Hey ho, it’s been a few weeks since I wrote on this. Geez. I have a bunch of pics and stuff to post. Naoko was mean to me today. Zen is being naughty. Mum freaked out when I used the word “snot” while she was eating her breakfast (“PETER, PLEASE!!! NOT WHILE I’M EATING!!!!”), but later on she used the word “pee” while I was eating, so… well, what’s with the double standards? Later on we went to the West Coast Park and had difficulty hailing a cab. I saw a cop car coming up the road, so I said “hey, here comes a white cab,” and had fun watching the others try to hail it, hee hee. Someone from the office came by to pick up my old monitor, which she was buying, and also to give me a few things that I had forgotten to take home from work on Friday, that I will need for my business trip to China next week – saved! Just now Naoko was holding a naked Zen, just out of the shower, as he was farting – gross!!
Jan 4 to 6 – Singapore: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I don’t remember what I did, but I sure was busy preparing for my Japan trip. On the 6th I went off to the Ministry of Manpower to take care of employment pass stuff, that was exhausting and required three trips throughout the day. Friday… a blank.
Jan 7 to 15 – Japan: Friday was a busy day at work, went home late, ate dinner with Mum and Dad, then off by taxi to the airport to catch a night flight to Venus. No… a night flight to Tokyo. By ANA. That went OK. Saw the Bourne Supremacy, that was quite OK. Those Japanese stewardesses sure are busybodies. Just fell asleep when suddenly it was time for a 4:30 breakfast. I wish I had put a stop order on that one… I just wanted to sleep. Took the bus to Tokyo station, wandered around a bit, then got on a bullet train. Drank chu-hi and listened to the walkman. I got a window seat on the mount Fuji-side of the train, so I was hoping to see the big thing finally. Unfortunately, I only realized just after I got my seat that I was in the smoking car (!!!) of the train, so I suffered a bit on that trip, but it wasn’t too bad. Weird that Japanese trains still have smoking cars, though. My bad luck, though, I never saw Fuji. I guess it was covered in clouds. Got to Himeji after only 3 hours (those new bullet trains are incredibly fast!!!) and saw Zen, Naoko, and my father-in-law. Got a nice pic of Zen standing in front of a bullet train too.
Went home, had a relax in the cool cool cold Himeji home, cycled off to get my bullet train ticket to Tokyo for Monday, and then chilled out. Guests started coming over, and by 5:30 we were all feasting on crab, sushi, sashim, and all sorts of other yummy stuff – it was the famly matriarch’s 88th birthday year celebration. Lots of food and drink, plenty of beer and sake, and me speaking full-on Japanese again after a long break (footnote – there is now a Japanese-speaker in our staff, so I can now finally use all of my languages in the office). Zen got sleepy at 9:30, so I took him upstairs to sleep. Of course, at the same time I passed out utterly – I was functioning on not-much sleep and too-much booze. OK. Sunday we went off to Nishinomiya. Zen was happy to be on the trains. We took a bunch a bunch a bunch of trains.
Got to Nishinomiya, met up with friends, including the marvelous Tadd Harron and his cool cool parents.
Later on we went to see Aki, where we took this cool picture:
Got back to Himeji, hung out, drank shochu. Monday was a mellow day of hanging out. I dug arorund my boxes of stuff and found an old picture of myself, a keyboard brush, my birthdays memo, a White Zombie hemp cloth CD holder, and some other wacky stuff. Cycled off to the castle with Zen to look around, then went off to look at guitars in the classic guitar shop up there near the house. Great. Drank lots and lots of shochu in the evening. Maybe a little too much, actually…
Tuesday, off to Tokyo. A sad farewell as I went off to the bullet train station. Cool to have my first interview of the day at 4:00 in the afternoon – no hurry to get there, obviously. The trip went well, although I was a bit hung over. Read a bit from Shogun, my book for the trip, which I am about 1/3 through (footnote – I am wearing a Hanshin Tigers cap and reading Shogun while I am travelling in Japan – am I a geek or what?). Having given up on the chance of seeing Mount Fuji due to numerous failed attempts to see it from the bullet train (for the record – 5 previous shinkansen travels) I was just dazing out when, by chance, I looked to my left and saw through the windows this MASSIVE thing floating in the air beyond the windows of the train. I knew instantly that it was Fuji, and I let out a loud gasp (weird, right?). I jumped out of my seat, which was not Fuji-facing but sea-facing, and off I went to the end of the train car where I could get a window of my own to see the magnificent hill. Amazing. A few minutes later it was obscured by other mountains, so I went back to my seat. But what a charge!!! Got to Tokyo, got oriented, lugged my suitcase off to the Japanese Banker’s Association for some more conversation. Then off to Sony Bank – what a lot of walking WITHIN the train station to get to the actual place I needed to get to. Then LOTS of walking around Tokyo before I finally found the place I needed to stay at whithin Kabukicho, Tokyo’s most notorious entertainment district. Lots of Africans standing around trying to snare salarymen into their venues. Cool. Whatever. I finally found the place, after an elegant African (who kept urging me to “be cool” – I guess I was a little uptight after my long day) got me oriented. I found out that the place was quite nice, although simple. I checked my email, and then went off to eat. I wanted to have ramen and gyoza, but walking around I didn’t find anything good. I ended up in Mr. Lee’s shop, but the gyoza weren’t great, and the plate of chao mein was too big and not so good. The bill was a bit high too. Oh well. Going home, I found a bunch of ramen shops MUCH closer to my hotel. D’oh!! Wandered the neighbourhood – strange Chinese women came up to me asking me in breathy voices if I wanted a “massage.” Yah, right!! Wednesday, January 12th was a busy day of interviews. Don’t remember what I did, but in the evening when it was all over and the dust was settling I discovered that I had nothing to do and nobody to meet for any reason or another. So I chilled out in Shinjuku, wandering all over the place. Bought the new Spitz CD on the day of its release, getting a free sticker as well as a cool pin. Boring night, very boring. Lonely. Thursday, January 13th I had the morning off, due to a cancellation, so I chilled out, watching TV and sufring the internet and seeing Kabukicho in the morning. I managed to snare a lunch meeting, so off I went to the Marunouchi Building in the Tokyo station area. Went up to the 36th floor, and saw Fuji for the second time – right across from our table, there it was, floating above the urban sprawl on one of those rare, clear, Tokyo mornings. Wow!! We could also see into the Imperial Palace, which lies at the foot of the building.
After lunch, I found the Ginza locatoin of Shinsei bank’s cool new Bank Spot, which has a bunch of high tech stuff to wow the cliients. Wow. Went to several interviews in the afternoon, then met Hara-san for dinner in the Marunouchi Buiding (again). Had nice pizza. The Italian pizza chef I saw going in greeted me in Italian – thought me a paysano perhaps. Went off to a TV studio to do a spot talking about Japan’s Internet banks. The interview was out of Singapore, Tokyo’s studio is just a room with a cameraman, a bunch of equiptment, and a chair for me to sit in. Fun.
Afterwards, met up with Naoko’s cousin Masatoshi for drinks… and more food! Hara-san ordered another complete meal, and we ate and drank more to celebrate our unusual encounter in Tokyo. Wow – wild!! Lots of people the trendy Hibiki bar/restaurant drinking wine, but there we were with our sochu and sake. Great. Got home late, prepared for tomorrow…
January 14th, 2005, a very busy day, I walked to my first interview, got lost, made it on time, then went off to another lunch appointment in the Toykyo Palace Hotel where 4000 yen roast beef sandwiches are served. Great sunny afternoon, hanging out. Went to a 2-hour interview, held in the staff cafeteria, only to find it had been cut to 1 hour. Weird! Wandered around for a while, taking pictures of bank logos. Bank geek! Went off to another interview, then the day was done and I rushed off. Got in the train, went off to the cool new Shinsei Bank headquarters, which is a wander-through bank, with its after-hours tellers, its meeting rooms, and the big escalator. Nice. Wrote emails from the Yahoo cafe there, then went back to the hotel to hang out and eat an onigiri dinner before going out to meet TIm in Koenji and going to the cool music pub he took me to. Cool solo acoustic set, then a funky rockin’ blues set by toothless musicians onstage eating and singing and all that stuff. Had a fun time with Tin Whalen (of Rag and Bone zine and Semi Roar music label) and RIck Round (of Ointment On The Souls Of My Shoes zine and its OOTSOMS label) at a mini-zine summit. All we needed were Matt and Scott, and maybe Carter, to make it complete. Fun.
Weird people started playing music throughout the evening, and I was having fun being in a hive of activity. But it needed to come to an end, so I went off with TIm, in the rain, and caught a cab to my next destination – Rolling Stone!! Got there, and saw the 2000 yen entry charge. Oh well. Got there, and heard the techno, saw the rockin’ boys, and rerquested PWEI. They played “Can You Dig It,” which gave me courage, so I requested RATM and Sisters of Mercy and all sorts of stuff. They played a few things that i requested, and I had a few gin and tonics there, but eventually I had to leave – too weird and sullen and potentially violent. Went out, had a hard time orienting myself, then found out which way was Kabukicho. Then, settling in on a pub to spend another few hours, I happily found one that had a hard-working pubstress who knew all about Spitz, Elephant Kashimashi, Love and Rockets, and maybe even Leonard Cohen. Cool place. Got home really late, like 5:30 or so. Then 5 hours of sleep, wake up on my own at 10:30, checkout time is 10, a blur of activity, get it all together by 11, then off to brunch, fun, shopping, and while I’m wandering through HMV I find the Mekons new CD and I let out ANOTHER loud gasp. Naturally, I am buying this without any hesitation!!! Wandering around, I meet Ephraim, who is wearing a Hanshin Tiigers cap as well as me. INterestingly, he only bought it out of necessity. Oh well. On to the hotel, and a curry lunch, then checkout, and off to the airport. On the trian with me is Bill, who is also wearing a Hanshin Tigers hat. We talk for the whole trip. The pervert who is sitting in the seat in front of us, while on a trip to the toilet, tells us to “be quiet.” Naturally, we ignore him, but it’s totally weird to have a Japanese person tell us to shut up. Wow. Got to the airport, checked in, flew on to Singapore, uneventful, except for the fact that I watched 3 evening films -”Without a Paddle,” “Garfield,” and “Cody Banks 2.” Weird. Got to Singapore in the late evening, took a cab home, and spent the rest of the weekend recovering from this tough TOUGH trip.