Okonomiyaki time!

I was going to title this post "I get by with a little help from my friends," but I did not want to attract Beatles internet traffic.
I have been very lucky here to reconnect with a guy I previously new (Taki) and a new person to the clinical team, Okita-san. Sorry, no pictures yet. I think Taki is a kindred soul because he likes to eat good food and drink beer. Always thinking about the next meal. He is thin, like most Japanese, so the spare tire he talks about is about as big as a bicycle tire.
Anyway, these 2 have been curious to take me to lunch, and who was I to turn them down? They became impressed that I can eat anything, so they have spent the last several weeks devising more and more challenging foods for me. Bring it on, baby!
They were interested to hear that Mary Ann and I had gone for 'takoyaki," so they asked if I wanted to try 'okonomiyaki.' I confessed that I had not had it, but I would try. They explained it was a regional food, but decide for yourself from this link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki
So this stuff is like an eggy pancake with lots of different veggies and other things thrown in. I love the wiki definition "cook what you like." I thought afterwards, that this style of cooking begins in college and med/grad school and can persist after that. My roommate Jim and I used to make spaghetti once a week with a jar of tomato sauce and any left over veggies and meat. Same thing nowadays for me and the kids on Saturday or Sunday - omelettte du jour with left-over meat, cheese, and veggies.
Anyway, not to take away from the lunch - it was wonderful! The cook came out shortly with waht looked like 3 nice omelletes (unfolded) and placed them on our table that was actually a mini teppanayiki table so we could keep the okonomiyakis warm and cut them up to share. Nice sauce like mild barbecue sauce. Wow!
OK, guess which is the okonomiyaki, and what is the steak and eggs I had for dinner? Please don't tell my doctor!

Arima/pictures update

My ace technical advisor told me I might be able to upload photos better if they are not so big. Hai! I am going to fool around with that some and see.
One of my friends here says our lunch was "takoyaki" which means "octopus (tako) fried yummy things (yaki)." Obvious.

Arima ..... ahhhhh!

So Mary Ann arrived last night and we had to do something that would help her adjust to local time. Myself, I was looking for adventure, but something mellow too. So what do you do? Spa town is not a bad choice.
Sounds like this town Arima is VERY old and famous throughout Japan for the spa facilities. We walked by a temple founded in 1539.
Very cool town. Got there by bus, subway, and local train. Very nice when we got out of the metro area. Basically could walk all over the town. Some of the "alleys" thought we were walking down turned out to be "streets," so had to stay on our feet to jump out of the way of local trucks, cars, etc.
We arrived after 2PM and most of the local places were shut after lunch. Wandered around a while and found some place that smelled good. Small place, no English menu. Had something on the menu that looked like dumplings and a beer, so I figured we had found our spot. We sat at the counter, so we got to see the gal prepare the chow. Batter, piece of calamari, and something like rice crispies in each little mold. This gal let them fry for a bit and then started poking and flipping these things around to form a yummy calamari dough ball! Wow! Put a little mild sauce (like mild BBQ sauce) and some ground spices on top! Just what we needed!
Found out from the restaurant staff that there was a spring and temple up the hill about 100m away. Nothing for spa action, but a nice little spiritual bump. After that, we continued to lumber up the hill and finally cut over to the Gin no Yu spa. There are different types of water coming out of these springs - seems amazing to me, so close together. Gin no Yu is supposed to have 'Ginsen' water that is rich in radium and carbonate. No idea what we were getting into. They had a little 'spa etiquette' sign telling you not to wear your undies in, and I went to the mens'. After the lockeroom, realized the style was "naked, not coed." How much fun is that?! "Hanging" with the boys, story of my life. WTF? Fortunately, the m/f pools were separated were separated by an INPENETRABLE rock wall, but you could at least shout over the wall. So Mary Ann and I could shout to each other, which I do not think the locals appreciated one bit. We did not last too long - the water was really hot! But it was worth it. Ambled around a few more spots in town and caught the train back. Nice day!

Victoria Peak

Last day in Hong Kong!
We had noticed from the past few days that the air quality deteriorated between morning and late afternoon, so we thought if we could get up to the peak early on Sunday morning, we might be able to see something. I had optimistically thought that this was some peculiar atmospheric problem, but other people were willing to say it was "smog," or (gasp!) "air pollution." (:-/
We were staying in Kowloon, which is actually on "the peninsula" and you have to take a ferry to the Kong Kong Island (proper). The current ferry service has been going for over 100 years, and the ferry we rode was actually 2 years younger than me. My friend AJ had a good sense of direction, so we quickly found the spot where we were supposed to catch a mountain tramway to the peak. But my friend Ling stopped to ask a local cop, who told us the tram was shut down, so we took the bus. That was an adventure! Double decker bus, very exciting swerving and swaying up the narrow mountain road.
Spectacular views from the "peak" - not actually the highest point of the island, but what the heck. Took some pictures, but the camera does not capture all the eye can see. After we explored around for a while, we decided to descend. Found out the tram was actually in service! Very interesting - Very Steep! Especially going backwards! yee ha! Anyway, we were actually glad to have taken the bus up and the tram down. We got to see some interesting parts of HK on the bus, plus the swervy curvy ride. The tram was intersting, but I think would take a while to get used to..

Officially Overwhelmed

So I thought I had seen it all.
We were recommended to go to a seafood restaurant in Hong Kong, "down by the fish market." Apparently you pick out your dinner from the tank while they're still swimming around. Yeah, right! So we show up in this area by the harbor and after walking down a few alleys, we start to see a lot of people wearing rubber boots. Like... fishermen... Somehow we found this place. Sat down, told them what we wanted, and they the waitress said, "OK, go across they way and pick your fish." OK...
I recognized most of the things over there, but other things seemed wild. Like what looked like a mussel whose digger thing/whatever was as big as my wrist. Or the crab whose body was somewhere between the size of a softball and a volleyball. Thank God I did not come across one of these monsters snorkeling. Yow!
We ended up with fish (steamed in spices, shallots, and soy sauce), scallops, crabs (no monsters), and shrimp. You could also order "vegetables": rice, noodles, or fried bok choi. I have never seen oysters like we had - breaded and deep fried. Now I have had fried oysters in New Orleans and Houston. Probably lucky if you get an oyster the size between a quarter and half dollar. I think thes oysters were about the size fo a pingpong ball to start with, so with the bread, bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball. My friend Taki took home some of the left over crab and oysters. I said to him, "Holy Sh*t! You're having that for breakfast?!" He said, "Yeah, man, this stuff is great!"

Buddha Time!

Out meeting ended up about lunch time on Saturday and I did not have any plans. A couple friends and I ran into a couple of guys from our Japanese office and one person from Korea. We asked what they were doing and they told us about going to see a giant Buddha on Lantau island. We kind of invited ourselves, but I don't think they minded. This place was great. We took a subway out of town and then got a cable car up the mountain. One of the poor guys with us apparently is afraid of heights, but he took it pretty well. He's in one of the pictures, but you can't guess who because both of the guys (Shuji and Taki) seem to be having a good time. The area up on the mountain was pretty commercialized, but the only way to describe the Buddha was AWESOME! After we saw the Buddha, we went down to see the monastery and shrine, which were very nice. Very serene, spiritual, never seen so many orchids in one place at one time, among other flowers. Shuji and Taki bought some incense to burn, so we smelled good all the way back to HK.

Green Card

I didn't realize this process until a couple days ago when it was complete.
There was all of a sudden a big commotion 2-3 weeks before I came over here that I had to get a visa. WTF? I've been here 3-4 times before, why now? Took me a while to figure it out, but my work here is considered an official company transfer for 2 months. Most people would say BFD, but I guess this is significant for companies, governments, and tax authorities. I filled out the requisite forms and since we were in a big hurry we got some national law firm to help. To the tune of at least more than $500.
I remember when I got here on the first day I had to go down to the local government office and apply for an "alien registration card." Some times you have to do something like this when you go to a Latin American country or the Caribbean, but it seems like a joke because they staple your picture to a piece of paper and tell you not to lose it. In retrospect, to get my visa, there was a hell of a lot of paperwork, including a "letter from a local sponsor." It was a really nice letter from the local HR person who said that (among other things) I would keep out of trouble and they would pay if I had to be deported. Sweet!
So I went down to the local government office a couple days ago to pick up the card. Only then it hits me, this is a frickin' "green card" to work in Japan. No, this thing is more elaborate than my Indiana drivers' license. Hope you can see the hologram in the pic. Wow. What to think.... yes, I'm here for longer than a week and not just here for some meeting or something... and I guess I have some real documentation (prior to a couple of days ago I had been carrying around a blue piece of paper with my name and a stamp on it) so I don't get nabbed as an illegal alien. I don't know what they do with illegal aliens in this country. They surely wouldn't lock them in a concentration camp and take their American born children and turn them over to DFC? Whoops! Got a little carried away! Sorry!
They take immigration here seriously, as any country should. I think I caused a little stir at the immigration office when I put my occupation down as "physician." Like I am a deadly threat to the medical community here! Then, they found out I work for the pharmaceutical industry - basically useless, no problem.
I'm not really happy about the picture on my ARC, but I didn't anticipate needing more pictures and I just happened to have these in my travel wallet. This is a picture we had taken at the Paris Metro a couple years ago. I am looking a little grim because I almost strangled my son for wasting our last 2 euro coins getting pictures the wrong size. I am not sure we even needed pictures for the frickin' Metro pass - I think the clerk was maybe bored and didn't like us because we could not speak French.