Luke Philip Frede

A slightly overdue post - a hearty mazel tov to John & Kristina (and Jack and Ahna!) for the healthy arrival of baby Luke on November 12, 2007! John mentioned that the British hospital provided service even better than expected and that he only had to slip the nurses and doctors a few 20 pound notes every now and then to make sure they received such fine treatment.

Kids in a Castle

Edinburgh was a big hit with the Portnoys. The town had everything you'd want in a weekend trip, including leaving you wishing you'd stayed longer. The Edinburgh Castle, built ~ 1000 years ago on a huge, imposing ex-volcanic rock smack in the center of the city, imbues the town with a storybook-like quality. The weather was cold and windy, hardly a surprise and even fitting for the time of year, but we soldiered on. We toured the castle grounds, walked most of the Royal Mile, hit a festival in the center of town, and took a tour bus that showed us many corners of Edinburgh that we wouldn't otherwise have seen (plus kept us warm). The history there was so interesting and Tracy and I wish we would have had the chance to see some of the museums (including the "Scotch Whisky Experience," at least for me). Between Mary Queen of Scots, King James VI of Scotland becoming King James I of England (y'all have your bibles, don't you?), Jekyl & Hyde (yep, that's from there), and so forth, there was much more to do. Our hotel had a swimming pool, which the boys absolutely loved, and making the time for that both Friday and Saturday easily trumped the interest in taking more of a tour through history (though I really wanted that Scotch experience...). But we'd surely go back and also make time to see the land to the north and west. The little of the countryside we saw from the train was beautiful. Plus I'd like to officially spot Nessie! I know she's up there.

My Girls

Uniforms

The boys' school has instituted uniforms for the oldest grade, Reception. So each day now, Ben wears his navy blue sweatshirt with a white short-sleeved polo shirt underneath, both emblazoned with the LJS insignia. Dark pants are the final requirement. (I know Jack Frede's school uniform puts Ben's to shame - it's the real deal: a real tie, blazer, overcoat, pants, the whole megilla.) Ben enjoys wearing his uniform and I have to say that I'm a big fan of school dress codes. Especially as they get older, it takes away at least some of the peer pressure of dressing fashionably. And I think even at this age there's a certain level of discipline that gets instilled with a uniform.

Now speaking of other fine young men who might benefit from a school dress code....

"If Once You Bite It You Want to Eat More of It"

Our last night in Tokyo a couple weeks ago merits commentary for the culinary experiences that bookended it. The evening started with some of us attempting to make it to a restaurant where the waiters were dressed as ninjas. In retrospect, I think we'd admit that was a ludicrous choice (um, Kim) and this was one instance where a taxi not taking you to the intended destination was actually a stroke of luck. We found ourselves in the Akasaka neighborhood and just one block from where we were dropped off was a very long narrow street with dozens of restaurants and the neon signage to match. It was fun to stroll along and then randomly pick one of them. Our choice was mostly motivated by a menu with pictures of things (i.e., food) that looked recognizable, plus we were pleasantly surprised by a menu with a bit of English in it. In fact, the title of this post is the English language description of something we ordered from the nearly indecipherable menu - I believe it was chicken wings, which were in fact quite good. Much of what we ordered is in the second photo above. I can't tell you what much of that is, but more telling is that my adventuruous colleague Tristan, who has the intestinal fortitude of a billy goat (you should have seen what he was chowing down at a local Shanghai eatery a few months ago), passed on half of those items based on preliminary smell and taste tests. There was enough tasty stuff (i.e., chicken wings, beer) and a well-intentioned waitress (first photo) to make the experience a lot of fun.

After a few drinks and a nightclub (or two), we found ourselves at the Tsukiji fish market before the crack of dawn for a sushi breakfast. This is one of the largest (maybe the largest) fish market in the world and how interesting it was - acres upon acres of workmen in stands bringing in, cleaning up, and selling fresh fish/seafood of every variety (pictures 3 and 5). There was such a buzz of activity around the market - noise everywhere, small forklift-like vehicles moving boxes somewhere, and a handful of tourists like us poking around. We met a few others from the Goldman conference at this one non-descript restaurant (which I learned after the fact was called Daiwa sushi) that people "in the know" swear by. We got there at 4:30am for its 5:00am opening, which I first thought ridiculous but then (1) I saw a large line form behind us and (2) I ate the food. My camera's batteries ran out just as we got in this tiny place with nothing more than a counter for about 12 people and a couple guys cutting up fish for you. No menus, no ordering. Just sit there and eat what they bring you. One of the guys we were with spoke Japanese so that clearly helped a lot. Considering all this sushi and sushimi had just come out of the ocean, saying that it was fresh seems a wee bit obvious. Hard to fully explain how flavourful it all was, including the stuff that was still moving (some of it was). Had never really done raw fish and cold beer at the crack of dawn before, but consider me a convert. If any of you get to Tokyo, visiting the fish market and eating at any of the random little food stands there (I couldn't guess how to describe where Daiwa is) is a great choice.

Ben & Zach's Excellent Art Adventure

We spent a couple hours at the Tate Modern yesterday. As many of you know, this is a world class contemporary art museum located in a building on the south bank of the Thames that was once an electric power plant. It’s an imposing, impressive site that now houses a massive collection of post-impressionists, expressionists (abstract and otherwise), surrealists, fauvists, realists and probably a dozen other kind of “-ists”.

The whole family went and the boys really enjoyed it. They’re so used to going to museums in Chicago that it’s not a stretch for them to enjoy them here, and they’ve already gone to the big dinosaur place over in Kensington. Going to see art is a bit of a departure from these more interactive experiences, but Ben in particular was really excited. What made the Tate Modern really enjoyable for them (and us) was that they had a “family desk” that helped organize tours and activities for groups with small children. They had a “treasure hunt” that was good fun. We had to find ten different objects in ten different paintings. With each discovery you had to velcro a small representative icon into a portfolio they provided. A bowler hat from one of Magritte’s pieces was the most recognizable of the ten. Along the way we got to see lots of pretty paintings. Forget abstract, critical deconstructionist interpretations of blah, blah, blah (you should see the books section of the museum's gift shop), it’s actually not that hard to get a five-year old to notice the beautiful, colorful pieces of Matisse and Miro. Several massive Rothkos in a room of their own evoked a couple "wow"'s and Zach and I debated whether one of them was purple, red, or blue (D: All of the Above was correct). To one large installation piece with a huge shard of metal hanging from a 20-foot high rusted girder and many pieces of clay scattered underneath (???), Ben pointed to the ground and said, “that looks like poop.” Yep.

I’m really pleased that boys enjoyed the art. I hope this is one of many excursions to come.

Lost In Translation

Probably the most obvious thing an American can do these days when traveling in Tokyo is to compare his experience to the characters' in Lost in Translation, Sophia Coppola's chef d'oeuvre. Indeed, having just convened with ~ 700 other conference goers at Goldman Sachs' annual Asia hedge fund conference last week, the most pat (pattest?) line was how "different" Tokyo was from just about anywhere else us peripatetic researchers travel.

But this is one of those few instances where the conventional wisdom is not only true, it is also profoundly interesting. I've only been to Japan (and just Tokyo) twice so I wouldn't pretend to have any deep insights into this phenomenon. All I know is that I've never been somewhere with so few recognizable cultural markers, which in turn inspires such a sense of anomie - the kind that is (brilliantly) captured by Coppola and her actors. It's astounding that such a modern, wealthy city as Tokyo has so few linguistic short-cuts for Westerners (English character words, recognizable advertisements and brands, multi-lingual street signs). More so than in any other city I’ve visited has my brain struggled to latch on to something recognizable, the kind of mental shortcuts that allow us to get on with our day and not think about every step along the way. Tokyo is mentally exhausting.

The city’s massiveness is part of the phenomenon. It is, I believe, the largest urban sprawl in the world, with ~ 30 million inhabitants occupying a never-ending cityscape. During my 1.5 hour train ride from Narita Airport to "central Tokyo" (if you’ve been there, you know that concept is somewhat of a joke) I witnessed an uninterrupted agglomeration of buildings with no large parks, no fields, literally no break in the action. I've been to some of the city's tallest buildings but I've never seen the city's edge. Did Eduard Munch actually hail from Tokyo?

The simple act of taking a taxi in Tokyo encapsulates some of the key elements of this dislocation. First of all, you have no idea where you're going. The city is built on about as linear a plan as London; Baron Haussmann would have a seizure. As some of you know, I'm obsessed with maps but those two-dimensional props almost taunt you there. I take pride in my sense of direction, but in Tokyo I'm always lost; I hate being lost. Second, your taxi driver (who speaks no English) sort of knows where he's going - or maybe he doesn't. As happened a number of times during this trip, a local Japanese aide with a clear idea of where we wanted to go explained our destination to the driver for at least two whole minutes. Where I come from, an address is usually a pretty good indicator of where you want to go and if you don't know it exactly, a neighborhood will suffice to get you most of the way there. To make the whole exercise comical, WE ALWAYS HAVE A MAP of our exact destination printed off the web. However, an address and map still require minutes of pre-departure chat and the driver inevitably looks at the map a few times along the way. My favorite is when the driver slowly turns it 90 degrees four times in a row in order, I guess, to triangulate on the location. On this trip, we were taken to the wrong location only twice. And then there's ordering in restaurants.... We'll save that for an upcoming post.

This experience typically occurs with massive jet lag and a large time zone difference with home that makes connections with loved ones and colleagues hard to manage - oh so helped by the fact that standard cell phones and Blackberries don't work there. As far as I know, Tracy didn't FedEx any carpet squares to the hotel for my perusal.

For those of you who now think me (more) enthnocentric and unfit for even a Dennis Miller-quality rant, I reply that I appreciate to some degree Japan’s cultural history and it’s role within – and outside – world society and history; its island status in more than just geographic terms and its struggles – sometimes violent – in protecting a centuries-old culture that has some beautiful qualities. Not only do I know who fought in the Sino-Japanese war (and what years – do you?), I even saw that Tom Cruise movie where he somehow went from an American Wild West show to defending Japan against some of the original gaijin.

With all that, good lord, can they at least get the taxi drivers to get you where you want to go?

Sarah (con't.)

Our little girl turns one in just three weeks....

“Look, Kids! Big Ben, Parliament!”

A couple weekends ago, we made our way down to one of the main touristy parts of London around Westminster. There right along the Thames is British Parliament and Big Ben (kudos to anyone who can name the movie quote in this post's title). Beautiful buildings though not really “fun.” Tons of tourists, lots of traffic. There might have been a tour of parliament (?) but that’s hard to pull off with our full brood in tow and really not that interesting on such a nice day. We primarily went down to take photos for our holiday card but I can’t say we got anything just right. About impossible to get all three kids looking at the camera at the same time.

It was a crisp, clear autumn day so afterwards we strolled down the street to St. James Park, which is largely the area between Big Ben and Buckingham Palace (and is also just a couple blocks from my office on Pall Mall). The leaves were changing and it was lovely for a stroll and taking in great views of London. There was also a nice little park where the boys could blow off some energy while Sarah rode on the swings.