JAMSTEC open day

Yesterday was the open day at JAMSTEC, and they were lucky enough to get the only hot and sunny day all week. Mona and I went there at 8:30 to help Takako-san set up her presentation. As she was just doing a small puppet play of her children's book, 5 people was a bit much to carry 5 bits of cardboard and styrofoam. But we then got the chance to wander around JAMSTEC a bit before the people started comming.

Takako, right, and her 2 assistants (the second is holding up the backdrop, and that's his only job)

The event officially opened at 9:30, and they had counted 2100 people by 11 o'clock. The exibits were all really great, with lots of stuff to see and do, and many animals our for show. We said hello to the PICASSO team, and several other groups of people we see on the bus every morning but didn't really know what they did.

Baby Nemopilema nomurai, the giant japanese jellyfish.

A japanese fellow and his possibly australian friend, that we have been seeing every morning lately, had told us they do "security". This was not much help, and as they always wear nice suits, we had assumed they had office jobs. Well yesterday, the japanese fellow was in a swimsuit and coastguard T-shirt, while his friend was the dummy in the pool in a yellow worksuit. We only spent a litte time in our team's exibit, as it was super crowded, but it seemed to be going well.

Mr. Brine Shrimp, and the stand where you could get your one brine shrimp to take home.

In the afternoon, Mai came to join us. She is a school nurse at Yokosuka, also living at Soleil-Oppama. So we got to do the tour again, but this time showing her only the most interesting bits. These included a wonderful cola-menthos volcano, with the final presentation going all the way to the 2nd story of the building. We also took the tour of the Karei which was fun, as Mai started fiddling with the ship controls and had to be shown out of the wheel house.

And at noon I ate what was possibly whale meat. I didn't know it at the time of course, but apparently that's what was in the burgers. It was very good, I must say, but if it was whale meat, you can save the whales by eating cow, because that's pretty much what it tastes like.

JAMSTEC open day finished at 4pm, and we stayed pretty much to the end. And now it had gone back to being rainy. It was a perfect day in all respects.