Happy New Year and Welcome to the Final Lap!

Hi everyone!
It's been a pretty long time since I last updated the blog, and as my time in Tokyo is slowly starting to run out, I believe it is time for a few more posts.
First of all, let me wish all of you a (belated) Happy New Year: 明けましておめでとうございます! I did not spend it in Japan however but was in Zurich for 10 days for the celebrations. I heard from other YSEPers that there were no fireworks in Tokyo, so I didn't miss out on that. Typically, in Japan, the first three days of the new year are important holidays, spent with family and friends and including visits of a shrine.
I brought back around one kg of chocolate from Switzerland to the lab, and it was gone in 3 days! Of course, with around 30 people in the lab, this isn't too surprising (and of course it was great chocolate ;) ).

Last weekend, there was the TISA sports festival, where I joined for futsal and table tennis. It was really nice, although it started pretty early on a Saturday, which meant no weekend sleep out. Still, totally worth it. The table tennis part was pretty much a fail for me, as I lost all my matches (yeah, I'm terrible at it). Actually, Jonas won the table tennis tournament, and was second place for the badminton tournament. Such Prizes! Many Talent! Wow!
Anyway, the futsal part was somewhat more victorious (we made 5th place, from 16). On the picture (official TokyoTech facebook page), you can see a tired me in front of another team of the tournament, which I decided to coach a bit (just for fun, although they will assure you it didn't sound like it). Unfortunately, our team-pic is not available yet, but I will add it once I get to see it! The futsal tourney was set up like in 4 groups of 4 teams, which played in the morning. In the afternoon, there was a final round (for all of the teams) and the ranking was determined (so there was a match for 5th place, but also for 15th place).
On a less amusing note, I actually broke my finger while playing. The so-called avulsion fracture isn't severe and all I got as treatment was a cream that is locally painkilling. My finger actually turned blue and was swollen to twice the normal diameter by Sunday. The doctor said that I can use the finger normally (so I can continue working) and today, the swelling is gone and the pain is minimal.

This Wednesday, we had the opportunity to visit JFE Steel, one of Japan's largest steel businesses. We had a study tour at the Kawasaki factory, which is located on an artificial island in the Bay of Tokyo. The factory was pretty impressive (the island is 2 x 3 km) and the steel production was interesting to watch. As a part of the production process, after creating the raw iron (called pig iron), it is burned at 1500 degrees with a pure oxygen flame to remove most of the carbon that reduces the quality of the product. The liquid steel is then allowed to flow into large slabs, which are left to cool. In a next step, the slabs are reheated and then press rolled into long sheets. The heat of these sheets could be felt from 30 m away (where we were standing).

The tour was enjoyable and informative, definitely worth the time. We of course had to wear "protective gear" inside the factory, which resulted in some funny pics and some more earnest ones (see the one on the left).
On the way home, we had a magnificent view on Fuji-san, which I tried to capture (sorry for the low quality).
And as a general thing, the air has been exceptionally clean and clear in the last days.

In the lab, my research is slowly reaching an end. I have to present my work and finish a report by the 31.1., which means that all measurements need to be finished next week. I'll make a special blog entry on my research soon, when I have enough to make something interesting. On the 7th of February, the YSEP half-year completion ceremony will be held (they also want a presentation). And on the 15th, I'm heading back to Zurich.

I hope you enjoyed the post and stay tuned, 4 more weeks of Japan and a few posts are waiting for you!

Tokyo Motor Show

Hi everyone,

This weekend, I visited the Tokyo Motor Show 2013. This is one of the biggest exhibitions on cars, trucks, bikes and all that is associated with them in the world. It started last Saturday and is open for around 10 days. I had heard of it in the news and decided to have a look. I know people who are a lot more interested in cars than I am, but I enjoy seeing nice designs. Also, the Motor Show being in Japan, many "near-future" technologies in the automobile industry were presented. There were fast cars, strong trucks and impressive motorbikes, but also some of the newest Tesla models and many innovative and clean cars (mainly form Japanese companies).
My personal highlights of the Show were Asimo, the humanoid robot developed by Honda, the newest model of a Kawasaki "motorbike", which strongly resembled the bikes in the last TRON movie (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2010/01/tron-light-cycle.jpg), and the sunset over the Fujiyama. Even the comet Ison, which is visible only at sunrise and sunset and probably only for a short while longer, could be seen in the orange red sky, as a tailed ball of light. Sadly, the resolution of my camera was by far to bad to get the comet...
As for the Motor Show, I took quite a few pictures, and you can see them in this wonderful gallery. Also check out Jonas' blog for more (and better) pictures. There might even be some of me :P



The week has not been too bad for me. I could measure a few samples and continue with the last step of my syntheses. The weather was quite nice, especially the nights were beautiful and cloudless. If not for the brightness of Tokyo city, I would have been able to see the Milky Way in it's richness of bright lights! I enjoyed walking home with my head turned to the stars and seeing the Belt of Orion (it's easy to find!).
One downside is that I had twisted my foot and had pain walking for a few days. Luckily though, this problem went away before the Motor Show.

(careful, it's pretty loud!)

Only three and a half weeks left until Christmas! I was told that in Japan, Christmas isn't really considered a holiday you should spend with your family, but most Japanese people will spend it with their girlfriend or boyfriend. I think that it's a nice tradition; also, Christmas day is a public holiday here. Maybe we should think about introducing some extra holidays in Europe? :)

More Culture, More Work!

Hello, dear readers!
It's been a while again since I last wrote, as I was pretty busy in the last days. The weekend before last, I was at a softball and baseball match, playing together with members from my lab against two other labs. This was part of a cooperation between the groups, which are all three leading in the domain of photochemical catalysis and artificial photosynthesis.
It was the first time I actually played softball, or baseball, but it turns out to be a really fun game. The only downside is standing for long times on the field without really moving (in defense, I guess). It was a pretty cold and windy day, so in addition to having light sportswear only, it felt like freezing alive... The first match started around 10 in the morning, and with the pitch being at the other end of Tokyo, I had to get up pretty early (2.5 hours travel!!). Not only was it a lot of fun to play baseball, our lab even managed to win one match (we got a cup, out of which the professors downed a beer at the party held in the evening).

*I will add pics once I get some*

Sunday was a pretty painful waking, as I had managed to fall during baseball the day before and rip open my hip. Furthermore, I had sore muscles in my arm at places I didn't know there were any :P
The next week was productive (and the pain went away rapidly), I started two multi step syntheses of photocatalytic complexes. One of the complexes is based on rhenium, the other on ruthenium. I learned how expensive the starting materials are a few days ago, and it's around 7000 $ per gram for the ruthenium, the rhenium is even more expensive. If you are interested in investments in raw materials or rare metals, consider these two as viable alternatives to gold or silver.
Of course, the very high price and scarcity of ruthenium and rhenium make limit the applicability of their use in photocatalysis on a large scale. A few members of the lab are therefore investigating alternative metals for the reactions. It is really interesting to see how well the lab is organized in the context of research: based on knowledge accumulated over the past 15 years, the most promising results are developed and research is expanded to several specialities, with two or three students per speciality. There are long-term goals (ex. alternative metal complexes with same efficiency), that build up on the research already conducted and they are approached step by step. This is the first time I see this structure in a research group (although I am sure that other groups do something similar).

Anyways, by the weekend after baseball, I had successfully performed three ligand substitutions. The hard part, purification, was on Monday and Tuesday. I spent 13 hours at the lab on Monday, 9 of which on a flash chromatography! The time-consuming step of the purification was the necessity of measuring a mass spectrum of each fraction. But, it was worth it! :) End of the week, I had my products with high purity and an acceptable yield (40 % over 3 steps, which isn't too bad for me). And the best thing: very intensive and beautiful colours of my products give them even an aesthetic value. That's the way chemistry should be!

Enough about work. Last weekend, I went to a snowboarding competition, at the heart of Tokyo. It was really impressive to see a 30 m ramp and snow, in the middle of Tokyo. Check the video!
I even got an autograph (don't know exactly from whom though, but he was a good boarder), first one I ever got. Perhaps I will be hanging it to my wall here, it's better than plain white.
On Sunday morning, there was an earthquake that shook me awake. After checking out the info on the USGS site (http://comcat.cr.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000kvca#summary), I found the epicenter to be located exactly at the place we had been playing baseball the weekend before. That can't be a coincidence!! :o

We held our presentation on Switzerland I had mentioned in an earlier post. We decided not to include the wonderful video suggested by an enthusiastic reader (although it was mesmerizing), however I bought some chocolate at the Lindt shop in Shibuya and distributed it during the talk. Everyone loved it! (no surprise there).
This Wednesday, I joined a trip to the Asahi Glass factory as a part of my SJCI class. We took the bus through Tokyo, passing through the harbour on our way to Asahi. It was a long trip, over two hours to go and nearly three to return. Once there, we visited a plant that produced giant glass panes through the so-called glass float technique. We could take a look into the oven (1600 degrees!) and it appeared like two dragons were in there, spitting fire (in fact, they were giant burners). Unfortunately, no picture-taking was allowed.

I am busy, as you can read. The workload will probably increase even more, as I will be presenting my work to the group in 3 weeks and need many more results still. I will try to find some time to post a little more, and certainly upload some photos from baseball! I hope you enjoyed reading and watching.

Stay tuned!

Japanese Culture (2)

From Ikebukuro, we continued towards Korakuen, which is in the north of Tokyo. Directly at the station there is the Tokyo Dome, a 55'000 person fitting baseball arena. Sadly, there was no possibility to enter the stadium, but there was a small amusement park right next to it. If the weather hadn't been as wet, we might have taken a ride on this very nice looking roller coaster (which has a 50 m long, very steep drop)!

We then went on to Ginza, which is in the southern half of Tokyo. It is a modern quarter, with very new and fancy buildings. There is a large shopping mile at
the foot of this building.


Also, there is a statue of a spider, about 5 m tall, standing right next to the tower (I'm not showing any picture in case some of you are scared of large spiders ^^).
At around 5 pm, we returned to the starting point of the tour (university) to evaluate the orienteering rankings. Our group made 5th place (out of 7), but we enjoyed the tour a lot more than we would have if we were competing seriously. After dinner, a select few, including myself, went to sing at a karaoke place near the campus. After this pretty intensive and tiring day, a good night's (and morning's) sleep was really nice :)

Although I did see a few interesting and beautiful things, I had only seen a small part of Tokyo. Therefore, on Monday (which was a public holiday), I went to Asakusa and Akihabara. Asakusa is in the northeastern part of Tokyo, close to the Skytree (Japan's highest building) and around 2 hours from my dormitory.

Asakusa temple is a very famous Buddhist temple, and also the oldest temple in Tokyo (founded ~650 AD). In front of the main gate, there is a long "shopping mile" which once had many small, specialized shops. Today, the content of these shops has been replaced with tourist merchandise... Still, from far, a bit of the ancient flare and atmosphere is left. The main gate is decorated by very big painted lanterns and is around 30 m high. On the right, there is a stacked tower, in the center the main shrine.

What has struck me most can be seen on the left picture: the proximity of old, traditional buildings and modern constructions. This is impressive and beautiful at the same time. Japan has managed to modernize without destroying the cultural heritage, compared to some other countries I've visited, they did a great job!
The temple was bustling with people and very lively. On the side of the main building, there was a show with a trained monkey, which I found somewhat grotesque, but entertaining for the children. Asakusa is very beautiful and if you ever visit Japan, you should try to see it.

After having dinner at Asakusa, I went on to Akihabara, which is the place for electronics and anything related to manga and anime. I had been in the gigantic electronics store already, but only on one floor. The shop is truly enormous and has much more than only computers and cellphones. There is a whole floor dedicated to games and Japanese movies, as well as collectors' items (for model ships and the like).
After going to the main street, the most prominent aspect of the area are the large luminescent signs on the walls. There are many food stalls, comic book shops, pachinko halls and so-called maid cafes. The street is packed with people trying to sell stuff or trying to get you to play on their slot machines. I went into a pachinko hall, and apart from the fact that the slot machines are extremely dull, my memory is mainly of noise. These halls are insanely loud!
I went into a gaming arcade next, and there were many people playing all sorts of games. The most impressive one is a machine where you have to press the screen in certain places to a given rhythm. There were "professional" players there who came with special gloves and played one of these machines after the other, at a dazzling speed. I would guess they spend many evenings training for that...

The last thing I saw in Akihabara before returning home were these two Jeeps, driving around the place advertising the newest Battlefield game. It is common in Tokyo to drive around in fancy cars or trucks to advertise to the people on the streets. Haven't seen too much of this anywhere else until now.
Tuesday was back to the lab again. Or it should have been. Unfortunately, I seem to have caught a cold during my tours and was laying in bed with fever. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and was fit on Thursday. I started a new synthesis (the lamp for the photocatalytic reactions broke) of two ligands that I will use for reference purposes in the measurement of catalytic activity.

There is still more culture coming up, but I will post it at another time. I hope you enjoyed the read and the photos!! If you have any questions or want to express how bad my picture taking skills are, do not hesitate to comment ;)

Japanese Culture! (1)

Dear readers,

Last week, I was finally able to see some of Tokyo's cultural highlights on an orienteering tour around the city. The participants of the tour (http://www.siengp.titech.ac.jp/~sage/Tori_e.php) were split into groups, so together with 4 other students (1 Japanese, 2 Indonesian, 1 Chinese), I started my round trip through the capital. There will be more pictures than usual in this post so it might look a bit strangely formatted...

Our first stop was Shibuya. For the orienteering tour, we had to take pictures and answer questions via Twitter, and each picture should include this logo.
We had day passes for the Tokyo metro system and moved from place to place by train.
In Shibuya station, there is a very large work of art by Japanese painter Taro Okamoto, called the myth of tomorrow. It is really oversize and a scary piece, depicting some kind of animal perhaps (which I would not want to eat though, despite the great Japanese cuisine.

Next, we went to the Meiji Shrine (明治神宮) that is located a few km north of Shibuya. This shrine is dedicated to the Meiji emperor (important ruler in Japanese history), and on the way from the main gate to the main house, you will pass by a collection of sake and wine casks, the latter were donated by the French to honour the emperor.
On that day, there was a festival and many weddings, which meant that there were people in traditional Japanese wear. I was lucky enough to get a photo with them. The little girl has a very complicated dress and hairstyle, all in all very impressive.

And so, after passing several tents displaying flowers and bonsai trees, we arrived at the main building. There were many people there, despite a little rain that had begun to fall. If you look closely at the center of the image (I know that the quality is not great), you will find a traditional Japanese dancer with a fan. He was accompanied by traditional music (yes everything was very traditional, but that's really interesting to see!). This was a great bonus to the visit of the shrine.
What I liked most about this place is the park: A spot of green in the midst of a concrete plain. It was very refreshing to see a forest, even though it was small.

After the Meiji shrine, we went to the Shinjuku area (Shinjuku is the station with most passengers passing, world wide). There, we had lunch in a small udon shop, which was delicious!
Strengthened, we made our way to Ikebukuro to have a look at the animate store, which is very popular with girls who read manga and watch anime. The rush into the store was pretty overwhelming, I only visited the ground level (selling different posters, action figures, books, etc.) as the stairs were  evidently clogged with ecstatic girls/women! To join in, I bought a small figurine of Gintama for 200 yen (2 CHF) :)

Read more in the next post!

Sorry for the Break!

Dear Readers,
It's been quite a while since I last updated the blog. Sorry!! :(
In the week of my birthday, I had some family visiting me, which made me pretty busy in the evenings. On the other hand, I got to taste some of the best Japanese food, served as a nine dish menu. The only thing I did not enjoy was sea-urchin (I stepped on one of them a couple of years ago, that was pretty painful). The evening after (I think it was a Friday), we were invited to the American Club Tokyo, where I had the best burger in a very long time! Seriously, it was insanely good!

On Monday, I went to see the place I lived in before, over 15 years ago. I even found the kinder garden I was at. Although I can't really remember much of my first stay in Japan (I was born there ^^), it was an interesting experience. Learning about your past is always something special. There is actually a Japanese temple with graves just behind the house where we stayed. We asked the old lady who was working there if we could enter to have a better look, and then I was told about my birthday party on the balcony when I turned three...

A very strong typhoon hit Tokyo on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. It was so severe that the trains didn't work for a few hours (which is extremely rare in Japan!). Luckily, Yokohama wasn't hit directly, and we only had rain and strong winds. So I think most of the exchange students stayed at home, as I did.

After this exciting week, the weather turned and Japan froze. Ok, I am going a bit over the line with that, but from the mild 25 degrees we had, we were down to 15. And rain and wind. Luckily, I brought enough warm jackets with me to survive the cold. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to become ill and spent time in bed with headaches and stomach pain. I actually think that the diet consisting mainly of rice and noodles is not exceedingly healthy and I guess my stomach shared this view. It is also due to the season, but I don't feel really healthy again yet.

Work is getting interesting now. I moved on from synthesis to actual catalysis, which is a totally different topic. I work with very small quantities: I have started losing patience waiting for the scales to tare out to the fifth digit... I obtained, until now, quite promising results though. Nothing that will change humanity yet, but on the way there ;) My job is to combine the photocatalyst metal complex on a zeolite, and then to measure the loaded amount and the reactivity. It's not trivial, but doable, with enough patience.

Last weekend, we had an (early) Halloween party, to honor the birthday of one of the french YSEPers. As Japan is famous for great cosplay and costumes, I decided to join in on the fun. However, I preferred to make something myself, which was more practical than and I think the result wasn't half bad. We actually, taking the train, amused ourselves by scaring a few people. :)

Oh and as you can see, I had a haircut. I decided that it was time to see a world free of hair in my face. Also, since I wanted to join sports clubs in November (after the official match season ends), I thought it might be useful. Getting a haircut in Japan is a nice experience, since you get a little massage after your haircut and they wash your hair before and after cutting. My lack of Japanese was disturbing though and their English wasn't too good either, so I consider myself lucky that it turned out well.

Last week on Wednesday, we visited the Life Safety Learning Center in Ikebukuro as a part of the TOJ class. Basically, it's a center that kids go through in primary school to learn about basic fire and earthquake safety. It was a great experience though, since they had a firefighting course (using water to "extinguish" burning oil! Bad idea) and an earthquake simulator we tried out.  And just a few days after that, a real earthquake actually struck Japan. Strength 7.3, but in Tokyo, only a slight shaking was felt. Still, it woke me up...

So, I survived until November... I'll try to update a little more often since I know you guys are waiting for the stories :D See ya!

PS working on the Switzerland presentation... Comment any good ideas below! I'll post the presentation once it's finished.

Update!

It's been a long time since my last post, so I thought I'll keep you up to date with what is happening in Tokyo. Last Saturday, Caspar, Henrik, Mira, Hugo (also all YSEPers) and I decided to have a chill evening at an American style bar near Aobadai. It's a really nice place, the people who worked there were quite good at English and offered us some free food.
On Monday morning, I had my first lecture in the only chemistry course I am going to follow this semester. The name of the class being "soft matter physics and organic materials for photonics", the topic seems very interesting although somewhat difficult. As an advanced course in Tokyo Tech, a good understanding of quantum mechanics is required to follow through. For those who know: the introduction basically sums up important concepts of OC IV and PC V. After the lecture (and lunch) I went to the lab and restarted the synthesis of the ligand I had done 2 weeks earlier. This time, it went a lot faster and thanks to a slightly different procedure, I had a much better feeling that the reaction was good this time. After getting home late, I was surprised by Caspar who had cooked an amazing Seafood dish (it had slight resemblance to paella).

 After a long day of work on Monday and a short night, Tuesday was very tiring for me. It was the first in a 3 day presentation marathon, where all the lab members presented their research. My tutor, Yutaro-san, also presented on this day. However, starting at half past one, we finished at around eight, and I must admit, I started sleeping through some of the presentations held only in Japanese. Still, I tried my best with asking questions and trying to understand. Yutaro's presentation was especially interesting, since a lot of the work he had done would be the basis of what I would do. Actually, I will be combining the complex photocatalyst with the zeolite (MCM41). It seems that my whole studies have led me to this! :)


Wednesday was interesting only in the evening. I had been in Shibuya with some friends the week before and while we were walking around, a man who looked pretty strange but spoke surprisingly good English stopped us. He then asked me if I wanted to join in on a casting for a show for Friday next week. I was slightly surprised, but accepted to join the casting. So that's where I went in the evening, at a studio near Shibuya. When I arrived, I was surprised to find at least 50 other people waiting there. Most of them were real models (they had their portfolios with them) and seemed very professional, which made me feel pretty out of place. Still, I just did what was asked from me (I have no idea if what I did was right, first time "on stage") and then went home with mixed feelings. I will be told if I am qualified for the event on Friday by mail and keep you updated.

Thursday was pretty calm. The presentations on that day were held only in English (I finally understood everything) and I think everyone was happy that they were over after this 3-day marathon. In the evening, Henrik, Hugo and I went to a tiny wine bar near Shibuya, where Hugo (who is French and a specialist for wine, it seems to me) tried explaining why Chardonnay is better when the summer is sunny. I still don't really enjoy wine though... Anyway, after getting home and a short night, Friday morning was the official medical check-up that all new students at TokyoTech need to undergo. It took two whole hours (90 % was waiting in line...) and so I came only for the last 20 minutes of the Topics on Japan class we were having. Friday's schedule was changed with Wednesday's due to the preparation of the Campus festival that was going to be held on the weekend.

In the evening, 8 YSEPers met in the dorm common room and we then left for a concert by the (really great) French DJ Madeon, who was in Tokyo for his Japan-tour. Apart from insanely smooth transitions, the most shocking part of the concert was the temperature inside the crowd of people who were there. When I got out, my clothes were literally dripping! But it was definitely worth it!

And here is a picture of me next to the dog statue that is standing next to Shibuya station!
Hope you enjoyed the read :)