Animes and Mangas

Part of my preparations on the trip to Japan was also study of their very special art, that I appreciate a lot, Animes and Mangas. Since there are not many manga strips or books available in Slovenia and I don't enjoy reading them on the screen, I was mostly studying the animes.
Well it wasn't as much study as it was pure pleasure. I like animes since forever and I just had an excuse to spend some more time watching them. It didn't really help with my knowledge of Japanese language bt anyway, it was joy.
During my staying in Japan I also visited the International museum of Manga in Kyoto. And I am proud to say that I held and read GITS (Ghost in the Shell) in English. It was a great experience after seeing the movie so many times and loving it a lot.
Manga stores are great as well lots of different mangas, I just can't find any English ones. Hope to have some luck in next two days.

First real conference, ISMIR 2009, Kobe, Japan

Now that is over, and I had some time to rest afterwords, I can finally write something about it. ISMIR 2009 (International Conference on Music Information Retrieval) was my first real conference where I actually presented something. I must say it was very intense.
It lasted 5 days, whole days. Even during the lunch there were poster sessions so no time was wasted. Sessions were more or less great and the stuff that was presented was really good. I might even use some of the presented methods one day in my own research. ISMIR is one of rare conference where sessions actually don't overlap so you can attend all of them without fear of missing something good.
It all started on Monday with two tutorial sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Between tutorials there was a special self-heating lunch. A very strange Japanese invention (or remake).
Next four days were reserved for session presentations of chosen papers. More then 300 people attended the conference, which is a lot for such a small community and such a specific field of research. I got to know many very nice people and great researchers from allover. We had really nice debates during the brakes and after the sessions. I hope I'll have a chance to meet them again and maybe even collaborate with them some time in the future.
Altogether it was a neat experience. But there is a lot of work waiting for me, reading all the relevant papers once I get back home. But in the mean time, I'll enjoy Japan one more week just by myself and just for myself as well.
Hope to be there next year in Utrecht (Netherlands) at ISMIR 2010.