Category Archives: Travel

Unfortunate workplace incidents

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Whether you work at an office or 100 percent remotely from home, it’s obvious that there are clear pros and cons to both sides. Neither is a perfect fit, and it really depends on your life and career stage which is going to fit you at any given time. One thing I will say that I absolutely do not miss about working at an office is that while I am remote, I will never have to deal with inane, petty, and childish human resources complaints like I did at my last company, whether it’s someone reporting me to HR because I asked them to lower their voice as they were shouting over the phone in the middle of the open floor plan at the office (yes, this really happened), someone else reporting me for not wishing them a happy birthday (this, sadly, is very, very true), or me catching someone watching porn on their work computer during work hours, reporting it, and then having our HR partner gaslight me and question whether I really did see what I saw (“How do you know for sure that it was porn? Can you please describe the details of what you saw or heard? Can you mimic what you heard? Who else witnessed this?” YES, THIS REALLY HAPPENED, and apparently, my word isn’t enough. You always need other people to vouch for this crap!)).

But sadly, at each annual success and sales kickoff, whether it was at my former company or current company, I always hear about unscrupulous incidents that happen which inevitably involve HR intervention or sexual innuendo that I want no part of. Some people blame it on the presence of alcohol; I blame it on a bunch of so-called professionals who claim to be mature adults, but attend these official company events as though it’s their time to do whatever they want to do and not recognize that these events are actually WORK EVENTS, not personal parties. You may wear more revealing clothing or higher heels at these events. You may drink more at these events than if you were at an office. That’s no excuse to think these are “pickup” events where you can “score” with your colleagues as though they are random people at your local bar.

All the annual President’s Club awards were announced, and a number of colleagues I work with were declared as winners. I made my way around, wishing them congratulations. But one of them was particularly odd. First, he accused me of writing up multiple bullet points of negative feedback about him “that he would forgive me for.” Then, he insisted that “something went wrong” between us and that he didn’t know what happened. I was confused, as I never wrote anything about anyone. Then, before I could even ask additional questions, he suggested that I be his plus-one at President’s Club weekend. This was not only completely ridiculous, but totally inappropriate. I told him there was no way that was going to happen, and he asked, why not? What’s wrong with that? I asked him if he was joking, and he said, no. Then, he insisted that I be his plus-one, and said that there were rumors going around that our camaraderie was more than just colleagues, and that he knew there was something between us. I told him that was insane and wrong, and before I could walk away, thankfully a colleague came by to check up on us, and I left with her. And as I told her what happened, a few other female colleagues came by and shared that this same male colleague had accosted them about negative feedback in the last day. No one had mentioned any sexual provocation, though.

“Something between” us made my stomach turn. We worked on two accounts together. We saw each other in person only twice ever (at this kickoff and last year), and while we have been friendly over Slack and text, I could read through all my Slack messages and texts and see zero flirtation. This guy was crazy. Not to mention: if you want to try your luck and score with one of your female colleagues, maybe, just maybe accusing them of talking crap about you behind their back is not the best way to convince them to join you on a long weekend trip paid by your company….?!

Even at the best companies, there’s always going to be one or two slimy, awful people who you never want to interact with ever again, and you’d want to keep away from anyone you cared about. And only time will tell how this situation unfolds.

Unexpected friends meetup during work travel

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Since the COVID pandemic, work travel has been pretty sparse for me. I only did one work trip last year, which was in mid February for the same annual company kickoff as this year, and also in Denver. The pros of coming to these big, 400+ person company events is that in-person time that I never get while being remote. I like these events because I get that face time with my colleagues, and I do miss the daily social interaction a lot. But it’s also challenging because this is socializing on steroids in a very confined space for a finite number of days, so you really have to pack in all that socializing before you have to pack up and leave again — to go home and be in front of your home computer all day long as a remote employee. It would be nice if we had more outdoor time, or time to socialize and be outside and actually experiencing the city we were in. Instead, we have to stay inside in windowless conference and presentation rooms. But I guess this is work, after all. We didn’t come for sight-seeing, unfortunately.

But I still made a point to get outside every day this week, even if it was just to walk around the block. And I happened to have a friend from San Francisco here for work, as well, so we met up at my favorite milk tea place in downtown Denver (Milk Tea People, yay!) before our company welcome dinner this evening. I haven’t seen this friend in almost a year and a half. Kaia was only about eight months old then, and my friend was pregnant and due to give birth in just a few months back then. Now, we both have older baby/toddler aged kids, and we spent most of our time talking about our kids, raising them, our relationships with our parents, death and estate planning, and family in general. The conversation felt serious and in some ways kind of sad, like we’re now slowly but surely approaching middle aged and realizing that life is just going by. But in some ways, it felt kind of comforting to have this conversation in person, face to face. We don’t see each other that often, but when we do, it always feels comfortable, like we can just be ourselves and say whatever annoying or stupid things are on our mind, and it’s all okay. No judgment. No worries. No fuss. We just are who we are, and that’s okay. That’s the benefit of having a friend for a long, long time; I’m 38 now, and she’s turning 37 later this year. That means we would have been friends for over 25 years at this point. I’m lucky to have friends still in my life this long who I can just say what I think to, and they just accept me as I am.

What is also funny about meeting up with this friend: whenever I see her, it looks like as time goes by and as we get older, she looks more and more like her mother. And when I look at photos of us together, I realize I am looking more and more like my dad’s sister, my aunt, who I really do not like and have not spoken to since my 2016 wedding, but the resemblance is undoubtedly there whether I want it there or not. I guess that’s what time does to you: we are all aging, even my sweet Kaia Pookie is aging, but in a much cuter way.

Oh, and it also helps that she likes and appreciates really good milk tea, as Milk Tea People is a standout amongst ALL milk tea places I’ve visited around the world. The care these people put into their tea, from hand whisking the Uji matcha to making all their lavender, orange blossom, and fruit syrups from scratch and in-house every day, is incredible. None of my colleagues I asked wanted to come here with me, as they all said they weren’t really into milk tea, or this place was too far of a walk from our hotel….

A long work travel day with subpar, expensive food

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I’m in Denver this week for my company’s annual kickoff/offsite. Though the scheduled events are Wednesday through Friday, we all needed to arrive by Tuesday evening in order to be here in time for all the Wednesday morning sessions. Though the flight time, if direct, between New York City and Denver is only about 4 hours and 40 minutes, the actual time I spent in transit today, if you just confined it to my first flight’s takeoff time to the final flight’s landing time, was about nine hours. Because I am loyal to American Airlines (for better or worse) while in the U.S., I realized there were no direct NYC > Denver flights at this time of year (they seem to be seasonal for the warmer months! But what about the people who ski…?!). And my connecting options were mostly in Chicago or Charlotte. The ones going through Chicago were out of the travel limit for this event, so I ended up going through Charlotte. The layover time in Charlotte was originally supposed to be quite tight, only about 45 minutes, so I didn’t think I’d have much time there. Unfortunately, my flight got delayed three times, so I ended up spending more time than I’d originally anticipated there. The plus side was that I could leave the concourse to go to another one that had… Midwood Smokehouse, my favorite BBQ spot in Charlotte that now had a location in the airport!

My dreams of delicious brisket or burnt ends were quickly extinguished when I almost sat down and the server said, “I just wanted to let you know that we’ve already sold out of brisket and burnt ends.” My face immediately fell. Well, at that point, there was no reason to eat here if the two best things were gone. I could have chosen the ribs, but I really didn’t want to eat anything that messy because I needed to multitask and get some work done on my computer. So I ended up leaving and going to another spot next door. It was supposed to be a “Santa Monica, California” style eatery. I ended up having a cobb salad and an unsweetened iced tea. After tax and tip, my lunch cost $39. Eeeek.

Well, I guess it’s no wonder my food allowance while on work travel is $125. You think that’s a lot of money until you have to transit through and get stuck at airports, where even the most basic food costs over $25-30.

Souvenirs from travels and the evolution over time

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Eleven years ago, when I first went to Melbourne and stayed at my in-laws’ home, I marveled over their large collection of souvenirs that they’d collected during their travels over their 40-plus years. The souvenirs ranged from the small, cute, antique items, like the little ones you could place in a glass curio cabinet, to the larger, more impactful pieces, like a Japanese cuckoo clock that has a very intense time precision, to paintings and glass sculptures collected during visits to different countries around the world. There’s even a gorgeous Wedgwood Wild Strawberries collection of bone china they had shipped back to Melbourne that they picked up while in England during Chris’s youth. I always take a look at the Wild Strawberries collection every time I visit. Each illustration of strawberry, leaves, and vines are hand-painted. And the pieces are all painted with a genuine gold rim; they are truly pieces of art.

And usually while I am standing by this glass cabinet and staring at the Wedgwood Wild Strawberries bone china, one or both of Chris’s parents will come over and recount the time they purchased this fragile, gorgeous set. After, they will also comment that they don’t use it “nearly enough,” and be unable to recall the last time they took it out to use. This always made me sad: they probably spent a small fortune on something so beautiful and intricately made. Yet since it’s rarely used, no one is actually enjoying it or getting a return on that investment they made decades before. The Wedgwood china set just sits there, dust-free in a glass display case in their dining room.

For a short period when I was younger, I also liked to collect little cute items to eventually display in my home when I returned from my travels. When I was really young, I used to be told that one day when I got married, I could pick out my own wedding china set, and hopefully, someone would be generous enough to purchase it for me and my future husband off our wedding registry (that never happened; we had no wedding registry, and the man I ended up marrying had zero interest in any bone china set). Now, though, during travels, we rarely buy anything that is not a consumable to take home (e.g. food or beverage; tea!). The only real thing we make sure to get before we leave a new place is a magnet to add to our boards of magnets documenting our travels. We don’t have much space living in a small Manhattan apartment. We also don’t like clutter.

And the thing is: while I do love looking at all my in-laws collected items over the years every time I go back to their home, I realize that while I enjoy it, one day when they are gone, who will appreciate these items as much as they did? Their sons do not appreciate most of them and just look at them as piled up clutter. But why would they appreciate them? They didn’t collect these items on their own travels, so they have less or no meaning to them. As for me, I might appreciate them, but I will unlikely have the space to care and keep them all. These are all items that they collected as momentos of their travels, purchased with money that they worked hard to earn. These items are almost symbolic of all their hard work, as well as their parents’ generation of hard work, before them. So while many in my generation may see our parents as hoarders, whether that’s of antique items or even toilet paper, maybe the way our parents see them is as an embodiment of what they worked their whole lives to build. And perhaps they see our generation as a generation of people who don’t appreciate their hard work and is merely quick to write off and throw away embodiments of it.

JAL Business Class flying: the doting flight attendants who adore your toddler

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Japan Airlines will always be on the top of the top lists for me in terms of best in-flight experiences. In a culture that very much values hospitality and caring for others, it’s no wonder that JAL would prioritize the customer experience.

Now traveling with a young child, we get to see how the flight attendants fawn over her and give her the star treatment in flight. On our way from Melbourne to Tokyo, Kaia got offered pretty much every single toy in the JAL toy box (when she was originally told to choose just one…) simply because the flight attendants kept passing by her and gushing over how cute she was. While they did have a kids’ menu, Kaia didn’t really get to enjoy it. Instead, on the flight over, we ended up eating it as part of our appetizer, on top of the kaiseki style Japanese meals we were already indulging in.

On our way back to New York, Kaia was out pretty much the entire time. Although they didn’t have to, the flight attendants kept checking in on me to see if she might need to be woken up to eat. While they did try to prepare a little katsu sandwich for her, I ended up eating part of it since she was really out like a light. They still insisted on checking in and gave me some milk in case she decided to wake up during the landing and wanted something to drink.

American Airlines or any other U.S.-based carrier for that matter will never be able to come close to the level of customer service that JAL does. In fact, when you fly on American, they barely take any notice of your children, much less have separate kids meals just for them. They definitely would not be checking in on your child if they were zonked out the whole flight (as if they would care if your child starved or not?). But it’s one of the reasons I love JAL and love flying on Asian airlines. In Asia, there’s a sense of caring amongst the community that just doesn’t exist in the West.

Delicious hojicha (roasted green tea) things

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Years ago, a friend went to Japan for a holiday and came back. I asked him how his trip was and if he had gotten his matcha-everything fix. He beamed and said he loved his trip (because how could he not?). But to answer my matcha question, while matcha was clearly delicious (and increasing in popularity here in the States in literally every food and beverage type imaginable then), he told me that his food prediction was that the future was hojicha, not matcha! Matcha would soon be old hat, and the future IS hojicha!

Fast forward to the present day, and I still see very little to no hojicha-flavored anything here in New York, with the exception of a handful of Asian/Japanese spots as well as bubble tea cafes. Matcha is still ubiquitous even at non-Asian eateries and cafes. And we have a 2-year-old girl who is nicknamed “Hoji” after “hojicha” thanks to Chris’s unconventional name preferences. So while hojicha is not necessarily the future for food in the U.S. just yet, I did notice quite a number of hojicha flavored things during this trip in Japan.

Hojicha was always a top option for tea everywhere we went. At the fancy tea cafe Nakamura Tokichi, where we went for our last sit-down meal while in Tokyo, the welcome, complimentary pot of tea had premium whole leaf hojicha in a high-end tea bag meant to be re-steeped multiple times. They had various hojicha desserts, including a hojicha float and hojicha jelly (which we ordered!). And as a final farewell from Japan on our Japan Airlines flight back to New York, the last dessert I had in flight was a beautiful, silky smooth hojicha milk custard.

We love hojicha everything and would welcome hojicha as a mainstream flavor here in New York. But I’m not sure even New York is quite ready for it yet.

Some examples of thoughtful hospitality while traveling

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When traveling, whether it’s for business or pleasure, you never quite feel like you are “at home” because, well, you are not at home. But it’s the hospitality team’s job to make you feel like you are “at home” and as comfortable as possible. Granted, they’re probably not going to greet you at the end of each day at your hotel with a bow and/or a foot rub, but I suppose that certainly would be a welcome treat.

Over the course of my travels, I’ve been lucky to have experienced a lot of really great hospitality across many cities, states, countries, and continents. These are some recent examples that have really stood out:

At check-in at our Osaka hotel, the staff knew that we were traveling with a young child, so they presented us with a gift bag just for her, which had a cute Japanese character on it, with a similar theme on a toddler tooth brush and matching slippers.

On New Year’s Eve (and in light of New Year’s Day, which is Japan’s biggest holiday of the year), the Osaka hotel left us a small boxed gift on our desk of a painted gold dragon with a little bell inside. It’s meant to be a New Year’s gift; as with Lunar New Year, it’s a common time that the Japanese give gifts.

One night, I returned to our Tokyo hotel to realize that the water kettle, which I had used to make tea the previous night, was topped up with water. I remember I had emptied the remaining water the morning before, so clearly, housekeeping recognized that I had used the kettle and wanted to save me of this tiny chore when I returned from our day out. They also left me extra bags of hojicha (roasted green tea), which they had checked I had used. This seems like such a small thing to do, but I was so surprised and touched by this!

Our Tokyo hotel also knew we were traveling with a toddler, so they made sure to leave Pookster a cute baby toothbrush with baby toothpaste a few nights of our stay.

The Tokyo hotel also gave us a diaper pail to store soiled diapers and keep the odors at bay. Alas, the pail wasn’t strong enough, so we still had to discard of the poop diapers separately, but it was still a very thoughtful gesture!

A few times after we have checked into hotels, including in Europe, the front desk staff have called us to ask if everything is where it should be and if the room is to our liking, plus if we have needed anything else that would make our stay more pleasurable.

I work in a different type of customer service, and as anyone in this type of role knows, customer service is NOT an easy job. But in hospitality, it’s the seemingly little gestures that can make a hotel stay so memorable and amazing.

Omiyage – “souvenirs” or “gifts” from Japan

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Chris’s cousin and her husband have been living in Chiba, just outside Tokyo, for the last six months while studying a ministry course at a local university. As their time is coming to an end, they are trying to give away as many of their temporary dorm items as possible, while also buying as much “omiyage” as possible.

“Omiyage” is a Japanese word for “souvenirs” or “gifts,” for when you return back to your home after travels. This practice seems to span a number of cultures. The couple of times I went to China and and Vietnam, I was also expected to bring home gifts for all family members.

The Japanese take the practice of “omiyage,” and gift giving in general, pretty seriously. Gift giving is a way to show gratitude to those you care about or are indebted to, and also a way to display appreciation for those you love and respect. In general, gifting money is not something the Japanese do (I guess they’re not as green-hungry as the Chinese, haha), so the act of giving actual things is of utmost importance and a sign of respect/love. Granted, I’ll admit ignorance and say that I have not visited every Asian country, but from what I have observed in my last almost 38 years is that when the Japanese give gifts, they give gifts. All gift items need to be displayed beautifully (for when you are in the process of choosing what to buy while in the endless Japanese department stores or food halls), wrapped and packaged beautifully, and presented just so. This is probably why the gift boxes for food items, for example, is so detailed and beautiful: while shopping, not only do you typically see a model of what the contents in a box are on display, but if it is a cookie or cake that you are buying, they even show you a very accurate model of what the inside (the innards!!) of the cake/cookie look like when cut in half! Now, if that isn’t precision, then I do not know what is!

On Saturday, our last day in Japan, we spent a few hours in Ginza, a popular shopping district in Tokyo. There, we visited a food basement, where I perused and got googly-eyed over endless delicious Japanese snacks and treats, as well as Japanese teas. I knew I wanted to purchase some tea as gifts and for myself. So I went to two different tea stands, had tastings, and enjoyed tea banter with my English/broken Japanese and the friendly salesperson’s Japanese/broken English, along with the helpful technological assistance of language translation mobile apps. Other than obvious words I would know, such as the major Japanese tea types (matcha, hojicha, gyokuro, sencha), as I was getting ready to pay, I also recognized yet another Japanese word: omiyage! She was asking me which of the items I purchased would be gifts. I quickly told her, and she rushed to very carefully wrap one of the boxes, creasing each edge, and taped the sides so meticulously. Not only this, but she also included extra handled gift bags so that once I got home, I could even present the gorgeously wrapped box in a handled bag with the a design matching the wrapping paper for the boxed gift. The next tea shop I went to did exactly that again, except they gave me even MORE handled bags and gifting pouches to ensure that if I changed my mind about which items to give as gifts, I could still beautifully present an omiyage to a loved or respected person.

Well, that is service and gift culture to the max. Environmentalists may argue that this is all wasteful and contributes to the needless destruction of trees and forests, that it adds to our ever growing climate change problem. But I would say that the gifting culture of Japan could build bridges and create relationships for those of us still remaining in a burning world.

Fun things at the Japan Airlines First Class Lounge at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo

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To go back to New York, we went to Haneda this time instead of Narita. It was a much shorter and cheaper journey to get there, and once we did, we went through security and immigration and ended up at the Japan Airlines First Class lounge for a quick meal and shower before getting on our flight.

There were some fun things we liked at the lounge, including the automated wet towel dispenser, which when you press it, it dispenses a cold, tightly coiled wet towel for you to use to wipe your hands or face. This was especially helpful cleaning Pookster up after her very messy pasta meal.

The second fun thing that I enjoyed was the automated beer dispenser. A number of different local Japanese beers were available on tap, so once you placed your beer glass in the glass holder and pressed the appropriate dispensing button, the machine would tip your glass ever so slightly (and securely), fill it with beer to just the right level, without any over foaming/head on top, and then tilt it back down so that you could retrieve the glass. It was the perfect pour!

These cute little perks and privileges were fun to enjoy in our last few hours in Japan. It only made me want to come back sooner!

Tempura at Tempura Hisago in Akihabara

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Tempura is one of those things that most people love, and it’s for obvious reasons: it is DEEP FRIED food. It’s a common Japanese dish that is usually made up of different types of seafood and vegetables that have been coated in a light, thin batter, then deep fried. If you get cheap tempura, you can expect the batter to be heavier, and if you get heavenly, delicious tempura, you can expect that the batter is super thin, yet results in a crunchy, crispy exterior coating. And the oil will be barely detectable.

Since tempura is common, it’s typically at any Japanese restaurant you will go to, assuming they do not just specialize in one thing (e.g. sushi, onigiri, ramen, katsu). But finding really notable, drool-worthy tempura is a bit of a challenge pretty much anywhere outside of Japan. Years ago, when I discovered a Japanese restaurant that specializes in tempura that opened here in New York, Chris scoffed at it when I told him it had one Michelin star.

“Tempura is so easy to fuck up,” he retorted. “Why would I have questionable tempura here (in New York City) and pay a lot of money for it when I can just fly to Japan and KNOW that it’s going to be good?”

And so, I suppose that’s what we did. We flew to Japan. And this time, we would eat tempura. So, tempura at Tempura Hisago it was for our last dinner on our second Japan trip together. Chris’s cousin and her husband dined with us, and we got a set menu, which included assorted seafood and veggie tempura, red miso soup, a rice bowl, various pickled vegetables (tsukemono), salad, your choice of alcoholic beverage, and a yuzu sorbet at the end. Once you place your order, all the food is made to order. There are chefs in the back of the restaurant that you can watch who are frying all your tempura right there. You can hear the sizzle of the oil, though somehow you cannot smell it. And when they bring the tempura over to you, it’s super hot and fresh. The tempura is served lined by parchment paper on plates, and when you remove the pieces, the tempura is so well drained that there is barely any oil remaining at all! The tempura was perfect: super lightly battered, with every bite nice and crispy. The seafood was cooked well with no rubberiness, and the vegetables were soft and tender.

And the value was excellent, as well: for all that food, which certainly made all of us full, we spent about $20 USD/person. We will miss this quality at these price levels.