Skills vs Mentor....

I recently noticed that my skills in martial art is regressing at an exponential factor. Of course, I mean, I don't train or practice anymore, I only teach that one Friday night class, I should be thankful that I can still throw a high kick. To stop myself from growing into a useless inactive fat blob, I started looking for a new Dojo to train, and this time, I decided to train in the most traditional art of Goju Ryu Karate (剛柔流空手道), the training was great, I am slowly gaining back my "instinct" of a martial artist, my speed and strength improved dramatically, which is exactly what I was looking for, so its great.

The Sensei is a middle age man who is passionate about Karate, he is fast and strong. The one thing I like about this dojo is that he use a more traditional way to train us, before and after each class, he make a small speech, something inspirational, related to either our training or day to day lives, how we balance ourselves in Karate to ensure we have a good balance of techniques and everything, and how that related to real life. Just a great man to talk to.

Hi inspirational lecture got me thinking about a simple thing in life, which is still related to human evolution.

We learn from our experience, surrounding, atmosphere and people around us. That is how we grow. People around us influence us base on his/her experience, their current knowledge, which was a result of their own evolution from the fore-mention events. Experience really would also house the interaction with a third party, but it also has to take the experience of the interaction involved.

We evolve to the person that train us, this is how our life work. For the most part we have good enough judgement to determine what is right and what is wrong, but for area where we lack experience, we tend to take suggestions from our Mentor. Assuming that our mentors have more experience, we usually follow their foot step when it comes to matter that we think they did well on.

Does that mean we grow to be like our mentor? In a way, it does. There will always be a bit of change, which is a result of your own personality and character, as well as a bit from your own experience, and other external factors/limitation.

So, in general, what I am trying to say is that, your mentor, or leader, is the one person that potentially engineer your survival or death.

At work, it is the same thing. In an organization, your boss assume the role as your mentor, while the company expectation is that you are the mentor of your direct reports. As a result, one's competency has a direct downstream effect toward his/her staff

Working with a lousy manager/lead/mentor is unhealthy. It usually will toss and smash your sense of accomplishment towards a brick wall. You can usually identify these kind of people by a certain generalized trait:

- He or she doesn't like to get involve in anything you are doing, but will react when people ask question about your work
- They will not ever read or response to your email, when they do, its usually 6 months later
- They are usually not in the office at an off site meeting that you didn't know the location to
- Their planning usually conflicts with previous plan made by her
- They will give you conflicting direction to what was previously planned, and be really upset at you during the course of discussion of why you steered off planned
- They won't tell you what their expectations are, and how to achieve it, its usually "Do this and figure the rest"
- You can catch them socializing for the most part if they do show up at work
- They like to use multiple big words in a sentence that combine to mean nothing
- They blame you for things that she told you wrong

Could you imagine, if you are to follow the foot step of a boss like that, what will that turn you to???

16+ != Adults....

Somehow, one way or another, I get thrown into a more "mentoring" and "trainer" type role without knowing it. Not suggesting that I am a natural leader, but things just happen that way. Out of nowhere I become someone's trainer, or mentor

I have a large group of friends outside of work (one would hope so, and its not imaginative). Several individuals I hang out more with (sadly, they are not girls), and they became my student in my free for all mixed martial art lessons. There is this one individual, not someone I considered as too much of a friend, I sorta met him through a CO-OP student I was mentoring when I was with my old company. I somehow got him a job in my field, people thought that he is my cousin and gave him a job. Since then this "cousin" thing kinda just hanged on. He is 24 BTW

This "Cousin" never tries too hard in life, I mean, his family is loaded, so there is no real need for him to try. I think this is a trait that is somewhat align with the theory of evolution: Human learn from experieince and exposure, the growth of oneself is related to how much we need. Basketball player are taller for a reason, when work out we gain muscle.... yadi yadi yada... If there is need, you will find a way. But in his case, there is no real need for anything since mama and papa provided everything.

Proof? For example, papa bought him a car, a car that papa would share with him. HOWEVER, papa doesn't go out on the weekend or at night, and papa take public transit to work, so technically, its HIS car. Now, the car is a half decent (very decent to me) German made car, the "Cousin" modified the crap out of it.. boom.. blown engine, went home, nag to daddy, now daddy gave him money to rebuild the motor with even MORE crap.. nice. Oh wait, this car is still not enough, he need something more powerful. Daddy bought him an Audi TT had it for a winter, nope don't like it, sold it for a fraction of the car is worth, bought a BMW Z4. Go around showing off to the world that "Its my own car I paid for it". No you didn't, your dad loan you the money in an agreement that you will make monthly payment back to him which you never made a single payment.

He never tries in my MMA class, to him, a kick or punch is nothing more that making contacts with the pads, he always have injuries from unknown reason that stops him from trying: My back hurts, my feet hurts, I broke my knuckle, etc... of course, he goes about telling people how he is catching up to this other Italian friend of ours in terms of strength, while this Italian dude works out like 5 hours a day, and how he is faster and better fighter than my best friend while best friend has been training with me for almost a year now and made the most significant improvement

Another issue of self esteem....

Anyways, I was told that "Cousin" really looks up to me and want to follow my footsteps, in terms of career, interest and such. OUCH, is that a dig at me? Was I ever like this loser? Oh well, I guess in a way, being like me can be considered an improvement over his existing character. Though, won't you want to learn from the person you look up to? I have a few examples which leads me to believe that this whole "look up to you" BS is just a hoax:

1. I push myself quite a bit when i work out. I am significantly stronger and more muscular than him, yet he challenge my way of work out and called me a fat @$$ in my face

2. We went driving in his papa's Z4, he won't listen to me when I taught him how to attack a corner, he refused to listen, we wiped out and almost killed ourselves playing hotdogs with a light pole

3. He wants to learn photography, but won't stop criticizing my pictures and won't listen to my advice toward anything related to photography

4. He wanted career advice, and the one thing I notice was the lack of education, so I recommended for him to "tone down on the entertainment" and concentrate in completing his studies, he told me off and said that he live the life he wants

Does he sound like someone that is sincerely asking for advice? Thats like the perfect way to treat someone you truly look up to now doesn't it?

He also pisses everyone off during our trip last year. Two comments he made:

1. Screw you all, if there is a seat on the train I am taking it
2. I am not sitting in the middle of the taxi if I am not in the front, I don't want to sit beside Dxxe

Every time he does something stupid (like littering and spitting in public, which is extremely rude regardless of where you are, let along a foreign country), we start giving him a hard time and he always tell us "I am tourist", "I am on vacation", "I am a kid". GOD, you are not a bloody kid, a kid is someone that is 16 and under, there is a reason why the government issues driver license to people 16 and above, because it WAS proven that someone that age is responsible enough to take up his/her ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES

"Cousin" is THE reason why the government SHOULD re-evaluate the adulthood law. Maybe people under 25 are not mature enough to even be considered an adult these days.

COUSIN my @$$, stop calling me that, you are insulting my bloodline

The best of Kansai and Kanto (Japan) in 14 days

This is probably an overdue article, since the most recent trip to Japan was in October 07, and its already mid March 08. The reason for writing this article is to provide an insight for the people planning a trip for Japan, another reason is to help promote tourism in Japan. "Best" is only "best" to me, destinations outlined in this article may be interesting to some while it may be a complete disappointment to others, so use this and customize it at will. Japan Railways’ site offer a very accurate schedule finders here: http://grace.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi

If you see a more detail version of this guide containing map and samples, guess what, its from me as well....

Most references mentioned in this guide are simplified extract from Japan-Guide.com, do go there and do more research on your own.

Currency exchange - Your choice to do this locally in your own country or to do it in Japan. Most postal outlet in major cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, etc) will have an international debit machine that let you withdraw money directly from your account using your debit card, the beauty of this is that it will use the current exchange rate with no service fee.

Yen (en - ¥) is the currency that will be used in this article, CDN$1.00 is approximately equivalent to ¥100 at the time (October 07) when I travelled

Plane Tickets - Plane ticket doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, do your research, in most cases, you can find cheap tickets online, if not, try to see if you can find a travel agent name IACE, they have depot all over the world, and plane tickets are usually very reasonable there.

Local Transportation:
A) Shinkansen - The "Bullet Train", this will be your main source of transportation across cities. I recommend getting a Japan Rail Pass, information is available here: http://www.japanrailpass.net/. You can use this on almost ALL JR services, including Ferries in some cases. If your plan is to stay within the Tokyo Ward area (note, there is no city named Tokyo) or any other area (Osaka ONLY or Kyoto ONLY), then you don't really need the Pass. Alternately, you can take the bus between major cities, but it can take up to 3 times as long to travel by bus
B) Local train - The JR pass mentioned above also let you take trains operated by JR, such as the Yamanote line and the Chuo line in Tokyo ward. Non JR trains are also available at additional cost. Amount varies based on destinations and distance. If you are traveling with a big group, it may cost less to take a Taxi depending on the distance, one example will be from Roppongi to Akihabara on the Tokyo Subway Hibiya Line, it will cost ¥190 (a little under two dollars Canadian), if you have a group of 5, it will cost you ¥950, while it will cost just around ¥700-900 for a taxi ride.
C) Taxi
D) Ferries - SOME of them are JR operated, so the JR Pass IS valid
E) Local bus


Accomodations - Its a general misconception hotel will be very expensive in Japan, actually its not as bad as rumored, you can get decent hotels for less than $40 per person per night, and yes, they charge base on per person/night. I paid as little as ¥1,200 for a night, that’s equivalent to just under $12 Canadian. These are not bad hotels either, you can start with this site http://www.japanhotel.net/ for your reservation, I had good experieince with them and the customer service is great. Look for the "Super Hotel" chain, which has amazing rooms and services, and are extremely clean. Do spend a night or 2 at a traditional Japanese Ryokan (Hotel), which cost a bit more, I paid around ¥7500 a night per person.

Some other sites you can consider:
http://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/ (largest hotel chain in Japan, decent price, acceptable quality).
http://www.japanhotels.com/
http://www.japan-hotel.com/
http://www.japan-hotels.net/
http://www.j-hotel.or.jp/en/index.html

Food - Its also a misconception that food is expensive in Japan, you just need to know where to eat. In most cases, restaurant operators (including tourist area) don't speak English, but they usually have pictures in the menus. Street food vendor, on the other hand, can communicate with basic English. Tokoyaki (BBQ octopus dumplings) and Yakitori (BBQ skewered chicken), they normally cost about around ¥150 ($1.5) to ¥500 ($5.00). Conveyor belt sushis are very fresh, and you should be able to have a decent meal for about ¥1500 a person. Donkatsu (Katsu Don), Ramen are also a must have, while you can find cheap beef specialty store for ¥350-¥500 for a bowl of white rice with roasted beef

The following is how much we spent (per person) for a 2 weeks stay in Japan in October 07:
- Flight: $1100 (considered to be high season)
- JR Pass: $434.5 (14 days ordinary pass)
- Hotels: $780
- Food: $400 (approximate)
- Non JR Transport $200 (approximate)
- Site entrance fee $100 (approximate)
- Total $3014.5
- Avg Daily Spending $215.32

Shopping: Almost every single city will have an alley way shopping street, these are usually covered either with a full concrete roof or a simple canopy roof. Traditional goods at a bargain can be found in this type of shopping street. There are also giant department stalls like Takeya and other full fledge shopping malls/buildings across all cities

Other Tips and Etiquette:
- It is normal to pay a restaurant or bar bill at the register instead of giving money to the waiter/waitress.
- There is no tipping in Japan. Tipping is considered to be an insult, its an implication that they are only doing their work on the basis of the extra from the tip.
- It's considered rude to count your change after paying the bill in a store or restaurant, but the Japanese themselves do give it a cursory look-over.

Day 1-2 Hiroshima, Kobe
Depending on when your flight arrive, you may or may not be able to do much on your first day. Seeing this as an issue, we decided to take the Shinkansen to Hiroshima on our first day. Our flight arrived at 3:00PM, by the time we are done with the airport essentials, it was already 4:00. The route to Hiroshima as follow: Narita > Tokyo (Narita Express Train), Tokyo > Okayama (Shinkansen), Okayama > Hiroshima (Shinkansen). Some train will take you directly to Hiroshima from Tokyo, so you may be able to save the transfer at Okayama. It takes approximately 6 hours to get to Hiroshima from Tokyo, we checked in to our hotel at almost 11:00 PM. The next morning we took another train from Hiroshima to Miyajima station, the trip takes approximately 30 minutes. From Miyajima, we took a ferry (operates every 30 minutes by JR) to the Miyajima island, where the Itsukushima Shrine is. More about this shrine is can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyajima and, deer run freely on Miyajima, do not chase them or do anything to them, for one they are considered to be sacred animals to the local, secondly deer gets aggressive when threatened. You can also take a short trip around the dock where you can find some souvenirs unique to the Island. If time permits, do take a trip to Misen Mountain, which has several hiking trail providing ashtonishing view.

We set out early, so we were done at Miyajima by around noon time. We traveled back to Hiroshima and visited the A Bomb Museum (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3400.html) and peace park. I won't recommend the museum to young children or someone with a weak stomach, the content is rather graphical and devastating.

We checked out and left Hiroshima later that afternoon and went to Kobe. In our case, we didn't do much in Kobe, except for a night visit by the Merikan park and Kobe Harborland, which looks great at night the Kobe port tower lit up. We also dropped by Kobe's China Town. Everything is walking distance for us as we live in the Sannomiya area (Central Kobe).

For us, Kobe is nothing more than a brief stop to prep us for our third day (Himeji), though if you have time, there are 2 interesting attractions around the outer rim of Kobe: Earthquake Museum (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3555.html), it is approximately 1KM from the JR Motomachi station. Another attraction will be the Arima Onsen town (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3558.html) , which is approximately 25 minutes away from Sannomiya by train.

Do look for a restaurant for an authentic Kobe beef dinner when you are here it will cost you somewhere between ¥8000 up to ¥20000.

If you decide to stay in Kobe for an extended period of time, you can also visit some of the Sake breweries, which is about 30 minutes from central Kobe.

Day 3-5 Himeji and Osaka (Umeda)
Our first trip in the morning is to travel west again. This time to Himeji. Himeji is a very small town, it really only have one attraction: The Himeji Castle. Himeji is about 30 minutes away from Kobe by train. There are many souvenir stores and an alley shopping street along the way from Himeji station to the castle. It is debatable how long you will need to spend in Himeji Castle. I've seen people reporting a full day, while some reported 2 hours. We spent approximately 4 hours in Himeji town, including the souvenir shopping. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji_Castle and http://www.city.himeji.hyogo.jp/english/himeji/index.html)

We left Himeji around 2:00, we took another Shinkansen ride to Osaka, which took about 45 minutes.

After checking in to the hotel, we took a local train (cost us about ¥150) to Umeda. Umeda is consider "Northern Osaka", you can spend a good day shopping around, and find a lot of modern stylish electronics and fashion of Japan. The main attraction will be the Umeda Sky Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umeda_Sky_Building and http://www.skybldg.co.jp/), which is within walking distance from the JR Osaka station. The Umeda Sky building is a 173 meter standing structure featuring a Sky Garden that gives you a spectacular view of the city. I would recommend going to the Sky Garden slightly before 5:00, this way, you get to see the city while there is still daylight, and if you have time to spend another hour or so there on top of the building, you get to witness the sunset of Osaka.

Our next destination is the Minami (Namba) area, featuring the Dotonbori entertainment district, Shinsaibashi Shopping Arcade as well as the Nipponbashi DenDen electronic and manga town.

It is not possible to cover all ground in the Minami in just one night, we only did a bit of shopping around Shinsaibashi (the famous Glico man) and around the canal area and had dinner around Dotonbori, though for the night owls, there are many fancy clubs and bars around Namba.

Depending on how much time you have, you may want to consider the following destination while you are in Osaka:
- Osaka Castle - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4000.html
- Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan) - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4004.html

Alternately, you can spend more time around the Shinsaibashi and Umeda area, which offer plenty of shopping, though I would recommend another night visit to Shinsaibashi since you will probably discover new points of interest. Our itinerary only allowed us to visit the Kaiyukan as well as another night visit to Shnsaibashi.



Day 6-7 Nara, Kyoto
If you are not interested in sight seeing (ie, cultural sight seeing), then you may not want to spend too much time in Nara and Kyoto, instead, you may want to spend another day in Osaka or move to Nagoya.

Nara is a small city between Kyoto and Nara, I won’t recommend staying in Nara, it gets expensive, and there really isn’t that much to see in Nara. What we did was we first traveled to Kyoto to check in to our Hotel first (right by Gion area). We then travel back to Nara, which takes about 1 hour on the Nara line, and cost about ¥600 per person. You will pass by the Fushimi Inari station half way through, this will be a stop we will be making on our way back. Do try to set out early, as you will need the entire afternoon for Fushimi Inari.

Nara is a very small cities that only have several attractions, you can probably get through a good 70% of hot tourist spot in a few hours. Travel towards Nara Park (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4103.html), which is located on the North East side of the Nara station. The main attraction, the Todaiji Temple (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4100.html) is located in Nara Park. And along the way to Nara Park are shops and the Kofukuji Temple (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4101.html). If you want, you can also visit the Kasuga Taisha (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4102.html) which is located towards the far end of Nara park.

Do try to finish at Nara Park by no later than 2:00PM, otherwise there won’t be enough time to visit the Fushimi Inari Taisha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha), which is located approximately 30 minutes from Nara on the Nara line.

I would consider Fushimi Inari one of the must see, though if you are traveling with young children or traveling with someone who has difficulties walking, you best skip this shrine. The complete walk is over 10KM long, consisting both up and down hill walk. The walk with over a thousand Torri Gate is a spectacular view itself. Occasionally you will see garden spiders (Yellow and Black, known as Argiope Aurantia), these are harmless spider and they usually show little interest in human. It will take you anywhere between 2-4 hours to complete the entire walk (there are many short cuts to let you come back down from the mountain), completing the walk is a highly regarded achievement among the Japanese, as now you are blessed by the Gods.

It will probably be fairly late by the time you finished at Fushimi Inari, head back to Kyoto and enjoy a nice dinner, you can probably find some fancy authentic Kaiseki Rori around the back alley ways of Gion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiseki and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gion or http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3902.html). If you happened to make it back to Kyoto before 4:00PM, do drop by the Nishiki Market (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3931.html), the major inner alley street market of Kyoto, here you will find some interesting street food that can probably fill you for the night

Kyoto is a very old tradition town, so there is little to no night life available, there are some bars that open up till late in the evening around Gion. If money is not an issue, go for a traditional restaurant with Geiha shows. There is also the Pontocho where most nighlife is found (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3921.html )

There are many shrines and temples you can visit around Kyoto, the Kyoto station itself is a decent attraction, there are a lot of shopping that you can do around and within the Kyoto station. Kyoto main source of transportation is its bus system, you will be broke sooner than you know it if you are going to pay for every trip. The strategy I would recommend is to purchase something call the Raku Bus pass, which cost about ¥500 per person, the pass is good for a full day: (http://www.pref.kyoto.jp/visitkyoto/en/info_required/transportation/bus&taxis/)




There are all sorts of temples and shrine around Kyoto, you will need a good 2-3 days to visit every single one of them. Though if time is a luxury that you can’t afford, you can decide using my personal pick in the following order and a suggested duration to stay:

- Kiyomizudera - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3901.html 2 hours (including souvenir viewing and purchasing along the slope)
- Kinkakuji - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3908.html 1 hour
- Sanjusangendo - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3900.html 1.5 hour
- Ginkakuji - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3907.html 1 hour
- Nijo Castle -http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3918.html 3 hours

Day 8 – Nagoya
This stop is optional. Nagoya’s major attraction is the Nagoya Castle, which, same as the Osaka Castle, is a good drive by if you’ve already seen the Himeji. There are also several Toyota related museum in Nagoya, the major one is a history museum, which showcase the history of Toyota and its contribution to the world of machinery and engineering: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3308.html

Nagoya is a not a typical tourist area, you either love it or you would hate it. For more information on attractions in Nagoya, please visit: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2155.html

Day 9 – Hakone
Hakone is a very small town, to get to Hakone, you need to get off from either the Atami or Odawara station (your best bet is Odawara), from there, change to a local train and go to Yumoto station, which is the heart of Hakone.

ONSEN time. Resting along Mount Fuji, the geographical location of Hakone made it a natural hot spring city. You can find many hot spring resort in Hakone, I strongly recommend spending a full day in Hakone, making it your rest stop to relax in the onsen and to view a more relax version of Japan. As a reminder, try not to be too involved with alcoholic beverages if you are to use the hot spring.

If you are to spend the night in Hakone, don’t leave right away the next morning. Take a trip to Lke Ashinoko (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5201.html). A slow and scenic way of approaching Lake Ashi from Odawara or Hakone-Yumoto is taking the Hakone Tozan Railway to Gora, followed by a cablecar and ropeway ride to Togendai at the northern end of of the lake. From Togendai one can continue by sightseeing boat to Moto-Hakone or Hakonemachi. The whole journey is covered by the Hakone Free Pass.

The Hakone Free Pass also cover the cost for a “Round the Lake” pirate ship ride, which give you one of the best view of the famous Mount Fuji

Day 10 – 14 Tokyo Ward
I will try to cover the major cities in Tokyo ward, including Yokohama (not really part of Tokyo, but will be included here anyways), Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Odaiba, Akihabara, Ueno, Asakusa, Roppoongi Hill

There are no specific sequence to how and when to visit these. The following is a quick summary of how much time you should spend in each area, and I will explain why in subsequent paragraphs:

Yokohama – 1 Day
Shinjuku – ½ -1 Day
Shibuya – 1 Day
Harajuku – 1 Day
Akihabara – 1 Day
Ueno – ½ Day
Asakusa - ½ Day
Roppongi Hill - ½ Day
O’Daiba – 1 Day

I would recommend living around Shinjuku, Harajuku or Shibuya. The 3 “Cities” form a straight line (North-South) towards the west end of Tokyo ward, you can easily access all other sites using Yamanote train, which is the busiest train along with the Chuo train. It is very likely that your stay in Tokyo ward will be relying heavily on these 2 train lines.

Lets look at a description of each of these cities, from that we will explain why you need the suggested time at each places

Yokohama – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama) (1 Day)

Yokohama is approximately 30 minutes away from Tokyo ward, situated around the South Western side of Tokyo. With three million people in population, Yokohama is the second largest city of Japan. There are several great sites that you can and should visit while in Yokohama.

If you can afford a day at Yokohama, I would suggest first visit the Ramen Museum (Shinyokohama Ramen Museum), this is one place you will learn the tradition and why Japanese people like Ramen so much. You can walk to the museum from Shinyokohama Station in 10 minutes: http://www.bento.com/phgal3.html

Depending on what time it is when you are done, you can also swing by Yokohama’s China Town, this won’t be much of a tourist attraction if you have already visited Kobe’s China town, if that’s the case, I would just do a quick walk by and save yourself sometime. Food and merchandise here are not authentic “Chinese Stuff”, though its worth a quick tour of the place. More information is available here: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3201.html

You can travel on foot from China Town to the Minato Mirai 21, which is an area filled with stores, offices, and an entertainment complex. You will need a good 3-5 hours in this area. Try to time your stay to be early afternoon till early evening. The Landmark Tower offer a spectacular view of the city from its observatory deck, you can even see Mount Fuji from here. I suggest choosing a time that will let you view the city in both day and night, so anytime from 4-6 will be a great idea, you even get to see the sunset during this time too. For the Miyazaki fans, the shopping complex in the Landmark Tower that sells all kind of Miyazaki good. The store decoration employs the theme from “My Neighbor Totoro”. Landmark Tower and Minato Mirai 21: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3200.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Landmark_Tower


Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya (1-3 days)

Shinjuku http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3011.html
Shinjuku is a fairly large city, though when people say “Shinjuku” it is commonly refers to only a complex of large entertainment, business and shopping area around the Shinjuku station. There are many attractions around Shibuya. The Kabukicho is an area of red light district that is filled with adult entertainments. If you are looking for such entertainment, be there after 6:00PM, though if you want to do a walk and see what its like, you can go during the day, which is extremely quiet, but also offer a safe view of the area. There are 10 major shopping mall in Shinjuku: Odakyu, Keio, Lumine, Mylord, Takashimaya, Isetan, Flags, Yodobashi Camera, Bic Camera and Sakuraya. Do pick up a directional map at mall entrance, otherwise you may get lost. There is also a quiet side to Shinjuku, the largest and most pleasant park of Tokyo is the Shinjuku Gyoen. If time permits, do try to spend some time there to relax your soul a little

Harajuku http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3006.html
Situated south of Shinjuku is Harajuku, the center of teenage culture and fashion of Japan. During weekends around the Harajuku station, you see a lot of Otaku (Nerds, Geeks) hanging around Harajuku dressed up like characters from video games and animates. Most of them will be by the entrance to the Meiji Shrine. If you are lucky, you will get to witness a partial wedding ceremony at Meiji Shrine, by the most traditional and sacred Shinto ceremony.

Given this being a teenager hang out, Harajuku is filled with fashionable shopping for a reasonable price. Directly in front of the Harajuku Station is the Takeshita Dori, which is the birthplace of many Japanese fashion and trend. Several store offers cheap overall outfit. For example, you can get a 2 piece outfit (a TShirt and a top) for about ¥3000 at a store name Jeans Mate.

Another option is to shop along the Omotesando, which is a 1KM shopping street filled with stores, Boutiqes and cafe, you can also find several leading fashion brand like Nike and Puma along the avenue.

Other Shopping: Omotesando Hills, Snoopy Town, Daiso Harajuku - 100¥ Shop, LaForet Harajuku, Oriental Bazaar, Kiddy Land, Louis Vuitton.

Yoyogi park by the Meiji shrine is also a great attraction, if you are there between 9:00AM and 4:00PM, you maybe able to catch a glimpse of street performance as well as street vendor selling some really tasty street foods.

Shibuya http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3007.html
Directly south of Harajuku is Shibuya, the most colorful and busiest city of Tokyo. Like Harajuku, Shibuya is also the birthplace to many modern fashion and trends in Asia. Viewing Shibuya at night and during the day offers a completely different view. The Shibuya 109 building is probably the point of interest to many teenage girls. You can also catch a glimpse of the busiest intersection of the world: Shibuya Crossing, wait for the lights to turn red and you will know what I mean.


Ueno, Asakusa, Akihabara, Roppongi(1-2 days)
It is debatable to how many days you will really need to visit these destination, My recommendation will be to spend nothing more than 2 days. Roppongi Hills (in Roppongi) is technically the 5th avenue of Tokyo, if you have disposal income and money to burn, you probably would find it more interesting to spend your day at Roppongi Hills.

The Tokyo Tower is within walking distance from Roppongi, it takes approximately 40 minutes to walk there. Roppongi has been a popular nightlife district among Foreigners for Decades. You can learn more about Roppongi, Roppongi Hills and surrounding attractions here: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3031.html

Ueno has several attraction, it is within walking distance to the famous Tokyo University, do drop by the front gate of Tokyo University to take a few pictures, which most Japanese teenagers dream on doing. My recommendation will be to walk to Akihabara from Ueno station (1km walk). Asakusa is also in the area. Your best option is to start your morning early, head over to the Tokyo University first, then travel over to Asakusa (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3004.html), where Sensoji temple is. Sensoji is consider the icon, the landmark of Asakusa. There are plenty of shopping and sightseeing to last you a good 3 hours. From Asakusa, head back to Ueno, try to time it so that you are in Ueno by mid day (around 2ish 3), Ueno is not a very big place, there are a couple of decent shopping malls, but the goal here is to spend a bit of time around Ueno station and Ueno park. Walk over to Akihabara (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3003.html) when you are done at Ueno. Try to time it just around sunset/early evening. Akihabara used to be an "electric town" which is filled with bargains for the latest greatest gadgets, you can still find a lot of cool electronics for a good low price, but it is also known for its Otaku (geek, nerd) shop, featuring a strong Video Games and Animate theme. Toys/Hobby store are all over Akihabara, for the erotic adventure seeker, you can also find many stores that sell cosplay costume and other adult toys.

Odaiba (1-2 days) http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3008.html
Odaiba (Daiba) is filled with fun and attraction, tones of shopping and tones of sightseeing. You cannot rely on the JR pass to travel to Odaiba, the closest JR stop is the Shimbashi station on the Yamanote line. There are several ways to get to the Daiba the easiest way is by a local train, however, I would recommend to walk across the well known rainbow bridge, which offers a totally different view of the island.

You probably would find yourself spending most of your day either at Palette Town/Venus Fort/The Decks, this is why I recommended 1-3 days, as you will also want to check out the various museums and the Fuji TV observatory, if you are lucky, you may hit a live broadcast while you are in the observatory.

Other points of interest:
Other than the mention cities/attraction, there are many other attractions that you can/should consider, the following is what I’d recommend and yet its not too out of the way from the above destinations:

Iga-Ueno - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4351.html
Kamakura - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2166.html
Nikko - http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3800.html,
http://www.nikko-jp.org/english/chuzenji/index.html
Nikko, Edo Mura, Tobu World Square - http://www.ohnoya-ryokan.com/en/theme_parks.html
Mikata Ghibili Museum - http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/

How much is enough?

For those who knows me can probably tell you that I am an extremely tolerating person. I amuse myself with the amount of crap I am willing to put up wit

How much is enough though? I guess it really depends on the subject and the target. I mean, certain people/event are more tolerable than others.

Toleration is an act to forgive and to forget, I say for the most part, i can do the forgiving part quite well, but not the forgetting.

Though, like a cold, my level of toleration decreases as the repetition of an event accelerates in its frequency. When it reaches bottleneck, I will snap. And whe I do, it will be nasty.....

At work I have been dealing with an extremely difficult person, and this person, did cause me to snap. Its not so much his character or personality that is difficult, but his behavior is not considered acceptable:

1. He will talk you down at all time. Its almost a constant behavior that he need to tell you that "You Suck". In psychology, this behavior usually comes from someone with extreme low self esteem, who knows that he can't really show anything off, since he will have difficulties justifying any claim. Instead, he would put you down in hopes that it will make himself look better
2. He is an extreme brown noser, he would sign up to any activities that a senior management staff is participating, in hope for some facetime to present himself
3. He back stab other staff. This is a funny behavior, you see this a lot in TV, some character (usually the extremely ugly one) would always be by the boss side, telling the boss story to ensure specific individual would get into trouble. Trust me, this happen in reality, this person exhibit the exact same behavior. Whether he is ugly or not, its subjective...
4. He victimize himself by telling another person that "I think I am overperforming over any of you, but our boss is bias, so I will never get the recogniztion"
5. He would fake his work status to tell people that he is doing great, while in the back he is getting massive complaints from people he work with.
6. He is a bloody cheap bastard. There were countless occassion where he would suggest "Lets go for a coffee/beer, my treat". And, conviently, he would have "forgotten" his wallet when its time to pay

After putting up with such behavior for almost six months now (and if you consider the time since I've known this person, it will be well over 15 years). I finally snapped. And it wasn't because he did any of these things to me, but he did it to another staff, another good friend of mine (Heinrich). Some of the more incident will be walking up to Heinrich and tell him that "I am the best comparing to you and everyone else", and another incident where he went to tell the boss to give Hank crap.

I recently have the opportunity to formally review some of his work, and I discovered a lot of problems in his project. Nice, perfect opportunity for me to back stab you now. I did exactly what he would do, I ran to the boss. It was then revealed to me (by my boss) that, his work is far from being satisfactory. He fudge up his work result, his work were half done, he was in trouble with other people in his project. Bottom line is, he is a complete failure in his job

I guess what they said in the psychology books were true, when people fail at what they do, they need to induce other events to distract people from noticing his failure.

Now I wish I get to work with this person for the rest of my life, this way, at least I will always know that there is at least one person that is performing worse than me

Inviting myself to an unwelcomed party....

Wow, almost 2 months since I last made an entry. Better catch up a little.

Today, I felt like inviting myself to my friends place for dinner. Of course, he will be the last one to know. Weird huh... this is exactly what happened to two of my other friends - Jason and Rebecca. So think of us as a circle of friends, activities partner sort of thing. And there is also a 5th wheel Kyle. I mean, we used to hang out with Kyle a lot too, until the little bastard become a two face moron who like to talk behind our back. I no longer work with any of them, but they still work in the same company, which made things even more interesting for Jason and Rebecca. According to both J and B, they are up to their throat with work. Kyle is pretty much a pronounced failure in his current project, stories from J and B (and others insider source) told me that Kyle is being complained across the board by different people, like managers, project managers and project lead. Many of them asked the question whether Kyle knows what he is doing. As expected, this seems to be something that was made up by a good handful of people, and according to Kyle, and his own story, his project is sailing as smooth as a bullet shooting out of a gun barrel, its so smooth that he is going to get an award for the ultimate employee of the country, and that everyone is praising him. Wow.... presenting the great "Danton" .. applause (from the Prestige).. oh wait, no no, he is not the illusionist.. he is the one in delusion..... Oh well, people choose the way they want to live, and being drugged high all the time isn't that bad, especially if you aren't on any drugs and still manage to hallucinate.. now thats a gift. Kyle also like to "fake" his presence at work, he told the entire world that he doesn't use remote access, so this way, if he logs in at 3:00AM, he can just tell the boss and the world how hard he work that he was in the office.

So as you can see, his behavior isn't quite the most attractive (BTW, he thinks that he is hot sh!t, he thinks that all woman wants to sleep with him.. again, natural high on something), as a result, Jason and Rebecca start to isolate him.

While work isn't as successful as he himself claimed, he becomes the number one kiss up to the manager, as an attempt to save his career that is well under water to seek the Titanic, he is also trying to save his friendship with Rebecca and Jason, and interestingly me. His first attempt is with Jason. Jason is getting married next year, summer of 2009. Its not his intent to be inviting too many people, so he has been selective. As far as I know, Kyle is not on the invite list, but was made aware of Jason's wedding because we were talking about it not long ago at a gathering. I was lucky enough to be half decent at photography so I am one of Jason's photographer. Kyle start making suggestions of all kind to Jason, so thats fine, but this is the fun part, one of his sentence was "I will be your general manager". Its just all natural, for someone with such hunger for power (he loves to tell other people about all kind of fancy title he has at work), its just natural that he wants the "Manager" title, so yup, I guess its normal for him to request the "General Manager" position... oh wait, who said you are invited anyways?

Then come the incident with Rebecca, out of the blue, I mean, really, it was extremely out of context, they were not even talking, he just decide to tell Rebecca that "My wife and I will be coming to visit you and your husband this Saturday, we can do a card game and have dinner or something"... ooh that news to me, I didn't know he is that close to Rebecca.. but then, even Rebecca didn't know about the visit.. nice, do you want me to cook too?

Isn't it interesting what people would do when they are in a panic?

Slow, challenged or retarded??

I am not someone that is easily annoyed by anything. I know what you were thinking "Look at all your post, you are annoyed by something". Well, OK, fine, I am annoyed by other's action mostly, but not event usually, but hey, our action leads to event right?

At some point in my life, I have a friend name Chris (Alias.. yet again). Chris is a real kiss up, a brown nose, he will bend over for his boss. We somewhat noticed this behavior since high school. So just a little bit of background. I was a class clown, teacher doesn't hate me, but I did "conducted" a few experiments in the science lab and the electronics lab that the teacher won't be too fond of. Chris demonstrated the "brown nosing" behavior since then. You know the typical nerd you see in Japanese animate? The one that will join you for all kind of destruction work, then turn around running to the teacher telling him/her that "Yeah, I was with them, they forced me to blow up the transformer". That's the exact kind of people Chris is.

Chris is pretty much the last person on earth that I would expect to come to my aid. I still remember an incident a while ago. Ken (one of our commom group of friends) work with Chris in the same company. They pretty much carry the same title, except that Chris has another 3 months on top of him. Being new, Ken wasn't completely cushy towards the work that was assigned to him, as a result he missed a piece of important work. The manager ran and ask him "Where the hell is my report". Ken was ready to leave at that point, he had some personal issues to deal with so he was all packed up and ready to go. And he told the manager "I will try to get it to you by tomorrow". The manager wasn't too too happy, but think that its acceptable so he told Ken "OK, well, if you can stick around for a little and finish it tonight, that will be great, but if not, then tomorrow is fine". Chris found out, ran to the boss and told the boss that "You sometime need to be tough and put your foot down to get your work done, its not fair to us if he get an extra day extension". OK, so fine, it may not be fair, but Ken is new, and he is your friend, WHY??? So their boss ran to Ken, stopped him at the elevator and told him "I want it now"

Through out the years there were numerous similar incident, but this particular incident really annoyed me.

A while ago there was an opportunity for a gathering, I don't hate Chris, hate is a very strong word, just say I "Dislike" him enough that I don't want to talk to him. I am not being rude or anything, I mean, I do say hi to him when I see him and I do answer him when he ask me things. But I will not initiate a conversation, and definitely no "goofy clown me" while in a conversation with him, serious face - We mean business buddy.

THEN, he start asking around "What is wrong with him? Is he OK? I think he is upset at something, but I don't think its me"

Of course its not you, that's why I am normal and goofy around everyone else but you. Do you need me to hurt you to know that I dislike you or upset at you?

If you think about it, people always have justification to everything they do, I mean, will you do something that you believe is wrong? Don't think so. So, I am sure everyone will have some form of justification towards their action and deeds.

I pray to God that Chris will live a long life, its people like him that make this life meaningful, you get something to laugh at......

Brown Nosers

Been a while since I last complained

Ok, so for this one, I am not going to mention any time frame, people will easily figure out who I am talking about otherwise. The kind of "attention" that I really don't need.

I think it’s a good enough "hint" if I tell you this is when I am a QA team leader, which is probably a good chunk of my career.

So at THAT time, there are four other parallel teams that work with me. So, as most logical human would've guessed, yes, there were four other team leaders on the team. We each handle different products, and USUALLY there aren't any conflicts with the work we do. I said "USUALLY" because there is still a very rare, but possible chance that our work MAY collide with each other, but even that is something I would consider as "Niche".

One of the team leader (lets just call him Andrew) always think that he is a senior lead, of course he is, I mean, we have 5 leads, the one that have been with the organization the longest have about 6 months, I have about 3 months, and he is more senior than the other 2 lead by a week and a half. So yeah, he is senior alright... at least, he thinks he is.

He is the reason why I believe that if you lookup words like "Low Self Esteem" or "Male Ego" online, you will see a picture of him. To him, he is handling the biggest project of all and he is always the most important person at work. The fun part is that he lives his own delusion. How did we know this? Andrew is not someone that is shy to be vocal over these things. He TELLS us how busy he is. His favorite line is always "Yea, my project manager doesn't do anything; I have to do everything for them". I wonder if his PM knows that he said that. He does also look very very busy absolutely all the time. He stay late, usually as late as the boss, but then, that’s something that I would expect, since he is always just walking around, I could only imagine how productive he could be while he was away from his desk 6/7 hours he stayed here. Oh, and that hour he was at his desk.. LUNCH... He is really good at putting the other leads (including me) down to make him sound important. Things like "Your project is not half as busy as mine" or "That’s easy, I do that all the time" are not foreign around him.

Anyways, so Andrew is actually an artist in deception. If he was born in feudal Japan, he would've replaced Hattori Hanzo to honor the title of "Top Ninja". He is just THAT good. I mean, he made it just so the whole world does THINK that he is that busy, and he does work that hard. Darn, maybe I do need a lesson or two from him.

About seven years ago, I read a book from decently famous motivational speaker, interestingly he talk about the art to deceive your boss. One of the item that was mention was "Messy desk mean you are busy", "Personal items mean you have great moral". I am almost positive that Andrew must have read this book. You won't see any desk on his desk.. It’s all covered with paper and junk. His cabinet is full of personal items, items that make people think "Wow this guy is really prepared to camp here tonight", not only that, his cabinet got this aura of a horrid stick from old grocery bags and probably lunch from centuries ago.

All that didn't really trigger us off or anything. Until one day, he ran out of ways to show his dedication, or he ran out of things to put down people, he decide to run to the boss and sell us out. Two of my other colleagues/friend, Jessica and Geoff (again, aliases only) are extremely quiet, they are the non competitive type of anything. Jessica didn't have too much trouble with Andrew, except his momentary "almost harassing" behavior. Andrew also seems to get along with Geoff (or me for the matters). So the day comes, when our manager start to delegate different managerial task to us. Andrew's task is to track a few items from all the lead, and is the person supposes to be working with the rest of us to get these items from us. Geoff was under extreme pressure due to a project that was poorly managed, and was not able to provide Andrew with what he was looking for. Guess what, instead of helping or asking Geoff to "Pick up the pace buddy", he ran right to the manager and ratted him out. And that’s not the end of it, he told (and teach) the manager that he should pressure Geoff to get it done.

Talking of screwing your friends over!

Its interesting to see how skill-less people are so skilled at brown nosing.. Of course, they can't do anything else otherwise.....