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Monthly archives "August 2008"

Summer Festival

Summer Festival

Or at least, that’s what I think it was what I found last thursday when I arrived to my station. The “main square” full of people dancing like this:

After 10 minutes of looking and listening to this music, I came back home whistling this… I will try to get the MP3. 😉

Fuji-san

Landscape from Mt.Fuji

Interesting experience. I had heard about it, as a must for long-term stays in Japan/Tokyo including summer: climb Mount Fuji and observe the sunrise from there… together with 10000 more people. What??? I thought we were climbing a mountain… 10000 people hiking up? Two ideas came to my mind at this point: either the figure is an exageration or it is not that hard… I was completely wrong. 10000 people is a good figure for that kilometric queue hiking towards the summit during the night… and it was not that easy.
Night Climbing

We had to climb from 2305 m to 3776 m. So, around 1500 m, quite a lot. At the beginning, everything is ok, not many people, wide paths, and softer slopes… But, after a while, the paths are thinner, the people who were waiting in the different stations join the way up, the oxygen reduces (and you do notice the difference), and the sunrise is closer. Not everybody reaches the summit before the sunrise, but it is quite ok if you are already around 3500 m as we were.
Sunrise (I)
Sunrise (II)
Sunrise (III)
Sunrise (IV)
Sunrise (V)

The worst part was after the sunrise, when everybody who had stopped decided to go up at the same time. It took us a couple of hours to reach the summit, but we did it. And, after eating something up there (good business) and taking a look to the crater of the volcan, time to go down, which was even harder than ascending… At the end, 30 hours without sleeping, and the proud to have reached the ceiling of Japan… and this is just the beginning. I still have more than 5 months left here. 🙂
The long queue

Any way, I agree with the japanese. It’s a once-in-a-life experience. There will be no second time, that’s for sure. 😉

7 days and growing

Today is my 7th day in Tokyo, and the balance is positive so far. I have adapted to the daily life faster as I expected. In the late years I have escaped from my previous problems with “strange” or “new” food, and therefore I am also doing well in that sense here.

And, of course, I have already been working here for one week. I guess I am really going to like this assignment, where I will be in more operative tasks than in the previous ones, and in a very interesting mix of nationalities (Japanese, Swedes and Australians are the main groups, but there are also some Chinese, Hungarian or Spaniard).

In that sense, after reading a lot about Japanese culture, and its application into the work, it is completely true that every country has its particularities regarding work, but some big multinationals as mine, make you feel at home anywhere in the world. Ok, here it seems the work days are longer than in other parts of the globe, but apart from that, the culture is the same. I guess I would be much more shocked if I worked for NEC or any other pure Japanese company.

And tomorrow is time for Mount Fuji. Yes, we are going to climb the highest mountain in Japan, which is pretty close to Tokyo, and it is a tradition to climb it in summer, during the night, in order to see the sunrise (if you are lucky and it’s not cloudy or rainy or…). I will probably tell you more about this some time next week.