Sorry for the lack of updates, it has been a pretty crazy week.
This week has been pretty tough work wise. I was working on the Intel Alliance Intelligence Operations Plan all week in Kawasaki and Shiodome and spent a couple of evenings at work trying to get things done. I even ended up working a bit on Sunday (although not very productively) and this morning to try and get my presentation finished before meeting my boss, Murakami-san today. I had a meeting for about an hour with Murakami-san and we went over my work. He is a pretty honest guy as far as I can tell and he said he liked my work and thought it would be useful. He gave me some great advice about targeting presentations and how to engage with the audience which I found very useful. He has asked me to give two presentations later this week in two different offices so I have to prepare for those tomorrow.
As well as continuing with the intelligence I am starting my final Fujiｔｓu project with the Intel Alliance. I have three tasks which involve improving the Fujitsu internal partner alliance website by putting better information on it. Most of this involves summarizing bigger documents and presenting them in an appealing way (I think it takes quite a lot of skill to make case studies attractive enough to get sales people to actually read them). I will discuss more about the work when I get into it.
On Wednesday Bahariah, Zhanar, Sandy and me visited the Mori art museum and Tokyo Cityview at Roppongi Hills. I had visited Mori before and really enjoyed it so I thought it would be a nice thing to see. I have to say it was very nice. There was an exhibition called The Messenger by a French artist called Annette Messenger. She explores life and its polar properties and contradictions through some pretty innovative/strange methods. She seems to favor using stuffed toys in her works which is interesting, especially when Frankenstein creatures are created with Sparrow bodies and teddy bear heads. The Tokyo Cityview was also very nice with a beautiful view over Tokyo.
On Friday I went for dinner with several of my colleagues and my big boss Ohama-san. We went to a Kyu style restaurant (food from the region around Kyoto) which was beautifully decorated and had some delicious food. We also had a few drinks and discussed some of the Japanese region rivalries and history.
From left to right: Hamada-san, me, Nakamura-san, Ohama-san, Mamada-san (standing) and Eriko-san
After having quite a few Shochu (Japanese vodka) we headed for some Karaoke. Now definitely not a singer but something about Karaoke just gets me and I love it. We had a great time although I seemed to inadvertently force everyone to sing English songs. The highlight was hearing my SAP placement boss, Nakamura-san, singing Coco Cabana and Duran Duran classic Rio. I also helped him do a fabulous rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody as a duet. Thank you all for a great night again!
I especially like the picture of Mamada-san; I don't think I have ever seen a man so happy with a tambourine before (or ever will).
On Saturday I woke up bright and early at 8 am (still feeling a bit dizzy after not getting back until after 3am) and headed with Zach, Euan, Bahariah and Sandy to Kawaguchiko which is a lake beside Mount Fuji. Unfortunately the weather was not great as it rained the whole time we were there so didn't get the picture postcard view of Fuji. Luckily for me the last time I visited I did so I have posted it below for you.
We spent the day wondering around, enjoying the peace and quiet. We visited an attraction known as the musical forest which was basically a European themed museum about mechanical music devices.
We saw some demonstrations of some really impressive old musical machines. It is really amazing they could be so accurate with making these machines to play with perfect rhythm. The highlight was witnessing a quartet playing some Vivaldi followed by a demonstration of an automated organ.
Bahariah, Zach and Sandy decided to stay around and climb Mount Fuji through the night which I respect them for greatly. Unfortunately I do not trust my knee to climb so myself and Euan took a bus back and enjoyed a nice sleep rather than an 11 hour hike in the rain.
On Sunday I had to do some work for Murakami-san before going to see the Tokyo Giants take on the Nagoya Dragons in baseball. This was inside the Tokyo-Dome which is a 55,000 capacity indoor stadium. Before going I read a wikipedia article on baseball which really helped me as I didn't know anything about the game. The 2 1/2 hours were actually more enjoyable than I thought and although Tokyo was destroyed by the Dragons the atmosphere was worth the 1000 yen. It is very different to other sporting events I have been to as only the supporters of the team batting chant and cheer while the other supporters wait patiently... very Japanese.
On Monday I started my new project with the Microsoft Alliance. My project is to improve the Global Partner Alliances website by creating easy-read case study summaries and detailing the major partner's strategies over the next year. I will also be working with Nishikawa-san on an Oracle related project but I have no further information yet.
Microsoft are currently in town for some meetings with Fujitsu so I was invited for dinner last night with one of their business managers, Ted, Last night (Tuesday). Ted has worked in Japan before (which I didn't know) so I was very surprised when he started taking fluent Japanese. He gave me some useful advice about working in Japan and what is nice to see and do.
Colin
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