Lotte World theme park in Seoul. Didn't realize Lotte only entered the Korean market from Japan in 1967. Amazing growth.
Visited the famous Starfield Mall in Seoul with a library of over 50 thousand searchable books you can read as you drink coffee.
We are spending a few days in Seoul visiting my daughter who is doing a university exchange here. Beautiful city and for one thing the onigiri/rice ball varieties are great.
typical local scene I came across while walking our dog: a cherry tree in bloom and a small shrine on either side of a memorial to neighborhood war dead
I only viewed the cherry blossoms in passing this year. Now rain is forcing down the remaining blossoms. However, I did see a nice tree in bloom surrounded by concrete between our offices and Tokyo Station last night.
Fascinating lecture last evening at the University of Tokyo by Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo on the sequencing of the Neanderthal Genome and how surprisingly relevant it is for us today.
My submission for excellence in category of US-Japanese cultural synergy. The SPAM rice ball.
A clear, but cold, Tokyo as seen from work on a Thursday morning.
Finished a personal holiday challenge over the holidays. I walked/hiked the entire Gotemba train line. As the train runs through tunnels and over bridges, it is 60.2 km (37.4 mi) according to Wikipedia, but walking it requires lots of extra climbing and alternate routes so not sure how far I walked. Great scenery.
Attending the International Congress of Nutrition in Tokyo. Today's feature is symposium on the Importance of Protein Quality in a Sustainable Diet, featuring the results of the important PROTEOS research project partially supported by Riddet Institute and facilitated by Global Dairy Platform Inc.
