Wednesday night-ish – Dis-Oriented

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Just back from a very fruitful and useful trip to ‘the orient’.. and feelign suitibly ‘disoriented’ to be back.

 

Started the first of my two wednesdays with breakfast with my old friend Muryama-san

 

 

 

THen meetings at IBM Research lab with all my Friends

 

then about 17 hours of flying which included the worlds worst tasting cookies !

Wednesday night-ish - Dis-Oriented

 

I loved my trip, talkign to folks, experiencign the cuture and the sights.. but nothing compres to coming home for me..

73 degrees, cool and green.. ahhhhhhhhhhh

 

there’s really no place like home…

 

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

Tuesday night – RTE

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Great day today in Tokyo.. First breakfast with Sam, A very smart HR guy here at IBM Japan.. Then my talk at Japan’s Regional Technical Exchange. There were about 400 folks here.. my talk went pretty well (i think  ?)

I ran into my very good friend Takeo-san in the crowd..   She and I traveled all over the world together for several years as part of the academy leadership.. It was so good catching up with her.

After that Shiu-san and Kobayashi-san spent a couple of hours taking me to lunch and showing me around Tokyo a bit. It was really fun hanging out with them ..

we stopped in to southbank check out this robot.. pretty cool !

we then headed back to the lab for my next talk.. I was amazed to see little kids.. maybe 8 years old riding the subway by themselves !

 

 

i got to connect with some old friends in the lab including Akiko-san and Kajitani san.. very good catching up with them technically and personally.

 

akiko-san was proud to show off her ‘nerd barbie’.

 then I gave my talk. it was for a really nice group of external bloggers. They asked some really great questions.I really enjoyed hanging out with them.

 

then I headed back to the hotel.. , met up with my buddy sebastian and headed out to his house for dinner. We were to have met up sunday.. but my plane cancellation prevented that. It was great getting to see him and meet his family. They only moved here 2 weeks ago !  Sebastians wife is lovely and their kids are soooo cute !

 

there was a ton of love in that house !

Sebastian is a math/cryptography  geek.. .. working on the Riemann hypothesis.. here’s his light bedtime reading..

i really enjoyed my visit with Sebastian and family. i was a lovely meal.. I loved getting to meet his family whom he talks about all the time.

around 10:30 I took the long subway ride back to the hotel

Now it’s time for sleep. Heading home tomorrow !

more from the road then

nite all. nite sam

-me

Monday night – Tokyo

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My day began at 3:3am..the phone rang in my strange little hotel room. we’d been exiled there when ur fight to tokyo was canceled last night with no explaination. I clawed my way to conciousness ot understand from the message that our bus to the airport would be leaving at 4:30 AM.. at 4:30. the whole sleepy mass of us shuffled on to a bus for the 30 minute trek back to PDG

miraculously, the  special flight they’d arranged for us went off without a hutch,, we were airp\borne by 6:30. landed by 10:00 and I was on a bus to the Tokyo City Airt Terminal by 10:20 .. I got there around 11 in time to met Jay and my friend Jana from the Czech republic.. I took them to my favorite bus station sushi place for a quick meal..

 

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then it was off to the IBM Japan lab..

 

i gave a talk there. which went OK.

 

then had an absolutely wonderful roundtable with 16 women from the lab.. their questions and insights were very good..  it occurred to me how balanced the all were..   when asked about their hobbies.. most of them included their kids as one o their passions.. not sure how many guys would answer that way. interesting lesson to me.

 

 

 

enjoyed speakign wiht all of these talented folks. i particularly enjoyed the 4 undergraduate visitors we had there.

 

then it was off to dinner with firends Sanuki0sanKuse0san and Takasaka0san

 

it was a memorable meal.. with memorable conversations. such reat guys.. such great food.. such great sake and beer !.. i had to really pace myself on 3 hours of sleep..

 

now back at the hotel and really needing to sleep. My next meeting is at 7am !

 

i’m enjoying my trip and missing home, and my family

 

nite all nite sam

-me

 

Sunday night – please keep calmness

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Greetings from the Bates motel.. or something close. I’ve had an interestingly uninteresting day// I spent the whole day going appropriately 19 miles. Through a set of mistakes on the part of me, the hotel. the taxis and the airlines, .. ultimately around the cancellation of my flight to Tokyo, I find myself spending another night here in Shanghai.. I’m bummed too, because I was planning on visiting my friend Sebastian and his family in Tokyo..this evening.. oh well..

the goodish thing about it is that China East air is actually putting us all up in a hotel about 20 min from the airport.. and they fed us too !. There are about 50 of us that will seep here .. then catch an early morning flight to narita.. We’re still not sure exactly when that will be, which is a little weird .

The hotel is not bad at al1.. but they made us each pay an 120 RMB surcharge if we didn’t want to share a room with a stranger >.. they fed us.. though it was nearly all meat.. what I could eat (rice and veggies ) was quite good. it was fun hanging out with my co-strandees.. I met a guy named Michael from Australia.. but everyone else seems to be from here or from japan.. I spent some time exploring the hotel .. nice enough, the hotel seems empty except for stranded travelers..

found soem great examples of Chinglish.. but hey.. they do a million times better doing our language, right or wrong.. then we would do with theres !

 

 

 

carefully slippery.. that might that mean ?!?!

 

ok.. cant keep my eyes open again.. wish me lukc tomorrow

 

 

nite all. nite sam

-me