Dr. Shintaro Mori's official blog

The outbound flight is northbound, and the inbound flight is southbound, so when we travel between Japan and the EU, we travel around the Earth. The flight takes fifteen hours, making it the longest route from Japan. I hope the day will come soon when world peace and the East-West separation will disappear.

I obtained the title of fellow in my continuous contributions to the international conference. I am delighted to receive an honorable award.

Furthermore, I attended the panel discussion as a panelist. The theme was complex systems covering a wide range of areas, and I was assigned to work on ICWSNs. The panel discussion was well organized, but there were few participants, probably because it was before dinner. I have completed all my roles in this conference.

At this conference, I also discuss the research activity of our research project, mmWave UAV-assisted information-centric wireless sensor network (ICWSN) for disaster-resilient smart cities. The presentation includes a brief overview of ICWSNs and a demonstration of the proposed scheme.

I provided the presentation regarding wireless information-centric networking as a keynote speaker in the morning. At the scheduled time, the event hall was fully occupied. Recalling the event, it was the most well-attended and was a very successful session. I was tired of speaking English for more than an hour. I conducted the question-and-answer session smoothly, and we had a good discussion.

I had a quick breakfast at the hotel. I checked out of the hotel at 10 am and went to the international conference venue. Upon returning to the airport, I used the free shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, where the train would depart. I rode on the National Railways from Terminal 2 to the transfer station (Bellvitge/Gornal station). Then I changed to a subway train to the nearest station (Almeda station) to the venue. I bought my ticket from a machine accepting small bills, coins, or credit cards. I paid in cash because I thought using a credit card for this machine was unsafe.

I departed for Barcelona to participate in the international conference on IARIA ICN 2024. I left Fukuoka, I went to Tokyo (Haneda) and Paris (CDG) as connecting airports. Each flight was just in time, so there was a risk of missing the transfer if the flight was delayed for more than an hour. Since the flight route between Tokyo and Paris avoids Russian territory, it took about fifteen hours. It was midnight when I arrived in Barcelona, so I stayed at a hotel directly connected to the airport terminal.

I am going to depart this weekend for a trip to Spain. Today is a weekday, but I got the day off in its place. I have finished packing my suitcase. The luggage was packed in a hiking packing bag for each kind of role, such as clothes, utilities, and snacks, and I made sure to pack those in my suitcase. This style is easy to do and helpful in remembering. 

As mentioned in the previous article, I would exchange money from JPY to EUR. This morning, I went to the local bank, named Fukuoka Bank. When I arrived at the branch, there were a few customers, but I did not need to wait for my transaction. After checking the identification using a driver’s license, I filled out the document regarding the application for conversion. The FX rate was not updated, i.e., I have done that of yesterday. The received cash consisted of four twenties and four fives, new banknotes. The current JPY is historically weak (€1 = ¥174), so the ¥10,000 notes, called Yukichi, can be exchanged for approximately three twenties. This trip will be on a costly budget.

In the EU countries, credit cards (Master card or Maestro debit) are widely used. In my experience, Spain and the southern EU prefer caches over cashless payments, as with Japan. I assume the ratio between plastic and paper money is 7:3. I will exchange caches from JPY to EUR for the next trip to Barcelona, Spain. In Fukuoka, FX conversions are only convenient in the city's central area. Thus, I asked the nearest local bank to do that, and I have finished booking. I plan to pick it up tomorrow morning.