June 2009

Here’s a little video of me trying to get our daughter Hannah to giggle during our trip to Japan last month.

Here’s another new one. We went to this restaurant called Nin-nikuya (I think that’s what it was called) at a shopping mall in a suburb of Tokyo. Good times!

I’ve been back from Japan for a few weeks now, but unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to post anything (or do anything for that matter! – I work from 8-5, then come home and eat dinner and try to give a 2-hour English lesson to a 14 year old Japanese girl that came to do a 1-month homestay with us). Anyway, I just uploaded some of our home vids from Japan to my computer, so I’m going to try to post them here every few days.. Enjoy!

I had a pretty crazy day last Friday. It started in the morning when my wife’s dad wanted to take me to his work with him. Basically he’s starting to do some business with a Chinese lady whose father was apparently a high official in the Chinese communist party back in the 70’s (aka she has the financial resources to back the new business). She’s a really nice lady, and they just bought this new office for the business around downtown Tokyo. We met up with her in the morning and I started to help put together some bookshelves for their office. After having lunch with her and my father-in-law, we went back to the office and my wife’s dad left for a little while to go to his other job. So there I was, in a random office in the middle of Tokyo with a Chinese lady and her Chinese assistant – neither of which spoke English, and both of which spoke Japanese too well for me to understand. Everything was only slightly awkward until some random Japanese businessmen started coming and going from office. I could tell they were having some really serious business conversations with this lady, signing contracts and such, but I got really uncomfortable when they started moving their conversations to the corners of the room and were whispering just quiet enough for me to not hear what they were saying. I guess they didn’t realize that even if I could’ve heard every word they were saying, I wouldn’t have understood them. After one of these little whispering sessions, the Chinese lady pulled out some box that a ‘potential business associate’ had sent to her. She pulled out the fanciest wallets and handbags I’ve ever seen. I honestly believe they were encrusted with gold and made of kangaroo leather. Whatever it was made of, it was some of the fanciest stuff I’ve ever seen. The lady, her assistant, and one of the random yakuza-looking businessmen were ooo-ing and ah-ing over them when they looked over at me and said “Sugokunai? Kore wa honto ni sugoi deshou!?” (“Isn’t this amazing? This is truly great stuff.”) I smiled and awkwardly nodded, then went back to blistering my fingers putting the bookshelves together. When my wife’s dad returned, I asked him who these gifts were from – he hesitated and then said “Oh yes.. A very special person!” I later asked the lady’s assistant who the gifts were from and she said “I don’t know” (even though they had all just read a letter that had come with the gifts). I may not be telling this story very well. The point I’m trying to get across is, it really felt like there was some sketchy stuff going on, and I really felt kind of awkwardly caught in the middle of it.

The next chapter of the story starts when another one of their associates shows up to the office. My wife’s dad said to me, “Sam, we’re going to have a little business meeting, so just make yourself comfortable. It will last about an hour..” One short nap with my head on a desk and two long, long hours later, they finally finished and decided to go out to dinner. I was a little surprised when the third associate’s personal driver showed up to take us to the restaurant (!). We went out to a great Chinese restaurant and had a few drinks with our roasted lamb, jellyfish, and the biggest shrimp I’ve ever seen (as big as lobsters!). After dinner, the man with the personal driver said “Sam, do you like the Beatles?” – I replied “Of course!” and then he said “Let’s go to Abbey Road!” His driver picked us up again and took us to a nightclub in a really nice area of Tokyo called ‘Abbey Road’. The place was crazy! The wall was completely covered with Beatles memorabilia and they had old Beatles videos playing on a big screen in the front of the club. After a little while, a band of young Japanese guys dressed in black suits came out and played the best Beatles covers I’ve ever heard. It was so surreal that I had tingles twinkling up and down my spine the whole time. Even their British pronunciation was perfect! It was a great display of the Japanese’ high level of attention to detail.

All in all, it was a really fun and somewhat scary day – hopefully someday I’ll find out who the ’special associate’ was.. on the other hand, I guess I may not want to.