Another realm

Miyu and I went to a couple of restaurants recently. First to a Vietnamese in Ebisu for some lunch time noodles, and secondly to a rather swish French place in Minami Azabu, to celebrate Miyu's bday and what may be our last intimate meal together.
Observations from them - in the Vietnamese place, 90% of diners were women (ladies who lunch in the main). Two of them behind us photographed every dish that was brought to them so that they could add it to their blogs (they were talking about it rather loudly). Apparantly this action, of photographing dishes in restaurants is causing chefs around the city a real headache. When they prepare the dish, up to recently, they have timed everything so that by the time the food is plonked in front of you, it is ready to eat. However, now with this extra delay, the food is no longer in prime condition by the time diners put the first bit of food into their mouths. Hot food continues to "cook" even after it's taken off the heat of the cooker. a good chef takes this into account and will, for example with pasta, strain it whilst it is still quite hard. But, it is still cooking and softening, so that by the time it has completed it's journey from kitchen to table, it is al dente. I actually tried this at home a couple of weeks ago and it really works. So, the question is, what do chefs do to counteract this? Will they ban all food photography in their establishments? Or will they have to take food off the heat even earlier? How will they measure this?
Another interesting sight was two women arriving at the restaurant, chatting, they sat down, read the menu, ordered and then fell into a deathly silence as they flipped out mobile phones and didn't speak again until the food arrived. This sort of behavior used to be considered rude, but is it now acceptable? I've seen it in other places too. A boy and a girl on a date, walking down a street but both furiously texting away on their keitais. Maybe it was a case of bad date and they were telling their friends, but I think not. Is this the norm? What is the implications on person to person, face to face communication? Why is it so tempting/easy to interface with a device than with people? Is this true in other countries or is it unique to Japan?
In the confines of the snazzy French restaurant, it was filled mainly with couples. It was an expensive place, and there seemed to be a lot of monied folk in there. It was inteesting to see how couples ordered. It followed a pattern. Couple enters restaurant, led to table by waiter, woman is seated first, menus are read, some discussion about the menu, waiter appears, and then man orders food and drink with no consultation with woman. Woman looks miffed but holds her tongue. A bit of pouting follows, but man ignores and consults his two keitai (yes, the more the keitai the more "important" you are). keitais are left on the table. Both man and woman talk with each other, but their glances always slides toward their little bundles of telephonic joys. Have mobiles become the new children of couples? They need constant attention, must be picked up regularly and sometimes rings/cries. Could Japan's demographic timebomb be reversed if mobiles were banned?

The heat

It's really hotting up here in Tokyo at the moment, and even with my new "cool biz" suit, I find myself being reduced to a puddle of sweat on a regular basis. The heat is really affecting Miyu too, as her body temperature is higher due to the baby. So, we went down to Bic Camera yesterday, and bought a neat little electronic fan for the bedroom. On starting it up back home though, we found the noise it made at top speed was akin to a airplane taking off, and hence not condusive to entering the land of nod...
I met an interesting person last week. He'd just started working at one of the top investment banks, but previous to joining had been a doctor. I asked him why he had decided to change careers, especially after devoting 8 years to the medical profession, 6 of which were as a student. He said he had always had two passions in life - medicine and investments. After two years in medicine, he realized he wouldn't be able to excel in the job, so changed over before it was too late.
So there you go. Just goes to show it's never too late to change your mind about something.

A Super Deluxe night

After a hard slog of a day yesterday, where in addition to my job I completed the first part of a proof reading job I'm doing for Miyu, I headed down to the very funky environs of Super Deluxe, in Nishi Azabu. Accompanying me were Mr Tame, Mr Broomes and Mr Aroop + g/friend. When I arrived, the place was packed with people taking a breather after the first musicl act, who apparantly were a bit into shock tactics. Next up was an experimental Jazz quartet, who utilized a lot of strange musical instruments to create some noize...I didn't really get what they were trying to do, and as the show went on, the crowd seemed to ignore them more and more, if the volume of conversation was anything to go by. It was quite funny watching their piano player. Her posture and pained expression said " I don't want to be here. I'm so f***ing tired I want to sleep." Which she did!
The last band up were fantastic. Such a difference to the previous one. Again, it was jazz, but there was so much energy in their performance. The double bass player, a big dude with glasses and long hair, was really giving it his all, and the crowd were whooping it up. Simultaneously, there was a live drawing going on behind us, involving four young artists who used black paint on white canvass to produce their music interpretation. All very inspiring and left me feeling energised and promising myslef to come and visit this superb place more often in the future.

Hiccups a plenty

Apparently, a healthy baby still in the womb hiccups a lot, which I was very happy to read last night as the little 'un inside Miyu has been doing an awful lot of it recently! Something to do with their lungs and how they can pump oxygen around their tiny bods. He should have quite a head of hair on him by now too, and get this - he'll soon shed his body hair plus a filmy coating, then consume this and this'll constitute his first dump when he emerges into this world!!
My re-introduction to gymdom continues apace. I ventured down to the Tipness Shibuya on Sunday, and spent four hours doing a variety of sweaty things. First off a 20 minute warm-up on the stationary bike, followed by 10 minutes of stretching, then weight machines and free weights, followed by two classes of Slim Box and Fighting Rush and finished off with some more much needed stretching. Cor, I was knackered! The two classes were great fun though. The first a combination of boxing and aerobics, and the second a hyper fast combination of karate, kick-boxing, boxing and aerobics. I was a puddle of sweat afterwards, but a smiling puddle of sweat. It felt really good. After showering, I spent 30 minutes in one of those amazing Japanese massage chairs, dozing off to the rhythmic pummelling of my sore muscles.

The passage of time

Yikes!
Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies? Take this blog for example. I haven't added anything since May 11th, but it only seems like last week. I suppose I have other things on my mind.
Miyu is now staggering under the ever expanding girth of her belly, and the almost constant kicking from the baby. He really is a strong 'un, I can tell you. I was watching a Karate video on YouTube last night with Miyu, and the baby began a flurry of punches that left Miyu feeling quite nausous!
Talking of activity, I dragged my not so pert arse to the gym for the first time in ages yesterday. I've now given up on ever seeing the local ward gym re-open, so have instead opted for the much posher (ie more expensive) environs of Tipness in Shibuya. Now this used to be my old grunting ground, but I gave up my membership due to the easy proximity of the very cheap ward gym. Just wasn't to be, I suppose. So, yesterday saw me back pumping iron amongst the muscle Marys and would be super models who seem to be the majority members there. It certainly is more exciting a spectacle than watching the pensioners at the public gym! I started off with a session of "Power Rush", which contrary to what it sounds like (a steroid toking raver in the throes of nirvana), involves combining aerobics with resistance traning using a barbell and weights. I opted for some light weights, as I didn't want to injure myself on my return to gymdom, and then proceeded to sweat my self through a tough class accompanied by pounding pounding techno music and a female instructor whose body seemed to consist solely of muscle and tanning lotion. As it was mid-afternoon in mid-week, I was the only male amongst an all female cast. The sensei had put me at the front of the class so that I didn't miss anything, but I think I must have taken a regular's spot, as a very annoyed looking gazell of a woman stood behind me staring daggers into my back for the whole class (I could tell due to every surface being made of glass). So, apart from feeling a constant prickling on the back of my neck, it was very good. Worked the whole body and next time I'm going to try some heavier weights so that I can really feel the burn, baby!

On a complete tangent - do unborn babies dream? And if so, does the fact they are physically attached to the mother mean that the mother can somehow share in those dreams and vice-versa? Any thoughts?