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!