Back From Tokyo

Well Im back in Kuwait from Tokyo. We didnt really do much more in Japan after my last blog so not much to show other than pics of the family and me leaving. So here they are . . .


This one is a night we all went to dinner. Yakiniku is a favorite of ours right up with sushi. Maki's brother drove up to see us and to introduce his fiance and so we all went for Yakiniku one night. The pic is Maki's Mom, Maki's sister Kasumi, Maki's brother Kenji, his fiance Naomi, Mia, Ryota (Kasumi's son), and of course the white guy.

So I left Japan to head back to Kuwait on the 9th.



The trip back was . . . well interesting is a good word. Despite flying on company dollars I am never inclined to pay alot for a flight so I got a good $1000 savings by flying Thai Airlines. the trick for this trip was that on the return trip I had to spend a night in Bangkok. My flight was delayed so we landed after 10pm. Bangkok isnt what Id call a user-friendly airport so after walking the airport end to end twice I finally found someone to explain to me how to use the hotel voucher I had. So around midnight I made it through immigration, got my bag and got a shuttle to the hotel. I've stayed in worse places is about all I can say about the hotel. The people were very nice. Despite the fact that it was now 1:30am (or maybe because of that fact) the bellhop asked me no less than 6 times if he should send up the Thai masseuse. Having heard plenty of Thai masseuse stories and not being into that sort of thing (not to mention being dead tired) I politely declined, curled up on the bed and passed out. I kinda wished I had more time in Bangkok though. I'm told you can get a taxi to drive you to see all the sights of Bangkok in a couple hours for about $15. At least then I would have seen something other than dirty city streets and sleazy hotels. Instead I woke up at 9, saw the same stretch of dirty road from hotel to airport in the morning and caught a 11:50am flight to Dubai/Kuwait.

And so now here I sit in Kuwait again. No longer at the hotel anymore though, we've moved to a villa. It's a 5 bedroom, 6000 sq ft house. And even after furnishing it, it still costs us less than the hotel for even 3 people. I'll write more about it once I download the pics of my bedroom but this is what it looks like form the front . . . .

Hello from Tokyo

First a quick Kuwait election update . . . John Belushi lost to a guy named "Ahmed Larry" (Im not kidding about that, I think its kinda like being Jackie Chan or Lucy Liu). More importantly, no women were elected to Parliament. Not a big surprise but sad anyway, at least in my opinion. Hopefully some will win next time. I'd like to think too that they've at least shaken the guys up a bit :)

Also for my cousin Derrick, I knew who it was before I even got to your initials :) The air quality sucks, its like living in a giant refinery 24/7 not to mention that the locals smell worse than the camels. The burgers are pretty good actually, Im told they raise the cattle in the northern countries of the Middle East where there are green grassy hills and stuff like that. Maybe like Wisconsin but with a larger fanatical militant Islamic population. Theres a Burger King every few blocks in Kuwait City and maybe you knew this maybe not but the US Military builds and operates more Burger Kings, Pizza Huts and Subways than anyone. Theres one of each at almost every base Ive been to, some have 2 or 3 of each. My company is actually building a BK right now at a base in Florida.

Kuwait out of the way, now I can say Im writing this from Tokyo. When the hell did I become such a world traveller? I think maybe I've now set foot in as many countries as I have US States. Of course Ive never left the airports of most of them but still . . .

So Im here on R&R which is different from vacation because the company pays for my plane fare and the time off doesnt come out of my vacation time. Its a "perk" of working in a foreign country. Somehow I dont exactly agree with the use of the term "perk" but if it makes the boss feel better about paying for the trip . . . so be it.

I met up with Maki and Mia on the 27th and we've been at my in-laws since the 28th. We havent really done much to talk about honestly which makes it a true vacation as far as Im concerned. As you can see from the picture below, mostly Ive done alot of Resting and Relaxing like Im supposed to be doing.

Some of you may have seen this pose before. Its a pretty common pose for the men of the Tess family but alas Im just an amateur. For the perfect example of this pose I suggest a picture of my dad at any given family gathering. Even Jamey has this down better than I could ever hope to. Jamey's even got the snoring perfected.

As for Tokyo, Im much happier hanging out at Starbucks in Shibuya watching people than rushing from landmark to landmark. Theres nothing more interesting than people watching in big cities. And Tokyo is about the biggest and busiest Ive been in.

Shibuya Starbucks

More of Shibuya at night

We did do some sight-seeing today though. Conveniently one of our friends from back home is here spending the summer with her family. She lives in a city called Kamakura which has alot of historical sights the most popular of which is the Daibutsu (a giant statue of Buddha). We went to visit with them and see some sights while we were there. So heres more photos . . .

Me and Mia at the Daibutsu
(no buddha is not the one in the orange t-shirt)

Mia wishing all her bad karma away.
What kind of bad karma can an 8 year old possibly have?

Maki and Mia at a shrine dedicated

to the Shogun who ruled
Japan something like 700 years ago.

The one thing that always strikes me about Japan is how much longer their history is than the US. To us pilgrim stuff from 1620 is old. Today I saw armor and a womans Kimono from the the Shogun who ruled from Kamakura. He ruled from 1192 to 1333 - the Kamakura Period. We also saw some coins brought to Japan from China in 672.

But really I just like to go to these places for the gardens. Even before I met Maki I loved Japanese gardens. Visiting all of the shrines and temples is very calming. Somehow even with tourists running around these places still seem peaceful.

Mia and Maki walking through
a garden at Hase Temple in Kamakura.

Mia in amongst the bamboo

So thats it for today. BTW, I put some links in above for anyone interested in Japan-stuff. I'll try and get another Japan installment done before I go back to Kuwait.
But before I go, one last parting photo . . .

Mia and her friend Mika after eating spaghetti with squid ink sauce,
its one of Maki's favorites and honestly it tastes pretty good.