Week 13
Last week, I was in London and had a great time. The famous historical landmarks intertwined with a modern city offered a great experience and surreal moments. For instance, while walking away from Big Ben after taking pictures, seeing many other tourists pointing at something behind you and taking pictures is kind of unnerving. In addition, although the British accent is much stronger outside of London, many of the British accents I heard in London were just subtle enough to make me think that they were faking it. I know that this wasn't the case, so I can only conclude that my feeble attempts at a British accent are much better than I thought. :)
Anyway, the reason I was in London was because of the International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR) where I was presenting a poster. I was there with 2 other labmates from Alberta which were great company and it was great to catch up with them.
Although my poster didn't have as ideal of a viewing position as my colleagues, our view of Westminster Abby more than made up for it.
We weren't allowed to take photos from within the Abby but I got this photo from the inside which captures the talent and beauty of the stain glass windows of the historical building.
As the conference only went on for a portion of the day, there was a lot of time for us to explore London and see many of its sites, including Piccadilly Circus, the London equivalent to Time Square, New York City.
We also saw many official looking buildings, this one being the national art gallery, among others.
There was also this 18ft statue that I can only assume is called the Royal Thumbs Up.
On the last night of the conference, the conference attendees boarded a ferry which took all of us down the Thames river to the Cutty Sark, a famous ship which once held a 10 year record for the fastest time between Australia and London. As the sun set, we were lead to a party under the ship's dry dock, where wine, beer, and hors d'oeuvres were being served. It felt nice to kickback and drink with friends and get to know new ones while enjoying such a peculiar venue.
On the last day before flying home, my labmates and I went to the Natural History Museum. It was free and had countless exhibits from including mammals, fish, reptiles, bugs, human anatomy, animatronic dinosaurs, geology, an earthquake simulator, and many many more but after 3 hours of museuming we called it quits because we were to tired of looking at it all. It turns out that there is quite a lot of natural history and it becomes exhausting looking at it all.
This is one of the entrances into the museum where the skeleton of a blue whale is hung inside a great hall of stone with gorgeous architecture and sky lights.
As we were at a conference on rehabilitating lost function caused by damage to the nervous system, this exhibit was cartoonishly appropriate.
After an awesome time in London and saying bye to friends, I headed back to Tokyo. In Tokyo, I got off the air-conditioned plane into the air-conditioned airport where I got on an air-conditioned train which took me to an air-conditioned train station where I boarded one more air-conditioned train which took me to my final destination where I stepped outside into a hot, humid, sweat-inducing, Saturday morning and walked back to my temporary Tokyo home. The weather might be a bit hotter than what I am used to but I still have 4 weeks to enjoy the many things Japan has to offer including Mt. Fuji. :)