Massive update (seriously, if you read all this I should give you a cookie!)

So I have been really bad about keeping this blog updated (though I have kept the pictures updated both at the link below and on my face book). But I have some time this afternoon, so I will try to do a massive update as to what is going on in my life. But I’m not going to put pictures in this because I find that option super annoying. If you want to see pictures click the link in the post below (or my facebook where the pictures have captions).
The trip to Japan has been at times really fun and at others so frustrating I want to scream. First the high points
Orientation – It was really fun to meet all the other graduate students at orientation. The location was isolated but beautiful (something I have talked about in a previous post). The food was always awesome (though it felt like they were feeding us all the time), and I really enjoyed my Japanese teacher (Sakurai sensei was so patient and awesome!). It got a bit summer campy, particularly towards the end, but I really enjoyed it and felt like I made some good friends in the process.
Home stay – I don’t think I every actually posted about my home stay. It was totally awesome. One of the best experiences of my life, really. Both the mother and the father spoke good English (actually, I think that the father spoke it a little better but I didn’t get to speak to him as much). Most of Saturday, however, I did not get much of a chance to talk to either the mother or father, because they have four girls between the ages of one and nine. It’s a pretty loud and energetic family, and while the girls certainly aren’t bad or generally misbehaved, it still takes a lot out of you. Luckily, I was raised in a family with five kids, and three particularly loud and energetic brothers, so I felt right at home. The mother didn’t stand on ceremony with me. She early on asked me to help with dishes and from then on it was my job to the dishes. I actually really liked that they treated me as one of the family and I had a lot of fun playing with the girls. Because it was raining hard Saturday morning (it is the rainy season), we stayed in and played during the morning. In the afternoon, we went to the library and then Saya (the older middle child) and I played table tennis for an hour or two. Then we went out and got food for sushi which we made at home (which was sooo good). We spent the evening hanging out together and watching Japanese tv, which is so different from American tv. So it was a pretty low-key day. The next day, my host mother took me sight seeing around the area (don’t ask me exactly where I went, I’m not so good with directions even in the best of times). Originally the whole family was going to go, but it started to pour on our way there, so in the end, just my host mother (Emi) and I went and the Dad took the kids to the Aquarium. This meant that I finally got some one on one time with one of the parents and we were able to have a conversation which was really nice. Of course it was pouring like I have never seen and I got very wet, but that’s okay. She took me to two Buddhist temples (or at least two Buddhist places) including the big Buddha of Kamakura. Then we went to a Shinto shrine where Emi taught me how to wash my hands before entering the Torii (gate), and how to make a wish (which involves throwing a coin, clapping and bowing in a certain order). We also ate at a couple places, including a pretty traditional Japanese place where I had these tiny fish that were really good. Then I had to go back and little Chizu cried a little when they dropped me off which made me feel both sad and good at the same time. I loved my family and I know they liked me too. Several times both the mother and father mentioned that they were going to Kyushu (the large southern island) to visit their hometown for a few weeks in July and August. They invited me to come and visit them there. I don’t think I will be able to, but I’m going to look into it and see. As it stands, it would need to be in August and…well, we’ll see. If I don’t go to Kyushu, I’m planning on seeing them before I leave Japan when I head back to Tokyo.
Welcome party – So a week after I got here, the postdoc Nami had a welcome party for me. It was a lot of fun. There was a ton of food. Stuff for hand-rolled sushi fish, and we made potstickers (which were good except they made the sauce super spicy and didn’t tell me – but after seeing my reaction, now everyone knows not to feed Abby spicy things or she dies). I hung out with many of the lab people and really laughed hard a couple of times. The professors drank quite a bit and got pretty rowdy. Nami showed me how to use the Onsen, but that deserves it’s own post for a couple of reasons. It was really nice and I felt like I finally got to know my labmates a little. My level of Japanese is really weird because I recognize several individual words (a result of watching a lot of Japanese tv the last 3 years). However, I never learned any grammar (specifically, I never learned any verbs or sentence construction). Therefore, although I sometimes have an idea of what the topic of discussion is (like for example, I knew everyone was talking about girlfriends at one point) I have no idea of what is actually being said. So yeah…what about those girlfriends? It came up a couple of times at this party. Everyone would be impressed that I knew the topic of conversation (or that I knew my numbers) but seemed to assume that I actually understood more than I did. Oh well. I just smile and nod like an idiot because I don’t know what else to do.
And the not so good
Arrival – I am fairly self-motivated. But I knew that I would need a little bit of guidance as to where to collect and getting started on the SEM (since every SEM works a bit differently). So I expected that I would spend some time with my host researcher and the other graduate students during the first week and then I could continue on my own. I had contacted my scientist several times to ask questions about the microscope situation, but he kinda put me off. So I get here and I feel like I’ve been dropped off a plane. They told me where I was going to live and where the super market was, and that was pretty much it. My host researcher wasn’t here to talk about a collecting plan or the microscopes, and the graduate students here would barely talk to me. Things are slowly getting better. Yuuna (a graduate student) and Nami (a postdoc) returned on Monday from a field trip to Okinawa. These two are very social and the lab has lightened up considerably since their return, and after I gave my talk here my host researcher finally understood what it is I am trying to do and is now taking me to collecting spots. However, I still have to wait on the SEM and even the light microscope, which apparently needs adjusting, something that could have been done before I came. I’m a bit frustrated about the wasted time although really, if I collect 10 good medusozoan samples, then the trip will be a success. So if I collect for the next two weeks, I can accomplish all that I need to get done. However, it would be good to get as much SEM done here as possible and I have to get the corals examined here because they are CITES protected and I don’t have the permits to transport them to the US. Ultimately, I think I will get what I need from this trip, but this summer in general may not be as productive as I would like.
From a social stand point, a few times it has been fun, but often I am pretty much alone. At times it really gets to me. And it’s not like I can easily hop on a train or bus, travel for an hour and meet up with someone else. The closest people in the program are in Osaka, a good 3 hours away. I’m having to discover Shirahama alone because no one has offered to show me around. I’m going to try to take a train to some famous shrines an hour or two away this weekend, but we’ll see how that goes. The fact that I can’t read the signs here bothers me much more than I thought it would and makes things harder in ways I didn’t expect.
That’s a full update with hopefully more to come at the end of the weekend. I’m sorry that this is ending abruptly but it took me four days to write the above and if I push it off any longer, it will never get posted! Have a great weekend and a Happy 4th of July.

PS Missing the 4th is bothering me more than I would have expected. I’m not hugely patriotic or anything, but it’s really weird to not be in the country for the holiday. It’s almost the end of the day and should be time for grilling and fireworks (or hanabei) but it’s not… It’s getting me down in a weird way.