GeoKanto 2008

It's GeoKanto time again! Last year, the Kanto [関東] regional gathering of geotechnical engineers was in Maebashi [前橋], my first Japanese [err... well, first ever] conference. This year, the conference was held at Nihondaigaku [日本大学], one of the largest Universities in Kanto, possibly Japan. They have a multitude of campuses across the Kanto region, one of which is not too far from Todai [東大] north of the Imperial Palace in Ochanomizu [御茶ノ水]. The one we were at was way out East on the Tozai line [東西線] near Funabashi [船橋].

Despite all the proceedings and 99% of the presentations being in Japanese, I and the other foreign students were presenting in English. So that was fun. I didn't understand any of the other presentations and mine was the only English one in my session, so I'm not sure anybody apart from the chairman (who was actually Yamada-san, our assistant professor), actually understood the presentation anyway.



I did notice that there were some undergraduates from other universities (Chuo uni [中央大学] I think) who were busy sniggering at any glitch in their fellow students presentation, which didn't seem particularly nice/helpful, but nevermind.

The campus seemed HUGE! and there was this, rather trendy looking building on the way to the venue. The weird tube shaped structure seemed to hold a oblong lounge. Nice design, but seemed like a bit of waste of space. On the other hand, It must be quite nice to design an interesting building outside of the confines of Tokyo.

Also, there were some very pretty Chrysanthemums just at the entrance to the campus. Again with the HUGE.