Dear Shaded Viewers,
I cannot tell you what a great time I had in Tokyo, I'm going to give you a little diary like re-cap. Here is Day 1, more to follow. The founder of ZOOM PROJECT, Yuichi Imai, came with Akiko Hamaoka to greet me at the airport. Anyone that knows me knows that my idea of luxury is having a driver 24/7 . Thank you to ASVOFF Tokyo's sponsor Chrysler for providing a special ASVOFF car and my non-driver 'driver' Takamitsu Maejima, for always being there even though the exit from Tokyo was a bit of a mystery tour.
Shinichi Sato, a big supporter of ASVOFF Tokyo for the past few years, took Akiko and I out to an amazing dinner at Yakumo Saryo. It is a very discrete location, not easy to find in fact, but a real treasure. Akiko has been wanting to take me there for a while. The dishes were refined and sublime, it was great to see the chef prepare each dish. There were so many courses it is difficult for me to say which was my favorite. I did enjoy watching the pastry chef prepare Wagashi, Japanese traditional sweets, Kinton, Kuri-Chestnut. I never tasted chestnut anything close to that.
A Huge Thank You to the whole ASVOFF Tokyo team, thank you for your amazing energy, hard work and always high spirits. I cannot really think of a way to express what is in my heart just a HUGE THANK YOU to the whole ASVOFF Tokyo team and wonderful sponsors and of course to Akiko Hamaoka who has been working on ASVOFF Tokyo for the past 5 years and to Jed Root for introducing me to George Inaki. I am speechless, all I can say is that I'm truly touched .
Later,
Diane
