Journeys for Knowledge

The last few months have been tremendously busy, as I was rushing to finish my thesis proposal before my only trip home for the year. As such I was taking very few breaks, even on weekends, until my friend Neil decides to inform me that he’s visiting Tokyo for the weekend. Since I’ve left home, I try to seize any chance I can to see my old friends from college and before. Life only becomes more turbulent as time goes on, so I do not know when I may cross paths with them again. Thus I took my biggest break in some time to go out to Tokyo and play tour guide.

Since I have already shown much of Tokyo from my previous travels, my photo focused on the new regions I was able to visit this time. Chief among these was Asakusa, known for its Sensoji temple and river bank. Now of course any temple visit on a weekend will be crowded, but this trip are particularly packed due to the advent of the cherry blossoms (sakura) for this year. Sakura is beautiful wherever it appears, with its brief but vibrant appearance, but there is something uniquely fitting about seeing these blossoms around serene Japanese temples. Although Neil had to leave at this point, I still had time to take in more sakura around Tokyo, so I went back to my favorite park in Ueno to see how they were blooming there.

While it was not as magnificent as it would be the week after, there was a rather amusing festival in the park’s center, celebrating the spring. I say amusing because apart from beautiful sculptures and wonderful green tea, there was a concert band performing to anyone who wanted to conduct, even children. To their credit, despite the erratic tempo of their conductors, the musicians followed along perfectly. Past these festivities lied another new location, the Tokyo Museum.

Much like other museums I have seen on my travels, this museum was home to artwork from all around the world. However the best part was seeing even this edifice adorned by even more blossoms. After months of focused study on my thesis topic, having a chance to get back in touch with art, nature, and Japanese society was a much needed respite before my final push to submitting the proposal. Of course this is just one step on a longer journey in science, but I am slowly learning the balance I will need to come out of the experience as wholesome as I was when I began.

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As many of my solo adventures begin, I heard back in the fall through Reddit that a One Piece themed 5k race was being held in Okinawa. Of course none of my friends seemed interested, so I signed up alone and left it at that. One week before the race I was reminded of this commitment I has made, and hastily reorganized my schedule around it. It seems the weather similarly hastily got its act together, as a long period of clouds and rain was broken by a beautiful sunny day.

Arriving early to beat the crowds, I wandered the starting grounds to get a sense of how serious of a run this really was. Turns out the course was less of a race and more of an adventure, with points of interest scattered along the route for the runners to enjoy. This made signing up for the second wave of runner pointless, as most of the serious runners were in the first wave. Nevertheless, I enjoyed a good back and forth race with another fellow as we raced from point to point, took our photos, and moved forward. The result didn’t really matter, and I was so busy having fun enjoying the sights I almost did not notice my fatigue, but only almost. These fandoms of mine may seem frivolous, but when you are surrounded by crowds of like minded individuals, there is an energy in the air that becomes euphoric.

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After a restful trip in Pune, I returned to Delhi to stay with my uncle in Gurgaon, though not for long. Wanting to take a vacation himself, we set out with his family to the western frontier city of Jaisalmer. With no close airport, we embarked to take an 18 hour train ride through the night and into the next day. Were I traveling by myself, the journey would have passed quickly by curling up and reading the whole time. Instead I was traveling with family, which brings copious amounts of distractions, especially from the little ones. The next morning we slowly pulled into the end of the line, Jaisalmer. Gone were the crowded streets and haze of Delhi, replaced with the bright beating sun and a golden desert. Though tired from the journey, we managed to explore the city a little bit as the sun went down, all while under the gaze of the great fort on top of the hill.

Waking up refreshed and rejuvenated, we set out on a trek out into the desert. Along the way we passed by landmarks hinting at the rich history around Jaisalmer, from ancient tombs of the Maharajas, to the abandoned village of Kuldhara. As we pushed further into the desert, we stopped at a base camp maintained by staff from our hotel. From there, we embarked on a short camel ride to view a magnificent desert sunset. There is something thrilling about riding an animal, especially over uneven terrain. Unlike a mechanical vehicle, rider and animal must work together to maneuver around obstacles, even if there is someone guiding the reins. It is a truly rare experience to be able to bond with another creature in this manner, yet always wonderful. Having watched the sun fall, we made our way back to camp for dinner and nighttime festivities, before returning home in the cold desert night.

After several days of relaxation, we finally made our way into the fort of Jaisalmer, that which held back the desert for hundreds of years for its people. I was happy to see that unlike many similar forts around India, this one was truly being lived in and not just sterilized and put on display for tourism. While the Maharajas may not be in control any longer, the people of Jaisalmer still continue to go about their daily lives as if nothing had changed. In some ways living up in this fort reminded me of OIST, as we are similarly high up the mountain looking down over the ocean and local villages. Yet the difference in height cannot stop people from freely flowing in and out of Jaisalmer fort. Perhaps one day OIST will become as open and vibrant to the people of Okinawa as well.

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Following my stay in Delhi, I set off to Pune in the south-west to visit my family stationed there. Since my uncle is in the military, they frequently move around India from base to base. As such I was quite excited to finally see them after so much time. Now residing in Pune, they decided to take me and my cousins into the hills near Pune to get away from the crowded cities for a change.

First up was the extravagant town of Lavasa, which seems very out of place in the middle of the rural hills of Maharashtra. Using cheap land, wealthy developers created a facsimile of a quaint European valley town as a playground for the wealthy, and an attraction for everyone else. While it certainly was pretty, that could not mask how polished and unreal it felt.

The rest of our trip through the hills was far more authentic, as we set out for Mahabaleshwar. Known for its stunning vistas, the various peaks and viewing points we drove out to did not disappoint. Far off in the distance one could still see the haze from the cities, but that did not spoil the views of lush green forests and farmlands.

On the topic of cities, one of this viewing points was given the name Mumbai point, and is most notable for its view of the setting sun. As the name suggests, despite a relatively peaceful trip thus far, Mumbai point quickly became crowded and bustling like its namesake as the sun dipped lower into the horizon. In a way, watching this crowd of people grow and swell with the sun, only to vanish after sundown, was more interesting than the sunset itself.

Similarly, my trip to Pune was more than just seeing sights in the hills. It allowed me to reconnect with my family after a long time, and actually act like the elder brother I am expected to be for my cousins. They were even gracious enough to let me sit and read, by far the most restorative of my hobbies. Renewed and refreshed, I left Pune ready for a new adventure, out in the desert.

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These posts are long over due, but finally I can recount for you my most recent adventure, a three week trip back to India. As for my absence for the past few months, I have been busy looking for a thesis idea due to the ample freedom my supervisor has given me. Needless to say it was very exhausting but I’m happy to say I have a topic to pursue now, but more on that later.

My trip to India was broken up into three main parts: Delhi, Pune, and Jaisalmer. My first stop was New Delhi, where I stayed with my grandparents in their newly renovated tower at Pamposh Enclave. My Nana has a profound love for literature and history, so he always enjoys challenging and teaching me when I visit him. As such he organized a tour of sorts throughout Delhi, to immerse me in the history I had never had the chance to see.

The first major stop was Qutub Minar, a archaeological complex known for its impressive freestanding tower. This site would be my first glimpse into the deep history hidden within old Delhi, a fact that was hard to forget given my Nana’s tour guide like narration. After spending so many months studying physics without end, it was refreshing to learn about history again. It was even more fun to see Nana immerse himself in this knowledge again, exchanging theories with me on how the complex might have been populated, and even sharing his expertise with complete strangers due to their curiosity. While other tourist sites like botanical gardens and parks can be peaceful, there’s a sense of mystery to archaeological sites that cannot be made artificially, it simply must develop through time and ignorance.

The next day we headed for the Red Fort, the last stronghold of the Mughal Emperors and a still garrisoned fort by the Indian Army. As such, the fort is much better maintained than Qutub Minar and far more protected from visitor interference. Although the fort is certainly imposing from the outside, it’s still remarkable how expansive the complex is inside. Once through the outer walls, I forgot I was inside a fort until I came to other side to finally see the other walls. It’s heartening to see numerous school groups come through as well, learning about the history and culture all around them that stretches back centuries.

Another extension of this culture is a long tradition of studying the stars, even without the aid of telescopes. Our next stop was the ancient observatory of Jantar Mantar, which housed structures built with such precision that they could map the travel of stars to it. Of course as a scientist I am always fascinated by how my predecessors conducted their observations, but a book recently sent by my mother provided some very interesting historical context. These brief moments where I can feel the harmony between my passions for science and history are what I live for. Regardless, our final stop at Humayun’s Tomb was fascinating if only because it served as precedent for a style of architecture in India that would culminate with the Taj Mahal and was built by the great Akbar.

In between all these trips, I was showered with pent up love and affection from my grandparents and all my nearby relatives, many of whom I had not seen in over a decade. India has never truly been a home for me, nor do I imagine it will become one in the near future, but so long as there is family I will still feel like I belong.

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Just a short post, for many of you may have about North Korea launching a missile today. Thankfully the missile fell apart and cleared Okinawa airspace with no incident, so everyone is fine.

With my first year of PhD complete, the time came to finally decide what my thesis would focus on. To help with this, I decided to take my conference leave early and travel to the Italian island of Elba for a workshop on accelerators. Although I have never worked with accelerators, it was the one field of physics that always captivated me. Going into this workshop, I hoped to absorb as much as possible to decide what I could do in this field, and if it was feasible at OIST.

Amusingly, I left Okinawa on a Pokemon themed plane, which I had seen before from a distance. Now with Star Wars planes being flown by ANA, hopefully I can take one of those planes on my way home. It turned out to be a very long journey, with over 12 hours of flying and another 4 hours on buses and ferries. I will say admit though the secluded cove we ended up in was quite beautiful, which was only enhanced by the slow sunset. And all this before the actual conference began!

Each day was structured into two major blocks, with longer talks in the morning and shorter seminars in the afternoon. Lunch was set at almost 4 hours long, so participants would have time to explore the cove and just relax on the beach. Having just received a Kindle from my parents, I finally got back to reading books, finishing 4 by the week’s end. Each day ended with a large group dinner as well, set outside on the patio right next to the beach.

As for the conference itself, I quickly realized most developments in the accelerator community required connections with the larger community, and is very rarely done in a vacuum. Although I made friends with a group from Oxford, I only found a few topics I could foreseeably work on with the resources available at OIST. Focusing on those for the remainder of the week, I left with a good sense of where I could fit in the scope of accelerator research, but ultimately it would take months before I finally honed in on a thesis topic, which led me in very unexpected directions.

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As a final part of my first year at OIST, the graduate school organized a tour of Japan, where we would visit other major Japanese universities and network with them to see how the rest of Japan runs their PhD programs. Naturally these classical universities would run things a little differently from us, so it was a very enlightening experience.

Our main stops were Kyushu University (Fukuoka), Osaka University, Todai (Tokyo), and Hokkaido University (Sapporo). Most days there was barely enough free time to get dinner, but in Fukuoka we had a good day to explore the city and surrounding landscape. At Kyushu University we realized that many PhD programs in Japan are starting to realize the importance of educating their students into being internationally capable, including immersion in other countries. It was a very nice start to a turbulent trip.

On that note, the next morning as we were preparing to leave, a typhoon decided to park right over us, forcing us to stay indoors for half a day and miss half of our program in Osaka. By the time we got to Tokyo, we were reasonably optimistic about meeting students from Todai, Japan’s most prestigious university. Unfortunately, they ended up treating us very poorly, almost as if we were just a burden to be done with. In addition the students were entirely medicine focused, so very few of us had relevant topics to discuss.

Disheartened, we flew out to Hokkaido for our final visit at Hokkaido University. In many ways, it felt like a combination of UC Davis and UC Berkeley, with the focus and scale of the former, and the deep history and lore of the latter. Sapporo was by far everyone’s favorite city to visit, even if we only had one night to look around and see the city lights. Luckily I still managed to get my fill of Hokkaido cheese, and have already begun to make plans to return in the near future.

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Having finally found time on a weekend, my friends and I decided to return to the Ocean Expo Park to visit the Churami Aquarium we were unable to visit during the fireworks trip. The aquarium is world famous for having the largest single aquarium window in the world, connected to a tank holding 3 whale sharks, one of the largest fish in the oceans. Although most people make the aquarium a higher priority when they visit Okinawa, I was skeptical  of how amazing Churami was since  I had previously been to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, another world famous aquarium.

What I did not expect was the level of nostalgia the aquarium would stir up within me. In my youth, I was always fond of the lionfish for its intricate fins, and the whale shark was always my favorite for being the gentle giant of the sharks. Seeing them here in person was a remarkable experience, compounded with the sheer diversity of the coral reef ecosystem around Okinawa. Turning the corner into the whale shark tank was awe-inspiring, as the cool blue hue washed over all the visitors. I felt as if I had rediscovered a side of myself hidden away long ago, an innocent sense of pure wonder and curiosity. For this alone the trip was worthwhile, and although I do not intend to return anytime soon, I will continue to carry that sense of wonder with me as I continue my studies.

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Recently the Resource Center at OIST organized another outing for researchers, to attend Okinawa’s largest fireworks show at the Ocean Expo Park. I signed up immediately, having never been there myself and spending most of my recent weekends inside. Thankfully we arrived with plenty of time to spare, giving us a chance to explore the park and its attractions.

Of course the most famous of these is the Churami Aquarium, which was unfortunately closing  by the time we arrived. Despite this, there was a wonderful outdoor dolphin tank that was putting on its final show for the day, along with turtles and manatees roaming in their own habitats. The dolphin show was remarkable in just how responsive they were to their trainer’s directions, which involved wide sweeping gestures and possibly musical cues to trigger the various feats.

Despite some heavy intermittent rain, the fireworks show went off without a hitch. It was by far the longest show I have ever seen, with two 20 minute sections and a bombastic finale. Although we did not have the ideal position, it was still amazing to watch, and I most certainly return next year with better preparation. As for the finer details of this trip, I will let my videos below speak for themselves.

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