Tok-YO WHAT'S UP?

So as I said in my last post, I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling, and my first trip was that I spent the last two days in Tokyo.

But let's Back to the Future it and I'll take you back to Monday (Which I wish would be cut outa my life forever.)

I am currently in the process of getting my work Visa, which is a pretty extensive process because China has a lot of i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed. But on Monday, one of the t's that needed to be crossed was my health examination; and lets just say some personal boundry lines were crossed as well. I have to give it to the Chinese Health Examination office, they are extremely efficient in what they do. There was a long hallway with about 20 rooms on both sides. I had to change into a robe in the first room where I was given a sheet of paper with my credentials. Then I was shuffled from room to room straight down the hallway. And each room specialized in one aspect of the health examination. One room took my blood, another urine, one was a chest xray, and so on. They also gave me an eye exam, EKG test (where they strap all these electrodes to you), mouth swab exam, sonogram ( I asked the woman if it was a boy or a girl, then she yelled at me and told me it was my liver). But room 113...that will haunt me for a while. I'm not gonna tell you what they did in there, but let's just say that I wish he would have taken me out to dinner and movie first...or at least had scented candles in the room or something. Well, China knows me "inside and out" now and I hope they appreciate my wine.

On Tuesday I went to Tokyo on business and it was AWESOME! I stayed at the Royal Park Hotel which was amazing. My boss and I then met with some of the Mercian (our distributors in Tokyo) and Mitsubishi business men and had a meeting. It was basically just a meet and greet, but we also talked about our objectives for 2010 which will be to increase sales to 1 million cases this year. Japanese business men are extremely polite and humble and they do the typical bowing all the time. There is also a very formal specific business card ritual that I took place in. They then took us out to lunch after the meeting to an authentic Japanese restaurant. Most authentic Japanese meals are served in a box that has compartments that separate the specific types of sushi, vegetables, and meats. We also had to take off our shoes before entering the room and rather then the table being raised and the chairs slide under... the table is lowered and the chairs are the ones that are stable. The Mercian people gave me an ornamental sake bowl before I left which was extremely nice.

I left later that afternoon back to Shanghai, but not before wandering around a little bit and getting a feel for the city...which is amazing. It's all very clean, everyone is extremely polite, and everybody takes their jobs very seriously. You can tell how business oriented everyone is because nearly everyone I saw was in some sort of black suit. And if they weren't, they were wearing some sort of other black professional outfit. I'm going to Hong Kong next Monday.

Things Ezra has learned....

1. Skip room 113 at the health department.
2. All toilets in Tokyo, even the public ones, have bidet...that caught me off guard the first time.
3. Always hand your business card to someone with two hands, then take about 30 seconds to read it over.
4. Slot machines in Tokyo are all digital, and they dispense marbles instead of coins.
5. Unfortunately, people in Japan are just better looking then the Shanghai people. But I guess that's because there are less of them, and they all dress in Prada
6. I actually held a conversation with a cab driver coming home from the airport and it all made sense...after I told him to stop talking so fast.
7. People should check out my flickr account to see more pictures. The link is on the side.

Love,
Ezra