Today was a long day of fun touring around central Tokyo... pics with captions below:
smugmug pics here
Too funny at the Palace!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Day 6 - Feb 25 2010 - Settling in to my new dept.
Day 6 was a day of getting into a routine and beginning the exchange of information with out department so we can learn what they do... Lots more meetings to follow for sure. A few more days and I won't have to remember which way to go at the train station and which bank of elevators are the express elevators... actually getting more sleep as well... body is adjusting...
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Day 5 - Global Services Presentations today
Day 5 - Started with me waking up after 4 hours of sleep at 4am... way overtired, I uploaded pics and did some work. About an hour before we were all leaving for our our new work destination, I walked around the neighborhood looking for a dry cleaner/launderer... No luck, must be a service. I found a grocery store, not that I will do much cooking. But it's always fun to shop at a foreign grocery store so I walked around and took pics until the butcher ran out and asked me to stop. Competitive price issues probably... I tried to calm his objections by explaining I had never been to a Japanese grocery store and my friends around the world would be interested in seeing his shop. That did not assuage his temper, so I slinked out of the store. I won't buy tuna from him today, that will show him.
We have a great commute, world class. 5 min walk to a train station originally established in 1918. Take a world class, ultra clean train with thousands of polite citizens 10 min down the road to an ultra modern train station and then another 5 min walk to one of the nicest modern office buildings I've ever been in.
Day 5 was sitting through mega group powerpoint presentations concerning the groups we'll work in, support and / or interact with on a daily basis. Then in traditional Japanese business style, we walked around to each pod of 50-100 employees and introduced ourselves, where we are from and where we are assigned to, by microphone and PA system. I mean literally one minute everyone is working and I'm thinking, I'm really going to have to use my outside voice to get my introduction across. We walk up to the department a microphone appears, the manager pulls a wireless karaoke looking speaker out from the table and we are live. "Hello my name is John Nassar, from NTT America, Denver Colorado and I'm going to be working in Service development under Matsuura san and I'm going to be singing Barry Manilow's Mandy, can some one get me a big beer?" We did that about 10 times... sans the singing of course... everyone claps and then gets back to work... and everytime we find a new group to introduce ourselves to, the head HR lady is saying, "I'd be so nervous, you guys are great, I can't believe we make you do this... " And at first I agreed, but you know what, now these people know who we are and aren't on edge with all of us just showing up and working in their space. We should adopt this idea in America, sure its seems uncomfortable, but tough noogie, we should do it.
I have a world class view from the windows that border our tables we sit at... this is a very public nation and private space is only afforded to the group president, a nice spacious office with glass walls... even he doesn't get the privacy afforded a middle level manager in America. Should be interesting to see how this affects the psyche. I won't ever take for granted a cube or small office again! I promise!
The vending/water cooler machine in the breakroom is jawdropping gorgeous and impressive. The bathrooms are ONLY topped by the Germany bathrooms at BMW and Mercedes Benz world headquarters. I've been to many a bathroom in my time and Granpark Tamachi building is world class... I'll have to take pictures...
It's customary to share gifts with your coworkers when you arrive. I brought a slew of Colorado made items... Rocky Mountain Chocolates, and Celestial Seasonings Organic Green and White teas... Jennifer wrapped all of this in brown paper with red ribbons and labels made to look like the state of Colorado. It went over well. I have the best wife. :)
I was issued a laptop and a NTT Docomo phone ( our sister division) that serves as my office phone and my Tokyo cellphone, really amazing technology. Of course it was in Japanese and no one could figure out how to put it in English. It took me all of 5 min on the web to find English instructions on how to put the language into English from Japanese. Cool phone though, when inside the building it picks up a signal so my internal extension can be used and is also a 3G GPS Data smartphone... I'll have to take pics... that Tokyo exchange phone number is 080-2008-5647.
It gets dark around 5:30pm. I took a pic of the Tokyo tower outside our window on the 21st floor.
We have a great commute, world class. 5 min walk to a train station originally established in 1918. Take a world class, ultra clean train with thousands of polite citizens 10 min down the road to an ultra modern train station and then another 5 min walk to one of the nicest modern office buildings I've ever been in.
Day 5 was sitting through mega group powerpoint presentations concerning the groups we'll work in, support and / or interact with on a daily basis. Then in traditional Japanese business style, we walked around to each pod of 50-100 employees and introduced ourselves, where we are from and where we are assigned to, by microphone and PA system. I mean literally one minute everyone is working and I'm thinking, I'm really going to have to use my outside voice to get my introduction across. We walk up to the department a microphone appears, the manager pulls a wireless karaoke looking speaker out from the table and we are live. "Hello my name is John Nassar, from NTT America, Denver Colorado and I'm going to be working in Service development under Matsuura san and I'm going to be singing Barry Manilow's Mandy, can some one get me a big beer?" We did that about 10 times... sans the singing of course... everyone claps and then gets back to work... and everytime we find a new group to introduce ourselves to, the head HR lady is saying, "I'd be so nervous, you guys are great, I can't believe we make you do this... " And at first I agreed, but you know what, now these people know who we are and aren't on edge with all of us just showing up and working in their space. We should adopt this idea in America, sure its seems uncomfortable, but tough noogie, we should do it.
I have a world class view from the windows that border our tables we sit at... this is a very public nation and private space is only afforded to the group president, a nice spacious office with glass walls... even he doesn't get the privacy afforded a middle level manager in America. Should be interesting to see how this affects the psyche. I won't ever take for granted a cube or small office again! I promise!
The vending/water cooler machine in the breakroom is jawdropping gorgeous and impressive. The bathrooms are ONLY topped by the Germany bathrooms at BMW and Mercedes Benz world headquarters. I've been to many a bathroom in my time and Granpark Tamachi building is world class... I'll have to take pictures...
It's customary to share gifts with your coworkers when you arrive. I brought a slew of Colorado made items... Rocky Mountain Chocolates, and Celestial Seasonings Organic Green and White teas... Jennifer wrapped all of this in brown paper with red ribbons and labels made to look like the state of Colorado. It went over well. I have the best wife. :)
I was issued a laptop and a NTT Docomo phone ( our sister division) that serves as my office phone and my Tokyo cellphone, really amazing technology. Of course it was in Japanese and no one could figure out how to put it in English. It took me all of 5 min on the web to find English instructions on how to put the language into English from Japanese. Cool phone though, when inside the building it picks up a signal so my internal extension can be used and is also a 3G GPS Data smartphone... I'll have to take pics... that Tokyo exchange phone number is 080-2008-5647.
It gets dark around 5:30pm. I took a pic of the Tokyo tower outside our window on the 21st floor.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Day 4 - Orientation for the 19 of us...
Day 4 - Orientation for the 19 of us from around the world!
There are almost 4,000 non-Japanese based employees in our company. 19 of us have been selected to exchange knowledge so we can become a better company to win the Global Economics Internet challenge. This is our first day in orientation:
Smugmug gallery here
There are almost 4,000 non-Japanese based employees in our company. 19 of us have been selected to exchange knowledge so we can become a better company to win the Global Economics Internet challenge. This is our first day in orientation:
Smugmug gallery here
Monday, February 22, 2010
Day 4 - Morning - Photos of Apartment
Before my apartment gets too messy, I figured I'd take some pics of it to show you what living in 146 s.f. (13.5 square meters) of space is like:
Smugmug pics here
Smugmug pics here
Day 3 - Feb 22, 2010 - Meeting Program Participants
Today I checked out of the hotel and took a taxi a few miles away to the apartment I'll be living until August. Met some of the program participants over lunch and dinner. We have employees from all over the world attending this 6 month exchange program. So far I've met people from Bangkok, Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, New York and San Jose. This experience should prove to be a great networking opportunity to say the least.
Here's some pics I snapped from today's activities:
Click here to go directly to smugmug
Tomorrow we head to our main company headquarters for orientation training. At some point I will also take pics of my 150 s.f. apartment so you can see how the "other half" lives.
Here's some pics I snapped from today's activities:
Click here to go directly to smugmug
Tomorrow we head to our main company headquarters for orientation training. At some point I will also take pics of my 150 s.f. apartment so you can see how the "other half" lives.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Day 2 - Feb 21, 2010 - Touring around the Town
Day 2:
I was tired last night and hit the sack around 7pm local time. I promptly arose after 8 hours of sleep, at 3am... Chatted with Jen online for a bit and responded to some emails. The Olympics were on and I have to say I love the Japanese National TV coverage. The ski jumping was on. You don't just see highlights of their 3 jumpers. They showed every person jump from all heats. Awesome. Same with the Super G.
I was hungry around 7am so I ventured out and found a convenience store across from the Hotel and had a "can of hot coffee." Tasty. Jumped on the Yamanote train to Kanda station. I wanted to walk around the neighborhood I will be living in to see what's around there. After that, I walked about 1km to the amazing electronics district to find the city nerds waiting in line for the stores to open up at 9am on Sunday. I was right there with them, proudly. I found a tiny pocket camera that I might pick up in the future for everyday snapshot use, the Canon IXY10S (SD3500 in US), touch screen, wide angle, accepts wifi SDHC cards, 14megapixel, its small and it only weighs 5oz! Spent a few hours window shopping just in awe of the amazing goods and extremely friendly service within the electronics shops.
I had lunch at tiny noodle shop outside of Akihabara train station. You put your money in the machine at the door, select what you want and bring your ticket to the counter. The two elderly gentlemen cooks, make it to order and then in a few minutes you sit on a bar stool and slurp it up next to everyone else. Tasty and filling, not bad for $5. After that I walked around the electronics district and even purchased an adapter for my three pronged laptop power charger. Japan uses similar electric voltage as the USA and prong config, but rarely is the grounded three prong receptacle found outside the GFI in the bathroom. $5 prong adapter and I was on my way.
Today's pics were uploaded to smugmug:
Click here for smugmug gallery
I walked many a mile today, my feet need a good hot tub soaking. It's 6pm local time and I'm not the least bit sleepy, so I'm hoping to get to sleep around 10-11pm local time so I can start my work week out properly. Going to Asia is a different type of Jet Lag than Europe, it's the opposite for me right now. Took me many days in Europe to not be sleepy... I'm barely sleepy here, we'll see how that works, I'm sure a wall is coming soon.
I'm uploading my pics to two sites right now. smugmug and Facebook.
I was tired last night and hit the sack around 7pm local time. I promptly arose after 8 hours of sleep, at 3am... Chatted with Jen online for a bit and responded to some emails. The Olympics were on and I have to say I love the Japanese National TV coverage. The ski jumping was on. You don't just see highlights of their 3 jumpers. They showed every person jump from all heats. Awesome. Same with the Super G.
I was hungry around 7am so I ventured out and found a convenience store across from the Hotel and had a "can of hot coffee." Tasty. Jumped on the Yamanote train to Kanda station. I wanted to walk around the neighborhood I will be living in to see what's around there. After that, I walked about 1km to the amazing electronics district to find the city nerds waiting in line for the stores to open up at 9am on Sunday. I was right there with them, proudly. I found a tiny pocket camera that I might pick up in the future for everyday snapshot use, the Canon IXY10S (SD3500 in US), touch screen, wide angle, accepts wifi SDHC cards, 14megapixel, its small and it only weighs 5oz! Spent a few hours window shopping just in awe of the amazing goods and extremely friendly service within the electronics shops.
I had lunch at tiny noodle shop outside of Akihabara train station. You put your money in the machine at the door, select what you want and bring your ticket to the counter. The two elderly gentlemen cooks, make it to order and then in a few minutes you sit on a bar stool and slurp it up next to everyone else. Tasty and filling, not bad for $5. After that I walked around the electronics district and even purchased an adapter for my three pronged laptop power charger. Japan uses similar electric voltage as the USA and prong config, but rarely is the grounded three prong receptacle found outside the GFI in the bathroom. $5 prong adapter and I was on my way.
Today's pics were uploaded to smugmug:
Click here for smugmug gallery
I walked many a mile today, my feet need a good hot tub soaking. It's 6pm local time and I'm not the least bit sleepy, so I'm hoping to get to sleep around 10-11pm local time so I can start my work week out properly. Going to Asia is a different type of Jet Lag than Europe, it's the opposite for me right now. Took me many days in Europe to not be sleepy... I'm barely sleepy here, we'll see how that works, I'm sure a wall is coming soon.
I'm uploading my pics to two sites right now. smugmug and Facebook.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Day 1 - Feb 20, 2010 - Arrival
Day 1 - February 20, 2010:
I arrived to Tokyo after a long day of traveling, 20 hours door to door. 2.5 hour flight to Los Angeles, 90 min layover, 10.5 hour to Tokyo, Narita Express train to Central Tokyo station 60 min, Taxi to hotel, 5 min...
I did enough research about transportation to figure out what train to take from Narita and which train card to purchase for daily use. Found the Citibank ATM in the airport and after two unsuccessful tries of trying to remove $2500 way past my daily limit, my brain woke up and realized, 25,000 Yen ($250USD) would be an allowable amount. I wanted to take the train from the airport versus a bus, because where I live (Denver, CO), we have no trains to take us to and from the airport, and I like trains. I promptly fell asleep and fortunately woke up at my stop. The signage in the Tokyo train stations are exceptional with most in English as well and its really tough to not find your way. Taxi station was found right outside the north main exit and I was at the Dai-Ichi Hotel Tokyo in about 5 minutes. I could have taken another train one stop down and walked to the hotel, but my two bags weigh about 125lbs together and I was too tired to save $5...
I will be at the Dai-Ichi for two nights . Monday I'll move into my apartment a few trainstops North of here near Kanda Station.
Here are two photos I've taken from my room.
I arrived to Tokyo after a long day of traveling, 20 hours door to door. 2.5 hour flight to Los Angeles, 90 min layover, 10.5 hour to Tokyo, Narita Express train to Central Tokyo station 60 min, Taxi to hotel, 5 min...
I did enough research about transportation to figure out what train to take from Narita and which train card to purchase for daily use. Found the Citibank ATM in the airport and after two unsuccessful tries of trying to remove $2500 way past my daily limit, my brain woke up and realized, 25,000 Yen ($250USD) would be an allowable amount. I wanted to take the train from the airport versus a bus, because where I live (Denver, CO), we have no trains to take us to and from the airport, and I like trains. I promptly fell asleep and fortunately woke up at my stop. The signage in the Tokyo train stations are exceptional with most in English as well and its really tough to not find your way. Taxi station was found right outside the north main exit and I was at the Dai-Ichi Hotel Tokyo in about 5 minutes. I could have taken another train one stop down and walked to the hotel, but my two bags weigh about 125lbs together and I was too tired to save $5...
I will be at the Dai-Ichi for two nights . Monday I'll move into my apartment a few trainstops North of here near Kanda Station.
Here are two photos I've taken from my room.
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