Nagoya Visit

Sorry i didn't finish my last post. Later that day we had a barbecue at the institute. Very nice, with a very wide variety of foods, especially since there are several vegetarians in the group. Prof. Morokuma did quiet a bit of cooking, and when he wasn't cooking he still hovered around to oversee the proceedings, just like a good research director should.
This week i'm in Nagoya. I got to take a bullet train from Kyoto which fun. It wasn't a Maglev like i hoped, but still a very enjoyable and smooth ride. I've always had a strange fascination with taking trains as a mode of transportation. I'm working with Dr. Stephan Irle, who used to work at Emory as one of Prof. Morokuma's postdocs, at Nagoya University. While we were in Nagoya, we visited with Prof. Shinohara, who performs many of the experimental analogs of our research. He and his researchers actually make the fullerenes and carbonanotubes that we simulate. So that was quite a treat, actually getting to see the reactions in person. Prof Shinohara keeps a jar in his office full of C60 powder (about 4 lbs of it) which is still quite expensive. I also got to see many of the purification apparatus that they used (ie. HPLC) and electron microscopes and mass spectrometers that the use to investigate the products of their reactions.
Things are so far much quieter than in Kyoto. Admittedly, I haven't strayed very far from the campus, but since i don't have a bicycle here, and i'm trying to conserve money, i really don't feel like going to far. The university is very interesting though. The pathway that i take on my way to our lab passes right by the bioagricultural research areas. There are gardens where they test and grow genetically altered plant life. There is also a more disturbing aviary where they are testing genetically modified birds. I'm not sure of the breed or the genders, but as near as i can tell from the bird calls, they are drunk roosters dying of bronchitis. They crow at all hours of the day and their calls just sound raspy. Weird.
Oh, just as another example of strange Japanese twists on a Western staple, I encountered the most technologically advanced toilet i've ever seen. It has a self heating seat, bidet, and flush sound producer (for some reason). Oh what a strange land.