Tokyo Blond Is Not Porn

Tokyo Blond is not a porn blog, about hair or even, as one pithy friend remarked, a micro beer or late 1980s glam metal band ("Dude, I just saw Skid Row and Tokyo Blond opened and played a killer set").


The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my experiences in Tokyo - poignantly, visually, irreverently - for fun.


Anybody can tag along...that is if I like you. This blog will endeavor to be entertaining and honest and frequent enough to keep those following interested including me.


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Networking with Sugar Daddies

I meant to send this out last week but then the earthquake hit and all hell broke loose.  Now I can finally get this out of my draft folder....

A couple of weeks ago Russell and I went to a mixer partially sponsored by Asian Tigers, the company that moved our stuff from America to Tokyo.  The point of a mixer, besides cocktails, is to network.  Similar to the FCC event we went to a month ago, there was a lot of men and passing of business cards.  Un-similar to the FCC event - there was a lot of wine; although you had to go to the right wine station.  There was the stingy station which was pouring minute amounts of pinot and there was the generous station which was pouring merlot abundantly. Can you guess which one we were hanging around?

The event was held at the Oakwood Apartment complex in Roppongi Mid-town.  Unlike the divorcee infested Oakwood Apartment complexes in the U.S., which all seem to have been built in the 1970s and never updated since, this Oakwood apartment is state of the art gorgeous and adjacent to the Midtown shopping complex.  Who could ask for more?

After properly lubricating ourselves with wine we were ready to mingle.  We met a most charming man originally from Tel Aviv, who used to live in Singapore and has been in Tokyo for the past couple of years.  We covered the usual topics: where do you live, what do you do, what kind of car do you drive (oops, that's L.A. sorry).  He works for a software company.  He's married to a Japanese woman and has a three year old daughter.  But he almost became a sugar daddy.  They live in Meguro next to famous people.  I'm sorry, what?  Almost became a sugar daddy?  Let's go back to that!

Apparently, when he lived in Singapore, which is about the size of Rhode Island but as pretentious as
Santa Monica (above Montana of course), it's all about the flash and the cash.  Cars are extreme status symbols even though there's not much country to drive on.  He lamented, "shift into second gear and you're in Malaysia already."   He went on.  In Singapore there are only three Lamborghinis.  As if this were not ostentatious enough, each Lamborghini is painted a bright color:  bright green, hot pink or flaming yellow, to ensure maximum visibility and babe attraction.

In Singapore the women are interested in five things and five things only - the five "Cs":
Cash
Car
Credit Card
Condominium
Country Club

I'm thinking why not "Carats". Oh yeah, that's L.A..

This is such a strong axiom in Singapore it's even in Wikipedia.  Can you believe that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_C's_of_Singapore

I thought he was joking but apparently not.  He said he almost got caught, but escaped, came to Tokyo and got married.  All righty then.

Then we met up with a couple of guys who work for Asian Tigers.  One of them, Dennis, is the person who handled our account.  He introduced us to one of his clients who works for IBM and one of his associates at Asian Tigers.  It's hard to believe Dennis has lived in the orient for as long as he says, over ten years.  If you met him you would think he's from Iowa.  He's blond, modestly good natured and talks about sports a lot, namely hockey and baseball.  Besides networking and ensuring his clients were comfortable, he was light heartedly recruiting for his sports teams.

In the course of the conversation we talked about visiting Kubuki-cho, the seedy part of Shinjuku.
One of the guys related a story about the first time he was in Kubuki-cho.  It was around four in the afternoon and he was approached by a Nigerian fellow (much like we were when we were there).  But instead of hawking a bar or night club, he was hawking women.  "Sir, would you like nice Japanese girl?"  Doh!  Our friend said no.  "But sir, nice 18 year old Japanese girl?"  Our friend said no.  "But sir, half off for happy hour."  I guess that really is a happy hour.  He still said no or so he says.

We related our own story, far more tame, about the Nigerian fellow named Austin Powers who tried to coax us into his club.  Talk about coincidences, one of the guys in our party whipped out his cell phone and showed us he had Austin on speed dial.  He also told us Austin owns a club in Roppongi Hills in addition to the one he was trying to get us to go to in Kubuki-cho.  Obviously this guy must entertain a lot to have Austin on speed dial.

Clearly he must be very knowlegable in this area.   He told us to never use our credit card at a bar or club in Roppongi or Kubuki-cho unless it's an American chain restaurant like Hard Rock Cafe.  (As if I would even consider going there. Ha!)  Inevitably overinflated or mysterious charges totaling hundreds or even thousands of dollars may show up.  Word to the wise next time we're clubbing or happy houring in Roppongi or Kubuki-cho.

After that we stumbled out of there to Roppongi.   Looking for food!  Geez you have a dirty mind.  And ran into a couple of friends from L.A..  One who now lives in Sydney, Australia and the other who lives in Roppongi.   In a city of 12.8 million people of course you're bound to run into someone you know.  They both work with Russell.  We ended up having a delightful dinner together at Orange.  The food was outstanding. You really have to work hard to get a bad meal here.  But you do have to ask for ice water at least three times before you get any, even if you call it by its Japanese name "Mizu".  The truffle french fries (truffled at your table), baked cauliflower and rigatoni with porcini mushrooms were insanely good.

After that we did not stop at any clubs but took the subway home while I contemplated the five Cs.

2 comments:

  1. I take offence to what your comments about Singapore. Obviously, your Tel Aviv friend hung around areas and with pretentious people who go just for the 5Cs. You should have hung out with the real people, man!

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  2. I agree. I was as shocked as you are. I need to hang out with better people, or better yet, visit Singapore myself. Thanks for your comment.

    ReplyDelete