I'm currently in Kyoto, having arrived from Tokyo last night.  It's been a good trip thus far.  Shreyas and I had a good day touring the Hakone-Yumoto area outside of Tokyo on Sunday with our team here in Japan.  Even though it was overcast we saw how beautiful this part of Japan was and gave us some ideas about what to do for IC 05.

Yesterday was a day of meetings in our Shin-ju-ku office in Tokyo.  It seemed like I had 100 meetings!  I met with our professional developer community group (the other half my job) as well as the academic team.  I like the plans they have for this year.  Last night we took the shin-kan-sen to Kyoto from Tokyo (the train apparently goes up to 280km/hr -- pretty fast).

The weather in Kyoto is super nice.  We're going to tour a few possible places, hotels etc. for IC05, and do similar for Osaka which is nearby.  It's exciting to be thinking about IC05 already, although I still miss Brazil and Foz very much.

I just finished breakfast, where not only was the food good, but we also experienced a minor earthquake.  The tremor lasted about 15 secs and was palpable.  Having grown up in this region of the world (and also the Bay Area) I just kept on talking (although I admit at first I thought I had ate something funny, or some large person was walking across the restaurant).  An older Western gentleman at the next table was visibly alarmed and when the earthquake ended he quickly got up to walk around (and presumably let off some nervous energy).  I remember last year when we were in the Tokyo office during a meeting an earthquake also occurred and it was the first time some of the Redmond-based academic team member had experienced something like it -- and they were white as ghost.

As if that natural disaster isn't enough, there's a typhoon that might hit Osaka in the next 12 hours, which might render our trip to Yokohama to catch the opening of TechEd unlikely... but I really want to see it, plus I have meetings in Yokohama tomorrow afternoon with my boss's boss (who just happened to be out in Tokyo at the same time), so if nothing else I need to get to that meeting.

Finally, I had the experience of having to go see the doctor yesterday.  A sinus infection that I've been ignoring for the last 2 weeks basically slapped me upside the head, and at the conclusion of my Tokyo meeting I looked at Tomizawa-san, our academic lead in Japan, and said, "I need to go see a doctor."

Within a little over 1 hour, I was back at the office, having seen an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, gotten my prescription filled at a pharmacy, weaved in and out of Tokyo traffic at rush hour, and made it into to go to dinner.  I feel completely confident that the students and staff will be well taken care of in Japan.

The hospitality here is incredible.

Welcome to Imagine Cup, 2005.