Japan -- Part 3 Fun with Tokyo!

Oh, where do I begin?

1. Work was tough today. Long, stressful, tiring, frustrating. By the end of the day, I managed to shake it off, and call myself silly for getting caught up in it. Roll with the punches, Lori! Roll with it! I said to myself. It worked. I rolled...

2. We made our reservations for the Japanese Inn at the base of Mt. Fuji (in Hokone) for Saturday night. It was complicated. And it's going to be lovely, awkward, and hilarious all rolled into one. We are all 4 staying in the same room (4 beds). Two married women (Carrie and I), one married / family man (Patrick), and one gay man (Todd). Not only are we sharing a room, but they're hot springs. Hello! Nakedness! At least it's coed, but Carrie and I still agree to stagger visits. It's the whole being naked in front of colleagues thing. Additionally, we're all getting massages, but for some reason we HAVE to have them as couples, and only man / woman. So, either Carrie is having hers with Todd, or she's having it with Patrick. And whoever she doesn't have hers with, I'm having mine with. AWKWARD. But amusing nonetheless, because there's nothing we can do about it.

3. We went to a baseball game tonight at the Tokyo Dome. Really fun! I will post some Tokyo-ish pics from the game. The rest of the blog will be pictures. I'm tired of writing. HOWEVER, no work starting tomorrow! YAY! We have the day free. We're meeting at 4:15 am in the lobby to attend the famous fish market. Can't wait to have some free time.

OK, here goes--I will try to add captions, but most should speak for themselves.


This is the bathroom door I chose at the ballgame.

Carrie chose this stall instead. She never caught the whole "Western" / "Non-Western" stall door. haha.

One of the best Fe-mullets I've ever seen. Actually one of the best mullets PERIOD.

The beer girl with keg backpack pouring us a few. She was not crazy-looking, but the Kirin girls wore neon green 80's outfits.

Everyone loves Wrangler. Especially satiny Wrangler. At baseball games in Tokyo. Carrie likes to pose with them.

Our hero, number 24, posing on a pillar. And no, Tokyo doesn't have crazy green trees. But they do have green spotlights on their trees to make them look crazy.

If I were a Tokyo baseball player, my last name would be Hamaranya.

I miss you too, Ian. :(

can you believe it!

I finally post, and Lori one-ups me with two count'em TWO posts in a single night. I can't win.

Well, I'll show her, keep your eyes out for another Philippines post from me later today/tonight.

I miss you Lori. Come home soon. :)

Japan -- Part 2

I should have called the last post Japan -- Part 1.5. It's just hours later, and I'm posting again. Mainly because I don't want to be behind, and have to weed through photos.

One excellent view from our Microsoft office is the intriguing Krispy Kreme. Yes, I did have a couple of good old glazed donuts today. But that's not the intriguing part. The craziness comes in the afternoon, when the lines to get into Krispy Kreme wrap 3 zig zagged rows deep (amusement park style)--not to mention the guy there to police the Krispy Kreme line, and the fact that there are chains set up, and a separate line around the building. The Krispy Kreme policeman allows more people from the separate line into the amusement park line as it thins out. He opens the chains and allows people to get through. The line stays this way literally all afternoon, and was still kicking when we left the office at 6:30 today.

A lack of consensus on dinner found 4 of us cabbing it to a tower (38th floor) to have sushi. It was in our own private little room. We had $40 Toro (this is for each person), sake, beer, and lots of sushi. It was a good meal, and the view was great.

We then headed to Shabuyia and walked around looking at the lights and crazy amounts of people. One thing I read about Tokyo prior to coming is that there are the same amount of people walking around the city at 3 pm than there are at 3 am. I can see it. It's always crowded. Surprisingly crowded, and even more surprisingly spotless.

We stopped in a local bar, had a beer...left to find another, and realized we couldn't keep our eyes open. Back to the hotel after all.

We are booking a hot spring resort for Saturday night, and leaving Tokyo. This is exciting. I think it's at the base of Mt. Fuji and should be an unforgettable experience.

Hooray!

Oh, we also stopped at a shopping mall near the MS office--where I found the infamous Musk Melon phenomenon. These apparently are absolutely perfect cantaloupe-looking melons, that make great gifts. The one pictured here is a mere $136. Wow.

If I were a Japanese beer, my name would be Corey.

Japan -- Part 1

Ian and I are playing dueling international trip blogs. :) Here's Japan Day 1.

First part: my company actually put me in Business Class. I feel like I'm a cultured person. I feel as though I'm someone who can adapt to different environments, kinds of people, etc. But I actually felt like someone from the Beverly Hillbillies. It was ridiculous how strange / fascinated I felt.

You breeze through all lines--even my luggage got a high priority tag! And I got to go to the WorldPerks lounge, where it was serve yourself---full bar, etc. I had a Bailey's and coffee and some snacks. It was 11 am, so I didn't want to go crazy, but I did feel like I had to indulge a bit.

The actual setup inside the plane is awesome.
The minute you sit down, you're pampered. I started with champagne, and then probably had 6-7 glasses of wine. The TV was huge, I could hardly figure out how to operate my seat there was so much stuff happening (you can even employ the chair massages). I had filet, etc...they handed out socks, slippers, eye masks, ear plugs, toothpaste and brush...and so much more in a little faux leather dopp kit.
OK, enough about the flight. I took the bus into Tokyo (about an hour and a half) directly to the hotel. The hotel is huge and ridiculous. I did like when the bellhop took me to my room and gave me a thorough tour of it (here's the bar, the thermostat, your slippers, the door, the view, etc., etc).





(view from my hotel room--apparently on clear days, I can see Mt Fuji?)


I plugged in right away to read emails, and was after about 45 minutes able to track down where Carrie was (my Sales Director / boss). I went down to the 3rd floor bar and met some of the folks attending the trainings as well. I had a Kirin, and soon we were meeting a big group (14 of us) to blindly follow one guy to our dinner.

Todd and Carrie on the way to dinner.


We finally get there. Patrick (a guy with us) knows a bit of Japanese, but the entire menu is in Japanese. He ends up telling them to serve us a mix of food.


There begins the 12-course meal...the meal that never ended.


Carrie demonstrating the size of a course.

There was rice, miso, sushi, tempura, sake, etc. etc. Several people were nodding off during dinner (jetlag / sleep deprivation setting in), and just when we thought the meal was over---something new was served. It was nice, but also really tough towards the end to stay awake and not to just completely refuse the next course.


We split up, meandered and found our way back to the hotel. It was 11. I showered, read emails, and crashed.


This morning, I was up in time to read emails, eat the Pop Tarts Ian packed for me (thank you, Ian), and get ready to meet the rest of the group at 7:45 am. We all walked over to the Microsoft offices and have been in trainings ever since.


In fact, I'm still there. I really wish I could have more time to explore...at the same time, I'm terrified I'll get lost (not much English here, and not much that isn't in Japanese characters). The herd is fine, but I always love my alone time, or my Ian time.


One thing I love: their toilets. They're all heated. They also have crazy bidet things. My favorite is the "Play Flushing Sound" function (the musical notes button below). It sounds like the fakest flush noise--it reminds me of when people make the "I'm making cappucino" noises with their mouth.


What someone clarified later to me is that it is used to cover up unpleasant noises. In theory, this is brilliant. The fact that it sounds so fake makes it less so. The fact that it's there at all is fantastic.




If I were sushi, my name would be Dolores.

Our Philippines trip — Part 1

Come one come all to the post you’ve been waiting for. (all three of you) It’s my take on a little island(s) country we like to call The Philippines. (Part 1)

Wow! Okay I have just been poking around these pictures, and there is so much I want to talk about. I actually can't think of how I'll be able to put it all in one post without writing a novel, so I'm going to break it up. I don’t want my posts to be too long. It might be too much to read. Also, I think a nice side effect of splitting it up is it will bring suspense to our little page. I’m calling it Blogspense. “Whatever will he talk about next?” I got you! You're captivated! It's like you're watching Lost. Okay, enough babbling from me. On with the show...

So, what did I think about my first trip to the Philippines. Two words. LOVED IT.


Since I’m now Filipino by marriage (Tito Ian) I’m hoping to spend some more time there. I see this trip as the perfect introduction to my new “by marriage homeland”. I see this trip as a Philippines sampler platter or like when you first get to an amazing buffet and you have to give it the walk around to know how you’re going to tackle all the goodness. (much like our dining experiences at Pearl Island. Explanation to come)


The reason for me referring to this trip as a buffet of sorts, is that we were never anywhere long enough to settle in and most of what I saw was through glass. (the glass in this would be the metaphor for the sneeze guard located above the food at most of your up scale buffet establishments.) We spent a lot of time in the car, so a lot of what I saw was at 80 km per hour. Lucky for me, I had shotgun the whole time, so I had plenty of room to stretch out. Sorry Lori. Hee hee


I don’t mind that we didn’t spend a lot of time in certain places. We only had a week, and it was really the only way to make use of that short time we had. We were originally going to stay longer, but we had to cut the trip down a little so we could have some time off work left for us to see some of you East Coasters. Next time we go, I’m hoping to be able to spend time in the places I enjoyed most. For instance...

Here is a list of the larger cities we visited. I arranged them in order of how much I liked them.

(1.) Cagayan De Oro.
(2.) Ozamis
(3.) Davao City
(4.) Iligan City (the Jollibee was nice)
(4.) Manila

Cagayan was hands down my favorite. It may be because I had the most time to actually slow down and enjoy it there, but I think it also felt the homiest.


Let me interrupt myself for a second here. I just realized that I'm about to go off in a direction that isn't really where I want to start. I think when people typically post about trips, they go in chronological order and then side step every once and a while to tell you about things they learned or felt. I'm going to stick to this layout because otherwise, I'll probably miss something.

Okay here goes the actual beginning of the first part of my Philippines post. Think of all that other stuff as foreshadowing. Here goes nothing...

Lori and I left on what you would technically call a Thursday morning. 1 am-ish. We had amazing exit row seats. It was more like exit room. there was no one in front of us. we could just get out of our seat and walk straight. Very key for a long flight. We enjoyed some movies, three meals, and a little sleeping. Oh, we also loved this video China airlines rolls as you are starting the deboarding process. They do this thing where they play pictures and video of cities where they have some of their major airline hubs. The first city was Taipei, which is actually where we were when we landed. I don't remember many of the pictures, but I do remember the song. Lori and I sang it the whole trip. "Good Morning Taipei" Very sing songy. WYI, This video and song will come up again. Due to all the planes we took. we got to see this video a lot.


Are layover in Taipei wasn't long at all. Just enough time us to look in a few airport shops and comment on how everyone is in a hurry to wait.

The flight from Taipei to Manila was a short one. Only about an hour and a half. We got off there, went through customs and got our first passport stamps of the trip. HOORAY! Lori and I both have brand new passports so it felt great to break them in in the Philippines. I also remember thinking about how great it is we got to start them at the same time because we could fill them together. (yeah yeah sappy)


Next up, a Domestic flight. From Manila to Cagayan De Oro. This is where we were going to meet Deedahn and Lori's Tito Boy.

The domestic airport isn't attached to the international airport in Manila, so we had someone arranged to pick up up and take us there. Too be honest, I don't know if they are family or not, but they were nice to come get up and drive us the 15 minutes to the domestic airport.

We had a great time waiting for our Cagayan flight. the layover was about 3 hours or more, so, we had some snacks, played some UNO, and had massages. 30 minutes massages in the airport for only 300 pesos. That's like 7 bucks! They were great too.

Next up, hour flight. I'll tell you, even Philippine Airlines has all US domestic flights beat hands down. they give you food and drinks and it's only an hour flight. They don't even give you peanuts anymore in the states.

The flight was nice. Lori had the window and I sat next to this guy who kept telling me that i should drink a lot of beer because it would make the trip better. He also kept showing me stuff in this Time magazine he had with him. Very nice weird guy.

Cagayan was great. Deedahn and Tito Boy picked us up from the airport and we were off to Tito Boy's house to pick up Tita Celest and we were off for a 4 hour drive to Ozamus. I don't know about Lori, but this is round about where I started feeling the traveling time. 3 hours or so down the road, we get to where we have to take the ferry over to Ozamus. Lucky for us, we were the last people to be able to sneak on. otherwise we would have had to wait another 30 minutes or more for the next ferry.


Finally, we're in Ozamus. I can't remember if we went to the hotel first to drop stuff off, or went directly to Lori's Tita Perrine's house, but that's where we ended up for dinner. Dinner there with TONS of family. Dancing around. Laughing. Singing. Drinking beer. I was soooo tired. We stayed there for a bit and then around 10 or so, we were back at our room.

For those of you keeping track, here's a recap of the things that we took just to get to our first night in the Philippines I count every time we go out ad then back in to something.

taxi - plane - plane - van - plane - truck - truck - ferry - truck - truck - room

Once we got there, Lori took a shower and I feel asleep laying sideways on the bed while Deedahn unpacked and farted a lot. ha ha. I don't really remember getting in bed for real, but I do remember waking up at 3 am with my left eye swollen shut, but that story comes in the next post. This post ends here. :)


Okay, so I lied about length it seems. This is really long. Just think, so far I've only gotten you there. I promise it will be better next post. Now that you're primed with some pictures and trip tales, I can get into the good stuff.

Okay, off to bed. I've been talking to Lori a bit while typing this (she's in Japan right now) and I want to talk to her a bit more before I go to bed.

We miss you all. Check back soon for more!

Byebye Seattle, Hello Ian!!

I'm lame. I haven't taken a single worthy picture in Seattle to post. In fact, I've taken a single picture. And it was of myself in the hotel room. Very sad. It is not even worthy enough to keep on the memory card.

Seattle has been good, busy. It's really a lovely city. I dig it. We went to Woodenville in the country a bit to visit clients, and it was beautiful. I hope to explore more (and work less?).

Back to SF in a few hours...I can't wait to see Ian. This weekend will be tooooo short.

If I were a ceiling fan, my name would be Darren.

I see your haiku and raise you a limerick

reverse, reverse, skip, then draw two
"ahhh, no way! I hate you!"
exclaims, "I'll get you back!"
and then out of his crack
a sound that smells just like poo


Inspired by a night of UNO with Jeff