So here I am again in the land of Sakura, Saki and Shinkansens leading a quiet 2 week period. Home -> Work -> Home seem to be the only thing I really do. Solitude in a country with about 2% of the world's population! The weather is beautiful and well so is everything else. Peaceful, only months after the horrific disaster. The thing is I was here then and am here now and nothing has really changed. Still u find people getting all suited up to work. Everyone always in some sorta hurry to catch a train, bus or something which leaves me quite perplexed coz none of the transport systems really ever run late here. All the hurry for what??? Whats the running for? Oh and damn these pretty women all ready for work in their high heels...yeah right high heels....how on earth do they manage the almost 1-2hr work rides/walks etc in those?
Anyways its always a pleasant site every morning on the way to the station to see all these people so well dressed and on their way to work. Ofcourse none really catch u eye to eye coz its like they're keyed in and on a particular path with a timer set. Its almost scary when u see someone you know ( and trust me they all don't look alike) in office actually having a fun time. Which brings me to office - It is well part of a manufacturing plant unit... a bldg where the suits sit and resembles a shop floor in quite many ways, but then again I imagine everything here looks like that. So i somehow manage to quite easily land up at work at 8:30 which at times seems almost impossible to do back in India. The thing is here the support systems of the city seem to keep u on time no matter what...and trust me i do mean no matter what. Roadwork, Electrical work u name it and they have solutions to keep u set on your own schedule without hampering their work. Brilliant!! Yeah totally is. So gettin back to me draggin my butt to work.. I get in early and land up drinking a lot of water which is a good thing coz coffee is not my thing here (the coffee literally keeps me awake even through situations I'd rather be asleep in) and have green tea, milk ( a step up from coffee) and some other juices that are available here. Seeing that i belong to an Indian based organisation where tea / coffee come free and per diem is stingy or as management would say "sufficient for the average joe" one needs to keep a check on their Fluid / Solid intake as Japan although brilliantly stocked is far from being reasonably priced. So with all the walk and the regularized fluid intake i guess a few pounds lost is whats on the charts for me. Yipity yay yay to that.
The work day begins with our noses buried in our notebooks (digital ofcourse) with an occasional voice murmur or laugh (very rare) from some part of the floor mostly when foreigners arrive or come to meet their Japanese counterparts at their desk. Silence is maintained and more often than not its the Silence that gets to you. I almost choke on my words when i get up to talk to my client here - mostly coz I , being who I am, haven't spoken in almost 2-3 hrs ( trust me that's almost impossible as some of my friends would say) have forgotten the sound of my voice or am a bit tensed about bursting out at an unrecognizable decibel (atleast for the ones on the floor). I mostly lay low...sometimes thats physically what i do... and get thru the day like the rest on the floor. Then evening comes and its that time of the day again to tell your body to ramp up the blood flow and get moving, mostly coz u dont want to get in the way of the rest of the pedestrians. For kicks i do take breaks in the day to remind my legs they exist .... mostly around this cute baseball field here.
The countrymen don't really love the Americans but do a helluva job at aping them! Baseball, McD's,Starbucks and the whole enchilada.
Night comes and the city looks like the home of a million or zillion Fireflies! Its a pretty sight. Moreover the displays in the windows almost make you wanna walk into every store and buy all you can. Well it's atleast what i did a few years ago. I'm wiser now..not that the things i bought weren't good but its just that it's all stuff... Stuff you have no clue what to do with :). So the walk home's a delight and almost feels like scenes out of the movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic".
Then I reach my humble abode... really humble... wooden flooring... technologically advanced kitchen , bathroom and lighting... The Works!! I don't even own part of the stuff in that room in my place in Bangalore! Its got awesome beds... sexy TV... Super loo and totally worthy of the name. It's the most pleasurable item in the room with the bed a close second.
The weekend's almost here and well I'm hoping to go shop and binge on the awesome seafood here. This is the part where i thank my parents for being Bengali and me being totally affectionate towards the delectable sea creatures!
While writing this I took a break and I'm just back from the walk around the park / field. I realized it is a pain not to know the local language as when a real sweet person walks up to you and decides to begin a conversation and you have no clue what the poor fellow's trying to say ...you're cursing urself for not really taking those Japanese classes. First of all its not everyday that a person of the masculine gender in Japan finds the courage to open their mouth and speak to the opposite gender and here you are looking all stupid and you might as well have been Dumb. Anyways we sat there on the park bench staring into space and sipping our coffees. Finally i got up and left with a smile!
Coming back to work and hoping that the flow in the article would somehow translate into the work too. Music playing in the background and the Blank ppt staying as blank as possible. Today is just going so slow and I have about 3 hrs to begin the weekend. Though not much to do there either but still hope's alive.
This place is beautiful and clean ...one would imagine this is how heaven's streets would look... Garbage here also is cleaner than the cleanest streets in India. Traffic here well almost non existent. If you hear a horn well that means your dreaming as no one honks...which is funny...and ppl still get to wherever they want on time!
So this post might go on and on and if i dont stop i might never get a word on that ppt ...so here is me saying Sayonara and Konbanwa ( good evening). Cya!
