It's Friday!

After putting in 10 hour days for 3 days, I'm exhausted. A 3.5 hour meeting that started at 9 pm on Thursday night put me over the edge. I stayed awake thanks to Starbucks (there's one next door) and woke up tired on Friday morning. I'm looking forward to a weekend of touring somewhere. Maybe Yokohama to catch a baseball game (their team is infamous and it would be cool to experience baseball in Japan). I need to do some research tonight an decide. Saturday's weather forecast is supposed to be quite nice, whereas Sunday it will be rainy.

I have no idea what the temps are here. I believe they're in the 70's during the day. This morning it was quite humid, but dissipated by the time we left work. It's cool and comfortable right now.

I've had 2 bottles of the Diet Coke with green tea flavoring. It's not sweet as U.S. Diet Coke and I can't taste the green tea at all. I'd buy it again.

Eating in Kawasaki has been quite a challenge. Menus here are in Japanese. Some have pictures of some of the dishes, which is what we've been relying on. The staff don't speak English either. Tonight we went to a place where you grill meat on a small gas grill. The beef was highly marbled and melted in my mouth. Sublime. We rolled the meat up in lettuce leaves and dipped them in a miso-soy sauce. My colleague added some chili paste for heat. It's the best meal I've had so far.

Lunches at the company canteen have been OK. You have 3 choices for lunch. One is a curry. The other is the daily special - something with rice. The third is a cold noodle dish such as udon, ramen or soba in a small amount of cold broth with vegetables on top. You pay via a vending machine in advance and take the ticket to the counter. Our guest auditor tells me which button to push because it's all in Japanese of course. I get flashbacks of eating at a ramen restaurant in Tokyo every time I have lunch (for those who haven't heard that story, my friend and I had no idea what we were ordering and we selected based on price...he got a steaming bowl of noodles and I got cold noodles and a chilly December day!).

I have to take a photo of the vending machines here this weekend. I'm always amazed at what one can buy from the vending machines that seem to be on every block. Like the beer and liquor machine at the train station. Who needs a 7-11 when a machine will do.

We've been taking the train to and from work for the past 2 days. It's always silent in the mornings and livelier in the afternoon. Guess it reflects how people feel about going to work.

I took this photo on the train this morning. Could someone please explain why this sticker on the train door would be written in Portuguese? Would there really be enough Portuguese speakers to warrant a sticker like this?