Two days ago, I received a phone call from the main German funding agency, the DFG. After briefly talking about the details of my new Heisenberg Fellowship, the topic suddenly changed to Japan. What in Japan would I think of in terms of my own research? I was a bit stumped, I knew people in Japan who I had worked together with, but neither of them were in my direct field, only related fields. There are only very few people in my direct field and most of them I know personally and rather well. However, just stepping a little outside of my immediate field, and there is almost a department in every university on this planet who does somethig related, so I couldn't come up with anything specific at this point.
I then learned that the DFG had apparently established a new office in Japan (couldn't find anything official to link to) and was now sending a delegation of young German scientists to Japan to look for possible collaborations between Japanese and German laboratories. If I was interested in joining them? Needless to say, I was more than enthusiastic, I was thrilled (and still am)!
The plan is to participate in the meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society in mid-September and then fan out and visit Japanese laboratories with potential for collaborations.

Of course, one of the Japanese colleagues in related fields is Kei Ito. He is one of the eminent experts in identifying and targeting individual neuronal circuits in the Drosophila nervous system. There are a few Aplysia labs I'd like to have a look at and also some vertebrate neuroscience/psychology labs. Let's see how the schedule is going to pan out. What a fantastic opportunity and honor! Thanks so much Jan Kunze, for thinking of me in this respect!