First day of work

Bean's first time having raw tuna...she looks a little afraid (disgusted) to me
Our array of food for dinner!

Official work time...USMEF

June 7th Day 4:

Early wake up and the realization of work filled my brain this morning. I had no idea what to expect, and the excitement/nervousness was almost overwhelming. But no worries, another salad/toast breakfast (ha)was just enough to get me going. Down in the lobby Bean and I awaited Leiko san’s arrival. Soon a very cute smiley Japanese woman entered the lobby and by the clothing we knew it had to be Leiko. Balancing the eagerness of talking and remembering the way we walked to work was quite a hard task, making me even more happy to have a partner in crime along for the adventure…2 brains is much better than 1. Upon walking into the office and identifying our desks, we were met by several faces and names and escorted to a meeting room for the first official meeting. Everyone was very nice and we received a packet of what to expect and information. Soon, Bean and I were at our respected desks busily researching everything about the USMEF and the Japanese meat market so we could fully understand the background of our job the next month. Besides my shoes making the back of my heels bleed within the first 15 minutes (obviously I don’t have heel calluses), everything was going great for the first day. Due to the office being busy with meetings, we were unable to have our second meeting of the day and spent most the day researching everything we could about Japan meat market and USMEF. Yama san took us to lunch at a Tonkatsu place. Tonkatsu is pork cutlet that is very very popular in Japan. The meal was delicious (oieshi!) and we were back to research. Yama san informed us that Leiko san and he would be taking us to a Japanese style dinner, so Bean and I were looking forward to the experience. Our day ended early because lack of work, but no worries because we spent the next hour going to 7/11 and having some good and bad experiences with ice cream, taking random pictures in our work building, and playing a copy me stomp dance game in the lobby (Oh goodness hah). Soon we were off to our dinner, which ended up being about a 3-minute walk from work in a family owned small restaurant. Against one wall was an array of food dishes, like red snapper heads, soybean, salad, salmon, potatoes, and other various fish. After ordering random things that Leiko san suggested, we waited at our table deep in conversation and Sapporo beer. Japanese people like to drink…that is my guess. But, everything at dinner was great and we got to have raw tuna, which Bean had for the first time!, and try types of food including a little potato liquor. After hours of talking and sitting with 4 of our coworkers, we headed back to our hotel and watched 20 minutes of 10 Things I Hate About You and then exhaustedly collapsed into bed. First day of work is done and I cannot wait to have more experiences with the workload and our coworkers. Major goal= to get on HUMAN TETRIS…but we’ve heard that we must be Asian citizens…I think we can bend that one rule no? Also, we really want to climb Mt. Fuji (it will definitely happen)

Places to visit:

Nara, Kyoto, Osaka, Harijuku, Akiba-land, Shibuya, Mt. Fuji, Hokkaido (?)…the list goes on and is endless J