Dear Students, Faculty members and Staff

GSFS will host the 4th Mochitsuki Taikai (Rice Cake Making Festival) celebrating the start of the New Year 2013! The number of participants has been expanding year by year, and we expect more people to come and enjoy the festival in 2013. Various types of mochi (rice cakes), such as plain mochi, tochi mochi (tochi is the Japanese horse chestnut) and mochi mixed with black beans will be served. We also have some traditional Japanese New Year games such as koma (top spinning), tako-age (kite flying), and hanetsuki (traditional game similar to badminton without a net) to make the festival even more enjoyable.

The best part of Rice Cake Making is that the kneaded dough-like rice sticks together, yet can transform itself by pulling or stretching it. The Rice Cake symbolizes the interdisciplinary nature of GSFS where challenges enable students to “stretch” their abilities and “transform” themselves into something new and wonderful.
Let's all hope for the further progress of our research and the development of GSFS, and enjoy the beginning of the New Year by making Rice Cake together at the outset of New Year. 
We welcome all the students, faculty members and staff in the Kashiwa campus!

Takuya Ueda
Dean, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo