October Business Goings On

In early October I took part in MIPCOM 2007 , a large trade fair for the television industry. Which meant that I got to go to France for awhile, always nice. Although I was there for business, and was quite busy for most of the time, I did get a chance to visit the Henry Matisse museum in Nice, which was good. Actually, before going to Nice we were in Amsterdam to visit 2way Traffic , a company that we do business for. While there I was entertained by a man named Taco Ketelaar, who in addition to having an interesting name, served as the executive producer for the original version of fear factor, which originated in Holland. He said that for the original show, they didn’t have much of a budget, and so instead of hiring someone to test out the challenges the planned on filming for the show, he did most of the dirty work. He said that one time he was in a glass coffin wearing only a pair of briefs, while many boa constrictors were placed on top of him. One of the boa constrictors started to bite his belly button, but he managed to remain calm and have the offending snake removed. Talk about dedication to your work…
After our time in France we continued onwards to London for more business meetings. After spending 1 1/2 hours in the baggage claim of Heathrow Airport waiting for our luggage to arrive, we finally made it to our hotel. When I inquired about the weather for the following day, I was told,

“It’s supposed to be cloudy but no rain. However, in London you have to make sure you aren’t deceived by the three w’s. Weather, wine, and women”.

Thanks for the tip-

After 10 days I returned to Japan. I went straight to a 7-11 to buy some umeboshi onigiri, washed down with a bottle of pocari sweat. It was good to have Japanese food again…

I had a week to recoup/catch up on work/follow up on everything from MIPCOM, and also had to prepare for TIFFCOM , which was happening the next week.
Which meant more business meetings with clients…

I also somehow managed to get married during all of this. Well, just the “registering our marriage” part. Shoko (my wife) and I are officially married now, though we won’t have a real ceremony until next April-more on this later.