A whole lot has happened in the last half of '08, let's review. My friends John & Sarah are expecting their first baby around Thanksgiving and my cousins Jason and Patrick each welcomed new additions to their families; went to the beach a lot in July and August until I got an inner-ear infection which somehow busted my right eardrum; started a little band with some friends; a yukata party; the wedding of friends Saori & Julian; Hurricane Ike barreled through the Texas gulf coast, leaving friends and family without power for up to two weeks; financial system chaos and the Lehman bankruptcy; saw Radiohead play Tokyo; then got a small fracture on my left ankle playing futsal (soccer on a small court); trekking (though not for me) and seeing the leaves change in Kamikochi; and America electing its first black president.
Whew.
Hurricane Ike hit Texas the same weekend that my company went bankrupt, man what a great weekend. The frustrating part of Lehman going under was that the Asia region was still profitable, but the dealings in the US and Europe caused the whole company to collapse. And of course the Treasury secretary decided to let us fail while saving others, I'm sure there were some backroom deals made, but hey it's done now. Luckily, we (Asia and then Europe and then India) were bought out by a domestic Japanese investment bank called Nomura Securities, so at least we have our paycheck for now, though of course there's still a lot of uncertainty on what the future holds. The transition process is painfully slow, mostly because Lehman was a global company in every sense of the word and our infrastructure heavily relies on the US, which of course is now owned by another company, Barclays. Commence legal nightmare time.
But I digress, life goes on. I was happy to know that all my family and friends in Houston were safe after the hurricane, albeit in the dark for a while. Below are various links for photos I've taken since July (click on them for more photos, Gran, he he).
Obama is big news here. Whether or not you voted for him, living abroad gives you an entirely different vantage point, and the way people see the US has changed again. There's a noticeable difference already in the number of times I'm haggled by Brits, Aussies, whoever, on being American. Most of the foreigners I've encountered in my three years in Tokyo have had a sense of defeatism, fickleness, short-sightedness, and basically no optimism about the US. The president-elect has not been proven yet, but the fact that the US can go out and do a complete 180 has reminded everyone just what we're all about.
So, pics now. Here are some from Culture Day last week at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. There are archers on horseback, a Japanese tradition for the past 1,000 years. Even the saddles are old and traditional, but sadly there are none of these saddle craftsmen left in Japan so they choose to reuse the same ones over and over.
Kamikochi is a Japanese national park with beautiful trees this time of year. I went with Meg, her mother and sister for the weekend and we stayed in one of the nicest ryokans I've been at in Japan. My ankle was fractured so I couldn't do much trekking but I waddled around the flat parts and took some photos, including some of a monkey that nearly scare me to death when it appeared out of nowhere. They get threatened when you stare them in the eye, so I had to divert my attention in another direction while aiming the camera to take photos of it.
My friend Jeff has that video game Rock Band, which inspired my friend Andy to start playing drums, which inspired him to find these sound studios to practice on real drums, which inspired me to join him after discovering you can also rent Stratocasters and Les Pauls for super cheap and play on Marshall stacks, which inspired us to start our own little awesomely corny band called Motor Azabu. Rock.
Summertime, especially July and August, is a time for matsuri (festivals) held in neighborhoods all over Japan. People wear lightweight linen or cotton kimonos called yukata. My friends Kaori & Sebastien threw a yukata party at their house in August.
Finally, here are some random pics taken for our beach excursions to Isshiki kaigan (beach) on the weekends in July and August. It's about an hour and a half ride on train/bus from Tokyo. Really worth it just to get out of the city for a while. We also ran into a French bartender we knew from a place near our office who has a little bar on the beach during the summertime. It was really funny, he looks like a pirate now.
I look forward to seeing everyone in Houston over Christmas and New Year's!
