Old Friends

  Tokyo, Japan
Saturday, December 30, 2006

I wake up and turn on the TV. It's always interesting to see what the national interests are by scanning the news. Today the big news on CNN is the execution of Saddam Hussein. It's probably 90% of all topics on CNN. However when you switch over to BBC, it's only on 50% of the news story. Then you switch over to NHK and see what the Japanese are interested in and the top story is about the rising price of Tuna caused by China's new appetite for Tuna. I find it to be an interesting ad hoc sociological study on the consciousness of the various cultures.

Back to Business

Hiro and I

After a leisurely morning I meet up with Hiro (my old roommate from UC Berkeley) to catch up and talk about some business. My company is thinking of expanding internationally and I was in charge of doing some research of the Asia Pacific region. Hiro has been an expat in Japan for the last 6 years now and I wanted to pick his brain on his outlooks/viewpoints on expansions to Japan.

We meet up and head to a cafe in Omode-San district. Omode San is a nice high end shopping district. We head to a French cafe and proceed to catch up on what has happened over the past 3 years since we last saw each other. Hiro is now at GE Japan after 4-5 years at APC. He now has a 2.5 year old daughter Kokone whom I am looking forward to meeting for the first time after coffee. I give him a brief update on me, how I got disillusioned and quit Brocade, how I went back to school at Stanford, and how I went traveling for awhile after I graduated.

I gave him the update about SF Bay Area and what he had missed over the past 5 years. Hiro was surprised at the gentrification of South of Market (SOMA) district in SF and East Palo Alto (EPA). When we were in school at Berkeley in the late 90s, these were some ghetto places. SOMA is now home to the new AT&T ballpark and some the most expensive apartments in SF. EPA is now home to a Four Seasons hotel, Ikea, and some high powered law firms. The South Bay is now primarily minorities and Fremont is now mainly Indian and Mainland Chinese. The Oakland A's are moving to Fremont and the SF 49ers were considering moving to Santa Clara. I hadn't thought about all the changes in recent years and I in speaking with Hiro I realized how much has changed over the years.

Lunch with Tomoko & Kokone

Hiro, Tomo & Kokone

After finish up with our business meeting, we meet up with Tomoko (who was my other roommate @ Berkeley) and their daughter Kokone. The last time I was here, Kokone was still unborn as Tomo was 6-months pregnant. I'm generally not a big fan of babies but I was really excited to see Kokone. I was real close to Hiro & Tomo during my undergraduate years. They were and still are almost like family to me. In sense Kokone is kind of like a niece of some sort...

We have lunch at the Westin in Tokyo. I meet Kokone at Lunch. She's a real shy girl but a very cute kid. We have a wonderful lunch and I was sad to see Tomo and Kokone leave after lunch.

Back to Shibuya
Hiro and I end up hanging around in Shibuya for the rest of the afternoon. Hiro doesn't get many visits from friends back stateside so it was nice to get a "guys night out". We're a hell of a lot older so a "guys night out" is simply just getting a few drinks over Yakitori. The funny thing is that Hiro has been a good family man since he's got to Japan and I end up showing him around Shibuya rather than the other way around. I showed him some of the old haunts that I hung out at...it was a good night and I have to say it was great to see old friend again. It felt like nothing had changed in the past 3 years while in actuality everything changed...