Fragment 2.

Wednesday 17th August 2011:

Wednesday was also an amazing day.

On Tuesday night in Akihabara, Saito-san asked me what I would spend my last day doing, and when he heard I was going to spend it on my own, offered (along with Kaki) to come with me!

So on Wednesday morning, I woke up really early with the intention of going to Tsukiji market (finally) with the guys. However, I then found out that it was closed for Obon. We decided to still go to Tsukiji for some fish for breakfast, but just not to the market proper. So I spent the early morning packing and cleaning ready for my check-out inspection, and met up with Kaki at Suitengumae station at about 10am.

He told me Saito was running late and would meet us there. So we took the train to Tsukiji together.

When we arrived, we had a look around the shops and restaurants, but a lot of them were also closed for the festival. We found one place that was offering free samples of Korean food, and because that was his favourite he asked me to try some. It was really good actually – not as spicey as I’d been led to believe, but good!

Saito met us about half an hour later, and we tried to decide on a place to eat. His favourite place was one of the ones that wasn’t open, so instead we aggreed on going to a carousel sushi place because that way I could pick what I wanted rather than having to struggle with a Japanese menu.

The fish was beautiful. So so so good! Possibly the best sushi I’ve had since I arrived in Japan (and I know that I say that a lot! But it’s true!) I had maybe 6 plates, and I tried a lot of different types that Saito recommended. Kaki kept trying to get me to take more plates, but it was really filling so I couldn’t do it! I drank a hell of a lot of green tea too. Mmmm.

Afterwards, Saito said that we should go get some Japanese sweets. He was adamant that we go to a specific place for it in Ginza, so we started walking there. When we arrived though, it was also closed. We finally found somewhere else to go in a shopping mall, but he told me that it wasn’t as good. I had matcha kakigori with a sweet bean sauce. It was pretty damn good, but I was still full from the fish. Saito treated me to both the sushi and the kakigori, which was kind.

We strolled around Ginza for a bit, looking in some shops and stalls. We went to a bookshop and Kaki pointed out his favourite book to me. He found a copy that had been translated into English, and then bought me a copy as a gift. It was really sweet, and usually I suck at accepting gifts and free meals etc, but it’s impossible not to in Japan because it’s really culturally offensive to turn down an offer. So I accepted it, and really appreciated it. 😀

Then, Saito went back to work as he was really busy with an experiment. Kaki decided to spend the day with me instead of going back to the lab. I was a bit worried about him getting told off because he was also late on Tuesday from oversleeping, but he told me it’d be fine.

We then took the train to Shibuya. I really like Shibuya because it’s so vibrant and interesting. Instead of going to the big shops this time, he took me to some of the quieter areas and we looked at the little boutiques and stuff. On the way back into the main town, we stopped for a Frappuccino and chatted. He’s pretty shy, so I think it was the most I’d heard him speak since I arrived! We then went to the Disney store (because I’m a massive kid) and Tower records. He showed me some of his favourite Japanese bands and I showed him some Western ones. I was really shocked to hear he’d never heard a Nirvana record. That’s just crazy by English standards! Haha.

We were going to go to Asakusa for a while to look for souvenirs, but it was getting late and I had to be back at the apartment for my check out inspection. It started at 5.45 and I hadn’t hoovered or anything. Woops. So instead we went back on the train.

I mentioned that I’d got no plans for dinner, so we agreed to meet for Korean food in the evening. I was really looking forward to it because the Korean in the morning was so good!

So I got home, cleaned, packed, yadayadayada, and then had the inspection. It went well, and they said everything was fine. So afterwards I had a quick shower and headed back onto campus to meet for dinner. I got to the lab about 5 minutes late. Not that that detail is important, but just weirdly it bothered me. I hate being late. haha.

It was a pretty good turn out. 7 of us went for the meal: Me, Kaki, Watanabe, Akimoto, Yugi, Toyoshima, and Uda. (-san. etc.) Unfortunately, the Korean restaurant was closed (Grrr) so we went for Japanese food instead. I had a rice dish cooked with soy sauce, with eel on top. It was really delicious – It’s just a shame we couldn’t have the Korean. Everyone was really chatty which was nice. Even Akimoto who I’ve sat next to for the past 6 weeks but have barely said 2 words to. I was really glad to get to know them better, even if it was so close to the end! I’m really going to miss everyone!

We went back to the lab briefly after the meal and I said goodbye to a few more people. Then, Kaki and I went down to the  main campus to meet up with Kyle for a drink. We walked into the area around Hongo-sanchome, and went to a bar Kaki recommended. We all had beer. I like Japanese beer.

We left at about 11 and went to the station. Kaki walked us there and we said goodbye by the ticket gates. I know I keep saying it, but I’m really really going to miss my labmates. Urgh.

When I got in, I packed my final bits and bobs, had a bit of a cry about leaving (I was exhausted, emotional, a little tipsy, and didn’t want to go home).

Then I slept.

Thursday 18th August 2011:

Thursday. Hometime. Depressing.

I woke up at 4.30am after nowhere near enough sleep. I set both phones’ alarms because I was paranoid about oversleeping, and was so glad I did when I realised my iPhone is buggared and didn’t ring at all.

I got to TCAT really early (and thankfully had some help with my massive suitcases) and took the 6.15 bus to Narita. I was thinking too much on the way. Always dangerous. It got me all upset again.

I was at the airport much to0 early, and check-in didn’t even open for another hour. On the bright side, that meant that when it did open, I was nearly the first to check-in and so didn’t have to stand in a queue. I also got offered a seat upgrade because they hadn’t sold out the World Traveller Plus seats. I didn’t want to pay 3000 yen though (perhaps a stupid decision) considering I needed to pay for an extra suitcase in check-in, so I turned it down.

I spent the next few hours regretting that decision while walking around the airport. 12 hour flight. Insanely cheap considering. Stupid Sophie.

I had some waffles in a cafe in the airport, and had a brief moment where I felt like I’d never seen a knife and fork before in my life. How awkward. I definitely prefer chopsticks.

When I got on the plane, I had a really shitty seat. I was next to an elderly Japanese couple who smelled like mold and greasy hair. The man also spent 3/4 of his time farting. Definitely regretting not accepting the seat upgrade.

I then found my telly didn’t work. It was a long flight, and so I was a bit miffed, so I asked one of the air hostesses if there were any free seats I could change to.

I got moved. To an exit seat. To EPIC LEGROOM!

Best.Thing.Ever! (And much more legroom than I would have had if I’d taken the upgrade.) SUCH A GOOD MOVE.

The flight was boring, so I won’t write more other than that I watched 4 movies (“Thor” – Epic; “Terminator” – AMAZINGLY EPIC; “Red Riding Hood” – shit; and “Sucker Punch” – Epic.) and spent a lot of the flight thinking back on my time in Japan and reminiscing.

I am so sad to now be home.

I miss Japan already. A lot.

And that concludes my Japanese adventure!* 😦

* Excluding randomness which I will blog about over the next few days. Afterthoughts etc.

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Sparklers on the Roof

Friday 29th July 2011:

On Friday, I only had to be in the lab by 11am – Brilliant! A lie in! Haha, I’m not a lazy person, despite how that might sound, but after many late nights and early mornings it was nice to have a rest.

I came into campus feeling very refreshed and ready to face the day. It’s amazing how much difference a few extra hours can make.

We finished the practical by lunch time!

First we had to remove the first antibody and wash off any remnants using TBST. This required agitatating the plates for 10 minutes at a time, before replacing the liquid, and repeating 3 times.

Then, we added the second antibody. We were told that this was anti-rabbit, and would be used for the visualisation of the bands. We added the antibody, and set it to incubate for 3 hours. During this time, we went for lunch.

Professor Kubota took us for lunch near the campus again. We went with Kakuda-san too (last time I spoke to him, he said I could call him Kaki, but I don’t know if -san is still required haha. I’m pretty rubbish with the Japanese respect system ). It was a really nice restaurant, and I had some amazing fish. No idea what type of fish it was, but it tasted amazing. I also had miso soup, rice with seasoning, some pickled vegetables, and Natto – Japanese fermented beans. I’d never tried them before, but was convinced to by Kubota-sensee because he said that he liked them. It was… an interesting experience. Definitely not one I plan to try again though. It was very sticky, gunky, gooey and stringey. I only ate two mouthfuls because I didn’t like it very much.

After lunch, we returned to the lab. I was allowed to proceed with my experiment while Davis went to the language class. I was glad of this, because it became quite frustrating having to wait for him all the time, which also meant that the procedures themselves took longer as we couldn’t do a lot of it at the same time as each other.

I washed off the second antibody with TBST and prepared the membrane for analysis. When I scanned it in though, however, I found that one of my gels didn’t do what it was supposed to! I was pretty devastated that after a whole week of trying, my work hadn’t seemed to have paid off!

I transferred the images to my laptop, and ran them through the Totalab software to analyse the band patterns. As originally guessed, the results weren’t what I wanted them to be. I plotted the data, reanalysed, replotted, reanalysed etc. It just wasn’t right.

I spoke to Urakubo-san about it, and he suggested a few possible reasons for the results I was seeing. Although it was disappointing, it was very useful to know the areas where errors could be incorporated, so that when I come to doing Western blots again, both for my project, and in later lab work, I can try to minimise these errors to get the best possible results.

I then had to install Cygwin on my computer for some analyses that we will be doing next week. The download was massive, took hours, and my computer is now running pretty slowly, so I hope that I will be able to uninstall it again soon – even if after UTRIP is finished.

At about 6pm, I went home. I sat in my room for a little while thinking about the project, what I needed to do at the weekend, and life in general. Then, at 8.15, I met Anna and Till in the Hakozaki restaurant and we walked to Suitengumae exit 8 to meet up with the other UTRIP guys. It was Meenal’s last night in Tokyo, so we went out for dinner to celebrate her time here. We tried quite a few restaurants but nowhere was able to take a group of 9 at such short notice. Eventually we found a little Ramen place but had to split up into 2 groups as there were no tables for us as a whole.  The food was pretty good. I had spicey ramen again – It wasn’t as nice as the one in Nikko… Nothing could top that! Again, it had meat in it, so I had to eat around it, and gave my meat to Mark and Justin.

After the restaurant, we went to 7-11 and bought some sparklers. Random, but whatever.

We then went back to the Ningyocho apartments and took the elevator to the top floor. When we got there, we climbed up the ladder onto the roof. We’re still not 100% sure if it was ‘open to residents’… so to speak, but it was pretty safe up there. It was nice actually. I took my shoes off before going up because I didn’t fancy climbing the ladder in heels, and it was nice to walk barefoot on the wet spongey surface. We had a great time. The sparklers were amazing and I felt like a kid again. We hung around on the roof for maybe an hour before going back down again when it started to rain more heavily.

We then tried to find the sake place that Till, Lin, Stas and I went to two weeks ago. Frustratingly, we reached it maybe 5 minutes after closing time! We then had a fail trying to find anywhere else suitable. We found a few ‘clubs’ in the area, which turned out to be gentlemen’s lounges and strip bars. We then went back to the main road and considered doing karaoke. However, there were no rooms big enough for our group, and we weren’t really willing to split up again. At this point, Till and I gave up and decided to walk back to Hakozaki. I said goodbye to Meenal and gave her a hug, and then we were off!

On the way back, we stopped at a convenience store, and I bought an icelolly and some sake.

At home, I spoke to Matt on Skype again. I was still tired, but better than the night before so we got to speak some more 😀 It was lovely to see him, but made me miss him a lot 😦

After skype, I went to bed. And slept heavily.

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