The 2007 World Science Fiction Convention

Would you please check in and let us know you're OK?

Michael Liebmann (filk director, Nippon 2007)

As well as attending the convention last summer, I also spent a bit of time exploring some of the bars in Yokohama including organising the pre-convention pub crawl. I have put my thoughts on some of those bars into an article in Nottingham Drinker, a magazine in Nottingham, England, produced by the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.

If you want to read it, go here:

http://www.nottinghamcamra.org/notDrinker.htm

and download the April/May 2008 issue and look at pages 24 and 25.

I was unable to attend last year's Worldcon. I did notice that all of the remaining program books were sent out about two weeks ago. I have yet to see mine. Does anybody know whether I should be looking for mine or Whether It is still a few weeks before I will see mine. I really want to see last year's Worldcon program book.

My pictures from Nippon 2007 are now up on my web site:

http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson/japan071.html

First things first: THANK YOU everyone who had anything to do with making Nippon 2007 happen. 
Second: the photos are gradually getting put up on flickr, and the Journal is being written

We bought the Tales from Earthsea (shiny gold box version) at the Ghibli museum) - on hearsay that it was subtitled in English.  But can't work out how to switch the subtitles on ....

I'm finally getting around to putting pictures from Worldcon (mostly the Hugo Ceremony) up on Flickr.

The set includes autopope, anghara, jaylake, pnh, Ultraman, George Takei, the little robot from my icon, plenty of monsters, and Chtulhu eating brains.

I finally finished my blog on my visit to Japan, including my Worldcon trip report, though I added two postings on my walk about Tokyo.

During the Former Worldcon Chairs Party at Nippon 2007, ConFrancisco chairman David W. Clark and I (ConJose co-chairman), assisted by SFSFC director jbriggs, presented Nippon 2007's chairman, Hiroaki Inoue, with some modest gifts from our respective two Worldcons to him. This presentation and Inoue-san's reaction are now available online.

SFSFC presents gifts to Nippon 2007

Nippon 2007 chairman Hiroaki Inoue's reaction to SFSFC's gifts

 I've started compiling and posting a post-trip report of my travels in Japan and my attendance at both Comiket and Worldcon. It includes pictures and links to information pages (usually Wikipedia) about what I did and where I went on my month in Japan. See kiltnihonside for the ongoing saga.

When we went to Nippon2007, the plan was to do touring with our friends, instead of going through the official NTA (Nippon Travel Agency). Somehow because we asked about staying overnight at Nikkou, the NTA person thought we are going to their official Nikkou tour, and right before we left, asked if they can charge the $500. I was of course assuming that this is something that our little group is doing. Truth be told, since our friend handled all of the arrangement, what I told NTA was basically, "do whatever our friends are doing." It didn't occur to me to ask for clarification and I didn't really think about it and said yes.

We spent half a dozen days in Kyoto/Kanazawa having a grand old time and then went to Tokyo. Then I got a letter from the NTA person about the Nikkou tour next day. I talked to our friend and then we have to rush out to meet with out Japanese friends for the evening. But it slowly dawned on me what happened was that our friends were NOT on this tour. So we either go with the official tour or go with our friends. Of course we opted for the latter.

It was a good decision, as we ended up spending a lot of time on the sights that we wanted to see (still tons more photos to process), but the NTA person said they may not be able to give refund. May be 80%. Well I figured 80% is not too bad. The bad way to look at it is we lost $125, but the good way is that we saved $375 traveling ourselves (the Japan JR Rail Pass that we got covered most of the transportation trip).

Well, just got a check from NTA. They said unfortunately the Nikkou Tour operator Sunrise Tour says that since we canceled last minutes, they refuse to give refund. The NTA was nice enough to give 50%.

So while 50% back is better than nothing, one can argue that the NTA should have known that clearly we have not taken ANY other tours with them throughout the trip and that we are traveling with our friends, so they should have confirmed that in fact that is our plan. Yea it's my fault for not following through with everything but you know, losing $250 kind of sucks. Oh well.

I guess the bad guy is Sunrise Tour, and frankly we will not do business with Nippon Travel Agency again either.