Chuc Mung Nam Moi from Vietnam!

We arrived yesterday in Vietnam. The weather here sits around 32 degrees C, and it's not really all too bad.

Vietnam's much cleaner than I thought, actually. Although you'd hardly call is clean. Our hotel sits in the Backpacker Alley in Saigon, and at roughly $10/person, it's not too bad.

Just a quick recap of the last couple of days:
Sat (Feb 17): First went to the War Remnants Museum, Xa Loi Pagoda, Spring Flower Festival 2007, Mirianman Temple, and finally walked around La Loi Street to observe the Tet (Vietnamese New Year) lights and crowds.

Sun (Feb 18): Spent the morning on a 1/2 day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, about 1 hour away from HCMC. Got back to the hotel where we met with our voluntary guides from Saigon Hotpot. They took us down Nguyen Hue flower street, and then we went to a Saigon Hotpot member's house where his mother cooked us dinner and we had a small celebration the Vietnamese way. It was great, and their friendliness and hospitality were surprising, geniune, and very appreciated. Tomorrow, we have a long day ahead of us. Lots to see. Lots to do. Better get some sleep.

Simon Fraser University recently launched its new SFU brand. Lead by a simple red block with "SFU" in white and a new "Thinking of the World" tagline, the website was has been redesigned too.


The Common Look and Feel website gives more information about the design, as well as downloadable templates.

Between this and UniverCity, it seems there've been a lot of changes since graduating only 3 years ago.

Three years in a row I haven't won any prizes at our company (lunar-)year-end party. But we had a good party this time, with lots of red wine. Lots of people drunk. It was fun. At at least I won the largest prize at our departmental party, which is good enough as a 4th place prize at the company party (value-wise). So, I guess I can't complain.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Lunch for the next few days will be salads.
Today's salad (which won't differ much from tomorrow's):
- romaine lettuce
- red bell peppers
- orange bell peppers
- thin cucumbers
- mushrooms
- alfalfa sprouts
- another type of green sprouts
- cherry tomatoes
- japanese salad dressing
- fresh ground pepper
- vegetarian chicken nuggets (on the side)

Never been fan of mouthwash, unless it was in someone else's mouth - in which case, I encourage it. For one, mouthwash burns. But more importantly, I always found it too inconvenient: the uncapping, the pouring, the drinking, the re-capping, the swishing, and finally the spitting. Not to mention that there's always a bit of liquid left in the cap when you screw it back onto the bottle. But finally, I found a way around all those unnecessary steps.

I put my Citrus Listerine into a squeeze bottle with a little pull-off cap. No longer going for exact measurements, I just pull off the cap and squeeze as much as I want into my mouth and swish away. My mouthwashing time overhead is reduced to 2 - 3 seconds. Damn I'm good.

Some final thoughts on Japan...

• Some Japanese people spit too. And not to the side, but right in front of them.
  
• Toilets in Canada are plumbing. Toilets in Japan are electronic devices. They have seats that heat your bum bum, electronic consoles for bidet, wash, spray (and at different angles and strengths), have gears that lower the toilet and cover slowly instead of letting them drop, and provide a handwash with the water used to fill the tank for the next flush. This is the kind of toilet I'll have when I buy a new home.
  
• The more I see, the more I realize that Japanese people don't really dress up all that much. Only in certain areas.
  
• But food in Japan isn't as expensive as everyone says. You can get a ramen (noodles) for 670 yen, or a chicken curry + miso soup for 290 yen. But of course, you can also eat very pricy meals here.
  
• Women will do their make-up on the subways, which is kind of strange when you see two people sitting next to each other.
  
• There are a lot of homeless people. I've mainly seen them around the Tokyo National Museum area and Ueno Park.
  
• Polite? Only kind of. They're polite in the Asian way of being polite, but not when they need to cram onto a packed subway. Then it's no holds barred. They'll push and shove until they're on, and leave it to the people behind them to push and shove more.

[written 2 days ago]

I guess it's hard to keep up with blogging while on vacation. The days are long and packed with activities, which doesn't leave much time for sitting down and giving updates. But I'm doing that now.

The exhibition I attended was okay. Slightly on the boring side for me. As I expected, this wasn't really a pressure situation, and there wasn't too much work for me to do but stand around and help with the demos if need be.

Saturday:
Headed from Shin Yokohama to Tokyo, and met some coworkers (in Japan for a ski-trip) at their hotel. Went to Yoyogi Park (dead grass and bare trees?), Harajuku (uneventful on a Saturday), Shinjuku (just walking around and shopping for gifts), and then to Hard Rock Cafe at Roppongi. A few (4 - 5) coworkers bought Nintendo Wii's, which is much cheaper (and available) in Japan. That night, I stayed at CY's place - which is much further out, smaller and dirtier than BC's. But who's complaining?

Sunday:
CY, his friend N, and I went to Harajuku and took pictures of some of the interesting artifacts (people) all dressed up. Visited Meiji Shrine (pretty nice), and went to Shinjuku for the rest of the evening. The evening was an eat-fest, having different kinds of katsu, sweets, and maki's in a food center downstairs from Shinjuku Station, then hitting up Yakitori Alley, and finally landing at an izakaya restaurant. In between the eating, we also went to the Toyko Metropolitan Government Building to overlook Tokyo at night from 45 floors up. Stayed at BC's place that night.

Monday:
Was up-and-at-'em before 7am to go to Tsukiji Market where top notch sushi is to be had with the day's catch. It's a huge market with tons of edible goods from the sea. According to most travel resources and tourists, you should go for a ~3000 yen breakfast of sushi at one of the restaurants next to the market. My ski-trip coworkers told me that they had 3100 yen and 3500 yen meals -- roughly 10 or 11 sushi pieces. Based on what I saw at the market, and from I gathered from them, I decided to approach it differently. I started with a 3000 budget and decided to buy my own seafood straight from market-folk, thereby cutting out the middle man. My critria: no cooking necessary, and as little as possible (because they normally sell in larger quantities). I got two pieces of Japanese tuna cut into sashimi slices, Hokkaido uni (sea urchin), raw shrimp ready to serve, 5 large scallop, fish eggs (the big kind, not ebiko), and salmon sashimi mixed in some flavoring. Then I bought some microwaved white rice, soy sauce, and wasabi from a convenient store. I ended up going over budget, but for my 3842 yen, I got far more food than my coworkers - though less variety, and possibly lesser quality (assuming the people buying for restaurants pick grade A ingredients).

I made another trip to the Metropolitan Building to get some "near aerial" photos during the day. Then met CY at Asakusa. Walked around Asakusa until after it got dark (around 6pm or 7pm), and went to Akihabara. Met up with BC for dinner, randomly finding a restaurant. This restaurant, whose interiour was designed to look like a cave, had incredibly cheap prices... but deceivingly so. A mountain of deep fried chicken filets just $550 yen, and a large piece of fish only $700+ yen. But what they didn't tell us was that each person had a table charge of $380 yen. Anyway, all added up, still a pretty good price for the food that we had.

Tuesday:
My last day in Japan was spent walking around Ueno. Packed most of whatever hadn't been packed in the morning, and then walked out to a couple temples and then to the Tokyo National Museum. After the museum, and went to a couple more temples. The highlight of the day was going to Jomyoin Temple, where I saw an old man sitting quietly alone painting the temple. I said 'hello' and just watched him painting for a few seconds. Then I asked him if I could take his picture. He showed me his beautiful artwork from his sketchbook, let me take photos of them, and then gave me a postcard-sized copy of one of his paintings, which I asked him to sign on the back. All this done with only hand gestures and "this" and "thank you" in Japanese. Went around Ueno a bit more afterwards, and went back to BC to pack up the rest.

Now I'm on the Skyliner train back to Narita Airport. Looking forward to getting off my feet and getting some rest.

"Wassup?" from Japan. Things are going well here. Listening to the NHL All Star Game online right now, waiting for lunch to roll around because I skipped breakfast - woke up late.

--- time passes ---

Ok, let me backtrack to since the last post.

Monday:
Work was fine, and in fact was good all 3 days (today being Wednesday), so I won't bother talking about work too
much. Lunch was sushi -- 12 pieces for 1000yen (~$10cad), which is quite a deal here. Dinner was teppanyaki, which seemed expensive, but I never saw the bill. After dinner, I just walked around a bit, checked out some camera prices and went back to my hotel to rest. Nothing worth writing about.

Tuesday:
Lunch was tempura at a franchise restaurant. Fairly simple, but still good. After work, my coworkers and I went to Kawasaki just for kicks. Went to a large shopping complex where they had a massive Bic Camera store. I didn't stay long in Bic Camera, but ran off to Zara next door and bought an undershirt. Then we had dinner at a very nice restaurant within the complex that had a sign "RR". Anyway, my guess is that our meals cost $60 US or more. They had a live xylophone + clarinet duo performance while we ate. A key to better business, go with Sales people if you can. We were a group of 8, and 6 of them were either Sales people or senior people in our company and distributor's company.

Wednesday:

Went to the Shin Yokohama Raumen Museum for lunch. Then we went to Yokohama to the Pacifico Yokohama to set up for our conference/exhibition tomorrow. After setting up, we finished for the day early (5:00pm), and I went of on my own to visit some Yokohama sights. After 2 hours of walking about, I hit up the Yokohama Curry Museum. This was the first meal I paid for since Sunday, which is pretty much as I had planned. I was hoping other people would pay for my meals throughout my work week. Tee. Tired as I was, I fell asleep on the subway back. But I think it was worth the trouble, because the nap was great.

Ok, time to shower up, watch a short movie, and get to sleep.

Signing off.

Oh, but first, a few more impressions:

- If you like seeing legs, there are lots of them here. Mini-skirts galore even though it's cold. But if you keep looking, you'll feel like a pervert because they're mostly high school students (I think).
- My coworker has rancid breath. Maybe caused by his smoking. It's absolutely unbearable. I haven't smelt anything like it... since the last time he was in Taiwan.
- Yokohama has a pretty cool skyline, headlined by the Landmark Hotel.

First day at work, and I'm tired as hell. Had a long, long day yesterday in Tokyo yesterday, and didn't get to my hotel in Shin Yokohama until midnight.

Yesterday, my morning started at 7:30am. BC and I went to the Tsukiji Market, where they bring in the catch of the day and have the freshest sashimi in Japan. But, we found out when we got there at 8:30am that the market isn't opened on Sundays. Next was a visit to the Imperial Palace grounds, where we met up with CY, my ex-coworker in Taiwan. With limited time, we walked around the Imperial Palace and I.P. East Garden until 11:30am. BC left to meet with his realtor. CY and I went to Odaiba.

Odaiba is a full day's activity, if one could afford the time. We spent roughly 9 - 9.5 hours there, and still missed a few places. Shopping, mostly. Features?

• A man-made beach
  
• Rainbow Bridge: A suspension bridge with some lights - nothing special
  
• A replica of the Statue of Liberty, but on a much smaller scale
  
• Aqua City mall: lots of sales going on now, but I wasn't looking for anything
  
• Decks Tokyo Beach mall
  
• Fort Venus mall: where the interior is modeled to be like a street in Italy, complete with blue sky - really nice
  
• A huge ferris wheel: similar to one in Neihu, Taipei
  
• MegaWeb, Toyota's showroom building where you can test drive almost all the cars they have. Unfortunately, all cars were booked, and so we paid about $2cad each to sit in an electric car that drove itself for 7 mins. It was neat.

Rushed back to BC's in Roppongi at 10:30pm, packed, and left at 11pm. An hour later, I arrived at my hotel in Shin Yokohama. My room, on the 19th floor, is the 2nd smallest hotel room I've ever stayed in (behind one in Hong Kong that I paid for myself). It's got a single bed, a small desk with TV, a long but thin couch, a washroom, and that's about it. I found that the air in Japan is fairly dry compared to Taiwan, and my skin itches because of it. But through my last 2 business trips, it seems I can't rely on hotel rooms to have lotion. But I could really use some now.

Slept at almost 2am, up at 7:30am, and at work since 8:30am. I think I need this evening to unwind and relax a bit. But I doubt that'll happen tonight. At least I can try to get to work later tomorrow.

More Impressions/Notes:

Toyota has so many cars here that each brand (Corolla, Blade, Crown, etc.) have their own emblem on the front, with the Toyota logo on the back of the car. For example, the Corolla series has 4 or 5 different makes.

People don't eat while they walk, or talk on cell phones in the subways. It's just not done here.

I pointed out to BC some people who bought ice cream cones while out in 5 - 10 deg C weather. Which I thought was kind of crazy. And then a few hours later, CY and I had some DAMN good ice cream. Green tea ice cream so intense it was like we were chewing the tea leaves.

[While waiting in the pre-waiting room]

If I were a kamakaze terrorist, I would pick Saturday to board my plane o' death. There are just so many people traveling on weekends that it seems the best time to get away with villanous activities.

Through customs, I took two carry-ons. Together, they clearly surpass the size and weight allowed by the airline. One contains roughly US$35K of hardware boards and boxes, and the other one has my laptop, a digital camera, and a DSLR. And yet, passing through the X-ray, no one said anything. I could have had a bomb and detonator! I'm dangerous! Pay attention to me! No one even cared to question my suspicious guava (I like fruit, can you blame me?), which is a little too soft in the middle. They won't think it's so harmless smothered in the captain's face and in his eyes.


[On the Skyliner train between Narita Airport and Ueno Station]

Turns out that the Japanese customs officials did ask me to open my luggage. But that was an open and shut case. Get it? Open and shut? Anyway.

The first thing I noticed about Japan (after leaving the airport) is that the Japanese have HOUSES! I didn't expect this. Given that this country has the 7th largest population in the world. Mind you, I'm not quite at Tokyo yet, and I'm sure this trend will change quickly as we get closer to the big city. Sigh... I want to live in a house again. Apartments suck. Even more so when it's just a room with a washroom attached.

For the first night, I will crash at my SFU friend BC's place in Roppongi. His company has given him a temporary residence until he finds his own place to rent. In Roppongi, the clubbing / night life district of Tokyo, his place costs his company $5000 CAD/month. Yowza.

Second thing I'm starting to notice as I'm looking out the window while typing this. Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda, Honda,... sure are a lot of Japanese cars around here. I wonder how many people would buy an American car. Maybe someone with a taste for dripping oil and depreciating value. Well, I see a few Beamers, Benz's, and Audi's too.

This train is fricken fast. Either that or everything's too close. My head starts to spin a little bit each time I look out the window at buildings whipping by. Can't stare out the window for too long.

A quick test with the wireless LAN. Random searches for networks returned 1, then 5, then 9, then 30, then 23 wireless LANs. This is while I'm still on the train.

Eating a Snickers bar now. My 3rd this week, thanks to NK. Ueno's the next stop. Closing my laptop.

[At the end of the night]

Got to BC's place in Roppongi, and then we went out to Shinjuku. First, we spent 30 mins trapped in the labyrinth Shinjuku station trying to find the right exit. Then we walked around the Shinjuku area and did a bit of furniture shopping (BC needs a bed ASAP because he's moving into an empty apartment next weekend). Came back to Roppongi, went to Roppongi Hills, and that was that. End of day. Tomorrow will have more walking, more adventures, and more getting lost.

More impressions: Japanese people generally dress very well. The girls are "very well packaged" as BC says, referring to their make-up. He says "their make-up technique is so advanced that you don't even notice they're wearing make-up". Based on what I've seen, I'd agree.

There are a lot of Japanese people.

Major Subway Stations are confusing as hell.

Veggies are EXPENSIVE. Try a handful of green beans for $3 CAD. A single red pepper (a beautiful one, like BC Hot House) for $2.50 Cad. Ouch.