IPP 43 - parte terza

Next morning I’m up with the sparrows again for another early morning meeting as we run through some of the planning and presentations for our next IPP… when we’re happy with that. I head up to the room to grab two suitcases full of my exchange puzzles and find my trusty exchange assistant already waiting for me in the ball room. We set up 100 wonky towers and get prepped for the exchange before helping a few others get their wares arranged.

Just after the start of the exchange Ali calls me over for a quick three-way exchange between himself, me and Steve since they’ve made them all so we can dispense with some of the formalities… or so he said… turned out it was a bit of a ruse and they’ve prepared a giant version of my own exchange and topped-and-tailed it with their exchanges… the sight of this enormous structure causes me to collapse with laughter that continues until my stomach literally hurts and I’m crying with laughter.

The rest of the exchange isn’t nearly as painful and I have a great time seeing old friends and chatting about our respective exchange puzzles.

I’m thoroughly delighted when one of the Design Competition puzzles that I really like and am hoping to be able to purchase a copy of the next day turns out to be an exchange puzzle, so Mike literally gives me a copy!

Brian’s exchange puzzle looks like a miniature version of the Rialto bridge and he’s challenged us to find a bunch of things inside it but it looks like there’s literally no place to hides any of these things… we’re all glad his retirement hasn’t got in the way of him making some superb new puzzles!

By about lunchtime we’ve complete about 80% of the exchanges and I head up to the room for a salami and cheese roll that Gill’s left in the fridge for me… Louis has ordered one of the box lunches and ends up having a sandwich from his room as well – mini-fridges are very useful at IPPs!

I also end up having a bit of a meeting over lunch and Nick has to bat away a couple of eager exchangers for a short while before we head back into the throng for the final 20%... the last few exchanges are pretty efficient as we start running out of time and the hotel staff need us out of the room.

There are a bunch of puzzles in the haul that I’m really looking forward to playing with when I get home. Louis has done an amazing job as usual, even wrangling a huge DSLR so that we have a set of canned photos of puzzlers and their exchange puzzles for the souvenir book – thanks Louis – I wouldn’t be able to do these exchanges without you, mate!

I haul the haul up to the room for the obligatory puzzles-on-the-bed shot and it looks well-impressive…

I need to have a few conversations around the hotel and don’t manage to get to Sándor and Hiren’s presentation, but I do manage to make it to the origami workshop where an Italian master teaches us to make an interesting assembly supported by a translator.

There’s a bit of time between the workshop and the buses to the golf club for the banquet, so I grab a shower and feel much better for it… we meet in the lobby after the first round of buses has left and we’re treated to some fizzy water in the bar while those on the first bus are gently roasted in the afternoon sun at the golf club for their aperitifs.

We take the last bus over to the banquet where there are a few more drinks and Toby shouts at us on the way into the venue. We’re well toward the back end of the queue and find ourselves in what feels like the spillover end of the room – although it very much isn’t as we have plenty of food stations and when it comes time for the entertainment we get theatre-style seating front and centre for the magic show.

Gill and a few folks leave a bit earlier and grab a cab back to the hotel and I take pics of the entertainment, right up until our magician takes a bit of a spill during his walking on wine sequence and gets a huge thump on the head in the resulting attempted recovery. (His wife lets us know he’s fine the next day.) It’s a fun show with some quick-changes and transformations and an excellent chapeaugraphy bit – I can’t remember when I last saw someone take on this art… I’m not sure how many others in the audience appreciate the historical angle of this one.

After the entertainment Marc and I head out to find a bus, via the espresso machine and manage to find one of the last seats on the first bus round so we get back to the hotel at a not-unreasonable hour.

I crash… big time.

Next morning I don’t have any meetings so I get to lie in a bit(!) before grabbing some breakfast and finding the queue for the puzzle party… there’s a long snake of a queue so I choose to have a chat with Shane and Rainer who gives me a big old lump of brass when I give him an envelope of cash… it’s a great start to the puzzle party and I haven’t even gotten into the queue to get into the room yet…

When the queue evaporates, I wander in and find Doog and Laura right in the entrance so I have to cast an eye over his table… noticing that some of his boxes have already been liberated and he has a few of his collaborations with Radek, including Summer, the newest of the Demonticons. I decide not to grab one and instead leave them for other more desperate puzzlers, knowing that Radek will have them in his shop in the next few days anyway… later on in the day I wind them up when I see they’ve sold out and Doog is furiously apologetic for not putting one aside for me (when I hadn’t asked him to!). I think he realises I’m just winding him up, although he does tee up Radek to hook me up soon afterwards! (Thanks guys! ;-) )

Ethel is running a few silent auctions for some special puzzles from Laurie’s collection and I place a few bids on them. Most of them get overtaken but I’m delighted at the end of the party to find that I’ve acquired another of Laurie’s Trevor Wood puzzles – something a little special for the horde.

Perry has run a wonderfully orderly process for selling this year’s baked goods called Tiramistero – I’m one of the lucky ones who manages to secure a copy and when I roll up at his table one of his sons greets me with a clipboard and asks if I have a reservation with them… my puzzle arrives and I hand over another of those envelopes with cash in it… then I’m forced to partake in some of their wonderful chocolates while I thank Perry for deciding on this year’s process after the scrummage in Houston. The cake this year is a(nother) thing of absolute beauty.

I spend some time chatting with Yavuz and pick up a couple of gorgeous new designs from him before finding a new Endo-san puzzle on the Torito table so I pick up a couple of copies for Ali and Steve in the hope that they haven’t already done the same thing. (They haven’t and they’re delighted.)

The Monkeys do a pretty solid trade in both their old and their new puzzles, with many puzzlers adding a copy of Gary Foshee’s Transparent Lock to their collections.

I join Gill for another sandwich in the room before a bit more shopping… a couple of boxes of mini Hanayamas and I agree to pay a deposit for the next IPP, failing general pestilence I’m probably going to be going!

I don’t manage to make it to any of the afternoon lectures or workshops as I get sucked into making some late changes to a presentation and working out some of the finer points of some of those presentations during the evening’s awards dinner. Nick and I get our respective presentations teed up on the hotel’s laptop and make sure they all run properly before waiting for the stampede when the doors are opened.

As it turns out there’s a fairly orderly arrival without the traditional barging in to grab a good table up front. Gill and the gang secure a table for us about halfway back and I join them. There’s plenty of wine and water again but I decide it’s too far to trek to the bar for a coke this time.

The food is great and the service is well-different from the restaurant’s normal standard – we’re delighted. After dinner our host invites Nick to present the Design Competition awards and he runs through them while I grab snaps of the designers in the room receiving their awards in person – some of them are really delighted – Yavuz is delighted to be given a Tom Lensch copy of his own design for winning an award.

There’s a super fun, pacey presentation from Marc on the next party and he makes it sound like a brilliant excuse for getting together with our friends again next year… just in case anyone needed any further encouragement. Teddy and Iwahiro confirm that that next party after that will be in Japan and that they’re hoping to hold the party in a slightly cooler month than our traditional middle-of-the-summer-heat. That seems to be a popular choice as well!

After that, Nick and Iwahiro present Frans with a thank-you gift from IPP for his many years of service on the Board – he gets an extended standing ovation from the entire room before Nick gives him a custom compound burr from Stephan Baumegger.

After the awards our host gets her team up on stage to receive a team gift and take a shot of something Italian (mine’s a fruit juice, Italian of course!) – I’m a bit surprised to be included when all I’ve done is take a few snaps of the dinners, but hey – free puzzles!

After a few more speeches from our host I get to present a couple of Nob Yoshigahara Awards to George and Oskar for their tremendous contributions to the puzzling community over the past several decades. When I get to the podium I’m confused at the sight of a new laptop in situ with a Whatsapp chat page open and no sign of the hotel’s laptop with my presentation on it. I decide I’m better off doing without the presentations given the challenges of getting it all working earlier in the evening. The confetti cannons ensure that nobody sleeps through my speech and both gents receive a wonderfully warm round of applause. George is so moved he decides he can’t summon up a speech, but Oskar manages to conjure up something off the cuff in the manner of a wonderfully accomplished public speaker – in his second language!

After the awards I have the pleasure of presenting our host with a gift that we know she doesn’t already have in her collection as Stephan describes what he’s done to make her a truly unique host gift… it seems to hit the spot and she’s visibly moved – great job Stephan!

We have one last round of songs from Luca, our tenor-for-the-night before the confetti cannons rain down Italian flags on us for one last time and we start saying our goodbyes – the hardest part of any IPP.

I lose track of Gill and need to grab something from Marc’s room and I’m surprised to find that Gill isn’t in the room so I head back down to the ball room where she’s still saying her goodbyes… so we spend a while longer chatting to folks and making plans to meet again next year.

There’s a heap of packing still to do and we’re well into Monday before we finally hit the sack…

Next morning sees the final bit of packing before we order a cab and grab some breakfast.

We check out and our cab arrives a little early so we head to the station where we find Anna, Rick and Mary-Anne already there so we join them on the earlier train to Foligno, reducing the risk of missing our connecting train to Tiburtina… the only real hassle is wrangling the heavy luggage, but given the contents are largely my fault, I’m in no place to complain!

We manage to make the platform change at Tiburtina just in time and get to FCO exactly when we’d hoped to… automobiles and trains completed, we check in the bags for the flight to Heathrow and brace ourselves for the trials of the new immigration systems that have just been introduced… we needn’t have worried as we’re through in less in than 15 minutes and have plenty of time for a decent lunch and one last gelato before the flight homeward.

Our bags are a bit slow coming out, but that might just be because we quite literally raced through immigration. The drive home is super smooth and we collect the dogs and settle in for a reasonably early night in our own bed after another great IPP with our friends from all around the world…

IPP 43 - seconda parte

Rox gives us a lecture on what to expect on our trip to the WPC the next day and there are plenty of questions and answers until the deafening applause from the rear of the room signals the end of that session and dinner time.

In spite of the warning from others who’ve been here for a few days already we decide to try the hotel restaurant – in fairness we have a large table but we struggle to attract the attention of a waiter until Jo literally rugby-tackles one of them only for us to discover that he’s not entrusted with the magic order pad so we switch our attentions to said waiter…. We eventually manage to order, but there’s a farcical series of events that sees Nick getting his starter after his main course, several main courses getting substituted and my total inability to grab a Coke Zero… we still enjoy a fun evening together anyway and it’s great catching up with Doog!

Next morning there’s an absolute throng of people in the breakfast room but I manage to grab some brekkie while catching up with Simon, Tom and Dor…. The room magically empties on the stroke of 8am as the buses begin loading up for the trip to the WPC… so I get to finish my breakfast at a more leisurely pace… I see off some of the buses before heading down for a second round of pastries and coffees with Deidre, Gill, Nigel and Steve. We chat for a while and then I head off to Panicale with Steve… I’m navigating and we sort of make it there without incident although we need to get Benny to park Steve’s rental car because it’s a pretty tight spot!

Ali hooks us up with our wristbands to allow us entry into the WPC and we start chatting with our mates… it doesn’t take long for the allure of the food vans to take hold and I enjoy a wonderful hot dog in the park across the road with the Finnish crew… and when Vesa points out that there’s a crossword on the back of the hot dog wrapper, Tomas and I feel the need to complete it… we fail miserably but it gives my Finnish friends plenty of opportunities to have a laugh at our expense so it’s all worthwhile…

I do a quick tour of the WPC and I’m impressed with how much extra work has been completed since my previous visit!

I find myself outside again in the park with Steve and Ali and we decide it’s time for an ice cream so we round up a bunch of folks who want a gelato… somehow we end up in  one of the bars on the piazza for an hour or two having a pretty amusing time – I blame Benny! – before we make it to the gelato joint (superb!) and then I head off back to the hotel with Doog and Laura – the trip home turns out to be quite memorable when a local tries to kill us on the road and then a big chunk of our route is given over to road works that google maps seems unable to route us around… Doog triumphs in spite of the adversity and gets us safely back to the hotel.

We round up a bunch for dinner and head into town in a large taxi and the Doog-mobile to grab some pizzas… which turn out to be both excellent and inexpensive at a place that Gill had found earlier in the day. We feast and chat and laugh and enjoy another good meal with friends… Doog and Laura fit into the group really well.

I end up crashing soon after getting back to the hotel knowing that I need to be sensible for an early morning meeting on Friday…

I am duly up at the proverbial crack of dawn and grab some breakfast with Scott before heading off to a meeting for an hour or two. There’s a bit of time between the meeting and the first workshop which is a talk by Oskar, George and Andreas. The opening ballet involved some moving music controlled by Nigel, with Oskar, Andreas and George floating their respective pieces of Oskar’s cubes into position for the assembly… it is hilarious.

Oskar takes the lead telling the story of Oskar’s Cubes over the years before Andreas talks us through the next generation of BurrTools and trying to get a room full of puzzlers walked through the radically new user interface – I haven’t taken a laptop so I’m able to concentrate on his demo and I learn a stack about it…. Chris and Dan just about manage to get through the demo… and then George talks about the manufacturing process and gives away another Bambu printer to great cheers.

We all get a copy of the puzzle to assemble (Thanks Dan!).

I have a bit of a wander and chat to all three monkeys, catch up with Doog and Tim and Rainer… I head up to the room for a sandwich because the hotel restaurant wasn’t going to be open, although it actually does seem to be open today after all – I must be confused. The sandwich is great!

After lunch I chew the fat with John a bit before we head down for Marc and Ryan’s talk about puzzle cataloguing – PUZZ.BUZZ seems to be the future and it all looks pretty handy – especially if you already have some sort of catalogue of your own – there’s an easy way to stitch yours into the motherlode!

Next up Vinco runs a fantastic workshop where we make our own copies of his OMPIC puzzle, although in fairness he’s done literally all of the hard work, so we’re literally just bevelling the pieces and then gluing them together as Vinco’s already made the boxes… everything goes together beautifully with the jigs that Vinco has given us… everything gets a coat of wax and then we’re able to play with our puzzles and pack them into their boxes. Vinco put a huge effort into teeing everything up perfectly – down to the funky behind-the-scenes videos he’s created to show us the work that went into prepping our goodie bags – it’s a great couple of hours spent with friends building a puzzle of our own. I end up spending more time than I’d care to admit finding the solution, having several spells of wondering if I’ve glued the pieces correctly when I can’t even find a cube assembly, let alone get them into the box.

We freshen up a wee bit before heading up to the Welcome Reception where there’s already quite a buzz with excited puzzlers milling around and enjoying the free wine, beer and water. There’s a charity auction table set up with a bunch of desirable puzzles laid out and there’s much excitement and speculation on the best strategy with various people trying to psych one another out. I know other’s pockets are WAY deeper than mine and I resolve to bid on a breeding pair of Standard Puzzle Hamsters, even if only to make sure that they raise a decent price… later it transpires I needn’t have worried as the bidding quickly goes way beyond what I was planning to bid anyway – it seems there are several generous people out there with a sense of humour and good knowledge of MPP meme-ology.  

 

I get to have a few chats with my mates in between the flag tossers and the marching bands and there’s a stonking great spread of dinner with plenty left over after everyone’s had their fill… I make use of the lesser-known buffet tables down in the garden rather than join the throng on the roof terrace – it feels like a good choice.

I migrate back upstairs for the auction ably handled by Kellian who seems to be introduced as Killian for some strange reason throughout the party. Anne supports her by parading the various lots around the room with someone shining a phone torch on them so that people can actually see them properly. Kellian does an excellent job of whipping up excitement and has the audience yelling out any stereotypical Italian words when they wanted to bid… so there was plenty of “Cappuccino” and “Tagliatelle” randomly being called out as money was being raised for a good cause… not sure what yet. Tom buys a little wooden chest that he’s not allowed to touch until after the end of the Party… we’re all intrigued.

The higher end puzzles become the subject of a silent auction that goes into the next day. I spend a while at the bar where I find I can get a soft drink, so a few us end up having a chat there while we hear the frantic yells of random Italian phrases still ringing out from the roof terrace. There’s a television showing the World Cup games and it’s being pretty much totally ignored…

I retire at a vaguely sensible hour, conscious that the party is going to continue for quite some time!

IPP43 - prima parte

We start our travels on Saturday afternoon heading down to London for pizzas with Chris and Ken at Social Dough before crashing at Chris’ place for the night. Next morning we head to the pod parking and we’re in the terminal in plenty of time to grab some breakfast at Nero before saying goodbye to our bags and heading into the duty-free paradise(!) that is terminal 5.

We stock up on M&Ms for the room and Longchamp bags for the carrying thereof…we mooch around for a while and head to the gate where there’s an absolute masterclass in not listening to the pleas not to gather at the entrance to the gate before your group number is called…we get on toward the end of boarding and there’s plenty space in the overheads so we relax for the short haul to Rome.

Rome is nice and warm (30C) and we get through immigration fairly quickly after expecting the worst with the new EU entry requirements – we found the shorter queue somehow… We get our bags and join the queue for the taxis after establishing that Nick and Anne are already well clear of the airport. Our bear of a cab driver drops us at our hotel and we’re welcomed to our room for the next few days…

We meet up with Nick and Anne a short while later and head out for a lemonade (with basil) and some pastries in lieu of lunch… then we head off into the underbelly of Rome managing to avoid most of the tourist spots until Nick navigates us to the Villa Borghese where they’re setting up for some sort of celebration for the local police chief, apparently… the grounds are massive and we spend ages wandering through them before heading down Via Veneto (I’ve heard of that one) which is fairly quiet as it’s a warm Sunday afternoon. We cut back and forwards toward our hotel and arrange to meet for a spot of dinner a little later…

Dinner is at a pizza joint that Chris has recommend (she also recommended the hotel and several other eateries around the hotel) and it’s brilliant! The pizzas are excellent and the waiter’s recommendation of lemon cake for dessert is really memorable! There’s a queue waiting for tables pretty much the entire time we’re there – clearly the locals like this place as well! We crash at a reasonable hour and get a brilliant night’s sleep.

We sleep in the next morning and Nick and Anne end up putting us to shame and heading out hours before us even though they’re the ones who should be jet-lagged. We end up back at the local coffee shop for a pain au chocolate and an espresso before meandering down toward Piazza Navona and a cold drink. Lunch consists of a massive plate of starters for me and a Caesar salad for Gill… we wander past the Trevi Fountain and I get a great pic of the assembled throng of tourists all clamouring for the perfect shot of the fountain…

The walk back to the hotel is largely uphill and as a result we take a pretty direct route before chilling for a few hours.

We meet up with Dave and Jan and Nick and Anne in the lobby and Dave wrangles us a cab down to Travestere where we have a secret food tour booked… we find Frank and Jo already in the first bar so we join them… it would be rude not to after all! After a short while our guide for the evening joins us and following the usual introductions and a long explanation of why we meet up once a year somewhere around the world – which for some reason includes an introductory lesson in mechanical puzzles.

Ludo then proceeds to introduce us to a bunch of local Roman dishes from a series of specialist establishments – deep-fried zucchini with anchovy and mozzarella at the second stop, proper Roman pasta at the fourth, Maritozzi was a revelation and the final round of gelato was superb…we’re all grateful to Jan for finding this one and for taking the initiative – it’s a brilliant evening for friends to reconnect and experience some of the local specialities.

Gill and I fade stupidly early – we don’t have the excuse of being jet-lagged so it must be an age thing!

 

Tuesday morning is another leisurely start with breakfast at our usual spot and then a trip to the local supermarket for some hotel snacks and breakfast the next day… then we grab a cab down to Piazza Navona for a little sight-seeing before our pasta and tiramisu-making class.

We meet up with the Potts and the Baxters and enjoy a welcome glass of prosecco before heading into the restaurant to start the process of making our pasta… literally from scratch – one egg and some flour and fair amount of gentle encouragement and we have a large sheet of pasta on our boards about an hour later… that duly gets chopped into strands and we choose our pasta sauces…

Next we’re onto the tiramisu and that’s even harder work as the real Italians don’t believe in using electric mixers! Once it’s fully beaten into submission we head out for a starter and some cold drinks in the warm piazza – those misting machines are superb! We end up having a wonderfully leisurely lunch made largely by our own fair hands and end up chatting there for an hour or two.

We’re feeling lazy and grab a cab back to the hotel where we end up chilling for the rest of the afternoon…

We meet the Rossettis and the Baxters for dinner at a local Taverna that Dave’s chosen with the help of Google and it’s superb! We literally feast on some simply superb dishes over several hours and have a brilliant evening before a gentle wander back to the hotel.

We end up getting all our packing sorted before crashing – we’ve set alarms for the morning but don’t end up needing them…simple breakfast in the hotel room and the final packing before meeting the gang downstairs and grabbing a taxi van to the train station… we manage to evade the alleged plague of pickpockets, grab another coffee and pastry before heading off to the platform, which it turns out is a long hike across the other side of the station… we make it with about 10 minutes to spare but the Potts don’t…

They end up grabbing a cab to another Rome station and getting a later train from there to try and catch up with us at our change-over where we should have just over an hour between trains… we watch their progress over the next couple of hours with their window of opportunity getting progressively smaller and smaller but they manage it with a couple of minutes to spare in the end…

We get onboard and find Duncan and his wife in the same carriage, only I insist on calling him Donald for some reason… in Assisi, Jan is off the train in a flash and wrangles us the only taxi on the rank and all 8 of us pile into it and head up the hill to our hotels.

We check in and unpack and then start running into all of our friends in the lobby and at registration – it’s good to be among my tribe again, especially now that there’s a growing number of MPP-ers among them!

 

IPP42 (Part 4)

Next morning we met Anne and Nick in the breakfast line and then Brian and Sue led the entire breakfast room in a round of Happy Birthday - really not embarrassing at all… after breakfast I headed to the puzzle party and joined the very orderly queue to be allowed to enter at 9 o’clock while watching all those with dealer tables wandering in and setting up… or trying to snag an early bargain before the rabble were allowed in.

I made a bee-line for Mine’s table hoping to find something new and didn’t at first, although on some of my subsequent visits I did manage to find a few little goodies that I didn’t already have.

Tetsuro tracked me down and presented me with a carrier bag of some of his older exchange puzzles that he’d recently found while cleaning out a room… and then Osho handed me another bag full of Hiroshi Yamamoto’s designs in recognition of his recent passing - both wonderfully generous gentlemen! Thank you!

A couple of the guys who missed the exchange the day before now have their exchange puzzles and we all get the chance to exchange with Namba-San and Hendrik.

During the course of the day I get to spend some time chatting with Scott Elliott - something that’s always enlightening and entertaining all at once. The Hanayama guys have some giant cast puzzles for sale and I spend a while wondering how I can justify spending a fair chunk of change on 5 big old chunks of heavy metal (10kg in total) before Ali puts me out of my misery and buys a couple of sets of them - Two Brass Monkey heavy metal puzzle research in action.

I decided to spoil myself with a copy of Stephan’s Moonage M5 because I still haven’t had a chance to play with one and I decide to nominate that as my birthday present this year.

On one of my many visits to the 2BM table Steve sneaks up behind me and launches into yet another rousing round of happy birthday with most of the room joining in yet again. Like I said, not at all embarrassing!

I spend a little while chatting with Yavuz and pick up a copy of his (subsequently award-winning) Design competition entry Rhombox… and he throws in another puzzle for no good reason at all! Jules convinces me I need a copy of his dad’s new disentanglement with a number 42 in it… I don’t need much convincing it turns out!

I grab a couple of interesting little goodies from George Bell’s table, pick up another number puzzle book and spend a little while raking through Osanori Yamamoto’s table and grab a copy of his Square Lock. I’m somewhat taken aback when he recognizes my name badge and remarks about my blog - it still takes me by surprise when I find out that the designers whose puzzles I really enjoy even know about my blog.

With the puzzle party winding down I find Gill and we head off for a milkshake and burger at Shake Tree - there’s a little concern when I order the slider and a shake and Gill orders a burger and a shake… yes, I’m not very hungry and she is (I’ve polished off a couple of sacks of 7Eleven snacks for my lunch already by this time…) - both the burgers and the shakes are excellent, albeit not particularly Japanese-y.

The afternoon lectures include memories of Hiroshi Yamamoto who’d recently passed away, Marc did a presentation on cataloguing puzzles with a call for volunteers to help. Miura-San gives a delightful talk on puzzle design, being between obvious and impossible and then George gave an update on the World Puzzle Centre.

Having learnt our lesson from the night before we asked Nick if he had place at his table for us and then joined the throng waiting to be allowed inside the hall at the appointed time. This time there was plenty of space in the hall for everyone, and subsequently plenty of food for everyone too. (All’s well that ends…)

Shoko and Esa run a game for us which allows us all to put random messages on the screen, and it doesn’t take long for some random hamster references to appear… followed shortly thereafter by more happy birthday messages and a subsequent round of singing too… yeah, maybe a wee bit embarrassing now! :-)

Wooden Tie Club

 

Nick launches into the presentation of the Design comp awards and there’s plenty cheering when Koichi Miura wins two Jury Honourable Mentions and a Top 10 Votes Award - definitely a popular local hero! :-) There’s even more cheering when another local lad, Yasuhiro Hashimoto, takes the top prize for Diagonal Twins, one of the few puzzles I’ve solved and really enjoyed!

After the awards there’s the customary thanking of the hosts who are each presented with a giant Cast Baroq (of which these are the only two in the world) before the committee and volunteers each receive a special Hanayama puzzle as a thank you.

With the festivities over we allow the hotel staff to turn around the room and we chat in the foyer for a while, saying some goodbyes and just chatting with those who aren’t leaving yet. We end up getting to bed at a reasonable time and take advantage of not having to get up at a specific time to not set an alarm for the first time in a while…

As it is we end up sleeping until 9:30 and missing breakfast (see earlier comments about room snacks!) - Gill takes charge of sorting out the packing and we get most of our stuff squared away (including most of the puzzles and the recent fabric purchases before we head down to meet Nick, Anne, Brian and Sue for lunch… we wander across the river and find a little noodle bar down a back alley for a great lunch costing about £22 - for the six of us!

We do some touristing and selfie-taking before heading to another nearby ice cream shop we haven’t tried yet… we get affogatos and iced coffees and I can’t resist their last piece of tiramisu - it’s all great!!

On the slow walk back to the hotel we bump into Benny and the Monkeys who’ve just surfaced and are planning to head into town for some breakfast at 3pm - they’ve had a long night… we all agree to meet up at breakfast the next morning, except for Brian and Sue who head out this evening on their next leg… we fail.

From there on we’re more or less solo, out for dinner at Shake Tree so I can have a real burger and then an early night (I’m getting too old for these IPP late nights!) - however being a Monday evening Shake Tree is closed so we head back to our favourite Chinese joint for more spicy noodles and dumplings - I am very much a creature of habit it turns out! This time the chef has seriously cranked up the spice levels and I end up wearing some of my dinner, to the point that the shirt will get abandoned back at the hotel as the stains ain’t going to be coming out any time soon… on the way back to the hotel we find several groups of puzzlers who manage to crack a smile at my clumsiness.

We finish off the packing after breakfast the next morning and say goodbye to Benny and the Monkeys and Nick-San before grabbing a cab back to Haneda for the flight to Blighty.

Another wonderfully memorable Japanese IPP thanks to a great organising committee. 

IPP42 (Part 2)

 

On Tuesday Gill and Sue head off to Shinjuku and Brian and I head off to Torito. Brian does an ace job of navigating and we pretty much just went straight there - no detours like we normally have when I’m navigating! We find Tim and Carol already at Torito (we’ve arrived shortly AFTER opening after all and I get in a little bout of laundry, topping up on my Hanayamas (minis and disentanglements), a couple of new puzzles from Teddy and Kofuh, and some Japanese number puzzles. The Luxembourg contingent arrived in full force and proceeded to shop seriously. Brian and I settled down and embarrassed ourselves trying to reassemble a bunch of random Hanayama puzzles scattered around the play table… between us we manage to reassemble two or three…but we’re suitably embarrassed.

From there we headed across town to Shinjuku where the girls had found a spot in Memory Lane for lunch - Google got us more or less to the right place and Gill found us and took us upstairs into a tiny little hole-in-the-wall that did some really nice meat and veg skewers. After lunch we headed off to a wonderfully swanky department store where we window-shopped a while before heading across the road - devoid of cars due to the public holiday - to grab an airplane adapter for Brian’s noise-cancelling headphones - success when a wonderfully helpful sales assistant worked out precisely what was needed and found one for us.

Back at the hotel we meet Shoko, Esa and Iwahiro for a final planning meeting for the Fabric & Fibre tour the next morning - they really don’t need us as Shoko’s done a brilliant job of organising it all already… final details agreed we find Louis and Patrick fresh off a plane and they join us and several others on a trip out to Asakusa for some gluten-free (and well-glutenated!) pizzas and pastas. Iwahiro is sporting his 2BM IPP41 shirt – making a serious fashion statement.

Next morning we grab our usual breakfast before getting the F&F gang sorted and onto the bus before a few of us head upstairs to help Nick set up the Puzzle Design Competition entries… Brian and I sort out the solution sheets while Chinny and Nick unpack the puzzles and then we distribute them around the room before sitting down to test things. We manage to get a couple of hours playing in before we all feel the need to head off and find some lunch. After a couple of false starts we end up sitting on the floor in a traditional restaurant - the creaking and complaints getting down onto the floor are nothing compared to the noises when we have to get back up about an hour later - we hobbled back to the hotel…

Frank needed to try and find a charger and we decided we needed to go in search of some puzzles at a toy store in Ueno - we’re joined by Chinny and Benny and the Monkeys (a new J-Pop band?) and at the toy store Ali gives Steve some money and Steve gives him crabs.

Our attempt to source a charger for Frank fails abysmally and we end up wandering back to the hotel via the underground. 

There's heaps of hilarity when Steve brings out a box of surprises for the SOAPs in the form of customised deely boppers (I think that's what they're called!) that he's christened SOAP-finders - making it easier for the SOAPs to find one another in a crowded room... inital tests in the lobby are promising. 

The guys decide to head off to a nearby Tiki Bar and when another 9 of us follow on later we’re met by some patrons leaving in a huff remarking about the stressed-out bartender… up the stairs we find said-bartender who works himself into a bit of a froth at the fact that another bunch of rowdy puzzlers has just rolled into his bar and want another 9 seats… we decided it wasn’t worth trying to convince him we’ll be fine just grabbing chairs and end up deciding to head off in search of dinner - we duly end up back at the local Chinese who happily accommodate 9 of us in one go (it’s a tiny joint!), and then another 9 when the boys follow on a few minutes later… we’ve virtually filled the place in one foul swoop and they handle it superbly… right up until one of our friends insists he hasn’t received the rice he ordered… we order him some and he’s happy, we think, but it’s hard to tell…

I grab an ice cream on the way back to the hotel and we crash early ahead of a long trip to Hakone in the morning.

There’s a massive throng of excited puzzlers in the lobby waiting for the four buses to Hakone in the morning. I hook up with Nick and Anne as Gill and Sue are heading off to a traditional tea ceremony and some shopping. Nick and I end up on the number three bus between Matt, John, Yacine and Clive… there’s a chunk of puzzling and a lot of banter… probably more than planned given we end up in a bit of a traffic jam on the highway due to an accident that seems to come neatly between our four buses… Nick spends a long time working on a new design from Andreas and I toil on Minima Bi-cubes - it takes me ages to get the pieces out of the frame before I can even start… in the end it literally takes me several hours before I finally manage to push everything into the little 2*2*3 box… another goodie from that man Boucher!

The excitement builds on the bus as we climb up the hills heading into Hakone and there’s a rapid exit as the bus empties and Izumiya fills up. I stop for a chat with Mine who’s recovering from surgery and when I have a look through his boxes of wares he politely informs me that I already have everything he’s brought along to sell today… it turns out he’s right - he promises to have new things in Tokyo…

We head up the road to the closed Karakuri museum and the largely-emptied Maruyama before heading back to fetch Anne from her somewhat productive shopping trip to Izumiya. We pull up a couple of tables of puzzlers at a tempura joint which feeds us well in plenty of time for our bus onwards. We head through the scenic countryside to Gora where the puzzles have largely already been purchased. We enjoy the scenery that only gets better and better as we ride the funicular up the hills - on the Honeymoon train - I try not to think too hard about that name.

The bus collects us at the top and we wend our way down the mountain and onto the motorway back to Tokyo - the traffic isn’t as bad this time and we have a short break at a rest stop where Otis and Nick grab a selfie at the same Starbucks they took a selfie at exactly 6 years earlier. Somewhere around here Nick finally manages to solve Andreas’ project and declares it worthy…

Matt brings out a Giiker Super Slider and demonstrates it and then lets Nick have a go on it… we’re all a bit surprised when the machine gives up on Nick and turns itself off, presumably because it’s gotten bored waiting for him to solve the puzzle.

We eventually get back to the hotel and Gill tells me about the tea ceremony she and Sue have been at (and the shopping side trip) - a bunch of us head out for ice creams rather than dinner and the Monkeys join us having completed their trains, planes and automobile rally around Hakone under their own steam - they’ve had a fantastic day and Steve’s managed to find an absolute treasure of a puzzle along the way.

Back at the hotel Gill heads off to bed and I spend a few hours in the design comp room not solving much but enjoying catching up with a few folks - Stefan gives me a copy of his gift puzzle: a micro-scale four-piece rhombic dodecahedron that requires assembly - the fact that I have a full-size copy at home to crib off might make assembly almost possible… I witness a lovely moment when Stefan introduces himself to Iwahiro and gives him a copy too, at which point Iwahiro exclaims “Ah, you’re are THE GUY!” - I think Stefan’s already made a massive positive impression at his first IPP!

Soon after that I head off and crash.