After finishing my post yesterday, me and Henrik (who is one of the phd students) had a beer on our way home from the lab. Suddenly we decided to have some of the fries from the vending machine I wrote about yesterday. Is was so wierd. The machine actually started cooking the fries once we had put coins into it. But even though the fries were warm, they were still really disgusting (as one might could have guessed).
Anyway, I'm having a nice time here. Everybody are so kind to me, even though I feel like a six year old when it comes to the academic aspects: since I arrived I haven't spoken to a single soul who hasn't got a phd (or is in the middle of getting one). This is in a way inspiring, and what I understand of the project seems very interesting, but I can't help feeling like I'm just standing in the way sometimes.
The japanese professor, Shin-ichi, is doing all he can to make us feel welcome. Today he took us out for Sushi. It was one of those sushi restaurants where the food is served on little plates on a long conveyor belt, and then you just grab whatever plate of sushi you want to eat. The sushi was very good and surprisingly cheap; after stuffing ourselves for an hour we only had to pay around 1000 yen (50 kr.) pr person!
Even though the restaurant was filled with japanese people, this was the most tourist-y thing we have done so far. It is really strange to be in such an exotic country without exploring it. I'm happy that I'm having af few days in Tokyo after the beam time is over on monday.
Yesterday me and Robert spoke to the Japanese project director, Shin-ya Koshihara. He is the guy Niels had an email correspondance with in regard to my stay. Talking to him was one of the main reasons for my visit, but the talk didn't really clear up anything for my part. He was pretty vague in his promises, but Robert assured me that we would figure things out via email from back home.
It feels a bit wierd that I have been arranging my trip for so long, and that the most fundamental part yet is so unsure. I'm looking foreward to getting all this under control, so I can plan my stay.
Right now I'm at the control room at the facility. The guys just got things up and running, and I think we are expecting to do measurements full time until our beam time is over. So right now I don't know when I'm going to sleep again, but I think that I can stay awake throughout the night without trouble.
Good bye for now.
1 comment:
Hi Tobisen, so very interesting to read about your first impressions. I clearly remember mine, of Japan and about the Japanese peoples kindness and helpfullness. Torben asked me today about the nature of you project, can you explain it in more details on the blog? /dad
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