Mikes Thoughts

I was over in Tokyo some dog years ago and when I decided to stay over here a few days after a business trip, it was not with the idea of trying to find places or views of things I saw then. I don’t recall too many of them; yet I tromped all around Tokyo back then. I walked here, walked there. I remember being on the Ginza at Christmas in the late 1970s. Christmas trees, lights, signs saying “Ginza wishes you a Merry Christmas”.

These days they block of the street and you stroll up and down the mega shops on the street itself. I was walking along and stopped cold though. I saw this one place that I had this vivid memory of. Of all places it was a beer hall. Well, if you know me, you would probably say “figures”. But I had to stop and just stare and the memory came back. Its like some dusty old synapses suddenly relinked and I had this memory of going into that beerhall, drinking a beer, perhaps eating. I felt rather uncomfortable to tell the truth. It was like a connection was made from another time. It Lion BeerHall though. The beerhall of Ginza. A place in the way back machine I had went to, drank and ate at. Why was I there? I don’t know. What was I doing in Tokyo then? I seem to remember waiting for someone or heading off elsewhere. Back then, I knew Tokyo pretty well I think.

I also went to Ueno Park and the Ueno area. This area can be characterized as place of differences. One beautiful park with museums, age old temples. Then down the next street crowded stalls with people selling ties, suits, toys, fake this and real that. Man. You gotta see it if you are here.

Some tips for you would-be Japan travelers. Get a Tokyo Metro day pass! Very worthwhile. You can ride all over the Metro which is really like 7 lines or something for all day and just use the one card. Its cheapo too. Don’t worry about understanding the system. Its all in english around. You can get the day passes from hotels like the ANA very easily. Also get a lonely planet Tokyo book. Don’t neglect the book that tells you stuff. Get a Metro subway map and plan out the day. Resources you may want to consider in planning a series of day adventures:

1. Tokyo Guide – this site is very nice and tells you all the good stuff.
2. Tokyo Metro Subway – the site is in english and it tells you how to do everything with the subway.
3. Lonely Planet Tokyo Guide – this guide really spells out where to take the turns, what to see, what to do. Maps are great in it. I bought one in Tokyo but now I think of it I should have been studying and researching.

Well, that was today’s adventures. I may head back to Lions for the stew. I remember eating the stew there now and its only two stops down for me on the subbie. Tomorrow I’m hitting the road to the Electric Zone called Akihabara. More on that journey tomorrow.

Greetings all! Its Singapore time for me now and I am back for a day of meetings here in Singapore. I landed at 6am yesterday after an all night flight from Chennai which is rather tiring for some reason every time I do it. I could not marshal up the energy to go in to the office yesterday so just rested. Today I meet with colleagues and do some work in the Singapore office and then tomorrow, its time to fly on to the last leg of this trip. I have a few personal days in Japan. I’ll be going to the Doll district right next to Akihabara one day and then on to Shinjuku for a personal recollection the next day. Mostly its about renewing my acquaintance with a place I visited and actually lived in years ago.

I’ll be blogging from the exciting and rather expensive ANA Intercontinental Hotel next!

It must be Chennai. If I were in the Bay area it would still be yesterday evening. Confusing? Not if you are here with me . I woke up a bit early today due to perhaps jetlag but after a great dinner with the office colleagues from Singapore and Fremont at the hotel. Now I’m preparing for the weekend voyage to Pondicherry. We’ll be gone a single night and then back tomorrow at the hotel. Back to work Monday which is a holiday in the states but not for us. I’ll be in India until Wednesday and then I fly back into Singapore for a few days of meetings.

Then…

I have personal time for some days in Tokyo. I chose Japan because it was easy to get a flight routed there and I simply love Japan. Tokyo is one of those cities you can wander around for a day, get lost, jump a cab, and come back. I did this in the way back machine and I’ll be doing it next weekend too.

This trip has been quite productive thus far and I’m very excited about the progress we have made on a few fronts. I’ll be catching up with this from Pondicherry over the next day or so.

So here I am. Landed at midnight. Waiting to do lunch with my boss here in Singapore. This is a great place! But are we really Lemurs?  Well, could be at one time.  I love science when it brings to a level where we look at the amazing antiquity we have. There is a fabric to our lives here on this planet. It stretches this way and that. Its texture is rich and compelling. We are more ancient yet like infants.

I loved the story and google’s take.

I’ll be departing for 2 weeks to my company’s offices in Singapore and India and combining the business with some pleasure in both India and Japan. I’ve changed out my flight to take advantage of our rather relaxed side trip philosophy and am going to be spending some time at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel in Tokyo. This is one of those luxury places that seem to guess everything you could want before you actually know you want it. I’m also staying at the Royal Plaza on Scotts in Singapore for some nights and the Raintree Ecotel in Chennai India. While in India, we are going to be touring around next weekend in Pondicherry which is an interesting French colonial city close to Chennai. We’re spending a single night there with folks from the Fremont, Singapore, and Chennai offices. After that, I’m in the Chennai offices for a few days and then back to Singapore for meetings and then on to Tokyo for a few days of R&R before leaving for home. I plan on visiting a few places in Tokyo like the Akihabara electronics zone. One restaurant I plan on visiting is the site where Kill Bill was filmed.

This trip also means I’m switching out my usual flight partner to ANA which offers nice attractions like attentive staff, good meals, and a decent enough stay even in Tourist Class. My miles still acrrue over on United since they are part of the group.

There you have it! Yet another trip with a fun side excursion. It will be warm/hot in all the places and I’ll see you on the rooftop restaurant in Chennai!

Back at Visa when I was there, we had multiple levels of project management to deal with. On one technology project I delivered and managed, I had administrative project managers that wanted my GANTT. I had a implementation project manager for the global solutions group that was there to ensure I got hardware, software, infrastructure in place. It was fun to a point. When it stopped being fun was when the GANTT became king and the work effort dimmed to a secondary thing. Luckily, the project management team I dealt with never allowed that to happen.

I’m back to doing some of that “speak” but at a level that I enjoy. I kinda come from a project management background you could say. Even way back at Edwards AFB, I managed multi-disciplinary environmental projects that considered the effects of large scale engineering projects on cultural and natural resources, ground water, hazardous waste issues, and all that. I had a team on one project that stretched across USAF, Southern California Edison, Department of Energy, NEPA, and a whole host of others as team. When I changed to technology, I started managing technology delivery projects, professional services gigs which normally came in at 250k to about 500k in size. I also managed software teams that did web and enterprise software. Always different challenges in the “speak” we had to do. I’ve managed geographically disparate teams in different continents and found the geographical challenge to be one of the greatest but yet most satisfying to bridge.

Now its a kinder and gentler speak but there is still a set of requirements to doing project management. Its a mindset change and the tools all change. I’m enjoying it and I’m remembering other managers I associated with here and there. It can be fun and it can be completely boring and rather dehumanizing at times. Life’s goals just don’t fit into MS Project.

Unless you buy the lifeline plugin that is