FujiQ Highland [富士急ハイランド]

...Oh bugger.

Was the main thought going through my little grey cell (there was only one left as the other 3 had inexplicably left on some kind of vacation) as I plummeted at high speed backwards towards the ground...which would have been fine, I guess, if the large contraption which was now in full control of my life hadn't-midfall- decided that the best thing to do was to swivel my seat to get a better view of what felt like impending doom.

Just a few moments ago, the ride had trundled suspiciously peacefully along the track facing us backwards up the big slope to the top of the ride, facing us towards the majestic mountain scenery that surrounded the amusement park. I had been thinking calm happy thoughts, trying to quell the queezy sensation which had been lurking in the depths of my stomach while I had been queuing, and taking nice deep breaths (so that I could potentially scream louder, without initiating some kind of heart attack), and forcing myself to enjoy the view.

the very tall ramp to the start of the ride. it really is VERY tall...

The ride was amazing, but the people who designed the thing had some really sadistic moments, where; as you were entering at the top of a swooping loop, head first with your body facing to the outside of the loop so that you could only see a blurr of sky, the seats would then swivel you to face downwards as you came into the turn. THAT really made my stomach and grey cell go something along the lines of: 'ohnonononononoNO!'.

one of the many swoopy bits... (these were nice..)

You can tell it's a good roller coaster when your legs are all wobbly when you try and walk cooly to the exit. It definitely did something weird to my blood circulation. Not only was I impressed by the ride experience (minus the queuing the irratating song that played for the entire hour we waited for the ride ...eejanaika eejanaika eejnaikaaaaaa [ええじゃないか]! ARGH!).

Anyway, it was totally the best roller coaster I have ever been on... Oblivion scared the crap out of me, but only at the point where they make you look into the abyss for what feels like a disturbingly long time...but Air, was very relaxing, gentle ride with no: ohnonononononoNO moments...just the general ahhhhhhhhhhhh... feeling.

Greg and I also spent a lot of the time after contemplating how they made the seats swivel around...we figured that it was the cunning second rail controlling it....very cunning indeed.

We also did the speedy ride called DodonPA [ドドンパ]! Which had a horrible looking hump of doom, and high speed...although it was over all too quickly because it was such a fast ride...the start was very nice though, like being catapulted out of a tunnel...on the bright side the theme song was less irritating.

The hump of doom on DodonPA

A second view of part of DodonPA [ドドンパ] with the ferris wheel and Mt. Fuji in the background.

We also did Tsunami, which had a VERY big wave (funnily enough). They really meant it when they said you WILL get wet. Greg and I were the only people in our ride to NOT buy a plastic rain coat...much to the concern of the mother and son behind us who very shyly asked if we knew that we'd get drenched...we just beamed back and said YES! - it was what we wanted...it was Soooo damned hot!

And yes we were completely soaked...mind you, so did a few people not even on the ride.

We had lunch on the ferris wheel, cycled some little bicycle contraption on an overhead track, a stupid shooting aliens ride - which was utterly pants, not only was the ride crap, but the guns you were meant to use to 'shoot' aliens were useless...hence my score of 1, failed to escape from a haunted house, tried the highest roller coaster; Fujiyama - which would have been a very good ride, HAD it had some neck restraint going on. I felt rather Ragdoll like, and so my neck hurt after...Big swings on chains, a ride in small clouds with hamsters, a vicious Mad Mouse ride which looked very small and tame but really threw you about AND a carousel.

The carousel and eejanaika [ええじゃないか] we did twice each, because they were just soooo good.

Don't be scared Greg! It will be over soon...

...more Candy Floss

Candy Floss Contest 2:
It would seem that I don't need to write about it, because Greg has:
candy floss contest part 2

candy floss, candy floss, CANDY FLOSS!

Candy Floss Contest 1:
Location: Rinkai Koen (close to Shinkiba - under the big ferris wheel)
Date: 15th January 2007On the Left (in my right hand) is Greg's candy floss.
On the Right (in my left hand) is MY candy floss.
[all produced in the spin-your-own-candy-Duck-of-Joy: on my left...]

We found another one of these glorious machines very close to where I live...also, strangely, under a big ferris wheel... I think the two machines are inextricably intertwined. Thus, there are more photos to follow... just as soon as I steal them off Greg's camera...

Beware of kanjii tatoos...

Was having a free coffee in the Engineering faculty Japanese Language office, as you do, and having a chat...

...we got on to the subject of kanjii tattoos and the fact that many people don't exactly get what they thought they were getting.

The lovely lady in the office was telling us about how her friend had a big burly, male friend....you know the chunky kind...bulging with muscles and all that...was very proud of his beautiful kanjii tattoo on his upper arm. Beaming with pride, he proudly shows it off to his friend, who sees:

台所 [だいどころ]

...which means kitchen in Japanese.

What can you do, eh? Looking at the tattoo, then back to her friend. She couldn't bear to tell the guy what it meant. He was Soooo happy with the thing. She just smiled kindly...

Plane in FLAMES!

I saw a lovely article about the China Airlines plane which burst into a lovely fireball at Okinawa airport...mmmmm toasty.

On the bright side all the passengers and crew are safe...which is apparently a turn up for the books considering the little stories that I found whilst browsing around the rest of the BBC website; crashes into the sea, at airports, into mountains...

Anyway, it all made me very glad that I had decided against being a cheap scummy student and booking the cheapest flight to Malaysia via said airline, mainly due to the ridiculous stop-over-age at HK...

Anyhoo...this afternoon I had just come back into lab after a little wonder in the sweltering heat of the Japanese summer [which has been a consistent 35degrees and blisteringly sunny for the past 2weeks at the least - and it's humid...did I mention it's humid!??!...well it is. Very humid. could cut the air with a scythe...Oh no. Sorry, that's DEATH isn't it...I don't have a scythe. I have a very strange mop if that helps. no? Oh well nevermind.] ...where was I? ....errrr...oh yeah.

So, I walk back into lab and find Satoさん holding up a full page newspaper article on the fireball of doom to Goさん (Yes. There is a guy in my lab called Go. Vietnamese, if it helps you). The article was in english...and why Sato had part of an english newspaper; I don't know. Anyway, as soon as I saw this I pointed at it and exclaimed "haha!!! fireball!!! ...hey! Lan! Did you hear about the plane bursting into flames? China Airlines....Okinawa wasn't it?" - Lan actually seems a bit preoccupied, and not particularly enthused by a plane on fire... So, the conversation continues with Goさん and Satoさん.

'Haha! China Airlines あぶない!!!!'
Satoさん obvisouly agrees, I can tell because he's laughing - although that could be at my enthusiasm for planes becoming fireballs...
'Yes, but they are cheap', says Go
yeah...cheap, but dangerous; I'm not sure I'm such a fan of their track record right now. There's obviously a reason why their flights are cheap...the extensive stop overs in HK or Taiwan...but HEY!... you get value for money...if you're lucky you can get a free cremation...in a very large plane shaped coffin.

Go points out that these little mishaps only seem to happen in 3year intervals with China Airlines...So, it's probably safe to fly with them now, because they aren't scheduled to have another of these episodes for another 3...Maybe just fly with them for 2years from now... then avoid them like the plague for a year or so, until the coast is clear... then you're all sorted.

Yeah. Sounds like a cunning plan to me.

my first earthquake

Yeah...I've only been here 10 months, with lots of earthquakes going on that seem to bypass me...and FINALLY on Thursday.

It being 4am...it was subconsciously incoperated into my dream...when I did finally open my eyes, I awoke to Greg sitting up looking at me, saying: 'wayway...earthquake'... Had my vocal chords been in gear, I would have answered, but they were in sleep mode, so I dreamily experienced the room rocking backwards and forwards. my immediate thought was; 'it's got to be quite a big one. and quite close to Tokyo...hmmm....nice.'

Then it stopped.

'How big do you think it was?!' say's Greg, who had obviously been up for a while before the earthquake...

'Oh...I don't know!' - thinking it's very early in the morning to be asking such a question... I'll google it later.

'Go on guess! just for fun!'

...oh god.
'...arf... 5...it's got to be close...didn't feel all the other ones...we're too low down....' I mutter...if I answer him, then maybe I can go back to sleep...

The Special Birthday Krispy Kreme Tower

It's the 15th of August, and it's Annalisa's birthday. Needless to say we've gone out to eat.

We are in Ebisu looking for the Monsoon Cafe...
It has lovely Moroccan looking lights and a dark wooden decor. Unfortunately, however, the entire restaurant is open out on the the street. This wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't so sticky and humid. But it's actually not too bad inside, their A/C must be on on full blast...stinks of inefficiency if you ask me...

Anyway, we get down to the important business of ordering the 1st round of food and beverages...then the second and third...and some more drinks please...

We then try and ask for a large plate from the waitress, who comes back with a small dish...errrr, we asked for a BIG plate...She heads back to 'have another look' then after a while she comes back and says they doesn't have one. We explain that anything flat and reasonably large will do, then try and point out that we want to build a tower out of the 2 dozen Krispy Kremes that Greg had to queue in the blazing sun for half an hour for at Shinjuku. The waitress looks a bit shifty and tells us that we can't eat things that we brought from a different shop in the restaurant. We're a bit deflated. But we persist, and eventually wrangle it out of her that if we pay a 'cakeage' fee (like corkage but for cake) we are allowed to have the KKs and eat them.

A CAKEAGE FEE?!?!?!? yeah...well...I thought it was a bit mean of them. It was a birthday for god's sake... Anyhoo, suspiciously, after we agree to pay the cakeage fee, they miraculously manage to produce an absolutely Ma-huuusive plate...dusty though it maybe, Greg immediately works on making it eat-off-able... we then start the construction of the KK tower...

Don't look! You'll spoil the 'surprise'...


ok... so Krispy Kremes are rather compressible...

...take a deep breath...


...hmm... I think we start eating them... it looks like it's going to fall over...even with the cunning chopstick reinforcement column in the center...


A very pleased looking birthday girl avec Krispy Kreme...

...a little something from FujiQ

Nagano and the Midori Fault Museam

So, after MG Lab we moved to Nagano from whereI was meant to head, by myself, to a fault museam in the middle of the country side where a M7 earthquake hit the Midori valley in 1891.

Walking through Nagano on the way to the train station, there was this weird building; which I had glimpsed on the way to the hotel the night before, which has a ferris wheel tacked on to the side.

On the way to Midori, I stopped off at Oogaki, where I was meant to change trains to get to the fault museam...and after missing a train (which has a very strainge timetable...with a train about once every1.5hrs at best) due to some confusion over where the platform was hiding, I went for a little wonder around Oogaki...and found a reconstructed castle.

Then finally got my train (along with a little sushi lunch) on a pink, one-carriaged train. stylish.

The trip down took about an hour through the Japanese country side on a single track in very heavy rain.

The Midori (水鳥) train station was tiny, but it was hard to miss the fault museum, which sat, just by the train line...a huge pyramid in the middle of the otherwise tranquil country side.

I was the ONLY person in the museum, apart from the two people who were looking after the place. After playing around with all the buttons in the museum, I went for a walk in the rain to photograph what was left of the fault. I got completely soaked from the knees down...

Before catching the train back, I stopped off at a tiny little cafe, sitting behind the fault museum, and attempted to speak japanese to the people inside. The lady who ran the place was lovely, and somewhat confused that she couldn't find me any cakes to have with my coffee which I wasn't allergic to...it was really sweet, she came back 3 times to me with a different cake... and I felt really bad rejecting them.

I then trapsed back to the little train station to wait for my train back so that i could try and catch the shinkansen [新幹線] home.

MG Lab - the flying mice...

SO. I haven't written for a while...sorry :)
....and i needed to write about the trip to Gifu... so here it is:

Lan and I stayed over at Seda's place (which is a *tiny* appartment 5mins walk from uni), while Seda made other sleeping arrangements... then got up at the ridiculous time of 430am to be in lab for 5am. nice eh? Anyway, we were at uni so early all the gates were shut... so we had to climb in. Which was fun.

So, we wonder in to lab a little bleary-eyed, to find Fukuda just waking up, after spending the night in the lab, do some last minute checks whilst eating breakfast. We eventually leave at 6am.

The hire car was fully loaded with all of Lan's equipment for the micro gravity tests, and sleeping people. Apart from the driver, obviously, and sometimes me. As we were driven by Kawano through the beautiful Japanese landscape; which was occasionally interrupted by the odd warning sign about falling bears and roaming rocks (could be the other way around); I attempted to stay awake and annoy Kawano...much to his surprise. Discovered that he can drive a huge variety of vehicles because he use to race and drive the large trucks which would transport the cars to the tracks. I couldn't really work out what he raced; I assume they were like drag cars, the Japan-English language barrier wasn't so helpful.

We stopped several times along the way, to stretch our legs and smoke the driver...I sat with Kawano and Fukuda whilst they chatted...and apparently it hadn't been such a bad day for 'understanding what the hell wayway is going on about'...Kawano said he could catch about '50%' of what I was blathering on about.

We eventually get to the micro gravity lab at about 12:30, unload all the equipment to get it to a preparation room, then head off to lunch at 'curry house' - it's a japanese version of curry...and it's not nice...I wouldn't recommend. Brown sludge with rice. MMmmmmmm no thanks! It's going to be a long day.

When we got back, Lan had to start preparing her experiment: testing sand under very low gravity. She was stressed....but we stayed until the lab was about to shut trying to set up what we could ready for preparation and testing tomorrow.

the control room

So we go to our hotel (very nice - but in the middle of nowhere) have a shower then go out to dinner, alcoholically funded by Yamada. We have to be up and out of the hotel by 830am the next day.

the capsule

I mainly spend my time, napping, trying to calm Lan down [the computer crashed - which made her scream], and taking photos... Anyway, the lab was very interesting; the bullet like capsule is dropped down a vertical shaft, 100m of free fall and 50m of braking via a rubber sock thing. All morning, whilst setting up, we watched sets of 4 rats, wearing little hats, being dropped for scientific purposes. Apparently, they were monitoring brain activity of said rats under free fall conditions. No idea why, but I guess it's fun. I was heavily dissapointed though, that I didn't get to see any rats flying in their little plastic cages, then looking heavily confused on being subjected to 12g's under the breaking force. The installed camera which transmitted throughout the test was sadly only aimed at the screen monitoring their brain activity. Below there is a photo of the capsule which had the flying rats...

the mice