To Tokyo amid Omicron variant.

Yesterday was nice weather, warm and sunny. I visited an agent office to Tokyo.

It’s in a center of Tokyo. the land area ā€œAkasaka, Minato wardā€ is probably one of highest prices these days.

It’s close to National Diet Building.

Young IT startups prefer to have an office around the area.

And the place also safer as well, since there are Imperial Property in the ward, and Imperial Palace in the next ward.

There is a police station in front of the property, I saw several police officers walking around.

č±Šå·ēØ²č· Toyokawa Inari in the white circle.

And right next, there is Inari shrine Toyokawa Inari. Is it for imperial family or? I’m not sure.

Welcome sunshine

Among other tourists, I prayed, bowed, bought incense sticks and dedicated to the place.

Many Japanese won’t think about Gods and Buddha much in our daily life, but if we have a chance we’ll become serious and pray for mostly people we love and care, or pray for ourselves when we have concerns or troubles.

ęēÆ lanterns

As usual, when I smell incense I think of my dad, and my boyfriend who passed away 21 years ago.

Then bought some rice cracker with tigers pattern, tiger is the Chinese zodiac of coming year 2022, and for my mom’s birth year. She is strong as she was born in the year of tiger.

I walked back to Roppongi station from Akasaka ward, it took me 20-30 minutes. It was a nice walk.

Oh no, it’s already December???

Really looking forward to Osechi dishes for a new year!

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Living with Covid.

Finally my mother received her 1st Covid shot today.

I can never thank enough to people who developed the vaccine, delivered to the clinic, and doctor and nurse to gave a shot.

A clinic where my mom usually visits for prescription drugs, the place started to support a vaccination for people aged 65 or older living nearby.

Also near future vaccination will be extended to the rest of population.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner at home x 350

we will order in once a month or every other month, therefore I can say I’ll cook meals for 350 days.

Breakfast is easy, pancakes or smoothies. Only I need shopping for groceries to keep fresh fruits and veggies in a fridge.

Lunch, eat anything available myself.

For my partner, omelette, rice balls, pasta, or anything I can cook and leave for him. Unlike me his lunch break is not 12:00-13:00, so it needs something like bento style.

Ramen or such need to eat soon are excluded, those would change the form in time.

And dinner, cook something we would like to eat, and have it at a dinner table.


Today,

smoothies for breakfast;

Apple, banana, spinach, Japanese mustard spinach and 1scoop of soy protein.

Rice balls for lunch;

Four rice balls wrapped in boneless rib lean beef. Grill the balls on a pan, flavor with Teriyaki sauce.

Next, dinner.

Thinking about recipes (and groceries) throughout the day.

In the morning, out for a jogging and bath and shopping. Come back home, cook, work, cook, work, cook, sleep……..

I do follow the same routine every day. It is fun, happy and I’m content.

That is because I have enough time in hand.


Housework will never end automatically, then time in hand is important to enjoy the necessary thing to be done.

Let me share about ā€œwork in the officeā€ culture, here in Japan.

It’s my personal opinion, based on my personal experience.

Colleagues who have IT literacy are mostly happy with Work From Home,

Other colleagues who contact helpdesk often and have less IT literacy prefer going to the office.

Latter colleagues like chatting, a meeting and paper-based materials.

It’s nothing to do with the age.

Some senior colleagues I know were actually good at mastering a new gadget and device. They read novels on kindle, play PokƩmon, utilize iPad and more.

And these days, at least you know how to use Google then technology related questions are answered by YouTube or people’s blogs.

I think it’s about curiosity. No need to become an expert, just need to be curious and to not be lazy to think, search and find the solution. It’s actually fun.


Back to ā€œtime in handā€,

Roughly estimated, when we go to the office every day, we’ll spend 90 min for TO + 90 min for FROM.

180 min, 3 hours only for commuting. In a packed train or traffic.

In 2011, I was working as a regular office worker and the company allowed me to work from home right after the earthquake, then for the bad weather, or simply when it’s needed. There is such flexible company existing, hope others to follow suit.

Honestly, when the work can be done with PC there is no point consuming three hours out of our limited lifetime for commuting purpose only.

It also leaves unnecessary stress more or less. In the worse case, it causes an argument, an injury case, spy cam etc.

Requiring employees to be in the office just because there is an office should be reconsidered.

For people who prefer the office as their workplace, make it available after releasing extra floors to a office lent agency.

For the others, allow Work From Home, please.

No need to monitor/obverse ā€œactive statusā€ of employees, it can be done by apps. Ask IT administrators in the company to extract a status log.

or using a bot to throw a quick random survey once a day, just checking who is working fine who is not so fine.

E.g. Windows has teams, Mac accepts slack, it shows green or yellow or more, as being in front of the pc or away for errands,

or Google hangouts for google account holders.

Messaging is quick, easy, short unlike emails. Time saving in both sides.

In addition, when the office workers stopped commuting, there would be an enough easy-to-breath, comfortable space in trains and highways for people who need to be on site.

W/ or w/o Covid, Work From Anywhere should be adopted to more broaden industries.

Pull out my head from a shelf desk.

Header image is my temporary workplace upstairs. In our altar room.

We both have meetings during a day. Sometimes it is better me move to other floor.

As we need to live with COVID from here on also, it came out of simple desire that we really wanted to sit in a comfortable position as much as possible.

My partner had been sitting on the IKEA chair for 12 months. IKEA chair, a small aluminum outdoor table on his lap and putting his PC on it.

His workplace.

Now both know it needs to change.

I organized clothes, and released one of tall steel shelves. 200 x 76 x 40(?). It is spacious enough for laptops.

Another shelf desk.

He is happy with this new desk.

Place legs on the lower part.

And we moved back a cupboard in the living room to the kitchen again. A same location, next to the fridge. This is my new workplace.

Wfh standard improved from the previous.

I disassembled a shelf and kept a PC stand part.
Must have item.
Now 8hrs x 5days is feasible with this workplace.

Used to be..

It was fun while working hour is short.

Also tried this small table built in chair.

Now it’s upstairs.

It’s already mid April, I’m looking forward to sit outside in May.