Sayonara '05

My time in Tokyo for 2005 is coming to a close. I'll be going back to TX for the holidays and returning here in January. The end of the year brings a lot of busy time at work. The end of the fiscal year is Nov 30 and in addition there is the end of the calendar year on Dec 31. Two Wednesdays ago, we had our company-wide year-end party at the Grand Ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo. It was a circus theme, with clowns and a lady walking on stilts and a guy balancing on chairs stacked up to the ceiling. There was a prize lottery where employess won a digital camera, a 60GB iPod, a steak dinner, a weekend stay at the Grand Hyatt, a trip for two to Kyoto, and a trip for two to Seoul, South Korea. Needless to say, I won none of those. But the party was fun. And then this past Wednesday, we had our team year-end party at Hard Rock Cafe and karaoke afterwards. Additionally, I have started a new project and have tried to complete as much as possible before I leave for the holidays so that I can relax. I'm really looking forward to being home for two weeks and seeing family and friends. This has been a crazy year for me, going from NY to Tokyo to TX to NY and back to Tokyo and settling into my new job and looking for an apartment in Tokyo and making new friends in Tokyo and learning Japanese and all the while working harder and longer hours. I'm taking my camera home, so look out for pics from the holidays in TX.

私はテキサスにかえります。おつかれさまでした。

（；_・）

Yesterday was Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan and we had the day off. Today is not a holiday here, but they are serving a Thanksgiving buffet at the cafe in our office. I just had my sad little cafe Thanksgiving dinner at my desk. They were worried that they'd run out of turkey, so they're giving half turkey, half pepper chicken. Rip. And the mashed potatoes look like mashed potato pellets. And there's no dressing. Missing home just a little today.

Hong Kong

Discover Hong Kong - this web site shows areas of Hong Kong where most of my pictures were taken.

My friend, Lynne, from NYC was in Tokyo last week on a business trip for the Tokyo Motor Show. We had a pretty good time, I showed her around my part of town a bit and she also wandered around by herself on the days that I was working. We had dinner in Shibuya one night with one of her colleagues who was also here on business. Thursday night we went out with some of my coworkers to a free sushi and sake work dinner party thingy. All the while I was following my Astros through the playoffs, trying to listen to Milo Hamilton and Alan Ashby online in the morning while at work. It's hard to catch American sports live in Asia, because the times are such that you're either at work or you cannot find any places open early enough to show them. Argh! On Saturday, Lynne next went to Hong Kong on her business trip and I joined her. We got there Saturday night and I stayed until Tuesday, she until Wednesday. The first two games of the World Series were on at like 7:00 AM and we did not catch them, but checked up on the games online.

Anyway, Hong Kong was pretty cool. It's a much more international city than Tokyo I think. Where Tokyo is mostly Japanese with a small foreign population (Korean, Chinese, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Yanks, etc.), Hong Kong seems to have a more diverse population from all over Asia and the West. It was warmer than Tokyo, probably in the high 70s/low 80s. There are expats everywhere. English and Chinese both are official languages of Hong Kong, so mostly everything is in both languages and most people speak English, which makes it easier to get around. Also it's much cheaper than Tokyo and there's no sales tax, which is probably why there's so much shopping. On Sunday Lynne and I just walked around everywhere, taking the tram, walking the streets of Central, getting lost and finding our way. I ended up getting a pretty stellar long black wool coat with a Chinese cut and with fur on the inside of the collar that's removable. Plus they gave me a free Chinese style shirt. Lynne had a business meeting on Monday, so I mostly just walked around by myself in the Kowloon district, on the mainland China side. It was so crowded and there were little markets strung about everywhere I went. There was a flower market, jade market, goldfish market, camera market, Chinese goods market, Western goods market, and so on. If I had found more time, I would have gone to see the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island near the airport, but first you have to get there and then it's a couple hour roundtrip walk up and down the mountain. Lynne and I met up later and went to take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak, which is a high mountain right on the edge of the city. In the old colonial days, the only people who took the train up the peak were the wealthy people who lived up there and the few Chinese workers who worked for them. The ride up was freakier than I expected. It's on a 45 degree angle and goes really slow, like that first hill of the Texas Cyclone but about 10 times higher. And it stopped halfway up to let some people off! You ride alongside buildings that look crooked because you're at such an incline. But once you get to the top the view is really amazing. We were told to go at night and hopefully get lucky that there would be no haze or fog, and we lucked out. There is a walkway that goes almost entirely around the top of the peak. And there are some huge homes up there. We had dinner at a place overlooking the city and sat outside on the balcony.

The only thing I noticed about Hong Kong is that the air was pretty grimey and hazey, it's no place for a sensitive nose. I came down with some kind of allergies on my last day in Hong Kong and was coughing up a storm. But I bought some medicine in the Hong Kong airport and am slowly recovering. So then I arrived back into Tokyo sick and had to go back to work and miss the next two games of the World Series, but alas the Astros returned to their familiar form in getting you all riled up and excited and pooping out at the end. Swept in the series. I need time to contemplate this and get over it. I'm still proud that they got so far having come from where they came from in the middle of the season. Still, it hurts.

Hiroshima & Miyajima

This past week we had off Monday and Friday for Japanese holidays (Respect for the Aged Day and Autumnal Equinox Day, respectively). Thursday evening I flew with a colleague to Hiroshima and nearby Miyajima island for a couple days vacation. It was really nice to get out of Tokyo for a bit and see some other areas of Japan. I plan to go to Kyoto, the old ancient capital, sometime in the fall and also skiing somewhere in Honshu or Hokkaido in the winter. Being in Hiroshima was strange, being in an area where an atomic bomb was dropped. I learned a lot at the Peace Memorial Museum. Like how the bomb was designed and why and why it eventually dropped on Hiroshima. I didn't know that Albert Einstein was involved either. Some German-descended physicists in the US knew that the fission reaction was discovered in Germany in 1939 and they convinced Einstein to sign a letter to FDR to propel the research and design of a bomb for the protection of the US. $2 billion dollars were spent on its design. In early 1945, Japan was being bombarded daily from US airplanes. They had originally intended on dropping the bomb on Germany, but later decided on Japan because they believed Germany could gather more information on developing the bomb if it had been dropped on them instead. Also the US was trying to lessen the influence of the growing Soviet Union and believed that dropping it on a weakened Japan would keep it from going to war with the USSR and eventually being overtaken by the Soviets. During the Allied bombing of Japan in 1945, a few cities were left untouched in order to properly measure the full impact of the atomic bomb. Out of the five cities on the list, Hiroshima was a military center, an education center, had a population of more than 200,000, and there were no known Allied POW camps in the city. So the decision was made to drop it on Hiroshima.

The island of Miyajima is really gorgeous and peaceful. It is an ancient sacred island in Japan, where no one is allowed be born or die, there are no hospitals or cemeteries on it. The island has shrines, the floating torii, a five-storied pagoda, an old town village, etc. You can also take a tram to the top of the mountain on the island, but we ran out of time to do that. In all, it was a nice trip.

While I was on vacation, I was trying to keep in touch with my parents in Houston via text messaging as Hurricane Rita was approaching. Luckily, they avoided the brunt of the storm, as it hit more in the Port Arthur and Beaumont areas, about 100 miles away from Houston. The only news I could get in Hiroshima was the coverage on BBC.

Nothing much else to report from Tokyo right now.

Been Away

Man, have I been busy. Moving, getting set up at new apartment, work, work events, my teammate at work was out for nearly 3 weeks, blah, blah, blah. What has changed. Hurricane Katrina hit and wiped out Southern Louisiana and Mississippi. Some friends of friends and their families living in New Orleans lost everything. Lots of people evacuated and will probably end up staying in Houston for good. Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist passed away.

While all of this was going on, I was busy moving into my new apartment. The first four days the air conditioning didn't work and I was sleeping in a pool of sweat with my windows open. After the first 14 days in my new place, I get a gas bill for nearly $64. Yesterday I finally received my shipment from the US after living in hotels since March. The first thing I did was test out my stereo and guitar amp. Whew, all is well. And I finally got internet service yesterday, too. As my friend Jennifer put it, "ahh, furniture and email". My friend Brent had his annual Lukarita party, which I was sorry to miss. My sister got a teaching job for this school year in Denver, so she was excited about that. She had a birthday a couple weeks ago, but I still have not been able to get in touch with her (Linsey, dadgummit!! :) This past weekend I ran a 5K/10K charity race at the Japan Imperial Palace. My company got 1st place in both the men's and women's 5K (no, it wasn't me). Later that same day, we had a BBQ for the IT group of my company at a park near Tamagawa River. I got slightly sunburned from being outside all day and today it's peeling away. I went to get money out of the ATM a couple weeks ago and, as my mind was so drained and occupied, I forgot to get the 10,000 yen out of the machine and didn't realize it until a few hours later. Idiot! But then this weekend as I was leaving the charity race, what did I find but 10,000 yen on the ground in the park with nobody in sight. Karma! Or else God is really bored and just messing with me.

Now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to catch the Texas vs. Ohio State game this Sunday morning at 9 AM, because no sports bars I've found in Tokyo are open at that time. Gotta find a webcast or something. Any ideas, please email me.

BBQ in Wakasu

Not Cool

Ok, the first couple little earthquakes I felt in Japan were kind of soothing and gentle. But today I am in the office (yes on a Saturday, putting my six-month project into production) and a big earthquake just occurred and it's continuing in little spurts. Now everyone in the office is wearing their company-distributed green hard hats, looking like a bunch of Mario Bros. And now my stomach feels queezy and an announcement came on saying they stopped the elevators because it was pretty big and I'm on the 30th floor. One of our System Administration guys just asked me if that was my first one and I said that's the biggest one I've felt and he said congratulations how do you feel and I said queezy and he said haha I feel closer to heaven. Not cool, dude, not cool.

Have you ever...

...tried to open a bank account where nobody at the bank spoke English well enough where you could actually ask them questions? And in order to open the bank account, you must have a medical insurance card on which the only thing you can read is your birth date? And even your birth date looked different because it was in Japanese style where years are counted by the year of the emperor's rule at that time? So instead of 1976, you were suddenly born in 51? Not 1951, just 51? Oh yeah and did you know that this year is 17? And then they asked you to fill in the bank account form by using your full name in Japanese katakana characters? And the Japanese bank tellers would not write your name for you so you had to write it yourself? Hello, everyone, my name is　ハロッド　クリストファー。

Japan -> Houston -> NYC -> Japan

I have not posted in a long time. Let me see if I can remember all that's been going on.

I settled mostly everything for converting to a Japan employee, so I am moving back to Tokyo for a year or so. It's up to me how long I wish to stay, I can leave when I want to. I left Tokyo a couple weeks ago, because my 90 day visa was expiring, so I went to visit friends and family in Houston. The same day I left, my colleague and friend Noriko left my company, so that was a major disappointment. She had been assigned to me as my "buddy" to show me the ropes around the office and help me get around Tokyo. I also met many people through her, both at work and outside work. But she'll still be around in Tokyo, so we'll get to hang out. This coming weekend, I may be going with her and some others to a white sand beach that's a few hours from Tokyo by train. We have Monday off for a Japanese holiday, Marine Day I think. One of many random Japanese holidays.

I surprised my parents by arriving in Houston about a week before I told them I could come home. My sister picked me up at the airport. I'm glad they didn't hear about it beforehand, because Linsey cannot keep secrets and ended up telling everyone except my parents. But they were definitely surprised. I got home and walked into the office where my mother was at the computer and sat next to her and she was looking at me like I was a ghost. Later I surprised my dad when he got home from work by just waiting in the office where he always goes after work to put down his briefcase. I had to do a lot of preparing for the move while I was home, like shopping for clothes and furniture and organizing things, so I didn't have as much time for fun things as I would have liked. But I got to hang out with most of my friends. Holden's band played at the Rhythm Room in Houston for Davis's 30th birthday. I ran into McCord there, a friend who lived in Tokyo for three years, so we chatted about it for a bit. My buddy, Michael, proposed to his girlfriend, Sarah, a week or so before I came into town and so it was good to see him. They plan to marry sometime next April. I hope to make it but seeing as I'm on the other side of the world, it may be difficult. Over my last weekend home we had a family gathering, where my cousin Jon showed us photos from his recent trip to China. It looked like he saw more during 12 days in China than I saw during 3 months in Japan.

Then I flew to New York to work for a week and to complete what I thought I needed to for relocating to Japan, like filling out documents, visiting the Japanese embassy, and so on. But I ended up not having to do any of that. My manager told me that the corporate housing had run out so I needed to make my own hotel reservations. I made reservations at the Soho Grand which they told me was on my company's preferred list. After one night staying there, I spoke with the travel agent for my flight back to Tokyo and double-checked that the hotel was on my company's preferred list, but this time they told me it wasn't. What a pain. So after work I moved to another hotel, Morgans on Madison Avenue. The location was worse for my commute but better for being close to friends. I hung out mostly every night. For July 4th weekend, my friend Ali invited Brooke, Margaret, and me to the Hamptons. Her friend Sam has a house, I think, in Bridgehampton. I'd never been out there before and it was really nice. It reminded me of being at my family's old beach house in Galveston. The beach was less than a minute walking distance. It was good to get back onto a beach and into the salt water, even if it was purty dadbern cold. Sam and his buddy Hooper cooked out jalapeno burgers and other stuff and we went out on the town for a bit Sunday night. The next day I hit the beach some more and played in the pool and then we headed back to the city in the afternoon. (Brooke says: "You don't mention us having fun with the cool-as-hell tubes in the pool or anything." Yes, Brooke and I played a lot with the floaty tubes in the pool while Margaret laid out and laughed at us and talked about her new boyfriend, Bernard, whom I coined as Bernardino Suave.) Later that night, a friend of Brooke's from work, Christine, had a small dinner party at her place, which coincidentally was around the corner from my hotel. We couldn't really see the fireworks display on the East River, but we heard them loud and clear, it sounded like a war zone, they were the loudest and biggest I'd ever heard. Dylan came by to hang out for a bit, too. It was good to see her. The next morning I checked out of my hotel and made my way to JFK, flying Japanese airline ANA back to Tokyo. It was a nice but long 14 hour flight. They give you noise-canceling headphones, down-filled pillows and blankets, and there were many movies to choose from. I think I'm pretty much over the jetlag already. Guess I'm getting used to this crazy time-change, day-change business.

So I'm back in the Tokyo office now, met with HR, got my new business cards (English on one side, Japanese on the other side), getting my visa (gaijin card) in a few weeks, need to open a Japanese bank account, get my stuff shipped from Houston, and start looking for an apartment. It's weird to be back and knowing it's not just for a short business trip and knowing I won't see any friends or family back home until December.

Houston Blues in Tokyo

Next weekend is Japan's Blues Carnival, I just found out today, so many blues musicians are in town. Houston blues guitarist, Little Joe Washington, is playing at Shibuya Club Quattro on June 16. That's right, the same homeless guy who gets up and rips on the guitar at places in downtown Houston and at the Continental Club, and who gets around town on bicycles he trades for at the Third Ward swap meet, and who hocks his guitars when he runs out of money, and who is known for collecting everything and creating a mass of filth where he ends up squatting (like the top story of the Continental Club), is going to be playing in Tokyo. For a measly 6,000 Yen ($56 US). I can't believe it.

Approaching 60 Days

I haven't updated the blog in a while. I've been too busy working and playing and not having visited anything where I took photos. I went to see that jazz show, which was really cool. But the two girls I went with, Noriko and Rei, were not expecting such rocky, jammy kind of jazz. They were expecting low key piano and horns or something. I guess they didn't know what jazz fusion was when I told them :D But they still liked it. It was really exotic stuff, too, there are three Africans in the band, the guitarist is Brazilian living in Austria (ok), and the drummer is from Brooklyn. I actually talked to him a bit after the show.

Then last weekend I went to look at apartments to get an idea of where I would want to live and how much I can expect to pay. Unbelievably, it's more expensive than Manhattan. To live reasonably close to work (within 3 subway stops or so) I will be paying 190,000 to 250,000 yen (divide it by 107 for US$) for a one-bedroom apartment. My company has a few real estate brokerages they use and I have two different brokers helping me. I was with one of them that weekend, Keiko-san. She picked me up at my hotel and we drove all over Tokyo. I hadn't been in a car since I got here, other than a taxi. I didn't think to wear shoes that would slip off easily because I had to remove my shoes to see each place. So Keiko-san made me wear some ridiculous sandals she had in her car. When looking again on Sunday, I made sure to wear my slip-on work shoes. It was cool to see some other areas that I hadn't seen yet, and I saw some things that I want to go back to see, like Ginza which is the Fifth Avenue of Tokyo and has an old famous kabuki theatre where they have headphones for foreigners to translate and explain what's going on. And I also want to check out some of Japanese hot springs, called onsen, that lie around the city. She recommended one in particular that is really nice and welcomes foreigners, which is not the case all the time because there are certain rules and protocol to follow which tourists often neglect. Like soaping off or shampooing in the hot springs, which is a major no-no. What igmo would think that that was ok in the first place? You basically just go and take a dip in boiling hot water and then they have masseuses and areas to eat and relax. Everyone walks around in funny robes and sandals.

Later last Saturday night I went to a house warming party for a colleague. He and his new wife are both Chinese so there was an ample amount of good Chinese food and my Kiwi manager-manager was grilling some lamb chops. But I couldn't eat too much because I was going to a birthday party of a friend of Noriko's. We went to a pan-American restaurant, and they had some awesome chili that tasted like home. Afterward we went to a dance club called Muse, which we have been to more than a few times. It's cavernous and has multiple levels. You enter through a little door and head downstairs to a dance floor area, a hang out area with tables and pool tables and there are little cubby-hole seating areas everywhere, then there is a lounge area further downstairs and even a large karaoke room and a vip room. I would expect to hear some Japanese dance music but no, it's all Western stuff and they love it. And of all people, we run into my manager who was there with another guy Pete, who is engaged to the head of HR. They had continued going out from the house-warming party and let their respective women head home. Pretty funny.

Then another week of work ensues.

This past Friday night, I went out with some colleagues after work for a small dinner and then karaoke for like 4 hours (oh noooo, ha ha). It was myself, Noriko, Ishimori-san (Belgian-Japanese), Florent (French), Marc (Brit), and some of Noriko's girlfriends, including one who was hmm puuurty nice. Annnyhoo, I rocked the house with my exquisite renditions of Mr. Brownstone by Guns N' Roses, Where Is My Mind? by the Pixies, the Rolling Stones, On A Plain by Nirvana, and then Marc and I did the Run DMC version of Walk This Way. Rock! The karaoke places here put everywhere else to shame. We were in a tall building overlooking the city and fully stocked with beverages and bits of food. You just pick up the telephone in the room to order something and boom it's there. The song selection was pretty impressive, Japanese songs, Korean songs, Chinese songs, and English songs. And they had everything from Top 40 to Iggy & the Stooges, which I would've sung but didn't want to scare anyone too much :)

Today the weather is really nice with a cool breeze, in the high 60's/low 70's. Well, that's it for now. The plan still is to come back to the US in mid-June, then probably move back here in July for a one-year stint.

Kamakura

Today I went to the town of Kamakura with my friend, Reiko, and two of her colleagues from Bloomberg, Takako and Luke (who was born in Taiwan, raised in the States, and attended college in Japan). It's about an hour train ride from Tokyo. It was nice to get out of the city for a bit, although the crowds were thick because of Golden Week. There is a nice little beach there and a group of old temples and the Great Buddha statue (above). We walked around the town to see the sights and stopped by the beach before heading back to Tokyo Station. Then we got some dinner at their office building where Bloomberg is located, across the street from Tokyo Station. We had last Friday off from work and this week we have off today, Wednesday, and Thursday. So it's a three-day weekend, one day of work, three-day weekend, one day of work, two-day weekend kind of week.

What's new with me. I had a telephone conversation with my manager in NY and my manager in Tokyo this week. The project I'm working on here has been extended in time due to the traders needing more time before they test the new software and code I'm upgrading right now, so I will now be here until mid-June before heading back to NYC for a couple weeks. Then, if my negotiating powers prevail and they pay me what I need to afford living here, I will be heading back to Tokyo for a one-year stint. But I can also leave before one year if I want to. I would like some time to travel around here more and, if my pocket book can handle it, Thailand and New Zealand and Australia and maybe Singapore and maybe Fiji and maybe China and and. Plus I'll need time to come back for a couple weeks over the Christmas holidays. I'm meeting with a guy in HR next week to go over the differences in Japanese benefits and the tax situation, then I'll speak again with my manager in NY. There are some trade-offs for working and living here. Working-wise, there is good comraderie within the Finance Technology team here and I get along well with my manager here, but then the team is smaller so I will be working harder and more hours. Living-wise, I think it's obvious, it's a foreign country which is exciting and hostile at the same time, for someone who knows little of the language. Hopefully next week I can also see some apartments.

Tomorrow night I'm going to see Joe Zawinul play at the Blue Note with my colleague, Noriko, and her friend, Rei. Should be fun.

Ueno Park

Once again, had a very busy week in the office but also a fun week outside the office. My friend, Noriko, had a birthday dinner with some friends on Monday night and she invited me. We went to an Italian restaurant. The appetizers were really good, but the main course was kind of like Hamburger Helper. One of the guys in the finance tech group at work is leaving the company in a couple weeks, so he took us out for drinks after work on Friday. (Social activities like drinking are very much part of the work culture in Japan.) I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to move here, so my company's real estate brokerage is taking me around to see some apartments next week. They do all the wheelin' and dealin' for you (because you need to speak Japanese, obviously). You just tell them what you need, what areas you're interested in, and how much you're willing to spend, and they go find you some places. I'm finally starting to get the hang of the food here, I think my stomach had some growing pains to go through. Everything you're used to in the West is very expensive here, like meat, cereal, orange juice, and canned or frozen vegetables like corn, peas, broccoli, green beans, and carrots. There is a lot of noodles and rice and funny little Asian vegetables like bits of seaweed and bamboo stalk and mushrooms and, for some reason, asparagus. My friend, Dudley, gave me the first season of Arrested Development on DVD before I left, which turned out to be greater than great because CNN and the Discovery Channel get really boring and monotonous (they've been talking about Pope stuff for a month now...next!). Last night I went to catch a flick at the local Virgin cinema near my apartment at Roppongi Hills. A very fru-fru, shi-shi, posh kind of cinema experience. Price of admission = 1800 yen, about $16.50. But hey when you're desperate for something else besides crazy Japanese game shows that you don't understand anyway. I ended up seeing National Treasure, which actually turned out better than I expected. Today I ventured to Ueno Park in north Tokyo, where there are many museums and old shrines dottings the park. It was a gorgeous day, so I mostly just walked around. I want to go back to see a couple of the museums at some point. I have some time. One month down, one to go. The week after next is Golden Week, where there are 4 national holidays in 7 days. One of those days, my friend Reiko is going to take me outside Tokyo to a town called Kamakura. Some guys from my office are getting together to go bowling one night, too. I also want to go see Joe Zawinul play at the Blue Note one night, he's a well known jazz fusion musician who once played with Miles Davis and helped buoy a lot of other great jazz musicians. I also just think it would be cool to see a jazz show in Tokyo.

Shibuya & Omotesando

地震!

My bed started shaking at about 7:30 this morning. It was just a small one but still...my first. Apparently they are pretty common here, like in California. Earthquaaake!!

Ohanami

Week II

What a busy week. Lots of work. The Senior VP of our division was in town this week from the States, so there were lots of meetings and stuff. He took us all out for dinner on Thursday night to a nice Thai restaurant called ROI on the top floor of a building near our office overlooking the city. The bathrooms had windows from floor to ceiling. I'm sure people with telescopes approve. I had to be home by 11:30 PM for a conference call with New York and London, but they ended up not calling me at 11:30 PM, so then I thought it must have been 12:30 PM because daylight savings started in the US, but they still didn't call, so I thought ok maybe it's 1:30 PM I guess, but they still didn't call, so I went to bed. Friday I arrive to work to find out that the traders wanted one of my projects to go into production over the weekend, so they could come in on Monday morning and use it. So there was a lot to do with synchronizing the project between New York, London, and Tokyo. I ended up staying at work until 8 PM. Afterward, my colleague Noriko invited me to dinner with her and her friend, Rei, at a Korean place nearby. This is the kind of restaurant I could not go to alone because there are no pictures on the menu and no English. It's amazing what kind of great places are hidden everywhere in this city. There was nothing more than a door in a basement to signify that this place even existed. But it was super good and nicely layed out. I get nervous when I have to take off my shoes because I don't want to slip and eat it on the wood floors. This place has those tables where you sit on a cushion on the floor and your feet drop down below the floor into a little pit underneath the table. Apparently Noriko knew the owner fairly well, we were treated very kindly. She brought us things we did not order. We had some kind of soup that is considered comfort food in Korea and some pizza-like seafood thing and some noodles and some bam buk ja which is a drink she explained is known for its "vitality" qualities. The story goes that a 90 year-old man and 70 year-old woman met one night long ago over some bam buk ja and blah blah blah she ends up pregnant. It tastes kinda like strawberry liqeuor with a little NyQuil zing. Not the greatest, but she gave it to us to be nice. Noriko and Rei knew each other when they went to the same international school in Japan, then they both went to the States sometime in high school, then they both went to college at Syracuse. Noriko has lived all over the world: Japan, the US, Singapore, Africa, England. We went out afterward and they were thinking about doing karaoke because Rei said Noriko has a good voice and that they were in a band in high school, Rei played bass and Noriko sang. Awesome! But we couldn't find a place that wasn't already packed so we just went to some other place and I proceeded to display my sweet 80's dance moves much to their amusement. Today I went to the Mori Art Museum and observatory on the top two floors of my office building (click the robot below for pics). I wish I were allowed to take photos from inside the museum, it was really cool. They had full scale models of New York, Tokyo, and Shanghai. It made me a little homesick. I could see my old office on Cortlandt Street, even my office in Jersey City, and both of my old apartment buildings on E 18 St and E 7 St. The views of Tokyo from the observatory were awesome. It's so different from New York, which is more vertical. Instead it's similar to cities in Europe where there are buildings everywhere but most of them are about 4 stories tall. But the size of Tokyo is much larger than any city I've ever seen. It just goes and goes. I took some photos, I wish it would have been a clearer day then I could have seen Mt. Fuji. Tomorrow we have our party at Yoyogi Park for Ohanami, which is observed during the spring time to celebrate the sprouting cherry blossoms. It is huge in Japanese culture. Everyone goes to the parks and has picnics with friends and family under the cherry blossoms.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Roppongi Hills Mori Tower

Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace

Graveyard near my apartment, with Tokyo Tower in background.

Grocery store

I went the grocery store today. Most of the labels have no English, you just have to trust your gut.

Mmm, Kellogg's Chicken-scratch breakfast cereal.

Gaijin in the City

Friday after work my colleagues took me out for some drinks as a celebratory welcoming. I guess they were very happy to have me here because they started buying little bits of food and lots of shots of tequila...yiiikes. I introduced Corona beer to my colleague Rao. There were quite a few people to start with, Takako, Rao, Noriko, Ben, Jega, Anand, Steve T., his fiance Pilar from HR, Steve W., Juliana from HR, her fiance, Dinesh, etc. But everyone eventually dropped off and it ended up being myself, Takako, Noriko, and Jega. They took me to "the gaijin" bar called Heartland. Gaijin is foreigner, and in this area there are a lot of them because of the international companies and embassies and there also are many Japanese girls looking for these gaijin. I'm sure the draw is something about money or the West or something. My colleague Noriko told me not to say what company I work for, because it's a green light for Japanese money-grubbers. But anyway, everyone in this bar was either a gaijin in a suit (me) or a Japanese girl. Nothing seedy or anything, just very odd. We met some other people, two Japanese girls and a Turkish girl and two Turkish guys, and went to yet another place called Muse which had a bunch of different levels. There was a dancing area, bar area, lounge area, dart board area, karaoke room (occupied by some other guys from my company). Then my colleagues went home and I stayed with the other people we met and went to another place called Motown which was way too expensive. I thought we had walked much farther than we had and I wasn't exactly sure where we were. But after leaving, I realized that I was around the corner from my apartment. The streets are so confusing here, there's no grid! It's like the Village in Manhattan but with more tiny little winding streets. Some streets look like nothing but alleyways but if you walk down them you will find the best little sushi restaurants and whatever. I made it back to my place and went to bed. The next morning I had brunch with my manager Steve and his fiance Pilar and another colleague named Bill who is from the States and has been here for just over two months. We ate at a place called The Hobgoblin that has English breakfast type food like eggs, big sausages, toast, etc. Afterwards, I went back to my place to relax since I had not had a real day of downtime for the past month.

The Day After

Once I get batteries for my camera I will take photos of all the cool stuff I saw yesterday in my blurry jet-lagged daze. My "manshun" is about 10 minutes walking time from my office building, Mori Tower at Roppongi Hills. There are many other US companies in the building, Yahoo is just below us, Goldman Sachs is somewhere else, among others. My company is on the 30th-32nd floors (I'm on the 30th). The elevators open on two stories at a time, so you take one to get to even-numbered floors and one to get to odd-numbered floors. One thing I'm a little miffed about is that there is no free coffee, tea, or water like in the NY offices. But, the view is amazing from all directions. Most of the buildings in Tokyo are 3-4 stories because of threat of earthquakes. There are a few areas with large buildings. My building was built with supposedly the world's best earthquake prone design, it basically sits on big metal balls and rolls around. Yikes, I'm not looking forward to feeling my first earthquake. Actually, my friend Melinda said her old architecture firm helped design this building. The top two floors contain a museum and an open viewing area of Tokyo. I'll have to check them out soon. Mt. Fuji can be seen in the distance on clear days. My manager Steve and his fiance, who works in HR, are both British and live nearby. They invited me and some other colleagues to their place last night for a couple beers and dinner. Steve and I took the long way to his place so he could show me around the area. I swear some of the intersections in this area where shown in the movie Lost In Translation. Some of the street noise from that movie is very real around here. There is a big TV screen on one of the corners and last night there was a Japanese guy yelling things from it, probably some TV show. I will have to explore more this weekend. There are tons of bars and clubs and restaurants and lights and people. I've noticed a decent percentage of the Japanese wear those white surgical face masks, it's almost trendy. My manager said he has even seen a Louis Vuitton face mask. Once we got to their place, we had a couple Asahis and they served a spaghetti dish that I proceeded to devour in its entirety. It was my first real meal after airport/airline food, aside from a small New Yorker sandwich for lunch. A couple other colleagues joined us: Steve's manager Steve (Kiwi), Ben (Phillipino), and Jegadish (Indian). And me, the Texan.

I'm still learning all the gadgetry in my apartment. Beyond the girl and guy rear wash on the toilet, there also are two separate flushes, weak flush and strong flush. Guess it depends on what you eat on a given day, hee her her.

I've shown this site to some friends already, but in case you haven't seen it, check this out.  First read the section "What is Engrish?"

Here's a map of the Tokyo subway. Tell me it doesn't look like a bowl of noodles.

The Journey

This should be a good way for me to keep a journal of things and not have to e-mail my stories to everyone separately. I was in such a vegetative traveling state yesterday, let's see if I can remember what happened...

Before arriving in Tokyo, I was able to swing through Houston on my way from New York for Easter weekend. It was good to be home to see my friends and family before going so far away. I got to go to my friend Lori's ranch one night, my friend Tyler's 30th birthday was the next day and everyone got together to play baseball at Eastside park near Lamar. We practiced on that field when I played freshmen baseball. But the homeless people are no longer there. Sunday was family time with going to church and having dinner with my parents, aunt, and uncle, and then packing up my bags.

My flight was supposed to leave at 10:45 AM from Houston, but it was delayed 4 hours. The weather was beautiful but there was some "maintenance" problem. Eventually, they ended up de-boarding everyone and switching airplanes. Flying first class is amazing. They fed us so much! Halibut or chicken or rack of lamb or Japanese meal (I had Japanese), wine, fruits, chocolate, breakfast about an hour before landing, and gave us a free little toiletry bag with toothbrush, toothpaste, tic tacs, ear plugs, brush, and so on. There were a lot of Continental employees in the front who were going to Guam for some reason. My cousin's husband, Scott, who works for Continental, is making the same flight today. I ended up having to sit next to a strange, fidgety older lady from Guam. I mainly read my "Going on Business in Japan" book, watched some movies (Ray, Dr. Strangelove, and part of Bridget Jones II), and tried to sleep some. We got into Narita around 8 PM on Tuesday night. The airport employees were very nice and most spoke English well enough. It took about 30 minutes to get through immigration, but after that, it was all very easy. The luggage carts are free, which I desperately needed. I got my bags and guitar and my ticket for the limousine bus and waited for about 40 minutes. The weather last night was pleasant, in the high 40s. The bus arrived at 9:35 PM. It pulls up and there are a few workers on the sidewalk who take your bags and (gently) pack them into the bus. The bus is very clean, comfortable, and runs smoothly, not like Metro in Houston or your typical Greyhound. Before the bus leaves the airport, one of the luggage workers comes onboard and says something short and then bows and gets off. They also bow as the bus pulls away. Narita is a bit farther out of Tokyo than I thought. I saw a sign that read "Tokyo 60km". It took about an hour to get into the city. The bus dropped me off at the ANA Hotel Tokyo, down the street from my housing. Even though I wasn't staying at that hotel, one of the hotel workers came out to help me with my bags and flagged down a taxi (takushi) for me. I handed the driver the map I printed off the housing web site and said "kono jusho onegai shimasu" (please take me to this address) which I got from my 'business in Japan' book. The fare was 660 yen, about $6.30 US, and it was literally down the street a few blocks. We got to the Mansions and I checked in, there was a young guy working the desk. He helped me with my bags up to my room and explained all the knickknacks about the room. There's a floor heater, a Captain Kirk control panel on the toilet for flushing and splashing and a heated seat and all sorts of fun things, a little kitchen with all the pots, pans, and dishes I would need, the bed is large and comfortable, with a big cushy comforter. It looks like the only English stations on my TV are CNN and Discovery Channel. There's a "language" button on the remote but I haven't had a chance to figure it out yet. The bathroom counter goes up to just over my knees. The shower room is separate and has some stuff that I have no idea what it is yet, some kind of piping outside the tub. I'm on the 3rd floor of my building, so not the greatest view of the surrounding buildings, but I can see the Tokyo Tower from my outdoor balcony. There are some restaurants on the street outside my windows, too. This morning I heard an ambulance with a Japanese voice saying something I'm guessing is like "get out of the way". I need to be in the office at 11 AM this morning, so must go now to get ready. On a side note, Google is my home page on Internet Explorer and now it goes straight to www.google.co.jp, weird.

Here's a fun list of the restaurants near my housing:

• Jonathan’s Coffee & Restaurant (I saw a lot of these on the way here, and also 7-11’s!)
• TGI Friday’s (in Tokyo?!)
• Freshness Burger (good, I was worried I’d be next to a Dirty Burger joint)
• McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway (grrreat, woo)
• Hard Rock Café
• Tony Roma’s
• Can Beer (sounds delicious)
• La Fiesta (Mexican restaurant, hmm I’ll have to see if it’s any good)
• There’s also Turkish, Italian, Thai, and of course Japanese