Today, Akemi and I headed over to Ikebukuro's Sunshine City Mall, home to Namco Namja Town's Gyoza Stadium and Ice Cream City. It's been some five years since my last visit to Ice Cream City (I still flashback to the aftertaste of that squid ice cream) and I was looking forward to the return trip.…
November 2, 2012: Tokyo Day #5! Actually, Yokohama Day #1!
Yesterday, I ended up going to Yokohama for the day. It was my first visit to the area and I was wowed. It's absolutely beautiful, alternately reminding me of New York in parts, Paris in others, and even San Diego at times. My friend, Moro-san, was my tour guide for the day, taking me absolutely…
September 16, 2012: Seattle Road Trip!
Hey, remember that movie Road Trip where a group of friends hop in a car and drive cross country? Well, today, I experienced my own abbreviated version - minus the scene in which someone gets served a piece of french toast that took a ride down the back of somebody's pants (although, to be fair,…
July 18, 2012: Vegas Day #3!
Yesterday, we were up early so that we could do a little more strolling and try our luck against the scorching heat. We headed over to Caesar's for another lunch at Joe's Stone Crab. We were a little early and Akemi needed to use the facilities. I consulted the handy mall map and their directions…
January 29, 2012: Tokyo Day #2! Chocolate, Tonkatsu, Le Bourguignon, and a visit to The Master!
With my first full day in Tokyo behind me, I have a lot to cover here on the blog - and a lot to look forward to in the coming days. The change of pace and location has provided a much-needed, greatly appreciated distraction. Still, I think of Maximus often and wonder how the other…
June 28, 2008: More BIG Book of the Month Club news! Montreal Visit Day 1!
I woke up at 5:20 a.m., a full forty minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off. It’s always the way the night before I travel. For some reason, something in my subconscious mind won’t allow me a restful sleep. There’s always that niggling doubt, that faint uncertainty that I did, in fact, set…
Let’s call it November 29th: Hong Kong Day #4! Massage massacre! Happy Valley Racetrack!
I managed to wake up a little earlier today and squeeze in a work-out before heading down for a power breakfast: grilled fish (for low-fat protein), smoked salmon (for omega 3 oils), oatmeal and muesli (for fibre), papaya (for vitamin c), Eggs Benny on a baked tomato (for lutein and lycopene), and dim sum and…
November 27th – Let’s call it the 28th: Hong Kong Day #3! Lantau Island! A trip to the tailor!
Reflecting back on our tour to Lantau Island, it was, for the most part, unremarkable.That said, it did have its highs and lows. High points: Some of the people we met on the tour: the softspoken Edgar, CFO of Price Waterhouse Cooper in Columbia, retired social worker Manju, and her wisecracking husband Dilip. Our tour…
November 26th – actually, it’s the 27th here: Hong Kong Day #2! Po Lin Monastery!
Faced with the prospect of a grueling all-day tour (and a vegetarian lunch), I decided to fortify myself with a well-balanced breakfast of Eggs Benny, four kinds of dim sum, some smoked fish, grilled salmon, and two pieces of papaya (again, purely for decorative purposes). And it’s a good thing I did because it was…
November 25th-ish: Hong Kong Day 1! Let the eating beginning!
We got in a little after 8:30 p.m. and were in bed by 10:00 p.m. I assumed I would sleep until 7:00 a.m., giving me a good 9 hours to get over the jetlag and have me well-rested enough for our first full day in Hong Kong. Everything was going according to plan – until…
November 24, 2006: A heartfelt send-off from mom!
For some reason, the women in my family share a propensity for speaking their minds with a refreshing obliviousness to consequence. There was the time my then 110 year old grandmother who, when asked to make a toast at my cousin’s wedding, offered the following off-the-cuff gem: “Of all the guys she could have married,…