My Sabbatical Trip

18. Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

This Aquarium used to be the world's largest public aquarium when it first opened in 1990 (Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan - Wikipedia). It is a very interesting design structurally and architecturally, as it is basically a spiral walkway going down and circling a huge water tank, which holds two of their largest whale sharks:) 

It is beautifully done and all you need to do is just follow the downward road after taking a very tall escalator up. Ticket price is a bit high, but worth the experience. Also the entrance is timed so line up for tickets or book it ahead of time:)

If you have to wait for entrance, the nearby mall has a lot to offer, including a HUGE Ferris wheel and shop for Fake food!

19. Osaka Museum of Housing and Living

This little museum is quite a pleasant surprise. If you are into history and like buildings, this is a good place to visit. Basically they re-created the old Osaka streets and buildings within an indoor space. if you have been to Las Vegas, it is something like that. The weather and lights change to represent day and night, with artificial fireworks. 

It is great to visit all year round since it is indoor and fully AC. For tourists who need Kimono/Yukata pictures, they have rental and all the props, at a very reasonable price!

Another level contains miniature models and very informative presentations on history of Osaka and people. Plan at least half a day there for your visit.

20. Show me the Money! Osaka Mint

This is worth a visit if you like money (who doesn't?) and history. But the drawback is there is no English... All Japanese. You can probably get by with Google Translate but I dont know if it is worth the time unless you are really into this. The exhibit includes real ancient Japanese and Chinese money, including real gold nuggets and coins.

The Mint is also responsible for making medals, including the Olympic medal in 2020. For coin collectors, you have coins for Doraemon, EVA, and One Piece! They do have a gift shop where you can buy some good stuff.

21. Stroll around Uji

Uji is famous for a recent anime series called "Sound! Euphonium" describing slice of life stories about a high school band competing for the Nationals. In the visiting center you can see poster with the author's signature. It was animated by a local studio Kyoto Amination, which was hit by an arson fire attack in 2019 with 36 casualties ( fire happened during working hours) Kyoto Animation - Wikipedia. This tragedy shock the Japanese Anime industry. In Uji, you can see PR of the new season of the show everywhere, it is still animated by Kyoto Anime and people support the show also for the resilience of the studio.

Since the story happened in Uji, there are a lot of locations people visit to follow the path of the anime characters. Like this mountain top overlooking Uji. and the iconic concrete Keihan Uji station

Uji has many other attractions, shrines and stone tower (supposed to be the largest stone tower in Japan). So a visit to Uji is worth it if you have half a day in Kyoto (did I already said that?) Of course you get Mocha ice-cream here

22. Lake Biwa and museum

Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan. Historically quite important since it is close to Kyoto. It is only 30 min drive from Kyoto so if you are tired of temples and shrines.

There are some overlook places along the west shore that has gondola access and restaurants on the top. But you can also just drive along the shore and visit some cities. Near Hikone you can fine ruins of the Azuchi Castle for Oda Nobunaga, legendary warrior lord of the waring period in Japan.

One thing that is worth seeing is the Lake Biwa Museum, which is managed by the Shiga prefecture. This museum is all about the nature and society around lake Biwa, from the ancient time to now. The exhibition collections are very rich and diverse. We thought it will be a 2 hour visit but end up spending almost the entire day there! The museum is just by the lake so it also has an outdoor portion you can enjoy the lake view.

After the Museum, we also drove around the lake and visited a temple in the lake (literally). What is more amazing than the temple was the pine trees. Japanese people do take care of their beautiful pine trees. There is another tree with long extending branches in another temple near the lake. They put supports around it to encourage the braches to extend…resulting in a pretty interesting tree. To add to the novelty of this temple, it is a steel structure! With W beams and stuff, first time seeing a temple in Japan built using steel material.

23. E-Defense

This is where everything started. So a bit side-track about my sabbatical trip of 2024, let’s go way back to 1995… when the Great Hanshin Earthquake (also known as Kobe Earthquake) happened in Japan and flatted out Kobe.

This disaster triggered the necessity of large scale shake table testing facilities that can test and collapse full-scale buildings. The Japanese government commissioned E-Defense shake table under the NIED. It is located in Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture, just an hour drive from Kobe. At about 40x60 ft table top, the E-Defense table is the world’s largest shake table (I heard it was recently exceeded by a Chinese table by half a meter in size…). Not really a typical tourist destination (and you cannot just drop by and visit since there might be tests going on…). But it is probably the place I visited the most in Japan due to my work.

Initially, I was working on my PhD and then as a Post-Doc under my former advisor Prof. John W. van de Lindt. That’s when we did the 6 (7 if you count the bottom steel moment frame) story NEESWood test with my buddy Steve Pryor. The Japanese collaborator on the project… right, was Isoda-san when he was still in ShinShu University. His student on the project back then was Kazuki Tachibana-san, who later became the lead industry collaborator (at Sumitomo Forestry) on the NHERI TallWood project. So speaking of team-building…

This all started when John heard about the opening of the E-Defense Lab and talked with NSF and the NEES program at that time. A small group of researchers from the U.S. went and met with NIED researchers, resulting in a collaboration program before NSF and NIED. U.S. researchers on NSF program can use the E-Defense table for (almost) free! NEESWood is the first U.S. project doing that in 2009, followed by a number of other projects (including base isolation TIPS project by my later Co-PI Keri Ryan, at that time I didn’t know her at all).

Technically, based on the NIED-NSF shared use agreement, Japanese researchers can also come to the U.S. and use the NEES facility for free, but no one from Japan really did that, until many years later when my collaborator Sumitomo Forestry tested their design on the NHERI TallWood project.

After a while, Isoda-san started to test full-scale CLT buildings at E-Defense. We have to go take a look… You can also see my co-PI Dan Dolan in this picture in this early visit around 2016, when we are contemplating the NHERI TallWood project on the U.S. side.

From 2009 to present (minus COVID years), there have been some routine U.S.-Japan seismic research collaboration meeting between NSF and NIED. A lot of professors and engineers were visiting E-Defense from the U.S. You can see my Co-PI Keri Ryan and collaborator Andre Barbosa here…. Technical meetings always followed by friendly dinner and drinks. Very good times…

Around 2018, I was involved in a project using Drone to monitor damage on some test specimen at E-Defense (from the Tokyo Resilience project for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, at that time Japan is preparing to have a huge amount of visitors coming in during the summer of 2020. Nobody could expect what is to happen next…). I actually dragged a drone from the NSF Rapid center in Seattle to Japan, during cold January. That was the last time I visited E-Defense before COVID. I did not get back to the table until my Sabbatical trip, so that is 6 years!

Now here we are. Back to E-Defense again in 2024 through my contact with Isoda-san (basically I had him arranged a visit for me with the engineer he knows there). This time I was able to go under the table to see the huge actuators and also the engine room for hydraulics. Again, not a typical tourist attraction but definitely a must visit for me on the sabbatical trip!

24. Himeji Castle

About an hour from Kobe, Himeji Castle is one of the few ancient wooden castles preserved in Japan that still allow people to climb up. The Castle belonged to regional war lords loyal to Tokugawa Ieyasu, even married his granddaughter Senhime (千姫 Senhime - Wikipedia) after her husband (Toyotomi Hideyori) was killed (more accurately committed suicide) by Ieyasu... yeah, Japanese politics during warring period can be a bit messy. It almost feel the "Hime" in Himeji Castle's name is associated with Senhime, who lived a tragic life (her later husband and son died early due to illness also).

The Castle is stunning and beautiful. Mostly just a lot of heavy timber gravity frames, with two huge pillars of 25+ meters tall. Thus the castle is almost like two pagoda coupled together. This structure survived over 400 years worth of earthquake, without any apparent lateral system (yeah, there is no bracing....). It also survived bombing of WWII.

A must see if you are in the area, as iconic as the Todaiji Temple. Frankly, more to a structural engineer's taste because you can climb it:) The surrounding buildings and gardens are also in the same package and worth a visit. The only issue will be if you have enough time to go over all!

25. A long day in Osaka

If you like food, shopping, and places full of people, Osaka is the place to be. Very lively town and much less business-looking than Tokyo. You can start the day with Takoyaki (Japanese octopus balls) which can be bought anywhere around tourist attractions.

First go to Osaka Castle park, since we already visited the Castle, this time you can go to the nearby shrine dedicated to Toyotomi Hediyoshi. He is originally a farmer, raised to samurai rank and eventually unified Japan. Still, the size of the stone they used to build the Osaka Castle grounds is truly amazing

Then you can go south on the Osaka loop line and reach Shitenno-Ji (Shitennō-ji - Wikipedia), which is a Buddhist temple sometimes regarded as the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan. The buildings and temples are definitely not old, as the site was re-built many times across history. The current buildings are actually concrete, not wood.

From the temple, it is a short walk to Tsutenkaku Tower (Tsūtenkaku - Wikipedia), designed by the same guy who did Tokyo tower. On the way we passed a wired modernistic temple that has a lot of people going in. It turns out this temple physically use the ashes of the deceased to build Buddha statues and keep them in the temple. Yeah… instead of going to a grave yard you can visit your passing relatives in the temple and offering incense…

Tsutenkaku tower has nothing to do with religion, it is just a commercial tourist attraction. The price for going up is a bit steep in my opinion, so just walking around is fine. It is almost time for lunch, so we have the classic Osaka food: OKonomiyaki

After lunch, stroll to the center of Osaka: Dotonbori (Dōtonbori - Wikipedia). There are a lot of window shopping along the streets of Osaka, from the more innocent anime gadgets to questionable maid café, to blatant adult themed contents (not gonna post it here!)… Sometimes I feel it is crazier than Tokyo. When you actually reached Dotonbori, it is actually just food, and a TON of people! This is the typical Japan you see on TV shows!

There is this penguin Ferris wheel on top of a building besides the river, I have to do itJ All in all, I really like Osaka, it is a very lively city.

26. Bamboo forest, temple and monkey in west Kyoto

Taking the Saga-Arashiyama line from Kyoto Station, you can arrive in another famous location in Kyoto that you might have seen on tourism ads. The bamboo forest of Aashi mountain, known for its manual rickshaw carts for iconic pictures for tourist. Of course you will see a lot of tourists here.

Walking through the bamboo trail, you will naturally arrive in Tenryu-Ji temple, which is famous for its garden (Tenryū-ji - Wikipedia). The main temple overlooking a large pond makes a great scenery. It was raining heavily when we were there and you can take shelter under the temple roof. The pond in the rain is especially beautiful. You can pay extra to enter the temple hall, but we did not do that. Natural scenery is great enough!

Getting out of the temple and walk a bit south, you will get to the Katsura river, which is beautiful in its own right. Tons of snack shops on the pedestrian street. Go across the bridge on the river, you will see the entrance to the Monkey mountain. It is actually quite a hike to get to the mountain top to see the monkeys. Do NOT rent kimono if you want to climb the mountain, make sure you have good hiking shoes!

After about 30 min hike, you are on the top and can have a nice overview of west Kyoto. And you can see monkeys…..and even feed them in a cage (you are in a cage, they are free on the outside….)

27. Gion Festival

If you are in Kyoto during July, you can experience one of the three main festivals in Japan. Gion Festival (Gion Matsuri - Wikipedia) involves about 4 weeks of celebration in Kyoto where people construct and drag elaborate floats around the city. The origin of the Festival dated back many years and mainly was for prevention of illness and pandemic during summer.

The center of the Gion Festival is Yasaka shrine (Yasaka Shrine - Wikipedia). If you stay around during the night, there is more activities and people will even carry the shrine cart on their shoulder and dance in the street. I stayed and watched that about 15 years ago when I was traveling alone in Japan after the NEESWood project. But this time I did not stay at night, and simply watched the parade during the day.

28. Okayama Korakuen

We took a road trip after the Gion Festival to Kyushu by car. The first stop was Okayama, which is a mid-size city famous for its garden: Kōraku-en (後楽園, Kōrakuen Kōraku-en - Wikipedia) is one of the three greatest gardens of Japan, built in 1700 right by the side of Okayama Castle.

The garden is pretty big with different landscapes, even some rice fields. Inside you can find many boulders that were dissembled and shipped in and re-assembled…. It is like Lego of Rock! I guess the designer really like the formation of the rocks but there is no way to haul them in one piece!

After a stroll around the garden we visited Okayama Castle (Okayama Castle - Wikipedia). This is a replica since the original one was destroyed by air raid in 1945.  The reconstructed castle is a concrete building complete with air-conditioning (you will appreciate that if you visit during summer), elevators and numerous displays documenting the castle's history (with a heavy focus on the Ikeda Clan era.) Ikeda Clan was the owner of the Castle after the warring period of Japan, they are allies of Tokugawa during the Edo period and commissioned the building of Korakuen.

Okayama is about 3 hour drive from Kyoto. A nice mid-stop if you are travel to Hiroshima. But we continued to drive for an hour to stay at Fukuyama in order to save some driving the next day, the hotel (Vessel Hotel Fukuyama) free breakfast is Super nice, putting American hotels to shame….

29. Hiroshima

If there is one photo that needs no explanation, this is it.

Hiroshima Peace Museum has very detailed description of the entire history and aftermath of the nuclear bombing event in 1945. It is a very educational and emotional visit, definitely not for fun. You will go through and realize the impact of war to its fullest degree, cherishing the peace we have today.

Aside from the historical facts and data, there are arts depicting the horror of atomic bomb. There are many artifacts on display, donated to the museum from survivors and their families. People were burnt and radiated, their belongings carbonized and building destroyed. Even when someone survived the first impact, they typically die early due to cancer induced by radiation. All from the result of about a cubic inch of Uranium fission!

Outside you can see the actual Peace Memorial pointing at the Atomic Dome. In the museum collection is also a letter to President Roosevelt from none other than Albert Einstein that started the U.S. development of A-bomb, for better or worse.

30. Attack on Titan @ Hita

Anime is a huge soft power of Japanese culture, it is like Hollywood to the U.S. My family started watching Attack on Titan (AOT) during the Covid lock down as a pass time, but soon realized it is much more than some random kids show. If there is one anime show you will ever watch, AOT is a pretty good choice. It is not a great anime show, it is a great TV show period. I think it is at the same if not higher level as Game of Throne (the first 7 seasons, 8 is garbage) or Breaking Bad…

Part of the reason why we drive all the way to Kyushu is to visit the hometown of the author of AOT, this small rural town called Hita. To see the museum on AOT and some statue sites.

Going from Hiroshima to Hita, we pass another park where they have a statue of the Spear of Longinus from Spear of Longinus | Evangelion | Fandom  Neo-Genesis Evangelion, another Classic Japanese anime series that re-defined big Mech genre. If you know you know, just a picture here. We also passed some lovely little rest stop along the way. Japanese rest stops along the highway is always cute! You got convenient stores for food, and typically a super market with local produces! And a cut board for photo op!

Under the large hydro dam in Hita, the iconic scene was re-created of three protagonists looking at colossal titan emerge on the top of the wall that protected the city for over 100 years. You can also find the signature of palm print of the author of AOT on the base of the statue.

Then you can move to a separate site that houses the AOT museum (just a small building near a local park), with many original sketches of many classic scenes in the anime. They have the author’s childhood drawings also… about some tooth paste hero protecting your teeth, which is kind of funny. The museum has props you can do the classic “dedicate your heart” pose 😀 

There are actually 2 locations for the AOT display. The other one is also worth going as they have a short emersion video experience which is good, and more systematic display of different chapter and timeline of the story. Finally before you leave Hita, make sure you stop by the train station for the statue of captain Levi.