43 Things Quiz

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Lifelong Learning Traveling Extrovert

W Seoul and Barry's Seoul Memorial

The W in Seoul is quite a ways out of the center.  The rooms are retro.  But there is a 25m pool.  

I went into Kwangwhamun on Friday night to meet Ken and Hank for dinner at the new Kamchon to toast Barry.   Ya gotta have the suntubu chigae at the Kamchon.  

Shanghai Sheraton 2009

I got back on the road as soon as the New Year Weekend was over.  The first trip of the year was to Shanghai for meetings of our joint venture and with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.   Out with the old, in with the new!  I also had to pick up Naomi's tailoring at the fabric center.  I made a couple coats and trousers.  But it ain't Saville Row.  Should I do it again?  

Seeing in the New Year

Every year we go to the Yawatano Norizomeshik but the fun is going somewhere's after the ceremony.  This year we went to the Kawana Hotel to swing!  Just like in the old days.... This time with a class breakfast too.  Naomi was home in bed.

Entering the Year of the Ox

I BBQd a turkey and we took it over to Tsunaoshi's house as part of a pot luck dinner. Anton and Thor got everyone stuck into a Downtown special on TV that lasted for hours. My favorite sketch was on a bus. A foreigner gets on with a large bag and when he turns around there is a head sticking out of a bald man who stares open eyed at Matsumoto and Hamada. He doesn't say a word. Even when the man with bag/man in bag get off the bus, the man in bag continues to stare at the Downtown team. Hilarious....

Videtto Family came to dinner

The Videttos were in Izu doing their Jogasaki hikes.  Paul cooked a paella.  Thor let everyone play Guitar Hero.  There were Christmas Cracker Jokes and paper crowns.  

I love food at Tamarind Springs

Just outside of Kuala Lumpur is a restaurant which has done a great job of putting groovy food on the table. The cinnamon sticks wrapped in mince chicken were awesome! For main courses we had soft shell crab, lamb and prawn rice. With a Penfold Shiraz you couldn't ask for anything else.

Sandra and I went out there after a long day of government pension meetings. The next day she was off shopping for her daughters' Xmas presents.

Thor has turned 16

He wanted sushi for his birthday dinner so we went over to Sushiko. Had lots of fish!

A new member for the Tokyo American Club

Tomi wants to become a member of TAC. He is semi retired and enjoying all the rug rats his kids are producing now. For some reason he has decided to get a membership at TAC and asked Jack Spillum and I to be his sponsors.

It's a good idea. He's a great guy and really, seriously gets involved with everything he does. He'll be a great addition to the club.

We had dinner to sign his application papers at the club. He was loving it.

YIS Concert

There were a number of musical presentations at the YIS concert on Friday night. We enjoyed seeing Anton in a tux. He got into the choir this year and is also playing basketball. The big question is will he get into NYU?

FTSE Tokyo Staff Year End Party

A mostly very well behaved group had dinner at Il Mulino in Tokyo. Expensive, tasty, large portions, dark, and serving a delicious grappa with wild currants. Cheeky Naoko was having a blast!

High School Reunion

Through a little snooping on the Internet I found high school friends Steve Sterner and Des Surles, married (!) with a couple of girls out the door. We finally got a chance to get together when I stopped in Minnesota on my way back to Tokyo.

Steve is an ER guy and has reduced the hair on his head, while Des has been taking care of the horses and obviously chopped her hair short in sympathy to Steve's reduction. Ha!

We have agreed to meet up in the summer when I go through Minnesota with Thor.

Rudolph Voll is 97

On my way to London I stopped in Bangkok to catch up with the stock exchange on a number of issues. On the weekend before heading to London I had the chance with Max Petitjean to visit a former Tokyo resident Rudolph Voll at his daughter Aloha's home outside of Bangkok in a gated community. Rudolph escaped Berlin and the Gestapo in the 1930s and while making his way out of Shanghai by boat was blown by a typhoon to Japan. He settled in there for the war and got started in shipping pearls to Europe. That remains his career, and Aloha is running the business from Bangkok. They've still got offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Rudolph won't be traveling much anymore. I made a video of his message to the open table at the FCCJ you can see on YouTube.



Later that evening Max and I had the Seafood Market experience. Great stuff!

Together after all these years

Dick and I worked together at Time-Life back in the early 1980s. Here we are in my backyard in Tokyo several years later enjoying a Jacuzzi with our wives.

Ha! Who woulda thunk it?

Beautiful Bali Sunset......

So romantic. Need to go back with my main squeeze.

Golfing up and down the Pacific

I stopped in Bali to play a round of gold with two strangers. It was OK except for the heat. That evening I got back on the plane to continue my journey home from Australia.

Lunch in Melbourne

Yummy trout!

My First Son's Eighteenth Birthday Party

Anton has turned 18.

Here's a Chinese tradition

Mickey Mouse!

Korea goes Developed

After four years of FTSE Country Classification hell South Korea got promoted to Developed status. I was there. I was also there from 1973 to 1975.

Golf in Singapore

Donald and I played golf with Patrick Daniel, editor of the Straits Times, in the humid Singapore swealter.

W Hong Kong

The W isn't open yet, officially. Still I was able to book it via their booking agency.

The view of the harbor was more in your face than the Meridien....

Mr Hoshi loves the California flag

August Dinner in Izu

Roger came up from Shimoda to play golf today and stayed for dinner. I had marinated chicken all afternoon using a Greek recipe, and everyone else brought various dishes to fill up the table. Drinks include peach marguaritas, a sake called the drunken angel, Duke Merlot, a Gallo California Chardonnay and Yebisu beer. Tennis players outnumbered the golfers, but I got everyone to play in the band. Ha!

Thor is taller

The Izu Shio folks just can't get over how tall Anton and Thor have grown. Here is Thor in the midst of our August visit to Izu being compared to the boss and his wife.

Oops!

You can't talk about it, but.....

Stan Holt took me off into the Redwoods along the Russian River for a weekend of lectures, concerts, plays, fine dining, fun and fellowship with members of a club which shall remain nameless. The members abandon care when they enter their summer camp and stomp on the little spiders they find weaving webs. All very cryptic, sure, but a nice decoy to keep the rest of the world wondering what really does go on in the Bohemian Grove............? Here's a peek into the camp I was in and some of the guys. My greatest joy was learning how to play dominos for money.

Food

Here are some of the dishes I have enjoyed recently.

Happy Fathers Day

I got a Coco Chanel tie from my wife. It's grey. She says it's to match my hair. We had lunch at Trader Vics with John Suzuki who is in Japan for interview with real estate brokers. He's keen to get a job in Japan.
Here he is drinking Jasmine tea.

Parent Madness with a Tropical Theme

Last night was the farewell party for the Battens and Parks. They rented the roof at Zest in Ebisu and the cocktails never ended. The highlight of the evening was the dating game and marriage test. The impersonations in the dating games were quite funny. But the real fun came with the live questioning of married couples to compare their answers. The highlight was the most interesting location for sex question. There was a mile high club couple, but the winner was the couple that admitted to having done it in the school's administration building - Matsukata House! They won't tell whose office. Outrageous! It brought the house down.