End of Week One

It seems like I just arrived in Tsukuba an hour ago... but it's been more than a week now. So far I can say that everything has been just perfect (except that I'm missing Gwen). Everyone is very friendly (especially my colleagues at work), the city is beautiful (great for bicycling!), I'm starting to know how to get around, the work environment couldn't be any better, and my accommodation is great. Goto is surely doing a great job making everything as easy as possible for me, and making me feel very welcome, and I'm learning a lot from our collaboration which I enjoy very much. Here is a picture of some of my colleagues. Taken after lunch break at the AIST.



Today I applied for my "alien registration" and opened a bank account. In both cases the friendly ladies spoke about as much English as I can speak Japanese. In addition they only had Japanese forms at the bank. At the end it was much easier than I ever would have expected. Here is a picture of the remaining pictures I had taken today for the alien registration.



To make life easier and more interesting I'm taking Japanese classes. The course I'm in is one level below the beginners class. It's held directly at the home for foreign researchers where I'm living at which makes it a nice opportunity to get to know my neighbors.

The teacher is very friendly and patient. The best way to make him laugh and clap his hands excitedly (but silently) is to use very polite Japanese phrases. He is also very optimistic: He is confident that we will be able to write and read Katakana (that is the easiest of the three ways of writing in Japanese) within a month. Most of the other students (including me) would consider that to be some kind of miracle. Anyway, I'm sure that will be lots of fun.

Oh, and very important: I finally found sufficient sources for food!! :-)

I gave up being vegetarian the moment I arrived. Actually, I'm not sure if there wasn't some meat in the soup they served in the plane (although I had registered for vegetarian food...). Anyway, now I know where to find tasty food for a reasonable price. And I've had some great meals since I've been here including lots of things I've never seen before :-)

And there was another small earth quake yesterday... I guess I'll get used to it very soon. Something else I'll need to get used to is that whatever I try I'll never be the first or the last in the office. Back at OFAI it was easy to be the last, or the first in the office. But here (only considering the cubicles in the room I'm in(actually they call them "booths", maybe that's the correct term for very big cubicles??)) there is always at least a handful of people around. Some spend all night here (I guess they take short naps in between?), some come while it is still dark outside, others leave when the sun in about to rise. my only chance to be the first or last might be on the weekend :-)

As you have probably guessed I'm spending most of my time at the office... that's mainly because of the ISMIR deadline (which will hopefully be extended by at least one week...). However, once that's done I can't want to check out Japanese capoeira :-)

Have a nice weekend!