New Seminar

Just a short update for today. This week and next week, I'm staying in "Flow Design Laboratory".

People in here study flow of air and liquids for engineering purposes. Some of the phenomena are already familiar to me, like separating substances with air bubbles. but there are also things I haven't seen yet. One of them is group where they study how to minize sounds coming from jet engines. Actually, the sound doesn't come from the engine itself, but is caused by turbulence of air instead.

Also today, I finally screwed up and left my wallet, camera, cellphone and passport to my apartment. But since I have small coin wallet, underground pass and door key with me this shouldn't be a big problem. Unless police stops me that is... ^^ From now on I will pack my things ready late evening and not try to wake up all dizzy and forget to pack up some stuff in a hurry.

Sightseeing and Shogi

Today prof. Suzuki, who is from Department of Architecture, showed me the northern part of the city. First we went to his house and I finally saw a typical modern japanese family house from inside. Vast majority of these houses have 2 or 3 floors because space is limited and lots are expensive. Felt little claustrophobic at first but you get used to it fast. Houses are kind of boxy but there are lots and lots of different models. Mr. Suzukis house walls were covered by beautiful vine plants (I think those were vines...). I met his wife and son, who was about to return to Tokio but before he left he gave me few tips about playing Shogi.


Typical houses in Sapporo, picture taken from moving train

Shogi is quite similar to normal chess when you first try it, but there are actually quite a few differences in rules of these games. First you will notice that soldiers can only move and eat directly ahead and thus cannot protect each other like they could in normal chess. But the biggest difference is that when you capture an enemy piece, you can return it into the game on your own side! This makes tactics quite different even though the goal is same in both games, namely to checkmate the opposing king.


Shogi board in starting layout.

After playing 4 games we went to ramen restaurant. I had never tried it so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Basically, it is a big bowl of noodles in strong, tasty soup and some vegetables and/or meat. It was good, but I kind of starting to slightly dislike hot noodle soups. It's hard to eat them without burning your lips or tongue after all. :)

Finally, Mr. Suzuki took me to a little sightseeing trip at nearby mountains. We visited largest ski jumping arena in Sapporo, Okurayama. Ride to the top was bit exciting since you go to there by downhill skiing elevator. Wind can blow quite hard at times in Sapporo. View is just magnificent of a bright day like this. You can see most of the city from the tower. I didn't have my camera with me but take a look at the wikipedia page, which has couple nice pictures of the tower itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Okura_Ski_Jump_Stadium

After that we went around the mountain with professor Suzukis car, countryside was full of green color. Mountains are very beautiful this time of year. Roads are pretty thin and winding so it wasn't easy to see far ahead. I can imagine driving here during winter is not much fun.

Now it's time to rest a bit and get ready for a new school week. I'll meet a new faculty member tomorrow who is in charge of this coming week.

Busy week finally behind me

This past week tired me quite a bit for some reason. Maybe because I had fairly many classes on technical subjects, like 3d printers and internet infrastructure. It takes a lot of energy to stay focused for entire 90 minutes when you have to listen very carefully what is being said and at the same time follow teachers body language, and try to scrape out whatever understanding I can get from lesson materials, which are almost 100% in japanese. Hanging around in big malls and having that interview on friday didn't exactly help either.

Interview was conducted by Northern Regions Center, which is some kind of government supported organization in Hokkaido. There were also 2 other people who were asked mostly same things, kind of a round table discussion I suppose. Both of them were japanese exchange students who had spend fair bit of time in Sweden and Norway. Chisato Yabe had been living in Norway for two years and Sayaka Fujiwara stayed in Sweden for 8 months. Talks were mostly focused on cultural matters.

NRC's magazine, called Hoppoken, is published 4 times per year. Mr. Sakabe said he will send me the issue where my interview is in Finland, since I will go back home a bit before its release. For more information, please take a look at NRC homepage.

http://www.nrc.or.jp/english/jyoho_E.html

Anyway, it is just nice to finally have internet connection here in the apartment and just spend one day relaxing and unwinding, without schedules and large crowds surrounding me from all directions. Tomorrow I have a meeting with one of the teachers, and this time I will learn a bit about Shogi (japanese chess, or "Generals game"). It seems to have bit more complex rules than normal chess. I just hope I can navigate the city well enough so I can get to the meeting place. Knowing me, I better leave early so I can backtrace my steps if necessary...

Summer is coming soo as well. Locals have told me that summer in Sapporo is warm and dry, which doesn't sound bad. Just have to avoid excessive exposure to sunlight and I should be fine.

And now couple miscellaneous pictures:


View just outside Sapporo International House, everything is so neat.


Odori park was so darned pretty last weekend. Behind fountain you can see very famous television tower of Sapporo, which is also acts as 0-0 adress number spot for the city. So yes, to find your adress in Sapporo, you calculate your distance from the tower. :)

Hi again folks! It has been bit rainy and cold in Sapporo since monday. One of the faculty professors has taught me a bit of game called "Go", which is a simple game to learn but hard to master. He also took me to a lunch into a japanese barbecue restaurant, which was kind of interesting. Tried some local mushrooms and vegetables there as well.

Tomorrow I'll spend time in seminar about 3D printers and their uses. So I looking forward to it since I believe that this kind of technology will get more common in coming years. From what I've understood you can print three-dimensional structures with it, so you can print "prototypes" and test them fast, unlike with traditional methods...

And finally I can take my loan computer back to my apartment! So tomorrow I have to get up early and give the paperwork about my internet connection to the apartment managers so they can set it up as soon as possible. After I get a connection, expect more frequent updates and more pictures here.

Ciao!

Last few days

Short update: Friday I had my welcoming party at HIT. It was pretty nice, but the real surprise was when one of the teachers gave me a name stamp. To those that don't know, in Japan you can use your family stamp instead of writing your name into official papers. I think it was a really nice gift.

Weekend was peaceful, I tried japanese burger (small but tasty) on saturday and went to Lilac Festival in Odori park on sunday (lots of people and bands playing there, bit too hot day for me though).

Currently weather is getting colder, it's windy and rainy in Hokkaido. Weather report indicates that this might last for a whole week. I wouldn't mind, but I haven't bought an umbrella yet. Have to get one today... :)

Next month we will make a trip to local nuclear power plant in place called Tomari. I'm quite interested since I've never seen either of the finnish nuclear power plants. Tomari plant is BWR-type (boiling water reactor), which is a "simple" light water reactor type.

Cya later.


Street view in Hokkaido

First week in Japan

So, now it`s been about a week since I came into Sapporo. Lots of things have happened but lets go with a short condensed version here.

First off, the flight to Japan was quite exhausting. It took about 17 hours to get from Oulu airport to Shin-Chitose airport in Hokkaido. Professor Sakabe from the Hokkaido Institute of Technology and his wife were there to meet with me and take to my dormitory. Sakabe-sensei talks english quite well so it was nice to get some quick info about Japan right off the bat. He is also my coordinator in the school, every friday I go to him and ask about the coming weeks schedule.

Dormitory is very nice, it`s 12 floors (I think?) and has rooms for single occupants and couples. Kitchen and washing machine are shared, but we have our own bathrooms and even bathtub. House is right next to "Gakuen mae" underground station so it is very easy to get around the city from here.On first couple days I just met 2 student tutors, Ryoji-san and Tsuyoshi-san. Both of them understand english well so I can ask just about anything from them if I have some problems. We made couple rounds around the city, visiting supermarket, museum and such places. There was also small arcade hall very near my place with some fun games, I'll have to go there again later.

On monday I went to the school for the first time. HIT is a private university, fairly small one with about 3000 students. Campus is easy to navigate compared to say University of Oulu, with most buildings being apart from eachother and connected with bridges. There are 2 cafeterias and of course the japanese specialty, vending machines at every corner. Food prices are somewhat lower than in Finland, maybe by 20% or so. Campus area has few very beautiful spots with gardens and trees. In the city people often also have small gardens next to their house if they have room. I was told that in southern Japan space is so tight often you won`t have space for one. I also met members of the staff and even the president of the school, mr. Nishi. Everyone has been very friendly and helpful.

On tuesday I met with Horuichi-sensei`s students and had a small party within their seminar room. We cooked okonomi-yaki, which is bit like a pancake with meat and vegetables. Students are very nice guys, but the don`t speak english that well. We have been teaching some words of our languages to eachother every day. This group has very interesting goals, they do research and development on materials for nuclear power plant construction and some greenhouse reduction materials and measures as well. They work mostly with metal alloys, so it is fairly close to my own specialty, analytical chemistry. Maybe I`ll try their electronic microscope some day.

On wednesday I went into to a small official party. Japanese sports drink manifacturer Pocari Sweat was celebrating their 30-year anniversary. It was held in huge 3 star hotel called Royton. There was a lecture by medical researcher about heat strokes and how to avoid them. Hokkaido area has seen average temperatures slowly increasing from 1920 onwards and it seemed to
have been causing some troubles for elderly and people who do sports. In worst case scenario the heat can cause internal damage to your body and even death. I was little bit scared since most people were in suits, and lecture was in japanese but it wasn`t so bad. After the party we took some of the snacks with us. I got sports meal bars that were made from pressed beans with different flavors. Tried one with blueberry flavor today, not bad.

Today, which is thursday I visited Prof. Miura`s english seminar and talked with her students about finnish and japanese customs. Miura-sensei speaks english almost perfectly, by the way. I think she lived in United Kingdom for couple years at some point. And now I`m heading to listen to a lesson about heat resistant steels and thermal creep. I hope I can understand what they are talking about. I'll be back...