Finally with time

It's about 10:45 PM and I finally have a few minutes to sit down and write a real post for everyone. Because I only have a few minutes, I'll just give you a quick summary of my week. Everything from plane sickness to washing my clothes in the sink.

The plane flight was fine. It was a little long, but all-in-all a great ride up until the last hour or so. We had so much turbulence that I got myself really sick. That, and I was hungry and tired from the 9 hour flight and had a headache from watching movies on the tiny little screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I managed to hold it together, though, and didn't throw up. You'd all be proud of me.

I decided not to stay up too late that night and just toured around the hotel for a bit before going to bed at 10 or so that night (to do a time conversion to PDX time, add 7 hours and drop a day. 10PM Monday night would be 5AM Monday morning in Portland).

Lectures were pretty good the following day. The first was conducted entirely through interpretors, but I thought it was the best we've had thus far. I ate lunch at McDonalds just for the experience (and Dad, the menu is pretty much the same, but they have a shrimp filet here). After the second lecture I got to explore the Tokyo commuter rail line and the subway to find my way over to Shinjuku for a meeting with the marketing manager of Wilson Team Sports. For those of you who want to look at a map, I'm staying at the Takanawa Prince Hotel in Shinagawa (which is in Tokyo).

We went out to a fancy restaurant after that and, like the rest of this week, I avoided pretty much all the fish and stuck with the rice and vegetables. I'm already losing weight because I don't eat pretty much anything that's served here in Japan. I think it will be the same way in China.

On Wednesday we had a presentation by a Nike representative. I was somewhat less than impressed, but won't go into why here. If you're really interested, find me later and ask.

Then I went to the area around the Tokyo dome to look at sporting goods shops for my exit project (For DeMarini, the Wilson subsidiary that makes the really high-quality bats). We looked at a couple of pro shops, then saw a neat looking roller coaster. It cost ￥１０００ to ride, but the 40-story drop was worth it.

Thursday took us to the Asahi brewery for a pre-packaged plant tour. It was OK and was followed by free samples for everyone. I wouldn't recommend their "super-dry" beer, but the stout was pretty good.

After that we took another trip through town for the exit project. This time was a trip to a batting cage only a few train stations away from the hotel. We hit a lot (the DeMarini bats are incredible, by the way) and got 3 good interviews in with Japanese hitters.

Today was a tour of the Nissan factory. Unfortunately, there were no free samples. The tour itself was nice. It was great to see a different factory than the one for Freightliner that we toured a while ago. Japanese manufacturing is very different than American manufacturing.

I went shopping in Harajuku after that, trying to look for small gifts for everyone at home. Sorry guys; I didn't find anything useful. Even the rip-off plastic jewelry was about $10 a piece.

I came back to the hotel and ate some more rice (look at me, I'm healthy!) before doing my laundry in the bathroom sink. I know that sounds kind of gross, but it costs $3 to wash 1 shirt at the hotel and there are no laundromats near here. I'd rather wash my socks in the sink than pay what my roommate did to do his laundry: 3 t-shirts, 3 pairs underwear, 4 pairs socks = $30. Still think I'm crazy?

Tomorrow I have a meeting at Waseda University. I get to talk to the baseball teams before they start their practice/games later that day. I hope to get a lot of information before heading to more pro shops and possible the sports museum afterwards. Then I need to pack and get ready to go.

We have an 8am meeting on Sunday with one of the adult rec baseball leagues before they start a tournament at 9. We plan to stay for the first hour to chat with players and coaches before taking the hour and a half train ride back here. Downside is, we have to check out of our room by noon and catch our bus to the airport at 2:30. It should be a very difficult but fun morning to plan through all the logistics. With me luck!

じゃね！