Kimono day

Oops, almost forgot to share these pictures of beautiful kimonos from Kioto. Imagine the faces of us, two baka-gaichin, arriving first time in their life to Kioto and the whole city seems to be full of beautiful girls wearing kimonos. What a city! ...Next day my friends at the lab told me that on that particular day every 20 years old girl is wearing kimono (the age of becomming officially adult around here). The public holiday for celebration of becomming an adult. Heehee, what would happen in Finland on such a day..?! :)

bicycle & Geisha

2 weeks and 5 days waiting, 2 min. 30 sec. work, and 200 yens later my precious bike is finally fixed. Yep, fixed my bicycle on Saturday. It was sooooooo nice to go to the lab by bike today (the train is slow and boring)! Only that everything is not ok with it. Chains went off 2 times on way there and once on way back. :(


These small parts solved my problems with bike.


As I promised some time ago, here you finally have the rare picture of a living art which we were able to catch in our trip to Kioto and Gion district.


Geisha.

Study meeting

Phuuuuh, study meeting finally over...for the moment. Have to continue next Friday about the same topic. Got also some homework to do for the next time (deriving some equations).

Woke up this morning at 5 am. It felt like being back home, cold and dark. Sun doesn't rise before 6.30 here. Maybe this weekend I'll just relax. Watch some movies and sleep at least 10 hours per night. We'll see how does it go. But now feel like sleeping while standing still...


Our campus, Suzukakedai, yesterday.

At the moment...

I'm sitting in the lab. Finally my blog is updated...phuuuh. Ok, one mission accomplished another one waiting. Every Friday morning we have a study meeting, where one of the students of our lab is teaching others about some chosen topic. At the moment we are doing the book of "Thermodynamics of Solids" and guess whos turn it is this Friday..?! Yep, and with the topic: "Free Energy of Binary Systems". Better to get started, time is ticking.

Before getting into the interesting world of thermodynamics, and always so lovely differential equations, let me sum up what has been going on lately.

Weekly meeting last week's Monday. So, busy weekend with preparing presentation to it. Now I started to work with my Master's thesis. Every two weeks I have to send a version of it to my professor in Finland. This Monday was first deadline. No sleeping between Sunday and Monday.... Last night I enjoyed alot and slept 10 hours. Can't even remember when I have last time slept that much. (^_^) Oh, almost forgot. I passed the BIG EXAM which I did that Friday before going to Nara. What a relief. Only Master's thesis missing from my degree!

Chinese bicycle went broken two weeks ago. It's still like that 'cause can't find the broken part. I would need the chain-connector part...so far no luck. Local way seems to be, if there is only a flat tyre, to buy a new bicycle. Soon I've to follow it also. Miss bicycling and using a train is slow. Those cheap bicycles are probably meant only to use for few hundred kilometers in their life span.

Hmmm, What else? Oh yes, my knee didn't like that half marathon. Now it doesn't let me do even basic 30 min. morning jogging. It starts to hurt a lot and walking is painful for a one week. Better not to run. Now my goal to run full marathon is postponed a bit. But we'll see what happens in the future.

Found some pictures from my cell phone.


One pic from our BIG Christmas cleaning day.


Funny fish in the river next to my jogging route. When I stop on the bridge, they gather together under me...strangest fish I've seen in my life.


Filling a tank with liquid nitrogen. Cool stuff (-196 Celsius deg.).


One of the best things work in a lab studying superconductors. You play with them. (^_^)


And once more. A pellet of superconducting material, cooled to -196 degree, floating in air under a magnet.

Bowling

A week ago Antti, my Finnish friend (who I met some weeks ago) here in Tokyo, invited me to come to join bowling with him and his friends. Nice time, bowling following finnish style evening and night...some vodka played small role as usually... ;D


Antti the champion of the night.


Jussi scoring good.


From left: Dawn (CAN), Antti (FIN), Jussi (FIN) and Mika (FIN).

Kyoto

Monday morning we took local train from Nara to Kyoto. Monday happened to be public holiday and one of the best days in whole year to vistit Kyoto. It was day of becomming adult and all 20 year old girls were wearing kimonos to celebrate it. Lucky we. Those sticks we bought from Nara's temple seemed to start working already. Let the pictures enlighten our day in Kyoto. Only pictures of girls with kimono and the Geisha are missing (still in Israelis computer). (^_*)


Train Station.


First step out from the station.


Market.


River.


Two ugly guys with kimonos.


Drum game. Made me sweat like a small pig...like Timbe uses to say.


Can't keep hands off from that huge bell...


A big ramen pot.


A Monk.


The Gion, geisha district. Here we saw many of them in that night. :)

-HALPOJA LENTOJA TOKIOON-

Sorry about this Finnish commercial post but I think this is not much use for others than Finns. ;P

Finnairilla on nyt tarjoukses lentoja Helsingistä Tokioon meno-paluu 459 euroo helmikuust maaliskuun loppuun (1.2.-31.3.). Tässäpä linkki lippujen varaukseen.

Elikkäs nopeat syövät hitaat, nyt on loisto tilaisuus päästä vierailee tääl puoleen hintaan normaaliin verrattuna!

Nara

Decided to go Nara today. So, blog will be updated on Monday...nope, later... ;D

Here you have finally some updates: hiking trip to Mt. Takao and the K-1 tournament

Rest of the week will be so busy that you may have to wait updates until next week. Just be patient and you'll be rewarded with picture of a real GEISHA from Kioto. They are quite rare nowadays around here.

23.1.2007
Ok, some time passed before got these pics here. Life here starts to be a bit around here. I thought that updating once a week would be possible...apparently not. But I'll make it as my goal from now on. At least few words, every week.

And now to Nara. Friday evening couple of weeks ago I made my last exam of my home University in Finland (HUT). While we were drinking sake at the same evening to celebrate this, we go a great idea. Israel told me: "tell me scientist, why don't we go travelling? Only we and chinese are in the dormitory this weekend? I have a friend who lives in Nara". "Yalla, let's go", I replied. Next afternoon we were standing in the station waiting for our very first Shinkansen ride.


The Shinkansen...mean looking fastest train in Japan. Excited to feel how does it feel to go REALLY fast.


So far everything looks good...like a airplain cabin.


And who did we found from the train sitting the very next seats to ours... Jenni and her boyfriend from Finland. To make the world feel even smaller I have to tell you that we both are from the same hometown of 80 000 people. Both have been born in 1981 but never have we met before comming to Tokyo (hey, we have at least 5 different high schools in Kuopio:). We met already once before here in Tokyo (Independence Day party in Finnish embassy). What is the probability of us to meet in the country of 120 000 000 people...twice?! -Osaka girl, take care in cold and dark winter of our home country- ;P

2 h later (and disappointed to the Shinkansen's speed...only 240km/h...steady ride, nothing special) we were standing in Kioto and meeting Israeli's friend Nobu-san. He came all the way from Nara just to get us with a car. First stop to onsen...damn, I love those hot baths! Eating, and we head to Nobu's house. Some catching to do between Israel and Nobu, they haven't seen each other in last two years.


Our bed room in a house of 13 rooms. First time in Japan sleeping on tatami with Futon.


Garden in the middle of Nobu-san's house.


Corridor to the other rooms.


Sunday morning and time to do some sightseeing.


Entrance to Nobu-san's house.


Quiet neighbourhood of Nobu-san's.


Snow! Unbeliavable, I got to see (and feel) it. Felt cold.


One of the holy deers of Nara.


Big Buddha, biggest bronze statue on whole Earth sitting in the biggest wooden building on the third rock from the Sun.


Luckilly I was only playing to feed them...


...she had something to give.


Guy from the temple area.


Time to check our luck for the next year. Israel: super-lucky, Samuli: semi-lucky. Next time have to use 5 yen coin instead of 1 yen in the temple when wishing good luck...


Temple area.


Japanese limousine.


Biggest bath place I've seen so far. Like a small town center. They had everything in there you could possibly need for relaxating. And you are not in a hurry there. Middle of the bath session just wear your bathrobe and enter one of the many bars and restaurants. No time limit. Open 24 hours. No money needed while inside, everything paid with a magnetic bracelet key. Like a casino, they want you to stay in and spent as much as possible.


Put your bracelet in and feed the amount of money shown on the screen.

Next morning we headed to Kyoto but that's a story of next posting.