24 February, 2005

A spoilt kid gone to New York

I've gone to NY without saying anything here. More than two weeks there was no update and message here. Now, however, blog.ausp.net has come back.

This was a family trip. I was very surprised at the situation, that is, another flight just after coming back from Cardiff, and so I was, kind of, embarrassed to say. However, now, I'm telling what the trip was like.

Before I left Japan, I was planning two things; One is to visit some web design offices based in New York, but I was "busy" at working for Steafán's website and etc, and therefore I couldn't possibly make arrangements - even sending e-mails. But, the true reason was I couldn't be realistic about it. This is partly because I decided to settle in Japan for some years. Experiences in Berlin gave me a sense of confidence and a quite optimistic view of knocking on the door of design offices.

The other is to meet my friend in Austin, Texas. Not only for a happy reunion with him and sightseeing in Texas, but also for discuss his project which I might undertake, I wanted to visit him. But I couldn't find any cheap ticket from New York to Austin, and most of tickets cost more than ones we paid for flying from Tokyo to New York (you can imagine how cheap the tickets were).

Anyway, this trip became a pure family trip in the end.

New York is a great city. Exciting, cool, awesome, etc. But it's too far. 13-hour-flight is too much. I don't get tired so much from 11-hour-flight to London, but extra two hours gives me a last punch. In addition, for the first few days, I suffered from jet lag. Usually I don't get it, but this time it was quite severe. What I remember from the first half was a litany of mail-order TV programmes at 4am, daytime bad temper and endless yawning.

But the sightseeing, of course, went on, and I fell in love with New York. We also went to Boston in the second week, when we might have flown to Texas if possible. Boston is also a lovely city. Compact, cozy, etc. Also some elements of Britishness relaxed me.

Throughout the trip I was thinking many things. They will be my blog topics here. I'm going to write them soon.