The last week of the first half of my stay in the land of the rising sun. As close as I can make it.
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Hello you lot, I suppose that you could say that this week was the end of the beginning. Next Tuesday is the halfway date for my stay here. Its all down hill from then... It was a farley quiet week, what with me recovering from last Sundays Paddys Day celebrations and Kevin still on Holiday in the UK, to see Louise's family in the UK, and then spending a couple of days in Canada with his. I have done all I can as far as teaching is concerned as the Presmaster system that came back from India (that I had to fix last week) had its PCS sent to Korea to help our distributor out there. Lots of emails flying around but not much info in them. I have been trying to find something out for over a week now and because I don't know much about the thing myself, I just don't seem to be able to ask the right question to get the "magic" answer out of the people that do know. I keep getting either irrelevant info back or stuff that I have had before. I have found the whole thing very frustrating and has made me realise how far away the UK is from Japan. It is the time difference that is the real killer. It means that you only can get one answer back a day because you have gone home by the time the UK has woken up. I have asked my self, "could you work like this if this was normal?"...
David Y had to go out of town to support a System Integrator who is a customer of ours. They want him to stay on site for a whole week looking at the signal out of this piece of equipment just incase it goes wrong. Reza and I think that this is a waste of his time but in Japan "The customer is king" and what they say goes.
Thursday was a funny day. it has been about the same temperature in Tokyo for this time
as year as in Reading but a big cloud of warm humid air came up from the South
that morning and when I woke up I was sweating. The journey into work wasn't
much fun either, everyone had dressed up like normal for a March Winters day but
you could see that everyone was very uncomfortable in all their extra cloths.
Friday Kevin was back from his holiday and we had to go to TBS for a meeting. We
decided to take the car because three of us were going. I like watching the cars
go round on the big circular car park lift system we have at the office. I didn't get home until after nine. I have managed to make good rice using the rice cooker though. The trick is to boil the water in a saucepan first. If you don't it take twice as long and is more like wallpaper paste then rice.
By Saturday Nights I was very board with staying in so decided to go out and see what I could find in Roppongi. At least the weather had dried up when I went out and I didn't get wet going for the train. I found an English Pub called Hub and met a couple of nice people there Hero and Wako. (See the Hub Pub page for more about that.) They did invite me to go to do some Karioki but as the time was gone 11:00 I thought that it would be better to go home as the trains stop at midnight and it is a very long walk home.
Lets see what the last half of my time here brings. Cheers me dears. Paul Fincher. [Week 1] [Week 2] [Week 3] [Week 4] [Week 5] [Week 6] [Week 7] [Week 8] [Week 9] [Week10] [Afterwards] |
I
got some nice feed back about this website this week. Mostly about the St
Paddy's day photos. Everyone keeps saying, "what good photos you take." But I
think it is more to do with the camera. All I do is delete the naff ones and
crop the good ones, if they need it, to get the best out of them them I can. It is
nice to know that people appreciate what I have done though. The websites Stats are showing that about half of the total visits are from Japan. I am even getting some visits from Finland but I don't know why.
Wednesday I went out with Matthew for dinner. He was going to see an old
Canadian friend that he hadn't seen for years but is now living area of Tokyo,
Ryogoku. Because we were not going to meet up until 6:30 I stayed behind in the
office when everyone had gone and had to lock up. Toshiko asked if I would be
all right doing this as she left and I said yes. When you do lock up the
security system says "I hope that you didn't work too hard today and have a good
evening". Its a bit like something out of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy when
all the machines have personalities. At Ryogoku station there is a big monument
to Sumo wrestling as this is the main place for it. But you tell me what it
looks like!
Matthews friend had originally come from north England and I could tell
instantly by his accent. He still kept it even though he hasn't lived there for
over twenty years. We went to the same place as we did last time as Matthew
himself says that he always follows the same routine. Well, at least the food
was all cooked this time! We drank quite a lot and when it was time to go home,
Matthew had a conference call at 10:30, he insisted on walking me to Morishita
Stations because, "this is a very old part of Tokyo and the subway station signs
look different here". I couldn't tell the difference personally, but it was a
nice gesture. I wonder how his call went? I do hope he didn't say anything that
he shouldn't have. he has given in his resignation though...
The dreaded Shinjuku line was very bad and big fans came on at intervals to cool
everyone down. I was very glad to get off at Morishita and change onto the less
crowded Oedo line. The short walk from the station to the office was fun, I was
blown all the way there. All the tall buildings concentrate the wind and it is
like walking in a wind tunnel that has been put on overload. I was in the office
for just turned 9:00 and no one else was there yet, so had to open up. When
Toshiko did turn up about 20 mins later she said, "Have you been here all
night?" And I said no, it just looked that way. She told me the reason why she
was later then normal was because someone had jumped in from of the train and
everything was delayed. This was the first time this had happened to her in over
two years! For the rest of the time the Subway has always been on time!
London Underground take heed!
It goes
all the way up the back of the building and holds about 18 cars. You drive in
forward when you park to car and when you go to take the car out not only does
the lift turn around until your car is at the exit but it rotates the car so
that you can drive it out forwards! This kind of car park must make it
impossible to steal a car as well and saving space, how do you get a car down
from the 9th floor? TBS was only the other side of Roppongi but took us about
30mins to get there because of the traffic. Kevin also had problems finding a
place to park. Both me a Reza were glad he was driving. The meeting was OK, if a
little boring and nothing that useful came out of it anyway. Got a lovely smile
of one of the receptionists though, when we were leaving! Reza took a picture of
me next to some Mighty Morphing Power Rangers that were out side the building.
Saturday was a washout because it rained all day and I didn't even get out of
bed until gone 12. Something I very rarely do, it was quite nice having a lie
in. I wrote most of this email that afternoon as I don't want to go out
into the pouring rain. Mom has sent me some letters by Post because she cant get
on with typing on the PC that my brother Simon has given to them. She says it
makes her back hurt. Should try typing sitting cross-legged on a bed on a
laptop. that makes your back hurt! Mom all so says that she like writing a
letter with a pen and paper because it hides her spelling mistakes and she
doesn't know how I make so few! The trick is to use the "Spell Checker" on the
PC. You should see how much red wiggly underlining there is on this email before
I use it! 
Sunday I went to Heart Attack to get some shopping. The prices there just seem to get lower and lower. I stocked up on the Pot Noodle kind of things that I like so much and have for lunch at work. I decided to try a more expensive type but when I got it home and had it for lunch I was very disappointed. The noodles were big and looked like earthworms and it didn't come with much source/ flavourings. I think that I will keep to my Toyo Suisan brand as they are nicer and cheaper! I was glad I only got two of the others, I might give the last one to Reza, he will eat anything.
After my early lunch as it was such a nice day I thought that I would cycle to see if I could find Shinjuku, it looked like it was about 13miles from my place and as long as I stayed on the 302 I should just go straight there. It was a great cycle and I saw loads of interesting things. (See the