From npr.org

Japan's earthquake was terrible, the tsunami was really terrible, but the impending nuclear disaster is much worse. As my readers know, I went to Japan nearly 2 years ago. It was my first trip to Asia and I was struck by the people. Even in the chaos of the subway, there was an order. Everyone always seemed perfect. It was as if even if they're lives sucked, they were still going to put themselves together and look perfect. That's why I felt worried when it seemed like Japanese officials were understating the risk at the nuclear plants, and that when they started to ramp up the rhetoric to say that there actually was a high risk, it seems pretty scary.

On the NY Times, I found interesting features that explain exactly what's happening in with the nuclear reactors and puts it in context with similar past nuclear disasters.

So what now? The Japanese have pulled through so much that I'm sure they'll pull through this too, but in the meantime, I started to think about donations. Unfortunately, after the Haiti debacle, this has kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, so I'm looking out for different ways of helping. NPR has a link to appropriate ways to help. From experience, I'd guess that Japan is more organized than Haiti...but I do wish it didn't feel like I'm putting my money into a black box and hoping that it goes where it needs to.

TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images

One of our favorite pastimes when we were in Japan was finding hilarious Engrish - which wasn't hard at all. Here are some food themed ones for an amusing Friday read.

4. Bar Soul Blood, Kobe, Japan. Now I don't know why this place was called Bar Soul Blood, but I do know it was pretty hilarious. Also awesome: the picture of Michael Jackson. I think the it was pretty much the most expensive glass of coke I've ever had though...but the ambiance was awesome!

Wi likkle but wi tallawah. The ridiculous amount of Jamaican stuff in Japan leads me to wonder how it's possible that such a tiny island could have such a big cultural influence on the world.

Edit: Though this post was started while in Japan, and much of it written in Japan, I didn’t finish it till recently so have decided to move the publishing date. Originally this was going to be in multiple posts, but I decided to put my 4 days in Tokyo in one post – a tall order, I know! Hope you stick through to the end, sorry this is so delayed, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed all the experiences. =)
Being the geeks that we are, our first order of business in Tokyo was Akihabara, home of the electronic flea market.

This place had everything electronic you could think of. Really, everything.

If I weren’t a starving grad student, I’d have gone to town here. And of course where you find nerds you’ll find anime and manga fans, so….

I didn’t know a city could be so colorful. We arrived in Tokyo by the Shinkansen, then went took the train to Uiguisudani, where our hotel is. The train was packed, I think we were in the tail end of rush hour. Anyway, after we put our luggage up, we left to see Shibuya at night and got off from the train station at the biggest intersection I’ve ever seen.

 

I can now say I’ve seen Mount Fuji – we sped past it on the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo. Of course we bought a bento – a box lunch. This is a requirement for riding the shinkansen.
  

Before leaving for Tokyo, we spent the morning sightseeing, at the Golden Pavilion and the Zen Garden.  Rokuon-ji Temple is known as the Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku, because it has a Pavilion which is golden. Not fake gold either, some shogun went all out when designing his retirement home, and used actual thin sheets of gold on the outer walls.

Kyoto is very different from Kobe and Nara. It has the history of Nara, but is much bigger and has more temples, but has less charm somehow. It’s also not as pristine as Kobe…I could see myself living in Kobe, at last for a little while, but Kyoto was different…I can’t put my finger on it. Still, it has amazing stuff, we were only able to walk through a castle and a temple in one day, they were both so huge and took so much time to walk through.
We first went to Nijo-jo, Nijo Castle. This is from 1603 though it’s been through at least 2 fires (lightning and a big Kyoto fire). It’s surrounded by a huge moat.

Then it of course has a super huge gate with some beautiful gold details.

The first Nara post was becoming unwieldy so I decided to break it into two posts. Incidentally, I took 357 pictures/videos during our Nara sightseeing day, so it’s understandable that I have to break this day into two posts.
After seeing Todai-ji, things start to blur together…I know we saw a really big bell, but I’m not sure what it was attached to. It’s definitely the biggest bell I’ve ever seen though.

Nara is without competition one of the most peaceful tranquil beautiful places I’ve ever seen. We got there around 6 pm and went down this really cool street, Sanjo-dori, which is apparently the center of Nara.

Our Ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) was actually on this street (so we were happy with Lars for at least one night). We stayed at the Ryokan Hakuho –
 
- a place which seemed absolutely amazing and charming…until our second night, when Lars and Kristen found a roach in their suitcase. Needless to say, we packed up and switched hotels, to the Super Hotel close to the Nara JR Train Station. Luckily I hadn’t written up this post yet, so I don’t have to take back all the nice things I was going to say, and will instead warn people against going to this place, since their only reaction to finding a roach in Lars and Kristen’s suitcase was to spray some roach spray. Then they disappeared and went to take a shower or something.
This doesn’t spoil the amazing time I had in Nara. There were all these school children, from the very young to the very old, all out on field trips -

ICRA has begun and ended. Here are my highlights from the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2009. Located in Kobe, Japan, there were definitely perks to being able to present at this year’s ICRA.

Before heading to Nara, we made a detour to see Himeji-jo, a castle about 30 minutes by train from Kobe. So we had breakfast and bid farewell to Kobe. It’s really quite a lovely city.



The day was persistently rainy, but we still had fun. The castle is really beautiful. You can see it from a distance, almost as soon as you leave the train station.