Living in Tsukuba

On the top floor of Ninomiya House, our apartment building for foreign researchers, there is a beautiful tea room. We got the chance to participate in the ceremony. It was very hard to sit like the Japanese do for more than 30 seconds.

Here our teachers show us how it is done.

Megan enjoys here matcha. I don't know if we felt the wa (harmony), the kei (respect), the sei (purity), or the jaku (tranquility), but the tea was good to the last drop.








Megan got a chance to `shake' her own cup tea.

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This is from the hike up Mount Tsukuba (a.k.a., Tsukuba-san). We went with two other students, Juliana and Elias, living in Ninomiya House. Juliana is JSPS summer fellow from UC Santa Cruz and is studying Earthquakes in Japan (very important work). Elias is a post-doc from Vienna who is working with Doug and Doug's advisor, Dr. Goto, on music analysis and computer audition.

Tsukuba-san is a holy mountain in the Shinto and Buddhist religions. The forest is very old and full of big and beautiful trees.


The t-shirts in this country are great. This is a passionate boy looking out from the top of Mt. Tsukuba.