Memory: From My Japan Diary

When I got back from Japan on 22 October, I became too much busy in writing my thesis. I found that research is really tough. I already planned to complete my thesis until April. But my supervisor is really an inspiring person for me. Thanks to Purushottam sir, my office director for your encouragement to complete my thesis. Due to that I successfully defended my midterm. I am waiting for my Final defense. I am still in struggle to finalize my thesis. During this time, I felt I have to write something about my remembrance on my blog.
During my three months stay in Japan, I had gained a lot of experience about the technology, culture, education etc... I felt something differences with me after returning back from Japan. First difference is my picture. Here I just compared my own picture just after arrival in Japan and just before departure from Japan.

Arrival

Departure

These two picture clearly told that I became more thinner (but I felt, I became stronger and no more change in weight...as it is but these pictures were taken from different camera).
During my stay, I had continued writing my diary. At my final presentation, I also committed that I would complete my Japan Diary and will send one copy to SFC room. But due to my thesis and other official works, I am still unable to complete my diary yet. Though, I want to copy some memorable notes from my diary on my blog.
From the Abstract……..Study is the main part of my stay in Japan; in addition to this I had some fun with Japanese peoples and cultures which is a necessary part for a foreigner. And I also became lucky that I got chance to be in Kyoto city which is the beautiful ancient city of Japan with world’s big conference named SIGCOMM2007 and Mozilla 24hr Event in Tokyo……………………..

July 25 Wednesday to 29 Saturday (first week)
It was my first time going to abroad. As Nepal is a developing country, I don’t have much more idea to be familiar with machine. I heard that Japan is a well developed country. I am one of the poor family members of Nepal. So I become little afraid that how could I handle freeze, washing machine, microwave oven etc…
……….I dropped on Narita airport around 7:30PM JST, after having custom check, I caught limousine bus to Yokohama terminal where I met funya-san and after thirty minutes we welcomed Mr. Raden Arif from Indonesia. We directly came to campus. i was really excited with the campus environment, its furnishing and lab setup……

July 30 to august 4 (2^nd week)
We had to conduct one day IPv6 only workshop for forty-three participants between July 31^st to October 16. Abazh guided us to handle the workshop properly. Handling the Virtual Machine and during the workshop was quite interesting like watching user’s activities and suggested during mistakes……
……On the Saturday, we went to Akihabara to purchase camera and laptop. Me, Abazh, Arif and another Indonesian friend, Dedy went to Akihabara. First I really surprised by seeing the big train terminal. We reached Akihabara changing train on Yokohama and Shinagawa. Ohhh another big city, full of electronic gadgets. We all were foreigner, so sometimes we lost inside Akihabara and finally we got the shop for my camera. I had already set my mind to purchase Finepix S6000 FD model by FujiFilm Company……

August 5 to august 18 (3^{rd &} 4^th week)
On these two weeks, I just tried to learn Japanese language myself. But I felt that the katakana as well as hiragana scripts are not so complex but kanji symbols were found to be complex to understand…… I had travelers check of American express. I hadn’t known about how to change that check. I tried to get idea about it by funya and kotaro. They suggested me to goto banks around Shonandai. But it would be difficult for me to find bank on shonandai………
…..Some days before while we were in Shonandai where we went there just for shopping, I saw an office named Softbank. I just thought in mind that “ohhh this is the bank which might change my money”. On the following day, SFC was closed due to special occasion. I grabbed that office time and went to Shonandai by myself, entered into that office and requested for money exchange by showing the travelers check. Ha ha ha.they laughed and just got surprised. Suddenly one officer (she was a gal) typed something in her computer and wrote a sentence in a paper that “it is not a bank here”. Might be she just translated her Japanese language into English and wrote to me. Ohhhh..i laughed then..ha ha……

August 26 to September 1 (6^th week)
We two (Arif and me) had to come to Kyoto by bullet train on Sunday, 26^th august. We were somehow afraid about whether we loss inside the transit, what could we do?? By the way, it was so easy to reach to the Kyoto city. Bullet train (NOZOMI-SHINKANSEN)!!! 300Km/hr, Wowww I cant imagine how Japanese build such a system/technology…….
… I am very much thankful to Keiko-san for such a nice opportunity to appear on this world’s top conference related to computer network. During this 5 days conference I met 3 Microsoft Researchers, FreeBSD Developer, CISCO managers and professors form different universities. By the way I became lucky that I got mail-id from almost all presenters. This is my big achievement and experience about to participate in such a conference and acquiring latest information about network/routing from IETF members, Microsoft researchers and professors. What I found that it is really incomparable about the learning technique of Nepal with other countries……
Preparation for the Mozilla 24hr events on Mita campus Tokyo
We were already informed by Funya that we had to support in the Mozilla event. So our major responsibilities were

• to create 5 minutes cultural video

• to control VIC/RAT of all SOI-ASIA partners and

• other technical as well as management support for the event

On 8^th September, Abazh, Arif, Funya and me went to Akihabara city to take some videos. Travelling along the city on that day was quite interesting; we took several videos and pictures and entered into a café for the coffee break……

September 16 to September 22 (9^th week)
There was problem in TU-RR as it was already notified by my staff at TU. But due to lack of time I was unable to give him time and also the time to meet him was not matching…. The problem was quite magic that the downstream interface of RR was not working. I requested him to send the rc.conf file through mail…. Then I suspected that there might be problem in IPv4 address assignment line in rc.conf file. Wauuu I found that there was a big mistake (typo error) on that line. I found the line as:
Ifconfig_fxp1="inet 202.249.24.209 netmask 255.255.255.248"

But it should be:

ifconfig_fxp1="inet 202.249.24.209 netmask 255.255.255.248"

The letter “I” became capital during typing.

Oct. 7 to oct 13 (12^th week)
On Sunday, we four interns went to Akihabara to purchase some electronic goods. This is my 3^rd visit to Akihabara where I purchased watch, camera and USB HDD for my laptop…….As it couldnot find booting information for OS so stuck after loading BIOS. I got tension..ufff I had several packages intalled on my note, specially I was analyzing VMware, what could I do?? Any way I couldnot recover my note and finally I installed fress XP and reinstalled my all necessary packages on Monday……

Oct 14 to Oct 21 (13th week, last)
Now I entered into last week of my three months internship period. This week was a buffer week for me to be prepared for final presentation together with problem analysis of VMware………. I had to reduce the slides drastically to not more than 40 slides. By the way, on Wednesday, my supervisor Abazh suggested me to present only the additional task and experiences. Thanks god! I prepared slides of my additional task and three months experiences on Japan…..

……Monday morning, my time to left Japan came. I left Leo-Palace on 8AM saying bye bye to Japan and caught the train to reach to Yokohama and got back to my country around 5PM from Narita Airport by Thai Airways successfully.

Hindu’s Live function: one week ceremony (SAPTAHA) in Vanasthali Ekaltar

its about one and half week I returned back from Japan but due to office work load I were so hanged up. By the way, near in my home at vanasthali, a new temple has been established and people of that zone are conducting one week special ceremony so called “Hindu Maha Yegya”. I spent my half day on that ceremony and captured several photos of that special function. This program is specially dedicated to hindus where peoples gather there and listen speech by pandit (who described all about puran). We know the book of muslim is Kuran, Buddha is Tripitak and cristian is Byble. Specially elder people above 50 years old and married women like listening this program. I felt very interesting by today’s program as its musical and so exciting. Though I am hindu, I don’t like such kind of program, in the sense that it’s a kind of superstition. The pandit try to spread out things written inside puran but I felt almost all written inside this book is superstition but today from his lecture I found some scientific reason also and I felt that its 1800 years old book (puran) which describeed logical and technological things as well. Lets see some snapshots of this ceremony.

Newly Established Temple at Ekaltar Vanasthali, KTM

Gatherings on the function and listening prabachan

nominated persons who donated Rs 10,000 for the temple

excellent pandit (guru) who spreads puran to all

GOD inside temple (mahadev)

Asian Night: one more beautiful party with special foods

20th October 2007, almost at the end of my internship period in SFC. This night is really more interesting for me. Thai foods, Myanmar foods, Nepalese Foods, Indonesian Foods, Japanese Foods and American Foods..wauuuu what a great combinations. The main objective of Asian Night is a food party in which everybody has to prepare their own food on the spot. This food party is specially dedicated for interns who have to make food of their own country.

We were four interns at that time. Ni from Thailand, chaw from Myanmar, Arif from Indonesia and Me (Dawadi) from Nepal with SFC staffs and professors. We made our own country foods. Previously I was wonder about how to make Nepalese food. Actually I didn’t know the special Nepalese food but I had some Nepalese recipe (Nepalese rice, meat masala, curry masala, and daal). I declared to make Nepalese rice, chicken curry potato salad (aalu ko achar) and almond bara. I was not perfect about cooking though I have more than 3 years cooking experience but I don’t have any experience to make special Nepalese food. Any way I prepared food by Nepalese style. I tested all foods of Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, American and Japanese. I liked foods from each country. This is a kind of good experience about sharing culture related with food by different countries. It was almost 10PM night. We returned back Leo-palace by car with Haruhito-san. Let us see some snapshots of different country’s food:

Nepalese Rice and Checken Fry

Busy in Cooking and preparing

Preparing Chicken for cooking ha haha

All Country Foods

Testing different country foods

My important moment: I got certificate of my three months internship periods. Prof. Dr. Keiko Okawa and Prof. Dr. Jun Murai provided me that certificate with blessing. Thank you very much Profesors. I will do my best towards your dreams.
Myanmar Food

Thai Food: Tom Yam kung

Indonesian Food

American Food

At the end of my internship period: Final Presentation in SFC

Ohhh..i am in the last stage of my three months internship period in SFC. No more time it takes to pass the time. I completed my three months learning in Murai-LAB, Japan. Our final presentation was set on Thursday 1PM sharp. On this week I was almost in hurry to prepare my final presentation. Almost time, I thought about how to summarize my three months study within 20 Minutes. Just the day before we visited KDDI NOC (Network Operation Center) where the professor at university of Tokyo demonstrated us security center of Japan, NTT network and WIDE Network. We first visited university of Tokyo and after meeting professor kato, he started demonstrating the network operation of Tokyo University. I am really impressed by such a great professor about his knowledge to operate network as well as his nice demonstrating style.

I had never ever imagined that how the security system could be implemented. By this visit, I realized that it’s a great job and great way to control and secure the data. You may have three layers of security to reach to the gear. I don’t want explain any more about this because it’s a secret about security implemented by Japanese. It’s not under my rights to explain this.

I come to my final presentation now. On Wednesday evening, my supervisor advised me to reduce to slides drastically and made me to explain just about my additional task. I started summarizing my slides of my additional task only. It was being very hard for me to reduce the slides..because I have to reduce it from 93 to 25 only. Any way I reduced all the make the complete slides which included my experiences also. It was about 46 slides to be completed on 20 minutes..might be impossible but I just tried to show slides fast. On this final day of my learning, professor keiko-san, supervirors, funya-san, sayaka-san were my audiences. I would like to express my sincere thanks to my professors, supervisors, supporters and all SFC members/staffs. Without your support, nothing was possible. Bbut my time in Japan was really memorable, beautiful and invaluable.

Final Presentation from my Laptop

My presentation Slides

Group photo: fom left abazh, sayaka,chaw, babu, prof. Keiko, Arif & Ni

Group Photo at the end of presentation

Problem with my laptop in my vmware-week

Full of entertainment as well as full of trouble for me around this week. Last Sunday, we four interns were in akihabara. The traffic is almost closed inside akihabara on sunday and people come across the road for fun. We saw several fun programs and models (ha ha ha) advertising live on the road about company’s products. I spent almost 35 thousands yen on that day in akihabara by which I bought watch, USB HDD and next Digital Camera. Though I already have camera, I purchased the 2^nd one as due to its cheapness.

On that night, I did some nuty things with my laptop. I inserted my new USB HDD, created the disk and also I deleted the old hidden disk which contained some boot information and backup of my laptop. Fortunately, I backed up my all contents to USB HDD before restarting my laptop. So no problem at all. When I restarted my note, ohhh..it could not load OS from the BIOS. Uffff…. “OS not found ..press any key to reboot”. It was around 12:30AM night. So disconnected from net..what could I do? I could not repair at all on that night. My XP CD was alo not with me..coz it had alerady been taken by sudarshan at tokyo. I called sudarshan soon and planned to go to his dormitory early morning. Badluck, sudarshan couldnot find that CD in his room..suspected to be left on college. After having lunch from sudarshan’s room, we went to his campus for CD. Thanks god, I got the CD and started upgrading my laptop. The CD upgraded my laptop successfully but couldnot write boot information again. So same problem repeated. Then I just format all and reinstalled the XP. After fresh installation, no drivers of audio, video, network…..ufff..i had to go to LAB to make my note up. So I directly came to LAB and installed all drivers. Then got back to leo-palace by catching last bus from KEIO. Still I didn’t had office installed in my note. On the next day, I got office 2007 backp copy from chaw’s note.

XP installation process in my note in tokyo college

Installation Progress snapshots

Since two weeks before I have been working with VMware server installation and configuration. I had to prepare presentatin of my Vmware but all VMs from my note gone due to reformat. Extra burden……I just reinstalled everything and started analyzing my VMs again ha ha.

This week is my vmware week. i installed three FreeBSD in three VMs and tested with different network connection. VMware is really interesting. It’s a real OS emulation. Everything can be done with VM like what we can do with real machine. VMware DISK image creating (VMDK file), changing configuration on .VMX file and testing etc…

Yesterday I faced one trouble with test in my VMs. Then command “vmware-cmd” has several functionalites. We can control almost everythings from command line using vmware-cmd command like registering/unregistering VMs, starting/stopping/suspending/resetting VMs, changing the network configuratin and other configuratin parameters by setconfig command options etc..

I tried to change the network topology and make two routers conned to same network. When I ran the command:

#Vmware-cmd c:\virtual machines\BSD3\FreeBSD.vmx setconfig Ethernet1.vnet VMnet3

Setconfig (Ethernet1.vnet VMnet3)=1

It seems that it changed the network to VMnet3

#Vmware-cmd c:\virtual machines\BSD3\FreeBSD.vmx getconfig Ethernet1.vnet

Ethernet1.vnet = Vmnet3

But can’t ping to another PC, that means though the network changed, but didn’t show the effect of change. I roamed 3 /4 hrs on this problem. The solution is simple…I have to disconnect and reconnect the ethernet device to see an effect.

The following video is a sample road side music played by foreigner in Akihabara city japan during their leisure time.

Nagatsuta cooking & Kamakura Tour

This week, I entertained more. Cause last Sunday, I went to nagatsuta, sudarshan’s apartment where we traveled whole day around big supermarket. These days I become the nice cook ha ha. I cooked even in sudarshan’s room.

my dinner sausage

cooking in sudarshan's room

sudarshan just helped me in cooking ha ha

Today’s tour to Kamakura is another interesting part for me. We, four interns of SFC planned already to go to kamakura, the city equipped with lots of temples and historical places. We all are from different countries. Ni (Thailand), Chaw (Mynmar), Arif (Indonesia) and Dawadi (Nepal) ha ha ha..we enjoyed travelling around the kamakura city and beach. We visited big statue of BUDDHA. I knew, Nepal is the birth place of lord Buddha but Buddha is famous in japan. There were numerous people going towards Buddha and eager to take photos. I also took some snapshots of Buddha. It seems that kamakura city is like bhaktapur city of Nepal. This city has several temples.

kamakura..sample photo

big lord buddha in Kamakura

small, newly established buddha in kamakura ha ha ha

Modern City of Japan: Odaiba

Yesterday, I discussed with my friend sudarshan about our plan for tour to somewhere else around tokyo. So i invited him to my room yerterday evening. This morning we planned to move to Odaiba city. While I was in nepal, I heard that, there is a big city in Japan which is built just after dumping the garbase on the sea. Now I knew that the city established over the dumping site is Odaiba. Its another city of out of imagination for me. The city infrastructures, management and from every aspects, odaiba is nice city what I found. I am just a guest of japan for three months but sudarshan, who came one year before to tokyo institute of technology for masters study in electrical and electronic enginnering, is like habitant of japan. Fisrt sudarshan brought me to his university at o-okayama and we spent our whole day on odaiba city. I didn’t feel any tiredness walking around the city though we walked whole day around.

with sudarshan in my room at fujisawa
tokyo institute of technology, computer science building

statue of liberty at Odaiba

woman beah volleyball in Odaiba-Beach

In Odaiba Ranbow Bridge

Last Sunday’s Trip: Enoshima Island

Actually it was arif’s plan as to go to Enoshima island. Thanks my friend arif for your effort to identify such a nice island and beach close to our resident. Its just 10mins train travel from shonandai to enoshima beach and island. Wauuu..really small and pretty island I ever seen. This is my first experience walking around the island. The island is natural and piece having temples of budda’s and beautiful sceneries around the beach. We reached at the peak of island and captured several photos of beach and other peculiar food items specially sea foods. We spent our whole day walking around the island