Proposals submitted before our earlier deadline (April 30th) will get a confirmation this week and we hope to announce them on this blog next week so you can know what to expect.

When staying in Tokyo why not visit the famous Tsukiji Fish Market in the early morning and have Sushi for breakfast? Or find a Kaiten-zushi sushi restaurant where the plates with the sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt that winds through the restaurant and moves past every table and counter seat.

To learn more about the tradition of Japanese Sushi watching the video is highly recommended.

amenity=restaurant
cuisine=sushi
cuisine:ja=すし

As you may have noticed, registration is now open, thanks for all who have registered already! You still have some time to get your ticket at early bird prices. If you are an OSMF member you will get an e-mail soon with details on the extra €10 discount. This means you can get a ticket for 3 days of OSM fun for only 75 euro!

The Call for Presentations deadline is approaching fast. If you submit your talk before the end of April you have a very good chance to get accepted. We will let you know in the first week of May and hope to start publishing some talks then.

Of course we’re always looking for new sponsors so have a look at our Sponsors page if you want to request our Sponsorship brochure.

The local team in Tokyo is working on the catering and looking into some excursions we would like to offer.

We’re also working on the Scholarship program for this year and hope to announce this very soon.

Hope to see you all in Tokyo!

After a long flight, landed in a totally different time zone you may be awake in the middle of the night. So why not climbing Mt. Fuji in the night to see the sun rise from the top?

Mount Fuji (富士山 Fuji-san) is with 3776 meters the highest mountain in Japan and one of Japan’s “Three Holy Mountains”.
Mt. Fuji is officially open for climbing during July and August via several routes and you won’t be alone: thousands of people climb the mountain every summer. Climbing from October to May is very strongly discouraged, so beginning of September sounds like a perfect match.

There are several climbing routes, but if you want to enjoy Mt. Fuji at a more leisurely pace and from a nice natural surrounding, you should head to the Fuji Five Lake (Fujigoko) region at the northern foot of the mountain, or to Hakone, a nearby hot spring resort.
Be aware that even during official climbing seeason, when Tokyo often swelters in 40°C heat, temperatures at the top can be below freezing at night and climbers must dress adequately!

Find more information about climbing Mt. Fuji at Wikitravel or Japan-Guide.

highway=path
natural=volcano
tourism=viewpoint

Venue

The conference takes place at the Convention Hall (General Research Laboratory Bldg.) at the Komaba II (Research) Campus of the University of Tokyo.

Address

4-6-1 KOMABA MEGURO-KU,
TOKYO 153-8505, JAPAN
35.66109N 139.67760E (OSM map)

Travel together

Do you want to know what accommodation our delegates are staying in? Staying in the same hotel together with other mappers makes it easier to meet and explore Tokyo. We contacted hotels in Shibuya area, asked for availability and were able to make preliminary reservations from Sept. 5th to 9th. We also tried to negotiate discounts. Take a look at the accommodation page on the OSM wiki for more information about where to stay during the conference.

If you want more travel information, look at the transport page or the travel tips page.

More information

Have a look at the SotM2012 Wiki for more information. The Wiki pages will be updated regularly in the following weeks.

‘Liking’ the Facebook pages will not get you into SOTM 2012 but there have been rumours that registration is about to open! So stay tuned!

We received a total of 9 logo’s with our logo-contest. It was great to see so much creativity within the OSM community. We would like to thank all participants who’ve submitted a logo for the contest.

There were five proposals to host the leading international OpenStreetMap conference: Aveiro (Portugal), Havana (Cuba), Lille (France), Tbilisi (Georgia) and Tokyo (Japan). “We’ve received several strong bids. Deciding on the best location for State of the Map is always one of our biggest and toughest decisions.” says Henk Hoff, chairman of the SotM organizing committee. With the crisis Japan had to face the past year, the Japanese OSM has grown intensively; making Asia an important part within the OSM community.

“We strongly believe that holding State of the Map in Asia will widen and strenghten the international community as a whole, like it has done in Europe and North America in the past” commented Taichi Furuhashi of OpenStreetMap Japan.

2012 will host the sixth annual international conference, attracting over 250 people in attendance. Previous editions of this conference were held in Manchester (UK), Limerick (Ireland), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Girona (Spain), Denver (USA). Sponsorship details, volunteer opportunities and more information will be available in the near future.

photo: Tadataka INO – The regend of Mapper in Japan. CC-BY-SA Katori-city on Wikipedia