２０１４年７月１３日−２３日

July 13th:

A day of sports! Jason and I were once again invited by Suguru to go play tennis together with his friend Tsuya. Same old deal, we got on a train to 西宮 Nishinomiya to meet Suguru. From there Tsuyu San drove us to the tennis courts by car. Crazy, on the way to the courts we got pulled over by a cop. But this cop car looked like a regular civilian car. All of a sudden these sirens pop out of the roof like straight out of a James Bond movie and wail at us to pull over. I think the ticket cost a ton of money. A speeding ticket for about 400 dollars I think. His spirits seemed a little damp the rest of the day. Here are some pictures of all Suguru's friends who joined us to play. お疲れ様でした！

This is the cop car. Wtf right? Oh and Jason's peace sign.

Our tennis stomping grounds in Japan.

I don't remember all the girls names, but they were pretty freaking good.. Suguru and I barely pulled out a win against two of them in doubles.

 After some 3 hours of tennis, we all decided to head to つるとんたんTsurutontan udon restaurant. The massive portions were great. And as always, Tsuya-San would pay for everything. Suguru warned us not to offer paying. He just loves seeing people happy from playing tennis, so he considers it his treat to pay for our dinner. He really knows what he likes, something I really respect about the guy. He is the guy in the orange by the way. After lots of tennis, massive servings of curry udon, and some flattering compliments about my eyes/eyelashes we all parted ways.

July 14th-23rd:

Monday meant back on the grind. Since I'd finished preparing my samples, it was time to start all my materials property tests. Over the next 2 weeks I would be collecting O, N, and C content, running Vicker's Hardness Tests, checking the grain sizes of the samples, running Ultimate Tensile Stress (UTS) tests, calculating carbon nanotube vs. TiC content by hand, and taking SEM images of the materials. Some gems of the week include:

This slightly sweetened tea. Comparable to the southern style sweet tea. 

The sunset on Tuesday was unbelievable. And the temperature perfect. 

Another intersection on the way home. Just great sunset color.

A little festival coming to a end right by our dorm. 

The weekend had a pretty crazy drinking party where the Germans taught me their game flunkyball, which strongly resembles the American game 4-banger but on a bigger field basically. Aside from that, I rested up for the second week of intensive research. Also! There were 2 birthdays celebrated in the hall. We always liked to surprise each other for the parties, so we always got together for cake to celebrate.

Erika's birthday! Top row left to right, Kitty, Emilo, Shinji, Kevin, Reija, Me, front row left to right, Ran, Jiho, Felix, Erika, Yumin, and Delphine. For the record the nationalities in this picture include US, German, Brazilian, Finnish, Chinese, Korea, Swiss, and French. Pretty crazy huh?

Just me and the birthday girl. 

Emilio's bday! We ambushed his room while he was playing computer games and dragged him out for cake. Top row left to right: James, Joon, Shinji, and Sophie. Middle left to right: Johanes, Me, Hanmo, Emilio, Duncan, Charles, Felix, Erika, Gaurav, and Ran. Front row left to right: Stevce, Pramod, and Emilio. Nationalities in this picture: Ireland, Korea, Brazil, Germany, America, Switzerland, New Zealand, Indonesian, India, China, and Macedonia.

Shinji's goodbye party on this one. Pictured in order from most left to most right: Me, Linda, Jiho, Erika, Hanmo, Shinji, Sara, Joon, Nena, Chin-hui, and Yo. Ok last time. Nationalities: France, America, Switzerland, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, Japan, Brazil, China, Thailand.

What a diverse body of residents. Anyhow. It was around this time that I realized my time in Japan is dwindling. Nostalgia was already sitting in. I realized the time in Japan is too short. The people were all so special in Tsukumodai. Almost every person spoke at least 2 languages, something I knew I would miss dearly upon my return to America. But yeah! A month and a half of awesomeness left!