PhD at OIST on Okinawa

OIST — Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology — is looking for PhD candidates for next year.

Briefly, OIST is a new, graduate-level research institute on Okinawa, Japan. The labs range from neuroscience to math to physics to chemistry, but the work is very interdisciplinary. Up until now they have been "just" a research facility as they've been building up the organization, but from this year they are accredited as a graduate school.

They aim for a very international research and graduate student body, and all teaching and interaction is in English. About half of the staff is non-Japanese and I believe the aim is to have the same kind of proportion among students as well.

I was a tutor at the OCNC summer course on computational neuroscience last year. The facilities are very good, and there's a wide variety of research going on. The summer school itself is very high quality.

The one possible drawback with OIST is that the location is decidedly rural. Even grocery shopping is a chore without a car. On the other hand, it gives you plenty of uninterrupted time, and the location is excellent if you happen to be into diving or snorkelling.

If I were a budding graduate student, I'd grab this chance without second thoughts.

Patch clamp microscope at OIST. I was going to add a scenic picture here, but in all honesty, you're more likely to stare at something like this all day long than at any tropical island view.

Cold

Cold, in more than one way. The venue - Seaside House - is very enthusiastic about its state of the art air conditioning. As a result I'm freezing as I sit in the seminar room, then get beaten up by a wall of humid heat once we step outside. When you go back in the sweat and humidity condenses and chills you even further.

And now I've caught a real cold, with sore throat, aching joints and all. The AC is partly to blame but of course, if you grab forty people from all over the world and stick them in one building for three weeks you're creating a great breeding ground for any virus that happens to pass by. Happily, Japan allows the sale of over-the-counter cold medications that could club an elephant so I feel reasonably symptom-free at the moment - though not particularly alert, or rational, or awake.

Random images:

Student and tutor in a discussion about his project. The seminar rooms have glass walls that are perfect as whiteboards.

Lunch buffet. The food is good. Problem is, it's pretty much the same food every day, morning, lunch and dinner. I think I might have actually lost a little weight these three weeks, simply because I really can't summon much enthusiasm for the meal times any more.

A typhoon passed by to the west of us; we caught only the edge of the storm zone, fortunately. We got some dramatic weather changes as it cleared up.

Churaumi

We had sunday off, and went on a group excursion to Churaumi aquarium north of here. I haven't been to many such places, but I have a hard time believing there are many others as impressive as this one. We had two hours and that was not nearly enough. Four hours would have been much better, and I could happily spend a whole day there given the chance.

There are many, many small tanks throughout the aquarium, with sea-living insects, amphibians, coral reefs and, as here, crabs. Photography is explicitly allowed as long as you don't block access for other people, but of course, you're shooting through thick acrylic glass and the tanks are generally not well lit so getting a good, well-focused image is a challenge.

A ray at the large sea tank.

The large shark tank is ridiculously large; I didn't bring a wide enough lens to actually show the entire wall. There's space enough for a couple of whale shark in addition to all the normal-sized sharks, rays and various fish.

There's a small sea turtle exhibition off away from the main building. Not as well presented, I think, but it does give you a fairly good look.

To Okinawa (again)

I'm going to Okinawa tomorrow - yes, again, but this time it's all work, not play. I'll work as tutor at the OCNC summer school at OIST for the next three weeks. Every year OCNC brings together graduate students and post-docs for a three-week intensive course in computational neuroscience. There's a series of lectures by some of the big names in the field, tutorials on commonly used software tools and the students work on a project of their choice.

I use the NEST simulator quite a lot, so my job will be to introduce it to the participants, and to help the students that use NEST for their own projects. It's also a great opportunity for me to follow the lecture series, learn about other software tools and techniques, talk with other neuroscience modelling people and generally learn a lot of new stuff. Of course, I'll still work on my "day job" - my ongoing project - while I'm there.

I've been running ragged trying to get everything prepared in time; that's partly why posting has been light lately. It's not just the tutorials; I've also tried to bring my project to a point where I can easily work on it away from my desk. I'll try to make a point of writing shorter posts while at OIST that don't take me so much time to finish.

Cookies

I'm slowly working through the images from Okinawa. At the same time I'm starting preparations - for going to Okinawa. I'm going to OIST in June as tutor for a three-week course in computational neuroscience. Posting will continue to be light for a while.

Meanwhile, do read Cookies by Douglas Adams. It is a retelling of a classic urban legend, but he does it masterfully.

Yaeyama

We're back from the Yaeyama islands in Okinawa, with sunburns, bottles of awamori and black sugar umeshū, pineapples and bananas, sand absolutely everywhere, and with piles of laundry and an even bigger piles of work awaiting us at home. It'll be a while before I do a picture post on the trip; I have four rolls of 120-format film and two underwater single-use cameras to develop and scan, and I have a backlog of work that really takes precedence.

The Yaeyama islands in Okinawa are the southernmost and westernmost part of Japan; closer to Taiwan than to Okinawa itself, to say nothing of Honshu. We visited Ishigaki island - population of almost 50000 people, and with a convenient direct flight from Osaka; Taketomi island just ten minutes by ferry from Ishigaki; and Iriomote, the largest island of Yaeyama and second in size only to Okinawa itself but with a population of only about 2000.

Iriomote.

• We're spoiled with reliable weather forecasts here in Osaka. In Yaeyama, the forecast matched reality only a few times and then only by random chance. Even the current weather was wildly off; the first two days the weather agency reported clear blue skies even as we faced heavy clouds with occasional rain showers. The latter part of the week was supposed to be mostly rain but we had mixed clouds and sunshine with hardly a drop from the sky.
  
  One reason is probably a lack of data. These are small islands in a large ocean, and you don't have many weather stations out on the open sea. But the main reason is that the weather just isn't very predictable. It can swing from sunshine to rain then back again within an hour, and the same small island can have very different weather, with clear skies on one end and a rain storm on the other.
  
  The lesson is, don't rely on a good weather forecast on one hand, and don't let a bad forecast deter you on the other.



• Minshuku - guest houses - or small family-run hotels are great places to stay. Service and general standards isn't always a match for a regular hotel or resort of course, but it's more personal and approachable. The food too, if meals are included, is always more interesting and memorable than bland hotel fare. The service tends to be more personal too; the owner of Iriomote Island Hotel brought a group of us up a nearby mountain at dusk to see the fireflies one night for instance.



• I have to revise my opinion of Okinawan soba noodles. I tried them twice on my single previous overnight trip to the islands and found them bland and fatty, even disagreeable. This time we had soba a number of times - at soba restaurants, as part of our set meals - and they were invariably delicious. Maybe I had bad luck with them on my previous trip, or perhaps I have broadened my culinary horizons since. Or, perhaps, Yaeyama-style soba and Okinawa-style soba are different. I'm going to Okinawa for work this summer so I guess I'll find out then.



• Habu, the poisonous snake, is a real danger, but one I am less worried about now than before the trip. About a hundred people get bitten every year and people can die from a bite, though nobody has in the past few years. The snakes are mostly nocturnal so bring a good flashlight - the light will help you see them in time, and will scare them away before you ever get close. Other advice is along the lines of: don't stick your hands or feet into a dark hollow, especially if it hisses; stay away from the edge of the road at night; and don't try to pick up a snake while drunk.
  
  A hundred cases per year in all of Okinawa, an island chain with a population of over 1.3 million people, and maybe twice that when you add all the tourists. Very few people actually get bitten in other words, and they tend to not have followed the basic safety advice above. Keep the danger in mind, be a little careful and you'll be fine.



• Many, perhaps most, tourists come for fishing, diving and snorkelling. If I fish at all, I prefer low-intensity angling - throw out the hook and float, wedge the pole in a tree, then go to sleep for a few hours - so Hemingwayish deep-water fishing is not really my thing. Diving is a serious equipment sport with bagfuls of expensive stuff to haul around, and you need a medical examination, a safety course and a license to even begin. Snorkelling, on the other hand, is light on both equipment and preparation, so Ritsuko suggested we get masks and snorkels and try some shallow water snorkelling.
  
  We did, and it is amazing - extraordinary - even without fins and just paddling around in chest-deep water at the inner edge of the coral reef right next to the beach. Snorkelling alone is reason enough to travel to Okinawa, and I can't wait to go again. I'm entertaining the idea of summers spent snorkelling on Iriomote and winters snowboarding in Hokkaido once I retire. Only 23 years to go...



• A substantial proportion of Yaeyama islanders, younger ones especially, are from outside Okinawa province. Many people we talked with came from Kanto, Kansai or other areas on Honshu. Some people had a previous connection to the islands; they were born there but moved to the mainland as children, or they or their spouse had relatives in Okinawa. Other immigrants have no previous connection. The owner of Iriomotes only ramen place is an avid diver and moved from Tokyo with his wife and children to live close to the excellent diving areas. The sea, the relaxed lifestyle and the climate all bring people from other parts of Japan.



• Awamori is the local drink, a distilled rice wine similar to shōchū, but made with long grain rice and a different yeast culture. It's quite pleasant when you cut it with water and ice, or with hot water for a toddy. Orion beer is everywhere of course, but Yaeyama also has a local microbrewery with a good weissbier.

The trip was a rousing success. Golden Week really isn't the best time of year; june or october-november supposedly has better weather and even warmer water. Taketomi is a bit, well, touristy. Ishigaki is a pleasant town and works great as a base for visiting the other islands. Next time I want to revisit Iriomote, and perhaps also go to Yonaguni, the westernmost island in the chain, and the westernmost point of Japan. Next time.

(on our way) To Okinawa

Golden Week is coming up, and we're going on a real, true, no-work-at-all-honest holiday in Okinawa. How real? I don't bring my laptop, that's how real it is. I will bring only my phone, a change of clothes and enough cameras to club an elephant.

We're flying directly to Ishigaki island, and we'll mostly be staying on Taketomi island and Iriomote island. These islands form the westernmost part of Japan, closer to Taiwan than to Okinawa island and are about 2.5 hours away from Osaka.

We're going to stay in small lodgings, eat local food, read, sleep and drink beer. Probably spend a fair amount of time walking on the beach, and perhaps try a little snorkelling. Should be sleepy and relaxing. Unless we're stung by box jellyfish or blue-ringed octopus, bitten by habu snakes or brown recluse spiders, gored by moray eels or sharks, washed away in underwater currents, or hit by a typhoon, earthquake, tsunami or flash floods¹.

Our plan, other than dodging the venomous parts of the animal kingdom, is to spend two nights on Taketomi, then three nights on Iriomote where we'll try to catch a jungle cruise or guided tour, and finish with one night back on Ishigaki before we return to Osaka. I take one of my vacation days on Thursday so we can leave the day before the Golden Week holidays begin; the flight is cheaper and easier to book, and we'll avoid much of the holiday rush.

My main concern (apart from survival) really is what cameras and what film to bring along. I'll bring my Pentax K10D for casual shots, and I got a waterproof Fuji single-use camera for the beach. The Yashica TLR has been my travel camera, but the winder is getting too unreliable (frames now sometimes run into each other and it has jammed a couple of times). The Pentax 67 is great, but it's pretty heavy and bulky to travel with; I'd have to get a separate backpack. In the end I decided to support the Japanese post-earthquake industry² and bought a Fuji GF670, a camera I have lusted for ever since it was announced a few years ago; I'll write more about it at a later time.

As for film I'm torn. On one hand I prefer black and white over color. On the other, if there's any place that cries out for color it's Okinawa (the warning patterns on poisonous predators are very colorful if nothing else). On the third hand, I do bring a digital camera along that shoots color. On the fourth (all hands on deck!), it's hard to beat a big medium format negative for clarity and dynamic range. In the end I'll bring rolls of both Kodak Ektar 100 and Ilford Delta 400, and decide later. I'll probably add a roll of Astia slide film too, just for the pure pleasure of seeing MF slides on a light table.

The flight leaves early on Thursday morning - really early; we'll have to get up before five in the morning to catch the first subway train. Here's hoping we don't sleep late. It'd be embarrassing if we did.

--

#1 Don't google for dangers in Okinawa. I'm sorry I did. I was looking forward to a great holiday, but now I just want to lock myself up in the center of a brightly-lit bunker with a sharp stick and a can of industrial-strength animal repellant. After a few hours on the internet I'm amazed Okinawans even manage to reach adulthood before the local wildlife kills them off, never mind the islands having the longest-lived people on the planet.

#2 It's a convenient excuse, yes, but with a basis in reality. The quake and tsunami and the consequent power supply problems have hit the manufacturing industry very hard, and people are understandably reluctant to spend, which is making things worse. The slump makes it even more difficult for industry in Tohoku to rebuild, and one of the things the badly hit communities need is a return of work so that people can stay and begin rebuilding their lives.

So yes, I bought the camera mainly because I really wanted it, and we're going on holiday because we want to. But in a small way both help alleviate some of the economic aftereffects of the disaster. My comment is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but not only so.

Okinawa

We had a research symposium at OIST in Okinawa a few weeks ago (yes, I know; I've been a bit under the weather). It's the first time to Okinawa for me, but it was one night only, with both a public symposium as well as internal planning meetings for the project. The schedule was completely packed, in other words, so I've mostly seen the (very nice) conference place and the airport. Just as well, as the weather was uncooperative, with rain and heavy clouds. Not much in the way of pictures.

The OIST Seaside House is a confrence annex to the university, and located right on the shore. Large, fresh conference spaces, rooms for conference attendees and spectacular views both from the conference halls and the sleeping quarters. On the other hand, it is out in the middle of nowhere, and with rather bad public communications so unless you have a car you're not really able to go anywhere. Still, the beach probably makes up for it.

The sea was spectacular, the beaches (what little I saw) beautiful. The food was, well, underwhelming. Few people single out Okinawan food as a particular highlight, and I kind of understand why. It reminds me a little bit of traditional Swedish food in a way, with heavy fried and boiled food with lots of fatty pork. I really like noodle dishes so of course I tried Okinawa style noodles. Twice, in fact, as I wasn't sure the first time was representative. Unfortunately, it was. Limp, thin udon-like noodles in a nondescript soup, with lumps of fried pork - light on the meat and heavy on fat and cartilage - as the main garnish. Edible, but nothing I'd want to try a third time if given the choice.

I managed to get down to the beach for twenty minutes or so in the morning before breakfast. The rain let up a bit, but it was still rather gray and downbeat weather. The coast is still absolutely beautiful, though.

Still, there's more to a place than the food (yes, really), and from the glimpses I saw I would very much like to visit again sometime. Take a couple of days off with Ritsuko just for sightseeing would be great.

The beach really is very beautiful. The diving is apparently spectacular too, according to a friend of Ritsuko's who goes here every year. Maybe next time.