From Zürich Flughaven I flew to Tokyo through Munich. Not so bad, but we were delayed on a one hour flight with a one hour lay-over. Luckily, the bus deposits me five gates from where I need to be, so I make the connection, no sweat.
Day one:
I arrive in Tokyo on an uneventful flight, except for the two Germans across the aisle from me who drank and talked out loud during the whole flight except during the time they passed-out and began to snore. I managed to grab at least 3 hours of sleep with the luck of the in-flight movie computer needing to be rebooted after 4 hours and cutting off my finale of the shoot’em up ending of 3:10 to Yuma. Thanks Lufthansa, do I get a rebate, or at least double frequent flier miles that I’ll never use?
It was an hour bus ride from the airport. The bus was near the hotel and I just had to laugh when I saw a sign in a landscaped area in front of a small hotel, “Frower Garden.” I checked into my hotel, Room 3-2963, same hotel as last time only I’m in a different tower. Where am I? Yeah, this hotel has 4 different towers, an Aqua Stadium, and I’m on the 29th floor. I’m not ready to see the stadium since I have 10 days to enjoy the cuisine. I’m already sick of the automatic-water-toilet-bowl-filling-pressure-sensitive-seat in the bathroom. The area I’m in is the same as the last trip - at least that is familiar. I tried to call my Japanese colleagues using my company standard issue (CSI) cell phone. Nothing. I love Information Technology departments. Here are a bunch of crackerjack kids locked in a box somewhere in every company and paid enough to keep management functioning. This are the kids who were probably picked on in school, and now when people like me are trying to get or give “information” using some sort of standard “technology,” their laughing there asses off in their little box, and making jokes about the calls from management who can’t get their email footer to format. I asked them for a cell phone that would work in Japan, what I got was the CSI phone (which only works only in my building, practically) with a SIM card that works anywhere where in the world (only for the duration of my trip). No one in IT decided to look at the phone, which is only 4-band compatible, and I needed an UMTS phone in Japan; therein lies the “information” part of their department. In the future I will limit myself to only ask for power cords.
Anyway, after several unsuccessful attempts at trying to call anyone, I left the hotel and used my Suica card from my last trip to take the green line to Ebisu Station and then walked to our Tokyo office. Konichiwa (Hello). I met my colleagues and we went over our travel schedule for the next 9 days. Bullet-Train to Sendai, return same day to Tokyo, Train to Kobe, Train to Takamatsu, flight back to Tokyo, and two days later back to Switzerland.
Our schedule was then celebrated at an amazing restaurant down the street from the office. The stairs to the second floor entrance remind me of the stairs in an apartment I had in college that were put in as an after thought, although there was strategically placed Japanese writing on the walls. As I walked up, my first thought was of graffiti in a frat house, the only difference being intent. The beer was good and plentiful, along with the wine, grilled squid and anchovies. I couldn’t bear to eat the anchovy head, but I guess I compromised by eating its spine. This was all topped off with a healthy serving of Udong noodles; I swear there was a piece of chicken in there somewhere. There was no desert; I do not think that dish occurs here. I was so glad that Melinda had packed some chocolate for me. You could really notice the unevenness of the stairs on the way out, either by feel, jet-lag, inebriation, or construction.
Day Two:
This morning I learned the reason why there is a gutter in front of the shower. I flooded the bathroom because the water ran along the wall and out the back. The bath mat was draped into the gutter, thus occluding the flow. I also found strange tags in the corners (floor and ceiling) of my room, and I began to notice these several other places too. I have to ask about this. We caught the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Sendai about 350km to the north; it took about 1 hour and 40 minutes. It was the equivalent of riding an airplane fuselage on rails; comfortable, but still noisy. I understand the bullet train, not just socially, but mechanically as well – which may explain the noise if that was wind resistance – and it seems quite popular with the natives, but still a round trip ticket was about 250 Swiss francs and the thing was packed. It cost much more than a train in Switzerland, about 1/3 my annual local transit pass.
It was lunch time when we arrived and we headed for a restaurant right at the station. It was explained to me that Japanese actors had been to this restaurant since there messages, signatures and some photos were on the wall, plus most of the other restaurants had a queue. The food was good; I was eating grilled cow tongue (a local specialty) and rice with a mixture of – from what I understood – yam curd and raw egg. Too late, it was already down the hatch. In Sendai we met with several customers and then headed home.
It was late when I got in, and I thought I would see if there was something worth watching of TV. Nothing was on except news, sports, talk shows, infomercials, and game shows, but it was funny because I found my self turning up the volume even though I couldn’t understand anything. Out of the 8 or so channels, I found a Bond movie. I didn’t know Pierce Brosnan was fluent in Japanese. I then found the “bilingual” button on the remote, but the movie was almost over. That button doesn’t work on any other channel, and there wasn’t one for “translate.”
So, the next time someone offers you cow tongue for lunch, I would pass if it is offered in NYC, but I would recommend the stuff we had in Sendai, it was teriyaki style barbeque.
Day Three:
Breakfast at the Yahoo internet café is probably better than it sounds, although the thought of a Denny’s is quite appealing at this point. It consists of 1 -1/2 inch thick toast, reconstituted eggs – any style, small salad with white sauce – the though of it I cannot stomach that early, small fruit cup, and a cup of minestrone soup – which was a treat after the eggs. My other breakfast choice is rice, miso, and something with fish. My only complaints are the eggs and the coffee… and the white sauce on the salad.
After breakfast I checked out of the hotel and meet up with my work hosts and took the Shinkansen to Kobe. It was about a 2 ½ hour train ride and covered approximately 500 to 600km! It made the cars on the highway look like they were standing still. We passed through Toyota City (yes, the headquarters of the auto manufacturer), Nagoya, Osaka, and Kyoto. We passed through snow, sun, hilly areas, over river valleys, and arrived in Kobe which is situated on or near the Pacific coast. We checked into a hotel on Rokko Island, which is a man main island on Kobe Bay. The view from my hotel room revealed a flat area, monorail, shipping cranes and one building next door that looked like a flying saucer had crashed into. I began to think of earthquakes and sand and liquefaction, and quickly changed the mental subject. We decided to eat at a quite local Japanese restaurant. The food was good, relatively normal, with three exceptions. I had an English menu, and ordered a local brew, and referred to it as local beer. Everyone else thought the waitress’s recommendation was good, so we had one for each of us. When the drinks arrived, we all had very large glasses filled with what looked like ice water. No, it was a large Sake. I think my Japanese hosts are always trying to get me to drink more Sake, probably for their enjoyment, so either it was an intentional order by their part or a misinterpretation of what a local brew is, and perhaps is was me, because they probably brew Sake everywhere in Japan, locally. The second exception was the battered and fried chicken knuckle (joints or cartilage), which was not told to me until after it was in my mouth and wondering why you can’t chew it. And the third exception was that sometime during dinner someone had ordered pizza although it was not what you may have expected. It was a thin crust, with sauce (not tomato), cheese, shrimp and chunks of squid. I think I mostly enjoyed the pizza because it had cheese on it and it was the most western style thing I had on this trip so far, with the exception of the Yahoo café breakfast. I ate my pizza with chopsticks like everyone else.
Day Four:
Today was the first day of the most important two-day meeting on my trip. It was Saturday, and I didn’t have to arrive at the meeting room to set up until noon, not to say that I could sleep in, although 8:30 felt good for a change. I saw some more of those floor and ceiling tags during setup and asked what they were. I was told that they were small signs that explain that the material does not burn. After setup, one of my colleagues and I grabbed some fast food, Japanese style. I had a choice of Udong noodle with vegetables, egg (raw with something else in it), or beef and mushroom. Now picture that I am wearing a suit, clean white shirt, and tie, and have to give a presentation in about ninety minutes, when the waitress brings out a huge salad bowl size of Udong noodle. If you have never had Udong, it is fat long slippery noodles, in this case submerged in brown broth of beef and ‘shrooms, that is too be eaten with chopsticks and an awkward wooden ladle and plenty of slurping which is a form of complementing the chef. There is almost no way to eat this without having an unwanted noodle whipping its wet self with brown broth all over the place. That was only my first noodle, and I had a whole bowl left. I quickly observed how other people were attempting to do this, since almost everyone is in a suit, I figured they all don’t want their lunch on their clean white shirts as well. Within three of four noodles, I think I had the technique corrected for my limited chopstick skills. I managed to position one noodle at a time towards the surface of the soup and fold it over on itself several times until it fit on the chopsticks without hanging down too far and tried to eat it almost in one complete mouthful. My alternate method included the use of the awkward ladle which was only good for dripping broth down my chin. I could hold the ladle and fill it with a noodle and stabilize it while maneuvering it with chopsticks. Both methods proved satisfactory and I managed to walk out of the restaurant with a clean white shirt. The presentation seemed to go well, so well that the participants continued to refer to my information and asked for my thoughts regarding their ideas from an engineering perspective. I was so busy interacting with them that my notes consisted of two lines on a notepad.
After our meeting, we all met up at a reception that was piggybacked off of another semi-work event where a 50 and 20 year anniversary was being co-celebrated. I managed to stand in line at the buffet with one of the honored guests of the 20 year event who was honored and now retired for starting the group 20 years ago in Japan. I’m sure I will have my picture with him turn up at one of these events later (or on the website), the cool thing was that he had heard about the meeting I had early in the day, and was pleased that I was working with the Japanese. After the reception, my Japanese colleagues and I went back to the traditional restaurant for a drink, and even though no one claimed to be hungry, a table of food appeared. Several people convinced me to try “bokkodong” (I think that it what it sounded like) which was described to me as a dish made with small soybeans (nato). Since I liked soybeans, I must like this, right? I should not have fallen for this, since one of them ordered me a “special” drink with Soju, which was basically a gin and tonic, and I don’t like either. Anyway, the dish was rice, vegetables, and some form of animal meat – presumably ocean born. The nato, or soybean appeared to be a garnish, just like the raw egg that was cracked on top. To eat this, you are given a spoon to beat it all together, like making whip cream or meringue by hand. Foolishly I thought it was all for me and took the spoon in my mouth with the first bite, oops. You cannot exactly turn something like this down in front of a group of people who are essentially your employers’ customers, but I also should have thought to forfeit some of it to the rest of the group. It was ok, but I would not order it again. Later I was told that it is called “bokkodong”, which means bomb, as in “it explode in yor mouth, a sticky bomb” (can you hear the Japanese accent with subtle humor). As I heard them joking, one of them said, “Ha, ha… he a funny gag man!” This is probably a direct translation for comedian.
Day Five:
Day five began where day four left off. I was working on “homework” that was given to me by one of the meetings participants for the second day of the meeting. This of course being work that was done after drinking and having your mouth explode, not your stomach. I worked until about 2:30am, and almost could not go to sleep once I did. When I woke up, it was 6:30am and there was snow everywhere, though it was just a dusting. We had to be ready, including fed, packed, checked out of the hotel and at the meeting room by nine. The meeting was a full day, and very busy. When I got there some of the participants who had asked me if I could do homework had then decided that what they were asking for was perhaps a topic that needed to be discussed at another time, great, there went 2 hours of sleep. Mondainai (No Problem). By three I almost nodded off, maybe it was the lunch box of cold fish, cold rice, and cold other things. From the meeting we took the Shinkansen and local train to Takamatsu which is on an island about 2 hours from Kobe. The faint light from the sunset showed a great view over water and many islands. After checking into another hotel, I quickly found that I did not know what number to push on the elevator, since this was the third hotel of four, and countless elevators since the first.
We left to eat at another traditional Japanese restaurant where you remove your shoes, sit on the floor, and close the screen door behind you. One of the local sales guy came with us, which was funny because when he introduced himself he said, “thank you… no, sorry, my name is thank you…” and said a bunch of things in Japanese to the other guys and then corrected himself with his name. The food was really good, my favorite was the finely shredded potato fired with garlic, it reminded me a little of Swiss rösti, with out the excess butter and it all sticking together. Actually, it was more like micro French fries. I would recommend this place the next time you travel to Takamatsu.
Day Six:
Ohayougozaimasu (Good Morning – polite form). I actually got to sleep in a little since it was our day to meet one of the participants at his office. We were early and so we went down the street to an awesome little coffee shop called “Kotetsu”, which was the name of the owner’s cat. Needless to say, there were cat decorations all over the place which made me think of my two little tigers at home, and made me miss home even more. The coffee was brewed laboratory style with Bunsen burners, water filled glass bulbs, and cup shaped funnels with check valves stuck into the top of glass bulbs. As the bulb was heated, the steam that was created pressurized the water and pushed it up through the funnel, through the check valve, and through a coffee filter filling the cup. This was then poured into your mug and served. It was pretty neat, and the place had a nice and warm caramel wood theme.
Then it was time to for our meeting so we left. In the meeting, I learned a lot and we left around 6:30pm and after a stop at the hotel we headed to a restaurant where we would meet the surgeon for dinner. This was also a traditional Japanese restaurant (shoes off, sit on the floor). The beer was good, and the courses began with a small soup, small plates of Sashimi, a small bowl with raw horse, and delicious spring salad mix with Nori seaweed.
Then there was rice, with some thing, more soup, and then the main dish arrived with Sashimi of eel, fish, octopus, scallop, fish liver, and oyster; it looked so nice I had to take a picture of it, but, it was still moving. The fish and its fin were moving but its body was already filleted and arranged like a fan before us and the diced octopus was busy undulating. Just when you think all motion was finished my Japanese colleagues offered for me to start. I really did know where or if to begin, so I asked them if they could show me how to eat this dish. After some encouragement, one of them began to show me, “here, I show you, like this…” and he grabbed the slice of lemon and squeezed it onto the octopus. “Now you’ve really pissed it off!” I thought, the tentacles were spasming all over and the plate, then all three of them began to tackle the beast particles, armed with chopsticks. “Yeah, that’s not gonna hold him back,” thinking again. One of the guys was having a little trouble as he dipped his active meal into the sauce - it decided to grab the plate and hold on to the point that he lifted half the plate off the table. The respect thing kicked in, so I started with the eel, and followed with a slice of fish. Wow that was fresh. I really could not stand the though of eating active octopus tentacle, which never really seemed to calm down to the point of complete complacency even after 20 minutes. After several offers I told my host and co-worker, “it looks so good, that I must see you enjoy it” which was perhaps the best “No” I have ever come up with. Another one I used later when asked about the “bokkodong” was “there are other dishes I would order first.”
Later, our fresh fish was taken by the waitress for the final course of fish noodle soup, and Sake was poured for everyone. The Sake was in a large bamboo shaft, and the cups were smaller bamboo shafts which were fresh out of the freezer. After a meal like this I needed a drink, or two. Overall, the meal was very tasty, perhaps one of the best even though it contained Captain Nemo, Octoman and Seabiscuit.
Day Seven:
We didn’t have time to visit the castle yesterday (actually a small fortress, and one of many of Shogun’s), so we woke up early and after breakfast quickly walked across the street and through the garden when it began to drizzle. After two trips on the Shinkansen both heading further south and west, a short flight was required to fly back to Tokyo. I thought, one hour flight, small plane… nope. B767-300, and about 250 passengers. We landed in Haneda and for about 7,200¥ we took a taxi to the office. After a little bit, we left for some Japanese pasta for lunch. This was really good, but I’m really glad that I wore my napkin as a bib. It is not often that you eat red sauce spaghetti with chopsticks while wearing a suit. We continued work after lunch, planning the next few weeks and timelines and strategy workload and action items and so much more fun things you would rather hear about but won’t.
After work I met up with a Japanese ex-colleague who was recently terminated for difference of opinion with a boss, which is a novel and clinical approach to product development, but against the societal law of Japanese culture. He knew a place near work that was a Korean shish kebob grill. The restaurant was ornate with a construction site motif, with dark floor, walls and ceiling either from a grease fire or deliberately painted that way. The bar and standing tables were erected with real scaffolding topped with dark board to match the rest of the place. The entryway you had to step through two sheets of clear plastic tarp to get in. It was actually a trendy place with hip old old school 70’s tunes playing in the background. The atmosphere was cool and relaxed, but hazy from the fresh carbonation of meat residue. Ahhh, cooked-non-fish-meat. This was a nice shift from the other nice restaurants, good choice. He ordered two beers and we talked about work, future work, and international cultural differences. It’s good to see people rise above things and move forward, I hope I could provide some encouragement to him. After dinner we took the train in opposite directions. My train made an unscheduled termination a few stops before mine and everyone got off the train. I was a little unsure, plus I had all my bags with me, which is awkward to drag all through the train system. I got to my hotel but it had already started to rain.
Day Eight:
It was cold with clear skies and high winds. I was unable to go to sleep until about 2pm, maybe it was because this was my 4th hotel in eight days, even though it was the same as the first (different room). I also managed to wake up early, unintentionally. I had planned to grab a quick Yahoo café breakfast, but when I got downstairs the place was packed. I was seated at one end of the bar, but near a pillar so I was not in direct line of site with any of the people who take the orders. After about 10 minutes I could see that my colleague had just arrived in the lobby. There was no way I could order breakfast, eat it and not be late, so I left. I met up with my colleague, and as soon as I did the hostess lady came running after me to profusely apologize for everything. I wanted to tell her that it was not her fault that the democrats lost the last two elections, or that China is polluting the planet, or global warming, or the war in Iraq, just to name a few. She handed back my breakfast ticket and continued to apologize for things like capitalism, religious wars, and natural disasters. Arigatogozaiemas (Thank you very much).
We left to catch a train to Chiba, which is located in a different prefecture, from what I was told. (Prefecture is the only English word I learned in Japan.) We had to attend surgery at 10am. I was not able to eat anything, and was only able to grab a small water bottle at the train station on the way to the hospital. Here is an equation for you, no engineering is required. No Sleep + No Breakfast + No Caffeine + Hours of Oral Surgery = Potential for disaster. I didn’t think it would take 3 ½ hours for a combined bi-lateral mandible plate explantation and genioplasty, but then again it was a teaching hospital. I found myself almost passing out while standing on a stool leaning over one of the resident’s shoulder. That would have been a huge mistake – contaminating a sterile field in the middle of surgery. I kept squeezing my eyes shut and opening them wide again to reduce my fatigue and then tried pacing back a forth to the x-ray’s and field, just to prevent personal stagnation and potential aphasia relapse. After that we had lunch at the cafeteria, yummy, and then had a meeting, about a lot of confusing and linguistically mistranslated issues. I think we worked everything out which required me to have more work when I get home.
We left just after 5pm, and on our way back to Tokyo I saw an amazing sunset with orange clouds with gold trim. The sun seemed to be setting from under the clouds giving the buildings brilliant reflections. We went to dinner at a place near my hotel at a really nice Japanese restaurant, yes another one. It was good, and this was my last opportunity to eat as much seafood, and raw items as possible before I had to fly home. I had my fill on sushi, tempura, beer, beef, dikon radish salad, soju, miso, soba noodles and hot sake.
Day Nine:
Homeward bound! I slept in a little, ate at the Yahoo café, and grabbed some water and small snacks for my office, consisting of seaweed wrapped rice cakes and dried fish; I think they will really enjoy them. I bought my ticket for the bus to Narita Airport, 3,000¥ - cash only, and boarded the bus with wind and cold. It was a clear, bright day, and even more exciting now that I was going home. The airport was not too busy, and I had a chance to walk around before I went through security since they had some shops. I bummed around and found a small black “lucky cat” since cats were a partial theme on this trip, the other part being seafood and surgery. I luckily found a Starbucks, and bought a tall mocha which I have always wanted since the Yahoo café escapade. I found a seat outside of the security check facing a large window that looked over the tarmac and jet ways, and enjoyed every sip of its chocolaty-coffee-rBGH-synthesized-milkyness. It was quite a palatal pleasure full of unethical deliciousness.
Security was easy, probably because I had the two bottles of sake in my checked bags. The flight was loaded on time and we were off. It was a twelve hour flight to Munich during a state of 8 hour elusive dusk. I was able to finish the ending of 3:10 to Yuma, and watch Gone Baby Gone, The Assassination of Jesse James, The Detective (a Chinese movie), and Michael Clayton, as well as getting some much needed work started. I would only recommend seeing Michael Clayton with is a legal thriller, the rest have depressive undertones. The Detective was good, but reinforced my need to not visit China. I arrived in Munich just as the last movie was finishing and found my way to the next gate and tried to use my phone. I found it was very useful for playing games like solitaire to past this time. As soon as I boarded the flight to Zürich jet lag hit me like slap to the face. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I wish I had more flights like this, except I was hoping to be hit by the food cart since I couldn’t get my bearings. It was only a one hour flight, so I was in Zürich before I knew it. Miraculously I made it to the baggage carrousel on the other side of pass control and waited for an exhaustive 25 minutes hoping the Sake didn’t burst in my flower patterned suitcase. Hey don’t laugh, I get a lot of crap for that bag, but I can tell you right now, nobody grabs it thinking it is theirs. Then my green bag soon followed. Looking like a bell-hop I made it to the train, which is about 4 or 5 levels below the arrival area. I had to change again at Zürich HB, and caught a direct to Basel. Awesome. It was about 10:30pm when the train pulled in, and instead of wrestling with a tram, 2 suitcases and a backpack I decided to walk. When I got home, Melinda was away for work until the next day. What a bummer! I don’t really remember much else, probably because I was sleeping.
Tokyo with Mt. Fugi
Reee, reee, reee, reee (shower scene, Psycho)
Tags in the room...
Shinkansen (Bullet Train)
Kobe (Rokko Island)
Hummm... "bokkodong"
Snow in Kobe
Box Lunch...
Surprise inside...
Over the Bridge to Takamatsu
Car Theme #1
Cat Theme #2
Fresh Fish and Octopus...
Tokyo at night
Tokyo Sunset
The Fort near my hotel...
How I felt after working in Japan, non-stop for 9 days...
1 comment:
WOW!!! I am shocked you didn't collapse! You must have been seriously Jones'ing for hearty European food when you came back!! Oh yea, and what can I say about Soju other than how much love it gave me while I was in Korea - I think my liver still isn't right!
Post a Comment