Kawaii!

Cute overload! I heard the word 'kawaii' (cute) so many times today that I tried to keep a tally but completely lost count within about half an hour. I started off the day by hitting two Hello Kitty Shops and then heading to the top floor of Tokyu Hands in Ikebukuro to visit the petshop. All the hamsters were napping and looked absolutely adorable.


They also have about 20 live-in cats that you can pay to hang out with. Sadly I didn't have time to do this (I will be going back another time!) as I had an appointment at the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.


This place was so brilliant! I was greeted by Totoro, who was manning the reception desk:


And then walked down some stairs into the best place ever - think Disneyland on a really small scale and designed by Miyazaki, not Walt. The building is garishly coloured on the outside, with the garden on the roof, and the inside it designed to feel like you're exploring the artist's house. As per ususal, I wasn't allowed to take any photos inside (they employ hundreds of people to make sure that you don't...) which was such a shame as it was magical. All the windows are stained glass, with the characters from the Studio Ghibli films, there are wooden spiral staircases and bridges linking all four floors, a cinema and plenty of smaller exhibition rooms.

The short anime film that I watched in the 'Saturn Cinema' was really good but extremely stressful! It was all about this little girl who has a new puppy, who tried to follow her to school but gets lost, who then almost gets run over by a car, and then a train (!) before having to sleep under a tree. Meanwhile, the poor girl is distraught and sets out to find said puppy. It was very upsetting, but they eventually find each other again, and the reunion was extremely emotional. It was definitely not a childrens' film!

After hitting the gift shop (stocked with exclusive merchandise at very exclusive prices), I headed back to the centre of Tokyo and stopped off in Shinjuku before heading home. I got stupidly lost in Shinjuku station (it's huge) but eventually found the two things that I was looking for.

1) The Shinjuku Eye


and 2) Grom Gelato


This time last year, I was enjoying eating ice cream from Grom in Florence, so when I heard that they had a shop in Tokyo (one of only 3 outside Italy), I knew that I had to go. The ice cream tasted just as good as it did in Firenze :)

I heart Odaiba

Just like mameshiba does! More on my new favourite area of Tokyo in a minute.

Today was the first day of my JSDA exam course. The guy who takes the course is really good - he's a good laugh and can explain things really well, but moves at an incredibly fast speed. He may even talk faster than I do. I have met my match... Surprisingly, some of the laws we're learning about are quite interesting, and I was shocked that a few have been recently implemented specifically to prevent the Yakuza from laundering money. I hadn't realised how prevalent the Yakuza still were in Japan, but securities firms have to be very careful when it comes to loss compensation as this was, up until quite recently, helping fund the Japanese mafia.

Learning the facts is going to turn out to be (relatively) the easiest bit. Deciphering the exam questions is considerably more tricky - the translation into English is, at best, extremely confusing. I realised things weren't going to go well when I read this statement on the front of the past papers:

"This examination is conducted in the Japanese only. The English translations of the questions are prepared solely for your information. Therefore, the Japanese version shall prevail if there is any discrepancy. You are not allowed to ask any questions or make complaints about expressions in the English."

Well that's me told... The course is pretty intense and there is so much to learn for the exam next Wednesday. I'm going to have to spend my whole weekend and all day Monday and Tuesday revising. Woop woop.

After today's lesson, I hopped onto the driverless monorail that goes to Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. This area of Tokyo is absolutely mental! The buildings are all so quirky on the outside and everything else is really kitsch. The weirdest looking structure has to be the Fuji TV building, with its floating sphere.


And, of course, there's a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty.


For some reason there is a giant model of Gundam (I think he looks like a transformer...) that moves and lights up.


Odaiba is also home to four of the biggest shopping malls I have ever seen. One even includes an amusement park, it's that big. Venus Fort is decked out on the inside to look like 'Italy':


And two floors of Decks have been turned into Hong Kong:


There's a Toyota showroom that's so big, it has its own indoor test track:


This double-act were hanging about outside one of the malls (the monkey looks genuinely unimpressed...):


And these two pretty much made my day:

Derivatives and diplomats

One week of work down, a lot still to learn. I'm spending this week with the 'credit' guys. Today I was sitting with the two guys who trade Japanese credit derivative swaps (CDS). Basically, CDSs provide insurance against the company you've invested in going bust and are used for hedging large investments. Today was a very slow day though, which was quite good for me as it meant everybody had lots of time to talk. It was also the first day that it's rained whilst I've been here and I actually felt a bit cold outside - I must be getting acclimatised to the heat!

Working with a new group of people means that I've been introduced to new places to get lunch :) This is a bit of a disaster as, to get to the new food hall (which is beyond fantastic!), I have to walk past a Hello Kitty shop, a Domo-Kun shop, a Doraemon shop and a shop that sells the edamame-bean-with-a-dog's-face-and-ears character stuff! I am going to be financially ruined by the end of the week! I then have far too many choices for lunch - today I had a box with a variety of gyoza, siu-mai and other steamed/fried dim sum. I also went back and got a bento for my tea because I couldn't choose between the two at luchtime! Yum yum yum yum...



Tomorrow is going to be quite an exciting day for the following reasons:
1) Tokyo is one of the places you'll be able to see the partial solar eclipse. (!!! :D)
2) It's meant to rain really heavily and there may be a thunderstorm (which is crap news for #1, but I love lightning).
3) John Swinney MSP is coming round to the office and I've been called on to have my photo taken with him as the 'Saltire Intern'. Woop woop.
4) I'm then going to a reception with John Swinney and others at the British Embassy in the evening. I hope they have good food...

Holly's weekend of adventure - Day 1

Wow I achieved a lot today! And took a ridiculous number of photos to document it - I actually am turning Japanese...

Set my alarm for 3.45am (!) and headed to straight to Tsukiji Market. This is the world's largest fish and seafood market and has a massive fruit & veg market on-site too. I spent the whole time I was there trying to avoid being run over - all the produce is moved around the tiny spaces between stalls by men driving these weird carts, that are a cross between a forklift truck and a dodgem.



The famous frozen tuna auction started at 5.30 but the hall it's held in filled up with traders and wholesalers from about 5.00. The traders are trying to show off their fish and cut knicks in the tail to allow the wholesalers to inspect the underlying flesh. Men in blue boiler suits paced around inspecting the fish and occassionally stabbed into the flesh with big hooks to test it in some way or another.




The auction itself kicked off with the ringing off bells to signal the start and, after that, I had absolutely no idea what happened! The auctioneer shouted a jumble of numbers in no particular order and the odd person made a very discrete hand signal. How they kept track of who was bidding and for how much I'll never know...

After the auction, I spent about an hour wandering around the fish and seafood bit (I don't even think I managed to see it all!), testing my new camera out in the warren of stalls and piled up polystyrene boxes. The variety of seafood for sale was staggering - most of the shellfish I had never seen before and some things I couldn't even work out if they were a fish, shellfish, animal, vegetable or just some lumpy rock! I did spot quite a few things that I have so far consumed in sushi... Everything seemed to be available in three forms: alive, dead or frozen. Quite a lot of the alive stock was actively trying to escape! The one type of fish that dominates, though, is tuna. It's everywhere.



There are huge electric saws for cutting the frozen stuff and then the guys that deal with the fresh version basically use Samurai swords to cut it up.



There is also someone who is employed with the sole purpose of feeding massive blocks of ice into a machine that chips it.

After pacing around the fish, I made my way over to check out the vegetables and stumbled upon the vegetable auction. This was even more confusing than the tuna one! There were about 6 different items being auctioned off simultaneously and the patter and signalling was even more obscure.

Obviously, I had to try some of what is on offer, so I headed over to Daiwa Sushi for breakfast. Included in the market complex are a number of sushi joints that specialise in the tuna that comes straight from the auctions. For my breakfast (it was now 8.30) I tred 4 different types of nigiri - tuna, fatty tuna belly (apparently a delicacy), yellow tail (?!) and prawn.



It was the best sushi I've ever had! I then headed back home to shower the fish-smell off and take a nap. Post-nap, I headed up to Asakusa to do some temple-hopping.



The whole area is a fantastic combination of gorgeous temples and shrines with stunning gardens and streets filled with shops and stalls that sell local food, clothes and trinkets. There is lots of reasonably priced traditional Japanese yukatas and geta for sale, as well as fans, parasols and lanterns.

I'm going to have to go back and get myself properly kitted out! It was really good to see lots of locals walking around in their yukatas - the women all looked so beautiful.



I even walked past two dogs who were dressed in full Japanese gear! Kawaii!



For tea, I popped into a wee restaurant on one of the side streets and devoured some tore karaage (fried chicken bits), edamame beans and cucumber with dip.



I headed to Ueno to go to the big park there that has some great temples. When I got out the station, I walked straight into the middle of a parade and couldn't cross the road to get to the park! Eventually, they let people cross when there was a big enough gap, but in the meantime I got to watch local dance and music groups strut their stuff. It was glad to stumble upon what was quite a big event. It did mean that by the time I walked to the temples, they were all closed, but Ueno park in the twilight was very picturesque anyway and the temples looked good from the outside! I'll have to go back and explore some more.

Milk of human kindness

Japan has to be the kindest and friendliest nation on the planet. Honestly. I have never been made to feel as welcome as I have here; not just by my colleagues but also by complete strangers.

If you ask someone for help, advice or directions (even in my garbled version of Japanese) they go completely out of their way to help you. When I was in Ginza the other night, I asked a guy who was walking home at work where a restaurant was. He wasn't entirely sure but wanted to make sure that I got there, so walked around for 20 minutes with me, trying to find the place! When I eventually did find somewhere to eat, the guy sitting next to me at the bar thought I was such a novelty that he bough me pudding and another iced tea. Turns out he was a big fan of golf and was so excited when I told him that I went to university in St Andrews!

And again today, I sit down at the bar and order some food and instantly attract attention from randoms. Alone, female, short, with very pale skin and freckles, taking photographs of the food - I kind of stand out like a sore thumb. The elderly couple next to me insisted that I tried some of their food and, when I told them that it tasted great, proceeded to order more specifically for me!! The more I protested it seemed the more they ordered! And they bought me more iced tea too. The old lady kept smiling at me and calling me kawaii (cute) and congratulating me on getting into university and getting a job in Tokyo.

This is one of the reasons why Tokyo is easily the safest city I've ever been to. I feel as though everybody is looking out for me and wants to make sure that I'm okay.

Can you imagine anyone back home being anywhere near as nice?