Works Leaving Party

It was my leaving party for work last night. There was a big schmancy do the other week for the others that were leaving, which i missed as i was in china, so last night was a more cosy affair, with just my closest work friends. we started off at a lovely sashimi restaurant, followed by karaoke. had such a good night, but it was tinged with a great deal of sadness as i am very very fond of these people. professionally we have all had disagreements, but we've always been able to go out for a beer afterwards and be the best of friends. i finish work tomorrow (incidentally exactly a year to the day that i finished work in malsysia with Lotus), but i will be back in the office next thursday after i get back from hk/china.

i am going to really miss working here, and the people especially, its been an incredibly interesting time, and especially seeing the different working culture, which is like nothing i have experienced before. businesses here are built on relationships and trust, which often goes against any logical business or financial sense, which i have to admit, has probably been the biggest frustration working here. for example, parts sent from suppliers werent measured before they were sent here, (and these parts have to be correct to 1000ths of millimetres), but they werent measured by them, as it was seen as being rude and distrustful to ask suppliers to measure the parts, as 'we trust that they are correct' was the attitude here....now that is actually one thing that, although is a cultural thing, had to change, and was a real battle to change their attitudes, but things like that make working abroad fascinating.

its also hard here as you aren't allowed to raise your voice to anyone. in europe it is common place to raise voices in arguement in the work place, that simply isnt tolerated here, you really have to bite your tongue sometimes, and discussions can often take hours as people have to skirt around confrontation, rather than get to the heart of the matter, even trying my best, i have been accused of sometimes being 'too western'.

i guess the other major difference here is learning how to talk and have meetings/presentations through an interpreter. again, in the western world, meetings turn into open discussions, and presentations simply flow, working with a translator however, you have to speak, stop, wait, listen, reply...again, this makes some meetings take forever! and is difficult, if you want to jump in and make an important point, you simply have to wait until there is a natural gap in conversation...theres been many occasions where we've been in quite a heated meeting with the japanese team, and we've had big big disagreements, where we have asked them to do something, and they then go on a rant for about 10 minutes in japanese, then tomomi or which ever translator will simply translate back 'ok'...i mean, what was the rest of the 10 minute rant about??!! she has actually told me that she often has to tone down the words used by both parties, and has refused to translate a few things which were overly confrontational...apparently a colleague of mine was once sworn at by a a japanese colleague, which of course she never translated! never underestimate the job of a translator...

i dont think youll find a more challenging cultural different working environment than japan, and yes it can be frustrating at times, but im really going to miss it, and the people especially...

Sakamoto-san

Sakamoto-san is the head of the japanese team on this project, and a very very dear friend of mine, and has such a sharp sense of humour...one more person im going to miss dearly

Dancing Queen

never has a song been more appropriate...

Me & Kondou-san

You know when youre drunk and should go home when...(part 2)

...you decide that its the perfect time to do your 'monkey impression'

no no no no no no no no

Oh dear good god no...

have you ever had that feeling that you want the ground to open up and swallow you? even with much beer, this was one of those moments...in hindsight, putting on Bohemian Rhapsody might not have been my brightest idea ever... jesus it was painful to sing and even more painful to listen to...cannot describe how bad it was. we did get a full round of applause from the entire bar though when we finished...(hang on, was that BECAUSE we had finished??)

what was it that morcambe and wise once said?...
"All of the right notes, not necessarily in the right order..."

Kondou-san & Sakamoto-san

Oh dear...

this was Dido's 'Thank You', which if you recall, is a song in a very high key...Tomomi is actually quite good and can hit the high notes...Gareth...well, Gareth...can't...not at all, not even close...we'll leave it at that.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad..."

(we made it very very bad)

Kondou-san

i love this guy, he's a senior manager here, and typically japanese, he gets absolutely hammered by just sniffing alcohol..he usually loses the use of his legs after about 30 minutes of drinking...great guy

Gareth - Cheesy Rock - Yorke

Karaoke

this karaoke wasnt a private room job, this was in front of the entire bar...

...the photos go very downhill from here...(i apologise now)

Tomomi and Gareth

along with adam (who is currently travelling around japan, and then the world), these are some of my best mates in japan...will miss them dearly

Everyone

Things you get talked into...

a japanese delicacy, deep fried fish head...this was actually one of the fish shown on the first photo...

...seconds later the fish turned into a deep fried prince, i kid you not

Puffer Fish

i guess this needs some explaining...in japanese culture, as they are not very confrontational by nature, when they are annoyed or p*ssed off, japanese people will blow out their cheeks...to which tomomi does to me frequently at work (jokingly of course...or so she says...) in fact she spends a lot of time blowing her cheeks out at me...hence the photo

Restaurant

rather than a huge group of everyone, we just had a small handful of my closest friends for my leaving party

Works Leaving Party

sashimi (raw fish). the fish were all locally caught in niigata. (the 'kissing' fish photo doesnt seem as funny as it did last night...)

Leaving Party

For all those in the South Pacific region...i am having a leaving party on saturday 14th april at northern lights (immies booked up). start at around 8.30ish. then on to hotspoto (tom and sam are dj-ing)

god, this sounds like a community noticeboard...

anyway, hope people can come (otherwise i will look like a right billy-no-mates)

cheers

and finally...

after 4 months of looking, interviewing and deciding, ive finally decided to leave japan and move to oslo/norway.

desparately sad to leave japan, a place which i love so so much, but for various reasons i feel that its the right thing to do

i have one more week at work in japan, then a week working in hong kong and china, then 10 days travelling around the south of japan (kyoto, osaka, hiroshima, tokyo) then leave japan for the UK on the 18th april (i have a leaving party in niigata on saturday 14th april - venue tbc)

i start work in oslo on the 1st may, so i will have a couple of weeks in the UK which also means that i will have my birthday back home with my friends

cant really be bothered to write or explain any more on this subject at the moment, im sure ive bored people silly talking it out with people over the past few weeks/months...many of which have given me good advice, to which im grateful for.

so anyway...

Earthquake

we had a significant earthquake yesterday (sunday), the epicentre was in a place called ishikawa, about 300km from niigata and measured a 7.0 on the richter scale, which is very big. so far one person has died. we felt it in ikenotaira where it had a magnitude of 6.0, which is still pretty big. was my first real earthquake experience. i had one in kl, but not as big as this. i was in the cafe at the bottom when it happened. its strange, such a weird experience to have everything shaking and moving, doesnt feel real, almost like its just in your head, and is pretty scary, even at 6.0 its an unnerving experience. theyre pertty used to them here and we even had earthquake training at work when i arrived. tokyo is due a big one soon, they reckon theres a 90% chance that theyll have a major one in the next 50 years. the last time it happened in the 1920's (?) 140,000 people died. now thats scary...

Weekend

Went away boarding this weekend to a place called Ikenotaira, about 90 mins drive from Niigata. About 7 of us went. Ikenotaira is my favourite boarding place that ive been to (about 7-8 in total in Japan) Last time i came here it was brilliant blue skies and sunshine both days. This time was a different story. Saturday was ok, very cloudy, rained a bit and was warm so the snow was a chotto slushy, but was ok. did my first (and subsequently second) jump. Well, i say jump, the first one was a bit rubbish, and as kat was filming my second attempt, i thought id go for it, so i bombed down (ok, 'bomb' might be a slight mistruth, 'meandered' towards maybe...) and hit the jump and flew, seriously, i flew, i went for miles, and got really high, was brilliant, totally 'big air dude' scenario. didnt manage to land it as it was really high. proudly i went over to kat to check the footage...seriously, at best, i may have got about 3cm off the ground, well, the front of my board went pretty high, a couple of feet, but the back hardly left the ground. bum. much mirth ensued, in fact kat even emailed me this morning to tell me that she watched it again this morning and cracked up laughing. bum.

Saturday night we went to a friends house, who lives near the slope, literally about 2 mins away and cooked mexican food and had a mini party. Sunday we woke to find awful weather, raining and really really foggy. Myself and tomomi decided to go boarding anyway...everyone else wimped out. The mountain itself was amazing, the visibility was about 5-10 metres, was really bad, which meant you couldnt go fast at all as you really couldnt see a tree until it was right on you, went for a couple of hours and went back. going back in itself was weird. it was on a run that i know, but you literally couldnt see anything or anyone, was really spooky, and a bit scary at times, i had no idea where i was until i got to the bottom. was like being in heaven, all you could see was white. tomomi managed to get a little lost and took about 90 mins to get to the bottom, by which point i have to admit i was a little worried (the day before - with no fog at all - she and gareth had managed to get lost and end up on a road somewhere quite a distance away) thankfully she turned up eventually.

lunch of fried pork curry and an onsen before heading home, (as usual, listening to the ricky gervais podcasts - which make me cry with laughter)

my last snowboard trip of the year

Onsen

perfect just after boarding in the cold and wet is to have an onsen (natural hot spring water public bath). went on sunday before leaving. these pictures taken from their website (its hard to conceal a camera when youre totally in the buff) the water is very very hot (about 42 degrees c) the outside one looked amazing as there was so much snow all around. so youre stood there in freezing temps completely naked outside, then slip into a hot hot natural bath....bliss....

Breakfast

What was originally thought to be tomomi's tummy rumbling with hunger, actually turned out to be an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the richter scale...

this photo was actually taken a few seconds before the earthquake hit. (a maple syrup tsunami almost ensued...)

Party saturday night

Sunday

somewhere in this photo the land meets the sky...honestly

Me, Gareth and Tomomi-san

on the saturday when the weather was a bit better

Me 'n' Jon

(i think jon must have been stood on a slope on this photo)

"Chairlift to heaven..."

really really spooky, felt like you had died and were going to heaven in a chairlift, it got brighter the higher you went...in fact, when i die, i would like to go to heaven in a chairlift... (someone write that down...)

Happiness is...

...having a day off for a bank holiday midweek, going snowboarding with just your ipod for company, arriving to find a virgin snow covered large car park, and doing doughnuts to your hearts content.

Happiness is snowboarding for a few hours in deep fresh snow, chicken curry for lunch, and not breaking anything.

Embarrassment is however...watching a skiing competition on one of the slopes, with about 100 skiiers and spectators watching, getting on the nearest chair lift, arriving to the top of the slope and realising that you are now stood at the starting line for the skiing competition, with no where to go, feeling like youre in some 70's Herbie film. not being able to go up as the lift stops there, and there being no other slope to go down. embarrassment is everyone looking at you, as you edge slowly and sheepishly down the side of the narrow slope, while very serious skiiers wiz past you in competition. embarrassment is finding that the edge of the slope is in fact the competition mogul course, which in fact you are now destroying by heel edging down the slope slowly. thank the lord for semi reflective goggles and not being able to understand japanese too well...ahem...

On top of the world..

you can actually see my house from here...trust me. the weird thing about japan is that you get massive expanses of plains, then mountain out of nowhere, no middle ground, just flat, then mountains. You can also see the sea in the background

Ninox

Ski Competition

100 skiiers in downhill and mogul competition (+1 very sheepish boarder)

Ninox

How old am i???

Q: what do you get when you cross a powerful car with a completely empty car park 6 inches deep in fresh virgin snow???...

A: ...DOUGHNUTS!!!! (well...would be rude not to)

Monkies

i hate monkies. monkies are not cute cuddly humanesque type beings, they are nasty violent greedy aggressive little buggers. there were so many in kl, hundreds in the trees where i lived. nasty bleeders...hate them. this particular one was on the foot of the ninox mountains on the way home

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

after a pretty mild winter, its been really really cold for a few weeks now, and has been lightly snowing (but not settling) for days. woke up to 3-4 inches of snow this morning...great as theres a bank holiday tomorrow (on a wednesday???) so might take myself off to a local ski resort (if open)

triffic..LOVE SNOW!!!

Weekend

Made a concerted effort to stay in niigata this weekend, havent been in niigata for about 7 weeks. friday night i went to see a mate play a gig. was in a pretty cool venue. realised its about the 4th gig ive been to in a couple of years (shocking statistic i know...threw me) (prodigy in kl, weeble notts, selecter notts summer 06) was pretty good...the thing about small 'local' gigs like this is that i actually hate them, well, not hate the bands, but all i want to do is be on stage playing, is sooo frustrating watching bands and not playing, im not talking about big prodigy style gigs, but local ones, hate hate not playing. no one really understood this but my good friend deccy who plays in a band, so we stood together grumbling to eachother. saying that i did in fact really enjoy the gig...miss that scene, the dark sticky floor, beer in plastic cups, awful awful support bands etc...

sat went shopping and had lunch with kat and justine and had a thoroughly excellent day. had every intention of going to the cinema but was too tired from late night previously (stop me if this is boring you...christ knows this is boring me)

sunday was a snowboarding free weekend. myself and gareth went to a place called Round 1. id heard about it and always wanted to go. its basically my heaven (being a bit of a jock and arcade game nut) its got 2 floors of the craziest japanese arcade games, bowling, all manner of other sports, and on the roof there is crazy golf, baseball nets etc... had a great day, was kinda like a kid in a sweet shop...was so excited! anyway, the photos kinda describe what went on. top top day, validated by the fact that its ruddy freezing at the mo so didnt miss the outside at all. pretty relaxed and fun weekend

'Fishing'

one of the most bizarre things ive seen in japan. in round 1, there was a small jacuzzi filled with loads of huge fish (30-40cm long). you get a pole, some crappy 'bait' and stand there. now these buggers aint stupid, theyve been in there a long time, they know what a big metal hook looks like. stood there like a lemon for a while then gave up. actually got a little scared when i nearly got a bite as i have no idea what to do if the fish swallowed the thing...glad i sucked at this.

Round 1 (2)

things i learned on sunday. I rock at baseball. I suck at table tennis. i rock at tennis. i totally suck at archery (i manage to shoot myself, work that one out). i rock at bowling. i suck at shooting (seriously, with my archery and shooting skills...you wouldnt want me on your side in a war)...oh, and after 31 + years...i still stick my tongue out when im concentrating. ps if you ever go to war, pick gareth first, really, but if youre picking teams for baseball...better pick a 4 year old child before gareth...just a tip.