Tokyo Tower

After business meetings we stopped at the Tokyo Tower to view the city. The tower was opened in 1958 and is a steel tower that is taller and lighter than the Eiffel Tower. It is 333m tall and has a special observatory at 250m. When you look out over the city you see buildings as far as the eye can see in every direction. This city’s scale is mind boggling. Over 35 million people live in the greater Tokyo area. Amazing thing is that the sidewalks are never that crowded. People use trains and the subway so the traffic is not that bad with the only bottleneck being the Bay Bridge. This place is just huge.

Coke Zero

Yes, they have Coke Zero in Tokyo. And you can buy it at a 7-11 around the corner from Hotel Okura. Four 100ml bottles sell for 500 yen. I have not seen Diet Coke here. I think that Zero is better suited to the local taste. Back in Houston, Moto decided that Jerry-san is the sommelier of coke after I launched into a comparison of Zero vs. Diet. Diet has that vanilla after taste that you do not get in real Coke or Zero. Two bottles down and with the caffeine hit I might make it through lunch, meetings, and dinner.

Other American institutions close to Hotel Okura include the US Embassy (it is huge), McDonalds, and Starbucks.

Signing off,
Jerry-san

Sushi for Breakfast

I have not eaten much sushi in my life, but I learned today that sushi for breakfast is strangely appetizing. Perhaps your stomach is ready for it after seeing all the fish laid out at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo or maybe it is just that your bio clock is still on Houston time.

On the way to the fish market I had a bottle of hot lemonade which is also new for me. I guess that is in place of warm Sake. We picked out a sushi bar at the fish market that had no line. Two wonderful chefs talked to us through our hosts’ translations. We had a wonderful meal of green tea and miso soup with tofu. Egg cake and ginger were starters. Nigiri sushi dipped in soy sauce was exceptional. Tuna, shrimp, horse mackerel, yellow tail and snow crab were my favorites. Octopus was bland and sea urchin was a little mushy. All in all, a great breakfast with personal attention from the family who owns this establishment made this great experience.

Tsukiji Fish Market - Tokyo

When you arrive in Tokyo from the US you are probably going to be awake early because there is fifteen hours time difference from Houston. I was awake at 3 AM so I had no problem leaving for the Tuna Auction at 5 AM. This time of year it is around 40 degrees in the morning, and I think cold weather is ideal for a fish market visit. My hosts, Toru Iijima and Kenji Ueda, took myself, Andy, and Bob to the market. Immediately you knew you were at a fish market by the smell of fish about a block from the market. Not a bad smell, just fishy. The first thing to note is that there are large trucks, forklifts, and mule size trucks, and they share the pavement with you, and they are in a hurry. Every step could be your last step as they whiz by hauling fish and ice, or just empty. So watch out!

You walk through the fish market with every kind of fish, eel, prawn, and shellfish imaginable. Whole fish, fillets, live fish. Blowfish, tuna, mackerel, squid, octopus, etc. are on display. After you make your way through the commotion, you enter a large refrigerated warehouse and the visitor area with large "No Smoking" signs in Japanese and "No flash" handheld signs in English and Japanese. There are hundreds of tuna laid out for inspection - all frozen and with a plug of meat that shows color and texture. Each tuna is labeled with weight in kilograms and place caught. Toru identified two side by side, one from Peru and one from Sydney. One 360 KG tuna was from Tahiti. There were larger tuna at the other end of the building that must have weighed double that amount or more.

The auction begins with a ringing of the bell and bidders wear caps with bidding cards. Like auctions all over each bidder has his own way of making a bid whether it be a touch to a nose or ear, or a half wave. The auctioneer is quite enthusiastic and expends quite a bit of energy. I do not know the prices paid but you can buy a pound of tuna filet for about $10 in the market. Some tuna is more expensive, with the best being the Oma area of northern Japan where Blue Fin Tuna live in the best water.

Over fishing has hurt tuna populations and Oma catches may only be 2 or 3 tuna per day for 30 to 40 boats. Recently a record price was paid for a tuna caught north of Japan's main island of Honshu. The 232 KG tuna went for 16.28 million yen or about $175,000.

Snow in Houston, Texas

Magic is in the air. Earliest snow in Houston ever on December 4th. It is large flakes mixed with rain now but it is supposed to turn to all snow this afternoon. The weather forecast has been predicting snow for today for almost a week. I imagine today is a bit like Ireland.

When you have snow you have to celebrate properly. I am heating the spa now so I can soak in the heat with the flakes falling. I also called County Cork O'Conaill Chocolates to make sure I have the right recipe for hot chocolate from their fabulous chips I purchased this summer. 50 grams of chips to 200 ml hot milk is perfect. (2 oz chips to about 7 oz milk).

Last night was birthday number 55 for Cherry. We celebrated at The Grove downtown. The wood grilled salmon, grilled corn/jicama/tomato vinagrette was the most popular dish at our table and the fried gulf shrimp with red jalapeno ginger sauce was declared to be the best she ever had by Kacie. The Turley 2007 Dusi Vineyard Zinfandel was a great wine with a fragrant bouquet of spice and lots of dark berries, fruit, and licorice, peppery and lingering acidity thoughout. Try this one if you can find it. And of course there was Moeller's Bakery cake and Bluebell mint chocolate chip to finish off a great evening.

Varmints

It was one of those evenings where the cold was slowly seeping in from the north pulling in the moisture from the south. The rain was steady and sometimes hard. The moon would be full in two days time but was obscured by the dense clouds above. The gas lamps were under repair so there were only a few lights on the street high up in the tall pines. Unfolding the umbrella on the porch he set out to retrieve the mail which was still in the box near the street. No one was out on such a night except perhaps a dementor or two. As he stepped down on to the drive he saw the figure moving slowly down the street. He looked old with the high arch in his back and awkward gait. Unsure as to what the creature might be he followed him down the street. Perhaps a very large cat, but not very cat like. No, it was the largest opossum he had ever seen. The possum is definitely the most repulsive member of the marsupial family . When you see one you just want to grap a bat and club him. This creature does not even have the appeal of the nutria he had seen at the golf course pond last weekend. The varmint continued down the street so he was allowed to live another day.

Trish the Dish

A daddy is not a daddy until he has a little girl. Twenty nine years ago, about 11 AM today, Trish the Dish changed my life forever.

We had been married four years and Cherry and I were driving home from work when she announced she was pregnant. Since it was unplanned, I held back my excitement until I determined that she was happy also. Cherry is great at everything she does and she bought books and we started learning about the whole business of having babies.

By chance we were invited to a UT Health Science wine and cheese event where doctors from the neonatal unit at Hermann Hospital would educate us about their business. Wow, that was a mistake! Tiny little babies are born whose arms fit through a wedding ring. Now we had something else to worry about.

Cherry ate apples and other good food and gained the minimum amount of weight so that our child would be healthy and strong. She had a radiant glow, a sparkle in her eye, and looked more beautiful every day. She purchased maternity dresses and stretchy pants but her favorite garb was her overalls which work as well for expectant mothers as they do for pot bellied men. I kept her healthy by drinking four drinks at happy hour so she could avoid alcohol.

We went to childbirth classes with our pillow for the moms and the hard floor for the dads and practiced our breathing. We practiced at home and we knew how to progress from ha-ha to hee-hee to ha-ha-hee-hee-ho-ho etc. They showed us a film of a stranger having a baby which I found to be quite disturbing.

Cherry's doctor happened to be the same man who delivered her twenty-five years earlier. He was quite old fashioned and liked to do things his way. Epidurals are all the rage now but at the time they were banned at Park Plaza Hospital near Hermann Park. The doctor favored the saddle block which sometimes gives women headaches. Cherry wanted a pudendal block which it turns out is two shots using a foot long needle. I was summoned to a meeting at the doctors office where the doctor apparently expected me to instruct Cherry to do as the doctor wishes. As intimidating as the doctor was I knew better than that.

On November 14, 1980 I was getting ready for work and Cherry said she thought she might be going into labor. I recall asking her if I should dress for work or wear jeans as she did not seem to be sure. About that time her water broke and things started happening faster. She started having contractions and she had trouble getting her pants on so she got into the car and we covered her with a blanket. Now it was rush hour traffic in Houston and the hospital was 15 miles away and twenty minutes with no traffic or maybe an hour with traffic. Cherry was having lots of hard contractions and so we tried doing our ha-ha breathing. It was not helping so I suggested we go to the next level and Cherry said it was for later and I said it does not matter let's do what is required. So I had a half clothed woman rolling around in my car in pain. Things were not going according to plan. I decided that we needed to get to the hospital soon so I ran four red lights and drove on the shoulder of the freeway and got to the hospital in thirty minutes. I stopped in front of the hospital ushered Cherry inside and went to park the car. When I came inside they made me wait for an hour before I could join Cherry. She was already at 9 cm dilation so we were mostly done with breathing. Cherry started having some pain and I suggested we start breathing and she told me to just get the nurse. They rolled a woman by our door screaming at the top of her lungs which added to the atmosphere.

By a little after 11 AM we had a beautiful baby girl. I remember telling my Dad on the phone that she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. My Dad figured I was just excited but I recall him telling someone after he saw her that she was the most beautiful baby he had seen.

Now a day after she was born, the nurse in the hospital could tell that we were tentative around this fragile little being. She demonstrated the many ways we could pick up and carry and hold a baby. The one I remember was the football carry where she carried her in the crook of her arm like a football. Perhaps that is why she enjoys football so much today.

That is the story of Kelly Patricia who I occaisionally call Trish the Dish. Happy Birthday, Trish.