bLaCkIcE's Conundrum

Tokyo Day 2

I wake up to see that the time is already 7.55am. And i was supposed to meet Prof Fuss at 8am!! No choice... jump straight into the cold shower and had a quick bath... then quickly changed into my shirt and pants. But still, i was 10 minutes late... but it's okie i guess... not really in a rush. We're just hoping to set off early to give ourselves some time to figure out the the actual trains routes and also the interchange of Jiyugaoka. Luckily it was quite smoothing sailing coz it was a Sunday and the human traffic was minimal. It took us only about 15 mins to reach Ookayama station.

Finally reachedTokyo Institute of Technology. The place i've been looking forward for so long.... was lucky to meet a local member of the organising committee as we were looking at the campus map. He kindly brought us to the conference place and the first thing i saw at the conference place kinda brighten upo my mood. haha ... 2 kawaii japanese gals in kimono sitting at the reception table ^_^ I wanted to ask them to take a pic but i guess it's not the c orrect time coz i just arrived and the ppl are still busy setting up... anyway, my mood just improved greatly, forgetting about the frustrating experience the nite be4 .. hahaha

So after registration, we sat down at the sofas outside the LT. There we met 2 postgraduate who are also attending the conference. One of them is from China but studying in Japan while the other is from Cape Town, South Africa. They were very friendly and we were chatting happily within minutes. As it turn out, the guy from China happens to live in the same hotel as me so he quickly became my companion coz i figured my prof won;t be travelling much with me since he'll be busy attending to his duties in the conference.

The first day of the conference was a real eye opener..... the Japanese apparently like to do things in a low tone manner... the opening speech was done rather informally with no particular feeling of a major conference going on.... no big banner, no pots n plants on the stage, no background decoration.....everything is just plain simple. According to my prof, this is the most simplified ceremony in the history of the congress...haha. Another interesting to note was the dressing of the ppl attending the conference. There were ppl who wore very formally (ie tie and jacket), some who were decently presentable like me(long sleeves shirt without the tie) and some who looked as if they were there for a summer vacation(bermudas). Not surprisingly they dressings are very related to their respective countries. .. After that was a taste of the presentation.... getting myself mentally prepared formy own presentation the day after. Typically the presentation was done rather professionally though not all of them are done in fluent English. The scary part was actually the discussion aka QnA part where the audience began firing questions and comments to clear their doubts on the topic that is being presented. It's quite a nervous situation I imagine..... hope for a smooth presentation tmr.....

posted by bLaCkICe @ 11:24 PM