English in Japan can be pricy. You’ve been warned.

Going to go a bit against the norm and describe a little of the end of my day for “reasons”.

After a little FaceTime and Skype time with loved ones back home (before you go getting bent out of shape about not being included, this would be at 3AM Monday morning Pacific.  So shut it.), I decide to hunt down a curry place.  I haven’t had that yet here, but seeing a fabulous spread at Tokyo Ramen Street, I’m craving it.  I wander many, many streets near my hotel and probably have passed several by this time but since I see no pictures that I can point and grunt at, I pass them by.  Nihongo o hanasemasen.  Gamen nasai!  Instead I decide that since I’ve had a good lunch and am not starving, I will go to the liquor store and buy some beers and a bag of snacks.

Reason 1: I would like to comment on my dinner before I start eating it and I want to drink one of the beers while I’m enjoying my dinner.  Dinner, as you can see, is going to consist of a bag of what I’m am hoping is grilled meat, maybe pork.  But judging be the weight of the bag, I plan on not eating grilled meat goodness.  I can, though, with 100% certainly tell you two things about my upcoming repast: it is ¥380 (about $3.75) and I should eat it before November 20, 2014.  I will be enjoying my dinner with a bottle of Leffe Brune that has been chilling in a bucket of ice (that I strangely had to request from housekeeping) since I started this post.  It should be ready by now, so please excuse me for just a moment.

<<Insert hold music>>

Today is my first day of work in a foreign country and it is somewhat cool, somewhat daunting, and altogether exciting.  Definitely doesn’t sound like work.  I'm supposed to report at 9AM and for most of you, you know that is a little late for me by about 2.5 hours.  Whatever, I’m nothing if not flexible (which is what got me out here in the first place).  So, since I sleep with the drapes open so I can see the Tokyo lights, I wake up as the sky begins to lighten, around 5:15 or so.  Sunrise reflecting off the buildings is something to behold.

I Skype back home for a little bit and get dressed in a shirt and tie and begin to look for a breakfast place.  I settle on a Tully’s Coffee house for an egg, ham, and cheese half sandwich and an iced coffee.  I relax, message with my sister a bit and then start slowly taking new streets towards the office building.

I won’t and shouldn’t mention too much of what work is and all that, but I’ve met some very nice people and since they all deal with my work back in the States, they all speak English roughly 3,408,682 times better than I can converse in Japanese.  I had been using my laptop to update you all with these posts and to generally stay more connected with work instead of constantly using email on the phone.  The thing wouldn’t let me log in.  I had seen the error before, but needed someone with a working computer to get involved.  I finally got someone at 9pm their time to get me what I needed.  And I was finally able to work.  Not an auspicious start to my work week.  I did find out that tomorrow (Tuesday) is the Autumnal Equinox and it is a national public holiday in which traditionally people visit the graves of their ancestors.  It is also a day that the office will be closed!  So maybe a reasonable start after all!

One of the main reasons they sent me out here was to help one of the office ladies get set up on a new computer.  The catch is she’s American, speaks fluent Japanese, but cannot write or read too well (military brat raised in Okinawa, etc. and grew up in American schools).  And given that, she cannot use a Japanese computer.  Sure you can change the language in the OS, but there is a fundamental difference between an installation of a Japanese OS switched to English and an installation of an English OS.  MOST of what you encounter will be in English, but it won’t all be in English and the layout and basic usage (driver availability, software, etc.) is difficult to get correct if not impossible.  So, that in mind, we went to Bic Camera.

HOLY SHOPPING ORGY!  To imagine this place think of Fry’s and convert all the signs to ¾ Japanese, multiply the amount of signs and hanging bits by about 10, cram the contents of about three Fry’s into an 8-story building with each floor about 200’ x 200’.  It’s crazy and so cool.

That's AM only, folks

They even had some high tech radios!

We find someone in the computer department and tell him we need a desktop that has the English OS installed.  He doesn’t have any here and it will need to be ordered by the person that comes in at noon.  It’s 11:20 so we head back to the office as others from the office are heading to lunch to beat the crowd.  You think your lunch time call see some crowds?  Please… the entire city dumps into the streets between 11:30 and 1:00 or so.  Pretty amazing.  I sit down at my desk and the two office manager ladies ask if I would like to go to lunch with them.  Heck yeah!  This is what I wanted, to go where locals want to eat!

Another sushi bar, darn the luck.  Maguro is on special:  8 pieces of nigiri prepared four different ways, 3 pieces of a roll, and a maguro temaki (hand roll), salad, and miso soup (again with shrimp heads the way it should be, I’m told) all for ¥980, about $9.50.  One of my co-worker relays the story about how this particular restaurant made the news a couple of years ago.  When tuna start coming into the waters and getting caught, this restaurant bought the first of the largest fish on the first day of bidding at the Tsukiji Market.  It is a huge honor to have the first fish, and they paid top yen for it.  It was over ¥100,000.  Well, the way it tasted today, it is worth whatever they paid for today’s catch.

 

Lunch over and the sharing of their stories of trips to the US wrapped up for now, we head back to Bic Camera and speak to the man that can order what we need.  It is going to be about half again more expensive to order it this way so, another about ¥40,000 more.  One call to the credit card company and about 45 minutes later, we walk out having spent ¥112,320, about $1,056, and one big problem.  The machine is due to be delivered on maybe 9/30, probably 10/1.  I email my support back home to see if they want me to extend the trip to cover what I was sent to do.  “Reason” 2 and why the beers were called for.

The rest of the afternoon at work was uneventful until one of the office managers walks up to my temporary work space and offers me a small plate with a 2-inch square, very dark (read: black), brownie looking thing.  With a little difficulty finding the words to describe the treat, I’m told it is made of ash.  Bamboo Charcoal Cake.  Very good and very different.

Around 5:45PM I’m chided for still being in the office when I should have gone about 15 minutes before.  I’m about to step out when I hear some problems in the conference room and spend about 10 minutes getting everyone settled into their meeting.  It was very interesting hearing their US east coast accents so far from home.

A leisurely stroll back to the hotel and I decide to drop off my day pack weight and check in with the wife and mom.  Wait… this is where you came in.

So, dinner was rice puffs flavored with some sort of pork flavoring.  Think of them as bacon puffs.  One beer almost down too.  The second will be enjoyed in my room’s bath tub as I soak after my shower in a modern equivalent ofuro.  The 14-inch diameter rain style shower head is one I need back home.  It is mounted to the ceiling and comes out with so much water that it feels as if it is pushing you down.  It is a cathartic, and massaging experience I look forward to every night now.  That followed by the soaking = meditation nirvana and a handy time to enjoy my final beer for the evening.

Oh, and one of the most important phrases that I've learned in Japanese:
私のホバークラフトは鰻でいっぱいです
(Watashi no hobākurafuto wa unagi de ippai desu.)