I ATE TOKYO

I HATE BIZ TRIPS

I was on a business trip for the past few days at company HQ in Tokyo, and as usual it sucked. They packed our schedule with meetings after meetings, and after that, a long ass dinner until we are all tired and depressed. AND after that we have to finally check our emails for the day and work in the hotel room if anything important happened during the day.

I AM STILL FLOORED BY THE WEIRDOS

I did take an earlier flight on Sunday so I can at least do something in Tokyo. This time I was with two other colleagues, and together we decided to visit Akihabara, the electronic district of Tokyo.I've been to Akihabara several times, and every time I go I can't believe the weirdos I see on the street. Here are some examples:

- A couple (I think), walking on the street hand to hand, BOTH wearing SAILOR SUITS with skirts, like SAILOR MOON!
- A fat unattractive man, wearing SAILOR SUITS, like SAILOR MOON!
- Girls wearing French maid outfits, posing on the sidewalks for questionable looking men with expensive cameras. No she's not affiliated with anything commercial, this is her weekend hobby.
- Girls wearing anime looking outfits, singing with a mic and a boombox on the sidewalks. Questionable looking men with expensive camera gathered around and clapped along with the song. No she's not affiliated with anything commercial, this is her weekend hobby.

I WANT WHATEVER TOILETS THEY HAVE

Those ass spraying toilets (AST for short, if I may) are common in Japan, heck their oversea sales office such as where Im working from are all fully equipped with ASTs. When I was in Tokyo this time, I discovered that the ASTs have received an awesome upgrade: ass blow dry! I promptly tried the ABD enabled AST, and it's a sensation I have never experienced. Now if my office receive the ABD upgrade, I'd be in there all the time!

I ATE TOKYO

I ate so freakin much this time in Tokyo. I arrived at Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, between then and Sunday bedtime I had:
- Starbucks Venti White Chocolate Mocha (cuz they don't have it here in Taiwan)
- One bowl of rice with minced meat and seaweed, with hot spring boiled egg
- One bowl of pork bone soup ramen
- One plate of fried dumplings
- One strawberry cheesecake crepe (holy crap it was so good)
- One large can of Suntory Premium brewed beer (it was awesome)
- One bottle of Aquarius sports drink (cuz I dont want to have plain water)
- One cup of pudding (4/10, wasn't that good)
- One box of Men's Tiramisu (Because Japanese men have bitter saggy lives)
Eating so much wasn't a good idea at all though, as I usually constipate when I travel. Which also wasn't ideal since I'm in the land of ABD enabled AST. As the experience of my constipation will definitely be classified as 'too much info', I will spare you the details. But I chowed down everything while constipated, and it was indeed a very sad scene. I ate more the next several days and soon I'll have to face my gym membership trying to work off the fat. Which I anticipate will again, be a very sad scene.

I CAN'T PRONOUNCE ALUMINUM NOW

My English died a fair bit when I was in Tokyo, after all the meetings in English spoken by Japanese-Taiwanese-Chinese torture. Here is an example:

Japanese Engineer a.k.a Egghead, who could speak good English cuz he spent time in the UK: We use FPGAs for the TX board.
Chinese Engineer: aoiw iwnwor sinwns kndiwtga sdogje, soiethi baiwex orghas?
Me: huh what?
Egghead: that is right
Me: O_O
Another colleague: ZzzzzZZzZZzzz
Some other dude: *playing pinball and solitaire

Luckily, a colleague from the UK was also with us for the meetings. I had the chance to casually chat with him over dinner, making fun of each other with UK/Canadian stereotypes and whatnot. We also talked about the language differences, and this came up:

UK Guy: So, how do you pronounce the metal that holds your soda.
Me: A-LU-MI-NUM?
UK Guy: Wrong, it's pronounced A-U-MI-NI-UM.
Me: That's not English, sorry.
UK Guy: No it's true, that's how we pronounce it in the UK.
Me: You totally just made that up.
UK Guy: No mate, I'm serious!
Me: No sorry that's not English. Nuh-uh!

Now, when I think of the word aluminum, my brain can't decide whether I should pronounce it as I always have, or pronounce it the way the Queen would. To save my aluminum pronouncing ability, I can only conclude that over there in England, they are not speaking English.

I WAS PSYCHOLOGICALLY SCARRED

My Japanese contact window speaks English fairly well. Once I asked him where he learned his English, he said promptly: Filipina Bar. I didn't believe him so during one of my trips to Tokyo last year he tricked me into going to the bar with him. It was horrifying and it took me a while to put that behind me. No I was not molested, I came out in one piece, but...*shudder*

This time, he took me to one AGAIN, because our company's legendary designer Mr. Egghead, also went. The UK guy was also invited and he was only recently married. I could tell he was also terrified and gave me a look that could only be taken as a plea for help. Therefore, I sucked it up and decided to keep him company. I am not going to go in details of what happened inside, actually nothing happened to ME. But, I was surrounded by fat old ugly whores wearing slutty cheap perfumes. It was so incredibly nasty, the only thing that kept me sane was thinking about getting strawberry cheesecake crepe when we call it a night. Mr. Egghead acted like a retard and I lost a lot of respect for him, he no longer has 'legendary' status in my mind, instead he'll be 'rotten egghead'. *shudder*

*Disclaimer: I am not a racist person, I have nothing against Filipina. I do have something against old fat ugly whores wearing slutty cheap perfumes trying to rub my thighs and telling me they have sons around my age. *shudder*

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This has got to be the worst biz trip ever. EVAR!