Japanese Christmas

My Christmas this year was very strange---but funny! Japanese guys tend to spend it with their girlfriends at home. Since I have no girlfriend, I had to find an alternative! A friend managed to get free tickets for a techno event:

(which was very good, cause they cost 60EUR)

The event was really nice, I stayed until 6AM :-) I had a great time (and lots of beer):


Finally, something Christmas-like happened: see the picture (the girl on the right is wearing a Santa Claus costume, haha)


I even took some movies at the event. Check them out! (Yes, it was that noisy---I have never heard music as crazy as this one)
movie1
movie2

Why do Japanese people love robots?

The Economist knows the answer: read the article here

Super Mario

On Tokyo's most important train (the Yamanote line), there are screens displaying advertisements. My current favourite shows someone playing the first level of Supermario Brothers! I have taken a small movie! Download it here.

I am still alive :-)

Wow, my last posting was soooooo long ago... the reason is: I work very hard now and study Japanese for 2-3 hours every day. It's very hard, but i am making nice progress!

Recently, I have started to learn Kanji ---the Japanese writing system. A basic knowledges requires to memorize 2000 characters. I have found an awesome book that makes it possible to learn about 10 Kanji an hour. I have learned already 80 characters, if I keep up this speed, I should be done around April....

About work: there is an article about the work done in our lab. you can find it here: article

Starting December 29, I have 1 week free time. I hope to do lots of blog entries, then. Because besides working and learning Japanese, i experienced lots of noteworthy things :-) stay tuned!

By the way: i had a problem with my blog---it was not possible to post comments (thanks to Peppi for notifying Oel, who notified me). This problem is solved now!

I am so exhausted---gotta sleep now!

My business card

I have a business card now! Finally, I feel like a full member of the Japanese working class :-) It is printed on both sides: one in English, the other one in Japanese.

The English side:

(I always wanted to work somewhere "Leading-edge", hehe)

Japanese side:

I am still memorizing the Kanji and the pronounciation of my affiliation...
The only thing I can read on the spot are the Japanese characters for my name :-)

Berni is still in town

Berni is still here, I love his Tshirt:

(ok, it is really geeky: you must have seen Matrix and know about programming to understand it, hehe)

Sunday, we have visited a Go Club. I will do an exam there, to get a certificate of my strength, on January 8th!
The front entrance:

Entrance hall with statues of famous players:


Next to the entrance door, there is a temple. I will definitely pray there, before taking my test!

Berni is visiting...

Since Friday, Bernhard (aka Berni) is visiting me. We are having a great time :-)
Some pictures (more follow soon):

We had a walk in my neighbourhood. We discovered a temple (maybe 100 meters away from my apartment):


Of course, I made him sample some great Japanese food!
Grey icecream (sorry I forgot the flavour, haha):


Breakfast at my place: Natto (fermented Soy beans---most foreigners cannot eat it):


Of course we also had Sashimi:


One night, we went to some cool bar. Berni was explaining to a girl (who could not speak English) about the mathematical notation of formal logic. I was falling off my chair, cause I could not stop laughing! He wrote it on my pack of cigarettes (I will keep it forever, haha)

For Simon

Simon and me both love the Phoenix Manga. Near the Onsen, there was a hotel, which had the Phoenix as their logo!

Kinugawa Onsen

Some more details about the visit to Kinugawa Onsen! We were a very mixed crowd:

Sebastien (French): See my earlier post describing his work

Ryosuke (Japanese): Researcher for Toshiba. Developing High Dynamic Range Display Technology.

Alex (half German/Hungarian---like me): Artifical Intelligence researcher

Kathy (American): Ph.D. for "History of Science" (a classical book on this topic is this one---thanks Michi for giving it to me as birthday present!).

Well---maybe not that mixed, since we are all researchers ;-) You can find lots of pictures on Sebastien's webpage. Definitely check out these pictures---it was sooooooo beautiful!

I had some interesting discussions with Kathy. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on a comparison of the methodologies used in Martial Arts and Physics. She had studied Physics first, then turned to Martial Arts (Black Belt). She showed me some stretching exercises, since it is still very painful for me to sit down the Japanese way (on the floor):



Alex is also playing 囲碁 (Igo). We had some enjoyable games:


Soon, I will go with him to a Igo center to get a certificate about my strength. I hope I can make a 5-Kyu!!

In the relax room of the Onsen, we also saw some people playing Shogi (Japanese chess):

It was awesome!

Today I have started to work here:

I already did 2 hours of overtime ;-) I really enjoyed my first day. Everyone was so friendly to me. My short self-introduction in Japanese went really well. I had the impression that my new colleagues totally loved it (my japanese teacher helped me a lot to prepare the speech). I got much more applause than for my presentation when I had had my job interview, haha.

Also, finally, I got to know what I am supposed to do for them. I am totally blasted by it. Something totally unexpected for me, yet it is something very deep. It seems to me that I have not only to learn Japanese, but lots of new science stuff. I am very excited about it!!

I also talked with my boss about what I am allowed to blog about my job. The bad news is: almost nothing... However, I am allowed to make posts about social events. I will blog about my welcome party next wednesday!