Worldcon Day -1

So, today it's the sleepy town of Ito. Starts with long train ride. Hopefully my feet will forgive me yesterday's punishment.

Dithered around at the station working out trains. Lunch was random thing on a stick. Found the train I wanted. Was confused because the destination board named a station not on the route.

Pleasant, rather tatty seaside town but black sand is a little non-seasidy. Picked up a walking tour map which told me what I'm looking at (but no context). Wasted too much time this morning waking up and getting out. Otherwise would have looked at Atami.

Decided to get the Shinkansen back. Much faster than local trains. And I get to do some train spotting. Taking photos of Shinkansen is hard. Only a few seconds to snap. Shutter lag is big problem.

Back for beer crawl. Joined Steve Rogerson & 13 other geeks to Beer Village, "Cheers" (nice selection of international beers), and an obscure bar on floor 2F (1st floor) of a non-descript building.

We filled the place up.

Decided to leave early. These are hardened beer drinkers, some of whom have had thick bushy beards longer than I've been alive. No way could I keep up.

Worldcon Day 0

I've been here 2 days now. Why am I only now getting Jet lag?

Found the place to register. Bit of a queue.

Volunteered as timekeeper at talk on future of computers. Interesting talk I was tempted to ask detailed questions about Cell vs. Transputer but felt it was probably unfair on the (small) section of the audience that was less techy.

Opening ceremony started well. MCed by some well known voice actress. The mayor of Yokahama made an appearance (brought in on rickshaw) and translation went wrong near the end.

Found a group of Swedish fans and joined them for dinner at Vietnamese restaurant where they played the easy listening version of Boomtown Rats' "Tell Me Why", much to the disdain of the Swedes.

Finished with party 1. The lightweight bid parties.