The office

I guess some of you are wondering what I’m actually doing work-wise over here. To tell the truth, sometimes I do to. However, due to confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you much. All I can say is that I’m doing research on thin film solar cells and hopefully the outcome of it will be my graduate thesis. Taking about confidential matters, often when I’m curious and ask something about the research outside my field, the reply from my instructor is that he can’t tell me, it’s confidential. Definitely makes me feel like I am part of the company…

Every morning I attend the morning meeting with my group of 12 people. It’s usually around half an hour long –all in Japanese! Sometimes there’s one graph or phrase I’ll understand, but usually I spend the time staring out in the office landscape with my mind blank. I have often heard people in Sweden complaining about open-plan offices. Well, here they are about 60 people in the same room, with desks facing each other and if you’re lucky a couple of shields dividing the room in two. That’s truly an open landscape of workers.

Often I’m surprised how much time my instructor can spend helping, or sometimes babysitting, me. He is also the leader of the group and one could imagine him having more important things to do than watching every step I take. Like last week, when he spent 2.5 hours with me in the clean room, while I was loading samples in a machine, starting the measurement by pressing enter and then unloading when finished.

Still, best parts of the day are the corporate song in the morning and the three o’clock exercise, radio taisō:

Cup cake upside down

Apple cinnamon cream cheese cup cakes. First try in my combined microwave and oven.

Inga konstigheter.

Counterproductivity

In many cases, Japanese people are very good att keeping their things immaculate and durable. Sometimes it comes as a great shock when you run across something from a different lifetime and it hasn't even got a single scratch to it. But as I was walking home from work today I burst out laughing as I looked into a lorry driving past. The seats were still covered in plastic from the factory, as expected, but to my surprise the driver was sitting there on his spotless outpost puffing on a cigarett... Tell me, what's the point with that?

On top of the mountain

So, I like living in Atsugi because the scenery with the big mountains and rice fields is beautiful. But Atsugi doesn’t have all that much to offer, so on the weekends I open my wings (or rather, take out my train-card for a round) to see something else.

Two weekends ago I climbed the nearby Mount Oyama- big mountain – together with some colleagues. A cable car took us up the first bit of the mountain, up to a shrine. Close to this shrine is an old hiding place, where the locals took their children to keep them safe during the war. The hike to the top wasn’t all that hard as the invitation had pointed it out to be (“please warm up sufficiently if you are not sure of your stamina”) and after about 1.5 hours we had reached the summit at 1,252 meters. Unfortunately it was hazy at the top, so we couldn’t see the long wished-for view of the ocean and the surrounding landscape. But it was compensated of the glimpse we got of Mount Fuji as the clouds dispersed. I really enjoyed being on an outdoor adventure for a change. And I have to admit my legs were aching the day after.

I’ve also participated in another company activity, namely a tree cutting day. Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like; we went into the bush and cut down a cedar tree, by hand, and then rounded off the day with a BBQ and some beers. The whole tree-cutting thing was meant to preserve the old technique of cutting down tress by hand. A pretty fun and chill day!

The past Saturday I went to Kamakura, a touristy beachside “town” (population 170,000) only one hour by train from Atsugi. Kamakura was the capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333 and is said to be a “ Little Kyoto”, with an enormous number of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Kamakura is also home to Japan’s second-largest Buddha image, 11.3 m in height, cast in bronze and completed in 1252. The town had a nice quiet feeling to it, even though it was weekend and the streets where full with people, and I really liked seeing a bit of the cultural Japan. As I walked down to the beach it turned out to be a Hawaiian inspired surfers spot. Still in the beginning of November, the water was filled with surfers waiting for the right wave to come. Next time, I’ll rent a surfboard (and wetsuit) and join them.

I’ve also visited Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan with 3.5 million inhabitants. It was less chaotic than Tokyo and had a nice Chinatown, which made you feel like you were somewhere else in Asia. And of course I’ve spent quite some time exploring the different parts of Tokyo: the shopping and entertainment districts Shinjuku and Shibuya – the latter famous for the huge zebra crossing, which is entirely covered by a horde of humans crossing as the light switch to green; Ginza – Tokyo’s 5^th avenue; Harajuku – expensive and trendy shopping streets with architectonic highlights; Akihabara – heaven for technique freaks; Kichijõji – centred on a big park and home to many small, new and trendy shops (one sold Swedish retro chinaware like Rörstrand and Gustavsberg, and even Bliw handsoap for ¥ 1000 a bottle, which is around 80 SEK (!). Maybe a future business?); Shimo-Kitazawa – described as “free spirited”, with small alleys filled with bars and cafés, and one second hand shop after another.

Do you want to see some pictures from my weekend activities? You will find them in my photo album!