I was in Hachioji (~45mins train from Shinjuku, Tokyo), Japan for 2 weeks from 22nd February to 7th March. We have a major deployment there which has caused some chaos in the operations, so I was there to help with my area.

Around Shinjuku (which I visited after I touched down on 22nd Feb before heading to Hachioji)

Japan was supposed to be entering Spring when I arrived, but it was still very cold (0 to 10 degrees Celsius); and they had their first snow fall on Friday 27th and again on 3rd March. Although it was a light snow fall, I’m glad I got to experience it.

I stayed in Hotel Gran Spa, a hotel basically meant for Hot Spring or onsen (温泉) user (the corporate hotels were fully booked due to high school exams where rural students flocked Hachioji to sit for the exams). Not much English was spoken in the hotel. Simple thing like ‘pillow’, ‘receipt’, were not understood. It took me a 40minutes struggle with the reception to get my room and to confirm the nights I was staying when I checked in. However, I do like the hotel because :
1) the use of onsen is free;
2) the place is very clean (all shoes are stored in lockers before entering the ‘lobby’, the rollers on my suitcase were cleaned before they helped me carry into my room);
3) it’s ~7 minutes walk to the office, and surrounded by restaurants;
4) security is very good, nobody go passed the reception without registering;
5) the people at the reception knew me (I was probably the only non-Japanese staying), I was given my room key without having to tell them my room number everyday
Every night, I used the onsen before going to bed, and I slept like a baby.

Around the hotel, on the way to the office

At work, I was in a room with my Japanese counterparts, about 20 of them. They spoke Japanese among themselves, and only when I was needed, they would switch to English. My Japanese colleagues have been working more than 15hours a day, some going home only 2 nights the week before (don’t ask me where they sleep, I dare not ask myself).

Every day I arrived at 9am and left the office later than 9pm, and still I felt bad, because I was the first to leave. Since everybody was busy, I sometimes had to eat alone, struggling with Japanese menus, luckily I can read Kanji (which is Chinese) and roughly knew what I was ordering.

Japanese is my favourite cuisine, and they make really good bread as well. The glorious food kind of made up for the long hours. Let the photos do the talking :

Most of the time, I have Onigiri (Japanese : rice balls) for breakfast. Seen here : Onigiri breakfast set; MOS English tea and chicken teriyaki burger; cold udon and hot soba. Breakfast were around : 350Yen to 600Yen

Lunches were normally set meals, noodles, pasta, or sometimes just bento (Japanese : Lunch box). Priced around 500Yen to 1000Yen.

Cold soba with vege tempura; Fish in soy set; Prawn pasta

Ate at my favourite lunch restaurant twice : Fish in soy set; Tempura and udon set. The size of the tempura was like our noodle bowl, for the remaining of my trip, I didn’t order another tempura dish after this lunch.

Prawn and seaweed ramen; Bentos (how come they don’t look as nice as the bentos our blogger mummies make?)

For dinners, I tried to eat in a variety of restaurants, sometimes with colleagues, sometimes alone. The price is normally above 1000Yen. People seemed to eat out a lot because there are restaurants every where.

Some of the many restaurants around Hachioji

Love the dangling shells of this one

And the lanterns on this

My new favourite : Japanese pizza and My all time favourite : BBQ on skewers

White bait salad; White bait pizzas

Shabu-Shabu : Soup was clear konbu soup and soy soup. My friend had the beef and pork, while I had the bamboo chicken. The soy soup made everything taste so delicious!

Grilled fish collar; Oh-so-fresh sashimi; Green tea ice cream with fried Mochi

Green tea tofu (dessert); Nagoya prawn rice balls; Cheese with Don’t know what (but it was tasty); Baby squid which looked like cockroaches

By the second week, after seeing me taking photos of my food before eating, my colleague asked me, “At home when you have dinner, do you take photo before eating?” o.O”

In a restaurant that served dishes from Okinawa, I pointed to the ‘specials’ (in Japanese) and asked the waitress what it was. She couldn’t explain, and a customer next to me tried to help. “Sea grapes!” I didn’t know what it was, but I just ordered. Turned out it was quite delicious, although the serving was puny.

“Sea Grapes” & Okinawa tempura

Now, what was the weirdest food that I’d eaten?
.
.
.
I had a date with my colleague from India, and because he’s been eating lunch and dinner at the same Indian restaurant for 2 whole weeks, I thought I’d do him a favour by bringing him to a Japanese restaurant. When we met up, he told me it was getting late, and we had better gone to the Indian restaurant which was nearer to the office instead of walking further (where the restaurant I wanted to bring him was located). So..

I obliged. I thought it was really weird eating Indian food in Japan.

Naan bread and some spinach curry.

The food was ok, but I just don’t understand how my colleague could eat lunch and dinner at the same restaurant for 2 weeks. o.O”

Now, you may ask, did I miss my girls since I was gone for so long and was it difficult for me? I did miss them. However, work trip is the only time I have to be alone, i.e. had the whole bed to myself, ate and shit in peace (nobody barged in when I’m doing my business), took my time to shower, can concentrate on my shopping (no need to have eyes darting around to make sure the girls do not walk away from me) etc, etc. So, consider this my me-time, and as long as it’s not too frequent, I rather enjoyed work trips.