Jet lag countermeasures when going from Japan to JavaOne

This article is the 21st day article of SRA Advent Calendar 2017.

Participation in JavaOne

Hello! This is Sasaki from the Kansai Division. Needless to say, JavaOne is the largest Java conference in the world. Participation fee is reasonable, accommodation fee and travel fee are required, and since there are 5 days, it is quite a hurdle to participate because it is necessary to adjust work. So you should enjoy the conference to your heart's content because you participated.

Jet lag

However, in order to enjoy the conference, it is necessary to capture "jet lag". I attended JavaOne three times from JavaOne 2015 to JavaOne 2017. I don't have a lot of experience, but in this article I would like to introduce my own jet lag countermeasures based on my experience.

From Japan to San Francisco

First of all, to join JavaOne from Japan, you usually fly to SFO (San Francisco International Airport). Since I live in Osaka, I will explain with an example of going from Kansai International Airport (KIX) to SFO. (It seems to be similar even from Narita) There is only one direct flight from Kansai to San Francisco a day, departing around 17:00 in the evening and arriving around 11:00 noon on the same day. The time difference from San Francisco is 16 hours (during daylight saving time), so 11:00 noon is 3:00 midnight in Japan. And JavaOne will start the next morning, so if you fall asleep at a strange time on this arrival day, you will have to fight jet lag during the daytime the next day. So my recommendation is to ** not sleep until night ** on the day of arrival.

JavaOne event

It's a way to "do not sleep until night", but it's just ** sightseeing **. Since I participate in sessions during JavaOne, I don't have much time to go sightseeing. It is the day of arrival that you can get a lot of sightseeing time (unless you stay the night before or extend the night). There are many places to visit in San Francisco, but before that, let's know when JavaOne will be held. The three times I went were as follows. (All US time)

• JavaOne2015
• 10/25～10/29
• JavaOne2016
• 9/18 ～9/22
• JavaOne2017
• 10/1～10/5

2015 is the end of October 2016 is the second half of September 2017 is the beginning of October Although the holding time varies considerably, it seems that it will be held between mid-September and early November. The important thing here is that the events that can be visited may be limited depending on the time of the event.

Baseball season until September

On my second year of JavaOne 2016 arrival, I went to AT & T Park to watch the ** San Francisco Giants ** vs. ** St. Louis Cardinals ** match. AT & T Park isn't too far from the JavaOne venue, and it's easy to reach by bus. You can see the real major leaguers directly, and cheering together will create a sense of unity for the audience. And since the baseball game time is rather long, it will be a good time by the end of the game. The only thing to keep in mind is that the ** baseball season is until September **. Since JavaOne2016 was held from September 18th to September 22nd, I was able to watch the match, but this year's JavaOne2017 was held in October, so there was no match.

California Academy of Sciences

In my third year at JavaOne 2017, I left my suitcase at the hotel and first went to the California Academy of Sciences. The California Academy of Sciences has a planetarium and an aquarium, so it's a lot of fun. I enthusiastically entered the planetarium looking forward to seeing the stars, but the theme of the performance at that time was "earthquake" and no stars appeared.

San Francisco opera season

As expected, I couldn't kill time at the California Academy of Sciences until night, so I went to see an opera in the evening.

In fact, September-November is the opera season in San Francisco. It just matches the time of JavaOne. Moreover, there is a "War Memorial Opera House" near the Civic Center, which is relatively close to the venue. On the day of arrival in San Francisco (9/30) this year, "Turandot" was performed. Turandot songs are often used in figure skating such as Shizuka Arakawa, and I think that many people are familiar with "Nessun dorma" sung in Act 3. Turandot is about 3 hours including a break, so it's a good time to finish watching. Some people may think that opera is expensive and pretentious, but there were also cheap seats for about 3000 yen. Also, regarding clothes, there is no dress code at the War Memorial Opera House, and some customers come to see it in jeans. Of course, some people wore gorgeous dresses, but I think most of them looked rather rough.

NBA season from mid-October

In my first year (JavaOne2015), I went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf, and there are many other attractions in San Francisco. By the way, next year's JavaOne 2018 will be from October 28th to November 1st. There are no baseball games played during this time, but NBA and basketball games are being played. I haven't seen the NBA game yet, but it seems that there will be a ** Golden State Warriors ** vs ** Washington Wizards ** match at the Oracle Arena on October 27th on the day of arrival. It seems that the Oracle Arena can also be reached in about 20 minutes by BART from Powell Station near the JavaOne venue. What's more, the Warriors, whose home is the Oracle Arena, won the championship this year in 2017, and may be said to be the most knocked-out team right now.

We hope that the above will serve as a reference for jet lag countermeasures for those who participate in JavaOne. Thank you very much. On December 21st, my son turned 1 year old. (I'm wearing baby clothes I bought as a souvenir from JavaOne)