On Saturday I had my flight back. But since it was late in the day, I decided to make the most of it, so I checked out of the hotel early, hopped on the subway (with a little help from a British Airways flight attendant), and headed to Shibuya, where I left my luggage in a coin locker, got a map (just in case, although I feel I know the area well), and started walking around Cat Street, Omotesando, and Takeshita Dori.
On my way back from the amazing Sankeien Garden, after attending (but honestly not paying much attention to) a Japanese-only BioInformatics lecture (seriously, I enjoy those things), I went for something fun and quirky: the Cup Noodles Museum.
Founded by revered Momofuku Sando-san, Instant Noodles (Cup Noodles) has a very interesting story behind its world wide wild success. I learned that Sando-san spent two years in jail for tax evasion. That he invented the instant noodles in his 60’s.
Friday I only had one meeting scheduled late, so I decided to brave the very foggy and rainy day and venture forth to the Sankeien Garden. It was out of the way, but I read great things about it, so not caring about pictures not turning out OK or getting lost, or getting wet, I went anyway.
I can only assume that the place was mostly empty because of the suboptimal weather, but I was very very happy to walk around there almost by myself.
As so often happens when I experience something so sublime, I wish my loved ones were there to share it with me.
Someone said that when you can’t or don’t know how to share, you become an exhibitionist. Is that why I have a blog?
In any case, after seeing a little presentation about the safety and earthquake-resistant features of the world’s fastest elevator, built by Mitsubishi, I got to ride it, at 750 m/s, to the top on the 69th floor.
Before a very successful day at the trade show (few but extremely interesting meetings with the likes of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a very large Japanese company known for their electronics, and a BioTech fund from Silicon Valley), I went to the Red Brick Warehouse. I read online someone saying it was the cool alternative to a shopping center, and it was close by, so I decided to check it out for myself.
It was time to work. The trade show I was in Yokohama for, BioJapan, is not a big one, and dwarfs in comparison to the Bio show in the USA. But being so highly specialized means that there are less people attending that in other trade shows, and the people attending are all directly involved in life sciences, either as researchers or as companies commercializing life sciences research (or providing support and services).
The next day it was my (almost) free day. Absolutely necessary, specially for those who are not used to long flights and big time zone differences. Not my case, but I’m still glad I had that day off… specially in Japan!
So I got up early, dealt with my emails as quickly as I could, had tradicional Japanese breakfast, I met my friend and client Komaki-san, and after the meeting I left the hotel.
