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.