Man in Japan

Japan Ski Ski!

Suki (pronounced ski) means to like in Japanese. When someone declares their love for someone in Japan, they use the verb "suki" but it could also apply to your love for raspberry ripple ice cream. A bit like English, I suppose. 

Anyway we went ski-ing this week, the first time for 2 years as a family (sort of, as Yoko stayed at home with Chibi) and went to the popular resort closest to Tokyo called GALA Yuzawa. It is an 1'15" from Tokyo station by bullet train (shinkansen) so many Japanese do day trips as the train station is in the same building as the gondola. The height of convenience!

We stayed 3 days and 2 nights at the Yuzawa New Otani which was in Echigo Yuzawa, a short distance from GALA Yuzawa, the former being the ski-ing resort town. We jokingly called it the Old New Otani as it both felt that way and in fact, there is a new New Otani in NASPA which I am sure would provide a much better experience than our tired old place.

 

Sunday Morning

I took some melatonin last night on a full belly of Cobra beer and lamb curry. Needless to say I went down like a ton of bricks. I awoke at 3am after 5 hours slumber and went back to sleep from 5 until 9. I never sleep that much but I felt great!

Jet lagged and taking time to play with my blog. $9 a month and I don't know how to use it.

Boys in Clarendon Park

50 Years!

No, I'm not 50 yet. I'm actually 48 on Wednesday but today is the 50th Wedding anniversary of my parents. We've organised a big banquet for 18 people at ExCel. Lobsters, Suckling pig, you name it, we'll be ingesting it!
Photos to come...

A Bad Day to Be in London

What a torturous journey I had to Harlow. It started with a 1 hr delay at SFO because the flight software on the 747 was not working properly. Heathrow to Paddington fine - the heathrow express is always fine albeit at £18 always pricey too. At Paddington, more probs. the taxi driver looked disappointed when I said St.Pauls. It was the Lord Mayors show and it was closed off to traffic. He tried to persuade me to get a train - did he not notice my 4 bags large lumps of luggage? He dumped me out at Holborn Viaduct and I had to peg leg it with my luggage through the tourist and occupy protestors in St. Paul's and oh yes, they conveniently sealed off Paternoster Sq so I had to walk all the way around. Gits. I was working up a sweat at this time and getting hungry. At Club Quarters they charged me £7.50 and left now with only 2 bags, back on my way to the Central Line to Epping. Bad news. No trains to Epping due to engineering but I only found out when I was on the platform with no cell signal. Worried that Dad would leave for Epping and be waiting at the station. The man on the platform said there were buses from Loughton so I was ok albeit delayed. Actually, it was pretty well organized and I was only about 20 mins delayed in total. Very tired and hungry but was happy to be finally home 3.5 Hrs after landing at Heathrow. Not a good day for travel.

Waiting for one of two things - food or walk. Ok, ok, maybe petting too.

127 hours

Riveting film - one of the most memorable I have seen for years. I read that the opening shots with the two girls was largely fictional but that after this section Aron Ralston commented it was like a documentary. A remarkable man and a brilliant Oscar winning performance from James Franco. The arm cutting scene was positively gruesome - many people around the world passed out during this scene.

A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES

Sorry for not updating my blog so much these days. It seems a bit easier to put 1-liners into Facebook or Twitter from my Blackberry....but the blog is not dead! The fear is that we will all lose the ability to write more than an SMS message worth of text! I just need to remember my junior school teacher at Jerounds, Miss Warwick who I adored. She was young but had a glass eye, sang and played the guitar to us. She also reminded us often that writing with a ball pen was going to ruin our handwriting. What would she say now??

The Man Clan is doing fine in San Francisco now. It is now exactly a year since we moved into our house in the City and and 13 months since we arrived here. I have to admit, it has been a tough year for us and there were times when unpleasant though it seemed, the life we had in Tokyo was much more attractive. For me, I have lived 10 years in Japan as an expat and for Yoko, 6 of those years as my wife. We missed our friends, family, quality of life, job, Charlie's school, Japanese food and manners and it seemed at times that we gave it all up for what? I did have a couple of interviews with some large companies who approached me to return to Tokyo but because my heart wasn't in it, I set the bar so high for them that they lost interest. Of course, it was the right decision to stay here and make it work. As long as Yoko can spend the summers in Japan, she will be happy and for me, I just need more space (bigger house!) and more privacy. San Francisco is a great city and we love living here but the weather is lousy (for California) and you everything is so squashed in. It would be nice to have a few feet between ourselves and our neighbours!

Since I have started a new job at BT back in my original business unit, Radianz, I am a lot happier. Money is a lot better than at Ribbit and I feel a lot more satisfied and accomplished doing what I am doing. Because this makes me happier, I think everyone else is happier too as I'm not moping around the house anymore! Certainly, Yoko doesn't see me so much and when travel ramps up, I should be travelling twice a month mostly to New York and London. Charlie is in 3rd grade at his school in Cole Valley which he loves and Eddie will start his Japanese preschool on 1 Sept. That will be an interesting time!

That's it for now.

ALL QUIET AGAIN

 

We made the 100 mile drive down from Carmel to Cambria mainly to see this amazing place, Hearst Castle (second biggest tourist attraction other than Disneyland)

 We've had mum and dad here for a couple of weeks. We haven't had them to stay with us since Eddie was born in Honolulu in May 2007 albeit we made it to Hong Kong in March of this year to see them. That was a short soiree but they came out to see our new abode in San Francisco to make sure we hadn't made a complete mess of things, uprooting ourselves from Japan and all that. 

 

Little Sur Inn (right in front of the ocean) where we stayed for a night in Cambria, CA
 
Dad was really pleased with our house remarking that he felt really comfortable with our place - light filled, warm and "really good feng sui" as he went about moving our two ornamental elephants to the front door steps to protect our wealth. I felt like telling him that being in California and having light and warmth are kind of symptoms of life here but I understood what he meant. Some homes are just dark and dingy...

After 2 weeks of serious home cooking (they were in heaven as an enormous Chinese supermarket is only 5 minutes drive away and Chinatown 30 minutes away by train and foot) and a whirlwind tour of Carmel and Cambria over Thanksgiving, they left this afternoon with tears in their eyes. Each time they leave, Dad says, "I don't know when we'll be back next" implying his time is up on this mortal coil every time we see him and then we see them both 6 months later. It's true they're getting on a bit but they're about as healthy and mobile as anyone could expect for pensioners in their early 70's.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time in Carmel, exploring the interesting and quaint little shops in the pristine town, did the 17 mile drive after breakfast the following morning before tearing down to Cambria down route 1 to see Hearst Castle yesterday morning. In retrospect, it was a bit too much driving for 3 days, about 450 miles and 2 inns. We should've just hung out in Carmel and did more sightseeing around there. There is plenty to see.

For some reason, these last 2 weeks have flown by and I'm lamenting the fact that I didn't hang out with them more. I think probably because I was pretty busy at work (for once!) and normally, they've stayed for 3-4 weeks in the past. Also, with my own challenges of being a parent and a husband, loyalties get divided. When I said that I'd try to get the family back to the UK in the summer to see the family, Dad said not to, to wait 3-4 years when the kids are older. Then he said no, it's up to you but just don't spend all your time with your mates. Oh well, you can't win.

The house seems strangely empty and sadly quiet with them gone. There's nothing like bringing home from home. We've got truckloads of goodies such as snack bars, Chinese dried seafood, etc. and enough PG tips for the Boston tea party from the UK anyway. I don't know how they can fit that much food into their luggage! You should see what they're taking back to the UK from San Francisco!! I just hope there are no agriculture and fisheries inspectors on duty as they breeze through customs.

Until the next time......

Dad, Charlie, Eddie & Mum in the Wayside Inn in Carmel, CA