I’ve been in Japan now for a month, and have done a pretty poor job of writing about it. So here we go with a mish-mash of updates.

One of the first things I learned about Osaka is that it is quite large. My first weekend I decided to walk across it. Well, I wouldn’t have tried if my map had had a scale. It turns out that my little planned stroll was about 10km in distance. That might not be so bad, except I was constantly getting turned around. So, I ended up wandering aimlessly. Not so bad, actually, as I discovered some interesting things, including what are certainly the best Dance Dance Revolutionaries I have ever seen.

I was a bit better prepared for my next outing. I went to Osaka Castle with a Taiwanese guy who lives in the same building as me. The displays in the castle were good at educating me about Japan’s extremely bloody history, but as an actual living historical record the building was a bit lacking. If I were able to give a piece of belated advice to the Japanese warlords of centuries past it would be as follows: building defensive fortifications (i.e. castles) out of wood and paper is not such a good idea. Yeah, the most recent castle (of many) built on the the site is from 1931. Aside from the castle itself there was a very cool monument with a plaque saying something like “Here in 1572 the holy monk Kitayama hung his robe upon a pine branch, praying that his order might flourish.” (all paraphrased). I thought that was very cool, and they even had the stump of the pine tree in question. When I hit the big time maybe somebody will install a plaque where I hang up my coat.

A bit about my lab now. All the people are extremely friendly and welcoming. I think I’ve been assimilated successfully, at least to the point where I can interject with the odd “majide!?” in a conversation and get a chuckle from those involved. They threw me a nice welcome party, with an unusual assortment of foods and an odd contraption (pictured) that spins noodles around a little whirlpool, and the other night we had a barbecue and drank beer in the parking lot. Last weekend was a bit notable as my boss took me out and fed me some awesome yakitori, a fair amount of beer, and chicken sashimi. Chicken sashimi is an odd thing. If you are curious, raw chicken liver is squishy, whereas raw chicken stomach is a bit crunchy.

Next weekend I will be helping carry a float in a Mikoshi festival parade. I’ve read that every year a few people get killed in these things (presumably crushed during the float combats), but my understanding is that our local version of the festival is relatively peaceful. We will see.