Ready, Set, Rain!

It has been raining for two days now and today was especially bad with the rain going sideways and with huge drops. According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency for the period between May 24th and June 23rd, there is a 40% chance of precipitation every-single-day... Well, I guess there is not much one can do other than make sure not to forget the umbrella at home. I really like the sun and blue skies so this is a bit harder on me... If you are reading this and you happen to be in Japan, well, hang in there. I heard that the summer season starts "officially" after this and it is pretty darn sunny then. In fact, I am looking forward to visiting Okinawa (沖縄) then and taking a dip in the ocean... I will hang onto that thought to keep me going ;)

Rainy season is coming

I know it has been a few days since I last wrote - I have been pretty busy getting work under control again. The weather has been pretty good contrary to the weather reports constantly mentioning rain. The rainy season, which is supposed to last a month, is going to start soon after all but so far so good with the sun. I think this , well these few days until the rain comes, is probably the best time of the year to be in Tokyo in terms of the weather...

I took this picture (which has nothing to do with the weather) on Sunday at Kichijouji (吉祥寺). It is yet another example of something that seems to get lost in translation. Just read the English labels on the box ;)

Half a liter... coke can...

Japan is not anything if not full of choices on pretty much anything and everything. This manifests itself not just in things like cars and electronics with many Japan-only, a.k.a. "domestic", models but even in things like types of bottles/cans available from vending machines. This is one of the prime examples I think. I personally like the "normal" sized can which is also a bottle (basically a short, fat, metallic bottle) but this one has about double the amount of coke - well, a full half a liter of it. I have seen beer cans which I think were comparable size before in the US and in Cyprus but never coke... Well, as they say - it's good to have choices. The label is another example of "interesting English". I don't think I have ever seen Coke being marketed as "uplifting" before; it must be the sugar and caffeine ;)

Getting to/from the airport cheap - "Airport Limousine"

The "Airport Limousine" is the fancy name given to the busses that service both Haneda (羽田) and Narita(成田) Airports. They are pretty convenient in the sense that there are busses at worst every hour and they take people to hotels in popular areas of Tokyo like Shinjuku(新宿) as well as various train stations like Kichijouji(吉祥寺) which is what was the most important thing to me. Haneda is far away from Kichijouji - it takes about an hour or so on the normal subway/JR trains but it is like walking distance compared to Narita. Narita Express, which is supposed to be an "Express" train as its name suggests, takes about an hour and a half. The Express is unfortunately not available quite as frequently as the bus however, and it costs slightly more (about 200 yen more - 3200円 vs 3000円). In fact, in order to take the train on the way to the airport, I had to take it at 6 in the morning which was OK since I had an early flight but if I wanted to take it on the way back I would have had to wait for a few hours at the airport.

The bus trip from Narita to Kichijouji is non-stop and it takes about two hours. It is a nice bus and everything but still, it's a bus. The ride is nowhere as smooth as the Narita Express. When the alternative is wasting a few hours waiting or taking the slow train and wasting an hour as well as lugging around a huge suitcase I think the bus wins. For anyone staying at a hotel the bus is hard to beat too - it will drop you right in the front of the hotel.

Tickets are available from travel agencies (apparently) or more easily from the airport. They do pickups too but from some locations they require a reservation. They even have an English website with schedules an information at http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/ (come on, you can't beat a website with a section named "For your useful information" :)).

Entering Japan with a re-entry permit

After a holiday that was not nearly long enough (but then no holiday is, right?) I came back to Japan today. The ANA flight from Chicago to Narita was pleasant with polite stewardeses and a more than decent entertaintment system with the only point of complaint for me being the leg-room though I think Emirates was a more pleasant flight. I am starting to think may be all those people in the business and first class know what they are doing. After the flight though I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get through immigration when one has a re-entry permit...

There are booths specifically arranged for people with the re-entry permits - almost as many as the booths for tourists. This means very short (if at all) waiting time. Since the working permit and re-entry permit are self explanatory almost no questions are asked (not that many were asked with the working permit alone, entering the country for the first time, but still...) Unfortunately jet lag seems to be getting to me more strongly than when I travelled west but at least I managed to stay up till 11 pm - hopefully that will be good enough to make sure I don't pass out at the office tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will talk about another way to get to/from the Airport that I tried for the first time today - the "Airport Limousine".

An inspiring "Last Lecture"

Today, at the graduation ceremonies I was lucky enough to witness more than one inspiring speech - Vice President Al Gore, founder of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, and Randy Pausch who is a professor at Carnegie Mellon gave talks. Even though both Al Gore's and Jeff Bezos' speeches were great, Professor Pausch's speech was more.. special...

To put things into perspective - Professor Pausch has been with Carnegie Mellon for quite a few years. Before that he worked with Disney and at CMU he led the Entertainment and Technology Center under School of Computer Science where he has been extremely succesful. The problem though is that he also was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last August and the doctors gave him only a few months to live. I guess this changed his perspectives on things and he gave this talk at CMU entitled "The Last Lecture". I was not around for the talk unfortunately but I did see the talk he gave today which was great. I did manage to dig up the original talk from Youtube though and it is definitely worth checking out. I am embedding it right below.

About to go to graduation - and it's still raining...

Man, in all my graduations in Pittsburgh, and I had 2 so far, it has rained. I don't know if I should take this as a sign of sorts :P Yesterday was the hooding ceremony which I thought was kind of cool. I got to have my advisors put a PhD hood on me though I must say it looks like "older" schools seem to have better hoods/robes. Ours is all black with a blue/tartan hood which looks nice but very plain and generic at the same time save for the tartan. I did get to meet some friends/faculty that I doubt I will see again for a while. Today I will also meet my undergraduate advisor whom I haven't seen for at least 5 years or so as well. Ok, gotto run - the breakfast already started!