3 Weeks 6 Hotels

I cannot believe that I have checked in and out hotels almost 6 times during this 3 weeks. I hate hotel living... The stress is showing on my face with a severe eczma attack, which hasn't been a problem ever since I moved back to Asia. There must be something about the water (or Fenshui) in London. Or perhaps I am not eating proper meals.

The redden skin and rash went all over my face, itchy like hell. I ran out of the steroid cream which might effectively control the inflammation. Anyhow, I have no other choice but live with it.

The only good thing is that I am now used to fundation, powder and concealer. Those really effectively cover up the uneven, patched skin. That also has a funny side effect, I don't scratch my face at all, afraid of destroying my make up. But toward the end of the day, when my body is tired and exhausted, the problem is more pronounced. I racked up my limited understandings of Chinese medicine. The heat in stomach would result in the skin condition on face (fire supress metal, which is the element controling breathing and skin), perhaps there is too much heat. The heat is also damp, so that means I have excessive water element in my body. If water is the element to supress the fire, but why under the condition I have dampness yet the fire is not supressed? More study required...

Grade C Duck Noodles

I have strange appetite of animal innards. Mosunabe is one of my favorite dishes in Japan.
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After eating cold Sandwiches for 2 days, I think I should have something hot and soupy. Walking around Amsterdam, found a couple Chinese restaurants, and I decided to trust one of them to provide me something to calm my Chinese stomach.

When walking into the restaruant, I can smell the long grand Thai rice smell, not the top quality one. Ok, at least we are sure this is run by Hong Kong immigrants (Hong Kong people have this strange habbit of eating long grand Thai rice, very very fragrant, whereas Chinese from other places don't). I can guess this is a not fancy but practical Cantonese food shop.

The soup is the clear broth base, cooked with dried fish, which is the traditional way. Good sign. It is scolding hot, even better. The egg noodles are those mixed with some alkaline. Texture is bouncy, full of wheat and egg flavor. However, I found some noodles are still stick to each other, oh no, point deduced.

The duck meat is dried and the skin is too fatty. The funny thing is I found I have around 5 or 6 pieces of fresh duck meat, and 2 old one (maybe the unsold roast duck being sent back to oven the next day, great way to sell not so fresh meat). Which is exactly the same as those duck noodles in London. I wonder if the duck noodle chefs all went to the same cooking school?
I cannot have the second helping.

Chain Saw, Chain Saw

Sakura in imperial palace, this year's sakura is not as angry as last year (maybe I have grown used to it), still quite a view.
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Akiko arranged a get-together-dinner with SunGard people, we went to a casual French restaurant, and let Michael (the wine connoisseur) to do the wine ordering. For some strange reason, wine doesn't taste as good as it was before to me, damn, it is getting harder and harder to please myself.

Michael is an American living in Japan for more than 15 years, with a Chinese wife, speaking fluent Japanese. He is the most cynical person I have come across. Very funny guy, but he never laugh or smile at his own joke, sometimes looked uninterested and I-am-bored. Anyhow, one of his stories he told us happened when he was teaching English some years ago in Aomori, a small town.

He was drinking beer with his colleagues and 2 Yakusa-looking men (they miss some fingers or something) came taking the table next to them. The whole pub went quiet but these 2 innocent young American couldn't understand the reason. They chat with the gangsters, those 2 gangsters like American horror movies a lot. With their broken English, one of the guy shout in excitement "American Horror movies good, I like chain saw". The other guy agreed and they chantted in unison, "chain saw, chain saw, chain saw" with the geasture of moving a heavy chain saw. One Japanese guy sitting close by dropped his glass, he immidiately bowed mumbling "sumimasien, sumimasien..." and tried to clean the floor with his bare hands.

Michael's comment is those Japanese gangsters have very easy life.

Window Shopping

I duly followed everyone's advise, you have to do some window shopping when in Amsterdam. Like other Nordic countries, Netherland people get off work really on time, I had some daylight after work and I set out walking around.

The redlight district is not as seedy as I imagined (or the area of old city is equaly seedy and dirty everywhere, you sort of get numb. My Tokyo sense of clean street subsided in a week). It is hiding inside the narrow alley ways between canels. People strolling around (most of them are tourists), bouncers hanging around (funny they all look the same, with the same body build across countries, culters and cities), peeping show and sex stores scatter around. When walking past one of the windows, a man walked straight into the door, I clearly heard the girl inside greeted him "How are you doing", as if he is one of her friends, no remorse, it is just a business. Let's make it as pleasant as possible.

I think sexiality has a lot of elements in it. The main driving force is desire, to want and to be wanted. That consequent emotions are passion, fullness beyond desire and satiety. It is more than just 2 opposite sex stripping naked and tangling together. Perhaps for men it is harder to (or it is not necessary) to identify the difference.

Hotel Survival Guide (3)

I wrote the Hotel Survival Guide (1) and (2) 2 years ago when I was doing the crazy traveling, practically living in hotels 3 weeks a month. After 1 year and half of peaceful life, I am back on the road. There are many factors that made me to consent to this schedule, anyhow, it is a welcome change (I am a bit tired of my Tokyo client, also, I think the feeling is mutual).

I swang by the local supermarket before heading back to my hotel room afterwork. Fancying ice cold beer, I abandoned the can beer on the shelf but go straight the freezers for bottle beer (Not really thinking that I have no can opener). Anyhow, when there is will, there is a way. I managed to pry open the beer with the coffee spoon, man, I am so proud of myself. I think we need to have a small swiss army knife thingy whenever we travel.

The other thing we need to really pay attention to is that the floor towel and face towels are really the same size. After arriving, I routinely took the contact lens off and started my face washing. Without seeing much, I took the towel on the top of the pile, scraping and wiping, thinking this towel's texture is really good, crispy and firm. Perfect for exfoliating. Only the next morning when I step out of the shower I realised I was using the floor towel last night.