Day Five

Sorry about the delay in posting updates. Internet was hard to come by once we left Tokyo, so I will be bringing everyone up to speed with the rest of the trip while I wait for my next flight out of the Bangor airport back home to Ohio.

Day five was our last day in Tokyo, and I wanted to make sure that it counted. We started the day off by visiting the offices of State Street, a Boston-based investment services company. Their conference room was located on one of the top floors of one of Tokyo's newest buildings in the recently redeveloped Midtown area. The room had huge floor-to-ceiling windows that offered us panoramic views of the city on what turned out to be a very nice, but hot, day. Our meeting at State Street revolved around the financial crisis and State Street's strategies to weather the storm. Although some of the higher finance may have been over my head at times, I really enjoyed hearing a firm as large as State Street talk openly about their policies like they did. It turned out to be quite the interesting presentation.

After our meeting with State Street, we all broke up into smaller groups for lunch. I noticed while walking up to State Street that they were actually located right next to the world headquarters for Konami, one of my favorite video game developers. A small group of us headed inside the building looking for a tour, but we were turned down. After taking a few pictures of the outside of the building, we grabbed some Mos Burger, a Japanese burger restaurant that a few others in our group had tried and really liked. I wanted to see this Japanese take on the burger before leaving Tokyo, and I was fairly impressed. The burger was OK, but the fries were great! After lunch, we stopped in another arcade just down the street and played some Silent Hill Arcade, something that we had never seen in the states.

Everyone met back up after lunch and we traveled to Omotesando Street, Japan's high-fashion street, similar to something like 5th Avenue in NYC. We walked up and down the block, taking in all the brand names and trendy Japanese clothing. There were also a lot of Westerners in the area, and lots of Westerners that live in Tokyo take up residence not too far from Omotesando Street. We also had a chance to check out Takeshita Street, said be a hotbed for the latest fashion trends. It's a pedestrian-only street lined with independent shops that carry only the latest fashions. Numerous fashion designers have been said to wander Takeshita Street looking for the latest fad to take back to the west. Some of the clothing was really, really odd, but also very unique and different at the same time.

We then headed to the offices of Itochu for our last company meeting of the trip. Itochu is a Japanese firm handling everything from food production to aerospace engineering to financial services and more. The scope of their business is almost intimidating in how broad it is. We were privileged to speak with two representatives from the company's canned tuna production division, and they were a riot. We had a lighthearted discussion about the differences between the American office style and the Japanese office style, Japanese work ethic and socializing, and more. It was a great way to end our company visits for the trip.

We then took the subway back to the hotel before heading off to

our evening activity: a visit to Tokyo Disneyland. A small group of us rode the subway down from our hotel just a few stops and purchased discounted evening tickets just so we could take in some of the resort before we left Tokyo. I toured the park with Christine, a girl from our group who had previously worked at Disneyworld in Orlando, so I had the inside scope on all the rides and attractions. We rode quite a few rides like Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and The Jungle Cruise. We also took in a show and got some dinner, so all in all it was a successful visit. I think the most interesting thing about the whole park is actually how little they changed from other Disney parks. A vast majority of the rides were exactly the same as the rides in the U.S., except they were in Japanese instead of English (and thank god I had Christine with me to tell me what was going on!). There were a few minor differences, like some of the food the park sold, the colors used (pink instead of green for Louie's shirt), and the souvenirs offered. All in all it was a great time despite the language barrier, and it was fascinating to see how Disney translates fun despite the language and culture.

And so ended our stay in Tokyo. We were off to Kyoto the next day, but not before a stop off at the Toyota plant in Toyota City for a tour.