Report from the mean streets of Sapporo...

Phew...thats done. Just back from a lunch meeting with the head of department, the guys in the lab were giving me "gambatte's and Fight-O" before I went just to make me really nervous. Maybe their meetings are much worse, we however chatted about golf, the joy of travelling business class and whales and The cove. I fairly certain they don't discuss these topics as he wasn't even aware of the high levels of mercury found in Dolphin meat etc. before some one else had told him the other week. This general ignorance of things like this accounts for most problems here I reckon.

This past week has been exciting up in the mean streets of Kitaku, Sapporo. On Wednesday last week, I cycled past a crime scene on my to work... police tape, police cars and policeman standing guard and a camera crew. The camera crew was the alarming part for me, as I had my skirt hitched up (and tucked in my thin leggings) for cycling. Thankfully the news crew was facing the other way. Yep- murder and mayhem on the streets of Sapporo! 2 people mown down by a car, whose driver escaped the scene. Well that was as much of the news that I could follow and what my lab mates explained to me. This, just 3 blocks from my house. Then yesterday amidst all the rain and gloom here, I noticed that there were a whole load of fire engines and smoke billowing from an apartment block near the hospital. As soon as I mentioned it in work, half the lab immediately leapt up to go see the excitement...yes , our research is THAT exciting...