Worldcon Dispatch #5

[annathepiper]

Originally written 9/4/07 8:55pm and 9/5/07 9:00am and all through the day on bus, transcribed 9/13/07 9:27pm

In which our party goes to Yokohama's Chinatown, in which our heroine does battle with her stupid cold, and in which the Hugos are cool, in no small part to Ultraman and George Takei, and to naominovik getting the Campbell and the Doctor walking off with another Hugo!


Picking up where I left off with getting caught up on what we've been doing:

Saturday the 1st: Didn't do much at the con on Saturday, because solarbird's former Japanese tutor, Mariko, came to show us through Chinatown. That was very cool, but also very overwhelming--the place was a huge, complex, and colorful maze. There were vendors everywhere thrusting fliers at us--none of which we could read, of course--and roasted chestnuts being handed out as well.

Two thumbs up on the roasted chestnuts, which I'd never had before, and also on the hum bow and the ice cream we got. We ate the hum bow in a lovely little park with a view of the water; the ice cream we picked up en route. Whatever I had was tasty and rather pina-colada-y in flavor. If I understood Mariko correctly, it was actually a sort of vegetable! (She also clued me in that azuki was the flavor known in the US as red bean, which was good to know.)

There was panda merchandise everywhere we looked, but we stopped in one particular shop that had loads of it: stickers, shirts, panda toys, you name it. We also stopped at a cool little temple where you could pay a few coins for a prayer candle, or incense to take to the numbered places all along the shrine.

After Chinatown we took the subway (and, I might add, it's still strange to be in any town with a functioning train system and a subway) to a red-brick warehouse near our hotel, full of shops. Notably, there was a LUSH, which amused me.

But by then I started feeling quite exhausted and ill, so I had to retreat to the hotel while Dara and spazzkat hung out with Mariko a while longer. I'm sad I missed the chance to go up on the observatory tower, but I really needed the nap.

I headed over to the con space after that, the one time I hit the con at all that day. And I'm glad I did, because the Hugos were pretty cool. The main hall where they were being held was packed when I got there--so I had to head up to the overflow rooms on the fifth floor. I got up there just in time to see the opening skit: a squad of Ultramen vs. a squad of monsters. :)

Ultraman was part of the design for this year's Hugos, too, since this is apparently the 40th anniversary of the Ultraman series. Also very cool. :) They even had one of the Ultramen in costume come out and be a presenter for one of the awards, which of course led to amusing charades since the character couldn't actually talk. One of the little remote-controlled bots from the dealer's room brought that award envelope out, which was very cute.

We got a lot more George Takei mileage here too, since Takei was the MC for the proceedings. A gent introduced as the foremost translator of SF in Japan did the translations for all his lines, and they had a little fun with that, making jokes about blaming everything on "Takei-san's jet lag" and about the cute young backup translator that translator guy brought with him--because he'd "promised her a job in show business." Hee.

Notable awards, for me:

naominovik got the Campbell! Hooray! She had on a great green kimono, that went very well with her red hair, and she looked quite cute.

pnh got Best Editor, Long Form. Granted, he has never edited anything of mine, but hey--I have at least sent something to him, and I do like the makinglight blog a lot.

Doctor Who and "Girl in the Fireplace" got Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, as it damn well should have. :) This makes for two consecutive Hugos for Steven Moffat. Next year we'll have to see if we can make it three with "Blink".

Sadly, though not to the surprise of Dara, Naomi Novik did not get the Hugo for Best Novel. Sniff. She got beaten out by Vernor Vinge and Rainbow's End. This makes for a bit of a rarity, since it means that between us, Dara and I will have read three of the five contenders for Best Novel this year.

After the Hugos were over, we went over to a noodle-type restaurant that turned out to be rather cool. They were playing old American rock-n-roll over the sound system, and between that and the uniforms the staff were wearing, Dara and Paul figured the place might have been a 50's holdout. The udon there was excellent, and the thing I picked at random off the menu turned out to be the exact right thing for me and my cold.

Some other things I want to remember, but which I got out of order due to being all sick and stuff:

• Jumpy fish! The canals around Minato Mirai were full of these odd fish that kept jumping two or three feet out of the water. At first we thought it was because they were looking for food in the rain--but I saw more later when it wasn't raining. Paul wonders if they were sea bass; we don't know. But they were neat, and we saw a few jellyfish in the water as well.
  
  
• I saw a bird that might have been some sort of dove but which made an oddly frog-like sound. It was perched up on the very top of a lamppost, sitting up tall and puffing its chest with every call.
  
  
• I heard something crow-like, too, but it was a different cry than crows' cries in the States.
  
  
• Pigeons, almost exactly the same as Seattle pigeons, only not so fat. These guys actually flew. Hee.
  
  
• We found a Hawaiian-themed cafe where we had a nice breakfast, much to Paul's delight. I'm sad that all I wound up getting there was a pineapple-coconut type drink--the waffle things they were serving looked very tasty.
  
  
• Practically everyone in Japan is dark-haired, but not everybody is black-haired. I've seen shades of brown, some dark red (Strongbow color!), and occasionally, orange. That was in Yokohama anyway--in Tokyo, I've seen a wider array of colors.
  
  And speaking of Tokyo, that'll be for the next entry! Writing on a tour bus going up curvy Mount Fuji roads is hard.
  
  
• On our sweep through the dealer's room, at least the first time through, I wound up accidentally keeping an eye on the filk table while the guy running it went to get a soda. When his wife finally showed up, I bought three CD's: Jonathan Coulton, Seanan McGuire, and Echo's Children. Talked at least one person into getting a Heather Alexander CD, too. Go me!
  

Comments

[solarbird]

Not holdout. Themed. The place it's in was underground and under water level, in the side of the converted docking slip we walked down into before going into the restaurant.

[kieri.livejournal.com]

About the hair thing - light hair is considered both fashionable and slightly risque, depending on your age and where you're at. A lot of TV celebrities color their hair to be slightly lighter than black, or sort of a dark chestnut, which is considered 'pretty, modern, and cute'.

Women often bleach their skin, too, to the point where it can be hard to find sunblock that doesn't have whitening agents in, unless you look around for the stuff they use on kids or they very sporty type. :)

Sounds like you had an awesome time -- as they say in Japan, "Iiii na!" ("I'm envious of your good fortune!")

[annathepiper]

Ah, interesting notes about the fashions. Thanks for providing those!

And yeah, all in all a very awesome time. More posts to come as I get them typed up. :)