Last Updated Sunday October 21, 2007
Here is the story of another business trip, this one to Tokyo, Japan to work on cell phones.
This is the KDDI skyscraper in Nishi Shinjuku, a neighborhood of Tokyo, Japan. KDDI is one of the major telephone companies and built one of the first tall buildings in this area back in the '70's. It is now surrounded by taller buildings. It houses KDDI's international network hub and has a satellite earth station antenna at the lower left of this photo. The lower floors have the windows blocked off with steel plates. The upper floors are offices and laboratories for KDDI staff. We worked most of the time on the fourth floor of the adjunct building at the lower left.
This is the satellite antenna that most people walked by and didn't notice existed. The entrance to the subway is in the lower right of the building. Everything is nestled together tightly.
We worked in one big room with about 70 engineers from Korea and a few dozen local temporary help.
We had to work closely together because there wasn't room to stretch out.
Kim Dong Wook is the software lead and a very hard working man. He was our major interface to the customer.
As I mentioned there are lots of tall buildings in Nishi Shinjuku, these being the main towers of the Tokyo city hall. I was actually standing inside the building photographing just one of the towers.
On the plaza in the center of the Tokyo city hall there were dozens of sculptures and plantings to make it a wonderful place for a stroll.
This corner shop is right next to the building where we worked and was the source of many bottles of green ice tea and snacks of various sorts, most of which were shared. There was a snack shop right in the building as well as drink dispensing machines in the lobby. You never have to go far to spend money in Shinjuku.
Speaking of drink machines, they are all over the place, lining alleys and built right into the sides of buildings and fronts of stores.
A few blocks away is the Nishi (West) Shinjuku (New Inn) shopping and dining area famous for cheap camera stores. Well they used to be cheap. Prices were far above US stores for camera and computer gear.
This was a favorite sushi bar. I went there three times in the first 24 hours I was in Japan. We ate there almost every day. The sushi was OK, but it was cheap. You could fill up for about ten bucks US.
Dr. Lee and Nick pick out some dinner goodies and dig in when it arrives.
Mr. Choi, Roy (that's me) and Mr. Jung get to know each other better over dinner. Brian Oh from out Korea office concentrated on eating.
In the department store in the train station there is a food court and this dumpling making shop seems to be the star of the show. I was going to buy up a dozen dumplings until I walked inside and saw that the line out the door was for dumplings.
In the same store as the dumpling shop there were hundreds of counters like these with snacks and candy piles high. The Japanese take their snacks seriously as evidenced by the prices. Each little morsel you put in your mouth costs several dollars US.
They had a French pastry shop where you grab a tray and tongs and go pick your own out.
Every magazine rack I saw had a crowd of young people around it checking out the goods. Somehow I think many of these magazines get read cover-to-cover without getting sold.
One evening the young man in the yellow shirt organized a dinner outing with two VIA engineers (one of which speaks Korean) and two of the Japanese ladies who test our phones and only speak Japanese. We had a fun evening telling stories and listening to the translations.