The first day in Japan was long, yet fruitful day. I awoke at about 4:30 coughing and crusty-eyed since my body had taken a one-two punch of sleep deprivation and poor personal hygiene. However, rising early had the benefit of soaking in the fact that I’m 6,000 miles away from almost everyone I’ve ever known and loved (Matt being the exception, of course).
Later that morning Matt and I went through a short orientation at the Ninomiya House and then were taken to Tsukuba City Center for residence registration. While there, Matt and I played with the vending machines (which serve hot AND cold drinks in the same machine) and learned that we are 2 of about 130 U.S. citizens living in Tsukuba. Pretty cool.
With our applications complete, Chihiro brought us to the central complex of AIST. In its entirety, the AIST real estate takes up about 3 city blocks. When accounting for another AIST building located in Tokyo, there are over 10,000 employees associated with the company. Most of those employees reside in Tsukuba. The result is that AIST leads the world in almost every research field from robotics to geology. Consequently, its extremely difficult to be a full time employee. About 90% of the researchers have their PhD and continue working at AIST for their entire working career.
Chihiro introduced us to several important AIST employees including the director of administration and the director of the Energy Technology Research Institute. In fact, we ate lunch with one of the directors. They were impressed when I was able to ask for "this please" or "kore kudasai." Although I felt dumb because they reacted by giggling at me. I guess they weren't expecting it....or I sounded stupid...
After all of these introductions we were assigned our awesome brand spankin’ new bikes complete with kickstand, comfortable seat, internal wheel lock, bell, and a “grocery getter” basket. Below is a pic of it. I had a ton of fun riding it home for the first time aside form the fact that my hands basically froze off.
Matt and my first real adventure by ourselves happened when we went to buy groceries. All in all, it went well. Lucky for us, many of the retail items have pictures so we were able to decipher what was what. The only mistake was that Matt purchased body wash when he intended on buying lotion. Hahaha, he figured it out the next day when he tried putting it on and it lathered more than rubbed in.
We found out that all of those online forums about how 'Japanese shopping is more expensive' were true. After about 2 hours for shopping, 1 hand basket full of groceries cost about $50. Needless to say, once we got back to the apartments, it was kind of depressing seeing how little we actually bought. :(
After such a long day I looked at the piles of quasi-unpacked luggage, sighed, and went to bed.
-Seth
Later that morning Matt and I went through a short orientation at the Ninomiya House and then were taken to Tsukuba City Center for residence registration. While there, Matt and I played with the vending machines (which serve hot AND cold drinks in the same machine) and learned that we are 2 of about 130 U.S. citizens living in Tsukuba. Pretty cool.
With our applications complete, Chihiro brought us to the central complex of AIST. In its entirety, the AIST real estate takes up about 3 city blocks. When accounting for another AIST building located in Tokyo, there are over 10,000 employees associated with the company. Most of those employees reside in Tsukuba. The result is that AIST leads the world in almost every research field from robotics to geology. Consequently, its extremely difficult to be a full time employee. About 90% of the researchers have their PhD and continue working at AIST for their entire working career.
Chihiro introduced us to several important AIST employees including the director of administration and the director of the Energy Technology Research Institute. In fact, we ate lunch with one of the directors. They were impressed when I was able to ask for "this please" or "kore kudasai." Although I felt dumb because they reacted by giggling at me. I guess they weren't expecting it....or I sounded stupid...
After all of these introductions we were assigned our awesome brand spankin’ new bikes complete with kickstand, comfortable seat, internal wheel lock, bell, and a “grocery getter” basket. Below is a pic of it. I had a ton of fun riding it home for the first time aside form the fact that my hands basically froze off.
We found out that all of those online forums about how 'Japanese shopping is more expensive' were true. After about 2 hours for shopping, 1 hand basket full of groceries cost about $50. Needless to say, once we got back to the apartments, it was kind of depressing seeing how little we actually bought. :(
After such a long day I looked at the piles of quasi-unpacked luggage, sighed, and went to bed.
-Seth
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