Sapporo

It's now Wednesday evening in Japan (early Wednesday morning in California). We spent nearly the whole day at Hokkaido University, which is in the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. It was a long day for our tired brains -- 6 talks and a poster session, followed by a lovely reception. We skipped out on the following social activities which are still going on in all likelihood. We were both tired and have to write papers for a class that we took this last quarter. Plus, we have been walking SO MUCH on this trip, and my feet, ankles, and legs are so sore!!

Hokkaido apparently has been developed much more recently than most of Japan. What I saw of Kyoto was pieces of hyper-modernness intermixed with pieces of apparently traditional architecture etc. So far in Sapporo I haven't seen the same extremes of modernness or traditionalness. Of course, in both cases my experience is quite limited, especially in Sapporo I can say for sure that the campus of Hokkaido University is beautiful:

No sightseeing so far in Sapporo outside of the area right around the university. The conference isn't supposed to run as long over the next 2 days, so hopefully we can go off and explore a bit in the 2nd half of the days. I don't think there's time for anything on Saturday except to come home...