Part 3 of 3.

Sunday 24th July 2011:

Finally… I am getting up-to-date, and am now blogging about today!

Today I woke up a little later. I was due to meet Maria at 10.30 so had plenty of time. I got dressed, surfed the internet a little, and then texted Maria about where to meet her at the station.

Unfortunately, I completely misunderstood her text, and thought that she meant we were meeting at 10.30pm instead. So after a brief moment of wondering what the hell to do with myself for the next 12 hours, I got a phonecall from her asking where I was. I can’t even work out how I misunderstood the text, but never mind. So I ran down to the station, and met up with Maria and Hiroaki, her boyfriend!

He was absolutely lovely, and I definitely approve of her choice in men 😛

I was a little embarrassed actually, because his mother and him had bought presents for me, and I hadn’t bought them anything in return! I did not realise that there would be gifts, and so I felt completely unprepared. Hiroaki had bought me some Japanese rock CDs because Maria had told him that I like rock music, and his mother had bought me a Japanese decorative plate, and also a Princess Mononoke notepad. I tried to thank Hiroaki in Japanese and accidentally said “Ohayo Gozaimas” instead of “Arigato Gozaimas”. Hilarity ensues. It was embarrassing. Bad start.

We then got the next train and headed to the restaurant to meet his mother. The journey wasn’t too long and we chatted a bit. When we arrived, I was introduced to his mother, and she was absolutely lovely. A really sweet lady. We walked to the restaurant, and she asked me a lot of questions about myself and my time in Japan, via Maria as the interpreter.

The restaurant was amazing. It was a really beautiful, posh Japanese place. Kind of the equivalant of where we used to go for Boxing Day dinner when I was a child… multiplied by 10… on steroids. It was surrounded by stunning gardens, and I suddenly felt horribly underdressed for such a place. We were then escorted through into the main restaurant area. We ordered drinks: A Japanese plum wine, that tasted quite a lot like the damson gin that Pete used to make when I was about 15, but much sweeter. It was delicious. Our food them began to arrive. We ate from a set menu, and Hiroaki’s mother had rung the restaurant ahead to make sure that it only contained fish and no other meats.

The menu consisted of many small courses. First we had a triplet of little appetisers. There was creamed potato with eel and some vegetable; a flavoured tofu cube, and a steamed egg dish. Next came what they called a ‘Jewellery Box’ which was a laquered box consisting of 2 layers. The top layer contained various sashimi including shrimp. I didn’t like the shrimp, but the rest was good. In the lower layer, there was a vegetable fondu selection: Seasonal Japanese vegetables with a thin creamy sauce on top. It was really good.

Next we had another appetiser which was a steamed pudding type dish, with more eel and some vegetables I hadn’t heard of before. After that was tempura. There were 2 vegetables, and 2 types of fish: Maria explained that one was salt water, and the other was freshwater. I only at the one as the other seemed to be whole – bones and head and all, which I couldn’t really stomach.

After this came the ‘main course’ which was a bowl of steamed rice with tiny little boiled fish on the top. It was really good actually, and the fish added a lot of flavour. We ate this with a bowl of miso soup that contained small mushrooms and seaweed, and some pickled vegetables. I don’t really like vinegar, and so I find it a bit difficult eating so many pickles here. Especially the daikon ones, which I don’t really like either. I ate everything anyway though, as the food was lovely quality and I didn’t want to offend.

Finally we had dessert: It was a steamed cream pudding similar to creme caramel, with a sweet sauce. It was really good.

The meal was amazing, and I felt really lucky to have been invited. I really appreciated it, and tried to thank Hiroaki’s mother in Japanese.

After the meal, we went for a look around the gardens surrounding the restaurant. It was really beautiful, and we saw at least 3 weddings taking place simultaneously. We looked at the beautiful koi carp in the pond, and Hiroaki managed to stroke a few. They were as big as dogs… I’ve never seen fish so big; and beautiful colours and patterns.

We had a stroll, and Maria lent me her scarf because I was getting concerned about mosquitoes again. It was pink and clashed horribly with my red dress, and so every time we took a photo, I took it off. I probably looked so vain, but I always look terrible in photos so it would be nice to get a nice one with Maria 🙂

We said goodbye to Hiroaki’s mother at the train station, and then went to a cat cafe. It was the strangest place I have ever been! Maria explained that they are called “Nyafes”… “Nyan-Cafe” because cats in Japan say “Nyan” instead of “Meow”. It was literally a room where you pay for entry, and then get free drinks while you stroke the cats running freely around the cafe. There were around 20 very well behaved cats, just lounging around on the sofas. We hung around there taking photos and playing with the cats for maybe half an hour, but by this point Hiroaki had started to have a bad allergic reaction to the cat hair, and so we had to leave early. His neck began to swell and blister which was a little scary. Maria helped to remove the cat hair from his clothes, and then we went.

It was a really surreal experience, but a lot of fun!

After that, we went to Yebisu Garden Place for a while. We sat in Starbucks to cool down and had Frappuccinos while Hiroaki started to feel a bit better. There was a Hawaiian Festival going on, which was kind of surreal. We then went to the pharmacy, and Maria helped me to buy antihistamines to help with my mosquito bites. I have since taken 2 and nothing has happened, but hopefully by tomorrow they will have had some effect. I can’t get over how uncomfortable this is!

We then went to Krispy Kreme donuts and I bought two: One for this evening, and one for breakfast tomorrow. I ended up eating both when I got home though… they’re just too good!

After that, we headed back to the train station, and came back to Suitengumae. I said goodbye to Maria and Hiroaki at the station and went back to the apartment. I was very tired because it’s been a busy weekend, and so we didn’t go out to dinner.

I have had an awesome day, and am really enjoying my time in Tokyo. I am starting to feel better now after such a bad week and so hopefully things will stay on a high.

Now… time for a bath and then bed. I am so sleepy!

Read Full Post »

Life in the Lab…

Today is a Monday, and so after a hectic but amazing weekend, I was finally back in the lab.

I arrived at the Kuroda lab early this morning because I wanted to arrive before the heat got too intense. It turned out to be a good idea, because my the time Davis arrived, I had managed to read a paper, and he was incredibly tired and hot from the walk.

I re-read a paper in the morning about the relevance of sustained and transient ERK signalling via EGF and NGF which Professor Kuroda had presented on Friday. It was very interesting, and I feel like I understand it much more now after the presentation and some time to reflect.

Then, we had the weekly lab clean up where all the members of the lab get involved to clean up from the previous week. It was very efficient and fast, and took a maximum of 10 minutes to blitz the place. After this, we had a very brief… briefing! Professor Kuroda quickly mentioned some things relevant to the lab, and then Kakuda-san gave us a presentation on his recent work. His English was really good, and it was an interesting presentation. I wish that I could have thought of a question to ask though, because I worry that I am not actively getting involved enough in the lab.

After the presentation, Professor Kubota took some of the members of the lab out for lunch, which was very kind of him. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant and I had a Sushi/Sashimi set meal, that consisted of a bowl of rice, covered in various raw fish, and a bowl of miso-shiru, a steamed egg side dish, and noodles. There was a lot of food so I couldn’t eat it all, but it was really good. The members of the lab are all really nice, and so it’s great that we get to spend time socialising with them.

After the meal, I had an elementary Japanese class. I am not sure if I will continue with the course though, because it is very basic, and in the whole session, we covered very very little. I may go to the next session tomorrow but skip the rest of the week if it doesn’t pick up in pace.

After the course I went back to the lab and continued reading papers. Professor Kubota gave me a paper of his to read through, and discuss with him on Wednesday. As it has not been published yet, I am unable to mention what it was about, but it really was excellent and I enjoyed reading it a lot. I hope that the discussion goes well, and that I am able to express myself properly when we go through it. Sometimes I find that I understand the topic well, but can’t articulate what I am thinking.

At 6pm we had our official UTRIP reception, where the Dean of the School of Science was present. This was a pretty big event and we were told that we must not wear shorts, and must dress respectably. I had a full day in the lab and no time to go home, so I had brought some trousers in my bag to change into but I still felt a bit grotty when we went. Iwaki-san, who is a masters student in the lab went with us and was allowed to stay for the food. He’s a lot of fun.  After the speeches and stuff, we had a big group photo taken, and then the reception ended at 8pm.

I walked back to the train station with Rachel and Anet, and since I’ve been back, I’ve kind of just been vegetating. I started to get a really scratchy throat today and now I know that I am coming down with something. I can’t believe I’m getting ill! This never happens! I bought some manky vitamin jelly to see if I can help fend it off, but I worry that I will feel pretty rough tomorrow.

I haven’t heard from Maria since Saturday, which is not a problem because I know that she is really busy, but she told me that she would pop my phone in the post but nothing has arrived yet. It’s not a big deal, but it would be nice to be able to call / text members of the group, so I hope she can sort it soon.

Next weekend the UTRIP folk are considering climbing Mt. Fuji. I really hope that we can go!

The weekend after, I’d like to see Maria again if possible 😀

Read Full Post »