Asian Chemical Congress and Young Chemist Award Ceremony and Lecture @ Melbourne

The beautiful photo above is from St. Kilda Pier, about 20 minutes by tram from Melbourne, Australia.

From June 22 to 26, I participated in the 17th ACC (Asian Chemical Congress) held in Melbourne. The purpose is for the FACS Distinguished Young Chemist Award (Asia Chemistry Young Chemist Award) award ceremony and award lecture.

I departed from Narita. The transfer was a delay in the United States last time and without transfer using Qantas Airlines. It takes about 10 hours to connect Narita to Melbourne. It took 10 hours and I felt like dying already because it was so long but since the time difference is only 1 hour, I left at night and arrived in the early morning. It took about 20 minutes to get to the station and then by the bus to the Southern Cross station called Skybus.

サザンクロス駅

The hotel was close to the station but it was too early to check in so I waited for a while. I tour around the station and went back to the hotel to work in the lobby. Since I was just working in the hotel room. For dinner, I went to the outlet food court next to the station and ate burrito ball which taste so disgusting and then went back to the hotel early. I completely forgot that there was a welcome reception.

見た目もまずそうでまずい

The next morning, I got up early and take a walk. The weather is not as cold as I thought and wearing a jacket over my shirt would suffice already. I’m simply happy to escape from the heat of Tokyo. Then, I eat breakfast and go to the convention center. The venue is so large and many symposiums are gathered.

This participation event is a bit problematic because there were no program schedules informed even though photos are shown in the website. Not even at the venue! I personally contacted other members and got some information but nobody knows when and where exactly the event starts. People present there have asked so many times, “When and where do will the event happen?”

HPはKeynote Speakersにのってる。でもプログラムがない。

Either way, the lecture and the symposium were on the same day. So, I attended the Tetrahedron Asian Symposium first that on that day and it was successfully done.

テトラヘドロンアジアシンポジウム

I went back to the hotel to work and continued my work. I was going to work until the lecture but ending up working till late night. Since coming to Australia, I haven’t got the chance to eat their local food so I went out alone to eat Aussie beef. I think its been a long time since I eat alone. There is a relatively popular steak house called Rare Steak House which is about 3 minutes on foot. Delicious oysters, steak and beer. The oyster is so small and about two oysters are combined. The beer and steak were amazing.

Started work again and went back to sleep. This routine does not feel that I am in Melbourne and pointless coming here.

The next day, I went to the lecture hall and there were 250 people present. There was already another award ceremony for people who received awards. Shock! There were Bangladesh researcher receiving awards as well which is startling because it is an Asian Chemical Award. There were only 20 people receiving and everyone are free to talk and take pictures using phone freely.

I have a bad feeling for this lecture. In the end, there were only a little more than 20 people including Japanese acquaintances. The award ceremony was also held at Gudaguda where more than 15 minutes of the 50-minute lecture time was spent and eventually I speak less about myself. The Asian Chemistry Union whereby English is unaffected. Is it okay?

In organic chemistry, it was an award that could only be received once every eight years. The lectures of other award winners will continue after the lecture. Somehow, I made it so that I couldn’t see my polymer plate in the blue sky toilet in Bangladesh. I don’t know the meaning anymore. For the time being, I received only what I could get and quickly reached the venue.

Then I met Narumi-san from Shizuoka University and Kondo-kun from Tohoku University. The lecture schedule was almost over that day so I decided to go for a short sightseeing. I went with Kondo-kun and Terada Lab’s student Aoki-kun, Osaka University, Murata Lab’s student Hayashi-kun to St. Kilda Pier as shown in the photo below. It was close to the city area and quite far but it seems like a secret hotspot where wild penguins can be seen in the evening. However, the pinpoint was under construction so the penguins were not seen. The view of the pier at dusk is superb and finally this is Australia? I get to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

At night, I was invited to banquets but I ignored them. Narumi-san, Kondo-kun, Ueda-san from Kobe Pharmaceutical University, Suzuki-san and Ito-san from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and 12 students gather together for dinner. o the meeting. I didn’t get any photo and I also took only one picture. I was able to drink my depression using alcohol. It was a very fun drinking party.

Postscript：Somebody sent me the pictures. Thank you very much!

So, the next morning, I returned to Japan for another 10 hours on an early morning flight. Australia and Melbourne was good and it was first time going to two places in a trip. The awards ceremony and the award lectures were a strange feeling that I wish to never experience again. Positive thinking. This is the “Precious” Asian Chemistry Union Young Chemist Award report.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you for the recommendation of this award from the Organic Chemistry Division of the Chemical Society of Japan. I would be pleased if you could make it a grand one when it was held in Japan.