Sorry for the delay!

The toilets were those fancy paperless ones with heated seats, so I had to get a photo! I was in Japan for work, and I went to an awful lot of science talks, but I did some other cool things too.

I met some really nice people at a tiny restaurant where everything was in Japanese but they helped me translate. I had Japanese pizza there, washed down with sake. Of course, the pizza is not at all like western style. It was a rice pancake with some cheese and cabbage on top and another pancake with a bit of a BBQ like sauce on top. Very light and really good!

On the last day of the trip I went on an all day tour organized by the conference. In the morning we went to a Shinto shrine and in the afternoon we went to a Shogun castle and the golden pavilion all in Kyoto, just about an hour and a half outside of the conference city, Osaka.

As to the castle, look up "nightingale floors." The floors whistled to prevent an invasion by ninjas!

There, of course, was an evening with Karaoke, but alas no pictures survived.

Anyway, I highly recommend Japan as a destination. It's a very clean place and the people are fantastic. Of course it's extremely modern and the language barrier is not really a problem as most signs are in English and the people are very helpful. Plus, the noodles are worth the trip!