Gogo no Ocha - Japan, the land of cute.

Gogo no Ocha

Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 9:37 PM
Subject: Weekly Email

This was an interesting week. I had to work late on three days to get our package out. We got it out on Friday, one day early. A major success.

My Japanese is getting a little better but is still bad. I can order food, shop, and sometimes get directions. It is a difficult language to learn though. I am trying to force myself to speak it more. Today I was able to ask the cost of a ceramic "koi" fish in a shop window and understand it was just a display and not for sale. Another major success.

One night I was walking home late from the train station and not paying attention. Lots of times I go a slightly different route just to see if I can see anything new. I was going a way I had not taken before, was tired, and thinking about something else. I walked for a while and looked around to see I was "lost". This has happened once or twice before. The streets are narrow, windy, and in some respects look all the same. Of course I wasn't really lost, but I had to take a few minutes to get my bearings, head towards a main street, and then get a landmark. No problem.

Attached is a picture of the latest advertisement to show up on the train - kind of like Kan-Kan the dog who was selling Sapporo beer earlier this year. Only this girl is dressed in a bird suit and selling Gogo Tea. Gogo means afternoon in Japanese so it is afternoon tea. It is green tea so without the mixture of Japanese and English in the name it would be called Gogo no Ocha (really). Note the clock showing 3 o'clock (Sanji desu). I have no idea why she is dressed in a bird suit and holding a stuffed baby bird. I asked one of the secretaries and she looked at me like I was silly for wanting to know.

Hungry Koi

Irasshaimase

Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 10:15 PM
Subject: Weekly Email

This has been an interesting week for me and I hope it has been for you also. Happy birthday to Megan - I can't believe it has been 21 years. And you have turned out nicer (and different) than I ever imagined.

One of the things everyone kept asking me when they visited is what are they saying when they greet you in the store. It means of course "welcome", but also has the meaning "can I help you" when they use it in the store. I never could remember to ask how it is spelled until the other day. It is spelled "Irasshai-mase" and when pronounced sounds closer to "rah shee mah say..." when I hear it. The "i", which is pronounced "ee" at the beginning is very soft.

Another one people ask about is when the train pulls in they say "Ma mo naku" or "soon". Then they say something like "ichi bahme sen - Shinagawa, Tokyo". This means Soon, 1st track, (a train for) Shinagawa and Tokyo. That is the Japanese lesson for this week.

If you are interested, my project made the ExxonMobil Annual report this year and you can see it at the web site. Here is a short-cut to the particular page: http://www2.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/ARtechno2003pdf. The "state-of-the-art turbines, compressors, and heat exchangers" are going into our LNG plant in Qatar and are the first application anywhere in the world. We go out with our tender on May 15th so I expect to be pretty busy until then. Hopefully a little rest after that.

This week is "Golden Week" in Japan. It is a week where the "Former Emperor's Birthday", "Law Day", and another "Girls Day" all line up. In between they have a holiday just to have one so that everyone gets a week off. The trains and such are not crowded at all when I go to work because everyone is on vacation or visiting family. We are about the only ones working.

I went to Kawasaki today to look around because I had never really done that. I found the symphony hall which you can see from the train I go to work on and is very nice. Then I checked out the shopping district and such. This has to be the most consumeristic place on earth. It is difficult to imagine that there are so many huge stores and so many shops here. And they really love techno-gadgets. There must be 30 different electronic dictionaries (mostly japanese-english) that you can buy. There is one that is english oriented with an english keypad and I finally bought it. I was looking at it so long the guy finally offered me a discount on it, probably to get me out of the way, and I couldn't pass it up.

Megan and David: Remember that giant sculpture that looked like a moving monster castle we saw here? That's what it is - a giant monster castle called "Howl's Moving Castle". They have a movie coming out about it. Megan, if you still have that picture with me in front of it, please send it. The latest movie poster you see pasted all over the place here is "Kill Bill" with Uma Thurman holding a samurai sword and wearing a wedding dress - seems plausible enough to me.

Well, that is about it. Hope your week has been interesting.....