Christine's Journey to Japan

Closing thoughts...

2009-05-27T16:23:00.007-04:00

I thought our second and final journal prompt from Dr. Borgman was very appropriate for my last entry in this blog:

A quote from artist Susan Groce, UMaine: "Travel involves a change in perspective, perception and sense of time. Removing myself from my own routines and experiencing different viewpoints are essential to seeing things in different ways. In fact, reorientation of perspective is a major factor in my work." Have you experienced this? Comment.

Most certainly the answer to this question is a resounding "yes". No matter what people tell you about a new place, you just can't understand it until you visit. Obviously in only 8 days I'm still not even close to understanding Japan or its people, but I have begun to and would now be comfortable traveling there without a guide in the future.

The most obvious benefit and change in perspective I have received from this trip is my better understanding of business in a foreign country. Throughout my 6 years of business schooling it has been repeatedly emphasized how important it is to understand those you are getting into business with, whether local or international. However, nothing could have hit that point home better than this trip. As you have been reading, we visited many companies while in Japan, both Japanese and American, and there were both differences and similarities that are important to be aware of; none of which I would have understood without a visit to a foreign country. Most importantly, just because the internal rules and regulations of American foreign companies are the same in Japan, doesn't mean that Japanese employees don't still follow their own code of conduct. So it is important to understand that whether you are doing business with a Japanese company, or bringing your foreign company to Japan, you still need to fully understand what Japanese employees are willing to change, and what you must do to be accepted. For the most part, the Japanese people are very forgiving of foreigners making little mistakes. They understand that their culture is complicated, but they also expect you to make an effort.

Though Japan may have one of the most complicated cultures in the world, I think this lesson transfers to most other cultures too. The sincere effort is the most important part of traveling and doing business abroad. Don't make ANY assumptions, and don't be afraid to ask questions. BUT, also don't be afraid to imitate if you can't ask a question. I did that a lot with bowing, and I think it works in many situations. If you make a mistake, the best case is that people will get a chuckle. In the worst case you may offend, but a show of embarrassment and excessive apologies seems to have worked out well for our group (like when many people stepped in places they shouldn't have with shoes on).

In conclusion, this trip was one of the most enlightening events of my life, and I hope to take many more. I have a much better perspective on many lessons taught in all the classes I have taken, and will certainly remember them better. This being my first trip out of North America, I can also very sincerely say that I have caught the travel bug, and hope I will eventually find work that will allow me to travel more.

Thank you all for reading and please feel free to leave comments on any of my postings. I'll continue to check up on the blog for a while after. And I won't say "sayonara" because I hope to see you all again, so I will say "ja ne" (see you)!

One last picture: our table at the shabu-shabu restaurant. In the center is Orono, Tom's (one of UMaine's esteemed alumni) daughter. This was one of the best nights of our trip, and Tom was kind enough to email us these pictures. Thank you Tom!

Day 8: Saturday

2009-05-25T16:15:00.008-04:00

Our last day in Japan! How sad! I've posted a lot of pictures of this day so I'm not going to write too much. I'll write one more post after this to wrap-up my experience.

This first picture is in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto. We are on our way to the Gekkeikan Sake brewery, and I just thought this was a nice view of the narrow streets in this area (and many of the streets in Japan that aren't main thoroughfairs).

We toured the brewery's museum because they don't brew sake at this location in the winter (I believe that is correct. I know they didn't used to and we didn't get to see the actual tanks so I'm making an assumption here).

We were able to try samples of different sakes, including plum sake, which i bought a bottle of.
Mmmmmm...

After the brewery we stopped back at the hotel. I took this picture because I just think the walkway between the street and the hotel entrance is so beautiful and dream-like.

Once we all dropped off our sake purchases Mike, Meagan and I took off to check out more of the sites. This is a picture I took from the "Philosopher's Trail". It's a trail in the woods along the edge of the town we stayed in. There were temples, shrines, vendors, and some shops all along the trail. It was a great last day.

Mike and Meagan in front of a small shrine.

A Japanese woman praying at another shrine.

While walking back to the hotel, I snapped this picture of a gas station pump because I just think it is a great idea to show the cars where to park by the pump. :) We need that here!

Just another beautiful picture. Japan is FULL of beautiful pictures.

Paul leading us to our final group dinner. Another very nice area.

Dinner was all tofu. I did try everything but I have to say that I did not enjoy it. A small group of us visited a local McDonald's after to supplement our dinner, but I'm glad I got to experience it.

After dinner Rick presented Keiko with a gift from the group to thank her for all of her help. We really could not have had such a wonderful time on this trip without Keiko. She knew many of the best places to go and provided translations when needed. Her family also gave everyone in the group Japanese sweets as gifts which was really sweet of them. Thank you Keiko and Keiko's family!

Day 7: Friday

2009-05-23T04:31:00.021-04:00

We did so many things today it is hard to keep track. Megan and I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't fall back asleep so we took a walk to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. It was about a half hour walk or so. This is a picture I took along the way that I thought came out well. We didn't actually get to see the palace because it is behind a big wall and you have to schedule a tour, so we just walked around the gardens for a bit then headed back to the hotel for breakfast.

After breakfast the group headed to the bus stop for our first event of the day. This is a leaf off of a ginko tree. Ginko trees line the sidewalks in Kyoto and I felt a certain attachment to them because we used to have one on the playground when I was in elementary school and I alwayed loved how unique the leaves were.

Our first event of the day was a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. This is an amazing tradition that takes a lot of time to prepare for and execute, but is very beautiful to observe and be a part of. We had to come through the doors on our hands and knees, learned to prepare the tea and serve it properly, and also how to properly appreciate its history. Joe and Megan volunteered to experience the ceremony first and show us all how it was done. Keiko translated much of what to do and we were able to watch how our hosts stirred the green tea powder into the hot water with a whisk, and place the "cup" just so on the mat. Then Joe used his hands to pull himself over to cup and carefully bring it back to his place. The cup then needs to be rotated and drank from 3 times, then carefully examined (to properly enjoy the nice artwork on the cup) before returning it to the server. There was actually much more to it than that, with every motion being deliberate and necessary. It was really mesmerizing to watch, especially the women serving because they were so graceful.

Here is part of the group attempting to recreate the beauty and gracefulness of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. I can't speak for everyone but I don't think Kenneth and I's attempt could be classified as "beautiful" or "mesmerizing". :) We spent a lot of time looking around trying to figure out what was next. I served first, then got to try my hand at being the guest. The only negative to the experience was the pain in our legs from trying to sit the proper way. I don't think any of us were really prepared for that. The entire experience though was definitely something I will always remember. It is amazing how the traditions in Japan have lasted for so many hundreds of years and their willingness to share them with others.

The entire group. The artwork in the back was actually done by a tea master 200 years ago (I believe I have that right), and when we arrived and before we departed we bowed to it to represent bowing to the tea master.

After the tea ceremony we visited the Golden Temple. Kyoto is full of temples and shrines to visit. This one was surrounded by gardens and other historical buildings. We couldn't get up close to it, but it was beautiful. I think I took over 100 pictures just of temples today.

A few of us split up to do some shopping after the visit to the Golden Temple. To save some yen, we ate at a Lawson's (chain convenience store). I had a sandwich and a banana, which was actually quite delicious :)

A zen garden at the Ryoanji Temple. In Japan, the number 15 stands for something like completeness, so this traditional rock garden has 15 rocks, but only 14 can be seen at a time from any angle. This represents the fact that life is never complete. The story stuck with me because I think it is very true and am amazed at how much time it must take to make these gardens so perfect.

Just another nice picture in the gardens of one of the temples.

Sarah took this in the evening. It is in case anyone wanted to see what the traditional Japanese toilets looked like. :)

So tomorrow is our last day in Japan. We have a sake brewery tour in the morning, then lots of shopping and walking around to see more sites in the afternoon. I can't believe the trip is almost over!

Day 6: Thursday

2009-05-23T03:45:00.014-04:00

Here are Tom, Megan, Ben and I on the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) to Kyoto. Most of day 6 was travel, as we made our way to the cultural capital of Japan. While on the train we were able to see the top of Mt. Fuji and some of the Japanese countryside. The rice paddies are amazing in Japan and many of the housing structures are beautiful. Of course a lot of the areas we passed looked very congested as well.

After the two hour train ride we stopped at the Toyota plant in Toyota City, Osaka. The tour of Toyota was incredibly interesting and it is amazing how efficient they are at building quality cars. After the tour we saw this sign in their showroom area welcoming us.

Since we couldn't take pictures on the tour, this is a model they have in the showroom which does look similar to how the work was actually done. Everything is on conveyor belts, including all the tools and parts the employees need for their step in the process. People and machines load these carts based on specifications and the wire running across the top of the picture is what an employee pulls on if they find a problem. We were on walkways above the employees and got to see them in action. We also got to see the welding area where they put together the stamped-out frames of the vehicles. This part is all done by machines, and is amazing to watch. Sparks fly everywhere. What is really interesting is that they make three different cars at that Toyota plant but they all run on the same assembly line and are mixed in together.

This is Concerto, the trumpet-playing robot. Nothing much to stay about it but it was pretty cool.

After the Toyota plant we had a two hour-ish bus ride to Kyoto. This was a beautiful bride we saw on the way.

This picture of a road sign I just found highly amusing. The Japanese are HIGHLY visual people, but this just made it look like their was disaster at the end of this road. We did however make it to our destination safely.

The gateway to the area of Kyoto we stayed in. I'm sure their is a story behind it but I honestly can't say what it is, I just liked the gate. I took this picture from the bus :)

Our hotel, The Three Sisters Inn Annex is beautiful. This entryway is practically hidden and the walkway to get to the entrance is long and winding and lined with beautiful plants and places to sit. When you get to the door you have to leave your shoes in the entry. All the room floors have tatami mats, and we sleep on thin mattresses laid directly on the mats. It is a little firm but fairly comfortable. Fortunately the toilets are all western style.

Megan, Sarah and I's room (106) is on the first floor and has two screen doors the open into a Japanese garden. This was the only picture I took on the first day. Where I'm sitting is my bed, then their is a separate room where Megan and Sarah slept. Our bathroom is the door on the right and the dark area on the left is one of the screen doors. The bathroom has its own slippers that you wear while in it.

For Friday we went to a traditional tea ceremony then saw some temples and shopped, and for today (Saturday), we visited a sake brewery and did a lot more walking around historical sites. I did take a ton of pictures and will finish updating when I return from the trip. Since we fly out tomorrow morning and it is currently 9:50pm JST, I won't have time to wrap it all up tonight. Hope you have enjoyed the blog thus far and continue to read in the next few days! Kyoto is absolutely wonderful!

Day 5: Wednesday

2009-05-21T06:00:00.014-04:00

Our first company visit on Wednesday was to State Street Bank, based out of Boston. Here are Sarah and I sitting on a rather unusual bench in front of a waterfall by the building where the company's offices are. The process to get up to the offices was unique for me in that we had to get a special card that needed to be read by a security gate to get in and out of certain floors. This is probably standard procedure for many high profile buildings around the world, but I had never experienced it.

Just a picture of the structure outside of State Street's building that I liked.

State Street is not a typical bank like you would normally think of. They are actually a custodial bank, meaning deal directly with other institutions and prime brokers, and their biggest business is in securities finance, lending securities for others to short sell. I won't get into the gory details here though. After the presentation I was able to talk to the gentleman in charge of the Tokyo branch of securities finance and we discussed women in the workplace. He mentioned that they do indeed have women on management track jobs and that some women look for foreign companies to work for because they are more progressive in this area. Another interesting insight. The other new cultural aspect I learned about here was the concept of elevator and seating hierarchy. In an elevator, the most junior person stands near the buttons so that they can run the elevator, and the most senior person stands near the middle (I believe). In a business meeting the most senior person sits farthest from the door and the most junior closest.

On our way to Itochu we stopped in Ioyama and the Harajuku area, which is a wealthy residential and high-fashion shopping area of Japan. Along with your typical high-fashion stores such as Louis Vuitton and Guicchi, there was also a street where the teenage school children hang out and shop. It is like an alley-way and the stores are full of eccentric and off-the-wall fashions. We were told that many fashion designers come to this street to take pictures of what Japanese school girls are wearing for ideas. This was one of the girls on the street. Though not as extreme as some, I still thought her outfit was interesting.

It is difficult to explain what Itochu does because they are involved in so many industries. The two gentlemen who presented to us were both in the tuna industry however, so that is what we learned about. Japan has strict rules on fishing for tuna that is used for sashimi, but not for tuna used in tuna fish cans, because apparently there is so much of that kind in the sea.

Nine of our group went to Disney in the evening. I spent my time at Disney running around with Tom, trying to hit as many attractions as possible. I was amazed at how similar the park is to Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Many of the rides like Star Tours and Pirates of the Caribbean were almost exactly the same, with the exception of dubbing in Japanese. Luckily Tom didn't mind my spouting off random Disney trivia all evening and translating the story-lines of many of the rides since I've been on the english versions so many times. There were also a few rides we don't have in the US, and a few that were closed, but we had a great time anyway.

Instead of "Spectromagic", Tokyo Disney has the "Tokyo Disney Electrical Parade" which I actually think is much better. They even had Elliot from Pete's Dragon! (Which is based in Maine for those who don't know)

Most will recognize this castle since it looks to be an exact replica of the one in Florida. I just thought this was a pretty picture. Tom and I also enjoyed delicious burgers at the Tomorrowland Terrace; very similar to the Starlight Cafe in Disneyworld but I think it only had burgers and fries.

Here is a pictures of Main Street in Tokyo Disneyland. You'll notice it covered. I've heard that's because of the rainy season in Tokyo. Another difference is that it has side streets that actually lead out into the park, unlike in the Magic Kingdom. Very cool. The shops sell different souvenirs as well, such as cell phone danglies (very popular here since it is the only thing identifying all the similar-looking cell phones in Japan), chop sticks, and fans. I couldn't resist picking up a small Wall-E poster in Japanese. :)

Leaving the park. Got onto a packed train and made our way home on our last night in Tokyo. A great way to end this leg of the tour.

Dentsu & First Journal Prompt

2009-05-21T05:54:00.002-04:00

Because I didn't have my camera at the first meeting of day 4, I didn't mention anything about it, so I”ll add it here. Dentsu visited our hotel Tuesday morning. We weren't able to go inside their building because of swine flu fears so we met in the Presso Inn conference room. Dentsu is the largest marketing company in all of Japan and also a top marketing company in the world. When foreign companies enter Japan, they often approach Dentsu to help with their marketing campaigns. The most interesting thing I got from this presentation was the difference between what Japanese consumers prefer in a commercial versus western consumers. In the west, consumers identify more with the intrinsic benefit of a product. For example with Coca-Cola, our commercials center on the refreshing taste and flavor of the product. In Japan, consumers will be more interested in a commercial that focuses on the extrinsic benefit of the product and want an emotional bond.

Dr. Borgman also gave us a journal prompt for day 4: “If we could bring anything from Japan what would it be, and if we could suggest anything for Japan from our home country what would it be?” Well the first thing I wish we had in the US is of course the Japanese toilet. Seat warming, bidet, and “flushing sound” all built in make for a very nice restroom experience. I also very much enjoy the culture here. This may not be something you can "bring back" but I am amazed that there are still women who dress in traditional komonos walking around the subways, and the festivals, traditional inns, and shrines are prevalent.

Here in Japan, some of the things I've found lacking that I truly miss are:

Trash cans on the streets. It is very difficult to find a trash can in public. It makes you wonder how they keep things so clean.
Toilet paper and a place to wipe your hands. Many public toilets in Japan have no way to dry your hands. One was even completely without toilet paper, and I don't mean it was just out; there was no place for it at all. Thankfully we had tissues on hand.
Cereal. On man am I every craving a bowl of cereal for breakfast. It's very possible it does exist but we haven't visited any grocery stores so I have had no cereal or milk for 5 days.

Day 4: Tuesday

2009-05-19T08:24:00.012-04:00

Running a bit late this morning to type about yesterday's experience. Please enjoy the pictures and I will add more information later if I have a chance.

Even the sewer covers in Japan are detailed and pretty.

An image above a shop on our way to the fish market. Once again, just something I liked the look of.

This is a lobster at the fish market. If you click on it you can see the detail. Nothing like Maine lobster right?

Experts cutting up the tuna to be sold for sushi, etc. They use huge sword-looking knives, cleavers, and other scary-looking instruments. Very interesting to watch.

My first round of sushi. We had sushi for breakfast. I think it was around 7:30am when we ate but it was still delicious. This style of sushi is called nagiri and the tuna was most delicious. Although I did like the squid legs (bottom left).

Enjoying my vegetable wrap.

Keiko and Yoshi. He helped lead us around the area.

These men were sitting at an intersection watching the street and hitting all those different buttons on their lap. Don't know why but I thought it was interesting (observing traffic patterns?)

In the elevator of Tomoegawa. This is what it often feels like in Japan.

Once again I left the camera home in the evening but for day 4 we're headed to State Street bank, based in Boston, Itochu, then in the evening we're visiting DisneyLand!

Dinner with UMaine Alumni

2009-05-19T08:00:00.004-04:00

One event I left off of day 3's journal was our evening dinner with some Japanese UMaine alumni. We had a shabu shabu meal and it was all you can eat and all you can drink. Some of us took that more seriously than others, however I did have one nice drink called a cassis orange, and a couple small cups of sake that were quite nice. Myself, Jacques and Kenneth had the opportunity to dine with Tom Naguchi, a political science alumni from 1984 and his daughter Orono, named after the town. Tom had his 1984 yearbook which was a lot of fun to look through and we discussed the changes in college hang-outs since he was there. He was also gracious enough to show us how to dine shabu shabu style (see link below) and cooked for us. Orono's english was wonderful so we got to learn a little about the Japanese school system. All students through highschool wear uniforms and in her class she receives "money" for speaking in english in class, which can be turned in for prizes; similar to some American school reward systems. We have actually seen many very young school children walking alone in the metro and on the streets. Keiko says it is because parents want their kids to attend the best private school so often they have a long way to travel. Tokyo isn't a safe as it used to be though so this can be dangerous.

Since my camera is so heavy, I decided not to take it along for this event so unfortunately I do not have a picture of Tom and Orono. However, Dr. Jones did set up a photobucket account for our trip that others have been and will be loading photos to (not me, I have too many!) so if you'd like to check them out visit MBA Japan Trip Photos.

Also, here is a link to Wikipedia's shabu shabu page if you're interested in what it is. It was delicious!

Day 3: Monday

2009-05-18T09:03:00.014-04:00

FYI, I'm currently writing this post at 4:40am here in Tokyo because we are headed to the Tsukiji Fish Market: the largest fish market in the world!

Though this picture doesn't show how exciting yesterday was, it was actually a lot of fun. The day was full of business-related activities like company visits and a tour of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The picture to the left is of a salaryman sleeping on the train. My paper for this trip was on women in the workplace, so I naturally did a lot of research on what work life is like for the men in the country as well. Most of the people we saw on the trains were sleeping; some were even resting their eyes while standing. The reason for this is that many salarymen (essentially what we in American call white-collared men) work not only a standard 8-4 or 9-5 shift, but also stay late to get essential work finished and then go out to a restaurant or bar with the boss and colleagues to socialize after work. This means that they don't get home until 10 or 11 at night and then have to do it all over again. You can understand then why there are very few women in management positions. If women worked as much as men, there would be much fewer children because daycare is also not very prevelant here in Japan. As you may imagine, this actually is a big issue in Japan because many women do wish to work and so are choosing to just not marry or have kids until late in life or not at all, meaning the country's birthrate is much lower than other developed nations. Japan is actually facing a major issue in the future of having almost half of their population be over 65, and in need of healthcare. Without enough of the younger generation in the workplace, they will face a shortage of money to help pay for this healthcare. Therefore the government and some large companies are starting to realize that they need to look at their work-life balance to allow more women the ability to work AND have children. It is a very slow process but some of the companies we visited seemed to have made good progress.

I thought this was an appropriate picture because we spend so much time on escalators. They are everywhere in Japan with many, like this one, being in the metro stations. As you can see, everyone is learning that the proper way is to stay to the left so that those in a hurry can walk up on the right.

Here we are all dressed up nice by the building where the Squire Sanders office is. Squire Sanders is and international law firm that started in Cleavland, Ohio. [I will have to finish this post later, as we are leaving for the Tsukiji Fish Market in 3 minutes so I need to get to the lobby. Enjoy the rest of the pictures and I will describe them more later]. Okay, it is 8:06am here (7:06pm EST) and I just arrived back from the fish market and a delicious sushi breakfast. Tuna here is AMAZING! But, you'll see pictures of that in my Day 4 post.

Back to Squire Sanders. This picture is of the conference room we met in. We learned a lot of interesting facts about the legal system here in Japan (based heavily on civil law in Germany) and about the benefit of building relationships. I asked our speaker about women in the workplace and found out that the have 8 female associates (lawyers), but no female partners. It was great to hear that they have active management-track women, and didn't surprise me much to hear that there were no female partners, because I think it is fairly similar in US. My assumption is that because partners have to put in such long hours, it would be even more difficult to have a family. According to our speaker, many companies have CSR (?) materials which mention "OG" (Old Girl, like Old Boy) that discuss how women with experience can return to work after having children if they wish. The most interesting thing I heard was that many women who are contacted to see if they'd like to return refuse, but instead offer to mentor young up-and-coming women and share their networks. This can be very beneficial for the new employees because they now have their own network of college peers plus a network of peers 15+ years their senior.

This is just a tree I liked the look of outside of Squire Sanders.

For lunch we stopped at a ramen restaurant. Here is Jacques with his miso ramen, It is reminiscient of American ramen but much more flavorful and has sheets of seaweed and vegetables in it. I ordered the traditional ramen in a pork broth, which also had a slice of pork in it. It was tasty though the bowl was huge and I couldn't eat it all. While we were eating a really large line was gathering outside the restaurant (we were sitting on a sort of porch). The Japanese eat very fast so turnover in restaurants (especially this sort of simple walk-up restaurant) is swift. I think they may have been getting annoyed at the slow Americans. :

After lunch we made a quick stop at the hotel then visited the Tokyo stock exchange. Here is a picture of my very own stock. AND I'm up 14 yen! :) Notice that red is for positive and green is for negative. That is because in asian culture red is a good or lucky color and green is negative. According to Paul green also means you are impotent. Don't wear green ;)

You may have to enlarge this picture to read it (I lightened the picture a bit so you could see the people), but they put up a sign that says "Tokyo Stock Exchange Group, Inc. Welcomes University of Maine, Maine Business School, 18 May, 2009. How cool is that?

Finally, our last company stop of the day was Avaya Japan, an American subsidiary, and the one Paul and Keiko used to work for. They gave a wonderful presentation about what they do (telecommunications). I really enjoyed listening to the challenges they have with selling voicemail. In Japan, quality is king. Price is a close second but no price is good if the quality is bad. So part of quality is being able to speak to a real person when you call a company. In Japan most companies still heavily rely on the assistant system, where an assistant for the department answers ALL phone calls and then transfers them to the correct person (it is important to answer the phone in 3 rings or less). Calling from outside the company, you can only directly dial one number (the assistant's) for an entire department. The assistant (usually female) also can answer many questions because there are no cubes. People work at large tables, all open, with their own computers and phones. Because of this everyone knows what everyone else is working on. Good and bad I guess. But what it means for Avaya is that convincing companies to switch to voicemail is very difficult.

So this picture is with Aya Sakata, the PR Manager in Marketing at Avaya Japan. Jacques and I are both researching women in the workplace so it was a great opportunity to find out more from a woman actually going through the challenges, Aya is an MBA student on a Manager of Technology track. Her program is also 2 years and targets people who have worked for 10 years or more. She hopes to continue on a management track after school. Because Avaya sells telecommunications they are also very proactive on the telecommuting front, which is very attractive for women who want to have families. They also have a focus on work-life balance. It isn't perfect of course because they still heavily emphasise "face time" in the office, but it is still a great step in the right direction for women.

For day 4: Tuesday (now today) we have visited the Tsukiji (pronounced skeejee) Fish Market and are next meeting with Dentsu, a major marketing firm, here in our hotel, then after lunch we head to Tomoegawa, a manufacturing company specializing in electronics parts, display parts, fine particles, and specialty paper. After Tomoegawa, we hit the L.L. Bean store for a quick visit, then are going to Akihabara, also known as "electric city" which is apparently like Times Square on acid. Then some of us will be hitting the town tonight to eat dinner and explore. More tomorrow!

And please feel free to make comments! I love hearing what people think, or what you may want to know more about.

Day 2: Sunday

2009-05-17T08:05:00.020-04:00

First thing is first. Almost every bathroom you go in here in Japan has this set of buttons on the right side of the toilet. Most of the time the seats are heated as well. I particularly like the "flushing sound" for making sure your time in the bathroom is discrete. For those entrepreneurs in the US reading this... take note :)

To begin our first full day in Japan, we walked the streets of Tokyo to get to the Imperial Palace and gardens. We got to see the actual tea store where Cristin (one of my colleagues) buys her tea online from the US, and mostly just took many more pictures than we will probably every know what to do with. I think I have at least one shot of every building along our route. I've also discovered that loaning my camera to my fellow students is actually a really great way to get some awesome photos I normally wouldn't have taken (thanks Joe and Chen!). It's also a good way to get some pictures of me in here. The photo above was taken by Joe in front of Takashima Department Store, which we were told is a major department store here in Tokyo. Looking inside I don't think I could have afforded anything.

This is the whole group at the Imperial gardens. The Imperial Palace is in the middle of the background. Thanks to my 250mm lens (thanks again mom and dad) I was able to get the really pretty close-up below (it was overcast all day).

You can't get any closer to the imperial palace and the entire area where walking is allowed was covered by the gravel you seen under our feet in the group picture. I think it is amazing how well the Japanese obey all the rules. It makes for a very clean and beautiful place. In the entire day we were out we only saw one piece of litter, even in the metro stations, and on escalators everyone automatically stands to the left so that if anyone wants to walk up, they won't have to excuse themselves the whole way. It's really quite nice!

We stopped by the Imperial Hotel on our way to a huge festival and were lucky enough to be there during two weddings. The first was a photo session for a bride and groom right when we walked in the door, though they were wearing traditional American wedding attire so I left the picture out. This couple to the left however, was walking down the hall towards us, so Paul nicely asked if we could take pictures. They are wearing traditional Japanese wedding attire which Keiko said is not comfortable. You can't see it in the picture but the bride had to take very small steps and apparently the dress is very heavy. When we first saw them, only the bride was walking towards us with an another lady, but I found it very cute when she noticed her husband and pulled him into the picture too. I don't think she wanted all the attention for herself.

After the Imperial Hotel we went to a festival that I still don't entirely know the reason for. Apparently it is some sort of welcoming that they do one a year, and it was PACKED. This is one of the many vendors. She was making balls of batter with octopus and vegetables in them. They were pretty good, but I couldn't eat all six. You can see by the signs above her that the cost was 500 yen, which is a little less than $5. Not bad for festival food. We also saw a beautiful temple at the festival, and experienced a traditional blessing by walking over to a very small roofed building where incense was burning and wafting the smoke over our heads.

This is just a bunch of the group getting a little loopy on the ferry ride across Tokyo Harbor to Odaiba. I actually took 10+ pictures in succession and this one was my favorite. :)

On the second ferry, we met up with another group of students. They were having a great time pretending part of the upper deck was a catwalk, so I took out my camera and started snapping pictures. This sparked a whole host of schenanegins (sp?) but was very funny. What you can't tell by the picture here was that it was INCREDIBLY windy.

Once in the Odaiba district (an island), we visited a couple of malls and saw a giant ferris wheel. My favorite part was the 4th floor of one of the Seaside Mall, where there were many stores with traditional Japanese items. This picture was of a small fast-food style restaurant that was themed with American 50's seating, and decorations, but serving Japanese food. I find their facination with American culture really great because I think their culture is so facinating myself.

Tokyo tower at night with my 250mm again. (Love it!)

Finally, the last picture below (along with the Tokyo tower picture) is from the deck of one of the malls in Odaiba and shows a miniature statue of liberty, the Tokyo Rainbow bridge, and Tokyo tower at night. I really loved this picture so I hope you enjoy it too. Have a good evening everyone!

Bed and Breakfast

2009-05-16T19:38:00.005-04:00

We just got back from the hotel breakfast. There were croissants and bread, and a nice lemon (?) pastry, along with orange juice and coffee. It's 8:45am JST and we have don't have anything specific to do until 9:30 so I thought I would add some more pictures.

This a view of our bedroom. Notice how small it is, but very comfortable. There is no place to put more than one suitcase to open it so mine is just at the end of my bed (by the window). There is a small close so Megan and I hung our dress clothes so they wouldn't be wrinkled for tomorrow.

This is our bathroom. I read about how the Japanese shower online and it is very different from America. Notice how deep the tub is. In Japan it is customary to wet yourself, then step out of the shower and soap yourself down then rinse yourself while still outside the tub. The entire bathroom is actually sunk into the floor so the water won't get in your room, and there is a drain under the sink. Once you are clean, you can get back in the tub for a soak. Megan and I decided to just shower the traditional American way however since we were short on time.

This is the view from our room. Our hotel, the Presso Inn, is located in the financial district of Tokyo so there isn't too much open on the weekend. The rain seems to have stopped so hopefully we'll get lucky since we have so much walking to do.

Day 1: Saturday

2009-05-16T18:34:00.013-04:00

It is 7:35am here in Japan and this Sunday is shaping up to be rainy but warm. I slept like a baby last night. The pillows here are like hard memory foam and other than the room being too warm, it was very comfortable. It might also help that I hadn't slept much in the prior 36 hour or so.

Here's a recap of day 1: what I like to call "torture by airplane". I must say I don't know if I'll come to Japan again if I have to fly coach. It was not easy sleeping sitting up for 12 hours, plus the first two 2 hour flights in the US. But here are some of my favorite pictures of the day.
This is the group waiting at the Bangor International Airport. All the check-ins and security went pretty smoothly, with the exception that I forgot to take my laptop out of my carry-on so I had to stand with the TSA gentleman while he examined my bag by hand for 5 or 10 minutes. But he was very nice.

This is probably one of the only pictures of me from day 1. Rachel and I on the first plane. Look how happy we are! Little did we realize...

Here is Tom in the psychedelic conveyor belt tunnel of the Detroit airport. One of our number aptly named it the "Techno Tunnel". Notice Megan in the background is still having a good time. I actually slept most of the first two flights since I stayed up the entire night before. In hindsight that was a bad idea. If we had flown directly from Maine to Japan, it wouldn't have been bad, but all the flight changes made for a lot of disrupted sleep.

This is one of my favorite pictures from day 1. It is just a fountain in the Minneapolis airport in front of people, in front of the window, in front of a plane. We flew a Boeing 747 from Minneapolis to Japan, similar I think to the plane in the background. I should include that during the landing in Minneapolis I got sick because of all the turbulence. I think it was also due to the lack of sleep and hunger, but so many people enjoyed reliving the story upon landing that I am including it here. :)

Skipping ahead since most of us spent the flight sleeping, here is Sarah, Meagan, and Mike showing off their new medical masks and quarantine inspection passes. These were to prove we had passed inspection and could deplane. We sat on the plane for about an hour (maybe less, it seemed to go pretty fast) while they came by collecting health information sheets we had to fill out and scanning everyone with a heat scanner to see if anyone had a fever. Thankfully the whole plane passed. Immigration and customs in Japan was very fast and not at all painful. We landed a little after 5:00pm JST, which is 4:00am in Maine so most everyone was pretty tired, but being the adventurous group that we are, the majority of people decided to go looking for a noodle shop so we could eat some food before going to bed. After walking around for a half hour around 8:00 at night, we ended up right next door to our hotel eating at nice little noodle shop where the waitress was very accomodating. Luckily for us, Jordan (Rick's daughter) spoke some Japanese so they were able to take all 15+ of us.

Here is Keiko getting us all checked in. If there is one word to describe what I've seen of Japan so far (which isn't much), it is "small". By American standards our room is very tiny, barely room to fit our suitcases (I'll post a picture later). After getting back from the noodle shop, it was around 10pm so I decided to go to bed rather than stay up and type. I'll try to add more later today since it is now breakfast time, and I'm starved.

Today we plan to visit the Imperial Palace and Hibiya Park, the Asakusa district, take a ferry ride to Tokyo harbor, and see the Odaiba district. Time to finish getting ready for the day!

Staying up all night

2009-05-15T00:01:00.003-04:00

Konnichiwa (good afternoon),

It is currently 1:01pm in Japan (JST) so I'm planning to stay up until I meet up with the group at 6:25am at the Bangor International Airport (7:25pm JST). This way I can sleep on the plane ride and avoid too much jet lag. Here's hoping it works.

I'm almost completely packed with the exception of any items I'll need to use in the morning while getting ready. I think I've actually packed more clothing than I could possibly wear in the one week we are there, but I'll be prepared for anything. I've got the camera, a tripod, a spare point-and-shoot camera, and my laptop for keeping this up-to-date.

To help keep track of my travels, I'll try to post the planned agenda for each day the day before.

Day 1 - Friday, May 15: Flights to Japan

8:25-10:45am EST (9:25-11:45pm JST): Depart from Bangor for Detroit via Northwest
12:01-2:06pm EST (1:01-3:06am JST): Depart from Detroit for Minneapolis
4:00pm-4:10am EST (5:00am-5:10pm JST): Depart from Minneapolis to Tokyo Narita Airport, arriving May 16, 2009

Fortunately for me, I have an aisle seat on both the 12 hour flights to and from Japan. I'll be in the middle section of the plane, so no seeing out the windows, but since I'm hoping to sleep that shouldn't be a problem. Since we'll be arriving before I'll have a chance to post again, I'll include Saturday's agenda.

Day 2 - Saturday, May 16: Check-in and optional evening tour (if we're still awake)

5:10pm JST (4:10am EST): Arrive at Narita Airport in Tokyo (Yay!)
5:10-6:00pm JST (4:10-5:00am EST): Immigration, luggage, customs, currency exchange, etc. Although apparently this may take two hours or more because they are boarding every plane in hazmat suits to make sure no one has the swine flu (not so yay.)
6:00-7:00pm JST (5:00-6:00am EST): Bus to Keio Press Inn Kayabacho, our Tokyo hotel
7:00-8:00pm JST (6:00-7:00am EST): Hotel check-in. Check out our hotel at Keio Presso Inn Kayabacho

Keio Presso Inn Kayabacho
1-3-5 Nihonbashi Kayabacho Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0025
Tel: +81 (0)3-3669-0202

Evening JST (Morning EST): Optional Ginza Walking Tour. I'll be sure to post lots of pictures if I'm still awake :)

Now, on top of reflecting on each day's journey and posting the agenda for the next day, I will also attempt to reflect on my paper topic for this class (technically this trip is an MBA course so we wrote a rough draft of a paper before the trip that we will finish up upon return). The topic I chose was Japanese women in the workplace. From my research, I have learned that of the developed nations, Japan has one of the worst records for equality in the workplace, but is trying to make changes because of the dramatically falling birthrates that are leading to a lack of tax money to support health care programs for the aging population. I'll attempt to reflect more on this during parts of the trip since we will get to meet and see representatives from multiple companies in Tokyo and Kyoto.

Time to watch more late night television until it is time to leave.

Arigatou and jaa mata! (thank you and see you later!)

3 Days Left...

2009-05-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

... until my trip to Japan. As the final part of my MBA program I am traveling to Tokyo and Kyoto with 20 of my colleagues and professors to experience the business and cultural aspects of Japan. This blog will help me keep track of my adventures. I'm also taking along my new Canon digital rebel xsi to document the journey photographically, and will add pictures whenever possible. See you in 3 days!