Madonna

These three months, I’d been traveling everywhere and was not in my office mostly. I'll have one month stay in Kyoto before next long field trip, though I have several domestic trips for chemical analyses. I’ll upload some pics taken during 3 months.
At the end of last week, I’ve just come back from Jakarta via Bali. At the gate in Kansai International Airport, I was surrounded a lot of camera crew and people. What? What I did in Jakarta? No wonder. Madonna and her team member were behind us. She is on the world tour(http://www.confessionstour.com/), and moved to Japan from Moscow by her private jet. Compared with her popularity, the fans gathered in the gate were not so much, just about 200. But today’s newspaper said totally 200 thousands tickets through 4 stages in Japan have already sold out.

Can you see her side view in the center? Japanese SP do not look tough...

Field trip to Jakarta, Indonesia

On September 4, I wan on the plane bound for Jakarta.
Because I was mostly killed by hard schedule in August, I was not good health condition. So motivation to conduct study was not so high, and just kept in mind to conduct maximum work with minimum efforts. As well as previous field work at Bangkok and Manila, my obligation was to estimate SGD (submarine groundwater discharge) at coastal areas. So mostly I spent at coastal area in northern Jakarta.

Meeting at Indonesia Institute of Science, Indonesia,

Typical lunch box.

Small boat for coastal research

When I asked Dudi to take me to buy ice to keep water samples cool, he took me to a truck. Why? I wanna go to the shop to buy ice. But I understood soon. The guy on the carrier of the truck uncovered, and then a bunch of ice appeared. Umm, they are selling ice like this.

But nature did not take care about my bad condition. Since first day, I suffered from thousands of baby jerry fish attacks. Even I wore rush guard, they got inside from the openings. So my body was totally covered by small red rash, and I was bothered with itch and sleepless accident through the periods.

On the beach, navy was training with guns. It reminded me that there were many politically and religiously unstable areas in Indonesia. Because they were also swimming in the sea, all of them suffered from jerry fish. Hey brothers!

On the beach, several guys were digging somehow. I thought that they were making big holes to trick their friends. What a free time they have..

Thank you for supporting us, Madio, Rico and Dudi. They were professionals.

The Indonesian food was most delicious, I think.

Here is answer. Sorry you guys were working.

Bonus photo: Garuda in Denpasar airport

Field study at Ishigaki Island

3 years has passed since I last came to this island, though I used to come to this island 4 or 5 times per year before. But Ishigaki island was just Ishigaki island where I spent many days before.
This time the periods when I can stay was 2 weeks, irrespective of if typhoon comes or not. So I needed to move up my schedule if possible. On the first day and second day, I swam at several reefs to check the conditions of benthic macroalgae.
Some of anemone fishes, which had been disappeared due to poaching just after the release of Disney movie “Finding Nemo” (http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/finding_nemo/trailer/), seemed to returned to their house, anemone.

Tomato Clownfish (Amphiprion frenatus) in Blue Ridge Coral (Heliopora coerulea)

They were not my targets. I collected several algae (Codium repens, Ceratodictyon spongiosum, Sargassum duplicatum, Galaxaura fastigiata) for pre-incubation at containers.

Pre-incubation

The day time radiation at Ishigaki Island in August is pretty severe.

My objectives this time was to grow several macroalgae with different morphology at different current-speed conditions, and check the species-dependent nitrate uptake ratio, and the extent of isotopic fractionation during nitrate uptakes. Though it was pretty hard to create this machine within limited budget, the system worked well, I think.

The apparatus to make different current flow conditions under the same radiation.

My friend, local fisherman, Sasaki, took me offshore to collect nutrient-free seawater. Because we have been working together since over ten years ago, he knows well about what I want to do.

Koshien Stadium

Prof. Bill Burnett, who is visiting professor from Florida state univ., love baseball like as me. So we (Bill, Rene, Hiroki, Masako and me) went to Koshien Stadium, which is located 2 hours trip from our institute.

Koshien stadium is very popular baseball stadium, because it is home stadium of Hanshin Tigers, which enthusiastic Osaka people loves, and championship of high school baseball games are held in this stadium. Since I was child, I have hoped to watch baseball game in this stadium. So dream has come true!
Most exciting thing is that we blow up long-shaped balloon in the seventh inning, and simultaneously release it into the sky. I’m not sure why and when we started this custom in this stadium. But it’s really fantastic event! I stuffed the balloon with my dissatisfaction and frustration, which had been accumulated in my mind through usual life, and have released it!

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Releasing!

Field trip to Bangkok

I had field trip to Thailand since 18 June to 25 June. Because the areas which I had visited for field study in Thailand were west coastal areas such as Phuket, Trang and Ranong, it was first time to stay at Bangkok for long days. Most of members stayed at Hotel in the town, a few members including me stayed at SEAFDEC (Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center).

(SEAFDEC)
This institute was convenient for us to approach to the river mouth of Chao Phraya though, I wanted to enjoy delicious buffet at the Hotel every morning. Our breakfast was snacks which we bought at small grocery store close to our accommodation…

(Guard dog? at the local grocery store)

(Boat man was not punctual every day. Boat has come to the riverside port, finally)

(The season was just boarder between dry season and rainy season. Look at the color of the sky. 5 minutes after, it rained cats and dogs.)

(Sediment core sampling to measure chemical components in porewater)

(The foods in these shops were often delicious. But need to take care about if they’re keeping sanitary conditions. High risk, High return?)

(Common lunch on the boat. Around noon, many boats were approaching to our boat)

(Buddhism temple)

My bro’s wedding party

I did not imagine that I would have such a day. But it was really nice day. It would be greater if they have had it at Hawaii during I stayed there. I would have managed all of settings including reservation of church, restaurant facing to the beach and rent a limo… Congratulations!　Happy and Forever!

Well, but the bottom line is that I am so happy for the fact that they’ve decided their new room near the Ocean Research Institute, where I’ll have many chances to visit for chemical analyses. It’s located within 2 min walk from the institute. Free accommodation!

This is usually the most exciting scene, when bride and groom give message for their parents and friends at the end of the ceremony. But this time, 4 year old boy felt dizzy and got injured just 10 minutes ago. So the emergency services (people with light blue color shirts and white helmet) came to the room and slowly passed behind them. No moved tears, just laughing… OK no problem. Make a good family filled with a lot of smiles-.

Field trip to Philippine

Uhmm, why I was on airplane bound for Manila on 24th May, just 2 days after my job-starting day. Manila is one of our study sites as Asian mega cities. Anyway, I enjoyed my first trip to Philippine.
This time, the member consisted of Makoto (leader), Taka, Tomo and Yu from Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) and Bill and Ricky (Florida State Univ.), and Fernando and some students (Univ. of Philippine). As soon as we went out of airport, we faced to the atmosphere specific to Asia. That is, heavy traffic jam, noise, eyesore colorful signboard, which I’d usually watched in other Asian cities. Mostly the conditions were same in Tokyo though, we could not say anything for terrible driving manner in Manila. We stayed there about 1 wk and collected groundwater and river water samples and measured submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) at adjacent coastal area by physical and chemical approaches.
I’ll show some pics here. I understood that Philippine is located in Asia, but they have totally different culture due to the past colonization by Spain and US.


Singing restaurant at Manila. At first night, I asked Peter to take us to the restaurant serving local food. Waiters and waitress enthusiastically presented songs and dance on the small stages near our tables. Sometimes cooks also joined. I had fun, but it took time until we finished dinner, because they like singing rather than serving us….

The base for our coastal surveys. Around Manila city, there are many houses along coast and river line. How could they stand against severe typhoons which attack this area every year?

We’re scared to move to the house with heavy baggage. Even if we drop off, it’s just 1m depth shallow water. But take care, 1m deep sludge with hydrogen sulfide was also accumulated there under anoxic conditions…


People at living at these houses make their living by collecting fishes, mussels and seaweed. They spend a lot of time to collect and dry the seaweed, probably a species of Hypnea,.

But agents buy these algae in very cheap price, less 4 Philippine peso (0.08 US dollars) per 1 kg dry weight to import them to China for food and materials.

We tried to go up the stream to collect water from the source as reference, but it was hard. It was easy for us to estimate high conc. of ammonia everywhere. The water-weed covering the surface and water buffalo were everewhere.

One of painful scene is the big landfill at the hillside of Manila city. Around the landfill, there were many houses and people earn there livings by collecting something on the landfill. Two years before, a landslide(landfill_slide) after heavy rain killed many children around this area.

Curious children gathered soon just after we started our sampling everywhere.

Bike, which is useful here, cause’ it pass through traffic jam.

The way to Kyoto

I move to Kyoto from Tokyo during night by rent a car.

It took about 5 or 6 hours using highway. During night time, there are many trucks. Usually we were surrounded by big trucks and dump trucks with small distances between cars. I had same feeling as the driver appeared in the movie “Duel”, which is first film by Steven Spielberg. My brother, Ryo, kindly offered me to help out. Thanks! If I asked moving company, it would cost over 800 dollars… Besides, he rejected my offer to give him some money as my gratitude. He said “If I receive it, you can not save money. It’s meaningless, just same as the situation that yu ask your friend or moving company”. Who has raised him so gentleman… Same person and environments as those for me? Anyway, we successfully finished my moving to Kyoto!

Good-by Shinjyuku

I’ve seen this scene during 8 years from the rooftop of my institute.

Twin tower on left side is Tokyo metropolitan government building, which is considered as one of targets of attacking by terrorists. This building was built in later 1980’, just middle of Japanese economy boom. So the design of building is gorgeous, and there are many statues and arts by popular artists. We can enjoy Tokyo city from the observatory on top (FREE!). The building on right side is “Park Hyatt Tokyo” (http://tokyo.park.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp), which was used in the movie, “Lost in Translation”. Good by my town, Shinjyuku-.

Dinner at Iuri & Ilsa's house

I’ve decided to pass my wind surfing gears to Iuri, he’s just started to learn it. It was my pleasure. He was from Panama 10 years before, and then he knows well about how it’s so tough to live in USA at first. He and Chris always made me laugh in Maui. Ilsa cooked vegetarian lasagna for our dinner.

You know, baby of duck will follow the moving thing which they watched just after being born. They believe that that’s their mother. Likewise, Ilsa had been my eternal boss, because she was a convener of our session at 9th Internal Coral Reef Symposium, which was my first experience to join International meeting. But now it turned out that she is Iuri’s wife, and now I am eating her cooked lasagna. That's funny.