ISWC 2004

I’m in Hiroshima at ISWC. I’ve been making some notes using the #rdfig irc chump (tuesday, wednesday), and I took some photos from the demos session on tuesday
My favourite demo was Balog : Location-based information aggregation system. The authors took a picture and sent it to their server and it appeared indexed by gps location. So a really nice immediate demo of a gps photo blog. Very cool. Wish UK phones had GPS.

No part of the conference or demo has been able to compete with a trip to an island called Miya-Jima that I took on monday. I took a meandering “nature walk” to a park full of deer (e.g. eating a paper bag) and maple trees turning red, and then a tiny cable-car up the hill where the monkeys are. The monkeys love crisps and some of them seemed to have indigestion. They grabbed a (sealed) bag off a guy and would not let him have it back. [Do not look them in the eyes; don't feed them or we'll end up with fat monkeys addicted to junk food].
I struggled sweatily to the summit of the hill where there’s a hut serving refreshments… I guess the woman who works there has to walk up there every day. Then about 90 minutes down stone steps, past carved gods dressed in little aprons. Wonderful views and at times absolutely silent.
Almost the best part was the Diasho-in Buddhist temple at the end of the path, with pools of fish, happy-looking monks dressed in burgundy robes, and hundreds of statues and figures. The humidity was so high here that I could see my breath despite the 30 deg C temperature. I was too tired to really appreciate the shrine by then although the shrine gate at sunset was beautiful.

Wonderful place. For those at ISWC who haven’t been – go! and spend a day there not a couple of hours.