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? :)