Plastic island in the Pacific, gross

When we were in Kauai on a zodiac tour, our tour captain told us about this "plastic island" in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas. I didn't believe it but yeah it's true, why hadn't I known this before. The vortex of the ocean current has gathered all plastic in the ocean that has collected since the 50's into this mass plastic soup. Horrible. Here's some reading:

• Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash
• Greenpeace trash vortex
• Sea of Trash
• The world's rubbish dump: a tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

London & Paris

I was in London for three weeks on a business trip starting the weekend before my birthday. Our new company is continuing to merge, slowly. It was great to finally meet face-to-face some of the UK colleagues I've been working with for the past four years. My friends John and Sarah (and their 11 week old newborn boy Levi and their labradoodle Hank!) have been living in London for over a year now and were nice enough to let me crash at their flat for the whole time. I hadn't seen them since their wedding so it was great to catch up, and play with Levi and Hank.

Generally we took it easy, seeing things around town and at times doing the touristy thing. Regents Park, Notting Hill, Tower of London, London Eye, Churchill Museum that has underground bunkers they used during WWII, sat for a service in St. Paul's Cathedral, Tate Modern, and I even took the Jack the Ripper walking tour one night. And of course I did some pub shopping involving fish and chips, shepherd's pie, and lager.

Originally I was supposed to be in London for two weeks then my trip got extended, so at the last minute on Friday night before my last weekend, I decided to go to Paris. I'd been there once before in 2000 with Michael and John but wanted to see some more stuff while I had the opportunity to be in Europe. Seeing Paris, I felt more like I was in Europe than in London. Really is an amazing city. And they have this awesome rent-a-bike system now that is everywhere, so I just checked into my small hotel around Bastille, ate at little cafes, and rode my bicycle up and down the Seine, stopping at Notre Dame, Tour Eiffel, Musee d'Orsay, and Place des Vosges.

Then I got back to London and it dumped snow all night long, the most in 18 years. The trains and buses virtually stopped. Office was half empty. No clean up trucks on the street, thick ice on the sidewalks, man what a mess. It all melted away by the rain a couple days later.

Also I feel the need to gloat a bit because, since I was on a business trip, I was able to fly Virgin Atlantic first class. A. Maze. Zing. Their car service takes you to and from the airport, both in your departure city and your destination. Which from Tokyo is even more amazing because normally you have to take a bus or a train for 1-2 hours to Narita. And you sit in little pods on board the plane that lay flat, so you can actually sleep comfortably. And personal security check-in. And blah blah blah. Even better, I met three guys from Radiohead (2 guitarists and bassist) who were also in the clubhouse when I was leaving London to return to Tokyo. I asked to take a photo but they said "it's kind of weird". Whaeva Mr. Celebrity, ha. But they were actually really nice and chatted with me for a bit, they were on their way to LA to continue touring.

Meg Said Yes

On December 31st, 2008.

Christmas in Tejas

We enjoyed Christmas at home in Houston this year, after having to stay in Tokyo last year. It was great to be with family and see lots of my friends. Meg and I even took a road trip one day through the Brenham and Sealy areas. Two days before we returned to Tokyo, I popped the question to Meg and ...

Weddings, Yukatas, Hurricanes & Bankruptcy

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!

Oze

Hiking in Oze, a Japanese National Park, with Meg, her mother, and sister.

Thailand '08

Meg and I took a trip to Thailand last week for vacation. Our trip started with a little adventure when our flight on Friday was diverted to Hong Kong due to small fire in the airplane's cargo system. The captain announced that "there was a small fire in the cargo system but, don't worry, it's been put out now, but I've made the decision to head to Hong Kong for safety reasons". We were somewhere over the East China Sea and you could see on the in-flight map that we did a 90 degree turn toward Hong Kong. When we landed, firetrucks and ambulances pulled up to our airplane, I guess to be super cautious, but it was a little disconcerting. We exited the plane and waited around for a couple hours before they put everyone up in the airport hotel for the night. We weren't sure when our final flight to Bangkok would be so the next day we had to wait around in the airport and couldn't go visit the city or anything. Eventually our flight left at 3pm on Saturday, same airplane model, same seats for everyone. We landed in Bangkok at 5pm.

So we lost one day in Bangkok, but we didn't have much planned anyway except for shopping and checking out a few of the sights. The first night we ate at a nice little Thai restaurant that was located in the middle of a strange dark street behind a gate. Once inside it was very quiet with many trees and plants. We sat outside on a wooden porch area. The warm weather was a nice break from the cold in Tokyo. On Sunday, we took the Skytrain to a shopping area and went to a tailor referred to me by a friend. I ended up buying two suits and two shirts and Meg had a dress made for her birthday party coming up in mid-May. The tailor shop was run by an Indian guy and his son who've lived in Thailand most of the their life. After shopping a bit more and walking around, we visited a temple known as the Golden Mount. We climbed to the top of it but reached the top just as it was closing. Oh well, still had a good view of the city.

Monday we went directly to the Grand Palace, where a few temples are located along with the royal palace of the Thai king Rama XI. The palace grounds were beautiful and we spent a while seeing all the different buildings and temples. After that, we walked to the river nearby and took an one hour boat ride along the river and through some of the canals on the west side of the river bank, opposite from the Bangkok side. Most of the houses along the canals were pretty decrepit, but it was very interesting to see and a relaxing ride.

Then on Tuesday morning we caught our flight to Phuket bright and early at 7am and we stayed there the rest of the time until returning back to Tokyo on Sunday. Our hotel was very nice and quiet, not in the more lively clubby areas. Pretty much everyday except one, we went to the beach or to the pool and laid out in the sun and read and ate fresh fruit (the mango was so good) and swam in the ocean. On Friday we visited the Similan Islands by taking a speedboat tour. It took two hours to get to the islands from Phuket but was well worth it, the water was very beautiful and the islands did not have many people, as they're designated national parks. I even got to see a sea turtle up close and hold onto (gently).

After the first day in Hong Kong, we had a nice relaxing time, ate a lot of good food, and got some sun.  

Niseko

Here are some photos from another ski trip I took with some friends to Niseko in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. The snow was good until the end of our second day when it began storming. A few of us found ourselves on the wrong side of the mountain and unable to get to our hotel, so we had to wait in line for a shuttle bus and got back to our hotel two hours later. The next day, because of the storm and high winds, they closed the mountain, so we took our time having breakfast and going to onsen, then decided to try to leave early to try to catch an earlier flight back to Tokyo.

We arrived to the nearby train station only to find out that the trains were not running, so we went back to our hotel to wait for our original bus to Sapporo. We got to the airport to discover that all flights out of Sapporo were delayed and some were canceled. The airport was packed full of people, many laying on the floors sleeping or preparing to stay the night. Some people were trying to get back to international destinations, like Australia, but were stuck there at the airport. Then we heard an announcement that our flight to Tokyo was canceled, so we began preparing our own little sleeping area for all fourteen of us, grabbing blankets, snacks, etc. But then a few of my friends spent a while haggling with the airline to get us back to Tokyo and eventually were able to get all fourteen of us on a flight with a different airline. We arrived back to Tokyo around midnight, tired and stressed, but glad to be home.

Hakkoda

I went skiing with a group of fourteen friends last weekend in Hakkoda, which is near the city of Aomori on the northern point of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The snow was absolutely amazing, loads of powder everywhere. Even better, on Sunday, our third day, the blue sky revealed itself and I was able to take a bunch of photos seen by clicking the one above.

January '08

My friend Ayako's birthday is Jan 5, so we had a joint birthday party on Jan 12, a week after hers and a week before mine. It also happened to be a long weekend, so many of our friends were out of town, but we ended up having a group of 14 or so gather for dinner at a French restaurant and then for some drinks and cigars. We rented out the whole restaurant and played bingo, complete with prizes everywhere from lunch-for-two to a giant bag of snack food. We both kind of felt sick, too, from the cold. Just a unfortunate time of the year to have a birthday, I guess. But still, we had fun. I gave web cams to my parents and sister for Christmas so that we can keep in touch by seeing each other more often. On my birthday, I got to chat with my sister and her husband, Grant, and my Dad, who's stranded in Wyoming for one month on a business trip, and my Mom and bunch of other family, who were all having a surprise birthday party at my parents' house for my aunt Jann's 50th birthday. Whew. Meg bought me a new digital camera that is smaller than my current one so I can take it skiing and around the town a little easier. When my parents got me my last camera, I remember that 1GB of memory was about $200. Amazingly, now you can get 1GB for about $40 and 2GB for $50. The largest size I've seen is 32GB for $400. That is 9 times the size of the memory I had on my desktop computer in college. So I've been playing with my new camera a bunch, as you can see by clicking the one above.