Paul in Love

The title says it all. Last week I was in Love in Taiwan. Not an unusual state, but certainly photogenic!

Frapin

In early 1973 I was working on a magazine in Mankato, Minnesota and applying to graduate school to get a Masters Degree in Philosophy or to head out of the US to work as a Peace Corps volunteer teacher. I was still living in St. Peter, Minnesota where I had been for five years attending Gustavus Adolphus College and working after graduation. My landlord was Folke Person another Gustavus alumnus like myself who had remained in St. Peter teaching, studying and contributing to the social fabric. Folke had purchased a former English professor's house on Pine Street and I had the upstairs suite of a couple rooms, a bath and cubbyhole of a kitchen. It was a cozy arrangement. We shared a few friends, all more or less associated with Gustavus, including Mark Ahlstrom whose Gothic house on 3rd street remains an icon of St. Peter's glory days in the 19th century. There were many soirees with Folke, Mark and others in the house on Pine, at Mark's or out at the Holiday House in Kasota run by Jim Martell.

From Folke I learned the taste of good cognac.

Folke had grown up on New York and had a different background than us Minnesota kids. He had lived in a city of great proportion and cultural depth, but he had also gone to college right there in St. Peter and fit in very comfortably with the Swedes and Norwegians, the hunters and fishermen, and the academics. He played opera on his record player, we concocted flaming pots of glogg in the midst of winter, visitors came from all over the US adding more diversity to the Vietnam-era entrepot we occupied.

Folke came back from a trip to New York late in the spring with a bottle of Hine cognac. I was readying to go to Korea as a Peace Corps volunteer and we sat and talked in our usual free wheeling fashion many a night with Folke sparingly sharing that treasured bottle of Hine with me. You couldn't buy Hine in the liquor shops of St. Peter, and there probably wasn't any XO or better available either. Southern Minnesotans drank brandy in cocktails, but sipping fine champagne cognac was not on the cards.

I never forgot Folke's reverence for that bottle of Hine and I have religiously sought the holy Hine myself on my international travels. It is a rare find in any duty free liquor shop and I gladly pay whatever price when I do find it. It is better than the VSOP Remy and Courvoisiers of the world. And I do not see much need to go to the XO or higher levels, when it is only me who wants to savour this fine liquor.

I finished my last drop of Hine a month ago and have been looking for Hine again. Since the beginning of the year I have passed through the international airports in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney and Manila. No Hine.

But in the last airport I pausesd to look closer. There were the usual brands and prices, but a handsome bottle attracted my attention. It was a one litre bottle of a single vineyard VSOP and priced at a mere $42. It is a Grand Champagne of Cognac and labeled Premier Grand Cru. Wow! I said to myself. What have I found? I bought a bottle and went off to the JAL lounge to get on the internet and check it out. It's quire a story. The Frapin legacy goes back to the 13th Century. They have hundreds of hectares of their own vines and produce a full range of cognacs solely from their own grapes. When I finally tried my new find back home in Tokyo I was amazed at how smooth it is, yet subtly carrying the strength of the eau de vie straight through.

I don't know what I will do now. If I see a bottle of Hine somewhere, I'll probably buy it. And I will now seek the best way to obtain a steady supply of Frapin VSOP as well.

A Tokyo Snowstorm gets Thor out of his room

Fisherman Aoki and me in front of his boat

Mr Aoki has been honored many times for rescuing people stranded at sea. And with locating drowned persons. We seen him down at the Yawatano harbor for the festivals etc.

Sengakuji Entrance Gate

I remember waiting for the doves to face each other to make this picture more intimate. I like the Japanese city scape with electric wires all over the place. You have to be inventive to get them in the picture correctly.

Imaging Tokyo with all its electricity hidden away in conduits and underground passages! Wow!

Singapore Takeover

FTSE took over the calculation of the Straits Times! Ha! Who woulda thunk it?

Anton's friends came to Izu

I cooked for them and drove them up and down the hill. They played tennis and walked Jogasaki from Yawatano Harbor. Naomi loved having some girls around.

I always enjoy the local blooms in Izu.

Here's me looking at the Narcissus outside the Yawatano Shinto Shrine in Izu.

Look where I've been!

And that's just what I was able to do in some spare time. There are lots more places I've been.

Christmas at the Jones

I helped Alex carve the turkey.

Chinese Madness in Honolulu

Robert Tai loves to gamble! He chose this restaurant and paid the bill!

A Hawaiian Year End

Anton and Thor grabbed lunch with me at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki one day. We had pretty good weather in Honolulu.

Staff Party for 2007 in Hong Kong

Stuart always gets more chicks in his pictures.

Hochiminh Stock Exchange

Well, Vietnam is going to be a new center of my activitiy. The stock exchange are interested in looking at a partnership and I am sending them a Cooperation Agreement to review in the new year!

The Theory of Everything, Mathamatically

A surfer has written a paper that is supposed to be a beautiful theory of everything. This picture from the paper is pretty good looking! His name is Garrett Lisi. The paper is here www.arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770.

Birthday Cake

Getting older is fun? People don't know what to get you for birthday preseents. You're not supposed to eat the fancy cake because of the calories. This year I had to do the cooking! Here is the cake. No!, of course I didn't make it.

Autumn in Izu

It's cooling down and the iconic images are lining the roads in Izu.

Naomi's prize fish to go to competition this week.....

She started with five of these show gold fish and now there are three in the tank in the kitchen. This is the big guy. The Winner?

Had another stint in Australia

And the nice thing is that I have a pretty broad base of friends in Sydney. So when I have a loose moment or two, it is easy to catch us with a few people. This time I had a brunch date with the Andersons in Balmain. Later Lindsay and I took the shopping back to his place and he sniffed the tomatoes once more for good measure. They have a great view from Louisa Place.

Anton's 17th Birthday - on the way to school