I have made it Japan safely to be part of the eDefense workshop. Here are a few things:

• My tMobile phone does not work (as expected) but I am taking pictures to upload when I get back to the states. I could have rented a phone for $120 but that seemed like too much expesically when tie was $2.00 per minute.
• I have High speed internet in my room. It somehow connnectes via the phone line using a Cisco 575 LRE – it is a thing that does Long Reach Internet and POTS on the same line – uh – way cool. It is rock solid and I get 1.1. megabits per second from the US – essentially a T1.
• Food has been great – I got to have some japanese noodles for the first time at a little hole-in-the-wall. Carl Kesselman found it – he has a nose for this stuff.
• The prices here seem reasonable.
• Kobe is very pretty – different from Tokyo. There are lots of lights and sounds, but things are a little more open and buildings are smaller and not all skiscrapers – you see curves in architecture. I am looking forward to seeing it in the daylight.

Well that is all for now. It is 3:45 AM – I need to find a vending machine for some coffee.