Hoff Tour

One of the most loved features of the Hoff Tour was the weekend. After the first week of seminars, dinners with speakers, company visits all day, on and off the bus, late nights in Roppongi, hurried lunches, being out of touch with the market and your portfolio, all a fund manager wanted to do was rest. So we would often go to traditional ryokans in Kyoto or some remote part of Japan for the hot baths, plush futons on tatami mats, and a group kaiseki dinner.

Dinner was fun because of all the different dishes which come through the course of the meal.

But this dinner was different. Jim brought along a box full of Groucho Marx glasses and a bunch of animal noses. We all had had our baths, so the routine was to wear the ryokan yukatas to dinner. Everyone put on the glasses and the serving ladies put on the animal noses. It was a scream! Jim made me wear a captain's hat, and he had one for himself. Robin looks like Peter Sellers, don't you think?

The mama san for the Hiiragiya Ryokan sent me a special note afterwards saying how much they loved it. Lots of pictures get taken at these ryokan's kaiseki dinners, but never one like the Hoff Tour!

Dear Friends

Today I initiate the Hoff Tour of Japan blog. This is a backward looking blog. It will contain details of Hoff Tours from the first Grieveson Grant tour through to the last Hoff Tour.

I will be inserting photos, itineraries, company data, anecdotes and all the other stuff to make the Hoff Tour rememberance a pleasant one.

This first photo is of me with Emile and Jim Bogin. Emile used to work for Jim McAlear at Columbia in Portland (more about that Jim in later postings) and came on several tours. A couple years ago Emile called me up and we had him over to the house in Shimo Uma for nabe. Bogin was also in town for company visits so we had a nice little reunion.

Yours,

Paul Hoff