Onsen, museums and the usual stuff

My life goes on here in Tokyo. The work is progressing slowly, I'm still struggling with the organic reactions and almost everyday I discover new ways to fail in getting a pure product. It's a bit of a mess but I still learn a million things per week so I guess it's good for me, huh?

It's getting colder here, the temperature has fallen down to 10-15C. It's not that bad compared to Stockholm in November, but as the insulation of Japanese houses is a joke the indoor temperature is not that much higher. So I've bought myself a nice fleece sweater and a real futon (bed cover) to battle the cold. Another way to keep warm is to go to an onsen (natural hot spring). Two weekends ago I went with Tomo, Shin-chan and Ma-chan to Tochigi prefecture, two hours north of Tokyo by train. We spent a night at Kita Onsen, an old traditional hot spring in the mountains. Very remote and isolated. The minshuku (Japanese inn) was an old house that reminded me of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away, Miyazaki Hayao) and there were several different baths to soak in, both indoors and outdoors. At night they turned of the lights and we enjoyed the hot water with beautiful stars above us. I had brought a package of Absolute Five (five flavours of vodka) and we tried all of them many times and compared the Swedish alcohol with Hakkaizan (wonderful Japanese sake) and beer. The next day, despite the hangover that was just slightly cured by a morning bath, we climbed one of the peaks close by and experienced the first snowfall of this winter.

Last weekend Natsuko came here for 4 days. We spent one night at her parents place, again enjoying her mothers wonderful cooking. Then we took the buss to Sengokuhara in Hakone, a mountain resort two hours west of Tokyo and thus close to Mt Fuji. The main goal was the Pola Museum, were they are now showing Monet and other impressionists in a special exhibition. Both I and Natsuko have since our stay in Paris this summer begun to like paintings by Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne and so on, and the visit to Pola Museum was great. Another sweet thing was the private onsen of the hostel we stayed at. You could book it for half an hour at a time and have it all by yourself! We also visited the Venetian Glass Museum and a museum for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the writer of The little Prince (Le Petit prince).

Back in Tokyo we went to one last museum for the weekend. This time it was an exhibition by Philadelphia Museum of Arts with more impressionist art, but also surrealism and cubism with works by Dalí, Picasso and Duchamp.

As you can see I spend all my time working in the weekdays and all my time playing in the weekends. From now that might change a little, they have scheduled some "Laboratory Seminars" during the following Saturdays so I won't be able to go on any long trips. Too bad...

Check out the pictures in my Photobucket!
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/antonfrise/
My trips to Kita Onsen and Hakone and the view of Mt Fuji from the door of my apartment.

Take care!

Now with pictures

I made a Photobucket account to show you some pictures! Follow the link below, you will find some slideshows a bit down on the page. You can also watch the pictures from the albums, links are on the left side of the main page.

http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/antonfrise/

Enjoy!

My first month

It's almost 4 weeks since I came to Tokyo and I've manage to create something that could be called an everyday-life.

I wake up around 8.30am in morning and have some bread with walnuts and bottled milk tea for breakfast. I call Natsuko on the cell phone and we talk while I get ready to leave for school. The phones have loudspeakers so I can get dressed and brush my teeth while talking.

The walk from my apartment to the subway station (Yoyogi-Uehara on the Chioda Line) takes about 15 minutes. I always get on the 9.17 train, the ride is 14 stations and takes about half an hour. I pass by many of the big central places, like Hibiya and Omotesando and every morning I see all the classics images of Tokyo subway: jam-packed trains full of office-workers playing portable videogames, reading books and sleeping. I get of at Nezu station and walk another 10 minutes to get to the university and my lab.

We start everyday at 10am. This is an important time and it's bad to be late. My project has just begun so I've been reading articles and books most of the time to get some basic knowledge. Last week I started doing experiments but my background is not organic synthesis so I need quite a lot of help. The work is interrupted by sporadic(?) lectures and seminars.

I finish somewhere between 10 and 11pm (and this is no exaggeration). The days are very, very long. Everyone else is also working late so that helps motivating me. I kind of see it as a competition.. if they can do it, so can I. But more important is that my project is very, very cool and I learn an incredible amount of new stuff all the time. So I don't feel a strong desire to go home early... yet.

I take the subway home and pick up some bread for the next day's breakfast at the local FamilyMart or 7Eleven. I usually make it home before 11.30pm. I watch some TV, read and talk to Natsuko again. Most nights I get more than 7 hours sleep.

It's quite a nice life. I get a lot of stuff done at work. I walk 50 minutes every day and do 50 push-ups every evening. I can listen to almost a full album of music on the subway and I'm reading my second book since I came here.

The week-ends have been busy. Natsuko has been here once and we met with her parents and brother. I went to her place in Osaka 10 days ago and we visited the royal palace in Kyoto together with her sister. This weekend all the people from the lab went on a school-trip to the mountains for a sleep-over in a ryoukan. We had some excellent food and I had a bath in an onsen for the first time since coming here. Next weekend I will go with Tomo and some friends to another onsen. I'll write about that next time!

Take care