Tokyo

We went to Tokyo for a long weekend with two couples from our apartment building. We had the good fortune of going with a couple who had lived in Tokyo for 10 months as Canadian Expats prior to moving to Beijing. We even got to travel out of the new Terminal 3 airport building from Beijing (out trips to the US still leave from the old terminal 2).

We left on a Thursday night and got in too late for the Express Bus or trains into Tokyo. Fortunately, Air China had provided buses to everyone free of charge to the center of Tokyo. The ride was over an hour. We then took taxis to our hotel in Roppongi area, near the US Embassy. Below is a view from our hotel which had a couple of elevated highways right outside (a little noisy).

This is a street scene in the Roppongi area which is known for catering to the foreign devils (expats). At night we had to walk by a couple of busy street corner where men would solicit you to visit gentlemen clubs. They did not care that we were with our spouses.

We did a lot of shopping, eating, walking, riding subway and taxis throughout the weekend. The meals were spectacular and just seeing the city was a treat. It was so different than Beijing (clean, people queued in lines, little car horn blowing, good air quality, no spitting, people spoke quietly, little talking on cell phones (lots of text messaging going on)

We happened to walk by this corporate sign. This will be a collector item some day since the branding for J.P. Morgan will be changing this summer back to the old branding and losing the octagon.

We ate at Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant (Hell's Kitchen for you Reality TV watchers).

The ladies were given a complimentary sparkling wine for their meal.

Amazingly Krispy Kreme had a 45 minute queue the first day we went by it. The last day which was very rainy the queue was a manageable 15 minutes.

We did have a couple of good Japanese meals as well.....

Saturday Test of FengTai Systems

I went in on a Saturday to the FengTai operations center to watch the data entry and card production process.

Dragon Boat Festival

This was the first year that mainland China celebrated Dragon Boat Day as an official holiday. It was also the first time they held a dragon boat race. A bunch of us decided to go the dragon boat races to check it out. The park was in the SW corner of Beijing about 1.5 hours away. We got a little lost on the way but finally found the event. We were the only westerners at the event. We stayed for a couple of hours to watch the races and then left for lunch and a relaxing afternoon.

Beijing Visit with the College Grad

MF getting fitted for tux for formal dinner on the Great Wall with the Australian Embassy.

Credit Card Grand Opening Celebration

The two teams had a celebration for the grand opening of the Credit Card business on June 2, 2008. The party was hosted by our Chinese partner and was a fun affair near Ritan Park. The host of the party was VP Lv. Speeches were given by me, our JPM investment banker and the President of the partner bank. We had a great Chinese dinner and a cake cutting ceremony.

I called in sick that day as it was the fourth day of a severe soar throat and slight fever. I went to the SOS Clinic to get tested for Strep throat. The good news was no Strep but the bad news was a virus that would have to run it's course. My voice was shot.

There were some frantic calls to my house to get me to come to the event even for a few minutes. So as not to disrupt all the planning that had been done, I went to the event.

I was encouraged to drink Moutai as a remedy. My concern was replacing a soar throat with a headache. The drinking was getting a little out of hand and I don't remember how many toasts were done. The good news is the night was done by 8:30pm. I suffered no headache but my soar throat continues.

The Minister even made and effort to make a brief visit with the team: