4 Long weeks

I am in a mood to write something tonight, after long 30 days, m back in Bangalore – crackers r bursting outside – of course not in my welcome – but because people still have Diwali hangover..

If I look back now, it seems as if it was yesterday when I was asked to go to Japan, there were few questions in my mind, how safe it is, it will gonna be really challenging, long working days/nights and food will be a challenge along with language – but somewhere had the confidence – ki sab ho jaayega…

& the journey started….

Reached Singapore, and I had 60 mins for next flight, I thought wow airport is cool, let’s explore it, I knew my flight is from next terminal, I thought I’ll be there in few minutes big deal!!

Wooo, it took me 15 mins in sky train (quite an experience) – to reach to next terminal and flight was from gate 51 odd….gosh!! took another 15 mins to be there….just managed in time!! – first lesson learnt – better be on time – come out of Indian time zone J

Air-hostesses were coolJ, polite – hot & humble…lolz. Suddenly all the faces in the airbus were so different and I already started getting a feeling of “welcome to japan” – 7 more hrs and we landed. Extremely well organized , strict adherence to queuing culture, I started hunting for information desk to get pointers to hotel…

Took the train – hopped around on another one mid-way and finally reached hotel, initially train map looked like some puzzle – lines of difference colors intersecting each other at every second point but after a close look of 5 mins – it seems to be really easy to understand – Lesson 2 :- Things aren’t that complicated as they are projected – keep your cool and things will fall in place J

Hotel:-

Nothing much to say about the size of the room, the bathroom in UK was bigger than the entire room, nevertheless I accepted it happily as I had no other choice but to do that J

Iron table, funny creation – I still don’t know – how to open that, TV which I never turned on, however it’s manual was full of porn stuff – dial this – for this girl, this for this show…blah blah blah…!  - comeon we aren’t in college – grow up hotel people – stop sharing this naughty stuff J

Office was around 20 mins walk from hotel, sometimes I walked, mostly I took bus – one thing which I still don’t understand is  dressing sense of girls…

Top – as tight as it can get

Skirt – as short as possible

Shoes – as long as it can get (it covers everything, what ideally skirt is supposed to do – may be perfect combo of team work)

Anyways, I always enjoyed my journey on the way to office (that’s the only time I could see some people, I generally use to come around 2am, 4am sometimes next day from work – so never had chance to see the crowd on the way back…

They have musical end to every word – and they do get surprised pretty easily - operating their ticket machine was quite an experience as everything was in Japanese. Had toughest of times while shopping in super market, nothing is written in english and to add to it – only 0.01% of entire stock will be pure-veg. If you are veggie like me – be prepared to loose few kg’s J - the prices are crazy, it’s so very expensive – you just can’t convert anything to INR. You need lots of cash to survive here.

Covering work related aspect quickly:-

Overall I am happy and satisfied with my contribution, couldn't have think of any better, lots of positives to take forward and felt nice as lots of big shots appreciated. 17hrs per day without break for 30 days was a bit too much (but I enjoyed every moment of it, and gave more than 100%). it was quite an experience meeting people from different parts of the world working towards one common objective.

Earth quakes:-

First one – I got bit scared, stood up – looked around – was waiting to copy whatever others are doing, guess what they did nothing – they just ignored it.!

Second one:- I remained seated, looked around with caution, no prize for guessing –everyone ignored it again.

Third one: - Guess what – even I ignored it this time!! - remained glued to my system!

One think I did pretty often, after 17/18hrs when I use to come back to hotel – first thing – go to the bath tub – lie down take a long hot water shower – cant express how much I loved it and find it really refreshing….

Breakfast:-

Out of 28 coupons, I still have 20 with me J - which means I had breakfast 8/28 times, reason – nothing to eat there for me, only juice and bread-butter and their special timings 6.30 to 7.30 (no way u can get up by 7, if u have slept at 4-5…)

I survived mostly on ready to eat, fruits, coke, lemon juice, curd & pizza.

Pizza ;- there is a small story about the famous Japanese pizza, I went to the supermarket and when I was 100% sure – it’s pure veg, I opted for it and while heating it in microwave there was a small sachet along with pizza, which I thought is topping (something stopped me from within) and I decided not to use it, I tasted a bit – it was yuck – I threw it in dustbin and next day I got to know – that was poison to keep the pizza fresh…..i was like What the f*$% – why in d world will someone put the poison next to pizza to keep it fresh, later I got to know – it’s pretty common, that day onwards – no experiment’s, stick to what you know and eat that only!!

After 22 days, I got a day off – for the first 2 hours – I kept wondering – what to do….and I was finding it hard – that I have entire day for my own self, I covered as much as one can think off, clicked hundreds of pictures and uploaded everything on fb, shopped a lot for everyone and it was great fun. Visit to traditional temple, went for the cruise for the first time in my life, followed by walk on lonely rainbow bridge, quite a romantic place, saw few couples doing naughty stuff ;) – nice to see this part of Japan.  I did got 4 calls from office, but no one asked me to come over  - so I ll still take it as an day off J

Same old life started from next day, and as the time of departure starting coming closer – work started piling up, I wanted to finish everything properly before I make my way back, I realized I still had lots of ready to eat packets left with me, so I hosted a lunch …authentic Indian lunch for my gang (people who were sitting around me) – they loved it, worked complete – compiled and it was the time to capture some bye-bye moments with people I worked with.…

Off to Singapore:-

I had 18 hrs of transit, and I had no idea, what will I be doing during those 18hrs, I was still hopeful I will get a visa (somehow) and will get to see some places, 4am in the morning, after 15 minutes of discussion with immigration office – I got the green signal and visa is done J - I should have waited for 3 hours as I realized moment you get out of immigration zone, there was no internet, no proper chairs n absolutely no facilities L , had to spend next 4 hrs in really difficult conditions, counter opened at 6 – I picked up all the maps – and was so happy to find information in english…

First train was at 7.30, I took ticket to last destination and started hopping in and out of their stations, covered quite a lot, more than my expectations and again clicked quite a lot. 1^st impression – it’s a copy of London…

Singapore flyer is ditto like London eye

Orchard street is subset of oxford street

Marina bay is like a bay on river Thames…

From there it was a journey to my friends place, met his family and had nice Indian lunch, off to airport and was all excited to board the flight to Bangalore. Out of all the flights I had taken till date, this was the first time a girl was sitting next to me, well I had not slept for 2 nights, so I really wanted to catch some sleep – all I remember Is she was from infy…slept! – When I woke up – I was in Bangalore.

Felt happy to be back – reached home around 2 and next morning at 9 – I was in office…

I am still having a bit of hangover of Japanese working style, I still get up at 4.30 in the mornings (3.5hrs delta between time zones),  I think I will take some time to get back into normal mode of working..

These days 90% of office is on vacation and m still working L, looking forward to 2^nd of nov when my mother will be back.

Overall – quite an experience – lots of learning’s – never felt so close to customer and never realized contributing that closely to end product…experienced a different side of culture – lots to learn from them – respect, care, concern, ready to help attitude even for a stranger, punctual and well mannered.

But along with this – sometimes it’s good to break rules and have fun – thodi masti bhi zarori hai yaar.. Never loved the Bangalore food so much before, everything tastes WOW now, I cherish lots of things now which I generally use to take for granted before J.

Really looking forward to my next match, it’s been almost 80 days since I played last- longest ever break in my career of 15 years…

I think it’s enough for today.

Signing off from my bed :)

Sahil

27.10.2011  11.00 pm

Life in Tokyo... :)

In next few minutes I am going to write whatever comes to my mind randomly about my experience of last 20days in a Tokyo.

Let’s start from Airport, well organized, everyone strictly follows queue culture and staff members are more than willing to help you but language does play a trick. I couldn’t even think about taking Taxi to Hotel as rates were crazy, 100$ from Airport to hotel was way too much, I explored other options and got a 10$ deal by train, which I had to change half way to catch another one, again rail system is well organized, well maintained and this country is extremely punctual. People are humble, polite and are always ready to help. They do have a bowing culture which they do to signify the respect towards other person. Once I reached hotel, I was amazed to see the size of the room, I remember bathroom in UK was bigger than the room in Japan. Anyways I had to spend 30 days in same room, so I happily accepted it. Just like any other hotel room there is a TV (which I never turned on for couple of reason – I never got time to even look at it and secondly It has all Japanese channels), then there is an iron table which doesn’t open or maybe I don’t know how to operate it. From the window of the room I can see the entire area, which always reminds me 'this city never sleeps, I repeat never'!

  I have come back from work sometimes at 3am, sometimes at 4, 5 and once even at 6am, I have always found people on road, having headphones on and busy in their own world. Coming to work – well I would say it’s really different, though I was quite prepared for it, before I started form Bangalore a special person had told me before you start any-work – be sure of what you are doing, set goals, ask questions and be very sure of what you do and then proceed further, I kept this mantra in mind and if I look back now after 20days, this is the thing which has helped me a lot more than anything else. It’s a different culture, different working ways, things sometimes that look so obvious – aren’t that obvious. Language is a big barrier and does play a trick. You need to stay calm, focus entirely on work – don’t get carried away by earthquake shocks or long working hours. On an average I work for 16hrs at office and then 1-2hrs from hotel, but there were many occasions where I stayed back for 22hrs and once I did crossed one cycle of clockJ. People here are really hardworking but there is something missing, “sometimes you do feel this is not the best way of doing this, it could have been done this way to save lot of time” – but here the culture is bit different, once if something is followed –its followed! – No questions after that unless it comes from top. After putting in such long hours, I did slept few times with shoes and specs on J and I don’t remember when was the last time I slept for 6 hours!!

Coming to food, if you are a vegetarian, this country is not meant for you, I have completely forgotten how a fresh cooked vegetarian food tastes, I am surviving on ready to eat, coke and fruits. Yes I did lost 3kgs already In less than 3wks and it’s so very expensive in the city, best is never try to compare when Indian currency just happily keep moving and spend. I could never take meals on time, and I did skipped lots of them (I know it’s not good but I could never really think about it, was so indulged with activities).

17^th day was special, after 16 long , really long days,I got half a day off,where I went with my colleague and roamed around whatever we could,if you have worked like this,you are bound to love everything you see, so we clicked a lot and uploaded everything.Life was same from next day but that break did refreshed a bit,but half a day suddenly disappeared in few mins.

With last few days to go I am planning to do as much as I can to bridge the gap which will help in future, and i am quite happy to receive a compliment from my colleague who was here for few days, he told something special about my work- which meant a lot to me. Coming to personal side, when I just want to purchase something for my mother, wonder when will i get a chance, may be on the last day I could visit some station (oh, I forgot to mention, here stations are huge and each station has big shopping complex of few floors, their marketing concept is maximum people commute by trains so it makes sense to have station cum mall kind of complex). So hopefully I will get something from station, generally whenever I go back to hotel I couldn’t find the shopping complex open(it closes at 11), and morning it opens at 9 and I generally leave every day before 9. But I will surely get something for her and something for my colleagues back in Bangalore – Japan special.

To summarize, well I would say I was fortunate to get this opportunity and I had a very different experience, learnt a new side of culture and different working aspects, had best week when my colleague from UK was here, learnt a lot from him and yes did made some new friends at work and I am sure it’s just the beginning of the journey!

I will pen down again, don’t know why, but I am not getting sleep today. I didn’t had anything else to do – so that’s how this write-up is created!


Proper blog will follow someday!!

Sahil Gupta

Kokubunju-Tokyo

Japan!