Asia Update #25 - What's behind door #1

I mentioned in the past update about it being cold in Korea. Just read that we are having 20 year low temperatures in Seoul. Low temps were down near 0 °F. Daily highs are getting up to around 20 °F. Very cold. Any exposed skin starts hurting after a few minutes outside. So I had to get out of Seoul and find some place warmer. Headed to the Island of Hokkaido, which is the northern part of Japan. Changed cold for snow. Plus only got a few degrees warmer.

Spent three days there with our sales guy visiting customers. Meetings all day, dinners and business clubs on evening. Way too much to eat and (especially) drink.

Of course, when you drink, it logically leads to having to go to the bathroom. Found this one when I was at a classy Japanese restaurant. Had to ask directions from the waitress to get to here, then had the fun of figuring out which door to go to. Do you know which it is? The kanji characters saying men and women sure make it hard to figure out.

I know I am a 'henna gaijing' (Japanese for crazy foreign person), but I really didn't want to walk in on someone without warning, so I went back to the waitress and asked again. She pointed me to the correct door. I went up to the door and found the next challenge - how to open it. Pushed first - and that didn't work. Pulled and that also didn't work. A little giggling from the waitress behind me and she signed that I was supposed to slide the door sideways. Finally got in.

Oh, it is the door on the right…

Here is a shot from my hotel of the area around Sapporo. Surrounded by hills. Even though we are basically at sea level, they get a huge amount of snow. Supposed to make for some great skiing (the white open areas in the center are ski resorts). I will have to try to get back here and allow some time to hit the slopes.

Here is an early teaser. I've started writing up a message related to the business club scene in Asia. It is quite interesting. Here's a picture of me trying to sing karaoke… I am quite bad at it… But the business club scene is very different than what happens in the US, so should be quite interesting....