Gooooooooood mooooooooorning, Vietnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!
I just woke up after 10 hours of intense sleeping! How wonderful! "Bed" is definitely one of my favorite spots in the world *smirk*
But although I woke up at 6 am, it was about 28 degrees outside! By now, the clouds are all gone and we are having blazing sunshine - so I am trying hard not to burn. It's still a little bit humid, but for the most part just nice to be outside. Can't wait until the hanabi-season starts, then every little village will have their own firework party at the local river! (hanabi = fire flower)
Speaking of language - today I learned a new word! Well, that in itself isn't all that big news, I constantly pick up new words and generally impress everyone when I write one kanji... but I still CANNOT speak! Not even teeny tiny phrases... well, ok, teeny tiny phrases I can say. So nevermind.
But today I learned that there is a Japanese word (yappari!) that literally means "I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that..." - how cool is that?!
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
July 13, 2007 Not even close to Friday 13th ^_^
*wahahahahaha* Matsuki-san is soooooooo funny!
This morning I had my second day at BPI, Business Process Improvement, and today I met Matsuki-san - he's a small guy with very little chin and a funny way of talking, which in itself is hilarious - but then he also has an incredible way of speaking English, looking up many words in the dictionary and then picking one with a slightly different meaning than what he intends to say! You can understand what he's saying, but if you have ever tried to read a page translated by Google Translator, you will know what I am talking about (*^_^*)
We had a lot of fun, and it was mutual - he had put many gimmicks into his presentation, e.g. a walking envelope that he was very proud of :o)
---------------
By now, I feel quite at home here in the company... I spent the afternoon on 3rd Floor, where Customer Service, Import/Export, Logistics, Procurement, BPI and some more people are all sitting in one big room - and there are very little people left that I haven't met yet. Many of the ladies have gone either to dinner with me or went dancing, and with almost everyone I have a story to share which makes us smile a lot! Toki-san and Naoko-san have put up pictures of our dance night in their cubicles, and today I wrote the kanji for candy (お菓子, okashi) on a small piece of paper and gave it to Kageyama-san who had taught me that kanji the day before - his face lit up, he smiled at me very broadly - and put the piece of paper into a folder where he had already put in my CV! I think people actually like me around here...
Naoko-san (the crazy dancer) later asked me whether I wanted to join the next dinner with everyone from Customer Service. "Sure, when will it be?" "We are doing it on July 27th." "Oh, I don't know if I will be in Osaka, that's my birthday and I was thinking about going to Tokyo to see a big firework festival." "WHAAAAT??? That's your birthday?!! Then you have to come!!! I will ask Ueda-san (the CS manager) if he will pay for you!" :o)
So now, I am officially invited to a dinner with everyone to celebrate my birthday :o) With loads of people I know and like. I am happy *^_^*
This morning I had my second day at BPI, Business Process Improvement, and today I met Matsuki-san - he's a small guy with very little chin and a funny way of talking, which in itself is hilarious - but then he also has an incredible way of speaking English, looking up many words in the dictionary and then picking one with a slightly different meaning than what he intends to say! You can understand what he's saying, but if you have ever tried to read a page translated by Google Translator, you will know what I am talking about (*^_^*)
We had a lot of fun, and it was mutual - he had put many gimmicks into his presentation, e.g. a walking envelope that he was very proud of :o)
---------------
By now, I feel quite at home here in the company... I spent the afternoon on 3rd Floor, where Customer Service, Import/Export, Logistics, Procurement, BPI and some more people are all sitting in one big room - and there are very little people left that I haven't met yet. Many of the ladies have gone either to dinner with me or went dancing, and with almost everyone I have a story to share which makes us smile a lot! Toki-san and Naoko-san have put up pictures of our dance night in their cubicles, and today I wrote the kanji for candy (お菓子, okashi) on a small piece of paper and gave it to Kageyama-san who had taught me that kanji the day before - his face lit up, he smiled at me very broadly - and put the piece of paper into a folder where he had already put in my CV! I think people actually like me around here...
Naoko-san (the crazy dancer) later asked me whether I wanted to join the next dinner with everyone from Customer Service. "Sure, when will it be?" "We are doing it on July 27th." "Oh, I don't know if I will be in Osaka, that's my birthday and I was thinking about going to Tokyo to see a big firework festival." "WHAAAAT??? That's your birthday?!! Then you have to come!!! I will ask Ueda-san (the CS manager) if he will pay for you!" :o)
So now, I am officially invited to a dinner with everyone to celebrate my birthday :o) With loads of people I know and like. I am happy *^_^*
July 8, 2007 Football, Fog and Foooooooood!
For the slow weekend I thought this would be, I am quite exhausted after today! Simon had invited me to join a football game between SBU and NEC (a technology company), and it turned out to be more than a friendly kick - they were actually quite competitive about the whole thing! So I didn't get to play myself, but that was probably a good thing, as it was blazingly hot outside and they were playing at high noon!
So I took on the job as fotographer:
Quite impressive at what velocities Japanese women can run over any kind of substance - e.g. grass - on high heels!
The kids were really cute, standing by the side of the field and screaming "otoosan, ganbatte!!" - Daddy, good luck, you can do it!!
Only downside of the match was that, as we didn't have very many players, almost all of SBU had to play the entire game - and NEC exchanged more than half of their players during half time. The result wasn't all that surprising: 4:1 for NEC...
------------
In the afternoon, I finally got to know Carsten. Axel, our neighbor in Germany, had prepared people in Japan for my imminent arrival on his trip to Osaka a week before I went to Japan - and he had introduced me to Carsten, who is working for Bayer Business Services in Osaka.
So today, we finally managed to meet for the first time - on the phone, he had sounded a lot like Wolfgang from Thailand, which already made him very symphathetic! He had the brilliant idea of driving up Rokko Mountain (a trip that I had wanted to do as well), and although the sight was pretty crappy, it was nice to be outside and to hear - nothing! (ok, I'll have to be realistic here - the noise of the occasional car going by didn't exactly fit perfectly into the mountain atmosphere) Up there, I noticed for the first time, how noisy it is down in the cities! And you could hear real birds up here! (In Japan you get deafened by fake bird noises - in the subway, at intersections (to indicate that the traffic lights are green), in commercials - Japanese seem to love fake birds...
Hankyuu Railway, one of the various train companies that coexist in Japan
And the aforementioned fog...
Carsten has been in Japan for about 9 weeks now and has to endure 3 or 4 more weeks, until his family will finally come to Japan. So, to be prepared for that, he had proposed to try out some restaurants to know where to take his family wehn they finally arrive! You can probably guess that I didn't have to think too hard about whether to take him up on the offer or not ;o)
We went to a wonderful Italien place in an Asian garden (mixed styles of Japanese, Chinese, a bit of Thai), very fancy, with amazing food and a great atmosphere. We could even watch a Japanese wedding take place in the garden, which was interesting all by itself. Carsten is very easy-going which made it absolutely effortless to talk to him! So our conversation jumped from Japan in general to wine to travelling, to family to food, to wanting to work in Barcelona.
I seriously had a great evening with loads of new info that I am sure will help me in the future ;o)
So I took on the job as fotographer:
Quite impressive at what velocities Japanese women can run over any kind of substance - e.g. grass - on high heels!
The kids were really cute, standing by the side of the field and screaming "otoosan, ganbatte!!" - Daddy, good luck, you can do it!!
Only downside of the match was that, as we didn't have very many players, almost all of SBU had to play the entire game - and NEC exchanged more than half of their players during half time. The result wasn't all that surprising: 4:1 for NEC...
------------
In the afternoon, I finally got to know Carsten. Axel, our neighbor in Germany, had prepared people in Japan for my imminent arrival on his trip to Osaka a week before I went to Japan - and he had introduced me to Carsten, who is working for Bayer Business Services in Osaka.
So today, we finally managed to meet for the first time - on the phone, he had sounded a lot like Wolfgang from Thailand, which already made him very symphathetic! He had the brilliant idea of driving up Rokko Mountain (a trip that I had wanted to do as well), and although the sight was pretty crappy, it was nice to be outside and to hear - nothing! (ok, I'll have to be realistic here - the noise of the occasional car going by didn't exactly fit perfectly into the mountain atmosphere) Up there, I noticed for the first time, how noisy it is down in the cities! And you could hear real birds up here! (In Japan you get deafened by fake bird noises - in the subway, at intersections (to indicate that the traffic lights are green), in commercials - Japanese seem to love fake birds...
Hankyuu Railway, one of the various train companies that coexist in Japan
And the aforementioned fog...
Carsten has been in Japan for about 9 weeks now and has to endure 3 or 4 more weeks, until his family will finally come to Japan. So, to be prepared for that, he had proposed to try out some restaurants to know where to take his family wehn they finally arrive! You can probably guess that I didn't have to think too hard about whether to take him up on the offer or not ;o)
We went to a wonderful Italien place in an Asian garden (mixed styles of Japanese, Chinese, a bit of Thai), very fancy, with amazing food and a great atmosphere. We could even watch a Japanese wedding take place in the garden, which was interesting all by itself. Carsten is very easy-going which made it absolutely effortless to talk to him! So our conversation jumped from Japan in general to wine to travelling, to family to food, to wanting to work in Barcelona.
I seriously had a great evening with loads of new info that I am sure will help me in the future ;o)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
July 3, 2007 Bug Paradise
I'm exhausted. The more it rains, the warmer it gets. It seems that I can drink the air around me by now. And still there are people telling me, that the "bad" part hasn't even started yet... At least most of the Japanese people around me seem to be affected by the weather as well, so it's not just the whimsical foreigner who's fighting with it.
The river that crosses my way to the train station has grown quite a bit since I first got here, although it's almost entirely covered in plants. With the humid weather, the bugs seem to come to live, and they are quite impressive - I have heard people report about the giant insects of Japan, but now I can see it with my own eyes and I haven't decided yet whether I am fascinated or a bit taken aback - the bats that circle the river at night are more or less normal size, but basically everything else, from butterflies and moths over centipedes (Tausendfuessler), spiders, ticks (Zecken), to bigger animals like crows are huge!
This (see picture), for example, is a mukade, a giant centipede - they bite like hell (I was told) and Amlingsan (SBU's President) has told us stories about how hard they are to kill! You can't step on them, because the shell's too thick. You can't drown them because they know how to swim. If you cut them in half, both parts will crawl their way - they seem to be relatives of cockroaches... His method is to slice them in as many pieces as he can, that seems to stop them... Thank god that this is not my hand!
The past two days, I have been in Procurement, the department that organizes necessary things for other departments. Most of all, I learned a lot of Japanese, as 3/5 of the procurement team didn't really speak English at all - so lots of body language and cross-translation was used. My pile of vocab cards is getting bigger every day.
I had asked Eric to find out whether I could borrow a laptop for private purposes, e.g. checking mail and writing my report. Unfortunately, SBU doesn't loan or rent out notebooks, but we made a deal - I can work on the laptop before or after office hours, if I don't use the internet too obviously for private purposes (most of the "entertainment sites" are blocked anyways). I can live very well with this agreement, so the past couple of days I have spent around 10 hours in the office. So don't get too upset with me if it takes a while to respond to emails as I won't be stopping by the internet cafe every day anymore.
The river that crosses my way to the train station has grown quite a bit since I first got here, although it's almost entirely covered in plants. With the humid weather, the bugs seem to come to live, and they are quite impressive - I have heard people report about the giant insects of Japan, but now I can see it with my own eyes and I haven't decided yet whether I am fascinated or a bit taken aback - the bats that circle the river at night are more or less normal size, but basically everything else, from butterflies and moths over centipedes (Tausendfuessler), spiders, ticks (Zecken), to bigger animals like crows are huge!
This (see picture), for example, is a mukade, a giant centipede - they bite like hell (I was told) and Amlingsan (SBU's President) has told us stories about how hard they are to kill! You can't step on them, because the shell's too thick. You can't drown them because they know how to swim. If you cut them in half, both parts will crawl their way - they seem to be relatives of cockroaches... His method is to slice them in as many pieces as he can, that seems to stop them... Thank god that this is not my hand!
The past two days, I have been in Procurement, the department that organizes necessary things for other departments. Most of all, I learned a lot of Japanese, as 3/5 of the procurement team didn't really speak English at all - so lots of body language and cross-translation was used. My pile of vocab cards is getting bigger every day.
I had asked Eric to find out whether I could borrow a laptop for private purposes, e.g. checking mail and writing my report. Unfortunately, SBU doesn't loan or rent out notebooks, but we made a deal - I can work on the laptop before or after office hours, if I don't use the internet too obviously for private purposes (most of the "entertainment sites" are blocked anyways). I can live very well with this agreement, so the past couple of days I have spent around 10 hours in the office. So don't get too upset with me if it takes a while to respond to emails as I won't be stopping by the internet cafe every day anymore.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
July 1, 2007 Shopping Horrors in Osaka
"Intense" is the only word I can think of right now to describe today afternoon's shopping experience in Osaka, which coincidently coincided with the first day of summer sales...
I like to think of myself as having a fairly good general sense of orientation, but today I was lost within 2 minutes! I had had two options when seeing the giant crowd entering EST, one of the main shopping complexes around Osaka Station - fleeing or diving in.
Obviously I took the dive, and I'm still not entirely sure whether that was the right choice. Hundreds or thousands of Japanese tiny girls crammed into a giant labyrinth of shops, interconnected by crooked alleys that have never even heard of the word "rectangular". From each shop, an army of other Japanese working girls scream the latest offers into the ears of everyone who doesn't want to hear them. They're using little plastic trumpets to create the right ringing sound to be left with your maltreated hearing.
The ones that don't shout offers instead scream "sumimaseeeeeeeeeeeeen" in 10-second intervals to make sure that people know they are actually working there and are not part of the deco. When I - being twice as wide as the average Japanese - tried to enter a shop, there was no way of getting inside without rubbing against everyone around you. Once you finally entered the shop, got used to the rubbing and ignored the screaming, I found myself totally flabberghasted by all the shiny, pearly, plasticky, glittering mini-skirt fashion that seems so very Japanese...
I could continue for a fair amount of time with descriptions like these, but I guess you get the point.
Nevertheless, I took some pictures, although they are not very exciting:
Yodobashi Kamera, where I bought my camera:
Quite a normal thing here - ferris wheels on top of houses...
I'll have to repeat tours to Osaka to get over the shock. Maybe I'll hire a guide to direct me in the general walkable direction...?
I like to think of myself as having a fairly good general sense of orientation, but today I was lost within 2 minutes! I had had two options when seeing the giant crowd entering EST, one of the main shopping complexes around Osaka Station - fleeing or diving in.
Obviously I took the dive, and I'm still not entirely sure whether that was the right choice. Hundreds or thousands of Japanese tiny girls crammed into a giant labyrinth of shops, interconnected by crooked alleys that have never even heard of the word "rectangular". From each shop, an army of other Japanese working girls scream the latest offers into the ears of everyone who doesn't want to hear them. They're using little plastic trumpets to create the right ringing sound to be left with your maltreated hearing.
The ones that don't shout offers instead scream "sumimaseeeeeeeeeeeeen" in 10-second intervals to make sure that people know they are actually working there and are not part of the deco. When I - being twice as wide as the average Japanese - tried to enter a shop, there was no way of getting inside without rubbing against everyone around you. Once you finally entered the shop, got used to the rubbing and ignored the screaming, I found myself totally flabberghasted by all the shiny, pearly, plasticky, glittering mini-skirt fashion that seems so very Japanese...
I could continue for a fair amount of time with descriptions like these, but I guess you get the point.
Nevertheless, I took some pictures, although they are not very exciting:
Yodobashi Kamera, where I bought my camera:
Quite a normal thing here - ferris wheels on top of houses...
I'll have to repeat tours to Osaka to get over the shock. Maybe I'll hire a guide to direct me in the general walkable direction...?
Sunday, July 1, 2007
June 30, 2007 An all but lazy Saturday night!!!
Yeeeeaaaahaaah! I didn't think I could have THAT MUCH fun when the girls from customer service invited me to go to a HipHop place :o)
To get to know Osaka and the way Japanese people go out, I decided to try it anyways - and it was AMAZING! We went to the On-and-On, and they didn't play any HipHop at all - a great mix of 80's funk, boogie and all kinds of happy music! I had so much fun, 100 Japanese and me :o) I was the only gaijin in the whole bar, and I made quite a scene, I guess *g* Naoko had warned me before that she was a crazy dancer, so I thought "all the better, let's dance then!" When we started rocking the "stage", everybody was in such a good mood that I decided to go get my camera - and it was so worth it!
Toteeeeeeeeemo tanoshikatta!!!
To get to know Osaka and the way Japanese people go out, I decided to try it anyways - and it was AMAZING! We went to the On-and-On, and they didn't play any HipHop at all - a great mix of 80's funk, boogie and all kinds of happy music! I had so much fun, 100 Japanese and me :o) I was the only gaijin in the whole bar, and I made quite a scene, I guess *g* Naoko had warned me before that she was a crazy dancer, so I thought "all the better, let's dance then!" When we started rocking the "stage", everybody was in such a good mood that I decided to go get my camera - and it was so worth it!
Toteeeeeeeeemo tanoshikatta!!!
Friday, June 29, 2007
June 29, 2007 Excursion to KICT
Grr, I died about a thousand deaths today. Actually I wouldn't want to know how many social rules I stumbled over, but I was definitely blushing very hard when my hashi (chop sticks/Essstaebchen) went flying...
Scene of the crime: my first official business lunch. Three people of the logistics department and me went to Kobe today to visit the local (well, international) Logistics Port, "Kobe International Container Terminal" (KICT). Before we went there, we met with two officials from the freight company, both of which didn't speak English. It seems that they hadn't expected that I would be there, so uncomfortable looks were exchanged when I told them that I only spoke very little Japanese. Next act: the exchange of meishi... Meishi are the Japanese business cards that are of very high value in Japan - they show the status of the "owner" and are used to introduce yourself. I don't have meishi. I asked Eric to talk to Mr. Amling, but the President didn't think it was necessary for an intern to have them. I could print private ones, but then I don't think officials would appreciate being handed a meishi with a giant ice cream on it...
Anyways, there have been numerous occasions where I felt uncomfortable not having meishi, so I usually use the Japanese gesture "laughing and scratching head" to get out of the situation.
Then there was, of course, the lunch. Great food (I was glad that I had tried some of it in advance, otherwise I might have committed even more faux-pas eating them). Some of it was new though (for example the exquisite desert, sweet bean mousse wrapped with "rice squash" which was a real treat) and I had no clue how to eat it. My usual strategy of "watching the locals" worked quite well, but of course, people noticed my hesitation. Nishikida-san was my giant help at the dinner! He is one of the members of the logistics meeting I was in all week long. He has come a long way in my view of/ respect for him. On Monday, he didn't show up at work because he apparently takes sleeping pills against something, so depending on the weather, they work better or worse - Monday's weather must have been a 100% match, as he didn't show up at all. Tuesday and Wednesday he didn't seem very reliable and confused many things (maybe due to the sleeping pills?). Yesterday, however, I joined the team at lunch and he heard that I do speak a bit of Japanese (he doesn't speak English very well) and that I am interested in learning - so yesterday he started pointing out things to me, recommending me food (eel/Aal, which was delicious!) and teaching me kanji. Today he totally saved me because he gave me lots of hints on where to put my arms, how to separate bigger chunks of food (here you always have to make up your mind whether it is worth to spent a lot of time wrapping a big chunk into an edible (essbar) size, or whether you take the risk of having to bite off a bit of it - which, with me, often ends in the other half falling back onto the plate...). He secretly gestured, in what order to eat things, which parts to eat and which to put aside and just generally helped me with a big smile. When I sent my hashi flying, he said "It's ok, happens to Japanese as well", which was a big relieve.
So. Lots of situations where I felt somewhat uncomfortable today, but I guess that was mostly due to my expectations to myself. The others were amused, I guess, and didn't mind too much, given that I'm a foreigner... So now reason to moan, I was treated perfectly as always.
The rest of the day was very interesting though as I had never seen a giant container terminal before - dominated by gigantic cranes to load and unload the containers (which are between 20 and 40 feet long/6-12 Meter). I asked a million questions which apparently is very uncommon, but they could answer all of them, so I guess I didn't humiliate anybody by asking them something they didn't know the answer to. Des would have been proud of me =)
Scene of the crime: my first official business lunch. Three people of the logistics department and me went to Kobe today to visit the local (well, international) Logistics Port, "Kobe International Container Terminal" (KICT). Before we went there, we met with two officials from the freight company, both of which didn't speak English. It seems that they hadn't expected that I would be there, so uncomfortable looks were exchanged when I told them that I only spoke very little Japanese. Next act: the exchange of meishi... Meishi are the Japanese business cards that are of very high value in Japan - they show the status of the "owner" and are used to introduce yourself. I don't have meishi. I asked Eric to talk to Mr. Amling, but the President didn't think it was necessary for an intern to have them. I could print private ones, but then I don't think officials would appreciate being handed a meishi with a giant ice cream on it...
Anyways, there have been numerous occasions where I felt uncomfortable not having meishi, so I usually use the Japanese gesture "laughing and scratching head" to get out of the situation.
Then there was, of course, the lunch. Great food (I was glad that I had tried some of it in advance, otherwise I might have committed even more faux-pas eating them). Some of it was new though (for example the exquisite desert, sweet bean mousse wrapped with "rice squash" which was a real treat) and I had no clue how to eat it. My usual strategy of "watching the locals" worked quite well, but of course, people noticed my hesitation. Nishikida-san was my giant help at the dinner! He is one of the members of the logistics meeting I was in all week long. He has come a long way in my view of/ respect for him. On Monday, he didn't show up at work because he apparently takes sleeping pills against something, so depending on the weather, they work better or worse - Monday's weather must have been a 100% match, as he didn't show up at all. Tuesday and Wednesday he didn't seem very reliable and confused many things (maybe due to the sleeping pills?). Yesterday, however, I joined the team at lunch and he heard that I do speak a bit of Japanese (he doesn't speak English very well) and that I am interested in learning - so yesterday he started pointing out things to me, recommending me food (eel/Aal, which was delicious!) and teaching me kanji. Today he totally saved me because he gave me lots of hints on where to put my arms, how to separate bigger chunks of food (here you always have to make up your mind whether it is worth to spent a lot of time wrapping a big chunk into an edible (essbar) size, or whether you take the risk of having to bite off a bit of it - which, with me, often ends in the other half falling back onto the plate...). He secretly gestured, in what order to eat things, which parts to eat and which to put aside and just generally helped me with a big smile. When I sent my hashi flying, he said "It's ok, happens to Japanese as well", which was a big relieve.
So. Lots of situations where I felt somewhat uncomfortable today, but I guess that was mostly due to my expectations to myself. The others were amused, I guess, and didn't mind too much, given that I'm a foreigner... So now reason to moan, I was treated perfectly as always.
The rest of the day was very interesting though as I had never seen a giant container terminal before - dominated by gigantic cranes to load and unload the containers (which are between 20 and 40 feet long/6-12 Meter). I asked a million questions which apparently is very uncommon, but they could answer all of them, so I guess I didn't humiliate anybody by asking them something they didn't know the answer to. Des would have been proud of me =)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
June 28, 2007 I'm getting old! :oP
Wow. It's only been two days that I didn't stop at the internet cafe and I've been flooded by an amazing 68 emails! (Noo, no Spam involved, only about 4 news mails) - thank you very much, guys, I appreciate it a lot that you stay in touch so amazingly!
Recapitulating the past two days will be anything but easy! Loads happened, and almost everything involved vast amounts of FOOD!!! Some years ago, around Thailand, I made a deal with myself that I will try any type of food that other cultures eat on a regular basis - and that I will take the choice of food that I haven't eaten before, if I get the chance! So in the past 48 hours, I guess I tried about 24 new dishes which makes it impossible for me to tell you all about them!
The highlights: Raw fish isn't at all bad; whitish sauce on shrimp doesn't necessarily mean cream sauce (it was a LEMON dressing, totally unexpected taste!); and you should avoid eating the flower deco, they taste like soap...
So all in all, what I am missing about Japanese food is some type of sauces (I kind of had the image of Chinese sweet-and-sour dishes with vegetables when I came over here, but the Japanese usually go for water-soup...), but on the other hand, everyday I try something new totally changes my way of thinking about the way food should/can taste! Especially if you're looking at something, having a specific taste in mind, only to discover that it taste totally different!
Tuesday night, Eric had organized a dinner with 12 people for me, in a fancy restaurant, complete with taking off shoes (and extra bathroom slippers), being seated on cushions (but we were able to cheat, there was a hole under the table just as in the dormitory), and having a Kanpai (a toast/Trinkspruch), Eric officially welcomed me and the other two interns who had come along. Plus I got to know a lot of new people - so now you can enjoy the first pictures taken with my new camera! (To see a larger version of the picture, just click on it!)
The white guy is Ryan from the US, most of the Japanese people work with me.
Umezawasan (O...san), my colleague from the President's Office
The guy next to me is Eric, with his friend Noriko who is learning German - and we will do a language exchange!
That was Tuesday - and on Wednesday, the Ladies from Logistics invited me as well - totally different, great food, very different feeling to the whole thing and seriously not comparable.
They spoke Japanese with me all night long, so I learned lots (there were enough people able to speak English to translate if I had no clue what the conversation was about!). The girl to the left, Kimurasan, is also extremely good at teaching me kanji (Japanese signs) and grammar.
I also finished my week at Logistics & Procurement, at least my time at the conference meeting on the improvement of the distributions network. It was an interesting time, and I met people from Germany and HongKong as well, but I am ready to move on to the next phase - which will be excursions :o) Tomorrow around noon, Yoshikawasan, Uedasan and myself will take the train to Kobe to go to lunch with important people, visit a warehouse, and in the afternoon visit a yacht (!), although I have the feeling that they use the word in a different way than I do...
...So much more I would like to tell and to put down, but I'll let it be enough for tonight - sleep is needed these days :o) Especially to digest *g*
Recapitulating the past two days will be anything but easy! Loads happened, and almost everything involved vast amounts of FOOD!!! Some years ago, around Thailand, I made a deal with myself that I will try any type of food that other cultures eat on a regular basis - and that I will take the choice of food that I haven't eaten before, if I get the chance! So in the past 48 hours, I guess I tried about 24 new dishes which makes it impossible for me to tell you all about them!
The highlights: Raw fish isn't at all bad; whitish sauce on shrimp doesn't necessarily mean cream sauce (it was a LEMON dressing, totally unexpected taste!); and you should avoid eating the flower deco, they taste like soap...
So all in all, what I am missing about Japanese food is some type of sauces (I kind of had the image of Chinese sweet-and-sour dishes with vegetables when I came over here, but the Japanese usually go for water-soup...), but on the other hand, everyday I try something new totally changes my way of thinking about the way food should/can taste! Especially if you're looking at something, having a specific taste in mind, only to discover that it taste totally different!
Tuesday night, Eric had organized a dinner with 12 people for me, in a fancy restaurant, complete with taking off shoes (and extra bathroom slippers), being seated on cushions (but we were able to cheat, there was a hole under the table just as in the dormitory), and having a Kanpai (a toast/Trinkspruch), Eric officially welcomed me and the other two interns who had come along. Plus I got to know a lot of new people - so now you can enjoy the first pictures taken with my new camera! (To see a larger version of the picture, just click on it!)
The white guy is Ryan from the US, most of the Japanese people work with me.
Umezawasan (O...san), my colleague from the President's Office
The guy next to me is Eric, with his friend Noriko who is learning German - and we will do a language exchange!
That was Tuesday - and on Wednesday, the Ladies from Logistics invited me as well - totally different, great food, very different feeling to the whole thing and seriously not comparable.
They spoke Japanese with me all night long, so I learned lots (there were enough people able to speak English to translate if I had no clue what the conversation was about!). The girl to the left, Kimurasan, is also extremely good at teaching me kanji (Japanese signs) and grammar.
I also finished my week at Logistics & Procurement, at least my time at the conference meeting on the improvement of the distributions network. It was an interesting time, and I met people from Germany and HongKong as well, but I am ready to move on to the next phase - which will be excursions :o) Tomorrow around noon, Yoshikawasan, Uedasan and myself will take the train to Kobe to go to lunch with important people, visit a warehouse, and in the afternoon visit a yacht (!), although I have the feeling that they use the word in a different way than I do...
...So much more I would like to tell and to put down, but I'll let it be enough for tonight - sleep is needed these days :o) Especially to digest *g*
Sunday, June 24, 2007
June 22, 2007 TGIF
Today I feel much better. I haven't slept too much, but I'm doing more or less interesting stuff at work that keeps me busy and entertained, and Eric and our other female colleague (whose name I still can't memorize... O...-san) are a lot of fun working with. I mentioned that I'm thinking about going to Osaka this weekend, and immediately I had an email from Eric listing interesting stuff to see and a map from O...-san.
The weather is quite stormy today and it seems like an entire ocean pours down on the soil of Amagasaki - fortunately, Arima-san lent me an umbrella! I've been talking so much about the rain season, but as I don't really like walking with an umbrella, I didn't bother bringing or buying one - until I realized this morning that it probably wouldn't be the best of ideas to get to the office totally soaked...
I met the last missing member of senior staff today, the one I will work with next week, in Procurement & Logistics. And he told me that we will be going on an excursion to see an SBU warehouse on Friday! I'm not sure whether I've mentioned it, but I will go on another excursion to see the production facilities in Ehime, a couple of hours West from here - Eric and I will take off the afternoon before, have dinner with the production manager, and the next day, we will visit the facilities! On our way there, we'll cross the world's formerly largest suspension bridge (Haengebruecke) by train - that's bound to be interesting! In general, I'm very happy what SBU (well, Eric) came up with to occupy me these coming weeks! In total, I will spend about 2 weeks in the President's office (where I was these past 3 days), almost 2 weeks in Procurement & Logistics, a week in Marketing, a week in Business Development, one day in Finance, and I'll be seeing a bunch of other sections which I don't remember at the moment. So lots to learn =)
My plan to eat at my desk today failed because the president of SBU, Mr. Amling, asked me whether I wanted to join him and Eric for lunch - and I didn't want to tell him no :o) This way, I also got to know the canteen, or shokudou.
I'm not quite sure whether I like Amling-san. He's very nice and friendly, but very matter-of-fact and he conducted half a job interview with me. Especially about that gap in my CV (Lebenslauf) between mechanical engineering and CBS... But it seems that in the end he was more or less satisfied. I don't know whether he was the one who picked me as an intern, but he definitely knew my CV very well...
Food-wise, I had curry (curry sauce with veggies, meat) and rice for lunch, and a kind of Frikadelle (meatball) for dinner - the meat and veggies almost always taste good, but I'm already getting sick of eating rice... it just tastes like nothing without salt, onions or garlic! In general, I don't think that Japanese people ever use garlic (Knoblauch) in their meals... *sniff*
Oh, and O...san introduced me to "smoked cheese" today! It's quite perverse actually, a tiny cheese ball in the shape of a sausage ("mini winnie") and tastes like a sausage as well! I don't think that'll become one of my favourites =)
The weather is quite stormy today and it seems like an entire ocean pours down on the soil of Amagasaki - fortunately, Arima-san lent me an umbrella! I've been talking so much about the rain season, but as I don't really like walking with an umbrella, I didn't bother bringing or buying one - until I realized this morning that it probably wouldn't be the best of ideas to get to the office totally soaked...
I met the last missing member of senior staff today, the one I will work with next week, in Procurement & Logistics. And he told me that we will be going on an excursion to see an SBU warehouse on Friday! I'm not sure whether I've mentioned it, but I will go on another excursion to see the production facilities in Ehime, a couple of hours West from here - Eric and I will take off the afternoon before, have dinner with the production manager, and the next day, we will visit the facilities! On our way there, we'll cross the world's formerly largest suspension bridge (Haengebruecke) by train - that's bound to be interesting! In general, I'm very happy what SBU (well, Eric) came up with to occupy me these coming weeks! In total, I will spend about 2 weeks in the President's office (where I was these past 3 days), almost 2 weeks in Procurement & Logistics, a week in Marketing, a week in Business Development, one day in Finance, and I'll be seeing a bunch of other sections which I don't remember at the moment. So lots to learn =)
My plan to eat at my desk today failed because the president of SBU, Mr. Amling, asked me whether I wanted to join him and Eric for lunch - and I didn't want to tell him no :o) This way, I also got to know the canteen, or shokudou.
I'm not quite sure whether I like Amling-san. He's very nice and friendly, but very matter-of-fact and he conducted half a job interview with me. Especially about that gap in my CV (Lebenslauf) between mechanical engineering and CBS... But it seems that in the end he was more or less satisfied. I don't know whether he was the one who picked me as an intern, but he definitely knew my CV very well...
Food-wise, I had curry (curry sauce with veggies, meat) and rice for lunch, and a kind of Frikadelle (meatball) for dinner - the meat and veggies almost always taste good, but I'm already getting sick of eating rice... it just tastes like nothing without salt, onions or garlic! In general, I don't think that Japanese people ever use garlic (Knoblauch) in their meals... *sniff*
Oh, and O...san introduced me to "smoked cheese" today! It's quite perverse actually, a tiny cheese ball in the shape of a sausage ("mini winnie") and tastes like a sausage as well! I don't think that'll become one of my favourites =)
Saturday, June 23, 2007
June 20, 2007 First Day of Work!
Phew, estoy hecha polvo...what a day! I already feel like I've been here for weeks and with all the stuff I want to do, I start running out of weekends =)
About work I won't tell you everything in detail, but just the highlights are quite enough for one day :o) And I want to go to bed SOON!
I met Mutsuko-san and Arima-san in the lobby at 8:30am. Eric had told me to wear something like business casual, but as I didn't bring a "normal" jacket, I decided to throw on the business jacket - which proved to be a bad choice as it was a lot warmer outside than the air-condition inside made me believe!
We take about 40 minutes to get to work - 10 walking, 10 on the train, and another 20 walking - Arima-san had brought me a train ticket from HR (Human Resources, Personalwesen), so I didn't have to pay anything in advance.
The head of HR, Ozeki-san, welcomed me to the company and gave me a brief explanation. We firmed the contracts and now I am officially a trainee at Sumika Bayer Urethane, Amagasaki =) He then handed over to (Ms.) Okada-san, whom I had gotten to know on Monday already. She'll be in charge of me, HR-wise. I listened to her presentation about SBU and Bayer in general, she gave me a tour of the building and introduced me to all the senior staff members she could find *g* The proper words to say when you meet someone for the first time ("Hajimemashite. Peters desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.") mean something along the lines of "We meet for the first time. I am Peters. Please be good to me". Okada-san also gave me the money for the first 1,5 weeks, until the end of June - all of this is way less complicated than I thought it would be!
For lunch, she handed me over to Eric, the Dutch coordinator of my internship. The two of us joined a group of Japanese girls/young women and we went to typical Japanese place. Eric translated a lot for me and ordered rice with fried chicken, salad and noodles for me - delicious! Only the tofu that came along with it isn't quite my thing.
I didn't understand very much of the conversation, but every now and then, Eric would translate for me, and one of the women who has lived in Dubai and studied in England, speaks fluent English, so I was integrated alright.
For the afternoon, Eric gave me a more detailed intro to the chemical side of the company. He also helped me to access the blogspot website to see how to switch languages - so you owe him thanks =)
And I have my own laptop now. I'll have to memorize about a million passwords, which also means that I won't be allowed to do any private work with it. I guess this doesn't really come as a surprise.
AND: Eric gave me his old cell phone to use for this summer! I had briefly asked him whether he thought it would be necessary for me to buy a cell phone when we met on Monday, and he remembered! So now I have a cell phone. The number is ***************. In case you want to call, just remember that I am 7 hours (Germany/Spain), 8 hours (UK), 12 hours (Michigan) ahead of you, so the best time for calling would be between:
Germany/Spain: during the week 12 to 16h, 23 to 1h; on weekends 3am to 5pm/17h
UK: week 11-15, 22-0; weekend 2am to 4/5pm
US: week 5 -9am; weekend 9pm to 11am
Be warned though, I don't really know how to use the phone yet, as it is in Japanese =)
Around 6pm, Eric and I took off from work and said goodbye at the train station, He lives in Osaka and therefore takes the train into the opposite direction. Arima-san had told me which line to take, so I got home without any problems, was greeted by a happy "o-kaerinasai" (welcome!) from ryoubo (the owner's wife), and went straight to bed to sleep for an hour :o) So now, I'm back from dinner, a kind of gulasch, thick, brown, with meat and onions and rice! "Totemo oishii desu"!! And when I was about to go to the internet caf`e, two girls that live right next to me, invited me into their room and we talked a lot - in English, Japanese, French and German ;o) Natsumi-san speaks English quite well, is 20 years old and studies cross-sultural studies, so I already like her a lot *g* I forgot the other girl's name, but both are very cute little Japanese girls, and both play the piano amazingly! (Natsumi-san has a keyboard in her room that is bigger than she is *g*)
And now, I'll be dropping stone dead and won't move until the alarm clock bugs me!!!
About work I won't tell you everything in detail, but just the highlights are quite enough for one day :o) And I want to go to bed SOON!
I met Mutsuko-san and Arima-san in the lobby at 8:30am. Eric had told me to wear something like business casual, but as I didn't bring a "normal" jacket, I decided to throw on the business jacket - which proved to be a bad choice as it was a lot warmer outside than the air-condition inside made me believe!
We take about 40 minutes to get to work - 10 walking, 10 on the train, and another 20 walking - Arima-san had brought me a train ticket from HR (Human Resources, Personalwesen), so I didn't have to pay anything in advance.
The head of HR, Ozeki-san, welcomed me to the company and gave me a brief explanation. We firmed the contracts and now I am officially a trainee at Sumika Bayer Urethane, Amagasaki =) He then handed over to (Ms.) Okada-san, whom I had gotten to know on Monday already. She'll be in charge of me, HR-wise. I listened to her presentation about SBU and Bayer in general, she gave me a tour of the building and introduced me to all the senior staff members she could find *g* The proper words to say when you meet someone for the first time ("Hajimemashite. Peters desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.") mean something along the lines of "We meet for the first time. I am Peters. Please be good to me". Okada-san also gave me the money for the first 1,5 weeks, until the end of June - all of this is way less complicated than I thought it would be!
For lunch, she handed me over to Eric, the Dutch coordinator of my internship. The two of us joined a group of Japanese girls/young women and we went to typical Japanese place. Eric translated a lot for me and ordered rice with fried chicken, salad and noodles for me - delicious! Only the tofu that came along with it isn't quite my thing.
I didn't understand very much of the conversation, but every now and then, Eric would translate for me, and one of the women who has lived in Dubai and studied in England, speaks fluent English, so I was integrated alright.
For the afternoon, Eric gave me a more detailed intro to the chemical side of the company. He also helped me to access the blogspot website to see how to switch languages - so you owe him thanks =)
And I have my own laptop now. I'll have to memorize about a million passwords, which also means that I won't be allowed to do any private work with it. I guess this doesn't really come as a surprise.
AND: Eric gave me his old cell phone to use for this summer! I had briefly asked him whether he thought it would be necessary for me to buy a cell phone when we met on Monday, and he remembered! So now I have a cell phone. The number is ***************. In case you want to call, just remember that I am 7 hours (Germany/Spain), 8 hours (UK), 12 hours (Michigan) ahead of you, so the best time for calling would be between:
Germany/Spain: during the week 12 to 16h, 23 to 1h; on weekends 3am to 5pm/17h
UK: week 11-15, 22-0; weekend 2am to 4/5pm
US: week 5 -9am; weekend 9pm to 11am
Be warned though, I don't really know how to use the phone yet, as it is in Japanese =)
Around 6pm, Eric and I took off from work and said goodbye at the train station, He lives in Osaka and therefore takes the train into the opposite direction. Arima-san had told me which line to take, so I got home without any problems, was greeted by a happy "o-kaerinasai" (welcome!) from ryoubo (the owner's wife), and went straight to bed to sleep for an hour :o) So now, I'm back from dinner, a kind of gulasch, thick, brown, with meat and onions and rice! "Totemo oishii desu"!! And when I was about to go to the internet caf`e, two girls that live right next to me, invited me into their room and we talked a lot - in English, Japanese, French and German ;o) Natsumi-san speaks English quite well, is 20 years old and studies cross-sultural studies, so I already like her a lot *g* I forgot the other girl's name, but both are very cute little Japanese girls, and both play the piano amazingly! (Natsumi-san has a keyboard in her room that is bigger than she is *g*)
And now, I'll be dropping stone dead and won't move until the alarm clock bugs me!!!
June 20, 2007 The morning before work
Yuhuu!! I managed my first conversation in Japanese! After waking up around 4.30am (hail thee, jetlag), I got ready for the day - we can choose between private showers (which are wonderful, you have a basket to put your clothes into, and a strong beam of water whose temperature you can freely adjust - from 25 to 50 degrees! Sara wuerde es freuen :0P) and the public bath. The bath is typically Japanese where you sit down on a stool in front of a mirror, with a shower next to each mirror. There are 10-15 stools like that where you're supposed to foam yourself. There's also a giant bathtub to soak, but you're neither supposed to swim in it, nor to enter it with foam. (I learned the "no swimming" part from the expression on the face of my HR manageress when I said "great, we have a pool!" ooops...)
So far, I haven't tried the bath yet as I don't really know how to use it, but if I find someone who will show me, I would like to try.
Last night, I was surprised to see that the sun went down around 6pm already, but this morning I was equally surprised to see it come up around 4.30am!! If the sun schedule is like that all year long, I'm not surprised that you always see people doing TaiChi or ChiGong or whatever kind of meditation on television in the morning - half the day passes before you enter work! I guess that also makes it easier for the commuters who have to go into Tokyo by train about 2 hours each day...
But getting back to my first conversation this morning! Today, I had my first Japanese breakfast: I was greeted very friendly by the dormitory's owner's wife (ryou bo) with a happy "Erena-chan, o-haayou gazaimasu" (good morning, little (honorable) Elena). Then I could choose between a sweet breadroll with noodle and veggies, or fish (I guess it was salmon) and tofu. This morning, I wasn't brave enough to try the fish, so in addition to the breadroll, I ate a bowl of rice and had a probiotic yoghurt which we get for free as well =) I also could have eaten a slice of bread with cheese or jam (well, ok, I admit it, I also ate one of those *g*)
The dining room is made up of the kitchen apart where 3 sweet ladies work who are obsessed with greeting me *smile*, a bunch of tables in front of a TV set, and two tables on tatami mats (the typical Japanese-style mat to sit on kneeling). Well, one of the tables is for cheaters as it stands on a hole so that you can put your legs underneath the table. I chose that one as my favorite spot.
This morning, a girl with disshevelled hair (out-of-bed look :oP) was already sitting there, so I approached her asking: "Sumimasen, ii desuka?" - Do you mind if I sit here? (well, actually the literal translation would be "Sorry, is it good/ok?"). She didn't mind and asked me "dokode desuka?" [to those who speak Japanese, if my Japanese phrases and grammar are incorrect, please forgive me, I'm still learning *g*] and luckily I know that that meant "Where are you from?". "Doitsu de" "Aaaah, doitsu de!" I told her, that I speak very little Japanese - "Nihongowa chotto hanasemasu", but asked her for her name anyways: "O-namae-wa nandesuka?"
Her name is Hanako and she introduce me to her friends Mai and Makoko (I think). If you're wondering why most of the names end in -ko, that's because ko means child. Hana-ko, for example, means Flower-Child.
Mai and Makoko knew a little bit of English, so with a mix of Japanese and English, we talked about how difficult German is (a lot of Japanese have studied German in school, but don't speak a word), how long I have been here for and what I am doing. So there, that was my first Japanese conversation and I haven't even started working yet =)
So far, I haven't tried the bath yet as I don't really know how to use it, but if I find someone who will show me, I would like to try.
Last night, I was surprised to see that the sun went down around 6pm already, but this morning I was equally surprised to see it come up around 4.30am!! If the sun schedule is like that all year long, I'm not surprised that you always see people doing TaiChi or ChiGong or whatever kind of meditation on television in the morning - half the day passes before you enter work! I guess that also makes it easier for the commuters who have to go into Tokyo by train about 2 hours each day...
But getting back to my first conversation this morning! Today, I had my first Japanese breakfast: I was greeted very friendly by the dormitory's owner's wife (ryou bo) with a happy "Erena-chan, o-haayou gazaimasu" (good morning, little (honorable) Elena). Then I could choose between a sweet breadroll with noodle and veggies, or fish (I guess it was salmon) and tofu. This morning, I wasn't brave enough to try the fish, so in addition to the breadroll, I ate a bowl of rice and had a probiotic yoghurt which we get for free as well =) I also could have eaten a slice of bread with cheese or jam (well, ok, I admit it, I also ate one of those *g*)
The dining room is made up of the kitchen apart where 3 sweet ladies work who are obsessed with greeting me *smile*, a bunch of tables in front of a TV set, and two tables on tatami mats (the typical Japanese-style mat to sit on kneeling). Well, one of the tables is for cheaters as it stands on a hole so that you can put your legs underneath the table. I chose that one as my favorite spot.
This morning, a girl with disshevelled hair (out-of-bed look :oP) was already sitting there, so I approached her asking: "Sumimasen, ii desuka?" - Do you mind if I sit here? (well, actually the literal translation would be "Sorry, is it good/ok?"). She didn't mind and asked me "dokode desuka?" [to those who speak Japanese, if my Japanese phrases and grammar are incorrect, please forgive me, I'm still learning *g*] and luckily I know that that meant "Where are you from?". "Doitsu de" "Aaaah, doitsu de!" I told her, that I speak very little Japanese - "Nihongowa chotto hanasemasu", but asked her for her name anyways: "O-namae-wa nandesuka?"
Her name is Hanako and she introduce me to her friends Mai and Makoko (I think). If you're wondering why most of the names end in -ko, that's because ko means child. Hana-ko, for example, means Flower-Child.
Mai and Makoko knew a little bit of English, so with a mix of Japanese and English, we talked about how difficult German is (a lot of Japanese have studied German in school, but don't speak a word), how long I have been here for and what I am doing. So there, that was my first Japanese conversation and I haven't even started working yet =)
June 19, 2007
After thinking the past events over, I wanted to add some things - I have a kernel pillow! (Kirschkernkissen)! ^_^
But there are also two downsides to this paradise - I have to keep the balcony door shut at night and visitors aren't exactly welcome here - female visitors have to leave until 22pm, and men aren't allowed to enter the building at all. This is kind of a bummer as I thought people could actually visit me. So, you travel folks out there, I'm very sorry, but I won't be able to host you!
----------------------
Hmpf. I just spent almost 2 hours trying to get all kinds of stuff done on the internet, but failed miserably. "Surprisingly", the websites show everything in Japanese... for some deluded reason, I thought they would show in English, although that seems a silly idea now. I guess I just haven`t given it any thought before...
Another thing is that small button on the keyboard for changing the letters you type from Roman (Western style) letters to hiragana/katakana (Japanese). That button is right next to the very short space bar, so whenever I type, I keep hitting that button and can't figure out how to get back to roma-ji!! Grrr. This has been very pointless. I need to find an English laptop that's set to English all the way!! And I thought myself to be a genius with languages...
Besides that, I slept an incredible 13 hours and still fought hard during the whole day not to fall asleep! I ate dinner very early because I had skipped breakfast (sleeping) - we had rice with Japanese vegetables, squid (Tintenfisch), shrimp, salad, a spring roll and soup - and in the evening, Mutsuko and Yukiko, 2 future coworkers of SBU who live in the same dormitory, showed me where to find the internet cafe, a supermarket and a convenience store. I haven't entered the convenience store yet, but it seems to be very convenient indeed as you apparently can buy anything in there, plus it's open all night long.
So tomorrow's my first day of work - I meet Mutsuko and Yukiko at 8:30am in the lobby to take me with them!
But there are also two downsides to this paradise - I have to keep the balcony door shut at night and visitors aren't exactly welcome here - female visitors have to leave until 22pm, and men aren't allowed to enter the building at all. This is kind of a bummer as I thought people could actually visit me. So, you travel folks out there, I'm very sorry, but I won't be able to host you!
----------------------
Hmpf. I just spent almost 2 hours trying to get all kinds of stuff done on the internet, but failed miserably. "Surprisingly", the websites show everything in Japanese... for some deluded reason, I thought they would show in English, although that seems a silly idea now. I guess I just haven`t given it any thought before...
Another thing is that small button on the keyboard for changing the letters you type from Roman (Western style) letters to hiragana/katakana (Japanese). That button is right next to the very short space bar, so whenever I type, I keep hitting that button and can't figure out how to get back to roma-ji!! Grrr. This has been very pointless. I need to find an English laptop that's set to English all the way!! And I thought myself to be a genius with languages...
Besides that, I slept an incredible 13 hours and still fought hard during the whole day not to fall asleep! I ate dinner very early because I had skipped breakfast (sleeping) - we had rice with Japanese vegetables, squid (Tintenfisch), shrimp, salad, a spring roll and soup - and in the evening, Mutsuko and Yukiko, 2 future coworkers of SBU who live in the same dormitory, showed me where to find the internet cafe, a supermarket and a convenience store. I haven't entered the convenience store yet, but it seems to be very convenient indeed as you apparently can buy anything in there, plus it's open all night long.
So tomorrow's my first day of work - I meet Mutsuko and Yukiko at 8:30am in the lobby to take me with them!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
