I was determined to go back to the art museum however. There was a map on which it seemed it was pretty much around the corner. Sadly, it turned out not to be the case and after 3 km of walking and realizing there was still at least 1 km to go and not enough time to really see anything once I get there, I found the nearest railway station, caught a train to the center and just looked around the shopping district and had a cup of green coco - which was actually surprisingly tasty. I then headed back towards the conference center to attend the evening banquet.
The banquet started by the keynote speakers and organizers breaking open a barrel of sake, which was then distributed to the participants in square wooden "glasses" that had IWSEC engraved on them. Fancy. Food was laid out in a buffet style and contained all sorts of japanese delicacies. There was also a concert with a "piano and a soprano" and both the pianist and the singer were pretty good.
They also announced the winners of the best paper and best student paper awards. And I actually won the best paper prize :) When I went to accept it, though, there was a small cultural problem. A real "Clash of cultures", if you will. When they presented it to me, I accepted the certificate and then bowed deeply.. and bumped my forehead against the extended hand of the presenter :P Everyone got a good laugh out of that of course, me included :)
Banquet was just two hours and ended right on time. I left together with Allen again and we walked around the city talking some more. This time we headed our separate ways pretty soon, though.
Walking towards the hotel I realized I should practice my presentation through at least once. As it was late, I decided to leave it for the morning and headed for bed.
So come morning. I wake up at 6.40, go down for breakfast at 7, get back to my room at 7.40 and start with the presentation. The first attempt was pretty horrible but I did not have time for the second as by then I was already running late.
The first talk of the day was about elliptic curves. Complicated stuff by most standards but the presenter (Daniel, who I had met during the coffee museum visit) had put a lot of effort into trying to make it understandable and I managed to follow it all the way to the end. That was followed by two very esoteric talks - one implementing pairing-based crypto on cellphones and another doing software engineering research on security test cases. Then my turn was up.
The presentation actually went surprisingly well. I did not stumble anywhere and finished exactly on time. I got three meaningful questions all of which I could answer and it turned out that even Allen (who has no technical or CS background) had understood the talk.
We then went to the museum with Daniel, first stopping to drop off my larger bag into a locker at the station and then going to lunch before actually seeing the museum.
We soon split up because he had an appointment with a collegue and had to speed through the museum whereas I had plenty of time before my train to Kyoto and could easily take my time. The permanent exhibition was an overview of Japanese modern art (naivism, surrealism, impressionism, expressionism, even traces of op-art and social-realism). Most of it quite good. I especially liked "The shadow" - a painting of a shadow of a little girl that looked just like a shadow should look on the white wall it was hanging on. Or the following picture, named "Mother 1" by Morimura Yasumasa
The other exhibition was about the history of modern art in Europe, featuring Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and all the other greats of the first half of the last century. Interesting to see up close, but for some reason it somewhat less moving than the permanent exhibit. "Self portrait with a model" by Corinth was the painting that left the biggest impression - mainly because it was shamelessly painted to look exactly like the picture in the mirror would - which was probably unheard of before and even shocking by the contemporary standards.
The museum itself was also architecturally very beautiful, reminding me the estonian national library building in many ways. Especially in that many of the most beautiful places were off limits. Or at least seemed to be so at first glance. After leaving the exhibits I did some exploring and found a completely legitimate route to nearly everywhere I wanted to go. Strange why they should block some passages but not others. There was also a very nice park right next to the museum, so I walked back to the center through that.
In the center I realized I still have 2 hours to kill. I had explored the center on the previous two nights so thought there would really be nothing to do - but after examining the map, I found myself in error - there was a Shinto Shrine 500 m from the station I had somehow overlooked previously. That took care of 40 minutes. Another 50 were spent in the local Starbucks, drinking coffee and watching Ol while my phone was charging. I then grabbed my larger bag and jumped on the train towards Kyoto
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