Japan...week 1.
Okay, it's really Tokyo. I haven't actually seen Japan much; just the 5 square miles around where I live and work. So far, I can't complain; it's quite nice, though a bit small...
The biggest shock of the week was on Monday. I was jet lagged, tired, and in general, wanting to curl up into a ball and turn into a vegetable. I looked at some of the US Market news, and flipped thru some random channels. Low and behold, a Japanese
cooking show! Cool. Looked interesting, with shrimp, vegetables, etc... all laid out nicely. The live abalone I'd seen the night before at the tapanyaki bar. Then, came the piece d'resistance. The host removed the lid from a large bowl, revealing.... Live
octapus. The Octapus did the only thing an octapus would do - it tried to crawl out of the bowl. Chop sticks lifted it back in. Two quick swishes of knife later, the octapus was beating a hasty retreat like Napoleon fleeing Moscow back into the bowl and the hosts
were sampling pieces of octapus tentacles. Raw, and still squirming.
Okay...japanese cooking shows just aren't for me.
The rest of Japanese TV that I understand consists of, um, every Yankees and Mariners baseball game. I mean *every* game. I get more Yankees here then I do living just outside of New York....
The cost of some things is amazing. A cantelope runs Y1000 ($8), comes in a fancy little holder with a ribbon tied around it. Mangoes are Y650. Oranges are Y200. It's amazingly expensive.
Thank god for expense accounts!
Tokyo is very clean. It is amazingly clean compared to places like London, or New York, or... pretty much any other major city I've ever been in. And the people are polite and friendly and I'd almost say nice to a fault. And the trains run exactly dead on time. You can set your watch to these things, that's how on-time they are. I've heard for years how the Japanese society has this cronic "Over Employment" -- I think it is really more of a case where they've decided that they want a place that is nice to live and those are the costs you have to bear to have it.
I'm living in an area called Roppongi, on the west side of Tokyo. It used to be the seedier area of Tokyo, but then the Mori company came in and "Gentrified" it. They cleaned it up, made it up scale, etc... Or most of it anyways. The walk from the Roppongi subway station to my flat is interesting. One route goes thru western yuppie central, featuring stores such as Louis Vitton, Eves St. Laurent, and any number of trendy ultra-chic botiques. The other route goes through "Old Roppongi" -- which is just find in the daylight but after dark, it turns ultra-seedy. In addition to the people on the street saying "come into club, you get good time!" in various states of Undress, you also get the "Personal Massage, Sixty Thousand Yen!"
So nice of UBS to put me up less then 5 minutes walk from such an area.
The flat here is nice, but small. I expected about as much. It comes with a gym membership for a really nice gym with pool and excerise room and... Most of the staff speak English there to some degree, and are way too attentive. Working out, there were 4 staff members for 3 guests, which meant I had my own personal "towel girl". One of the particularly cute ones works as a personal trainer. She offered politely to be my "Very own special trainer" who would "show me lots of different excerises to stimulate me." I didn't think I really wanted to explain the concept of "double entendre" to her...
Starbucks is everywhere. There are *3* of them between me and the two entrances to the subway I use. And a fourth a block away. And a fifth just down thataway. In fact, there are more Starbucks in Tokyo then in San Francisco. It's frightening.
I only have a couple of examples of "Engrish" for you to hear about. The first one is from a shop over in the mall. I'm going to get a picture of it today, so I can post it to a web page. The name of the shop is "White Trash Charms Japan". Quite amusing. The other example is a box of *something* that came with the flat here. The box has this oh so useful thing on it...it reads
Gentry (<--product or company name, not sure which)
Ding Dong
Ding Dong
Church Bell's ringing
Nightingale in the dale
Little boy so full of joy
Little girl so sweet and cute
Nobody has any clue wot's in the box. The best guess so far is "sugar", but with how it rattles around, well...
The jet lag wasn't too bad, surprisingly. You get over it pretty quickly. Most of my time here has been spent digging thru and learning the stuff I need for the JSDA securities exam. Urgh! That's next Friday...
That's the news that's fit to print... Oh, Ichiro just hit another home run...
Okay, it's really Tokyo. I haven't actually seen Japan much; just the 5 square miles around where I live and work. So far, I can't complain; it's quite nice, though a bit small...
The biggest shock of the week was on Monday. I was jet lagged, tired, and in general, wanting to curl up into a ball and turn into a vegetable. I looked at some of the US Market news, and flipped thru some random channels. Low and behold, a Japanese
cooking show! Cool. Looked interesting, with shrimp, vegetables, etc... all laid out nicely. The live abalone I'd seen the night before at the tapanyaki bar. Then, came the piece d'resistance. The host removed the lid from a large bowl, revealing.... Live
octapus. The Octapus did the only thing an octapus would do - it tried to crawl out of the bowl. Chop sticks lifted it back in. Two quick swishes of knife later, the octapus was beating a hasty retreat like Napoleon fleeing Moscow back into the bowl and the hosts
were sampling pieces of octapus tentacles. Raw, and still squirming.
Okay...japanese cooking shows just aren't for me.
The rest of Japanese TV that I understand consists of, um, every Yankees and Mariners baseball game. I mean *every* game. I get more Yankees here then I do living just outside of New York....
The cost of some things is amazing. A cantelope runs Y1000 ($8), comes in a fancy little holder with a ribbon tied around it. Mangoes are Y650. Oranges are Y200. It's amazingly expensive.
Thank god for expense accounts!
Tokyo is very clean. It is amazingly clean compared to places like London, or New York, or... pretty much any other major city I've ever been in. And the people are polite and friendly and I'd almost say nice to a fault. And the trains run exactly dead on time. You can set your watch to these things, that's how on-time they are. I've heard for years how the Japanese society has this cronic "Over Employment" -- I think it is really more of a case where they've decided that they want a place that is nice to live and those are the costs you have to bear to have it.
I'm living in an area called Roppongi, on the west side of Tokyo. It used to be the seedier area of Tokyo, but then the Mori company came in and "Gentrified" it. They cleaned it up, made it up scale, etc... Or most of it anyways. The walk from the Roppongi subway station to my flat is interesting. One route goes thru western yuppie central, featuring stores such as Louis Vitton, Eves St. Laurent, and any number of trendy ultra-chic botiques. The other route goes through "Old Roppongi" -- which is just find in the daylight but after dark, it turns ultra-seedy. In addition to the people on the street saying "come into club, you get good time!" in various states of Undress, you also get the "Personal Massage, Sixty Thousand Yen!"
So nice of UBS to put me up less then 5 minutes walk from such an area.
The flat here is nice, but small. I expected about as much. It comes with a gym membership for a really nice gym with pool and excerise room and... Most of the staff speak English there to some degree, and are way too attentive. Working out, there were 4 staff members for 3 guests, which meant I had my own personal "towel girl". One of the particularly cute ones works as a personal trainer. She offered politely to be my "Very own special trainer" who would "show me lots of different excerises to stimulate me." I didn't think I really wanted to explain the concept of "double entendre" to her...
Starbucks is everywhere. There are *3* of them between me and the two entrances to the subway I use. And a fourth a block away. And a fifth just down thataway. In fact, there are more Starbucks in Tokyo then in San Francisco. It's frightening.
I only have a couple of examples of "Engrish" for you to hear about. The first one is from a shop over in the mall. I'm going to get a picture of it today, so I can post it to a web page. The name of the shop is "White Trash Charms Japan". Quite amusing. The other example is a box of *something* that came with the flat here. The box has this oh so useful thing on it...it reads
Gentry (<--product or company name, not sure which)
Ding Dong
Ding Dong
Church Bell's ringing
Nightingale in the dale
Little boy so full of joy
Little girl so sweet and cute
Nobody has any clue wot's in the box. The best guess so far is "sugar", but with how it rattles around, well...
The jet lag wasn't too bad, surprisingly. You get over it pretty quickly. Most of my time here has been spent digging thru and learning the stuff I need for the JSDA securities exam. Urgh! That's next Friday...
That's the news that's fit to print... Oh, Ichiro just hit another home run...
Gullible isn't in the dictionary.