Hey, ho, looks like February is gone and I only had one post on the second. Well, lots of reasons for that, but mainly it seems that the site was down for most of February. I was in Singapore for the fist half of the month, then afterwards I went to Japan, Korea and Taiwan on business trips. Yesterday I even went to Thailand for a day, my first one-day international business trip, yee haw.
Now to try to remember what I did last month. Well, the first weekend of February draws a blank, but I think that on February 4th we watched dragon dancing and lion dancing at Signature Park, where we live. This year was better than last year and nearly as good as two years ago. We saw the dragon dancing with the big ball and the guy dancing around, eating salad, giving out oranges, and all sorts of fun stuff. Zen took his tin drum and banged on it for fun. After all, why not? Got good pics of Zen with lion heads. It started to rain heavily, so we went into the clubhouse. Crowds of people being stupid irritated me, and when I got home I continued to be very irritated and easily provoked. Not so often that I lose my temper, but it happened today. Oh well. Zen slept, and Naoko came home from work and we had a nice dinner. Sunday I think we went to the botanical garden. Don’t remember what I did the following week, but on the weekend we once again went to the botanical garden and kicked around the ball, which was fun. Sunday night mum cooked ‘sauerbraten’, a German dish, and this was their farewell dinner instead of going out to a restaurant to eat a family meal. Mum and dad don’t really like to eat out, at least in Singapore, so I guess we won’t try that again. Monday the 13th was a very busy day at work, and I got everything together for my trip to Japan. Flew out Monday at midnight. The flight was uneventful, just flew flew flew, slept slept slept, got to Seoul at 6:00 AM or something, killed time in the airport for a few hours, looked into Mont Blanc shop, saw a watch I liked, killed more time looking in the tourist shops for kimchi. Took the two-hour flight to Tokyo, got out, took the shuttle to the downtown Yokohama bus terminal, easy as 3.14′ Got there, immediately saw Nicole and Brenda, then also Evan and little Lauren. Nice. Went to their place, hung out, got to know the kids, had dinner, waited for Ralph to come home, drank chu-hi for the first time in a while, got used to cold weather, explored their vast house, got ready for interviews in Tokyo the next day.
JAPAN
Wednesday woke up early, jumped on bicycles and headed off to Tokyo by train with Ralph. First interview at a bank right in downtown Tokyo. I had clear instructions how to get there, but I was a bit confused and nonetheless went to the wrong building. That banks has dozens of buildings in downtown Tokyo, crazy. Went to another interview, then another interview, and then a fourth and a fifth. The fourth was on an ‘island’ in a river or a canal of sorts, very interesting to see covered house-boats in these skinny little canals in downtown Tokyo. The monorail that took me out there was built way up in the air like a sky-scraper ‘ I was eye-to-eye with people in the seventh floor of some office buildings at one point! In the evening I headed out to Shimokitazawa to attend a live show with Ralph and my friend Tim. Got there, couldn’t reach Ralph, Tim didn’t have a cell phone, so I just went in. I got there 15 minutes after it was supposed to start, and 45 minutes after opening time, but still a long queue snaking around for people trying to get in. Got through the gate, and it was totally packed with people. Even if Ralph and Tim were somewhere in there, I couldn’t get close to them or see them, it was so packed. I was starting to regret being there, especially in a suit after a long day of interviews. The first band came on, and they were pretty lame. Stupid jokes by two guys in tiger masks (see the famous Tiger Mask wrestler), then heavy acoustic songs by two raving screamers who were crawling around the audience. Sure it was amusing, but they went on for ages and ages. I wanted to leave, and it didn’t help that I was alone. Luckily, the air conditioning and ventilation was fantastic, so the fact that we were packed in like sardines wasn’t too terrible or suffocating. At one point the duo started off a song like ‘Redemption Song’, so when they started singing I sang ‘oh pirates, yes they rob I,’ but gave it up after a while ‘don’t want to be too obnoxious. I was the only gaijin in the place. Later on they sang ‘We are the world,’ but since they didn’t speak English well, they just sand ‘We are the wa, we are the children, we are the wa wa wa wa wa wa, wa wa wa wa wa.’ Again and again. I at least wanted to sing the Stevie Wonder part. Oh well. Next up were the fabulous furry King Brothers, a crazy Japanese lock ‘n’ loll band from Nishinomiya, where I once lived. Now considered one of Japan’s wildest bands, they were the unit that I had come to see, and I was glad to know that they were playing second up and not last (I think there were four or five bands on the bill that night. In my mind they were the top-billed, but played second-up. Good. They came out, and played all sorts of nasty rock and roll. Nothing strikes up as very memorable at this time, but I remember wondering where the bass sounds were coming from. The drummer wore some sort of skeleton outfit, there was one tall longhair on guitar, another shorthair on guitar as well, that was it. The shorthair was kind of scary looking, like intense eyes, no eyebrows, and a somewhat unpredictable air about him, often chewing on the microphone and singing that way, while the longhair mostly seemed like a Stroke of some sort. Got out of there, got in touch with Ralph who had been delayed massively by a meeting and was just on his way over. Rendezvoused with him in Shinjuku, found a funky eating area that I’d once found last year when I was in Tokyo for meetings. Nice dinner, some drinks, then back home. It was raining hard when we got to Yokohama, so we didn’t take the bicycles and instead cabbed it home – not too expensive. Oh well. Thursday I woke up semi-late, did some computer stuff, saw mum-n-dad who had just flown into Japan from Singapore to join up with everybody, went into Tokyo by train to do some more interviews, had a lunch of onigiri ‘rice triangles,’ met three banks, the last meeting was 2.5 hours long and capped by a lovely dinner in a trendy restaurant on the 42nd floor of some high rise, which was cool and fun and a lovely view and some of the nicest grilled fish I’ve ever eaten, plus some nice sochu. Friday I started early, had a few interviews in the morning, ate a nice ramen lunch, and had a few interviews in the afternoon. No big deal. Finished relatively early, went to Shinjuku for some CD shopping, didn’t find what I was looking for, then off to Roppongi to have dinner with a banker friend, which was very nice – good food, good talk, and nice sochu. Got back to Yokohama pretty late, and slept. Saturday we jumped on the bicycles and headed downtown, which was quite a way! Through neighbourhoods and along lanes. I had Evan on the back of my bicycle, a regular old mamachari bicycle with a child’s seat attached way back above the rear wheel since I wasn’t keen to try out Ralph’s 10-speed racing bike, or whatever it was – I prefer something that lets me ride fairly upright, and not hunched over. But Evan, at 25 kilos, is a tough load to haul, and he likes to wobble around, which nearly threw me off balance a few times. I had to stop him and scold him a few times, which wasn’t nice for me to do, but we’re buddies and buddies can do that to each other (I hope so, anyway). Got to some big ferris wheel downtown, and caught up with mum, who had come by bus since there was no bicycle for her (and maybe she wasn’t that keen to cycle anyway). Walked around a bit, saw the luxurious hotel where Ralph and family stayed in the fall, then headed off towards Chinatown. Just before we got there, however, Mum said she was tired and was going to take the bus home. Thanks, mum, for making us walk all that way with you pushing our bikes, and then you didn’t even join us in Chinatown. Jumped back on the bikes for the short remainder of the way, then walked around Chinatown. Nice – clean, orderly, kind of like Kobe Chinatown, but the avenue was a bit wider. Bought buta-man, or ‘pork buns,’ which were huge – bigger than any I’ve ever eaten anywhere else. And we were hungry too, from exertion and from the cold. Took pics, visited a temple and watched Evan burn some incense. I bought Taiwanese sausages from a young Taipei kid, talked Chinese and Japanese with him, nice switch. Cycled through the trendy Motomachi neighbourhood, cycled home. It was FAR!!! Got home, ate lunch, chilled out, and then I went out on my shopping mission. Bought train toys for Zen, Ojyarumaru stuff for Naoko and I, train mags for Zen and my boss, and a few other things. I found a small Tower Records, but they didn’t have any good music, so I jumped into a train and headed off to the Yokohama Tower Records and found just what I was looking for! Yay!! Got back at 7:00, some tension which I guess was due to being late, but I wasn’t really that late since I thought we’d be having a late dinner after our late lunch. Ralph fell ill with a cold, so our plans for a pub crawl were called off, and I just stayed up late drinking sochu and listening to my new CDs. Sunday I went to the Sankeien garden with Mum-n-Dad while Brenda and Nicole spent some time together, Ralph recuperated, and Evan and Lauren played at home. The park was lovely, and the weather was fine, although things were a bit brown. Oh well. We had a volunteer guide to show us around, a ‘man of leisure’ who enjoyed practicing his English. Nice place, with a lookout over the refineries, plenty of tea ceremony huts, and all sorts of other stuff. Some plum blossoms were blooming, including a famous one that had been in a famous painting, and we saw the nice Shirogawa houses with the tall thatch roofs, which was nice. Went home at noon, took a family picture together, said goodbye to Brenda, and then had our lunch. Did some work on the computer in the afternoon while the kids napped and mum-n-dad read their newspaper, then I too went to the airport. Got some beer and onigiri snacks for the dinner, flew to Seoul Korea, and got ready for another round of bank interviews, this time based out of the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon, Seoul, Korea. The flight was OK – seems like Asiana Airlines is quite all right, and I thought the food was yummy (for a change). Some girl saw me doodling on the flight, and she started talking to me, which was nice. I had lots of beer, then got to Seoul, my luggage, and took a taxi to the Hamilton.
KOREA
Nothing to do, after midnight, so I walked around, bought some beers, walked along the spooky back streets with girls calling to me from hooker joints. It was Itaewon, didn’t see any GIs walking around, but so what. Got some sleep late at night. Monday I woke up, headed off to an 11:00 interview, that was good, then took the subway to my next appointment with plenty of time to spare, all right, but I got lost and confused by the map in the station when I arrived. Got there with 20 minutes to spare, met a banker who was on the way into the bank I had an appointment at, he was very friendly, showed me a nice place to have my lunch, and I feasted on bibimbap with tons of great kimchi (free refills). Got to the appointment a bit late, but when I got to security on the first floor the person I was supposed to meet on the 9th floor wasn’t even there, the security people acted like they’d never heard of me, tried to tell me that the person I was supposed to meet was in another building, then took me up to the 13th floor. Someone on the 13th floor finally took me to the 9th floor, hooray – vindicated. So, I had my interview for an hour, very nice, then off to another interview by taxi where I met a super senior banker in a huge bank, which was fun and interesting. After the interview, went off to meet Scott of Bug zine fame, which was great, we met at the old Korea First Bank branch where my boss and I had interviewed the French CEO over two years ago, except now the bank has been bought by Standard Chartered Bank and was draped in the blue and green colours. I like StanChart’s colour scheme and marketing, but I think they do go a bit overboard. Like the colours are subtle and rather soothing, but there’s nothing subtle about hanging massive hanging drapes from the cathedral cieling of the headquarters building. Tried to get some cash out of the ATM, but nothing came. Problem? Oh well. Went off to eat some more yummy cheap and abundant Korean food, while Scott regaled me with tales of the men’s entertainment industry of Seoul, Korea, much of it very amusing. Drank some soju, ate kimchi and rice and other yummy stuff, then Scott had to go so I went back to the hotel and then off to the Three Alleys Pub, which was fairly interesting – had a few beers, caught a buzz, met a cool Australian insurance guy who told me a bit about the industry, interesting. The bartender was from Canada, but the rudest Canadian I’d ever met. He was practically like a Brit in his need to contantly one-up anybody, but I guess that’s what you get from tending bar in Seoul, Korea. Tried a few other ATMs in the area, but nothing worked. Ouch! I now had less than a dollar worth of local money, time to implement Plan B – take a cab to the bank in the morning and swap some Singapore cash for local won. Tuesday morning, then, that’s exactly what I did, paying for the cab by credit card (I didn’t even have enough cash for a subway). Korea Exchange Bank changed my money in less than a minute – very impressed! Got to my interview, then back to the hotel to get my luggage, off to the airport, napped in the bus, napped in the airport chairs, napped in the flight waiting lounge, onto the flight, slept tall the way home. Nice. Got home after midnight. Wednesday I took a taxi to work, did a few important things, then went to the airport, jumped in airplane, and flew off to…
TAIWAN
Eva Airlines, nothing special. Took the bus from the airport to the Hyatt, which was a the foot of Taipei 101 (impressive at night!) and took a cab to the hotel (later found out that it was a 15 minute walk, but it would have been crappy with my luggage. Got to the hotel late at night, it was quite nice – a cheap business hotel with all the amenities on the 17th floor, so not visible from the street as a hotel per se. Went off to eat, at the desk guy’s recommendation, at a local street market, except it was mostly crappy boutiques selling crappy t-shirts and Japanese toys. Ate a crappy bowl of danzai mien, and a sausage with black pepper on it, then back to the hotel to read and prepare until late, then drink beer, shower, and sleep. Well, actually, before I could sleep, the fire alarm rang, so we all walked out the doors, down the elevator, and onto the darkened street. Of course I took a beer with me. Some ABCs were staying at the hotel, along with some Koreans and a few Japanese. I hung out, not sayin much, the others were yipping happily. Some neighbour began yelling at us to shut up. We quickly went back into the place, even though the bells were still ringing, we were told that it was a mistake and there was no danger. Went up, slept. Thursday, woke up healthy and alive. I went to one interview in the morning (three hours) and then another in the afternoon (five hours). What a busy day! Met Yuping in the evening for a simple dinner of tomato beef noodles and some dumplings, then to Taipei 101 mall to walk around and inspect the strange financial services floor and the unusual bank branches there. Nice. Yuping gave me some interesting presents, including my old keychain which she once took back to Taiwan by accident, also some tea and a teapot. Nice. Went back to the hotel, prepared for the next day, and slept. Friday I woke up, hung out, went off to an interview, not so long, very impressive wealth management centre (snazzy), then off to another place for lunch of tomato beef noodles, then to another four hour interview. And then… free! Went back to the hotel, hung out, changed, then started walking walking walking. Walked to one CD/bookstore, found a new Wu Bai CD, a new Lin Chiang CD, and a bunch of crazy other stuff – they had the Velvet Underground box set, Sonic Youth “Goo” on LP, and a bunch of Mekons and Sally Timms CDs. I was so excited about what a cool shop it was that I forgot to buy the new Sally Timms CD – d’oh!! Walked back, tried to find a pub that someone had recommended me called Brown Sugar, walked walked walked, went past Taipei 101, past Shinkong Mitsukoshi, then found the place, but it was a bit ritzy, so I left!! Then, sure enough, realized that the best places for drinks were probably right near where I was staying – a pub that had live music starting at 10:00, another simply called “The Tavern”, and finally a little place called T.G.I.F. So in the end, I just bought a few beers from 7-11 and went to sleep. SaturdayI woke up really early, like about 4:00 AM, checked out of the hotel, walked to the Hyatt, took a bus to the airport. Slept in the bus on the way over, checked into Eva Air, then slept in the waiting lounge, got on the flight, slept some more. No time for stupid in-flight movies.
SINGAPORE
Got back home, yay yay yay. Got my luggage quickly, then got out, and there were Naoko and Zen. Seeing them after 10 days, with just that one evening at home, was quite tough, but it actually wasn’t too long. Went to eat Burger King food, then wandered around the airport looking for a Citibank ATM, ran into our neighbour Sean, who was off to Shanghai and Japan and who knows where else for a few weeks. Wow – long business trip! Went home by taxi, Zen nearly fell asleep in the car, got home and went napping, very comfortable, relaxing. Had a very quiet weekend. Very very very quiet. Sunday a maid came by for four hours to clean up the place, it was pretty messy – since Feb 12th or so, nothing had been cleaned much. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday, don’t really remember what we all did. Oh yeah – I took Zen to the dentist on Wednesday morning, he was very well behaved and didn’t cry or act up. Then when we got back from there I took him to his new school. So he started going to the school at the foot of our driveway, as opposed to the school that was a 15-20 minute walk away – nice!! He had been looking forward to going to that school for quite some time now, so I thought it would be a breeze – drop him off, he plays with kids, I go home – but he came in and there was all the commotion of the regular lunchtime, so he got nervous and I had to stick around. No problem. Went upstairs and he slept next to a little girl he has known for a long time, and he felt more comfortable, finally telling me “papa, go – go – go home.” All right. Spent the afternoon at home, but mostly doing work-related stuff, not necessarily relaxing (shucks!). Seems that he napped fine, then when he woke up he was bewildered and cried a bit, wondering where he was. Nothing too serious. I picked him up, we went home and had a nice night. Thursday Naoko and I went with him, he was very stuck to Naoko, so she stayed with him for a while. Friday I stayed with him, he was nervous all the way until the start of the lesson, then he let me go. Saturday we took the bus into town with Naoko, then hopped onto the Duck Tours amphibious vehicle, which was a Vietnam War-era rig, outfitted with huge tires, we rode slowly along the road and then drove into the water and putted around to where the Merlion was. Zen loved it, and it was pretty cool to see. Unfortunately, the tour guide was dull and said the dumbest things, but he had good delivery and it was entertaining. Zen bought a duck whistle, so he was honking and honking. Got a 30 percent discount just because we are Singapore residents. Drove out of the water later on, and back to Suntec City. Cool. There we got out, said bye bye to the driver and the bus people, then went to eat roti prata (yuck) and to home. Zen was cranky, he wanted to take the Duck Tour one more time, but after 30 minutes in the bus he was complaining loudly that he was so tired and wanted to sleep. I kept him awake, and then back home he finally slept. Nice. When he woke up, we went downtown to the Dhoby Gaut area to eat fish and chips at Fish and Co. The fettucini was fantastic, the fish and chips OK, the mussels not bad, but the ambiance was fine. Unfortunately, the service was not so great – we asked people when the band was going to play, they said 6:30 or 7:00, but by the time we left at 7:45 still nobody onstage. They also brought out all the foods in the wrong order – main course, appetizer, soup… Dumb. Not the most fantastic experience, but it was nice to go out with Naoko and Zen, our first outing as a threesome since mid-December. Wow – three months! Sunday we had nothing to do, so we decided to use the opportunity to totally rearrange the apartment. Zen’s bed in the west-facing room has been moved, with his toys, to the east-facing room that my parents had been sleeping in. Why not – it’s much cooler. Now his train track is in his old bedroom, the living room has no train track and instead has the coffee table we’ve never used since we’vve been here. Nice. The stuff is more orderly, and we turned up plenty of previously-hidden scum and dirt, but basically it was a lot off work. Went for a long swim in the pool and some lovely handd-made onigiri rice triangles, then home to sleep. Can’t remember what we did, but in the evening we went to the Malaysia train, then went home and ate a yummy pizza that Naoko made. Great! Monday was a regular day, but Tuesday was interesting – went to the airport in the morning, and there I was in…
THAILAND
Got to the airport, took a cab to meet the dude I needed to see so that I could help out in an assignment. We spent the first two hours eating lunch together and having a chat. He’s ethnic Thai, a Ph.D in Economics from a German university, speaks Thai, English, German, Japanese, and French, so we could communicate in four languages – that’s rare! Got to work for four hours, then I went to the airport. The place was not far from the airport, and my flight was at 19:45. The airline people advised me to be there at 17:45, but I knew that was too early. The guy I was meeting told me I could leave at 18:15 and still make it on time. I thought I’d better leave earlier. At 17:45 I said “sorry, we can’t work any more, got to go.” But by the time we had said our goodbyes and I was sitting in a cab it was 18:12. So the ride to the airport was torture – all red lights for the first 15 minutes, then stop-and-go on the highway. We finally got there with 45 minutes to spare (my ticket said that they don’t take any more passengers beyond 40 minutes to flight time. But I had no check-in luggage – it was a day trip for me. So I went through the ticketing, the departure tax, the customs, the duty free, finally got to the departure lounge and it wasn’t open yet!! I sat down and relaxed for the first time in over two hours and – whew – soon we were on our way! Got to Singapore, Naoko and Zen were sleeping, and soon so was I.
SINGAPORE
Nothing interesting Wednesday Thursday Friday but we’re tryin’.
DVD review: Punkaloid EyE – some wanky documentary about Yamatsuka Eye, the insane lead singer of the Boredoms, XOX, UFO or Die, and dozens of other one-off projects and other musical ventures. Showing a bit of contrast between his boring DJ stuff and his dynamic live music stuff, such as Hanatarash and others. Some interviews with Eye that I wasn’t patient to listen to for nuggets of idiot savant wisdom, especially since they were mostly snickering and laughing and stoned goofiness, plus the editing was bizarre and “remixed” in itself. Still, the footage of live Boredoms shows was fascinating, especially the New Year’s Eve show, which I had heard about and tried to get tickets for, but it wasn’t possible. So I went to Kyoto overnight instead with Naoko and Aki, we arrived there too late to take in anything. Yah. Fun. Possibly one of the last times that the Boredoms ever played as a group, too bad I missed it…
DVD review: the Edge of Hell, a.k.a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare: The benchmark against which bad films are judged, staring Jon Mikl Thor, the ’80s muscleman heavy metal dude once known for using his amazing diaphragm to blow up hot water bottles until they burst. The funny thing is that it’s his music, Judas Priest ripoff music as it’s worst, that comes off the best in this film. As bad as it is, it could never be as bad as any of the awful scenes from the film itself. Lines like “mommy, daddy – NO!!” can not be believed. Long driving scenes start off the movie proper, and there is barely any dialogue for the first ten minutes of the flick (note: screenplay by Jon Mikl Thor). Ouch! Bad band repartee: “but why Canada?” “Toronto’s where it’s happening: music, the film industry, the aaaaarts!” (Canadians who don’t come from Toronto will reveal the chips on their shoulders at this point). The band is a hilarious troupe of non-rock ‘n’ roll “actors.” Thor’s girlfriend does her knitting during the “We Live To Rock” recording session (?!?!?!) and then later comes on like an undersexed bitch. Meanwhile, a penis monster “spits” into the producer’s cup – he takes a swig (yuck!). “But the scream sounded like it came from down here? You’re right – let’s go upstairs.” “Phil’s irresponsible, but never this much so.” “Don’t be so long, honey, you singing’s brought out the beast in me!” Mississauga members of the Triton fan club, partying with ick an dBianca, cold fish Thor, Hallowe’en riposs music, haunted frid chicken/scary blip bilp. And then Satan says “It is almost no fun to kill someone so stupid as to knot know who it is that slays him.” “I am the Intercessor.” Of courseit’s no coincedence that the sequel (HOW could there be a SEQUEL to this film?!?!) is called “the Intercessor: Another Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare.” In the closing credits they mention Port Credit, which is the small part of Mississauga (a suburb of Toronto) that I grew up in. Weird.
Here are some interesting pics taken over the last month: