Archive for November, 2009

Nobel Laureate Peter Grüenburg

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Peter Grüenburg  001

Just a few days ago, I was in Sendai attending a seminar on Spintronics research. It was there that I met Nobel Laureate Peter Grünberg. He was among the keynote speakers we had at the seminar.

What do we know about Peter Grünberg?

He is a German physicist and shares the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) with Albert Fert. This discovery brought about a major breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives. If you’re using a computer right now, there’s a high probability that the hard disk you have there has a GMR read head.

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Leaving Sendai

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Leaving Sendai

On the Shinkansen heading back for Tokyo! To reward ourselves for a hard day’s work, I bought the beer and my junior bought the gyutan stick. A win-win combo!

Shinkansen’s moving right now so I’ll see y’all in Tokyo real soon!

Sendai Again

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Sendai Again

Left rainy Tokyo and am now in sunny Sendai again for a 2 day seminar. Sendai is a very popular city for holding conferences and seminars. It’s not my first time here because of work. I always enjoy being in Sendai though. Located just under 2 hours by Shinkansen north of Tokyo, she’s ranked quite high on my list of favorite cities in Japan. The weather is great, the girls are cute and gyutan yummy. ^^.

Have you been to Sendai?

More Manly Tofu

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

More Otokomae

I wrote about 男前豆腐 (otokomae tofu) a while back. Am such a big fan that I even have their T-shirt and cap, which I proudly don on tofu days.

When these showed up in the supermarket, naturally I could not resist. 一本気豆腐. How cool a name is that?!

Are you having enough tofu? ^^.

Toyota Prius

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Toyota Prius

Had a chance to drive Toyota’s Prius recently when Nippon Rent-a-Car didn’t have what I wanted. So I though, meh, why not give the “eco car” section a try. There were only 2 cars, Honda Insight and Toyota Prius. Being a frequent customer of Nippon Rent-a-Car, I had in my possession, a ¥4000 discount voucher.

What the heck, I’ll just go with the slightly more expensive Prius.

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Quater Pounder in Japan

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Quater Pounder with Bacon and BBQ Sauce

To commemorate their quarter pounder’s success in Japan, Mcdonalds Japan has released into the wild (and into my tummy) a commemorative variant with bacon and bbq sauce.

Scrumptious. But there was this one thing that bothered me as I had my way with the quarter pounder. I found her buns a little small. I remembered quarter pounders to have bigger buns when I was living in Sydney.

Food portions differ from country to country. Do Mcdonalds’ burgers differ in sizes too?

Glued to the Screen

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

phd110909s

phd111309s

Seriously, when did my life become like that. ^^. Is yours like that too? It doesn’t have to be a computer display, TV counts too you know.