July 27th:
To cap off a weekend full of festivals, we decided to hold a huge barbecue on Sunday. It was also sort of a farewell party for the residents moving out August 1st. As usual, we did it big. Felix and Pramod went to the local 業務 Gyoumu Supermarket to buy dozens of kilograms of meat and other goodies. This time, Pramod even marinated half the chicken in a delicious tandoori sauce. Off the grill, it was unreal... Here's what the food looks like:
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| Lierally buckets of meat. This isn't even half of it... And check out all that inari on the top table... |
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| Gotta get in those greens. |
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| People enjoying. |
July 28th:
My final presentation was on August 1st. And my powerpoint was finished, but I needed to practice/perfect it. I was able to work with my sensei 1 on 1 for an hour on my presentation. He advised me on what to remove from the slides, and what not to talk about. It was great practice and useful advice. I would try to remove all the super sciency stuff that would bore people and talk about the main concepts behind my research. After all, the audience comprised of scientists from all fields, not just materials scientists.
A highlight, I saw this juvenile praying mantis in the hall after lab.
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| Pretty chall sunglasses. |
July 29th:
The day of my goodbye party. I got to lab as usual, except today was my last monthly meeting. Instead of doing a detailed rundown of my research for the past month, my professor told me to just practice for the final presentation. I had cut down some material and was being timed again. I cut off about 2 minutes, but was still a minute over the 8 minute speaking time limit.. My professor gave me his last bit of advice and we proceeded to lunch recess. Instead of going back to the meeting however, Umeda Sensei, Kariya Senpai and I left to go shopping for my goodbye party. They wanted to know exactly what I wanted, so they took me to the market and I helped fill the basket. 40 dollar whiskey, at least 200 dollars of meat from the butcher, tons of beer, and ton of vegetables. Afterwards, Umeda Sensei treated us to an udon lunch. Here are pics from the day:
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| The restaurant had a house with private rooms built inside a house |
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| Even a fake little water well. Really traditional Japanese feel. |
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| For dinner, everyone helped to prepare the scene. The newspaper was there to prevent the meat scent from seeping into the computers, walls, and chairs. |
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| At its prime. There was pizza, sushi, meat, noodles, beer, anything I could possibly want. Haha! |
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| Even a big-ass watermelon. |
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| Received tons of presents from my lab mates. Gave none... Nice going Franco. I wrote them all letters in the end so its ok. |
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| These are my closest friends from the lab. It was fun hanging out late with them after the dinner feast and chit chatting. |
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