatically, that no your english is very good, almost as good as my mom's english (who has lived in the US for 29 years). Good thing I can hold my alcohol. Many thanks to my fifth year friends on training me on handling alcohol so well! Also at during this party, I was invited to play on the lab softball team in this upcoming June. They believe that I can hit many homeruns, since I am much bigger than most of them....Maybe Johnny Lam should come over and show them what big muscles are.
That is it for right now! My roommates are very nice as are my lab mates. I will post up pictures soon and will keep you all updated.
So I landed in Osaka and went through customs. It was very painless. They had a foreigner line, which was much much shorter than the Japanese line. There were obviously very few foreigners flying to Japan...sad to see, but a bonus for me! I went to go pick up my bag and that was the end of only English being spoken to me. I met up with the MK shuttle that was taking me to Kyoto and there I was greeted with a piece of paper with my name on it. After I nodded my confirmation, they pointed me to a chair and told me to wait. The shuttle came in about 15 minutes and I got on to another 1.5 hour ride to Kyoto. My shuttle companions were very indifferent to the view outside, but I was enjoying the view. There were cherry blossoms everywhere, which I am glad to not have missed! I finally arrived at my new apartment and met with Dr. Yamamoto (Dr. Tabata's assistant professor). My day was not over yet! (I don't sleep much on planes so I have been awake for 22 hrs by this point) I was introduced to the landlord, was shown around the house, and signed paperwork. Dr. Yamamoto then showed me how to get to the lab, showed me the lab bike, and where to get food (at 8:30pm). After that, I was informed that I should show up to the lab at 10 am. So after 25 hours of being awake, I could finally get to bed.
By the way, the bed that I got is a futon, similar to ones you can get at ikea, but it definitely isn't as comfy as the japanese futon my parents have. So I'm on the 2nd floor of this house and my room has a skylight (it doesn't open though). Japan doesn't adopt the daylights savings time which the US has, so unlucky for me it gets extremely bright in my room at 6:30 am. And guess what, I end up waking up at that time...So after my 25 hr stint, I got 9 hours of sleep.
At this point I was thirsty, so I went downstairs to get a glass of water. I swear that I will kill myself going down these stairs. They are very very steep, almost to the point of it being a ladder. A picture of the stairs are in my album.
I also went down to look at the shower to figure out how it worked. Prior to my arriving in Japan, I was emailed a flyer listing the amenities of the house (which was built in 1900). It listed within the flyer that the shower was coin operated... I have never heard of this so was kind of apprehensive. Lucky for me though, it isn't coin operated, although it does remind me of my american grandma's old shower. All tile floor with just a shower head in a small room.
After cleaning up, I went and found some breakfast, this gave me a chance to practice my japanese. It ended up with me point to the item and requesting it in broken japanese and the cashier replying back in broken english. I did end up getting breakfast, which was very satisfying. I decided to head over to the lab after breakfast, giving myself enough time to get there, just in case I got lost. Dr. Yamamoto's directions were very easy to follow though and I had no trouble finding it. My only issues were looking the correct direction while crossing the street and the bicyclists. I have stepped out into the intersection while looking the wrong direction, only to realize that a car was approaching me from the opposite direction. However, the drivers here are very careful and I haven't gotten runned over yet. But, the issues with the bikers...They are all over the sidewalk and cruising along at high speeds. I am more scared of being runned over by a bike instead of a car.
Once I got to lab, I met up with Drs. Yamamoto and Tabata. We discussed a potential project for me, which ended up being the following: Create varying stiffness hydrogels coated with collagen type 1, Create a cationized polysaccharide for use in transfection, Combine a BMP-2 plasmid with the transfection agent, Bind the plasmid/transfection agent to the collagen coated hydrogels and seed MSCs (mesenchymal stem cells) onto the hydrogel, Determine if the MSCs osteodifferentiate. This project combines many aspects of Dr. Tabata's lab and thus I am working with many of his students. We hope to get a paper out of this work. Ganbatte!
My desk in the lab, and the lab in general is small as compared to my space in Houston. The desks are in the lab itself and people eat at their desk. I am seated right next to the lyophilizer, so it's hot and noisy. They plan on moving me in a couple of weeks. We'll see if I want to move by then... The lab space and corridors are very narrow. If you plan on working in Japan, you cannot be a giant or a fatass. You will not fit. I feel clumsy as it is and I'm small for an American.
That day I met several of the lab members and the post-doc (Koong [first name]) I will be working on my project with. She is Thai thus she is good at speaking English and has made me feel not stand out as much. I have also met several other lab members (there are about 20 or so), one (Gunji [first name]) is from the same place as my mom. Gunji and another lab member (Makoto [last name]) took me out to lunch at the best chicken-katsu place in Kyoto. The food was on the same size of an american meal and cost 1600 yen (85 yen is $1). I have already learned some new techniques from another lab member (Inoo [last name]). She has taught me how to make polyacrylamide gels and how to swell them.
Another peculiarity of the lab is that every day at 5 pm they perform a small lab cleanup. This involved cleaning out the trash, refilling pipet boxes, and putting glass beakers away. It seems to be a lab bonding experience. They are also very good at recycling. There is a waste basket for hard plastics, soft plastics, paper, glass, and cans. They fit all these buckets in a small space, so us Americans should have no excuse. I think we are just lazy. The lab also has interesting lab meetings and group meetings. On Tuesdays is journal club from 7 to 10 pm, on Thursdays is a small group meeting (just like IRMs for Dr. Mikos), and on Saturdays is a group meeting where everyone discusses what they have done that week and what they plan on doing, there are 2 presenters presenting their research, and an outside speaker presenting their research. The Saturday group meeting lasts from 9:30 am until 2 pm. There is no food or drinks allowed in the room and the students never ask questions during any of the presentations, only Dr. Tabata asks the questions. I am unsure why this is. Plus when each student tells what they have performed that week, the first 3 sentences or so are in English and the rest is in Japanese, unless the student is proficient in English and in that case they present almost all their weeks worth of work in English. I think this is the method that they have in practicing their english for conference presentations. Every lab member I have met with seems to be practicing their english on me, since I am the only lab member that has English as their native language. They still have some issues understanding me and explaining somethings, however their writing is almost flawless.
This past Thursday I bought a cell phone. Due to prior criminal activities, prepaid phones require a foreigner to present their passport as well as a hotel bill with its address on it or a apartment contract with the address on it. There was only 1 phone available to purchase, but it is still very nice. I has a mp3 player on it as well as email, texting and an infrared port. Even their basic phones are nicer than the ones in the US... I also bought groceries that day. I got a 5 lb bag of rice, japanese sausages, and 2 fuji apples. Food here is expensive, especially the fruit. The apples were 100 yen each..., but they were the most delicious apples I have ever eaten.
This past Friday, the lab had a welcoming party for me. It started at 6pm and they had sushi platters (delicious), gyoza boxes (tasty), chinese fried rice, pizza hut pizza (corn pizza, potato pizza, ground beef pizza all of which were good), aaaand McDonald's fries (tastes the same as back home). They also had a lot of beer, 2 bottles of wine, and soju. Me being the "alcoholic" helped them drink it, since they became drunk quite quickly. Only Dr. Tabata, Saito, and I were the ones drinking heavily. In the middle of these celebrations, Dr. Tabata stopped it and told me to get up and say something. So me, even being tipsy, thanked them profusely for inviting me into their lab and for all their kindness. Dr. Tabata also asked me whether I was understanding his students well and apologized for his bad english. At which I said emphatically, that no your english is very good, almost as good as my mom's english (who has lived in the US for 29 years). Good thing I can hold my alcohol. Many thanks to my fifth year friends on training me on handling alcohol so well! Also at during this party, I was invited to play on the lab softball team in this upcoming June. They believe that I can hit many homeruns, since I am much bigger than most of them....Maybe Johnny Lam should come over and show them what big muscles are.
That is it for right now! My roommates are very nice as are my lab mates. I will post up pictures soon and will keep you all updated.
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