Nicholas Bate

LA+USC+SF

I've been in California the last two weeks, in LA, on the USC campus and in SF. It was an absolute pleasure to be in all of those locations.

LA7
1. The world's largest graph paper from the air.
2. Hablas espanol senor? You need to.
3. Fast and real fast food. Try out the delicious Cha Cha Chicken in Santa Monica. Take-away, too.
4. Observed the demo against Tropic Thunder, not far from the UCLA campus.
5. Watched Tropic Thunder.
6. Use of cell phones whilst driving laws revised. Thank goodness; it's just too frightening, otherwise!
7. So much technology in an LAPD car. Observed purely from the outside!

USC7
1. A curriculum which is wide and deep, ideally suited for the New World of Work.
2. So much anti-earthquake infrastructure the wi-fi doesn't work.
3. Come on, Trojans!
4. Apparently the most international campus in the US.
5. Students: switch your phones off in lectures!
6. Day 2 of classes, today.
7. Oh and come on Trojans!

SanFran7
1. Book early for Alcatraz. Currently 10 day wait.
2. Get up early for easy riding on the cable cars.
3. Wow to the Farmers's Markets.
4. The lady at my local Starbucks gets up at 230 am to be there at 4 am to open at 5am. "You do what you need to do" she said. That's a great attitude. For you and me, too.
5. Pleased that the Warming Hut (on the beach walk to Golden Gate) has been re-built after the fire.
6. Saw the new Woody Allen film. Great. Ignore the critics (as always).
7. Still not sure why Californian wine is so expensive. But it's superb anyway.

Thanks to everyone, especially the top quality teaching staff at USC.

Back in Tokyo 4

So, so-long Tokyo. Thanks to the great team who worked so hard over two days. Work those action plans, guys! I shall miss: the world's best sticky white rice; politeness; ritual; great time-keeping; technology embedded in everything; sing-song latte orders in Starbucks; great note-books and pens; amongst a lot else.

Back in Tokyo 3

..in local cafe prepping for meetings..English language lesson happening at next table..overheard: ".. a very useful English verb is 'to bear up'.."..Jeez what do they think of us?!

Back in Tokyo 2

Everybody is happy: the sun is out again...day 1 of my simultaneous translation workshop (I work in English-they via their headsets-hear it in Japanese) went well...Ginza shops are extraordinarily expensive...there's no recession here yet...in Starbucks at 0700 this morning: me (prepping for my work-shop), two business men asleep head in arms, one lady knitting...just as Guinness is best in Dublin, plain boiled rice really is pretty good here...no sign of Mount Fuji this visit though, yet.

Back in Tokyo 1

Back in Tokyo. Weather cool and wet and cultural change remains tricky. A lot of press and TV coverage over increasing anguish over the behaviour of 'the young': using mobile phones on the train, not respecting elders etc. Starbucks Japan launches a new beverage: Coffee Jelly. Now that is a cool name. FT Tokyo claims 'Europeans' have until recently been insulated from the recession. Well, I'm not sure that is fully true but certainly this week-end has been a crunch one with the staggering news on what is happening in the housing market.

Back from Amsterdam..

..where the bicycle system just WORKS. How did they do it? They gave it attention.

One of the many nice things about Santa Monica..

..is that you can walk on the beach, watch the sun-rise, get a short latte at Starbucks (opens 0500) and write a chapter of your thriller (the one where he finally discovers she's been deceiving him all along) and look up and find its only 0900. Cool.

Back in LA..

..Santa Monica in fact, California. Weather is warm and sunny which is a very pleasant change after the sleet of London.

Back in Munich

where after a chaotic Heathrow things are running like clock-work. Cool.

Letter from Toronto

Back in Toronto where there has been fresh snow over-night: the countryside looks glorious even if the ever dramatic city is now looking a lttle messy. Next time you are there, visit The Old Distillery area: after the hi-tech of the city it's a great place to wander-especially in the snow.