Work has been pretty good all week. It's been tiresome though as I've been speaking Japanese in the office, and working hours are longer than what I'm used to. I want to improve my language skills, and as my favorite Anchorman, Ron Burgundy has taught me, 'when in Rome.' .......Hmm.. actually I don't think R.Burg knew what that meant when he used that, but nonetheless I am immersing myself in this new culture.
So while I've been wanting to post updates to my daily escapades, my schedule has mostly consisted of getting out of work, eating some food and falling asleep rather early. Today I had gotten myself into a bit of an adventure that made me want to finally take the time to sit down and write a little something down.
Even before I began in the office on Monday this week, I had received a few e-mails and online messages from Japanese colleagues eager to meet me. They had heard I spoke a bit of Japanese and were interested in meeting this American new to their office.
From Yumi I received this: "Hello Sara,
My name is Yumi and I am a member of EUS Japan. I heard that you are already in Japan and will show up our office on Monday, Aug. 9th.
Unfortunately, I will take a day off on Monday, 9th. It is sorry that I cannot see you on your first day.
My desk is just in front of yours (we will be face to face, of course there is a low partition in between ours). I hope I can support you on Tomoko's absence.
My team and myself are looking forward to see and work with you soon!"
It was so nice, and I was excited to meet her. When she arrived in the office on Tuesday, we chatted a bit, and I found out she has the ability to speak and write in English a little too and has already helped me with some translations I was working on. That first day she invited me out to lunch with our colleagues, and little by little each day we've chatted a little more. Well tonight, around 6pm when everyone was getting ready to head home, she asked me if I had plans after work. I wasn't feeling as tired as usual, and interested in doing something outside of my usual routine so I agreed to join her in a trip to nearby Shinjuku.
I had already heard quite a bit about Shinjuku, but didn't realize it was so close to our office in the Sendagaya/Yoyoyi area of Shibuya. Shinjuku is a major shopping area in Tokyo, to give you a better idea about it this Elle Decor Goes to Tokyo article has a nice quote that sums it up, "When most people picture Tokyo- the city portrayed in movies and pop culture- they're probably thinking of Shinjuku and Shibuya, the manic, densely populated areas that reputedly inspired Ridely Scott's film Blade Runner, and where Sofia Coppola shot much of 2003's Lost in Translation." It took us about a ten minute walk from the doors of GSK to reach Shinjuku, maybe even less. When we reached it, we went to the famous Tokyu Hands store.
Nine glorious floors of everything you could possibly imagine or want
Well it was a very brief trip because Yumi just needs to pick up some gardening gloves, and I just wanted to look around. We rode up to the 6th floor and found her gloves, and then I went off in search of a good frying pan. After determining kitchenwares were on the 4th floor, we got on the down escalator. Nothing out of the ordinary here right? Well it would've been except that Yumi didn't know yet that an adventure with Sara requires you to always be on-guard for the unexpected.
As we reached the 5th floor, Yumi was infront of me and I turned and some (cool) thing on the 5th floor [I think it was a clock--- oh man in retrospect, was it worth it?] caught my eye, and I yelped, 'Wait Yumi let's check out the 5th floor!' I did this as I was about to step onto the escalator and fortunately there weren't people directly behind me as I stopped, but I looked down and realized poor Yumi was on the 2nd step of the escalator already going down. Even as I write this now and relive the moment I'm in tears from the hilarity.. You could actually see Yumi processing what I said, realizing I was not riding the escalator down and frantically stepping up the moving escalator.
Now pause for a moment. Have you ever seen someone try to climb up a moving escalator? If you move at your normal speed to go upstairs you will only continue to go down, so you adjust and move a little faster but you're only fighting the rapidly escalating escalator. I failed to mention earlier, how teeny tiny Yumi is. She reaches perhaps to or a bit past my shoulder, and I had put her into this predicament.
Inside of Tokyu Hands, that's Yumi in the center with the ponytail. She is smaller than the other Japanese people around her.So here we were, me watching, my mouth agape as Yumi goes from comfortably riding the escalator to seeing that she is on the 2nd step and has a fighting chance. I suspect if I hadn't said something at that exact moment, she would've reached the point of no return and ridden down to come back up. However that wasn't the case and as I watched her process and assess the situation.. she made the choice. She was going for it. So with that Yumi stepped up, but the quickness of the escalator got to her, lost her balance for a bit when I saw an older gentleman from the corner of my eye reach out to her to help but she admirably recovered and fought, moving faster and faster to combat the steps that just kept coming at her, and the people boarding the down escalator.
For the record, watching someone unexpectedly fighting in the opposite direction of a moving escalator with people coming at them.... there are no words.
[I can't fight the laughter with every word I type.]
It was just something about being in this extremely proper culture where things happen as they're expected to, and to see how I unintentionally threw a wrench into that. To see someone thrown for a loop while in a situation they've been in countless time before and forced to react quickly, I couldn't help myself from laughing even as I was silently cheering her on.
Simultaneously I remember just watching this in awe and in disbelief that after such a brief amount of time knowing each other, I had already impacted her life by inflicting such trouble with something that should have been so simple.
Yumi powered on though and eventually fought to the top, and from that moment I knew she had passed a test of sorts.. she had persevered and had survived an incredible test of will and spirit. This person would be able to survive sitting across from me for the coming year, and because of this I feel comfortable titling this post, 'My Friend Yumi'. Together we've overcome a bit of hardship, and for me at least, forged a bond. I'm looking forward to the adventures that lie ahead, and to see if Yumi has any tests of fortitude in store for me (probably not). And by the way.. to cook up some fantastic things in my new frying pan.
P.S. As she walked me to the subway station next door, I had to have my picture taken outside Chanel. Thanks again Yumi.
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