Matsuyama

Sorry for the bloggin hiatus, here's a little update.

Last week was the Japan Physical Society meeting in Matsuyama, on the island of Shikoku. These meetings are enormous, with more than 1000 physicists from all over Japan converging every six months. Despite most of the presentations being in Japanese, they are actually quite useful, you can generally get the sense of things from the graphs and things, and it gives a good overview of what people are up to. It's pretty useful for networking.

Thanks to the hordes of physicists descending on the area for 4 days, despite booking a hotel more than a month in advance, all that was left was a very posh and expensive hotel in the old spa area of Dogo.

It was very very nice though. And not a total rip off considering that included in the price was a lavish evening meal (photos above, of course). Also the hotel had several different hot spring baths, outdoor and indoor, and free use of massage chairs. Good stuff!