Travelogues

The Japan Experience

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I am sitting in a boarding house-style hotel here in Rokkasho, Japan. I am surrounded by woods, mountains and howling wind. There is little else in this small fishing town. My job here is to provide expertise to the Japanese at GERD (Geothermal Energy Research and Development) on the data loggers used in their research, as well as assist in the setup of an experiment here. The area around Rokkasho lake is to be used as a waste facility for low level nuclear waste. The scientist at GERD hope to map fault lines in the ground here to provide a safe place for waste disposal.

Monday:

I arrived in Tokyo on Monday afternoon, after leaving San Diego on Sunday morning. It was strange to lose an entire day sitting in the airplane. I felt like I had a very lucky day, however. First of all, I didn't need to bother anybody for a ride to the airport since I found out the Mike Wolfson, an APL(UW) scientist I met on my last cruise was in town for the Acoustical Society of America Conference, and was flying to San Francisco on the same flight. I happened to arrive at the airport late, forgetting that you have to arrive two hours early for international flights. I was admonished by the attendant and then rushed to my gate just in time.

In San Francisco I had a three hour layover. I was lucky enough to have Sachin drive from San Jose to have brunch with me in the international terminal. It was comforting to have a close friend see me off. It was really, really nice to see him. I have been going through some tough times, and he's been a good friend to have on the phone. And seeing him and getting a hug was what I needed.

The flight to Tokyo was about ten hours long. Everyone who has flown internationally before had promised me my own personal TV with movies and games. Unfortunately, this 747 was no different than a domestic flight. We had four in flight movies and I watched all but one. I also finished my book and took a few naps. The long flight wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

I came off the plane feeling awake in the bright sunlight of the afternoon, even though it was 11pm my time. I soon found I wasn't as alert as I thought. As soon as I left the plane up an escalator, I realized I had forgotton my jacket. I didn't know what to do, and was unable to go back to the plane. After clearing immigration, I found the baggage terminal and an attendant for United Airlines radioed the plane to get my jacket. I waited for my luggage in the meantime. My toolbox arrived safely and I waited for my suitcase... and waited and waited.

I must have been staring at the conveyor belt for a while when an attendant came over and said that was all the luggage. He used my claim ticket to trace my bag back to the US. It would arrive tomorrow he said, and asked for my hotel information. I knew little about where I would be staying after tonight and promised someone would contact him. Then I headed off without my bag into the foreign city.

My first task was to take a bus from Narita airport to Tokyo. I managed to find the bus ticket window and bought a ticket. On the bus, I ran into Tom Roper, one of the AOA guys sent to assist in the experiment. In Tokyo we found Jim Harrison, the other person from AOA. We took a cab to our hotel and finally felt somewhat at ease. Out Japanese hosts from GERD met us at the hotel and took us out for some Italian food.


That night, Tom, Jim and I hit the town. We had already had a few vending machine beers and sake. Yes, you can buy Sake (in a jam jar) out of a vending machine. By the time I got to a bar, I was swaying. I can barely remember coming back to the hotel. I woke up face down on the floor of my room at 3am and crawled into bed.

Tuesday:
Luckily all we had to do today was take the bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka. I slept most of the way and figured I would catch the views on our return trip. Morioka is a small sleepy town in the northern part of Honshu. GERD has its field office here. We arrived there and loaded the gear into two trucks. That night, we had Korean barbecue for dinner and crashed in bed early.

Hotels in Japan have very small rooms designed for the business traveller. They serve their purpose, but have little other space. There is a twin bed, small desk with TV and chair efficiently organized leaving a just a strip of floor to walk into the room. The bathroom is also very compact with a small bathtub you would have to sit up in, with showerhead attached to the sink.

The toilets, as rumored, are pretty interesting. Some have sinks on top that fill the tank as you wash your hands (a brilliant idea). Almost all the toilets have little sprays built in that wash you after you go. There is also the option of heated seats, and the flush handle has two choices, big and small. Fortunately I can read a few asian characters and I figured things out right away.

Wednesday:
The morning was spent driving from Morioka north to Rokkasho. The view on the way were nice, with lots of trees with leaves changing color. The houses here are all very new and modern looking, but with a Japanese touch. The front doors are always sliding and lead into a foyer where you leave your shoes. Windows are glass, but have paper windows behind them, some with fancy patterns on them. I later read that many of the buildings in northern Japan are new because the area was heavily bombed during WWII.

We stopped at a sushi restaurant for lunch. We sat at a traditional style table with pillows on the floor. I actually prefer to eat this way.

The afternoon was spent laying cable for the transmitter. Let me explain how I understand this experiment works. We are first burying copper plates in the earth in two locations, creating an antenna. A cable then attaches each plate to a transmitter that sends a high voltage, high current signal to the plates. The electromagnetic energy is transmitted through the earth and is received by a cable we will deploy in the lake. The cable has electrodes strung along it, creating dipoles that will detect the electric fields. At the end of each cable is a data logger which records the signals from the electrodes. The processed signals create an image of the ground beneath the lake.

To lay the cable from the transmitter to one of the copper plates, we had to hike far into the woods and up a hill. The Japanese hosts aren't very good at communicating with us, so most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing. They are running the cable and I'm cable-tying it to things as we go along. I figured it would all come together eventually.

After we lost light, we went to our hotel. This place is a sort of boarding house for workers building the new nuclear recycling facility here. There are western style rooms with beds and a TV and bathroom, and Japanese style rooms with tatami mats and a foyer for removing shoes. Breakfast and dinner are served in a cafeteria downstairs. As expected, I am the only woman staying at the hotel. There are older women who cook and clean the rooms, however.

My luggage also finally arrived. It felt so good to put on clean clothes after three days!

Thursday:
Today we were supposed to deploy the cable in the lake, but high winds prevented us from boarding the boat. We were expecting a small boat to deploy the 500 pound cable, but we were met at the dock by a fishing boat with an outboard motor. Like I said, the Japanese hosts weren't very good at communicating with us. I was worried our gear would sink the boat.

Instead of being on the lake, we spent the day in the woods finishing the transmitter deployment. We then returned to our hotel. There is literally nothing around us. Nothing to do. Jim and Tom and I sat in the cafeteria over some beers awaiting dinner. That night, Thanksgiving night, we had five plates of Sashimi each.

Friday:
Finally the winds died down and we were able to deploy the cable in the lake. A fisherman took us out on the boat and Tom came along unexpectedly since he was finished with the transmitter. Since they had an extra guy, they didn't need me and I waited on the beach for hours while they deployed the cable across the lake. I was disappointed, but spent my time hiking around the nearby woods.

Another funny thing about working here is that they require that we wear "work clothes" and these funny white hard hats with a chin strap. When we told them we didn't have work clothes, they went out and bought us jump suits (like mechanics wear) to cover out clothes up. The Japanese wear "seafoam" green colored jumpsuits, and ours are bright blue. I look like a cartoon character.



Also, in the morning, when we arrive at the office to start out day, the employees all gather in the parking lot and do a little aerobic workout to music and stretch. Then they gather together and have a sort of pep talk. We try to follow along, but I'm sure it's obvious to them we have no idea what's going on. The funniest part is during these morning exercises our Japanese host, Yamane, always sneaks away to have a smoke.

Saturday:
Today is a "standby" day. Yamane is running the transmitter but doesn't need help from any of us. Nakashima originally promised he would take us for a drive up north to a park where there is an interesting temple that people go to to honor the dead. Unfortunately high winds and rain cancelled the trip. What would we do out here in the middle of nowhere.

Tom managed to get us on e-mail and I checked my mail quickly, but telnet was so slow, I could barely type. The sentences would show up a few seconds after I had typed them. It was frustrating and so I sent a few messages and gave up. Afterwards, I asked the guys if we should try to find the beach.

The beach was only a short walk away. The ocean was spraying from the winds, but there were no waves. I am assuming something about where this coastline lines with respect to the other islands that it must of sheltered somehow. The beach was very polluted and we walked along it for a while until we came into a small town. We walked around the town, but none of us had money to stop and eat. In the end, we turned around and walked back to our hotel so Nakashima could take us to lunch.

Because this is a remote area, no one speaks english, and they do not accept our VISA cards here. We also tried to go to a bank, but were unable to use the ATM. To be honest, it had been somewhat frustrating. I am as bored as I would be on a ship when there is no work, however, I am surrounded by people who don't speak the same language as me. I can't watch TV without feeling annoyed that I can't understand what's going on. I also finished all my books, but Tom lent me another one, fortunately.

Sunday:
We finally did our drive around this area. It took about six hours to make it around the peninsula. The drive was nice, but I wish we could have made more stops. I think it wasn't possible because the tourist season is over and any trails are closed. We did stop outside an interesting temple at the beginning of our tour. People come here to make peace with the dead. There is a bridge there that crosses over a sulfuric river that is said to lead into the land of the dead. A nearby lake fills a crater and smells strongly of sulfur.


We also stopped at the tip of the island of Honshu. From this northernmost point, we can see the next island, where the city of Sapporo is located. This area is known for tuna fishing. There were no boats on the water today as the wind was strong and the chop was fierce.

Last night there was an earthquake on Hokkaido, which registered at about a 5.0. I felt it in my bed at 3:30 am.

Monday:
Yamane tried transmitting again, but couldn't get the transmitter working. We waited in the office for hours, bored. In the afternoon we began to pick up the cable for the transmitter. It was crazy walking through the woods to deploy it and kind of fun to go back and pick it up. We came down the big hill we originally climbed up and Tom and I slid down on the railing!

Tuesday:
We picked up the cable from the lake. I sat on the beach and waited again. That afternoon, we drove back to Morioka. At the Gerd office we were able to set up two of the loggers to download data.

We had a sushi feast that night! Yellowtail and tune and toro and squid and octopus and clams. Yamane kept ordering and I drank way too much sake, as usual. After dinner, we explored Morioka and found a bar on the fifth floor of a high rise. The atmosphere was nice and I liked a drink called the Grape Gelee Cooler. It had little grape jellies on the bottom.

Wednesday:
Today we started the calibrations. I had trouble in the beginning because there were so many strange modifications to the loggers. A "limiter" was put in between the amplifier and the ADC. On one of the loggers, the limiter wasn't working and when I put a signal on a channel, I couldn't see it on the computer hooked up to the logger. When the limiter was removed, the signal appeared.

I was still able to show Nakashima how to perform a calibration and made sure he had the tools and software to do it. I also began calibration on some of the loggers. We worked very late that night and we were so tired and hungry at the end of the day. Nakashima took us out to a chinese restaurant and I was happy to have some wonton soup.

Thursday:
I finished the calibrations and then we got on the bullet train back to Tokyo. I was excited to see civilization again. Morioka is nice, but it's a sleepy little town. We passed by Mt Fuji, but I missed it. Luckily Tom was able to catch it on camera.

In Tokyo, we had dinner with Arnie, the founder of AOA (the organization that funded this trip). We walked back to our hotel and explored a few bars on the way. Some of the bars are so small only about seven people can be seated. We ended up at a little sushi place where for $20 we got a mixed sashimi plate, some cooked fish, and beer. The owner sat with us and talked with the help of one of the chefs, who had studied english in the US. He kept our beers topped off all night!

Friday:
In an attempt to find a gift for Jim's wife, we wandered into the Ginza shopping district. We quickly realized that there was nothing we could afford here. Jim had to fly out that afternoon, so we tried to make it back to the hotel. We were hopelessly lost and ended up at a garden. Might as well make a tour out of it! The garden was beautiful but the season wasn't right for viewing.

When we exited the garden, we ended up lost again and wandered into the Tsukiji fish market. This was a place I had definitely wanted to explore. In the morning, they auction the tuna that is caught the night before and some go for the price of a small car! Tom and I stopped at a sashimi stall and ate some salmon and roe. Jim was getting antsy at that point and we hailed and cab and went back to our hotel.

I wanted to try out the subway, so after a quick break, Tom and I cruised out to the Roppongi bar district. Dinner there was so expensive, a plate of four pieces of yellowtail sashimi cost 1500 Yen ($15). I ended up filling up at a ramen noodle place (the equivalent of japanese fast food).

We bar hopped for a while, and ended up at a place called Propaganda. It was an upstairs bar with cheap drinks for happy hour. I went a little overboard, but ended up meeting some people. Three engineers-- one from Australia, one from India and one from Japan. I guess I am just drawn to fellow nerds.

Saturday:
A whole day in Japan to kill! What else to do but get lost again!! I wanted to find a "Parasite Museum" that I read about in the guidebook. The directions were very vague, but I figured out we could take the subway instead of the train the book talked about. Then we hopped a bus and ended up in the middle of nowhere. We walked all around the neighbourhood looking for the museum. No one could understand us enough to give us directions.

Finally we stopped in a vet clinic and the english speaking doctor told us the museum was right in front of the bus stop! This was almost an hour and a half after we arrived. We walked back to the stop and there it was! The museum took about five minutes to walk through. There were lots of gross bugs, but I couldn't read any of the signs. In the gift shop they sold keychains with actual tapeworms embedded in them. Yuck.

Safe back at the hotel, I had to practically drag Tom out again. I think he was sick of my antics. I wanted to explore Shunjuku, the business district of Tokyo, which also has an active nightlife. It was raining, but I refused to waste my last night in Japan. Shinjuku was one of the highlights to me because it was the Tokyo Hollywood always portrayed, but it was actually such a small part of the huge city.

The subway station is one of the busiest in the world. Three million people are said to pass through it each day. There were underground tunnels from the station leading to a nearby tourist spot at the Government Buildings. There we rode a high speed elevator up to the 45th floor observatory. The view was amazing.

Afterwards, we headed into the Shinjuku nightlife. The bright lights were dazzling. It was somewhat like Vegas with giant screens and big lighted signs. The streets were packed with people. Amid the big city chaos, there was a temple. It was buried down an alleyway. I am amazed at how a tiny peaceful haven can be built into a city this way.

Next to the temple is a maze of alleyways lines with little bars that are barely bigger than a toolshed. They are called "stand up bars." There seemed to be hundreds of these little hangouts in this area called the "Golden Gai." We exited into the red light district. I wanted to find what was described in the guidebook as the "no-pants coffee shop," but had no luck.

Sunday:
My last day in Japan. Tom was gone in the morning to fly back to Portland. I wandered around the streets by myself, and found my way to the Imperial Palace East Gardens. I walked all over trying to find my way to the Imperial Palace before realizing it wasn't open to the public. I found a little park and ate an ice cream cone and enjoyed the warm day.

That night I flew back to the United States. I ended my Sunday on the plane and landed on Sunday morning ready to start all over again. I unpacked, did laundry, attended a party, and finally after almost 30 hours awake, I went to sleep. My Japan adventure was over.

posted by Patricia @ 11:03 PM 0 comments