By Carole Babelot and Alexandre Guignard〈留学生レポート〉

From Limoges to Tajimi
By Carole Babelot and Alexandre Guignard*

The day we learned we could spend almost 7 months
in Japan within the framework of an internship in theCeramics Research Laboratory, we did not hesitate to apply
and to start a fabulous adventure!
Now we are back in Europe and keep amazing memories
of our stay in Tajimi, if you want to know more, please
read our story…
Once the administrative procedures done, once the planetickets booked and once our stuff packed: we finally arrivein Nagoya, on a nice day of March. We had left the rude
Winter of France to enter in the sweet Spring of Japan.
Prof. Ota welcomed us in the airport and he went with
us to Nagoya. He taught us how to take the train and thesubway, which helped us very much of course.

new country. We first discovered the so-big train stationof the city, with the many shops and restaurants (actually,at the very last day of our stay, we have noticed that westill do not know every single place of this building!).
We also visited the famous castle with the beautiful Sakuraand we saw the TV Tower by night.
Now, it was time to go to Tajimi and to see the laboratory,
the student room, the Guest House and all the people ofcourse!

As you can imagine, we were very tired of this longtrip by plane, but we were also already curious of thisThe first week, a barbecue party was organized: food,drink (sake and beer) and good mood! We liked theatmosphere, it was very nice partying with teachers andstudents.

Very soon, we wanted to learn the Japanese language
and we went on Sundays morning to the lessons given
by volunteers in Tajimi. During the second lesson― 51 ―

From Limoges to Tajimi

everybody went to the Asahi Factory in Nagoya. It wasvery nice and we could taste a lot of Asahi beer but also
Asahi juices.
We also had the chance to have a very nice tutor, Imaisan, who taught us the language and who answered ourquestions if we had any about the life in Tajimi.

As we knew, the Baseball is a very famous sport in Japan,
we decided to attend to a game in the Nagoya Dome. It
was a little difficult to understand how to buy tickets inthe konbini (convenience store), but finally we get someand went to a Nagoya Chunichi Dragons versus Chiba Lotte
Marines game with Imai-san and his friend. It was worth
going there for the game itself as well as for the many
animations with the cheerleaders and the dances.

During our long stay in Japan, we spent our time in
the week-end to go and visit a lot of cities as well as Nagoya:- The castle, the Japan Monkey Park and the Meiji-Mura
Museum in Inuyama,- The Japanese-Brazilian festival in Minokamo,- The Biwa Lake, the castle and the Genkyu-en gardenin Hikone,

In early July we were invited to the Seminar of theTokai Young Ceramists in Gifu. It was the first time weattended a conference and we were very curious of theway it would go. It was very interesting even if almost
all the presentations were in Japanese. Actually this isalso the opportunity for all the young ceramists of thecentral Japan to meet and to have fun together.

- The huge golden Buddha and the castle in Gifu,- The Takeshima Island and the Laguna resort in Gamagori,- The Kinkakuji Temple, the Ryoanji Temple and theDaikakuji Temple in Kyoto.
…every time a one-day trip, every time a different place,
every time a new discovery and a lot of pictures taken!

In the middle of September we went with everybody
to Kitakyushu. We visited Nippon Steel, which was very
interesting. In the afternoon we arrived in a very niceJapanese-style hotel. We had a dinner with a lot of various
dishes and spend the rest of the evening in the karaoke.
It was a funny evening for everybody!
On the next day, we could visit the Mojiko Retro area,with the famous train station, the Observation room andthe Kanmon Bridge. It is a very nice place and it was a― 52 ―

By Carole Babelot and Alexandre Guignard

pity that it was raining!

spot for tourism and we understand why! This place isjust heavenly.

We had a good dinner in a Japanese restaurant with many
professors participating at the conference the next day.

Now that the conference was over, we had 3 days time
to visit Tokyo. We had prepared very carefully this trip
because we wanted to make the most of every single minute!

Then the 21st Fall Meeting of the Ceramics Society ofJapan took place. Prof. Ota helped us not being too stressed
about our poster presentation session. He was right, andeverything went good.
Then it was time to leave Kitakyushu and to go by
Shinkansen to Hiroshima, and then by boat to the beautiful
Island of Miyajima. We knew that it was a very famous

The spots that we chose were: Shinjuku with its manyskyscrapers and its big garden, Shibuya and Harajuku withall the shops and the young people, the beautiful Odaiba― 53 ―

From Limoges to Tajimi(Tokyo Bay area), the famous Tokyo Tower, the traditional
Asakusa area, as well as Akihabara which is known as
the place at the cutting edge of technology. We saw somany things in Tokyo that we would need extra pages totell them.
The day before our final departure from Tajimi we hadlunched with the students of the Guest House. Everybody
had prepared something to eat. It was a wonderfulexperience to taste foods from China, Thailand and thePhilippines. Thank you!
And in the evening, the students of the “Composito”
Group cooked for us. It was very nice and we once againdiscovered some Japanese food. We received also many
presents. Arigato gozaimashita!

＊ 08 年 3 月 31 日 〜 10 月 17 日、フ ラ ン ス ENSCI か ら FIRE

program に よ り 来 日 し、 Thermomechanical properties ofmodel refractory materials, influence of microstructure
evokutions and CTE mismatch between phases に関して研究を行った。

Thank you very much to everybody for your warm welcome.
We have learned to know a very nice country as well as very nice people!
Good luck to everybody and we hope to see you again!

― 54 ―