GrumbleSmiles

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

When I leave my hotel room each day I try to leave it tidy, but my idea of tidy falls a long way short of tidy by most people’s standards.  Certainly my wife tells me frequently enough.  That said by Japanese hotel standards I am not even close.  They do all the things that any hotel housekeeper does – replace the used towels, clean around everywhere, make the bed and put clothes back into wardrobes and draws.  Nothing unusual about any of that.

However, there are noticeable differences that go beyond that in Japan.  Immediately you walk back into your room the curtains haven’t just been drawn back, the lace shear has been evenly pleated so precisely that you assume it must have been done with a ruled template.  Similarly, in the bathroom, they haven’t just replaced all the soaps and lotions you have used, but a new variety of bath salt – “herbal” has replaced yesterday’s “citrus” – to bring you health and happiness.

Towels have been refolded and placed long on the high rail and short on the low rail.  Used dressing gown, not just hung up but expertly folded and tied with the belt as it was when we first arrived.

Tissues are all triangle tidy, as are the toilet rolls.

Even my toothbrush, toothpaste and razor have been repositioned with all the other items to match the alignment of the sink basin.

It makes you want to keep the room tidy yourself.

MAYBE THAT’S THE LESSON

P.S.

It does not stop there  —-  all hotel corridors are spotless and clutter-free  — except for the occasional decorative item.  Here are some examples :-

This last one is something really special 🙂

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

Like our hotel door to 16th floor lobby experience, we emerge from the underground into the light of a Shinto Shrine.

Our Meewa guide turns out to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Meiji Shrine.   The park was built near the beginning of the 20th century with trees planted by 10,000 volunteers.    90 years on it is one of the three largest man-made forests in the world.    The others being the Bois du Boulogne in Paris and Central Park in New York.    We enter through a massive wooden gate constructed with two single cedar tree posts brought from Hong Kong.

One of the first things we saw on the pathway leading up to the Shrine, were offerings to the many Gods.  There are 180 Shinto Gods and judging by the wall of Saki barrels that were left for them, they must have been heavy drinkers.

As we walk up the wide paths through the wonderland of specimen trees, we occasionally pass a be-masked fellow wanderer, surely missing the point of this fresh air lung in the city.    On the approach to the Shrine, the path widens and is framed by an advertising hording sized gallery depicting the history of the park.    Even the people with masks stop to admire them, but they still don’t take their masks off.

At the next turn in the path, a man with a rake has a Forth Bridge job of raking flat the loose gravel scuffed up by all the visitors.    He shows no sign of concern about new visitors approaching his freshly levelled work, more like pride that they can walk on a smooth leafless path.    His job is to keep the path looking today as it did on the day he first started in the job.    Change is in the hands of the God of the Seasons.

Before we were able to enter the Shrine, we had to cleanse ourselves of any impure thoughts.  There is a small washing place and Meewa shows us the ritual of washing our left hand first, then our right hand, then cupping water into our cleaned right hand and swilling our mouth.  I don’t know if it worked but we tried.

After this, there are no more photographs as you weren’t allowed to film inside the Shrine.

The Japan Odyssey continues as we emerge into the more commercial world of Tokyo again but with one final surprise just outside the entrance.  I saw in the distance a familiar building which was locked way back in my mind from my early architectural training.  A building designed by Kenzo Tange for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.  This swimming pool design was so outstanding that it instantly brought back the impression it had made on me all those 38 years ago.

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

Greeted in the hotel’s 16th floor lobby by our guide for the day, Miwako — call me “Meewa”; nice lady, very good English.   How did she spot us?   Maybe we were the most casually dressed —- or just taller than most around us  —– or the most obviously bewildered ?

After a brief introduction, we headed off to the underground station.   All 5′ 2″ of Meewa leading the way at a fast pace, with her two black clad minders strolling along behind her like obedient camp followers.   When we get to the subway station, our obedience becomes ever more attentive as Meewa weaves in and out of the crowds of morning commuters.   Getting lost down here is not an option.   The Japanese signs are all indecipherable and the English translations are unpronounceable.   Meewa’s suggestion to follow the green symbols would be ok if we could spot them, but in this melee there is no chance.    So we hang on to the sight of Meewa’s fast disappearing white coat.

When we get to the platform, its narrow and full; every inch of the side wall has a body pressed against it like wallpaper.   We find an alcove where there is a little room to form a queue behind our leader.   As the train arrives the doors open on an already full train.    No-one gets out, and with a big slurp the train sucks the wallpapered bodies off the tunnel walls and into the even fuller train.    We squeeze in behind.    Sardines couldn’t do any better!

Once inside, its standing room only, with handles drooping from the ceiling for people to steady themselves, although there is no chance of falling over.    The handles are just at the right height for Tom and I to bang our heads on them as we pass each one.    Maybe now we can see a reason for masks — one sneeze and hundreds of people will catch a cold !

After several stops and a change of train to a slightly fuller one.   We reach our destination and the escape from the underground burrow begins as Tom and I chase the rabbit in the white coat.

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

The first day in Japan is still not over and at 3pm we venture out onto the streets outside our hotel in the Ginza area of Tokyo.

A bewildering mixture of people, unreadable signs,

luxury designer label glitzy shops,

restaurants with windows full of plastic plates of food, sushi everywhere, lots of noodles.

Bars with stairs leading up to the first floor or down to the cellar, but if they are on the ground floor, they have solid doors so either way you can’t see what you might be walking into.  It is similar to the hotel entrance but you’re less confident of the outcome.

A queue out of nowhere, at least a hundred yards along the pavement outside some big shops.  Must be a sale – but no, when we reach the front of the queue – NOTHING.

Walking by on the pavements are lots of small people – men average around 5′ 6″ – women more around 5′ 0″ and most women do not have high heels. Most of the men are in suits and ties.  The women are much more varied – most with coats (it’s a cold, spring day) topped with scarves or shawls/throws, nearly all with boots either knee or angle length.  Many of the ankle boots are topped with frilly lace or animal fur.  Younger girls often wear socks to the knees.  Overall there is a smartness about the place – jeans and open neck shirts don’t seem to have blessed Japan yet.  Very occasionally you see a kimono which looks very elegant.  Just once I caught a glimpse of an elderly couple both in kimonos.

There seems to be very few tourists, certainly not European or American.

The biggest surprise was to see lots of people walking towards you wearing a large white surgical style face mask.  I had already heard about it before I came, but it is still a shock to see so many people with them.  You see them outside and inside shops and offices.

Explanations given to me include:-

• Protection against pollution
• Protection against getting infections
• Protection against giving infections
• Protection from pollen
• Providing modesty for girls

None seems very convincing for such a dramatic appearance.  Yet at least 30% of people seem to wear them.  Strange!

I did see one green mask on a man who I suppose could have been a travelling surgeon.  I also saw one girl with a very fetching leopard skin mask who must have been a model I guess.

End of a very tiring first day in Japan.  Brain scrambled and befuddled.

MAYBE I IMAGINED IT ALL ?

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

Our Tokyo hotel is the Mitsui Garden Hotel in the Ginza district.  You enter through an uninviting closed solid panel door at the bottom of a 24 storey office block.  It opens automatically when you approach, but no concierge is at the door to greet you , just a starkly bare and small lift lobby.  One “up” button on the outside of the lift and inside just one button with “16” on it.   A controlled and controlling entry.

The lift opens onto a spatious lobby on the sixteenth floor, with a panoramic view of the city and Tokyo bay.   A brilliantly set up piece of design !   The reception counter is minimalist  —  a brown topped counter, with no clutter to be seen anywhere.    Three reception staff who must be related to the taxi driver — black trousers, white shirt, black jacket, black ties  — no white gloves.   Check-in only takes a few minutes, then with a smile and a bow of the head, you are presented with a plastic card and shown to a second lift.

The second lift lobby is as stark as the first, except the lift has more buttons and there are three lifts.   Only problem is none of them work 😦 not until you realise that you have to use your plastic card to summon the lift 🙂  Tommy San, who is practically Japanese by now, quickly realises this is a proximity card.   (We are both jet-lagged after 20 hours of travelling and a nine hour time change.)    Then the lift doors open  — in we get — more buttons 16 to 24.    We press 19, but the lift is broken again  😦   the button lights up but the lift does not move  😦   The lift does speak to us, but it is not helpfull as it is in Japanese  😦    Then Tommy San realises that we have to use the proximity card again  🙂    I’ll bet no-one breaks into Japanese banks.

Up on the 19th floor we arrive at our rooms.   Tommy San is into his straight away.   I take a while to understand that swiping the card doesn’t work.   Inside the room the magic card becomes a light switch.   I have seen this before, so it wasn’t a surprise.    Except that there are no other light switches  ?????    Eventually I find one for the bathroom, but once inside that’s a whole new technological adventure.    The loo has a control panel like I imagine the cockpit of the space shuttle.   Only the instructions are all in Japanese —  an inconvenient convenience.    A simple chain with a pull handle would have been good enough for me.   The control panel also has pictures, but I don’t know what they mean either  😦     I decide to press the one with a capital W.    This turns out to be a bad idea, because a fountain of water spurts out of the toilet.    Thank goodness I wasn’t sitting on it at the time !   I only manage to  stop the fountain by pressing another  W.    By now the toilet is fully illuminated and the seat is getting hot.    It is only a matter of time before we go into orbit.   I don’t figure out how to flush the loo until I accidently lean on the control panel, at which point there is a loud  WOOSH.   This must be the take off.    Several days later I am still learning how to drive the loo.

One more surprise came with another anonymous button, with a clue in English  —        ” Press this switch to enjoy the view” — curosity got the better of me.  With one touch I am standing in the bathroom as the opaque glass window becomes transparant and I have a view onto the world outside my bedroom window.   Fortunately there is no-one looking in from outside the 19th floor !   Although I do wonder if there are lots of telescopes in the distant office tower blocks ?

And this is still the first day !

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

Travel from Narita Airport, 40 miles to Tokyo centre by limosine.  Except it is not a limosine, it’s a coach — no horses — just the posh bus variety.   Still it has a uniformed driver in white gloves and an assistant to load your luggage.   The journey takes about an hour, mainly on a motorway with high walls and fences on each side, so not much to see.

Observing the vehicles on the motorway, they are nearly all Japanese.  Quite a contrast with the UK, where most cars are foreign made.  The number plates seem odd, as they only have four digets — you would think they would need at least seven like the UK, given the zillions of cars made by Toyota and Nissan.

Eventually we arrive at the coach drop off point, which proves conclusively that it is no limmo, as we now have to get a taxi to our hotel.   So we drag our suitcases to the nearest taxi rank, which is inconveniently located on the opposite side of a busy dual carrigeway. There we are met by another man in a uniform and white gloves, who organises us into a queue.

When we reach the front of the queue, our taxi driver pulls up, gets out of the car to load our cases — and Number One Son starts talking to him in  Japanese !  I am already tired and jetlagged, now I am completely befuddled.  Tom has been learning to speak Japanese during the last 12 months and waited until this moment to surprise me.  BRILLIANT.

Smartly dressed taxi driver in an informal uniform — black trousers, white shirt, black waistcote,white gloves.  Not at all like the casualness of UK cabbies.  His car doors opened and closed automatically.  The interior of the cab was sparklingly clean and rather strangly draped in lace — like grannies antimacassers on the sofa.

                                                               A  strange  start.

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

Tired after an 11-hour flight, and a sleepless-night journey over the North Pole.

Quick and easy passage through customs – 5 minutes for finger printing and a photograph – no fuss, no suspicion, a polite smile from the Customs Officer.  (what a contrast with America ever since 9/11 – where now you are made to feel guilty and unwelcome before you enter the country – that dispicable act of terrorism has put a nation on the defensive in a way that is not at all American).

Instant baggage reclaim, followed by a cursory baggage check.   Just questions, no search (although Number-one Son had prior instructions from me to take off his Rayban dark glasses and Michael Jackson fingerless gloves!)   Then on to meet and greet a smartly dressed Mr …?….  (missed the name – I was not paying courteous 100% attention).

First step is to rent a phone – my old Nokia doesn’t work in Japan.   Two very helpful assistants speak good enough English to explain how the phone works  (which English people back home fail to do – is it my fault that I wasn’t born with a mobile phone stuck in my ear?)   When I take a deep intake of breath at the £5 a minute charge to phone home, both  shop assistants and Mr …?….  politely suggest I go and check out one of the other half dozen phone shops.   Not having intended to complain in the first place I do a quick 180° turn and sign on the dotted line.    I’ll bet ET didn’t have these problems.  🙂

Next step is the Japan rail card.   We must convert our pre-paid voucher into  JR Cards (Japan Railways) and get tickets and seat allocations for all our planned journeys.

The first thing that was different was that Mr ….?….  left our bags on the trolley outside the JR office – unattended – what implicit faith in the honesty of the Japanese.   I had been told stories before about the lack of crime in Japan, but both Tom and I kept looking over our shoulders to see if the bags were still there – they were !

Now back to the rail tickets and Mr JR office man  –  no stetson hat included.  Mr …?…. explained to Mr JR our full 5-day rail pass itinerary minute by minute, day by day, station by station.    Mr JR handwrote it all down with two pens taped together – one black and one red.    The black one for his notes of Mr ….?…..’s instructions, the red one later for a flourish of ticks to show that everything was checked.   Poka-Yoke  — mistake proofing on daily display.   ( Tom thought I was kidding when I used this term,whichI learned from Sid Joynson, but it was evident everywhere we went.)    Then each journey’s batch of notes were stapled together with another sweeping gesture.

Now comes the automated bit, surprisingly late in the process for this most high-tec of countries !   Mr. JR goes over to the ticket machine that must control the whole of Japanese Railways.   After a few minutes of data entry and printer wurrrrrring, he returns with a fist full of tickets.

His next step is to complete the JR RAIL PASS  –  the golden key to free transport the length and bredth of Japanese Railways.  All done by hand and checked with us again. Then journey by journey, ticket by ticket,  Mr.JR rehearses all our steps —- train by train,   coach by coach,   seat by seat,   station by station,   minute by minute.   Mr. …?…. interjected to say that trains are all on time ” one minute late – NO TRAIN “.  I sense they think that we might not be all that punctual.  We are on holiday after all.

The tickets were then placed in separate envelopes for each journey and handed to us with both hands and a bow.  The final sign-off flourish was done with an old- fashioned rubber date stamp and an ink pad.   A throw back to bygone years, in this land of advanced technology.    STAMP,  STAMP, STAMP, STAMP,  like a 21 gun salute to signal the issue of another JR RAIL PASS.

  As we leave MR. JR tells us —  at the station to present our JR pass to a real man in a ticket boothe and not to use the automatic machines. “Men are much better than machines – machines are not as good as men”  he says with a smile.

Anywhere else this twenty minute meticulous and repetitative approach would have come across as mindless beaurocracy.  In Narita Airport, it left you with an impression of incredible customer care !

                                         Thank  you Mr. JR   and Mr. Yoshida.

This is one of a series of blogs which describe my trip to Japan in April 2012.  To see further blogs in the series, click on “Japan Odyssey” in the Tag Cloud.

An Introduction

My interest in Japan began 17 years ago in 1995, when I first came across a book called “Sid’s Heroes”.   At the time I was hungrily devouring management books, searching for better ways to lead The ExtraCare Charitable Trust.   I read the book from cover to cover in one weekend  –  I could not put it down!   Within weeks I booked to go on a 5 day training course run by Yorkshireman Sid Joynson on Japanese management techniques.   It began a  friendship with Sid that lasts to this day.

Sid’s teaching greatly influenced the way I went on to manage ExtraCare.   In our formative years at ExtraCare, Sid ran many training courses for ExtraCare to pass onto hundreds of staff the quality improvement techniques of Kaizen and Taozen.   They see the frontline staff and residents themselves as the “experts” and give them tools to improve every aspect of  service delivery.   Goal setting and performance measurement became essential management processes in the Trust.

That chance finding of a book on a shelf is what ultimately enabled The ExtraCare Charitable Trust to lead a transformation in the way housing and care for elderly people is built and managed in the UK.

A THOUSAND THANKS SID

On my retirement in 2010, I was delighted to be  given the present of a trip to Japan.   Over the following  weeks I will publish a thread of blogs describing my experiences during a 10-day trip with my son Tom made in March 2012.  They will be illustrated with photos I took and with some of Tom’s sketches.