On a recent trip to Hawaii, we opted for the Hyatt Centric Waikiki Beach Hotel, largely for its very “centric” location, and for the good price we got from Expedia. Here is the review I posted to TripAdvisor, and I’m sharing an updated copy here to help future readers make better informed travel decisions. Very…
Missing My Forehand Drive
It started in mid-November when I first noticed some pain in my right hand wrist whenever I hit a tennis forehand drive. I didn’t pay much attention to it, as I thought I just needed rest, and the pain would go away after a couple of weeks. A couple of months later, the pain is…
Search for the creamy bokeh
My wife recently got the iPhone 7 Plus and one feature it had that my non-Plus iPhone didn’t have was the portrait camera mode, made possible by those dual lens at the back. Using this, the iPhone 7 Plus could take portrait shots that digitally blur the background, i.e. bokeh, making it look like it…
Close Encounter of the C Kind
The results of my recent medical exams were out, and aside from the now usual “bad” cholesterol numbers, one particular number caught my attention, CA 19-9, an item under a section called “Tumor Markers.” Oh! The clinic marked it as “D1”, which essentially means I was in deep sh1t, and treatment was required. The doctor…
Stranded in Paradise
A couple of Mondays ago, we were stranded in Paradise. We spent the weekend over at beautiful Izu, and were on our way back to Tokyo. Our Tokyo-bound train was supposed to leave Izukyu-Shimoda at 3PM, but a typhoon had just made landfall, and the trains had been cancelled. We tried renting a car hoping…
Breath of Fresh Air
The other day, I spent a good couple of hours removing our old living room ceiling fan, and replacing it with this new one. This is the WF060 ceiling fan from a Japanese company called Odelic. After installing it and turning it on for the first time, we realized immediately it is a million times…
Sumida Fireworks 2016
You know it’s summer in Japan when there are fireworks almost every weekend. Last week it was the Adachi Fireworks, and this week, it’s the Sumida Fireworks. The good thing about Sumida is the fireworks are very close to the Tokyo Sky Tree. Here are some pics.
Tokyo’s Bicycle
I first heard about Tokyobike from a Japanese TV show where a group of British tourists were talking about Tokyobike and how popular it is in London. My first thought was how ironic that Tokyoites were buying London Brompton Bikes, while Londoners were buying Tokyobikes. I’ve been staying here in Tokyo for about ten years now,…
Birthplace of Tennis in Japan
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to play tennis at Yamate Park in Yokohama. The Meetup organizer named the event “Playing tennis at the first place of tennis in Japan,” so it was more than enough to attract my attention, and make me take that 1.5 hour train ride from where I live, just…
Earning Zero Mileage Points
Last month, my wife and I took a short trip to Europe flying Qatar Airways. Being a long flight halfway around the world, I was a little curious as to how many mileage points I would get. I later checked my JAL Mileage Bank report (JAL and Qatar Airways are both members of OneWorld), and was a bit…
Joanna of Vienna
We Filipinos are very good in recognizing other Filipinos wherever we are in the world. We know it immediately even without saying or hearing a word. We can tell by the way we smile, or the way we make eye contact. We just know. And once we make a positive identification, a simple “kumusta po?”…
Sold my iMac for 29K yen
I’ve had my iMac for more than 6 years now, and after discussions with my wife, we decided it’s time to get a new one. Now the question is, what to do with the old iMac. Send it home The first thing to come to mind is to send it back to the Philippines. For…
Enrico in Tokyo 