More Tokyo temple pictures
Another night out in Tokyo
Yesterday saw the earliest of escapes from the office so far. I was out the door by about 9:15 or so and Sean (the other guy who got flown out here) and I took a cab down to a restaurant that had been recommended by one of the associates here. The restaurant looked great, but unfortunately there was a 40-minute wait for a table and we were both ravenous.We followed our stomachs and ended up at a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant across the road that also appeared to have a patisserie/cafe on its ground floor. The food was good and after that we went across the road to a bar/club called Muse. We were slightly perturbed by the fact we HAD to leave our jackets in a locker at the front upstairs (non-refundable 200 yen charge), and on top of that there was a 2000 yen cover charge. This was less of an issue because you got two drink tokens for the cover charge, so you basically got your money back once inside. The club itself was an ingenious multi-level affair with a dance floor area and a lot of quieter areas where you could sit and talk to people, play pool or electronic darts machines. When we got there around 10:30 it was fairly quiet, but gradually it livened up. Sean met a guy from Hawaii who had been working in Tokyo for 6 years and had friends over visiting so we hung out with them for a while and some more of the locals. It was a good night - the music was pretty good - a mish-mash of dance and pop tunes which had been heavily remixed into each other, and I think we only heard two repeated songs the whole time we were there.Drinks weren't particularly cheap, but I got the impression it was an "in" place to be, so I guess I can forgive it that.I left around 2:30am and then walked back up to Roppongi. I managed to find a liquor store which is pretty much a hole in the wall. It seems to be used by the clubs and bars when they run out of a particular bottle of spirits and can be used as a stop-gap til their next delivery.My beady eyes spotted a bottle of Suntory Hibiki - a 17 year blended whisky which is very very nice. I brought back a bottle together with the 12 year Yamazaki when I last came to Tokyo and they have disappeared far too rapidly for my liking. It was about 7,500 yen for the bottle so not cheap, but certainly not a rip off. Looking forward to installing it on my shelves back home in London to replace the other one that's almost empty.After that I walked back to my apartment and dozed off.Work again today - bit of a later start but I'm still here and it's 7:30pm. Hopefully next week things will get a little less crazy!Ken
Tokyo-tastic
Well yesterday as my first day in the office was quite a long day. I was in by about 8:45 and then didn't leave until midnight. They are a bit understaffed on this deal I'm working on (but having said that, there's only 40 staff in the office). Still, they're handling it very well and the other person that's been flown in and I will be handling the bits and bobs that crop up aside from the main in-depth bits of the deal that other people are dedicated to.Under my desk I've got a hard hat and an earthquake kit. It's in a shiny silver plastic backpack and apparently contains a flashlight, a blanket, food, drink etc. Hopefully not something I'll need to use, being on the 34th floor of a skyscraper...I've taken a few photos, but I won't be able to upload them for the forseeable future. I'll try and make some arrangements to do so, but I don't know when...On the walk into work there's a bunch of construction works going on. At every set of construction there is at least one elderly gentleman in a uniform with a hard hat and a fluorescent baton directing traffic or pedestrians around the works. I'm not sure whether this is a job that retired men do to wind down, or whether possibly in some cases it may be the only job some salarymen who were made redundant during the recessions of the past 15-20 years. I remember from my last trip to Tokyo the large areas of homeless shanties which housed salarymen who had lost their jobs and homes. They were all incredibly respectable despite having to live in a tarpaulin-covered shelter, and some had even set up makeshift restaurants out of their shacks to try and turn their fortunes around.Ken
Tokyo
Well I arrived safely - it was a good flight. Left 7pm London time, arrived 4pm the next day Tokyo time. Meant I could do a bit of reading in to the deal I'm working on and still have time to watch a few films and get some sleep (12 hour flight). Got in early, through customs etc very quickly and then took the Narita Express train into Tokyo. The airport is 70km away so it takes an hour or so, so I put on my iPod and had a doze. It was absolutely bucketing down with rain - worse so than in London. I got a taxi from Tokyo station and it was about 15 minutes or so to the serviced apartment I am staying in. I have taken a few photos of the apartment but I will have to find an internet cafe at some point to upload them. Restricted access at the office.The apartment is nice - kitchen, living area, double bedroom, hi-tech electronic toilet, talking bathtub etc and it's only 10 mins walk from the office (something that looks like it will be vital given the busyness on this deal.Office itself is nice - although mainly open plan. It's on the 34th floor of a building just east of Roppongi.Anyway, hopefully will take some photos and be able to upload them - I'm looking to borrow a laptop next week from the office and I have a net connection in the flat, so I will then hopefully be able to upload stuff.K
Sayonara to London. Konichiwa Tokyo
Well...it's been an interesting past two weeks. I got back from my training course that I'd been on for two weeks to a bunch of work. Had to pull together a report in a week - something that normally takes about 3 weeks to a month to do - especially as I had a bunch of overseas lawyers to feed advice in from. That done, we had to present the report on Monday - that went fine, and then got back from that and started work on an agreement and was in the office for 32 hours in a row. I got in in the afternoon on Wednesday after lying in and catching up on some sleep. Wednesday evening at the office one of the partners came around and asked if I would in theory be available to go to one of the overseas offices - Luxembourg or Tokyo...I said yes. Yesterday I found out I was wanted in Tokyo, tomorrow I fly out.Looking forward to it although I've been struggling to get various things sorted before I go. I'll be out there until 20 December so there's a lot of things to think about!K
