The thing about Home is...

...the weather is schizo. Rainstorms and then sunshine.

...there is a store in the mall that sell things only sold on TV.

...there are commercial breaks every seven minutes on television.

...people are nervous about the economy. Houses everywhere are being repossessed and the malls were packed with people returning things, but not buying.

...I like having a car.

...my mum has an Omega shiatsu massage chair that works you over like a masseur. I've named it. We're in love.

...it's familiar and foreign at the same time.

The sun is out, and the that's the novelty of this trip. Bright, clear, cool but changeable and I think another storm is on the way.

The economy is the topic of every conversation. Almost everyone has been affected in one way or another. The flat next door has been repossessed and is unlikely to be the only one in the area. Stores are closing. The sales are extreme but still not driving people to spend.

We have quiet Christmases. There are no children. Mum works and isn't done until Christmas afternoon. I cook for her. We ate prime rib and crab. We drank wine. We opened presents late in the afternoon and had a leisurely meal. There is a lot of extended family in the area, but we have our quiet informal celebration.

My mum stunned us with a story about a man she was engaged to when she met my father. We never knew she was engaged to someone else. Or that she was a nanny. Or really what life in the midwest in the early 60s was like. How strange to know so little about one's parents before we were around. Still there is something new to learn from sitting and talking about life experience's over a bottle of wine.

It's nice to be able to share a relaxing holiday with family. So many have to deal with familial drama and emotional battle. People are driven to vent anyway they can (including Facebook status updates). I think we dealt with all of our drama years ago. We are comfortable in each other's presence now. That is a blessing.

As is seeing friends. Being made jealous by their lives, loves, interests and passions. How wonderful to see people thrive and enjoy life. And to rekindle familiar friendships based on long intersecting threads of memories.

Midway through the trip I'm content. And that's good.

Fries with your brand?

People are lining up, apparently, for Tokyo's new unbranded quarter-pounder restaurants, a kind of Muji fast food with only two menu items.

I wonder if businessmen sleep in them in the early hours of the morning as well.

The Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai

It was almost exactly a year ago that I visited Mumbai, that I sat and had coffee with a colleague in the salon of this hotel which is now the the scene of devastating terrorism. One tries to not let the memory of a place be completely rewritten, but the sight of the burning hotel and the violent chaos is now overlaid on the memory of Mumbai's sights, smells and noises.

Movember

An odd ode to the moustache as we celebrate a month of cheesy Facebook profile pictures and laughable attempts at facial hair growth albeit for the good cause of highlighting men's health issues. But let's be honest, that's not why men are growing them. It's to see if they can.

I didn't do it. I look like a civil servant with a moustache.

When is a teacup a storm?

The numbers story of the size and impact of Motrin-gate. Did Motrin do the right thing in pulling the ad after 'baby-wearing' mums tweeted in outrage?

As seen on the web this week

Good.is Great info graphics
Europeana.eu: The greatest hits of European culture
The argument for top-to-bottom customer experience strategy
ITV's product placement code of conduct

Sao Paulo

This is the Octavio Frias bridge (from Wikipedia) and an image of all of the contradictions nd wonder I experienced in a brief and busy business trip to Sao Paulo.

The year-old bridge was built to ease the heaving traffic over the Pinheiros river. Traffic which occurs at all hours and is a common moan of the Paulistanos I met.

My less impressive pictures were taken quickly my own pictures from the hotel room and from cars.

Sao Paulo is a huge, sprawling city of high rise buildings interspersed with low single story houses and many precarious 'shanty' towns - entire communities living in plyboard and metal-walled warrens. It is urban, and without the dramatic landscape of Brazil's better known city, Rio. It is apparent there is no urban planning, no zoning, no delineation between commercial and residential. There is, however, an enormous economic gap in Sao Paulo, Brazil's wealthiest city but with many living in poverty, on the sides of roads, selling peanuts and drinks at traffic lights. We stayed in the business district, Morumbi, but even near our luxury hotel were the shanty towns and roadside bars. There was a garage selling tires and cachaca served by a man with a gun holster slung over his shoulder. Paulistanos are concerned for their personal safety. Many business professionals ride in armoured cars and do not talk about having children for fear of kidnapping. Yet for all of the social and economic problems, what I carry with me from Sao Paulo was how cosmopolitan the city was and how gracious our hosts were.

Visiting any city on business is deceptive. One usually travels from the hotel to office towers to nice restaurants and back. One has to learn about a place from unguarded moments and from the people one meets. Our colleagues in Sao Paulo were warm, funny, cosmopolitan and proud of their city (even if a few can't wait to get out of it.) Kissing is customary. Upon being introduced to a business colleague of the opposite sex a kiss is given on the cheek right away. Kissing is also a popular pastime of the young and there was mouthwash in every restroom I went to. As one could imagine, the Brazilians are a very sensual people. It is in the language, music, food and more.

One of many quirks of Sao Paulo (and maybe Brazil) is that a drive in isn't a place one takes a car to see a movie (this got a big laugh from a colleague) but a cheap place one takes a car (and a partner) to have intercourse in parking spaces enclosed by curtains. We didn't visit one, but that's what I was told. You've been warned.

It is through food, of course, that one experiences a place on a business trip. Brazilians love salgadhinos (appetizers). We ate bacalau (fried balls of salted codfish), hearts of palm, farofa ( a mushy pate made from manioc flour, eggs and other things), empadas, fried puffs of cheese bread, mangos and other tropical fruits and an exhausting Churrascaria meal.

Churrascarias are Brazilian steakhouses. One sits with a red and green card. If the green side is up, waiters carrying various types of barbequed meat on skewers descend. We ate at one of the most popular, Fogo de Chao. Within minutes our plates were filled with all types of grilled steak, deliciously salted kidneys, chicken, lamb, and more; and within minutes I had flipped the card over to red to ease the bombardment and to marvel at a plate full of mindnumbing, stomach cramping, but delicious beef and organ meat. Eaten, of course, with caipirinhas or beer. It was the most gluttonous meal I've had in a long time. And the next day, I felt sluggish. But there were client meetings and long flights home to be had.

So, my first trip to South America, and indeed the Southern Hemisphere although guarded and business-orientated was a success.