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!