December 4th, Lost in translation (part 1)

I spent a fantastic week in Japan. Here some impressions from my first day (and night) in Tokyo.
I met this group of typical Japanese joggers outside a restaurant. They took me in as one of their own despite my weird attire...
Tsutomu (Tom) Yamamoto, founder and owner of Scoop-Out, our Japan distributor met me down town...
and he imidiately started me of on a hectic schedule of partying and fun. Tom has an incredible social and professional network and the first night out high powered Microsoft executive and Whisky 16 paddler, Kuro Chan (far right holding the megamagnum of Beaujolais Nouveau) not only invited me and Tom, but also Shinju, Scoop-Outs sales executive and the lovely Yoshiko (far left) to an incredible dinner at his favorite Tokyo restaurant! Thats the kind of customers I like! I think the name "Whisky" attracts the right kind of people!
Yes, we finished the Beaujolais Nouveau to the last drop. This year I found it had a fairly big bouquet of sweet strawberry that was nearly perfumy. The palate was a little chewy with light strawberry flavors and a slightly steely finish. This was pretty straight forward Nouveau and clearly better than last years! The empty tripple magnum and it's wooden case is now proudly on display in Tom's office.

But then we moved on to more exotic (and toxid) things. I actually resisted the egg bottle, whatever it was. And I was glad the next day as my headache would have been so much worse (if possible) had I ventured a sip.

Not only did Kuru Chan invite us all out to the sumptuous dinner (have you seen the restaurant prices in down town Tokyo??? It's shocking) but also to stay the night in his penthouse. Japanese don't seem to be big on beds so we crashed on the hard wood floor. Hard it was...

Now the toilets in Japan are not like ours. It's half space ship, half toilet.
The control panel on the arm rest had some intriguing symbols and I could not resist a try. Push one and it ejects a pretty hard jet of hot water which incredibly hits the sweet spot right on target. WOW. Are we all shaped exactly the same or has the jet some sort of laser that seeks out its target and never misses? The other button created a more ordinary stream of water that splashed between the buttocks. This was not the end of it. The rim was pleasantly heated and a powerful ventilation fan inside the toilet swiftly removed all traces of you.

To finish it of the top of the tank is a basin where you can wash you hands!

We also managed some work and visited Scoop-Out dealer ICI in down town Tokyo. Here Tom posing with an XP.
Looking though the magazine stand at ICI I stumbled on this 6 pages feature about Point 65 and Stockholm. Here two Japanese paddlers in Stockholm.
Here an article about the Stockholm archipelago.
And pictures of me in our flagship store in Stockholm! Well it's hard to see like this but I'm on the left page on the right side middle.

To be continued...