I haven’t actually written about my amazing Japan trip. Arrived late on Saturday night, spent the whole of Sunday doing tourist-y stuff, visited MySQL KK on Monday, had an amazing dinner later with lots of MySQLers, and today, Tuesday is the first day of the users conference. And boy was it fun!
Larry-san spoke Japanese in the keynote introduction, and boy was it amazing. I absolutely loved the honesty in Yukihiro “Mats” Matsumoto’s talk. It was even funnier that while he spoke Japanese, and people laughed at his jokes, it took a while for the simultaneous translators to catch up with English, and then we’d have delayed laughter :)
I gave my talk today, and was pretty pleased with the attendance. My 35 slides were delivered in a mere 50 minutes, and at parts I was worried I might be going too fast for the simultaneous translators. Then I’d slow down, but feel like falling asleep while standing, so felt the tone needed to be picked up. I didn’t get up-front questions, but at least I got approached after the talk. Guess that’s fine. Met a couple of Aussies (who recognised that I must be from Melbourne/Sydney because of my Crumpler!).
Lunch was interesting. We like to normally disperse, and spread out (the usual rule is that there should only be one MySQLer per table). The moment I sat down, two ladies decided to move, and the others on the table ate quietly, and quickly, and just disappeared as well! Sigh. I turned around, and noticed Stewart sitting alone as well. Seemed a tad odd.
Line of the day: “green tea is not alcohol!” That came later at dinner, which again, was amazing (heaps of sushi). I’ve found a new favourite sushi dish - crab bowels. Well, tomorrow is another great action packed day, and I think I might focus on the camera and documenting it more…
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