Regina Glei's Blog, page 25

The Sad Bench

Whenever I’m working in my “main” in Shibuya, I’m passing by this bench inside Shibuya station, in the hall between the Hikarie building and the entrance to the Fukutoshin and Denentoshi lines.

  

Behind the bench is a “hole” to the outside but it’s still protected from rain. This bench serves more or less three purposes and they reflect some aspects of the Japanese society.

In the evening, the bench is often used by “rich” but exhausted shoppers, who are coming out of the Hikarie building with its shopping malls. They sort through their shopping and rearrange it to protect it from damage during the crowded subway ride ahead.

In the morning though, when I pass it going to the office before the shopping mall opens, it’s frequented by “the working poor” homeless people who use it as a resting point. These kind of working poor people have lost their homes and they might sleep outside or in manga cafes if they have the money and who are desperate to “look respectable”, since they have jobs or are hunting for them. You can identify them as homeless though by their amount of luggage in form of rucksacks and often used plastic bags, not the fancy paper bags you receive when you shop inside Hikarie.

Since the station is frequented by guards who shush them away, they cannot make the bench a more permanent spot of residence but wait there until the town starts with its business and they can join in on the hunt for a job and a better life.

A third “group” using that bench is the heartbroken. I have seen several young couples sitting on that bench who looked like they were breaking up with one of the two crying.

The working poor homeless people and the couples breaking up make it a quite sad bench and for me it has become a symbol for being lost and lonely in the jungle of a big city. Notice the empty cup ramen next to the bench that surely one of the working poor homeless people left behind.

If I were a poet, I’d write a poem about that bench, but so it’s become a blog entry. Either way, the contrast between rich shoppers and the working poor remains.

Game of Thrones vs. The Walking Dead

It’s a laughing matter for the rest of the world’s fans, but I have finished watching season five of The Walking Dead only on Thursday the 17th of September 2015…. Season 6 apparently starts (at least in Japan) in October already.

I’m so late because in the past, hulu Japan (of which I’m a subscriber) had The Walking Dead (TWD) “live” but then it got too popular and expensive and they managed to add season five to their program only a week ago. The more or less real time showing of the series happens in Japan via a pay-TV channel that I’m not paying for and for only one TV show of interest, I didn’t feel the inclination to subscribe.

The situation for Game of Thrones (GoT) is “even worse” in Japan. As far as I know, no pay TV or other channel is broadcasting it and also there I’m always lagging much behind and have to wait until the season is out on DVD.

When I finally get to watch the next season of GoT, I do so in a pace of maybe one episode per day, or one episode every other day. That was also the case for GoT season 5.

But now I watched all 16 episodes of season 5 TWD within a mere 5 days, more than 3 episodes per day! I even let it eat into my sleeping time, which I very very rarely allow to happen, because I just had to know what’s up next.

Then, finally finished with the season, I asked myself what was it that made me do a TWD marathon and why am I not inclined to do a GoT marathon?

The most striking thing that came to my mind is that TWD touches the heart more than GoT, at least my heart. Why so? Because the main characters in GoT are all lone wolves without significant attachments and relationships, while the core team of TWD exists for each other.

In GoT the characters are all more or less fighting for themselves, and more or less none of them would die for someone else. In TWD the core team members would sacrifice themselves for each other at any time. GoT is in that sense a “worse” and “sadder” world than post-zombie apocalypse TWD.

Sure, some of the GoT characters have friends, but the two biggest friends, King Robert and Ned Stark are long long dead. Tyrion and Lord Varys are kinda friends, but it ends at the kinda. Ser Jorah is in love with Daenerys, but not very successfully so far. Sam and Jon Snow were friends, but maybe that’s done now too, since Jon Snow looked pretty dead at the end of season 5. And that’s it. Other characters like Cersei have (of course) no friends at all, Arya and Sansa – do they have real, long-lasting friendships? Not really. The unit of family is completely dysfunctional as well. The Lannisters all hate each other, sort of, the Starks are half dead, the rest scattered. All others have no family to speak of. All that loneliness, betrayal at every corner and the constant threat of characters being killed off, creates a “detachment” in me that lets me watch the bickering, intrigues and atrocities with interest, but it doesn’t have me at the edge of my seat or emotionally invested.

In contrast to that let’s look at TWD. The core team around Rick with Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Maggie, Carl and Michonne, hell, they’re saving each other in every episode. There was quite a high death toll in season 5 too, with Beth, Bob, Tyreese and the new kid Noah now all gone. TWD killed off major characters in the past too, Andrea, most of all, or Hershel.

But the thing is that the core team of 6 is believing in each other, saving each other, willing to die for each other, whilst such “thick blood” doesn’t exist in GoT.

Watching TWD, I’m emotionally invested. I wanna know how the core team survives the next crisis. The people around them betray and are false like those in GoT but the core team doesn’t betray each other. Sure there are small squabbles and things they don’t tell each other, but they are a team and they hold together and that touches the viewer’s heart, at least mine, much more than the lonely fighters of GoT.

Congrats to the TWD team for a good season 5 and I’m looking forward to season 6 (no clue yet when I’ll be able to see it) – and please don’t kill off my two favorite characters Carol and Daryl!

That Thing about Uniforms

At the beginning of last week, I held my biggest workshop as of yet with 120 participants in a hotel in Odawara (some pics from the hotel and it’s very nice view randomly inserted into the post ;-)) – the topic: how do we lead people and how do we want to be led.

The workshop was based on six leadership principles that this specific division of our company developed and one of the principles is that “we want to have more fun and joy at work”. (other principles include trust, fairness, open mindedness etc., all in all nothing “new” and no rocket science but very basic, if of course very important, principles.)

  

The 120 participants worked on these principles, what they mean for them, how they want these principles to be lived and how to implement them into their daily work.

For the “fun and joy” principle something happened that I didn’t understand at first.

It also must be noted that people from three sites were gathered, two plants in the north of Tokyo and one office in Yokohama where sales, engineering, administration, etc. are located.

One of the proposals from people at one of the plants that came up to increase fun and joy at work was to get better uniforms. They were of the opinion that new “cute and good-looking/cool” uniforms (the Japanese terms they used were kawaii and kakkou-ii) would increase their fun and joy at work.

Wow… not the kind of answer to “increase fun and joy” that I would have expected.

  

So why do people at the plant north of Tokyo want uniforms and think that will increase their “fun and joy” at work?

I asked a few of my Japanese colleagues, who didn’t participate in this workshop at lunch the next day. Their answers were quite simple and striking.

  

The current uniforms are quite horrible (synthetic stuff in dull gray), so surely it increases their fun and joy if they get better quality and better looking uniforms. I asked next why they want to wear uniforms in the first place. Answer: uniforms reduce the “distance” between white and blue color workers in the plant and the plant people need the uniforms so that their own clothes are not getting dirty.

  

Ah, a very nice answer, which shows the desire and need for equality in the plant. Nevertheless, I also think that need for equality is a very Japanese answer. You don’t stand out of the crowd, you don’t want to be “different” from the others, you want to belong to a group and identify yourself with that group.

In the light of this, I hope the management will provide money for new uniforms at the plant sites.

  

Of Big Cities, Islands and Idiots

I have, by now, had the privilege to travel to 28 countries, apart from the one I was born in, Spain and Portugal being numbers 27 and 28. (My personal “rule” is that you have to spend at least one night in the country, airports don’t count and passing through, like I did with Belgium and Norway, doesn’t count either). What I found interesting during my latest trip to Spain and Portugal was that I find my way around cities with much ease meanwhile, except for one or the other mishap like missing the stop for the castle S. Jorge in Lisbon. I am using subways without thinking much about it, even if I’ve never been in the town before and in some cases do not even speak the language. I think that’s a sign of the experienced traveler. Because, in a way, no matter if it’s Kuala Lumpur or Istanbul, Barcelona or Singapore, Lisbon or Taipei, London or Shanghai, the principle is always the same and you learn your way around pretty quickly. Of course many years in Tokyo, which has in my opinion the most impressive network of local trains and subways worldwide, greatly helps ;-).

Having been to three new major cities recently, Barcelona, Porto and Lisbon, has also rekindled the desire for my other big fancy – smallish or really small islands, preferably Pacific islands (not that I have anything against Atlantic or Mediterranean islands, it’s just that due living in Japan, Pacific islands are of course much easier to get to).

So far I have been to Oahu, Saipan, Guam, Palau and various Japanese islands, like Ogasawara (still my favorite of them all), Hachijouji, Niijima, Oshima, Okinawa main island, and Miyakojima.

I live in one of the biggest cities in the world. I admit that I’m getting more and more tired of big cities and the masses of people they mean, making me wanting to go to “my” islands. Oh, there are still so many to see: Hawaii main island, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Fiji, New Caledonia, and even remoter stuff like the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu or Samoa.

Well, up next will probably be Ishigaki, another Japanese one, next spring and oh, there is Yakushima with its world nature heritage giant trees too, where I definitely want to go to.

It seems like a different topic, but it will lead me back to the islands. I just cannot forget the idiots who stood behind me in line waiting to check in for the flight from Lisbon to Frankfurt (and on to Tokyo for me). Three Germans, three proletarians, we call them “prolos” in German. One was talking about: “Oh I cannot go to a new place by myself, much too stressful, it’s best at home. I only came to Lisbon because you wanted to and because I’ve been here before. I don’t wanna go to London for example, since I don’t speak English but in Portugal you get by without English…” Then the worst: there was a group of Chinese tourists next to us and they were cutting through the line to Frankfurt to go somewhere else. “Ah, look at the ants……….” How grossly racist (ants is abusive language for Asians in German, originating from the prejudice that Asians are all busy tiny workers who lack individualism).

Yes, there are racists in Japan too, and in China, and in every country of the world. Yes, there are “prolos” in every country. Yes, there are assholes in every country. But German “prolos” are just too painful for me to bear, because I am German too, and feel ashamed of such fellow countrymen and women. Man, what a happy happy thought that I would fly on to Tokyo again and that I do not have to get off in Frankfurt.

That, even if it’s a big leap, brings me back to my beloved Pacific islands. Island dwellers and island travelers, as I have come to know them, are usually a very tolerant folk. Yes, there is the exception of tourists from certain countries on Saipan and Guam. But especially on the many tiny Japanese islands you do not find “prolos” but rather “weird” folk who are drop outs, who look at life in a more relaxed and tolerant fashion and who have respect for nature and the power of the sea.

The older I get and the more islands I see, I want to live on one of them. Life is slower there, less stressful, people look out for each other, people are friendlier and they are more, let me call it civilized and less racist. You feel tiny in the midst of the giant ocean and these islands are usually ridiculously beautiful. Islands make you humbler and at the same time more aware of the joys of life. Let’s see what happens and if and when I will settle down on “my” island! The plan becomes firmer with every trip.

Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra

On I went to Lisbon, this time with the “alpha” train, a more modern “real” IC that rattles far less than the trains that brought me up from Lisbon to Aveiro and Porto. If you travel that route, I highly recommend the alpha train. It stops only in Aveiro and Coimbra on the way too and not at the many more stops of the less comfy train.

Arrived in Lisbon, I took a taxi to the hotel and then a walk down the main road from the Marques de Pombal square to the “downtown” area around Rossio until the waterfront. Here, the same situation presented itself like in Barcelona. Way too many people. Porto was crowded too, but not painfully so. Barcelona and Lisbon fall into the painful category. Also of note to the common traveler is that there is not a single supermarket downtown, only restaurants, souvenir- and fashion shops. I finally found a supermarket relatively close to the hotel.



Without knowing it, I had booked a hotel close to the Marques de Pombal square, which happens to be the hop on hop off tourist bus center of town. So that was very convenient. I took at first the castle bus, a smaller one, due to the adventurous roads. There are quite a lot of people asking your for change around Lisbon by the way and in Porto too, they mostly linger around the churches. In the Lisbon case also in the subway and around the tourist buses. I only hope they buy food with the money I gave them, not booze or drugs….

Then the ride to the castle started and what a ride it was, up the most tiny and steep roads to somewhere close to castle S. Jorge. Trouble was, I missed my stop to get off, not knowing the area yet and ended up riding down the mountain again. That way though, I got the chance to ride the tram back up instead of waiting forever for the next bus.



Crazy that the tram goes up the same way as the small bus through narrow streets and steep hills. This time I managed to catch the right stop and then walked the rest up steep roads to the castle ruins. Tons of people everywhere and a long queue before the castle.



The castle is well worth the visit though and gives beautiful views over Lisbon.



I caught the bus back down and then was left waiting for quite a while at the Pombal square for the bus to depart for Belem area. Finally there, another big queue to get into the monastery of Jeronimo.



Again, it’s well worth the visit but do not expect to be alone there. On to the monument to the discoveries and the Belem tower.



At the Belem tower, guess what, a long queue and that was the queue for people who already had a ticket, next slot was an hour later and I gave up on trying to get into Belem tower.



A bit fed up by all the queuing and waiting, I decided to use the free bus ticket I had for a ride to Cascais the next day, that’s a famous beach and cliff area north of Lisbon. Stopping here and there, the bus ride took two hours, sigh, but finally I was at the ocean and highly enjoyed a slightly lonelier day with walking for hours around the cliffs and coastline in perfect weather, sunny, but a cool wind. There are some nice villas in Cascais and no people asking you for change far and wide.



I greatly enjoyed the day out at the ocean, away from the sightseeing hustle. The bus back stopped at less places taking a more direct route and I was back at Pombal square in an hour.

On the last day, Sintra was on the program with its castles. The ride to Sintra is easy, 45 min on a local train from Rossio station. In Sintra though again hordes and hordes of tourists, endless waiting for busses, stuck in traffic, long long queues to get into the Pena castle…



Many tourists were giving up on the bus-waiting and attempted to walk the serpentine roads up the hills looking rather unhappy doing so, since those roads are crazy. I highly admire the driving skills of the bus drivers who go up and down these mad roads with big fat buses. The Pena castle is beautiful if a bit tacky in red, blue and yellow, and reminds of Neu Schwanstein: the fancy dream of a rich king.



I did not go onto the ruins of the Moor’s castle, since they looked extensive and are ruins after all. Instead I waited for another bus to take me to Quinta da Regaleira: the fancy dream of a too rich merchant.



Since that chalet was not too far away from the station, I gave up on waiting for buses and walked for half an hour back to the station, not one bus passing me in the meantime, by the way. So, yes, Sintra is well worth the visit, but again, do not expect to be alone there.

It’s been a long and intensive trip. I highly enjoyed Vagos open air, the Wacken experience was a bit hampered by mud. On the tourist side, while Barcelona is a must see, sort of, Porto was much better and my personal highlight of this trip.

A Visit to Porto

Porto is a bit special to me, since about the only wines that I really like are port wine and Madeira, but especially port wine. I have a sweet tooth and dry wines, especially white ones, make me shiver. The sweeter the better and that means ice wines or port! So, if I am going to Portugal, I of course have to go to Porto. And it was well worth the visit. The town is beautiful and brims with magnificent churches and steep inclining roads with old houses. On the Porto side of the river Duoro are all the churches and the historical part of Porto, on the other side of the river is a town called Gaia and on the river banks wait all the wine cellars of the big port producers.

I arrived in the afternoon of the 8th of August and did some first sightseeing, stumbling right away upon the “best” church of Porto, the St. Francis Monument Church, which has eerie catacombs and an incredible church interior to offer. From the outside the church looks rather humble, but inside it is overflowing with gilded wood and the most elaborate carvings. I haven’t seen the likes of it yet. That church alone is worth a visit to Porto.



The weather was steel blue sky with about 30 degrees for all three days of my stay, only in the night to the 11th, fog came in and in the morning it was clouded and cold. As soon as the sun is gone, temperatures here drop significantly thanks to the Atlantic Ocean next door and the climate is thus very pleasant. It’s a relief that it cools down from time to time and also at night, and that the humidity is low in contrast to the Japanese climate where it doesn’t cool down at night one bit.

I also visited the Porto cathedral on the first afternoon, then discovered the crazy bridge Ponte de D. Luis I. On the lower deck people and cars cross the river Douro and high up the tram and people cross the bridge. The railing is but a meter high and you can walk freely over the tram tracks. Such a bridge would be unthinkable in Japan, as the Japanese would freak out due to lack of security. It would also be frequented by suicidal candidates! I am still very surprised about this bridge.







On day two, I boarded the obligatory hop-on, hop-off tour bus and bought the two day ticket including a boat tour on the river and a visit to two wine cellars, all that for only 24 euros. In Barcelona just the tour bus without any extras costs you 37 euros for two days. After driving along the Atlantic coast with the bus, I made my first stop at the wine cellar of Cockburn’s. It’s a bit up the hill in Gaia, not at the river front and thus less frequented. It’s the best and biggest cellar of the three that I saw with the most barrels. A very nice guide explained stuff to us about port wine, that it’s so sweet because fermentation is stopped after a short time by adding 77% alcohol wine brandy. The tawny port is stored in smaller barrels of about 600 liters and every year two percent of the wine evaporate through the wood, which is called the share for the Angels.

Vagos Open Air

Where the heck is Vagos? It’s a small town/village in Portugal about an hour away from Porto, 15 km from the tourist town of Aveiro. A few years ago, someone came upon the idea to hold a heavy metal festival there and Vagos Open Air quickly became Portugal’s biggest heavy metal festival.

Getting there from Barcelona proved to be less easy than I thought. I had booked a flight with Vueling from Barcelona to Porto and intended to go to Aveiro where my hotel was via train. But, arriving at the airport, I had to discover that my flight did not exist. I had booked it in May, or was it April? A dude at the ticket counter said they sent me an email in June that the flight was cancelled, which I strongly believe landed in the spam folder along with the many advertisement emails from vueling….. Interesting that I could print out a boarding pass end of July for a flight that doesn’t exist. At least then the system should have told me, hey, something’s wrong… Anyway. Luckily I could book a flight with TAP Portugal for a few minutes later and flew to Lisbon instead of Porto.

In Lisbon I went to the train station Oriente and after some longish searching for an open ticket counter booked my trains throughout the Portugal journey. The ride to Aveiro took some two hours and fifteen minutes but eventually I got there, and also found my hotel.

Checking out the Vagos schedule, I found myself with too much time on my hands on the 7th of August, since the venue would open only at 15:00 and so I did some Aveiro sightseeing, including a boat ride on its canals and a nice walk though the historical part of town with its cute churches and colorfully painted and tiled houses. Aveiro is a nice place indeed.



Then I looked for the bus to Vagos. A lost girl from Lisbon approached me looking for the same bus who spoke excellent English, and so we checked out the bus stuff together. Vagos is a bit in the middle of nowhere and the festival site is so cute and small compared to the Wacken monstrosity. So far Vagos is the smallest festival I went to. My estimation is it has somewhere between a thousand to three thousand visitors??? Not sure though.

Since the Lisbon girl met friends at Vagos, we separated at the entrance.



The bands on the first day were: Scar for Life and Moonshade from Portugal, Vildhjarta from Sweden, Heaven Shall Burn, Amorphis and Within Temptation.

The gig of Heaven Shall Burn was pure madness. I made my way to the front, since I wanted to get a good spot for Amorphis, and was right in the middle of the craze of crowd diving without pause and mosh pits without mercy. Only the first two rows or so were spared from “circle pits” and “walls of death”. The security guys had a tough job hauling all those people over the banister of the first row. Crazy. But it also helped against the cold to be where the action happened, yes, cold! It was freezing in Vagos. Brutally hot in the sun, but an astonishingly icy wind blew full throttle the whole day and as soon as the sun went down temperatures dropped to some ten or fifteen Celsius at best plus windchill. Weird! It’s August! I’m in Portugal! How can it be cold?

Between stage change over from Heaven Shall Burn to Amorphis, I talked to a group of kids in the first row, all Portuguese, all speaking excellent English, who kindly let me squeeze into the first row too. Metal heads are just awesome

The Amorphis gig at Vagos was leagues better than in Wacken. Better sound and the band had more fun with it too, since the audience was very into it and crowd surfing again like mad, if luckily not at my corner to the right. In Wacken they are just one band among many, in Vagos they were close to headlining (headliner was Within Temptation that day).

The gig was excellent.



Then I faced the dreadful task of finding a taxi to bring me to my hotel in Aveiro 15km away. The last regular bus left for Aveiro at 21:00… We are in the countryside. I went to the church in town where the hotel lady in Aveiro had kindly found out for me that it was supposed to have a taxi stand, nothing there. I went back to the festival site and asked some security people and organizers and they sent me back to the church. There was a cafe opposite the church and taxis were supposed to be next to it. Yes, finally I found a taxi, but without driver… I went into the cafe and some friendly people there gave the taxi driver a ring and five minutes later a guy appeared who spoke no English at all and another one told him I need to go to Aveiro and he can let me out at the station there, since the driver didn’t know where my hotel was. So, after help from a good ten people, I managed to get into that taxi and someone drove me to Aveiro station! All in all the experience was a very nice one though, since everyone was friendly and trying to help the lost foreigner

Thanks Aveiro and Vagos, that festival is very well worth going to. Up next are pure tourist visits to Porto and Lisbon.

Barcelona Travel Report

The next stop on my journey was Barcelona, entirely non-heavy-metal-festival related, rather a place on the bucket list. I “must” visit at least one country per year that I have never been to before and I have never been to Spain and Portugal yet. In Portugal I will be able to combine country visit and music event (Vagos open air) but Barcelona was “just” under the category visiting a country/city I have not been to yet.

This was purely touristy stuff and my first and foremost target was the Sagrada Familia.



It was easier getting into the church than I had thought. Just 15 min of lining up in the morning and buying a ticket for entrance five hours later. In the meantime I bought bus tour sightseeing tickets and did the entire eastern route of the bus leading past beaches, shopping malls and Plaza Catalunya. I do understand the mayor of Barcelona who is telling people to stay away. The city is indeed flooded with tourists. Whilst they are a nice source of income there is a point when it it just gets too much or too many and I think Barcelona is beyond the tipping point. Wherever you want to go, you have to queue and are surrounded by tons of other gawking tourists like yourself.

But, the Sagrada Familia is well worth the gawk. The building it fantastic and I will have to break with the “tradition” to not go anywhere twice, since I want to see it once it is finished, maybe, after 2026. They want to finish it by 2026, to make it in time for the commemoration of Gaudi’s 100th death day, but will they make it? They have only another eleven year left. The glory facade is still missing and the six biggest towers too! Well, we shall see

A Wacken Mud Report

After only two years, I was supposed to return to the holy land of Wacken. Two packed flights did not contribute to travel comfort. The plane from Tokyo to Zuerich was sold out to the last seat and the plane from Zuerich to Hamburg was equally packed. I’ve been flying to Germany on business trip a few weeks earlier and Turkish airlines had the far better food and also an amenity pack for economy class plus a more modern inflight system…  Despite arriving half an hour late at Hamburg airport, my pick up had not yet arrived. My British friends who had left their houses at four in the morning had been stuck in traffic jams around Duisburg on their way to Hamburg. I phoned the hotel and told them of a later arrival. 

My friends arrived around 21:00 and we drove on the last roughly 100 km to Buesum at the North Sea, which is about 30 km beyond Wacken. 

We drove in pouring rain… Warnings from the Wacken app kept pouring in. Don’t come by car, come late, the site is drowning… 

We finally arrived at 22:30 at the hotel and fell into bed. 

The next morning, still rain and rain and rain. Despite that, the brave warriors set out for the holy ground. Daily parking was luckily not in such a bad condition and despite the warnings we got there okay. Then, the first odyssey through the marshlands to exchange our tickets for wristbands. That odyssey took the better part of an hour walking through ankle deep, calf deep mud. Incredible. I have not yet seen the likes of it. 

  

After successfully getting our wristbands, we queued for the goods booth in pouring rain, the spirits slightly sinking. But those spirits were raised again by succeeding in obtaining a Wacken plush cow, which eluded me the first time around. 

  

We continued the shopping spree in the Wacken village whilst walking through endless stretches of mud. The first victims crossed our path, abandoned shoes sticking in the endless goo. 

In 2013 I acquired an “Odin” ring, ( a silver ring with the runes for Odin carved into it) and this time I wanted to get a “Loki” ring. I found one and the shopping spree was satisfied for the moment. On to the arena to watch a few bands. There was UDO and In Extremo, Savatage reunion (if only with seven songs) and Transsiberian Orchestra. In between In Extremo and Savatage we took a break and I noticed that my just bought “Loki” ring was missing! Aaaahhhh…. It lasted but three hours, but wait, there was one last chance that I might have lost it while groping for stuff in my little belly bag and oh miracle, indeed the ring had fallen into the bag, not the mud. He is a trickster that Loki, isn’t he? Mark had to give up on his boots, which were starting to fall apart. We went back into the village, he bought new boots, and retired his old ones to the growing boot graveyard. 

  

The enjoyment of the music was unfortunately further hampered by guess what, more rain. It was freaking cold too, not 15 degrees and at night even colder and of course that knocked out my sinuses, that were used to 35 degrees in Tokyo and the throat started to scratch. 

On the way back to the car we got caught in the path of horror. From the festival ground to the street that led to where we had parked our car, we had to walk a fenced-in mud path that was pure madness. 30 cm of sticky, sucky mud almost sucked my rubber boots off and I slipped half out of the boot and had to touch the muddy affair with my hands to put the bloody boot back on. Yuk! It was incredibly hard to walk through that goo. Getting out of the soiled gear at the car and into the hotel without making a ridiculous mess, also proved to be a major operation and we were in bed only at 1:30 at night.

 For me the night was very uncomfy due to the sore throat and some time during the night, when the nose started to get clogged, I decided to take a day off from the mud and to not go to Wacken the next day. 

I had breakfast with my friends and they went off to Wacken on their own, while I had a walk at the beach in Buesum in cloudy weather, and a stiff cold breeze, but at least it had stopped raining.

  

 I walked through town and searched for cold meds and gloves to put the muddy gear back on then took a much needed two hour nap in the afternoon. Searching for dinner, I ventured out again and noticed I am at the Wattenmeer. While the tide had been high in the morning, the sea had retreated for a good kilometer in the evening and the boats had sunk to the ground of the dried out mole. It was impressive and beautiful and I’m kinda glad that I’ve seen a bit of Buesum after all, thanks to the horrible conditions at Wacken. 

  

But, the last festival day bore a few favorite bands, Sabaton, Judas Priest, Powerwolf, and Amorphis and I joined my friends again despite the snotty nose. Luckily the weather had finally turned and much of the mud had somewhat dried and it was way more bearable than on the first day. Even the path of horror had become more or less walkable. 

  

So, now I’ve had the real Wacken. Luckily the weather was better during the first Wacken trip, otherwise I might have been a bit discouraged. 

I really feel with and for the thousands of people who camped in that sea of mud. I even caught a cold without staying in the mud! I hope they are all okay and got home safely! And I bet the farmers in Wacken had a lot of work pulling all those cars out of the goo again! 

I probably shall return to Wacken in another two or three years

Work Hard – Play Hard

I love living in Japan, otherwise I would be here for fifteen years already, but there is one thing that I really really think the Japanese have to learn – to take “longer” holidays. I work at a non-Japanese company but of course I have mostly Japanese colleagues. I think we have 5% or so non-Japanese staff. Those 5% are from all over the world, many Germans of course, but half of our non-Japanese staff is from somewhere else.

The tendency is still that the Japanese staff take off a day here, a day there, a long weekend here, an extension of a few days to the three one-week company shut downs we have, at most a week in between, at most. I was on holidays two and a half weeks in winter, I will be on holidays two and a half weeks starting from coming Wednesday.

I am sure that I will again hear comments when I announce Tuesday night, see you next on 17th of August as I did last winter of “leaving too early” (I’m taking one and a half weeks off before the week the company is closed, I did so in winter, I will do so now) or “yaccha ikenai yo” = “you can’t do that”. Yes, I can.

I did it before, I will do it again and it’s no big deal at all. Also the Japanese colleagues could do it, but they don’t. There is still such a big stigma on enjoying yourself, on having fun, on doing what you wanna do, it’s so sad. Very very slowly it is changing, but way too slow. The main excuse for not taking longer holidays is “that it would cause meiwaku – inconvenience to your colleagues”. That’s of course nonsense, see to it that you have a proxy and be their proxy when they wanna go on holidays and what’s the big deal? But “abandoning” your “oh so important” job for two or three weeks is just something “you don’t do”. It’s one of those senseless dogmas in this society that hinders people from doing what they want to do.

We foreigners are “allowed”, sort of, to take holidays “since we need to go ‘home’ from time to time.” It does not even matter that I’m not going “home” most the time. I’m a foreigner and it’s our custom to take long holidays, so I am allowed to do it.

I wish, oh wish, the Japanese would claim that right for themselves as well instead of going on these four day “refresh” vacations. You just can’t forget about work and recharge the batteries within 4 four days.

Well, I shall continue to be a “role model” of work hard – play hard and keep on encouraging my co-workers. I hope that by the time I retire, I will have seen one or the other of them taking two weeks off in a row!

And by the way, my summer trip will take me to Europe. Wacken heavy metal festival first, then a few days Barcelona, then a week in Portugal for one more heavy metal festival in Vagos, the rest sightseeing in Porto (oh port wine, I’m coming!) and Lisbon. Cheerio!