Germany!

Flew to Frankfurt yesterday (today?). Lufthansa was a pretty awesome airline. The economy seat was small, but luckily there was no one in the middle seat. No TVs in the seats either, but that was more than made up for by excellent service from the staff, and decent food.

The flight was 11 hours long, and I was real sore when we landed, and still am.

I got my luggage and got through immigration without a problem. I hopped on the first shuttle with the Steigenberger Hotel name on it. But, turns out there are two of them. So, an hour later I was back at the airport waiting for a different shuttle.

I ended up at the hotel without issue after that.

I chilled in the room for a couple of hours and took a little name. Then I got some directions and took a nice hour walk through the forest.

All around this area there are big chunks of forest and open land that's filled with trails. People use them to get across town on bike, and to walk their dogs, and such. The raspberries and blackberries were ripe, and delicious. There were lots of apple trees as well, but they didn't look ripe. I looked for the least traveled trails that I could find. It was a real treat.

I came back to the hotel hungry and had a nice German dinner of Hefeweizen and Schweineschnitzel. They brought about twice as much food as I wanted, but boy was it good.

What a long day...

Leo Carrillo 2008

Last weekend we went to Leo Carrillo with Nana and the Simpson family. Jack and Marshall had a blast! No one got sunburned. The weather was just a bit on the cool side, but was far from uncomfortable. You can see all the pictures from the trip here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dcordes/LeoCarrilloStatePark2008

Picture Gallery

BTW, my full commented picture gallery from the trip is here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dcordes/JapanMay2008

Final Day

I slept much better last night without any strange dreams, but was still up early. I took some pictures of the room, checked email and then put together my powerpoint presentation for the morning meeting.

Breakfast was downstairs at the Yahoo Cafe, and was mostly western style. Eggs, toast, fruit and then hot dogs, salad with blue cheese and minestrone soup. Go figure.


I killed about an hour, and then Mel and I headed off for our meeting. The meeting long and very successful. We left happy, but didn't have time to do the shopping at the place we would have liked, so we just walked the streets around the hotel

For lunch, we found the most wonderful noodle shop. You would pay at a small vending machine, which would dispense a ticket. You'd then take the ticket to a small kitchen area, hand it off to them, and they'd prepare your meal. The noodles and tempura were absolutely wonderful, and a stellar last meal in Tokyo.


We headed back to the train station after some light shopping, and rode back to the airport. It took about an hour, and was uneventful. After some additional shopping, and a couple beer we got on the plane.

I slept for most of the flight back so time passed pretty quickly. Food was a bit better then on the way into Japan, but still pretty poor.

I watched National Treasure 2, which was horrible and Cloverfield, which was pretty good.

We caught the shuttle back to the parking lot and drove home. I got to my house at about 1pm.

What a great trip.

As part of our meeting discussion, we were directed to meet again with the big boss in September. I don't know if that means another Tokyo trip, but I can only hope...

Dinner

Our dinner last night was a trip. We went to what the local staff consider the very best Spanish restaurant in all of Tokyo, and the food was quite impressive. I arrived a little after the rest of the people meeting for dinner. We drank a few beers, and then out came the very nice red wine and the first of many small dishes. First to come to the table was very thin slices from a boar leg that had been aged for three years, and was proudly displayed at in a prominent location in the small restaurant. The display was very off putting (see picture above), at it was the whole leg, hoof and all. The taste was very strong and quite gamey. Not bad, just very strong.

Next came hot pans filled with sizzling garlic, chili peppers and pasta. The smell was wonderful, and I dug in.

Two bites in I had made the determination that it was not in fact pasta, and was in actuality hundreds of baby eels.

And I still had a mass of them on my plate. I didn't want to offend my guests, so I did finish them. They were not so good.

They also brought out a wonderful paella and various fried seafood. Shrimp with head on, of course. Everything was very fancy and everything was not to my taste. What a great experience, though.

After we said good night to most of our party, Melody and I along with two of the local staff members went to a small shabu-shabu place for a night cap before heading back to the hotel. We drank wonderful saki and ate delicious sushi. Along with a small bowl of salty pickles with pink, transparent noodles that were the texture of soft plastic. It tasted less than wonderful. We were then told that it was imitation jellyfish. But the saki and sushi made for a great end to a very large day.

SUMO!

Asawa had a change of heart yesterday, and gave Kumano and Sakata permission to take me around Tokyo this afternoon. They suggest shopping and maybe even Kabuki, but I knew what was up, and asked to go to the Sumo tournament.

We took the subway from Meguro station thought Akihabara to Ryogoku. Right after you walk out of the station, you can see the pageantry begin with tall banners announcing the tournament.
Tickets aren't cheap, and we settle for some B level seats for 4900 yen each (~$50). And they don't accept credit cards... Ugh, guess I'll have to pull some more cash for tomorrow. Next cheapest seats were something like 9200 yen, or about $100. Yikes! That's as much as a Laker ticket.

We went into the Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium and got our seats, up high in the mezzanine. We still had a great view of the action, even though it was pretty far away. We caught the tail end of the very youngest Sumo group, and then the Juryo came out. These are the lower level professional Sumo, and we still quite entertaining. There were 28 wrestlers in 14 boughts. Even though the battle of each round typically takes less than a minute, each round takes about 10, with the extended announcement of the names and all of the extensive posturing before the the fighting starts. The timing with the two Sumo must be just right. They both must feel that they are at their peak, so there are many false starts and some posing and such. It's interesting, gives the wrestlers personality, and builds the tension before the round. If the battle is good, it makes things much more exiting. If the battle is short, it makes things pretty anticlimactic.

Most of the rounds were great, and the whole experience was amazing.

After the Juryo finished, there was a short break as they watered and swept the ring, and then the Mokuuchi came out. These are the highest level Sumo, and the rounds were all much better. Much more posturing. Much more character, and much more excitement. Takamisakari was especially interesting. He comes out and all of his posturing is very robotic. The crowd just eats it up. They're cheering and yelling, and when he won, the crowd exploded in applause and revelry.

I took lots of pictures and some short videos. I'll post those later.

We had to leave before the very best Sumo came out, in order for me to meet up with the marketing group for dinner. I'll post that later, but here's a highlight, I ate both baby eels and imitation jelly fish.

I'm really sleepy right now, and I have another meeting in the morning. After that morning meeting, Melody and I are gonna find some market area and do some shopping, before meeting back here at Shinagawa for the Shinkansen back to Narita Airport.

Breakfast Mystery

We went to a traditional Japanese restaurant for breakfast. It was full of strangeness. It included a nice piece of salmon, a bowl of rice porridge , a small bowl of ground seaweed (to be eaten with the porridge), a small bowl of pickled cabbage, cucumber, and salted cherries, a bowl of lightly pickled egg plant, and a small bowl of greens of some sort (spinach?) with mushrooms, in a yummy smokey sauce.

It was very strange. Melody said the cherries were really good, so a hauled off and took a bite. But they had a pit, and I just about split my tooth. I told her that I'd I'd just expense the dentist visit.

While it was adventurous, it's difficult to have a less than comforting breakfast in the morning. I was kinda out of it to begin with, and the bite of cherry pit certainly woke me up, but it wasn't really the best start for the morning. Next time, pancakes please.