A change of address

Okay, so I've been a bit quiet lately...had a bit of a manic month with some crazy experimentation, combined with flat hunting in a foreign language, infused with Japanese Landlords general distrust of foreigners*.

*I'll tell you all about it later...when I've recovered from all this craziness

The gist of it is; we've finally moved house/flat/apartment/shoebox. It's a very nice area, quiet residential, with a 24hr supermarket about 2mins down the road, a bus route running outside our door, 7mins from the Metro, and most importantly (for me) cycling distance from Uni ..... *ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....* saves me about 1 and a half hours a day....bliss.

We^ hired a van for the 23rd of Nov (a national holiday) and had spent the past week packing all the stuff in my room into boxes that we had gotten from the local supermarket. After filling two boxes it started to dawn on me (and Greg) how much crap I had managed to collect in a year.

^I say 'we', what I mean is that a very VERY nice friend of ours - AMY - asked an even nicer friend of hers - K1 - to use his superior Japanese skills to hire a van and then use his fantastic driving skills (he has his Korean Driving license converted to be used in Japan) to drive us and my junk through Tokyo.

It was a hectic day, we had to drive from Odaiba お台場　to Shinagawa　品川, to pick up a load of stuff from a friend who was moving out of Japan and thus donating us a fridge, washing machine, furniture, spare futon and most of the contents of her flat. THEN we were on to Shirakonadai 白金台　to pick up a sofa and some more furniture from Annalisa's apartment. This completely filled the van, so we headed to the new flat to wait for Greg who had to go off to the estate agents to sign the contract before we got to Annalisas...K1 and I carried on to drive to the new appartment, and had some lunch waiting for Greg to finish the formalities at the estate agents: he was apparently quite stuck, as it was all in japanese, until Rei turned up and saved the day...

We got the call from Greg, and then went to pick him up at the station, we also got hold of some lunch for Greg while we waited for him at the station.

Now armed with the keys to the flat (only one - because they hadn't changed the locks yet) we started to unload...we'd unloaded a couple of things and then the van started moving by it's own accord and slowly started to roll towards another parked van! I squealed from the back of the van and Greg jumped in to the front to pull on the hand brake...which was all rather exciting. Basically, we tried to get all the stuff from the van to the lift, then just dumped it in the flat. We then got back in the van to head back to Odaiba to pick up all my stuff still in my room (some of which still needed to be packed)

....it was getting late, and we were trying to wedge my bike into the van....we ended up killing most of my poor plants in the process...then we were back on the road (although I did manage to get us lost - I have NO idea how). We were a bit late in unpacking the second van load, but we did manage to get it all done, leaving me and Greg to move all the boxes up to our apartment...

There were a lot of boxes...

Sgt. Podge

what a great name for a cat...

...found this story about a cat who's been disappearing daily for some feline adventures... click HERE

my first conference...

Was last Thursday, the 1st of November, at a place called Maebashi [前橋]. It was a JGS conference for all the geotechnical engineers in the Kanto province [関東], where the idea was to show everyone else what kind of research is going on in each field.

The conference started on the 31st of Oct, and ended on the 1st of November. There were 3 different presentation rooms, with each presentation + questions lasting 10mins... so, it was quick. I put myself down for a 5min presentation, just so that I could get out of there quicker...

Anyhoo, I'd written the paper whilst in Malaysia, which was fun. And I still hadn't gotten around to writing the presentation... nor was I entirely sure that what I wrote made any sense now. Obviously, it made *some* sense at the time, just that now it made less sense. Which was bad.

SO. There I was dressed up in IRONED trousers and a SHIRT [god forbid] looking like a pillock, and I headed with my laptop to somewhere outside of Tokyo...starting from Shinbashi station [新橋] I then went to Tokyo station [東京] and got on the Shinkansen [新幹線] to Takasaki [高崎] THEN on to a local train to Shinmaebashi [新前橋]. I got to the station and took the first sensible exit out of the station (with a vague recollection of the map - which looked very easy to get to the hall - you know, walk straight for two blocks and it's on your left....that kind of thing]. Anyway, I walked long enough to find out that it didn't look anything like the map. So I wondered in to what looked like a reception for a small University...and asked the people at the reception if they knew where the place was; showing them a very badly written name of the place I was trying to get to, which I copied off the internet. Worryingly, they had never heard of the place, and as this looked like a very small town, it was NOT a good sign. I was relieved to hear that I was at least a vaguely the right address. Just on the wrong side of the station. SO. I tottered back over from whence I came, made my way over the bridge over the train tracks... and now I was on the right side of the railway, the place was much easier to find.

So, I've managed to get to the right building, and following the signs in kanji, I go upstairs to register, which is a bit of a linguistic trauma, as they don't speak English... This resulted in a lot of giggling, which then descended (much to my concern that I had done something wrong) into laughter from the ladies that were trying to 'help' me. So, I do with pointing at my name on the list. I then get a goody bag containing the papers of the conference and a name tag holder thing... and only after seeing a couple of people, do I realise that I'm meant to write my name and University on it...

I loiter until the session before my session finishes, and then sneak into the hall. I see my Lab mates, who blank me... probably busy...

I manage to load up my presentation to the laptop, and then we head for lunch. Which was traumatic....well, traumatic for Ivan, who was displeased with the service at the canteen on the ground floor...and then even more agitated when they finally did serve him and told him there was no more of what he wanted.

When lunch was over, I went back to the presentation room to dissolve slowly in a chair... waiting for my turn. I tried to listen to the other presentations, but it was a bit hard, as they were in Japanese. So, I just looked at the pictures and guessed.. occasionally, opening my electronic dictionary to translate the odd word. Then, 'OOoooOooooh' my turn... So, I attempt to saunter up to the podium...well, laptop. Click on the right document (it's the only one in English) and then START....errrrr....well I would have done IF I could find the start presentation button, which definitely wasn't in the usual place... and everything else was in Japanese!!! I then, stood there like a lemon, waving the mouse about hoping that something would happen...nothing. Then one of the ladies sitting near the front popped up to save me.

I waffled on for 5mins. Everyone looked very confused...probably the same look that I had on my face during the Japanese presentations. Then, questions. From one person (better than none - which usually happens for English presentations)...which I answered with NO skill... again reiterating my 'lemon' status.

After attempting to listen to the rest of the presentations, I then promptly left to try and escape back to Tokyo. Not before bumping into my Professor; who didn't seem too dissapointed at my performance... in fact he seemed very happy. But pointed out 2 things:
1. I had apparently said that I was a 'Assistant Researcher' on my title page; on account of copy and pasting some kanji...OOooops
2. Gals stands for Galileo and hence demands a capital G. I never knew that.

Anyway, I'm still alive. Which is good for me and bad for you.

Note to self

Trying to find an apartment in Tokyo, is not the most fun, on the account of the demand of having a decent grasp of the language.... if this is missing, attempting to find an apartment will lead to a headache...

More on this later... have to move some sand today...