12th Oct 2006

This was definitely a long day! Got in to college at about 930 … it actually only takes me just over an hour to get in if the trains are being good…and sit around doing nothing in particular until one of the guys in department reminds me that we have an orientation lecture at 10…which I had written down somewhere from one of the other orientation lectures but had completely forgotten about. The engineering department try and make sure that we’ve done everything we need to do, but to be honest the first few days when I got all this stuff done was a complete blur and I have no idea what I still have to do…arghhhhhh it’s all a little complex. Anyway all this ends at about 12 at which point we have to make a move towards Komaba campus (which is ridiculously far away) for a foundations lecture. Don’t ask why some of the civil engineering department is on a different part of campus because no one seems to know. There’s also a second geotechnical laboratory doing some research here, not that different to the one on Hongo where I am just led by different professors. It all sounds a little pointless to me…especially as there is about 1 and a half hours travel time to get from one campus to another…

Lan is very kind and had offered to take me there yesterday…so three of us trek down to a station to catch a train (I have no idea where I was going… just followed…I can just about cope with that. They could have taken me to outer Mongolia and I wouldn’t have noticed…) train ride was about half an hour…then we had a rather long walk to the campus from the station… not the most convenient place to get to… I would never have found the place if I’d had to do it by myself. And I was also glad to have brought some leftover dinner from last night for lunch as my stomach was reminding me that it wanted to be fed. So I was scoffing down my lunch as the lecturer walked in.

Interestingly enough the lecture was given in both English and Japanese by the lecturer…very impressive. Think I’ve done some of this stuff before…but it’s very interesting as some things they have a different slant on what they learn here, due to the different engineering conditions they encounter…so I’m mainly learning about the problems in geotechnical construction in Japan and their common construction practice…

So, yeah….this Komaba campus is rather new…well the buildings still look very shiny the engineering building here is very concrety…they seem to like their huge concrete columns…with lots of glass and black granite everywhere….very dark building…think the building in Hongo is much nicer.

We get back to our own lab…I finish off the rest of my lunch then faff about a little more before harassing people in the lab to see if anyone will teach me how to use a triaxial machine…Daniel seems to be grappling with one so I harass him for an hour or so…he gets me some literature to read and apparently there are several machines free which I’m free to play with. Not like imperial at all where most of the machines are occupied and treated as something precious…. I can build my own machine if I’m so inclined….think I’ll just try and learn to use the things here first…they have different transducers and systems here to that which I am used to…I’m expecting it will take me this year to learn how to use the equipment. But it should be fun…

All this loitering takes me neatly on to 6pm when we wonder up to one of the lecturer rooms for a seminar given by Towhata sensei…which we all wait dutifully for as he’s late coming from another meeting. So we choose a lecture on Sumatra…we learn all about the Sumatra earthquake…then we go on to our book reading seminar…

We’re reading about excavations in soft soils…however, Towhata sensei points out that the authors are German and that what the Germans call soil is considered rock in Japan…mainly because in Japan the soils can get ridiculously soft…the book reading is rather pained mainly because the Japanese students are having issues with the whole thing being in English…but well interrupted by sensei with werid little comments (which aren’t, on the whole, directly related to excavations, but very funny none the less). Like about two American geotechnical academics (both men, obviously) who are only ever seen together…live together, go to conferences together and write papers together. It’s not actually the story that he’s telling that is the funniest thing but HOW he tells it! Maybe it’s just because of the Japanese accent and gestures… but it’s hilarious watching him subtly spread gossip…that and he was telling us about some of the more prominent guys who used to be in imperial…who used to live with his mum until he was 50 then got married then died (something like that anyway).

We finish at 830 (ahhhh long day) and I cant be bothered to cook so go to the supermarket on the way back home (which is still open at 10pm! How cool is that?) and discover reduced food goods! Hurrah! Anyway there are cooked foods with red stickers on them which I can’t read, but when I get to the till I get half priced food! Might have to do this more often…