Brief Summary

It's too stressful to think about recapping everything I'm behind on, so instead I'll summarize.

The last few days in China were great. I had an evening and one full day in Shanghai. It reminded me a lot of Tokyo - a lot more modern. It is on the coast so the air is a little better than some of the other cities we visited. I spent the entirety of my daytime hours in Shanghai at Tongji University. They have amazing testing facilities and are a veritable experimental factory. I guess the price of labor allows them to turn out a lot of specimens and get a lot of tests done. Almost every major highrise structure in China has had a scale model tested on the shake table of their laboratory. They put the tested models outdoors and it looks like a miniature city. Nobody else does any testing like this - too labor intensive and difficult to get the scaling right.

Building models used for seismic testing on a shake table at Tongji University.

The nightlife in Shanghai was really fun. We went to the Bund and found a great spot overlooking the river and skyline for a drink. The last night we were there we went to a place that could have been anywhere in the world based on the patronage. It was all foreigners - Americans and Europeans. It was really strange - like walking into a different world.

Overlooking the Shanghai skyline from the Bund.

A few days after I got back Nathan arrived!!!! I was so happy to see him. We had a wonderful week together. The first few days we spent in Tokyo. We saw Tsukiji fish market, Asakusa, Harajuku, Yoyogi park, Meiji-jingu shrine and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. We had dinner with Tomo and my supervisor here. And that was all in the first two days. We then took Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. They say if you can only go one place in Japan it should be Kyoto. It has such a wealth of shrines, temples, gardens, castles, etc. It is much more untouched than Tokyo and it's truly overwhelming the amount that there is to see. I think we fit it a good amount of sightseeing - we saw some pretty amazing things. We also did a Kaiseki meal on the river which involved being served many artfully prepared Japanese courses by a Kimono-clad server. It was a cool experience. Probably our favorite experience, however, was a lunch we had in the garden of a temple. It was a yudofu (boiled tofu) meal. It was more the setting than anything that made it so special.

Me and Nathan at the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Me and Nathan at the Golden Pavillion in Kyoto.

Yudofu meal overlooking a temple garden.

Since I've been back I've been working and not feeling so well. Not too long before I get home. I'm starting to get excited about it. It is getting close enough that today I wondered if I could just wait until I leave to clean the apartment. I realized that was a bad idea but that is how close it is getting. Also wondered about groceries. But I'm cooking all my meals at home so I go through groceries really fast. Now I'm rambling.


I am toying with the idea of coming back for a short visit next year if funding permits. From a research standpoint, I have a lot to learn still from Tomo and could definitely use more time with him. We'll see...