View of Pudong from Bar Rouge’s terrace on The Bund.

View of The Bund from Pudong.

The Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower peek through buildings in Pudong.

Up at the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the Jin Mao Tower, there are spectacular views of Pudong and The Bund.

Downstairs and outside, looking back up at the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center.

The last time I was in Tokyo, I had a completely transcendent experience with tonkatsu. It was so good, I haven’t been able to look at tonkatsu the same way since. This time, it was a mind-blowing experience with tempura. We hit a tempura restaurant in Ginza and ponied up to the bar downstairs. It was us, the chef, and more tempura-able ingredients than you could shake a stick at. Even the special dipping salts and seasonings were amazing. Here I am taking on shrimp on a stick.

I’m not a fan of curry, but I haven’t experience Japanese curry before. It was sweeter and lighter than your typical south Asian variety, and added to tonkatsu, rice, and a scrambled egg…heaven.

Some interesting signs spotted around Tokyo.

I’m not quite sure what precipitated this, but this is an ad campaign found throughout the Tokyo Metro system. I guess one too many people were winding up with wet umbrellas.

Over at the Senso-ji temple, an amusing sign reiterates that pigeons can indeed get food by themselves.

There was noticeably less smoking in Tokyo compared with a few years ago. One of the reasons seems to be this anti-smoking campaign found on sidewalks everywhere. Rather than smoking while walking, there seem to be designated smoking spots on streets.

Before I pass out for the night, here are a few images of Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood by night.

Just up the street from the hotel is the Kabuki-za Theater that, just as it sounds, hosts kabuki performances.

A few minutes north in the heart of Ginza is Chuo-dori (Chuo Street) where all the big-time department stores and brands have storefronts. These two photos were taken from the middle of the shopping madness near the Ginza subway exit. The first one is looking southwest

and this one is looking northeast.

After the unfortunately fierce bout of jet lag this morning, I made my way over to the Tsukiji Central Fish Market to get a piece of the organized chaos. It’s a sight to behold: seafood of all shapes and sizes is on the block in narrow stalls as little motorized carts tear through the maze of people and stalls to get everything where it needs to go.

The bounty for emerging unscathed was sushi breakfast. It doesn’t get fresher than this, assuming that you don’t want your food moving. And I don’t. There were absolutely insane lines outside of two of the shops. I overheard guys near the front of the line saying they were waiting about an hour already.

The restaurants aren’t much more than very narrow counters seating maybe a dozen people at a time. Even if every diner ate as quickly as they could and got out, there was just no way to get good turnover.

After toughing out the lines for maybe 20 minutes and not really getting anywhere, we threw in the towel and hit up a less-trafficked restaurant, named Yamazaki, between the two insanely popular ones. You know what? It was damn fine sushi to me. I’m sure there’s a little extra something in the other two super-popular places, but I’m not enough of a sushi connoisseur to know what I was missing. Here’s the plate that I took on.

…and I’m awake. Not all that surprising given that it’s around 1:00pm in California…yesterday. Ah, the joys of flying to the other side of the planet and crossing the date line. The flight was okay given that I didn’t have to go cattle-class (thank you, Dolby), but the number of things that were broken on that United 747 was a bit disturbing. One bathroom out of commission, in-seat power broken, air map not working, video screen flickering, thermostat not telling the truth, the list goes on. I should probably just be glad we made it in one piece!

The quest for Qoo got started in the half day that I’ve been here. I still haven’t seen the addictive kiddie drink in any of the omnipresent vending machines, but that doesn’t stop grocery stores from rockin’ the 1.5 liter variety!

Too bad it’s slated to rain all day today since we have a spare day before hunkering down in the Dolby Tokyo office. I’ll figure out a way to make the best of it.

Ah, the joy of living close to wildlife. A stray dog had been frequenting our yard to dig, poop, and eat that poop. So I dial up Oakland’s Animal Control and they bring over a large wire cage and a can of dog food. No sweat. I figure the hungry dog would be trapped within minutes of catching the scent of food.

Wrong. It was smart enough to eat some of the food but not trigger the cage door to close. Nothing happens for another day or two and then suddenly, the rest of the dog food is eaten, but the trap hasn’t been tripped. Another call to Animal Control. “Toss a piece of meat in there,” is their suggestion.

I wanted results so I busted out some sausage for the cage. What dog could resist sausage? I’m convinced I’d catch something so I put the cage over in the dirt and mulch since I didn’t want an angry animal crapping all over our deck. Well, some smartass decides to dig into the dirt, get under the cage, and eat the sausage through the cage rather than going in. Wonderful.

So the cage goes back onto the concrete with some more sausage. I get woken up at 4:00am by Tam mumbling something about a trapped baby skunk. Skunk? Hell if I’m going out there to deal with that. I go back to sleep. Sure enough, we caught ourselves one sausage-eating skunk, much to Xander’s delight.

I felt really bad for the Animal Control team who had to come out to free the skunk. Not a fun job and no pleasant way to do it. Lots and lots of garbage bags were used to block the spraying. On the plus side, they caught the dog somewhere else and got it back to its owner.

We got a 2 for 1 special and got both kids to the pediatrician on the same day. Here’s how Xander sized up…

• Weight: 32 pounds (90th percentile…and we feel every ounce of it)
• Height: 37.75″ (>97th percentile)
• Head circumference: 19.25″ (50-75th percentile)

He enjoys trying to be helpful with Kayden. Most of the time, he just insists his Elmo doll needs a diaper change when she needs one.

The other thing he enjoys doing is picking toejam. Every time time socks come off, he just goes at it with his toes.

Apologies for all the cloak and dagger over the past few days. I know everyone is looking for more details and the official name of our daughter. So let’s get right to it. Her name is Kayden Hui-xing Shih. Us crazy parents were negotiating over the spelling of her first name, but ultimately decided to spell Kayden with a “y” rather than an “i.” No Jedi mind tricks were involved.

Tam was scheduled to be induced two Sundays ago on March 30, but she had a cold at the time so that was postponed. We made it all the way to her due date, Thursday, April 3. That morning, we made a trip to the hospital for a Non-stress Test and ultrasound and everything checked out just fine. We were sent home and continued the waiting game.

We didn’t have to wait too long since Tam went into labor that evening just after dinner. We called our doula, Emily Ross (get her if you’re having a baby), and labored at home for a bit. Around midnight, we loaded up the car and headed in to the hospital, leaving Xander in the care of grandma. Good thing we didn’t wait any longer than we did because shortly after we arrived, a flood of expecting mothers showed up, pushing the Labor & Delivery ward to capacity.

We already had the worst case scenario under our belts (a.k.a. – Xander’s 26+ hour marathon birth) so things went relatively smoothly for this 12-13 hour birth. On Friday morning at 7:52am, April 4, 2008, Kayden was shot out of Tam like one of those big-drop water park rides. She weighed in at 8 pounds and 0.5 ounces, was 20″ long, had a 14″ circumference head, and 13 1/4″ bust. And she screamed like a banshee.

Everything checked out just fine: 10 fingers, 10 toes, no crazy conehead, minimal damage done to mom in the process, etc. Kayden initially didn’t start off as a huge fan of breastfeeding, but as the hours wore on, the Shih family eating gene kicked in and it was off to the races. Then she got to brave the standard battery of countless tests, checkups, shots, and cleanings to keep her busy.

Tam and Kayden are resting just fine and we were discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon.

Now for the other hard part…explaining to big brother that he isn’t the center of the universe anymore. Can he share? We shall see.

I’m dog tired and need to get back to the hospital, but here are a few images of the newest addition to our family!