Worldcon day 5
Morning started early. Anita and I did our usual online stuff and packed everything up, checking out of our room by nine and dropping off our suitcases to be picked up by our tour company.

(For the trip we had purchased a 'tour' for the con that included airfare, con hotel, hotel in Tokyo for two nights after the con, and all transfers. This turned out to be an excellent value, partially because it included a really nice room in the main con hotel. This made it easy for Anita to go rest if she was running low on energy.)

Then off to check out the Consuite and the Green Room. No one knew anything about a dead dog party, so I left my two partial (maybe three/four fingers) bottles of single malt scotch in the Consuite. Soon enough it was time for the my last panel of the con.

The panel was 'The Singularity: How to Write About It'. This was the one where I was concerned about being a bit outclassed. I mean, I was up there with autopope (Charlie Stross), Greg Benford, and davidlevine (David Levine) for ghu's sake! However I was able to contribute a couple of good thoughts, tweak one member of the audience, and even get a couple of laughs out of Greg.

(Plus, bonus, I got to promote Kathleen Ann Goonan a little.)

After the panel several people came up to me and wanted to keep talking about it (including the guy I tweaked -- it wasn't just cheap laughs, he made a good foil for an important point), which seems like a good sign. But the thing I took as a particular compliment was Greg Benford telling me twice that it was a "Good panel."

At this point Anita and I were pretty hungry, so we said as many goodbyes as we could and went by ourselves back to Keawjal; the Thai place where we ate the night we arrived. There I, for the first time this trip, ordered by pointing to someone else's plate to indicate I would have that.

(Interesting note: For food we bracketed the con with Keawjal. For panels I bracketed it by sharing the podium with David Levine on the first and last scheduled panels.)

After lunch we had about forty minutes before our tour group was supposed to leave the hotel. We went back to the lobby and installed Anita in a chair, then I took off to see if I could get a con shirt at the last minute. No such luck, they were tearing down the dealers room already (up late and down early). However I ran into the guy selling the shirts and ended up helping him cart his wares back to the convention center where he and his wife were setting up near the entrance. This didn't lead to me buying a shirt though; they were discombobulated and near frantic from being moved around and I didn't have much time. I was assured I could order the shirt I wanted via email, so I took the info and headed back to the hotel lobby.

Just in time as it turned out. But then I offended Anita's highly developed sense of promptness by purchasing a cup of coffee from the hotel snack bar before going out front. She couldn't stand it any more and left me there while the Japanese girl made up my coffee to go, put it in a holder, and put that into a high-quality shopping bag -- the kind you get in jewelry shops and high-end clothing places. Well, the coffee did cost 400 yen...

So, out front and pile into the motor coaches and off for an hour trip through highly urbanized Japan. Only a little confusion with the room keys and we were installed into the Sunshine City Prince Hotel located in the Ikebukuro district.

A phone call to the desk and we were delivered a cable modem. Soon thereafter I had the Airport Express up and going and both Anita and I could get online. Then we had a longer wait until our luggage finally showed up.

It was getting to be early evening, so we left the hotel and wandered around the local shopping district. This struck me as being a low-rent version of Shinjuku; less high-end electronics stores, more Anime and clothing stores aimed at young people. Craving something simple involving proteins and fresh vegetables we ended up eating chili and salads at Wendy's. We also walked through a couple of shops, including an enormous Anime/Manga store called Animate. (That's right, they rate a Wikipedia entry.)

Then back to our room where I played an online game for thirty minutes and collapsed into bed instead of writing this. Today we tour Tokyo and maybe tonight I will finally get some pictures up.

Also still to-do: A review of the con with over-all impressions, as opposed to the personal daily travel journal I have been doing.

My quick take? I had a blast! But that doesn't make it the best Worldcon ever...