We bought a home!

Tuesday night our real estate agent broke the news. We are now homeowners! The house is in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle, about 10 minutes north of downtown. The house was built in 1924, but updated just four years ago by the previous owners. We both love the location, as its convenient to the city, work and to friends and family in the area.

Taking on this new responsibility is a bit daunting, but we couldn't be happier. All of the photos can be found here.

The Wedding

At sunset, we were married in front of our beautiful beach villa by a local pastor. The ceremony was quick, simple and beautiful. While we would have liked to have all of our friends and family in attendance, we both decided we wanted to make this a quiet and romantic event. It really couldn't have been more perfect. The location was beautiful, every detail was attended to and Lisa looked absolutely gorgeous.

After a short ceremony, the staff served us a beautiful dinner on the beach with light provided by torches dug into the sand. The wedding meny included foie gras, squid, sea bass, veal, prawns, tom yam goong, lobster, mussels and before we reached the end we had to cut them off we were so full and we needed to save room for dessert!

To see all of the photos click here

Wedding Day

March 6th, 2007 is a day we will simply never forget. After a tortuous two hours in the back of a speeding taxi covering the windiest mountain road we will ever see, we arrived at the Le Meridien Khao Lak resort. We had three hours to get cleaned up for the biggest event of our lives. Our wonderful French wedding coordinator, Carine, greeted us at the check in and walked us through what would be happening during the next few hours. She seemed concerned that Lisa wasn't a more frantic bride, but we'd kept everything so simple we weren't that worried.

Carine arranged for Stephen to use a separate hotel room to get dressed and space in Le Spa for Lisa to prepare. Just a few hours later we'd meet again to get married.

Tokyo Departure

On March 4th, we departed Tokyo for Thailand. While we were both a bit disappointed to be leaving such a fun city behind, we both were excited for Thailand and the events we knew would transpire there! Just a quick note, travelling on Japan Airlines (JAL) blows US airlines out of the water. If the slightest look of concern crosses your face, a polite flight attendant is there in an instant to ask how she might be of service.

Following the 7 hour flight to Bangkok, we took a 1 hour flight to Krabi in Thailand to enjoy the sun and surf for the next two days.

Tokyo Day 3

We took our time Saturday morning in Tokyo before venturing out to a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the Ueno Park. There we enjoyed strolling among the locals enjoying the sun and early Cherry blossoms, and then made a quick stop at the zoo to say hello to the Panda.

Our next stop was the Akihabara "Digital City," where we perused the latest in electronic gadgetry with hawkers screaming out promotions over a megaphone. At this point, the stomachs were grumbling so we ducked into a noodle shop for lunch. Unfortunately communications broke down once again, so we stepped back outside the shop and pointed to our lunch on the outside display.

Saturday evening, Kiyoshi and his wife Yoshi met us at our hotel and the four of us made our way to the Rappongi Hills area to meet old family friends and brothers Tomo & Yoshi. They took us to their favorite sushi restaurant for another fantastic Japanese meal of small, progressive dishes with sake pairings. Highlights of the meal included delectable octopus and a very traditional plate that included crab, clams, bean and crab brains. One item had no English translation, but it was also very good. This meal was a bit exotic for Lisa, but Stephen ate everything on his plate and asked for more.

We finished off the night in Rappongi by taking in a Beatles cover band in a bustling night club. Apparently the fab 4 are still quite popular with the Japanese.

Tokyo Day 2

Second day in Tokyo and we're still getting up to speed. We thought we were off to a great start arriving to the train station early with a plan to get to our hotel in Ginza. However, the clueless ticket man threw us off course by suggesting we'd be better off taking the Subway. Keep in mind the Shinagawa station, where we were at, does not offer subway services. We sorted ourselves out over coffee at Starbucks where a kindly European confirmed we were on the right track to begin with. We returned to the ticket counter, purchased tickets on the Yamanote trainline and made our way to Ginza.

Unfortunately language, cultural barriers and a reservation at a brand new hotel conspired against us. Neither our taxi driver or the friendly policeman he asked for directions had any idea where we might find the Conrad Hilton hotel. After calling the hotel's phone and fax numbers, they found the address and delivered us to our hotel.

After checking into our hotel and taking time to admire the amazing view of the city from our room, we took a city and harbor tour of Tokyo. The harbor tour proved to be the most dangerous event in Tokyo, with low bridges that would have put Stephen in the hospital if it weren't for a crew member pointing out the low hanging girders.

The tour included stops at Asakusa to see a Buddhist temple and the Imperial Palace, which unfortunately opens to the public just twice a year.

For the evening, Kiyoshi met us in his neighborhood, Shibuya. He treated us to a fantastic Shabu Shabu dinner, which served as the culinary highlight for Lisa. We closed out the evening by admiring the largest crowd of people we'd ever seen at midnight. This crowded city square provides Starbucks with its largest grossing store in the world.







For more photos of our time in Tokyo click here

Tokyo Arrival

Tokyo's Narita airport doesn't seem all that different from airports anywhere, outside of the fact that its clean, easy to navigate and it just works. But you truly know you've arrived somewhere new after walking down into the train station below. Fortunately, the information desk got us pointed to the right train for an express trip to Shinagawa Station. After a quick 60 minute trip into the city, we emerged into a mad crush of people. We walked the length of a giant train twice before finding the right exit for our hotel.

After a quick cleanup, we met friend and Microsoft colleague Kiyoshi in the nightclub at the top of the hotel. Somehow in going from our 9th floor room to the 30th floor night club we managed to go back to the 1950's. At least that's the time period the band thought it was. We apologize we don't have photos to share, but the band's attire would probably blind you anyway. Kiyoshi assured us that such behavior was uncommon. Fortunately the views of the city and Tokyo tower from the nightclub made up for the incredibly bad singing, dancing and fashion on display there.