Mark Fletcher's Blog

Yesterday we had the big press conference. It was a very interesting experience. We were at the auditorium at 9:30am, even though the press conference didn’t start until 1pm. We did a couple of walk throughs and met with the translators to go over our presentations. Soon enough it was time for lunch and soon after that the press conference began. I would say close to 100 reporters attended, and I think it went very well. All told, it lasted a little over 2 hours. At the end, we were asked to stand on stage while the reporters took our picture. You can see this in this report on the conference (English translation).
After the press conference, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we walked around Shibuya. I got to experience the wonders of Beard Papa, which is the name of a small stand by the train station that sells cream puffs. It was the best Beard Papa I’ve ever had, and no, I never thought I’d ever type that sentence.
Soon enough it was time to head over to Ask Jeeves Japan, and then off to dinner with the entire office. The dinner was great, and very entertaining. We each had to get up and give a speech. After each speech, the group asked us questions. Everybody in the office was really nice, and we had a lot of fun.
Lunch today was with Masataka Okuda, President of Transcosmos, the company that owns half of Ask Jeeves Japan. It was at Chen, a Szechwan restaraunt here in the hotel. The chef at Chen is one of the Iron Chefs from the TV show, and it was one of the best Chinese meals I’ve ever had. Traveling to Japan has been very bad for my waistline.