On March 25th my mom and eldest sister arrived in Tokyo as I was wrapping up my internship at MLB. It meant a lot to me that they dedicated a lot of their time and money to coming and seeing me. Japan has become a major part of my life since first coming here as a high school exchange student in 2002. I was proud to show them around and be their guide and translator.
I was so busy the day they came that I didn't even have time to pick them up at the airport. I gave them instructions on how to get to the city (some 40 miles from the Tokyo) by way of a bus. Somehow they were able to get to their hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, but before they had any time to even settle down after a very long journey I was calling them from my office telling them to take a taxi to the Tokyo Dome because I had some free seats for them. They came and we met up on the street by the dome. It was very nice to see them because I hadn't seen my sister since September, and my mom since August. It was surreal seeing them there because I had never had people ever make the jump from my California life to my Japan life. Seeing them come out of the taxi at the dome was like being on a walk in a redwood forest and bumping into two giraffes. In that way it was sort of dream-like, and surreal.
View from the Taxi
Pictures taken in front of Tokyo Dome
We had a little time to watch the game together and have some food. They were already in shock as to how big Tokyo is. After the game I helped them buy commuter passes and got them on the right train back to their hotel.
A view from their seats
In stadiums in Japan, pretty girls walk around, dressed in neon, wearing kegs of beer on their backs. They thought this was great!
Sometimes (even in the Tokyo Dome) you open the door in a bathroom stall to this:
(a "squatter")
Understand the train system yet?
Super toilet (in the hotel)
Much needed rest in their western style hotel
The next day they had to themselves. I really like the pictures they took as nothing here seems very unique to me anymore. Their perspective of this city made me appreciate it slightly more. That night I gave them, Miho, and her parents tickets to the final Boston versus Oakland game.
These were all taken in the Shinjuku district
Right before the second game
Finally, the following day around 3PM I finished my work and was able to commit my time to being with my visiting family. Rhea and I went to Ueno Park and the busy shopping areas in that part of town. Her camera died and so we didn't get any good photos of the awesome cherry blossoms that lined the walkways of the park. We went back to Shinjuku to check on our resting mother and to meet up with Miho for dinner. We went out for pizza in a shopping center below ground in one of the busiest parts of Shinjuku.
Brick oven pizza
Rhea was impressed with the beer in the vending machine
Fun art in their hotel's lobby
To be continued.
I now have three internships under my belt. Three forms of employment in which I worked for free, while concurrently having real jobs and taking classes.
I really hope I never have another internship again. Some may look at internships as slave labor that you are supposed to be excited to partake in. Others might look at it as "free schooling". I am not sure how I exactly look at it, but I will say that I don't like working for free, and I don't want to be at school anymore even if it is free!
That being said, I really loved this internship. I was exposed to what I consider to be a dream job. Even though this job was in Tokyo, where I currently don't intend on living longterm or pursuing a career, it meant so much to me. Being a part of a globally recognized sporting event involving Japan and the USA was something I was proud to be a part of.
The office work that led to the Opening Series between Oakland and Boston was difficult at times. It primarily consisted of every single aspect of the organization of two Major League Baseball games being played in Tokyo that you could imagine. Overtime hours were often required in order to complete the day's work. My social life severely suffered do to my lack of free time as I was often teaching English on the weekends.
Lunches with my coworkers were always very cool as there are lots of high-end places to eat near the MLB Japan offices. The prices of lunch didn't quite match my salary ($500 for two and a half months) but I just had to deal with it. Us four men of the office would sometimes play wiffle-ball in the office which was always a good time.
As the event approached in late March we moved our office to the New Otani Hotel where we were joined by some of Major League Baseball's New York staff, and staff from around the globe. We all stayed at the hotel because the work load was enormous and the hours were long. The office we had at the hotel was open from 8AM to Midnight and there was basically always one of us two interns there to answer the phones and just be someone bilingual for the New York staff to use.
The view from our office at the hotel:
The office after midnight:
The late arrival of the team busses at around 1:30 AM
You wouldn't believe what was stored in the intern hotel room!
A very nice staff member of the Red Sox, Adam Grossman, arrives at the airport with his team's trophy as my coworker translates.
I was always pleased to do work out of the office. I got to do some exciting work so let me see if I can remember all of what I did:
One of the cool jobs I got to begin with was to observe how the company we hired to display the World Series Trophy was doing. I went through multiple layers of security and survived being yelled at by a Marine to a special lobby at the huge US Embassy here in Tokyo for that presentation. It was my first time seeing that building and it was cool to go inside and see some of the important diplomats in their working environment. I also did the same job at an exclusive club for Americans in Tokyo.
I also got to get involved in a clinic the Boston Red Sox's coaches put on for children of Tokyo. It took part at the Tokyo Dome and was a major success. The coaches were very enthusiastic and Okajima, one of the Red Sox's pitchers, came and talked to must of the hundred, or so, kids. I actually took pictures for the league with a company camera. It was fun to run around on the Astroturf too!
For a few of the overall six games that were played I had responsibilities in the league's suite at the dome for making sure it was suitable for our top executives and their very special guests to watch the game from. This included the commissioner of the league, the president of the league, and more. We decorated it with flare, and made sure all of their special requests were met no matter what they were. I also manned the suite during a couple games so they had a Japanese speaker in case any requests needed to be met.
Views from MLB's VIP Suite
With the event to busy, and the hours so long, it is all already a blur to me so I can't exactly recall everything that I did. At the welcome party for the teams I met a Bay Area cameraman originally from Salmon Creek who was hired by the A's to do some filming of their trip. He said he went to a club that night and met someone from Mendocino County who was planning on sailing back to the USA. We kept bumping into each other at the hotel and the stadium just like when we were working at the same events in the Bay Area last year.
What really made my experience in this internship top-notch was the awesome staff at MLB Japan that I worked with. I have never had workplace superiors as encouraging, helpful, and generous as these. The head of the office, whom I posted an article about in an earlier blog, would be an ideal boss to have sometime in the future.
I have now been done with that internship for seventeen days but still have been too busy to blog. During the event my mom and eldest sister arrived to hang out with me here in Japan and my adventures with them will be the subjects of my next few blogs until I finally catch up to present time.
Thanks for reading.
In the game of life I have been constantly dealt the winning cards. Rarely do I ever regret my move, nor do I find myself making a foolish bet. However, today life scored a point or two.
I woke up around 9AM in my freezing room and turned on my heater as it was cold and had been snowing through the night. I didn't end up sitting up until 9:27 and at that moment a 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Chiba prefecture, giving Tokyo quite a shake as well. My heart raced and I scoped out me surroundings quickly to see if I was safe. I was and just rode it out there on my bed. My windows shifted and my clothes hangers dangled but nothing fell which was a big relief.
I spent 9000 yen last month to get a ticket to see the American band Rage Against the Machine play here and today was the day to see the show. I was very excited and also nervous to see what was in store because I had never been to a hard rock concert before.
The venue it was held at was packed tens of thousands of fans and I happened to meet some New Zealanders in the crowd. I then remembered that I had my small American flag in my pocket which I then held up high, upsidedown, with two statements in mind: One was to support this band which was censored from Saturday Night Live for having upsidedown US flags. And the other was to show my support for those who stand up against what some might call "upsidedown" policies of the US.
This brought tension and shortly later I had a few non Japanese guys (possibly military judging by their short hair and huge bodies) became really angry at me. We argued a bit with my point being "This is what Rage Against the Machine is all about" and them saying "Put that down, you're in the way". I stashed the little flag into one of my empty pockets and soon after that the show started.
I had never intentionally been in a mosh-pit atmosphere but this was my time to experience it full on. Rage Against the Machine makes music driven by politically themed songs based on global social issues. One way to describe them might be that their music is made to have their fans "rage against" the machine-like ways of modern times which is a world of violence, disagreement, and injustice. In other words, fans get very pumped up for these shows.
Around ten minuted into the craziness of the show, after they played the song Guerrilla Radio, I felt someones hand in my back pocket. They had grabbed my bagel and I immediately turned around and among the crowd was one of the New Zealanders making his way away from me. We made eye-contact and I really think it was him digging for a wallet. I yelled back at him but he and I were separated by the crowd and I never saw him again.
It was around that point in time I realized that my cell phone had been snatched (one of the nicer phones available in the world today), and my flag as well. Everything was in different pockets yet they all found their ways out somehow.
I know I have no room to whine as I am an overall lucky guy who would never in a million years trade positions with whoever now has my phone (that will register as stolen if ever tried to be activated). The madness of a drunk, moshing crowd made me long for the stoned, reggae crowds of Northern California. I have been to so many shows in Northern California where people are peacefully enjoying the music, dancing, passing monetarily valuable marijuana to complete strangers, and are overall happy. At this show I saw drunkenness lead to women crying, people shielding their selves from being hurt, and bitterness between fellow concert-goers.
Through all the hassle I did still enjoy the music. Being in the crowd for "Bulls on Parade" and "Sleep Now in the Fire" were great moments indeed.
I hope to have another phone by tomorrow. We'll see.
