Sunday, July 06, 2003
What an adventurous day. Dan is going to love me taking up all of his hard drive space with my pictures. Oh, and I fixed a link from yesterday. Sorry, I got lazy with checking my tags again. I have given myself 41 lashes, above and beyond most self-punishing offenders. When most of them go to 40, I go to 41.
I am not so sure if my mpeg worked from yesterday. It was just a crappy bike ride by the park shot anyhow. I did figure out how to make smaller movies today so maybe I can perfect the art of posting them by the time I have to come back. Let me know if todays brief clip works. The file size is apparently smaller than a lot of my images.
No 4th of July celebration for me yesterday. I hope you ate a hot dog for me, here they serve leftover cow parts before smashing it up and mixing it with delicious nitrates.
So, on to todays events. Dr. Ahmadyar had a friend, Dr. Kumano, come up from Shizuoka University for a conference and he brought one of his graduate students, a guy from Indonesia, with him. Since his friend was in meetings all day, he asked Dr. Ahmadyar to show the grad student around Tsukuba. I was asked to go to lunch with all of them and lunch was great. We met with his friends at an Indian restaurant and had a good talk over good food. Dr. Kumano does research in science education and apparently does a lot of work with US research groups as well. He gave me a copy of some of his papers and his thesis, a $100 value apparently! He invited me down to his university, somewhere near Mt. Fuji which I may take him up on. The guy got his Ph.D. at the University of Ohio if I remember correctly. Or maybe it was Iowa. Stupid 4-letter-3-of-them-vowels states!
So, after we left there, even though I hadn't really planned on going anywhere, we went to see an old Japanese home. I mean old. Like several hundred years old. It's basically a "historic" home and there are a lot of government rules about how they have to keep it. It had an awesome old roof made out of really thick grassy mats. It looked really heavy. Then, the old man that lived there had us in for tea. His daughter served us (regrets for not getting a picture of her) while he entertained us with stories and photographs. The house had a mud floor entrance and the grass ceiling/roof was supported by these really old, well trees I guess, all constructed using no nails if you can believe it. Decorational items may have been, but not main structural components. Then we walked around a bit. I got a shot of a guy doing repair work and another of part of the garden. It was a very unique history lesson.
Then, we went to Mt. Tsukuba. This time a little more relaxing because we drove instead of cycling. Dr. Ahmadyar sent me up with the grad student to show him around and he came to pick us up on the other side of the mountain. There is a railway on one end and a ropeway on the other side. I saw some parts of the mountain we didn't go to last time and this time I was given a lesson on how to visit the shrine. This time I was the one throwing money in an clapping! Anyhow, I took some pictures on the mountain. Here is one of me under "toad rock". We were in a cloud so visibility was low at the top but I got a cool shot of a tablet despite the fact. For your viewing pleasure, here is a brief video clip coming down the mountain on the ropeway as she comes. No dirty jokes intended, but feel free to chuckle. And lastly, a view of the rice fields from the bottom of the ropeway. The grad student didn't seem very thrilled about much that we did all day and I didn't get to make it to the second summit (Mt. Tsukuba has two) because he wanted to go directly to the ropeway. I considered going by myself, but I didn't want to be rude. Now I feel like I have to go back to finish the trip. Either he was very shy or he didn't like hanging out with us very much, it was hard to get a bead on him. Definitely a low-talker as well.
After Dr. A picked us up, we went back to where we went up the mountain to a hotel just below the shrine. It was where we asked if we could park our bikes two weeks ago. The girl we asked turned out to be a Meikei graduate and she remembered me. I guess it's not too hard to remember a whitey with a sissy-ass bicycle. Behind the hotel they have a garden with a mountain stream and interesting landscaping. After having coffee and receiving complimentary postcards explaining the hotel's history, we departed to take the guy to his hotel back in Tsukuba City, incidentally where Dr. Ahmadyar had an appointment to meet with the hotel manager, totally unrelated to our visitors. The grad student guy went to his room and we met with the hotel manager and had drinks over looking the amazing hotel garden with a small tree that cost as much as a house when they bought it 12 years ago. After that, we walked around the hotel a bit. Awesome architecture based on the since destroyed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They have a lot of weddings there, some were going on as we walked around, but we saw many ballrooms being prepped for weddings tomorrow. Check out the gift bags that every guest gets, and the room setup too I guess but you can tell what interested me. And even though our wedding cake was very cool, this one is pretty amazing, too! If I come back to Tsukuba, I am probably staying at this hotel.
I had to bike home from Meikei before we went to dinner, mostly because Dr. Ahmadyar had another appointment before dinner and I wanted to rest for a bit. When I got back, I took this picture in front of Ninomiya House. Sorry I cut off the JST part but I think you can deal.
We had dinner at a great Chinese restaurant. A Meikei parent came in to eat and she bought us dessert. It is amazing how many people Dr. Ahmadyar knows. He knew the people at both hotels, at a store on the mountain, random people we ran into. Back to dessert, I had sesame ice cream. I know, but much better tasting than it sounds. Then I was dropped off back and home and now I bring you today's edition of MuddyVision 2000™. I'm going to have to upgrade to a more impressive, more futuristic sounding version of MuddyVision™.
You want happy ending?
Muddy-san
I am not so sure if my mpeg worked from yesterday. It was just a crappy bike ride by the park shot anyhow. I did figure out how to make smaller movies today so maybe I can perfect the art of posting them by the time I have to come back. Let me know if todays brief clip works. The file size is apparently smaller than a lot of my images.
No 4th of July celebration for me yesterday. I hope you ate a hot dog for me, here they serve leftover cow parts before smashing it up and mixing it with delicious nitrates.
So, on to todays events. Dr. Ahmadyar had a friend, Dr. Kumano, come up from Shizuoka University for a conference and he brought one of his graduate students, a guy from Indonesia, with him. Since his friend was in meetings all day, he asked Dr. Ahmadyar to show the grad student around Tsukuba. I was asked to go to lunch with all of them and lunch was great. We met with his friends at an Indian restaurant and had a good talk over good food. Dr. Kumano does research in science education and apparently does a lot of work with US research groups as well. He gave me a copy of some of his papers and his thesis, a $100 value apparently! He invited me down to his university, somewhere near Mt. Fuji which I may take him up on. The guy got his Ph.D. at the University of Ohio if I remember correctly. Or maybe it was Iowa. Stupid 4-letter-3-of-them-vowels states!
So, after we left there, even though I hadn't really planned on going anywhere, we went to see an old Japanese home. I mean old. Like several hundred years old. It's basically a "historic" home and there are a lot of government rules about how they have to keep it. It had an awesome old roof made out of really thick grassy mats. It looked really heavy. Then, the old man that lived there had us in for tea. His daughter served us (regrets for not getting a picture of her) while he entertained us with stories and photographs. The house had a mud floor entrance and the grass ceiling/roof was supported by these really old, well trees I guess, all constructed using no nails if you can believe it. Decorational items may have been, but not main structural components. Then we walked around a bit. I got a shot of a guy doing repair work and another of part of the garden. It was a very unique history lesson.
Then, we went to Mt. Tsukuba. This time a little more relaxing because we drove instead of cycling. Dr. Ahmadyar sent me up with the grad student to show him around and he came to pick us up on the other side of the mountain. There is a railway on one end and a ropeway on the other side. I saw some parts of the mountain we didn't go to last time and this time I was given a lesson on how to visit the shrine. This time I was the one throwing money in an clapping! Anyhow, I took some pictures on the mountain. Here is one of me under "toad rock". We were in a cloud so visibility was low at the top but I got a cool shot of a tablet despite the fact. For your viewing pleasure, here is a brief video clip coming down the mountain on the ropeway as she comes. No dirty jokes intended, but feel free to chuckle. And lastly, a view of the rice fields from the bottom of the ropeway. The grad student didn't seem very thrilled about much that we did all day and I didn't get to make it to the second summit (Mt. Tsukuba has two) because he wanted to go directly to the ropeway. I considered going by myself, but I didn't want to be rude. Now I feel like I have to go back to finish the trip. Either he was very shy or he didn't like hanging out with us very much, it was hard to get a bead on him. Definitely a low-talker as well.
After Dr. A picked us up, we went back to where we went up the mountain to a hotel just below the shrine. It was where we asked if we could park our bikes two weeks ago. The girl we asked turned out to be a Meikei graduate and she remembered me. I guess it's not too hard to remember a whitey with a sissy-ass bicycle. Behind the hotel they have a garden with a mountain stream and interesting landscaping. After having coffee and receiving complimentary postcards explaining the hotel's history, we departed to take the guy to his hotel back in Tsukuba City, incidentally where Dr. Ahmadyar had an appointment to meet with the hotel manager, totally unrelated to our visitors. The grad student guy went to his room and we met with the hotel manager and had drinks over looking the amazing hotel garden with a small tree that cost as much as a house when they bought it 12 years ago. After that, we walked around the hotel a bit. Awesome architecture based on the since destroyed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They have a lot of weddings there, some were going on as we walked around, but we saw many ballrooms being prepped for weddings tomorrow. Check out the gift bags that every guest gets, and the room setup too I guess but you can tell what interested me. And even though our wedding cake was very cool, this one is pretty amazing, too! If I come back to Tsukuba, I am probably staying at this hotel.
I had to bike home from Meikei before we went to dinner, mostly because Dr. Ahmadyar had another appointment before dinner and I wanted to rest for a bit. When I got back, I took this picture in front of Ninomiya House. Sorry I cut off the JST part but I think you can deal.
We had dinner at a great Chinese restaurant. A Meikei parent came in to eat and she bought us dessert. It is amazing how many people Dr. Ahmadyar knows. He knew the people at both hotels, at a store on the mountain, random people we ran into. Back to dessert, I had sesame ice cream. I know, but much better tasting than it sounds. Then I was dropped off back and home and now I bring you today's edition of MuddyVision 2000™. I'm going to have to upgrade to a more impressive, more futuristic sounding version of MuddyVision™.
You want happy ending?
Muddy-san
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