I nearly missed the flight to Chitose this morning!

I set the alarm to wake up at 6.30am so I can go have breakfast at 7am and check our by 8am. However, I got a call from Epson’s General Manager to ask me where am I. I casually answered in the room and I looked at the time, it was 8.37am!

He told me that they are on the bus already and on the way to the airport. The headcount was wrongly counted as well because there was another person on the bus, taking my headcount.

I quickly brushed my teeth and grabbed my stuff to check out. Thank God I packed my stuff last night!

I took the taxi to the airport and it cost 4,810 Yen for a 15 minute ride! Epson reimbursed my taxi fare because they said they counted the headcount wrongly. I was truly sorry about it and he said things like this happen. Anyway, I managed to get to the airport in time and the gate wasn’t ready for boarding.

The flight to Chitose took about 90 minutes and the moment we got our luggage, we saw snow! It’s been a while since I experienced snow and it really was a nice experience.

We went to a hotel nearby for lunch and we played with snow for a while as well. We left to Epson’s Plant in Chitose after lunch.

The presentation was not easy to understand because they spoke Japanese and the translator couldn’t really speak English. I recorded everything and I hope I’ll be able to decode what he said.

When they opened the blinds (it was closed during the presentation), it was snowing VERY heavily, just like the first snow I experienced back in Hull. Epson had a large field in front of their office and we played more snow and took more pictures there.

After nearly 30 minutes of taking pictures and stuff, we took the bus and went to Sapporo.

We got into Sapporo and checked into the hotel. The hotel is pretty strategic but the room is small. I’m going to be sleeping one night here anyway. We had 2 hours of free time so I went to this underground shopping centre and got some souvenirs. I came back to the hotel and then we took a 10 minutes walk to a restaurant for dinner.

The meal we had was pretty good. VERY good in fact. It was an 11 course crab meal, since Hokkaido is famous for their crabs. We were really stuffed like mad. After dinner, when we went out from the hotel, it was snowing heavily, very very heavily!

We walked to a pub nearby and had some drinks. The pub was really small, with only 10 seats available but the pub was really nice! We practically had the whole pub to ourselves.

We’ll be going on a tour in Sapporo tomorrow and leaving for Tokyo in the afternoon. I won’t repeat my mistake again. Will be waking up really early tomorrow!!!

Woke up REALLY early today (6.30am Japanese time) because I had an early night last night.

Anyway, today’s breakfast was another very typical Japanese breakfast meal. They had tofu on practically every dish and the best part is that we were served an egg boiled in the hot spring’s water. For some reason, the egg was like no other eggs I’ve tasted before.

I stepped out of the hotel and immediately felt the chilly weather. I am a person that cannot withstand the heat (like the ones in Malaysia) but I can stand cold weather and when I say I can stand cold weather, I meant it!

Today was different. It’s a weather I couldn’t stand. I estimate the temperature was about 5-7 degrees Celsius. I had to wear my thicker shirt I had in my bag since day one.

When we were taking our luggage to the bus, an old grandma helped us and by help, it means that she took all our luggage! I couldn’t help because of my back problem but one guy from our contingent wanted to help but the grandma insisted and kept saying “No. No!”.

The Epson Japan rep told us to let it be because if we were to carry our own luggage and if we tried to help, she’ll be insulted because that meant that she didn’t do her job good enough. You have to give it to the Japanese!

We then checked out (at 8.00am) and went on to the bus to go to Epson’s Shimauchi plant, where all the planning, designing, marketing and sales of their 3LCD projectors are done. The bus ride was about 20 minutes, not too bad.

At the plant, we were briefed and presented some of Epson’s latest products and how the 3LCD came about. Read CHIP Malaysia April 2010 issue if you want to know more.

After the presentation, we went for lunch at Epson’s canteen. I thought it’s going to be like the ones in Taiwan because back then, they “tapau-ed” rice boxes for us and had us have our lunch at one of their conference rooms!

However, the Epson lunch was different. Each of us had a bento box and the food was impeccable! According to the Epson rep, it’s the same food they have in the canteen!

The canteen was a different sight for all of us. It uses a card system and the food is subsidized. The staff wants something, all they have to do is to touch on the NFC receiver and it’ll be deducted directly from their salaries. Super high tech if you asked me.

After the lunch, we were each given a Maneki Neko, the cat doll thing where you see at Japanese restaurants. It was really nice and cute.

We bid farewell to the Epson Japanese executives and that was another sight. Imagine this, ALL senior managements (CEOs, COOs, CFOs and others) lined up next to our bus, bowed 90 degrees, wishing us well in our journey. I’ve never seen anything like that.

We then boarded the bus and took a 4.5 hours ride to Odaiba, a man made island connected to Tokyo via a bridge. The bus ride was tiring but we had stops along the way.

We were supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji on the way but the weather was really bad and it was cloudy the whole day. I guess Mount Fuji was covered by the clouds so they didn’t bother telling us where it is.

Anyway, we arrived Odaiba at 6pm and checked into our rooms. We’re staying at Grand Pacific, Le Daiba, which is owned by the same people from Le Meridian. The room is REALLY nice and it’s a huge contrast compared to the one we had yesterday. This one is the typical 5 stars hotel rooms and very much westernized. It has internet as well!

Apparently, all our other hotels will be like this in the next two days. Thank God I got to experience true Japanese Ryokos (that’s what they call it I think) on the first night.

There is a shopping mall connected to the hotel and we had our dinner there. We were supposed to go to this artificial row of streets that sells ramen and nothing else but it was closed for renovation. We had to find some other things to eat and we found this fancy, fusion Japanese food restaurant. Came all the way to Japan to eat non-Japanese food. The food was err…common.

After dinner, I walked around the shopping mall but all shops were closing. The shops here close at 9pm sharp. We had nothing to do and while I was heading back to the room, I got a call from Epson Malaysia’s General Manager, asking me if I want to join him for a drink. I said alright since it’s still early and I had nothing to do. We had a few pints and went back to our rooms.

I’ll be checking out at 8am again tomorrow to fly to Chitose, Hokkaido. I checked weather.com and they forecast that it’s going to be -7 to -10 degrees Celsius. I had no gloves so I went to the one of those 24 hours convenience store to get a pair for about RM30. Not too bad, considering it’s from Thinsulate, a product from 3M.

Alright guys, I need to sleep now. I have an early flight to catch tomorrow morning. Until tomorrow, good night!

The flight to Singapore was a pleasant one. Silkair is pretty slick and the landing at Changi Terminal 2 was one of the smoothest ever!

Walked around the airport and settled at a pub to catch the Manchester United Vs Aston Villa match, only to find out that it’s not on Singaporean TV or something like that.

We boarded the plane at 12.30am (Monday) and the flight was pretty empty. I asked the air steward if I could get a row all to myself and he said the last row is empty but it’s three seats instead of four. Good enough for me. I had three seats to myself!

The gadgets in the plane are really nice. It has a large screen, a USB port to let you view files in your pendrive, iPod connectivity, a set of composite ports as well as power adapters! I watched 2012 on the plane and a few sitcoms.

I only had one meal on the plane. I thought there were two. I was really hungry in the middle of the flight and asked for some peanuts to eat. The only meal, breakfast, was pretty good as well. I had the Japanese omelette thingamajig. It was a small portion (because I was hungry) but it’s good.

We got to Japan at about 8.00am local time and went through immigration. The immigration was really strict but everyone got through it without any problems. Got our luggage and went out to catch the bus Epson got us.

The weather here is not too bad. 13 degrees Celsius, i.e. slightly colder than Genting. I had my jacket in the bag but I didn’t wear it. It was too hot. We took the bus to Matsumoto city, about 4 hours from the airport. We had lunch next to the Matsumoto Castle. The lunch was awesome. You’ve never really had Japanese food until you visit Japan! Serious! Visited the Matsumoto Castle and it was really nice. Went into the castle and saw how the people of Matsumoto (?) defended their city a few centuries back.

We then took a walk around the Matsumoto City, took some more pictures. Everyone was pretty tired by 3pm and the bus took us to the hotel, which is about 10 minutes away.

The hotel is a quaint little hotel with its own hot spring. The rooms are the very typical Japanese room, with tatami covered floors and no bed. It has its own natural onsen, aka hot spring, as well! I went to the onsen to bath myself and I went out to the hot spring. The boiling, steaming hot water was perfect with the cold weather.

When you want to sleep, you’ll have to get the mattress from a cupboard and make your own bed. I “customized” my bed before going down for dinner with four layers of hard mattresses, 2 layers of softer ones and two duvet to keep me warm.

The room doesn’t have internet connection (I typed this on the first day but couldn’t post it).

I went down with my normal clothes for dinner but the host asked me if I would like to change to a Yukata. I said alright then went back up to the room. I had NO IDEA how to wear the Yukata. I put the long one on, tied it, then put the thicker one over the long one. Thank God I wore it correctly.

Went down to the dinner place and found out that EVERYONE wore their normal clothes, only the Epson bosses were wearing their Yukatas. Oh well.

Dinner was AWESOME! We had really traditional Japanese food and everything was really nice! One thing I lean about the Japanese is that they are VERY well mannered in every way. They’ll pour beer for guests and superiors whenever they see fit. The other thing I learn about them is that they are REALLY serious about their karaokes! During dinner, they had a portable karaoke machine with thousands of songs in it. The Japanese spent most of the night singing.

After dinner, I came back to my room and was surprised to see my bed “recreated”. The one I did was wrong but it was comfortable. Well I wasn’t wrong per se, just that they made it nicer and moved the table to the wall.

We have to wake up VERY early in the morning tomorrow to check out. We’ll be heading to Epson’s plant about 1 hour away from the hotel. Then listen to some presentations. Then we’ll be travelling for 4.5 hours to Tokyo. I have another long day tomorrow. Good night!