We ended up on the metro train at about 5:30, which seemed to be a high capacity time for travel. When the train arrived it was packed…like not one more person could possible squeeze into the train car packed. Yet the 15 people we were in line with thought otherwise – and we wadded inContinue reading “Kobe train – rush hour crush”
Category Archives: Japan
Kobe IKEA
Kaety’s suitcase blew its zipper upon arrival in Japan. We spotted an IKEA on the way from the airport on the local metro line and today executed a foray out to buy a new suitcase. We’ve spent a lot of time at IKEA’s so we were super curious what variations would be unique to aContinue reading “Kobe IKEA”
Japanese grocery store
Kaety has taught me that a great way to get a glimpse of another country’s inner workings is to visit their grocery stores. I was envious of the produce section – I love to cook and I saw things that we have little to no access to in the US…and certainly Newport. She always wantsContinue reading “Japanese grocery store”
Kobe Marine Technology Conference
We wanted to attend the session ‘Blue Economies of India’ this morning but the day 2 jetlag syndrome was hitting us both pretty hard. Sessions today included: ‘Plankton Image Classification via Multi-class Imbalanced Learning’, ‘Fish recognition from a vessel camera using deep convolutional neural network and data augmentation’, and evocatively titled ‘Application of deep learningContinue reading “Kobe Marine Technology Conference”
Awards Luncheon
We had a notable awards luncheon. One of the lunch speakers talked while we ate and showed slides that compared the simplicity and elegance of the Japanese to the opulence of the Russians and Arabs. The speaker gave Trump a shout-out in his presentation as acting like a clod with the Japanese Emperor. He alsoContinue reading “Awards Luncheon”
Nara and the big Buddha
Our MTS sessions ended at 3:30pm and the Big Buddha at Todai-ji in Nara closed at 5:30. We executed a metro gamble hoping we could choose all the rapid transit lines in spite of a steep language barrier and win the race against time. There was a short period of time as the clock nearedContinue reading “Nara and the big Buddha”
Japanese conference boxed lunch
We’re pretty familiar with the standard US conference boxed lunch so we were excited to see what the Japanese version of the conference hoagie, meat and mayo packets would be. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. I was delighted by the little bottle of soy sauce hanging off the side and the green tea juiceContinue reading “Japanese conference boxed lunch”
MTS Conference: The plenaries
We are attending the Marine Technology Societies joint conference with Oceans and The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at the Kobe International Conference Center. The opening ceremonies and plenary speeches for the conference were fascinating. There were speakers from each organization who conducted a greeting and then a speech. I had to hand itContinue reading “MTS Conference: The plenaries”
“That’s not lotion”
Kaety pointed to a little bottle with Japanese and English printed on it, “I think that one is lotion and that one is cream”. I looked back and forth at them, “What’s the difference?”, and then noticed there was a tester. I picked it up and squirted it into my hand right about the momentContinue reading ““That’s not lotion””
Adventures in Kyoto
We registered for the conference and had an afternoon free so we ventured ouy into Kobe for a short jaunt. Kaety found a shrine on the map that wasn’t far from the train station – so we had our chance to conquer the scary kiosks that had thwarted us the night before. Thankfully colors andContinue reading “Adventures in Kyoto”