The business side begins.

I had an alarm set for this morning.  But my watch was on Melbourne time, and I had forgotten about this when I set it last night.  So the alarm went off an hour early.  I realised this pretty quickly after it went off, so I re-set it for another hours time.  I had breakfast at Segafredo (surprise) and got some work done.  Mikiko knocked on my door a bit before 9.30, so we went downstairs, and caught a taxi to Konami.

It was a completely different experience to my last time at Konami.  We were in a room (instead of on a table out in the reception area) and the 7 new computers were all set up and ready for me to start with (including Internet access!).  After the formalities were complete, I installed Sportskeep and updated the databases on all 7 computer.  In general it was very smooth.  There was an issue getting data off the USB stick they had (most likely due to the local protection policy), but Oishi-san was able to email the databases to me.  I had arranged the customer.rec’s yesterday (despite being pretty tired) so was well prepared, and the database updates were very smooth.

We went for lunch at the Hummer Cafe (across the road) which was good for a laugh.  The “garage door” (which was just behind me) opened halfway through, which Mikiko saw and smiled at.  After a nice meal we went back and I showed Oishi-san and Takanawa-san the new version of Sportskeep.  They had arranged for a couple of people from the web team to come in and see how results.sportskeepglobal.com works (the things we wanted to demonstrate to them 5.5 years ago, on my first trip here, but it didn’t work).  So in general, everything was going really well, with very positive vibes from them.  It seemed like the same situation we have seen in New Zealand – the people love Brett and I, because we make things happen and provide support, but hate dealing with Mark (Cini in New Zealand, and Davis in Japan) because they hinder things.  Really difficult when you can see how the Japanese make things so hard to achieve things, but also how the person “selling” the product does a crap job because they really don’t understand the business.

We left on a very good note, and Mikiko and I caught a taxi back to the hotel.  We went to TGIF and had a drink.  By complete coincidence we were there for happy hour – 50% off.  Can’t complain with that.  We went back to our rooms and I caught up with emails and had a chat with Kaoru, while Mikiko got ready.  We then went out.

We caught the train to Kawasaki (the same train for Fujisawa) and met Ochi-san at the station.  I hadn’t seen him for 4 years, so it was awesome to have a night out with him.  He had since been married (she didn’t come along unfortunately) and looked really good.  There was another person (forgotten their name) who Mikiko went to Uni with, but is also a writer who has done a lot with the blind soccer in Japan so Ochi knew him already.  In fact Ochi made the comment that “he always gets lost”, while we were making our way to the restaurant.  He had us wait for a minute while he went for a walk and tried to work out where we were going.  I told Ochi that “you’re right – he’s lost!” which had us all laugh.  At the same time Ochi told me the name of the restaurant, I typed it in to Google Maps, and told them all where to go.  I ended up leading the way!

Dinner was the usual enjoyable affair.  Although Ochi didn’t have his harem of girls with him.  He was on a non-drinking time, but “special occasion” so we got in to it.  I was able to practice my Japanese while he practiced his English.  During the meal Mark called Mikiko to say they had arrived, and apparently was quite rude to her.  So when he called again 20 minutes later I answered the phone as I didn’t want her to be upset and stressed out.  We had a great meal, and great drinks, and all too soon it was time to leave.

We walked back to the train station and watched Ochi-san go downstairs to his train.  It’s so scary because he does stairs so quickly – you just hear this “tap tap tap” of his stick. Mikiko, her friend and i went back to Shinagawa and had a drink before calling it a night. We contemplated going to gonpacchi and joining the others but it was already about 11 so decided against it.