We are at the end of the work week. Hooray! A long time ago I showed Kuniko the Rebecca Black video for Friday and now it is a kind of perverse inside joke that we share. Someday I’ll have to answer for all the terrible American pop culture that I have introduced to change my wife from a perfectly normal Japanese person into what she is now.

But what she is now is perfect.

Tonight after work we’re off to the local IKEA to buy some furniture for the guest bedroom. For example, a bed. We originally were cool with the fold-out mattress/futon that is in there, but we kind of decided to upgrade a little bit, since the room doesn’t get much use for anything else. So out comes the credit card and off we go.

I think that IKEA in Japan is just like any other IKEA throughout the world, but I do like to walk around and look. Tonight we’ll have dinner at their cafe/restaurant (meatball time) and then buy our stuff and go. Our car isn’t big enough for the stuff we’re buying, so we’ll take advantage of their delivery service to get the stuff to our house.

Other than that, we should have a pretty quiet two days off this weekend. Kuniko has a full weekend off, which is pretty unusual. Sleeping in two days in a row must seem like a luxury. I’ve got to do my US taxes which is always boring but necessary, and I’ve also got some visa work I have to do for the Japanese government. Next year my passport expires, so I should also think about getting that renewed sometime.

Looking forward to the week-end!

Last night after work I decided to make a run through Koreatown on my way home. There is actually a pretty large one near my workplace, so it is convenient to drop by now and then. I have been before and I have my favorite places to shop.

I hit a couple of other shops selling homemade kimchi along with Korean sauces and spices before going to my favorite place. The owner is an older Korean lady who always tries to pick me up. Yesterday I bought cucumber kimchi and chapuche, and she filled my shopping bag with some other goodies on the house. She gave me some surume (chewy dried strips of squid) soaked in Korean sauce, some Korean nori, and also a big chijimi pancake. Nice lady!

Also on the way home I stopped in the Seiyu supermarket that is near Shin-Nagata station. It used to be a Hankyu department store, but it went out of business and is now Seiyu. Seiyu is a chain of Japanese supermarkets that is actually owned by Walmart, so they have some unique American items. In fact, they are the only place in Japan that sells Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I bought two 4-packs, each 4-pack was only 200 yen. The list of things that I can’t get in Japan is getting smaller and smaller.

Back home I did some exercise on the bike while watching some old Amazing Race episodes, and then waited for Kuniko to get home. We enjoyed the Korean feast, and hopefully we are not too garlicky this morning.

Tonight is Setsubun, so I’ll be buying some sushi tonight on the way home. This is one of our favorite holidays to spend together – and a good excuse to buy some really nice sushi rolls.

Recently I had a class with a student who explained to me that he was diagnosed with cancer. I don’t want to go into detail about my student and their problems – I think they’ve earned the right to deal with things the way they want to.

Part of teaching six month courses at a big company is that you get to know a lot of students very well. Over the usual six month course we talk about their career and their work, but we also touch on families, hopes and aspirations. I knew that working with this many students the law of averages meant that sooner or later I’d get some bad news from a student. It was still tough to deal with.

Anyway, the thing about cancer is that it is a life changer for not only the person who has it but everyone around them. It makes you step back and think a little more deeply about what you are doing and why you are doing it. So in some small, tiny way it is a good thing, but it is still hard to get past the bad news.

My student will be attending classes off and on during the remainder of the term. He has the perfect attitude for the situation, and I think he’ll do fine. The company is being very flexible and helping him out, too.

So the news spurred a lot of deeper thinking for me, and I’ll let things roll around in my empty head for a while and see what develops.

On Saturday night we had Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira over for dinner. It had been a while since we’d gotten together, and in that time I think Akira had grown almost as tall as me. Soon he’ll be taller than both Yoshi and myself – maybe up to 190 cm tall. Akira ate like a champ, too, and we had a good conversation over dinner and wine.

Sunday Kuniko and I stayed home most of the day, however we did have to drive our car over to the Honda dealership for the bi-annual inspection. The dealer had promised to fix a few small problems that we found. I think the next time the inspection comes up we’ll probably take it to another place – I’m sure we can get a better deal. We left the car there overnight, and Kuniko will pick it up this evening on her way home.

We finally watched “Guardians of the Galaxy” on Sunday. This was a movie that I had really been looking forward to, but I wasn’t all that impressed at the end. There were some good laughs and nice special effects, but a little bombastic for my tastes. Still, a good movie to watch in the afternoon for a couple hundred yen.

This week Kuniko and I both have regular schedules, so no big surprises. In the next few weeks we will choose where to spend our summer vacation. We’re not sure if we’ll have one week or two weeks to travel, so we’re considering our options for both situations. It is fun to let your mind wander over the map and consider where we’d like to go. Somewhere cooler would be nice for summer. Hmm…

The first year and a half that I worked at Kawasaki I worked in a room without windows. It was a small meeting room about the size of a walk-in closet in the center of the second floor, mainly for doing short one-on-one meetings with vendors that came in. I took it over for 18 months, and in that time I never saw the sky unless it was lunchtime.

It was kind of a reminder of when I worked at the bottling warehouse of Glen Ellen Winery years ago in the 80’s. Dark when you come in to work in the morning, dark when you leave at night, and no windows to watch the transition.

Working without windows didn’t bother me much at the time, but when I moved to my current office I was surprised how much difference a window makes.

My current office is a pretty nice setup. I’m on the fourth floor, and my office is made up of two teaching classrooms. The door opens to a medium-sized room that I use for group lessons, and then there is another door at the back of that room that is my office. I use this “back office” for most of my classes, which are one-on-one. The office in the back is about triple the size of the windowless room on the second floor and almost the same size of the VP’s office on the top floor. So no complaints about the size.

But the nicest part of the office is that there are two tall windows. They are almost floor to ceiling, and they provide lots of sunlight and blue sky. From the fourth floor they open onto the roof of the adjacent warehouse, but beyond the roof is just blue sky and clouds. It is on the Kansai airport and Kobe airport approach pattern, so in the distance I can see planes silently coming and going. In the morning the sun comes up and casts a golden light across the south side of the room, and when it catches the clouds against the blue sky it is pretty spectacular.

During the day the clouds drift by, and for some reason it always reminds me of the view we enjoyed during our stay on Santorini in the Greek islands. The benefit is that it takes just a glance out the windows to bring me back to lounging on our balcony overlooking the caldera of Santorini, or watching a plane fly across the sky to send my mind ahead to our next trip overseas.

It’s a pretty good working environment.

For the last few years it has been a private office, too, so I’m getting a little spoiled. In the future if I need to work in a shared office it will be a tough transition to make.

Right now I’m spending a lot of time with my new employee students working on making presentations in English. Presentations are always tough, even in your own language. The difficulty factor is ramped up quite a bit once you switch to a second language, but I’m really proud of my students. They stand up and challenge the activities that I give them day in and day out. I’m sure they are going to be sick of using English so much by the time they end the course.

Their next topic is going to be negotiation, which I admit is a bit ambitious a topic to teach first year employees. It was a request from the HR department, so I guess there are some big things in store for these guys. I have taught negotiation skills and strategies to experienced employees before, but this will be new ground for me. I’m starting to come up with roleplay situations for the students to work through, but getting the topics is tough! My plan is to take it slow and increase the difficulty as we go.

I’ll finish up this term at the end of March, and then we’ll have a little break before the next term starts. I’m taking a couple of days off between terms, and it will work out perfectly that we can host Roger and his friend who are flying in from Switzerland. It will be fun to show them around our area of Japan!

As we get close to the end of January we are starting at looking at our schedules and upcoming changes to my life this year.

I was re-contracted to work at KHI for another year, and so I’m looking forward to another solid year of classes full of motivated students. I was able to negotiate a few changes to the way my salary works, too. I should hear more about that in April and May. Also I’ll be delving into a few new hobbies for the new year, including doing some more writing (on my own projects, but hopefully more blogging too).

Our winter trip to the Philippines was my idea.  I wanted to shake up our winter holidays, since we usually go to Thailand, and I wanted to expand our horizons a little.  Also I wanted to spend some time on a beach, and in Bangkok we usually swim in the hotel pool.

The trip started with a drive to Kobe airport, a ferryboat to Kansai International, and then dinner at a dim sum place in the airport.  We drank lots of beer and ate a little more than usual, since we figured we had lots of time to kill in the Manila airport later and the food was probably better here in Japan.  After a few cocktails at our usual airport stop we wandered down to the boarding gate to wait.  Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by about three hours.  The delay was enough to earn us each a voucher from the airline to spend back at the restaurants inside security, so we went back to our usual place and kept the party going. Finally, at midnight, we boarded our Cebu Pacific flight to Manila and it took off.

The flight time is four hours between Osaka and Manila, and originally our plan was to arrive in Manila at midnight, wait until our connecting flight to Virac left at 5:45 am, and just kill time in the Manila airport.  As it worked out we arrived in Manila and went directly to our connecting flight, and we only had an hour or so in the Manila airport to wait.  So in the end it was actually pretty nice to spend our waiting time in Kansai airport rather than in Manila.  That’s good because the Manila airport was just as I remembered it – a little dinghy and a little lonely.  Not exactly a safe, modern vibe.  Granted it was at 4 am, but we were happy to leave.

We caught a one hour flight to Virac, which is a small village east of Manila on a different island.  Once we deplaned we could really see that we were in the third world.  Jungle everywhere, and it seemed as if the whole town was gathered to watch the plane come in.  The airport only has 2-3 flights per week, so it was a big event.  The weather was slightly humid and comfortably warm – I could see that shorts and a T-shirt would be enough for this trip.  Nice!

We had arranged through the hotel for a driver, and he was a friendly enough guy.  He drove us out of town and towards the harbor, which according to my research was less than an hour away.  The drive was comfortable, and it was interesting to look out the window and see how people in completely different circumstances lived.  We saw lots of motorcycles with sidecars, and the occasional bus filled with people.  Apparently they were the primary system of transportation – cars like the one we were riding in were rare.  Everywhere the green jungle formed the backdrop for what we were seeing – water buffaloes with white stork companions, and we saw many people drying rice out on the road.  The cars and motorcycles tried to avoid driving over the rice, but sometimes it was necessary to drive over to avoid an accident.

Finally we arrived at the harbor, which was a very small fishing harbor with lots of people lounging around.  The driver drove to the end of a cement pier, and then waited with us as our boat staff came running.  They moved a tiny outrigger canoe over to the pier, and we jumped aboard, with a little trepidation.  I felt pretty comfortable with the size and configuration of the boat, but this was Kuniko’s first time on a boat this small.

They started the engine and slowly we headed out to sea.  The trip was from the port of Virac to the resort directly, and the resort had advertised a 40 minute boat ride across blue waters.  As soon as we left the calm waters of the port, however, the situation changed dramatically.  Big waves were coming in, we motored directly into them, causing a lot of boat movement, a lot of ocean spray, and a lot of concern for Kuniko.  She almost panicked, but somehow kept it together as we got past the worst of the waves.  The boat was just putt-putting along, which made for a very long ride.  The boat operators could see that Kuniko was uncomfortable, and they stretched out a tarp to help block some of the ocean spray that was splashing us now and then.  I think they thought that our marriage was in big trouble, and to be honest I was getting concerned about the same thing.  Luckily, somewhere in the middle of the trip, a Zen-like calm came over Kuniko, and she made it through without any problems.  The second half of the trip I was thinking about our return trip, and we would have to do it at 5:00 am in the morning.  I couldn’t decide whether it would be better or not to do the return trip in the darkness.

Finally we reached a cove on the other side of the water, and we threw our stuff onto the beach and then jumped into the shallow waves and walked onto dry sand.  A member of the resort was waiting for us, and he dutifully gathered my shoes, backpack and other items that I had cast aside while trying to ensure Kuniko made it safely.  He introduced himself, and then led us through the resort to the restaurant that served as the home base for the entire resort, which was located at the top of a big hill overlooking the ocean.

We filled out a little paperwork, we sipped blue lemonade, and we waited patiently for our room to clear out.  We had arrived pretty early – around 9 am, so it was reasonable to wait a little bit.  There were a few other customers there as well, but not as many people as I had expected.  Maybe we had just arrived early. The staff served us some snacks while we waited – fried bananas, and some garlic cheese potato wedges that really hit the spot.  We asked for a couple of cold beers, and the staff quickly pulled out two cold bottles, opened them, applied a napkin condom to the top, and handed them over.  I was encouraged by how painless it was to get cold beer.  I was a little curious about the price, but I tried not to worry about it too much.  As it turned out, they were really cheap here.

Once our room was ready we were introduced to a staff member named Nolly, a shy young man who led us to our room.  The manager told us that if we needed anything at all, just contact Nolly.  No problem!

The room itself was very nice – we were pleased with the design.  It was basically a bungalow with cement walls, with big sliding windows that you could open to let the tropical breezes come through.  We had a nice king-sized bed and a separate shower and toilet room that was in a modern style.  The toilet flushed every time, and the air conditioner and TV worked fine.  We did notice a weird noise in the room after the staff left – it sounded like a huffing sound coming from the corner.  At first we thought maybe an animal was stuck under the room, but it turned out to be the power transformer stepping the voltage down to 110 volts.  When we turned it off things were silent, except for the occasional “moo” from some cow out in the jungle.

After putting away our stuff and changing into more comfortable clothes we walked back down to the beach and looked around.  The beach was really nice. The sand was white and very fine – like sugar, I remember thinking – and we waded out a ways into the water which was quite warm.  The sky was blue, the air was warm, and our relaxation was just beginning.  It was a good feeling.

We had lunch at the restaurant and had our first taste of Philippine cooking.  The menu had many different items, some of the local dishes and others more “western” like spaghetti and nachos.  I thought the menu was a good balance, but we ordered almost exclusively local dishes and we liked what we ate.  The food was spicy, usually well-laced with garlic, and sometimes a little sweetness to it.  We were 100% satisfied with the food we had on this trip.

We had beer with our lunch and dinner, and each time they served us with the napkin condom.  I looked around at the other guests, and it seemed like we were the only ones drinking beer.  I think the first day we drank almost every beer they had in the fridge.  Luckily a boat came with more the next day.

The next morning we slept in, enjoying the big bed and open schedule, and then went out to the restaurant for breakfast.  The weather was a little cloudy, and while we ate the buffet breakfast some wind came up and blew some of their outdoor furniture around.  The wind was quite warm however, and it didn’t bother me a bit.  After breakfast we took a hike through the jungle to get some exercise, and then headed back to our room for some more relaxation.

By lunchtime the wind was getting stronger.  After lunch we played billiards on the table they had in the restaurant.  Kuniko and I really got into billiards when we stayed in Bali, and although this table had some balls missing we had fun shooting around.  I think Kuniko really improved during our trip – I don’t think I did.  We kept drinking beers, kept playing pool, and kept one eye on the weather.

As we were walking back to our house from dinner, it started to rain a little bit, and I was starting to get worried about our beach time.  It was still warm, but the wind was as strong as ever.  When we woke up the next day, it was a full-on tropical storm.  There were torrents of rain, and the wind rushed outside, blowing around the palm trees and sending coconuts falling to the ground.  The beach was out, the pool was out, and we had little to do but stay in our room and read the books that we brought, run out to the restaurant for food and to take advantage of their intermittent internet connection, and drink beer.  This wasn’t turning out like I had hoped.

We stayed inside for two days, and just waited for the storm to pass.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t moving very quickly.  In Japan the typhoons move through in about a day, and the next day is sunny and clear.  Here we were waiting for almost three days and nothing but wind and rain.  The good news was that the food was good, the cabana we were staying in was made of concrete and wasn’t going to blow away, and we had plenty of reading material.  The bad news was three days of continuous rain had started to drive some ants into our room to look for food, and we were always squishing tiny ants everywhere.  The weather change made the water temperature of our shower feel a little cold – it was comfortable when the weather was balmy outside, but now were hoping for a hot shower and getting a barely lukewarm one.

In addition, the number of guests stayed pretty low.  Sometimes we saw other people – but most people probably knew in advance of the tropical storm and cancelled, or they stayed mainly in their rooms and used room service.  It was starting to get a little lonely at our meal times.  The lack of company made me wonder just how big this storm was.

So while eating at the restaurant I started thinking about how we could take control of this situation and improve the trip.  There were a lot of challenges, but I figured that if we threw some money at the situation we could make things happen.  As it turned out, I was right about some things and I was wrong about others.

First, we used the spotty internet of the resort to check out our flight options.  There weren’t many flights out of Virac, but there was one leaving the next day.  If we missed that we would have to take our original planned flight out.  With the bad weather I was worried about making the connections for our original planned return, so we figured it would be better to make an attempt early and if it didn’t pan out we could fall back on our original plan. It wasn’t encouraging to turn on our TV and see non-stop coverage of a missing AirAsia flight, and also a burning Greek ferry on the news.

Kuniko booked a room in Manila, at the Hyatt Regency, and so our goal was to get off the island, get to Virac, take the earlier flight, and spend two extra days in Manila instead of sitting around in our room at the resort.  We booked the hotel, I managed to get seats on the next day’s flight out of Virac, and then we told the hotel staff that we’d like to leave earlier than planned because of the crappy weather.  They were very understanding, and got to work making arrangements to wrap up our bill and arrange transportation to Virac.  The manager said he’d try to get a more comfortable boat back to Virac, and I told him that there was extra money available if that was what was necessary.  He just smiled and said he’d do his best. We settled down to our “last meal”, and tried not to get nervous when the power went off for a minute or two.  Outside the wind was still howling, the rain was still coming down in sheets.  After dinner we paid our bill, which was quite reasonable considering how much food and beer we enjoyed.  As we started to leave the manager quickly mentioned that if the weather continued like this that the boat ride out wasn’t going to happen.  Kuniko heard this and said, “What!?!”  It suddenly dawned on me that we didn’t have nearly as much control over our holiday and I had expected.  The manager said that if the weather was still bad we were welcome to stay as long as necessary.  At least we had a roof over our heads.  The manager promised to call us at 5 am the next morning and let us know if we could leave or not.  It all depended on the weather, and perhaps the sailing skills of the boat operators.

So we went back after dinner and we packed up, just in case we were leaving.  Honestly I thought we would probably have to stay.  The wind and rain were still beating heavily against our windows, and it showed no signs of stopping.  The local Philippine TV stations said the storm was moving on, but they had been saying that for the last few days.  I was feeling a lot of pressure – if we didn’t catch the boat we’d lose out on our hotel reservations at the Hyatt, and we’d also eat the cost of the earlier flight to Manila.  There was some money on the line as well.  I was pretty stressed that night – and it didn’t feel good to be powerless to change anything.  Kuniko was still in her Zen relaxation state, and she talked me down and helped put everything back in perspective.  We finally went to bed about 10 pm, but we didn’t sleep well, and I kept waking up every few minutes to listen for the gusts of wind and rain.  Were they slowing down a little?  No, that was a big gust just then.  Maybe they are a little calmer…  I was second-guessing my semi-sleeping self the whole night.

I woke up around 4:30 in the morning, and Kuniko was already up.  It was totally quiet outside.  I looked out the window, but it was too dark to see anything.  We were both encouraged, though, and went ahead and got ready.  The phone rang at 5:00 am, and the manager told us what we wanted to hear.  The boat is going to cross!

We packed up our gear, skipped the not-quite-lukewarm shower and decided to travel a little dirty.  Outside it was starting to get a little lighter, and there was just the slightest breeze.  It was still very overcast and the skies were dark, but it seemed like there wouldn’t be any rain.  Perfect conditions to risk your life trying to make a plane connection.

We went down to the beach and found that we had almost the exact same kind of boat that we had used before.  Luckily this time they had a ramp that we could climb up without getting our feet wet, and even plastic bags that we could put our baggage into to stay dry.  Our crew also included Nolly, who was coming along to see us off (and get his tip?)  Although it wasn’t raining and the wind had mainly stopped we still had to deal with some big waves, and the ride back was not easy.  I still got plenty of seawater splashed all over me, but the engine of this boat was a little stronger, and the captain’s skill was more apparent.  He maneuvered the boat between big waves, sometimes riding them like a surfer to avoid rough treatment.  It seemed like a shorter trip, but when we got back we were all smiles (and pretty wet).  I gave Nolly a reasonable tip, and our original driver was waiting in the same place on the cement pier.  We thanked our intrepid crew for helping us escape the resort, and then got in the car and started driving back to the airport.  We were even a little ahead of schedule.  Every part of my body was much wetter than usual, but otherwise things were looking good!

On the way back the driver, who was very friendly on the way in to the resort, was not so customer-friendly.  He said that it was pretty common sense that storms come during this time of year, and he clearly thought we were fools to come to the resort at this time.  He suggested many other better times of the year to come, and it seemed like he wanted to make things clear that any bad times we experienced were simply our own fault.  Maybe he considered himself kind of a PR agent for the Philippines. We just remained wet, tired and silent in the back seat and watched the scenery.

Once we got to the airport, we unloaded our stuff at the curb, and then the driver suddenly asked me for payment.  I was a little shocked – we had arranged the transportation through the hotel, and I was under the impression that we had already paid it.  The driver said the price was 3000 pesos, which is serious money for a developing country.  I thought he was trying to rip us off, and I asked him to call the resort to confirm that we already paid them.  He tried, but couldn’t contact them for some reason.  He told us that he had to park his car somewhere, so we should go inside and check in, and he’d find us.  Unfortunately the check in process at the tiny airport was a one way deal, and we had to enter the waiting area right away.  We never saw the driver again.

I had a lot of time to think about the situation, and I think that probably he was right – we should have paid him.  The money we paid to the resort for transportation was likely just the water transport.  Probably the resort has an agreement with the driver to pick up guests, and the resort doesn’t mention the price to the guests when arranging.  Then he kicks back a little money to the resort.  If we had known the price we would have made other arrangements, but the hotel and the driver count on people not knowing the price from the beginning.  So in my mind, the bad guy is the resort for handling things like that.  More communication is the take home point, and something I’ll keep in mind for next time.  Anyway, the guy probably thought we were ripping him off, and we thought we were being ripped off, and so it was a lose/lose situation for everyone.

While we were waiting to board we bumped into a family that had been staying at the same resort.  They had left the day before us by taking a long boat ride around the back of the island, then a long drive around the Virac, spending the night there, and then catching the same flight.  I was glad that we didn’t have to sleep in Virac – it didn’t look like there were many sleeping options without dirt floors.

Our flight left early, since it was the only flight of the day.  When everybody is on board then we could leave.  As we taxied to the runway I saw that many villagers had gathered at the side of the airport to watch the plane leave.  I wonder what they thought about the departing planes, and whether they wanted to ride it someday or not.  The flight was painless, and there were some goofy teenage girls sitting across the aisle from us who kept everyone around them entertained.

We arrived 20 minutes early in Manila, and we grabbed a taxi from the airport on kind of a paper quote system.  We told the airport staff where we are going, and they gave us the price up front and wrote it on a paper that they gave to the driver.  That way there was no haggling.  Our driver reached back and locked our doors for us before we left, so I knew the ride should be interesting.

Manila was just what I had expected.  I had seen some scenes of Manila from Amazing Race this season, and it pretty much matched up with my expectations.  It kind of reminded me of Delhi in India – plenty of slums and dirty areas, dogs walking around and tough conditions for the locals.  I’m sure there are better parts of Manila but from what we saw on our thirty-minute taxi ride it didn’t look great.

We arrived at the Hyatt Regency Manila on New Year’s Eve, which by coincidence was undergoing a change to new ownership at the stroke of midnight to new branding and a new company.  Construction workers were busy changing the signs over to the new name, and we had the unique opportunity to check in to one hotel and check out of another.

Our room was beautiful and clean, without any ants, and we immediately got in and took one of the best showers of my life.  The shower was pretty magnificent – marble floors and tile walls, with windows everywhere and it had a deep elevated bathtub on marble slabs.  We showered and scrubbed in hot water and used as much soap as possible.  I think this shower was one of the top 5 in my lifetime.

After showering we changed into some fresh clothes that we had protected in our luggage with waterproof bags, and then went to the café for some beer and lunch.  It was strange to go from the sleepy resort life to a five star dining experience, but we just relaxed and enjoyed it.  It felt great to be clean and free again.

After lunch we walked across the street to a 7-11 for beer and snacks.  The streets of Manila around the hotel had a strange vibe, and the beggars were out in force.  Lots of drivers pulled over to try to get us to use them as a taxi service, and I was glad that we didn’t have to put up with too much of this environment.  We bought our snacks, went back to the hotel for a workout in the fitness center, and signed up for the rooftop New Year’s Eve countdown party.  Then it was nap time to try to get up the energy to be party animals.  We don’t often stay up until midnight.

We woke up and still had some time to kill, so we went to the ground floor lounge for cocktails and wine, and a Caesar salad just in case there was no food available at the party.  Then, at around 10:30 pm we took the elevator to the top floor.  We had to sign a waiver that said we wouldn’t sue anyone, and then they gave us some goofy party hats and three drink tickets and let us up on the roof.  The hotel is a pretty tall one, located right on the bayside of Manila, and the view was spectacular.  They had a DJ playing loud dance music, the bartender kept us in sweet champagne throughout the evening, and they even had a group of professional dancers who entertained the fairly large crowd.

As we waited for midnight we could have a pretty complete view of the Manila skyline.  I had heard that there would be fireworks, but I was surprised to see that they were firing them off all over the city.  It was still an hour before midnight, and there were steady fireworks happening everywhere we looked.  It felt like a scene from the movie Blade Runner – a not-quite futuristic city being lit up by neon and bursts of fire.  By the time midnight was approaching the volume of fireworks was unbelievable – it looked like a war zone.  Kuniko said the city was crazy to spend the kind of money they must need to do fireworks on this scale, and I kind of agreed with her.  At midnight they started launching even more fireworks over the bay right next to our hotel.  Some fireworks were exploding low to the ground, and it was strange to be looking down on them.  The DJ was telling us all to “welcome 2015”, and I think starting a new year with more fireworks than I have ever seen was a good way.  To think that we almost spent this night stuck in our room at the resort, too.

The next day we had all to ourselves for relaxation, and we made the most of it.  A huge breakfast buffet, delicious coffee (they only had instant back at the resort), and we had a room service dinner the next night with chicken adobo and garlic fried rice.  The last night was rainy, so we stayed inside the hotel eating, drinking and using our phenomenal bathtub.  Before we went to bed I realized that during the whole trip I never once was able to use my swimming suit, which seemed tragic.  The rain seemed to have stop for the moment, so we decided to suit up and go jump in the hotel pool.  It was pretty cold, but finally we got some use out of our swimsuits.

The next day we checked out of the Manila Bay Hotel and Casino, and took a taxi ride back to the airport.  This taxi had a meter, and the driver even stopped to use the toilet on the way to the airport with the meter still running.  Classy!  I was ready to argue about the price but after I did the math in my head it was only a difference of 40 yen, so it wasn’t worth a confrontation.  No tip, though, buddy.

The flight back was delayed a little, but we got back to Kansai reasonably quickly.  The change in weather was a big shock – the sight of snow and cold wind surprised us when we walked out of the boarding tunnel. More bad news – the ferry that runs between Kansai airport and Kobe airport was stopped due to the bad weather, so we had to catch a special bus that added about an hour to the journey back.  We finally got home around midnight on Friday, so we had the next two days to get back into cold weather mode at home.

It wasn’t the trip that I expected to take, but every moment of it was an adventure.  It is one of those trips that we’ll be talking about for a long time afterwards, and in the end, that is all we want our trips to be.  Can’t wait for our next one!

As usual, the end of the year was a pretty busy season for us. Last night we had our last holiday dinner party with Kuniko’s family, and even Tomoko and Atsushi made it out to visit. We gave them a bottle of sparkling wine and two champagne flutes to fill, but just before we gave them their gift Tomoko mentioned that she is four months pregnant. That was good news – we were happy to hear it and we’re looking forward to our new niece or nephew.

On Friday last week I finished up negotiations with my company, and I’ll be continuing at KHI next year. Things went smoothly in the negotiations despite my relative weakness in speaking Japanese (especially negotiation Japanese can be a little delicate). Luckily the people I am dealing with are patient and very positive.

I have a party tonight after work with the entire HR department. It is a strange thing to have an after work party on Monday, but the dates remaining before the holidays are getting fewer and fewer. I’ll work tomorrow (during the national holiday) and then I’ll be done for the year. Kuniko is working the regular schedule (that means every day) until we leave for the Philippines on Saturday night. We have our own little holiday party on Christmas night, but until then there are a huge amount of leftovers in the fridge again. Nobody is going to starve to death here.

It is officially cold around here. The last two weeks have been generally cool, but not especially cold until the other day. Suddenly gust of cold wind are blowing, and we’ve been using the high setting on our electric blankets at night. Kuniko hates the winter, but I do not mind it so much. The lack of sweat everywhere is one of my favorite parts of the season, actually.

Anyway, we’re in long underwear mode, and I think we’ll be like this for the next three months. Luckily we’ll get a break at the end of next week and head to the beaches in the Philippines.

Last weekend we hosted a mini-Christmas party with the Yamaji’s and also Ms. Fukumi and her son Hiroka. Unfortunately her husband couldn’t make it because he had a business trip to Okinawa, but we had a great time exchanging presents and eating a Christmas ham. The next day Chieko was flying to the USA to meet Yuki and also stay with my parents for a couple of days, so it was a good chance for her to get ready to spend some time overseas.

This coming weekend we are hosting another party for Kuniko’s parents, and also Tomoko and Atsushi will be joining us. We have to do a little shopping for some small presents – just when I thought my Christmas shopping was complete. We’re thinking about doing shish-kebabs since they were a hit last time I cooked them, but if the weather turns bad we’ll do some Mexican food instead. Thanks to all these parties our refrigerator is well-stocked, and the pantry is nearly overflowing with snacks. Luckily I’m getting lots of time on the exercise bike every day to burn off all these holiday calories.

So based on a unique combination of busy and lazy I have been neglecting the blogging, and I thought today was a good day to get back into it.

It is the end of the work week, and we’re closing in on the end of the year. As usual, the end of the year is full of events and things to do, but I think we’ve been able to keep our heads generally above water.

We finished off shipping all our Christmas presents to various locations in the United States, and that is a relief. We’re hosting a small Christmas party with the neighbors this tomorrow, and we even did a little bit of shopping for them. We are going to serve a big ham that we bought at Costco, and I’m going to serve my brother’s “heart attack mac and cheese” to really butter everyone up for the holidays. I’ve already blocked out several hours this weekend for the exercise bike.

I’ve got seven more work days left this year, and then we’ll be off to the Philippines for some warm beach time. Interestingly, I still haven’t heard about a contract for next year, so it may be unemployed beach time we spend. I seem to recall a similar situation last year, so I’m not too concerned about it (yet).

In other signs of the confidence in my continued employment, I spent a bit of my winter bonus on a PS4 video game machine, since I figure I’ll have a lot of time available in the evenings when I’m waiting for Kuniko to come home from her job. Tonight Kuniko has a party to attend, so I’ll be holding down the fort – playing games and precooking some ingredients for tomorrow.

Weather-wise things are getting cold around here, and this weekend is supposed to be extremely cold. I don’t think we’ll see any snow, but it seems like it won’t be too far off.

I’ll try to write more next week, provided I survive the high calorie Christmas feast on Saturday.

From last night it became cold. I guess winter is pretty much here now. Usually I gradually slide into the cold weather taking steps one at a time. Wearing long underwear, using the floor heater in the living room, using an electric blanket at night. Today I started all of those at once.

This past Wednesday we had a VIP guest at our factory, the crown prince of Japan. He was attending a nearby conference on agriculture in the Hyogo prefecture, but they arranged in advance a stop to look at the factory floor and get a very brief tour of the car body assembly area.

I heard about it in advance, and it was interesting to see the preparations. The day before the visit the police must have come through and checked all the manholes and service hatches in the sidewalk outside our factory, because they were all sealed with metallic tape. The prince was only here an hour, but they had the most police and security I have ever seen anywhere at one time escorting. While a helicopter circled above most of the employees were in a security lockdown in our offices – not allowed to leave for an hour. They also told us not to stand at the windows and try to watch. I guess some sniper might get an itchy finger or something.

Anyway, I guess the visit went smoothly, and it made the local papers the next day. It was kind of a cool thing to have happen, and it made me realize again just how big a company I work for.

Tonight Kuniko and I will meet in Akashi and do a little Christmas shopping, and maybe grab dinner out. Tomorrow we’ll meet in Osaka and go to dinner with some friends to celebrate Ai-chan’s pregnancy. It’ll be my first time to meet her husband – apparently he is extremely shy and skipped last year’s party because of it. I hope he is loosened up enough to deal with us.

Sunday a pair of professional cleaners will come and work their magic on our kitchen and bath room. Instead of us scrubbing away during the annual major cleaning, we’ve decided to outsource this year. It is pretty reasonable to have it done by these guys, who come recommended by a friend of Kuniko’s. My job on Saturday is to clean up for the cleaners, and then my job on Sunday is to sit and read while they work their asses off, and then pay them when they finish. Maybe I’ll make them a cup of coffee while they’re at it.

We’ve been pretty busy these days, and I haven’t had the time to blog at work or at home. These next few months will be about the busiest that I ever get at my job, and right now Kuniko is going through some big decisions in her career. Unfortunately, that means that the blogging gets relegated to the back burner temporarily.

Currently Kuniko is on a long run of work with no holidays, and she won’t have any free time until at least early December. We do have some plans to meet up with friends in the evenings on some weekends here and there. It’ll be good to break the work routine, but it is tough when Kuniko is so exhausted already.

We’re coming up on our anniversary, too. This year we’ll do the usual trip to Anonyme, and have a nice dinner and a bottle of wine. The chef there is always creative and makes interesting dishes. This will be our ninth anniversary, and so we’ll have to figure out something even more exciting for next year.

Also my parents said that they want to come visit us, so we arranged for them to come in May next year during the Golden Week holidays. We’ve got plenty of time to start figuring out what activities we can arrange to keep them busy. It has been a few years since they’ve been in Japan and I’m sure they have a long list of things they’d like to do.

Tomorrow there is a big event at my workplace, but I won’t be able to post about it until later. Hopefully I’ll have more information to write this Thursday…

Last weekend we had a nice dinner with Mr. and Ms. Minamimoto in Sannomiya. Mr. Minamimoto was one of the first students that I ever taught at Kawasaki, and I was lucky enough to be invited to their wedding several years ago. Ms. Minamimoto is really intelligent – she is already licensed to be a pharmacist, and she is now going for her medical doctor’s degree. We decided to meet and catch up, and it was the first time for her to meet Kuniko.

It was a fun night. Rather than have one big meal we had two small ones at two different restaurants in Kobe. We talked about what they have been up to, and it seems like they’d like to hang out together more in the future. We’re trying to arrange a time to have them come over in December.

Today at work I have my annual health check up. That means no food or drink since 9 pm last night, and a big barium milkshake waiting for me in a few hours. I’m hoping I get a good result from my bloodwork this time. Last year they were worried that my cholesterol was creeping towards the top of the “safe” zone and approaching the “warning” zone. I’ve been exercising a lot more the past year, so hopefully that will help turn things around.

Things are starting to calm down a little with my new students, and we’ll probably settle into a rhythm starting next month. Day by day it is getting colder, so it won’t be long before I’m drinking hot tea and coffee and trying to stay warm on the way to work.

One nice thing that Kuniko suggested was a small 500mL thermos. She has been taking a thermos to work full of hot soup, and so I’ve been doing the same thing too. It is nice to open up the thermos at work and have the soup all hot and ready to eat. I see a lot more soups and stews in our future, and I’m wondering whether to get a slow cooker to help with preparation during the week. Hmm…

I had a very nice three day birthday weekend, with a little bit of excitement at the end as typhoon #19 passed through. As it turned out it had lost a lot of power by the time it got to us, and it was pretty anti climatic.

But the birthday celebration was all I was hoping for and more. On Saturday afternoon I met up with Kuniko in Sannomiya and together we rode the train into Osaka to have dinner. We used the train to get to a different part of town to check out Abe no Harukas, the tallest building in Japan (for now). There was a long line of people waiting to go to the top, and they were charging about 1500 yen a head to ride up the elevators, but we decided our time was worth more and we just did some shopping.

From there we went on foot across town to go riverside have a beer before dinner. The part of the river we visited was the same area where we attended a beer festival with Yoshi and family a while back. I remember clearly at the time that I looked across the river and saw the tables and restaurants lining the river and thought that it looked like a nice place for a drink. Turns out that it was a very nice place. We had a couple of beers and watched the activity on the riverside. There were several squads of dancers on the other side of the river practicing their routines, and along the river there were some flat riverboats carrying sightseeing tourists. One even went by with a live jazz band playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

Afterwards we caught the nearest subway and went to Santa Lucia, an Italian restaurant recommended by Kuniko’s friend Chiemi, who is the resident expert on Italian restaurants.

The place had a very nice atmosphere, and our food turned out to be quite good. I really enjoyed the buffalo mozzarella that came with our appetizers, and we had one and a half pizzas as our main course. The wine turned out to be just OK, not super-duper, but all together it was a great experience. Our waiter took every opportunity to speak to me in English, which is actually pretty rare these days.

After dinner we did just a bit of shopping, and then headed home. I was experiencing one of those weird allergic reactions that happen about twice a year, so that was a little bit of bad timing. Luckily by the time I got home things were largely back to normal. I still can’t figure out the mystery of these reactions. The best guess these days is that it is something in the air – the only common factor in the reactions is that it starts when I am outside.

Kuniko had a birthday present waiting for me when we got home, a beautiful silk tie. This is a family tradition – she gets me a new tie every year, but this year she really came through with a beautiful color. It is a dark red that shimmers in the light – going from almost black to a red wine color. It’ll go perfectly for any wine dinners that might come up.

Sunday and Monday we spent in the house, waiting out the typhoon and cooking, eating and drinking. It was a nice chance for Kuniko to enjoy two days off in a row. On Sunday afternoon I got a phone call from an unknown local number, and it was the head of the neighborhood committee. He asked if he could talk with me for a bit about something, and I thought that maybe our BBQ smoke was causing problems for the neighbors. But it turned out it was a simple request. Every year they hold a human rights event at the nearby community center in November, and he was wondering if I would be willing to speak to their members this year and talk about my impressions of Japanese culture, discrimination, and any equality issues that I might have noticed. Apparently the neighborhood members watch Kuniko and I walking around hand in hand and that made them think that maybe we have a different outlook on things than the locals do. Anyway, I said yes, and hopefully it’ll go smoothly. I have a month to think about it.

Now I’m back to work and putting through this short week. I have plenty of classes to keep me busy and a party with Mr. Minamimoto and his wife on Friday to look forward to.