Thanksgiving with my brother

Peter and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for his family and his wife's relatives in the So Cal area. There were more than 35 people there and we enjoyed the bottle of Cazadores that Norris provided.

How to count

One hen.
Two ducks.
Three squawking geese.
Four limerick oysters.
Five corpulent porpoises.
Six pairs of Don Alverso's tweezers.
Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array.
Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt.
Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men with a marked propensity for procrastination and sloth.
Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who hall, stall around the corner of the quay of the quivy of the quaff all at the same time.

Carrie Visits

Carrie was working on an environmental impact study on Guam and decided to stop in Tokyo on her way back to Hawaii. She went to Kamakura for a day, climbed a bit of the way up Mt Fuji from Kawaguchi Lake and bought a new digital camera while she was here. Now she's on her way back to Honolulu. Maybe Naomi and the boys will see her in Oahu next summer.....

Offspring

Anton got moving this week when he realised that he might not seen the Offspring concert afterall The tickets had sold out immediataly and things looked pretty bleak. So he sent an email to someone at Offspring begging for some tickets. Surprise, the guy decided Anton's plea was legitimate and sent back an email saying that there would be five guest tickets for Anton and his friends that evening. So Anton, David, Sam C, Patrick and Raphael went out to Odaiba and picked up their tickets. The photo to be attached soon tells the rest of the story.

Anton got home late because he had to go back to school to pick up his backpack (and Naomi had to drive over to pick him up.)

Here's the email he sent:

Anton runs his last NIS CC meet

It was the last CC meet at Tama. Anton and Thor have both been running this year and Naomi and I decided to go see the boys run. It was overcast and raining occasionally. Thor ran first, then Anton ran with the other NIS 9th Grade boys. After the races we went to the Tama Lodge to buy American junk food and have lunch in the US Military restaurant. The line was really long with all the kids buying candy, potato chips, Gatorade and popcorn. But the price was right and the restaurant served a good Philly steak sandwich.

NIS Food Fair & Anton's "15 on the 15th"

Saturday the 15th was the annual Nishimachi International School Food Fair. All in all a great success again. Naomi sold her goods in the gym, Anton and Thor hung out with their friends, and Paul helped empty the booths of food and drink.

It was also Anton's 15th birthday, so we went to dinner with the Jones at La Jolla in Hiroo for a Mexican Feast.

Toko Shinoda Show or Norman Gets His Jollies

Norman Tolman was up to his usual tricks at the Tolman Gallery produced exhibition of Toko Shinoda's works at Shinsei Bank's head office. Mayumi Jones joined Naomi and I for the opening party and dinner later. At the exhibition we had fun talking with Pam Mori and her son. In the end we got a shot with Shinoda herself.

I counted our Shinoda prints: one quite old one call Magnetize, two large ones from the mid 1980s - Illusion and Rhapsody - and one in the guest toilet gallery in our house in Izu with a nice green brush stroke.

Beijing in 2005

I headed off to Beijing last week to attend a FTSE Xinhua day away - a time to review business and plan for the future.

I stayed at the New Otani, aka Chung Fu Kung, rather than the St. Regis. Mark and Donald were in the St. Regis and the meetings with Xinhua Finance people was there. As the international business recurring income is now over US$1mn p.a., the contrast with domestic is pretty good.

After company visits and launching the China Life benchmark index, I had a day to sightsee. I visited the ancient Beijing observatory to take some photos. I had tried to go there in 1985 or so when I visited Beijing with my mother and Naomi. Then I headed off to the Dashanji area to see the art galleries and event spaces around the Factory 798 area. My friend Anne Py joined me for the day's journey and we saw some interesting art. We had a little Italian lunch in the midst of the galleries and then headed back into town.

From Beijing I headed down to Hong Kong and had a couple of very busy days there before coming back to Tokyo to attend Anton's high school application information meeting at NIS.

Izuvian Golf

Roger Marshall and I decided that the best way to handle the three day weekend was to go golfing. We packed up Friday night, had a meal that Naomi prepared for us, and drove to Akazawa. The harvest moon was coming up and it was an easy drive on a Friday night. Once we got in the house we set up the new deck chairs and tried them out.

Saturday we had some breakfast and drove down to Roger's place on Iritahama. The sky was clear and the water was so inviting that we went for a swim before lunch. Then headed over to Shimoda Country Club for nine holes. Back at Roger's that evening we bbq'd a rack of lamb and share our dinner with Roger's tenant, a college professor who lives on the beach and commutes to his tenured teaching position in Kanagawa. An ex-SEAL, he filled the evening with stories of his past.

Sunday, after another swim, was 18 holes at Inatori Country Club . We played the Mori and Yama courses. It was a long day, with many missed shots, lost balls and practice, practice, practice. Roger was trying out his new Lynx clubs and getting into the mood of playing golf. I made him practice a shot for getting out of the rough and on to the green. Later we took a few minutes to check out the three wind power generators on a ridge above the golf course. It was a great spot with views south to Shimoda, north to Akazawa and Futo, the ocean and Oshima.

For dinner we bbq'd some shrimps and scallops for an appetizer, and mained it with steaks. John Owens and Right Wing Inoue came by later to share some cigars and nashi on the deck.

Roger has headed back early, and I'm just enjoying the sunny day. Late afternoon I'll pack up and head off to Tokyo.

Thirtieth Anniversary

Today was my thirtieth anniversary of living in Japan. On 9 September 1975 I was in Busan with Ham Young Wu who I spent a year with in the Ham residence in Yongdu-dong, Seoul. He came along to send me off after my Peace Corps tour.

After a dinner of fugu cooked in a hot pot, I boarded the Kampu Ferry and traveled overnight to Shimonoseki. From there I took a train to Kyoto and checked into a guest house for travelers in the north of Kyoto. From there I moved to Kansai Gaidai and stayed with Harriet and Charles Mason while I looked for work in Osaka. I got the Time Life job and was on my way back to Seoul on 6 October to apply for my work visa. I had also already found my apartment in Hirakata, not far from Naomi's home.

To celebrate we had dinner at Le Piatta near the Shim Uma house. Thor got to make his own pasta, I had a big antipasto misto, Anton had lasagna and Naomi ordered a special dessert for me. It was a very good meal and lots of fun with the boys. (I got to critisize Anton for sitting with his chin on the table all evening!)

I made a point of telling Anton and Thor the story of my coming to Japan. They were asking lots of questions about the places we have lived in Tokyo since they were born.

On the way home we stopped in the local coffee shop/wine bar and chatted with the guy running it. Lacking a stool, I went home and brought in the stool I had broght back earlier in the year from Minnesota, originally from the science labs at Johnson High School in St. Paul. I'm going to collect it this week to take to Izu.

Hanis bought me lunch in Singapore

Last week I spent a day in Singapore meeting potential fund managers for the ETF to be created on the FTSE/ASEAN 40 Index. Prior to arriving I managed to hook up by email with Hanis Hussey. Hanis and Naomi used to work as models together, and I have seen her and her husband Steve in the past on other visits. Hanis and I agreed to meet for lunch at the American Club and we had a nice visit comparing family notes and talking about old friends. She has gone on to be quite a golfer, and her son is also golfing a lot. At 15 he is 6'4" and wears a size 14 shoe. Big!

Cucumber Salsa

2 cups chopped cucumber
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 T sugar
2 T finely chopped shallot
1 T minced jalapeno
1 1/2 t fresh cilantro
combine
chill 2 hours

Brother In Law Boating

In Minnesota my brothers in law and I went out on White Bear Lake to drink and talk and watch the sun set. George is married to Nancy and has the pontoon boat. He likes investing so was interested to hear more about FTSE Xinhua and China.

Roger is Sally's husband. They are running a plating business and Roger has been trying to sell it. We had a chat about company valuation and he is interested in the Rob Arnott and David Morris work on valuing companies in portfolios based on fundamental factors.

We also had George's son Nathan on board. He entertained us immensely with his observations and theories on just about everything. He went over to see Grandma Viv the next day and entertained the old ladies at lunch as well!

Sally Gets A Dragon

When in Shanghai I picked up a pair of dragons on the cheap at a store clearance sale in front of the Jin Jiang Hotel. We decided to give Sally one of them, so I carried it from Tokyo via Palo Alto to Minnesota. I think he'll like being with Sally looking out on their lake.

California Drinking

There was an opportunity to stop off someplace in the US besides Minnesota on my round the world ticket, so I decided to see Tom Knapp in Palo Alto. It was like old times when I was working for Time Life. Tom would pick me up in the morning from my Tokyo flight, then we'd spend the day driving around Palo Alto and Woodside. After a nice lunch -- this time at the cafe in Woodside -- I'd usually need a nap. Then back to business, dinner and drinking. Well this time we had Greek in downtown Palo Alto. After a nice dinner and an over priced bottle of wine from Santa Barbara, Tom and I bid goodby to Mary Ellen who went home to take care of her dogs. Then Tom and I headed out for a pub crawl. We went to a Cajun place that plays house music, a micro brewery, a couple of English pubs, one with a trivia contest in full swing, a piano bar that we skipped out of because of the lousy music, and another bar with live music. All in all an interesting look at Silicon Valley and the Stanford University crowd enjoying themselves. The only problem we had was that Tom was not in training and experienced the ill effects of following the Hoffster.

Earthquake! Typhoon!

We had a good shake yesterday when something slipped under Chiba. The picture tells the story. Despite a 4 or so in Izu, not a single thing tipped over. Instead we kept on cooking and had a nice meal with John Owens.

The other map I might have added is the weather map showing the typhoons which have kept a thick cloud cover over the eastern coast around Tokyo making it wet and muggy.

Growing the FTSE team

This week my deputy Fran Thompson has been in Tokyo to go over the business, products and objectives. She will be running the sales process and helping with implementing partnership plans. Her joining the team adds another factor to the APxJ team dynamics. I believe her input and initiatives will give the team a more balanced and comprehensive approach too. I have been starting a lot of new partnerships that now need more hands on them.

The Sea

This is a really cool poem about the Sea.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Spangling the Sea

Ruffle and tuck, river fabric wags doggedly towards ocean,
Heaping surface on surface, its cadence a gown.

Perpetually beneath lurks stillness, a calm inseam sewn
By handless needles, distinct from yet part of the sequined

Design that glints iridescent now, then dark as pine.
Beneath silt and waver live many denizens of the deep:

Zigzagging shiners, freshwater drums, tessellated darters,
Grass carp, a kaleidoscopic plentitude that yawls and rolls

Among root wads and bubble curtains drawn on riparian
Terraces, hinged vertebrae whipping back and forth

In an elastic continuum displacing the fluid milieu,
Enabling them, polarized or not, to scull along in schools.

Nothing in outer space so bizarre as episodes underwater:
The gilled emerge from bouts of massive oviparity

Staged upon plankton columns where some fry turn larval
While the majority never leave the sure rot of egg sleep.

Whether due to snowmelt in mountainous headwater tracts
Or to rainfall from cumulonimbus fancy, for whatever reason

Water appears from serpentine soil and prairie-scrub mosaic,
A small muddy trickle that gains momentum as it swells

And deepens, sweeping along twigs, carcasses, bald tires,
To empty at length into estuaries engulfed by tides

Perpetually born of a body dressed in hastening garb,
Upholstering two-thirds more surface than any ground.

Ravi Shankar

Finally a three day weekend and the weather's good

It's so hard to remember a three day weekend in Izu when the weather is actually good. I have been traveling nonstop this year and now have a stretch when I won't be out of Japan for like two weeks! Long time.

Naomi and Thor came down to Kuala Lumpur on my last ten day trip and we spent last weekend on the island of Langkawi. A bit of a disappointment because we couldn't snorkle. But the weather was good and we had an interesting ride on the second day we were there. It was a tour of the mangroves, with some time boating on the ocean north of the island. Saw some bats in a cave and watched the guide feed a bunch of eagles.

The photo is me on Langkawi holding some prehistoric crab at the fish farm where tourists like us get to feed fish and touch dwellers of the deep.

Anyhow, this weekend in Izu will be nice. I plan on playing nine holes of golf on both Saturday and Sunday. We'll see the Marshalls and cook up a storm on the bbq.

How to survive the Hoff Tour

Author: Miki IZUMIDA at HIBL-TOKYO1
Date: 5/29/98 9:37 AM
Priority: Normal
TO: Paul HOFF
Subject: Re[2]: flight from Osaka to Oita
------------------------------- Message Contents
-------------------------------
Tour no kokorogamae!?


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: flight from Osaka to Oita
Author: Paul HOFF at HIBL-TOKYO1
Date: 98/05/29 AM 9:08


Travel light, think positive, talk to clients other than your own,
don't
drink too much late at night, listen for problems and communicate them
to
me as soon as possible, floss after brushing, encourage your clients to

ask questions, help with translation so clients get the whole message,
order the cheapest items on a menu and tell clients they're the most
tasty, introduce yourself to company staff and ask them lots of
questions
and always be on time.

I confess to not following these rules all the time myself, but only in

extreme situations.


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: flight from Osaka to Oita
Author: Shinobu MOCHIZUKI at HSIPO001
Date: 5/28/98 11:35 AM


Paul, Miki-san,

I have no problem flying economy. I hope hotel reservation was not a
problem?
(I rather avoid staying in Youth Hostel) Would you let us know the hotels
we'll
be staying?

Walid Kassem of MLAM is on vacation and I won't know his final schedule
untill
Monday. He'll be attending an internal meeting in Tokyo Sunday, so if he's
joining Kyushu visit, he'll arrange his own flight. I'm not sure about his
hotel
arrangement at this time.

Since this is my first time joining the tour, do you have any advice? D
Turry
said it's not a good idea to bring a big suitcase.

Thanx!

**********************************************************************

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged
information. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the
sender immediately and do not use, store or disclose their contents.
Any views expressed are those of the individual sender and not of FTSE
International unless otherwise stated.

http://www.ftse.com
**********************************************************************

Finally

Finally got back to Japan and down to the house in Izu. Cathay had some engine trouble so the flight was delayed almost an hour. Got the Narita Express at 6.48 and then played telephone tag with Tim Nicholls. Tim was calling to talk about his secondment to Hong Kong. I think we managed to cover most everything in about 15 calls. Either a tunnel or some electric shock from the trains would conveniently knock me off the line.

I finally made it to Izu Kogen station at 10.20 after transfers at Tokyo, Atami and Ito.

Now that the rainy season is here it is cloudy and rainy. Rumor has it tomorrow will be better weather. Anyhow I have had a pleasant day sitting around, talking with Thor, cooking and napping. Tonight I'll bbq for the family. Anton is due home soon from a night or two in Shimoda at the Marshalls.

The hot water is running in the bath.

Cocktail time soon!

Still don't know how to upload pictures.......

Still on the road

This trip is now at an end. I am in the Cathay lounge waiting for my flight to be called. Made some progress in Taiwan. We are aiming to get the stalled RFP process for the Mid Cap and Tehcnology indices.

Last night had dinner with Katherine Su. She has quit her job at the Economic Times and moved on to a marketing job at Kao Taiwan. She'll introduce me to another level headed journalist who is more interested in writing about what is than making up stories.

Still don't know how to upload photos.

I had a meeting in Bangkok on a Thursday and a presentation to make in Hong Kong on Monday so I decided that rather than flying all the way back to Tokyo and then having to leave again right away Monday morning I would just laze my way from Thailand to Hong Kong this weekend.

Saturday morning was nice in Bangkok. I swam in the Westin pool and then made my way to the airport. I hadn't check the flight time on my e-ticket, so got there late and had to wait at the airport to take the afternoon flight. That was OK. I got some time to sit in the lounge and write an article for the company magazine. No distractions! And I ate at an outside beer garden where I ordered a minced duck salad, some special egg and noodle dish and some stir fried pork.

Today I have been cleaning up my emails and decided to inaugurate my blog. This is it. I will gradually learn how to put more interesting stuff on it, but for the meantime this is good enough.

Maybe I'll use it as a way to show pictures I take as I fly around Asia to my friends.

It'll be an interesting way to keep track of my travels too.

Here goes my first posting. I'll attach a picture of the folks in Bangkok from the Thailand, Jakarta, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines stock exchanges.

Oops! Blogger just told me I can't post pictures. Why not? [Blog added uploading pictures at the end of June, so I can now do it!]