Japan Podshow - Live streaming from Mt. Fuji

Sep 29

Morning Pep Talk Tokyo:

It’s first thing in the morning at our local Mercedes showroom, and the staff are all assembled for their daily 朝礼 (ちょうれい / chourei) - morning assembly.

Here, the manager’s probably reading out the company motto, which the salesman will chant after him. Then there might be some targets announced, both company wide and individually which they’ll all declare they’ll do their best to hit.

Most likely they’ll finish off with a ‘Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!’

We have these meetings at the company I work for too, although they’re not quite as grand as this one.

For one thing, we don’t have a Merc parked in the middle of the office!

Do you have these kinds of morning meetings where you work?

Joseph

Sep 28

Novel way to prevent cars parking next to you when cycling

Cleaning windows at Ritz Carlton Tokyo

Ritz-Carlton Tokyo Lunch:

Business lunches don’t get much better than this - we’re on the 45th floor of the Ritz Carlton Hotel above Tokyo Midtown, with a great view across the city, including of course Tokyo Tower.

I deliberately didn’t eat anything this morning - that was a wise decision - the dessert buffet alone has enough to keep me going for a week!

We’ve just been up to see the spa too on the floor above - needless to say the view from the tub is stunning.

My co-host George and I will be shooting a special video podcast here in a few weeks, so next time I’ll show you one of their incredible suites (they have the most expensive one in Tokyo) - the closets alone are bigger than my apartment!

Joseph

Tokyo FM control room / studio

A sample of today’s dessert at the Ritz-Carlton

Japanese portable dog:

Am I unusual in thinking that it’s just a bit weird to carry a dog around in your shopping bag, and hang it on the back of your chair like you might a jacket?

I see this a fair bit over here. Is or done elsewhere?

What if the dog needs to do a no.1 or (worse) no.2?! Is it really that well trained?

Joseph, reporting from Tokyo Midtown Starbucks.