Back to business

I'm healthier again - hooray! By that I mean that I can actually swallow food now without being in stupid amounts of pain and I made it into work today. So, hopefully, normal blogging shall resume as of now. My antibiotics seem to be working, as does my iodine 'throat gargle', which appears to have been designed for hippos with throat infections:


And came from a pharmacy that likes koalas:


I'm starting to wonder if I went to the vet by accident.

I'm spending this week with the guys who trade options and hybrids. The hybrids trades are so mentally complicated that I feel like I've only just scratched the surface - each trade is completely custom-made and has multiple parameters that can all change the price and risk on a daily basis. They've got to be able to calculate the current value and risk of each trade so that they can then hedge the whole portfolio. There are so many things to keep on top of! And the maths behind it all is horrendous...

I don't really feel like I've achieved much this week and I spent two whole days in bed, so I've not got much to report on. Apart from what I've eaten, of course. I got taken out for sushi for lunch on Monday at the same place I went with my boss on my first day:


Had a ton-katsu bento for tea one night


And got taken to a ton-katsu restaurant for lunch today


(I may have forgotten to take a photo at the start of the meal as I was so hungry. Apologies for the lack of food left on any of the plates!)

They specialised in this weird green leaf called shiso (that looks suspiciously like a nettle...) and gave me tea made from it and also rice that had been cooked with it.

I've spent most of my free time (and my time stuck in the flat) looking for places to stay in Kyoto. I want to go there next weekend and would like to stay in a traditional ryokan or minshuku, where you get tea ceremonies and amazing Japanese food, whilst living in a fantastic old paper house. Unfortunately, none of them seem to offer rooms for one person, especially not one woman. Travelling alone hasn't been a problem until now. Bummer.

Blooming marvellous

I decided to try taking different trains on the underground this morning to try to cut down my journey time a bit, which worked, but it seems that absolutely EVERYONE who lives in my area goes this way too - the stations were absolutely heaving with commuters and I narrowly avoided being pushed onto a train by a wee woman wearing white gloves who shouted. A lot. I'll try to get a photo of the 'pushers' tomorrow morning as it's actually a really good system - they keep people away from the edge of the platform until the train has arrived and then shove as many people as possible into each carriage.

I spent this morning at the Bloomberg office (in the Marunouchi Building, next to mine) being trained in how to use their 'Bloomberg Professional Service'. I want to leave RBS and work for them - their office is the coolest and most futuristic 4 floors of a building that I have ever been in! And, most importantly, all the food and drink in the uber-modern canteen area is free! You walk through a tunnel that's lit with eerie blue lights to get from the reception into the main concourse.



Then, running diagonally across the whole floor is a stream of stock exchange tickers and figures. Also at one end of the office is a massive aquarium - apparently one of the CEOs liked fish!



You can also see a bit of the cafeteria seating in the photo. All the food and drink (and there's plenty choice) is completely free to employees. I think it's to try to persuede you to stay in the office over lunch and carry on talking business. I was a bit jealous as I accidentally ordered tofu instead of chicken for my lunch (they looked really similar) and at that point in time, I wanted something that didn't have a slimey texture. A lot of Japanese food seems to be slimey or chewy or an odd combination of the two, which is great if you're expecting it, but not if you think you are biting into chicken...

The weather was so stunning today that I decided to take some photos of the views from my building:

The first one shows Tokyo Station and the other two show the Imperial Palace and Gardens (the last photo is actually the view from Bloomberg's building, but their view was better!).

I spent the afternoon learning about options and swaps with the office's dollar options trader. Also, I've started researching the kind of stuff I'll need to know for my 'JSDA Securities Sale Representative Class-2' exam. I'm hoping to sit this (the Japanese equivalent of the FSA's exams) whilst I'm here with RBS as it would be more than fantastic for my CV - most people don't get to sit it until their first year in a graduate position. If I pass, it also means I might be able to study for the 'Sales Rep Class-1' exam and sit that too, and that one includes a lot of the options stuff that I started learning about today. If (and that's a really big IF) I pass that one, then I would actually be a fully qualified trader and could pretty much walk into a position at any financial instituion in Japan. All together now: "Oooooooo."

I had a bit of a wander around the other buildings in the financial district after work this evening, mainly to try and suss out where the good places to get lunch are! The Marunouchi area is very similar to Manhattan - all the buildings are new skyscrapers with fancy interiors and even fancier shops, sitting next to a large park that acts a bit like a small version of central park. It looks even more like New York once it's dark.

Oh, and I still haven't unpacked yet. Oops.