Tokyo: November-December 2009: Diary - Day-by-Day [Almost] !

• Arrived, after an always cheerful SAS flight from Copenhagen, at 10:20 am Sunday 8 Nov.
  Limousine bus to Shibuya and from there taxi to the University of Tokyo Komaba Campus I Faculty Guest House.
• Got a very nice room, for the next month. Modern interior, a Danish Wegner "Y" chair, etc.
• Had "French cuisine" lunch in the Faculty House restaurant - and this is where I have breakfast every morning and sometimes dinner in the evening.

• Monday morning I met my host, Prof. Tetsuo Tamai, a fine colleague. I got installed with my laptop.
• So here I am/was: every morning walking a few hundred meters to my office,
  now and then meeting with my host, some of his colleagues, and their PhD students - at their and my seminars, et cetera, etc.
• This ToDai campus is west of Shibuya, 2 stops down a Keio line, thus easy access to all of Tokyo.
• The second full day here I went into Ginza, to have a drink at my favourite bar The Old Imperial Bar and some sushi.

• Thursday and Friday of the first week I gave a mini-course.
  There were some 15 attendees, some from outside.
  "My" Danish student, Rintaro Suehiro had flown in from Denmark just for this course!
  We spent Saturday morning, lunch and early afternoon together.
  As always, when I am in Tokyo, I first visit the Maruzen bookstore.
  Then we went to Tsukiji fish Market trying to get a table at the Sushi Bun rest.,
  but the queue was at least an hour long. So we went to another Sushi place.
  From there for a drink at the Old Imperial Bar.
• Sunday I had a delightful lunch on the 25th floor of the Shibuya Excel Tokyu hotel.

• Tuesday, 17 Nov., I got half my salary - rather quick from my on year Japan experience in 2006 -
  and went to celebrate this with yet a drink at the Imperial bar followed by a Teriyaki steak at the 17th floor Teriyaki steak restaurant of the Imperial Hotel.

• The Imperial Hotel is "the grand olde lady" of Tokyo.
  From 1923 till some time after WWII the Hotel design was by Frank Lloyd Wright.
  The Old Imperial bar is FLW's design and is the "original".
  A new, conventional "massive" hotel replaced the far more interesting design in the early 1960s.
  I stayed first time at the IH in 1979. Then with Kari in 1981.
  In-between alone in 1982. With Nikolaj in 1984. Again 2 times alone -
  and in Jan. 1987 with Charlotte. Etc.
• It seems to me that the hotel is fading.
  That the management is "coasting" on its old reputation.
  Yes, OK, all is up-to-date and well maintained, but.
  And the but is that the hotel, to me, lacks a clear definition and its rendition,
  namely of what it means to be "The Imperial Hotel".
  Now it caters for far too many tastes.
• But this is, of course, just my opinion.
• Below photos from an eel "yakitori" place, "under the rail tracks" in Shibuya.

• The Faculty House at the Komaba (I) campus of Tokyo University was my home, here I had breakfast in the nice restaurant seen in the photos below, and also, occasionally, some fancy dinner.
• 20th of November saw the first day of sale of the 3rd year of Tokyo Michelin.
• I tried out several of its sushi recommendations: two one star and one two star!

• I went to the International Arcade, below the rail tracks, in Ginza, to buy two Obis -
• and at Shibuya I found a place, right in the middle of everything, with fabrics for Kari!

• The last week of my stay saw
  • my submitting an 8 page concentrate of my work these recent many years:
    a paper for the leading journal of computer science:
    The CACM: Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.
    Cross fingers that it will be accepted! One in a zillion !
    From Domains to Requirements;
  • my giving a last colloquium at Todai;
  • my having a one hour meeting with the Rector of the UN University on the situation at UNU-IIST in Macau;
  • my buying the latest Sony Alpha 500 camera (!);
  • my having a wonderful Saturday evening with Maurice Naftalin: we had some nice dinner; and
  • my packing a suitcase and more !
• I am/was staying the last night, Monday/Tuesday, 7/8 Dec., at the SAS Raddisson hotel at Narita airport
  so as not to have to get up here at 5am!
• Flying off Tuesday at 12:30 noon. Scheduled arrival in Copenhagen 4:05 pm same day.