Its all getting a little melodramatic....

This morning I felt like bit-part in one of those sickly horrible overly melodramatic movies that seem impossibly popular here in J-land. Imagine the scene....
A group of 30 something women and a silent man meet at a train station through a careful co-ordination of text messages. Anxiously we wait on the platform like a bunch of sad VIP stalkers. Then a wave and cheer as a diminutive man comes up the escalator weighed down with 4 bags of suitbags and a computer case. After handing the things on the waiting train there are bows, hugs... awkward silences as we try to figure out what to do next. Then the whistle blows and we line up to wave off...tears in the eye as we wave our beloved sensei, onto his new position as head of department down south.
..... And cue big strings or maybe some warbly MISIA or Angela Aki song and a misty montage of lab parties, photo's, beers and cake.
Yes, this was me at 0810 this morning- I dragged myself out of my bed early to do the group bonding farewell thing. Its been a pretty emotional week here in the lab- we've had about 3/4 goodbye parties- drank lots of champagne, lots of handshaking and huge amounts of bowing (I think the chiropracter will be having a busy week).
I also was told that unless I get my own funding- there's no job for me from April. So I'm on the hunt for a new job- hopefully in Japan, but I'm on a global search, or one last stab at getting my own funding.

Hei Hei and Moi moi Helsinki- part 2

Ahh yes, the naked blacksmiths statue of Helsinki- for students apparently...what more reason do you need?

Sorry its taken a while to write the next not so exciting installement of Helsinki, I took the weekend off to relax and then this week has so far been work, getting covered in dust as my mini boss packs up his stuff for his imminant move to Nagoya.
Anyway... where was I? Ah yes, back from Tallinn. The next day the conference started and I went along to show my support for one of my colleagues who was talking. Poor girl, I think she was petrified. The talk before hers was a very european abstract talk- practically philosphy. Anyway, she did fine, we skipped out the last few talks to go on a bus tour we'd signed up for, which was good for me as I was suffering from a headache since I had woken up at 3am in the morning (yeaaaahh..gotta love jet lag). It was so nice to be able to understand everything being spoken on the bus tour- my previous one was my 2 day tour of Rishiri and Rebun last year- a full on Japanese tour and I spent most of it in ignorance about the islands and what ever fascinating titbit there were saying. 2 hours is more than enough to see all the sights of Helsinki- we even saw somethings twice its that small. We stopped off at the Sibelius momument.Isn't he a cheery looking chappy? Wonderful music- miserable sod from his face.
From here we headed to the Rock church- a church carved out of the rock- imaginative name...
Its got really good acoustics and was crawling with about 5 tour buses from Russia mostly. But a pretty place for a visit. Santa's shop was close by too.
The tour dropped us back at the conference sight in time for lunch- all the goody two shoes headed to the lunchtime seminar- we headed to the market for lunch. Salmon soup and fried crayfish all for 7Euros- which is very reasonable for Helsinki. I hope I can find some dill here soon and try this recipe out- Its perfect for a Hokkaido autumn I think!
The only downside were the many wasps which wanted a bite of the soup and crayfish too.I had forgotten how annoying wasps in Autumn are in Europe, so persistant and always there when you're eating.
After a quick amble through the market we headed for a quick look at the cathedral, the main landmark in Helsinki- heck its visible from some miles out to sea. The square had a collection of "buddy bears" each one painted to represent a different country. (anyone else think that the china bear is looking particularly smug?)(Yes this would be the British bear- don't ask what's on its head)
It was also populated by a whole crowd of students wearing bin bags and paper hats or overalls in badges. Crowds of them were seated on the steps of the cathedral with loudspeakers calling various groups to buses- no idea what was going on, but it was fascinating to watch. I guess it was some new student orientation weekend or something. anyhoo we escaped the madness into the cathedral which was a lovely oasis of calm after all the noise of the morning.
After this I headed back to the hotel for some sleep as the headache hadn't really gone away and the others were good little conference attendee's. I had a nice afternoon nap and got up in time for the evenings entertainment- a welcome party at the city hall- I slipped the lease and ended up going out for a beer with the British contingent who, as usual, were the latest out.

Next day was spent actually attending some of the conference and then a nice if somewhat windswept and lenghty walk around the world heritage site of Suomenlinna, which was pretty autumnal looking...In the evening was the conference party- which was a big buffet and drinking session with a live band and dancing-much to the amusement and googly eyed-ness of my colleagues. Though the sight of leading names in the field dancing like your Dad at a wedding is kind of funny in that slightly embarassing way. My former boss (who's now in Australia) and I managed to get them to dance for one song, then we retreated to the hotel bar so my mini boss could finally try Aquavit- his sole reason for coming to Helsinki it seemed like.
The last day of the conference- was the busiet for me- I actually went to most sessions, stood in front of my poster talked science and stuff and met my parents, who came across for the weekend. My colleagues also got to met them, and were declared "kawaii" so I suppose thats good. Later they said how interesting it was to see us hugging- do they shake hands with their parents after not meeting for a long time or something?
Conference over- I moved across to my parents (Russian)Casino style hotel near the train station and we ended up back at and even colder and windswept Suomenlinna island for the morning as the ferries to Estonia were way to expensive.

There we are my trip to Helsinki and Tallinn. I came back with a pile of salty licorice, a dress from Marimekko ( only Japanese people know about this designer apparently), a liking for reindeer ( I think we ate all of Santa's sleigh and more), knowledge that many Finnish words are actually pretty rude words in Japanese- or so I've been told, and a promise to visit my friend in Taiwan in the next two months. So thats a nice way to get over a trip - plan another one.

hei hei and moi moi Helsinki- part one

Goodness, where did the time go? No sense in asking what day it is at the moment- the second day running I've been convinced it was the next day not the actual day, this means unfortunately another day at work tomorrow in which to prop my eyelids open and attempt to restart some experiments. Its only a 6 hour time difference to Finland, but I'm feeling pretty darned shattered at the moment.
So yes, I've spent the last week swanning around Helsinki and Tallinn under the pretence of a conference. I did actually attend the conference, though not as much as I was planning. Partly because I was enjoying myself sightseeing and partly because I was laid low with a migraine for one day. It was weird returning to a city that I had visited some 6 years previously as a fresh faced PhD student on another conference. This time at least I had some decent spending money and didn't cry at the prices of food or drink like last time. Still Helsinki is a pretty expensive city to spend time in.
My fears of being the departmental tour guide were laid to rest, when I saw everyone had their own copy of the same guide book- there must be only one for Scandinavia, they all had it, even the guy sitting next to me on the plane had the same book. I had about 5 minutes of awkwardness when I realised that the guy next to me was also going to the same conference, we exchanged pleasantaries and then thankfully proceeded to ignore each other for the next 9 and half hours or so.
Helsinki was gloriously cool with clear air and a cold wind. It was so nice to snuggle under the duvet and wake up not sweating as I have spent the summer doing. Its nice to be back in the motherland of the EU when I swanned through immigration waving my EU passport whilst 95% of the plane cued to get a stamp- fortunately the plague ridden immigration chappy evened up the odds at Kansai airport on the way back where it took him 3 times as long as anyone else to process our re-entry permits and there were only 5 of us, compared to the 20-30 visitors and 100's of Japanese.
Still,the clean fresh air of Scandinavia helped stave off the jet lag and tiredness, we checked into the very nice hotel in Helsinki-thank goodness for internet deals. I got a huge junior suite sized room all to myself. The only dissappointment was the bathroom, which was functional in that whole kinda soviet type of functional way. After quick freshen up we wrapped ourselves up and headed out into the cold Helsinki evening for some food. Its a really compact city so within a couple of minutes we were in the central harbour area.So we got our first taste (or re-taste for me) of Finnish cuisine.I had Chanterelle soup- which is an autumn speciality. It came with some really gorgeously nutty rye bread. We followed it up with some local sardine sized fish fried on a bed of mashed potatoes and a plate of smoked finnish delicacies, including reindeer. Unfortunately half way through trying those the tiredness kicked and all of a sudden everyone got really slow and tired so we had to skip out without finnishing.
Next day we headed to Tallinn, over in Estonia for a day. The planning us women had! Whilst all the guys from the department arrived the day before the start of the talks, we arrived the day before registration so we got an extra day of sightseeing in- much more logical ne!
I also went to Tallinn 6 years ago with some friends after the conference. We enjoyed that it was at least half the price of Helsinki and got pretty drunk on the honey vodka that came with out medievil themed dinner. this time we really only had time for a 3 hour non-stop walk around Tallinn before taking the boat back to Helsinki. Its nice to see it hasn't changed too much- a bit more English is spoken, but there were no signs of the drunken English stag parties I'd heard had kinda ruined it.Tallinn is still much cheaper than Helsinki and if you're ever in that area I really recommend a visit- its a really nice atmosphere, gorgeous old and quirky buildings. The only issue was trying to find a loo- I was getting pretty desperate, all the loos are superloos requiring 3 EEKs (Kroons), and of course I had no change. In the end we manage to find a cafe for a spot of lunch and a pit stop. It also allowed us to get away from the incredible noisy Spanish party who seem to stalk us around the sights. Seriously, it was a cacophony of noise from them - all talking at the same time, loudly. heading back to Helsinki, the sun came out and I ventured out on deck- a risky affair as the ship was a jet liner so was going at 63mph so it was like standing in a wind tunnel. But coming back through the islands of Helsinki it was really pretty. We got back to hotel to find the rest of our guys had checked in so into was a quick change into a suit to have dinner with crowd of other Japanese conference goers- where they caused chaos trying to order Japanese style in a Finnish restuarant, the dishes aren't really designed for sharing between multiple people, but we managed some how.

Part two continues later, when I've caught up on some more sleep....

And on the left....

Everything is all calm here after the emotion of the last posts. Today is the last day in work before I depart for a conference in Helsinki, so unlike all the others who are going who are still working, I have no experiments, just sorting out information, rolling posters and getting some Euros. I'll just include my mini rant against the stupid, backwards banking system in Japan right here.
Why is it that in a country where everyone works themselves to death or at least ridiculously long hours do the banks only open 9am to 3pm and why the hell do I have to travel all the way to the center of Sapporo to go to the only bank IN sapporo that has foreign currency- what the hell!!?? Don't get me started on the stupid ATMS with their closing times.....
This is the first trip abroad with the girls on the lab, last year I as in Budapest as the only woman amongst the department members. I was also the only one who bothered to learn some Hungarian to take taxis, get the bill etc. And as the token foreigner amongst the J-crowd I was constantly being spoken to in Hungarian by people. I guess they figured I was the translator for the group or something.
I have my suspicions that this will happen in Helsinki, in fact I know that it will. I have already heard the dreaded comments " but you'll be there to show us or to speak for us" from at least 3 seperate people, despite me telling them that everyone can speak English in Helsinki (well most people, but I'm not telling them that). I might add that all those 3 were wimpy guys. These would be the same guys who didn't leave their hotel in the US, because "it wasn't safe", this was a hotel in the center of the city not some ghetto I might add. At least the women are much more relaxed and keen for sightseeing and/or shopping. Hopefully I can steer them to the chococlate and cakes shops ;)
So I'm about to become the department tour guide for Finland, fount of all knowledge on all things Finnish and European. Right I'm bogging off early to pack my suitcase and sort out my little flag and white gloves.