The Venue and Hotel

The ANA Crowne Plaza is the main hotel and the meeting venue for IETF 76. It is located in the middle of the city not far from the Peace Memorial Park and can be reached by taxi from the main train station for around ¥1,000, or 15–20 minutes by foot. If you arrive from Hiroshima Airport, the buses will take you to the Main Bus Terminal which is very close to the largest “overflow” hotel for IETF, The Rihga Royal Hotel. I am excited to tell you that the Rihga Royal Hotel has an actual mechanical-action PIPE ORGAN in the lobby lounge, and I am hoping to organize some kind of demonstration during IETF 76, Stay tuned, and check also organdemo.info for details.

Climate

November will be cool in Hiroshima, temperatures in the 7 – 17 C range. In my personal experience, Japan is one of the most overheated countries in the world during the “cold” season. Any indoor location is literally HOT during this time of the year, so I generally find myself in a T-shirt with a light jacket for outdoors. It will certainly be much warmer outside than it was in Minneapolis during IETF 73 !

Language and Culture

“Thank you for waiting,” is a phrase you will hear often in Japan. At first, this might strike you as some sort of badly applied Americanism a la “Have a Nice Day,” but in reality it is a literal translation of a typical Japanese polite phrase, used regardless of whether the wait was 15 seconds or 15 hours. Japanese culture is a topic on which many books have been written, but for the purpose of this guide: Expect a friendly and polite society where people literally will bend over backwards to help you and provide you with service. If you walk towards the entrance of any hotel with luggage you are very likely to find yourself facing a hotel staff member who will be RUNNING towards you to help with your bags. He or she will expect no tip for this service, as a matter of fact tipping of any kind is almost unheard of in Japan. See: http://iguide.travel/Japan/Courtesy and http://www.jref.com/culture/japanese_manners_etiquette.shtml

English WORDS are heavily used in Japanese, always phonetically adopted when spoken so that “elevator” becomes “eh re beh tah” and “milk” becomes “mi ru ku”. Once you get used to this particular pronunciation, you’ll find it much easier to get around. Hop in a taxi and say “Anna ho te ru” (ANA Hotel) and the driver will think you’re a local ;–) Interestingly, the airline from which the hotel takes its name is pronounced “Eh Enn Eh” while the hotel is pronounced “Anna” or maybe “Ana.”

While you should have little difficulty in getting around in Japan, pervasive use of written English on signs and in some announcements does not mean that English is widely SPOKEN in Japan, despite the fact that probably no nation in the world spends more time studying English as a second language. This is a topic for a much deeper discussion and beyond the scope of this guide. For an amusing perspective, watch the movie “Lost in Translation.”

English is also widely used to name or describe things, sometimes with hilarious consequences. This particular practice is well documented on websites such as www.engrish.com, but here I will just offer one of my own favorites: