Day 6: The first technical excursions

Tuesday March 1st, 2011 by Celine Vincent

When the weekend ends and monday comes, it is once again time for serious business. So, after a weekend packed with cultural excursions, it was time for some company visits. It must have been quite a sight for the other guests of the hostel when suddenly the lounge was filled with people in suits; the same people that left the day before with a pikachu in their midst.

Our prayers at the Sensoji Temple for good weather must have reached deaf ears, since it never stopped raining. When we left it downright poured from the sky, but fortunately this is common in Tokyo, and the hostel could provide us with some spare umbrellas. We had heard nightmare stories about the rush hour in the Tokyo public transit, and therefore left early. Although some trains and stations were crowded, it was not as bad as we had feared. So we made it to RCAST, our first technical excursion, with time to spare.

RCAST, which stands for ‘Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology’ is one of the research centers of the University of Tokyo. The name does not show what discipline the center focusses its research on, and this is for a reason: RCAST believes that an interdiscipinary approach to research can not only give new insights, but can also save time and expenses. This belief showed in the presentations that were given to the group. The first presentation from the director general gave us a brief summary of the research center and an overview of Solar Quest, a project that focuses on making solar cells more efficient. The second presentation showed the diversity of the ‘Barrier Free’ group, with demonstrations of both a pen which can wireless send everything written with it to a notebook and store it on internal memory, and the work of an artist to pursuade people to communicate. After the presentations, the group was divided for four laboratory tours. With the official program finished, we enjoyed a lunch in the Italian restaurant of RCAST and left for NEC, our second technical excursion.

NEC is a company dedicated to creating an information society friendly to humans and the earth. They do this through ‘C&C’: the integration of computer and communication technologies. We were given a short summary of the company before a tour through NEC Innovation World, an exposition area for completed technologies. After that, we traveled to a second building by train at the Tamagawa plant, where the Central Research Laboratories are located. Here, four poster discussions were prepared for us. We had the opportunity to talk to researchers about their work: an availability model for cloud computing, face recognition technology, openflow technology and realtime video image processing for automotive applications.

Tuesday we will visit Toshiba and Fujitsu with high expectations after the very interesting technical excursions of today.

Day 3: West Tokyo; something old, something new

Friday February 25th, 2011 by Celine Vincent

Encouraged by our first glimpses of Tokyo, everyone was awake and up in time to further explore this fantastic city, despite the jet lag many participants probably still experienced. Perhaps the great weather played a part, because the sun never stopped shining and we hit temperatures over 20 degrees Celsius.

We started off with a walk to Ueno Station, where we took the train to Shinjuku. Trains in Japan are an experience on their own: not only do they stop within centimeters of the markings on the platform and people do not push to get on them, but there is always a next train after a few minutes and delays are measured in seconds! Add to that a working Suica Card (very similar to our OV-chip kaart), and I know whom I would recommend as an example for the NS.

In Shinjuku, we headed to the Metropolitan Government Building in the skyscraper district. These 243 meter tall twin towers are the highest in the neighbourhood, although we first could not see them because of the other skyscrapers blocking our sight. More important to us, they offered an amazing view of Tokyo from their observation decks. Everyone was impressed by the sheer vastness of the city, which just went on as far as the eye reached. Then there was some free time to stroll around in the shopping district. Rumor has it that a few participants already tried the new Nintendo 3DS.

After our visit to Shinjuku, we continued to Harajuku. Here we visited the impressive Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine within. The park offered a moment of calmness after the busy Shinjuku district. Only the skyscapers that sometimes showed behind the trees were proof that we still were in Tokyo. The shrine itself showed us a different, more traditional part of Japanese culture. This Shinto shrine and torii’s leading up to it impressed by their simple beauty. Unfortunately, the olympic stadium which we intended to visit was under construction, but that did not stop anyone from exploring Harajuku further. Here, the shopping district inspired some of the female participants to follow local fashion and buy some dresses to blend into the young people engaging in cosplay.

Our last stop of the day was Shibuya, a district packed with shops, restaurants and clubs, and therefore the perfect place to conclude our visit to West Tokyo. Ofcourse we could not venture into Shibuya without first visiting Hachiko, a statue of a dog. The story is that this loyal dog came to Shibuya Station to wait for his master every day, and continued to do so even after his master had passed away. Next, the participants were free to eat and spend the evening exploring.

Tomorrow the committee expects everybody up before sunrise to visit the famous fishmarket, so let’s hope everybody makes it to their beds before the last metro from Shibuya.

Day 2: Starting off on the wrong/right/best possible foot/food

Friday February 25th, 2011 by Giel Op 't Veld

Kampai! Finally, after preparing for more than a year, we are here: Japan.
Just as planned, we started our journey at the train station in Eindhoven. Some of our friends, family and even people from the university came to wave us goodbye. We arrived at Schiphol on schedule and everyone had some time to relax at either Starbucks or the Irish Pub. Up till then, everything went very smoothly. The plane was ready to leave and we were already looking forward to touching Japanese soil in less than 11 hours. But unfortunately faith interrupted: the right engine of our airplane had technical issues. After waiting for more than two hours we began to fear that the plane would not be going to Japan at all and things started to look not so bright. You can imagine that we were relieved when after 4 hours the captain of the plane finally informed us the engine had been rewired and were now working properly again. After that, we had a good flight.

The culture shock kicked in as soon as we left the plane. Japan has personell for everything! And even though we were delayed for four hours, our bus arrived in 5 minutes. We drove to Tokyo by night, which was a beautiful sight. Luckily, our hostel was not hard to find and the reception helped us to find a restaurant where we could still eat with 32 people (hooray for people who speak perfect English!).

Culture shock number 2: The food is soooo good. We ended up in an Izakaya-style restaurant and that proved to be a bit difficult. After a discussion involving a lot of hand signs and notes, we almost lost hope (nay for all the people who do not speak any English). Luckily, the picture menu came in to save the day and wow, our patience sure paid off. We shared many different platters of food and every single dish was absolutely delicious. Japanese food, you’ve just got to eat it!

Today, we are rested and the sun is shining. Time to visit Shibuya and Shinjuku!