Tired in Tokyo

We're in Tokyo until Saturday afternoon on business. Thankfully, yesterday was a holiday here - Thanksgiving Day. It's not like the USA holiday - it's about giving thanks to the bread-winners in the family: those who pay the bills. We were thankful too - it gave us a day off!

We walked around in the sunshine; found a great place to sit in the sun and read our books for an hour, before meeting with our office director here in Tokyo. We also walked through our favourite shrine right next door to the hotel - the Hie Shrine. The shrine is a Shinto place of worship, and its history has been marked with violence: the buildings have been burned down twice, but the place is still so calm and peaceful and we love it.

Today was a work day, and we had 3 meetings stretched far and wide across the city. I love Tokyo - the people are so polite and moving around the city is relatively easy with the fantastic rail system. We use it a lot to get from meeting to meeting, so we see a lot of cool sights. The people are a mix - older women sometimes in kimonos; lots of businessmen; young guys trying to be hip; young women who look like dolls, or dress in Hello Kitty gear! Short miniskirts and knee-high boots never go out of fashion with the women! Some of the schoolkids riding the trains don't look old enough to be in school, yet here they are navigating the train system with the experience of people 5 times their age. They are so cute in their uniforms and hats!

Tomorrow, we have more meetings and a press conference with one of our partners to announce a new product that they've integrated with our software.

On Saturday, we hope to get time to visit our favourite store in Tokyo - Bic Camera - if you clicked on this link, the store posters look like this too! 8 floors of electronics goods of every variety, and camera equipment to drool over. English-speaking shop assistants are scarce, but we manage. After all, we can't speak Japanese either, but a smile and a bow gets you a long way!