Spring in Kitakyushu

By christina | Published May 26, 2009

So far, the spring here seems pretty remarkably consistent. I’d gotten used to the wild swings of the Pittburgh spring, where it was no surprise to have it be 30 degrees colder than yesterday, rain or hail at random, and no real consistency until the rain comes in earnest in June.

Here, however, it’s spring and it knows it. The days have been largely sunny, temperatures in the mid-sixties at night, mid-seventies during the day. There have been rainy days, but only a handful, leading right back into the sunny, breezy warm days. It has been really nice. The only thing that’s been missing here are the nice fluffy cumulus clouds. It’s generally sunny and hazy or that uniform grey cloudiness, but none of the puffy cotton balls which I like so much. The flowers come out in succession–April was the cherry blossoms, and now we’re on to the azaleas, then into the hydrangea, and on it goes until the rain comes in earnest in June.

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End of the Semester

By zach | Published May 26, 2009

The talk I was working on during down time in Japan went over well at the OSQ retreat in Santa Cruz even though I was mostly zombified. (A couple of people from Microsoft Research seemed really interested in the project, and were asking lots of questions.) I just need to add a few more pictures, do a better job of highlighting the key points, and rehearse it a few more times and it will be ready for PLDI. Aside from that, between now and then, I just need to move a few features of my compiler from the development branch over into the release branch, and do lots of testing. It’s kind of boring, really, but it occurs to me that if I’m going to finish in December, then I’m running out of time to do exciting new things before I have to start writing the dissertation. Hopefully the OS kids make a lot of progress in July and August so that they can use the features I built into my compiler this past semester.

Enough about work! This past weekend I went hiking with Alex, Louis, and Leon near Mt. Tamalpais. We hiked along a stream bed that begins on the northern slopes down into a valley. There were several nice waterfalls along the way, and we ended up at Alpine Lake, which is where some of the drinking water for Marin County comes from. Afterwards, we had dinner in Walnut Creek at a tapas place called Va de Vi, and then visited Ben and Juliet in Lafayette for a game of Settlers.

This week will be mostly boring, but the first half of next week is another retreat in Santa Cruz, this time with the ParLab. I am looking forward to another trip to the beach with lots of tasty food, even though I’ll be stuck inside listening to talks most of the time.

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Back to the daily grind

By christina | Published May 20, 2009

Zach has been gone about a week now, and life has mostly gotten back to the dull daily baseline. Even though I’m in Japan, I’m still going to work every day, coming home in the evening and not having much to do.

I think, when it comes down to it, daily life most everywhere is just about the same. You wake up, work, eat food at the right times, go out a few times, sit at home and relax in the evenings, that sort of stuff. I think I might benefit from having some friends outside of work, or some English-speaking friends/acquaintances, but I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I’m feeling the need. Perhaps it’d be better to find them before I do, though.

However, unlike my sister, I don’t have the built-in network of local JETs to socialize with. I guess there probably are local JETs, but I’m not sure if I’d really fit in, being as I don’t have any students to gripe about.　I’m not in Tokyo, so there aren’t as many other conveniently located Americans around. Fukuoka is an hour away, so not exactly the most convenient.

Getting out there and meeting new people is tricky.

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Aso Picture Post

By zach | Published May 17, 2009
Mt. Aso

Mt. Aso

Blue Flower

Blue Flower in Kuju Flower Park near Aso

Tea Set

Tea Set at the minshuku near Aso

View of Mt. Aso

View of Mt. Aso from the train station

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Hiroshima and Miyajima

By zach | Published May 11, 2009

Atomic Bomb Dome This past weekend Christina and I visited Hiroshima and Miyajima. We caught a Shinkansen train out of Kitakyushu on Saturday morning, and arrived in Hiroshima at around 10am. From the train station we took a street car to the Atomic Bomb Dome, which was the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall before it was destroyed when the atomic bomb detonated nearby. From there we wandered around the Peace Park, and visited several of the sights there, including an eternal flame, and lots of origami cranes. We skipped the museum, having visited a similar one in Nagasaki a few years ago.

From there we headed into the shopping areas, where we had okonomiyaki for lunch, and wandered around several of the stores. Later in the afternoon we made a brief stop by Hiroshima castle, which was surrounded by a nice park. After the castle, we made our way back to the train station so that we could find our way to our hostel near Miyajima. For dinner we ate at a tasty udon place nearby that also had lots of really good tempura. Tired, we spent the evening at the hostel resting and reading, then turned in early.

Gate at Itsukushima Shrine On Sunday, we got up early and took a ferry to Miyajima. Miyajima is an island filled with temples, shrines, deer, mountains, and momiji. We also wandered throught the streets of the town there, which are flanked by neat old-style japanese buildings. After wandering through the streets a bit, we were surprised to find we were standing below a really cool five story pagoda. A pasing constsruction worker pointed us in the right direction to get the best view. From there we found our way to the Itsukushima shrine with the big red gate standing out in the water pictured here. After visiting a few more sights in the town, we made our way to the ropeway up one of the mountains on the island. The day was very hazy, so the view wasn’t too great, but we enjoyed a long hike down the mountain, stopping at several shrines and temples along the way. Exhausted, we ate a late lunch in the town, followed by several different kinds of momiji, then headed back to Hiroshima to catch the Shinkansen back to Kitakyushu.

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Zach visit!

By christina | Published May 11, 2009

This is the time when sharing a website can seem a little tricky. We’re both in the same place doing the same stuff, so how do we manage not to both post the same things?

Feet Soaking

Zach showed up on the 29th, and although I had to work for the first two full days he was here, it sounded like it was a good chance to get over the jetlag. On Saturday we wandered around town, and on Sunday we headed out on our grand adventure. We went to Oita, Beppu, Aso, and Kumamoto. Sadly, the weather wasn’t the best, and so we missed out on some things due to rain and hail, but there were bits of nice weather, like the day we spent in Kumamoto.

We stayed in 3 different hotels over the three nights (hotels are pretty well booked-up for the golden week holiday). I really liked the second hotel we stayed in, the Hotel Forza. It’s a hotel in Oita, just a short walk from the station, and it was remodeled recently and reopened within the last year. As opposed to other Japanese hotels I’ve been in which seem to have an affinity for chintzy covers and beiges, this one was designed in a nice modern black-and-white style with some artwork and nice built-in furniture. It worked out so that even though the room was small (hotels rooms here tend to not have much room apart from the bed), it felt larger and a lot more neat. Perhaps in 5 years it won’t be so nice, but for now it was a good place, and I’d recommend it. They did, however, try to give me someone else’s reservation at first. I’m not sure how they picked this other random guy’s name and thought it was me, but I managed to catch it by noticing that the pricing was different.

Overall I had a pretty good time when it wasn’t raining too hard. I’d like to go back sometime in the fall when the leaves are changing, it seems like it could be really nice.

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