Hiroshima

It's too bad that it takes an atomic bomb to wipe out an entire settlement in order to earn the title 'City of Peace'. The trip itself was an emotional roller coaster. Upon arriving in Hiroshima on Saturday morning, both myself and my travel compadres were running on about 2.5 hours of sleep (which included the hour and a half of sleep on the bullet train). We had been celebrating a birthday the night before that ended with watching a bootlegged copy of the new Harry Potter movie that we didn't start until after 1:00am. After a quick nap on my futon and a brief sprint, I made it with my friends just in time to get on the shinkansen and find our seats.
I had never been on a bullet train before and I had every intention of staying awake to enjoy the scenery fly by at 300+ km/hr. That attempt failed in about 15 minutes. I fully passed out and arrived at Hiroshima Station with only a vague recollection of the train ever moving.
I don't know how it worked, but the Tour company we booked through got us train tickets and hotel for a bit less than it would normally cost for just the train tickets. The hotel was pretty nice too and very conveniently situated (3 mins walk from Hiroshima Station).
After we arrived we unloaded our gear and then headed to Miyajima, which is regarded as one of the top 3 views in all of Japan. I'm sure at some point in your lives you've seen a picture of a big red torii gate 'floating' in the water. That's Miyajima. I'd seen it before many times but never known where it was.
It's on an island just outside Hiroshima and you get to take a fun little ferry over. The gate is like a spiritual entrance way to the temple behind it. When the tide is in it laps up against the temple so that the whole thing looks like it's on the water. I got a night picture later with the tide in that sort of shows this. If I knew how many pictures I'd be taking at night here, I would have brought a tripod. I've been getting pretty good at finding flat surfaces to rest my camera though.
Anyways, we spent the day checking out the touristy town and then we hiked to the top of this mountain behind the temple. I didn't know this before but apparently Miyajima has the largest wooden rice scoop in the world! I was beside myself with excitement when I found this out. I looked later in this book I got called '1000 things to see before you die' but I couldn't find it in there. I was astonished. Linda and I just had to pose in front of it. I don't think this thing has even touched rice though, it would take about 30 people just to move it. All around town you can buy rice scoops with 'Miyajima' written on it, but I didn't get any.
The hike was probably the highlight of the day for me, athlough I don't know if Linda and Yukie shared this sentiment. They looked happy in front of the torii gate before though. Actually I think they both really enjoyed the hike. The climb was pretty steep in parts, but it ended at a tower and you could see in all directions. There was supposed to be this pot that has been kept boiling for the past 1200 years in a little temple part way up the mountain, but we couldn't find it anywhere. Finally we asked one of the monks and he said that the little temple had burned down earlier this year!! I feel sorry for the guy that let that happen. But I suppose it is impressive they were able to keep a fire burning for 1200 years in a wooden temple withOUT burning it down.
It was getting dark as we got to the top so we took a cable car back down the mountain and took the train back to our hotel. None of us were feeling particularly energetic after the long day and minimal sleep so we retired pretty early.
In the morning we started our tour de Hiroshima. First stop: Hiroshima Castle. Not the original of course, because pretty much everything within several km's of the blast site was destroyed, but a 'reconstructed original'. Actually, it's interesting, things that were vertical (like telephone poles and cement walls) weren't destroyed by the bomb. The bomb detonated at an altitude of 600m so it took out anything between it and the ground. This is why structures like the Atomic-Bomb Dome survived with surprisingly little structural damage even though it was very near the target site. Wandering around Peace Memorial Park and especially going through the museum was pretty heavy. Hey Mark - I found that peace bell and rang it - only 23 years after you! I found it sad being there and thinking about all the pain and suffering that had happened right where I was standing. But I did appreciate the attitude of the city towards the tragedy. The focus really is on peace. There isn't any blame placed, no fingers pointed. The goal seems to be education about the past to prevent it from happening again. The mayor of the city even sends a letter of protest EVERY time any nuclear testing is done anywhere in the world, and Hiroshima started Mayors for Peace - an international organization of city mayors united against nuclear weapons.
All in all it was a great trip. One of those experiences that really changes your perspective.

A post card from my mind

Hello from the inside of my brain. Wish you were here! Actually, you are here. Not in the physical sense of course, but I'm sure there are some connections in here somewhere the represent you and all my memories associated with you.
So this is what I do now... I look at brains.
My research here in Japan involves doing functional MRI scans of the brain during different movements to see what areas of the brain are activated. Naturally I used myself as my first test subject to make sure both the apparatus and procedure were in order. Since then I've been processing the data and struggling with stats to determine if the activation of a particular area is 'statistically significant'.
I have now run 15 subjects through my experiment. Tomorrow I will do two more and that will be it for MRI data. After that I will analyze the 360 scans I did for each subject and write me thesis. I just realize I have under 1 month to do this! I may have to start working on the weekends a bit more.If I was already pro at doing all the MRI analysis, then I'd probably have loads of time. But I'm not. I'm learning as I go, which is both good and bad.

It's taking me a lot of time, but hopefully I know what I'm doing by the end of it!
There is seriously something trippy about looking at your own brain...
You should all feel very flattered that I'm sharing something this personal. haha.
This side view is weird. The mouth area is all blacked out because I have a metal orthodontic bar behind my lower front teeth. I completely forgot it was there until I looked at these pictures later! When you go into the scanner, you have to remove all metal items (especially if they are magnetic metals). You also want to make sure you don't take your wallet in there. A couple of guys here have forgotten and then had to get EVERY card replaced because they demagnetized! My second time I went in I forgot I had a key on me until I felt something tugging at my pocket.
Ohh the joys of powerful magnets. I think when they introduce magnetism to people in school they should do some demonstrations using these things. If you move a non-magnetic sheet of metal in the magnetic field you can actually feel the directions of the field lines. It's a pretty damn expensive toy, but it's awesome.

Where to begin...

So the past couple weeks have been pretty much a blur. I'm glad I took pictures otherwise I probably would have forgotten what I have done! I've selected just a few highlights below. This first one is from Kiyomizu-dera, a famous temple in Japan. The name means 'clear water' temple because of a spring that emerges on its grounds. The water is supposed to promote longevity. I'm pretty sure it's a hoax, but I drank some anyways (just in case). I'll let you know in another 80 years whether or not it works.

In any case, the temple at night is really nice and has a great night view of Kyoto. I seem to be going to Kyoto a lot lately. I probably should have just taken a tent and camped in some park last weekend because I was there Friday/Sat/Sun. It's pretty close and everything, but getting to and fro for three days cost about $40 on the train. Did I mention I miss my U-Pass? (That's our university transit pass that's included in our student fees!).
This next shot is of me on top of a mountain overlooking Biwa-ko, Japan's biggest lake. It was organized by a group from work so there was about 15 or so of us. I'm a bit bundled up cause it's a little chilly! I don't know what happened, but it got cold here! When I arrived at the beginning of October it still felt like summer but these past couple weeks have gotten very cool. I have to rock my toque a lot.

Ahh another picture of me hiking with my toque and puffy vest, but it's actually on a different day. This one was on the way up Ikoma mountain which is near my house. I had heard that the night view of Osaka was killer from the top so I went to check it out.

About half way up the mountain was this temple with a super long staircase leading into the entry way. It seemed out of place, but it was really cool. We had stopped for directions shortly before this and an old Japanese man told us over and over that it was dangerous to go into the woods at night because there was a 'wild animal' on the mountain. Apparently several years ago (like around 20) there were a few sightings of a 'tiger' roaming the hills. I sort of laughed though because this mountain wasn't exactly in the wilderness. It was surrounded by Osaka to one side and Nara to the other and it had an amusement park at the top!!
This is my attempt at a night picture of Osaka. It really doesn't even come close to doing it justice. Being in the amusement park after hours was bizarre too. All the lights were off, the place was deserted and the city stretched out for kilometers below. I had a total 'holy shit I'm in Japan!' moment looking out at the nearly 3 million people below.

Already my trip to Japan has been full of good-bye's. With all the international reseachers here, people seem to be coming and going all the time. All the send-off parties are in true Japanese style - KARAOKE!!!
Before coming here, I think I went out to karaoke once... now I average once every couple weeks! I still can't sing worth shit, but it can be fun. It helps that many of them include 'all you can drink' while you have the room - even if the drinks are watered down.


This picture is of my friend Linda (an SFU Engineer) and a girl from Germany named Susanne. Linda and I do a pretty rad duet of 'Barbie Girl'. My other favortie song is an old Japanese song called 'Linda Linda'. Well actually it sounds more like 'Rinda Rinda' because there is no 'l' in the Japanese language, rather 'r' sounds more like a mixture between 'r' and 'l'.
I can really only sing the chorus, but it's super catchy and it's all about 'Rinda'!
Our other friend Dylan can actually sing, so maybe I'll have to get him to be my 'voice coach' so I'll have something to show from all this karaokeing.

Immortalized in Japan

I will now live on in Japan forever and all I had to do was run 2km!
This past weekend I ran in a local 4 x 2km relay race near where I work. Some guys had asked me if I'd join their team and I figured any race practice is good, even if it is only 2000m. The team was sponsored by a local restaurant owner who can be seen in the centre of the picture below (ie the small Japanese man).

Somehow I ended up as the anchor for our relay team, even though I kept insisting that I have not been training for speed at in the past year. This pic is of me starting my leg of the race. I was in third here so I started going hard from the start.

After a tough up hill battle coming to the finish, I ended up making up the 50 seconds we were behind and finished victorious. Naturally, I had to pose like a star coming across the line.


Even the mayor of the town had to get in the photo's with these strange fast running white dudes.

This is the kid of one of the guys on our team. He know's we're number one.



The owner of the restaurant was so happy. He has posted out winner's certificate and team photo where everyone can see!

My life at work...

First of all, I have to apologize for the number of toilet pictures on my blog, I'm just completely fascinated by the extensive variety they have in Japan. Some are barely more than porcelain lined holes in the ground (don't worry, no pictures of these). And then there's the ones we have at work.
I save up so that I have to go sit down at during my work day just so I can use this thing. The most thrilling, and also most odd feeling is the fact that the seat is warmed.

In my life, the only time that a seat has been warm for me is when someone has just gotten off of it - and typically that's not a time you really want to be there.

Now aside from the heating system, which I'm sure I will appreciate even more once the weather gets colder, there is also a variety of bum washing features. I haven't been adventurous enough to try these just yet but I hear they're lovely.
But it wasn't until just yesterday when I was enjoying my warm seat that I noticed the most surprising feature...it's Window's XP compatible!!! Bill Gates would be so proud.

My only complaint is that the stalls are so very small that I have a hard time sitting down without my knees hitting the wall in front of me.

So my work life outside the bathroom is also very good.
We have an open house here today and tomorrow. This picture is with a couple of other guys I work with. The shaved head guy is Todd, he's Canadian so pretty much automatically cool. But he's also a DJ - which probably makes him even cooler, although I don't know what kind of discs he jockies. The other guy is Dan. He runs about 6 days a week, but he also drinks like a fish so he still has a cute little beer belly.

This was another picture from today. My supervisor from SFU is on the left in the white shirt. He's pretty much a genius, so I end up feeling cognitively insufficient a lot of the time. Despite his social ackwardness at times he's actually a very nice guy. Although he was trash talking me in the Newsletter that circulates to SFU Kinesiology professors saying he was 'building confidance dropping a guy half his age on the climbs' while riding here in Japan. I wish I could dispute this acusation, but I can't. Just read the entry title 'Tips for Riding in Japan with Ted' and you'll have an idea why.
The other asian guy is actually an SFU Engineering student here doing a co-op term. He also went to elementary school with my girlfriend Christine! Small world.

This last picture is of me and my Japanese teacher who is also the librarian at ATR where I work.

I suppose many of you haven't seen me in my glasses! I actually wear them about once a week now. I wore them today to try and make myself look smarter, but instead some old Japanese guy just told me I was handsome! haha.
Better luck tomorrow I guess!

Kyoto by night...

So after my 6 hour riding adventure, I showered up and got on the train to Kyoto to go meet with some Japanese friends for dinner. It was my mom's birthday, so I thought I should have a celebratory meal in her honour. We ended up eating in Gion (the main Geisha district) but not until about 9:30 because it was so busy that we couldn't get in anywhere. In the mean time, we went exploring...

This is me with Toshiko and Hiroko in Kyoto. It's funny Toshiko speaks English well, but Hiroko is still learning so we end up speaking some hybrid language between Japanese and English. Toshiko ends up having to do a lot of tranlating too!

So during the fall when all the leaves are changing, they light up some of the temples in Kyoto at night for your viewing pleasure. I couldn't beleive how many busy it was - and with Japanese people!


It's hard to get pictures in this kind of light that do the scene justice, but it really was quite beautiful with this little pond. All the Japanese people were taking pictures with their cell phones (they have 2.0 megapixel cameras in them plus TV, video, internet, music player etc etc.)

Blurry walkers at night...

We went to some other cool spots afterwards too, but my camera battery died =(
Having seen a few temples by day, I would almost say it's better going at night. But the crowds sort of take away from the traquil temple experience.

Riding Last Saturday

This week has been super crazy with work, so I've been even more behind with my emails/phone calls/blog updates than usual
These pictures were taken on a 6 hour 'cycle-seeing' adventure I went on with this guy Tijn I work with. He's from Holland and working on his Masters - but he's only 21!!! Boy do I feel lazy.
He was riding a Japanese mountain bike, so our pace wasn't too fast, but we saw got to see some sights that are off the beaten track of most tourists.


This is me ripping down the mountain that took us about 1.5 hours to climb. The ride down was awesome. Although there were a lot of hair pin turns and not many were marked. The other problem we had was that the cars were going too slow. The sky is a bit hazy, but you can sort of see out over Nara.

So I have to order wrong here. This is us at the top before we got to ride down! Again a hazy view, but it was a nice warm day.

Another gratuitous riding shot. I was barely moving, but thanks to Tijn's stellar photography skills it looks like I'm smokin'.

One of the temples we got to was having a big event for the national Seven, Five, Three festival they have here. I don't know exactly what goes on, but it's to honour boys aged 3 and 7 and girls aged 5... or maybe the other way around, but you get the idea.
Don't worry it was a consentual photo - I asked her mom first!
More shots to come soon!

Some pics in and around my place

So here is my place! Finally you can see where I'm living!
This first pic is a view from my balcony down the street. The leaves on my street seem to be way ahead of all the other ones.


These next two are of my living room and sleeping area. As you can see my bed folds nicely out of the wall =) Pretty handy!
I try and make sure i actually fold it up every day, other wise I just feel lazy!



My house is basically a wide hallway.
The balcony door you see here is at the opposite end of the 'hallway as the entrance door.
The kitchen is sort of where I am standing taking the picture.
But I hadn't done the dishes so you can't see it!



My toilet has a little fountain on top of it. Don't be fooled like I was! This is not for drinking. I repeat NOT. It's for saving water.
You wash your hands in the clean water that is filling the toilet rather than using more at the sink later.









This is my entrance way where I keep my bike and shoes. In Canada I think most people take their shoes off when they go into their houses (except Mark and Heidi), but in Japan they take it to the max. I think there are few things you could do that would be worse than wearing your shoes inside. Even at work most people will at least put on their 'indoor' shoes. Pretty much every place I've been too has an entrance way like this and then there is a bit of a lip or a step up to the floor for the rest of the house.





This one is pretty self explanatory. Bathroom mirror.
The little smiley face guys were a gift from this really hot girl back in Canada. They're happy like that all the time! It's crazy. The only problem I have is that when I stand in front of the mirror, I can't actually see my face. The lights are eyelevel.
Everything in Japan is designed for little people!

Finally saw Kyoto!

Lately, I've come to realize more and more that I've actually been away for sometime. It struck me the other day when my first roll of toilet paper ran out. As a man living alone, this takes a significant amount of time. Then I had to clear some food out of my fridge because it had gone bad. Over the last few months I've barely stayed in one place long enough to let food spoil.
The rapid passing of time must be largely attributed to my research - I've been so busy working that a week will go by before I have a chance to call my family.
I was actually looking forward to having a bit more free time after coming to Japan. No social engagements, no extracurriculars... just work. I've never had the opportunity to be so focused on one thing in all my life.
But of course that isn't the way it ever works out for me. Obviously I try to take on as much as I can and fit the most into each day.
Between my Japanese classes on Tuesday nights, Basketball on Wednesday, cycling on the weekends and running any other day I can, I think I'm as busy as I ever was.
Being busy itself seems to accelerate time. I think mostly because you don't really have much time to sit and think about time passing. Days become so full of activities, that when you do finally take a moment to reflect, there is so much to reflect on!
So am I all that surprised that this past weekend was the first time I made it into Kyoto City? No, not really.
I some sense I was kind of saving it. Kyoto is famous for the immense number of temples, gardens and shrines that weren't bombed into oblivion during WWII. It's basically considered the cultural centre of Japan.
I've been to nearby Nara and Osaka and enjoyed them both - but Kyoto is in a class all its own. I suppose I was sort of saving the best for last.
It's interesting too, I just started reading 'Memoirs of a Geisha' which is of course set in Kyoto so seeing the areas discussed in the book was particularly interesting.
Fall in Japan is quite funny. I don't think I've seen a bigger to do about leaves changing colour! There are all these websites and magazines devoted to updating everyone on the status of the leaves in a certain area. You can essentially track the changing of the leaves from North to South through Japan.
Tokyo is at its peak right now, but where I am here is a bit south so the leaves are just starting to turn.
So I checked out part of Kyoto this past weekend, but I think I will likely return for the next two weekends so I can see what all the excitement is about with the leaves!
I'm in the process of organizing photos so there will be more soon I promise! Ha ha.
Actually, my camera doesn't seem to be functioning optimally right now so I'm going to have to take it in and see if they can fix it (it's under warranty but this isn't a good sign!).
I've got to make sure it works well for leaf pictures next weekend!
Hope everyone reading this is doing well! Love to all and Happy Hallowe'en.