Cheesy Hakodate

Well last night I went to sleep without catching you all up, but now I will post on the happenings of yesterday.

I was a little skeptical about purchasing the soccer ball, but I would have to say that the highlight of the conference was when about 20 of us all played soccer instead of attending the talks yesterday afternoon. It was a ton of fun and great exercise. After hearing these guys give research talks, I knew them a little, after playing soccer with them, you can really know a lot about them. Sorry for how cheesy that last sentence was. I won't do it again.

The conference went late last night, so right after we got back to the hotel there was a group of 17 of us that were all meeting in the lobby and ready for some food. We all decided that the only place that could support all of us was this "sushi train" place. I call it a sushi train because it has this conveyer belt that circles around and you pick up what you want from the belt. I think of it really as a metaphor for for the circle of life that we all are a part of and that piece of salmon on the plate that is going by on the conveyer belt is really just opportunity passing us by. Sorry again about that last sentence there. I know it was really cheesy and I promised not to do it again, but this time I swear. No more of that.

So let me take a second here to explain the brilliance of this style of restaurant though. You are probably thinking to yourself, if you just take what you want from the belt, then how can they calculate the bill? Well, you see, they have different styles of plates that each correspond to a price and then at the end, you have your waitress come and add up all of your plates. If you order a beer, they bring it with you along with a plate, so that you can be charged for it. It's really a cool system.

After dinner, Vittorio, Chris, Praveen and I went searching for an ATM. We found one that was closed. We found one that only spoke japanese. We resorted to just share a cheap (yasui) box of sake. But I am going to continue the search today because I am out of money and most of the places here take cash only. This search I am on is really like the neverending search that we are all on in life. A search for happiness and for true meaning in all that we do. Sorry about that. I really am. Here I promised not to be cheesy and you trusted. You kept reading because I gave my word that there would be no more of that sappy nonsense and I violated that trust. And for that, I am sorry. I better stop now before it happens again ;)