July 10/11, 2007 Excursion to Ehime

Have I mentioned that I really really have fun with Eric?! We just got back from a two day trip to Ehime and its production plant, which is about 2.5 hours by train from Amagasaki. Yesterday morning, I was in a terrible mood, but more or less from the second Eric and I left work to get on the train to Ehime, things started to light up! He's so funny and I wouldn't be surprised to wake up tomorrow with sore stomach muscles from laughing so much! He says he's not planning to be funny which only makes it all the better - I definitely have some new permanent good-mood memories! (do you have some of those? The ones that make you think of a situation and you just have to burst out laughing?!)

Besides that, the trip was very interesting and we saw a lot of the plant, its way to function, we saw production lines, filling stations, miles and miles of piping, heard stories about highly toxic phosgene that kills you within two breaths (I don't want any breath-mint jokes here... ;o)). We walked loads, even visited a museum about Copper mining which was actually very interesting, and which had a temple right next to it - my first authentic Japanese temple! I felt like being in a Mila Superstar- or Sailor Moon- comic :o)

What probably impressed me most (apart from the logistics section - I could watch machines all day long...) was the way a morning of work starts in Japan! People come to the meeting room, start smoking and drinking coffee as they would probably do in Germany as well. But then, the loudspeakers start giving gymnastics orders, everybody jumps up, starts circling their pelvisses, stretching arms, legs, swaying like elephants... And then, after gymnastics, they start pointing at blackboards and signs full of safety measures and security procedures and reading them out loud - like a mantra to imprint it into their brains!

These two days were so full with new impressions and information that I was totally hecha polvo when I arrived in Ashiya, but REALLY enjoyed the past 30 hours!!!

July 10, 2007 ...

... I have some thinking to do. I started reading a new book called "Tuesdays with Morrie". It's about an old man, a young man and a fatal disease. The book, combined with what I talked about with Simon the other night, plus the grades that I received this morning, make me think. I don't want to bore you with my "What do I want to do in Life" kind of thoughts at the moment, but once again, I should refocus on what I am actually doing. Here, in Cologne, in private - the whole deal.

I sometimes get those phases. And these are usually the times when I get a bit homesick or at least friends-and-family-sick...

Sigh.

July 9, 2007 Walking to work

Although I sometimes am annoyed by the 15 minute walk from Amagasaki station to SBU, I am quite fond of the little back roads that get me there. Of course you could always take the main road and be run over by cars, but you do well with opting for the slightly longer trail of joined paths that lead along tiny houses, little garden areas, laundry lines, green spots... Sometimes, a dog will have his breakfast outside, almost every morning I am greeted by butterflies. Little purple and pinkish flowers dance along in the breeze, and sometimes I get the feeling that people start getting used to me passing there in the morning. I am polite and greet the older women that come my way and am greeted back with a smile. All types of people pass me, walking their dogs, riding their bikes with the mounted umbrellas protecting them from whatever type of weather we're having, or just generally getting towards their place of destination. If I get to work around the time that kindergarden starts, usually the kids stop for a second or two to look at that strange creature with the blond hair and the light skin (well, to them it's blond anyways, and my skin isn't exactly white either with that slight sun burn from Sunday).
Between the small houses, the towering building of SBU Bayer appears and, taking the last two turns to pass the miniture cars, I reach the bushel trees of Sumika.





Ready for another day of work :o)

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)

July 7, 2007 Triple 777

Actually I had been planning to go to Kyoto this weekend - today is the triple 777, so that was bound to be a very lucky day! Instead, I decided against doing that - Sascha, a friend I know from highschool, who is now studying in Kyoto, wasn't available this weekend and I was pretty tired from the week. Ever since Eric gave his ok for me using the laptop for private purposes outside of office hours, I have spent around 10 or 11 hours at work each day, starting earlier and leaving late - so at the moment I am not doing much more than being at work, eating and sleeping.

Which is what I spent this Saturday on as well (apart from going to work, of course :oP). When I woke up, I could still remember a very odd dream about Japanese school kids who had a German class and were practicing to say "kaaaaa, kAAaaaaa, kAAAAAAAaaaa". Even while dreaming that I thought that it was very odd - then I woke up and realized that there was a crow sitting in front of my window :o)

The rest of the day I spent with more thinking and with reading - yesterday, before meeting Simon, I had stopped at a big bookstore to buy some English books for the train ride to and from work. Books have a very cool format here, small, handy, fit into every bag - and they sell them with neutral paper wrapped around them so that people won't know what you're reading :o)

July 6, 2007 Night out in Osaka

I thought my day had reached its climax when, around lunch time, a big ugly box that sits on top of one of the cupboards, suddenly started making very funny noises :o) First it went "krhcchkerkchkchchr", followed by a nervous "pling plong plang plong", and then the voice of Okada-san, our Human Resource person, announced that there would be a security check in the afternoon.
Umezawa-san had noticed my looks watching the box and she smiled: "Yes, they do make the sound by hand", which was immediately followed by another "pling plong plang plong" - I just had to burst out in laughter imagining Okada-san standing in front of a microphon, creating funny melodies on an ancient xylophon *g*

I really can't imagine why they just wouldn't tell me where the room with that thing is located *mischievous grin*

But near the end of work, Simon sent me an email asking what I'd be up to in the evening, so I decided to stop by in Osaka to meet him. Simon is an intern at Bayer Yakuhin (Health Care), and he was also at my welcome dinner during the second week.

An impressive amount of people crossing a minor road...

HEP Five, an entertainment complex / Shopping Mall

We had quite a fun evening, meeting up in Yodobashi Kamera to do some Tech shopping and laptop looking, spent a while walking around Osaka and then Simon took me to the apartment of a manager friend of his, who is currently on a business trip and left him his keys!

The apartment was amazing, really big for Japanese sizes, very fancy wood furniture, a giant flat screen, designer couches and lamps - and all of that in the center of Umeda, one of the busiest areas of Osaka. Bayer managers from overseas seem to be quite well taken care of over here :o)

Simon and I talked a lot and it made me think very hard on my way home... Simon is 22, has started his own business with 18, is studying event management and came to Japan for a 3-months internship. He has quite a bit of practical experience, plus speaks Japanese fluently because his dad is Japanese. That's probably why his internship is taking a very different course from mine. He is preparing three meetings for around 100 doctors and media people from all over Japan to coach them on new products that Bayer has developed (if I understood correctly). He's organizing those meetings, writing the budgets, traveling to look at the places, taking part in all kinds of sales meetings, designing new incentive systems... Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not complaining about my internship - I am very happy with the intense training I'm receiving and am not entirely sure whether I could handle a task like Simon's, even if it was in English.

But it made me think what I got out of my studies so far. I have been studying my current major for 2 years (well, or 8 months, depending on what you take as major), but I don't really feel like I am using any of the stuff I learned in university. What I am using are presentation skills, IT-skills (which I had before), and more or less common sense - and right now I can't think of anything out of the management majors that I am actively using...

People keep telling me that you rarely use stuff you learned in university, so I am hoping that I picked up a number of skills during studying that I am not entirely aware of...

It's just a little shocking that Simon, who in theory has studied as much as I have, is just so much further than me! Even more reason to add another internship around Xmas! And what I get out off all this thinking is that I want to use my time at SBU more actively, and I want to do a good job - I would like to have Mr. Amling and Eric think by the end of the internship - hey, that investment wasn't wasted on her...

July 5, 2007 Hardcore Training

I must say, I am very impressed with this internship. The only internship I have done so far was in 10th grade when I still wanted to become a biologist, so I worked for 3 weeks in a nature reserve-type of area - and when I write work, I mean actual physical labor: After these three weeks, I was a master at digging holes, cleaning out ponds, constructing children's playgrounds, improving walk ways and running with wheel barrows (Schubkarren). I had loads of fun, but it was hard work.

This time that is very different. It's not that I am not working or that I am staring out of the window all day, but this is way more like a training for me than working. I get insight into almost every department, the people are taken out of their regular responsibilities for 1-4 days to teach me what they do in their everyday work, I can ask millions of questions and the whole event seems to serve the sole purpose of teaching me! I start feeling really bad - I thought I would have to give something back to the company, instead they are paying me pretty well, giving me allocation, frequently inviting me to lunch, taking me on excursions, and all I have to do is to attend the meetings and ask loads of questions! This is great!

I do get assignments from Eric, mostly to prepare presentations about companies, or to do internet research on a specific topic. But I really don't feel like I am working hard.

I developed a new strategy for the end of my teaching sessions. Almost always, they ask me whether I have more questions, and as I already nail them with loads of questions during the presentations, I usually run out of any more to ask in the end - so I started asking people if they had any questions about me! And it turns out that almost everyone is interested in something (I'm not sure whether I have mentioned that yet, but apparently, everyone here has seen and read my CV...!!!), and once they find out that I am more than willing to answer their questions, they open up even more, tell about themselves, offer me their help, and even try very hard to speak English even though they usually never speak it :o) Yesterday, Umezawasan (my colleague) said that she was very surprised at how open people were talking with me, and that Japanese people usually are a lot shyer in talking with foreign people - I guess I must be doing something right then! *beam*

On my way to and from work, I took some pics of Ashiya (where I live) to give you a tiny impression:






So this scenery I get to see every morning :o)
Good night, then!