Harajuku

A few earlier, I went to Harajuku and immensely enjoyed the sights it had to offer.

I had thought that Shibuya was the hub of Japan`s teen culture and so was surprised to find that Harajuku`s teen fashion outclassed what I had seen in Shibuya. The shops are more trendy, more funky looking and of the course, the teens there look are a lot more like rock starts and punk musicians than school or university students (thank God I stay in Tsukuba :) ). Even the Shibuya teens looked started looking respectable after seeing the teens of Harajuku.

If you really want to see the best of what Harajuku has to offer, I suggest you get off at Harajuku station and walk south towards towards Shibuya. Its only about 15-20 mins by foot and you get to see everything what Harajuku has to offer.

Here are some sights of Harajuku.

3 Months in Japan

It is now exactly 3 months to the day I arrived in Japan....this means I have 3.75 more years left here.

Coincidently, I had a BBQ with two of my friends: Tito (Bolivia) and Nanda (Myamar) in Tito`s dorm room. Considering the dorm rooms are not very large, we did a good job of doing the BBQ as discreetly as possible, on the outdoor balcony.

From tomorrow, we our summer semi-intensive Japanese language program commences.

Return to Mt. Tsukuba, PhD Research Topic Selection

How does going to a party, celebrating a friend`s surprise birthday at the party, finishing off at 3am in the morning, then going to Mount Tsukuba, returning at 8.30am and then going to meet your PhD supervisor to talk about your PhD research topic sound? In a word, I would say crazy....and crazy it was! Saturday 21st June was a crazy day. I don`t think I can capture the craziness with words so I`ll just end it here. But when I say it was crazy, believe me it was....if you are reading this Abraham, Kristina (birthday girl!) and Jurate, it was real fun that night!

I have now reached the point that I was dreading ever since I arrived in Japan. I now have to decide what I`ll be doing for my PhD and that`s really bothering me. What I decide now in 2 - 3 months will then decide how the next three years of my life will be spent. And its not just the next three years but actually my entire life that depends on what I will do for my PhD. For my MSc, I had in my over enthusiasm chosen a very complex research and as a result I spent almost two long years laboriously working to complete it, even working on Diwali and New Year!...but it was worth it.

Yuta sensei explained that his policies of the Roboken Lab was that students principally decided their own research topics depending on their interest and specialization and most of the time, they were allowed to continue in their chosen fields. So, I now have to think about what I`m going to do. My PhD entrance exam is on August 20th and there are countless application forms to be filled. I just had a stroke of luck though and that is I`m not required to have an English language skills assessment. But from now till August 20th, I think I`ll have sleepless nights trying to think up of a research topic.

Ushiku Daibutsu at Last

After about 7 weeks (and 7 attempts), we made it to Ushiku Daibutsu at last.

And it was worth waiting for 7 weeks. I had read how big the statue was but had not really imagined its enormity. At 120m high, it is incredibly huge (ずいぶん　大きい). To get an idea of how big it is, take a look at this pic and compare the trees and roads surrounding the statue. This was a wall pic and I managed to take a nice pic such that it looks like a real ariel shot. It is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the World`s largest statue of Bhudda. See this pic if you don`t believe me.

I had also read that the statue was also visible while taking off or landing at Narita Airport but had doubted that claim initially. However, Narita Airport is just nearby and we saw numerous planes flying over the statue. So, if you`re coming to Japan and have a window seat, you might want to keep an eye on for the Daibutsu!

Anyway, Ushiku is about a 50 min bus ride from Tsukuba and the Daibutsu is then another 30 min bus ride from Ushiku. There were 7 of us together and it made the trip fun. The Daibutsu is surrounded by beautiful gardens and there are also rabbits and squirrels there that you can feed. Not forgetting the fish that literally come to the edge of the water for food. I had never seen fish going crazy for food like this.

Returing from Ushiku, we had to take trains as the buses back to Tsukuba were quite late. We went to Toride and Moriya (my second visit there) and had an early dinner and then took Tsukuba Express back to Tsukuba. Here are all the pics of Ushiku Daibutsu.

Born Without A Master

I learnt how to write my name in Kanji (Chinese characters) today. Uptill now, I had been writing my name in Katakana; today my sensei showed me how to write it in Kanji.

My name`s written as 兄主。The first Kanji means "elder brother" and the second "master".

We were also asked to explain the meanings of our names. As I didn`t know mine, I checked it up on the Internet and what I found what quite interesting. My name means "Born without a Master" or "One who has no Master". So as you can see, there is some correlation between my name and the Chineese writing of it as both are concerned with "master".

Injured in Action

Like most other foriegn students (my classmates), I had a bike-accident today.

It was drizzling and the bike path was quite slippery and clever me was a little too fast on my bike. Returning to my dorm, there was a sharp turn and I saw this Japanese student at the 11th hour and swerved too sharply and too suddenly.....the outcome?......I bounced twice before coming to a halt and almost had a finger nail ripped open.

Luckily there was no one around, other than the Japanese guy. to witness my spectular crash landing so my pride remains intact (though I know I am not doing a smart thing by declaring I fell from my bike on this blog).

Anyway, there will be no more bike stunts from me from now on.

Hirasuna Festival Pics

I finally managed to trasnfer the festival pics I took with my cell to my laptop...the resolution isn`t very good. Follow this link.

Test Results, Yamabica Robot Contest

I received my test results last week. I still remember very vividly when I did my EN433: Mechatronics Applications final examination at Uni. of the South Pacific in November 2004. I had thought at that time that it would be one of my last written exams....of course later from 2005 to 2007, I studied for the Diploma in Tertiary Teaching and had examinations in that too but I never considered those to be "real" exams. And yes, there were also examinations at MSc level but they were of a different genre. I had thought that I had passed that phase of my student life where I would study late nights for exams but now here in Japan, I am still having exams.

For Grammer Part 1, I scored 42/44; Grammar Part 2 = 98.5/113; Listening = 37/44 and for Writing, I was graded as as A. Well numerically, these scores look ok but I think a fundamental shortfall of the current course is that I`m not praticing my Japanese language outside of classes.

On Saturday May 31st, Roboken held it`s 2008 Robot Contest and I witnessed first hand some of the technologies that I would be working with later this year.

Now, if you have scrutinised this blog well enough and have been a good critic of it, you would have noticed that the title of the blog totally contradicts its content: I have so far not mentioned much about my PhD studies here but rather things and stuff I do.

Well the reason`s quite simple. I was overwhelmed by what I saw in my lab and so decided to do things one step at a time...and the first step was to concentrate on the Japanese language classes. When I first saw my lab, I thought: what am I, a student from Fiji - a developing country where there are "engineers" who don`t even have a first degree and yet still call themselves engineers, a country where a pothole in the road is repaired only to have it reappear as a much bigger pothole a month later, a country that has been independant for almost 40 yrs and even then can`t still provide a continuous supply of electricity for even 12 months without power outages (Don`t get me wrong....I do love my country), doing in the midst of some of the smartest people, in one of the most dynamic fields - robotics?????. Instead of a culture shock, a Technology-shock was what I experienced. Studying for a PhD was never going to be easy, I always knew that right from the beginning and yet I still chose to leap right into the Mecca of robotics. But hard work is something I`m used to...and that is what I`m here for right? So instead of writing about my lab before , I was all the time familiarising myself to it and now I can say that I have recovered my confidence to take up the greatest challenge of my life. Gambarimasu Aneesh!

Anyway, some details about my lab: The lab itself started in 1976(!) There are three professors and some 40 odd research members, most of them Masters students and a handful of doctoral students. Every year this time, a robot programming contest is held where the students get to choose their own research idea and then try and accomplish it. The event started at 10am and finished right at 10.30pm with a party.

Amongst my favourite was this demo...a robot that is able to identify a Coke bottle from some other bottles and retrieve it. Some other interesting robots: a robot that follows the shade casted by an umbrella. When a person walks with the umbrella, it follows the umbrella; and a soccer playing robot. Here are rest of the pics. Luckily I was strictly an observer but next year, I`ll also have to participate. If you have any (simple!) ideas on what to do, pls let me know!

Hirasuna Festival

My Kanji test was OK. I only made three minor mistakes so I was satisfied with my overall performance. But on Friday, we were given the schedule for next week and we found out that we have a MAJOR test coming up next week.

Well, thanks to the rain, our plan to go to Ushiku was again postponed, the 4th time in as many weeks.

After the test, on Friday night (May 23rd), I went to the Hirasuna Festival . If I haven`t mentioned it before, Hirasuna is one of the other dorms here at the University. My dorm is Ichinoya and the two are at the opposite ends of the University Campus. In comparison to Ichinoya, Hirasuna is much, MUCH more lively than Ichinoya; I suppose this is because its closer to the city center.

Anyway, the festival is one of the two festivals held at the University, the other one being the University Festival which is held sometime in October. Organised by students, there are performances ranging from dancing and singing to talent shows, and of course food. I had no idea that the festival would be organised on such a big scale so I hadn`t taken my camera, unfortunately. The festival reminded me of the carnivals and festivals back home.

We hung around for around two hours watching some talent shows, during which met up with Jurate`s friend Kristina and I also met up with Ronit briefly. At around 10pm, the festival was concluded by burning a huge bamboo structure, which Ronit told me represented a Kanji character. We then met Kristina`s friend, Adrian from Mexico and headed off to a Mexican restaurant, El Torito, for dinner. This was to be my first Mexican food.

After dinner, we met up with some more of Adrian`s friends and went to this Izakaya but it was really small and crowded, so we went to Cyberex, the amusement center that we had went to the weekend before. We signed up for four hours there, playing pool and table tennis and when we finished, it was 4am and dawn had already started to break! We then rode back to the University and parted with ohayo gozaimasu (good morning). It was about 4.10am when I reached my dorm room. I had signed up for a free bus trip that was organized by the International Student Center and Joyo bank and was supposed to convene at the Int. Student Center at 7.10am but I decided against going.

I woke up late the next day, lazed around, dozed off again and woke up again and soon found out it was 6pm! I had got bored with staying in my dorm room all day long so I again went to the Hirasuna Festival with a friend, Tito from Bolivia, who`s also in the same Japanese language class as I am. But this time, it wasn`t so much fun as it was raining. There were no food stalls. The only highlight was a beauty contest in which all the contestants were wearing Kimonos. After watching the crowning, we were about to return but saw that the finale of the festival was yet to be...a fireworks display....yes, thats right..a fireworks display in the rain!...it was quite impressive. An entire carpark was cordoned off and fireworks were launched from there. Back home, we didn`t have such big fireworks even for Diwali! I managed to get some pics on my cell phone. At times, the carpark looked like a small war zone with so much fumes. By this time, it was raining heavily and Tito and I went for dinner at a Chinese restaurant nearby. We were thoroughly soaked when we returned back to our dorm.

We have again rescheduled our plan to go to Ushiku next Saturday. But that's going to be a little problematic as I also have a robot contest in my lab the same day. Lets see if I can juggle both events together.

Watashi no Kuni (My Country)

We gave a presentation today about our countries in the Japanese language. I wasn`t looking too forward to this as having studied the Japanese language for only about 6 weeks now, a presentation was not something I felt I was ready for.

First I had problems writing my essay. Luckily a Japanese friend, Haruka-san, was kind enough to translate my essay into Japanese for me and had it not been for her, I wouldn`t have been able to finish it.

I was then unlucky enough to be the first presenter and when I stood up in front, I forgot some of the lines I had memorized. (We were told that we had to memorize our essays and that we wouldn`t be allowed to read. I found this very unreasonable).

So, I`m not feeling too pleased with myself today as I think my presentation wasn`t so good. I have a Kanji test this Friday and I think I should make it up by studying for it.

I`ve been to Ushiku Daibutsu too....not!

Yesterday, we were supposed to go to Ushiku to see Daibutsu, the world`s largest statue of Bhudda.　I had bought my Sony Handycam Camcorder specially for this trip and fifteen of us turned up at Tsukuba Station but to our dismay, Naoki had an outdated bus schedule with him and we found out that only bus bound for Ushiku had already left!

Disappointed, the group split and some of us went to Tsukuba Botanical Garden to kill some time. We hung around for around an hour before returing back to our dorms.

At 7pm we met again, this time it was only Jurate, Naoki and Sato and me; we first went for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near Hirasuna and later, we went to Karaoke and spent two hours there.

From there, we went to Cyberex, an amusement center in Tsukuba and played pool and table tennis. Jurate teamed up with Naoki against Kristina and I and although they defeated us in the first two rounds, we were victorious in the 5th game. We then played table tennis till 1.30am and then returned.

We`ll go to Ushiku Daibutsu next Saturday....hopefully.

If you`re buying a cell phone in Japan...

I received my first bill for my cell phone this week. How much? 7,200 Yen!

So if you`re thinking about having a cell phone in Japan, it`ll pay to think twice (or thrice!) about which phone company you want to subcribe to. I got myself an AU deal at the advice of my tutor but most students in Japan use Softbank. When buying, I couldn`t get the answers to all my questions, thanks to the language barrier, so I had no choice but just to buy one and so when I received my first bill, it was a real shocker. I then took Ronit (thanks bro!) and went over my phone plan once again and downgraded some of the features that I had initally subscribed to.

Today, I bought the latest Sony Handycam currently available on the market from Ishimaru in Tsukuba and I`m feeling very pleased with myself as I bought the handycam completely alone using the Japanese that I have learnt over the last 5 or so weeks. Costing me $125,000Y, the HDR-SR12 Sony Handycam Camcorder has a 120GB hard drive, is High Defintion (HD) with 1920x1080 recording, with Face Detection technology and ClearVid CMOS sensor...impressive desu ne?

Roboken Open Lab, Tsukuba Festival and Roboken BBQ

The Intelligent Robot Laboratory (Roboken) and some other labs from the Department of Intelligent Interaction Technologies held their Open Lab day on Saturday 10th May, coinciding with Tsukuba Festival.

There were two robots in particular that intertested me...one was from my lab. It was a small differentially driven robot with a laser range finder that detected a human in front of it and followed it autonomously...if one walks away from the robot, it commences it`s human-following behaviour and if the person walks towards it, the robot backs up...although its electronics and behavior was elementary, the robot looked quite cool executing this human tracking behaviour. It was also robust enough to follow just a single person most of the time even if a second person came in its way.However, the response time of the laser range finder was 0.1seconds so if one steps away from the robots quicky, it loses track of the human. Here are some pics and vids.

Later I went to the festival at Tsukuba Center, with Ronit, where there were food stalls from various countries. I had a chicken kebab from an Iranian stall. Unfortunately, it rained all day long so we couldn`t stay there for long.

The next day, Sunday 11th May, Roboken lab held its annual BBQ. It has become somewhat of a tradition of Roboken to have its BBQ annually, around end of spring time. This year the plan was to go to Hitachi but due to the rain, we went to Yukarinomori instead. This is quite near the University. Yuta sensei explained to me that he had observed that students worked indoors most of the time, in a closed environment and so he initiated the idea to take the entire lab members on excursions, for a break away from the lab. The Roboken members had also gone for a 6 hour hike to some mountain during the Golden Week but I had gone to Tokyo the same day.

The BBQ event was quite fun as after lunch, we (boys and girls) played soccer on a muddy field and got ourseleves thourougly dirty.

And the Whole World Shook...

The talk of the day today was the series of earthquakes that struck us in the early hours of the morning today.

It was around 2am when I first felt small jolts. Having already experienced some earthquakes in my first 3 weeks, I ignored it and concentrated on trying to sleep when a slighly larger one caught my attention. Even then I did nothing initially as I trusted Japanese construction. But when the next quake struck and brought down some of the stuff in my shelf, it had me up in a jiffy.....outside I heard some of the other guys from my dorm who had decided to go outside. Not only was the quake strong (and I mean STRONG), its duration was also scary...it went on and on for several minutes as if someone was trying to demolish our dormitory.

Later in the day, one of my senseis told us that the earthquake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale...lets just say that as far as earthquakes are involved, one experience is enough for me.

A Day in Tokyo

Yesterday (Monday 5th May) Jurate, Naoki and I went to Tokyo....for a day that has probably been one of my most exciting days of my stay in Japan so far.

We left Tsukuba at around 10.30am and first went to Asakusa to see Sensōji (or Asakusa Kannon), the largest Buddhist temple in the Tokyo area.

Later we went to Ueno Zoo, had a look around and also lunched there. Pics are worth a thousand words so they are here. From Ueno we went to Shinjuku to enter the 45th story of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where the South Observatory is located. From here, one gets a panoramic view of the skyscrapers of Japan. We saw this ingenious advertisement in a station and had a good laugh over it.

Shibuya was our next stop at around 6pm where we had also dinner at an Indian resaurant. Later, we walked around the streets as Jurate wantetd a glimpse of the teen fashion that Shibuya is reowned for. As it was Golden Week, there were even more people at the intersection than I had previously seen. Roppongi was our next destination and it spelt class from the moment we sat foot out of the station. Roppongi Hills, a massive daprtment store lies just in front of the station exit with a humongous replica of a spider outside. We entered Roppongi Hills just to how it`s interior looked like but found out that an admission fee applied if we were to go any further than the first floor so we came back. Just outside Roppongi Hills, we could see Tokyo tower and we decided to go there on foot. Not one of our best decisions, we spent around 40mins trying to reach Tokyo Tower. Although it looked close, we later found out that it wasn`t so simple as we had to cross through countless streets and sidealleys and at times we found ourselves in narrow, unlit streets.

On our way to Tokyo Tower, Naoki saw Tiffany and Co. and we decided to enter it, just for fun...one of the rings I saw there carried a price tag with about 7 or 8 digits (in Yen) so we quietly made our exit. Further ahead we saw three Aston Martin V8 Vantage cars in a showroom....one was exactly the same type as the one used in the movie Die Another Day......I can only dream about driving a car like that........so the next best thing we did was to pose in front of the cars and have our pics taken!

Finally about 40mins later, we reached the foot of Tokyo Tower and I　still retain that first image, of the foot of the tower, in my mind,,,,what a marvellous feat of Japanese engineering...333meters of steel standing upright, self supported....50 years old and still holding the record of being the highest self supporting structure in the world.....I had been to New Zealand`s Sky Tower before and at 186meters, I thought that was impressive until I saw Tokyo Tower.

We went to the first level which is 150m high and saw the entire of Tokyo and its surrounding areas lit up with lights. So amazing was the sight that I only took a few pics as the views were something that no cameras could ever capture. We then wanted to go to the next level which was 250m high but found out that we would have to wait for 70mins as only a few people at a time can go to the second level...because the tower gets quite thin that high up. Undecided initially because not having anywhere to stay in Tokyo,we had to catch the last train back from Akihabara at 11.30pm and it was already about 9pm. We still decided to join the queue to go up as we thought we might not come back again to see one of the finest views in Japan. Luck on our side, it took was only about 30mins and we went to the second level....not before having some fun....there was a drunk couple ahead of us and they started talking to us....things I didn`t understand......they were so drunck that at the ticket counter, the lady lost her balance and crashed on the floor!

After seeing around the second level of Tokyo Tower, we rushed to the nearest station to go back to Akihabara. It was around 12.20am when I reached my dormitory.

Second Month

OK, I now have to fast forward about three weeks in time as i can`t possibly write everything I did.

I had bought my Dell laptop about three weeks back in Shibuya but purchasing a laptop here in Japan is interesting: one gives the desired specifications and a laptop is assembled to that specification by the manufacturer and delivered to your doorstep in two weeks...thats why I couldn't update this blog last month.

Anyway, I received my laptop and its quite cool....it evens comes with a remote control!....so now I can write about what I have been upto. Very briefly, Ronit (the other student from Fiji) took me around places...we went to Akihabara, Shinjuku and Shibuya in the weekends....and yes!....on Sunday April 27th, I also went to my first Karaoke with Naoki Hase (from Japan), Cecilia Manoliu (also a new student, from Romania), and Kristina Simonaityte (also from Lithuania). (The Karaoke was great fun and I have many pics (and vids!) of it but as there are pics of me actually singing, they`re not for public consumption! Instead, they`re in my private albums and if you`d like to view them, you can email me and if I know you, I may have a change of heart!) Later, we went to this Japanese Restaurant for dinner (I forgot the name) where you have to sort of "cook" your own dish.

Yesterday marked the end of my first month in Japan (how time flies!) and now that I come to think of it, I am NOW settled, although I still am having problems with the Japanese language. Amongst the many vices I possess, one of the very few virtues I have is that of preparedness. And so, luckily I had started learning Japanese (Hiragana) by myself when I was in Fiji and that had helped a lot. I am enrolled into the Intensive Japanese Language program and as the name implies...IT IS INTENSIVE!......we have classes everyday from 8.40am to 3pm with two 15min breaks and a 45min lunch in between and by the time we finish, we`re all exhausted....not to mention the shukudai (homework) we have to complete everynight!

On Wednesday 30th April, there was a party for the participants of the Intensive Japanese Language Program, the new Monbukagakusho Scholarship students.

This (or next?) week, its "Golden Week" in Japan because Monday and Tuesday are public holidays. So, it came at a really good time as I really needed time away from the Japanese Language program. So today, I went to Tsukuba-san (Mount Tsukuba) with Jurate and Naoki. We also visited a Japanese shrine half way through to Tsukuba-san but unfortunately, the peak of Tsukuba-san was covered with fog/mist with very poor visibility and so we had to come back. Here are the some of the pics of the visit to Tsukuba-san. For dinner, we went to this Sushi bar in Tsukuba Center , a place where the dishes are served on a moving conveyor plate. See pics here.

Tomorrow, the three of us will be going to Tokyo, Roppongi and Shinjuku.

First Week in Japan

Konnichiwa...i`m finally in Japan!

Well...the past week has been like a roller coaster ride with more twists than a Tom Clancy book.

OK first, on April 3rd, during check in at Nadi Intl. Airport, I met Lara Dutta (fomer Miss World and Bollywood actress) and Kunal (actor). They had come to Fiji for some yoga thing and were returning to India via the Sydney flight. The airport was quite empty so I got the oppurtunity of a lifetime....to have my photo taken with them! do you believe that? I`ll post up the pics as soon as i get a laptop with Windows and all PCs i have used so far here at the Uni. of Tsukuba have different OSs.

The flight to Narita was around 9hrs. We touched down at exactly 5.15pm (JST) and I boarded the express bus to Tsukuba at 6.45pm, just like I was supposed to. On reaching Tsukuba City, there were two staff of the Int. Student Center, who guided us to our dormitories.

OK, I now have to stop as I am currenlty blogging from the University Central Libraray and I don`t know if I can use the PCs for "non academic" work. Ja mata!

Last Days in Fiji

The month of March was by far the fastest month I had ever experienced...its the last weekend now.

Earlier in the month, I received an email from the Intl. Student Center of University of Tsukuba giving me instructions on how to reach Tsukuba from Narita Airport.This caught me a little offguard as I was expecting someone from the University to meet me in Narita. (This was the normal pratice for previous MEXT scholarship students). However, browsing through Narita Intl. Airport's website, I saw that it had quite comphrensive information: its possible to find out, in advance, the terminal one will be arriving at, flight information on the site is updated every 10 mins and detailed floor layouts of the two Terminals are also provided. I also came across other great sites that gave useful tips, such as this one.

I am to catch the 6.50pm Express Bus from Bus Stop No. 10 of Terminal 2 (Air Pacific flights use this terminal) after buying the ticket from the 1st floor (arrival lobby). So, going to Tsukuba from Narita by oneself is not too great a deal. The only tricky part is that my flight will land at 5pm and I have a little less than 2 hours to clear through immigration and customs (which involves fingerprinting, photographing followed by an interview), buy the express bus ticket, make a call to the Intl. Student Center to inform them I'm on my way and then board the 6.50pm bus bound for Tsukuba.....so I hope I have enough time.If not, I'll have to spend the night in some hotel around Narita and then proceed to Tsukuba the next day as no one will receive me in Tsukuba Station if I board a bus after the 6.50pm one.

As I still had some space left after packing my luggage, I thought of taking some fijian souvenirs with me to Japan. They might come handy if I visited Japanese homes. I took a friend along to Jack's Handicraft and got a couple of handycraft items.I also emailed Prof. Yuta to let him know about my arrival and he told me that I would allocated a desk in the Roboken Lab although I have been initially be enrolled into the intensive Japanese language program.

On Monday 17th March, we were invited to a dinner hosted by the Japanese Embassy at the Golden Palace Restaurant in Victoria Parade, Suva. Here, I got to meet some current MEXT scholarship students who were in Fiji for a break: Ronit Prakash (who coincidentally is an undergrad student at the University of Tsukuba), his girlfriend Monica (a Polish student studying in Japan) and Dipal. As Ronit is also a gakusei at the same university and Faculty as I'll be going to, he told me that he'd help me out once I reached Tsukuba.

From the 18th to the 20th, and on the 25th, Dilpreet Kaur (the other recipient of the MEXT scholarship) and I had gone through an elementary Japanese language training classes in the afternoons at the Japanese Embassy. Conducted by Leone (a former MEXT student), I found these classes very informative as Leone shared with us his experiences of his stay in Japan.

I also took time out to visit Prof. Godfrey Onwubolu, who was my MSc supervisor, at U.S.P. He had worked with Prof. Yuta in his robotics lab in 2003 so I thought of talking to him to get a few hints about studying in Japan. I also contacted Sunil Lal, a former lecturer of mine, who is currently studying for his PhD at the University of the Ryukyus to get a rough idea of what it would be like studying for a PhD in Japan.

Finally, on Friday 28th March, we were invited to morning tea with the Japanese Ambassador, His Excellency Ambassador Namekawa where he formally presented us with our tickets and visas to Japan in front of the media and some selected guests. Later in the evening, we were invited to dinner at the Ambassador's residence in Princess Road, Tamavua. As this was the 25th Anniversary of Fiji Monbusho Alumni (the Japanese Govt has been sending students to Japan for 25 years now), many former students were at the dinner. Amongst others whose names I didn't get (sorry!) , I met Subash Appana, a management lecturer AT U.S.P who twice went to study in Japan and Savita Singh, a lecturer at the Fiji School of Medicine (FSM), who I learnt was in Japan for 7 years. I also had my first Japanese meal here. Let me see if i remember the dishes that were served....chicken, egg cakes, Japanese noodles, prawns, squid, eels, tuna and various other seafood. I wasn't feeling too adventourous so I decided to spare the eels. As for the squid, I tasted it but decided that wasn't for me either. At dinner, I found myself at a table with Mrs Namekawa, the most friendlist of ladies and Ambassdor Namekawa himself came to Dilpreet and I several times to see that we were okay. Here is a picture of Dilpreet and I that Kanata-san (Embassy staff) took of us.

Meanwhile there are 4 more days left to go to before I leave Fiji...

About this Blog

Ok, first a bit about myself and then this blog. Here is my personal homepage that has a little description of me (a little outdated though) ; my hi5 profile is here; I am fijiclassmates.com member no. 3217; my graduates.com profile is here and my public gallery is here.

Anyways, I attended Swami Vivekananda College (1996-2000) in Nadi, Fiji. From 2001 to 2003, I was an undergrad student at the Uni. of the South Pacific studying BSc majoring in Computer science and Electronic Engineering. In 2004, I continued studying for Postgraduate Diploma and mid year, I joined the Fiji Institute of Technology as a Lecturer in Computer Engineering in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. From 2005 to 2006, I studied part time for MSc in Engineering (Details of my Msc theis project may be found here). Then came the break I was waiting for. Based on research emanating from my Msc studies, I presented a paper (my first) in Dec 2006 at the Third International Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents (ICARA 06) held at Massey University in New Zealand. I received the award for the Best Student Paper for this paper and accordingly, I was invited to write a chapter for the book "Autonomous Robots and Agents" in the book series Studies in Computational Intelligence.

At the conference, I had met Prof. Shin'ichi Yuta (a Fellow of the IEEE, one of the HIGHEST ranks in engineering) who heads the Intelligent Robot Laboratory at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Then in July 2007, I applied (the 3rd time!) for the Japanese Govt Scholarship and with Prof. Yuta's recommendation, I was subsequently awarded the scholarship in April 2008.

So, having already studied at university once and then given a second chance to relive the "golden years" by studying for a PhD in the country with the 2nd largest economy in the world, a country that possess more than half of the world's industrial robots, and that too in a University that has been ranked in top 9th-17th in the entire Asia Pacific region, I thought of capturing the moments that I would want to recall 20 years from now by creating this blog and documenting some of the more salient events about my stay and studies in Japan. So thats why I created this blog and I'll be frequently posting up details here.

Well thats the prologue of this blog. I received my interneary this week...will be flying to Tokyo (Narita) on April 3rd so I still have about four weeks to conclude my lectures at F.I.T, assess my students and hand over to my section head.