A view of our hotel (on the left) and the "love hotel" district (on the right), looking out from my seat at the Yatai stand in the previous picture. The boat in the middle was a "kashi-kiri," most likely reserved for a company year-end party. 

Night in Yatai Town

A glimpse from one of the many Yatai stands staddling along the naka river in Nakasu, Fukuoka, Kyushu. Yatai stands serve anything from grilled beef tongue to piping hot ramen noodles. It was a cold and rainy night in November and everyone was starving from a fullday of meetings at the Canal City Grand Hyatt. The Grand Hyatt lived up to its name and the stay was very enjoyable, for a business event. In short, it was a perfect night for Yatai.

Trying to hold my FujiFilm FinePix 40i very very still.. 

Stella by Starlight

Well here I am, having finally made the leap from Xanga. Welcome to the new and improved. A new start in Los Angeles. New job. New pad. New committments. Over the next few days I will be porting the "bag and baggage" over. Like the classic "Stella by Starlight" that seems to reincarnate itself every few years with a different artist and completely different sound, my goal is to invigorate this eblog with a unique perspective every time I move to a new city.

Where have I been lately? Let's see, lived and worked in Taipei, Hong Kong, Cupertino, Davis, Suwa (Nagano), Yokohama, Hiroo (Tokyo), Santa Monica and now, on the other side of town, Universal City...not necessarily in that order. Who could guess that my Dad hailed from a relatively humble background, having been raised in a "simple" farming community back before the mega-growth days in Pudong Shanghai?

Now for the mundane. I practice corporate law...specializing in counseling, negotiating and resolving legal, business and operations issues in the Pacific Rim, with a focus on the U.S., Japan and China.

In all my travels and dealings I have had time now to pick up three languages -- English (fluent), Japanese (business fluent) and Mandarin Chinese (native) -- with relative success.

As a living example that it is entirely possible to obtain MBA-training on the job, presently I am a member of the Hollywood, California-based management team at a major Japanese consumer electronics conglomerate, helping to lead its investments in and legal and strategic business alliance with major Hollywood studios and production companies.

My job responsibilities largely revolve around Consumer Electronics, Entertainment and Media industries and of course Law, but I also have had a chance to dabble in complementary fields such as Broadband Technology, Consumer Products and Logistics & Distribution.

Now let's return to Asia for a moment...for a while I was the Regional Counsel for the northern Asia Pacific Region at a multi-billion logistics and express delivery company. There, I ran a seven-person department that was responsible for all legal and regulatory aspects of a region consisting of Japan, S. Korea, Guam and Saipan.

This opportunity presented itself to me after I rode the dotcom wave on the other side of the Pacific, working as Asia Pacific Regional Counsel of a pioneering commercial internet service provider (ISP), ultimately selling various parts of that company to China's CITIC Pacific and U.K.’s Cable & Wireless IDC.

In those sedate times before the bubble, I was an Attorney with a New York-based law firm, after serving a judicial clerkship with U.S. District Judge Linda H. McLaughlin.

I consider writing to be both a tool of creative expression and a practical way of making a living. These outlets are not mutually exclusive. My essays have been published in the Wall Street Journal (Interactive) and the San Francisco Daily Journal, the latter having been translated into Japanese.