Saturday, 13 June, 2015. 19:30

We are on the ferry from Provincetown to Boston, after spending a full day over here at the tip of Cape Cod.

We got up early at 06:30 and quickly left the hotel to get some breakfast at Bruegger’s Bagels. M. had a pumpernickel bagel with peanut butter, while I had one with egg, cheese, and ham, which was pretty good. Then we got M. a coffee from Starbucks and went to the station to catch a train in to Park Street. There we changed to the red line for two stops to South Station, and then changed again to the silver line buses to take us out to World Trade Center, where the ferry wharf was located. I’d calculated a maximal trip time if we had bad connections to make sure we got there in time, but we had very good connections at each place, so arrived with plenty of time to spare.

We wandered over to the waterfront and located the ferry ticket office, where we picked up the tickets I’d bought last night. There was already a queue of people waiting to board the ferry, but there was so much time left that we took a walk out to the end of the wharf to see the view, before returning and joining the queue. More people arrived and the queue quickly doubled in length or more behind us. Lots of people had large luggage, much of it still labelled with airport tags.

Arrival in Provincetown.

Read more: A lot more… it was a busy day in Provincetown, shopping, eating, drinking, looking at the sights.

Thursday, 11 June, 2015. 21:46

I had yet another lousy sleep. But it was up again and dressed to go shortly after 07:00 for my last breakfast at the conference. There were bagels, fresh fruit, and different types of breakfast cereals. I had an onion bagel with some cream cheese, and a lot of fruit.

Today’s conference sessions were workshops on specific topics, held in small rooms, with several different topics in parallel. I attended a morning session on “Vision meets Cognition”, about the various similarities and differences between computer vision algorithms and a psychophysical understanding of what happens in our vision and brain systems, and how we can learn to adapt how our minds interpret vision to produce better computer algorithms. The speakers were quite entertaining, but this was more a general overview of the topic than any specific new work.

I left to meet Elena at 12:00 at a Thai place called Bangkok Blue. We hadn’t seen each other for over 20 years, so there was a lot to catch up on. She had a tofu noodle dish, while I tried the special of the day, which was curly yellow egg noodles in a broth of coconut milk and spices, with chicken pieces. It was really delicious.

Edgar Allan Poe statue.

After lunch, we walked back to her work at Emerson College. We passed the Edgar Allan Poe statue and I took some photos. The we said bye, having arranged to meet tomorrow morning with her daughter and M. at 09:00 at Park Street station to have a day out together.

Read more: I walk across the Charles River to MIT and the Canon medical imaging research centre, and have dinner at a good Mexican place.

Wednesday, 10 June, 2015. 21:00

I had another restless night. I finally got up just before 07:00 and did some stretches before getting dressed to leave for the conference. Breakfast there this morning was hot porridge with add your own brown sugar, flaked almonds, and mixed berries. I left the sugar out. There were also bacon and egg rolls on “pretzel buns”, whatever they are, and turkey biscuit sandwich things, neither of which I touched. I want to avoid anything too unhealthy and eating too much rich food while away from home, as it’s far too easy to do if you’re not careful.

Porridge and berries at the conference.

The morning session had some interesting talks for me, related to my work, so that was cool. The lunch today was pasta and antipasto, with Caesar salad. There were two types of pasta: a rolled ball of spaghetti so you could pick up a ball in the tongs, with pesto sauce I think, and cheese tortellini in a creamy sauce. I had a few of the latter, but mostly filled up on the salad and the antipasto, which was marinated mushrooms, grilled red capsicum, and cannelini beans in a pesto sauce. There were hot chicken pieces as well, but I didn’t take any meat. There were also the huge chocolate chip cookies again, but I avoided those too.

Read more: Mostly about dinner – pizza and ice cream!

Tuesday, 9 June, 2015. 21:34

I slept poorly again, and got up before 07:00 to get dressed and leave for the conference in time for breakfast. Today it was scrambled eggs, which were decently good, as well as yoghurt, fresh fruit, and muffin tops in various flavours. I’ve never seen muffin tops before – interesting concept.

Farmer’s market at Copley Square.

For lunch today I met M. at the corner of Newbury and Dartmouth Streets, as she spent the day going through the shops on Newbury. We walked over to Copley Square, where there was a small farmers’ market, which Elena had told me was there every Tuesday. We perused the stalls before buying a couple of sandwiches for lunch form a bakery stall. M. selected a mozzarella and tomato one on a baguette, while I picked a tomato and artichoke on sliced light rye or something similar. We found a seat on the square in the shade of trees. M. looked at the sandwiches and decided that she liked the look of the artichoke one better, so we swapped. The mozzarella was fresh and creamy, and it looked like whole balls of it had been stuffed into the baguette, which was soft in the middle with a crispy crust – it was really good. M. also had a tiny cranberry and walnut bread roll, but gave me some of her sandwich, which was also good.

Read more: We tour the interior or Trinity Church, go to an Irish pub for dinner, and have a close encounter with a mouse in our hotel room!

Monday, 8 June, 2015. 20:45

I slept until about 04:00, when I woke up and couldn’t fall asleep again. M. slept right through to 06:30 when I got up and started getting ready to go to the conference centre. Since they’re supplying breakfast, I wanted to be there in time for it. Today there was hot porridge and pastries and boiled eggs, replacing the bagels and babkas of yesterday. There was still fresh fruit and yoghurt.

Fire station dog, near the convention centre.

While I was at the conference M. spent the day walking around the downtown area, checking out Quincy Market, Macy’s, and various other things around there. She said she ended up in Chinatown at one point, having underestimated the distance she needed to walk and overshooting by a few blocks. She came back to the hotel room about 16:30, then headed out to a bakery which reception had given her the address of.

Read more: The corporate exhibitors and demos at CVPR, hand made pasta for dinner, and then fancy ice cream!

Sunday, 7 June, 2015. 17:26

I am sitting at Boston airport again, waiting for M.’s flight from Dallas to arrive.

I slept through from 22:00 last night until 05:00 this morning, but was awake from then. Still, not too bad for the first night’s sleep after a 13 hour time shift.

I had some dry Weetabix which I’d bought last night from Trader Joe’s near the Mexican place. I didn’t get any milk or yoghurt for it since the room doesn’t have a fridge to keep it cold. I dressed and caught the train to the Hynes Convention Centre, where the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference is being held. It turns out they had breakfast supplied there! They had bagels, babkas, and fruit. After waiting in a queue for about 10 minutes to collect my registration package I grabbed a bagel and some fruit.

Registration queue at CVPR conference.

I ran into Peter who recently left CISRA, and also Anthony who is still working there, both within a minute of each other. I had no idea either of them would be here!

I went to a morning tutorial session on computer vision applied to cinema. It was presented by five guys who worked on various aspects of applying computer vision methods to cinema production.

Read more: My first day at the conference, taking a walk to Copley Square at lunch, picking up M. at the airport, and Thai food for dinner.

Saturday, 6 June, 2015. 14:01

I am sitting on my flight from Sapporo to Tokyo, about to take off.

I got up at 07:30, had a shower, and packed my bags to leave. After a quick FaceTime chat with M., I checked out and left the hotel. M. was leaving for the airport in Sydney at the same time, for our converging flights to Boston. I got some rice snacks from the convenience store near the hotel and ate them sitting on a bench in Odori Park. While there, a huge suite of people came through the park, armed with extension claws and plastic bags, picking up any and every tiny scrap of litter from the paths, grass, and garden beds. Now it’s clear how they manage to keep the park so spotless.

Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens.

I had a bit of time to kill before heading to the airport, so I walked a few blocks to the Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens. These opened at 09:00, and I was there a few minutes early, but there were already a handful of people waiting ahead of me. The gates opened right on time, and I bought a ticket from the machine for 420 yen. Then I asked the lady at the counter window if I could leave my luggage there, as it was too big for the provided lockers, and she happily took it inside the little office for me.

Read more: I tour the Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens, head out to New Chitose Airport to fly to Boston via Tokyo, deal with a 19-hour flight delay, and arrive in Boston.

Friday 5 June, 2015. 16:30

I got up this morning for the usual routine of heading out to the convention centre on the subway, buying some rice things for breakfast at the 7-11 near there, and then eating them in the warm shelter of the convention centre as it was very cold out. There was also a driving drizzle, making it rather unpleasant. I tried an item with pink rice today, and it had sweet adzuki beans in it, which was nice. I didn’t get anything sweet this morning, figuring I’d tried enough strange sweet things.

Sugar margarine snack… mmmm…

Read more: It’s all basically food today!

Thursday 4 June, 2015. 23:13

It’s been a bit of a long day. I slept in until almost 07:30 this morning, then made the usual trek out to the convention centre on the subway, buying some sushi packs from the 7-11 again for breakfast, as well as an intriguing looking baked good labelled as a “cheese mushicake”. It was almost savoury cheesy in a slightly unpleasant way that didn’t approach the niceness of cheesecake, and I didn’t finish it. I sat inside the convention centre to eat this morning as it was really cold out today.

The meetings today were considerably more disagreeable than yesterday. No real heated argument, but certainly some frustration by different delegates that we couldn’t agree on certain technical points about various proposed standards. I won’t go into too much detail here.

The lunch break was a bit shorter, so today several of us just went to the restaurant in the convention centre. Their menu was fairly uninspiring, but I chose a katsu curry with rice, which had sliced mushrooms in the sauce. It was a typical Japanese curry and reasonably good.

Sapporo Beer Museum exterior.

After lunch were some more technical sessions, finishing at 16:30 in time for us to leave on a bus at 16:45 for the Sapporo Beer Museum and Beer Garden restaurant for the social event of the meeting. The weather outside had turned frigid and as we arrived there was a light sprinkle of rain, which Jackson described as ice particles and even snow, but I’m sceptical that it was that cold at all. It just felt like a drizzle with a brisk wind to me.

Read more: Visiting the Sapporo Beer Museum, and cooking our own food at the ISO meeting dinner function at its restaurant.