A first day in Tokyo

Well, we made it. The flight wasn't too bad, just really boring. Of course, I didn't know if we were going to get off the ground or not. After being pushed out of the gate, they broke the tow bar on the cart pushing us out. So they had to bring a bunch of people out to inspect the nose gear before we could taxi to the runway. It made me a little nervous as we were landing, but we didn't dive first into asphalt, which is always a good thing.

We arrived to a very overcast and rainy Tokyo. The ground was very green, though. I felt bad because one of my first thoughts as we were flying over an power line tower was "That looks like something Godzilla would attack."

We were all very tired (it was an 11 hour flight, then an hour by train). It's surprisingly easy to get around. All of the signs are in English and people at the train station also spoke English and were very helpful. We looked at the platforms as our train went by and were amazed at how many people were jammed in to the other trains leaving Tokyo. It was also a sea of dark suited businessmen. Hardly any women.

We got to the hotel and decided to get dinner before going to bed. They brough us a sea urchin mousse as an appetizer. It was pretty disgusting.


I had scallops with cabbage as my main course. It was delicious!



This was the view outside my hotel room this morning. Today is supposed to be the only sunny day while we're here.

Lunch at the office was a bento box. I ate it before I found out what the items were in it because I didn't want to be intimidated by my food. I did pretty well and finished everything except my half cooked egg and chicken livers.

After a full day meeting, we had a team building event at the Tokyo Sushi Academy.

We all had to change out of our shoes and put on slippers before we could go in the kitchen. My slippers were a bit small for me, but they were the biggest size they had.

After doing many reptitions on how to make the perfect rice ball, we were treated to watching one of the sushi chefs create the most amazing designs out of his hand rolls.

This is a Christmas Sushi Cake which is made traditionally at Christmas.

Finally, we were able to eat our own creations.

Bert enjoyed the meal with us. Beavers do like fish.

This was the diagram we had to refer to in order to roll our sushi rice balls. I had no idea it was such a precise procedure. It took us about 15-30 seconds to make each ball, but the chef could do it in two seconds.

It was a fun and productive day. Tomorrow is another day of presentations and breakout sessions, then another team event that involves a city tour, visiting a couple temples, shopping, and a dinner cruise. All corporate meetings should be designed like this!!