Typhoons, dinner cruises, sake, and karaoke.

After waking up to a beautifully sunny morning yesterday, this is what I get today.


Yes, there is a typhoon on the way in to Tokyo. We were going to stay through Sunday, but that is the day the typhoon is supposed to hit. So we changed our flight and will now be leaving on Friday (we got four of the last five seats on the plane!). It's kind of a bummer, but it's better to be safe.

We decided to walk to the office building this morning (since our driver yesterday was horribly lost and we wound up being late). On the way, we have to walk through the Shinagawa train station which is insanely busy. As we were going in, everyone else was coming out to go to work.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but it's just a sea of people. LOTS of people. And they are all extremely quiet. All you can hear is their shoes clicking on the floor. It was kind of eerie.

After a half day of meetings, we left for our team building exercise. This consisted of a whirlwind tour of Tokyo. First stop was the temple at Asakusa. Since it was raining so heavily, we were given the actual informational tour on the bus, then were dropped off and told we had 20 minutes to see what we wanted to and to shop at the little vendor shops along the way. I chose to see parts of the temple.

It is said, that if you rub a part on this statue, then rub the same part on yourself, it will heal whatever is wrong with that part. I rubbed my knees so they would stop crackling when I walk up the stairs.

This is a sign on the sidewalk at one of the intersections. I have no idea what it means, but I just thought it was interesting.

Since it was raining so hard, they took us to one of the Japanese department stores to do some more shopping. But be back in the bus in 35 minutes!!

These are some candy bento boxes I thought were interesting.

Then we finally got to our dinner cruise. Although it was pouring down rain and the boat was a little rocky, we had a good time. I even sang karaoke. ME! I guess put enough sake in me and I'll try things I swore I'd never do.

One of my great co-workers.

This was just our appetizer!

More appetizers.

Bert likes appetizers.

White fish tempura which was part of the main course.

Bert had a bit too much sake. I had to cut him off.

So to make the most of our time that is left, we have decided to go see the fish market in the morning. The tuna auction starts at 4:30am. Yes, AM!! We have to get up at 3:30am to get there in time. Are we insane?? Yes, yes we are!