You’ll have to excuse the break in posts this week.  We’ve been a bit preoccupied with falling in love with Sydney, which will inevitably be called home someday (that’s our new mission).  Today was yet another beautiful day in the city, topped off by a wonderful dinner at North Bondi Italian, which we enjoyed after taking a scenic walk from Bronte Beach.  Tonight’s dinner followed an equally scrumptious one the night before at Sean’s Panorama, which is also located in North Bondi.  I don’t really have the words to describe this place.  It’s quite possibly heaven on earth.  Just watching the life around us at dinner was enough to make us contemplate “missing” our flight home on Saturday.  Perfect weather, good beer, great attitudes, solid food, people out running and exercising, a super cute little boy playing soccer with his dad, even cuter kids playing in the surf, and dogs running around off their leashes while their owners trailed nonchalantly behind.  We just can’t get enough of this place.

Full frontal nudity on basic cable.  We’re watching that show about Hugh Hefner’s Playboy girlfriends on E and nothing is blurred out.  Now all the girls are sliding down a new slip-and-slide.  Hehe.  Love it.

Each time I travel to Singapore, I slobber at the prospect of getting to eat at the Straits Kitchen, the buffet restaurant at the Grand Hyatt.  My obsession with the place is so bad that each of my daily chats with Lizzi consists of at least one mention of how much I’m looking forward to eating dinner that night.  So imagine my surprise when I saw Anthony Bourdain mention the place during one of his episodes of No Reservations, when he confessed to actually liking the food at a hotel restaurant.  Below is a clip from his Singapore episode that mentions the restaurant (at around the 6:45 mark).

Feeling satisfied after yet another fine meal there this evening, I was struck by two observations that I thought worth sharing.  First, in addition to the food being first rate, the service is redonkulously friendly.  Everyone is so nice and helpful; kind of like the service in Japan but where the people come across as entirely genuine.  Second, there were two women sitting next to me who were engaged in deep discussion as they chowed down on spicy crab and Singaporean noodles.  Though I was slightly distracted by my chicken tikka masala and my International Herald Tribune, I listened in on their chat in a vain attempt to figure out where they were from since it was clearly not English that was being spoken.  About thirty minutes in, I finally realized that they were speaking English the whole time, just with super thick Singaporean accents (punctuated by the obligatory “la”, kind of like how we always say “ya know”).  I’m no accent novice, mind you.  I once picked out a Bengali accent while out to dinner with the Mrs. in Tokyo (at an Italian restaurant, no less).  This just made me realize that, though the Singaporeans speak English, actually understanding what is being said can be quite the challenge.

Consider the following anecdote one of the several reasons why I love Singapore.  On my flight from Hong Kong today, wheels touched down at exactly 7:34 PM.  I was in a cab by 7:50 and at my hotel at 8:05.  And the taxi only cost me about $13.  By comparison, were my flight to arrive at the exact same time at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, I would’ve arrived at home in central Tokyo by, say, 9:30 PM.  If I took the train, the cost would’ve been roughly $50 USD for the train ticket and another $20 for the taxi from Tokyo Station.  If I took a taxi all the way from Narita, I’d be looking at a $230 tab.  Yet another reason why Tokyo simply can’t compete.

Just sorting through my drafts and realized I never got around to publishing this one from several weeks back.  Enjoy!

I’m in Singapore again and getting better acquainted with the pros and cons of this place.  On the pro side, the city is safe, clean, and everyone speaks English.  Kind of like your local Republican Party branch.  Plus, there is a vibrancy here that is hard to find in Japan, where the vibe can by comparison be described as zombie-like.  Indeed, the energy is palpable in Singapore, which may stem from the hawker nature of the country’s consumerism.  Everywhere one looks, there are sights of what I would call small box retail – food stands, electronics boutiques, tiny fabric outlets.  And the food is fantastic, particularly for those of us who are fans of all things spicy.  By fate of location, there is some fantastic Indian, Thai, Chinese and Malaysian fare here, most of which is priced more Wal-Mart than Whole Foods (like Tokyo).  

On the negative side, the weather is tough to handle.  It is typically very hot and humid, and there isn’t much fluctuation in temperature throughout the year.  This problem is exacerbated by the fact that every taxi you enter is driven by someone who refuses to use deodorant, a phenomenon I will never fully understand.  Of course, there are days like today – overcast and actually quite pleasant with a breeze.  But even those days are interrupted by torrential downpours that come and go.  Then there’s the noise.  Walking along the streets in Singapore is certainly cause for earplugs.  There is so much construction and directing of street traffic taking place around you, the decible level is among the highest I have ever experienced.  Probably equivalent to sitting underneath the stands at Camp Nou when Real Madrid comes to town.  And don’t even think about chatting on the mobile while you walk, not unless you want to test the patience of the person on the other end (something my lovely wife gets to enjoy from time-to-time).  The conversation will be dominated by yelled requests of repitition that will only end in frustrated hang-ups, I assure you.  Then there’s shopping.  Though myriad in its choices, shopping in Singapore sometimes grates.  While I appreciate the fact that there is an abundance of Western-style shopping, the execution is highly annoying.  Specifically, each time you enter a store, you are immediately set upon by an over-eager salesperson who insists on following you throughout the store as you peruse the goods.  And too often the employee-to-customer ratio is way too high, leaving plenty of people to pester you when really all you want to do is kill time before your next meeting.  Seriously, why can’t one shop in peace?  Do they honestly think that this encourages people to buy?  We must put an end to such heavy-handed tactics.  Consumers of the world, unite!

On a quirkier note, I was drawn out of my hotel last night by the sound of live music.  Typing away on my laptop on the 15th floor, I heard what sounded like a live band playing somewhere below, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since it was a Friday night.  Curious, I stumbled outside and followed the noise (I wouldn’t describe it as music per se, so noise is more than appropriate) and was surprised to see a four-piece band scratching out some form of what may or may not have been heavy metal (the only clues as to the type of music were the hairstyles and heavy guitar abuse).  The grossly amateurish band was set up on a makeshift stage situated just outside of a little strip mall that sat next to my hotel, maybe 100 yards from the entrance.  Watching the band was an odd collection of what looked to be retirees, bored shopowners, high school kids who were congregating outside of the nearby KFC or Carl’s Jr., and confused and disheveled Western business travelers who couldn’t help but be drawn to the ruckus (like moths to a flame!).  Once the noisemakers (I can’t bring myself to call them musicians) mercifully finished their set – which couldn’t have been longer than two or three songs – the band took a fifteen minute break, giving way to the site’s other source of “entertainment” which, in retrospect, must have been the main event.  Located just next to the stage was a huge screen that flickered to life when the band relieved our auditory suffering.  The small crowd, which had settled itself into cheap plastic chairs in front of the stage, was then treated to a public service announcement disguised as a mini soap opera.  The one I watched consisted of two men, whom I presume were very dear friends, discussing the need to be more fiscally responsible given the current economic environment (as you may know, Singapore is in the midst of a serious downturn).  The “show” was part commercial, part drama, part big brother cares.  Besides the strange setting and presentation, I was taken by how nonchalant the two guys were in discussing their fiscal matters, going so far as to have the two sit down so the smart guy could help his slower friend draw up a monthly budget.  Apparently, in Singapore, such discussions are as natural as me sitting down with my friends to compare/discuss our fantasy football teams.  What amazed me even more was the fact that most of those in attendance sat with eyes transfixed on the screen, staying quietly still as they took in all of the awkward episode, only averting their attention when the band returned.  Perhaps it was a welcome respite from the awful scratching, banging and yelling that would follow onstage? 

Confused and bemused, I returned to my room, turned up the volume on CNN…and checked my fantasy squad.

It’s been a while since I posted on those weird little things that make Japan the wonderful yet highly strange country that it is.  Indeed, the Japanese are as odd as they are lovable!

Here are a few quick hits:

• A group of high school students, having just passed their ridiculously challenging entrance exams, were denied admission to the school for which they qualified due to “their long nails, piercings, or alleged appearance or attitude problems.”
• I’ve long been a fan of Japanese naming conventions, ranging from bar names to official names politicians come up when pushing various issues.  The latest one that made me chuckle: Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea.  I love that they use the word “probably” in an official title.  Can you ever imagine a scenario where you would use “probably” when titling your professional correspondence?  Just picture Hank Paulson’s latest memo to President Bush: Allowing the U.S. Auto Industry to go Bankrupt: It Will Probably Work.
• A new Self Defense Forces (Japan’s military, SDF) recruiting office in Shibuya (an area of Tokyo) is garnering some press on the back of its growing popularity among potential recruits.  Apparently, the staff there allows recruits to pose for pictures in SDF uniforms while “wooing them with cute cartoonish characters.”  Cute cartoon characters to entice military recruits?  Can you imagine your local Army recruitment center using Mickey Mouse to encourage youngsters to risk life and limb on the streets of Baghdad?  Of course, this may have something to do with Japan’s pacifist constitution…while we insist on spreading democracy at the tip of our sword.  It’s all about perspective, I suppose.
• In an effort to battle a fast-approaching demographic bomb brought on by a declining birthrate, a rapidly aging population and virtually nonexistent immigration, Japanese authorities are taking a more direct approach – encouraging more sex.  As part of the “more sex” effort, companies are telling their employees that it is OK to leave the office at a reasonable hour so they can spend more time playing with their children and banging their wives (the Japanese are notorious for keeping late hours at the office).  One company has even taken to playing the song “When You Wish Upon A Star” over its loudspeakers each day at 8 PM as part of an effort to make its workers feel guilty for not being at home with their families.
• As part of my weekly running routine, I typically make a couple trips around the Imperial Palace.  In addition to making for a pleasant run, I always look forward to spotting the inevitable outrageous outfit or two.  During my last jaunt, I saw: 1) a guy in full jog wearing Dockers, loafers, and a light sweater; 2) a girl who was dressed entirely appropriately from the neck down (running suit and trainers) but was sporting those fancy designer sunglasses with super big oval lenses and a funky hat that was more appropriate for Parisian coffee bars than the track; and 3) a man in a baseball uniform, in full jog, being followed along by a small boy, maybe aged 6 or 7, who was struggling to keep up and balling his eyes out in the process.  What the?

I flew into another typhoon today in Hong Kong.  The descent was nice and bumpy, but not as bad as last time.  However, I was treated to gale force winds on my walk from the train station to my hotel.  I was literally almost blown off of a walking bridge (I’m not kidding) and my suit was soaked thanks to the wall of sideways-blowing rain.  It was one of those moments where I was incredibly annoyed by the situation but also wishing there was a camera around to film my pitiful self so friends back home could laugh.  I’m now sitting at my computer on the 24th floor of my hotel, which is swaying quite noticeably in the wind.  So much so that I’m starting to get motion sickness.  The news tells me that the typhoon level warning is set at eight, which I believe is the highest.  The city has completely shutdown and we’re now being told to stay away from windows.  Good times!

The Japanese have a saying that goes something like this: one would be a fool never to climb Mt. Fuji once but a fool to climb it twice.  Having just scaled the mighty Fuji-san (as the Japanese call it), I can attest to the wisdom of this saying.

It all started at about 3 PM on a Thursday, when a merry band of adventure-seekers set out for Gotemba (one of three cities encircling Mt. Fuji).  There were ten of us in total, including three friends/colleagues from Chicago, five of my colleagues in Japan, Lizzi and me.  We piled into two vans and about two hours later checked into a cozy little cottage in the foothills of the mountain.  Once there, we unpacked and readied ourselves for dinner, which was a hearty meal designed to fuel ourselves for the insanity that would ensue the following day.  A few Sapporos in, we were full of self-assuredness, each of us confident in our ability to easily make the trek the next day.  Surely it wouldn’t be as hard as our Japanese friends were making it out to be.  Little did we know….

To be honest, expectations were hard to manage coming into the hike.  After hearing from our Japanese friends that we would need to be ultra-prepared, all the while hearing from our Western friends that it’s a piece of cake, we weren’t certain what to expect.  What we came to learn was that this hike is indeed no walk in the park, and that anyone who says it is easy is either an incredible athlete or totally full of shit.  There is a life lesson wrapped up in all of this: always trust the locals.

The day of the hike began ridiculously early.  3 AM to be exact.  Since there was no circulation whatsoever in our rooms, most of us woke up in pools of our own sweat, surely not a good way to start a day when hydration would prove important.  Once we shook off the grogginess and took time to ring out our sweat-stained shirts, we all rubbed the sleep from our eyes and made our way downstairs to enjoy yet another grubfest designed to stuff our bodies with the energy and nutrients needed to survive a day that would probably see us each burn somewhere between 3000 and 4000 calories.  At the conclusion of breakfast, we each dutifully packed our backpacks and Camelpacks to the brim with energy bars, cookies, sweets, nuts, water, rain coats, hats, sunglasses, extra layers for warmth and first-aid kits.  Then we set off for the 20-minute ride to station five, the launching-off point where we would begin our trek along the Subashiri route (there are four routes in total and ours is listed as the easiest, which I’m convinced is incorrect).

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Lizzi and I spent last week in Australia, splitting time between Sydney and Melbourne.  While I appreciate the coffee culture of Melbourne and the edgier European feel, my heart belongs to Sydney, a city I consider to be the single greatest one on earth.  Though it was a touch on the chilly side – it’s winter for those located south of the equator – the general charm of the place was not lost on me.  How can one not love a place that treasures its sports, beaches, beer (they have one called Pure Blonde – ha!), and alcohol-soaked lunches the way the Aussies do?  Plus, everyone has really cool accents and super laid-back demeanors.  And the scenery in Sydney is simply fantastic.  Really second-to-none.  The harbor is downright beautiful and there is a general vibe that is hard to find anywhere else in the world.

While down under, Lizzi and I managed to treat ourselves to several fantastic meals that we would highly recommend to anyone who fancies an eventual visit.  If in Melbourne, there is an awesome Greek restaurant called the Press Club that is superb.  I recommend the pit-roasted lamb.  In Sydney, two places that stood out were Cafe Sydney, which has amazing views of the harbor at night and great seafood, and Fratelli’s, a small Italian joint in Pott’s Point owned by two brothers who close the shop on weekends because, well, weekends are for relaxing, so they don’t want to work either!

We also spent some time in Bondi Beach, which has a great seafood restaurant called Icebergs that overlooks the beach (great for mid-afternoon cocktails) and an awesome brunch spot called Trio.  Last but not least, we took in an opera at the famed Sydney Opera House.  Not a bad place to take in one’s first opera to be sure, but the opera itself (Don Giovanni) was slightly lame.  Thusly, we were more excited by the fact that we saw an opera in Sydney than by actually seeing the opera, if you get what I mean.

And – we got to attend our first fashion show.  A friend of a friend is a bigwig in the fashion industry and his company is sponsoring a series of fashion shows in the city this month.  Lucky for us, we happened to be in town on the opening night.  Even luckier for us, our friend happens to be a good friend of this other guy, which meant we got seats right smack dab at the end of the runway.  Clearly, this was a place to see and be seen, and I’m sure we had plenty of people wondering who the hell we were.  The whole time the models were making their way down to us, I kept thinking three things: 1) they weren’t as pretty as I thought they’d be; 2) is she looking at me?; and 3) they all look really, really uncomfortable, suggesting to me that those scowls they wear all the time are not necessarily of the manufactured sort.

While my love affair with the city has long been known, the city can now count Lizzi among the newly-converted.  In fact, she’s probably busy passing out my CV to Aussie headhunters as we speak.  But for ridiculously high prices (our hotel charged us $9 for a glass of apple juice once…and a 4-pack of Gillette razors was going for $40 at the local convenience store…I kid you not) and even crazier taxes (marginal rate tops out at around 46%), I’d love to call Sydney home somday.  Of course, there’s the “tyranny of distance” that everyone complains about, but that’s not an insurmountable obstacle as far as I’m concerned.  After all, how much further can we be from home than we already are?

According to a recent survey conducted by Expedia, the French rank among the most obnoxious tourists in the world, a mantle us Americans are surely happy to concede.   Hehe.

Remember the tightwad tourist whose baggy shorts, frequent complaining and shouted questions about why none of the locals spoke any English made the ugly American the world’s Visitor From Hell? Well, it’s time for Archie Bunker to move over and make way for Petulant Pierre. According to a recent international survey, the French are now considered the most obnoxious tourists from European nations, and behind only Indians and the last-place Chinese as the worst among all countries worldwide. And it’s not only the rest of the world that have a gripe with the Gallic attitude: the French also finished second to last among nations ranking the popularity of its own tourists who vacation at home.

Having just returned from Beijing, I wanted to share a few thoughts and impressions from my trip to the mainland.  Overall, I found the city to be a fascinating place.  Though the heat was slightly suffocating and the haze made the eyes water a bit, the city itself was relatively clean and appeared to run efficiently.  It will be interesting to see how the world responds to its first big taste of the city come the Olympics, which start on 8-8-08 (in Chinese lore, the number eight is considered to be lucky).  Moving on….

1. The new terminal three in the Beijing airport is absolutely massive.  The ambiance is very similar to Hong Kong International Airport but it is exponentially bigger and, surprisingly, more efficient.  My guess is this place is a well-oiled machine due to the approaching Olympics.
2. The roads around Beijing are well-maintained, particularly the wide one leading into the city from the airport.  Again, I suspect this has something to do with the Olympics.
3. There is a ridiculous amount of cars littering those roads, making it easy to see why China just became the world’s top producer of greenhouse gases.  I presume this also has something to do with the thick layer of smog hovering over the city, where everyday seems at least a bit “overcast”.  I couldn’t imagine running a marathon in that air.  I hear the government is attempting to limit the number of cars on the roads and the number of factories in production in the weeks leading up to the event, but this would appear to be a daunting task.
4. The word for “how are you?” sounds like knee-how.  The word for “thank you” sounds like shea-shea. [Read more...]

When flying, it’s probably a good idea to avoid traveling to places currently mired in a typhoon.  I flew into Hong Kong today and was treated to what was easily the most turbulent landing approach I have ever experienced.  Things were violently shaking everywhere and I had full-blown sweaty palms going.  It’s amazing to me that we are able to create these massive flying machines that can withstand heavy winds and rain like that.  For reference, I’ve attached below a picture that I lifted from the Hong Kong weather observatory.  Hong Kong is the red star and the purple cyclone is where the system was about an hour after my arrival.  Now, looking out of my hotel window, my guess is that visibility is about 20 feet because it is raining so hard.