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!

We took the shinkansen (“bullet train”) back to Tokyo (first 12 pictures are of this trip). With all baggage in tow, we climbed into the subway trains to try and find our new hotel, which was “Sumisho Hotel” — we wanted to stay at the New Izu again, but they had no Japanese-style rooms available when we booked. However, when we finally found the Sumisho Hotel (their website map was terrible), we were quite disappointed — the receptionist was very unfriendly and spoke very little English, our room was smaller than we expected for the price and rather poorly lit, and then we found the ultimate reason we left — there was no internet in the room. We went downstairs and talked to the receptionist to find that when they said on their website that “It is possible in all of the guest room[s]” to access the internet what they meant was that there was one single old laptop, with an odd-colored screen running an out-of-date version of Linux, chained by the front desk that we could use “free of charge.” When we tried it, Andrew had to fix it to let it even run an internet browser, and even then it crashed on every other webpage. We then explained to the receptionist that we had to cancel our 3-night reservation, which we luckily could do free of charge, because we were business people and needed internet access in our rooms. Anyway…

We climbed back on the subway, across town to the New Izu hotel, and found they luckily had a Japanese style room for three nights! (Their website said they only had Western-style rooms, which are generally cheaper, and we were willing to settle for that by this time.) We highly recommend the New Izu hotel (near Ueno station) to anyone staying in Tokyo — they’re a 5 minute walk from a major subway station, they have very friendly staff with good English, great little Japanese-style rooms with amazing bathrooms/showers, a nice common room (though we never really used it), quite affordable and reasonable for what you get, high-speed internet in every room, and just great overall — best place we stayed at in Japan. We didn’t take pictures of our new room because it was just like the first place we stayed at (though the pictures don’t quite do it justice).

It poured for an hour or so that afternoon, but quickly stopped. We grabbed a lunch while waiting it out. Again we went to Pronto — it’s a block from the New Izu and has very tasty, filling meals (even for us fat Americans!). We’d only gotten breakfast before, but lunch was also quite good — the Japanese understand Italian food well because of the noodles factor, I think.

We then hopped on the subway to Akihabara again, where Teisha captured some wild “Kapibarasan” stuffed animals (yes, right now capybaras are a big thing in Japan — they’ve got their own cartoon show!).

After a while of claw machines and other fun shopping at Akihabara, we went back to the area around Ueno station, our “home base,” to explore it some more. There are lots of shopping alleys that really come to life in this area at night. We got dinner at a little cheap bar sitting place that, while the food looked good, was pretty terrible — very greasy and fatty. It just goes to show you that you get what you pay for.

The following pictures (after dinner) are of the Ueno shopping area. Lots of cute little shops, and we even found several claw machine arcades. This time you could win your clothing detergent from a claw machine! Imagine the daily savings. And, as always, pachinko is everywhere. Also of note, the streets of Tokyo are always empty — people pretty much only take the subway, and the traffic is mainly made up of taxis, though there never really is any “traffic” that we saw. If only the U.S. could embrace public transportation more, instead of everyone wanting their own personal bubble everywhere…

We got up early today determined to beat the crows that frequent the Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavillion Temple, often just called the “Golden Pavillion.” The pictures of this temple and the temple grounds are the 21 pictures following the cute dog we saw in a office building. This temple is probably the biggest tourist spot we’ve hit on our tour of Japan. It was originally built in 1397AD as a retirement villa for a shogun, but has burnt down several times since then. The most recent burning was in 1955 due to an obsessed monk — it was re-built the same year. And yes, it actually is coated in real gold. Though it is quite beautiful on the outside, and surrounded by a beautiful pond with real living cranes, you cannot go inside the temple — the pictures we show here is what you see. The most prized shots are the temple’s golden reflection in the water. There’s a neat golden crane statue on the top. Feel free to use any of our pictures! As always, there were several tourist shops as we left the Temple grounds, and a little Shinto shrine (with no English explanation) tucked away.

We next headed to the International Manga Museum. It’s a rather new museum, having opened in late 2006, and is really more of a library than a museum, but it was still a lot of fun. The crowning glory of the museum is that it has a huge donated collection of manga (over 300,000 pieces), mostly from one privately-owned bookstore that closed a few years ago, and much of this manga is on shelves throughout the museum and visitors can search for their favorite or rare manga books and read them throughout the museum. The museum building used to be an elementary school, so there is a big AstroTurf front field and many benches and tables throughout. There were also many manga artists, some employees and some visitors sketching at the many tables. Pictures are prohibited inside the museum, but we didn’t know this so we snapped several — they start at the astroturf front yard picture and include the following 18 pictures. Other than the “Wall of Manga,” there are special exhibits in the museum. General overall comments:
* It’s a great resource and many manga-fans would be in heaven but, again, it’s difficult when you don’t know Japanese — very few English resources, and virtually no English manga.
* Cute kid’s section, and we wanted to check out those possibly easier to read Japanese books, but only kids and parents were allowed…
* Throughout the museum were seemingly-random sketches done by different manga artists, decorating the walls but not really as exhibits.
* This museum hosted a manga symposium recently and in one room they had on display several panels each with a drawing of a fan with sketches inside by the different visiting artists — next to it were the names of the artists who had drawn sketches on which fan, and the manga they’re famous for. It was neat that they were from all over the world, not just Japan.
* We went to a neat little theatrical show — it was a style called “Kamishibai” and it is basically a story told through panels, each with a picture of the story, that the narrator changes (putting it in a wooden frame) as you go through the story, adding theatrical sound effects and enthusiasm. This was probably our favorite part of the museum, as you didn’t really need to understand Japanese. Though we did feel a little silly being the only ones who weren’t parents with little kids… but we enjoyed it nonetheless.
* The museum had a neat interactive computer room where you could randomly generate manga characters (just appearances) or, for example, go through a pre-generated story, panel by panel.
* There was a special exhibit on a French manga artist — very different from Japanese manga, but apparently French manga is quite popular and flourishing.
* One of the largest gallery areas was currently taken up by employees sorting through boxes and boxes of donated manga! This is definitely a growing museum! They also had signs asking for donations, especially of older manga or foreign manga. So, if you’ve got it, they’d probably have a use for it!

After the museum, we went and got some curry for lunch — there are many curry restaurants that we saw in Japan, and all the dishes from the different curry restaurants look pretty similar — in the pictures one half of the plate is rice and the other half is a brown curry with some kind of meat. Teisha got curry with two shrimp cakes (right) and Andrew got curry with some kind of vegetables and meat (left). The curry place we went to was neat in that you could specialize your meal, adding on different toppings for different prices. Food side-note (on the picture after the food plates):
* Common items we found on tables at just about every restaurant: chopsticks, individually packed and disposable hand sanitizer wipes, a container with pickled vegetables of some kind, and toothpicks.
* Less common items: napkins — it was pretty rare that we’d see them there, though this place had them.
* Very rare: a buzzer on the table for service. This place was the only one we saw with these, but it really makes sense — you don’t pay tips in Japan, and the service usually only comes to you when you flag them down.

The next 12 pictures are of our new Kyoto room and area (the last two are of a common dining/hang out area). We stayed at the same place we did before going to Koyasan (called Ikoi-no-ie), but this time I think we got the best room in the place, even though we paid the same price as before… We were rather disappointed with how small our first place was (not to mention we were right by an alley with paper-thin walls — read the details here), but this new room had its own gravel entrance off of the main building, tucked in the back, and was probably about 30% bigger than the original room. Much better. (For people planning to stay at Ikoi-no-ie — the best rooms are at the main building, not their new expansion that’s two blocks away!)

We then headed for a shrine we’d seen before — the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we didn’t go there for the shrine itself — we went there to buy two shrine gates (torii) so we could make our own shrines at home — we had seen lots for sale at the tourist shops following the street up to the actual shrine. There are examples of little such shrines in a picture. The following picture is of cooked quail, which, for reasons unknown to us, are known for being available at multiple places in this tourist shop area.

Once it was getting dark we headed again to the popular shopping arcade, Shin-kyogoku (we went there on Days 8 and 9), where we wasted time and money on manga and claw machines. So many claw machines. There’s also a particular chain of manga book stores called melonbooks — we can let you guess what kind of manga they sold! Teisha fell in love with a store selling little rabbit’s foot ferns covered with moss on ceramic dishes — too bad we couldn’t bring plants back. We also found out that this area has been a popular shopping area for about four centuries — sure makes the U.S. look young!

We ended up eating dinner at the arcade at a place called the “Star” restaurant — Andrew had a rice omlette (very common) with a beef patty while Teisha had a bowl with rice, cheese, and shrimp. We also enjoyed a tasty desert of pancake with strawberry and whipped cream.

Comments on other random pictures:

* After the Golden Pavillion pictures, we did indeed find a vending machine with men’s ties inside (along with batteries and disposable cameras).
* After the shots of our room, there’s a picture of a food front with all their delicious deserts on display. Waffles!
* After the big Fushimi Inari-Taisha gate pictures there’s a statue of a Tanuki, a raccoon dog. We saw many Tanuki statues — they’re from ancient Japanese folklore, but are also real animals… and apparently do have large testicles in real life. This caught our eyes because tanuki are the focus of an animation we’d seen, Pom Poko, where the animals could shape-shift and use their testicles for flying and making bridges.

The first picture is a better shot of the view outside our hotel room window. Very scenic, and I’m guessing that little stone figure is several centuries old.

We wandered out and found another Shinto shrine, the only one we could find marked on our map in the whole village – it was the Bentensha Shrine, a shrine to a local water dragon. Like the smaller one from the previous day, this one was also on a small island in a pond. Very beautiful.

In the same area (Danjo Garan) were several very old Japanese Buddhist temples. Teisha is standing in front of Daiedo Temple. The next picture is of the oldest intact Buddhist temple in Koyasan, Fudodo, from 1198AD (explanation follows the picture). It’s really amazing considering it’s wood – most the other temples we’ve seen have burned down and been rebuilt at least once. The following orange pagoda is the temple Konpon Daito (“The Great Stupa”), completed in 1937. It’s interesting to imagine the Fudodo being as brightly painted and colored as the more recent Konpon Daito – the Fudodo probably looked like this at one time. Hidden among the temples we found another Shinto shrine (in orange), dedicated to the Goddess Nyu and God Koya other divinities which were worshiped by the villagers who lived in Koyasan before Kobo Daishi arrived. After this, Andrew is seen standing in front of the Saito, another temple. We then stopped by the Reihokan Museum (we took a picture of the front) which we could not photograph inside, but we definitely recommend. There are lots of old relics (mostly paintings and statues) and it boasts to hold 8% of Japan’s national treasures (though not all are on display). All related to Japanese Buddhism, of course.

We then walked across town to the cemetery, determined to get an audio guide so we’d have a better idea of what some of the gravestones are. Along the way:
* It was interesting to see that along with soda, coffee, tea, and cigarettes, you can also buy alcohol (including sake!) in vending machines.
* Bad Engrish is everywhere – Andrew had to take a picture of the spare tire cover on the back of a Toyota. I’m still not sure I understand its cryptic message. We’ve seen a lot of stuff like this on t-shirts too.
* We were amused to see the head of Jack Skelington (from “Nightmare Before Christmas”) hanging by a cup in front of a big, ornate Buddhist temple alter (it was hard to capture it all and include Jack). “Nightmare Before Christmas” in general is quite popular in Japan – we’ve seen a lot of merchandise all over.
* And again, lots of tourist shops line the main streets of Koyasan – we felt kind of bad that they were so empty and we’re not real shoppers, but it’s not really tourist season.
* We found another tucked-away Shinto shrine, lead to by many gates up a steep climb. We went up (it was all completely empty) to find a well-maintained shrine and alter. Again, no idea what the name was or what it was a shrine to, but it was in a very beautiful location in the hills surrounded by forest – tons of moss (and a cute shiny green beetle!). We thought it interesting that maybe the same family has maintained this shrine for generations, though we don’t know if this is true at all…

At the cemetery again, we took many more pictures. It’s really the most amazing cemetery I’ve ever seen, and it really makes me wish I knew Japanese better so I had an idea of what was written on the tombstones, though many of the older ones are too worn to read. Some picture comments:
* Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out what the red “aprons” mean, though they were pretty common – if any Japanese culture scholars know, feel free to comment!
* We went off the main path a little and saw older, less-maintained tombs. There’s a picture of a small group of stones, all moss-covered, that was most likely a family.
* There are a lot of workers that maintain the cemetery. Some stones have been tied up so they don’t fall down, and we saw workers tying a tree together that threatened to fall. Closer to the most sacred section we saw workers actually scraping off a tomb – they couldn’t possibly do this with all of them, and have clearly let most just become part of nature, so it makes us wonder why some are getting cleaned.
* In small crevices there are often little shrines or tombs.
* Again we took a picture of the memorial dedicated to miscarriages and people who have drowned. There’s another memorial like this one in the more sacred section (which we could not photograph).
* The last cemetery pictures are again of the newer areas, near the entrance. It is interesting to think that most of it may have looked like this, but the nature grows up around it when given centuries – it will probably eventually look like the older areas.

We got lunch at a little (non-tourist!) shop on a side-street as we wandered back to a bus stop. Again we got oyako-don (egg, chicken, and rice) and it was very filling. Though it is not listed on the menu, miso soup is frequently included in the meal (along with tea).

We couldn’t resist taking a picture of a bird nest on the side of the Central Information Office front door – it’s such a contrast to the U.S. At our apartment building in California there’s wire mesh all around the eaves to keep swallows from nesting. In Koyasan, they let them nest and just put a cardboard box underneath to catch some of the (tons!) of feces. Nature was here first after all.

We reversed our journey as we went back to Kyoto from Koyasan, though this time with less exciting, unplanned adventures – we actually paid attention when our train changed into another train that we didn’t want (they seem to do this often around Koyasan). So, lots of pictures of our journey back.

For dinner, we went back to the Kyoto arcade area and found a conveyer-belt sushi place recommended in multiple guidebooks. For the close readers, you may realize this is the first time we had sushi in Japan and yes, we are a little ashamed to admit this, but it really wasn’t as common as we thought it would be! There are 6 pictures of this place, ending with the little blue plate of squid sushi that Teisha bravely ate (Andrew would not!). It was good, but very chewy, as squid tends to be. The next picture is of whole eel that was sold at another place (about $17 US an eel).

And then 8 pictures of claw machines! Teisha was in heaven for a little while. There’s also evidence that it’s not just for kids – businessmen also frequent the claw machine arcades. You can win anything from food (frozen or baked), stuffed animals, action figures, to live puffer fish.

Other things of note:
* The picture of the alley near the end is the entrance of Katsukura, where we had great tonkatsu in Day 8 – as you can see, it really is quite tucked away (at the end of the alley).
* Most people reading a book in public have a nondescript book cover so you have no idea what the book is they’re reading (two pictures of this). When we bought a book they made a paper cover for us, though many people own their own personalized cloth covers. We think this is just another way for people to have some privacy in these busy, crowded cities, though it is a bit sad to us because you can’t randomly start a conversation with a stranger over how you like what they’re reading…
* One last picture of the arcade area at night – most the shops are in adjoining covered, closed-off streets (no traffic), but this is the main street where buses go by, and there are many more shops here. It really lights up at night, and is really the only place of action in Kyoto at this time.

Today we set out from Kyoto for Koyasan, a village in the nearby mountains that was founded by a Buddhist monk in the 800s AD and now has over 100 Buddhist temples.

The first picture is of the alley outside our hotel in Kyoto – we walked this alley many times, often dodging such bikes as the one shown here.

To get to Koyasan the guidebooks say it usually takes about 2.5 hours, but we had some exciting adventures so our journey took a bit longer. From Kyoto station, we took a approx. 30 minute train to Osaka and then caught another train around Osaka to another station in that city. From this station we caught a train that would take us directly to the base of the mountain where Koyasan is located, or so we thought. Unfortunately, our train from Osaka actually changed into another train after a long stop in a small train station and we weren’t aware of the situation until we noticed our train had changed directions… We got off at the next stop, which was an even smaller train station with no people or houses anywhere in sight (it was a little unnerving), but we luckily quickly caught another train forward a few stops to a bigger station, where we waited half an hour for the next train that would actually take us to the mountain. From the base of the mountain we caught a cable car up the hill to Koyasan, where we caught a bus into the actual town (the road into town is so narrow and curvy that only cars are allowed – no pedestrians!).

For all the excitement we had, it was a really beautiful trip. Some picture comments:
* Osaka: The first 6 pictures (after the alley picture) are of Osaka. It’s a very industrial city, and looked similar to Kyoto from the brief glimpses we got – Pachinko is still clearly present, and there are some beautiful wide, shallow rivers between the gray skyscrapers.
* The next 8 pictures are of the countryside from Osaka to Koyasan. Lots of little villages, some with very traditional-looking architecture, and lots of beautiful, green forest. Also, lots of rice paddies. Much more thick forest as we approached Koyasan.
* The next 10 pictures are of the cable cars, clearly. It was a very steep incline, but quite beautiful and well-maintained – there were actually several workers getting rid of encroaching weeds when we road up the car. And yes, very beautiful forest and rivers – very green!

Once we had made it to Koyasan, we were a bit worn out but still wanted to check out a few places before collapsing for the night. We booked our hotel when we arrived at the Central Information Center and made our walk to our hotel. The entire town of Koysan is very small – from one end to the other, at the widest spots, it could probably be walked easily in about an hour and a half. There’s only one grocery store, and it’s quite small, though there are K-12 schools. It’s really become a tourist town, though luckily we were there during the off-season so it was pretty quiet.

Walking around town, here are some picture highlights:
* We stopped by the Buddhist temple Daishi Kyokai – the pictures start at Teisha standing at its entrance and include the following 12 pictures. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really find anything out about this temple. It had some interesting Roman-style statues of a group of boys in front. Inside the temple was a beautiful, ornate alter, with a Buddha at the center, very much in the Japanese Buddhist style we saw at other temples. There were also many ornate lanterns hanging from the ceiling – Teisha fell in love with them.
* In the front of the Daishi Kyokai temple is a Shinto shrine, but (like many Shinto shrines in Koyasan) we could not even determine its name, let alone what it was a shrine to. The shrine was on a little island in a pond, with a little orange bridge to it (3 pictures after the temple). Very beautiful.
* There is beautiful moss and plant life everywhere in Koyasan – we took a picture of some unique-looking, red-veined ivy on a stone wall by the side of the road.
* The three pictures after the ivy (with the raked gravel) are of the front of the temple we stayed at – more on this later.
* The next picture is of a wooden, centuries-old belfry of one of the Buddhist temples, but we can’t remember which one..!

Having some time before our room was ready, we hopped on the little town bus across to the enormous graveyard, Okunoi. Kobe Daishi was the founder of Japanese Buddhism (he went to China for two years to study Buddhism, and brought ideas back to Japan), as well as the creator of the Japanese character system (kana) and the founder of Koyasan. It is believed that he went in to eternal meditation upon his passing in 835AD and a mausoleum was built for him. The cemetery basically leads up to the hill where his mausoleum is, a 2 km path, and there are now over 200,000 grave stones, from military leaders to the “common folk,” surrounded by cedar trees that are hundreds of years old. The area near the entrance is much more modern in appearance (see the white grave stones without trees between them), but as you keep going everything becomes moss-covered, sometimes lichen-covered, and beautiful trees everywhere. Some observations:
* We often saw Shinto gates at some grave stones, which seemed strange to us in a Buddhist graveyard, but for the Japanese the two religions are not really contradictory.
* There were often offerings on the grave stones, from fruit, beer/soda cans, to money.
* There is a picture near the end of these of a giant memorial made of many small human figurines, many with red “aprons.” This is a memorial to children lost in miscarriages and people who drowned.
* We heard there was a memorial from a pesticide company for all the insects they had to kill, but we didn’t see it.
* We couldn’t take pictures of the most sacred tombs around Kobe Daishi’s mausoleum, but they were very similar in style. In this area was a temple filled with lanterns, called the lantern temple Torodo, which has two lanterns that have been burning uninterrupted for a thousand years and many thousands of lanterns that have been donated over the years.

After the cemetery we headed to our lodgings. The 10 pictures after the cemetery are of our room. We stayed at the Henjousonin temple, one of many temples in town that has hotel rooms built in. While the temple area is probably much the same it has been for centuries, the hotel part (attached seamlessly) is quite modern and by far the best room we’ve had yet. There was a little entry way to our room, where there was a small adjoining room with the (amazing) toilet and a closet with our bedding. Like all places we’ve stayed at, there was free tea and hot water. We also had an amazing view from our room (it was hard to image) of a courtyard garden with a stream and koi.

Most, if not all, of the temples in Koyasan with lodging include dinner and breakfast with lodging, featuring their famous vegetarian Buddhist cuisine. We were told to shower off and come to dinner in our yukata (light cotton komono). They had really nice hot tubs, much like what we had in the Kuruma Onsen. Dinner was amazing – it was a sampling plate and we didn’t know what most of the food was, but we had fun trying the same thing together at the same time. It was probably the best dinner we’ve had in Japan. The fuzzy close-up is of a bark-thing covered with (maybe?) multi-colored puffed rice that was probably the neatest-looking part. The last picture is of the hallway in the temple area – very different from the attached hotel area (to be shown tomorrow).

As a side note, the monks were very nice and seemed quite happy. They ate in a different area and while we couldn’t see them, they were almost always laughing and joking. One older one teased Andrew repeatedly for how “cute” he looked in his yukata because it didn’t go all the way down his legs like it’s supposed to.

Thanks for reading our ramblings! More on Koyasan tomorrow!