I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Friday night I went out in Osaka, Saturday Hong Kong, Sunday Singapore. What a jet-setter I am. Here is a pic of my friends in Hong Kong and I – Laurence, me, Yvan, and Francoise.
So what REALLY happened? Monday the 3rd of May was a regular day at work, albeit with more rushing around than normal. Monday night I… forgot what I did. I know I didn’t watch a movie with ten of my rowdy friends, though, I never do that.
Tuesday we flew to Hong Kong – that is me and seven of my colleagues. Got to the airport at 6:45 AM. What an adventure. I was the first one there, of course, then Elena, then the others trickled in. Got through check-in for our Cathay Pacific flight (best airline in the world?) with our 200 kilograms of baggage, had to pay a bit extra. Of course, we were scattered throughout the whole plane, I was in the very very very back. Sheesh. Didn’t even bother to watch the movie. Mystic River was playing, but I didn’t want anything that intense. Got to Hong Kong, took a cab into the city, found the suite in the Hyatt I was staying in with my boss – classy, great view, 29th floor, free cocktails on the 30th floor every night from 5:30 to 7:00 (too busy to take advantage of them, of course) and breakfast there too. Strawberries and chocolates in the evening, bowl of fruit at all times, fax machine and business centre in the room. Went off to Kowloon to meet Suzuki-san and get my ticket for my next trip – Hong Kong-Osaka-Hong Kong. Bustled about doing errands, like changing money, then got back to the hotel for the meeting. They were setting up the hall events, which was cool. I was helping out in the office, people were asking me to sing songs, so I did. In one of the theaters they were playing Van Helsing for the press screening, so I sat and watched about five minutes of one of the werewolf scenes. It was totally stupid, as I suspected. How could any remake of Ghostbusters be good anyway? When Hugh Jackman is not Wolverine, he’s not really himself, is he? Out in the lobby there were tons of dumb Van Helsing posters. Yawn. Had an 7:30 to 10 meeting with the boss in the lounge on the mezzanine, the one with the great view. At 8:10 all of a sudden all these fireworks went off from the roofs of the surrounding builings, I could only marvel that I was sitting in the lobby of a five-star hotel with a perfect view, watching it all. Ate finger foods, washed down with a beer, then went back to the room to do some research after munching on some 7-11 sandwiches. Yuck again.
Wednesday, got to work early and met a big shot from the IMF. And when I say big shot, I mean BIG shot. He was nearly 8 feet tall, and a super nice guy too by the way. Drifted around and tried to make myself useful, then sat through speeches and speeches and speeches. Lots of blurred worlds, so what do I remember of my time in Hong Kong? Good speeches, bad speeches, moderators, boderators, happy times, rushing around, eating muffins, drinking coffee, finding cake, trying to meet interesting people, chatting for a polite ammount of time with boring people, having a few cocktails, eating leftover sandwiches and snacks and cakes for dinner several evenings, writing reports late into the night and getting few hours of sleep. The next morning I would always hear about how my co-workers got even less sleep than I had. I wish I could remember more about the highlights of the days events. I had a great time, even though I was working so much (8 AM to 11 PM for 4 days that week). Coming at the end of my loneliness of being on my own for three weeks in Singapore it should have been really tough, but it did get my mind off of thing in a way. It also helped that it was really well organized, and that people had put in so much work to make sure it went off really well. Wow.
Wednesday afternoon I went off to have an interview with a big shot in an investor group, Thursday and Friday I interviewed big shots from Chinese banks, Thursday and Friday I had breakfasts (coincedental meeting) with the same IMF big shot – such a nice guy. It was a helluva trip. Finally had a meal in Jollybee, the Philippine version of MacDonald’s that is like a national symbol or something. Rode on the MTR and watched people use Octopus cards. Funny.
Friday was the big end of the event. I sat in on three payment events, and even “moderated” the last one. It didn’t go so great, but I had three very different guys among the group and they were quite interesting. One western woman asked one of the guys a question. He answered the question civilly enough, but in the end reared up on his hind legs and bit her head off anyway. There was a closing keynote speech, and then we were done. But no – there was still the report to write, so we got to work and finished at 10, experiencing great giddy relief. At 10:30 we were having dinner in a local restaurant. Great Hong Kong seafood, I ate and ate and ate. It was my first real dinner the whole week. Breakfast and lunch had usually been good, but dinner never was… until Friday. Went out for drinks in the lively gwailo drinking area. A hilly neighborhood that had been shut off from traffic, everybody carrying their drinks into the street. We got there, the ten of us, and had drinks, listened to the Philippino band do Queen covers, then went to a quieter place. Some of us got drunk and made passes at each other, others fell asleep. I was pretty sober by the end of it. I got back to the hotel, went to sleep, woke up at a good time, had a five star breakfast, and checked out. I realized that I had lost my sweater, though – damn, nothing warm to wear on the flight. Took a cab. I asked him to take me to the train station, but he said he could take me to the airport for the same price, so I said – OK, man, take me away. A little mistrusting that he wouldn’t turn around and demand the full price of the taxi fare anyway, but then he was good to his word after all. Checked in to my Air India flight. Everything went well, until it was time to board. Then I found out that I had to sit in business class. COOL! Air India business class is way better than Cathay Pacific economy class any day. I flew to Osaka in style, with a lavish dinner and neverending beers. They showed the film Paycheck, which I found not such a bad flick after all despite the presence of the cursed Ben Stiller – entertaining, modest in its ambitions, and I liked the guy who played the sidekick. Funny how you can still see a film on the wall in business class, and not on those crappy little digital screens with the multiple crappy movies that always run into difficulties. They ran out of blankets, though. I made an unhappy face at the attendant, who said “I’m sorry sir, we’ve run out of blankets. I have asked the captain to turn up the cabin temperature. I know it’s not the right thing to do, but it’s the best we can accomodate you right now.” What can you say to that?
Got to Osaka, got through customs quickly, got a bus to Kobe quickly. In the bus I asked a guy to borrow his cell phone to call Naoko. That worked well. Got to Sannomiya station, got a train almost right away, and got to Himeji at 6 PM. Naoko and Zen and my father-in-law picked me up by car. Zen didn’t quite recognize me for 10 seconds after he saw me, but he quickly clued in and ran into my arms after all. How nice. Got home, had a nice family dinner, drank lots more beer, then went off to see Aki and Kimi-chan and Hayao-chan. Slept together with my family again for the first time in a while. Here is a picture of Zen and his favorite cousin Haruka.
Sunday we went off to Ako to see our old friends there. Trevor and Ewan picked us up from the station. We went for a little drive around the city, like to see the new Oishi jinja, finally complete and looking glistening new after a year of reconstruction. Since I don’t really understand the concept of a new-looking shrine, it did look a little odd. I guess it needs a few decades to break in. Oh well. Went off to the great Okonomiyaki shop to eat and drink, which was fun. Ewan played a bunch of songs, including some Pixies (!?!) songs, and that was cool. Found out that Trevor had my Top Secret tape and asked for it back (and he actually sent it a few days later – thanks Trevor!) so I could show it to my co-workers, mutual Top Secret fans. Yeah! Went off later on to see Ono-san’s new house, which is really swish!! All wood, plenty of flat screen plasma TVs, a bunch of expensive dogs, very nice. Went home and… had a family meal with all the brothers and sisters. Fun. The kids played happily, and once piled on me!
Monday was a rainy day. We took bikes to Uniqlo to buy some clothes. Got there too early so killed time in a local game centre for a while. The Anpanman bonk-a-baikin was broken, so we made print club stickers and hung out. Strange place. Got some nice clothes, though. Evening we ate… some food. Watched the Ring. Will review later.
Tuesday we went to Nishinomiya in the afternoon. It was OK – got there late in the afternoon, went off to see Keiko and Sayoko, I walked around and met Chris and Tadd. From the third floor of Gloria Mansion, I spotted Zorro in the field below. I yelled out “Zorro, Zorro,” Zen yelled out “Zorro, Zorro.” The cat looked at us for a while, then disappeared. Later we went for a river walk, Seamus was not around the pub so we went back and had dinner with Sebastian and Keiko and Jason and Yukiko instead and had a wonderful evening. Went off to sleep at Aki’s, Zen got to sleep at 11:30, very late. Hung out with Aki drinking beer until 1:00 AM. Here is a picture from Tuesday night:
Woke up at 8 or so, hung out with Aki in the morning for a while, she went to work late, then walked off to the old Gloria Mansion to hang out with our old landlord Kawamura-san and play with Tadd and Chris. Had a mini picnic at the riverside, which was nice. Took the train back to Himeji and spent the evening hanging out, watching sumo, Hanshin Tigers baseball, and a movie – My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Review later.
Thursday. What did we do. I took care of some visa business. I went to Kimi-chan’s to write emails. I later went downtown to look at CDs or something. In the evening we watched Terminator 3.
Friday I went off to Osaka to meet Matt. Lots of fun stuff. I left Himeji at 3, got to Osaka at 4, went to Shinsaibashi and walked around the street and record stores, marvelling again at the beauty of trendy Japanese women. How I had forgotten that. Of course, it is all illusionary, but what do I care after only a week back in the country. Went to Pipe 69 live house to catch up with Shane, that was cool. Pet were there too, Yokk-oi!! Met Matt in Tower, then went off to Nature Burger for some food and then 7-11 for some onigiri, then to Alchemy Records to chat with Masonna and buy a Garadama/Pain Jerk CR-R. Nice stuff. Masonna gave me some Nagisa Nite calendars from 2002. What a cool guy he is. Went off to Pooka Pooka to hang out with master Take Damone and watch Aerosmith videos as we drank beer. Cool people hanging out that night, including a manga-assistant guy in a shirt and tie. Funny. Later went off to Ganja pub to drink and hang out more, the bartender was the singer from the Orhiri Pen-Penz, so we listened to some of his music. Then the manga-assistant guy showed up again, and it was a laugh. The master put on the Garadama CD, cool stuff. NOISY!!! Matt needed to leave pretty early, so we got to the station and said goodbye. I went off to Tocca a Te to have a final beer of the evening and to say hi to Steve Yamaguchi, which was short and sweet. Barely talked to him 2 minutes, he was busy. Did talk to some horribly boring guy from some newspaper, thogh, not so fun. Rushed off to the last train, read the JapanZine and KTO and listened to my walkman as I sped to Himeji. It took an hour. I got there at 12:40, collected my bike, got home at 1.
Awake again at 6, but with no hangover. Got the bags together, prayed that they would not be overweight, then got into the car and sped off to the airport. Nice. Took over two hours. Checked Naoko and Zen in, hung out for nearly an hour, then hid as they checked in so that Zen would not cry too too too much. It worked, although apparently he figured it out a few hours into the flight and began to bawl anyway. Smart kid.
Mr. and Mrs. Fujino fled right away, so I was on my own in the airport. Had ramen and potstickers for lunch, then had the bad luck of overhearing a boorish guy ask for western tea in the ramen shop. At least, that is what I think he was saying. The waitress had no idea what he was talking about. “Tea, tea, it’s international, isn’t it?” Actually, it is, but what kind of an idiot orders western tea in a Japanese restaurant? What happens when you try to order matcha in MacDonald’s? The Air India flight to Hong Kong was OK this time around, although I wasn’t bumped up to business class. Since the flight was empty, the crew didn’t have to work too hard, and most of the time were seen lounging around, disinterestedly reading newsapapers and magazines. Only the Japanese stewardess appeared to be actually bustling about. They showed a funny Hindi film – four young touts go to Mumbai from the rural areas, accidentally kidnap a high powereed gangster, who is like the Indian Mickey Rourke, who is in love with a dancer who is like the Indian Catherine Zeta-Jones. I am sure these people are superstars in India, I just wish I knew their names because they were fantastic. I think the film was called “Ride.” Air India is good. The best think about it is that they don’t have those fussy little video screens, and also when you ask for a beer the bring TWO. Every time. I drew a lot on the flight, since I couldn’t tolerate the book I had with me. The inflight material was no better. Editorials by famous Indians in the in-flight magazines about how they love Air India. Hilarous. Got to Hong Kong and took the train off to Central, then a bus to Taikoo to meet Suzuki-san and Takako. A show and a change of clothes later, we are eating dinner with Jackie Iori, a juku teacher who had contemplated a move to Singapore but turned it down. Good food. Later we went out for drinking – Suzuki-san and Iori-san to meet another friend, and me with Francoise, Laurence and Yvan. Nice. Fun. Got home late at night, then to sleep.
Saturday we got up and had some dim sum. Nice. Phoned Naoko and Zen. Took a bus to the airport, had a lot of time to wander around the airport, then went on the flight. Cathay was OK this time, and I watched Along Came Polley on the flight. It was not a great film, but it benefitted from more than a few laugh-out-loud-funny parts. Great. Got to Singapore, took a cab home, saw Naoko and Zen. Unpacked, went out for Indian dinner, slept a great deep sleep.
Monday. Pressure meeting in the morning, another meeting from 2 to 3, then lots of catching up and getting down to work. Great nice stuff. Some bad news at work nonetheless, so it was an eventful last week, but it is nice to be there again.
Film Review – the Ring. The American film version of the ring is OK, basically worth seeing but nohow is it better than the original. Many things changed, and none of them improvements. Horses committing suicide? Horses? The opening scene is way too long, and the son is a bit too creepy. OK, maybe that is better than the original. Naomi Watts is good, though, but her ex-husband is not so great.
Film Review – My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A great little film about a mousy Greek-American woman with no real problems in life beyond an eccentric family. Great acting, lots of funny, charming scenes, and a good romantic thing. It is sometimes hard to believe that Greek-Americans are really that eccentric, though, and having a strange family is not really like being actually oppressed (i.e. drunken/runaway father, sadistic single mother, whatever). In a funny way, it reminded me of my own situation. I come from a small family, I married into a large family. Same as in the movie.
Film review – Terminator Three. So so. Nothing about this film was really great except for Arnold Schwartzenegger. Weird how a Terminator needed to steal a gun to kill people with – doesn’t she have enough weapons of her own. I think the budget for this film was way less than for T2 and it kind of shows. Oh well, I’ve seen it, now I can move on with my life.
Film review – Along Came Polly. I wasn’t expecting too much about this film. The plot is the kind of thing you have seen a million times already – White Palace, etc. etc. etc. But with a few laugh-out-loud scenes of its own, it’s basically worth seeing. The basketball scene with the fat hairy guy is probably a mini-classic of its own. “Uh, excuse me, could you put your shirt back on sir?” Ben Stiller is the new Woody Allen. Jennifer Aniston… is not.
