EGGI&FISH

Christmas in Tokyo. Surprisingly not a big holiday here – if at all. The office was open and it was business as usual. Kind of an unusual feeling for me. No snow. No carolers. No Santas on the Corner. No tacky christmas lights and store decorations. But we made the more of it. Roppongi Hills, the fancy shopping district near our house put out some lights and created a stir. Typical classic and reserved for them but nice. Regardless, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and best wishes in the new year.

The greatest football show (and player) on earth was in town for the 2007 Club World Cup. FC Barcelona. My favorite player in football and subsequently, my favorite club team. Doned in their new not-for-profit Unicef uniforms (by Nike) they took the field in Yokohama for what ended up as a pretty BLAH match. Even more BLAH was the result with Internacional of Brazil taking the trophy home. Ronaldhino had some really “almost amazing goals” but not quite. For my first Barca match, not the best but hopefully the start of more and better matches in the future…

One big Hawaii trip. Two of the major cities – Maui and Honolulu. Three different hotels. It was a long trip but   we had a blast. I had meetings and meetings at my first Asia Pacific Leadership Summit but no big surprises or anything interesting there. Made some new friends. Caught up with some old ones. We had some great presenters. On the internal road show Charlie the President of Nike and Trevor the VP of Marketing/Brand. Of the non-Nike people, we had Coach Guus Hiddink of Korea and Australia World Cup Fame as well as the former CEO of Starbucks. All very intersting and a good time. But while i was slaving away meeting after meeting, JiYoung was soaking up the sun and enjoying her first trip to Japan. There were island ventures, marathons, shopping and beach going…  Flickr Set!