JAAAAPPPAAANNNNNN Part 1

It's been a week since the SO and I got back from Japan. I was Japan'ed out so I had to take a break from anything Japan related. For once in my life I didn't even want to eat any Japanese food. 

I'm getting old. My parents are getting older. This means my grandparents are really getting old. It was time for a visit. Originally the plan was to couple a Japan trip with a Vietnam trip. Return to the SO and my ancestral homelands. But, my  grandmother was in the hospital recovering so we moved up our Japan trip from the winter to February.

From JFK to Narita is about 13.5 hours. I ended up sleeping the entire time except for about 2 hours where I watched In Time. Great concept, horrible execution of a movie. 

We stayed at the Hotel New Otani in Akasaka. Not a bad hotel and the view from our room was quite nice. The orange phallic looking thing is Tokyo Tower. No great city is without a phallic tower or monument.

The concrete jungle of Tokyo. It really does remind me of New York but with more polite people. Notice I didnt say nice because the Japanese are masters of being polite to your face but shit-talking you behind your back. 

The next morning we planned to eat lunch with my cousins. We arrived at the restaurant about 45 minutes early so the SO decided it was appropriate to make use of the time to eat. Breakfast. 45 minutes before lunch. 

For some inexplicable reason I was craving Dim Sum so I told my cousin to find a good Dim Sum restaurant. He suggested soup dumplings at Jin Din Rou. Why not eat Chinese food the first day we arrived to Japan. Don't hate. 

Where the magic happens. MTV Soup Dumplings style. 

To the delight of many a non-Japanese speaking tourist in Japan, Japanese menus are full of pictures. Just point and smile. 

Taiwan beer. The Taiwanese need to work on their branding. 

Pork. Looks undercooked but it was delicious. 

Mabo tofu so hot that it almost melted my face. It melted the other half of my body the next day. Hope you're not reading this while eating lunch/dinner or chili.

The main event. I believe these were pork soup dumplings. They were so juicy inside. The juices just squirt right out when you put them in your mouth.....Juvenile humor on a roll. 

Macha flavored soup dumplings. Very gimmicky and they barely tasted like green tea. 

Mango pudding. I love mango. Meh on pudding so I only liked the dessert. 

After lunch and after visiting my grandma in the hospital we went for a walk to my old neighborhood park. They were having a Plum Tree Festival. The plum trees weren't in bloom yet but the Japanese will use any excuse for a festival. 

Our version of street food. Very orderly. Look at all those people patiently waiting in line. 

The lady explaining to me that just because I was from America didn't mean it was free. Actually she just said 400 yen pay up. We also had another snack to go along with this so that meant that within a 6 hour period, we had breakfast, lunch and a snack of okonomiyaki and red bean cake. We ate a nice 10 course dinner about 2 hours after this. The SO came back from the Japan trip with some major knee pain. I was pretty sure that because of our excessive eating it was gout. 

Our third and final day in Tokyo started off with the SO claiming victory over jet lag. Uhh I just noticed that metal handle bar looking thing. I can only think of one reason you'd put a metal bar like that on your headboard. For yoga.

The hotel grounds of the New Otani includes an amazing garden. I'm just waiting for that day when the illegitimate heir of the New Otani empire builds like 80 love hotels where that garden is.

Rock garden right outside the wedding reception ballroom. Helpful for all the grooms wanting to achieve inner peace while they sign their life away. Ommmmmmmm..

It looks cold doesn't it? It was. Just a bit above freezing. 

In the garden they had a teppan-yaki place and a tea house. How kitschy. 

The koi in the pond were some of the biggest koi I've seen in my life. Suckers are living the good life. 

Like moths to a light, they think all humans will give them food. I taunted them a bit. Karma is gonna bite me when I choke on a fish bone or something.

I asked how mad she would be if I pushed her in the lake. I needed to ask...just in case. 

For being in the middle of Tokyo this garden was really impressive. All I could think about was how much money they're losing not building a 10 story parking structure there. Nature schmature. Can nature buy that Rolex Datejust? I didn't think so. A 10 story parking structure charging 15/hour will. 

The building on the left was the teppan-yaki place and the building on the right was a Christian church. The church even had a minister. This scene is like the Japanese Hobbit. The SO would comment at this time"you'd fit right in hobbit boy".

So that carries us through Tokyo. After this we were whisked away to Hakone for some time at the hot springs. Part 2 next.  

Preview

Back from Japan

So we're safely back from Japan. It was bittersweet because the reason I went back was to visit my ailing grandmother who is doing well for her age but sadly seems to be on the decline.

I brought back a bunch of gifts and of course jet lag. Sooo, while I clean up and edit the pictures and debate whether or not to do the macarons post here's my homage to our future robot overlords.



And some quick reading on the horrible troubles of being rich

Still, he sold two motorcycles he didn't use and called his Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet "the Volkswagen of supercars." He and his wife have given more than $100,000 to a nonprofit she founded that promotes employment for people with Asperger syndrome, he said. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bonus-withdrawal-puts-bankers-malaise-050100338.html

Mo' money mo' problems.

Bucket List

My bucket list may be a bit different from other men. For one, I don't know many men who has: Attend a fashion show as one of the things he wants to do before he dies. In any case, today I got to knock that off my list. Through work I was able to get a ticket to the Custo Barcelona Fall Collection.

I remember seeing the Custo Barcelona stores while I was still living in Barcelona so I kinda knew the style and design of the clothing. Being that this is a fashion show I figured none of what I would see would be ever sold in retail.

MB has been sponsoring Fashion Week ever since I've been in NYC. Fashion and cars. They go hand in hand?

The new SL. The fun part was watching all the people take their model shots in front of the car. I also saw a guy in a red snuggie thingie with stuffed pandas all over him taking his "model" shot so I use model very loosely.  

The whole thing reminded me of an auto show. It's a fairly good analogy. The clothing at a fashion show is like concept cars. You'll never see them on the road and they're just supposed to look pretty. One's powered by gasoline and the other powered by cocaine and cigarettes. 

They were doing free styling at the Tresseme salon. 

The other main sponsor of Fashion Week. 

Before the start of the show. I never thought I'd be so close to the runway. 

The models walking by. Not to be overly critical but runway models are not very good looking. They are definitely very tall and very skinny but they wouldn't be what you'd call beautiful. The point for these models is to make the clothing look beautiful, which they 100% did.

Blue Steel everywhere. 

My seat was right at the top of the catwalk so I got to see the model stop, do their turn and head back. They didn't pose really and mostly just sulked from one end to the other with a quick turn at the end. 

Strut, strut, turn, strut, strut. I could do that. If only I was about a foot taller, ten pounds slimmer and had higher cheekbones.

The music was cranked to the max. Good thing the whole show was only 10 minutes long. I don't know how much more bass I could take.

I'm really glad that I got to go. So who do I need to pay, sleep with, kiss up to to get a seat in the front row at a Paris show. 

Apparently this blog serves to cure your boredom

This blog seems to serve a purpose. Relieve boredom. Not my boredom but the boredom of the office drones of the world.

Well, let me fight that boredom corporate drone #3! To you I serve up this post.

The SO had to go back to LA for some work. The timing  aligned perfectly with a wedding and the SO's birthday so we made a mini vacation out of it. Mini in the sense that I got to spend more than 30 hours in LA.

The no longer-TARP funded large retail bank the SO works for paid for her accommodations so I got to stay in some luxury. I won't name the hotel but it's a Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall Hotel.

I flew in on Thursday night and worked from the hotel Friday. Since I had to work East Coast hours in LA, I started the day at 6am. With such an early day I had to get breakfast in bed. I had to okay.

The view from the room was quite spectacular. I was surprisingly productive. Maybe a nice view doesn't hurt. I think I'll bring it up during my next performance evaluation. I'm pretty sure that will go over well.

I'm sure the Chinese are delighted knowing that their beautiful wares are being  re-purposed as a lamp.

They had a complimentary shoe shine service so I felt obliged to try it out. I can't say no to free stuff. Unless it's "free" and you know what that means. 

The SO's birthday was a week before but she had to work that day. We gathered some of her closest work and college friends for a grand you're getting old you're only 30 birthday party. She loves the band Muse and her favorite album is Origin of Symmetry so I got a custom cake for her. 

It was a tad difficult to wake her up on Saturday morning due to the drinking, eating and socializing. The only truly effective way to lure the SO out of bed....

.....almost...

Yes that would definitely work. 

The wedding we went to was amazing, touching and just a really good time. I love how each wedding highlights the bride and groom's taste and personalities. 

The wedding was held on the grounds of Pomona College in Claremont where the couple attended college. Last year Pomona College was ranked third happiest college in America. It's also an amazing academic school as it was ranked 4th in liberal arts schools by US News. Needless to say the students work hard and party hard as evidenced by my many hazy recollections of weekends spent at Pomona. 

The bride and groom making their grand entrance. 

The ridiculous cake they had. Oh so delicious. 

I went back for thirds so I can attest to the fact that the food was good. 

Parting gifts were provided via a candy buffet. They had pre-packaged bags but I decided to be a fatty and stuffed my own bag full of candy. Thanks J!

The wedding and the birthday were our big social gatherings as the rest of the weekend was spent with the SO's family. 

Once we got back it was back to the grind of NYC. The grind being eating, drinking and socializing.

My old roommate from ESADE came to visit the SO and I the weekend after we got back from LA. He worked his magic and got us amazing seats for the Knicks game. This is also the same man who managed to get us into Apotheke by sweet talking the 6'5 bouncer with offers of cupcakes. 

The Knicks were playing the Nuggets so it was Carmelo playing against his old team. 

The seats were awesome. 

The SO was more interested about the nachos. 

The Knicks City dancers gyrating their way into the hearts of lonely men. 

The game was quite close and it ended up going into double overtime. It also pushed our dinner back to 10:30, which was the bigger concern for the ladies. 

He shoots he misses. The Knicks ended up falling flat in the 2nd overtime and lost the game. I don't think I can really adopt the Knicks as my team like I've somewhat adopted the NY Giants as my hometown team. My basketball team will always be the Lakers so watching the Knicks is like extra crispy fries. I like them when they're there but I'll never search them out. An added bonus, if you will. 

Next post: Macarons - The soft yet crunchy mini dessert burger from France.