lost in translation

it is my 4th day in tokyo now. just got back to my hotel room which is no more than 100 sq ft in area. one of the amallest room i have ever stayed in, in my life. Actually reminds me of the size of my hostel room back in BITS, pilani, india where i did my undergrad. the difference is the room is air conditioned, has a tv, PC and a nice bathroom with a toilet that has controls that can squirt water, adjust tempertatures of water being squirted etc..

well let me not get into details of how i used my toilet. the city tokyo literally never sleeps. i have spent 4 days here so far and in between meetings and after work i have spent enough time exploring the city. i decided against taking a day trip to mt fuji cos this is the rainy season and sometimes clouds play spoil sport. today being an off day i spent like 10 hours walking around the city and last nite my colleague took me to some cool spots as well. i had already fallen in love with tokyo and now i am in love even more. i just need to learn the language. the subway is one of the best in the world. the food is awesome. the gals are cuter by the minute, the sake and shocu are the bets drinks in the world. the city is a little expensive but i am sure the pay packages will make up for it.

i walked around the city and took a ton of trips on the subway. visited the imperial palace garderns, the tokyo tower which is modelled on eiffel, the roppongi hills area which is the worlds costliest real estate, the tokyo dome area and the meiji shrine. nice welcome break from work and it is too bad i am feeling all worn out and cant stay out more. and too bad i cant speak the language. the city is a feast to the eyes from the lights, the neon adverts, the cute girls and everything else.

in the past few days i learnt a lot from the business angle as well. from my talks with my friends and business partners, i have been able to understand how business moves here, how it is still a male dominated society and what i need to do from my business stand point.

all in all, a great eye opener. i have always been intrigued by japan and its culture and now after being here in first person, i am even more appreciative. when i get back, i need to start to learn this language so that the next time i make a visit, i can actually speak to a few people instead of making signs and pointing to menus and yeah it will help if i can tell a girl she actually looks damn cute..

Land of the Rising sun

Well first time in the land of the rising sun and i went with like 9 hours sleep in the past 40 hours. I finally conned (read as convinced) by boss into sending me to Japan on a business trip. Actually it is a business trip and i have like 2 meeting on average a day plus a conference to attend.

I have never fallen in love with a place on first sight and Tokyo was just awesome. one of the most polite and friendlist set of people in the world i would say. too bad i dont know japanese and have to just smile and they really make an effort to help with signs etc. The cabbies ..man, these cabbies are sent from heaven. .. after staying in sg and getting used to the majority of the permanently "dick in my arse" kinda attitude of cabbies, the tokyo cabbies are a welcome change. They are damn polite, even though they cant talk english, if you tell them the place name and show them a map or phone, make an effort to call the place and get directions and drop you. The road and the subway system are the best i have seen. The city is full of like multi tiers of roads and higways like stacked on each other and they just blend into the city scape. The only aspect is man things are damn expensive.

Well i have got work to do now. will update on the tokyo nite life in the next post.

Episode I - the phantom menace

The phantom is not menacing me.. I however have a strange feeling it is definitely a source of menace to my apartment's maintenance folks. you see,, two weeks back i finally decided to act on this desire for a street bike , havent named it desire yet, but have to give her a name soon. I purchased a really cool blue Honda Phantom 150 cc cruiser in the second hand market. The bike was in awesome shape and condition.

After a few days of back to biking blues, now i am rocking the singapore F1 circuit. yeah, if they ever decide to race at just 100 kms per hour maximum speed i will be right there at the bottom. am probably one of those riskaverse drivers out there. but then hey u need to be careful. Anyways, the deal is i am finally a biker in singapore. No more waiting for those stupid Cabs and paying 4 bucks for calling one and seeing all these stupid cab buggers buzzing past you and not stopping to pick u up. Well bye bye to all that..

the phantom is doing good except for a small leak in the 2T oil tank which needs to be fixed, and ofcourse need to find some hot babe to fill the back seat.. That would be Episode II - Attack of the blondes. will write about that next time..

the day i got stoned...

I finally got the break.. My life which was nothing but interesting routine if i can use that phrase, got a kick in the butt cos someone decided to make it a little more interesting..

nah, i didnt get a holiday, change in job, or location or watever. i literally got a break.. yeah, a surgery to break my kidney stones.. that definitely sounds corny, but what the heck.

It has been a week since i had a coffee, beer, or any form of alcohol or a nice meal in a good restaurant. I was on home cooked kichdi thanks to my boss who prepared and sent them over, and about 3-4 liters of water every day till yesterday.

all started with this worst pain a man can experience that hit me at around 5 am on 29th june. after 2 hours of struggling to figure out what the heck is going wrong, puking everything that was inside my stomach, and running out of options as to figuring out what the pain was about, and with the pain just increasing every minute, i flagged down a cab and went down to the emergency unit in a hospital about 4 kms from my home. Do you realise the cabbies tend to follow all traffic rules and go really slow just when you need them to break all the rules and go fast? i guess its in built into their psyche to do just the opposite of what you intend them to do.

any way, after reaching the emergency and filling in some stupid forms, and waiting for the doc for about 15 minutes, and answering like tons of questions i was finally given a pain killer. man, why the hell does the emergency unit expect you to fill a bunch of forms when you tell them you have pain and need a doc immediately.. i swear this world needs a munna bhai mbbs or patch adams..

anyway, after two rounds of pain killer shots and a xray and a CT scan, the doc diagnosed that i had kidney stones that need a procedure asap. So there u go, all alone in singapore, i decided to undergo the procedure called ESWL.. a shockwave treatment where they ping your urinary tract with sound waves to Break up the stones.. after a nite in the hospital and after i made sure i tell all my friends to come visit me in the hospital.. hey come on i have never been admitted in a hospital before in my life and never been given pain killer shots and never had a procedure done on me before.. so there u go.. a lot of first time events..

well, for now, doc has said no coffee.. and since i was suffering from caffeine withdrawal symptoms has agreed to let me have one cup a day, no drinks for a while cos i have high uric acid and am on antibiotics, no calcium rich food such as tomotoes, carrots, cabbage.. shucks.. reduced meat intake.. man.. i am screwed..

i was looking for interesting times.. and when work was getting really interesting, when i was losing weight and gaining muscles, here comes the stones.. well i have lost 1 kg since last thursday.. and no the stones werent that heavy..