If that enticed you, read on to see all of our recent photos, or look at the whole, ongoing photo gallery.

We’ve set up a garden in a trash-can: The perfect means to grow and easily harvest potatoes!

… and here’s the newly planted tubers in the can.

Our snow peas are starting to climb up their trellis.

Teisha hard at work, thinning the corn (hidden behind our tomatoes and zucchini).

Speaking of Zucchini, look at this monster. It’s our pride and joy.

We moved another zucchini into a gopher basket to protect it, but the transplant was pretty hard of the poor thing. It’s mostly recovered though, and is producing again.

And here’s a ground-level shot of our monster zucchini, with big happy flowers.

Now, a closer look at Teisha thinning the corn. Also, you can really see that our drip-line keeps the area moist (we had just turned it on to test it for the day).

The driplines water everything in the garden, including our brand-new Strawberries.

The onion patch is a riot of happy growth.

To protect our lettuce from pests, we’re growing it in raised buckets– and it’s starting to look nice!

And another lettuce bucket, showing very lettucey goodness.

I thought I’d throw in a nice view of our burgeoning tomato plants. They haven’t had many flowers yet, and we’re wondering if we might have over-fertilized.

Unlike many of our vegetables, we’re growing our pickling cucumbers from seed, and we just recently moved them out of the greenhouse and into the garden. Here’s one of them.

And here’s a cucumber protected by a plastic jar to keep pests out and heat in.

We’ve also started applying the “jar method” to our honeydew melons that are growing from seed.

Our watermelon hasn’t been doing so great… pretty slow growth. Maybe we planted it when it was still too cold?

Our rose-bush, however, has been totally revitalized since Teisha trimmed it back and we gave it some rose-specific fertilizer.

The cactus nearby has been getting in on the flowering business, too.

Here’s all of our corn, thinned out into nice even rows. That’s sweet-enhanced white corn. Mmm.

Here’s another shot of the whole garden– which is finally looking like more than a patch of dirt. Huzzah!

Like I said, things are sprouting– and nowhere is that more evident than our onions, which are popping up all over the place.

Up close, you can see the happy and healthy onion growth.

Overall, the plot is finally starting to look like a garden.

Our zucchini are looking happy, with lots of fresh leaves.

The tomatoes are also getting settled and starting to grow.

We added some honeydew melons!

Lastly, a few images of our environment. First, our pruned apple tree is starting to bloom.

We’re the Garden of Rowham.

A nearby flower garden (just 15 feet from our plot).

Here’s the fig tree near us.

And Teisha standing proudly in front of the super-productive lemon tree.

This last image might not be for everyone. The garden hasn’t had many pests, save for a gopher or two. And gophers can kill a garden, so we’ve had to take it seriously. First, we added two ultasonic spikes in the garden, which you dig down until they’re in the thick clay, so sound transmits better– then they emit a pulse of annoying sound every 30 seconds, continuously. They helped some, but we next turned to sprinkling Fox Urine around the garden, to make the gophers think predators were nearby. Still, it wasn’t working. With some reluctance, we turned to gopher traps. A few days ago, we had our first dead gopher. Hopefully, the other gopher deterrents will work, and they’ll leave our little plot alone.

Thanks for following along on our gardening journey!

Followed by after planting.

Teisha did a great job planting our Tomatoes.

Teisha also trimmed back the Apple tree.

We ended up putting up trellises for the Tomatoes, and then I installed drip lines.

There’s also drip lines for the rest (like the onions and Cantaloupe shown here).

The Zucchini gets special treatment- drippers aimed right on the plant.

The drip irrigation system is all tied into an 8-line manifold, which will soon be on a timed cycle.

And lastly, we’re finally seeing our first sprouts! First, of onions…

and also of Cantaloupe!

This is the entire little plot we have, from an apple tree in the back right corner to the white bird cage at the back, the fence at the left, and the rickety “door” on the front.

Here’s a close-up of the apple tree in the corner (and a cactus in the front right corner and some small pepper plants).

There’s actually a little trail with stones down the middle that we didn’t see at all until we removed the weeds.

And here I am with one wheel-barrel full of weeds — we carried out three similar loads this evening. Crazy!

We get all of this for just $30 a year, which is amazing. Plus, we have access to a shed full of shovels, rakes, wheel-barrels, gloves, and tons of other equipment. There are also multiple free compost heaps, horse manure delivered regularly, and several fruit trees (I saw fig, almonds, lemons, apricot, and others) that we can take a few fruits from when we visit. Since it’s “organic” we can’t actually use any chemical fertilizers, but they’ve got great horse manure on site! We’re really looking forward to making this into our garden, and I think it’s so great that UCSB provides this program!

Saturday

Since I am a “poor” graduate student, and am not in a writing program that could help fund me, I was really on the fence about attending this conference, as I had to pay for all of it myself. However, a few things helped with expenses. For one, I was able to find a great roommate through Facebook who not only helped me meet others (which was great since I am so new to this!) but also split the room costs (halving the $182.85 a night price) at the AT & T Executive Education and Conference Center, where the event was held. The other part that really helped cover costs was volunteering for the event – that took care of the $75 student registration fee, and was an interesting experience too.

My volunteer assignment for Science Writers 2009 was to help people sign up for the Power Pitch workshop Saturday morning. For those of you new to writing and journalism, we’re not talking baseball here, although both involve quite the adrenaline rush for participants. This workshop, titled “Power Pitch with Top Editors,” is where you get about 10 minutes with a senior editor of a highly respected science magazine or newspaper to convince them to accept your “pitch,” which is a concise, catching description of a story you want to write for their magazine. If the editor likes it and likes you, you get the job. Among others, editors from “The New York Times” Science Section, “Discover,” “Scientific American,” “Nature,” and “Wired” were all there. What my volunteer position entailed was getting to a conference room at 6:45AM (4:45AM in California, where I’m from, not that I’m complaining – it’s just an excuse for any zombie behavior on my part), waiting while interested pitchers filed in the room and took a number from a bag at 7AM until about 7:10AM, and then guarding the sign-up sheets as peoples’ numbers were called and they approached to write down which editor they wanted to pitch to. Basically, I had to make sure they only signed up in one spot for the first round and then, when we found there were enough empty spots for some people to sign up for two editors, I had to watch to make sure they didn’t “double-date” and sign up for the same time with two editors. It went off quite quickly and smoothly. Just about everyone got to sign up with two editors – with 8 editors and 10 spots, 80 spots were easily filled. I’d like to especially thank Tinsley Davis, the NASW executive director, for making the volunteer positions possible. It was a good first chance for me to chat with other writers at the conference.

After the sign-ups were taken care of, I grabbed some breakfast and checked out the NASW Business Meeting. Breakfast was a tasty continental buffet, mostly with pastries and some fruit – I resisted the former and grabbed some yogurt and granola with O. J. I went to the Business Meeting even though I was not sure it was for everyone – several others were not sure about this either, but wanted a place to sit and eat breakfast, and it was close to the buffet. The Meeting turned out to be for everyone, though relatively few sat down inside the salon. The Meeting covered changes in policy, petitions that required members’ signatures, internship programs, and other business details. It was mentioned that this year’s meeting had about 350 attendees, which is down from about 450 last year, which is thought to be due to the economy. The significant effect of the economy on science writers became a recurring theme for the day. Another comment of note is that there is a record of Freelance gigs on the members-only part of the NASW website – for those interested, it’s called “Words’ Worth” (but you need to be a NASW member to access it). Lastly, NASW awarded travel fellowships of $750 to 10 undergraduate students who attended the AAAS meeting in Chicago last February– mentees were paired with a mentor for a day. The 2010 AAAS meeting / NASW internship fair will be in San Diego.

After the Meeting, everyone headed to the morning plenary session, titled “Thriving in a Time of Change” and given by an entertaining speaker, Dan Gillmor — the auditorium was quickly packed. Gillmor is the director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University and has lots of social media-related experience. The “change” Gillmor focused on was, unsurprisingly, the exploding world of the socialized internet. He opened with a Tweet feed of The Mime on Twitter, which he said was his favorite “person” on Twitter. I don’t quite understand the appeal of “The Mime,” and think it is rather crazy that an account that only tweets “…” every few days has over 10,000 followers – what does this say about the beloved and often highly-touted Twitter? That it is overrated, I think (but not so much so that I don’t use it myself). He praised heightened interactions between collaborators and creators that the internet has made possible, such as is seen with Wikipedia, while warning that at the same time, when researching a topic, Wikipedia is “the best place to start, [but the] worst place to stop” – I definitely agree – one must always go to the references, if they’re there. Entering the world of internet media and information through the well-traveled corridor of Wikipedia, Gillmor continued this journey by trying to determine what “journalism” is and what it is not. He concluded that while journalism is clearly not what most people post on their personal blogs, nor is it random YouTube videos of people disco dancing, the line can become fuzzy. Although there are well-defined journalists and newspapers/magazines/news reports, etc. where journalism is reported by professionals, non-professionals can undertake, what he calls, an “act of journalism.” This is done by people with personal video cameras (that may just be part of a cell phone) who capture news-breaking events, such as a robbery or a tsunami, and share it on a world-wide information dispersing service, such as YouTube. This is all made possible by increasingly prevalent technology. After pointing this out, Gillmor started on the main topic for his talk – what social media tools we should be using to stay afloat as science writers when even the definition of “journalist” is changing.

Gillmor, probably expecting counterarguments, first defended the authenticity of internet journalism before highlighted what social media tools he thinks are key (out of the endless array available). Most journalism awards can now go to magazines that are online-only, showing much less bias for paper-based media, and Gillmor challenges even this acceptance to be broadened – he argues that even some blogs should be considered journalism (and linked to General Motors’ home for corporate blogs, GM Blogs). He’s clearly had his experience of journalism blogging, as he listed off several internet-based reporting companies he had that failed (including etattler.com and Bayosphere.com) – I’m not sure if this was the best follow-up to encourage people to do internet journalism. A more successful project he helped with was Seesmic.com, which is a Twitter client. He also made the apt and insightful comment that Twitter is now an ecosystem (and within seconds I watched as the girl next to me tweeted this quote). (Side note: For those of you who are interested and unaware, Science Writes 2009 has had a ton of tweets tagged as #sciwri09 – at the end of the first day I tried to go through all of them, but it was too great a Herculean feat). After discussing his failed and successful internet ventures, Gillmor defined entrepreneurship as “ambiguity, focus, resourcefulness, ownership, innovation, [and] risk”. Basically, I’d paraphrase it by saying that it is a big, scary, unsure future out there in the ever-growing world of technology, and while there will most certainly be many failures in trying to adapt, you’ve got to keep learning and keep trying until you find something that works – adaptability is key. Yes, it is easier said that done. To help with the “doing” part, Gillmor listed several resources I’ll now list here:

• * GlobalVoices.com: Global translation and interpretation company.
• * Yahoo Pipes: Organizing content on the web.
• * IBM’s Many Eyes: Shared data online with neat data visualizations.
• * Dopplr: Helps with travel planning and coordinating meetings.
• * Spread of Walmart since the 1960s by Kiwitobes.com: An example of visualization of data (really looks like the spreading of a plague, I think).
• * Flickr: Great for getting stock photos.
• * Flu Tracker: It was not actually this exact link that he had – what Gillmor showed emphasized how the public being constantly aware of H1N1 spreading may cause more panic than productivity.

Gillmor threw out a few more tips for internet survival, such as search engine optimization (which was covered in a later workshop that I did not attend) and “above all – follow your passion.” I personally would have liked some more concrete advice on how to make a “successful” blog/online magazine (if it is possible), but it is probably a difficult goal to reach with few easy paths. Someone from the audience asked about the specific case of the Rocky Mountain Times failing repeatedly – after the paper failed, the Times tried two internet-only versions only to have those both fail as well. Gillmor’s response was that the Times “only made sense as a monopoly” and that, for a major metropolitan area, it didn’t make sense anymore. Coming from Colorado myself, it is hard for me to see such a local legacy discarded like this – I like to think that there is some kind of middle ground that can be achieved, but, if it exists, it must be hard to reach as it does not seem that the Times has found it. Overall, the opening plenary tried to inspire hope and provide resources, and it did to some degree, but it’s impossible to ignore the problems the industry is clearly trying to cope with and it does not seem like there are many easy answers.

Before I dive into covering the workshops for the day, I want to state a few general observations about the demographic that makes up the science writers at the conference. What I noticed first, and what intimated me most as I’m in my mid-20s, is that the vast majority of the attendees are in their 30s to 50s, based on what I saw. I was a little taken aback at first, as many science writers I’ve met so far are around my age, but then I had the epiphany that these are professionals who have been, mostly, doing this as a career for a long time. I, on the other hand, work in a lab with graduate students and postdoctoral students almost exclusively in their 20s, and then attend science conferences with other such graduate students. No offense to any fellow ScienceWriter2009 attendees reading this – just wanted to let you know where some of us shyer, younger types are coming from! Don’t get me wrong – there were others around my age, but I definitely felt like an odd one out most of the time. Not to mention I only knew one person attending the conference (who I only met once before and didn’t bump into until dinner Saturday). The other demographic features I noticed were that the vast majority of attendees were Caucasian and female. The female majority was unsurprising, but it was striking that in the group of more senior attendees this majority switched to men. After some initial shock, I suppressed my naturally introverted nature and ended up talking to many interesting people and, hopefully, making some good connections.

After the opening plenary talk, the workshops started. Saturday was the day of workshops – for a full list of the workshops click here. The day from 10:30AM to 6:45PM (except for lunch) was divided up into three sessions of workshops, Sessions A, B, and C, each an hour and a half long, and during each session an attendee could pick one of four workshops to go to. A lot of them were very tough choices, as multiple workshops offered at the same time looked quite appealing. Here I’ll cover the ones I attended – there are lots of #sciwri09 tweets that discuss the others and coverage on the NASW website. Also, there was a day-long activity going on that all attendees could participate, called “Forecasting the Future of Science Writing” (and also explained at the conference here). I’m not going to go into detail on this, but from what I saw it mostly seemed to deteriorate into rather pessimistic (although probably also realistic to some degree) forecasts for the field.

For Session A (10:30AM to noon), I attended “Visual Science: Why Writers Should Embrace Cheap Video Cameras, YouTube, and Final Cut Pro.” I already have a blog so I didn’t attend some of the more basic workshops on internet social media, but this talk appealed to me because it seems that visuals online are becoming more and more important to telling stories, as they should be – visuals are what the internet is for now. (This is why I recently created a Visual Stem Cell Glossary.) This topic clearly interested many others, as the talk was pretty crowded. This session showed several professional videos, either done by the panelists or others covering science with video cameras, to try and explain why, when, and how to use video cameras. Coming into this session, there was a large projector screen behind the panelists playing some “professional” YouTube videos and a smaller projector screen in the front left of the room with a live person gazing back. The person was Andrew Revkin of the New York Times’ Science section, blogger of Dot Earth. Revkin was interviewed via Skype. In addition to his written blog, Revkin also has “Revkin’s Channel” on YouTube (also called “DotEarth with Andrew Revkin). Some basic tips from Revkin and the panelists for those new to using video cameras:

• * Hold the video camera steady (common sense, but worth stating).
• * Hold shots (don’t pan too quickly – you might even want to hold it while counting out a few seconds to yourself).
• * Sound is very important (if you’re going to use it) (if people cannot understand the audio dialogue, they get frustrated. If the conditions demand it, you can hold the video camera microphone right up to the speaker for the audio, then lay the audio over other images later).
• * Don’t use the video to tell the whole story – just what is neat to show. (There was some debate over this between panelists though – Marc Airhart, for example, sometimes covers an entire story in the video. This probably really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.)
• * Revkin also recommends taking a video camera everywhere in place of a notebook (it’s easy to find out exactly what someone said, or what color shirt they were wearing, or all those so-easy-to-forget details when you record it)

Craig Duff of Multimedia and Time.com showed some “cuter” video clips, such as a woman catching a wallaby in her backyard and dogs performing cognitive learning experiments (i.e. finding treats in cups). His point was that it is OK to use cute clips in videos, so long as it’s not the entire video and there’s more to it or more in the other videos you offer – you can basically use cute clips as lures. As the audience’s response showed, they’re almost always winners. After Duff, Kevin Coughlin of Morristowngreen.com said, in so many words, that if the video is cool, showing cool things, people will watch it – you don’t need to spend a fortune on production. That was reassuring. After Coughlin, Marc Airhart, a science writer at the University of Texas, showed a video he did using professional nature photographs, slowly panning over them and occasionally zooming, with an overlaid dialogue. His advice was that, unlike what he had actually done in this “early” video of his, you should first lay out the photographs and then have the narrator look at the pictures while narrating, as it can help with pacing and natural reactions to the images. For those interested, he used Audacity for the audio. For finding inspiration for visual journalism, Airhart recommended visiting Mediastorm.org. Brian Malow spoke after Airhart. Brian Malow is quite the kick – he is Earth’s premier science comedian and has a blog called Zero Gravity. He explained how he did a video for Time.com titled “Darwin & Lincoln: Birthdays & Evolution.” Basically, he had written out essays for the story and when the idea was accepted, he decided what to do on the camera and what to only narrate. As a comedian, Malow takes pleasure in taking a subject and finding the humor in it and sharing this while also imparting some knowledge. He had to clarify to the audience, after having a disappointed viewer comment on his website, that some of his skits are only “mildly humorous” as he is, after all, trying to explain science! (As a side note, in one of his videos about Galileo he had clips of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” singing “Galileo,” etc., and said it is OK to use such clips in a video as if you would reference pop culture in a written report – I was not aware that such video clip usage does not violate copyrights.) Lastly, the Princeton News showed a video called “Scanning Santorini,” about using computer programs to piece together ancient, broken frescos. Overall tips from the panelists were: have fun, pick something you’re really passionate about, and, lastly, engage the audience (because not everyone is excited about what you are excited about!). One audience member asked what the purpose is of embedding a video into a story when you could just link to the video on another website, to which a panelist replied that a video in your story, on your website, will draw a lot more traffic (than it would without said video). I haven’t seen evidence myself, and so would love to see some actual traffic figures. Another audience member asked about Final Cut Pro vs. iMovie for creating videos – a panelist recommended Final Cut Pro for finer applications, but said that iMovie is OK if you do not need that extra quality (and don’t have a pile of cash to burn). The panelists also said that you can get an adequate video camera for $500, or use a Canon G10 still camera that can also do video (though they encourage a real video camera and a plug-in external microphone).

After a great three-course lunch, for Session B (2:15PM to 3:45PM) I attended the panel on “Pitching Science to Non-Science Magazines.” The panel included editors from a range of magazines, and each basically talked about what they look for in a pitch. Although I wasn’t expecting it going in, this was one of the most informative talks I went to. The main reason for this is because Terence Samuel, deputy editor of “The Root,” helped me have some epiphanies and gave me some reassurance. When Samuel receives a pitch, he said he looks for two key things: 1) that the person can write and 2) that their topic is something “new.” He clarified “new” as not necessarily something actually new, but something “old” covered in a new, interesting perspective/view. In particular, a story interests him if it focuses on how something affects a large number of people and/or how these people live. Additionally, he says it is important to make your story reader/people-involved – talk about people doing what you’re talking about (i.e. discovering the gadget, etc.). Overall, know your audience and write for them. (As a side note, Samuel said he likes his pitches in approximately 850 word explanations, as a specialty story for the average reader.) The next panelist to talk was Jake Silverstein, senior editor of “Texas Monthly.” For Silverstein, a pitch should not just be a subject idea, but a narrative/story. For example, Silverstein looks for colorful representations of a person interviewed that make that person come alive on the page for the reader. James Gibney, deputy managing editor of “The Atlantic,” discussed how he looks for stories that are about something unusual or famous scientists. He stressed the importance of knowing what stories they’ve published before and not to duplicate preexisting ones. Also, apparently he receives many long pitches and said it’s important to include a short blurb of the pitch (I guess editors like having some free time too). Chris Sullentrop, senior editor of “The New York Times Magazine,” said that if you’re a good writer who can follow a deadline, you’ll do well. The moderator, Adam Rogers, senior editor of “Wired,” then asked the panelists what they generally pay writers per word – here are the responses:

• * “The Root” at $0.5/word.
• * “Texas Monthly” at $1/word.
• * “The Atlantic” at $1.5/word (tops — they clarified that they’ll often pay $250 for a 1000-word online story).
• * “The New York Times Magazine” at $2/word.

For Session C, I went to “…Entrepreneurial Skills for Science Writers,” as I have yet to make a real business out of my writing. The theme for the talk of the first speaker, freelancer Alan Brown, was that, as a freelance science writer trying to make a living, you need a plan. A lot of this might seem like common sense, but it can be easy to loose sight of the bigger picture sometimes. In particular, Brown stressed the importance of knowing where you currently stand, financially, and where you want to be in the future (i.e. have enough money to not only pay rent and have a little fun regularly, but to take vacations too!). Brown was full of useful lists, starting with several tips for how to get from point A to B:

• * Figure out how much more money a month you want.
• * Look at the highs and lows of each income source per month.
• * Chart out how you spend your time daily (i.e. how much time is spent working vs. thinking vs. fun, etc.).
• * Don’t depend on a single client (have a few solid clients) – this was seconded and thirded by the other speakers later.
• * Diversify your income (try writing for magazines, newspapers, technical reports, corporate/press releases, market research reports, university communications, etc.) – again, this was later seconded and thirded.
• * Be willing to take less money for a steady income (leads to less anxiety and more confidence).

Brown also gave a list of qualities that editors look for:

• * Consistently good.
• * Quick response to issues.
• * Easy to work with.
• * Exceed expectations.
• * Style.
• * “Oh wow” (impress and surprise them with things they did not know about.)

Brown also gave many networking tips that could be useful to those just starting out:

• * Plan ahead (younger colleagues now may become senior editors one day).
• * Only network with people you like.
• * Include both editors and fellow writers in your network.
• * Be kind to assistants.
• * Find ways to stay in touch.
• * Volunteer for boards/dirty work.

Brown also supplied a list of where he looks when trying to sell a pitch:

• * Existing and past clients (reconnect with them).
• * Editors, as they’re connected to publishers.
• * Other writers.
• * WritersMarket.com
• * MediaBistro.com
• * Wooden Horse Magazine Database

Once you find where to give your pitch, Brown gave several tips for pitch delivery:

• * Know what they publish (again, don’t give them a duplicate story).
• * Have a personality – be someone.
• * Know their readers/audience.
• * Give several topic ideas.
• * Promise to give more details if interested.
• * Don’t waste time trying to write the perfect pitch (if it’s a news story, it’s better to be fast than perfect).
• * Follow up with calls and emails.

Other points of note were to take advantage of the NASW website and other NASW resources, it’s OK to ask for a raise, and to give back to the people who helped you.

After Brown, Maryn McKenna, blogger of Superbug and Tweet-user marynmck, opened her talk with a reference to an article titled “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable.” This article is from a blog called “Clay Shriky,” which is run by Mel Blake. The specific quote from the text she used was that “the old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.” A lot of science writers, and others in the media business, are finding themselves in this position right now – the old is rapidly falling apart, and we find ourselves scrambling to figure out what new frameworks will function, only often to just grasp at straws. This rather anxiety-filled perspective made the basis for her rather anxiety-filled, though unfortunately quite realistic, talk. She gave a list of the responsibilities a freelancer, as his or her own business owner, must take on that are different from what full-time employed writers (and other full-time employees) deal with:

• * Freelancers have to house their own business (i.e. pay their own business mortgage/rent and provide their own adequate work space).
• * Freelancers must handle payroll and benefits.
• * Freelancers must seek out and identify new clients.
• * Freelancers must produce and distribute their own products

To help manage these many complications, McKenna recommended a website on Tools & Resources for Freelance and Web Workers. While she encourages people to spend their money on technology, she makes the good point that there are plenty of adequate free software programs out there for freelancers to take advantage of. Efficiency is key to survival in McKenna’s mind – she recommended several websites to help with being more productive:

• * LifeHacker.com: Regular tips on organizing your life – I’ve been a subscriber to their RSS feeds for some time now. (Apparently they also recently came out with a book: “Upgrade your Life.”)
• * ZenHabits.com (which has now apparently become success.org?): This appears to be more inspirational than perhaps useful.
• * FreelanceSwitch.com: Freelance professionals that have created a website with all sorts of useful, relevant links.
• * In particular from FreelanceSwitch.com, the article on 46 Must-Read Productivity Tips for Freelancers is helpful.

Additionally, like Brown, McKenna touched upon the importance of diversifying your sources of income – it’s best to have some articles in prestigious magazines for name recognition, but also have a source that provides an easy, reliable income. While earnings are usually made per word, it’s important to translate this into dollars per hour – McKenna stressed that often pitches that earn more per word end up earning the writer as much as a job that pays less per word due to multiple revisions and lots of back-and-forth editing. Other parting tips from McKenna:

• * One income source should be academic, as this gives you full access to the university library (she writes ¼ time for the University of Minnesota).
• * Claim a niche and build/maintain networks around it.
• * Market your name/reputation/brand on social media websites such as Digg, Reddit, and Twitter.

Last to present for the session, Emily Gertz focused on blogs and how to make money writing for them (if it’s possible). Her blog can be found at Emily Gertz.com, although she also does posts for GlobalWarming.Change.org, and she Tweets as ejertz. Gertz claims it is possible to make about $25 to $45 per blog post, and notes that most posts should be less than 500 words (something I really need to work on). However, I’m still unclear on how exactly this money is created – I’m assuming it’s not made on your personally-run blog, but done through blogging for a larger organization. Gertz also encouraged writers to pursue their passion. Going along with this notion, Gertz argues that it is OK to write for free, although only under certain conditions – here are the acceptable cases:

• * If you’re doing it to generate clips for future work.
• * If it’s only a smaller project, and not for a big company.
• * If it may eventually become a book (of course, this is very difficult to determine).
• * As long as it does not consume your life.

Sunday

The first talks for the 47th Annual New Horizons in Science started Sunday morning (and continued until Tuesday) – this segment of the conference is hosted by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW). CASW actually has a video stream of these talks available on their website here. On the broad topic of “Information Technology,” Harold “Skip” Garner, professor of biochemistry and internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, gave a talk on “Mining Hidden Knowledge from Medline and DNA.” Garner’s team has develop over 40,000 web-based software programs that function as applied computational biology/bioinformatics tools, or, in other words, text data mining tools, which are linked on his website, Garnering Information — check out such programs as eTBLAST, FRISC, TRITE, RIC, ARGH, and IRIDESCENT. Garner focused his talk on how his group has used these tools to find plagiarism in academic papers. According to an NIH-funded survey Garner cited, 1.4% of researchers admitted to plagiarism and 4.7% to having multiple publications on the same data (and I’m sure many others did not admit such acts). Garner’s software program eTBLAST can help track down such illicit events. eTBLAST allows one to take text from a paper, such as its abstract, and see how similar it is to other texts from papers in a large publication database, such as Medline. Taking this approach, Garner’s team found many duplicated articles present in the literature. Over time Garner generated a database, called Deja Vu, which lists all the highly similar papers his team found. Overall, Garner’s searches estimate that there are 8 to 10 duplicate publications for every 1000 publications. Garner found 206 duplicates and investigated around half, contacting the authors of the original and duplicate publication. When asked about the duplicate, 93% of the original authors did not know it even existed. Of the authors of the duplicate article, 26% denied plagiarism, 35% of apologized and admitted their guilt, and some didn’t even know they were an author. When confronted, many of the editors of the journals that the duplicate articles were published in said it was the authors’ responsibility, not the editors’. Here are just a few of the astounding responses and cases that Garner mentioned:

• * One “author” took papers from a small college, doubled the data (so it looked more significant), and then published the paper… a few times.
• * An author on a duplicate paper said they did not know how they had copied the original, and then later admitted that they had in fact reviewed the original paper… and given it a very bad review.
• * Another author on a duplicate paper said that publishing the duplicate paper was “a joke” – they must have thought it quite funny as they have six matches on Deja Vu (not to mention they are the vice president of the ethics committee in their country).
• * Another author blamed their medical students in their laboratory for creating the duplicated data that was published, even though these students’ names were not on the paper.
• * Three journals were found to have had a member of the editorial staff plagiarize papers.
• * The countries that seemed to have a slightly above average number of duplicate articles published were China, India, and Japan.

(As a side note – aside from finding similar papers, this tool can also allow the user to find implied key words based on a text. For example, taking text from a “materials and methods” section, including purely experimental details, and running it through eTBLAST generates a list of keywords associated with these methods, based on other papers that have similar text in their methods section. Consequently, this tool can generate a list of keywords for a given text even though the specific key words may never actually appear in the given text.)

Concluding this segment of his talk, Garner suggests that perhaps there are too many journals and too many review articles – I personally don’t mind having a few extra review articles as some authors can catch pieces others miss. Garner has also created programs that help with grant submissions (Heliotext.com) and creating microarrays (such as Nimblegen). This led into the final portion of Garner’s talk, which was on using microarrays to study microsatellites (repeating DNA units in the genome — they are used in, among other things, paternity testing). Using microsatellite probes, assays have been developed to detect viral infections in human blood, to determine taxonomic speciation of organisms, and, as recently discovered in Garner’s work, to potentially find and screen for biomarkers of specific types of cancer that are present in the blood of patients. The latter work should be published by Garner’s group quite soon.

John Hawks, a professor of anthropology from the University of Wisconsin (and weblogger of John Hawks Weblog), then presented an engaging talk on “Rapid Evolution: Can Mutations Explain Historical Events?”. This was the last talk I caught in its entirety before catching the bus to the airport, and luckily it was quite an intriguing note to end the conference on. Hawks focused on how humans have undergone a tremendous amount of evolution in the past 10,000 to 20,000 years, giving examples as well as possible explanations. One such example is some adult humans’ ability to drink milk – this trait is quite new, as it developed within the last 10,000 years. Blue eyes and albinism (caused by a mutation in the OCA2 gene) is also around 10,000 years old – no one had blue eyes before this. Resistance to malaria in Africa is more recent – sickle cell anemia, which is caused if a person is homozygous for malaria resistance (heterozygous individuals have malaria resistance without sickle cell anemia), developed around 5000 years ago. Human skulls have also rapidly changed over the last 10,000 years – they’ve been shrinking (though they were increasing in size right before that point), decreasing in thickness (not too surprising – I like to think we’re a little less physically brutal these days), and increasing their cranial index (this measures the skull’s breadth to length – they’re getting wider/shorter).

Hawks’ main research involves looking at genetic changes related to these phenotypic changes. Analyzing massive amounts of genetic data these days mostly entails going through databases on computers. The specific genetic data Hawks looks at are single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), which are DNA sequences with single DNA base pair differences between species. Looking at SNP data has allowed Hawks to understand, for example, that the early farmers of central Europe were a different group of people than the hunter/gatherers who previously lived in the area, and that the people who lived in this area sometime after the farmers were not actually descendents of the farmers. Basically, there were waves of migrations of people throughout these areas and they have undergone different selective pressures. The ones who moved in, or withstood the pressures, made up the next generation – for example, approximately 80% of Northern Europeans have lactase resistance (as adults) and this ability most likely originated from one individual around 8,000 years ago.

In summary, Hawks approximates that humans have undergone what is normally equivalent to three million years of evolution in only the last 20,000 years. What are the causes for this explosive evolution? One key driving factor is a significant increase in population, increasing the number of random mutations possible. As he paraphrased Darwin, “if you want to see rare things, you need to have a lot of them.” Some other central causes for the rapid evolution may be dispersal and a broadened diet, which can both contribute to increases in population as well as being under more selective pressures. Some body parts that Hawks’ group has noticed are evolving at an even greater rate relative to the rest of our bodies include our brains, parts involved in reproduction (particularly sperm), genes involved in hearing, and other genes that they’re not sure the function of yet. Lastly, Hawks emphasized that these evolutionary changes, or mutations, all initially occurred because of chance (and then may have been selected for through different pressures) – I find this is something students often overlook when learning about evolution, assuming that every evolutionary advantage was somehow planned, so I am glad this is the final point Hawks wanted to stress.

All in all… I think it was definitely worth my while to go to Science Writers 2009 in Austin, Texas. Although the science writing community has justified feelings of dismay and anxiety about the future of their field, there are many promising paths in the form of emerging technologies, such as social media. Along these lines, the recurring advice I heard most was “be adaptive” — don’t shun new technologies because they’re unfamiliar, but learn how to use them to suit your needs. Technologies aren’t going to go away — they’re only going to become more and more vital to understand and utilize in order to succeed.

Here’s a link to the gallery of pictures I took on the trip. I’ve tried to describe below what the pictures are of (follow the pictures in order in the gallery, top to bottom on each of the 8 pages — hopefully it’ll make sense!). If you want to read some specific, scientific coverage of the meeting, Nature’s Stem Cell Niche (blog) has some good blurbs (some written by me!) and the ISSCR website will have some coverage too.

The airplane shots are over the area between France and Spain — I took a picture of the flight map so you can kind of see where they are. There were lots of little villages we went over (probably just within France) and then we went over the Pyrenees Mountains which form the border between Spain and France — there’s one good picture of the mountains (the last airplane picture). They reminded me a lot of the Rockies, except maybe with less vegetation.

Arriving in Barcelona, I met up with other students from UCSB attending the conference (or hanging out in Barcelona) (pictured are Dave, Thales, and Donovan) and we eventually figured out how to take the public transportation to the conference from the hotel — Barcelona has a great subway and tram system. The big bullet-shaped skyscraper is Agbar Tower.

Next are pictures of the conference. Tons of people! I heard estimated 3000-4000 attendees. There are pictures of people in lines waiting to register (this was after it had died down a little). The conference hall pictures are of the main conference hall (I was sitting about halfway to the front — it’s huge!). The speaker was projected on two big screens at the front along with their powerpoint slides (though later they didn’t show the speaker during talks, only the powerpoint slides on all screens). Another screen halfway back also showed their slides. The next picture is the outside of the building — it’s not very impressive at all. It’s also just a few blocks from the beach, but almost impossible to get to — there are roads, a highway, and blocked off walkways… we never made it. The area it was in was with many other such big conference buildings that all looked very empty except ours — it’s hard for me to imagine they get enough use out of them to make it a viable enterprise.

The next many pictures are of the palace we went to for dinner — it’s the Royal Palace of Pedralbes. Honestly, it seemed more like a museum than a palace, and it was not as big inside as I’d imagine it’d be — I think it’s more well-known for its big front gardens and fountains. It was buffet-style dinner, but the space was rather small (people were quite crowded) and consequently everyone was rather hot and hungry. I don’t think they were expecting so many attendees. It had a nice big outside area behind the Palace too — it too was packed with people (and apparently my camera lens is a little dirty!). Dave gave an amazing patriotic speech. There was quite a nice fountain in the front of the Palace too, but it was rather dark to get a good picture.

Next (middle of the 2nd page) are some pictures of my hotel room (ends with the closet picture). My hotel was Hoteles Catalonia Atenas, about a 20 minute bus ride from the conference. The hotel was OK, but I’d probably give it 3.5 stars instead of 4 — it was a bit dirty and the internet constantly dropped me, but it was quite a big room, an amazing breakfast buffet, and a nice bathroom (except the shower had some problems). There’s a really nice view from my window — I could see the Sagrada Familia cathedral from my window. Construction started in the 1800s and they’re still working to finish it!

I took several pictures from the roof of my hotel (starting at the bottom of the 2nd page) — really great view of the city from there! The first 8 pictures make up a panoramic (not quite 360% — there was a building in the way). It’s probably hard to tell, but the second picture of this series has the ocean in it. There is a little pool on the roof, but it’s really not much — the view is what makes it awesome. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t typical Barcelonian weather for July — it’s been rather rainy and overcast, so not beautiful pictures, but it gives you a good idea of the city. You can see that same cathedral off in the distance.

The hotel breakfast buffet was quite satisfying (though expensive — 7.50 euros, or about $13, and I think this is on a special sale too). I then took several pictures of the conference (bottom of page 3). The first one is of the main entrance/registration area, where there’s free wireless and tables for people to hang out. The outside pictures are right outside of this area — some interesting modern art designs. The next are of the huge poster presentation area — half of this giant room was posters and half was vendor stands. I proudly presented my poster for two and a half hours, as did Thales for his. There’s one picture of the vendor stands (more to come later).

We all went out together later and had an amazing seafood dinner (thanks to my boss, Dennis!). The most impressive, or unusual, dish for me was the barnacles — they were surprisingly tasty (Dave really enjoyed them — see middle of page 4). We tried everything from mussels, clams, shrimp, deep-fried fish, seafood with rice dishes, octopus, and seafood croquettes. We also all had amazing deserts — I had a crepe with vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce.

The next morning I decided I’d better make an effort to see some of the city before the trip was over! I set off to find a “$1 store” (which in Barcelona was a 60 cent store!) but missed it and instead went to a giant open-air market (page 5, middle). I very cautiously went in and checked everything out. There was everything from kitchen/bathroom supplies, including faucets!, to clothing, CDs, wood furniture, and African trinkets. I had much fun. I then met up with people and we went to the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which was just one subway stop from our hotel. The cathedral is quite impressive and unique — it felt very “organic” (not very sterile), which is probably what distinguished it in my mind from other gothic cathedrals I’ve been to. The cranes were really something to see too.

We went to a park across from the cathedral to figure out what to do next and I, of course, was immediately drawn to the little enclosed, dirt-covered dog park present. I tried to decipher specific breeds, but it seemed like a lot of the dogs I saw in Barcelona were different mutts. I took the subway (bottom of page 6) back to the conference — I’d been warned to watch my bags on the subway, but never saw anything too shady myself, but was always on the lookout. I snapped a few pictures of the vendor stands (BD Biosciences had its own personal island!). Later that night Dennis was on a panel for Millipore with three other experts to discuss the promise of induced pluripotent stem cells.

Next morning — another wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel (middle of page 7). I made my way over to the conference to hear Prof. Shinya Yamanaka, who created induced pluripotent stem cells at the same time as Prof. Jamie Thomson, speak — he was a lot younger looking than I’d expected, and quite entertaining as well. The conference hall was quite full for his talk. I later went to a vendor talk that had a smaller audience, but offered good refreshments (only on the last day did I discover how to get a free lunch!).

Back at the hotel for the last day, I took some pictures of the nearby area (I couldn’t help but go into the Chinese trinket store, which was amazingly run by a man of Asian ethnicity). I took the bus to the airport the next morning and saw some neat sites — one was a big stadium of some kind, I assume, and another I’m pretty sure was the capital building (page 8, top right). I took a few pictures of Barcelona from the plane as we fly past it. Luckily (with no thanks to Air France) I made it home without too much eventfulness, leaving my hotel at 8AM Sunday and arriving back home in Santa Barbara, CA, 11PM Sunday night, only 4 planes, 3 security check points, and 30-or-so hours later.

The Daily Travelogue

• Day 1 in Japan: Made it to our Tokyo hotel!
• Day 2 in Japan: Akihabara
• Day 3 in Japan: The Imperial Gardens and Shinjuku
• Day 4 in Japan: Tsukiji Fish Market, Hama-rikyu Gardens, and Science Museum
• Day 5 in Japan: Ghibli Museum, Yoyogi Park, and Shibuya
• Day 6 in Japan: Meguro Parasitological Museum and Shinjuku
• Day 7 of Japan: To Kyoto and Kitano Tenmangu Shrine Flea Market
• Day 8 of Japan: Kurama Onsen and Arashiyama
• Day 9 of Japan: Kyoto: Castles, and Temples, and Shrines (and Malls), oh my!
• Day 10 of Japan: Koyasan and Okunoin
• Day 11 of Japan: Cemeteries, Temples, and back to Kyoto
• Day 12 of Japan: Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavillion, Manga Museum, and more Kyoto
• Day 13 of Japan: Return to Tokyo and Akihabara
• Day 14 of Japan: Tsukiji and Harajuku
• Day 15 of Japan: Edo-Tokyo Museum and Souvenir Shopping
• Day 16 of Japan: Returning to America

Direct Photo Gallery Link

• Japan Honeymoon Photos

Lessons from Japan, as twittered by Paradoxdruid during the trip:

• The Japanese are obsessed with bags. Everything, from pastries to magazines to cash gets a bag. Sometimes three.
• Public transit can be amazing- I would take a hour-long Tokyo daily commute gladly. Efficient, easy, and quick.
• The one thing the Japanese don’t have: trashcans. Expect one per 10 blocks, if you’re lucky.
• Japanese futons are perhaps the most comfortable beds ever- my whole life, I’ve apparently needed less padding.
• Tokyo is the source of all our beliefs about Japan. The rest of Japan is filled with almost distressing normal folk.
• That said, Tokyo is the most amazing (and cleanest) city ever. By far my favorite part of Japan.
• It must be mandatory to have >3 vending machines per block. This is how all Japanese, young and old, get beverages.

It was with some sadness that we left our little cozy hotel room in the New Izu hotel, which was like a second home to us by now and where we knew our way around so well… and even the people at the front desk knew us well! The first picture is where much of this travelogue was written. I’m quite grateful to have such a nice laptop for the trip! The second picture is the view outside our window (on the 5th floor — our first room was on the 2nd floor, but the exact same place on the floor). We were right above a Lawson’s that came to know us well. Andrew snapped a picture of a “Western-style” room as we went to check out — third picture.

For the last time, we got breakfast at Pronto, where I think we had breakfast most days in Tokyo (less than a block from our hotel) — 4th picture. We again got a toast-style thing with egg and cheese and meat pieces and probably cream cheese within that made it extra sweet. Teisha got a half-toast piece with a cute monster face on a piece of (maybe?) meat (top right corner). We also got a pizza-like thing and a milky bun — we couldn’t resist the cow on it. And Andrew got some tasty hot cocoa.

We then made our way to the Ueno station where we could grab a 1-hour train directly to the airport (it was great being near such a big subway/train station). We had to capture something we saw the first day of our trip — on the airport trains they automatically rotate all the chairs so they’re all facing the front!! Pictures 5 through 9 are trying to show this (it was hard to capture but Andrew did a great job!). Teisha got her last tasty milk tea and then we got on the train to the airport. We passed many rice fields as we went out of the city (after a long time!), and as we got to Narita, the town where the airport is, everything became much greener — there are some beautiful little forest hills around there. It was just amazing how where there wasn’t concrete things were so green.

Once at the airport and through security we went rummaging for food and Andrew discovered that half the airport is made up of shops and food courts. Seems quite typical. 10 hours later in L.A., we had two hours to catch our connection to Santa Barbara and just barely made it — after going through initial checking, we had to grab our checked luggage (which took forever — huge flight!) and go through customs. Somehow we were part of the minority that looked like we did not need to be checked by Customs and made it out (over half the plane was flagged!) … and ran around LAX to the right terminal, only to be redirected (our flight was Delta, but the plane was run by one of its subsidiaries — American Eagle — glad Delta figured this out). Running to our gate we found we had to catch a little bus to a little American Eagle area. While on the bus on the runway Andrew took a picture of a plane getting ready to take off nearby! (4th and 5th from last pictures) We made it to our gate with 10 minutes to spare before boarding.

The 18 minute flight from LAX to Santa Barbara was rather beautiful, though a bit overcast. We took pictures of what must have been somewhere on the 101 highway between Ventura and Santa Barbara.

Lastly is a picture of our treasure from Japan. We were actually sorting out everything to give to close friends and family. Most of it was won in claw machines by the amazing Teisha. The little green things are edamame beans, which are quite popular in Japan and have their own TV show (and yes, were all won by Teisha). We feel a bit silly for also getting chopsticks and folding fans, but that’s what people expect, right? There are also some purple and white cylinder things that Teisha had no idea what they were when she won them, but they turn out to be hollow cylinders of a cheeto-like substance.

And that concludes our travelogue of our honeymoon to Japan! Hope you all enjoyed it and feel free to comment!!

With our last day in Japan we figured we should learn a bit more history about the country we’d been in for the last two weeks, so we headed for the Edo-Tokyo Museum, the largest historical museum in Tokyo. Luckily pictures were mostly allowed (except of the actual artifacts), so we snapped away. Overall, the museum was very informative of the history of Tokyo (previously named Edo), with an emphasis on the 1600′s history, but it left us wanting to know more older history of Japan. There were very good English translations available in all the permanent exhibits, and an English audio guide was available (though it was virtually reading the English plaques off of the exhibits). All the pictures up to and including Andrew by the little car were in/around the museum. Some things of note:

* The museum starts mostly around 1590AD, when the Tokugawa clan moved into what was currently a little village. Before 1590AD, the museum has some ancient artifacts going back several thousand years from people inhabiting the area that is now Tokyo — seems like several different people inhabited this area at different times. Quite a lot of history, but they only had a few little pots and remnants to show this.

* They had some really neat models of different parts of the city in the 1600s. It really demonstrated how, even back then, the streets of the (poorer) areas were really crowded, whereas where the upper-class citizens (i.e. samurai) had a ton of space, with big yards/gardens, etc. 60-70% of the city was destroyed in a fire in 1657, after which is was largely remade to have the upper-class citizens have more reasonable amounts of land/housing.

* They had some antique paliquins on display. They’re basically little carriages without wheels that have a support on either end where two people could carry it (clearly for the wealthier citizens). Some were actual antiques whereas some were replicas that people could actually get into — Andrew thought they were actually quite roomy. The more ornately-covered ones were for women.

* Though we didn’t get a chance to see any Japanese Kabuki theatre while in Japan, we did see a good-sized exhibit on the history of kabuki at the museum. They also had a replica of a stage with performers as well as a miniature stage house.

* It’s really amazing that it was only around 1800 that Japan started Westernizing, and politically their world really changed in the mid 1800s with the forced opening of the harbor to the world. After this point there was a lot on “modern” Japan — Westernization and the World Wars.

* What was really rather interesting was a couple maps they had in the World War II area. They were maps of the U.S., some with lines from Japan to the U.S… but they were one of the very few exhibits without English translations. Very suspicious. We think they were most likely Japanese plans to fly over and attack the U.S.

When we came to the museum there was also a special exhibit featuring Osamu Tezuka, who is thought to be the first manga artist with his creation of Astro Boy and is thought of as Japan’s Walt Disney. It was the most crowded exhibit area (with few tourists). Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any pictures of this exhibit. Also, it was largely in all Japanese, so it was harder to translate, though there were many little movies of his work going on that didn’t require much language understanding. But overall it was very informative — admittedly I knew of Astro Boy, but didn’t know much about it and didn’t know of Osamu Tezuka. It was interesting to really see his work progress over the decades and become what is more recognizable as modern-day anime/manga style. Also, it seemed like Disney may have gotten some ideas from Tezuka — one of his most famous series/movies is “Kimba the White Lion” from the 1960s, which reminded us both a lot of a famous movie about a lion named Simba…

After hours at the museum, we decided to head to Harajuku to go to Kiddyland and buy some souvenirs we realized we had to get, such as a 3D model of an animal cell (and now it lives on Teisha’s desk at work). While in Harajuku we caught lunch at what turned out to be a Chinese restaurant (well, Japanese take on Chinese food) and were rather disappointed… but glad to try it. Andrew basically got rice with veggies and Teisha had a veggie stir fry… they were both OK. But the server was nice and took our picture without us even asking.

Side notes:

* The subways are awesome. Cheap and your next train is every 3 minutes!! And they go everywhere and it’s super easy to transfer to another line.

* Nearly all women wear heels and most wear a skirt/dress, as seen in the leg/foot shots on the subway. Also, something disturbing we noticed over time — a lot of people are bow-legged. We mostly saw it in the women, but it could have been because of skirts… We have some theories for this — excessive wearing of high, thin heels, or, maybe more likely, sitting traditionally folding one’s knees under the body. Not sure what it was, but it was fairly common… Common enough that of the little TV we watched there was an actual advertisement for knee braces to fix this problem..

* We’re missing our tasty snacks from Japan. Our favorites were: Milk tea (black tea with cream) — could be bought from just about any vending machine!, waffle ice cream (sometimes with chocolate) which was often in vending machines but more often in 7-11s, and Teisha really liked these snacks that were (maybe) rice made into a soft homogeneous texture coated in a sauce with honey and soy (I think) and put onto skewers (Andrew didn’t like them) — they were at most convenience stores. The milk was also quite good — very rich. (There’s a picture of this stuff in the third from last row of picts.)

After Harajuku we ventured back to our Ueno station area for our last night. We ate dinner at a little ramen shop we’d eaten dinner at about a week before — the fourth from last picture is of the store front. We both had sobe noodles with tempura (of shrimp and veggies mostly) in it, and Andrew had a side of oyakudon. Teisha happily discovered a whole area with multiple claw machine arcades just blocks from the hotel (on the last night!!) and had much fun there. As the big shops were closing, it was neat to see little street food vendors come out and basically make little restaurants on the side of the street.

And that concludes our last full day in Japan! All in all, it was quite an interesting and fun honeymoon.

With our two days left in Tokyo and having seen pretty much all we wanted to see, we decided we had to go to the Tsukiji fish market at least one more time. So, we got up early and caught the subway to the market — since it was about 8AM, we hit rush hour subway traffic, which is quite an amazing thing to see in itself. The first 8 pictures of today feature the rush-hour traffic, with the last picture showing Teisha captured. It’s quite the experience — not only are you shoved in far beyond “American” standards of capacity, having most of your body crammed up against a stranger, but the entire car is dead silent too. Nobody talks. Cell phone use on subways is prohibited — everybody text messages. When we whispered it felt like we were being too loud on this packed car. One of the most amazing sites we saw before was the exiting and merging of traffic from one of these packed subways — lots of people got off at one stop and walked up stairs to the exit, but as you walked up the space narrowed until you had to go single-file. Everyone merged beautifully, without a sound or a misplaced-step or any pushing or shoving — I feel like this couldn’t happen in the U.S.

The next 17 pictures are of the Tsukiji fish market. (We went here once before on day 4.) Andrew had the best ramen he’d ever had at a shop in the market (though no fish in his soup). Lots of imports from China, handicrafts and animals. Teisha enjoyed some unagi (eel) skewers, so fresh!

We then caught the subway to a popular shopping area we’d kind of failed to find before — Harajuku, which is near Yoyogi Park. The 12 pictures after the stained-glass window (an ad in the subway) are of this area. Teisha found a nice shirt top (that looks like a short dress really) in one of the shops. The streets were filled with high school-aged girls, and we felt a bit old and out of place. At one point when Andrew was alone for a few minutes while Teisha explored a shop, Andrew received many dirty looks from different girls! He was grateful to have Teisha return and save him. Side note: Poodles are probably the most popular dog we saw in Japan, either that or dachshunds.

The real reason we came to this shopping area was to find Kiddyland, a 7-some story high toy store. Apparently we’d done just about everything else that the Lonely Planet guide to Japan recommended for kids, so we figured we’d like this too! And we did. There were toys from electronic/science gadgets, Studio Ghibli anime movies, a whole floor devoted to Snoopy, and a whole floor devoted to anime-related stuff. The pictures start with the giant capybara stuffed animals (yes, those are capybaras — known as “kapibarasan”!) and end at Teisha holding a snail anatomy model. Teisha had to go back later and buy an animal cell model, full with removable organelles, which now lives on her desk in her lab.

After the shot of the “Condomania” store is one of the beginning of the main shopping street in Harajuku — we went back once more for a tasty crepe, and had to get this shot to capture the teen-packedness.

Since we were pretty close, we went over to Yoyogi park and people/dog-watched for a while. There were some guys really good with a basketball showing off, and a hip raver dancer came in with his boom box and tried to get some attention, but there just weren’t really many people there. Then it started to sprinkle and it really emptied out. As a side note, most benches (when they exist in Tokyo) have a middle bar to prevent (homeless) people from sleeping on them, though, as you can see in one picture, it’s not too much of a deterrent. On the way to the subway station, Teisha discovered another dog/cat store, where they were sold for no less than $2000 each…!

We took the subway back to Akihabara because… why not? We love Akihabara. Teisha found another claw machine arcade that had a game where you could win staghorn beetles — actual live ones! Unfortunately Andrew had to remind Teisha of Customs, and she didn’t try to win one.

For dinner, we headed to a big building that is several stories high and 90% restaurants in Akihabara. It was cute in that it had rows of manga on the walls (not that we could read any of it). It also had pictures of what must have been California beaches and they were playing out-of-date American rap music (quite the combo overall). Andrew again got a curry dish with a hamburger patty and Teisha had a shrimp pasta dish.

We wandered around Akihabara some more after dinner. Andrew had to take a picture of a closet of costumes that girls can try on and take pictures of themselves in. It’s very popular to have places where people just come in to have casual pictures of themselves taken… we don’t quite get it.

Lastly, Teisha bought a little plastic sushi toy — very realistic, right down to the detail on the fish and the sushi conveyor belt movement!