Sunday, September 10, 2006

でも、京都がきれい/ But Kyoto is beautiful

The pressure has been on lately at work.

First a do or die meeting in a customer project that in some Japanese way ended without much being accomplished. Not a perfect outcome, but managed to put the brakes on a couple of requests that could have been costly. One advice, try not to be negotiating a new order with the same people that you are dealing with in a present project. It tends to mess things up when they use the new buy to put pressure on the project and vice versa. Then I had a presentation in front of some prominent people. That one went ok although being rescheduled to 08.00.

Football today was conducted in light rain. Very nice for sliding tackles, and the temperature was bearable for once.

Last weekend was Tokyo visit weekend. Five Tokyoites drove through the night Friday to be able to spend a weekend in the hotter region of Japan. The weekend continued with Bjorn ditching the rest of the gang in favor of some rock thing in Toyota. Mike then decided that the decision to drive to a beach was not for him, but luckily enough CF could stand in as guide in Nagoya while the rest of us drove to Mie. And drove is what we did. Seven hours in a car and one and a half hour on a beach. Nice beach though. Only let down was that there was almost no other people there. The drive back included some very intelligent conversations where the most important conclusions were that Kyoto is beautiful, so is Kinkakuji, and that great minds think alike. Back in Nagoya the Saturday was ended with one session at Sekkai no Yamachan eating all kinds of unhealthy food (and some sashimi), one visit to a club that did not quite live up to my expectations, and Sunday morning was welcomed with a rather sleepy karaoke session.



The beach. Not bad, not bad at all.



A train station we found in the middle of nowhere. May seem like nothing special, but in a country that revolves around trains in general and with a life that involve them a lot, seeing this quiet train station with no people around and only one train per hour was an experience.


And to contrast, these are the shinkansen bound for Shin Osaka during a eleven minute interval on a Friday night.

This weekend was slow. Some shopping.

Next weekend there are rumors about a visit from Sweden. I sure hope that Yoggi bring s some licorice.

On a side note; Check this Youtube clip out, awesome TV when two biased views clash on air regarding Israel and Hezbollah. And the poor Sky-news correspondent never stands a chance against the Scotsman.