Well, I am now caught up with my blogs for the day and also was able to fit in the laundry and house cleaning yesterday when I needed a break from this computer. Have not been out or off this chair much since Sunday night and so I am getting ready to go run a few quick errands, get some much needed grocery items and then off to have dinner out on the town with CJ and some of the Graco KK employees later tongight. Sort of a WELCOME dinner I guess, for us and few other new employees.Should be fun. I hope they have some cooked food that I will not gag on and be able to stomach? Hoping too , that I will be able to communicate in something more than charades or my awful "Japlish". My hope is that more of them can speak a little more English than I can Japanese.
I too have my plans in line with Maggie for our shopping day and will meet her tomorrow AM near Yokohama Station...
More stories coming soon I am sure and I just pray they won't be too embarassing. Wish me luck
Karla
It is now Wednesday afternoon here in Japan and CJ has the rest of the week off for "Bon-Festival of the Dead August 13-16th" ,which is the public holiday to celebrate the spirits of dead relatives. It it a religous rite in connection with the Buddhist belief that spirits return to this world to visit loved ones in the summer. It is a big family occasion, with everyone visiting, cleaning, and decorating tombs. Communal Bon Odori hypnotic outdoor dance parties are held most evenings during this time.
So today, we are sitting here in our home office doing expense reports, updating blogs, downloading pictures and just had a nice,fun and laughter filled phone chat with Kalen. She's a silly young lady. :-) She always seems to have some quick witted comment to make us laugh at ourselves.
The water is shut off as well today from 1-5 for the construction crew out front and so we are bone dry here in the heat of the day. My shopping day with Maggie was cancelled at the last minute as Yumi came down with with a fever and she needed her momma close by while not feeling well. Hope she is better soon.
The dinner went well last night with the Graco employees and the directions CJ wrote on his blackberry for me to take the train and walk along the path to meet him at work were perfect. I left an hour early so I had time to mosey along the way and take some pics to show you all of his daily route to work.
I took the Ishikawa-cho JR train to the Sukuragicho Station where I got off and then made my way through the underground maze and switched to the subway line at station 18 and then rode that for 20 minutes or so up to station 28 Nakomechidai. I exited the RR and then walked through yet another shopping area (there is ALOT of them)along the wide brick walk way and across a plaza area before meeting up with a nice tree covered brick/gravel path through the Seseragi Park. I walked past a bamboo forest on the left, then a little gazebo surrounded by water with ducks swimming around it on my right. Saw through the arch of the ivy covered bridge, some kids and their colorful reflections while fishing in the little creek.
After walking through the tunnel of the big arched bridge, I took a detour at the big pond and went off on a path to the right to see what a building set back in the distance was. The gates were closed and it looked to be some kind of a restaurant or gift shop ?? so I just took fotos of the flower reflections lining the waters edge. Walked back along the path where I passed more bamboo groves on the left and pretty purple flowers on my right, before crossing over another little arched bridge where a young boy was very busy and focused while rethreading his fishing line.
Passed some older folks sitting on benches across from the big pond which was filled with lots of lilly pads. They were visiting with one another and rapidly fanning themselves with their Japanese accordian paper or silk fans used to keep them cool from the hot late afternoon sun which was beginning to set. In the pond was mother duck and her 8 little downy ducklings swimming in the murky water amongst many a turtle who were poking their heads up above the water to see who/what was passing them by.
Past the pond the path became a tunnel of trees and it sounded like choir concert with all the cicadas "semi" singing loud and strong. Sorry, I thought they were called locusts and gave them the incorrect name the other day. I by the way found 4 dead ones in the screen porch window track off the tatami room when hanging the futons to air out in the sunshine the other day. The cicadas are quite large as you can see, just a little shorter than the length of my index finger. I continued down the path and it was so nice and cool and a very relaxing stroll through all the greenery. One mother pushing twins in a double stroller passed me as did more moms with little kids, many bikers and others just walking along and I assumed outside to enjoy the beautiful day.
At the end of the park area took a right and went past an apartment/condo complex and then across a bridge and down the street to Graco. As I rounded the corner into the industrial park zone a very strong chemical smell took over the air. WOW..it was mighty strong and looked to be coming from the many paint refurbishing shops down a side street. Got to Graco and then punched in CJ's extenstion on the lobby phone, so he new I had made it. It was a very stark entry way with bare walls and a stair well with bright red railings. It looked pretty clean though and had a very fresh lemony smell, so they are making some progress already. That is the first big job CJ has had while here. To clean the whole building up, buy new furniture, posters, repaint and rewallpaper the entire 3 floor complex. It was left to go for many years and already they have hauled away 8 truck loads of junk, old furniture, machinery and "stuff" that has been collected over the 30 plus years. They had no formal display room or area to show buyers what kind of equipment they sell and so the sale guys are very excited that they will soon have a clean, colorful and professional looking place to bring clients. CJ took me on a quick tour and I met quite a few of the 30 or so people that work with him. I too saw his 5S Housekeeping Chart Sort "Seiri", Straighten "seiton", Sweep "Seiso" , Satandardize "seiketsu", Sustain "shitsuke", and Safety. Later in the night at dinner as I rubbed CJ's bald head, I told the guys I was surprised "Mr.Clean" had not made a copy of that chart and that he had not yet hung it in my broom closet back home. haha They all got a bit of a chuckle from that.
You can tell their hard work and pitching in to help clean up their own work environment has already made an impact and I think changed the moral a bit. The upstairs meeting rooms I thought looked very inviting or as welcoming as a meeting room can be,and in comparison to the rooms yet to be finished downstairs. YEAH!
They have alot of work yet to do, but they are making progress and many people have thanked him for making it happen. "Less depressing" place to work in each day is what a few have commented to CJ. We were talking at dinner and they now were asking CJ to have a shower room put in, and it would be a SUPER idea I think especially with the hot summers they have and if people have to go someplace direct from work, they could at least clean up a bit. Many can't go all the way home first, as some people I learned take 2 and 3 hour train rides to and from work each day. Crazy !!
They also came up with another word to add to the list throw "suteru".
So after the tour was over CJ and I walked back towards the train station and to the restaurant with Tarooni who is leaving and Ryoko who is taking her place, as well as,a cute little 70 yr old man Ishigawa-san.
When we were walking back through the apartment/condo area we met up with a bunch of kids who were busy catching with nets and filling their bug boxes with the singing cicadas (this is when I learned the correct name from Tarooni)and a beetle of some sort. They were so cute and the older boy was very friendly and he was very proud he could count all the way up to 25 in english and I was very impressed. I bid them goodbye and told them I hoped to see them again another day. So cute!!
We got to the Chicken Soup Restaraunt and it was a traditonal Japanese one with the low tables and wells below for your legs and feet. Cool, but I was a bit concerned with the skirt I had on? We took our shoes off in the entry, placed them in the shoe rack and then walked bare foot to the back private room set up for us with 2 large tables. I immediately got into my seat with my A line short skirt on while it was just CJ I and the 2 girls. I did not want to have to do my discreet flexible gymnastics routine to try and get into position in front of a room full of men. It thankfully, was not as hard to do as I thought it might be,so all was well. I think I could have won a Gold medal for that slick move. haha
We had a very nice meal of all "cooked" foods. I guess CJ had told Tad I did NOT like raw fish when he asked and so we found out later, that they had specifically ordered all cooked entrees. It was wonderful for me, as I had no gaging incidences, but I too hope, they weren't too sad or disappointed to not have some good fancy Japanese food especially when it was on the company's dime? :-( :-)
Our night started off with a champagne toast for us and Ryoko who are new and Tarooni who is sadly leaving. I told CJ at the end of the night I was sad she was going as she was a little spit fire and seemed like alot of fun. I am sure she was a good worker. She had made plans to leave long before she knew CJ was coming and all the changes were going to be made. She told CJ if she would have known sooner, she might have stayed. She also told him she would be willing to sub for any vacationers. She is one who takes 2 hours to get to work. Ryoko too seems nice, but she doesn't know as much english so I found it a bit more difficult to get in a fluid conversation with her. She was trying very hard though to speak english and she was rapidly using her hand held computer translator while I used by dictionary. We had fun trying to communicate. When I was telling Tad about the Octupus balls and bonito "katsou" flakes on top he said "No that is Katsoubushi" and I said, "Yes,but I think it is bonito". Sure enough when Ryoko typed it in her translator it came up bonito. I teased Tad and said,"You did not know an American was going to teach you a new Japanese word did you"? They all laughed and asked how I knew so much already. I told them I read ALOT before I came,in hopes that I don't miss much while I am here.
We then had tapas like servings to share with all at our table. We first had potatoe croquets, then veggie spring roles with avacado and rice,fresh basil leaf pizza, mashed potoatoes with lettuce salad on top and long thin slices of mushrooms poking out from underneath. We finished up with a sundried tomatoe like pasta with crab legs. It was all very good and they washed it all down with lots of Asahi beer,red wine, warm saki and I had water and one OJw/rum. Dessert was cheesecake with fresh berry sauce for me and tiramisu, apple pie or sherbet for the others.
We had lots of fun just chatting about the things CJ and I have been doing while here so far and I of course asked lots of questions about things I did not understand or saw and wondered what was going on. I had a hard time picking up the names when they introduced themselves and so I made nicknames up for them when I found their name and how it was written on the Graco ORG chart CJ had printed off for me. Once I found out some of their interests, that helped too. One guy Yamane was going to climb MT Fuji-san today (starting at midnight 10 hours up at a very slow pace and 4 hours down) and so I named him "Mountain Man", another guys initials are TK so I will call him "Knockout", Kouchie is the "Coachman".They got another laugh from that as you might expect.
On the train ride home I found out that Ishagawa-san is a tea master and presents tea ceremonies so of course he will be the "Tea Master" to me. I can totally see him doing this as he came across as a very proper, clean, precise and organized man. He was so sweet when he showed me a picture of himself in his black robe and also one of his daughter kneeling in her colorful kimono...who he said ,"She now belongs to heaven". I think she died 15 years ago at the age of 23 from some problem with her back as that is where he pointed when he said he did not know the correct word in english.
We made our way home and to bed after checking out a bit of the Olympics coverage.
it was a nice night and fun to know some more Japanese folks
Now it is about 4:15pm and the water is back on a bit early, so we will clean up and then go to the store for out daily walk and to get out of the office for a bit. Who knows, maybe we will be lucky and get to see some hypnotic dancing going on in a neighborhood somewhere along the way?
Until tomorrow
Karla and Chuck-san
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