Sayoonara

I had an awesome time here, not only visiting around, but also doing physics. I have officially checked out of the hotel, and I am ready to kill some time walking around before I head to the airport where a long flight awaits for me and my TB cough.

Popular knowledge

It is popular knowledge (but not clinical knowledge) that if you have constant abrupt temperature changes, such as air conditioner to the Tokyo heat, back and forth, it can lead to a cold.

It is also popular knowledge (and has some clinical support) that international traveling with serious time zone changes cause horrible jet lag that weakens your defense systems. In fact, it is common that 7 to 10 days after a trip like that people can get really strong colds.

You can see where this is going.

I woke up with a horrible cold yesterday, and suffered through many conference talks with it. I could not even understand what they were saying. I am pretty sure I had a really high fever that was creating a slight reality distortion field around me making me confused and dizzy. I had to head back to the hotel early, and more than once got into the wrong subway trains due to the mental state induced by the high fever.
Finally, after seriously considering paying around 10000 Yen for a taxi ride (taxis are SUPER expensive here) I somehow made it to my hotel, got to my room and collapsed there for 15 hours. I am feeling a lot better now.

Nihongo distillation

The conference has been very good. I have learned a lot, and got some people interested on my work too. I went to some bars with some people I met in the conference and had a lot of fun.

Drinking in Tokyo can get expensive.

I did not know I knew so much Japanese either. I guess I have absorbed a lot of it here, and the sake was the catalyst to distill it.

Le gusta la gasolina

Dale la gasolina!

En Puerto Rico, se hace mejor

That was a typhoon? Just a little bit of rain, almost no wind? In the end it had winds of up to 100mph and the eye passed very close to Tokyo. So, that was it? Nothing? Even the rain felt fake. This typhoon was nothing compared to a hurricane. Really, I have seen worse storms in Austin. Here is what I have to tell Mawar the Typhoon:

Puerto Rico does it better.

The conference officially starts tonight, so I will have less adventures and more work. And I really need a laptop with TeX and Mathematica right now. Really really bad. It is holding back my research. Soo desu nee.

Typhoon

It is here. I was able to run some errands and go to a museum this morning before the heavy rain started. It has lost some strenght, and should be the equivalent of a Tropical Storm in the Caribbean. Nobody here seems worried at all, as the infrastructure of the city is made for these things (unlike Puerto Rico's). I will spend the rest of the day in my room working on physics stuff.

Mawar

Mawar the Typhoon will ruin a few days of my trip. Everyone tells me it will not be too bad, that I should just stay in the hotel and work.

ElectriCity

Last night I went to Akihabara, the Electric City. The arcades are huge. 8 floors with different themes, like a Street Fighter floor, the Sega floor (with Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned), like this weird games that combine real actual cards in the interaction with the computer by placing them in a special surface. There were buildings full of Gundam figures, and other anime stuff.


A brief comment about the previous post. The guy with the Boriqua hat was Japanese. This is the most homogeneous big city I have ever seen, by far.


The most notable things here are always those that are a little bit familiar with a small twist. For example, the capsule hotels, the pornography everywhere, the weird parking buildings with lifts that move the cars around do not impress me that much. But, things like this sign in front of a Pachinko parlor that read:

You are shock!!

did. And this club that had a sign that read:

Jazz & Black Music - Soul Trane

The overwhelmingly popular porn in Akihabara was not very unexpected, but the Evangelion Girls in Pajamas Figurines Collect them All!- was.
And, I had a very hard time finding something to eat in Akihabara, as most places closed early, and had to settle for this burger place. Everything was normal, except that they put asparagus in the burger.

Boriqua in New York

The Imperial Gardens were just ok. But, there was a little kids wooden sword tournament at the Nihon Budokan Hall (that place that The Beatles desacrated) and it was cool to see the little kids running around with their swords.
Ueno was very cool, the National Museum has many cool samurai stuff, including a Masamune katana. To the south, there is the Ameyoko shopping area, which is pretty much like Rio Piedras in Japan. There I saw the weirdest thing so far in the trip. There was this guy with a baseball cap that had a message that read exactly like the title of this post.
Exactly, what the fuck? Yes, spelled with a q and everything. Weird.

We love Katamari

I played We love Katamari at the Sony store. It is everything that it should be and then some. The new Gran Turismo looks cool, but nothing unexpected. And also got to play with Aibo, the robot-dog. It is much cooler that I thought, but still the 200000 Yen price is too much. And got to see some blu-ray demos in some HD TVs. Reality doesnt look as colorful and crispy as blue-ray.
Roppongi Hills is this building complex (with the tallest building in the city) that is uber expensive stores and malls and everything. Yes, even expensive for Tokyo standards. I went to the 52 floor of the main building for the Shiiti Biuu. I met my other friend for dinner, and he treated me to a super expensive restaurant where much physics, politics and gossip was discussed by us. He showed me around the bar areas, pointing out the ones that are not appropiate for us to go to. "The yakuza do not like to see gaijin in their bars." was the reason. Jet lag was killing me, so I went to sleep at 11pm.
Today off to Ueno and the Imperial Gardens near Tokyo Station.

Apple Store

It is raining and I am trapped inside an Apple Store in Ginza. Ginza looks like New York City!

Bacca desu yoo.

After walking around the temples and stores in the Asakuza area, I found an arcade. I decided to check out the games, but the stupid gaijin strikes again, and I changed all 1000 yen (10$) into tokens. That would not seem to be a problem, as most of the arcade games cost 100 Yen per credit, but this little kid, maybe 7 year old, started to follow me around until he finally explained that I got tokens for gambling. That is, the pashinko machines and other gambling machines use tokens, the normal videogames use Yen. I could not play the normal videogames. Soo desu nee. I gave the kid some tokens and followed him, and he showed me how to play some of the machines. It was a very humbling experience. In the end, I spent 10$ playing pachinko, other stupid games and this addictive RPG gambling game.
Now, after getting the map info I needed, I am ready to experience the Tokyo subway and visit Ginza and then Roppongi.

Hoteru Intaruneto

Ohaio gozaimasu!
My flight went by surprisingly fast. The two dramamines and the benadryl made me sleep for 1 hour of it. The rest I spent reading papers. At the train station I did a dumb-gaijin thing, and forgot to grab the train ticket after I scanned it in the machine. You need it again once you exit the train, it turns out. Someone out of nowhere ran to give it to be. Daiyobu desita.
Everyone has cellphones in here, and are always text-messaging each other.
I was treated by on of my friends in Tokyo to the best dinner I have ever had in my life. It was this small sushi place ran by this guy who everyone refered to as sensei. I do not know exactly what I ate, I did not recognize many of the things, and no one could transalte them for me, but it was the best food ever. The textures, colors and flavors where all very subtle and amazing. The cold sake kept on comming, and the conversation was very interesting. I have no idea how much was the cost, as my japanese friend refused to let me pay for my part, but I am pretty sure it was also one of the most expensive dinners I have ever had in my life too. Hashimoto-sensei wa domo arigatoo gozaimasita.
The hoteru is nice, my ruumu is very small but very nice. I love the terevi shows! They are like "A toda maquina" on drugs. My sleeping schedule it is still weird, but not too bad to make me disfunctional.
Now, I am going to walk around some more in the Asakusa (old-Tokyo).

Who takes it? Whose poster reigns supreme?

If memory serves me right, there is a science museum in one of the artificial islands of Odaiba.
[...] Every conference, reputations are on the line in EQIS, where master physicists pit their artistic creations against each other. What inspiration does today's grad students bring? And how will the professors fight back? The heat will be on!

It is time for me to leave to the other side of the date line to attend a glorified science fair. I'll be back in 1010b days, bringing with me stories, and maybe one or two pictures if you are good children.

True Lies

Some of the following paragraphs are true.
Some are lies. Which is which?

I got invited to a physics meeting in the year 2006 were there will be tons of Nobel laureates, and I'll be hanging out with them in the Pyrenees. I'm considering having them autograph a baseball for me.

I've got a puppy! Her name is Orejas, and she is a small mutt with a lot of energy. The girls at the bar down the street love her.

The other day I spent several hours in the hammock, drinking Corona and listening to Jarabe de Palo. Life is good.

Some guy from Azerbaijan was crashing in my couch for a couple of weeks.

I've been working on the yard lately, planting some more fruits and vegetable plants. I'm so proud of how it looks.

I'm getting ready to go to Tokyo in a few days, and an earthquake hits them.

Classes start soon, and I'll be head TA. This represents more money and more responsibilities.

I succesfully rode a groceries cart like a skateboard. It was very amusing.

Last night I tried, and failed, to drink half a gallon of milk like I used to be able to do years ago.

Ninjas vs Pirates

After getting totally addicted to the White Ninja, I think it would be appropiate to study ninjas even further. According to this guy, ninjas are the real ultimate power. They even have a burger chain (go ahead, order something!). But what about pirates, or to be PC, buccaneer-americans? I have found several studies comparing them trying to resolve the ultimate question: who would win in a fight?. Go ahead, judge for yourself.

Intelligent Bush

Bush says he wants Intelligent Design to be taught in schools. I think the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory should be taught too.