Global Training in Malaysia

Hello all,

I am back in Japan and I can't tell you how good a shower feels after 7 hours of flight!
But maybe I should start from the beginning:

Last Wednesday we met at 9 in the morning at Narita Airport to fly to Kuala Lumpur the capital of Malaysia. With 7 hours the flight was surprisingly long and I had time to watch some movies, unfortunately I wasn't really able to sleep. We arrived around 8 in our hotel and everyone was extremely hungry. So we set out in groups first to change or withdraw money (which took an incredibly long time because of the Japanese decision making process, namely standing around for ages not deciding on anything concrete). But we finally moved to the Midvalley Megamall (one of the biggest Malls in the world) joined to our hotel and there had our first Malaysian dinner. And on that day my party period of 8 days began. Of course I mentioned we went to have a training in KL, but about 50% of the experience there was more like a school trip, and that is how everyone behaved on their off time. We drank until 2 in the morning the first day.

Second day, and first day of training we had to get up around 8 to have breakfast (big breakfast buffet with food from all over the world) and then met for our first training session at 9.
I wont go into detail about my training but it was a kind of case study in english with final proposal presentation. We were groups of 5 people everyone with their strong and weak points and we got to know each other in the course of the training. We developed a good dynamic after day 2 and were able to put out high quality results faster than other teams. Even though I don't have trouble with english, like many of my colleagues I learned a lot about brainstorming, creating proposals and so on and I am confident I will be able to use my newly learned skills when I am finally assigned to my first project.

Over the next couple of days it became a routine of getting up early, training until around 7 and then going to dinner and have a party at someones room from 11 usually ending between 2 and 3 thirty (at least for me). The alcohol of my choice became tequila, I managed to be drunk but not too drunk that I would feel bad the next day, actually being used to having 8 hours of sleep I have to say I managed very well over these 10 days only sleeping about 5 every night.

The big highlight of our trip was of course the weekend (which for us was Sunday and Monday). On the first day I went shopping in the mall and to the swimming pool of the hotel. On day number two I tried to squeeze in time for presentation preparation with my team in the morning and afterwards going sightseeing to the most famous places in KL (Batu Caves, Petronas Twin Towers, Central Market and China Town). We were definitely ripped off by some of the taxi drivers we used (a lot of taxis in Malaysia don't have meters, and it is not easy to argue a good price).

The last days of training went by very fast and our final presentation (like our presentations before) was a huge success and we received the Excellence Award! We are still very proud.

Our last day ended with a party and from there we had to leave directly to the airport, we took our flight at 11 and arrived in Tokyo at 7 in the morning. What an experience. Here are some more impressions.

 Brainstorming Work in progress.

 Poolside of the Hotel.

 Japanese card games!

 Batu Caves

 Petronas Towers

 Typical restaurant in China Town - it was a little bit scary and also unclean but very good!

 Everyone talking to themselves while practicing for presentation.

 Preparation for fairwell party

 All participants + trainers and supporters

 My super awesome team (Dan from China, Koya, Natsuki and Keita from Japan)

Our excellence award!!!

Nikko

Hey everyone,

the Global Training will start tomorrow and the weather is finally hot and dry. Well not really dry, it's humid but it is not raining anymore, thank god.

I had one of the best weekends last week, and of course I want to share it with you.
On Saturday I went to Nikko, a city about 2 and a half hours north of Tokyo. It is a very popular tourist spot, and I can only say, that if you ever visit Japan you should really go there.
There is a lot of history in the region, but also beautiful nature, and I think I got the best of both.

First we went to Toshogu shrine where the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu (a very famous and important shogun and the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunat in 1600) is located. The place is also very famous for its wood cavings of the three monkeys called "see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil".

We ate Yuba for Lunch, which is famous in Nikko. It is the skin of Tofu and tastes very good. After lunch we drove up the Irohazaka a winding road up a mountain to visit the beautiful lake Chuzenji and the Kegon waterfall.

On Sunday I spent the morning with cleaning, around lunch I meat a friend from work who went shopping for food with me and helped me cook German food. At night some other friends came over and I could finally show them, that German food is not only sausages. And I really hope they liked it.

The Yukata quest

Hi everyone,

another two weeks have passed and nothing really big happened. It is still rainy season in Japan, which means it is raining everyday sometimes all day.
ABAP training will be over next week and I learned a lot. Turns out I am actually not bad at programming and I really enjoy it so I hope I will have the opportunity to learn some more programming on the job.
For the last couple of weeks we have all been preparing for the Global Training (in Malaysia), which will be in 10 days. Everyone is trying to brush up their English and discussion skills. The team leaders feel the pressure of leading a team for the first time but we are all excited that we get to go abroad and make new experiences.

Now to something not work related: I have been trying to buy a Yukata (summer kimono) for the last couple of days, after deciding that I wanted to visit some Festivals (called Matsuri) and Fireworks this summer. Finding one that I really liked was much harder than you might thing. All in all I probably visited 10 different shops. The result can be seen in the pictures below. I am not really 100% happy with it yet. Maybe I will go and buy a dark purple belt (called Obi) to wear next time.
I am very proud to say that I managed to put it on all by myself in less than 20 minutes (I was in a hurry to meet my friend JP from Mexico and his dad).
The 3 of us went to Tanabata Festival in Hiratsuka outside of Tokyo. It is one of the biggest Tanabata festivals in Japan. Unfortunately it was raining all the time.

The Tanabata festival, also known as Star festival comes originally from China. According to legend, the Milky Way separates the two lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively), and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on tanzaku (small pieces of paper), and hanging them on bamboo.

Afterwards we went to Yokohama where we rode the big ferries wheel at the harbor and had a spectacular view of the city.

 

I also went to the aquarium two weeks ago! With two of my colleagues and it was a lot of fun! I really want to go to the zoo next, but I will have to wait until the weather gets better. Other plans are going to Fireworks and visiting Nikko (a city north of Tokyo, where I haven't been yet, but always wanted to go). So please look forward to my next entry.