So once again I find myself in an airport, this time, there seems to be some sort of delay, which is making the normally very crowded narita terminals, even worse than they normally are. This time I'm on my way to nyc for a week of training on IR derivatives, followed by a short stay in toronto for chinese new years.

...My old place was just getting a little too small and a little too inconvenient to get to the office. As such, I took the bite and moved over to a bigger place in smack middle of a downtown (if a word such as 'downtown' can be applicable at all to tokyo, which has at least 5 'downtowns'). the rent is almost double my old place, but I think that the savings in commute and time will be worth it alone.... There was this control box on the side of the kitchen wall that the real estate agent mentioned was to control the gas/water heating. I wasn't sure it did anything more than that, so I left it as 'one of those controls that I should just not touch', and let it be.... I wondered how I was supposed to fill the thing with water if I ever were to use it. Well, it turns out that the control panel outside (and another inside the bathroom) will actually fill the bathtub with HEATED water (you set the temperature) when you instruct it to by pressing the correct buttons.... Better still, when your bath is filled and ready, the control panel plays a pleasant tune and tells you in a cute japanese girl voice that your bath is ready.... It sort of reminds me of Erics apartment which has a emergency panic button in his toilet room that when pressed, emits a cute tone, and exclaims (once again in a cute japanese voice) "toliet ni, ite kudasai!".... As you can imagine, in the middle of a house party, the wall panel suddenly gives off a loud alarm tone, and exclaims, "please come to the toilet!".

...The local don quixote in shibuya is within 3 min walking distance from my new place. For those of you familiar with the bargain sell everything including the kitchen sink store here in japan, oddities in inventory is the daily fare.... But particular to this branch to Don Quixote, the condoms were sold in the head of the isle, right beside the snacks and treats section. It is quite amusing Between cosmetics, and doritoes, you will find the shelf full of condoms.

...Bought another mac a couple weeks ago. Call it bonus fever. Next time I find myself with 2000 bucks with no where to spend it I think I should by more apple stock instead. To my dismay 4 days after I bought tthe iMac G5 apple announces the new iMac Core Duo (intel).... (not many aside from apple's native software right now), which really makes my purchase pretty silly sounding. Oh well, I really wanted to get a new computer in the house to do all the photo processing since the mountain of digital proofs are closely surpassing the number of film negatives that I have in storage now.... Its a great machine though, the migration over from my laptop was seamless. I started up the new machine, it asked me some questions, asked me whether I wanted to migrate over from an old mac, and I did... When I booted up, it had everything installed (all my apps) and worked exactly as they were on the old machine.

...so we go to get sushi for dinner, with some friends in the area, who were really surprised to learn that I wanted to eat sushi after arriving from japan. The truth of the matter is that people don't eat sushi too often in tokyo.... Also, there are certain maki rolls that are not available in tokyo, like spider rolls. So we find this little place in soho called Blue Ribbon Sushi on Sullivan between prince and spring. It was pretty authentic, and I got a tinge of nostalgia when we arrive and the sushi chefs should "irrashaimase!" just like in tokyo, and the waiters have a recognizable japanese accent.

...Not more than 8 hours in nyc, and we already make several sightings of celebrities. Firstly, we see Sean Penn outside a bar called Tom's bar, he's by himself, on the cell phone seemingly waiting for somebody. He's the spitting image of the way he looked in the recent movie "the interpreter", complete with beard and suit and jeans. He looks strange and almost pedestrian by himself, without the following of fans and worshippers that I'd always imagine stars to have around them. I suppose that soho in nyc is the one place in the world where stars can act like normal people, and not have to worry about people hounding them all the time.... there are just so many around, its not anything special anymore.... Its one place that they can just be normal. Speaking of normal, when we left the bar later on at night, around 10pm, Gina, a friend with us, notices that amoung the british sounding folks walking behind us is Tilde Stiltson, otherwise known as Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, or the White Witch in the new Narnia movie. Yep, there she was, walking with some of her friends, acting really normal.... It was really something seeing Galadriel, queen of the elves, shopping for fruit from a corner grocer in soho. The thing that strikes me the most about her looks is that her hair is really really blond.

...At first it seemed that it would be painfully hard to get up that early every morning, but actually, as it turns out, due to the jetlag, I fell asleep at 9pm most nights and woke up at 5am every day.... And every morning, at the training room, there were a selection of bagels and croissants, coffee and tea.... And they don't skim on the cream cheeze in america, each little packet held enough cheeze to feed a family in china. I only used about half of each packet, and that was after lathering my poor bagel to dairy heaven.

...Then it hits me like a derailed train carrying cinderblocks; the initial wince of pain, then the successive shots of panic and adrenaline as each of the cinderblocks slam into my skull in a rapid like succession.

...i clean up my things, rush out of the hotel, and make a mental note not to lose anything carelessly in the rush.... There was no way I was going to rush through the line, there wasn't any agent calling out flight numbers or escorting passengers.... Some how, I felt that it would be okay (on the cab, I had read the terms of my eticket and all the fine print.) So I calmly waited in line, and took the time to also repack my bags (I had overweighted my carry on, thanks to all the starbucks frappacino coffee's that I had taken on. When I finally got up to the counter, I met with a friendly coloured woman.... I think I'm going to be one of those trouble customers" I tell her.... I continue to tell her how I was supposed to be on the 9am flight, and she looks a little sad and worried, while she checks her terminal "I think you are too late for the 9" she continues, sympathy in her voice, "the next flight is at 11:50, -- its going to be a long wait"...... Then, to strike up a conversation, I ask her whether or not people nornally bud the line when they are rushing for their flight. She starts tell me about how sometimes customers get all riled up when people do that, even when the agents were calling the flights. She starts laughing jovially when describing some folks who were really rude in the past, quoting typical new yorker responses, and laughing in that jovial coloured woman laugh that is made famous by hollywood. We have quite a pleasant conversation, and I left the ticket counter feeling a bit nostalgic about new york, and the kindness of strangers, if you just spend a little time to talk to them. I think New Yorkers are just as friendly as most people, its just that they have a shell that you have to break through first.... I always seem to be missing flights or having close calls, but I seem to emerge out all for the better.

So once again I find myself in an airport, this time, there seems to be some sort of delay, which is making the normally very crowded narita terminals, even worse than they normally are. This time I'm on my way to nyc for a week of training on IR derivatives, followed by a short stay in toronto for chinese new years.

Talking Toilets

I recently (and by recently I mean in the last 2 months) moved to Shibuya. My old place was just getting a little too small and a little too inconvenient to get to the office. As such, I took the bite and moved over to a bigger place in smack middle of a downtown (if a word such as 'downtown' can be applicable at all to tokyo, which has at least 5 'downtowns'). the rent is almost double my old place, but I think that the savings in commute and time will be worth it alone. A funny thing happened when I was playing around with my new high tech apartment. There was this control box on the side of the kitchen wall that the real estate agent mentioned was to control the gas/water heating. I wasn't sure it did anything more than that, so I left it as 'one of those controls that I should just not touch', and let it be. Later on, when I was in the shower, I noticed, to my surprise that the tub did not have any facets. just a little metal port/device at the bottom. I wondered how I was supposed to fill the thing with water if I ever were to use it. Well, it turns out that the control panel outside (and another inside the bathroom) will actually fill the bathtub with HEATED water (you set the temperature) when you instruct it to by pressing the correct buttons. Wow. totally hands free bath magic. Better still, when your bath is filled and ready, the control panel plays a pleasant tune and tells you in a cute japanese girl voice that your bath is ready. Damn, now if only I had heated floor boards, then i would really be spoiled. Still, I don't use the bath that often. Call it american habits. It sort of reminds me of Erics apartment which has a emergency panic button in his toilet room that when pressed, emits a cute tone, and exclaims (once again in a cute japanese voice) "toliet ni, ite kudasai!". Which basically means, "please come to the toilet!". As you can imagine, in the middle of a house party, the wall panel suddenly gives off a loud alarm tone, and exclaims, "please come to the toilet!". hilarious.

Don Quixote.

or should it be Don Juan? The local don quixote in shibuya is within 3 min walking distance from my new place. For those of you familiar with the bargain sell everything including the kitchen sink store here in japan, oddities in inventory is the daily fare. Nothing new. But particular to this branch to Don Quixote, the condoms were sold in the head of the isle, right beside the snacks and treats section. It is quite amusing Between cosmetics, and doritoes, you will find the shelf full of condoms. Great store, don quixote.


Mac-a-topia

Bought another mac a couple weeks ago. Call it bonus fever. Next time I find myself with 2000 bucks with no where to spend it I think I should by more apple stock instead. To my dismay 4 days after I bought tthe iMac G5 apple announces the new iMac Core Duo (intel). ranked about 2x faster than the G5 for applications that are written for it. (not many aside from apple's native software right now), which really makes my purchase pretty silly sounding. Oh well, I really wanted to get a new computer in the house to do all the photo processing since the mountain of digital proofs are closely surpassing the number of film negatives that I have in storage now. The need for some serious organization and sorting is dire... and this poor little laptop is no longer up to the task. Its a great machine though, the migration over from my laptop was seamless. I started up the new machine, it asked me some questions, asked me whether I wanted to migrate over from an old mac, and I did... When I booted up, it had everything installed (all my apps) and worked exactly as they were on the old machine. Amazing. Should have bought more stock.

Sushi in NYC
so we go to get sushi for dinner, with some friends in the area, who were really surprised to learn that I wanted to eat sushi after arriving from japan. The truth of the matter is that people don't eat sushi too often in tokyo. and even then, its a little expensive. Also, there are certain maki rolls that are not available in tokyo, like spider rolls. So we find this little place in soho called Blue Ribbon Sushi on Sullivan between prince and spring. It was pretty authentic, and I got a tinge of nostalgia when we arrive and the sushi chefs should "irrashaimase!" just like in tokyo, and the waiters have a recognizable japanese accent. Nice...

Star Sightings.

Not more than 8 hours in nyc, and we already make several sightings of celebrities. Firstly, we see Sean Penn outside a bar called Tom's bar, he's by himself, on the cell phone seemingly waiting for somebody. He's the spitting image of the way he looked in the recent movie "the interpreter", complete with beard and suit and jeans. He looks strange and almost pedestrian by himself, without the following of fans and worshippers that I'd always imagine stars to have around them. I suppose that soho in nyc is the one place in the world where stars can act like normal people, and not have to worry about people hounding them all the time. Perhaps it has something to do with the general nyc attitude with stars... there are just so many around, its not anything special anymore. And consequently, that's why so many stars like to live in soho. Its one place that they can just be normal. Speaking of normal, when we left the bar later on at night, around 10pm, Gina, a friend with us, notices that amoung the british sounding folks walking behind us is Tilde Stiltson, otherwise known as Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, or the White Witch in the new Narnia movie. Yep, there she was, walking with some of her friends, acting really normal. She even stops at a grocery store. It was really something seeing Galadriel, queen of the elves, shopping for fruit from a corner grocer in soho. The thing that strikes me the most about her looks is that her hair is really really blond. I mean, almost naturally white. And she looked a lot older than in the movies. I guess makeup really goes a long way. That's the one thing about nyc. nothing surprises anybody. nothing.

Classes for the training course that i am enrolled in started at 7:30am every morning. At first it seemed that it would be painfully hard to get up that early every morning, but actually, as it turns out, due to the jetlag, I fell asleep at 9pm most nights and woke up at 5am every day. worked out quite well it turns out. And every morning, at the training room, there were a selection of bagels and croissants, coffee and tea. So I went to the farm with the bagels and cream cheeze. Good old 'philly'. And they don't skim on the cream cheeze in america, each little packet held enough cheeze to feed a family in china. I only used about half of each packet, and that was after lathering my poor bagel to dairy heaven. Man, and they wonder why most americans are over weight.

---

So I wake up from the dead sleep on Sat morn. Disoriented and wondering where I was, I noticed that light was peeking through the curtains. Bad news. Really bad news. Slowly it starts coming back to me where I was, what I was supposed to be doing, what I had to do ... today... I look at the clock. 8:20am. Then it hits me like a derailed train carrying cinderblocks; the initial wince of pain, then the successive shots of panic and adrenaline as each of the cinderblocks slam into my skull in a rapid like succession. MY FLIGHT IS AT 9AM!. Oh me god. dammit. the alarm I had trusted to wake me didn't even faze me in my sleep. (mental note: get a wake up call if my normal sleep schedule is broken by irregular sleep time or alcohol)

i clean up my things, rush out of the hotel, and make a mental note not to lose anything carelessly in the rush. I make ot to Laguardia at 9am... to find out that my flight was delayed until 9:30. But then there was the dreaded check in lineup. There was no way I was going to rush through the line, there wasn't any agent calling out flight numbers or escorting passengers. So I take a deep breath, and play it cool. Some how, I felt that it would be okay (on the cab, I had read the terms of my eticket and all the fine print.) So I calmly waited in line, and took the time to also repack my bags (I had overweighted my carry on, thanks to all the starbucks frappacino coffee's that I had taken on. When I finally got up to the counter, I met with a friendly coloured woman. "Hi... I think I'm going to be one of those trouble customers" I tell her. "uh. okaaay". I continue to tell her how I was supposed to be on the 9am flight, and she looks a little sad and worried, while she checks her terminal "I think you are too late for the 9" she continues, sympathy in her voice, "the next flight is at 11:50, -- its going to be a long wait"... I shrug, and [repose/relapse/surrrender] myself to the circumstances. She starts booking me for the 11:50. I was surprised that I didn't have to pay any fee or penalty or another ticket. My luck seems to hold out. Then, to strike up a conversation, I ask her whether or not people nornally bud the line when they are rushing for their flight. She starts tell me about how sometimes customers get all riled up when people do that, even when the agents were calling the flights. She starts laughing jovially when describing some folks who were really rude in the past, quoting typical new yorker responses, and laughing in that jovial coloured woman laugh that is made famous by hollywood. We have quite a pleasant conversation, and I left the ticket counter feeling a bit nostalgic about new york, and the kindness of strangers, if you just spend a little time to talk to them. I think New Yorkers are just as friendly as most people, its just that they have a shell that you have to break through first. -- All in all\, my track record with the airports in nyc is still sterling. I always seem to be missing flights or having close calls, but I seem to emerge out all for the better. I guess it just might be a nyc thing.

Some odd keitai shots that didn't really warrent a journal entry of their own.

...finally they are going to make smoking outdoor illegal in crowded areas!

...And interesting add that was designed to look pixelated, but was actually 5 feet in size. the nize made it really easy to scan the barcode into my phone though. too bad the sweepstakes contest it was advertising was in japanese though.

Some odd keitai shots that didn't really warrent a journal entry of their own.

DJC pics from tokyo!

Akane opening her present



Expensive melons



At long last! finally they are going to make smoking outdoor illegal in crowded areas! Yai! progress! take THAT tabacco firms!



And interesting add that was designed to look pixelated, but was actually 5 feet in size. the nize made it really easy to scan the barcode into my phone though. too bad the sweepstakes contest it was advertising was in japanese though.

It was 1 year since I last stepped foot on the mainland, last delved into the abyss of excess and glutton that was China.

So you can imagine my excitment when it was once again time to return to the land of cheap food and cheap "labour" (and pretty much cheap everything else you could want). This time, it was to be a proper vacation, which meant of course, in my sheltered yuppie life, GOLF TRIP.

And what better way to do it then to go to the best golf course in all of china! Spring City in Kunming is ranked one of the top golfing resorts in the world, no doubt due to its stunning views for one, and secondly due to its economical prices and world class facilities. a 5 day 4 night stay, including 4 rounds of golf ran us a cool $600 usd, which is not bad at all, considering that's normally what we would pay for a 3 night snowboarding trip up to hokkaido.

...We were to get there flying from Shenzhen, across the HongKong border, after playing a round there with the HK coworkers. Though swelteringly hot and humid, somehow I managed to score 104 that day, dispite my terrible slice.

...I was travelling with Stuart, a true golfer in spirit (insofar as for the fact that he is scottish) and further meeting up with my partner in crime from the other side of the asian divide, Will. The first day we were to arrive in Kunming we were to muddle through on our own as Will was going to join us the day after from Beijing.

...After Stuart and I got to Kunming, and took a taxi to our hotel (which was filthy by the way, but at least she took us there without incident) we decided to walk around town to get a feel for things. We found the major shopping street (heck Kunming was one big shopping street) and behind that was a canal that was lit up by blue neon lights from the side.... the water was soo still, that the illusion was such that even staring straight into the water, I thought for a second that I was looking into an underground parkade or shopping area. After a couple of blinks, I realized that the shops I was seeing down there were really the reflections of the shops across the canal on my level.

...So we found this quite popular 'dah been low' place or hotpot or steamboat or shabushabu (pick one), the kind that has a divided metal bowl of soup, normally one is very spicy and the other is mild, and you throw bits of meat and veggies into it to cook.... You have a little sheet of paper with all the items, and you check them off with the number of which that you wanted. With my limited reading ability, I could make out "beef" (more precisely, "cow" but you asians out there know what I mean), "pork", "vegetable", "fish" but I had no idea what the other words were. Of course, Stuart was as clueless ( or moreso ) that I was, so we decided to employ the tried and true method perfected in Japan of 'picking the most expensive stuff on the menu, since that is normally the best stuff'. In shabushabu, normally the expensive items on beef were, say, kobe beef or special beef from australia or something.

...So we hand the order form back to a waiter, with some of the most expensive beef, pork, lamb, fish, etc. After looking at it, she commented something, but I couldn't understand her, so I just nodded and said yes. I then tried to order us some beers to start, and I now recall that I was calling beer "biru" in a japanese pronouciation, and also "beejou" in cantonese.... She rushed off after some moments of confusion, as the place was busy. After some moments, she came back with a fellow who was not a waiter by the way he dressed, probably a maitre'd or some equivalent.... We glance it over, and it was about 3.5 seconds later that our jaw drops to the floor.

Boy we would have lost our lunches if that showed up on a plate all raw and in its full majesty.

We quickly cancelled our order, and submitted a lesser, more tame selection.

...We did end up ordering a couple of exotics, just so that we wouldn't put our trip to china to waste, so we bit down and got us a plate of beef tripe (new for Stuart) and Dog flesh (new for me).

Dog tasted like venison, a little gamey, and very tough, so I ended up eating most of the tripe, and Stuart ate most of Old Yeller.

Here are some shots of the hot soup and other meals we had in beijing. The fruit with the dry ice smoke was in Hong Kong, the following week after the china trip.

The first set of pics are from the hotpot meal we had in Kunming with Will. It was basically mushroom soup with all these different kinds of exotic mushrooms, and they threw in 2 bullfrogs, (whole, skinned) for good measure. when the waiter sloshed them in, I thought they were fish, judging by the size of the head, but the eyes were too far apart and the shape of the head too flat. and normally you don't see both eyes of a fish at once. Well, in he went, head first into the soup. He wasn't too bad tasting, but way too many little bones (those little froggy legs of his) for my taste.

...They look great from afar, but they will fall apart after a couple of uses, or in the case of workmanship, you see tell tale signs of workers cutting corners and saving materials or effort whenever they could. A great case of this was the bathroom door in our 5 star hotel that wouldn't close.... I mean, you could really shove it in, but then you would be locked in the bathroom case you were unable to get out.

That being said, when we got to the Spring city resort, the villas there were the exception to the "china quality" rule, everything was world class, including the bathroom doors, and I even checked the caulking around the shower.

...Given that my game was pretty terrible, we decided (after some coercing from Will) to play skins for money. I lost a couple of hundred rmb the first day, but the next we tried to do stroke play. With stroke play, you payout x for the number of strokes you fell short of your handicap goal relative to your opponents. In this, I lost some more the second day, but was offset by some wins from Stuart. Will is a good player, scoring sub 100 on a good day, my average was bleeding into the 120's while Stuart's was around 136. As we were all progressively getting worse as the days went by, the money was won by whoever scored the least bad.... Will came out on top, but he subsequently lost most of it when we returned to play 1 more time in beijing against one of his workmates.

...Spring city is about 1 hour out of Kunming, where roads quickly became dirt paths, and farmers laid their grain on the road so that cars could drive over them to do the work of crushing it for them.

...The resort had shuttle bus driver that looks like Zhinny.

...So on our second night in Kunming, we decided to hit a KTV place, which is basically karoke with a choice of female accompanment. The club is more like a bar/lounge/showroom, complete with cosy chairs and even a stage.... I heard "yer-bun" mentioned a couple of times which is the mandarin word for 'japan', so I asked will what the guy was saying. Will told me that he was talking about how he went to japan, and enjoyed the comfort of some japanese hookers, to enact revenge for china.... I guess china has the freedom to insult japan, they did get the short end of the stick during ww2, and now they have nukes while japan is once again in china's shadow.

I can see why Koizumi is defiant (when it comes to the shrine visits) but at the same time, japan is right... chinese in general have a very open hatred of japanese, where for the most part the opposite is not true, japanese people are tolerant, honest, and friendly towards their asian neighors (probably because for the most part, the general population doesn't know the full extent of what really happened in ww2) so they are naive yet innocent.

...for instance, in Japan, very often korean and chinese actors are celebreties, appearing on shampoo adds to fashion tv. Zhang Zi Yi is a good example, while in China, not one japanese star is seen.

...Schitzo because half of the time, one side of japan doesn't know what the other side is doing. On one hand, the father should forgive the son for his past transgressions, on the other side, the son should see therapy for his anger management problems, and also medical attention for his neurosis. When they finally both start talking to each other and being truthful and frank, that's when we will get reconciliation.

So while japanese people should be more open about what they were responsible for during the war, chinese should be more forgiving of them given the current circumstances.... One side doesn't understand why the other hates them, while the other side doesn't understand how to put the past behind them. Anyways, the situation needs to be reconciled, if Asia is going to become the next world power, China and japan need to work together.

After Kunming, we bid Stuart good bye and good luck, for he was going to return to shenzhen and make his way back to hong kong by himself. Beijing, was even more advanced than when I remembered it 1 year ago. More buildings have sprung up, and I caught glimpses of a new mass transit system being constructed. One thing you have to hand it communism when it comes to getting stuff done.... All the preparations for the 2008 olympics look to be well on their way.

...I, after getting used to the dirty and can't care less attitude in kunming, was not prepared for the asshold nature of most commoners in beijing. The cab driver we got obviously was pretty proud of his car, even though it was not a terribly nice one. Being that we had a lot of luggage, our golf bags filled the trunk, so our bags had to go into the front seat just like in kunming. So I started to help myself in puting my bag in the front, but unlike the kunming driver, this guy seemed to care that my bags wheels touched his seat (which, I may point out, was decked out with a thick tacky covering) and I guess he didn't like that.... so he started saying shit, to while I had to clue, but Will stepped in to defend me and starting shouting back. It turned into a big shouting match for which the guy started foaming at the mouth and I swear Will was about to call his police "friends" to beat the shit out of the guy. Will got his license number and demanded the airport authorities report this incident and (though I can't be sure...... The driver backed down, though still shouting profanities, we took our stuff out of his car and got another taxi. after which will proceeded to call his taxi company to try to get him fired.... They gave him some sort of lame excuse that they didn't know this specific driver and that he wasn't registered with them (probably to save their own ass...... It was very interesting situation though, and it showed me how common courtesy is still very much lacking in chinese society.... The difference in culture in the 2 societies are comparible to a bitter old man (china) vs naive little boy (japan).

...On the middle of the highway, at the junction of an interchange, there stands a man with a sign.... Not to even mention that if anyone wanted to take advantage of his service, they would have to STOP THEIR CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERCHANGE which only has 1 lane.

...and people walk into exit ramps too, and you'll see them running across the highway sometimes.... The safest place to be on the road in china is behind the ass of a horse. people actually seem to drive slowly around the horses. probably cause car insurance pays for damages to your car, but you have to pay for the horse if you kill it.

...A good board can run you upwards of 400bucks in japan, so I figure that it would be a good idea to pick one up in china where everything is cheap. Will and his friend take me to the International Wei Chi association, the MECCA of Go, where all the international tournaments are held. We head into the building, which reminds me of an old school, and the old man at the front (I think in other countries he would be a security guard, but here in china, its just an old man who looks like he is waiting for his takeout dinner to arrive) asks us where we are going. Will says the shop where you can buy the boards and equipment.... Man replies a negatory response, Will just says "4th or 5th floor, 405?

...The little shop was a tight room with many boards on shelves lining the walls. On an opposite wall, 2 large wall boards (the kind you see on tv when people are doing those live go tv tutorials) hangs.... when it comes to boards, the solid wood kind (vs veneered) are more expensive but well worth the investment if you are planning to keep your board for life. I didn't think the ones with legs would be too easy to carry back, so I opt for a table board, or the kind you set on a table. Even though only 2.5 inches thick, the thing still weighs a good 20 pounds. Its going to be a fun plane ride back to tokyo, I think to myself.

On my last day, I meet up with Grace, Will's friend who worked at MTV and now at an ad agency. She is as beautiful as I remembered her from last time, its good to know that for some, time stands still.... Actually, come to think of it, women in china are very very career minded and successful compared to the domesticated japanese equivalent. They are not content with just being a mother, and in many cases make more than their counterparts in the corporate world.... at any rate, grace is funny in that I know she understands what I am saying (she is partially fluent in english) but she only speaks chinese... actually, as this was the last day I would be in china, I had grown accustomed to listening to chinese and was actually more or less understanding the topic of discussion going around the table at dinner, even though I didn't understand the whold picture.

...Subway seemed a little more worn down than 6 years ago. But still clean. It was on the tail end of a business trip, but I made it, and it was great seeing some of the old gang again.... They even convinced me (they have a way of convincing me to do things I'm not too keen on doing normally) to do a all night mahjong marathon.... :) I did end up doing a little shopping, and Joanne (hweekans fiance) convinced me to buy 2 pairs of shoes...

...Big joe, Brian, Mike and Joe while we enjoy our late night prata and milo peng!

Finally me, after the all night mahjong, and enjoying some kwe teow and sugar cane juice at a hawker centre.

...basically you can open the window, step outside (there is a clothes line out there, and 1 meter away is a 32 story drop to a very terrible messy death. Pat (Joe's gf) also pointed out that it was actually the top of a car park that you would spat onto, so nobody would actually see your dead body (the car park is 8 floors up from the ground) and since not many people venture to the roof of the car park, the only people who would notice your corpse are people looking down from their balcony, which, given that its without railing, won't be too many people.

I was too scared out of my shit to step outside, but fearless HweeKans went out there to sit on the chair, and demonstrated the open air (and suicide friendly) concept in singapore.

...One shot on long exposure just to prove how crazy it is, and how crazy Kans was to sit out there.

...Notice how ( and I say this expecting you to understand ) Joe's apartment looks strikingly like the hall common room that we holed ourselves into 1 week while studying ( mugging ) for exams.

...I think Pat has the ability to tame the freelancing Joe.

Somewhere along the way the subway station between City Hall and Tajong Pagar a guy sucker punches me in the belly.... You know, the same old geezer with the stinky breath and toothless jaw.... I just took a golf trip to china, I just made a trip to Hong Kong a golf club shopping trip...... and I still need to get myself a new putter and a gap wedge.... the days of the simple life of computer games and coffee time at tim hortons was over.... Its sometimes good then to go back to the old stomping grounds like singapore and canada and china to get rebased in reality again.

It was 1 year since I last stepped foot on the mainland, last delved into the abyss of excess and glutton that was China.
So you can imagine my excitment when it was once again time to return to the land of cheap food and cheap "labour" (and pretty much cheap everything else you could want). This time, it was to be a proper vacation, which meant of course, in my sheltered yuppie life, GOLF TRIP.

And what better way to do it then to go to the best golf course in all of china! Spring City in Kunming is ranked one of the top golfing resorts in the world, no doubt due to its stunning views for one, and secondly due to its economical prices and world class facilities. a 5 day 4 night stay, including 4 rounds of golf ran us a cool $600 usd, which is not bad at all, considering that's normally what we would pay for a 3 night snowboarding trip up to hokkaido. Kunming is in Yunnan province, which for those of you geographically impaired, and too lazy to look up on a map is north of vietnam. laos, and myanmar. Its mostly a mountainous region, but a little more livable than the Xizang territory to the west, which is where the himalayas are.

We were to get there flying from Shenzhen, across the HongKong border, after playing a round there with the HK coworkers. Though swelteringly hot and humid, somehow I managed to score 104 that day, dispite my terrible slice. Little did I know that that was to be the best score that I would record that week.

I was travelling with Stuart, a true golfer in spirit (insofar as for the fact that he is scottish) and further meeting up with my partner in crime from the other side of the asian divide, Will. The first day we were to arrive in Kunming we were to muddle through on our own as Will was going to join us the day after from Beijing.

Foriengers Beware!

So the first night I learned a lesson that I wouldn't soon forget. After Stuart and I got to Kunming, and took a taxi to our hotel (which was filthy by the way, but at least she took us there without incident) we decided to walk around town to get a feel for things. We found the major shopping street (heck Kunming was one big shopping street) and behind that was a canal that was lit up by blue neon lights from the side. From afar I though I was looking into a deep radioactive heavywater reservoir. the water was soo still, that the illusion was such that even staring straight into the water, I thought for a second that I was looking into an underground parkade or shopping area. After a couple of blinks, I realized that the shops I was seeing down there were really the reflections of the shops across the canal on my level. Anyway, it was quite interesting, and I took a couple of shots with my 2mpix keitai.

Next order of business, food. So we found this quite popular 'dah been low' place or hotpot or steamboat or shabushabu (pick one), the kind that has a divided metal bowl of soup, normally one is very spicy and the other is mild, and you throw bits of meat and veggies into it to cook. Looks and smelled GREAT from outside. Inside, the establishment was clean (for china) and quite crowded. We got a seat, and got ready for a feast... 1 problem. I neither spoke nor read chinese. (more precisely, mandarin or putongwa, the common tongue of the land). The method of ordering was similar to places in china and sushi dives in tokyo. You have a little sheet of paper with all the items, and you check them off with the number of which that you wanted. With my limited reading ability, I could make out "beef" (more precisely, "cow" but you asians out there know what I mean), "pork", "vegetable", "fish" but I had no idea what the other words were. Of course, Stuart was as clueless ( or moreso ) that I was, so we decided to employ the tried and true method perfected in Japan of 'picking the most expensive stuff on the menu, since that is normally the best stuff'. In shabushabu, normally the expensive items on beef were, say, kobe beef or special beef from australia or something. In china... well... we were going to find out that wasn't the case. (expensive was relative... the beef stuff was just 40rmb, a little less than 5 bucks usd)

So we hand the order form back to a waiter, with some of the most expensive beef, pork, lamb, fish, etc. After looking at it, she commented something, but I couldn't understand her, so I just nodded and said yes. I then tried to order us some beers to start, and I now recall that I was calling beer "biru" in a japanese pronouciation, and also "beejou" in cantonese. The girl just looked at me painfully. She rushed off after some moments of confusion, as the place was busy. After some moments, she came back with a fellow who was not a waiter by the way he dressed, probably a maitre'd or some equivalent. He spoke in an accented tone "herro, I speak engrish, can I herp you?"
"Thank god!" I express, as he hands us english menus. We glance it over, and it was about 3.5 seconds later that our jaw drops to the floor. What was on the front page, at 40rmb a plate but

COOKED BULL PENIS

Boy we would have lost our lunches if that showed up on a plate all raw and in its full majesty.

We quickly cancelled our order, and submitted a lesser, more tame selection.

Amoung the things that we decided to avoid (besides the bull schlong ) were:
Pig's brain
Sheep Testicles
Live Fish (swimming, until you dump the poor thing into the boiling hot chili soup!)
Bullfrog

We did end up ordering a couple of exotics, just so that we wouldn't put our trip to china to waste, so we bit down and got us a plate of beef tripe (new for Stuart) and Dog flesh (new for me).

Dog tasted like venison, a little gamey, and very tough, so I ended up eating most of the tripe, and Stuart ate most of Old Yeller.

Here are some shots of the hot soup and other meals we had in beijing. The fruit with the dry ice smoke was in Hong Kong, the following week after the china trip.
The first set of pics are from the hotpot meal we had in Kunming with Will. It was basically mushroom soup with all these different kinds of exotic mushrooms, and they threw in 2 bullfrogs, (whole, skinned) for good measure. when the waiter sloshed them in, I thought they were fish, judging by the size of the head, but the eyes were too far apart and the shape of the head too flat. and normally you don't see both eyes of a fish at once. Well, in he went, head first into the soup. He wasn't too bad tasting, but way too many little bones (those little froggy legs of his) for my taste.



China Quality

Nothing beats the quality of chinese goods. They look great from afar, but they will fall apart after a couple of uses, or in the case of workmanship, you see tell tale signs of workers cutting corners and saving materials or effort whenever they could. A great case of this was the bathroom door in our 5 star hotel that wouldn't close. The door wouldn't fit in the door jamb. I mean, you could really shove it in, but then you would be locked in the bathroom case you were unable to get out.

That being said, when we got to the Spring city resort, the villas there were the exception to the "china quality" rule, everything was world class, including the bathroom doors, and I even checked the caulking around the shower. tip top.

Golf Wars.

The resort was beautiful. at an elevation of 1800, its proportedly enhances your driving distance due to the thinner air. It didn't help me much, in that it just seemed to exacerbate my slice. Given that my game was pretty terrible, we decided (after some coercing from Will) to play skins for money. I lost a couple of hundred rmb the first day, but the next we tried to do stroke play. With stroke play, you payout x for the number of strokes you fell short of your handicap goal relative to your opponents. In this, I lost some more the second day, but was offset by some wins from Stuart. Will is a good player, scoring sub 100 on a good day, my average was bleeding into the 120's while Stuart's was around 136. As we were all progressively getting worse as the days went by, the money was won by whoever scored the least bad. All in all, after 4 rounds of golf, I was up 400rmb (at Stu's expense) which is about $50. Will came out on top, but he subsequently lost most of it when we returned to play 1 more time in beijing against one of his workmates. Easy come, easy go.

The booneys.

Spring city is about 1 hour out of Kunming, where roads quickly became dirt paths, and farmers laid their grain on the road so that cars could drive over them to do the work of crushing it for them. Horses are the mode of travel around here, except for us 'rich' people.

The resort had shuttle bus driver that looks like Zhinny. Not that I'd expect you to know who that is, but if you do, you would appreciate the comment. I swear to you that they were related. He was a spitting image of our good ol' waterloo pal. Nature vs nurture arguement? hahaha... Zhinny finished his masters degree in electrical engineering and digital design, and works at a design firm. his relative in china drives a bus.
nurture man... nurture arguement wins hands down. :)

China Strikes Back!

So on our second night in Kunming, we decided to hit a KTV place, which is basically karoke with a choice of female accompanment. The club is more like a bar/lounge/showroom, complete with cosy chairs and even a stage. While we walked past the stage portion, the comedian on stage was loudly doing his bit. I heard "yer-bun" mentioned a couple of times which is the mandarin word for 'japan', so I asked will what the guy was saying. Will told me that he was talking about how he went to japan, and enjoyed the comfort of some japanese hookers, to enact revenge for china. Errr... that was a little politically incorrect to say the least. But the crowd was laughing at it, so I guess it was funny. I guess china has the freedom to insult japan, they did get the short end of the stick during ww2, and now they have nukes while japan is once again in china's shadow.

I can see why Koizumi is defiant (when it comes to the shrine visits) but at the same time, japan is right... chinese in general have a very open hatred of japanese, where for the most part the opposite is not true, japanese people are tolerant, honest, and friendly towards their asian neighors (probably because for the most part, the general population doesn't know the full extent of what really happened in ww2) so they are naive yet innocent. In some ways, ignorance is bliss I guess.

for instance, in Japan, very often korean and chinese actors are celebreties, appearing on shampoo adds to fashion tv. Zhang Zi Yi is a good example, while in China, not one japanese star is seen. the bridge, funny enough, is Korea. China loves Korean TV and so does Japan. Funny that 2000 years later, and still Korea is the cultural bridge between the 2 feuding enemies. Perhaps it will be the political one as well in the near future.

When I think of china and japan, I'm reminded of a relationship between a father and a prodigal (schitzophrenic) son. Schitzo because half of the time, one side of japan doesn't know what the other side is doing. On one hand, the father should forgive the son for his past transgressions, on the other side, the son should see therapy for his anger management problems, and also medical attention for his neurosis. When they finally both start talking to each other and being truthful and frank, that's when we will get reconciliation.

So while japanese people should be more open about what they were responsible for during the war, chinese should be more forgiving of them given the current circumstances. Its a 2-way street. One side doesn't understand why the other hates them, while the other side doesn't understand how to put the past behind them. Anyways, the situation needs to be reconciled, if Asia is going to become the next world power, China and japan need to work together.

Beijing



After Kunming, we bid Stuart good bye and good luck, for he was going to return to shenzhen and make his way back to hong kong by himself. Beijing, was even more advanced than when I remembered it 1 year ago. More buildings have sprung up, and I caught glimpses of a new mass transit system being constructed. One thing you have to hand it communism when it comes to getting stuff done. They are damned fast when they put their mind to it. none of this silly bureaucratic red tape to slow processes down. All the preparations for the 2008 olympics look to be well on their way. It should be a sight to see.

At the airport, we get into a sort of scuffle with a cab driver. I, after getting used to the dirty and can't care less attitude in kunming, was not prepared for the asshold nature of most commoners in beijing. The cab driver we got obviously was pretty proud of his car, even though it was not a terribly nice one. Being that we had a lot of luggage, our golf bags filled the trunk, so our bags had to go into the front seat just like in kunming. So I started to help myself in puting my bag in the front, but unlike the kunming driver, this guy seemed to care that my bags wheels touched his seat (which, I may point out, was decked out with a thick tacky covering) and I guess he didn't like that. (its has a covering dude...) so he started saying shit, to while I had to clue, but Will stepped in to defend me and starting shouting back. It turned into a big shouting match for which the guy started foaming at the mouth and I swear Will was about to call his police "friends" to beat the shit out of the guy. Will got his license number and demanded the airport authorities report this incident and (though I can't be sure... I couldn't understand) have the driver fired. The driver backed down, though still shouting profanities, we took our stuff out of his car and got another taxi. after which will proceeded to call his taxi company to try to get him fired. (I'd like to think...) They gave him some sort of lame excuse that they didn't know this specific driver and that he wasn't registered with them (probably to save their own ass... its china afterall) and that was the end of that. It was very interesting situation though, and it showed me how common courtesy is still very much lacking in chinese society. A stark contrast to japan. The difference in culture in the 2 societies are comparible to a bitter old man (china) vs naive little boy (japan).

Highway directions

Nothing beats the enterprenurial spirit in china. Anyone will do anything for money. anything.
On the middle of the highway, at the junction of an interchange, there stands a man with a sign. "Directions for out of towners... 1rmb" He is standing in the middle of the highway. Not to even mention that if anyone wanted to take advantage of his service, they would have to STOP THEIR CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERCHANGE which only has 1 lane. Sheesh.

Oh don't even get me started about the highways in china. There are motorists on cycles riding UP the EXIT RAMP onto the highway... what they are going to do when they reach the highway facing the wrong direction... only god can tell. Perhaps they will pull a U turn or something equally as spectacularly dangerous. Oh... and people walk into exit ramps too, and you'll see them running across the highway sometimes. or cross busy streets enmasse. The safest place to be on the road in china is behind the ass of a horse. people actually seem to drive slowly around the horses. probably cause car insurance pays for damages to your car, but you have to pay for the horse if you kill it. And they are not cheap.

Igo

While in china, I took to opportunity to buy a Go board. aka Igo board, or Weichi in chinese. A good board can run you upwards of 400bucks in japan, so I figure that it would be a good idea to pick one up in china where everything is cheap. Will and his friend take me to the International Wei Chi association, the MECCA of Go, where all the international tournaments are held. We head into the building, which reminds me of an old school, and the old man at the front (I think in other countries he would be a security guard, but here in china, its just an old man who looks like he is waiting for his takeout dinner to arrive) asks us where we are going. Will says the shop where you can buy the boards and equipment. He asks us what room we are looking for, Will tell him... 5th floor or something. Man replies a negatory response, Will just says "4th or 5th floor, 405? 504? I dunno" and that seems to convince the 'security guard' and he waves us in.

The little shop was a tight room with many boards on shelves lining the walls. On an opposite wall, 2 large wall boards (the kind you see on tv when people are doing those live go tv tutorials) hangs. After doing a little choosing, I settle on a 2.5inch thick board, with stone pieces. runs me about $150. when it comes to boards, the solid wood kind (vs veneered) are more expensive but well worth the investment if you are planning to keep your board for life. I didn't think the ones with legs would be too easy to carry back, so I opt for a table board, or the kind you set on a table. Even though only 2.5 inches thick, the thing still weighs a good 20 pounds. Its going to be a fun plane ride back to tokyo, I think to myself.





On my last day, I meet up with Grace, Will's friend who worked at MTV and now at an ad agency. She is as beautiful as I remembered her from last time, its good to know that for some, time stands still. She's about as successful a women in china could be. Actually, come to think of it, women in china are very very career minded and successful compared to the domesticated japanese equivalent. They are not content with just being a mother, and in many cases make more than their counterparts in the corporate world. I credit this to Mao Ze Tung and his pro feminist stance in the formative years of chinese communism. at any rate, grace is funny in that I know she understands what I am saying (she is partially fluent in english) but she only speaks chinese... actually, as this was the last day I would be in china, I had grown accustomed to listening to chinese and was actually more or less understanding the topic of discussion going around the table at dinner, even though I didn't understand the whold picture. Sort of what it felt like when I first came to japan. I am confident that given 2-3 years of living in china and I should be fluent in chinese. If a cab driver doesn't kill me first.

Will and Grace. Grace is definitely a beautiful and successful career woman. Will however, is not gay.



Grace and I, after checking out one of the more popular beijing bar lounges





Return of the Singaporean

After a long spell of 5 years, I finally return to singapore. Nothing changed too much in spore, same humidity, same buildings. Subway seemed a little more worn down than 6 years ago. But still clean. It was on the tail end of a business trip, but I made it, and it was great seeing some of the old gang again. Johann, Hweekans, Mike, Adeliene, Ayam... all a sight for sore eyes. They even convinced me (they have a way of convincing me to do things I'm not too keen on doing normally) to do a all night mahjong marathon. All the char kweteow and sugar cane juice in the morning couldn't wake me up. :) I did end up doing a little shopping, and Joanne (hweekans fiance) convinced me to buy 2 pairs of shoes... Now I truely understand what it means to be a girl shopping... its addictive, best bet, just stay away.

got some pics to show for it.


Some choice singaporean foods.
Friend shrimp, with very yummy breading. bean sprouts, and my all time favorite ROTI PRATA!
Big joe, Brian, Mike and Joe while we enjoy our late night prata and milo peng!
Finally me, after the all night mahjong, and enjoying some kwe teow and sugar cane juice at a hawker centre.
Kans and Joanne.




At Joe's apartment, there is this balcony that has no railing. basically you can open the window, step outside (there is a clothes line out there, and 1 meter away is a 32 story drop to a very terrible messy death. Pat (Joe's gf) also pointed out that it was actually the top of a car park that you would spat onto, so nobody would actually see your dead body (the car park is 8 floors up from the ground) and since not many people venture to the roof of the car park, the only people who would notice your corpse are people looking down from their balcony, which, given that its without railing, won't be too many people.

I was too scared out of my shit to step outside, but fearless HweeKans went out there to sit on the chair, and demonstrated the open air (and suicide friendly) concept in singapore.

The death chair, 40 stories up.
One shot on long exposure just to prove how crazy it is, and how crazy Kans was to sit out there. One strong gust of wind... and byebye. Luckily there are no typhoons in singapore.



Joe and his chair, and Brian's monster book shelf. Notice how ( and I say this expecting you to understand ) Joe's apartment looks strikingly like the hall common room that we holed ourselves into 1 week while studying ( mugging ) for exams. That was literally when I learned all my material for the second half of 3rd year. And promptly forgot it all.



Joe's home made projection TV. basically a gutted 15" LCD monitor placed on an OHP



Joe and Pat. The cute couple. I think Pat has the ability to tame the freelancing Joe.




Somewhere along the way the subway station between City Hall and Tajong Pagar a guy sucker punches me in the belly. I look around until I realize that it wasn't anyone around me. It was the old toothless guy I met in NYC. You know, the same old geezer with the stinky breath and toothless jaw. My imaginary conscience personification. He hit me again when I realized that I really WAS a yuppie. I just took a golf trip to china, I just made a trip to Hong Kong a golf club shopping trip... (they are cheaper in HK by far!) and I still need to get myself a new putter and a gap wedge. I was lost. Lost. the days of the simple life of computer games and coffee time at tim hortons was over. I wear custom tailored monogrammed shirts. Sometimes with cufflinks. Man.... I am LOST. Its sometimes good then to go back to the old stomping grounds like singapore and canada and china to get rebased in reality again.

DJC out

yeah, that is the double take I took when I looked at the menu, just to make sure that I wasn't reading some japanese translation wrong. I was in the virgin airlines lounge, so you would expect the english here to be on the up and up, so I attribute the blatant reference to a pigs business end as a quirky british-ism.

...Man, no wonder people in the western world have such a weight and cholesterol problem!

...While in london, I manage to sneak off of work for an hour on Friday to walk around london to take some proper touristy shots.... Paul's cathedral, and crossing the millenium bridge, I find the Tate art musiem Walking through the impressionist and modern art floors, I see a couple of old friends, John Rothco, Frank Stella, Rene Magritte, Claude Monet, Henry Matisse, and of course Salvador Dali., The best was Waterlillies.... I seem to have remembered seeing waterlillies in the MOMA, and it was larger, but perhaps I was just remembering wrong, and it was moved since then.

After the Tate museum, I continued to walk down the riverside, towards london bridge and the tower bridge. I passed Shakespeares Globe Theatre, the london dungeon, and the war museum.... the ship which Sir Thomas Cooke took around the world and pass the horn of argentina.... Finally the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge.... So I just absorb al that I can with my eyes, making note that the tower of london is more like a FORT, and not a tower at all , at least, not any tower worth mentioning because it is so not impressive in height. But it is very old looking, and I could almost imagine the serfs running through the open fields getting shot down by the archers defending the catle from invaders I continue the walk back to the office feeling a little dissappointed, and in need of a bathroom.

...So after a week of work at the office, I am ready for my 1 day trip into Paris, my first foray into real continental Europe. I hire a cab from the hotel in the morning and make sure the wakeup call is sufficiently early to make the 8am train. Ironically, my last night in england was spent having French food at the Admiralty restaurant, which was, incidentally, the new winner of the most expensive dinner I ever had contest.... It was really too much food for me, and it was very rich and saucy with 7 courses.

So up I get at 6am, finish packing, check out, and I am off to Waterloo train station.

...I'm wearing my travel clothes again, so its comfortable, linen shirt and pants, hikers. Also I use the new lynx deoderant spray that I bought with the shampoo that I left. You know, the one that is supposed to have women falling all over me.... Anyway, it smells pretty good, so I get a couple of cans to bring back to japan.

When I get to the station, I find out that there are nice electronic machines that Ill spit out your ticket. I have no problem getting my tickets, but when I check for the gate number on it I get a sinking feeling.... I had forgotten that the train to paris left at a much earlier time than the train back, which was 8am.

...I walk up to the ticket counter, there is no line, and smile sheepishly at the ticket lady.... I give her the most innocent puppy dog eye look I can manage, She is an attractive british blonde, the kind that could pass off as a typical air stewardess on any western airline. I pass her my ticket, while she checks on her computer.... "Well, I sorta forgot that the departing leg was earlier than the returning leg of the trip" blink blink more puppy dog eyes and look of remorse and humble guilt. "Well, hmm I think I can change you to the 8:10am train... you know you normally can't do this, I'm just going to give you a special break this one time."... I nod and thank her several times, while she gives me the new ticket.

...So I get into the train, and the first class cabin is mostly enpty, without anyone there, but I end up sitting in front of this one red haired lady. She has the sort of university student look about her, except that she looks early 30s. She pull out her laptop, and it turns out to be the same as mine...... since mine was completely out of batteries, and was refusing tto even boot up. She is kind enough to lend me her plug to charge the laptop, as there is ac plugs on the train.

...First thing that I notice is that the road signs that they use are the same as in japan!... Its a cloudy day in paris, but the sun still peeks through the clouds.

...Well, the pictures say it all. Its a beautiful city, architected by some famous guy named Braun (correct me if I am wrong) who defined the look of the entire city. Namely no building in central paris can be built unless it matched the Braunian look, which was white neoclassical with motifs and a black ornate roof. The effect of which is that the whole city is uniform in look and it looks very rustic and european. Also, the roads and monuments seem to be very well laid out. the Arc de Triomphe, has 12 main streets shooting off it like a giant hub of a giant wheel. Most of the monuments were built (or stolen) during Napolean's reign, the last major era where the French were an influential world power. the Louvre was all it was chalked up to be, except that the line up wasn't that bad. I walked right in, and got a ticket (8 Euros) and went straight to see the Mona Lisa. She had a moderate crowd around her, but it wasn't too bad. It was strange since you can take pictures in there, which was strange, since in galleries in Ottawa and in the MET, they disallow cameras with flash. But in the Louvre, you can go camera nuts. Many famous old friends that I remembered from art history classes were also there, like Geurricault (I am spelling it wrong) Liberty Leading the People, and Raft of the Medusa.

...History lesson aside, I had the most fully experience in the paris metro. i went in, and I lined up at the attendant booth to ask her where I bought the tickets from. when I got up to the front, I started asking her how to get to the Louvre in my bad french. Half way through, some lady just interjects in front of me and starts asking the attendant something.... But the attendant got agitated and told her that she was occupied (talking to me), then what ensued was a full blown shouting match where the attendant was trying to tell me which station to get off, while the bitchy lady was screaming at her about her ticket, it was quite a scene. All the while I just wanted to get out of there, but I couldn't understand the attendants french, especially since she was shouting and talking really quicky thanks, while the bitchy lady was swearing at her in french. I ducked out, without my answer, and found a closeby computer terminal, and thankfully, it had an english button, so I figured it out myself.... Don't get on the wrong side of a french woman.

...I almost picked up this cute french girl who was walking along side me for most of the way from the Louvre to the Tour Eiffel. We shared a couple of sideways glances while we walked the couple of blocks up to L'invalides, she looked like a student, with nice tight jeans and a sweet smile and the signature dark french hair cut short.... After we crossed the street though, we split ways, and I looked on a little dissapointed. then, lo and behold, after 1 block, I saw her walking back towards me from the cross street.... When we finally got to the next red traffic light, I stood up beside her, she looked up from her book, and I smiled a familiar smile and waved. She smiles back and comes closer.

...Dave, being an idiot, seeing that she was on the cellphone, turn away, and notice the light is green, and start walking across the street. What Dave SHOULD have done was said "bonjour" or hello or ANYTHING, as she walked closer with eye contact ready for an opening line. Instead, I just start walking across the street.... I look back when I crossed the street, and see her there, looking confused, then looking into her book. A little voice tells me that I should go back over and ask her where she is headed. But another voice tells me "what are you going to say?... so I continue walking, hoping that she would eventually follow, so that I can make the first move.... It occured to me afterwards, that she was probably following me for over 5 blocks just to see if anything would happen, deviating from her original destination (from where we originally split ways), and when all I could do when we finally meet is to offer a meek smile, wave (goodbye??)

Sasauge and bacon butty.

Butty. yeah, that is the double take I took when I looked at the menu, just to make sure that I wasn't reading some japanese translation wrong. I was in the virgin airlines lounge, so you would expect the english here to be on the up and up, so I attribute the blatant reference to a pigs business end as a quirky british-ism.

It just arrived. its sausages (real looking ones! not hotdogs!) wrapped in bacon on a cute little bun. with some chips on the side. Man, no wonder people in the western world have such a weight and cholesterol problem! But hell, it looks yummy, so to hell with it.

While in london, I manage to sneak off of work for an hour on Friday to walk around london to take some proper touristy shots. I walk by St. Paul's cathedral, and crossing the millenium bridge, I find the Tate art musiem Walking through the impressionist and modern art floors, I see a couple of old friends, John Rothco, Frank Stella, Rene Magritte, Claude Monet, Henry Matisse, and of course Salvador Dali., The best was Waterlillies. The original. I seem to have remembered seeing waterlillies in the MOMA, and it was larger, but perhaps I was just remembering wrong, and it was moved since then.

After the Tate museum, I continued to walk down the riverside, towards london bridge and the tower bridge. I passed Shakespeares Globe Theatre, the london dungeon, and the war museum. I passed a replica of the old HMS somewthing or something... the ship which Sir Thomas Cooke took around the world and pass the horn of argentina. Also berthed there was the HMS Belfast, which was a wartime destroyer I think. Finally the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge. one of the most prominent symbols of london. I pull out my camera, only to find to my dismay, that the batteries were dead. noooooo!. All this way, and the batteries are dead. just great. So I just absorb al that I can with my eyes, making note that the tower of london is more like a FORT, and not a tower at all , at least, not any tower worth mentioning because it is so not impressive in height. But it is very old looking, and I could almost imagine the serfs running through the open fields getting shot down by the archers defending the catle from invaders I continue the walk back to the office feeling a little dissappointed, and in need of a bathroom. a beer for lunch was not bery conducise for my bladder.


So after a week of work at the office, I am ready for my 1 day trip into Paris, my first foray into real continental Europe. I hire a cab from the hotel in the morning and make sure the wakeup call is sufficiently early to make the 8am train. Ironically, my last night in england was spent having French food at the Admiralty restaurant, which was, incidentally, the new winner of the most expensive dinner I ever had contest. It was 100pounds. About 180 dollars worth. It was really too much food for me, and it was very rich and saucy with 7 courses.

So up I get at 6am, finish packing, check out, and I am off to Waterloo train station. On the cab, I remember that I forgot my shampoo that I bought in the shower. Oh well.
I'm wearing my travel clothes again, so its comfortable, linen shirt and pants, hikers. Also I use the new lynx deoderant spray that I bought with the shampoo that I left. You know, the one that is supposed to have women falling all over me. Its called AXE in america, but in england, its LYNX. I guess its a cultural difference. Anyway, it smells pretty good, so I get a couple of cans to bring back to japan.

When I get to the station, I find out that there are nice electronic machines that Ill spit out your ticket. I have no problem getting my tickets, but when I check for the gate number on it I get a sinking feeling. The train was the 630am train. Its 7am. I had forgotten that the train to paris left at a much earlier time than the train back, which was 8am. ugh. A glance at the bottom of the ticket: $170 usd, no refunds or rescheduling. ( it was the internet discount fare ). Ughh... oh well. Once again I pull a Dave.

I walk up to the ticket counter, there is no line, and smile sheepishly at the ticket lady. "I think I missed my train..." I give her the most innocent puppy dog eye look I can manage, She is an attractive british blonde, the kind that could pass off as a typical air stewardess on any western airline. I pass her my ticket, while she checks on her computer. "Hmm... and the reason you were late?" she asks, in a non-confrontational way. "Well, I sorta forgot that the departing leg was earlier than the returning leg of the trip" blink blink more puppy dog eyes and look of remorse and humble guilt. "Well, hmm I think I can change you to the 8:10am train... you know you normally can't do this, I'm just going to give you a special break this one time." She says with a smile. I nod and thank her several times, while she gives me the new ticket. --"Damn! this womanizing cologne really is working!" I muse to myself. I should wear this stuff more often!.

So I get into the train, and the first class cabin is mostly enpty, without anyone there, but I end up sitting in front of this one red haired lady. She has the sort of university student look about her, except that she looks early 30s. She pull out her laptop, and it turns out to be the same as mine... powerbook 12". What luck! since mine was completely out of batteries, and was refusing tto even boot up. She is kind enough to lend me her plug to charge the laptop, as there is ac plugs on the train. How nice. The eurostar tickets include a breakfast. That is an unexpected treat. Bacon Butty, I wonder. It actually is quite good bacon, and eggs.


the chunnel comes sooner than I thought, and soon we are in the french countryside. Sheep. fields of green. thats all.

Paris. First thing that I notice is that the road signs that they use are the same as in japan! at least the ones that designate no stopping and no parking. Houses are roofed with ceramic tiles, sort of like mexico or italy in pictures. Its a cloudy day in paris, but the sun still peeks through the clouds. I see the Canon and Samsung buildings in the distance. Actually they are just advertisements on residential buildings.

Paris. Well, the pictures say it all. Its a beautiful city, architected by some famous guy named Braun (correct me if I am wrong) who defined the look of the entire city. Namely no building in central paris can be built unless it matched the Braunian look, which was white neoclassical with motifs and a black ornate roof. The effect of which is that the whole city is uniform in look and it looks very rustic and european. Also, the roads and monuments seem to be very well laid out. the Arc de Triomphe, has 12 main streets shooting off it like a giant hub of a giant wheel. Most of the monuments were built (or stolen) during Napolean's reign, the last major era where the French were an influential world power. the Louvre was all it was chalked up to be, except that the line up wasn't that bad. I walked right in, and got a ticket (8 Euros) and went straight to see the Mona Lisa. She had a moderate crowd around her, but it wasn't too bad. It was strange since you can take pictures in there, which was strange, since in galleries in Ottawa and in the MET, they disallow cameras with flash. But in the Louvre, you can go camera nuts. Many famous old friends that I remembered from art history classes were also there, like Geurricault (I am spelling it wrong) Liberty Leading the People, and Raft of the Medusa. They were a LOT bigger than I thought. Raft was over 15 feet tall. That Geurricault was a talented fellow.

History lesson aside, I had the most fully experience in the paris metro. i went in, and I lined up at the attendant booth to ask her where I bought the tickets from. when I got up to the front, I started asking her how to get to the Louvre in my bad french. Half way through, some lady just interjects in front of me and starts asking the attendant something. It seemed that something about her ticket didn't work or something. But the attendant got agitated and told her that she was occupied (talking to me), then what ensued was a full blown shouting match where the attendant was trying to tell me which station to get off, while the bitchy lady was screaming at her about her ticket, it was quite a scene. All the while I just wanted to get out of there, but I couldn't understand the attendants french, especially since she was shouting and talking really quicky thanks, while the bitchy lady was swearing at her in french. I ducked out, without my answer, and found a closeby computer terminal, and thankfully, it had an english button, so I figured it out myself. Man. Don't get on the wrong side of a french woman. they will bitch slap you into next week.

I almost picked up this cute french girl who was walking along side me for most of the way from the Louvre to the Tour Eiffel. We shared a couple of sideways glances while we walked the couple of blocks up to L'invalides, she looked like a student, with nice tight jeans and a sweet smile and the signature dark french hair cut short. Ipod earphones. After we crossed the street though, we split ways, and I looked on a little dissapointed. then, lo and behold, after 1 block, I saw her walking back towards me from the cross street. I subtlely let her catch up to me, and I went on for another 3 blocks. When we finally got to the next red traffic light, I stood up beside her, she looked up from her book, and I smiled a familiar smile and waved. She smiles back and comes closer. The kind of smile you give when you are sharing a secret with somebody. Bingo! I'm in.

This is the point where the story turns sour. Dave, being an idiot, seeing that she was on the cellphone, turn away, and notice the light is green, and start walking across the street. What Dave SHOULD have done was said "bonjour" or hello or ANYTHING, as she walked closer with eye contact ready for an opening line. Instead, I just start walking across the street. She doesn't follow. She stays in the middle median of the road. I look back when I crossed the street, and see her there, looking confused, then looking into her book. A little voice tells me that I should go back over and ask her where she is headed. But another voice tells me "what are you going to say? you didn't even say hello yet!" so I continue walking, hoping that she would eventually follow, so that I can make the first move. She never did. It occured to me afterwards, that she was probably following me for over 5 blocks just to see if anything would happen, deviating from her original destination (from where we originally split ways), and when all I could do when we finally meet is to offer a meek smile, wave (goodbye??) and walk on... she probably gave up and left. I'm an idiot.
Well, she was probably a spanish tourist anyhow. bah!

Jehovah's Witnesses

They are everywhere! Just when you thought that you could get away from them by flying across the world, they find you and drop little pamphets in your door. I wonder how they found me. There must be someone who walks the neighborhood looking for non-japanese names on the mailboxes because the pamplet I got is in chinese. Its sick. I thought I got away from these hassles when I left north america. You got to hand it to those people at the watch tower, they are damned persistent!!! It seems that saving souls is a serious profession.

Driving test

Its the nightmare that all the foriegners in japan fear. The license conversion driving skill road test. For all licenses except for British, Canadian, and Australia, you have to take a road test in order to convert your license to a japanese one. So why did I have to take one you ask? Well, you are looking at the only stupid canadian to give up my license for a New York State license. Yeah, I sure learned my lesson. Why American if you can have a Canadian version of ANY sort of official documentation? I mean, who wants to voluntarily targeted by terrorists, be the brunt of all dirty looks abroad, and generally get hassled and labelled as a world bully everywhere in the world? Yeah. well.

Anyhow, so I had to do the driving test. Well, getting that far was a story unto itself, with all the bureaucracy that is involved in getting your licensee translated, and scheduling a test date. but its one that I'll leave you to discover for yourself. At any rate, licences here are either manual or automatic, so if you only have an auto license, you can't drive manual transmission cars. Seeing that I hadn't even driven on the wrong side of the street before, I didn't think I wanted to try my luck at the manual test (even though I can drive a manual trans car no problem). But shifting would be with the left hand, which would be a little different than I had been used to.

Drive Test day, you have to get there by 8:30am, and they line you up and file all the gaijin testees into a pre test room. Where the driving instructor, (actually he was a traffic cop) went over all the rules of the road, and even gave some hints as to places on the course to watch out for. Of course, all in japanese. So if you didn't understand japanese, well, you would have a little harder time. Half way through, some guy shows up late. Some fillipino guy. He gets a dirty look from cop, and he gets instantly assigned to go first.

Going first sucks, as I learned, as you go 2 at a time in a car, with one person taking the test, while the next testee sits in the rear seat and watches and observes the course obstacles. So being first mean that you had no run through of the course before you had to run it. And believe me, some parts you really need to see to appreciate. So he failed. He was terrible mind you. I didn't see what he failed on, but as he pulled back up to the start, he was jerking on the brake, and the car was moving like an epileptic mule on speed. The cop tells him something, and he looks confused, and he writes him a pink slip, and tells him very sternly why he was a waste of human skin. He leaves the test center. failure #1 of the day.

when it was my turn to be the passenger, I was looking forward to getting a good look at the course, especially the infamous chicane and crank section where they make you weave through a very narrow zigzag that simulates the tight tokyo alleyways. if you touch ANYTHING, you instantly fail. The lady before me is Thai, or south asian, probably fillipino again. but when she got to the traffic light, she screwed up the simplest thing. The only thing that is different with japanese traffic lights. One thing that is soo fundamental that the cop even made it a point to EXPLICITLY point it out as something to be careful of before we started. in fact, its one of the written test questions. simply, if you see a red light, but also some green arrows, you can go in the direction of the arrows. Even though the light is red. So at the intersection, we were to turn right... so when the red light changes to red with arrow left and arrow straight, she started moving to turn right. BLAM! the cop slammed on the brakes and shouted "konna dame desu yo!" pointing at the light. the look on his face is "are you stupid?" the poor girl cringes in pain, and is directed back to the start. Failure #2.

How did I do? well, I passed. I think the only thing I did wrong (I got a tsk tsk childing from the cop when I did it) was that in japan, if you make a right turn, you have to turn straight into the LEFT lane. instead of going into the right lane (the closest one) and then changing afterwards. I mean, I just CUT off a potential person turning left from the other direction. Basically, they condone changing into the FAR lane when making the turn. instead of the closest lane.

The crank and chicane was quite stressful, I don't think I have ever weaved through such a narrow path. To complete the picture, they have two large concrete walls at the front of the chicane, to simulate driving into a narrow turning driveway of some building. But if you go realy slow, you shouldn't have a problem.

Anyhow, 4 out fo the 15 participants failed, luckily I wasn't one of them. Apparently, most people fail several times before finally getting it down. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones that passed on the first time.

No. Its a DJC journal entry!

Ginger Roast.

Sound tasty? Well, it is. Its one of the strange names that Japanese people call this one chinese dish... as common as General Tso's chicken balls. (I wonder who came up with that name as well). Its just stir fried peppers and pork strips. But why its called "jinjaros" I can only guess. I asked Akane why it that meant, but she said that jinjaros was a borrowed word (not native japanese) so it had no meaning. Most likely a chinese word. Problem is, I really have no guess as to what jinjaros means in chinese. It doesn't even sound like chinese. who knows. Its yummy though.


Damaged Goods.

I finally got my PDA replaced after I cracked the screen after a little incident where it seemed to jump out of my coat pocket one dizzy night. the PDA cost about 650 bucks to begin with... and with a cracked screen, it was 500 bucks to repair! oh man. thankfully my insurance will pay the cost minus 300bucks deductable, (for anything broken in my apartment) so it turned out to be a 300 dollar lesson in not putting my pda in my coat pocket, and not relying on a flimsy leather case to keep it safe.

It was a bad month for me, because on top of the pda incident, I happened to have my glasses broken as well, thanks to somebody sitting on them one fine day. At a party, they someone mananged to get onto the bed and then somebody through no fault of his own, crunched them. He was a gentleman and offered to pay half the repair cost, which was 200 bucks. sigh. it was one of those months which your horrorscope warns you about. I should have called in sick the whole month.


Weddings abound.

Back in Canada right now for a wedding of an old friend. Another wedding. Yes, nothing makes you feel older than everyone that you know getting hitched around you. Its like the warning sign that you are not just another free spirited student anymore, and there is fast approaching a time when your only concern can't be that next party or the next big score. I've noticed though, that there is indeed a trend towards marriage among the friends back home in canada vs everyone else that I know in nyc or tokyo. It would seem that the rate of marriage is directly correlated to the city's fun factor. What is a fun factor of a city? Tokyo: clubs restaurants and croweded streets with ganguro girls everywhere; high fun factor. NYC: sophisticated career women who prowl the night bars for unsuspecting prey; high fun factor. Toronto: Idea of a fun time; a camping trip and some time on a canoe; low fun factor. Thus, it follows that the people in a city where there is little more to do than pitch a tent and hit the occasional Jack Asstors or Sports bar to watch the hockey game, people tend to find someone and latch on for dear life, lest they slip away, and you are left to bask in your misery at some quiet bubble tea restaurant somewhere. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its just that it seems that marriage is a very much so a logical next step when you have a steady job and a steady girlfriend in canada.

if I were to contrast the cities, I'd say the biggest difference between NYC and Toronto, is that NYC has a collective spirit, character if you will, that somehow joins and connects everyone there as being a new yorker. Its something transcendant that is hard to describe, but is very tangible for someone who has experienced it. Sorta like, dare I say it, 'god'. Am I comparing the experience of the divine to life in NYC? Yeah, I guess so, but the former is probably a little more forgiving, while the latter is definitely more interesting.

Some people are afraid of change, others embrace it. Some people shy away from chaos, while others seek it.

Where is our sense of adventure? Of exploration? I ask you my fellow canadians... In life, is there more than just settling down?
I personally have some ways to go before my primary aspirations in life revolve around car loans and re-paving the driveway. I mean, there is a WHOLE world out there, and we all live in a tiny part of it. There are people out there who think differently, live differently, and could very well have wisdom to share. With all that's out there, how can one restrict oneself to one place? One group of friends? One point of view?


Baggagemen.

They are the enemy. They are the reason why we constantly buy bigger, stronger, and more durable luggage to protect our belongings. But its an uphill battle. No matter what we do, things still find a way to get dented, scratched, scuffed, or cut. Its almost as if when they see a bag or a case that looks durable, they will deliberately take less care when handling it. I was in the airplane, while I saw the baggagehandler carelessly dump luggage into the conveyor belt that led into the aircraft's cargo hold. They were pretty rough with them, but when it came to a hard case, they literally threw it onto the belt, and it bounced and rolled several times over. So I guess you can't win. If something looks fragile, they might actually do the humane thing and treat it with more care, if it looks like its well protected, they will 'test' it to the fullest.

That's when I got to thinking... this sort of human behavioural pattern seems to be repeated on a national scale. If one has much to protect, then one builds walls. High walls tend to attract more adversaries. Its the principle of equal escalation. Escalate the defenses, and the attacks will also escalate.


Tax rebates.

The governement doesn't want you to get them. They are just as bad as a slimy merchant trying to peddle his wares in a dark alley behind the chinese embassy.

I was at the Pearson airport in Toronto (one of the only ones where they force you to bring your checking lugage with you to the customs officer and duty free) where after lining up for 20 mins in a long line to the ticketing counter, and subsequent duty free shop, I find out that the tax return office where you have to get your receipts stamped are on another level of the building, at the most extreme end of the ARRIVALS floor. I mean, that's basically the WORSE place to put the office while still maintaining its presence in the building at all. Those rat bastards. So I had to uncheck my bags (and golf carrier) run about 100m to the other end of the building, down a flight of stairs, just to find the office that is conveniently tucked away behind a narrow hallway where I could get my GST receipts stamped. It was riduculous. Thankfully, I had gotten to the airport early so I had sufficient time to get back and re-check in my bags and go through customs. But the experience taught me to dispise the government, just a little bit more. The slimy bastards.


Driving ranges.

all of them in toronto seem to be outdoors. I went to one of the newer ones called 'Harry Putter' --oh please, it hurts my precious-- last week. I guess in a country where we have much land and not much to build on it, it makes sense that the driving ranges are just wide open fields, with some tees set up in the front. No automatic ball teeing ala chelsea piers/tokyo, but the ones you have to tee yourself. I was remarking about this to one of my friends who lives up in Ottawa, and he agreed with me on the backward Canadian golf ranges. I was also surprised to learn from him that even in the Phillipines they have automatic tees; except that its really just a poor filipino boy sittting on the ground teeing a new ball after each shot. But hey, whatever works. Still better than having to tee yourself I guess. Man-- I am yuppified!

Word of the Day!

Pornout - 1. v. to go to extreme limits to gratify oneself, or otherwise indulging in a self-serving action to an excessive level. eg. 'Jimmy was totally porning-out on digital cameras today; he ended up buying 2 new ones from the electronics superstore.' 2. n. an extreme situation in which things are taken to unnecessarily excessive levels. An event in which things are taken a little too far. eg. 'the Tokyo Gameshow was a complete pornout of geeks; a proverbial mecca of games, flashy displays, showgirls, and game developers showing their wares for the upcoming year -- compare this to the Annual Gamelan Convention, which is much more of a nerd pornout, with hexboards, dice rolling and star trek affectionados abound'.

Its amazing how many people haven't heard of this useful word, considering how many times during our daily lives its meaning is used. Instead, we settle for clunky phrases like 'going crazy on' or 'went nuts doing'. Those phrases convey to some sense the meaning of 'pornout' but none describes the situation as eloquently and concisely. Well, I guess its not that surprising, since I sorta invented the word. Okay, heard it used by my buddy over here to describe people who would bring their cameras to the shows just to take pictures of the show girls at conventions, and I decided to extend the meaning a little to be more general. You'll agree that it comes useful at times. Although, yesterday when I was at the Nike factory store in Vaughn Mills (North of toronto) I used it at the register to describe my buying spree of nike items (thanks to a buy $100 and get 25% off the whole purchase sale) and the guy at the till just looked at me funny and gave me one of those under-the-breath stifled laughs that you only give people who you pity or children who trip and fall and somehow manage to do it in a spectacular way.


RELAX goddamit!

There are 2 types of people on a plane. Those who sit relatively still and sleep or read a book, and those who constantly figit around in their chair, shift their weight constantly to avoid --what? blood clots, or the ants in their pants from getting too cosy in one crevasse of their liberal caboose flaps-- who the heck knows. But its definitely the latter that irritate me to no end. Especially when you get one of those guys in economy class and he is also one who likes to recline the chair to its utmost maximum, and continually tries to force the thing further still against the wishes of the designers and several metal catches in the side of the contraption. Why should these people be subject to eternal damnation in the burning fires of hell you ask? Because for people like me with a notebook computer, the space between a reclined chair back and the tray table is small enough, and everytime the figity inconsiderate street sputum decides to jiggle and push around in his seat, he crashes the chair back into my poor little laptops screen, crunching jarring and otherwise not doing healthy things to it. One of these days, I'm going to get lucky and its going to crack the screen full out. Until that day, I live in constant nervous fear, and I have to monitor the movements of tinkerbell up front there in case it looks like another 7.8 of the richter is coming up, in which case I quicky move my laptop away and out of danger of the crushing chairback of death. -- Jaded? noooo... not one bit. Airlines should make the space between chairs a little bigger or put all the figeters in one section of the plane so that they can irritate the hell out of each other.


2 hours. Bah!

You know how the airlines always recommend that you get to the airport 2 hours before your flight? Well, its a farce. I found out today, when I got there at precisely 2 hours before my flight, only to find a line to the checkin that took 40 min to wait through. After which, since I refused to let the bloody government dogs scam my tax money by their devious placement of the tax refund office (as mentioned above), I unchecked my bags and went back out, (dispite the admonishment from one very grumpy checkin lady who insisted that I didn't have time and that I would have to go through the lineup again) and after a whole lot of stress and what seemed like a 500m dash across the terminal, I found that there was absolutely no line for the checking, and no line at customs. It was exactly 1 hour before the flight. So I guess the 2 hour thing is a safety measure. So if you want to skip the lines, and get some more sleep as well, check on the scheduled flights for your airline for the day around the time of your departure, and if there are none after your flight, you can arrive 1 hour (or heck, 45min) before your flight, and you will fly on through. 2 hours be damned. Also make due note of where the tax refund office is, and make the government pay for their sins.


Twin diplomacy.

Some of you may not have heard, but over here in asia, there have been some strains in the China/Japan relationship due to the Japanese government approving the use of some new textbooks that gloss over some of the events in world war 2. The whole shebag boiled up into some riots on the japanese embassy in Beijing, and a very marked anti-japanese sentiment in china of late. Remarkably, in the midst of all this heated passion posturing, one lone person was able to singlehanded (or dual-handedly, as it were) stop most of the negative sentiment against japan. And that one person is Saaya, an 11-year old japanese girl with a size F bust. Yep. believe it. What better way than to replace one type of heated passion with another. the only disturbing thing is Saaya is 11. Well, at least technically she is. Here is the link to the Japan Times article and a picture of little Saaya, and her peacekeepers.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fd20050522tc.htm#2
http://www.thisistrue.com/saayairie.html

its not often that one finds himself slapped upside the head with a fact that catches you completely offguard.... For about 2.5 years now, I have known the popular drink only as cassis, and compared it to the likes of compari in the category of 'mysterious red liqueur'. But today while I was buying a coffee at one of those fancy places that have many different flavourings in a bottle to add to your coffee, which so happened to all be in french, with small english translations, I discovered the naked truth.... To think that I had glorified the drink so much and commented many times on its interesting and original name.

...Some of you may have heard the commotion on the newsfeeds about the violent protests in China about Japan allowing a new bunch of modified tetxtbooks go into schools.

These books gloss over some of the atrocities that Japan committed in WWII, labelling such things as the massacre of Nanking an 'incident'.

...but I do have one comment for the Minister of Japan, who claims it is the "responsibility of the private companies who write the textbooks, and not a statement from the Government of Japan itself".... I myself have visited Yasukuni Jinja and the war museum located there (top that irony! the national war museum located in the 'peaceful country' shrine!) which last time I checked was a government supported operation -- and it indeed calls the Nanking massacre an 'incident'.... I took a picture with my keitai last year, because I found it rather amusing and disturbing at the same time. But I'm not going to say anything more than that.

So Japan wants to re-write the books, and China doesn't want to apologise for the violent protests...sigh.

...I say, put the guys into a steel caged ring and let them fight it out.

...its been a while since I have written anything about my mac, and indeed, the thing I love most about it is that it just works as expected, gets the job done, and doesn't require the countless maintenance that my old pc did. Though the recent spotlight of macs and their growing popularity have inspired me to spend a couple of minutes of them today. As I just mentioned, the best thing about my mac is that it seems to understand me and do what I want it to do. A lot of people say this and windows users are always making references to mac users being flaky art students or tree hugging hippies when they make such unquantifiable statements such as this.... I didn't understand it at first, but after using a mac for a while, you soon understand. I'll give you an example: when I tell my mac to shutdown, it shutsdown, its a command from me the user and littlemac* obeys. Take windows, the shutdown command is more like a meek request. Windows is in charge, and it will shutdown if it wants to, and not without asking you 5 times whether you want to END TASK or whether you want to save that document you are working on before you exit.... Do you really need to ask me whether or not I want to END that task?... And the request to save the documetns... what if my secretary asked me whether I wanted to throw my half written documents in the draft file or the garbage?... Well, if we can only fire our computers for stupidity.... Its a bunch of programmers who know nothing of human computer interface designing things in a strictly engineering manner.

...did you know that that was an actual hobby/obsession amoung a select crowd in the UK?... This level of obsession makes model train builders seem as normal as pecan pie.

Cassis Orange?

its not often that one finds himself slapped upside the head with a fact that catches you completely offguard. Such is the case with cassis. For about 2.5 years now, I have known the popular drink only as cassis, and compared it to the likes of compari in the category of 'mysterious red liqueur'. But today while I was buying a coffee at one of those fancy places that have many different flavourings in a bottle to add to your coffee, which so happened to all be in french, with small english translations, I discovered the naked truth. That cassis was just french for blackcurrent. Wow, what a letdown! To think that I had glorified the drink so much and commented many times on its interesting and original name. Blackcurrent. Sure puts perspective on things eh?

Re-writing the books

Okay, I'm not going to touch this with a 10-foot pole.
ugh... uh...okay, I can't resist.
Some of you may have heard the commotion on the newsfeeds about the violent protests in China about Japan allowing a new bunch of modified tetxtbooks go into schools.
These books gloss over some of the atrocities that Japan committed in WWII, labelling such things as the massacre of Nanking an 'incident'.

I'm not going to take any sides... but I do have one comment for the Minister of Japan, who claims it is the "responsibility of the private companies who write the textbooks, and not a statement from the Government of Japan itself". That statement unto itself isn't all that true. I myself have visited Yasukuni Jinja and the war museum located there (top that irony! the national war museum located in the 'peaceful country' shrine!) which last time I checked was a government supported operation -- and it indeed calls the Nanking massacre an 'incident'. I have proof. I took a picture with my keitai last year, because I found it rather amusing and disturbing at the same time. But I'm not going to say anything more than that.

So Japan wants to re-write the books, and China doesn't want to apologise for the violent protests...sigh.
that's why I'm not in politics. I say, put the guys into a steel caged ring and let them fight it out. Just like Thunderdome. 2 men enter, 1 man leaves.

its been a while since I have written anything about my mac, and indeed, the thing I love most about it is that it just works as expected, gets the job done, and doesn't require the countless maintenance that my old pc did. Though the recent spotlight of macs and their growing popularity have inspired me to spend a couple of minutes of them today. As I just mentioned, the best thing about my mac is that it seems to understand me and do what I want it to do. A lot of people say this and windows users are always making references to mac users being flaky art students or tree hugging hippies when they make such unquantifiable statements such as this. What does that mean you ask? I didn't understand it at first, but after using a mac for a while, you soon understand. I'll give you an example: when I tell my mac to shutdown, it shutsdown, its a command from me the user and littlemac* obeys. Take windows, the shutdown command is more like a meek request. Windows is in charge, and it will shutdown if it wants to, and not without asking you 5 times whether you want to END TASK or whether you want to save that document you are working on before you exit. C'mon pedro! I mean, jesus, what do you think? Do you really need to ask me whether or not I want to END that task? I told you to shutdown didn't I??? And the request to save the documetns... what if my secretary asked me whether I wanted to throw my half written documents in the draft file or the garbage? I would have the assistent fired for incompetance immediately. Well, if we can only fire our computers for stupidity. Well you can blame microsoft. Its a bunch of programmers who know nothing of human computer interface designing things in a strictly engineering manner. Too bad the world is not like that.

Trainspotting. did you know that that was an actual hobby/obsession amoung a select crowd in the UK? It involves hanging around stations with a pair of binoculars and actually looking for trains. Rare trains, trains from France, or Germany. Year round, in the cold of winter. They take pictures of these trains. That's it. Yes. Believe it. This level of obsession makes model train builders seem as normal as pecan pie.


PICS! notice the up in qualtiy thanks to my new 2megapix VS900 Sharp phone.

Some shots from Canada ski trip. (yeah, that's how old they are!


EEEwww... who wants to go to GROSS Mountain?



Some very strange advertisement on a fancy restaurant window. More meat. More power. yeah! i can hear the man-show grunts now!



Japans obsession with perfect ZEN of everything. Even the eggs are serialized and labeled. No joke. I wonder how they got a stamp that could stamp the egg. perhaps its laser engraved.




At this new fancy indian restaurant, they have these things called Shiek kebabs. Um... well.. they sure look like the Shiek's something or other. Rather tasty though! Spicy!




There is these subway adds sponsored by the subway authority here that feature this cute cuddly bear in situations that demonstrate poor manners or bad habits.
In this one, Tommy Bear (I call him that) demonstrates how you shouldn't be drinking in the station and spilling your drinks everywhere.





In Hokkaido, the snow was really piled up THIS high.







I want to be a forever Udon lover too!







Winner of the best Japanese Tee shirt contest.




Winner of the MAXIM contest.
If you can read japanese, its gets better.
the first line says
"Double Cock Keeper"
"Cup Holder w/Cock Keeper"
And the line at the bottom says
"2WAY Cock"




This table cost $5000. Its japanese furniture. it was probably made from a 100year old redwood or something.


this fruit basket costs $190. The fruit is said to bestow immortality upon those who eat it.



That's blood. Some guy fell and hit his head. While he was lying on the ground, he bled a lot. after the ambulance took him away, nobody bothered to clean the mess, and left the puddle of blood on the ground. People were walking by wondering what it was. I just had to take a picture. The bucket was there for some guy to clean it up... but they never did...well, at least while I was there.



Man! I love this Frocken toast!


DJC OUT

dont forget the moment of bliss, barrelling down the hill at breakneck speeds, and flying through the air on a snowboard.

I saw a guy taking the posters off the wall at the station today. It was cute because he was keeping careful not to step directy on the bench below the poster board, but instead he took off a low poster first, folded it neatly up, and then placed it on the bench so that his shoes wouldn't touch the seat. in America, he would have stepped all over that seat. Its reassuring that there are lots of procedures here that while meticulous, are very well followed.

Snowboarding season is over. Well, of course it is, for if it weren't you wouldn't be reading this journal entry now. Every year, a bunch of us nuts put our lives on hold, and waste countless dollars pursuing the ultimate powder, that extra 1 second of air. For me this year, it was the elusive 360 jump. For almost every weekend, we have been travelling all around northern japane, From Nagano, where they had the '98 olympics, to Niigata, to Hokkaido, and for good measure, we even went back to Canada, (alas, the conditions there were lame to say the least) but it was only at the end when I was finally able to execute a 360 spin and land it. But even then it was bittersweet for it was not off a kicker jump, and only a small drop slope. So on the shelf goes the snowboard for another year, until next season the 360 air will have to wait. No injuries. That's the most important thing. Accomplishments this year include some modest rails, (though we are still far from being proficient at them) improving our grace on jumps and going higher and further, improving our powder skills and locking down that 180 jump turn down solid. Oh, and no injuries. Good season all things considered.

Did you know that chess was invented in china? Well, a friend of mine turned up this article published by a professor of linguistics that has pretty irrefutable evidence that the origins of international chess is indeed china. Here is the article: http://www.samsloan.com/origin.htm

I haven't really been writing too many missives or rants in the last 4 months, mostly because there isn't much that strikes me as new and amusing anymore. How depressing. Guess that happens to me everytime I hit the 2 year mark in any one place.

Should have listened to the horoscope.

it probably would have warned me to watch myself this month because the stars show that I was to be extremely unlucky. Not only did I have my glasses sat on by some big californian dude who shall remain nameless, I also dropped my PDA one night (it fell out of my coat pocket) and it happened to land on one of the unprotected corners of the leather case, so now the screen is cracked and is leaking fluid like a bad fuel line on a '58 beetle. the glasses were Ralph Lauren, and cost me 19,000yen to repair and that's even not replacing the slightly cracked lenses. dammit. The pda will cost at least 25,000 itself I figure. all in all a lot of money down the toilet. Its quite depressing.

Reply All.

No button has ever been more of a bane to my existence and sanity. Once again, i pull a bone headed reply all fiasco. Story goes as follows.

There is this hong kong style bubble tea shop that just opened close by the office. We try it out once, and the food was decent, but the portions were ridiculously small. I mean, there were 4 wonton in a tiny bowl, some soup, and handful of noodles. I wasn't very impressed, so I thought that I would not go back.

Turns out that the restaurant owners are friends of some of the hong kong people here at the company, and they mail them often with the menu for the day and invite them over to try the new menu items daily. It was on one of these mails, which was sent by the owner of the restaurant to a large list of people at gs that this story gets interesting.

The mail I received was from one of my friends, asking if we wanted to have lunch at this place again. I promptly replied, thinking that the whole list was internal people and their friends, saying something to the tune of "oooh, alright... but if the portions are tiny again, I'll personally beat the chef!"

We'll as you might have guessed it, the owner was none too pleased. I avoided that place for a while, thinking that I would get some 'extra' seasoning in my soup if I chanced to eat there again.

I did eventually go back one day, and met the owner and apologized for the mistake, apparently, they didn't take any offense to it, and have increased the portion sizes in response to my complaint. Still, they are chinese, so I don't really feel too safe when eating there anymore. I mean, it all tastes like chicken...so I can't really be too sure.

New Pics and Keitai.

Here are some pics I snapped off my keitai that I thought that you would enjoy. Yes, you'll notice that the pics are in rather high resolution as compared to the ones you have seen in the past. That's because I bought a new keitai that has a 2 mp camera along with a whole bunch of other bells and whistles. the Sharp 902SH if you care to look it up.

Pics from TKO

Very very expensive fruit. You've heard it all before, but while walking through a kinokuniya today ( supermarket ) I saw this fruit basket in the fruit section, and to its credit it looked absolutely beautiful. But that's not what I'm thinking when I look at the price tag. Repairing my designer glasses cost the same amount ... as ... this.. fruit ... basket.

Let me repeat that again to make sure you heard me. THIS FRUIT BASKET COSTS ~$190 USD!
And I paid that amount to get my glasses frame fixed today. Goddamit.




Dave's Fashion exclusive! Ever wonder what I wear or look like? Many people do, since I like taking pictures more than posing for them, you normally don't see me in my work. Well, thanks to my new phone which has a reversible camera lens, I started to rectify that situation. Here is a free sample of the upcoming fashion extravaganza.

One day I decided to put on my bathrobe and the new touque that I bought from Canada, put on the theme to Rocky 4 and started dancing around punching my fists in the air acting all tough like and rubbing my nose as if I had allergies much too excessively. Then I took this picture.



this is me when I got my glasses. yeah, those glasses were $300 usd. and thanks Greg for sitting on them. :-/




Raymond my boss came over from hongkong and brought me a bunch of shirts. This one was picked out by his wife. thanks Manchee! I like it soo much I took a picture of it.



Roppongi Hills Apartments Residences.
Sean stayed in one of these for 1 year... Lucky bastard.






Scene from Matrix Renovated? Nope. but close. I got invited to go to the premier showing of Constantine (keanu fights demons and gets to be his regular Keanu self that we all learned to love in the matrix ) and this was the foyer of the Tokyo Forum where it was held. The theatre was laaarge. Even by NYC standards. And Keanu, the girl in the movie ( the brit gal in The Mummy ) and the director made a guest appearance to launch the film. It was a decent movie actually.




DJC out.

Strange as it may sound, this will be the first Christmas that I have spent in japan. For the past 2 years, I've always gone home to visit family for the holidays, but this year, I find myself completely out of vacation days thanks to the trip to china earlier this year.

Actually, lots of festive events take place in Japan during the Christmas season. For one, they have a crazy santa fest, where everyone dresses up like santas and just parade around the town acting like idiots. Well, okay, you got me, that particular event is mostly populated by foreigners.

One thing that is more japanese though, is the traditional year ending 'bonenkai' which means 'year end parties'. Most of them take place at an izakaiya type restaurant, and involve liberal amounts of alcohol and food. fun stuff.

I was at a Christmas party yesterday, one of thse semi-formal events at a reserved hotel or bar restaurant. Quite classy. Actually they are more like mixer parties, made for the sole purpose of facilitating an avenue whereby people can get to meet people. The entertainment was some hawaiian dancers and singers, and the food was actually quite well done. Of course, I manage to pass out my card to most people in the room, as in the standard cocktail party routine. Meeting new people is always exciting, and indeed, its what I seem to excel at. Keeping friends, hehe, that is a lot harder. And it only gets harder the more people youl know.

At this party, I saw one of the most interesting japanisms in a while... a girl who was using her bust as a storage space for her keitai. it was quite interesting. Enough that I actually made a comment about it. I mean, its not too often you get to legitamately stare at a girls bust for longer than 5 seconds. I was interested in what model cell phone she was using! Honestly!

Interesting enough to get a picture of it as well... you know... for posterity.

The party was followed on by the obligatory visit to Vanilla, the dance club that is the defacto standard for all people who work in Goldman. The night was a blast, the only negative was that I forgot my jacket in a friend's locker... compared to the last time when I lost my glasses, it was pretty good improvement. Ended up having to take care of a couple of the girls who were there who got a little tipsy... but I wasn't complaining. Interested readers should go to the personal section.

The girl on the train talking to her friends draws my attention. Partially because she is talking very loudly, and partially because the conversation is so one sided that it is absolutely amusing. She would make some statement in japanese, one that I couldn't understand very clearly, and then one of the guys would nod or grunt in agreement. Then she would say something else, and again a nod from both of the guys. This went on for about 5 minutes. It was very funny how she was carrying on this conversation all by herself.

London subways are nothing like those in Tokyo. Where in Tokyo, you have large clean, and efficient trains, the London tubes are small, cramped, smelly and run on a "best effort" schedule. If you made it to work, within a 20 min buffer swing time, you were considered lucky. My trip to London was only a week long, and i really didn't get my free time to myself to explore the city, so I was a little disappointed. I saw Big Ben just once, and it was from a moving cab at 11pm at night, so I didn't even get any pictures. Oh well.

talk Talk talk...

And getting paid for it! For most of the week, I was teaching a training course for some of the IT folks that had to start learning our front office derivatives system. Simple basic stuff, with some slides and some exercises that I cooked up. Though, boy, was it tiring. I will never again underestimate the amount of effort required to lecture to a class for 4 straight days again. Not only is it mentally taxing, but when you are teaching, you don't have time for a lot of the regular things that you can normally take care of during the day... namely organizing a lunch with friends, or taking bathroom breaks when you want/need to. I actually had a sore throat the first 2 days in London, so I was drinking a lot of water to keep my throat happy. Consequently, more than once I had to put the class on an emergency recess in order to run to the toilet. Quite embarrassing, as one time I had to cut off a students question mid sentence.

Her Majesty's Feast...

Was probably french cuisine. Why? Because frankly british food is sub-par. And the food that they have that are actually decent are usually stolen from other cultures like indian curry, or scottish hagis, or german sasauges, or tea from china. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that the british empire was solely brought about by the desire for better foods for the impoverished kingdom of england. God knows they need it.

Easy breezy Japanesey...

I wish! I had the enviable misfortune of trying some japanese food in London. We went to a local asian fusion chain called Wagamama's, quite popular for lunch there. Boy, it was quite terrible. I ordered the Wagamama Ramen, to see how this anglicised ramen would compare. Oh dear me. A more blatent insult of what you could marginally call food I have never witnessed in my life. The soup was clearly hot water with a beef boullion cube, stirred in with some frozen veggies (string beans and carrots -- the kind you buy in a freezer bag at the local super), with some frozen tofu lump, with patented cold clammy insides, and some slices of ham from the local deli. Probably 1 day old judging by the refrigerator taste. It was nasty. It was 7 quid (pounds -- ie 13 dollars). Moral of the story: if you want good food in London, it will cost you. If you want bad food in London, it will cost you.
Next time, I'm sticking with the fish & chips and bangers.

The weekend was topped off with a trip to the FX (ForEx for those you not in GS) (Foreign Exchange for those of you not in the business) Offisite event at some posh resort an hour north of London at Hertfordshire. For non-brits out there, that's pronounced HART-furdshir. (After visiting London, I now know why japanese people think that the english language is the most inconsistent mess ever conceived. Half the time you can't even trust the spelling to be representative of the pronunciation!) It was a swank place, complete with its own castle, golf course, and archery fields. Posh indeed. The FX desk held a global retreat for all those in the business and those of us lucky enough to support the business for a weekend of conferences, and 4am cocktail parties. Oh, and a round of golf. The golf was great, except for the fact that it rained. Still, I got some of the best golf I have ever played, namely my first par on a par 3 hole. (I nailed the tee shot onto the green, chipped it within 5 yards, and sunk the putt!) And my best ever approach shot with my 5 wood, (I shot it about 210 yards onto the green! Straight and true!) So I got completely soaked. Oh well. I was also forced to buy a rain proof jacket there for 70quid. Also, after much temptation and high praise from those who used them, I also got a 70quid pair of golf shoes. I figured I could use the upgrade.

A king's ransom for a wink of sleep.

Due to the business's reputation for not sleeping, the weekends activities were fully packed, including a dinner, disco and (as expected in any financial firm) a poker tournament. Entry was 50quid. The game was texas hold-em, bang-em, or shoot'em up... I can't remember. But it looked quite interesting. Being that the prize money would only go to the top 3 contestants, lots of us were going home empty. I lost all my chips within 30min. I did win one real big fast out of the gates with a straight, but I lost it again real fast.
Lesson to the young. Know when to fold them. The showdown at the end was between a sales guy, and 2 traders. And in the end, the sales guy won it. It was quite amazing to watch, as the same guy was 3 chips from losing earlier on in the evening. The first place pot was something like 3000quid. (5800USD) Not bad. I have to practice for next year.

After dinner came the cocktails. And more cocktails, and more...it was openbar from like 3pm until 8am. Insane. I couldn't take it anymore and snapped at 4am and shuffled off to bed. Some of the sales people stayed all the way until morning. I don't know how they do it. The next day we had to get on a plane for tokyo. 1pm flight, 12 hours in the air (no sleep), landing at 10am Tokyo time, and lasting until night meant I was running on a 20+ hour day without rest. Not good. I didn't wake up in time for work the following day.

A flying bed.

Virgin Atlantic upper class has the best service ever. Not only do the seats fully recline into a flat bed, they have a massage and manicure service. I did the massage, as my nails are fine as they are thank you very much. On the way back I was offered to downgrade due to overbbooking. In exchange I would get a free ticket on premium economy back to London. I took it, (silly me) and thus was unable to get any sleep on the way back.

So that was London.



Well, the first picture goes without saying.
Next you see the spacious inside of a london cab. The cabs were distinct in that there was enough leg room to fit all your luggage and 4 kegs of beer in front of you. its more like a van.
Next you see a shot of the swank resort room I stayed at for the FX Offside event.
After that is a picture of my doki (same year) friend Ai in london. She's a doll.
Me trying to hail a double deckar bus.
and yes... the G-A-Y bar. I dared not step any closer to this place, and the picture was taken at high zoom.

More touristy pics in my gallery.

DJC out.

Q. How does one go about qualifying one of the most influencial vacations in ones life?
A. Procrastinating for 2 weeks about it, and finally writing about in a play-by-play style.

How do I even start?

Well, let's open with the general summary, as most analytical works do.

China was nothing like I expected. Sure, you hear about the China with bicycles and poor people running around wearing Mao outfits and saluting each other with "hail comrade". But the truth of the matter is, its nothing like that anymore. China has changed, China has grown, China is no longer a backward 3rd world developing country. In fact, most of its infrastructures are as developed as any modern western counterpart. It is truely a case in point where communism can work, when lead by visionary leaders.

About leaders, the man that China owes its recent wealth and influence to is the late Deng Shao Peng. When he stopped the madness which was the cultural revolution when he came into office in 1980, he also made one of the most progressive and historical changes to the policy of chinese communism. One that was then yet unheard of in communistic countries. He made the one simple amendment that would make Karl Marx roll in his pine box.

He made it legal for some people to be richer than others.

Bacially, he made his communist country, capitalist in practice. The generation of wealth was now allowed, and since then, the class separation in china would be allowed and encouraged. Besides, how better to give incentive to people to innovate than to give them the incentive of personal reward. If Mao can be given the credit for turning a starving poor war ravaged country around and making sure that every chinese citizen had a job and had food on his plate, then Deng has to be given the credit for turning china from a 3rd world agricultural country into a modern industrial powerhouse.

It was on that note that I visited Beijing, and I was completely swept away by its newness. Everything was new. Buildings, people, and malls. Everywhere you looked there was something under construction. And gone were all the cyclists that everyone has come to associate china with. Now its cars (albeit knockoff) that everyone owns and drives.

On knock offs.
It was an amusing slap in the face for the chinese government to allow the silk market, the biggest collection of rip off stores in the city, to be setup right next to the american embassy. Though I must say, one does not feel like you are engaging in anything illegal when you go shopping there. Except for the fact that seems like a crime what you pay for things there. I suggested to my friends that I wanted to checkout the market, and they took me to Sheng Yang Si Cheun in Shanghai. What strikes you first is the plethora of shops that seem to be all selling the same things, namebrand handbags, watches, North Face bags and jackets, shoes, and any number of other brand name goods, but you know, they can't really be real. Below is an excerpt of what our conversations would be like:

Li: do you want a jacket?
Me: Uh.. sure, well, depends how much it is.
Li to shop clerk: <how much is this?> -- in chinese
Clerk: 500rmb. [about $60usd)
Li to me: Do you want it for 200?
Me: uh... sure.... didn't that guy just say 500?
Li: don't worry...<she winks>
Li to Clerk: 100!
Clerk complains loudly, citing high quality materials, and such, whines some more. "okay okay... 450 for you only"
Li: 100!
Clerk complains some more, and I think I actually hear some swearing. Though with my limited mandarin, I can't be sure. "okay, you good customer, I like you. 400!"
Li: 100!
Clerk gets visibly angry.
Li grabs my hand, "lets go" and we start walking away.
Clerk shouts after us "okay okay! 380! best price!"
We continue walking away.
Clerk shouts, "okay okay! come back come back!"
We go back.
"look at this material, high quality! best price 300!"
Li: 100!
Clerk: <in chinese> okay... 200.
Li: 125.
Clerk <very quiet now, scowling> 175.
We start walking away again...
Clerk: shouting back at us "Okay okay." nodding.
Li goes back. 125 right?
Clerk nods, utterly defeated.
Li takes a quick expert look at the jacket, inspects the zippers and such, then hands it back to the clerk -- "And get me a new one from the back" she demands.

Wow. I was soo impressed, that I just kept my mouth shut for the rest of the day, as I let her bargain everything down to 1/4 of the original offer price.

That was shanghai.

Beijing.

Where have all the bicycles gone???

I'd always imagined china to be choke full peoples in standard communist blue/green garb weaving through the city in their bicycles. I saw surprisingly few if any cyclists during my week in Beijing. I did on the other hand, see more than enough cars, driven very poorly. It would seem that china in the last 20 years have fallen in love with the automobile, but nobody had thought to teach them how to operate one properly. its like a rich kid who just needs to have all the fanciest toys, but not know what to do with them. The roads and highways are filled with people who drive cars like they would steer a wagon. Nobody ever signals a turn, instead, they just slowly edge into adjacent lanes until they either hit another car, or someone honks at them and flashes their high beams, which seems to be the universal signal for "hey, yo! stop before you hit me you meathead!"
Honestly, they don't even bother to look for other cars, they just start changing lanes.

Our most exciting experience happened when we were on a cab back to my friend Will's place, and the cabbie accidentally got onto the wrong offramp. to our horror, he stopped in the middle of the ramp, and proceeded to drive backwards back ONTO the highway. In reverse.
Dear god I still thank the lord that I am here writing this journal and not splattered all over the chinese expressway system right now.

Now that's not your granny's Kung-Pow chicken!

The food in china was awesome. Well, there was good food, and there was cheap food. But in general everything was very palatable. Will brought us to this one fancy Szechuan place that served sharkmeat and spicy oil fish. It was fabulous. We were eating a meal fit for kings, and the best part was when the bill came, it worked out to be about 30 dollars a person. Dirt cheap for the amount of food and drinks we had. Although if you do the math, 30USD is more than most chinese people make in a week, so the prices are actually reflectively high for the average chinese person. 1st world exploitation of 3rd world economies... gotta love it.

Fake DVDs?

Nah, they are real. As real as they come -- in china. that is, you can't get real DVDs here. The kind they sell in the stores, malls, shops everywhere, are all copies. Very good ones I might add. Not the average kind you get in Hong Kong where the case is just a mimic of the real one and the labels are all wrong. In China, if the dvd says dolby digital sound, it actually has it. When it says 5.1 surround, you betcha you can use it on your home theatre. And when it says German with english subtitles... it really means GERMAN with english subtitles. Yeah. Next time I'm going to pay more attention to the details on the covers. But it was hard to when all of them were 10rmb each. I was basically like a kid in a candy shopping spree. I was just picking movies off the shelf. Any movie. The rule was, if I recognized it, I grabbed it. If it looked familiar or interesting in any way, I got it. I ended up buying over 30 dvds, including all 3 seasons of "24", the matrix trilogy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and many many others. It all came to about 550rmb. Around 65dollars USD. I love china.

Cab drivers

have this silly plastic enclosure around them in the cab. which makes it really hard for you to pass anything to the driver, like... um... say... MONEY when you pay them, or a piece of paper with chinese instructions on how to get to your hotel. but I suppose it also keeps you from say, jabbing a sharp metal object into his throat while he's driving. (though your own sanity must be in question if you choose to do so with the car moving on the crazy highways of Beijing.) I took a picture of this funny bubble. (see my pic links)

The People's Revolution Musuem?

Not! We wasted a couple of hours going to the "Musuem of the Revolution" in Tiannamen Square, only to find out that it was the Musuem of the "Revolution" in name only. In it, it had lame exhibits from Congo, Afganastan and other countries friendly to china. Lame. I wanted to see tanks and war stuff (as you all know, I am a history and war buff) but all we got to see were some old vases and some modern photographs of birds. Next time, I'll be more wary of buildings with "revolution" or "people's" in it.

Night Life

Clubbing is fun in china. If I were to quantify it, I would say it is between New York and Tokyo, in that the attitude is a little more New York like (namely its not that easy to go home with a girls number) but closer to Tokyo in that you don't get blown off immediately and girls will actually talk to you for a while. I'd say the scene in Shanghai was more happening than Beijing, but its not that far behind.
The best part of beijing was the massage parlours. There was this one called the Oriental Pearl, and it included a full spa, hot bath, buffet meal (very very good food) relaxing lounge where you can sleep or watch tv from a massage chair, and that not even getting to the 2 hour massage. You know, the one where the girl stands on you while hanging from the ceiling. It was the best experience ever. All for 500rmb. 60bucks. Man it was a steal. I'd go there every night if I could. And if I lived in china... I probably would.

We hired a cab for the whole day for 400rmb, and he drove us to the great wall at Mutianyu. It wasn't the closest location from Beijing, but it proved to be a good choice because there were not that many tourists. We hiked (against the complaints from Gordon and Amy, my companions) all the way up the mountain (its a real real painful fall down...actually, probably fatal) but it had a great view. And knowing my love for thrills, I wouldn't leave without going all the way to the top. It was a very peaceful experience. With the dust mist rolling in from the desert of Mongolia, I really felt a little of what it must have been like to be a guard at the wall, shooting arrows at those pesky Mongolian invaders. And to pour sweet and sour pork sauce all over them... oooooohhwww! While leaving I was tempted to buy a commie hat from the hawker. I should have. But I really didn't feel like bargaining that day.

We also checked out the forbidden palace and the summer palace.
In summary:

Forbidden palace--those corrupt KMT (KuoMinTang) guys stole all the good stuff from the palace when the ransacked the place and left during the revolution, but they seemed to have left the emperors Starbucks intact. I have a picture of it. (in the gallery) We also met up with this two fine and friendly girls, who where visiting the palace. One was from Beijing, the other from Sapporo Japan. Pays to be a dumb tourist asking for directions everywhere.

Summer Palace--those corrupt British folk bombed and burned the original palace to the ground. (damn them) after the Emperor Ching insulted them somehow by trying to close off some ports to them. Oh, and they also claimed Hong Kong island around the same time. Yeah real fair like. What's left of the wonderful palace is still magnificient to see. If not a little bitter sweet on how barbaric people can be sometimes.

Everywhere in Beijing there was the air of construction. Of an economy booming. Golf clubs were getting renovated, new club houses being built. Sky rises were coming up everywhere you looked. Its truely an exciting place to be.

That's all I can think of for now. More to add later.
for now, check out the pics in the gallery!

DJC out.

This Journal was written real-time, so you too can enjoy the experience ( in the wonderful world of your imagination. )

In the air approaching shanghai from the south china sea, the only thing I notice is now the water goes from muddy green, to light brown as you approach the mainland of china. I guess its really polluted. I notice that on the shore I see some things that look like pipes that are dumping what looks like muck into the ocean. Amongst which I see some fishing boats. I wonder what kind of tasty fish comes out of such brown mucky waters.

Its very interesting to see the ships out in the open sea, where the water is turquoise green, yet shallow enough to not look dark, and then we pass a barely visible underwater shelf, and the colour of the water changes from murky green to a little more light brownish... and then, we cross another more noticeable depth change, and the water becomes markedly brown. Everywhere. Not any green in sight.

From the air I see some very nice houses, so its not like it is a poor country. Very modern actually. Where in japan, you see green houses where plants are grown a couple at a time, here you see them in large farms. gathered in lots. Also nice about China airlines is that they do not stop me from using my laptop while we are landing, so I am typing this as the plane touches down and we brake on the runway. cool.

At a glance, shangghai looks a lot like Toronto. Very spacious.

On a cab. As warned there are many hecklers at the airport trying to get you to get into a cab that isn't completely legitimate. I walk past them straight to the cab line. And off we go, through a long stretch of highway that reminds me of the new jersey landscape.

Things that I notice on the road. China doesn't seem to have any regulations on how much a lorry can carry. I see one that is stacked soo high with bags of (rice? feathers?) and held together with rope that the whole thing probablhy measures 6m (20feet?) in height. A full 2 times the height of the truck itself.

Smog. The city is covered with it. And seeing the exhaust come out of the bottom of the engine block (not the exaust pipe!) in the truck ahead of us... its no wonder.

People use their horns. Unlike the relative queit of japan, people here actually honk their horns on the streets. Quite liberally. Sometimes for no apparent reason.

Traffic jam. no longer than 20min on the road, and blam, we hit the thick of a traffic jam. pure suckage. The meter is at 93 rmb. I've been on this cab for probably 45m. cabs are cheap here.

English signs are everywhere. Much like japan, there are english translations of the signs on the highway. Good for foreigners like me. Simplified chinese characters look a lot like the kanji in japan. Unlike Hong Kong or Taiwan. Thought some words are notably different. For instance the character for East, and thus the "to" in tokyo is different. Personally I think that the character didn't need any simplifying but, there might be some reasoning behind it.

Ah, I see why people honk so much. Because even if you honk, nobody seems to listen to you. For instance, we were just cut off by some car, the cabbie honked several times, but the car continued to cut us off, forcing us to brake to avoid rear ending him. How rude.

Same with the people here. its funny. I met these girls, and we hung out for a bit, and although they were very very nice to me when they talked to other people or the waiters at the restaurant, they used a very mean and demanding tone of voice.

last night was a double header.

The smell. Whether it's the smog from the exhaust fumes of the traffic or cirgarettes laced with opium, shanghai has its own smell. Its pretty much the only city where I can say that it has a distinctive smell. its a very weird smell at that. Not terribly offensive, but definitely edging into the irritating levels. I suppose you can get used it to it though.

We met some shanghainese girls while shopping today. We sat beside them in a fast food lunch restaurant, and we started talking to them. After that we went to a tea shop, and next thing you know were are having dinner with them. Sun Ye and Ji Ling are students of law at Shanghai university. They gave us some suggestions for bars and clubs to check out. People are generally very friendly to foriegners here. Even ones like us who don't speak chinese very well. (And in my case, not at all). Thankfully Gordon spoke a little, otherwise I would have been completely lost. I felt like the first time I moved to Tokyo again. Completely illiterate! Completely helpless.

I totally forgot how frustrating that feels. I think that if I can stay here a couple months I should be able to speak chinese with no problem. Since the grammer is the same as cantonese, its just the new way of pronouncing words that would be different.

Tomorrow its off to Beijing. We exchange mailing addresses with the girls that we met, and head off the the capital. If its anything like Shanghai, it should be a blast.

outs.

China Street
Phone gadgets

On a plane again.

That's the only time I have these days to do my writing.

Most of the time in my day is tied up in fixing things, writing code, having meetings, getting requests from traders and sales folks, and generally saving the world. Or at least, a couple thousand dollars worth of our traders pnl. (That's profit n loss for all you non-financial types). And generally playing my part as a cog in the capitalist machine. Actually, if I want to be more precise, I'd be a small part of the plumbing in the machine. For the primary role of investment banks is the flow of capital, thus an accurate analogy would be that banks are a necessary component that lubricates the machine, without which, it would not function.

I used the think that the middleman was unnecessary. That he was just a waste of skin and was a greedy money grubber that profited though he was neither the producer or the consumer of goods. I learned later that I was just plain naive, influenced by some old chinese values. I used to think that if you make things cheaper, more people will by it, thus you should make them as cheap as possible, all the time. More sales volume was better, no matter what the cost, because it made people happy. I had no concept of profit. I had no idea why the store people didn't give things away for free. I felt it was a person's duty to be a shop clerk, their purpose in life. I thought it was the duty of the government to provide for its people. I thought money grew on trees, and I couldn't understand why stores sold products at prices higher than they themselves bought them at.

I know now that in this world, there are only 2 kinds of people. Winners, and losers. And being part of an integral part of a company which is an integral part of the capitalist fabric, I'd like to think that I'm more the former than the latter. At least until the commies take over. :o) Now I see the reason why America invaded Vietnam, why they invaded Korea, why they hated the soviets, and why they still bully around Cuba. Its not so much a physical threat than a psychological one. And we know today the most influencial force on the planet is not a metal cask with some refined uraniam in it, but its the power of mass psychology. Wars have been fought for it. Societies are built around it. It is the fabric that binds every human on this planet as a social being. The power to influence minds. Bombs can erradicate life. But the only way to control it, to bend it to do ones wishes...is through controling minds. That is true power.

Its too late for me. I've too far down the capitalist path to turn back. Though I can still see some of the benefits of a socialist way of government and life, I wouldn't be able to subject myself to that world. All my skills that I have been trained with is only useful in this capitalist bubble that we live in. I would not be useful anywhere else.

I once visited Cuba, and in one of my previous installments I went into great length about my experiences there. It was a good example of a communist society that works. And there I learned one of my most important lessons about capitalism. It is a system run on exploitation. The real reason why america wants to convert the world to capitalism. Its exactly the same reason why missionaries in the past converted people to christianity.

Power.

The power to exert ones will unto another.
The power to legally exploit another who is your lesser.
The power to sip maitai's on some less fortunate countries beach.

Turning a lesser developed country into a capitalist one basically makes it a player in a game. A game where USA and others already have 100 years of head start advantage. Wealth is generated in a capitalist system when the people with capital exploit the differences between what they can buy something at, and what they can sell it at. Basically this means that wealth comes from the explotation from those with lots of capital onto those without. A developing country that follows the capitalist banner is basically submitting itself to the economic dominance of the USA. Allowing foreign investors to buy land and labour at rock bottom prices, and making a profit --for the foreign power. Its no wonder not many small countries that do not want to be exploited economically turn to alternative forms of government. Ones that refuse to recognize or allow the foreign purchase or exploitation of its sovereign resources or people. Capitalism favours the rich. Indeed. It can be thought of as "Governance by the wealthy". As such, america has always protected the worlds capitalists, whether it be on native soil or foriegn -- Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea --, you name it... You'll notice the pattern that the capitalist segment of these countries were the rich and wealthy and powerful, where the communist parts were the poor. The biggest ruse and media spin of all time is the american hate for the communist. Which is not entirely true. What america hates is not communism or dictatorship per se, its any foreign power that refuses to recognize the economic power of america and refuses to allow itself to be exploited by a wealthy player way ahead in the capitalism game. Proof in the pudding: america has never had a problem with some friendly dictators who allow american capitalists to open up shop in their country like Singapore and Argentina...

For instance, lets take Cuba. --who btw, is communist in name only so that they would receive economic aid from USSR at the time, since USA imposed trade sactions against them after Castro expelled the american capitalists from the country and repossessed their land -- If cuba never turned communist and remained capitalist, do you think it would be any richer or poorer today? It would have probably done more or less the same. the amount of wealth generated by the country would be similar. Its main exports are rum and sugar cane, bananas and tourism. That wouldn't have changed. What WOULD have changed is that all that wealth from those industries would instead be in the pockets of several rich americans who ran the factories and the plantations. Presently the cuban government runs all the state industries, and the government takes all the profits. And unlike the soviet system that failed, the cuban government gives that wealth back to the people, in the form of free housing, healthcare, and education up to university. Paid by the State. I don't think industries run by wealthy american capitalists would have been so generous to the indigenous workers of the land. They would have opened up a McDonalds instead. That's why america hates governments that don't cooperate. Because they refuse to be a pawn to america, and as such, US don't get to see any piece of the action. And developing nations is where the action is at.

Not everyone is born equal. That was the credo of the feudal and imperial regimes of old, the caste system in India, and the rationale behind slavery. Capitalism elevated that idea one step further. Not everyone is born equal, but all have the freedom to advance oneself.
communism takes it one step further: None are born equal, but the party will make everyone equal. High ideals, to be sure. Unfortunately it violates natural law... not everyone is equal. Trying to forcefully make it so is difficult. Its akin to artificially reproducing a natural ecosystem, trying to play god. We are not god. But we try to be. We engineer genes to improve crops, we preserve animal species that were doomed to extinction, and we are even experimenting with modifying ourselves. Thus I see a communist society as an understandable attempt at progressing socially. Problem is, try as we may, we are not gods. Each one of us have our own selfish desires. And as such we can not be trusted to rule in an a system which gives so much power to the ruling body. The only communistic governement that has a chance of working is one that is impartial, one that is fair to all, free of greed, or self serving motives, and operates only for the good of all.

Perhaps one that is small enough such that it can still serve its whole population properly. Certainly the Soviet Union was too large for communism to work. China, on the other hand, is re-writing the textbooks on communism. Perhaps that is the reason why it can still survive in this day and age.

Enough rhetoric... onto the real world

tokyoHands.

That's the name of a store here that sells home improvement and hobby goods. I was searching through there for some badminton racquets, today, and they didn't have any, but the shop girl was nice enough to find a map and point me to the closest department store in the area. People are soo kind. I was impressed that people would go out of their way to help you even if it meant that would would not be going to their store.

China Street?

Not to be confused with chinatown, I was on my way to the chinese embassy to get my visa the other day and I was surprised to find that everyone down that neighborhood was speaking mandarin. Even the people handing out fliers on the streets. Very strange. I felt that I was in china and not japan. And its right behind Roppongi Hills, so I found it quite fitting that GS put its new office on the border between the bastion of the west (Roppongi) and the mainland chinese community in tokyo.

Pics from TKO

If you can see this, the wrapper on the straw reads "love straw". hmm.



If you were in any other country, use of this exercise apparatus would be illegal.



You can't really see it clearly, but on the bottom right corner of this Van Helsing poster is a white square with a pixel map sort of like the kind you see on UPS and FedEx packages. One of the advances in Japan's cell phone technology (aside from GPS mapping) is the ability for you to use your camera to capture these 'barcodes' and it will instanly translate it into the text message or picture that was encoded. it makes it easy to enter a web address into your phone without having to type it all out labouriously using the poor text entry method of a numeric keypad.



Only one question: Who's spit? The chef's?




DJC out.

Just the same old musings

A funny thing happened today ( as it always does, else I wouldn't be writing about it ) when I was out to lunch with my new teammate Takashi Onozuka who just joined my team last week. We went to a chill 'organic food' restaurant close to the office, which had decor that would have be home in soho nyc. Weirder still, the chic rooftop ambiance was shared by a hair salon. It seemed pretty strange for a cafe to share space with a hair salon, but hey, 'oij' I thought. Anyways, so here we are, chilling out in the post mordernistic monterage, staring out over the roppongi crossing, when the we start talking about how the world below us reminded us of the game simcity. Naturally, the topic soon turned to the game sims, and for those of you who aren't acquainted with my past history with that game, I invite you to read up on those journals now. ( though not a necessity ).

So, I started telling Takashi about the lives of my infamous sims, the Usuyagi sisters, Nanako and Kamiko. Takashi starts laughing when I mentioned their names. Apparently, I discovered that due to my poor, nay, zero grasp of the japanese language at the time when the Usuyagi sisters were conceived in the witless pit of my mind, I was too stupid to realize, nor even consider the names I was giving them and what they mean. Heck, I just chose them because they sounded 'japanese'. What did I know right? Well, apparently very little.

"so I have these two japanese twin sisters, Nanako and Kamiko"
Takashi almost spits out his tea
"what? what does there names mean something funny?"
"well, Nanako is fine, but Kamiko sounds like... 'little paper', or 'paper child'.
"really? haha... what does Nanako mean?"
"that's a normal name"
-- indeed that was a trick question. Nanako I took from the name of my favorite japanese actress, Nanako Matsushita. (she's in the original version of "The Ring")

"Well, what does Usuyagi mean?"
he snickers some more---
"Well, I guess it's something like, "flat sheep"?

So there you have it. Little Paper Flat Sheep.

Is democracy dead?

Or was it ever really alive in the first place? I can't believe that Bush is still in contention for the running of presidency. Honestly. I can't think of anything that he did properly during term. His tax cuts for the rich have created a huge deficit where Clinton left a surplus, and the whole Iraq fiasco leaves no words to mention. Oh, and that is not counting the fact that he lost the popular vote in the electron that brought him into power. It was only the electoral vote system (a antiquated system built on a oligarchical basis of governance by the priviledged and wealthy) that saved his bacon. Anyways, we have yet to see what happens in the electon. If he wins again, I will have lost all hope for a free america.

Funny Lingual Faux pas of the week:

Case #1:
I went to Hakkone a while back, and while there, I visited the famous "Hell's Kitchen" mountain where you can see steam and sulfer spewing forth from the rock. Apparently the onsens of the nearby area take their water from these natural geysers. Anyhow, the famous draw of this particular local is the blackened eggs that are made when they boil the eggs in the sulferic geyser water. Since the whole area was sort of smelly in a bad way (thanks to having the equivalent amount of sulfer as 1000 mayonnaise egg salad sandwiches in the air) I affectionately called these eggs :stinky eggs".

When I was telling my japanese teacher about my experience, chaos ensued.

"Yeah, I was at Hakkone on the weekend, and I even got a chance to eat some kuso tamago!"
She looks at me as if my head had become that of a chicken.
"uhh... you know, the kuso tamago... the ones that smell real bad?"
She cocks another eyebrow -- "kuso??"
I nod confidently.
"Ohhh! you mean KUSOI tamago!" and breaks out into a rhumbunctious laugh.
"Whoops! what does kuso tamago mean then?"
Kinoshita-san barely can stop laughing long enough to answer...."KUSO means 'SHIT'!!!!"

Whoops indeed. No wonder they were soo stinky...

Case #2
While doing a reading exercise, I had to read a passage that stated that I was going to have a meeting with Mr. Wong, which is
"Wong san to, kaigi ni shimasu."

but I poorly chose to translate "have a meeting" as "to do a meeting" for which I thought adding the verb "to do/to make" which is "suru" with the verb "to meet" which is "aimasu" to form "ai-suru".

Unfortunately for me, the word "ai" is also the enunciation of the noun "love".
So you can understand why my teacher couldn't stop laughing when I told her that I was going to "make love with Mr. Wong".

sigh. language. such a fickle thing.

Pics from TKO

This editions pictures are limited to the candy called "Milky". Its basically milk flavoured. Very similar to the chinese "rabbit" candy that I remember eating when I was a kid. Though the thing of merit is the slogan on the package.



At the top, the kana reads
ミルキはママの味
which translates to:
"Milky is Mama's Taste"

ummm... it very well may be, but I really didn't need to know that.

On the morning train.

thinking about how this gal in the ad in front of me reminds me of someone that I had met in Cuba last year. Which reminds me of how I have been neglecting emailing them in a while. Which reminds me of my journal entry... thus.

The one benefit of having a starbucks right on the same floor as where I work is that I build up quite a rapport with the staff. With this rapport, I managed to swing some favours from them on occasion. What favours you might ask? Well, for one, the normal american frappacino is not available here in Japan. Not the one with crushed ice. That one they have. But the one that comes in a chilled milk bottle. And it is for that frap for which I pined. So after I took a while to explain to them what a normal american frappacino included, I talked them into making one with the frappacino mix, adding milk and water to taste. It took them a while to get it right, but they have it pretty much down now. When I order, I ask for the "special" frappacino. Co-workers are surprised that I actually got some very normally ruleabiding japanese people to make exceptions.

Tires?

I found out an interesting fact recently. Namely that Bridgestone is not an american company! Infact, it is Japanese! I couldn't believe that such a household name was in truth a Japanese company. And it took a strange set of circumstances for me to discover this revealation. What happened was that I was looking at a particular driver that I tried out one day at the driving range (they often have a whole bunch of drivers that you can try, and it turned out that I liked the sound and feel of this particular one. My hopes of getting it were dashed when I discovered that it was over 70,000 retail though. Afterwards, I decided tto do a little research on the net about the technology of the driver, only to find that none of the bridgestone sites in the US webpages even mentioned the existence of Bridgestone sports gear. A quick search in google for "bridgestone golf clubs" only returned japanese sites. "Odd", I thought to myself. After a little more research, I found out that Bridgestone was started by Mr. Ishihashi in the early 30's, due to his admiration of Firestone, the american tire company. He thus decided to use a more western name for his new company, so he reversed the translation of his own name ( literally, "stone-bridge" ) to get the name we know of today. Ironically, Bridgestone ended up purchasing Firestone in the late 1990 after the latters financial troubles. A more beautiful case of irony, I can't think of.

So that explains why Bridgestone sports gear are only available in Japan. Too bad too, because they make great golf clubs.

No beer for you!

So we were off at our infamous canoe trip, which was quite an interesting experience. Mostly due to the fact that our guide was a tad bit eccentric. Okay, he was just plain whack. His name was Wantanabe, and he was a short raggedy old man of about mid 60's, who sounded like Yoda from Star Wars when he laughed. To begin, on the drive out, he insisted on taking a nap after about 6 hours of driving so that he could take nap. Because he got tired quickly I suppose. Which was very apparent in the way he drove. He would frequently use the rumble strips at the side of the lanes to drive. Meaning, he would fall asleep, veer left, hit the rumblestrip (remember we drive on the left here) and the noise would wake him up, so he would remain awake for about 10 min... then fall asleep, and the cycle would repeat again. It was REALLY difficult to sleep in the car, because every 10 minutes we would be awoken by the loud scary sound of imminent death leering at the door. During our naptime at some rest station, we were all too lazy to put up tents, so we just layed out the mats and crawled into our sleeping bags in the dead of night. when we woke up in the morning though, there were people all around, and I bet they were wondering what the group of weird people sleeping on the grass were doing. to cut a long story short, what was supposed to be a 10 hour drive out became 20 hours. And that was just the BEGINNING of the interesting adventures with Wantanabe.

Wantanabe. A chip off the old traditional japanese block, guardian of all which is eccentric, and esoteric. One weird rule he insisted on enforcing was that if one of us was unable to drink, then nobody could drink. So that basically meant that when we drove to a restaurant to eat, we were not allowed to drink. Or when we brought our own beer on the canoes, we were not allowed to drink. What we ended up doing was just sneaking beers onto the canoes, hanging back behind the main group, and did our drinking there. This, and other reasons why the motto and credo of the trip became "watanabemasen". Literally, "Don't Watanabe". Makes little sense grammatically, but everyone knew what it meant.

They have some weird fish weiners here. Hard to find are the cheeze filled bratwursts of home, in abundance are what I like to call 'fish hotdogs'. In that they are essentially just ground up fish meat, a colouring (to make them pink coloured) stuffed into a weiner tube to give it shape.
We started roasting these over our little fire, and the weiners started looking really nasty. "Nama weiners" we called them
(Nama means "fresh" as in Nama beer, or beer from the keg). Draw your own conclusions.

The terebi man.

For the last 2 months, I have been trying to dump my own tvs that have been lying around my apartment taking up space. Honestly. Be careful when people sell you old TVs... because it costs $30 to dispose of one there. So be sure that you are going to get at least a couple of years worth out of your TV, else you are gonna lose out on trying to get it thrown away.

Not all is lost though, for to the rescue is "terebi man". Unlike the dreaded NTT man who comes by demanding that you pay him money for a tv channel that you don't watch, terebi man is the guy who drives around a small lorry truck, collecting old TVs for a small price. He announces his presence sort of like the ice cream man, on megaphone. The catch is, until my friends told me about him, I used to confuse him for the neo-nationalist japanese people who drive around announcing japanese supremacy and playing wartime marches and propaganda. So I used to avoid the terebiman. But luckily, last week, I was awoken on a sunday morning by his calls for tvs and radios, and I quickly ran outside to fetch him. he was an old man of about 60 something, who looked breathed and smelled blue collar, but friendly enough. I showed him my older tv, one that I had gotten free from a friend. It was an old 19 inch, with a broken tuner... at first he told me that it was too old, but then he whispers something in japanese (I got the impression that he was going to bend the rules for me) and he tells me he will take it for 1000yen. Not bad. I show him my other TV, the newer 22 panasonic with a broken tube. He gives me that "mmmm... chotto" type of look that japanese people usually give when they don't want to do something. After some excuses of which I couldn't understand, he finally tells me that he'll charge me 2000 total for both. I was pretty sure that the newer one should have been free, since it was within 3 years old, but he didn't know that it doesn't work...so I agree to the 2000, pay him, and I am finally free of the clutter. now its time for that flat screen 32 inch LCD I have been looking at. :)

Speaking of that I have been debating between LCD and plasma screen for a while now. For about $1000 cheaper than a 32" LCD, i can get a 42" plasma. But the negatives of plasma are the weight, (twice that of an LCD) and also the fact that it has no computer inputs. Thus it would be complicated if I wanted to use it as my computer screen for my mac.

I went to a golf outing with the sales and traders last weekend. We went to one of the courses where I had gone before with the goldman golf club (which is subsidized partially). Although it was my best game yet (130) I was very shocked when the bill came... 36,000 yen. WHAT. oh my god that was expensive. Um... so that will be the last time I go golfing with the traders and salespeople.

Traders are a differen breed of people. The head trader, who I'll name Krish, who was the one driving us all to the course in his harrier (yes, its a suv, thought I don't know what it is called in america), was continually getting flak from everyone about how dirty is car was. It was a little grimy, I'd admit. Anyways, one of the option traders, who I'll call Jun was expecially ragging on him about it continuosly, so he finally offered: "Hey, quit complaining, okay? You wanna wash it for me?" to which the Jun replied sarcastically, "yeah, right... phsaw...for like... nana sen yen" (7000yen -- about $70) on which Krish immediately jumped -- "DONE!"

Jun grimaced as he immediately realized his mistake.
"nononono..."
"YES! you placed the offer, and I hit it... 7000yen... DONE!" Krish laughed.
"Noooo, I was kiding!..."
"nope. You offered, I dealt. Sorry... " (laughing, gloating) "I'm gonna post the pictures of you washing my car to the group!"
"no, no, no... no interest. No interest!"
"too bad! deal is done! 7000yen that cheap! I'll pay that to see you wash my car!"

That went on for quite some time.. June continually shaking his head and denying, while Krish held him to his word.
Throughout that whole exchange, I kept thinking in my head... "hey... I'LL wash your car for 7000yen!" -- that's not a bad deal for a low paid scrub like me! But I kept my lips shut.

Afterwards, I was a little tired. So at least that is what I thought. I had to wake up at 4am that morning to make it out to the course (it was a 1.2h drive out to chiba prefecture) so I guess I was a little tired. I left my computer on downloading the latest episode of enterprise, then thought that I would take a short 2 hour nap. I had to go to a birthday party of a good friend at 8pm that night, so at 4pm, I layed down in my bed --- and I woke up at 8am the next morning! When I awoke, I didn't know where I was, what day it was...anything. I was in a complete blur, until I remembered that I had missed my friends party. I immediately jumped out of bed to call her... but she was um... lets say less than enthusiastic about receiving a call at 8am after an all night party.

errrr.

Pics from TKO.

You've all heard of the Gothic children at Harajuku who hang out with their vampire gear waiting for people to take their picture. Well, this particular one was dress up as a surgeon, complete with blood stains. I couldn't resist.



And here is my friend Steph who was visiting from NYC. She had a blast at the Snoopy Store in Harajuku.



DJC OUT

Yes, it has been a while since I wrote a journal entry.

Sometimes the ink just runs dry, a chip off the old writers block lands
itself onto my lap, or I just plain run out of interesting things to talk
about. Since I am convinced that the world is full of interesting things, I
guess that just means that I have been too busy doing work-like things to
think creatively for my journal anymore. But now, since I am returning from
2 weeks vacation, I can no longer use the work excuse.

So here it goes.


Good service.

Everyone knows already that Japan has some of the best service-people in the
world. But its even more pronounced at the Apple store.

The Apple store. Located in the middle of ritzy Ginza, it is a big white
building sitting among other fashion powerhouses such as Versaci, Luis
Vuitton, and Chanel. And indeed, Apple is positioning their products to
appeal to the high end "chic" market, where the image is that having a mac
is 'fashionable' while anything else is just geeky. It seems to be working,
as the people you find in the apple store are not the usually geeky (Otaku)
fare you would find at Akihabara, (the SimLim Square/MongKok of Tokyo). At
the Apple store, I saw many people who reminded me of the art students who I
shared classes with in high school, complete with Che Guevara fatigue
communist jackets, beret, and canvas bag slung over their shoulders looking
like they just stepped out of a Greenpeace meeting. Also, I saw many well
dressed ladies, decked out with LV bags and Burberry gear looking quite
fashionably chic. Wow. I felt out of place being a white collar worker in
a Soho-like atmosphere. (coincidentally enough, the Apple Store in New York
IS actually located in Soho!)

Anyway, the folks at the apple store were very very friendly, and went
waaaay out of their way to make me happy (including giving me a good
discount on extra memory) When it came time to pay, I found out that my
card was maxxed out. So I had to embarrassingly back out of the purchase,
and promised to come back the next day after I got everything sorted out.
The next day, I called DC card (the holding bank for VISA in Japan) to
temporarily up my card limit so that I could make the purchase. I went back
that evening and tried to run the card again... no luck. The girl at the
counter was so apologetic. She called DC card for me only to find out what
went wrong... But unfortunately they had closed for the day. She then
called the emergency 24h lost card line, to see if she could be transferred
to someone who might know. After 25 mins of talking on the phone with them
(bureaucracy in Japan is seriously slow) turns out that DC card upped the
limit, but the update failed to flow to Visa Card Int'l. So the Apple girl
convinced them to update their systems after hours and I was finally off and
running. I was soo impressed by her service that I promised to put them on
my Christmas list. They really train these Apple Store people well. Or
maybe just the Japanese ones.


I'm a squatter.

I hate anything subscription based. I despise anything where the cost is
dragged out over a long period. I like things cut and dry, paid up in full,
unmortgaged. I finish one task before starting the next. I'm a methodical
linear thinker. I hate interruptions. I'd make a horrible CPU.

I can't stand battery operated gadgets. The act of having to buy new
batteries every so often really bugs me. Rechargeable batteries are the way
to go.

For this reason, I'm bad with anything that requires reoccurring
maintenance.... The problem is that once I have started paying for it, I
will not discontinue the service, even if later unneeded, due to the simple
fact that I can't be bothered to. This makes me a model customer for
health-clubs, magazine subscriptions, broadband access, and cell phones. I
just can't be bothered to change things, once I have settled. For this same
reason, I'm terrible at personal relationships. Because I know that once
I'm locked in, the amount of energy I would need to expend to get out of the
relationship would rarely be attained. And I would be stuck for a long
time... until I reach a certain flashpoint, and then I would explode out.
That is a common thread in my life. But unfortunately, that means that it
takes me extra long time to commit to anything. I have to be at least 10x
more choosy than the average joe, because I am about 10x less likely to take
any initiatives to change once I am comfortable.

I think I am still getting that mag subscription from 1999 that I never
cancelled. And still single in a sea of potential partners... Being too
choosy sucks.

I went to Whistler with some folks last week. It sucked. Lets just say that
if you ever decide to fly halfway around the world to go snowboarding, make
sure you pick a week that is safely in the middle of winter time.
Being that it was the second week of March, it rained almost the entire
week, and we were basically scratching our way down the slopes. It was no
fun for all. The only upshot is that I did end up purchasing a new snowboard
there, so I'll be ready for next season bright and early. It really stinks
that I only have 20 days of vacation a year, since this little trip ate up
half of those days already. And at this rate, I might not have time to make
it back home for Christmas if I end up taking that vacation to china and
Singapore I planned this year.


Goddammit. Don't you hate those people in planes who cannot sit still and
continually fidget around their seat in front of you? Every time he knocks
back in the chair, it knocks my laptop around. Its really irritating me.
Goddamn get the ants outta your pants for chrissake. Some people need a
lesson in consideration. I heard electroshock therapy works in some cases.


Old ties.

I spoke at my old high school on Monday. St. Thomas Aquinas back in small
town Brampton, a suburb of Toronto. Several teachers that I still keep in
touch with invited me to say some words to their graduating classes about
university life and careers in general. So made a little speech about how I
went from there to where I am now. Slipped in some choicy Japan journal
bits like the toilets and some "engrish" stories. Sometimes I have to
remind myself just how amazing it is regarding how far I have traveled just
in the last 5 years. Most of my friends who I knew in high school are now
married and living in their own houses. Just like a good nuclear family
should. Sometimes I feel that even though I have traveled so far, and seen
so much, I feel a little left behind. Sometimes roots are a good thing to
grow. I still have a few more years before I have to really start worrying
about getting stuck as a wanderer for the rest of my life. Lets hope it
doesn't come to that just yet. Got a little wander left in my boots still.
But I've really started to think about where I want to settle down. And no
clear choice seems to emerge.


Feeling Old

Recently I have been thinking about life in general. What are we here to do?
Life was so simple back in the days of school. Our singular goal was the get
good marks and get into a good university. Then, once there, it was have
some fun and get a good paying job. Now that all that is achieved, what is
next? What ensues is a strange sense of loneliness, of emptiness, of being
lost in a sea of possibilities, without purpose, without meaning, without a
goal. It's easy to be blinded from this reality for the first couple of
years after starting a new job, because you are too busy adjusting to the
new routines to realize it. But once the routines are established the
inevitable truth is revealed... what is there to life? Is it friends?
Snowboarding? Sports? Hobbies? What keeps us ticking? Of course we can excel
at our jobs, but doing so without a goal is like cramming for good grades
without the purpose of using them to get into university. It feels only
partially satisfying.

I think that my status living away from family and calling several places my
'home' only exacerbates the problem. I have people who I miss everywhere.
Toronto, NYC, Singapore, China... But having so many people and places to
choose from, really makes it hard to settle anywhere for any length of time
without getting the edgy wanderlust feeling.

I suppose that this sense of senselessness is endemic to all peoples
everywhere... and probably spawns great amounts of philosophical prose that
puts my small diatribes to shame when it comes to thoroughness. Lets hope we
all find our sense of purpose somehow.


Your favorite section, comes back with a vengeance:
Pics from TKO -- What were they thinking?

Yellow bathroom cleaner.
Um, I don't know about you, but when I spray the cleaning fluid over the
toilet, yellow is not the colour I would have picked for the stuff. How do
I tell the good from the bad? Was that their intent?



Gasbomb?
No, not a terrorist device. Actually, it's a can of propane for the
portable gas burner. Though the choice of name is a bit dodgy. Try getting
*this* through airport security. Ha!



Kasumi pillows.
For those of you not of the geek background, Kasumi is a character on some
playstation game that otaku (geeks) here are crazy about. So crazy indeed,
that the new version of the game (DOA3) on xbox comes with this collectable
full body sized pillow! Um...yeah. For those freaky otaku who would do
anything to sleep with Kasumi... Here is your chance. Only available in
Japan. Sickos.



Smorks?
I thought smorks were colourful underwater creatures with snorkels on their
heads. Well, apparently, there is no *smorking* allowed at this corner of
Shibuya...It burgs the neighborgs.



Sumo Kata #69
Last time I went to watch sumo we went to a chunko-nabe restaurant
afterwards to eat. Chunko-Nabe is the soup that sumo wrestlers eat to get
fat---err... Stronger.
Anyway, on the menu was a pictographic description of all of the common sumo
moves and attacks. This one in particular caught my eye. Let's just say it
looked a little more "aggressive" than the others. Don't know about you,
but this move looks like a winner for both parties involved.



White trash charms?
Is that a statement or a descriptive pronoun? Whichever it is, this store
name would never fly anywhere out of Asia. I started cracking up laughing
when I saw this store. People were looking at me funny and wondering what
the ruckus was about. Then I took a pic.



DJC out.

I sit munching chocolate covered almonds while David Beckham looks at me with glaring eyes. 
The once poster boy for Vodafone's new look and ad campaign for the takeover of the number #2 keitai network in Japan, J-Phone; now relegated to promoting boxes of Meiji brand chocolate covered almonds.



"what is a 'olate'? -- oh, I guess they didn't bother remaking the box layout after they plastered David's head over the words"

Meiji brand confectionaries. 
How one of the most prominent influential forces in Japan's history, turned into a candy manufacturer, history will never know.

Heralded as the emperor that transformed Japan from a rural agriculturally based feudal state, (which was arguably 500 years behind the rest of the civilized world at the time), to a modern world power in less than 50 years.   A feat which is nothing short of heroic, requiring both strength in resolve, and an enlightened judgment.  A true visionary.

Now he just makes chocolate almonds. 
But boy... are they good. 

And Beckham thinks so too.



Happy New Year!
Happy Monkey Year!

Not just once, but TWICE I get to celebrate new years here!  First off, is the Japanese new year, which is the only major Asian country which does not observe the Chinese lunar calendar for the timing of the new year.  Though, quite strangely, they still honor the Chinese "animal zodiac" system, so I got to celebrate the coming of the Monkey year twice in one month. 

New Years in Japan is a time for family, and most tokyopians flee the city to all outskirts of Japan to be with their kouzoku(family).  Tokyo was completely deserted.  The trains were almost empty during the weekends.  It was actually quite creepy, like those sci-fi movies where some freak catastrophe happens and you are the only human left alive on the planet, having only a board with a nail in it to defend yourself from the invasion of the alien brain snatching... err...

You get the idea.

Also for new years, the tradition in Japan is that the day before and after the New Years holiday (Jan 1, 2, 3) (coincidentally, the same amount of days off that China and Hong Kong and Taiwan give their citizens to celebrate the Chinese new year.) is a half day off, where employees of companies enjoy the freedom to drink themselves merry IN THE OFFICE. 

Yes.

I was quite shocked when I wandered over the to pantry to grab some tea, only to be greeted by a large case of Sapporo beer in the fridge, with a note reading "for ASSG use only, T. Takashi".  Darns, I wasn't on their team.  But still I found out that it was acceptable to drink on the job on these 2 special days of the year.  It was a very interesting time, as I decided to exercise my right to be inebriated that afternoon.  Work seemed to go much more smoothly than normal. 

It makes up for being the only country in the civilized world that doesn't get Christmas off.  Working on Christmas is depressing.  They should play Christmas carols over the PA system to keep the moral high.

It is traditional for places of business to put out these cute fresh cut bamboo displays.  The meaning of which I never learned.  I guess they are lucky charms of some sort to herald in a new year of prosperity and good business.  Or maybe new years is just a good time to chop bamboo.  Who knows?  (linked pics included.)

On New Years day itself, instead of lining up in the crowded streets of Times Square waiting for some shimmering globe of capitalism to drop (was I the only one as a child, who was disappointed to find out that the crystal ball didn't actually smash into the ground or something? --I dunno when I hear 'drop' I imagine dropping not a slow tempered 'lowering') people here line up in the thousands to visit the Meiji Shrine (there he is again... perhaps the priests make candies in the back) to pay respects and to throw money (what a concept) at the steps of the shrine to get good luck and a wish for the year.  You can also buy lots of little charms and lucky talismans that are supposed to bring you luck for specific things.  For instance, there is a charm for safety on the road, one for love, one for riches, one for happiness... I presume they try to overlap spheres of influence such that a real superstitious among us would have to buy all of them to "cover all the bases" and to maximize his/her chances at getting good fortune.  Nice.

I bought a couple.  I hope they work.
(pics included)

Keitais.
The next big innovation here in the keitai industry is TV.  Yep.  Now you can get phones (for the same low price of say $140) that can receive TV signals!  You can watch all the non-cable channels right there on your phone.  And it's pretty sharp, and plug in earphones, and your morning commute is not really a commute anymore.  Its fun.  Check it out at  V601n model at http://www.vodafone.jp

Insane.  Look for it to make it to the US in like... 2 years.  :)  I hear people still have black and white displays on phones back there.  Wow, get with the program folks.

Yikes!
I dropped my camera.  On the concrete ground.  Actually, more like threw my camera.  Launched my camera.  It rolled.  For about 4 meters. 

If you need a digital camera, I can personally attest to the quality of Canon cameras.  I was (stupidly) trying to jump a rail fence with my camera in my hand when shot out of my velcro camera case, flew straight through the air like a "Silver Bullet"TM Coor's Light beer can, and crashed onto the unforgiving pavement 15 feet ahead of me.  My jaw drops to the ground not far behind the camera. 

Thankfully, the thing still works.  It's a little banged up on the corners, and one corner is a little out of shape, but everything still works fine.  I have the pictures to prove it.  Canon rocks for reliable design.  The thing is really built like a brick. 

Pics from TKO:
Now in high(er) res!  (taken with my S45, post rendezvous with the ground)

Pics from the office -- I keep the camera handy at the office for special shots like this.  Framing is a little lacking, so I brought in my SLR recently to do the sunset justice.  Watch for more soon.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288011625

Christmas Party!!! (Legalese: Ss. B. 2c Any similarities or likeness of the persons contained herein to real life personalities are completely coincidental.  All references to real persons are done with their permission, where those explicit references actually exist.)

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288012549

New Years (pics of the Japanese Traditional Stuff) -- Meiji Shrine shots to follow in a supplementary.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288011663

Ito Onsen trip ( ditto, section B, paragraph 2c )
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288012645

Snowboarding Road Trip to Nagano (forgive the lack of commentary)
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288012155

And as a special bonus to those of you who have read this far without deleting my mail... a crazy Japanese TV show! Um... This would NEVER make it pass the feminist groups in America!

(Viewer's Discretion is Advised)
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288011697

DJC out.

_____________________________________________________
David Jerry Chan                  Goldman 
Trading Systems                        Sachs
Currency and Commodities

Goldman Sachs Japan Ltd. 
Roppongi Hills Tower 48th Flr | 10-1 Roppongi 6-chome
Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 106-6147          
Tel.: 03-6437-7952  |  Fax: 03-6437-4300
Email: davidj.chan@gs.com
_____________________________________________________

Because its Friday...
Because it's a beautiful sunny day...
Because the snowboarding season starts this weekend...
Because $/\ is at 107.42

These any many more reasons I could list for this special edition of the journal, but most importantly of all,

Because its Christmas!

I figure, hey why not, after surviving the liver destroying whirlwind which is 2, --mark that-- TWO company Christmas parties, I decided that enough joy and cheer were collected such that I can write a decent journal entry for the experiences.

Xmas Cheer Part 1:

Venue: Sensation in Roppongi
Featuring:  The GS in house band (I forget the name) of good old rock n' roll, featuring Joe Long on bass (my big boss)

The Christmas party which included all the front desk folks and support staff (that would be me) was a blast.  Normally calm stolid business people jumping and dancing to U2 and Guns N Roses.  It was great.  My big embarrassing moment of the night (you'll soon note that I have a lot of these) is when I try to offer some beer to the head salesperson on the dance floor, and instead manage to spill beer all over his suit.  Thankfully he was too engrossed in the music and dancing to notice, so I quickly fumble for some tissues and dab off his suit without him knowing.  I think the only person to notice was one of the traders who I was with, who was laughing at me the whole time.  Good times. 

As if the the dinner part with all the free flowing drinks wasn't enough, the troupe went off to a big karaoke place called LoveNet afterwards.  Contrary to the images that the name no doubt conjures up in your mind, it is a very high class karaoke place, with very cool décor and large banquet rooms for parties larger than 50 people who want to sing complete with big projection screen and stage.  A couple of broken glasses, a couple of horribly butchered songs by greenday (by yours truly), but all in all, a great time.  You never really know somebody until you sing drunken karaoke with them.

Xmas Cheer Part 2:

Venue: Orbient in Omotesando
Featuring: Chinese acrobatic show

The "Federation" party (a name no doubt cooked up by the HR people for a convenient PC term for the "cost centers" departments, IE the ones that don't produce money for the firm, ie. IT, Finance, Controllers, and Operations) took place in a very swank club/restaurant in the fashion district of Tokyo.  The chinese food buffet was actually quite good, though the indian food was quite bland.  Nevertheless both music and spirits were high.  We had a chinese acrobatic show after the dinner, which was quite spectacular, those girls can balance about ANYthing on their feet or head!  The most amazing act was this girl who was riding a 7 foot tall unicycle, with 1 foot, balancing a stack of bowls on her head, and using the other foot to kick up more bowls up in the air, and catching them with her head.  I couldn't believe it.  At the climax, she caught 4 bowls at once.  Insane.  See the pics.  (high res this time!!!)  The rest of the night was spent dancing and partying away.  Gotta love the free flowing drinks. 

Here are the pics:
http://www.pbase.com/chongma/xmas_2003

Parking lot is full?

I was wandering around the building complex one day when I happened to discover the strange parking lot they have here.  You will recall I mentioned that most parking lots are actually in buildings and you drive your car into a little elevator, and the machinery whisks it off to a storage spot somewhere?  Well, at Roppongi 6, the system goes one step further.  If you go to the parking lot, to get your car, you are greeted by what looks more like a bus station, a hall way with numbered gates on both sides, benches where you can sit and wait while your car is brought to you.  The interesting thing is that your car is not driven to you, instead, it is spit out from the innards of the building via something that looks like a big dumbwaiter contraption.  You wait, the attendant presses some buttons, and minutes later, the metal garage door opens up, and your car is coveyor belted (sideways!) right in front of you.  Then you are free to drive it off.  It is soo cool.  Reminds me of a car factory spitting out dozens of cars by the minute.

Onsen water.  Mystery solved.

I always wondered where onsen water comes from.  (onsen is the hot bath with volcanic water) But that I don't mean WHERE, of course, it comes from the volcanic underground rivers that cover japans geography.  What I mean is I wondered how there could be soo many onsen places that litter the landscape, where surely it can't be that each of them actually sits on top of a volcanic geyser, or that each of them drilled 1km underground to make their own access to the water.

Finally the myster was solved today when I met someone whos family actually runs a onsen ryokan.  Apparently you can "subscribe" to onsen water the same way you can subscribe to cable TV!!!  As it goes, there is an underground infrastructure of pipes carrying onsen water from their sources out in the mountains, to everywhere else, such that you just need to pay to get some pipes laid to your house and voila! You have your very own onsen!  With a monthly fee, some installation charges, and a big ryokan hotel on top of it, you too can open up an onsen business.  Amazing.  3 pipes come out of the ground here in Japan:  Hot, Cold, and onsen water.  Finally the mystery is solved, and now it also explains why I sometimes see trucks shipping onsen water on the highways to places where the pipes can't reach.  The lengths these people will go to get their hot baths. 

I went to one onsen last week that was OUTSIDE.  I thought I was going to catch pneumonia and die.  Watching the steam come off the water into the snowy air was very peaceful.  Watching old naked men wade around the pool was very disturbing.  Yin and Yang.

Christmas at work

What better way to celebrate the holiday season than to work!  Well, welcome to Japan, the only country that does not have a holiday on the 25th of Dec.  I came into work this morning whistled frosty the snowman while working.  It was a pretty light day because most markets were closed.  One of the only 'light' days I can ever expect at this job.

Xmas is a time for couples here.  Apparently xmas eve is supposed to be spent with your significant other, while New Years Eve is more of the family thing.  The number of couples buzzing around the Roppongi Hills area was astounding.  (lots of people come over to see the lights and decorations).  It was soo depressing.  (with no squeeze of my own)  But, as with most things, it all seemed better after some beer, cheer and friends.

This weekend I'm going snowboarding again, this time to Nagano, Hakuba.  I'm told Hakuba means "white horse" or something like that.  Um... well, yeah -- I can't think of anything funny to say about that.  Farkwad.

Anyways, Merry Christmas everyone see you in the new year of the Monkey !
djc out.




_____________________________________________________
David Jerry Chan                  Goldman 
Trading Systems                        Sachs
Currency and Commodities

Goldman Sachs Japan Ltd. 
Roppongi Hills Tower 48th Flr | 10-1 Roppongi 6-chome
Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 106-6147          
Tel.: 03-6437-7952  |  Fax: 03-6437-4300
Email: davidj.chan@gs.com
_____________________________________________________

I went to the dentist yesterday.  Against the warnings of all my gaijin friends, who tell of horror stories about the Japanese dentists wielding deadly tools of mass destruction, I decided to finally give it a try.  Besides, it has been a year since my last checkup in NYC, and I figured that I couldn't wait until the next time I was home in Canada to visit the ol' tooth doctor.  If I was going to go, then I figured that I should go to the fancy new facility here at Roppongi Tower, as new equipment should mean clean and safe dentists right?  Well.  So goes the reasoning anyhow.

I was pleased to find out that our health package covers dental care as well.  At least 90% of the bill.  You just have to bring your national insurance card to the dentist of your choice.  The actual 'card' can only loosely be called that, since it is a booklet about the size of a passport.  How they expected people to bring this around in case you got hurt and needed to go to the hospital  I have no clue.  So I idle along one lazy afternoon to the dentists, where I am greeted with an office that looks more like a design hair salon in Beverley hills.  Frosted glass dividers, abstract art, and modern metal furniture that would better fit an IKEA showroom than in a dentist's office confronted me.  Very "d'Art decou moderneism" -- if you forgive the fake French accent.  The receptionist asks me to fill in a questionnaire as it is my first time at the clinic.  I glance over the questions one at a time, tapping my pen nonchalantly against the metal Muji* clipboard.  One of them makes me burst out in laughter out loud.



Apologies, but I only had my keitai with me at the time, and it couldn't fit the entire text in the shot.
The full caption reads "Did you have any chance to be pregnant?".
I was soo tempted to put 'yes'.  Even disregarding the fact that it would be quite disturbing if I was indeed with child, I found the question even more interesting because it would read quite intrusive and offensive to your atypical politically sensitive foreign female.  It might as well have read: "Have you had sex recently?"  It almost sounds like they are condoning promiscuity.  But of course, they are non-native English speakers, so I forgive this bastardization of the language.  I'm sure I sound equally as silly to them when I curse with "unchi!" (literal translation of 'shite', but not used in the same context as the English vernacular).  I stifled my laughter and repressed the urge to point out the humour to the receptionist.  She wouldn't understand anyhow.

< POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT! --LAST SAMURAI -- IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT THIS MOVIE SKIP OVER THIS SECTION>
I got a chance to see Last Samurai this weekend.  Boy.  Wow.  I was completely blown away.  It is probably the single biggest hit since Saving Private Ryan.  Now normally, I'm a pretty hard please when it comes to movies.  Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that getting anything above 3 stars in my books is difficult.  In fact, I don't think there has been a 5 star movie since the  aforementioned mentioned WWII film.  This movie was extremely well written, very well acted, and although the ending was not one of those overused surprise plot twists that seems to be quickly going out of vogue, it was very very emotional and powerful.  I shed a tear.  Okay, more than a couple of tears.  It was just that moving of a movie.  At no point in time was I bored in the film, and there wasn't 1 single scene that was spurious or unnecessary.  It was all beautifully orchestrated like a symphony of sentiment and feeling.

I believe that it was more emotional for me because living here in Japan the last year has given me insights into the Japanese soul in which the movie does such a beautiful job in depicting.  Its internal conflicts, the futility of circumstances, the virtues of honour, bravery, compassion, and love.  The leading actress does an exceptional job of portraying the most emotional of scenes without so much as a word, using only her eyes.  With a single look, she did more than what would normally take a page of dialog to muster.  It was truly a beautiful sight to behold.  There were many hidden meanings embedded in the storyline, one that struck me the most was the comment by the lead Katayama, when he comments about cherry blossoms and how spending an entire life finding the perfect one would not be a wasted life.  That theme brought to mind many truths that I have learned about the Japanese soul.  The cherry blossom can be thought of as a metaphor for the samurai.  Bloom once in a blaze of beauty and glory, and then die just as quickly.  The pursuit of perfection in whatever you do.  And the devotion to duty, even at the cost of one's own life.  I don't want to give away any more of the movie, but suffice it to say, you MUST see it.  It is one of those movies with a genuine heartfelt message that will appeal to the humanity in all of us.   And one that reminds us of the mistakes that we were all guilty of in the past, should be remembered so that they are not repeated again in the future. 

Dave's Rating: 5 stars.



Christmas in Shibuya

I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday, with the kind help of some friends who knew all the trendy stores in Shibuya.  It was completely insane how crowded the streets were.  I had the overwhelming sensation that I was worker bee #4311 in the hive of people swarming over the streets and intersections of the popular trendy area.  When all was said and done, (and I was burdened with 2 large bags of clothes, accessories, gadgets etc) I was confronted with the sardine tin of people jammed into the station trying to get past each other.  It was not pretty.  It was literally packed shoulder to shoulder so much so that you couldn't move faster than a couple of inches at a time... and being squished between people the whole way.  I took a couple of pictures with my phone, but pictures can't really express how packed that place was.  The fire marshal would have had a heart attack. 




Japanese 3-kyuu.

I took my Japanese proficiency test last week.  3rd level (there are 4, of which 1 is the highest).  The week leading up to it was a whirlwind study-fest, but I think I passed.  The only thing of remark that made the day interesting was how someone was ejected from the test for opening his question booklet (mondai-yoshi) before we were instructed to.  Obviously, he didn't understand enough Japanese to hear the warnings that were made to us while the booklets were being handed out.  (because he honestly didn't appear to be intentionally cheating, as he wasn't being too discreet about having the booklet open.)

So there he is, reading head down, reading the booklet, and the proctor comes past him handing out the test form.  She gets to him, and immediately points a finger, and says "Dame!" in a firm voice, she signals to her young apprentice proctor-in-training, and he runs up, fumbles in his pocket, and produces a RED CARD which he places in front of the offender.  (with some instructions written in kanji, which I'm sure the offender had no idea how to read).  He then gets escorted from the classroom.  All the rest of us cower in fear.  The funny thing was he actually had a yellow card in his pocket as well.  I wonder what that one is for?  Talking?  Breathing too loud?  Honestly though, I had no remorse for him.  If he couldn't understand simple japanese instructions, he deserves to fail the exam.  It's rather unfortunate that the test is only offered once a year globally.

Pics from TKO:

Here is a eyeball from a Tuna head.  Apparently Tuna head is a common thing to eat here.   For those of you who have never seen one, well, they are big.  --BIG--.  I mean, the size of a basketball, with a mouth so big you can stick your fist into BIG.  The eyes were the size of tennis balls, and apparently a delicacy.  I cringed when my friend ate one.  The inner eye is about the size of a gumball made of a hard chalk-like substance and is marginally edible.  Apparently noticing my discomfort, he challenges me to eat one.  I balk. 

4 shots of sake and a many words of 'encouragement' later, I was convinced to give it a try.  (see pic). 




Um, well, lets just say it doesn't taste like anything really.  But the consistency is not exactly my cup of tea.  I had to wash it down with 2 beers.  It was ... well, not pleasant.  Brave adventurers: give it a try sometime.

I saw this store in Yokohama, and I just thought the name was so cute it deserved a picture.





This marks the 30th issue of this journal!  And my 1 year anniversary to Japan!  Have a great and safe holiday season everyone, whatever part of the world you are in right now.  Keep searching for those perfect blossoms.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
DJC out.



*Muji is a nameless brand name here in Tokyo.  If the paradoxical nature of it hasn't confused you, then you must be one of the select crowd of academically inclined fellows who understand what I mean.  For the rest, its a chain of stores that sell completely brand less things, from clothes, appliances, food, furniture, to cd players.  Mostly everything has a cardboard brown theme to it.  But little do they know, (or perhaps do indeed know) that they are making a brand out of being a brand less brand. <??>

Long awaited. 

That's what this installment has been described as.  At least by some of my avid readers who keep asking me when my next journal update is coming.  Well, the long and the short is that I have been busy.  Our office moved from the old building down the street (affectionally called 'sweathouse from hell' by its inhabitants) to the brand new, still have the new car vinear smell, Mori tower at Roppongi Hills.  Where before my view out the 5th floor window consisted of several loud air conditioner units, and maintenance fans, now I have a breathtaking vista of Tokyo from the 48th floor and the sunrise every morning is amazing.  Like many of my coworkers, this is the first time I have 'seen' Tokyo, as its not a city well known for its shoreline or cityscape.  Rightly so, since it is pretty darned boring compared to that of NYC.  I included some pics of the office, and our private lobby (we have our own elevator bank at Mori Tower since we occupy the top 8 floors)

View from the 48th floor



Our very own lobby



The Mori Tower at Roppongi Hills



Weird sculpture.  I swear I saw this same spider at Rockefeller Centre in NYC last year.  I'm almost positive.  (NYC folks, please comment).  If not this exact one, then at least a very similar sculpture.



Mojayaki.

Sort of like okinomiyaki, monjayaki is a japanese style of pancake that isn't really a pancake.  Its more like pancake batter or cake batter, except you fry it on a big hot plate, and it never really solidifies.  Its basically rice powder based, with lots of cabbage, and a main ingredient, which can range from fish roe, to squid strips, to tomato meat sauce.  Its actually quite tasty.  But when its cooking it doesn't exactly look very appetizing.  Kinda like....Well...Lets just say that it's a food that probably looks the same coming up as going down.  Eating it is just as interesting as participants just scrape the stuff off the hotplate with little spatulas straight into their mouths.  I kept getting the feeling of eating something before it was finished preparation, like when I was a kid I used to lick the cake batter off the mixer's whisk when my mom was baking.  (while the mixer was off and unplugged of course).  I wish I took a picture of it, but I forgot my keitai that day.  Well, its probably for the best. 

Umbrella Condoms.

I'm more sure if I mentioned this already, but they have a weird culture with umbrellas here.  As a solution to the problem of everyone bringing their wet dripping umbrellas into places of business and making a wet nasty mess of the floor, all shops have little umbrella sheaths at the door.  Basically narrow baggies that you stick your umbrella in, so that it doesn't drip all over.  The more fancier shops have auto-sheathing mechanisms.  You just roll up your umbrella and stick it into the top of the machine, and it auto-magically wraps your umbrella with a baggie, so it saves you the trouble and hassle of doing it yourself.  It's a great convenience.  And very Japan.  Next time, I'll take a picture...

Festivals.

They have festivals for the weirdest reasons here.  I come back one day to find that the entire shoten gai (shopping street) near my house was in full festival mode.  Little shops along the street sold everything from takoyaki (octopus ... um... balls (made with batter and a little bit of octopus)), okinomiyaki, (the standard 'pancake' of Japan), fried noodles and all other types of nihon ryori (Japanese traditional food).  I was carrying my golf clubs at the time, but I still managed to pickup some food and beer and pictures on my way home. 

Octopus balls



Children fishing for little bobbles and toys.


Traditional dough pounding, hard to see, but a guy is whacking a poor piece of dough with a massive mallet against a tree stump.  After every whack, his trusty assistant would flip the dough around.  Lord knows what will happen if he was not fast enough and got his hand smashed by the mallet.



Yummy Japanese pork bone soup.  Actually tastes exactly the same as the one my mom used to make.  Good when its cold outside.



Overview of the street festival. Oyamadai is the area where I live.



Complete physical checkup.

As part of the health care here, everyone is entitled to a yearly physical.  This year, for japanese speakers, they can take it in the office, as the doctors come here, but for us foreigners, we have to schedule an appointment with a local hosipital with the company sanctioned english speaking doctors.  Mine is scheduled for Nov 10th this year.  A couple of days ago, I receive a package from the hospital in the mail.  It's a big envelope with more than just paper inside.  As I extract its mangled form out of my mail box, I wonder what kind of free shampoo samples or cool decoder rings lay await inside.  Back in my apartment, I eagerly open the envelope with part curiousity part trepidation.  I pull out 2 strange coloured baggies, with little instruction pages stapled to them, and some plastic containers within.  Strange.  You can imagine my shock when I open the little paper and read the bold letters at the top:

"Instructions for urine sample collection"

Umm.... What?!!?
I take a look at the other baggie, tinted green to hide the contents from clear sight...:

"How to properly collect stool samples"

"!?!?!?!?? @_@ !%#&!"

Jesus tap-dancing Christ!  They expect me to collect <bleep> samples?!? 
<gasp>!
<sigh>!!
OIJ !!!

After I calm myself down, I quietly put the baggies away, and promise myself not to look at, or even think about it until time for my medical exam.  I won't go any further into the topic.  And please don't ask me about it anymore.  It was (will be) traumatic enough.

In order to remember my 'duties' come time, I had to set a reminder for myself.  I realized how silly this looks after I entered it.  I sure hope nobody can read my outlook appointments other than myself.



Finally, thankfully,
Pictures from TKO:

Thanks for buddy Colin for getting this pic at an amusement park (I forget where) Its hilarious example of Japanese sarcasm. (or lack thereof)




Remember the picture of the home enema kit I took a long time ago.  This is a follow-up ad.  Its gotten more popular I think, because there is a female model too now.  The relief on the oyaji's face says it all.  How do YOU spell relief?



This is a funny pic because there is (hard to see) a little sign saying "no parking", which clearly, we have a van parked here, not only that, it looks as if the concrete wall was demolished such that the van could fit halfway into the building so that it would not obstruct the road.  Very Un-Japanese.



DJC out.

WPC show.

Probably stands for World PC Show, but I don't think this tidbit was on the
minds of ANY of the visitors at the expo. This show is best compared to the
COMDEX or NetCon shows in N.America, with one subtle but very pleasant
difference...

Namely the obscenely ostentatious display of anneurism inducing,
nose-bleedin' hot, FEMALE SPECIMENS abound everywhere. Seriously...good.
You couldn't look in any direction without seeing some very scantility clad
vixen passing out brochures or enticing visitors to visit the display
booths.

"No way girls like that work at Sony!" I'm thinking to myself. (for if it
were really true, I'd be putting in my resignation today to join the
mindless ranks of the japanese electronics giant.)

Not only was the quantity of girls striking, but the sheer quality. We are
talking catwalk models here. It seems that companies hire professional
campaign girls and models for their female booth denizens. And most of them
are clad in garb that would make the mini-skirt look like an amish prayer
gown.

"Dear Moses! That's why I'm in Japan!" -- my mind kept on repeating in my
head, like a mindless skipping record, droning away the words in a mantra
like fashion.

The other interesting thing is that everyone brings their cameras (and we're
talking JAPAN here, so everyone is toting their BEAST SLRs, complete with
flash mounts, light meters, and other assorted gadgets) to the show, for the
sole purpose of taking pictures not of the displays, but of the campaign
girls. It is soo funny. So of course, in the spirit of 'blending in with
the locals' I also started taking pictures of the cute girls, many times
asking in my best gaijin accent if I could pose in a picture with them.
They always smile and give a cute pose.

If you think that is bad, I saw some really obnoxious guy taking a video of
this girl, then he started talking to her, and all the while kept his video
cam pointed at her chest. It was very obvious what he was doing, but she
didn't object to it.

All in all, it was an awesome day. I uploaded my pics to to the web, so you
can have a taste of this exquisite custom.

Oh yeah, the computer stuff was interesting too... I don't remember any
details though. I think Microsoft was there, yeah, they were the ones with
the orange clad girls in the high boots.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289075077

Golf progress.

We had another 'japanese holiday' yesterday. Those are funny because they
come up at the most random times, and most of the time the japanese
themselves are not sure what holiday it is. For instance, yesterday was
'dead people's day', sorta like the western halloween, when dead are suppose
to return and party-on in the land of the living. But when asked, my
japanese friends just shrugged. I guess the younger generation have very
little clue about the origins of such traditional things.

Anyhow, I thought what better way to celebrate the dead than to spend a
couple hours at the golfing range whacking a couple of balls to their
untimely demise? So off I went, with a fellow beginner golfer from the
Credit desk and his wife to "S-ing", the driving range close to my house.
(dumb name, I know; perhaps they though it would be cute if they dropped the
'w')

First off, the place is damned expensive. For the 3rd level booths, each
ball costs 24yen. So you pay to get this debit 'ball' card, (usually
5000yen will get you about 188 balls) and you stick it into the booth
computer, and everything else is automated. (auto-tee, etc). Everytime I
topped the ball or whacked it into the sidelines I was , thinking to myself,
"there goes another quarter!". Damn. But the upshot is that you can stay
as long as you like, and some hardcord old timers would take a whack, and
then sit down, sip some coffee, stretch, and smoke a cigar for a good 10 min
before they whack another couple of balls. It's really silly. But a nice
luxury. The other funny thing is that for all of the automated gizmos in
Japan, you would think that they have some device to collect the balls off
the ground, like the armoured ball collector carts in the US. Nooooo...
Instead, they have an army of peasantry, ready and willing with their large
brooms of communism to sweep all the balls into the perimeter gutter, which
has moving water that washes the balls back into the system. Its soo funny.
One second you are happily whacking away, the next, the announcer says in
some cutie voice to stop, and then the army of peasants go rushing out of
the gates, sweeping and pushing away like mad. Its actually quite amusing
to watch.

I finally got a couple of good drives out of my 360cc driver. For the last
2 outings, me and my driver have not been friends. Like a marriage gone
bad, we refused to talk, and I refused to give in to her demands. For some
odd reason, this new fangled titanium head, carbon shaft driver (which I
spent over $100 on) made the sound of clanking pots when I struck the ball.
I mean, I normally expect a nice 'ping' sound when I strike the ball
correctly, but no matter how I tried, the driver would always make the sound
of kitchen pots crashing onto the floor. The visage going down the row was
one of,

"ping"!
"ping"!
---"KA-BLaNG !!!!!"---
"ping"!
"ping"!

I told my friend, that from anywhere within 50m, you can tell which booth I
was driving from, by the horrible sound of metal on ceramic tile that my
driver was making. I suspect it has something to do with the very flexible
shaft, and the super light titaniam head. Several times, the sound was soo
terrible (and the wobble so intense on the shaft) that I thought I broke the
driver, even though I didn't touch the floor with it.

But, thankfully, yesterday, I finally got the "tiger" zone going, and
whacked a couple of balls straight and true, at least ~200yards I reckon,
(as the range only went to 170 yards, and the ball was a good 30-40 yards
above ground when it hit the end.). It was such a great feeling to hear the
driver go something like "PLANG!" instead. Not exactly the 'Ping!' I was
looking for, so I guess these new flexible titanium heads crap is not all
its cracked up to be. Note to self: next time buy a more expensive driver
that SOUNDS good. Because even though mine can hit the ball, the clatter
makes everyone think that I'm dropping large soup spoons.

High pitched voices.

Ever notice how japanese girls use a totally falsetto high pitched voice
here in japan? I mean, an otherwise normal girl, talking on the phone one
second in english, switches to talking to someone in japanese, and her voice
scales up 2 octives, and starts sounding like hello kitty. Oh, scratch
that, Hello Kitty doesn't talk... (^_^)/... She just sits there and looks
cute. Anyway, its quite unnerving and very unnatural sounding.

I had a discussion with a cantonese friend on how a tonal language such as
chinese (and cantonese) can have something that sounds soo similar mean
completely different things. I ended the argument by telling him to "throw
away his old woman's stinky shoe."*


Pics from TKO!

Gai Sign. (see attached)
Yeah, can you believe it? Hmmm.. Didn't really want to try it, so we didn't
order it. Can you blame me?

Chinese Medicine.
This stuff really works. Fought off my impeding sniffles (which I get a lot
here)

DJC out

*Ask your friendly neighborhood cantonese speaker for a translation.

I just got back from 3 cool days in Canada, 7 sunny days in Cuba and 4
cloudy days in NYC.

Canada was rushed. Therefore so is the portion of this post dealing with
it. Visited friends and family. Went to a wedding. Met some really cool
people. Fin.

Cuba

Lemme tell you, all that talk about Cuba being a bad place is all capitalist
propaganda. Its actually a country of friendly people, and sunny beaches,
and smiles. School, healthcare and housing are government run, so everyone
has a home, and school is paid for up to and including university. So its
not uncommon to see overqualified waiters and waitresses. (because they get
tips, and US $ there is pretty valuable.) The only problem that the locals
mention is that because everything is taken care of, there is a general lack
of incentive to excel at your job. I suppose it is the major flaw in a
communist system, but I think for a 3rd world poor country like Cuba, it
fits nicely. At least until they can bring themselves economically up to
par with the 1st world countries, a task in which they are making great
headways.

Tipping convention is very modest. $1 is the common tip amount regardless
of service. Most of the time, you don't have to tip at all, since tipping
is technically forbidden by the government (ah... another enlightened
culture). We can't have some people getting richer than others now can we?
One day tipping worldwide will be outlawed. Or at the least it shouldn't be
culturally expected. It should be what its original intent was... An 'extra
something' for *exceptional* service, not a demanded levy on *expected*
service. I blame the capitalists for this perversion. If
restaurant/service owners didn't cut the pay of their staff because they
expect tips to carry the balance, the system would not be this grotesque
malformation it is today. And I wouldn't feel like I'm being tyrannized
every time I eat at a diner. This is one of the few cultural niceties that
western culture should take from the Japanese. No such things as tips here.
It's considered rude and offensive to the service provider.

I digress... Back to Cuba.

Lots of antique vintage 1950's cars everywhere. I guess due to the American
trade embargo, the only American cars in the country date back to when
Kennedy was in office. They keep them in good working shape though, so they
are quite a sight. I feel like I'm in "West Side Story" set with all the
old Chevy's and fords. Except everyone is Cuban, and speaking Spanish... So
its more like "Lower Bronx Story".

I learn a 4 important phrases in Spanish the whole week.
"Olla" - hello!
"Por nada" - Your welcome!
"Buenos Noches" -Good evening!
And
"uno cervisa por pavor" -One beer please.

I did a lot of scuba diving, and general beach bumming all week. Quite a
relaxing change from the rush of life in TKO. I'll post a link to my
pictures below.

I spent an extra $100 to go to a 1-day excursion to Havana. It was a very
quaint old city, with the old portion of it chock full of history and
culture from the lingering Spanish colonial days. However, the "new" part
of town was hardly new at all, instead it reminded me of your standard 3rd
world poor country. Though with a lot of concrete buildings, and a little
bit of "New Orleans" in the way the cemeteries were set. (The dead are
entombed in stone casks, above ground).

At night we went to see the Tropicana show, which was a little overrated.
Well, lots of people thought it was great, but they were over 40 years of
age and probably enjoy Vegas shows as well. Me, I'm not one for can-can
type shows... Especially when all it is is just a lot of dancing and
singing... In a language I can't understand. I felt the same way as I did
when I went to see a kabuki show here in Tokyo. Bored outta my crack. The
rum they served help to dull the pain a little. So I had a nice nap.

The honesty and innocence of the people can be witnessed in this funny
occurrence that happened to me at the airport. I was picking up some
postcards, as they were cheap, and postage is paid for mailing it to
anywhere in the world, so long as it is mailed from Cuba. So I grab a
couple and look for the shop keeper to pay. No one was behind the counter
where I got the postcards from, so I ask the lady in the adjacent counter
where I pay for them. She motions behind her down the hall. That seemed
strange to me, since it looked pretty far from the actual counter, but I
shrugged and walked back there. All I see is a closed clerks window, and
what looked like a mailbox. I wander back and ask another lady, (they don't
understand English very well, and my French is a far cry from Spanish) and
she smiles and insists (via sign language and Spanish) that all I have to do
is to put the postcard in the mail slot. I try to tell her that I haven't
paid for it yet, but she keeps nodding and smiling and motioning me to put
the postcard in the mail slot. I protest, surely she doesn't understand me.
She finally takes one of my postcards and puts it in the mail slot for me
against my protesting, nodding and looking reassuringly at me while doing
so.

"?????" - my look of total confusion on my face.
"No pay okay?" I say,
"no pay", she says nodding and smiling.
(maybe postcards are free here in Cuba? -- I think to myself) "But I haven't
put anything on the postcard yet!" I protest. Doing some sign language
showing me not writing anything on the card. She looks confused. "No write,
okay?" hand signing something that looks like writing on a piece of paper in
charades, then a big "X" sign for "NO" "Ehhh?" she look surprised. She
finally realizes what I have been trying to tell her.
"Oh buenos dias por pavordes blah blah" -- she continues on, laughing
hysterically. Finally realizing that she just dumped a blank postcard in
the mailbox.

She gets one of the post office workers out from the office and we all share
a big round of laughs as the post office worker opens the mails box to
retrieve my postcard for me.

I wander back to the counter, where the lady who tends it seems to have
returned (it was the post office worker, in fact) The post cards are $0.50
each.

All in all, a great vacation. I went with a bunch of real cool CBCs from
the T.O. And met some other really cool folks during the week. You that are
reading, you know who you are. Thanks for a great time. Its rumoured that
Canadians are truly the friendliest lot in the bunch. You are all living
proof of the saying... Vive la Canada! If any of you are traveling in this
part of the world, don't hesitate to drop me a line, or feel free to crash
at my place. Friends, family, stragglers... always welcome at my door.

NYC

Spent a week visiting old friends in NYC after my stint in the sun. It was
good to see the old stomping grounds again, and I honestly felt a tinge of
nostalgia walking out of the 14th street NR train station. I love Union
Square. It was also very good to drink outside the Stone St. after work as
is the tradition there for wall street folk. The beers and cheer welcome
and warm my soul.

Though a 11pm trip on the subway quickly reminded me why I hated NY subways.
No sooner had I gotten on, did I realize that there was a very dirty,
overweight homeless woman, sitting with her shoes off on one of the benches.
Needless to say, the air was not exactly zestfully clean. To make matters
worse, she then proceeded to take off her grease stained shirt to reveal her
very out of shape naked, saggy, unclean self. It was not a pretty sight.
Actually it almost made me throw up. She must have been doing it to get
attention because after 'airing out' her shirt for a while, she mercifully
put it back on.

You won't see that happen in TKO. Man, OINY. And thankfully so.


Sorry kids, no Pics from TKO this week
Instead you get my Cuba and Canada Wedding pics. Gracefully, I have no
pictures from NYC. Otherwise you will stop reading my journals.

(For those of your who I promised to send you the pictures of our diving
adventures, they are included within! )

Cuba
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289168639

My Best Friend's Wedding (just had to use that catchy phrase)
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289168839

Here are the pics to go along with the adventures in I#26.

Misc Japan pics.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289369505

Fuji-san
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289460019

Sea paradise
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289369757

Oh and for the inquiring minds, the "Juicy" shot from the last installment was taken from a subway billboard.  Yep. Honestly.

Today I went to Roy's. 
Its a restaurant in Aoyama itchome, and Roy serves up classy hawaiian-japanese fusion.  It was the last weekend that I will see Maki before she heads back to Shanghai to take up chinese language study, so we decide to have an unofficial going-away (again) dinner.  If I didn't mention it already (10+ times), service is great here in japan.  There was a girl at the door to take our umbrellas just to lock them into the 'brelly rack. Something that I could easily do myself.  In NYC, there would be a tip involved.  Here, its part of everyday service.  It was shortly after we sat down that I realized that I had been here before.  Well, not really, but I remembered going to a Roy's in NYC.  And remembering that it was also hawaiian cuisine.  It was located downtown, close to (the former) WTC, on Trinity or Chambers, close to Battery City.  A quick query to the waiter, and he produces a restaurant locations card.  And as anticipated, there was a New York Roy's.  No doubt it was the same chain.  The food was excellent, but I suppose that comes with the price tag.  Well, I'll spare you the details, but lets just say that it was cheaper than golf.  But not by that much.  The thing that surprised me was that they actually charged a 10% service fee.  Darned american traditions.

'Cool Realization' of the week. 
Ever wonder why TV soap operas look so 'fake'?  I mean, the lighting looks very artificial, no matter what the setting of the scene is.  I used to always wonder this as a kid, (not that I watched any of them... I swear!) comparing them to the realism found in movies.  I finally, after 26 years of contemplation have solved the riddle. Soaps are shot electronically on video tape, using cameras much like larger versions of the kind you can buy.  Movies are shot on film.  Most CCDs (the microchips that capture the images) have serious problems in low light, because compared to film, CCDs have a low sensitivity to light.  We all know this implicitly.  How many times have you cursed at your digital camera for being completely incompetent at taking pictures in any place darker than a brightly lit room?  Film photographers know that low light shots can be easily done by using fast film, say, 800 or 1600 ISO. With fast film, you don't need a tripod to take evening shots.  Anyhow, you can easily draw the analogy; soaps -- video, movies -- film... voila. That's why movies can shoot natural light scene, while video cameras need the artificial gleam of a fluorescent flood lit studio.

Mt. Fuji.  Just don't do it.
Like a Michael Jordan turned Marilyn Mansen commercial gone bad, my only suggesting is not to play ball.  I went on the Mt. Fuji climb thinking it would be 'fun'.  Well, its not.  What it IS, is a challenge.  One that will make you yearn for the comforts of modern 21st century civilization.  We started out at 1700m, at base station 5.  A bus from Shinjuku station in Tokyo brings you straight there.  From there you start the long arduous hike up another 2000m to the 3776m summit.  Along the way, you will freeze (it gets close to 0 degrees even in the hot months of summer) get blasted by sand, (the Fuji kind will plague you and your sore eyes for weeks on afterwards) and have your brain explode due to altitude sickness.  For me, all three conspired to rid me of my goal.

I couldn't make it all the way up.  At base station 8.5 (10 is the summit) I get a hangover the size of a small pickup truck.  (Complete with hick in the back, shotgun in hand, pointed at my temple) My head feels like its going to pop like an over ripe tomato, so I stop and take quick refuse in a lodge. (more like a shack) They serve very bad and expensive food there, so I get a cup of ramen (the kind you just add water to) for 500 yen.  I eat it... the warmth makes me feel better.  I also get a hot chocolate, for 800 yen (probably cause it requires more work than putting hot water into a cup) and I sip it slowly.  After about a 30 min break, I head back outside to continue the push.

After about 10 steps, I get the 'uh-oh' signal from the stomach.  "Red Alert! Red Alert! Core breach imminent!  Prepare to dump the core! Abandon ship! Abandon Ship!" as I empty the contents of my stomach all over the side of the ridge.  Just my luck, I'm walking through a narrow portion of the path, so the crowd of people behind me have to stop and watch me purge, as I was blocking the way.  It was not a good scene.  After that, I decided to abort and just sit down to take a nap.  It made me feel worse as I watch senior citizens pass me by.  (The mountain was very very crowded that day, and everyone was going up shoulder to shoulder.) Well, better than having my head explode, I figure.

So, I came, I saw, I got destroyed.
Next year, I will return, and next time, the mountain is going down.  DOWN I SAY.  (I will bring about 10 liters of oxygen just in case).

Last week I consummated my yuppiedom. 
I bought a set of golf clubs.  And just as I mentioned back in uh⋯ installment #(fill in the blank) The total cost of the clubs was less than half of what I paid to go golfing that time up in Chiba, at the fancy schmancy place.  So it is done.  I am now a full fledged tax-paying citizen of Yuppietown.  Drinking bottled water, playing golf, and wearing J.Crew sweaters.  To think I'm going to miss a Burburry sale this weekend when I go on vacation.  Drats!  The best part about golf (and probably the reason why I went from "naww that's an old man's game" to "hey, this is kinda cool" ) is that gratifying feeling of whacking the hell outta the ball on a clean shot.  Admittedly it took uh, about 100 tries before I got my first clean hit, with the previous 99 times mostly consisting of a golf ball ricocheting around the tee making people duck for cover.  I've already hit several people at driving ranges.  They cried.  The next may be you.  You have been warned.

Typhoon!
The sound of wind battered against my window all Saturday.

Never having lived in the Pacific coast, nor in hurricane country, I've never had to sit through gale force winds ever before.  Lemme tell you, its frightening.  My doors shook and the windows rattled.  The sound of wind whistled through every little crack in the building, the haunting sound of a banshee wailing its undead cries of torment from the etherworld.  I sat in front of my computer, trying to ignore the slapping sound of the rain come in volleys, like waves crashing against my window panes.  It was scary.  

Little known fact is that 'typhoon' is really a borrowed word.  Akin to rendezvous, maitre'd, déjà vu, and coup d'etat (french) typhoon comes from the chinese phrase Tai (big) Phong (wind)  Russians were the first to borrow the words as a proper noun, and soon after it became popular with both Japan and most of the pacific rim.  Now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.

分かりました
Warimashita -- which means, "understood".
The funny thing is that the kanji for "to understand" or the verb "wakaru" (分かる） or (分)
Means literally 'to divide'.  I guess for the japanese, to divide something is to understand it.
Quite similarily, there is an idiom in science that says that to understand and study something, you must necessarily destroy it in the process.  For instance, you can't study a flower fully without plucking it, and dissecting it.  Maybe the popular saying should be "Divide, conquer, and understand".  Kinda makes you want to be a Jainist eh?

At any rate, before this becomes more of a philosophical diatribe than a journal, lemme just conclude with his humourous thought:  In japanese, if you say you can't understand something, what you are literally saying is:

'I can't cut it'.


I'm buying a Playstation 2.

I discovered this game over the weekend that is just too cool to believe.  In it, you play a mosquito, who flies around the room trying to suck as much blood out of this cute japanese gal as you possibly can, before getting whacked.  You have to wait until she gets tired and takes a nap to get the best suck time, but if you fly too close to her face, and she will awaken and then <japanese accent> *BATTLE MODE* </japanese accent> begins!  In Battle mode, she runs around the room, jumping on the bed, chasing you down until you are a splat on the wall.  In the meantime, you try to outmaneuver her karate kicks, supa double hand smacks and even head butts.  Get really irritating and she might even use the dreaded bug spray on you.  Survive long enough, and she will get tired, and take a rest.  Then its lunch time again!  The best part is that as a mosquito, you can fly practically anywhere.  ANYwhere⋯



24?
If you were paying attention, you probably are wondering what happened to installment #24.  Well, in keeping with any good self respecting novelist, I'll leave that up to your imagination.  Could it be perhaps that 24 is an unlucky number in chinese tradition?  Or could it because it was written and then lost, like any good manuscript is, only to be uncovered after my passing, to be claimed as the hidden works by DJ Chan, making me (like any good artist) post-humously rich?  I leave the mystery to you to solve.

Finally,
Pics from TKO:

Bowling shoes.  The country that redefined 'vending machine' never ceases to amaze and amuse.  Put 300 yen into the vending 'locker' of your size, and a pair of shoes shoot out the bottom.  All ready for use.



Juicy?  Um⋯ Juicy?  Seriously now.


Djc out.

I came back home today to the sound of the someone cooking dinner in the
house beside my apartment.  But something was different about this evening.
Something about the clatter that triggered memories both familiar and
comforting.  I stood baffled for a moment, and then I recognized it.  It was
the sound of a wok.  There's a certain distinct sound when you stirfry in a
wok that makes it very different from everything else.  Perhaps its the
sound of the sizzling oil and garlic, perhaps its the chop-chop-chopping
sound of the metal spatula, but most likely, it was the endearing sound of
'home'.
 
Something happens to you when you grow up listening to that sound.  Memories
of grandparents cooking away while my cousins and I ran around the house,
then parents, and uncles... now, forbid the thought, it might be my turn
soon.
 
One problem.  I never really learned how to use that thing.
 
Well, don't get me wrong, I can flip a couple of eggs and spam into a wok
and make what marginally can be deemed fried rice, but I never really
learned all the little secrets from my mom when I was growning up.  It was
all too girly, I thought.
 
Well, listen up boys.  Learning to cook is one of the holy grails to a
womans heart.  Especially in this day and age when most are career minded
like men, and don't have time to be domesticated.  I only wish I spent more
time baking and cooking with my mom.
 
Thankfully my brother picked up some skills in my absence, so the family
tradition of chop chop chopping is not lost.   Thank god for siblings.
 
What's more, last weekend, I was completely ashamed when my japanese female
friends started making gyo-zi (dumplings) from scratch (I mean, they were
rolling flour to make the wraps).  Quite embarrassing indeed, for my
japanese friends to be more chinese than myself.  They even speak mandarin
fluently, and I stumble with anything more than "wo bo jien gwo yu" (I don't
speak mandarin).
 
Anyway, enough nostalgia (it IS a journal afterall, what do you expect?).
 
----------
Crosses.
 
I notice something recently about girls fashions that takes someone 8 months
to actually notice.
 
Girls wear crosses on necklaces everywhere.
 
All shapes, all styles, some small, some large, some numerous, some
symbolic.
But all wear them.  I'd even hazard to say that 90% of all necklaces have a
cross design on them.
 
Seeing that its highly unlikely that 90% of all women are catholic here, I'd
must conclude that crosses are just the 'in' thing and everyone is just
wearing them to be in the trend.  OIJ.
 
---------
"Socks Touch"
 
That's what they call the thing you put on your leg (if you are a
schoolgirl) to hold your knee high briches up.  Basically its a UHU glue
stick with some fancy packaging.  I wonder what it tastes like.
 
What, you're telling me you never tried eating the UHU when you were a kid?
bah.
 
---------
Hanabi.
 
That's the word for fireworks watching.  Sort of close to "hanami" which is
cherry blossom watching, but if you sit and think about it (in a Zen-ish
sorta way) they are quite similar.  Hence the name.
 
I went to a friends Hanabi party on the weekend.  He has a roof apartment
with the roof all to himself, so we had a BBQ up there, with a great view of
the Sumida river, where one of the fireworks festivals were being held.
Apparantly,
the annual summer fireworks is a traditonal event where girls and
(some) guys go out decked in their yukatas (japanese style robe).  Its a
charisma +5 magic item, as friend put it.  And its quite a sight. 
Here are some pics.
http://www.tokyopia.com/home/hawaron/bbqhanabi/index.html

---------
Gillette cool wave Antiperspirant
 
What I wouldn't give for a stick of that stuff.
 
I don't know what it is, but the antiperspirant here is weak.  I've tried
several brands but they just don't cut it like the north american brands.
Gillette and Proctor Gamble stand to earn a pretty buck here, since the
competition simply stinks. (pun intended)
 
---------
Funny coincedence of the month:
 
On Tuesday, I had my japanese class. The lesson on that day was what to say
and do if I leave something on the train.  We went through sentence
structure, describing objects, patterns, and colour descriptions,
even how to describe which car of the train you were on.  Thank goodness
that I was paying attention that day, because on the Thursday, I left my bag
on the morning train.  And I remember my first thought was 
"S#%T!", followed by, 
"but... I know exactly what I need to say!"  
So I proceeded to go to the station 'ekiin' and filed a lost items report.
It was quite embarrassing when he asked me what was inside my bag...and I
told him it was my japanese textbook, and my japanese electronic dictionary.
God is not without a sense of irony, a humour.
 
That day, my japanese teacher had a blast when I told her why I didn't have
my textbook or notes.  She couldn't believe how fitting it all was.  Best of
all, the example in my textbook of the fella losing his bag on the train...
His name was Chang-san, and he left his bag on the 2nd car from the back --
just like I did.  (At that point I pulled a quick glance around my shoulder,
as I got that creepy twilight zone feeling)
 
They found my bag, and they called me back to tell me (though I didn't
understand most of what was said) So I had a friend talk to the station
head, and they told me that I could pickup the bag from the terminal station
until Sat.  The last station is a good distance out of my way,
so I waited until Sat to do it.  Of course, I got too busy on Sat so I
didn't get chance, so I tried again on Sunday.  One thing about Japan, they
are super punctual and when they have rules for something, you can bet your
bottom that they will stick to the rules.  I arrived Sunday at
Nishi-Takashimadaera sometime after 7pm after a *1h* ride on the train, only
to find that they had sent my bag to a more central location like clockwork
after Saturday.  That was the biggest waste of 3 hours of my life.
 
Moral of the story?
 
Call ahead to the station first before going there.  Especially if its way
out in the 'booneys.
 
----------
Midori Sours.
 
For all my life, I thought that this was just some really cool sounding
drink name.  Indeed I found out that a Midori sour is actually a japanese
invented (or inspired) drink.  'Midori' actually means green in japanese.
So the super exotic sounding drink is simply "Green Sour" in truth.  Believe
it.  Laugh at yourselves.
 
----------
Mammoth Reprocussions
 
Word here on the street is that quite a reputed university -- Kinki
University -- (pronounced 'kinky', its actually an area of Japan) here is working on bringing back the
woolly mammoth by genetic engineering using a cow as a zygote medium.
The project is in its initial phases now, and it should be several decades
before they can sucessfully weed out all the cow genes to get a pure mammoth
through selective breeding.  
 
Yeah.  Apparently, these folks haven't watched the Jurassic Park movies,
and are ignorant to all the ethical and societal effects of this contraversial
project.  Personally though, I can't wait to see the following headline in the New
York Times:

"Kinki scientists create a woolly mammoth! -- World in disbelief"
 
----------
Pics from Tko
 
Yahoo BB is now selling digital TV streamed over the adsl line.  They also
privide a video on demand feature.  What I found funny was this picture of
an add showing a guy who is too embarrassed to rent some adult videos
because the girl at the counter has sparkles all around her.  (see pic.  I
don't understand it fully either).  At any rate, a very funny ad.



Expensive Bread.
This basket of bread and rolls cost 5000yen.  That's $45 worth of bread.
This better be damned good bread.  I mean, Last Supper quality bread here
folks.
 


Otaru.
Just a random pic from the Thursday night festivities.  Aaron and Aiko are
starring in the antics.


 
Strange Oil.
Hmmm... they really have to get somebody to read the english version of the
menu to avoid offending some people.

 
 
djc out.
 
 

As promised, here are the supplemental pictures from the last journal entry, along with some additional tidbits.

Yummy consume flavoured Calpee chips.



The japanese characters here just read "Ka-ru-pi-su Wah-ta"



Yakiniku!

I forgot to mention this tasty morsel.  Yakinuki is the yummy barbeque style food here pretty much the same as the Korean bar-BQs that you all know and love back home.  2 exceptions.  Raw liver (tastes yummy with sesame sauce) and harami.

Harami is one of those things that tastes better if you don't know what it is.  It's meat from a cow, and looks pretty much like it, but it really the muscles from its intestines.  But trust me... it's the best tasting part of the cow because of its tenderness and flavour.  Unlike regular meat, it doesn't toughen up as much when BBQed, so it tastes closer to a piece of tuna sushi than beef.  Scrumptious!

Incidentally, 'harami' means ba$tard in Hindi.  -- as my indian friends are no doubt thinking at this moment.  :o)  No wonder hindu people don't eat cows.



--yums.



Here's a pic of... er... actually I don't remember her name, (see I#23: Lemony Heaven) but one of the Halo team members will be sure to remember.



FYI -- for those of you who are still in the dark about "Halo", it's a popular Xbox game. Xbox is a gaming console produced by M$.  M$ is the monopoly that we all know and love.  Monopoly is a game from Parker Bros. first released in 1935. 



Here are some pics I forgot to attach to the last installment.  They are snaps of some more choice ads that I took off the subway in the morning.  As you very well (not) know, Japan is strewn with many cell phone networks and standards.  One of the new ones coming up is CDMA 1X.  (Competing again GSMs and other networks of course).  I don't know who thought up of the name 1X, but compared to its competitors' next generation network buzznames (3G, 2000, etc..) it is really lame.

What's worse...?  These ads.





Caption: "1X Speed! --  1X Active! -- 1X Freedom! --  1X Design!"
Whoa there partner.  Don't hurt yourself going 1X speed now.  You might sprain something.

Djc out!

Japan Lesson #42, Tokyo is not the city to take up any sport.

Why? Because it's so darned expensive here.  I remember all those opportunities I passed up to go golfing for sub $100 prices in NYC.  No more.  The price tag of my last golfing trip? $300.  Yep.  To its credit, it was a very snazzy golf club complete with an ofuro (hot sauna and hot tub Japanese style) so you can relax and lounge after the game, but still $300.  Wow.  Couple more outings and I can afford a nice pair of clubs.  Or pay the bills for 6 months.

Golfing in Japan has some distinct differences compared to N.A..  For one, there is a defined break in the middle, where you have 1 hour to have lunch between the first and the last 9 holes.  Also, this club had automated golf carts.  Yes, they drove themselves.  Our caddy's had a remote control that they used to make it go.  It drove itself around the course with the aid of a guidance wire buried in the ground.  All electro-magnetically controlled.  Sort of like the same way that 20 mile stretch of highway in California drives cars without driver control.  Very cool.  Very Japan.  OTJ?  Not sure.

I felt bad because my poor caddy went looking for all the balls that I lost in the woods.  Without fail, at every tee off I shot the ball out of bounds to the right.  The little lady managed to find about 50% of the balls I lost... she even had a long pole to fish balls out of the creeks in the course.  However, she stopped short of diving into the lakes to retrieve the 3+ balls I lost in there.  And she calls herself a caddy.  Sigh. She finally just let me take the shot from the middle of the fairway, for the sake of time.

In addition to the designated lunch break in the middle of the day, every day ends with a big feast of finger foods and all the beer and oolong cha (tea) you can drink.  Cheeses, gyoza, oer'deurves, etc.  That was a nice pleasant surprise after a long day in the sun and 30min in the ofuro.  I guess that's where a lot of the money goes.

The highlight of the day was when I sunk a 15 yard putt from off the green.  Pure luck, and since it took me 6 strokes to get to the green, it didn't make any noticeable difference in my score, but it was a glorious putt.  Glorious.  I felt like Micheal Jordan sinking a 3-point shot from the other side of the court.  Minus the basketball, the court, the adoring fans, and the 6 million dollar house.  Well, I got a good buzz off it anyhow.



Tennis

Yet another sport that is way too expensive in Tokyo.  5500 yen per hour. ($50).  That's how much it costs to use the court for an hour --

-- AFTER 1AM.  Yes.  If you want to rent a court before 1am, you need to pay about $90 an hour.  On weekends, over $130 per hour.  So if you bring a whole truckload of friends (and not the border crossing kind), you'll spend the whole hour running into each other on the court, and still pay about $25 each.  Insane.

I don't think I'll be practicing tennis too much after that.  Unless I find a nice wall I can hit against near my house.



Lemon sours.

Kerosene, soda water, and a splash of lemon, I once heard it described as.  Whatever it is, it doesn't taste like it has alcohol in it at all, but after 3-4 of them, you begin to get real friendly with everyone around you, and you stop noticing the little cockroaches crawling around the walls.  The "Halo team"** group of friends I hang with sometimes have a weekly tradition of poisoning their livers at the local lemon sour heaven, where lemony death can be had for a low price of 100yen each.  Yep.  For once, something that is CHEAP in TKO.  For $1 each, you can buy happiness.  Thankfully, its also a social gathering with an increasing number of non-male participants so its not like a meeting of a local failed AA chapter any longer.

** I call them the 'Halo' team, since they all have a penchant for playing computer/console games, Halo being the being the biggest draw, bringing together the whole group once a month for a 16 player fragfest I like to call 'sad'.  (of which I am a happy participant)  Thankfully, most of them are pretty cool, and are established in the game developer circles, so it's not as scary as it sounds.  Actually, several of them work for big companies like Sega, SquareSoft, and Activision.  So if you have requests for the next Final Fantasy game, I can pass a word along to the developers.  :o)



Bad Brand names

As a revisit to my hallowed collection of fallacious brand names in Japan, I'd like to pay a tribute some of the choice ones that I have stumbled across recently.

1) Citibank
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll like to bring up my favorite bank and yours…
Citibank. 
One day I was looking at the Japanese sign for our favorite bank when suddenly in a rush of realization akin to astronaut Taylor's when he saw the ruins of the Statue of Liberty awash on the beach -- the irony of it all struck me.



シチイバンク銀行 (in Japanese)
シチイバンク　= Citibank
銀行 = Bank(Ginko) -- yeah, pretty redundant.
シ = shi
チイ = ti (pronounced 'tee' as in what I have problems hitting a golf ball off of.)
バ = ba
ン = n
ク = ku
Shi + Ti + ba + n + ku = Shitibank. 
--Shittybank--

You can draw your own conclusions, but I don't have to spell it out for you. 

Er...  I guess I just did.

2) Calpis water.

If I have not mentioned it before, they have this wonderful drink here called Calpis Water.  It’s a 'bacterial' drink in that its sorta a mix between a sports drink and yogurt, which people here love so much.  It looks like diluted milk (or the Arctic flavored Gatorade back home) tastes sorta sweet and tangy, and actually not that bad… but because of its bacterial nature, it probably goes bad like milk if you leave it around too long.  (well, at the least the bacteria seems to multiply very well in the confines of my kitchen sink.  At any rate, it never occurred to me until a friend mentioned it recently the faux pas embedded in the name. 

Calpis.
Caaal pis.
Cow piss.

Um. Yep.  I think I'm gonna stick with gatorade from now on.

3) Calbee brand potato chips.

See Cow Piss. 

Perhaps the brand names are owned by the same parent company, and they wanted to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that the secret ingredient in their foods is urine.  Quite good chips though… I think I'll keep on buying them.

I'll send you all pics of these products in a supplemental installment so you can show all your friends.



Finally, here we go with your favorite section of the journal.
Pics from TKO

Ahh davePod.



This is what happens when you mix a night of lemony goodness and a broadcasting webcam on inadvertently.

Well actually, not exactly, but that is what I feel the victim of every time I leave the bank.

The banking experience is nothing less than a demeaning government sanctioned rip-off of your hard earned money by the bigwigs.

1000yen.  That's how much it costs to deposit a check.  No matter how much that cheque is for.  Therefore, you might as well, burn any cheques you have under $10, its not worth the walk to the bank, nor the calories burned on the trip.  Time better spent staring at pixel patterns in your computer background, or giving that little extra bit of 'luxury time' in the bathroom stall after a large meal.

2yen/$1.  That's how much citibank charges to deposit USD cash.  So basically, they eat 2% out of your pocket.  In foreign exchange markets, that is a WHOPPER of a spread.  Unfair.  I feel like a traveller getting ripped off at a small hawker stand in some dingy street in downtown Jakarta every time I need to deal with depositing funds.  Only difference is that the person behind the hawker stand has a cute hello kitty smile instead of a gold tooth and a monkey claw dangling from her shriveled neck.

If I were you, I'd bet on the yen.  At this rate of grave robbing, they'll have all their bad bank debts paid off in 5 years, with all the ex-pats' blood money.



iPod ROCKS!

Superb design.  Straight out of a venerable Arthur C. Clarke novel, the design is sleek, clean, and futuristic in a 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of way.  (in fact, that would make a great commercial ad! -- David Bowman jogging around Discovery, an iPod floats by...)  Even the packaging had a designer feel to it.  I don't know any other company that pays such attention to ergonomical detail.  Seriously, the whole time I was thinking... "They actually PAID someone to design that plastic wrapper for the cables, and that styrofoam piece."  Seriously.  And the box!  Man, that's one box I'll be keeping.  Its soo cool and Andy Warhol-ish. Onto the actual iPod...

 
I don't know whether the peeps go to iPod, or to Ephpod (a syncing program for windows), but the goddam thing ROCKS.  I have my mp3s in one big folder, with loosely categorized subfolders.  The categories are very badly done.  I had no idea how to start organizing or copying the mp3s over to the ipod.  I didn't have to.  I just plugged it in loaded up Ephpod, and clicked synchronize.  And magically it knew to look in my My Music directory and starting sending all my mp3s (all 2 gig of them).  After 7 min on firewire, it was done, and to my TOTAL surprise, the Pod or the program categorized ALL my music by album name and genre!  And not the crappy categories I was using in my windows subfolders!  I mean, I look under "soundtracks" and I see my matrix titles, and the ones from starship troopers.  I didn't even have a soundtrack folder on my computer.  Now I know which songs are considered "Ambient Alterative" vs normal "Alternative" thanks to davePod.  (I've named the little dude davePod... since *I* = Dave)  It also separated my Jpop songs from the "game" songs like Macross and Final Fantasy mp3s!  And most importantly, it put all the Enya's and others into a "New Age" genre.  I love davePod.

 
Did I mention that it also acts like a little portable 15 gb firewire/usb2 harddrive?  Meaning I can throw whatever I want onto little davePod, and carry it around. Add to that the ability to store outlook contacts, text notes, and calendar items...  And all in a little package that is only an inch taller than a normal MD player, and just about the same thickness.  And I love the StarTrek-like touch sensitive controls... I love davePod.

 
Okay... not everything was rosy... since I bought this in Japan, I have only the japanese manual, so I didn't bother reading it.  Thus when davePod was flashing the "do not disconnect" warning while docked, I didn't know that I needed to unmount the drive first before disconnecting... I figured it was just buggy and took davePod off the dock.  oops.  It reset itself, and looked normal, but I think it corrupted the file system.  I had to wipe and resync the little guy a second time.  (Firewire is great for this... 2.3 gigs in 7min) Apparently this oddity doesn't apply to Mac computers... only windows has this silly "click here to remove hardware driver" extra step.  (Probably since my firewire card is 3rd party and not on-board like macs) I should have just listened to davePod, and not disconnected him.  Or have read the online Apple docs... though they are almost NON-existent for windows users.  The troubleshooting basically boils down to:

1) Check your connection
2) Check your PC software
3) Check your friend's PC software
4) Check your PC hardware
5) Buy a Mac.
 
If you are thinking of an mp3 player... think no more.  I have all my music with me now.  And an extra 12gb to store whatever I want.

Bamboo Ho!

Yeah, I decided to drop the suit and tie for a day and went out to the country to chop some bamboo trees down for charity.  What ensued was an experience that I'd like to call 'Peasant for a day'.   Being a city slicker (okay, a suburb-sticker) I never knew bamboo trees grew that tall.  Those things are a testament to efficient engineering.  They grow over 20-30 feet tall, but are light enough to chop down with a small thin one-handed saw, and light enough for one person to drag it around.  The hollow middle probably has something to do with it.  The bamboo grove was up the side of a hill behind the temple, right beside a graveyard.  No worries though, as Japanese cremate their dead.  The charity supplied everyone with a small clever and a hand saw.  One to saw down the tree, and the clever to hack off the little branches that grow in groups of 3 up the side of the shaft.  After being cooped up in an office for 90% of my time, I was glad to finally have the opportunity to get out and experience some nature.  I had great fun and will definitely do it again.  As a souvenir, I chopped off a couple of 'knuckles' from one tree to use as bee---...er, I mean, beverage holders.  The most interesting thing  is that there was "bamboo fan club" members who joined us there, who gave great "history of bamboo" and "the many uses of bamboo" lectures.  Too bad they were in Japanese.  The only thing I managed to pickup was that bamboo is called "take" in japanese.  The fan club was a group of old looking farmer types who obviously spend most of their lives harvesting bamboo and making art out of their trunks and bark. (if you can call it that.) Very animated old men.  Mildly amusing.

And on to this week's keitai pix from TKO!

A tad risqué, but they have these at every bookstore here.
Candidate for the next ___for Dummies guide?



Sam Adams, America's ordinary beer, overpriced just for you!



Japanese taxis have this crazy awesome GPS system.  You enter the phone number of any location, and it will tell you exactly how to get there, give a ETA taking into account traffic conditions, and even have a 3d view of your surroundings.  Insane.  North America is so far behind in this respect.  We already have phones with memory sticks or SD slots to play mp3s or store your pictures.  NA is still struggling with getting full colour screened phones.



Finally for those of you who keep complaining that my keitai pictures are too low-res.  [stop complaining and get your own phone that can take pictures!]  Here are some compiled albums with pictures from my real digital camera.

Bamboo chopping
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290006107

Sakura Season
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290421939

Djc out.

5 days.
5 scant days since the last journal update, and yet you are endowed with
another one. To what do you owe this prodigal blessing you ask? Perhaps it
is the fact that there were another 2 earthquakes in the last 3 days.
Perhaps it is because my normally copious inbox is finally clean, or perhaps
it is simply because it is 8:30 in the morning, on a day when I got into the
office before 7am, and my brain doesn't normally spin up to operating
capacity until 10am. Right now, I'm still in cold start mode, with the
amortissier coils humming their laboured song of strain, as the onrush of
current tries to kick start this mammoth sloth of a rotor up to regulator
speed.

+..... -..... +... - ..+..-

[Forgive me, I momentarily lapsed back to my old electrical engineering
days]. I went to a bingo party yesterday at a departing friends house.
Quite amusing brilliant actually, the concept of 'bingo'ing off your
belongings instead of selling them. As disposing of garbage in Japan is
usually more expensive than giving your stuff away, many 'Sayonara sales'
abound as sellers try to get rid of their junk or other stuff that they
cannot bring with them as they leave the country. Jason, a friend from
Waterloo also adrift on this pacific isle, is moving with his girlfriend
back to Canada (back to Waterloo in fact) in order to pursue other career
interests. Thus we all gathered at his place on Sunday to divvy up the
booty so to speak. We were all given bingo cards, and introduced to the
lineup of choice prizes meticulously bundled up in cute little packages, no
doubt by Yuna, Jason's better half, since the attention to detail present
was a telltale sign of female influence. Among the prizes was most of the
alcohol from Jason's mini-bar, which was a quite an extensive collection
indeed. Normally, people use the closet to store clothes, or bedding or
futons. Not Jason, open up the closet and you'll find a fully stocked bar,
from schnapps, to blue corroco, to mint, to southern comfort. Oh, and not
forgetting the full blender as well. I was so impressed that I snapped a
shot. See below.

Rice country.
That's what America is. The Rice Country.

Japan is the 'Base of the Sun' and China is the 'Central (or middle)
Country'

Isn't Chinese characters such a darling thing for encapsulating such
profound meaning? Without going off into a discourse on kanji and the
intricacies of ideological symbolic languages, I'd just wanted to point out
some curiosities of kanji, and the Japanese use of them. Brought over by
Chinese scholars somewhere around the time Buddhism was introduced to Japan,
the Chinese writing system was adopted by the Japanese people who at the
time, did not have any written word. The attempt to shoehorn an existing
spoken language into the written representation of a another language,
indeed, one with different grammar and syntactical structure, is the major
cause for its modern day complexity. Chinese is a mono-syllabic tonal
language. Japanese is a poly-syllabic non-tonal language. Chinese grammar
is similar to that of english. (Subject, verb, object, phrase) Japanese is
from a western standpoint, backwards. (subject,
phrase, object, verb) In Chinese, a word is a single concept, single
syllable, single kanji symbol and can only be read one way. But in
Japanese, due to the language mesh, the same kanji can usually be read, or
sounded, several different ways. One would be the native Japanese reading
for that kanji concept, another would be the Chinese word for that kanji,
and most times there are other adapted versions of the former depending on
the sentence structure and surrounding words. Deciding how any one kanji is
read can be quite a daunting task. Anyway, my point, (as I am already
digressing into that dissertation that I so wanted to avoid), is that
somehow America got the enviable label of the "Rice country".

I asked some Japanese friends of mine why the USA was given such a grainy
name (oh god kill me now), and none of them knew why. Then it occurred to
me. They didn't know why because the origin was due to an incorrect
translation from Chinese! In Chinese, America is called 'Mai Gwo'. (As any
of you remembering the famous Baldwin line from Pearl Harbour will recognize
-- "Wo shir Mai Gwo ren!" -- I am American!) The proper meaning of the
written kanji for the reading "mai" is "Beautiful", probably earning that
title from the first impressions of America being a vast unexplored and
fertile land. Regardless, the apex of this humourous anecdote is that "Mai"
is also how you say RICE in Chinese, though, as any Chinese person will
point out, they are different kanji and are written differently. (recall:
one concept, one kanji symbol) Even though it is a different kanji, and
means something totally different, the Chinese language, restricted to only
mono-syllabic spoken words, is replete with homonyms. So to a Japanese
person, listening to a Chinese person talk of people from "Mai Gwo", he
might think that we were saying the "Rice Country". And of course, without
seeing the written kanji, there is no way to confirm which "mai" the Chinese
person was referring to. And thus America was downgraded from the
"Beautiful country" to the "Bountiful country". (I really have to stop
these corny jokes).

This all came about when I was poking through my friends computer, and
noticed that the American English setting was written as "米国語"-- rice
country language.


I leave you now with pictures from Japan.


First off. Jason and Dave Tunnah. Poster boys for a popular OL (office
lady) magazine. I hear that their popularity shot through the roof when all
the school girls saw them in a magazine article on Foreign men in Japan.

Second, Jason's Closet Bar. Fully stocked and ready to serve.

Thirdly, Medicinal Liquor. No, we are not in a hospital, but a restaurant.
I shyed away from the stuff, thinking it might cause more internal damage
than good.

Djc out.

I was awoken to a rumble late Saturday morning.  I thought I was dreaming.  At the time I was too groggy to realize it, but after some fleeting seconds of dreamy haze, it finally dawned on me.  It was an earthquake.  A weird feeling for those of us from non-quaking cities.  It felt like somebody was shaking my bed.  Then the whole house was shaking.  Weird because I wasn't really scared at all.  It was sorta interesting to have everything shaking a little.  That was Saturday... On Sunday we had another one.  This second quake actually lasted about 10 seconds and shook my door enough to make it rattle, like during a windy day.  I was fully awake this time, so I took the opportunity to stand up to see if it would be hard to keep my balance during a quake.  It really isn't that hard, and compared to snowboarding full tilt down a slope, its nothing.  Later on I found out that the quakes were about 4-5 on the richer scale. "Wow, something to finally write about in my journal" I thought.

 
In such a mountainous island like Japan, earthquakes are common.  In fact, many times when referring to the size of Japan people make the analogy to California, since the length and the width of the two are pretty similar.  More similar that they think.  At least in terms of the earthquakes.  They are still waiting for the "big one", since the last big earthquake to hit the Kanto region was in the 1920's which pretty much left most of Tokyo in ruins.  Hmm, as much of an explorer I profess myself to be, that's one experience I'd like to leave off my "things to see and do" list.

 
People here do the funniest things.  I was at the train station in the morning the other day, and there was a vendor servicing one of the numerous vending machines that litter the urban sprawl here in Tokyo.  The man had the vending machine opened up, and was obviously tinkering with the insides, whether extracting the money box or refilling the product I was not sure, nor did I pay him more than a passing glance.  What caught my eye was that immediately after me, a girl walks up to the eviscerated machine, and proceeds to put money in the slot.  The man, behind the opened front of the machine, and working on the insides, fails to notice at first.  The girl proceeds to select a drink from the display, when the man finally notices, and tells her politely... "Ah, sumimasen, sonno ga..."

Which pretty much translates to, "Um, sorry, but...[are you a freaking idiot?]"
-- okay okay, guilty as charged, I added in some verbal flair in the translation.
 
But seriously....Who in the right mind actually believes that the machine should work when it is swung wide open with a technician clearly working on the insides.  Seriously. 

 
The man kindly returns the coins that the girl put into the machine (since they probably just fell to return slot be default), and the girl looks embarrassed and apologizes.  As she should.

 
Seriously now.  That made my morning.  I couldn't stop laughing.
 
I had a friend visit from Beijing last week.  SARS was getting pretty bad there, so he figured he could spend some time in the only SARS free asian country for a bit.  At first we had planned to visit Kyoto or Osaka, but given that it was unclear whether or not the situation would get bad enough that he might not be allowed to come, I decided that I didn't want to be the one holding 2 tickets to Osaka and have to go by myself. (no jokes here please).  So we ended up staying in Tokyo, and visiting all the touristy places which I have never been to myself.  The Ramen Museum, Sea Paradise, KabukiCho, Shibuya, Asakusa, even watched Xmen2.  Though after it all our best experience was at Bic Camera.  As I have mentioned before, BicCamera sells cameras and everything else under the sun.  The best part is that in the furniture department, they have all the massage chairs which people can try out.  Lemme tell you, $2000 is money well spent if put into one of these massage chairs.  They work magic, and I can't think of any other piece of furniture that I'd rather buy.  After spending a long day on your feet.  BicCamera and their massage chair section is my saviour. 

 
After he returned to Beijing,  I developed a cough and sore throat.  As a precaution, I was put into SARS quarantine, and have been sitting at home for the last 3 days bored out of my mind.  I do not have a fever, and the doctor said that I was negative for signs of pneumonia, so things should be okay.  But it gave me a scare anyhow.

During our week holiday, we visited Yasukuni Jinja Shrine, the same one that caused a public outcry from China and Korea the last time Prime Minister Koizumi visited.  Here is a link to another foreigners account of the visit. Short, concise and better described than what I could do myself. http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/spirit/yasukuni/.  I'm not going to inundate you with information that you can no doubt find yourself on the internet, but the most interesting thing I found there was the extensive use of euphemisms.  Anyhow, you'll see a picture I have below on just that note.

 
Finally, a short digression on Pokemon.  Those of us who watch South Park, may have recalled a spoof episode called "Chimpokemon".  I saw it recently and thought that it was hilarious.  I told my Japanese friends about it, (who I have turned on to South Park) and recommended this episode.  At the mere mention of its name, I got a very surprised response.

 
"Hey Oshio-san, you have to see this episode, its all about pokemon, except they call them chimpokemon"!
<surprised look on Oshio's face> Then a laugh.  "What?"
"Chimpokemon", I say louder.
"shhhhh!", Oshio motions... "not so loud!"
"Why?  What does chimpokemon mean??"
<Oshio laughs a longer stifled laugh> "ummm something, ur, very bad."
"what?" I say quieter.
"chimpoko means ermm...<searches for the english word> reproductive organ"?
I laugh.  Looks like those South Park creators did their research for that episode.  In fact, its such a bad word (and never used in speech, even as a curse word) that my friends hash [####] out the word when replying to my emails regarding the episode.

 
So funny.
 
With that, I leave you with pictures from Tokyo.

More totally misleading cigarette ads.  "Super Coolness"!  Makes it sound like they are selling breath mints or something.

 


The old imperial flag of Japan.  Snarfed out of the war musuem.




The Nanking "Incident".  I like that.  Great euphemism.

 
 
 

It has been quite some time since the last journal entry.  Apologies.  To be sure, it's not that you have been deliberately removed from my list with extreme prejudice, but that things have just gotten to a level of comfort here that does not lend itself to the necessary excitement level required to drive a journal entry.

Yes.  My life is boring.

Oral hygiene.

Yes, that is indeed the topic of the day. 
3 out of every 4 times I go to the bathroom, someone is in there brushing their teeth.  Obsessively.  Not that its wrong or too odd to find someone brushing their teeth in the toilet, but just that it happens so frequently.  Couple this with the fact of the rumours I hear from almost every one of my friends that the dentistry industry here is of ill-repute and very poor in standards.  Malpractice is commonplace, getting stabbed in the gums with a sharp object almost a guarantee. 

The word is, the standard of university education is pretty lax compared to highschool, and most people cruise through on reputation and prestige and not on actual hard work or grades.  What results is that the best students become doctors, and the rest, well, become dentists.  I have heard first hand accounts of friends coming back from a regular cleaning with a mouth full of gauze and blood.

Well, now that I have all got your appetites up and about,

McDonalds. 
I might have already mentioned that they have McCurry Pies here, but this weekend I encountered the epitome of regionalization...The McTofu burger.  Yep.  Strangely, I resisted the urge to try it instead opting for a burger with some sort of animal flesh inside.  Perhaps next time.

See for yourself...



Due to popular demand, (and tight space requirements of your internet inboxes) I will continue to give you pictures from my keitai, and leave my nice digital cam at home where it is happy collecting dust.

Weird pics from Tokyo:....

You know you want to go,
Where everybody knows your name...




English basics.

They seem to elude most of the advertisers here.  Time and time again, I am faced with great examples of bad english translations.  Some funny, some not so funny.  Here are the funny ones.

This is an ad for a new ADSL ISP competing with NTT and Yahoo for the broadband market. 
The ad shows a girl, using her computer, thinking dreamily about several model male specimens with whom to chat with.
The caption reads:  "Since the boys are great all the members, Jesse cannot choose."




Not so intelligent after all neh?



More strange Juice.  I love this stuff.  Didn't your mother tell you to drink your Bean Juice when you were little?


This floor of the games ARCADE did not allow guys without an accompanying female to enter.  Go figure.  How's THAT for discrimination?




These shady dudes are looking to recruit young impressionable women for um... 'small screen movie' careers. 



This old lady needed the help of her kids to walk.  But apparently, that doesn't mean she can't be fashionably cool.
She had purple dyed hair.




This is "----- Miho"  Don't remember if that was her last name or first.  She's quite a famous established 'over 30' actress and model.  I think she's awesome.

Any women who can drink that much beer is tops in my books.



Finally, this is Buddy.  Buddy is a dog.  Buddy is a dog of a friend of mine.  Buddy is not a female, though sometimes, he gets confused.




DJC out.

Nothing. 

That's what came to mind when I thought about what to write about in this week's journal. 

Perhaps there comes a time when you've been at a place long enough such that things cease to be novel, and become routine. 

Perhaps that magical time hovers around the 5 month mark. 

5 months to the day.

Also, recently I have been too busy to write (gasp! Is that possible?) which basically means that I get home at 11pm, shower and crash.  Working on the trading floor has its advantages and disadvantages.  I took a picture of the floor with my new camera and was thinking of posting it here so that you can share in the fun, but then images of a big burly man with a pink slip from the central compliance department made me decide otherwise.  However, I can assure you that it is a busy place, with less screaming than the NY office, but more buzz than the almost funeral-like quiet at Akasaka Tameike.

I went to Asakusa (not Akasaka!) last weekend.  It's an older part of Tokyo where there is still a decent sized buddist temple.  Its hard to tell with Japanese buddist temples, since they lack the centerpiece of most Buddist temples -- i.e. Buddha.  I guess its like Christianity, with its many sects, some with a freeze of Christ on a cross, some with just the wooden cross, and some with a basketball net and a backboard.  To each his own.

Yesterday was the first day I didn't need to wear a jacket to work.  It was very warm.  Spring has come into full bloom and hanami (cherry blossom watching) season is here.  I know the concept of going out to watch cherry blossoms brings forth memories of watching grass grow back in my school days, but it actually is quite enjoyable (at least compared to the grass).  I don't know what it is about these cherry trees that make them so ethereal, almost dreamlike, in beauty.  Perhaps it is the contrast between the dark black boughs and the white pink blossoms.  Makes me think of the beauty of winter, without the cold.

Anyhow, I'll include pictures after this weekend, as I am going to do some "watching" with friends.

Driving. 
As you may or may not know, they drive on the wrong side of the street here.  But, as I learned from a friend last week, you can actually purchase a car that has its driver side on the left side (like in US or Europe) and it is perfectly legal for you to use it here.  Very weird.  I wonder if it makes left (I mean right) turns more difficult.  Oddly enough, I have never seen a road accident since I have come here. 

Bank fees. 
I received a cheque from the insurance company for my damaged dresser.  Yes, although they did a great job of keeping most of my furniture in the best condition, somewhere along the way, my dresser got its bottom panel crushed in.  "IKEA", Swedish for "Common Sense", but obviously not for "Quality".  Anyways, I walk 20 mins one sunny lunchtime to the closest Citibank, my bastion of western civilization in the east.  After waiting about 15 min, (they have only 2 tellers) I go up to deposit my cheque, only to discover to my chagrin that they charge a 1000yen fee for cheques!  1000 yen!  That is a lunch!  A good lunch at that!  I grudgingly agree to the fee (seeing as there are no other alternatives to getting the money deposited) and finish with my business.  I spend the whole 20 min it took to walk back to the office thinking about what a rip off it is to deposit a cheque.  I can only imagine how enraged people would be in the US if the banks charged a $10 fee for depositing a cheque.  Gaddammit.

I had my first frustrating japanese language experience this week.  I bought a TV tuner card for my computer so that I could finally get some TV channels into my home.  Unbeknownst to me, the instruction manuals were in Japanese, and unlike other stuff where I am generally able to muddle along at a snails pace, a technical manual is something that you don't want to be in a language that you can't read.  Especially since I know diddlysquat about TV tuners, setting channel frequencies, DV encoding etc.  To top it all off, the software would not even install unless I had japanese windows.  And the error message that tell me so were, of course, in japanese, which looks like a bunch of ??????'s on my computer.  After about 1.5 hours, I was finally able to get channels 1-12 working but not the BS channels.  Yes.  The BS channels.  Despite what you are thinking 'BS' stands for "Best Satellite".  As I have stated many times in the past, they really need to hire a better marketing person to translate things to english here.  I found it very funny that I needed to by a BS box to decode all the BS coming into my house.

On the topic of the japanese language.  After studying for 4 months, I can safely say that japanese is a difficult language to learn.  The structure is pretty consistent, but phonetically, if you do not know kanji, and are memorizing how to say words by their sound alone (like me); you will have problems.  Take the fact that so many words sound so much alike but mean completely different things.  I know that this problem occurs in many languages, but at least in those languages, the meanings are completely unrelated.  For instance, in chinese "sheung" could mean "photograph", "to go up", "to want", "a crate", "above" etc etc... (I can think of about 6 meanings).  But because the meanings are unrelated, or are different parts of speech (one is a noun, another is an adjective) context alone is enough to tell you which meaning people are referring to. 

But in Japanese you have words like:

"ooh" which means both "big" AND "small" (among many others)
"Kurai" -> Black, "Karui" -> Light
"Keiko desu" -> No thanks, "Keiko Desu" -> Yes, please.
"Kiite" -> to listen.  "Kiite" -> to speak
"Katte" -> To buy, "Kaitte" -> To return, "Kaete" -> To change

My brain starts spinning...

Anyhow, gambarimasu.

Coke.

The drug addiction of the world.  When I first got here, I thought that the coke tasted funny, even a little watered down, but I didn't know why that was.  Then I found out.  Any of you remember the old "New Coke" that came out in 1985 or there abouts?  Well, guess what.  That's the coke here.  If you recall the story, back in the 80's, piggybacking off the Back to the Future craze, The Coca-Cola Company decided to launch a multi-billion dollar campaign to change its 60 year old recipe for Coke.  Commericials were made, ads were printed, celebrities were hired, new cans and logos were manufactured, tonnes of the new formula produced.  Then what happened?  It all flopped.  Everyone in the western world rejected the new taste.  Too sweet.  Too watery.  Too weird, many would say.  It was even rumoured that people rejected the new taste because it lacked one secret ingredient from the old coke... Cocaine.  (yeah right)  Millions of dollars were lost in the production and manufacturing of the new formula.  Coke quickly pulled a 360.  Within 6 months of its release, New Coke was canned <drum roll please> and the "new" Coca-Cola Classic was its replacement.  Once again, celebrities were hired, ads printed, commercials aired.  Success.  People adopted the Coke Classic as their cola of choice.  Coca-Cola had rescued what could have been a multi-million dollar fiasco that would have allowed Pepsi to take the lead in the cola wars.  All was good again. 

But there was a small problem... what to do with the millions of litres of the New Coke formula already produced and sitting in storage?

Sell it to Japan!  They'll by anything american, and they are ideal customers since nobody ever complains about anything.

Result?

I order orange juice or coffee at McDonalds now.  I can't stand that watery/lemony/NutraSweet laced flavour of New Coke.  I'd rather drink water.

On McDonalds, I thought that you might find it interesting to know that you can order a Mc Curry Pie.  Its actually quite yummy.  Like an oiler version of a samosa.  Japanese people love curry.



Finally, SARS.

Everyone is going into a panic because it seems to be spreading like crazy in HK.  My coworkers there tell me that 1 in 3 people on the streets are wearing breath masks, where that was previously unheard of in the city.  With a reported 316 people infected in HK, and over 1000 in south east asia, the panic level is rising.  Perhaps the last 100 years of using anti-biotics have taken their toll.  In doing so we have collectively accelerated the evolution of bacteria by killing off the weaker of the species.  And perhaps in a post-apocalyptic Darwinian fashion, its payback time.  Which makes one think:  Man has always aspired to prolong his life span on this planet.  Since Ponce DeLyon first set off to search for the fountain of youth, we have systematically and methodically eradicated diseases, created enhancing drugs, perfected life saving surgery, and invented devices to protect the weak and the feable from an otherwise short end.  In our arrogance we have assumed that while we continually invent new ways to defeat nature, nature can do nothing to stop us.  Well, one thing that I have observed in the 26 years of my time here is that nature always has a way of balancing things out.  Perhaps an occasional epidemic, like AIDS, cancer, wars or SARS is just nature saying "Hey, Man, there are way too many of you alive on this rock now, and I can't support you anymore, we need to keep the population in check".  

Food for thought.

Well, at least, stuff I think about while on the subway in the morning, face stuffed into somebody's armpit.



This installments photos from TKO:


I saw this at Oookayama Station.  They have a cute little machine that just vends snicker bars.  Nothing else.  And it looks like a cross between a telephone and a VCR.


This is my friends and I at Asakusa.  A little commercialized, but the best you can get without going to Kyoto.


Some little Buddha cakes at Asakusa.  They are filled with red bean paste.  Mmmm... Reeeed beaan paaste.


The preferred choice of every undead in Japan.


Behold, it's Galadriel, Queen of the green woods of Lothlorien. 
Hey Frodo, you got a light?



Djc out.

Time to talk about the negatives.

I figure since I've showered Japan with 16 installments of praise, heralding everything from their coin system to their toilets, its seems high time to start talking about the not-so-good things about this place.  The stuff they don't want people talking about.  The stuff that might get censored at the nations border gateway routers before reaching you all in other parts of the globe.  But the truth is worth bringing to light, for that is always the first step in change.

Bad Influence.

Some of you may have been reading how the WTO has been pressuring Japan to revise their stance on the tabacco industry.  As it stands, Japan has the highest percentage of smokers in the world, second only to the US.  Lung cancer is the biggest killer in Japan, beating out liver cancer, AIDS, and heart attacks.

Ever wonder why?

Here's a couple of shots from a cute exercise worksheet from my japanese class.  It depicts little Akiko doing different things around the house.  (Things I'm supposed to describe in japanese)  Follow the sequence.




Akikochan wa terebi o mite imasu.
(little Akiko is watching TV)


Akikochan wa eigo o benkyoshite imasu.
(little Akiko is studying english)


Akikochan wa, uta o utatteimasu.
(little Akiko is singing a song)


Akikochan wa, sutteimasu!!!

(and you wonder why they have a problem here with pre-teens and the habit)

What's worse, in Japan the industry makes liberal use of misleading ads and slogans for cigarettes, including phrases/words like "lights", "flair", "fresh clean taste", "low tar"  etc.  In addition, ads always depict a beautiful foreign woman, or a couple on a 'Club Med'-ish beach, sipping on coconut juice and basking in the sun.  Never of a person smoking.  Ads directed at males depict the classic cowboy with stetson, in wild open prairie country, on a horse, with clean fresh nature and mountains in the background. 

How absolutely appropriate for a cigarette ad.

Some ads almost made me believe that smoking them might be HEALTHY.  A Virgina Flairs ad showed a woman, with green eyes, reclining in a pure white dress sitting in the middle of a forest alcove in front of a mountain spring.  If I didn't know better, I'd think she was Galadriel, the matriarch of the elves in the magic woods of Lothlorien, in Lord of the Rings.  The ad was more suited for a feminine hygene product than cigarettes.  Of course, being of the educated class, I knew better.  But lord knows what these ads are doing to the minds of the young and impressionable. 

The WTO has recently put forth a international bill to outlaw the sponsorship of sports events by cigarette companies and the use of misleading cigarette advertisements for all member countries.  But Japan, USA and Germany are opposed to it.  Not surprising, since the government owns over 2/3 of the industry (which has not completely privatized as yet) and is no doubt paying loans and subsidizing their tax income with tobacco profits.  "Smoking their way out of the economic slump" kind of strategy, I like to call it.  Unfortunately, at the expense of the health of the population.  But given that the country is already having serious problems paying the pensions all the baby boomers retiring, maybe reducing the life span of the younger generation by several decades is not such a bad idea.  Albeit an immoral one.  But who am I to judge.

I must apologize to all my friends on this list who are smokers.  If you enjoy smoking, all the power to you.  If you smoke just because you need to, then I implore you to quit.  I'd like to see you around when we are all 75 years of age; we can start up the pinochle club of the class of 2000.

So, now that we've cleared the air, <drum roll please> onto the topic of

Colds.

I have yet another cold.  It seems that my body actively searches out and acquires every known flu bug and virus in this country.  Like a rabid coin collector at a nickel convention in Sudbury, I seem to pick them up everytime a new strain is introduced to me via co-workers. (or short bald men on the subways)  I'm told that when moving from one region of the world to another (especially a clean one or one that uses antibotics) the body needs time to get accustomed to the regional virus strains, and to build up its own resistance against them.  (IE you need to get sick a lot).  Needless to say, I've been putting that "random bag o' drugs" they gave me to good use.

Digital heaven!

I finally got a digital camera.  I ended up getting the Canon S45, a model that I was itching to buy when I was in the States.  Actually, back then, it was the S40, but after waiting 4 months, and I got the next model up for the same price.  Look for future picture attachements to be bigger, badder, and uncut. (Stole that from somewhere)

Comedy (of lack of it)

Apparently, there are no comedy clubs in Tokyo.  The brand of japanese humour revolves around physical humour, like dropping a brick on somebody's head.  Or eating an entire watermelon in 30 secs then spewing chunks over your partner.  Rodney Dangerfield is turning in his grave.  What I wouldn't give for some Seinfeld now.



This week's pics from Tokyo:


Actually, it looks better than this, but it didn't occur to me to take a picture until after we had eaten about half of it, and made an entire mess of the whole thing.  Still, sesame tofu is yummy.


Who wouldn't give blood with an ad like that? 
Soon, the government will have Hello Kitty brand cigarettes.  Wouldn't that be cute?




Uh oh.  Its payback time.  The PC police are going to have a field day with this pic! 



djc out.

I went snowboarding last weekend at Kita Shiga Ryuo in Nagano prefecture.  Yes, where they held
the winter olympics in 1998.  Well not exactly, but close enough.

It was fun. 
I tried jumps, I jammed quarter pipes, I ripped powder,
I lost my Keitai. 

My beautiful little keitai.  Somewhere between the Jo-kyuu (black diamond) slopes in the
narrow powdered forested backcountry, it must have fallen out of my pocket.
All 5000 yen worth of it...

I was soo happy!  I finally had an excuse to buy a new keitai!  I had been eyeing the new model that came out recently that has an SVGA resolution 2" screen and 16million colours.  And its only 15,000yen.   On the bus ride home, everyone was trading phone numbers and taking pictures with their keitais.  I felt so left out.  Then my friend Sawako gets the brilliant idea to call my phone to see if anyone had found it.  I had earlier discounted the possibility that anyone would find my little phone in the deep powder on the slopes.  She rang the number, and lo-and-behold someone answers!  After a quick discussion in japanese, she tells me that my phone was fine and that they would send it back to my apartment.  OIJ! 

One weekend later, at the prescribed time exactly, I get a knock at the door.  The delivery guy brings my phone, my curtains and my snowboard to me.  The snowboard and the curtains were paid for, but the phone was C.O.D., and I was very pleased to learn it cost me only 640yen.  $6.  Wow.  Not only that, it was packaged expertly in a little box, double protected in 2 layers of bubble wrap, and the ski resort even threw in a little yellow souvenir neck strap for me, so that presumably next time I won't be that absent minded.  OIJ! 

Which brings me to deliveries.  I've mentioned before that delivery service is second to none in Japan.  Here, everyone delivers everything.  Seeing that most people don't have cars, there are numerous delivery services that will delivery your items (like skis and snowboards) to the ski resort, and bring them back to your house for you.  And unlike federal express or UPS, your items will arrive in one piece without any special packaging.  The service I used was called 'Black Cat', and unlike the connotations that the name stirs in your gutter laden minds, its just the name of the delivery service.  I brought my snowboard bag to the local cenvenience store, filled in a form, and left it with them.  No special packaging or hassle.  Then miraculously, my snowboard arrives at the hotel before I do, and then returns back to my apartment a couple of days after I return from the trip.  All for the low low price of 2000 yen.  I love it.

Public baths.

Yeah, they are what you've heard.  Basically a room with one big communal hot tub, a couple of sitting scrub centers along the wall, and a lot of naked people everywhere.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you view it) they separate males from females.  So the procedure goes, you first step into an antechamber with a lot of cubbyholes on the walls, strip down to your birthday suit, grab your little wash rag (which japanese people refer to as a 'towel') and hop on into the 'bath'room.  You then sit yourself down in one of the scrub centers (as I so affectionately call them) which have a little shower head, and a couple of buckets, and a little short stool.  After washing with the communal soap and shampoo (the traditional method being to use the little bucket to dump water over yourself like I once saw a monkey do on the Discovery Channel) you are then ready to hit the hot bath.  If it is a real hot vocanic spring, then it is called an onsen, if it is just hot water, then there is another name for it. (which I do not remember).  Quite a --ahem-- liberating experience, and one that for obvious reasons I do not have any little keitai pictures of.  One caveat is that the water is damned hot.  Well over 40degrees and probably closer to 50deg.  It was funny when one of the swedish guys in our group turned red as a cooked lobster after only 5 min in the onsen. 

On to the wash rags.  I refuse to call them towels because they are nowhere near the size of a real towel, nor do they have the required nap.  These rags are just 2 feet long, 1 foot wide and thin enough to see through.  They look like the kind of thing that Lucielle Ball used to wear on her head on 'I Love Lucy'.  When I realized that our discount hotel did not provide towels for the bath, I went downstairs to the convenience store in the lobby to buy one.  My returnee friend Sawako came along to help translate, and to get one herself.

Sawako: <some japanese dialog>
Clerk: <some japanese response>
"Do you want a regular towel for 200yen or a 'hotel' towel for 700yen?" - Sawako asks me,
"Uh, I dunno, how big is the regular towel?" I ask her.  She relays the message to the clerk.
"About this big", Sawako motions with her hands indicating a size close to the size of my TV screen.
"What? Are you sure that's a bath towel?  How am I supposed to dry myself with a rag that small?", I ask surprised.
Sawako just shrugs, "It's japanese size, that's what I'm going to buy, we just manage".
That comment erased all doubt.  To hell with it.  If this is what japanese people used, and this is what she was going to use, then I'll be darned if I couldn't cope with the same.  I mean, Sawako has a lot more hair than I do.

"Okay then, when in Rome, be a Roman", I affirm, and plop down my yen on the counter with confidence.

[a little Roman with nothing more than a thin loin cloth to cover up with -- I think to myself]

Hotels out of Tokyo rarely have western style rooms.  Instead they are always little cozy tatami mat rooms with short tables and a lot of cushion chairs.  I've taken a liking to tatami rooms, as I feel they are so more cozy than a regular room with chairs, tables and beds.  It must be something about sitting on the smooth tatami mat, or the ability to stretch out and lie down however you want.  At night, you just move the table to one side, and pull out the futons on the floor.  In this fashion 4-6 people share a room in an efficient communal type fashion (which really sucks if someone snores).  The toilet at our hotel had an interesting little sign.  When I first saw it I laughed out loud.  My roomates where probably wondering what I was finding so gosh-darned funny in the toilet.  Attached is the picture of the 'instructions'.

Candies.  The japanese have a tradition here which is similar to the chinese one where you bring candies and sweets as gifts to people you visit.  Except here, there is a whole candy industry centered around candy called 'omiyage' that you bring back after you have been on vacation or been travelling.  After you return from a trip, you are supposed to bring omiyage to your friends and coworkers from the locale that you visited.  And, in typical japanese style, attention to detail is extreme, as the packaging for the omiyage can get very elaborate. 

At work, the desks are continually stocked with omiyage from various coworkers.  One could easily get fat here, if it were not for the fact that we eat so much raw fish.

On the topic of raw foods, add chicken to the list of things that I have tried raw.  What can I say, it was a long night at a yakitori bar, we had a couple of drinks, one thing led to another, and whammo, next thing I know, I'm dipping my chopsticks into raw unadulterated poultry. 

Quite unsurprisingly, it tasted like chicken.



I sure hope that samenella is not an epidemic here in Japan.

I leave you now with this weeks pictures from the far east.




Who wouldn't find this funny on the wall of a toilet!  I only wish I could read the characters to see what the proper procedure really was.


Everything in Japan comes in 'sets'.  A 'Set' meal, a 'set' of funiture, a movie ticket 'set'.  While browsing around Bic Camera, I see the current appliance sets on sale.  You can get a fridge, washer, TV, and even a bicycle in some sets.  I call it the "home starter kit" sets.


I'm sure this would be a real hit back home in the States and Canada.  Think about how cool you would be wearing these shoes!


A pic of the view from mid mountain at Kita Shiga Ryuo. (sent before I lost my keitai of course)


The cute little neck strap that the ski resort sent me along with my keitai.


Party pics:  You asked for it, here they are.  An all night social gathering at upscale club Soho in Omotesando.
To protect their privacy, persons depicted will remain nameless.  That's me in the blue. :P


Rainly busy Saturday night at Shibuya.


Silver treats omiyage.  A friend brought these back from India.  I ate a couple of bites before I thought to inquire about the shiny metallic foil on the cookie.  Turns out it is edible silver.  It went straight to the garbage pail thereafter.



djc out.

Wednesday morning.  I receive this curious mail in my inbox:
<Ahem> And I quote...

 


Please read and take action as necessary
 
 
Annual Distribution of Medicine from Tokyo Securities Health Insurance Association  
As a participant in the Tokyo Securities Health Insurance Plan as of January 1, 2003 , you will soon receive a bag of medicine. 
 
Should you not need this or last year's medicine, please forward it to ##### ####### (x #####) in  the Charitable Services of Executive Administration.
The medicine will be used for charities. 
 
If you have any question,  please contact ##### ####  (x##### ) in Human Capital Management. 
 
本日より順次、袋詰めの家庭常備薬を各部署へ配布いたします。この救急箱の配布対象は平成15 年1月1日以前に入社された東京証券業健康保険組合の被保険者となりますのでご承知おきください。
 
お配りする常備薬、又は昨年お配りした常備薬を必要とされない方はチャリティーに役立てますのでExecutive Administration部門のチャリタブル·サービス  ##さん (x#####) 宛社内便でお送りください。
 
お問い合わせ等ありましたら、人事部 ##(x#####)までご連絡下さい。

</Ahem>

A bag of medicine?  The health plans here entitle me to a goodie bag of random drugs?!?  I burst out laughing.

Shashi, and Oshio-san glance up from their computer screens, wondering what all the commotion is about.

"They give you a yearly bag of drugs?" I say, probably a little too loudly.
"Yeah, what's so funny about that?", Shashi looks confused.
"We get DRUGS?  I mean, its a B-A-G OF D-R-U-G-S! -- I dunno, it just sounds so silly, its funny!" I protest, laughing.
I guess its contagious because Shashi starts to laugh too, all the while, shaking his head and saying,
"Why is it so funny?  What's wrong with that?"
I stop trying to explain rationally, and just shrug my shoulders.
"I guess its the way they put it in such an official mail.  'Because you are one of the priviledged subscribers to our health plan, you will soon get your annual doggie bag full of random drugs' -- doesn't that strike you as hilarious?"

Shashi just shakes his head and goes back to work.

I'm probably getting really popular here at the office, for all the wrong reasons.

Valentines Day.

Another big capitalist scam, designed to drain the pockets of all males in order to lubricate the wheels of the ecomony all for the noble cause of wooing our women.

At least Valentines Day had its roots (though foggy) in the catholic feast of celebration for St. Valentine.

Not in Japan. (I seem to say that enough to warrant an acronym -- NIJ)
Here, Valentines Day is a holiday cooked up by the for-profit capitalist minded Meiji Chocolate Company, who, seeing the lucrative profits in getting the masses to purchase large stocks of confectionaries on said day, decided to promote the western holiday here.  They start out with ads for chocolates aimed at the young and fashionable well-to-do population.
That was 15 years ago.
Now, Valentines Day is in full western glory save one thing -- it's the women who buy the chocolates for the men!

As history has shown time and time again, the japanese excel at taking a completely foreign concept and adapting it so that it becomes uniquely japanese.  In Japan, it is very very uncommon for a man to publicly woo a woman.  Or shower her with gifts.  Or to even look her in the eye for more than a brief moment.  That would be deemed as 'saamui' or uncool.  Public displays of affection are beyond taboo; they exist only in the intricate subculture of the urban night sprawl and never sees the light of day.  So, being sensitive to this cultural caveat, the perceptive Meiji Confectionary Company decided to aim its V-Day ad campaign at women, claiming that on this day, it is customary for women to buy chocolates for the men (nb. plural) in her life.

Yep. Yep.
Guys, rejoice and be merry.

One catch though!  Exactly one month from Valentines Day is White Day (oh I hope the PC police don't nail me for that one).  On White Day, guys who received chocolates from girls on Valentines Day are suppose to return the favour tenfold, in the form of candies and gifts.  Tenfold.  Yep, so be prepared to shell out a couple 10,000 (ichiman) yen.

(Note to editor: It might be worth mentioning that my sources on this topic were very noticeably women, and they could be lacing the information herein for their benefit. hmm...)

Sadly, I only got chocolates from my japanese teacher.  I was very very surprised when she gave them to me, since I didn't know about this inverse custom until later that night.  Now the issue is what do I buy her for White Day?

Which leads me to my second topic, 'Returnees'.  Unbeknownst to me, there is a cultural rift that exists between japanese people.  On one side you have the ones who were born in Japan, on the other the ones
that were born abroad, and returned to Japan to work.  Until I met Yukiko, Junko, and Tomoko (the above mentioned unnamed sources), I didn't even know that this class division of people existed.  (though I should have, being sort of a 'returnee' myself as a 2nd generation chinese canadian).  I was so impressed when one second, they are speaking japanese complete with high pitched girly voices, and the next,
they would sound like the sisters in the popular TV show, 'Charmed'.  Perhaps it was because of their Beverly Hills californian accent.  (In so far as someone who has never been to Beverly Hills can tell).  We went out to a yakiniku place to eat, which is basically akin to korean barbeque, except that you take off your shoes and sit on the cozy floor.

Yukiko mentions that they serve raw liver here, so I couldn't pass up the chance the try it.  Curious to find out what raw liver tastes like (Just in case I ever get stuck in the middle of the frozen arctic with nothing more than an icepick and my grade 10 gym teacher) I heartily dig in.
Mushy, cold, nicely seasoned with a delicate taste.  Actually quite delicious!  Nothing like what I had envisioned (judging by the smell of raw liver back home)  I guess the miracle of soya sauce, sesame seeds
and chives never ceases to delight.


The Subway. (chikatetsu)

Like every morning I find myself on the crowded happy happy fun car.  It's very odd how everyone is dead silent in the trains.  In fact, even speaking on your keitai is banned to ensure your ride is as silent as possible.  Everyone is either reading the newspaper, reading a book (which is always wrapped in a little protective cover) sleeping while sitting, sleeping while standing or trying to ignore the fact that they are breathing onto somebody else's bald spot. (I bought one of those little face masks the day after this happened to me)  This time though, an odd ad catches my eye.


Yes.  I scowled a grimace that made the saruriman (salaryman) beside me glance up from his newspaper.



Diet Beer.
D I E T  B E E R.
Who was the marketing genious behind this gem?  I take a couple more pictures of the product, and of the cartoon ad of a chubby fellow drinking the beer, thinking dreamily to himself about all the calories that he is missing out on.  Wunderbar!

OIJ.  -- (Only in Japan)

This week's photos from my keitai.  (see attached)

At the time I thought the pic of Col. Sanders (taken in HK) looked chinese.  Now I'm beginning to think that he's more japanese.  Um...maybe *I'm* the one who is regionalized, and not the Colonel. (squint hard, while thinking about "David Suzuki")





A little bit of Canadian influence made it all the way
here across the pacific!  Go Canada!

Crowded trains... oh sometimes its not good being soo much taller than everyone else...



Raw Liver. Eating it will extend your life by years. Unless you happen to eat one from an alcoholic cow.



djc out.

Seeing that we are into well over a dozen installments of pure inbox blowing fun, I thought I would take this opportunity to give an chance for those of you out there to 'opt out' of these mailings.  Understanding that some of you out there would rather not get my mails, but at the same time, see it as too pretentious or embarrassing to request to be removed from the mailing list, I have devised the following scheme:  I propose to flip the situation.  If you want out, then this is the LAST journal you will get from me.  If you would like to CONTINUE to receive these mails, then please mail me indicating so.  This is under my assumption that if you enjoy getting these mails, then you will probably take the effort to mail me to let me know to keep you on the list.  This will spare those of you who want to opt out the effort of doing so.  (so nobody gets offended!)  So if you want me to stop bothering you, then just do nothing!  And presto, nothing begets nothing.  Now if only government was this simple.



On to the journal:

Instant food. 

You all have heard of them, or have even tried some of the noodle kind that the asian countries export.  Well, today I decided I'd give some a try. 

There are these little packages sold at the snack shop at the office with a picture of the Iron Chef on them.  They depict a bowl of soup, complete with vegetables, tofu, etc etc... but the package is the size of a keitai (cellphone).  No way can they fit a whole soup's worth in there -- I reason.  Boy, was I wrong!  They sell for 130yen a pop, so they are pretty cheap.  I buy a couple.  (there are about 8 different soup flavours).  On the pantry of every floor, there is a little hot water dispenser that dispenses 98degree (celsius!) water.  That is BEYOND scalding.  Many times I have cursed the machine when I accidentally spashed some water on my hands while I was making tea.  Today, I discovered why it was necessary to have the water so hot -- To make instant food. 

I open up the package.  To my surprise, the soup "cube" is small even compared to the package, about 5cm x 3cm x 2cm.  I drop it into a paper cup, put it under the water dispenser, pull my sleeve over my hand, turn my face the other way, and let er rip.  No splash accidents.  To my surprise, the little cube expands and turns into a full cup of soup, complete with all the little chives, tofu bits, kimchee etc... just like the picture.  Holy log-jams batman!  Kudos to the Iron Chef!  I give it a try.  Oishiii! (yummy) It beats the pants off of the lipton cup o' soups that I remember back home, which always had an issue with not being thoroughly dissolved.  When I visit, I'll remember to stock up on these little things.

Appliance shopping.  An arduous, and sometimes fun task to every new homeowner (or leasee).  Though when you don't speak the language, a completely different experience. 

I went shopping for curtains.  Thankfully, a friend of mine took me there, and did most of the talking with the sales guy.  There was only one problem.  I had not measured my windows, and was judging sizes by memory. 

Isn't the brain a funny thing?

I misjudged by about 20 cm on the length and about 30 cm on the width.  Shucks.  So off I go a day later to exchange them.  Minus the friend.

What followed is what I like to call, Japanese in the Real World: Lesson 2.  (Lesson 1 was trying to communicate with a broker who didn't speak any english the second week I was here)  The guy was very friendly, and I quickly found out that if you start every interaction with "I'm very very sorry, my japanese is very bad... but" (in japanese)  everything seems to go a heck of a lot smoother.  Anyhow I think I basically said something that could be compared to caveman talk.  "Curtains no sizu wa chigamasu -- exchanji onegaishimasu?", while embellishing each word with mime hand signals.

The sales person just bows and nods his head with a seemingly understanding look on his face.  But seeing as I started out with the "foreigner excuse" I guess he understood me because he takes my curtains (which I never opened) and continues to process my exchange.

Which brings me to my next topic. 

Service.

The service here in Japan is second to none.  Well, I guess I have been to some fancy restaurants in NYC which was better, but here, the service is excellent wherever you go, and it is not directly proportional to the tip they will be expecting from you.  (which is none, since that is not the custom).

One facet of the service level is the delivery services.  Everybody delivers.  Not just the pizza guy, but the airport (for your baggage), and department stores too!  And the best part is that delivery is very very affordable.  I had my curtains delivered for the small price of 300yen.  That is like $2.50usd.  That's completely insane.  Insanely awesome that is.  I guess in a city where only the very well-to-do's have cars, everyone needs a way to bring the nice things that you buy back to their homes.  And believe me, the trains are NOT answer (see later).  I had the heater and humidifier that I bought from Bic Camera (yes that is supposed to be BIG Camera, but japanese people pronouce "big" as "bick" -- and yes, I realize that you would think such a store would sell only cameras but they carry all appliances AND even has a wine section.  Yes. Believe it).  Anyhow, it only cost a measly 1000yen to have my 11kg radiator and a humidifier delivered out to my suburban apartment on a Sunday morning.  I recall how it cost $100 to deliver furniture from Ikea back in the US.  Supply and demand I guess.

Speaking of which, my humidifier and heater.  I had a very very interesting time trying to read their instruction manuals.  Thankfully most of the warnings came with a cutesy little diagram that made it obvious what you shouldn't be doing... like pouring water over your electric heater, or sprinkling paper confetty onto it... etc etc.  In one particular case though, my humidifier has this caution warning without a picture.  It said something about 40C water temperature, but whether it was trying say NOT to use water over 40C or ONLY use water over 40C I couldn't tell.  I must admit my brain wasn't functioning too well that day, but I was baffled at why they even NEEDED to say something as obvious as this if they meant for us NOT to use +40C water.  That made me think that this was some "special" humidifier that needed you to fill up with scalding hot water in order for it to work. 

Thankfully though, I called up a friend for a sanity check, and the humidifier and I have remained in a happy working relationship ever since.  Apparently some japanese people like to use the hot water from their tubs to fill up the humidifier.  (???) -- (!!!)  Anyhow, I have included some of the funnier clips from the manuals.

Finally, the subways.

Gosh darn, you have not experienced Tokyo until you have squished yourself onto a train during the morning commute.  "Sardine" is not a sufficient word for it.   Standing there at the Oyamadai station the first morning after my move, I was horrified with the train pulled up with people squished so close to the windows, that you can see their breath mist patterns.   The doors opened up and some people fell out unintentially.  To my continued chagrin the people waiting with me started to push their way into the car.  "heck... why not" I thought to myself as I pushed in trying to find room for my foot which seemed like it would prevent the doors from closing.  The doors shut, my face is against the window.  Thankfully I held my bag behind me so I had that between me and the people behind me.  Trouble was I couldn't move my arm anymore.  Everytime the train turned or tilted, everyone swayed about like floatsam on a stormy sea.  I felt sorry for the girl in front of me, because I couldn't stop the people behind me from squishing me into her, and she had the unenviable position of being up against the bar that separated the seats from the standing room.  I tried to brace myself with my ONE ARM and hold the 50 people behind me back... but it was no use.  At one point, I felt shortness of breath and had the air squished out of me.  It was... um.  'No Fun'TM.

Ever since then I leave about 1 hour earlier to beat the morning rush for 9am.  I get to work a lot earlier, get less sleep, but arrive in one piece.

Pictures of the week:

40C above or below?  I wish I could read chinese characters...



Funny heater warnings.  So cute, made me laugh




Pachinko!  The gambling pasttime of the city.  I didn't play, but I had to checkout a parlour just to say I've been there.  And they give away free umbrellas too!


The circle fastfood place.  -- Matsuya, I'm told its called.  Good food for sub 600yen prices.  Beats the pants off of MacDonalds for dinner.


While wandering around the department store, I see this tiny little lovers couch.  I don't know how you could POSSIBLY fit 2 people on it.  Unless they are midgets.  Its about 1 meter wide.


DJC out. 

Moving day. 

After having moved all my belongings about 5 times in the last 3 years, needless to say, the event has long since lost the novelty and excitment that it once held. 

But then, this is Japan.

One thing is for certain.  Japanese people are by default extremely punctual.  It is a great characteristic, I must say, though it probably doesn't wear well with them when dealing with me, a person that is by default at least 10 mins late.  I was supposed to meet the movers at my new place at 10:30am on Wednesday, and at exactly 10:32am, while walking towards the apartment and chewing on my McCroquette burger, I get a ring on my keitai.  It was the movers.  I apologise to the lady and inform her that I was just 3 mins away and hurry along at a quicker pace.

By the time I get to the apartment, (around 5min later) I see that they have the lorrie pulled up and all of my boxes unloaded onto on the walkway leading up to my apartment.  Holy efficiency batman!

Anyway, after all was said and done, I had half of my apartment filled with boxes.  Hmmm... Where did all this crap come from anyway?  Oh right.  I had long since vowed to stop asking myself rhetorical questions.

Somehow it has always been that in my life, when things happen, they happen all to fast, and all at once.  The weekend before had been the ski trip to Yuzawa, and Wednesday was the day when the virus I contracted decided to culminate and launch a concerted attack on my immune system. 

I was sick the instant the movers left..  sniffling uncontrollably, I tried many times to turn on the heating unit in the apartment to no avail.  And it wasn't my inability to read the buttons on the remote control either, as the mover had helped me identify all the switches and what each of them did.  It was a simple matter that although the lights blinked and it looked as if there was a driver at the wheel, the car just refused to move.  No matter what I tried.  Frustrated, I tidyed up what I could, and decided to head back to the office (40min away) to get some lunch and make some phone calls.  Turns out that the one thing that I should have read more carefully on the unit was the only thing in english -- the logo of the company --  TOKYO GAS.

GAS.  A GAS powered unit.  I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but it just seemed strange that such a small little unit was gas powered.  To give you an idea, these "aircons" as they are all called, are about 1 meter wide, less than a foot high, and half a foot thick.  They are attached to the ceiling, and look more like air cooling units than heating ones.  Which they are of course, since they do both heating and cooling.  Who would have though that it was gas powered.  Especially since there were no visible pipes or cables leading up to it.  Anyway a call to one of my good friends Maki, and she helps me organize the Gas people to come and hook me up.  During his explanations of the meter and the cutoff unit, he mentions (after Maki translation of course) that during an earthquake the gas will shut off, and that I should turn off all the appliances before trying to restart the gas afterwards.  He goes on and turn on the flow.  It hits me that I left the heater on... as before I didn't know it was gas powered and thinking that it was just slow, I left it on all day hoping that it would eventually "come around". 

I quickly tell Maki to mention to the fella that I had the heating unit on... and whether or not its okay...  He looks at her a second, and I guess seeing that the valve was already open, and my apartment hadn't exploded, he waved it off and said something in japanese.  Maki turns to me,

"Don't worry about it" she says, with a that now infamous smile that my japanese friends have when they know something that they cannot translate fully into english.

"uuuuuh... okay" I say uneasily -- images of me perishing in a fireball at 3am in the morning flash through my head.



GPS.

You've heard of those fancy units that you can mount in your car that can tell you where to go.  Well, I've seen them in action here.  Most cabbies have them, and at 300,000yen, they are a little pricy but its soo useful.  Not only can it tell you exactly where you are, but you can program waypoints so that it will find the quickest way to get to your destination, down to the level where it will have a little diagram to guide you through every turn at every intersection.  Its really funny too when you deviate from the set course, it gives you this nice warning message (in a cute japanese girl voice of course) that you are deviating and it will normally recalculate the path for you to find your way back.  And that's not all.  Don't know the address of the establishment?  Enter their phone number, and it will locate it for you.  (take THAT PalmPilot/iPAQ!)  Not enough?  Turn on verbal mode and the little girly voice will guide your through EVERY step of the way... It makes finding a place soo easy, a 9 year-old child who could touch the pedals can drive.  (though maybe they shouldn't)

Still not amazed? The system receives broadcast signals from nearby stations at road intersections that send it congestion data.  This way, the system knows exactly how fast the traffic is moving around you, and recalculates the optimal path to destination with this data.  No more listening to the radio to see if the highway is congested.  Just take a look at the system.  Congested roads show up as different shades of red.  Green means clear sailing.

Still not amazed?  The map is pretty detailed showing locations of buildings, temples schools and major landmarks, along with roads of course.  It is also rotatable, zoomable, and EXTRUDABLE.  Meaning you can zoom in, and then extrude into 3D so that you can see really how tall that building in front of you really is... just in case there is some doubt in your mind.  Its what they say... Japanese technology...



Coins. 

Every wonder why we hate them so?  I'll tell you why.  Because we never use them.  In Canada, anything below 0.25 is unusable, same with in US.  Who the heck conciously uses dimes nickels or pennies?  My theory is that the coin denominations and infrastructure are so designed such that kids and homeless people have something to collect, because nobody uses them, because it is so unbelievably inconvenient to use them. 

Not so in Japan.

The coins here disappear fast.  With the exception of the 1 yen coin and the 5 yen coin, all other coins get used up and you never end up collecting any of them in your couch/end table/desk/back pockets of your pants.  And at first I wasn't sure why.

Then I understood. (see mom? that engineering degree really paid off!) 
Its because of 2 things.  1) The denominations, and 2) the train infrastructure.

1) they come in handy EASILY dividable numbers, 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500.  None of this silly quarter business.  The quarter is the most notorious coin.  Big enough for you to use, but the instant you do, you get stuck with a handful of useless dimes nickels and pennies.  Evil.  Conspiracy theory-esque I tell you.

2) trains station in Tokyo all have plenty of ticket machines, where you can buy individual fares if you don't have a monthly pass.  Key to note: each one of these machines takes all bills and coins save the 1yen and the 5yen.  Thus all the excess crap change you carry around is constantly purged each time you get to a subway station.  Which is very often in Tokyo.  Best part is that it becomes so routine to just dump all your change into the machine, punch your fare, and the machine will spit out your ticket and any extra change.  It gets to the point where you don't even have to care how much you are throwing into the thing.  Just empty your pockets into the box, get your ticket, and if you gave too much, it will return it back to you, reducing 10 x10yen coins to one nice 100 yen coin too.

Once again, Japan is the model of efficiency.  In the 2.5 months I have been here, my pile of coins above 5yen have never increased to more than a handful, contrast this to the easy $150 I left behind in NYC in the form of 3 bags of solid metal and the counless unexchanged bags of canadian coins I have back in Toronto sitting in the basement. 

-- Foreign governments take note.  If you want to stimulate your economy, forget about the changing the prime lending rate, forget about economic stimulus packages... Just reform your broken down, recession prone, raggity coin system.  Get people to use their coins, and there will be less lingering unspent in piggy banks or under beds and more fueling the economy.  QED.

As for all those 1 yen coins... I'm thinking of wall papering my new apartment with them. 



Finally, parking.

I thought parking space was prime in NYC until I saw the lengths at which the Japanese go to store their cars.  Until I lived in NYC, I had never seen the hydralic stacking system that is employed in Manhatten to maximize the parking space in the more choice areas of town.  Well, as always, the Japanese took that idea and improved upon it tenfold.  Here, they have entire 15 story buildings devoted to storing cars.  And no, you don't drive into the building.  Instead you leave your car at the entrance where a white gloved valet gives you a ticket, and then drives your car onto a device that looks like a car wash.  then he gets out, goes into the control booth, and presses some butons.  You car is then whisked away probably via some very very big ferris wheel type mechanism into some remote part of the building, perhaps 15-20 stories up.  Think of it like a big distillery, except instead of barrels of whisky, you have your BMW.  When its time to get your car.  The Valet takes your ticket, feeds it into the system, and 2-5 min later, your car appears at the entrance to the 'carwash'.  The valet then backs it off of the 'carriage' onto the big turntable that is in front of each garage, which rotates your car around so that it is facing the right direction to leave.  No need for 3 point turns.  Wow.



Which brings us now to the pictures of the week.

One of the most brilliant knick knacks every to grace our patent filled lives.  And who could have though that they could have improved the simple pitcher.  This little clear plastic piece makes sure that you don't get any ice plopping into your glass, no matter how hard you try.  (sorry, its a bad picture, try to IMAGINE the pitcher if you can't see it)


The Amazing Foldable Broom!  Here I was, searching all over the drugstore for a broom (yes, the drugstore, because supermarkets only have food) and finally I found them, in these little boxes.  Think SATs are hard?  Try shopping for cleaning products in japanese (unless of course, if you are japanese).  Trying to tell the difference between dog hair cleaner, floor wax and fabric softener is all but impossible.  I just hope I don't splash any of this mystery fluid into my eyes.


DAM!  It actually stands for Digital Amplified Music or something along those lines.  Karaoke is big business here.  But obviously foreign market research is not. 


Another classic example of the apparent lack of foreign market sensitivity.  The only question in my mind are the kind of customers that must patronize this place.  Are they doubly the fool?


djc out.



PS (Yifan! I found the little food shop with the little red and blue circle inside the big yellow circle!  -- and realizing how retarded this may sound to others out there -- The food is great!  and cheap! )

Being that I do not own a digital camera as yet, I shamelessly scarfed these
pics from a friend who does. Here are just a couple of pics of our
adventure up in Echigo-Yuzawa last weekend.

Looking at a railmap of Japan and you will instantly realize how such a small little nation with a mostly agricultural population can be the economic powerhouse that it is... Top to bottom, sea to sea, Japan is covered in rails.  As much as america loves the open roads, the japanese love their trains.

The shinkansen is the bullet train, for those of you who have been through the Euro-union, they are akin (and probably the same) as the TEV's.  These suckers are sleek and fast, and they can zip you from one side of Japan to the other in less than 2 hours. 

Which is where you need to go if you want to go skiing.  The destination was Echigo-Yuzawa, some remote place 1.5 hours from Tokyo on the shinkansen in the middle of the mountains.  At first, I was just excited to be out of Tokyo, but after 20 minutes I was completely breathless taking in the sight of the mountains in the distance, in every direction.  It was indeed, the "spine of the world".  The level plains on which the city of Tokyo sits spans about 60 km inland, upon which is completely surrounded by the mountains.  Riding high on the shinkansen gives you such an awe inspiring sight of the shear size of the mountains, contrasted by the occasional red and white radio antennae poking up from the suburban sprawl below.  Breathtaking.

After about 40 minutes we hit the range, and we enter a long tunnel, presumably going under the mountains themselves.  We leave behind the pleasant sunny cool weather of the plains, for the dark hush of the subterranian passage.  When we finally emerge 20 minutes later, I am surprised to find everthing covered with 2 feet of snow, with flurries swirling around us.  Its as if we entered a completely different temperate region of the planet.  One side, a crisp spring day in Canada, the other the frozen plains of the arctic.  Very very strange.

We had planned a 2 day ski trip up to Yuzawa, staying at a tradition japanese ryoin where the rooms are tatami, and the meals are served japanese style.  Upon arrival, the weather is actually not that cold, but noticeably colder than Tokyo.  the first thing that I notice out of the station is that the roads are squirting water.  Like mini sprinklers, these little devices embedded in the road keep the roads wet, presumably to prevent too much snow or ice from forming.  Very weird... I guess its better for the roads than salt.  Though one can only imagine how much it cost to embed a sprinkler system through the entire town.

We head out to the slopes, and since this was the first time I was out in real powder, I have a complete blast.  Riding through powder is akin to snowboarding through butter or whipped cream.  Its soo smooth, and fluffy.  A tad too much weight on the front, and you sink into the powder, and you stop dead in your tracks... and sink 1 foot into the snow.  Great fun.  Really makes the east coast resorts pale in comparison.  I'm going to like it here.

After a long day of snowboarding we head back to the Yuzawa hotel, and change into our onsen robes.  Pretty snazzy, then its off to the hot spring bath.  Ahhh.. nothing beats a hot onsen after a long day of snowboarding.

Dinner is served in the traditional fashion, in a large tatami room, with a little cushion seat and a table with your meal set out for you.  Coming straight out of the hot onsen, still in bathrobes, everyone gathers and takes a seat.  I am amazed at the variety of food at each personal table -- crab, sushi, nabe (hotpot with tofu and some other goodies) various pickled things, fruit, rice, you name it.  The thing about japanese food is that they always give you such a variety of things, all in little bowls and containers, such that you dazzle your pallet by jumping from one dish to another contantly.  Ishi-san, a friend from work sits beside me takes the brunt of my queries.

"Ishi-san, what is this stuff?" -- I say, pointing at one of the things boiling in my little bowl of nabe
"rrrrrm, ano, eat it first, then I tell you", he says.
Hmm.. I think to myself... one of those.  My mom used to always say the same thing when she was about to feed me something strange like cows tongue or pig's brain or other such hotdog material.

"Uh... okay...", I agree... Its not like I've ever shyed away from trying something new before.  Especially since the broth smelled soo good.

I pickup the little piece of <stuff> with my chopsticks.  I looked like a curled piece of intestine or possibly brain. (Refer to previous example regarding my mom).  I sniffed it gingerly.  Smelled good enough.  So in it went. 

Mushy.
Strangely tasty.

For those of you who have tried Uni-sushi... the texture and taste is similar... its a fatty tasting creamy substance. 

"Must be brain" I think to myself, letting out a sigh of relief.  For a second, I had considered the possibily that it was pig's uterus, given that I had seen 4 unlucky contestants try to eat the very same on an episode of "Fear Factor" one day back in NYC. 

It wasn't.  Or at least it shouldn't be, since this actually tasted good, and those poor folks couldn't choke the stuff down with $50,000 smackers hanging in the balance.

"So... Ishi-san... what is it anyhow?"  I ask... proudly presenting that I had eaten it all.
Ishi-san looks at me and smiles... the look of "Are you sure you want to know?" is painted all over his face.

I whisper to him under my breath,
"Is it brain?"
-- he shakes his head.  I start to get worried. --
"Is it pig uterus????!" I rasp alarmingly.
His innocent smile gets a little bigger, and he starts to laugh embrassingly.  "yes, yes.. um... similar" he says.

"WHAT?"  I exasperate, "What do you mean SIMILAR?", my mouth hanging open in surprise, as my mind starts running through the possibilities.

"Ummm, its the opposite", Ishi-san says, with the same embarassed smile on his face, nodding the whole time, as if the nodding would somehow trigger recognition on my part.  It did.  And when it did, it was like that sinking feeling you got in the 5th grade when your doctor told you to turn and cough.

Well, lets just end the story there, since this is a family show. 

Although it would be fair to mention, that I was very relieved (somewhat) to discover that the <stuff> came from a fish and not a pig afterall.  Thank goodness.  And in retrospect, it didn't taste that bad.

Thats all for now
DJC out.

The financial system.

A most fundamental part of our society; the very arteries of our capitalist system.

In Japan, those arteries are a little twisted.  While one can't say that they are clogged entirely, they are definitely, well, different.

Take for one the fact that the personal cheque is completely non-existent here.  They do not have any cheques of any kind.  Probably a carry over from the financial reforms instigated after the economic implosion of the 80s, but whatever the reason, there are only 2 ways of paying bills here; electronic bank transfer, or convenience store.  --Yes, you heard right--  convenience store.  Anyone can walk into your friendly neighborhood 7/11, buy a lemon squishy, a bag of chips, some deordorant, and pay your phone bills.  You just hand your phone/electric/online-chat-room bill to the counter clerk, and drop the yen.  Simple as that.  Talk about convenience.  The thing that struck me as odd about this:  in a system where they are paranoid enough as to disallow the writing of personal cheques; they are willing to trust whole cash payments (sometimes in the order of $50-$100) to the 16-year old, post-pubescent, zitty dude behind the counter.... of a convenience store.  A place of higher repute and scruples I cannot even imagine.  Who would have thought.

Well.  That's Tokyo. 

ATMs. 
Aren't they just a darling?  You would think that the whole concept of an ATM is the ability to serve the customer during hours after which the bank is closed.  Well, you would think.  At some banks, the ATMs close when the bank does.  And like all banks around the world (fearful of crazed persons suffering from post-lunch-digestion syndrome with a mind to rob them) banks here close at obscenely early hours, normally 3pm.   To give you perspective, I go EAT lunch at 3pm sometimes.  Anyhow, I manage to miss the bank's closing time, so I visit one of their ATMs (thankfully, this banks ATMs remain open a little longer after closing) so that I can make a payment to the brokerage company handling my apartment lease.  Glad to make it to machine on time, I let out a huge sigh of relief, and I take a couple of seconds to catch my breath from the hussle.   I stare into the little blue screen.

------
私は、それが何と言っていたか確信しません。しかし、これがあなたにあるので、スクリーンは私に同じくらい混乱させました。日本語ですべてある(もちろん)こと。

------

Uh...  yeah.  okay. 
All in Japanese.

I quickly search for any button that might say "press here for english" as I had quickly learned the kanji for English (英語) shortly after arriving in this country.

No luck.  No english option.  Only 12 buttons all equally spaced, all in japanese, all equally as meaningless.  What the heck.  I try inserting my banking card and pressing one of the selections, and was presented with another screen, equally as confusing, this one with numbers.  I panic.  I press what I thought was "cancel" and a little animated picture of a cartoon man bowing popped on screen, then more japanese and more buttons. 

Seconds pass. 
The machine prompted by my indecisiveness, toutes "irrashaemase!" in the cute little girly voice... 
Sweat beads down my forehead...  I could feel the eyes of the people around me burning at the back of my neck. 

"irrashaemase!"

After what seemed like hours, the machine gets fed up with my inability to comprehend its query and spits out my banking card unmolested.

Phew!  As I wipe the sweat off my brow.  This was obvoiusly not going to work. 

I finally conceded, swallowed my pride, and asked somebody from the office upstairs to come help me with the ATM.  And thankfully so, as even with a native japanese person at my side, the process of transferring money from one account to another was infinitely complicated, as you need to know the bank, branch name and account number of the receiving party with all the names in kanji. (chinese characters) So unless you know how to read/spell chinese words the japanese way,  you are out of luck. 

5 minutes later, and 200yen poorer (the fee for any money transfer) I complete my task and continue on with life... a little wiser, and a little humbler.

Housing.

After long last, I finally have a home.  I settled on this nice place out by Oyamadai station, about 20 min to Shibuya and 40 min to the office.  A decent price too, as the further you go outside the city, the cheaper rents get.  The place is spacy (40sqm) and pretty new (under 2 years old).  And best of all, it comes with BS!!  Before you ask, BS and CS are cable companies that carry english channels.  As not all buildings are equipped for cable, most have to settle for antenna or buy a satellite dish which only works if you have it face the southwest.  (Which is not always possible given the location of your balcony or the presence of obstructing buildings.)

How did I come upon this perfect place?  Well, after searching with brokers galore I happened onto this place while at a friends' house gathering. Turns out that somebody in the apartment above was moving out, so lucky me, I get to move in!  And best of all the place is large enough to fit stragglers who happen to be visiting Tokyo so take this as an open invitation to come on out here.  So at long last, after 1.5 months of looking, 5 different brokers, and seeing over 20 different apartments, the search is over, and its time for this camper to call it a night.  (thanks Maki for all your help!)

Please send all postcards, gifts, care packages, and love poetry to:

Apt. #202
Setagaya-ku, Oyamadai 2-20-14
Tokyo, Japan
158-0086

Now it's onto the wonderful world of getting my phone line setup (it costs $600 just to get a certificate of ownership) getting all my appliances moved and setup.  (thanks Yuko for the wonderful donation of the fridge and washer!)

I'll leave you now with some more Weird-Photos-From-Tokyo:

The kitchen burner at my new apartment.


Thank god for the warning label -- I was just about to fry a fish on the burner, right after I use my hand to test the temperature.



Sweet-tweet cereal, what every member of the Reichstag grows up on.


The venerable Kellog's regime holds no power here in Japan.  Instead of Tony the Tiger, we have Fritz the Fox.


A visit to a home cooking style Korean restaurant, and a whole truck load of red meat to show for it.  mmmm.


And finally, my favorite: sing with me...
<tune>... sometimes you want to go, -- where everybody knows your name....</tune>


And it really is a normal family style cafe too.

DJC out

 

Ah the joys of business class...

Holy deja-vue batman!  Well, the joys are indeed that great that they
warrant yet another mention of it.

The Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong was a very pleasant one, as I had a
seat that was facing the open space in front of an exit door, so I had so
much legroom that I could play a game of twister in front of my seat.  Not
that I did, mind you, as that would just be out of character for a business
class patron.  Having flown biz-class on JAL in the past, I must admit that
the seats on JAL was better than the ones on Cathay flight, and the service
was better too.  But I wouldn't of been able to play twister on the JAL
flight.  Not that I would, of course.

Free alcohol.  Though appealing at first, sometime after the 2nd or 3rd
drink it ceases to be such a novelty, and you start passing them up. (not in
the physiological sense, of course) I mean, really, how much alcohol can one
consume on a 5 hour flight while remaining presentable and professional?
Especially since you are on a plane, and for those with weak stomachs, egg
and dairy products are bad news enough.  I can only imagine what would
happen (or how *often* it would happen) if alcohol was added to that mix.
Apparently the guy beside me was pretty ignorant to that observation.  He
made it a point (instructing the attendant) that he was to have a full glass
of champagne beside him at all times, demanding that it be refilled
automatically when needed.  I noticed her filling his glass even while he
slept.  Hmm.

The one thing that Cathay has over JAL is the presentation of their meals.
The most curious thing you will find is that there are these two very funny
pebbles that comes with your food.  They look like very asthetically
pleasing pebbles, one black and the other speckled white, with a smoothed
surface as if picked from the bottom of a river or stream.  I picked up the
white one to examine it, and that's when I noticed that there was a little
hole at the end of it.  Baffled and unsure of their function I figured that
they were chopstick holders of some sort, or perhaps paper weights to hold
down your table cloth.  I put it back down and proceeded to eat my food.
Halfway through the tasty butterfly shrimp I bit into a strikingly
unpleasant salty chunk.  Yeaack!  Then it hit me like a tractor trailer
going 70 miles an hour on the freeway.  The little rocks were salt and
pepper shakers!  And I had unwillingly dumped an obscene amount of salt onto
my food as I was playing around with the salt rock.  And of course, I
couldn't
ask them to change my meal, for it would have been too embarassing to
explain
how all that salt came about.

Cathay Pacific: 10 pts for being cute with the food utensils. -5 pts for
being a little too cute.
Dave: -2 pts for being a nimrod and ruining a perfectly good butterfly
shrimp.

The Hong Kong office is gorgeous and commands a striking view of the island
city from the 62nd floor.  Hong Kong is truely the most beautiful city in
terms of striking contrasts.  On one side, you have the ocean straight,
where tankers and container ships traverse continually, and on the other
side you have a sheer mountain side with apartments that scale all the way
up, as if they were a giant staircase climbing their way up to the top.  The
contrast between the fauna covered mountain and the blue bay gives such a
sense of depth and space that distances seem compressed and buildings look
very close together.  And perhaps they are.  Of all the skylines that I have
seen, I think that Hong Kong has the most dense skyscraper per space ratio.
The lack of physical area on the island has caused them to continue to build
up the side of the mountain, making Hong Kong the only city where people can
own apartments that look *down* onto the financial centre, above even the
tallest of buildings at sea level.  Remarkable.  An apogee in city planning
and urban development indeed.  Contrast this with Tokyo, in which the urban
sprawl is anything but organized.  There, beside a skyscraping commericial
highrise, you'll commonly find some 1-2 story residences, complete with
little gardens and garages.  Beside that there may be a water desalination
plant.  The zoning laws in Tokyo are completely out of whack.  But I hear
that this was mostly due to the fact that the city was being bombed during
reconstruction.  Erect a sewage treatment plant, and have it bombed.  Build
new houses for those who lost their own, and have it bombed.  The end
product is that you have the weirdest combination of buildings in the least
amount of possible space.  But that is part of what makes Tokyo what it is
today -- the epitome of decentralization.

Here are some pics I took out the window of the HK office.


    

The famous Lan Kwai Fong, the foreigner district of HK.



Harry Potter seems to be everywhere




Col. Sanders looks a little regionalized don't you think? -- Think: David Suzuki.


Snowboarding.  A sport that should only be attempted by the experienced, the
young or the stupid.

Or all of the above.  Thankfully I can count myself into the first category,
but when I started out a scant 2 years ago, I was definitely in the latter
group.  Just as thankfully, all the bruises I earned that first year have
now graduated me to a level where I can safely distribute pity to those
around me who are in the latter 2 categories.  For those of you who are into
snow sports, Tremblant, near Montreal Canada is the best place to be on the
east coast of North Anerica.  It has the most snow and the longest runs, and
a really quaint and cozy villa at the base of the hill that is home to ski
shops, restaurants, bars and lounges where you can relax after a long day at
the slopes.  There is this really long straight run on the north side of the
hill.  The slope is gradual, but continuous, so you continually pick up
speed.  For you engineers out there, that means that your acceleration is
constant.  Gradual, but constant.  And since it is all but straight, you
just keep going faster and faster, and since it is not that steep, you have
really no fear of falling.  (at least until you hit 60mph and you start
feeling like a human bullet).  It's a real hoot.  I actually had to stop
twice because my legs got sore from just standing straight (and balancing)
for that long.  (For you skiiers out there, going straight is the most
tiring on a snowboard)  Anyhow, Tremblant was a great time.  The other thing
of mention is the proliferation of beer in the villages around the area.
Perhaps it is just Quebec (the province of Canada in which Tremblant
resides) and its primarily francophone population, or perhaps it's just
because of their proximity to Tremblant, but when we took a trip to the
local super market to buy some snacks, at the end of almost every isle there
was a stack of beer.  American beer, German beer, Canadian Beer, you name
it, they had it.  There was even a whole refrigerated section of the
supermarket that you could walk into, (akin to a meat locker) that was full
of cases of beer.  Those quebequois, they like to drink.

That pretty much sums up my holidays, excluding the countless family
reunions which always dot this time of year.  Christmas presents?  Clothes,
again.  It really is tough to buy for family members.  And more and more
(especially in places that have no snow like HK and Tokyo) I'm convinced the
whole thing is just a form of economic stimulus brought about by a lot of
advertising and Christian-propaganda.  But being Christian myself, and able
to tell the difference between the religious aspect of the holiday vs. the
gift-giving/fatman in pajamas aspect makes me wonder why primarily
non-Christian countries (like Japan) celebrate Christmas at all.  I guess if
its good for the economy, then it's not all that bad.  Like most silly
things in life, people just need a good reason to do it. (Just ask those who
willingly pay money to be thrown off a perfectly good airplane with nothing
but some rope and silk keeping them from becoming buzzard food.)

I brought some novelty items from Japan to bring back for the kiddies at
home.  They have this little toy figure that does nothing but sit there with
a big dumb smile on his face and bobs his head back and forth.  Its sounds
stupid, but it's soo darned cute.  Oh, as an extra bonus, he also holds
business cards.  He's quite a stress reliever...bobbing back and forth; and
being solar powered, he'll be bobbing until the cows come home.

Weird pic from Tokyo #418: OnionLoaf. 
Yep.  A whole loaf of fried onions.  Tastes like a lump of... well... onion rings.


Anyhow, that's it for now.  Time to continue to house hunting!

djc out.

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even ---

Out of Office replies.

That is what you are going to get a lot of if you mail me.  For at least a little while since I'll be scooting off to HK on Sunday, then off to Canada for vacation.  So if you don't hear from me for a while, that's why.

For now, you'll just have to settle for this pic of my 'winnie the pooh' drink.  Yes.  Winnie the pooh.  I mean, what the heck is a 'pooh' anyways?  And even then, what kind of drink features 'pooh' on the label?  (memories of my 'poop' candy dance through my head)  Oh well.


I hope you all have a safe and happy holidays.
Merry Chrismas everyone!  And to all, a good night.

PS.  'pooh' tastes surprisingly like honey and apple juice.  Go figure. 

PPS. this is installment 9.5 because its just, well, down right lacking to be a full blown update.

djc out

Discrimination.

In this global day and age, we all try to pretend its not there.  That the world is one big happy friendly place.  That, --as the wise and androgenous one once said-- it doesn't matter if you are black or white. 

Boy was he wrong.
Dead wrong. (in quite a many things)

At least in Japan.  We all turn a blind eye to it when we see it, trying to fool ourselves into thinking that it is not there, like the irritating smudges on our spectacles.  But its there, like a ghostly wraith that follows you around always just out of sight; we all just choose to ignore it.

I was guilty of the same.  Last week, my friend brought me to a video rental store called Sutaiya.  It was 5 floors of DVD bliss, covering every category from French films to tentacle anime to complete seasons of Friends, Sex in the City, and The Supranos.  Anyhow, we walked past this shelf that was labelled "Black Films".  Odd -- I thought to myself.  My friend explained that these were movies that were either directed by, or starred black actors. 

Whoa -- hold on there pardner! 

"Isn't this just a TAD racist?" I ask him.
"Nah, its japan... you'll get used to it" he answered.

And that was that.  I didn't give it anymore thought.  Like that smudge on my glasses, I just squinted a little harder, and it ceased to bother me.  Life carried on.

Until yesterday.  That's when I found out that the smudge was something a lot more personal, a lot more malicious than I thought.  Along with the fact that I now need a new perscription since my eyesight has gotten worse, I found out that at the last possible moment, the owner of the apartment I was going to rent decided that he didn't want a non-japanese renting his place.  So he pulled out of the lease and didn't sign.

WTF.

Yeah.  That's pretty close to what I said outloud at the office.  Here I am, 4 days away from leaving japan for a month, and they pull this on me.  How inconsiderate!  How unprofessional!  How... racist!  (okay. somehow, I feel like I will live to regret that last statement -- but oh well)

So here I am.  Without an apartment.  Having to start the whole house finding process all over again.  All with 1000 other things to do, to remember, to coordinate, and I'm not even talking about my work at the office. 

So that is that.  Not a very happy journal installment;  but they don't call them journals for nothing.

djc out.

Let it snow, let it snow...

<hum with me now>

I woke up at 6am today to a white haze.  Gone were the marvellous views of Tokyo Tower and the endless lights of the metropolis that is the beehive of human society.  Instead, big fluffy chunks of snow whirled about my visage, obscuring the view of even the closest highrise from my twentieth story window.  It might have taken a while in coming, but Father Winter has finally arrived.  Just a couple of days ago, I was still wearing my spring jacket, and a skant golf shirt inside the office.  Now, the lack of a good pair of boots was strikingly alarming.

Slush. 
I hate slush.  Put it in a large cup and flavour it with lots of sugar and artificial colours, and I love it.  Cover the ground with a nice thick layer of it and it becomes the bane of my existence.

I need boots.

My shipment of things is due to arrive this week.  Tuesday to be exact.  But even after that, I have to wait until it clears customs.  Then, I might have the chance to grab a couple of things (like BOOTS) before I fly off to Hong Kong.  Actually, I need to grab a couple of things if I am to stay the 1.5 months without the majority of my belongings when I return after Christmas holidays.  Why?  Because the absolutely perfect apartment that I found will not be finished until end of Feb.  Yes.  end of FEB.  What the heck am I going to do until then?  Squat at a coworkers, that's what.  With only the minimal survival gear.  I'll have to 'rough it' for a while without my winter clothes, without my thick blankets -- without my boots.

Nothing much else to report, except the ongoing stress of not having a permanant place to stay until end of Feb.

Some nice Xmas decorations near work.  Funny for a culture that doesn't officially celebrate Christmas, they sure go all out with this stuff.  I guess the cogs of the capitalist machine are well oiled even here.  I'm sure its all just a big excuse to get people to spend money, but every year we keep on doing it.  Oh well, at least the decorations are very pretty.  Pass the fruitcake!

<<xmas.jpg>>

Oh... We were out last night and we went to a yakiniku place. Yes, in NYC "yakinikku" was the name of a restaurant on St. Marks St.  Apparently, the word describes the type of food, -- which is like korean barbeque -- so the naming of the restaurant in NYC was essentially like calling a ribs place "Ribs".  Not very imaginative, but good enough to fool those who don't speak japanese.  "St. Marks St."  Hmmm.. I can see how this can be confusing to non-english people.  Oh well.  vive la difference!

Anyways, along with the regular meat dishes, they also have the "guts".  I'm not sure what some of the stuff on the plate were, but my friend assured me it was "guts".  I know tongue was in there too.  Normally, having raw beef tongue and guts on a plate would be disgusting... But lemme tell you... its all in the seasoning and presentation.  It smelled yummy... so I though, 'Heck... why not.' 

Beef tongue is actually quite good barbequed.  (but as you skeptics will be quick to point out, so is rat probably)

Here's a pic of the yummy beef/pork bits and pieces.

<<guts.jpg>>

My friend bought some candies at shinjuku.  They have some serious weird things here.  There was this candy that was shaped like poop.  They actually made it a point to be cute about it, as the poop had a little cartoon face.  It even was called "poop".  It was a gummy like candy, brown coloured of course, shaped like a cow-patty.  Thankfully, to my relief the similarities ended there, and it was cola flavoured.  Here is a pic of it.

<<poop.jpg>>

Well, that's all from TKO.  Enjoy the weather.  I know I am.  errr.

I need boots goddammit!

djc out.

You've heard all about them.

Whether it was from a friend or a colleague, or the old lady down the street, we have all heard of them.

The weird things things that japanese people find 'entertaining'.

I was sitting at home, flipping through some channels (In truth, trying to find anything in english other than CNN) and I happened onto this funny gameshow.  It featured a lot of young girls quite fashionably attired, all between the ages of 14-20 (at least to my untrained eyes).  It was sort of a an ongoing show featuring these young celebrities, who play a different game every time.  This time, they were starved pre-game for hours, and then, while onstage, was shown a feast of yummy japanese food, from shabu-shabu to plates of sushi, to hot ramen noodles; a venerable banquet.  They then had to play a quiz game (sort of like jeopardy, but with 15 people) where the goal was to get 3 answers correct.  The questions ranged from 'name that tune' to 'who is this famous person'.  The ones who got 3 answers correct got to go eat.  (they made it a big deal, watching each one of them eat, while the others looked on hungrily.)  When they got down to the last 5 girls who were still hungry, (and the the first 10 were busily slurping down their ramen and sushi) they played a face off round, where the 5 hungry people faced off in a lighting round against 5 of the winners.  They lost again.  Consequently they got to feast on a big pile of shredded raw radish (daikon);  in this cold room, while fake snow was poured on them.  It was soo funny.  all while the other girls kept on gorging themselves on the yummy food.  Needless to say, they all had the stereo typical 'sad face' on them; you could almost see the tear drops squirting out of the sides of their eyes in typical hello kitty fashion.  Soo entertaining. 

"Now this is television" I thought.

I found it so funny, I whipped out my phone, and took some pics (you'll see some weird dark bands occuring due to the frequency of the TV etc.. engineering crap ..etc..)

One of the winners answering a question correctly.


One of the losers, missing a question.


The winners, stuffing their faces.


Then there was this other show, which featured one of the big wrestlers famous in Japan (he's a really really big black dude).  I think his name is 'Beast', and amply so.  For those of you who have seen the "Green Mile", he was John Coffee.  Except he looked a lot meaner.  Anyway, the show featured 7 celebrities locked in a room, sitting at a table, while the Beast would come in and do some riduculous things -- for example, he would come in, dressed as a woman, with a wig, and start teaching them english, or he would come in dressed like an executive, or as a mailman.... but whatever he did, the Beast would always end up getting angry, smashing things over his head, pouring drinks over himself, basically going ballistic, all while screaming some very badly accented japanese (the Beast doesn't speak japanese very well).  The premise of the game, is that everytime somebody laughed or giggled or so much as miffed, a money "cha ching! counter was heard and they would have to pay 1000 yen to the pot at the end of the bit.  And without fail, everytime the Beast broke a plate over his head, or started eating flash cards, or smashing a cell phone, they would start cracking up, no matter how hard they were trying to hold it in.  At the end of it all,  56,000yen was raised. 

And then there was the temptation show, (since I don't know what it is really called) where they had girls bring their boyfriends into this lounge, and then excused themselves to the bathroom.  Unbeknowst to the guy, he was being watched on camera and his girlfriend was in on it.  Then a really hot model-quality girl would walk in, and sit herself in plain view of the guy.  The counter started.  One at 5 minutes, the other at 300,000 yen.  Everytime he glanced at the model, the money counter would shrink by half.  After 5 minutes, if there was any money left, his girlfriend and him would get the money.  All the while, the model would preen herself, bend over conspicuously, put on panty hose, and otherwise try to get his attention. (though never directly; he was made to think that he was being discrete).  At the end of 5 minutes, the model would walk past him to leave, and say something like "you pervert".  Then he would be let in on the whole thing as  the camera crew and the (somewhat flustered) girlfriend would pop out from behind the curtains.  The most faithful of the guys won only a measly 300 yen.  And it was soo funny, because he was visibly struggling not to look at the model, and everytime he did, he hit himself on the forehead and hid his face behind the menu.  Then after a minute of so, he would sneak another peak.

Now that is entertainment.

djc out.

The bathroom.  (why is it that most of my journals are based around the this topic?)

4 times.  That's how many times the bathroom is cleaned here in the TKO office.  Also, there are these supply cabinets in the walls which have this cute litter sticker on them.  Sort of like a freshness seal, but more probably so that if you open one of them, somebody will know, most likely track you down and hurt you.

This "freshness seal" is on everything, from fire alarms to panels in the wall.  I guess its a metal deterrant.  "Don't open this unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing... and if you do, somebody will know about it.".  Perhaps it is a good anti-terrorist measure.  You can't hide bombs behind panels that have a safety seal without breaking the seal.

Anyways.  I was checking out more apartments this weekend.  Finding housing in Tokyo is very very exhausting.  Since the cost of moving is DREADFUL, everyone wants to find the perfect place on the first go, to minimize capital investment.  To give you an idea of how dreadful, most places in tokyo require a "key money" deposit.  This is normally 1-2 months rent worth. This "deposit" is not refundable.  This is solely a "gift" to the owner of the property to show your appreiciation to him for allowing you to rent the property.  Then there is 2 months security deposit, of which you might get 50% back when you move out, assuming you kept the place in pristine order.  Then there is first and last months rent, so that is another 2 months rent to be paid out at the signing of the contract.  ALSO, lease contracts run for 1-2 years.  When they need to be renewed, there is usually a renewal fee (another 1-2 months rent).  So the long and the short is... it SUCKS to be a leasee here, and it is very profitable to be a owner.  (real estate moguls listen up). 

So basically, if you rent a place adhoc, and find out 1 year later that you rather have a bigger place (25 square meters not enough for you?) (that's 269sqft for you non-metrically inclined) or if you decide that your lifestyle in Tokyo is a little too pricy for your high rent apartment, then you are basically screwed, unless you can afford the 6 month rent down payment to move into a new apartment.  And lets be frank, how many of us could afford a sudden $8000 USD expense in times like these?  So moral of the story? Find a place, and make certain with the help of GOD that you never have to move a second time.  Never Ever.

I was walking about in Gakugei Daigaku (yes, its pretty hard to say at first, I butchered the name soo many times that many a japanese native looked at me, wondering if I was a retard, since I look japanese to them, and there is no apparent reason why I should have problems pronouncing japanese words) which is a pretty quaint little fashionable residential area.  The best analogy of the neighborhood is beverly hills.  Lots of custom made 2-3 storey houses (they call them mansions, but I refuse to call anything that small a mansion) with some having something similar to palm trees in the yard.  I see a funny sign.  And of course, like a good tourist, I take a picture of it with my phone.



As the sign reads. "FUKUMIYA".  Not sure what it means... but its funny.  I'm sure this place doesn't get a lot of foreign business with a name like that.

(pronounced - FOOK' mee ah - in proper japanese, as webster would put it)

More interesting photos:



Curry Pringles... very yummy... trust me.



Weird markings on the sidewalk #1.   The caption should read: "Please do not pour hydrochloric acid into young girls heads"



Weird markings #2.  "Warning: Suicidal bomb-toting rat-cycle crossing ahead"  -- (apologies for the quality, it was at night, and my phone cam has no flash.)





These wooden clocks were selling at 150,000 to 200,000 Yen.  A run of the mill carpenter could make a fortune here in Tokyo.





DJC out

Our bowels. 

Such a tempermental thing they are, eh?

I join Jeff and Jay, my gei-jin friends from NYC to a fancy authentic unagi place near omotesanno.  Too authentic, it turns out.  We get a really cozy tatami matt room upstairs, in what feels like somebody's house, and not a restaurant.  Apparently, the place was a converted bathhouse.   We were probably eating in what used to be a bedroom of sorts.  Anyhow, Jay and I decide to go with what we know, and get the double layered eel on rice. (unagi-don) while Jeff goes all the way and gets the supremo-super-deluxe-entree, with so many things in japanese that we didn't even know what it was.  No matter. 

So he thought.

Whether it was somewhere after the caviar on steamed eel or the sashimi with crushed radish garnish, Jeff developed a stomach ache.  Somehow, I've always been partial to the view that that many seafood items should not be mixed together in the same meal.   We promptly spend the rest of the night looking for pepto bismal, which is darned hard to find when the only thing I knew how to say was "he bad stomach has" at the convenience stores.  Surprisingly enough, whether it was my adhoc japanese or the pale look of death that was on Jeff's face, they understood.  Unfortunately, even in Japan, 7/11 does not sell drugs.  Oh well, so much for convenience.

I was on the JR line going to kinshicho with my friend Ken to checkout an apartment.  Ken is a really cool guy (yes, he is on this list), who is helping me find a place by talking with the brokers, who would normally be swindling me out of house and home.  We are riding the crowded rush hour trains, when this odd advertisement catches my eye. (pic #1)



I couldn't figure out what it was selling.  It looked medicinal.  Or medical.

Upon closer inspection I see small pics of a frumply man (pic#2)


and then a happy man (pic#3)

Looking closer at the device, it seems more and more confusing.  This ad clearly shows that this device has some patented swirling motion. (???) (pic#4)



Unable to contain my confusion any longer, I hazard asking Ken about it.

"What is that ad trying to sell anyway?" I ask puzzled.
Ken takes one look at it... and gives me a embarassed smile. "urm... "
"What, is it some sort of 'feminine' product"?
Ken's smile is starting to turn into stifled laughter... " --Um... ask me tomorrow." he says.
"Why, what the heck is it? Are you sure it's not some feminine product?" I continue, as the train stops at the station and we exit.

"well... urm.." Ken continues in his japanese accented english, "its -- urm, for peeple who have ---" his eyes search high and low, searching for the correct english words to describe--- "its for people who have problems --- " he says as he motions towards to his bottom. 

I burst out laughing uncontrollably.
Ken joins me in the hysteria.

(take a look again at the pics.  They suddenly all make sense).

We continue to laugh uncontrollably for a good 5 minutes.  Everytime we stop laughing, we remember the "swirling action" pic, and we laugh again. 

On the next train, I search out the advertisement, and I take some pictures with my cell phone.  The man beside me must have noticed because he gave me several glances as Ken and I continue to giggle uncontrollably as I take closeups of the "device".

Lets hope that I'll never need to use this device.

djc out.

Had great fun at a club this Sat.  Went out with my friend from Merryl Lynch and a visiting friend from NYC.  Both are geijin too.  You wouldn't believe the coincidences that happened that night.  FIRST, I bumped into Hiro, a japanese friend that I met while in NYC, and who happened to be at this club on the same day, and then later that evening I bump into a girl that I met in Tokyo 3 years ago when I visited Tokyo for the first time after I graduated from college.  What are the chances right?

the funniest thing is that she though I looked familiar, as I did to her... but none of us actually had the guts to ask.  At the end of the evening, she came up to me and sold me her drink tickets.  (you have to buy tickets to get drinks, sort of ensures that you cannot tip the bartender).  I thought nothing more of the issue... later on, I found her still in the bar.  Turns out that her friends didn't want to leave, and she just wanted to wait until the subways started again. (it was around 4:30am).  so I started chatting it up with her.  I mentioned that this was my second time in Tokyo... but it wasn't until I mentioned that I was from Waterloo, that she looked very surprised... that's when it hit me too... That this was the same Keiko that I had met over 3 years ago!  Actually Wendy, Sue, Maggie, Scott and Amit will remember her too!  Though I don't have their emails.  How whack is that? 

People are soo friendly in clubs here... non of that NYC attitude.  You can chat up a girl, with her boyfriend in view, and its okay... and everyone dances with everyone else on the floor. (even that boyfriend of that girl you are chatting up!)  Everone is soo friendly.  Very refreshing.  Like in Canada.

I like it.

Razor blades.

Of all the kinds of people in this world that you should tip handsomely, the barber with the razor blade should be on the top of your list.  Second to the your personal chef, and your housekeeper.  Since I have no chef nor housekeeper, I tipped the man who wielded a very sharp blade by my throat and skillfully scraped away stubble leaving nothing to chance.  Normally tips are not required in Japan, but this was a barbershop at the base of our office building, no doubt he is used to serving foreign customers with big pockets.  Or perhaps I wasn't supposed to tip him, but he stood behind me while I paid the cashier, as if expecting something.  Perhaps he was just waiting to personally see me out the door, as it is the custom for service personelle to do here, complete with the bow and many auspicious phrases along the tune of "please visit us again soon" and "thank you 1000 times ever so much for the business that you have brought our establishment".  Anyway, I cracked to my new york breeding and gave him a shiny new 500Y coin.  He accepted it so easily that I was sure that I had not read the signals wrong. 

$30 for a haircut.  $35 with tip.  That's what women pay.  Not men.  I've often heard from my female friends that $30 is pretty cheap for a female hair cut and styling.  Silly me, being a guy, anything more than $20 seems like an aweful waste.  I mean, slap a bowl on my head, shave across the bottom and I'm done right?  Well, lemme tell you something guys... women pay $30 because they get $30 worth of service.  I must have spent a good 45 min in that barber shop, as the barber meticulously cut every folicule to the correct length with the skill and grace that even Edward Scissorhands would be envious of.  Not to mention the part about the razor to my throat.  So I paid $35.  Happily.  And I would do it again dammit.  I would do it all over again.

After looking at several places in Tokyo, I've concluded that contrary to popular belief, housing prices are "not-that-bad" here, at least in comparison with New York.  Sure sure, they will tell you that Tokyo has the highest price per square meter of any city in the world... but the thing is apartments here are soo nice.  I mean, even 20-30 year old places are very clean, have almost a standardized hardwood floor, and the common wall covering is this weird almost fabric like wallpaper.  Its quite cozy and nice.  Kitchens suffer though, so if you like counter space, then Tokyo is not a good place for you. Most kitchens are just a nice sink (with a lot of gizmos), 2 gas burners and a shelf.  The fact that japanese people religiously take off their shoes at the vestibule, means that the flooring is immaculate, and there are specialized shoe closets and sock shelves right when you enter the door.  Also, I am really liking the separation of the tub/shower from the toilet room, and the sink/counter room is sometimes separate as well.  New features include heated bathtubs that maintain the water temperature and water level for you, and heated floor boards.  Really fancy.  Also there is a big distinction between the tradition japanese apartments with tatami matts and sliding doors, and the modern style house with the hardwood floors.  You can't really put any furniture on tatami matt rooms, but they are really cozy and comfortable to sleep on.  So the lesson learned for the day is, for the same price as an apartment in the upper east side, you can get an apartment here for the same size, but is a lot nicer in terms of upkeep and cleanliness.  There are no old plaster walls, no creaky floors, or unlevel floors, no rats in the walls.  I have not seen any buildings that date before the war, which is a stark difference compared to the New York real estate market.

I took a trip out to Akihabara while looking for apartments out east of the city center.  Akihabara is a geeks dream.  There is no comparison in NYC.  None in Toronto either, unless you count Pacific Mall where all the gadget/cellphone/computer/hobby/car mod stores come together and form a smorgasbord of electronic heaven.  The closest thing to Akihabara would be SimLim square in Singapore, or some of the malls in Hong Kong that feature an entire floor to electronic and computer wholeseller shops.  But nothing compares to the full might which is Akihabara.  You need a mod chip for your Xbox?  You'll find 100 stores willing bargain with you.  You need an R12-340 optical cable, a slew of audiophile shops will hook you up.  You need a cool neon light mod for your Acura?  No problem.  Cartoon porn? (yes, um, that's the best way to describe it) I saw a few shops that specialize in such shady merchandise.  And all with the glitze, lights and 3 story video's that makes Shibuya and Ginza famous.  Quite inundating.

Speaking of technology.  Some of you may have heard of the new plastic film TVs.  The kind that is transparent, looks like a piece of plastic, but can display pictures of TV quality on them without any projection device (or obvious projection device).  Yes.  They are here, and they are at every AM/PM (Japan's version of 7/11) store on every corner, plastered on the windows, showing the weather channel or something equally as interesting.  I tell you, its the coolest thing I've ever seen.  There is no projection, no wires, no thickness to it, but somehow, a moving picture shows up on this 3x4 piece of plastic taped on every window.  Believe it.  I did after throughly inspecting the image from both sides, and checking the window for a hidden wire. You will too when it makes its way to north america.

djc out.

Compliments of the gremlin, and my handy dandy phone camera.

Hair Wild Slime?  I couldn't resist, and took a picture.




Aloe drink?  Hmm... tastes sort of like... um... fruity, limy and sort of like lotion.  Wonder if its good for my hands too?  Word of warning, there are "chunks" of stuff at the bottom of the can.  Agar or jelly or something.  Prepare thyself.  I thought I had gotten a bad can at first... and almost spit it out.




My toilet.  More specifically the buttons.  Would you be brave enough to try?  The pink button is the "lady" function.




The tiny tiny bottle of shaving creme.  Seems like not too many people need to shave here.  I saw a "hair-removal" pad for men, with a diagram of some guy using it on his face... but I did not want to venture out to get one, especially if I use something like that incorrectly, given the japanese instructions.

Firstly, let me welcome the newcomers to this Tokyo journal list.  This is the mailing list to which I write about my adventures in TKO.  This is the 3rd installment. (aka, 'read the subject line')

DISCLAIMER: I make no claims that the contents will be politically correct, or even be CLM free.  I make the utmost effort to keep it clean of profanities, but any vulgarities implied, are the sole figment of your imagination, and you should seek professional help if you find my emails offensive.  Still, seeing that I love democracy and the free world, if you wish to opt out of these mailings, I shall take no offense to such request (though you can count yourself out of my Christmas list for sure) and will honour thy wishes.  Also, any grammatical or spelling mistakes, are sole creations of the little japanese gremlin that lives in my computer.  Since I moved to this desk, he has taken up residence, and enjoys swapping japanese grammatical structures and spellings at his whim.  Much apologies.

With that, on with the update:
--------------------



Cell phones. 
Modern convenience? Or the first sign of the decline of society? 

Some will argue that the proliferation of cell phones in Tokyo is a sure sign that the devil works among us.  How else can you have 10 million people jabbering into a little plastic box, completely oblivious to their own surroundings?  Well, if indeed the cell phone is a tool of the devil, then I'll be his bride. (Move over Saddam!)

I bought a cell phone yesterday.  These things are like hotcakes here,  practically sold everywhere, and even the most basic of phones will put those ancient dinosaurs they sell back home to shame.  I got a cheap model... last years I think.  But even so, it has a built in camera, an free email account, surfs the web, and types in japanese and english all in one phone.  Oh yeah, it also can download java apps, which it can run (Comes with a couple of games and a really cool animation of some parapara cartoon girl walking)  No jokes, this thing has a manual that is 400 pages long and 1.5 inches think.  I took a couple of pictures with the phone, then mailed them to myself...really cool.  It can also record 5 sec movies.

The best part?

Its all in japanese.

Okay.  The phone menus itself has what can be MARGINALLY called english, (when I stored a picture entry for one of my friends in the phone book, the menu greeted me with a happy face animation and the words "ENTRIED" plastered in funky letters.) but the manual is all in japanese.  Ooooh boy.

Still, its the coolest thang that I've ever owned... and all for the low low price of 5000 yen... that's like $40 usd.  Read 'em and weep fellas... :o) Oh, and the ring tones?  No more crappy dinky tunes that don't even cover all the normal notes in the western octonal system.  We are talking full stereo sound, with ring tones that include voices and multiple instrumental sounds... like a little mpg player that sings when you get a call.  You can also compose your own tunes, with the visual note entry system that looks like a musical score sheet.  (Time to crack out those tune sheets from my concert band days!) 

Did I mention that the manual is in japanese?  :o)  sigh... sadly I will probably never learn how to use all the functions on this phone.

Anyhow, other than that, things are very cool.

While walking through Shibuya with Hartono (a friend from work) I was completely inundated with the amount of sheer people in the square... the streets are flooded with people.  Like a swarm of human ants running around... all talking into their little plastic boxes... all looking rather busy with places to go.  Its quite omoshiroi (interesting).

We wandered into sort of a dollar store... well, more of a bargain store, in Shibuya.  I don't remember what it was called, but would you really care if I did?  Anyhow, the thing I found interesting was that sony products are sold on shelves and displays that, in the USA, would be considered in the "cheap imports" category.  You know, the wall with all the imitation brands; the "Tamracos" or the "Daiwas" or the "Sonictronic" brands of the world.  The ones where you ask yourself "Where the heck was THIS thing made" and the answer was inevitably a 3rd world country, or south asia.  So here there was hanging some 2500yen Sony headphones... a model which I remember seeing in USA for at least $50, hanging among some not-so-well-known brands on a discount wall.  Pretty funny. 

Relativety, its the only constant in this universe.  (or was that change?  I could never remember)

Djc out.

The toilet. 
Ah, what a beautiful piece of modern ingenuity and design elegance; crafted for the sole purpose of making our basic human functions as pleasant as civilly possible.  And a piece of art, at that;  at least in Japan, where they take everything to the extreme, and cleanliness to a whole new level of obsession. 

I finally mustered the courage to try out the "electro-john" (as I affectionately call it).  Perhaps it was the 2 pints of Killkenny (that Irish beer which I could not find ANYWHERE in NYC is common here, ironically), or perhaps electro-john's quiet little whirrring sound was finally beginning to sooth my apprehensions.  It's quite hypnotic.  (I call it "IT" because for me to assign a gender to electro-john would be weird and wrong on so many levels)  So anyways, I fiddle with some of the buttons, watching the indicator lights change... its like trying to figure out how to fly an alien spacecraft.  I've never done so myself, but I've seen it often done on Star Trek, and I've always wondered how humans can fly Klingon ships, or use Romulan computers without a translator.  I guess it can't be that hard when you know what the general function of the alien device is.  Anyhow, after intelligently (as intelligent as I could be after 2 pints of Killkenny and no dinner) figuring out some of the buttons (I figured that setting everything to the "middle" setting was pretty safe... if it was temperature, it would be lukewarm, if it was 'force'  well, at least it wouldn't hurt too much). Then I said a little prayer, and sat down.  Whooooo!  The seat was warm... and oh it felt of so good.  :o)  It made me instantly happy, and pleasantly chipper.  The world was suddenly a happy place and flowers bloomed out of the wall tiles.  These Japanese, they sure know how to enjoy the simple pleasures in life!  Anyhow, after figuring out the buttons that controlled the temparature of the seat (easy when you are sitting on it), I decided to try the button with a picture that looked like a water geyser. 

Whoooooaaa there partner!  Hoooooooold on a minute! 

If any of you had ever had the feeling of water shooting up your woohoo... um... I suggest you prepare yourself mentally for it.  I couldn't stop giggling for 5 minutes.  Thank god I had set all the settings to 'middle' as the water was nice and warm... oooooooo, aaaaahhh.

Then I decided to be brave.  Spurred on by the pleasurable experiences of the past 2 functions.... I bit my lip, and tried pressing the button that had a female icon on it. 

Whoaaaaaa Nelly!!  -- well, lets just say,  I won't be doing THAT again... Funny how much the angle of the water stream has to do with making something feel pleasant or not-so-pleasant at all.

After recovering from the frontal assault, I hit the wavy-lined button, and a previously hidden blowdryer came out of nowhere, and treated my bottom to a nice stream of hot air.  Sort of like using a blowdryer to dry your hoohoo.  Wow.  Thoroughly pleased, I left the bathroom whistling a happy tune.  I'm going to like this place!

I went to the Ward Office to get my foreign registration card.  A nice lady from relocation services came by to take me there.  She insisted on paying for the cab fare too.  The one thing that is universal is the government office queue.  Like any DMV, or Social Security office, rows of seats of thoroughly bored people sitting there, waiting for their number to be called.  I make conversation with my guide (whose name I forgot, because it was more than 3 syllables, and very Japanese sounding.)  After I get my temporary registration form, she told me that I would have to return in about 2 weeks time to get my permanant registration card.  I asked her what I would tell the cab driver to get me here, she says "Minato-ku, yakkusho".  I tried hard to remember it.  After we left the building, I wanted to confirm with her what the ward office was in japanese...

"So I tell the cab driver 'minato-ku juushiko' ?"  I say. 
She looks at me funny.
"The japanese word for the Ward Office?"  I add. 
"Oh... neh!, you mean YAKKUSHO" she says...starting to laugh, "Juushiko means 'Young girls school' !"
"oh!  Whoooops!" I start laughing... "The cab driver would really think I'm some sort of sick perverted foreigner!!!".
That was embarrassing.

I went shopping yesterday.  Needed to get shampoo, and some other toiletries.  The thing is that everything is miniturized here.  The largest bottle of listerine is 250ml.  For those of you unfamiliar with the metric system (get with the program will you?) 250ml is what a can of coke used to be back in the 80's before the pop companies decided to feed us more sugary poison and enlarge the cans to 355ml.  (Thats the size of a can of coke now).  So I look at the bottle of listerine.  250ml... sheesh.  I'd be done that in a week!  And what made it worse was that it was 450yen.  That's like $4 usd.  Boy... I guess its expensive to have fresh breath here.

The lady at the convience store probably thought that I was a retard or something.  I must have been staring at the bottle of dishwasher fluid for 10 minutes.  Or was it the laundry detergent?  That was the problem... I couldn't tell.  Everything was in japanese, and even so, not in katakana, which is usually an english word translated into japanese.  Just Kanji.  And me, being an illiterate baboon of a chinese guy... can't read my own language, so kanji was useless to me.  The lady looked slightly annoyed, so I decided to make a snap judgement and buy both.  Heck, I needed to do the dishes anyway right?  I just hope that its the "soft on hands" kind of detergent and not the "kills roaches and silverfish" kind of detergent.  I find out tonight.

djc out.

Business class.  Ah, the joys of it.  Little known to the general populace, the long haul flights around the globe need not be painful.  My seat was reminiscent of the lazy boy deluxe models displayed proudly in the luxury furniture departments at your friendly neighborhood Takashimaya.  It was a most pleasant flight.  Though the recycled air was dry, and I had a nosebleed after the first 6 hours of breathing it.

Arrival at the airport.  the confusion begins... signs in english are rare, and those that are are cluttered with kanji and hirigana/katakana characters everywhere, making them difficult to discern.  Travel from Narita to Tokyo is accomplished in 1 of 3 means: 1) taxi 2) bus 3) the train.  Since I had 5 pieces of luggage, and movement of more than a couple of yards without the aid of those little luggage trolleys was excruciatingly painful, I opted for a taxi.  Boy was in for a surprise.

Things that I *could* have done with the money that I spent on the cab ride:

1) Gone and seen 2 Broadway shows.

2) Had an expensive dinner for 2 at Chez Loiselles

3) Paid for an executive parking space for a month in Wall St.

4) Bought a roundtrip flight from NYC to Toronto for the holidays.

5) Paid my NY City tax, and NY state income tax for the month.

6) Gotten executive box seats at a concert for 2

7) Played a days worth of blackjack at Atlantic City, possibly winning several G's in return.

8) Gone and played 18 holes of golf at your favorite course.  Twice.  Including the purchase of about 30 balls (which is about how many I need, given my skill level)

So anyway, after the painful bleeding that was the taxi ride, I settled into the apartment.  It is quite a nice place, everything is spotlessly new, from the furniture, to the kitchen, even the supplies in the kitchen seem straight out of a department store, some things still in their packaging.  I even checked under the cooking hood.  Spotless.  The bathroom was a interesting fare.  The toilet has some electronics attached to it, with several coloured buttons that light up when you lift the lid.  When you sit down, it starts making some weird noises.  All the buttons were in japanese, and the symbols were hard to discern, but I did recognize a button that clearly showed a female form.  Heaven help me it I were to accidentally press that while on the john.  I can only imagine what would happen.  And whatever it is, it can't be too pleasant.  So I decided to err on the safe side, and not press anything at all while I was on it.  The bathroom is divided into 2 separate divisions, one with the counter top and toilet, and the other, separated by glass doors and walls, contained the bathtub and shower.  I say shower in the most loose sense of the word, since it was a shower head attached to the wall, and that was it.  You shower right onto the floor, which has a drain.  Everything was brand new, and the tub was actually quite big, considering my expectations.  The only odd thing was that the ceiling was so low, that it only gave me 1 foot of headroom, which made blowdrying my hair a difficult affair.  I had to bend my knees so that I could hold the dryer sufficiently above my head.

Off to work:

I wake up several times during the night.  I guess my circadian clock was resetting itself.  3am, then 6am, then 7am. (thankfully my clock seems to work in multiples of 60 minutes exactly.)  I get up, and eat some breakfast that the apartment staff kindly left on my table in the welcome package.  In the fridge, a little carton says "Ca" and the rest is in Japanese.  Remembering groggily from my highschool chemistry days, I pray that they are using "Ca" as the symbol for Calcium, aka a cute synonym for Milk, and not something else.  My theory proves correct as I pour the stuff over my buran fureikusu (Bran Flakes) which make it a point on the box to say that they are "oishi!" (or delicious, if my memory of my 1st year japanese class serves me).  I gear up, leave my hotel supplied slippers at the vestibule, (a pleasant surprise, that everyone wears slippers and not their outside shoes in a household) and head out to work.

The ARK building is directly across my apartment building.  I stroll across the concourse, and enter the building.  A quick glance at the directory tells me that Goldman is on the 4-13 floors.  Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, I'm in the wrong building, as my desk is at the AT2 building, 10 mins away.  So 20 mins and 3 really confused japanese onlookers later, I find myself in the right place.  The office looks like a mirror of 125 Broad St.  Complete with the ergonomic desk quartet arrangements.  Apparently above the 14th floor are residences.  Too bad I didn't get one of those apartments... could have taken the elevator to work.  We'll see how the rest of the day goes... I have a lot of errands to take care of.  (like exchange more yen, after that taxi fiasco blew half my cash supply)

DJC out.

Welcome to the Tokyo Journals
Journal #1

If you are reading this, then you are on my soon to be used "Updates from Tokyo" list.  If you do not wish to be on it, please tell me.  I promise not to mail too often so that you don't get bored of hearing from me.  I also apologize in advance:  My writings may sometimes be politically charged, ethnically tainted, or the truth, as how I see it.  And we all know that nothing hurts more than the truth.  Take consolation in knowing that by taking the time to read this you are helping a confused person out there in the world. Desperately trying to make sense of it all, during a quarterlife crisis.



On the topic of $$$ obsession:

HK is a pretty dog eat dog...(and man eat dog) kinda place.  I single out HK because of the number of HK people who have the $$$ obsession. More and
more, I'm evolving a distaste for it.  I wonder what it would be like to be
someone on the other side...a right brained tree-hugger, born in america... being artsy fartsy...
spending all day editing papers, reading Beckett, Chompsky, and Kafka. Going
to book clubs, and discussing the intricacies of William Blakes romance
poetry... watching artsy foreign films in black and white and in european
languages I cannot even understand. 

I have some friends like that in Toronto.  Asians that are soo banana that
they are almost golf balls.  Personally, I can talk about this stuff like I
know what I am saying, but the truth is that I would not last very long in
their world.  I've never read Kafka or Chompsky... (unless you count Coles
Notes versions) but I know enough about it to sound impressive at cocktail
parties.  Isn't that's what its all about anyway?  Having the impression of
sophistication?  The notion of gentry?  In truth, the REAL smart ones would
rather spend their time in some book reading club arguing the validity of
Marxism in the modern age rather than schmoozing with yuppies and rich
bankers on the 'dirty' streets of Wall that I call home.

Deep thoughts:

I was riding on the subway to rehersals one Saturday morn.  Everyone knows
that most brilliant ideas and flashes of revelation happen on the MTA.
Whether it is because the subway is just such a beautiful microchism of our
society... with people ranging from rich to homeless sitting within odour
distance of each other, or whether it is due to the almost hypnotic rocking
motion of the car as it speeds through the graffiti painted grottos of
Brooklyn, I cannot say.  All I know is that a thought struck me.  It came
from the flanks of my mind, and struck me like a 2x4 hard-pine slab of wood
wielded by an irate bum with holes in his shoes, and shit on his face.  As I
regain control of my thought processes, the bum gives me a toothless
grin, his withered eagle eye gleaming into my soul...

I had become a yuppie. Those deplorable people wearing Armani sweaters and
wielding tennis racquets characterized by countless episodes of "The Fresh
Prince of Bel Air". 

I was a yuppie.  Somewhere in the last 2 years of my life, I had taken to
drinking Perrier bubbly water, going on ski trips in the winter, and
golfing in the summer.  I order red wine at restaurants, and I don't even
flinch when I order a dinner entrée more than $30.  I shop at Calvin Klein
and Hugo Boss (At least the outlet versions).  I hang out at trendy lounges,
I pay $10 or more for mixed drinks, and I abhor the immature class of club
goers high on E.

I am a yuppie.  What happened here?  Where did I cross the middle class line
into the less known and even less publicized upper-middle-class strata?
What the heck?  Was I supposed to talk different now?  Change my friends?
Start shopping at Abercombie and Fitch? Ick.  Ick.

The shoe shine guy walks by me on the trading floor.  His uniform garb
characteristic of his trade and method of speech identifies him as part of
the peasant class, forever working for a living.  Forever in service to his
feudal lords.  I don't like the notion of people serving me.  I feel
humbled.  I never wish to exert any rank over them.  I hate the feeling of
people's subservience, of the downtrodden compliance that they give me.  I don't
deserve it.  To have a grown man shine my shoes is the ultimate expression
of my superiority and his inferiority.  I can't stand that.  I don't feel
its right.  They may not be as well off or as lucky as I was in life... but
I don't have to rub it in their faces.  So I never get my shoes shined by
people.  It just feels wrong.

"shoe shine" he utters in a lifeless manner... like a person selling flowers
for the dead. "shoe shine".

I ignore him.  I want to give him a smile, but to do so might make him think
that I wanted a shoe shine.  When indeed, all I wanted was to sympathize
with him.  To acknowledge his presence.  To give him a brief message of
understanding. To let him know that life was not as dismal and joyless as he
thinks.

I feel sorry for him.  But maybe in some sick twist of irony, he stares back at some
mindless yuppie forever ensnared by the twisted net which we call capitalist
society, and feels sorry for him as well...