One-day trip to Hiroshima
During 5-day holiday in Sep, I had one-day trip to Hiroshima with my friend on Sep 22. Hiroshima is far from Tokyo, so you might wonder why we had just one-day trip there. It’s because we planned it one week before the trip and the hotels were full... And we wanted to visit Itsukushima Shrine in Miyajima (Island), so we thought we could focus on visiting the island, not going sightseeing in the city.
We took on the first Shinkansen leaving 6 am at Tokyo station (not plane!) and went back to Tokyo by taking Shinkansen leaving at 7:30 pm at Hiroshima. One way takes about 4 hours, so we were in Shinkansen for 8 hours on the day! It was tiring, but it was not big problem. We were chatting or sleeping on the train.
Itsukushima Shrine was mystic and beautiful. Now I can understand why people are visiting there. We arrived there at the flood tide, so it looked the shrine was floating. It said we can walk through the Shrine gate (Torii) at the low tide, but I preferred seeing it at the flood tide. It was more mystic.
There were so many visitors, so we had a hard time to find the place to eat lunch. We ate sweets a little bit during daytime, and we finally ate lunch, Anago-Hitsumabushi (bowls of rice), around 5pm. We were starving for lunch, and the Anago was so delicious ;-)
It was just one-day trip, but we enjoyed a lot. Worth visiting there!
Business Trip to Nagoya
Through the business trip, I realized how much and how many things I had learned for these 2 years on my job…
I was on a business trip to Nagoya for one week, from Sep 7 to 11 while an assistant in Nagoya was on her vacation. I needed to cover all her jobs for the Nagoya office by myself because there was only one assistant (= me) in the office during that one week.
To be honest, I was nerves about it. Because processes of transactions are a little bit different from Tokyo ones, it was the first time for me to work with people in the Nagoya office, (I did not know their personalities or working styles…), I had no idea about the clients in Nagoya, and I did not know the things and supplies in the office. (e.g. Where is the stationery? Which rooms?? where, where, where… ). In that situation, I had to manage all things by myself and I was the only one assistant, so that means I did not have some other senior assistants around me who I could ask something immediately. Of course, people in the Tokyo office could help me though.
I had such pressure at first, but I could somehow manage the jobs and transactions. However, it was soooooo busy week! Sales people brought in so many transactions one right after the other, like equities, bonds, deposits, funds, structured products, loans, payments, etc… Each sales person approached me with different types of transaction plans when I was almost done with something (or sometimes at the same time), so it was as if I kept playing whack-a-mole game! It was like I proceeded all kinds of transactions within the week. I don’t know how many transaction-related e-mails I sent and how many phone calls I made and received! I also needed to prepare lots of documents. Nagoya people said “This week is busier than usual.” and Tokyo assistants even said, “We were kinda lucky that we did not have to go to the Nagoya office this week. It must be hard…” Oh, yes! It was really tough!
The most difficult thing was not transaction-related matters actually, it was “serving coffee” to a client! It should have not been so hard, but in Tokyo, receptionists always do that, so I did not imagine I would do it at all. It was just a lot beyond my imagination! When one client came to the office, neither a receptionist nor a secretary was there, so I needed to do that. First, I wondered which room I should take him. Second, he wanted to drink coffee, not easy ones to prepare like tea or juice. I did not know where the guest cups or drinks were. I was like “Oh my gosh, where is the cup? Where is the coaster?? Where is the cream and sugar?? Can I serve this coffee???” Serving was ok, but preparing (or finding those stuff?) was a bit hard for me at the time. It was kinda funny because I would imagine I might be in trouble about transaction matters before I came to Nagoya, but I had a difficulty to just serve a cup of coffee! Haha…
One of the good things was Nagoya people were so nice and friendly, and I enjoyed working with them. Even though it was such a busy week, I think I had a good opportunity to work with them. If I did not have the business trip, I could not get to know them so well.
Through the experiences I had during my business trip, I felt my own growth. When I joined the company, I did not know anything and I was useless. I was the youngest employee, so I was less-experienced and had little knowledge compared to others. I was struggling to contribute to people around me. By working with people, my boss, senior assistants, sales people, and people in other departments, I’ve learned a lot. A lot… I realized it and I really wanted to thank them.
I was working till almost midnight at the Friday night and was so exhausted after everything was done without any errors. I was relieved after work, and also I felt somehow good on the way to go home.
Itsukushima Shrine was mystic and beautiful. Now I can understand why people are visiting there. We arrived there at the flood tide, so it looked the shrine was floating. It said we can walk through the Shrine gate (Torii) at the low tide, but I preferred seeing it at the flood tide. It was more mystic.
