tokyo DECEMBER 2011 weekenderJapan’s premier English language magazine Since 1970 ROUGH INSIDE: 2011 IN PICTURES YEAR? LUXURY GIFTS SAYONARA A STYLISH NEW YEAR 2011! LOOKING BACK/FORWARD CHRISTMAS HAKUBA Business leaders share their Your guide to a very merry Get ready for the slopes and thoughts on 2011 & 2012 Christmas in Tokyo book your ski trip Also: Brangelina in Tokyo, Fired banker speaks out, NYE champagne, Hit the ice in Midtown, Agenda, Party pictures and much more... Tokyo Weekender_CH6_DV6_JP.indd 1 9/28/11 2:49 PM DECEMBER, 2011 CONTENTS 24 PLUS! CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR AGENDA CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN P48 Staying in Tokyo? We can help you have an authentic Christmas in the city. 11 40 14 A YEAR IN PICTURES HAKUBA LOOKING BACK/FORWARD Join us in saying sayonara to 2011 Get ready for the ski season with our Business leaders share their thoughts with our year-end review. guide to Japan’s most popular resort. on 2011 & 2012. 08 Annus Horribilis 20 Freescale Japan 32 People, Parties, Places Ian de Stains looks back at 2011. The coming ‘silicon boom’ will change the Bill Hersey meets Brangelina and world says a gaijin company president. parties with F1 superstars. 17 Through the Wire We take a look at some of the headlines 22 Gift Guide 39 Hit the Ice that will shape the news in 2012 with a Need last minute Christmas gift ideas? Tokyo Midtown’s Ice Rink reopens little help from Asia Daily Wire. We’ve got all bases covered. for 2012. 18 Moving on Up 27 Be Savvy about Bubbly 47 O-Shogatsu A fired banker talks about being let go One of Tokyo’s top sommeliers talks Our man takes a look at New Year and the future of finance in Tokyo. bubbly ahead of New Years Eve. traditions in Japan. weekendertokyo Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! December 2011 Publisher Ray Pedersen Editor-in-Chief Pia von Waldau Editor Stephen Parker Art Director Liam Ramshaw Advertising Sales Director Tomas Castro Media Consultants Mary Rudow, Nick Nakazawa Vika Maslyuk Editorial Associates Chris Jones, Benjamin Freeland, Garrett DeOrio, Ayako Fujiwara, Vivian Morelli Executive Advisor Hiro M. Ishibashi HMI & Associates Inc Contributing Editors Society Bill Hersey Opinion Ian de Stains OBE Cover Photograph Lenny-Baptiste Conil (www.LennyConil.fr) Cover Model Cesar de Sainte Maresville Additional Photography Mami Tanabe, Misha Janette IT Manager Nick Adams System Development Stephane Boudoux, Zia Ur-Rahman The Grinch Asi Rinestine EST. Corky Alexander and Susan Scully, 1970 Published by Bulbous Cell Media Group www.bulbouscell.com Published monthly at the Regency Shinsaka Building, 5th floor 8-5-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 (03) 6846-5615 / (03) 6846-5616 (fax) [email protected] Tokyo Weekender is available at selected locations in Japan and is available for home and office subscription with Fujisan Magazine For ad sales inquiries, please call (03) 6846-5615 or email: [email protected] www.tokyoweekender.com Opinions expressed by Weekender contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher Follow Tokyo Weekender on Twitter: @weekenderjapan Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/tokyo.weekender DECEMBER 2011 www.tokyoweekender.com Discover the city and beyond Experience Saigon in an environment inspired by Oriental traditions. Be at home at a hotel where you have the time and space to enjoy the things that are most important to you. Welcome to New World Saigon Hotel. 76 Le Lai Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City tel: +84 8 3822 8888 fax: +84 8 3823 0710 [email protected] saigon.newworldhotels.com 8 OPINION IAN DE STAINS At tHE HAUNtED END Of tHE YEAR by Ian de Stains OBE By what witchcraft I know not, we are see- It is entirely reasonable and understandable There are many who will argue that nuclear ing the winding down of another year. The that such people will look to the end of their energy can never be safe and that Fukushima— evenings grow darker ever earlier, leaving us annus horribilis as a chance to embrace what like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island before to ponder why it is that each twelfth month the future might bring. For those of us who it—is ample proof of that. However in a world seems to fly even faster than the one before. were more fortunate and less affected, it is where the demand for energy is rising faster We go through annual routines dictated by perhaps a moment for serious reflection: on than the natural means to meet such demand, the calendar and wonder why it feels like why we were spared the suffering visited the idea of abandoning the nuclear option is by only yesterday that we last considered them on others; on what we might do to alleviate no means a done deal. executed. To have a birthday in December is perhaps to feel this more acutely than most, Nor, let it be said, are any of the options being since each year-end tips the scale a little less “I seem to remember put forward by the IMF and the ECB to resolve in our favor. Of course, all birthdays have the the increasingly complex problems in the same impact, but a December birthday has asking much the same eurozone. It is not a far stretch to link the two about it a singular air. question in a column last because a meltdown of the euro would have catastrophic consequences far beyond Europe. The year end is a time, of course, for taking December. Or was it just There is no provision in the European Treaty stock; for giving thanks for our many bless- yesterday?” for a country to leave the euro; once you’re in, ings and—in the Japanese way of things—let- you’re caught up in the mechanism (as Greece ting go, bonenkai-style, of things that we’d has recently found). So here again, the year end rather simply put behind us. begs a question: where are we going economi- that suffering; on the courage of the count- cally? I seem to remember asking much the No-one who was around at the time is likely to less volunteers who’ve worked so tirelessly same question in a column last December. Or forget March 11th, especially those who were to help the no-less courageous survivors. Not was it just yesterday? closest to the epicenter of the earthquake; forgetting, of course, those individuals who Ian de Stains OBE is the author of “The Busi- those who experienced the wrath of the are daily risking their lives working to make ness Travellers’ Handbook to Japan” published tsunami; those who suffered the devastating the damaged reactors safe again. by Stacey International in the UK and avail- consequences of the nuclear failures. able from Amazon. DECEMBER 2011 www.tokyoweekender.com Away on business or leisure, find comfort in a familiar environment — luxurious in Oakwood Premier, elegant in Oakwood Residence or stylish in Oakwood Apartments. Come home to the ease of Oakwood living in Asia. Oakwood offers a choice of 7 hot spot locations in Asia's most cosmopolitan city, Tokyo — Aoyama, Akasaka, Azabujyuban, Midtown, Roppongi and Shirokane. For further details, please visit our website or call (81-3) 5412 3131 or email us [email protected]. 10 WEEKENDER SAYONARA 2011 2011 IN PICTURES SEPTEMBER: Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan This evacuation centre is now almost empty, except for one volunteer who is still living here and some kids playing among the cardboard packs that have served to provide some privacy for the hundred-odd families who were living here. Now they have all moved into temporary homes. DECEMBER 2011 www.tokyoweekender.com SAYONARA 2011 WEEKENDER 11 Photo: © Nobuyuki Kobayashi / JRCS / Kobayashi Nobuyuki © Photo: www.tokyoweekender.com DECEMBER 2011 12 WEEKENDER SAYONARA 2011 DECEMBER 2011 www.tokyoweekender.com SAYONARA 2011 WEEKENDER 13 2011 IN PICTURES Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, Japan Two Japanese Red Cross volunteers walk near Rikuzentakata Junior high school. Much of the debris has been cleared, and roads are clearly seen. The Japanese government has begun reconstruction planning but some areas make take five years to rebuild. Photo: © Nobuyuki Kobayashi / JRCS / Kobayashi Nobuyuki © Photo: www.tokyoweekender.com DECEMBER 2011 14 BUSINESS LOOKING BACK/FORWARD JAPANESE RED CROSS Q&A Photo: Tokyo Weekender Tokyo Photo: Satoshi Sugai, Director of The Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Task Force, has worked for the Red Cross for 27 years. He served in the international department in Geneva and also worked in Afghanistan, North Korea, Kosovo, Rwanda, Pakistan and many other countries. “Many people join the Red Cross to help out in poor countries, but after 3/11 we all realized that humanitarian work doesn’t mean we only work overseas, humanitarian needs affect Japan too.” he says. To find out more or donate, visit: www.jrc.or.jp/english Photo: © Nobuyuki Kobayashi / JRCS / Kobayashi Nobuyuki © Photo: DECEMBER 2011 www.tokyoweekender.com LOOKING BACK/FORWARD BUSINESS 15 apanese Red Cross played a pivotal societies worldwide we have received 53 Will the nuclear disaster make you change role during the triple disaster in billion yen (and counting). The money was the way you do things? March. In our summary of the year enough to run the program in an accountable We want to call all Red Cross societies to do Tokyo Weekender spoke with one of way for three years, of course more donations something more in case of nuclear accidents, the main actors in event that mostly means more money for survivors. as part of this we are coordinating with J defined 2011 for us. the government and TEPCO to decide what Are you still raising money? to do in the future.