Conference is Over! Whee!

Hi everyone! The conference ended today and overall was very productive for everyone in the group I came with.

Yesterday I went out to the conference, which was being held at Tokyo University for Foreign Studies. The nearest station is Tama. A friend advised me to take the Chuo Rapid train line out to the terminus of the suburban railway line that Tama's on.

So, long story shorter, I got on the Chuo Rapid, the ORANGE train, not the BLUE train or the train that says "Special Rapid" on the sign and found out that the train I was on skipped the stop I needed, while people helping me over the phone advised me to keep going (even though I was waay too far west). So I found a Chuo Rapid train that went the opposite way, and this one stopped at Musashi-Sakai, where I could transfer to the Seibu suburban line that would take me to Tama.

Don't worry, I don't need more advice on this, since I made it there today with no problem. Even though, once again, I would've skipped my stop if I hadn't learned from yesterday. (About to skip the stop today, I got off at the last stop it would stop at before mine, and got on the next train behind it, checking the monitors on the train). And really, I need no more advice, since everyone I've talked to has tried to give me advice, and has been boggled by the fact that SOME of the Chuo Rapids skip stops that others don't. I even helped out a woman on the train this morning who needed to stop at Musashi-Sakai and was about to skip her stop like me.

Anyway. Don't want to talk or read about that anymore. Anyway.


The university's located in a residential suburb with a police academy and the Sanrio theme park. And a cemetery, which isn't too weird, but we passed some funeral homes selling flowers and tombstones. Including Doraemon and Ultraman tombstones.


Wait, this post is supposed to be about the conference, ne?
So.
I finally got there, after making my friends wait for me for an hour at the station.

The conference's subject was Asian Cultural Studies, so the panels there were focusing on different ways of studying Asian culture. There were a lot focusing on the spread of different Asian countries' pop culture around the world--so there were papers on a Korean pop star's first album in the US, French-Japanese cartoons that aired in the US, Australia, and the UK, and how fans of Japanese boy bands create an underground economy by buying and selling concert tickets. Stuff like that. For whatever reason, it's not common to see relevant papers at the major academic conferences in the US--maybe we've just all had bad luck, but all four of us having bad luck??

So yesterday I met a super-famous guy who wrote a book that's important for my dissertation--he was nice. Also met a couple of guys from Australia who were doing similar topics to me, and they were SUPER excited about our whole panel. It turns out that we were like the ONLY Americans presenting at the conference, so we were THE representatives for the States. But everyone we talked to was really impressed, apparently, by our panel, and the work that our department is turning out right now. So, awesome! Exchanged a LOT of business cards with people, who are excited to keep in touch with us and our projects.

And lunch at the university cafeteria was awesome. ^_^ I mean, 500 yen for "Tuna Tartar Rice Bowl" with soup?? So, miso soup on the side of a good size bowl of rice topped with shredded sushi seaweed, shredded scrambled egg, and a good-sized portion of ground tuna sashimi garnished with green onions. Mmmmmmm, yum yum yum yum! I stand by my prediction that Ben and I will be the exceptions to the rule that you lose weight when you visit Japan as a tourist. ^_^
I'm sure I'll feel like writing more later, so I'll leave it to that for now.

In the meantime, I will give a teaser of a store we've scoped out, and will return to. Mwahahahahaha! Manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!