First German - Japanese translation: check

Today was a special day for me at work, because I finally completed my first full translation of a German board game and it was confirmed :) You don't see it, but it's really a whole bunch of work. I respect all the translators in the world even more ^^

Tomorrow, I will go with Mika-san and maybe some other people to the big public fireworks. Hopefully and can make great photos ^^ My cousin in Berlin told me before the trip how to do it, so it should work :D

Day 6 + 7: Just some updates

Hey guys ^^
right now I am geeting into the my daily working routine, so there won't be much that will come up during the week. Of course the weekend is a hell different, so be prepared for some shocking informations and pictures :D

No really, just kidding ;) Or at least I don't know what will come. So I will keep writing this blog / diary / contact to the rest of the world / something to keep my English skills ;)
And I think this will be the last post with days in the header, because ...  naaaah, it looks boring.

Okay, back to work: As I said, finally I am getting used to my daily life. I work on translations and take care of technical devices like smartphones or mobile WiFi which seems not to working. But with a affinity for computers, it's not a big deal :D
And everyone in the company is still so nice, I learn every day more and more. Short, Japanese won't be a big deal, so I hope ^^

The next big plans for the weekend are: Cup-Noodles-Museum, Dioramas from old cities and firworks in Tokio, plus a Obon-Matsuri (celebration of a buddhistic holiday) in Yokohama. So stay tuned :)

Day 5: Shopping Center and Theme Park

This day, maruta-san picked me with his family up at 10 a.m. After moving in a new flat you need a few things, so did I. So we drove to the nearest shopping center. By car, it was about 20 minutes away from my flat. Finally, I saw a Japanese shopping center for the first time. The first impression is a usual shopping center.

This is what I call heaven!
Do you see all these different, tasty things? ;)

On the second look, you see that the different stores on the same floor are not divided by walls or doors. Everthing is really open. Also the pay desks are not beneath the doors, there are somewhere in the back. It feels way more friendly than shopping centers in Germany :D

So we bought my stuff (something for the household and of course more food and water) and afterwards Marutsa-san invited me to eat lunch with his family in a restaurant near by. It was really nice with them. We ate lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant, so this is checked on my To-Do-List ;)

Roller Coaster, the red circle marks ... the end?
(C) Maruta-san

Afterwards they brought me home where I rested a few hours. Because at 5 p.m. Maruta-san came again to pick me up. This time we drove to Yokohama City to meet some AIESECers, Reiko-san and Hiroki-san and Tenri-san, a chinese exchange student. After that we all went to the theme park in Yokohama called "Cosmoworld". The roller coaster there is quite an attraction you should do :)

おいしいいい！！！　Tastyyyyy!!!!!!
(C) Reiko-san

Unfortunately Maruta-san had to go home afterwards. Our next station was the amusement center of Yokohama. The first thing we did there was something I just heard about: Purikura. It's like these little photo machines on the street, but in Japan its (like many things) just awesome ^^ Many of you know them already, for the rest: The awesome feature at Purikura is that the machine has an automatic image manipulation system.

A little bit like you know it from Instagram, but here it's more advanced. It's really like a professional mini-photostudio. You can change the background, colorize the hair many more things. Your skin gets automatically a soft-focus effect (dt.: Weichzeichnen-Effekt) what has the effect that it looks like you were wearing makeup :D And you can do the most changes by yourselves after you shot the photos in an extra cabine with everyone together which is pretty cool ^^ Did I mentioned that i liked it a bit? ;) There are hundreds or thousands of them with different backgrounds, effects, etc., so this won't be the last time :D

The Crew (f.l.t.r: Tenri-san, random guy, Hiriko-san, Reiko-san, Maruta-san)
(C) another random but helpful guy

And this was not the end. The original plan was to go to a bar but because of a national soccer game, nearly every bar with a TV was full. So for dinner we went to a udon noodle restaurant . I took a bowl of noodles with Egg which was very tasty. With new energy, we went to a little shopping center within the district. And I mean literally little, because inside the stores, everything was full with different kind of stuff and there wasn't much place to walk.But for me it was amazing to see how much stuff you can buy in one little place :D

Somewhere in Yokohama
(C) Maruta-san

Our final destination was a gaming center with stuff like UFO-Catchers, slot machines (which we didn't used), racing simulators and so on. First, we tried our luck at the UFO-Catchers. Hiroki and I were lucky and get finally two little stuffed toys out of it. If you know how, it's pretty easy ^^
next station was a horror shooter where you get a controller like a stationar machine gun. A funny feature is that your pulse will be measured during the game and you can see the result on the screen. After killing a bunch of zombies and other creatures, we played a round of air hockey and finally Super Mario Kart. And I won! At least in the last one ;)

It was a day I will never forget :)
Wait ... when was it again? .... :D

Day 4: First time in Tokyo = Great culture shock?

The day started pretty normal, but wait .... it's already 1p.m.? Don't know why but when I looked at the watch a few minutes later it was about 8:30 a.m. Hmmm .... maybe I already halluzinate because of my airconditioner?

Hello Kitty is really everywhere :D

Nevertheless, I started my first free day by planning my day. Okay, I want to go to Tokyo. Hmmm .... okay, maybe not going like walking, but driving with the train. Okay, how do I come to the train station? Which train do I need? Can I come back lately? ... So you can see there was some work to do. But luckily the trainees before me (Kathrin and Stefanie, Thanks on this place) sent me a bunch of links and advices at the time before I got to Japan. With it, I could easily answer these questions and many more.

I don't know why they do this,
but they can extend the lights on the top!

Guess what, driving from the station "Hodogaya", which is about 30 minutes to walk from me, to Tokyo was totally easy. Just watching at the big board over the ticket terminals, looking for Tokyo, there is the price and this one you have to select at the terminal. Pretty easy, am I right?
Hint: Write down the name of your start and final station in Kanji. It wasn't a problem in Yokohama, everything was also written in latin characters, but in Tokyo there was surprisingly everything only in Kanji at the board. Believe me, I would have expect it there at last.

At the left side, you see the train station

So now I took about 35 minutes to get to Tokyo. There I just walked out and went wherever I wanted to be. No plans, no fixed dates, no stress. It was really amazing how quiet and nearly empty the streets of Tokyo were. Maybe it was because Saturday is for many people here a working day. Or because the district I where is a quiet one. Nevertheless, to be able to go back to the station later, I just walked straight. Best idea ever :D

Tokyo - A City between Tradition and Future

So first I came to a ancient palace or so. As I said, I wandered without a plan straight through the city. So I looked a little bit around it and also watched some people jogging along the sideways. First I thought that this is maybe a marathon because some people cheered loud. But it seemed they were just a group of sport students or so and cheered for themselves. Anyway it was quite entertaining ;)

Lunch Time!

What else can I say? To sum it up, Marunouchi seems very quite and peaceful. Of course many buildings are under construction but it wasn't really loud or so. In comparison with my hometown Leipzig, you don't here anything in Marunouchi. Ginza was more a lively place because of the massive amounts of shops, big and little restaurants and many Karaoke bars. Last ones couldn't be heared outside, of course. ;)

My way back home

And the people on the streets are really amazing. They didn't do some unusual stuff but many of them wear totally different clothes like the "normal" people. I see people with Kimonos, Gothic look, bath robes and many more. The clothing itself isn't so special but it's for everyone normal that everyone can look like he or she wants. And I find that's the way it should be. When see people in Germany, many of them just talk about how someone looks, that you shouldn't wear something likes this and bla, bla, bla. From what I've heard and seen so far, for me it seems that Japan is one of the most liberal countries regarding each persons style. Just for the record ;)

So after some hours, I took the train back home. On the way home I bought some stuff for me, as seen in the picture. It was really an experience to see more than just the usual quick noodles and finished products like in 7Eleven. And I found Curryrice for the microwave which I will taste this evening :)

Todays shopping

So, tomorrow I will eat lunch together with Maruta-san (remember, he's my boss), his family and Reiko-san (one AIESEC member who attended me when we made the first contact). So let's see what the next day will bring ^^

Day 2+3 - Infinite Kanji, many mobile phones and one Stefan

Thursday
The first morning here in Yokohama was really great! I got up early and prepared everything for my first real day at work. But of course there is something I forgot: The address of the company.
I was driven yesterday from the company to my home in the dark, so I didn't expect a problem. But why looks the city so different when it's morning? ;)

The (not sooo different) environment around my house

 

So I walked to the nearest 小判 (little police station) and asked for the adress of my company. Of course I did it in (broken) Japanese but it wasn't so easy to find. So I called Maruta-san and he picked me up. To begin the first day of work in this way wasn't really my intention. Luckily, it wans't a big deal. On the way to the company, I tooked pictures. from now on I can find the way ^^

Finally on the PC ;)

I started with a introduction from Mika-san how explained my typical work as intern. Most of it will be translations of manuals in English, Japanese or German, depending on the product. So today I started with German to Japanese and German to English. Especially the translation to Japanese is complicated because there are thousands of Kanji. And as I was told,  there is theoretically an infinite number, because of the possibilities to mix any kanji together with another one. But neverthelesse, after the first hours, it is really smooth :)

At lunchtime, I had two of the onigiris (rice balls) I bought yesterday and Nene-san, one of my co-workers, gave me a miso-soup. Everything tasted really good. I think I can get used to it :D

The only big problem is the communication with everyone because my spoken Japanese is really a mess and it's very hard for my to understand the vocabulary oO Not because I cannot hear what anyone says, in this moment it's hard for me to remember the meaning. Even from the easy one :( But everyone here helps me a lot and I promise I will learn harder and faster than anyone else :)

Doing hard work.
Serious, the game is more tricky than it looks.

Afternoon, Moritz, a guy from Germany who studied in Japan, came to visit the company. So we spoke a little bit (in German of course) and after that the company took a break. Since the company also sales German board games which seems to be popular, we took 2 of them and started playing. I played the game Just4Fun. Yes, it is a real name from a German board game :D

So the day ended like it began, really smoothe ^^


Friday
This day didn't happen so many things. My hearing and speaking of the Japanese Language is still a mess, which drives me a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit crazy. I'm so glad that everyone else is soo nice to me. That really helps me lot and motivates me even more to give 200% in every moment :) And I will f*****g do this! (^_^)

Anyway, today it got a more technical and so a more usual task for me. Some mobilphones went through a terrible update of their operation system through the producer. So I fixed this by researching a lot of websites and in the end jumping to the first one I read and download a simple software for updating. So after all, this it was a piece of cake .... Okay, maybe it's just a piece of cake for a geek ;)

There are really fishes in the little river near my house.
The water in these ones must be very clean oO

Coming home at the evening, I was excited about the weekend. This will be the first time I am going to Tokyo. And I am doing it alone. And everyone warned me that I can get easily lost ..... Do I need more motivation? IIIIII don't think so :D

Day 1 - Already legendary ^^

After I took my flight in Moscow, I landed at the Narita Airport (Tokyo) 9.5 hours later. From there I was heartily welcomed bei Mika-san, a colleague of mine. So I felt very comfortable from the beginning of my being in Japan. She picked me up from the Arrival Zone and at first we had lunch at a noudle soup restaurant in the airport. It was awesome to eat a big bowl of Miso Ramen after a long flight. And the Gyoza we ordered were tasty too.

Afterwards we took a bus to Yokohama, the city where I will be most of the next 3 months. The ride took about 2 hours, so I could get a little bit sleep additional to my 3 hours in the plane from Moscow. I saw also a bit from the city and my first impression was that Yokohama is a really modern city with big skyscrapers and much industry.

some little packages of German sweets
for my co-workers as presents :)

Maruta-san picked us then up from the bus station. He is the head of the company Axis Network, where I will do my internship. He also welcomed me very heartly and was very open-minded from the first moment, so I didn't felt nervous when I got into the company. But of course, I made a mistake at the start ...... I entered the house with shoes. My street shoes! I see you guys right now facepalming and you're doing right. Of course, you have to get out of your street shoes and get into some shoes especially for the house. And I am honestly wondering why I forgot to do this. It was some of the first things I heard about Japan. Hmmm...... Maybe I was a liiitle bit nervous :D

Axis Network is a small company, so the atmosphere is very familial. As Mika-san and Maruta-san, everyone was in the first moment surprised that I am 2 meters tall which nobody expects by my asian look :) This is every time a good start to begin a conversation ;)

my apartment from the inside
(kitchen and bath are behind the camera)

So today I got the company and the people behind it. To the company has some internet stores at Amazon, Yahoo Auctions and so on. So they deliver technical stuff and moreto customers around the world. Simple, but great concept ^^
And the people are really, really nice. From what I saw, everyone loves their job and they do it with passion and fun. I think I will have a great time here :)

Especially Maruta-san talked with me a lot, for what I am really thankful. Because at this point, my Japanese is a good A-level, nothing more. So right now, a normal dialog in real life is quite hard. So I have to practice. And Maruta-san wasn't even tired to explaine his sentences again many times, because I didn't get them. So at the end of the day, this helped me a lot to get a real-life-use of Japanese. These hours were more worth than 3 weeks with a textbook ^^

7Eleven near my apartment

After the work which was for me today observing the company and practicing Japanese, Maruta-san drove me to 7Eleven to get food for the next days, especially this evening and he showed and explained me every detail of my flat. So as you maybe already mentioned, he is my hero for today together with Mika-san because she really calmed me down at the beginning with her open-minded nature and patience with me.

my first shopping from 7Eleven (Ramen, Soba, Onigiri),
should be okay for the next day :D

So right now I am full from a soba meal I bought from 7Eleven and refreshed from my first shower in Japan. And I'm really excited to see what the next day will bring :)

Big in Japan - Start of my 3 months in the mysterious country

From now on, I will start to post regularly about my time in Japan. Right now, I'm sitting in the airport of Moscow and wait for my final flight to the Narita Airport (near Tokyo City). Unfortunately the airport in Moscow is not really beautiful, so there are no pictures this time. But let's see what happens next ;)

Greetings from the East!


P.S.: As all of you see, my old report about my 21 days in Vietnam is only published until Day 9. Maybe I find time after my adventure in Japan :)