Last month I had the chance to visit Japan courtesy of a company gathering held in Tokyo. The event focuses on sharing the development of each department in the company, getting to know other members, also rewarding those who excelled, and for me as a foreign member of the company, to get to know Japan more by touring around

There I learned how winter is like. It's not yet the coldest winter because it rarely snows around Tokyo but to me as someone who feels cold just by staying at a room with airconditioner, it's too cold. Nevertheless I'd be happy to see snow falling in front of me. It happened! Lady luck smiled and it snowed right in front of me (I work in front of the window!), got to be a lucky day!

Yes it is very cold but that alone can't (but almost) beat my desire to check some places around Tokyo. The first place I was able to visit was Shibuya, which is just a few stations away from our office. It's the place where the statue of famous dog Hachiko is located. It's also famous for the pedestrian crossing. Shibuya is a very busy place at night with tons of store waiting for you.

Our Japanese coleagues toured us around on Saturday. We started out at Tsukiji fish market which is the biggest fish market in the world but unfortunately it was a holiday and most of the stores are closed so we just had sushi.

I wanted to share more about the places I was able to visit but I changed my mind. Instead I'd talk about how I find the country and the people in general. Actually I (or most of us) already know that Japanese are some of the most disciplined people and my experience lived up to my expectation. From queuing at the terminals and even just walking at the street they follow the rules by heart. Also one thing I admire about them is that they value other people's time which means they are very respectful of each other. Feels like everybody is saying "I don't want my time wasted, so I won't waste other people's time" and just being fair . And I think that aspect of valuing time resulted into them being one of the most livable country. Why? Just take for instance their complicated subway system within Tokyo, the Shinkansen and many other trains for every prefecture.

It also seemed to me that most of them are very passionate about their work whatever it is. From the cashier on the convenient stores, street vendors up to the ceo of the company. When they talk even in their language I can see in their eyes that they're into what they are talking about. Aside from that they are also very hostpitable and friendly, one of our Japanese officemate offered to tour us around that Sunday and she even insisted that she pays for our fare for the waterbus going to Odaiba so that we could spend our budget on souvenirs!. So shoutout to Fumi san, thanks again for the warm welcome! Also to our boss Shunsuke, thanks for giving us the opportunity to visit your country and for arranging our accommodation and making sure we have all the necessary things there!

The trip was sort of an eye opener to me on what people on the less fortunate countries deserve but they are missing, the things or aspects in living that are easily available for them. But missing those is not a hindrance for us to strive, we must take note that people before us whereever they are from were able to do what they're supposed to do with much less than what we do know. So get up now and do what has to be done :exclamation:

PS: I really regret not being able to try different flavors of in Japan and not buying Omamori, but at least those became additional reasons for me to comeback again someday