Day 1 of the conference

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Day one of the conference under our belts and all went well! After a restless night (I think I was worried about letting our incredibly generous hosts down) and on a really warm and sunny early morning we made our way across town to the venue for our conference with a little trepidation. Part of the anxiety on my part was the lack of control (don't say a word) as I am used to being able to check the equipment and resources in the venue prior to talking, on this occasion we were whisked straight into an ante room whilst other people checked the slides (which had all been translated so would come up in Japanese) and we had to assume all was well and working. And it was. After some introductions and a short presentation by Mimi comparing and contrasting the UK with Japan we were up! The 1st two presentations went along reasonably well but it was after lunch that we got into our stride, became slicker with the translation, managed a few jokes that didn't get lost in translation and managed spontaneous rounds of applause at the end of the sessions. We were also lucky - we had a good crowd of interested doctors, nurses, lecturers, carers and care coordinators (oh and one other?). The group work went well and there were lots of questions! A relief; as we had had to prepare the slides 2 months ago and having learnt so much these past few days we might have been tempted to tweak things slightly but there was no option due to the translations! We finished with a couple of offers of work (sorry John) and one spectacular request that we move DH to Japan (sorry to my family as I may have said yes)! So tomorrow we enter day 2 with high spirits and a feeling of being able to challenge the participants knowing that they are up for being pushed into thinking about pioneering palliative care and meeting some of the challenges of inequity head on. Oh and we also managed to name check a few staff who have helped support this visit through their admin support or covering our busy day jobs whilst we are out here (you know who you are!). Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and the next update will be put up at the end of tomorrows session! Sayonara - Wayne and Tricia

PS - A few things I am really going to miss - wasabi, polite and generous hosts (Mimi, Nori, Pepi and Junko to mention a few), wonderful translators (Sami), warm evenings and loud crickets in the park on the walk back; so loud that my ears are still ringing!

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