Working, Tokyo, working, then traveling again :)

I can't believe it's already August! The time has really flown by. This weekend was a pretty good. I came in to the lab to work on some in situ stuff on Saturday morning, then went swimming and got cleaned up for the fireworks show. This was the first time wearing my yukata (the summer version of the kimono) out of the apartment! I bought it a couple of weeks ago from the mall. It's pretty common to see girls walking around the bigger cities wearing them (especially Kyoto) and there were a TON of girls dressed up for the fireworks show. I had to re-tie it after first putting it on because it was too long, but after I adjusted it once it was really comfy the rest of the night.

Bill, David and I walked down to the river before the show started. It was starting to get busy at 5:30; there were also a lot of food stands set up so we got some dinner and did some people watching. Around 6:15 is started to get REALLY busy, so we headed back up the hill to join the lab party on one of the institute buildings. It was fun to see the big fireworks from further away and to sit on a roof drinking beer with friends :) The show was 2 hours long and was a lot of fun!

On Sunday I slept in and then went to an art museum in Nagoya. It's the sister museum to MFA in Boston. It only had one visiting exhibit and no permanent exhibits, but it was a nice way to get out of the heat and it also got me excited for my conference trip to Boston this November. After that I headed into town to do some shopping. I found a lab gift (I looked for one in Okazaki but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for) and also bought a new dress. Department stores are really interesting here in Japan: in general there is one store that connects to lots of little stores, so you can walk around on the same floor and see lots of different kinds of clothes. One time I went from one floor to another and felt like I entered a different universe, as I went from a TJ-Maxx type of store (that also sold books) to a dollar general-type store with every kind of cheap toy and trinket you could imagine. There are also a lot of gourmet food shops in the department stores. I found some really good french bread at one store (I was DYING for some good bread!) and also had freshwater eel for lunch. All in all it was a nice Sunday!

This week I'm in the lab trying to get things finished: qPCR, in situ, histology...but I should be able to have everything done before I leave. This weekend I'll be in Tokyo from Friday through Tuesday. Originally I was just going to go until Monday but I found out at lab meeting on Tuesday that the lab will be closed, so I decided to extend my trip another day. There are several different things on my Tokyo itinerary, and with an extra day I should be able to see quite a lot of things.

Well, off to check my qPCR data. I'll post an update after my Tokyo adventure :)