Japan is, er, interesting.

I flew out from Hong Kong on last Saturday for my first work trip based out of Hong Kong. Yay for getting busy finally. The work itself was fairly boring, but that's how things should be when the job is going well.

Before I left HK, I had looked at the weather report (after much prompting by Darmita) and it confirmed my guess that it would be about 10C in Tokyo and Sendai where I would be working. I packed appropriate clothes but the suitcase I had was a little bit too big, so I added in some bulkier clothes just to take up space in the suitcase. Good thing I did.

When I get to Tokyo, the weather was okay, if a little cold. But the next day when we took the train up to Ichinoseki, we got out of the train and it started snowing. So much for 10C. On the plus side, I was able to take some nifty pictures with my new phone, so I can see how they turned out. And if I figure out how to post pictures to blogspot, you can too!

Of course, this was an indication of how the whole trip would go. Keep in mind that mill shutdowns in Japan mean the entire mill is shutdown. This includes the power boiler, so where you'd normally have steam keeping the mill warm, when it is zero degrees outside during a shutdown, it's zero degrees inside the machine room too. Three days of this in Ichinoseki, where we were working with setting up computers and wiring and such was not the most fun thing. Trying to do precise work with mostly numb fingers is not fun.

After Ichinoseki, I went further north to Ishinomaki, which is where I went on my very first trip to Japan, for only one day of work. And as Kumagai-san said to me, it snowed the last time I was there too. Maybe Darmita's assertion that I bring bad weather is true.

After we finished up in Ishinomaki, we started to drive to Sendai, only to slow down in dismay at the big flashing X on the approach to the highway indicating the highway was closed (due to the blowing snow). Luckily, when we got closer, we realized that it was for the OTHER direction that the highway went, so we were able to get to Sendai okay.

On the way there, Kumagai-san said that he would like to go out for karaoke, so I said sure. Then he goes, karaoke with beautiful girls, and i said, um, okay. We get to Sendai, check into the hotel and go to our rooms to get cleaned up a bit, as we had been working in a coating kitchen, which meant we were covered in crusty powder.

When I come back downstairs, I see him flipping through a nightclub brochure for Sendai, and he tells me he has decided where we will go. With that, we walk over to the train station to buy my train ticket to Tokyo the next day. We eat the local specialty which was cow tongue grilled and served spiced depending on the restaurant. This wasn't that good, or the pieces I had were bad or something, because it was supposed to be soft and tender, and mine was very chewy. I imagine it was probably a not so good restaurant since we were eating inside the train station.

After we finish dinner, we go to catch a cab to the karaoke bar where we go upstairs and he shows me into the bar where I look around and realize that this probably isn't my definition of a karaoke bar. Girls sitting around in slinky dresses, and I realize that he has brought me to a hostess bar instead. I think Kumagai-san notices the puzzled look on my face and he goes, "sorry, no karaoke here!"

We sat down, two girls came to sit with us to pour our drinks and engage in conversation, but perhaps my enjoyment of the whole experience was lessened since neither of them could speak english very well. I ended up sitting there for most of the night watching Kumagai-san mack on some random women while I drank myself into a half-stupor. Since I didn't want to get particularly drunk in that sort of area. On the plus side, I got to try out Sujo, which I was told is a Korean rice liquor, or maybe it is also popular in Korea as well as Japan. As I said earlier, there were some pretty serious communication problems.

It was interesting, if a bit depressing. I guess that's a cultural bias coming through, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. It just felt wrong to be paying for people to sit there and talk with you. Well, that and the fact that the girls there didn't look so much pretty or attractive to me, but bored - no, that's not the word for it. More weary, or something. I don't really know how to explain it. They didn't appear genuine I guess. Anyways, it wasn't particularly endearing, and I don't think I'd want to repeat the experience if it was offered again.

I did find it particularly amusing that one of the girls that sat down with us at one point introduced herself to us as "Aho". I guess it is wrong of me to be giggling about that, but there you go.

At the end of the night, Kumagai-san asked me if my girlfriend would be angry, and I was like, I dunno... we'll find out! I'll probably be sleeping on the floor when I get home.