Wrapping Up

Posted on 2006/03/03 21:58:18 (March 2006).

[Wednesday 1st March]
Today was the last full day of my business trip to the US, and ironically in work terms probably one of the best. We just had one meeting - at 9AM - which the key attendee decided to stroll in for at about 9:45 (and it was scheduled to finish at 10 sharp). So we sacked that off, and I went back to my temporary office to tinker away with a few things, where I was overtaken by a bizarre wave of enthusiasm. I actually got quite a lot of useful stuff done. Looking at this statistically, it could be construed that less meetings means more productivity - although I wouldn't dare utter such sacrilege out loud in the hallways of my company.

Anyway, the evening called for a small celebration - it was the last night of my trip, and also coincided with an anniversary for my European colleague. So me, him, plus another guy, went out for the night. We started at a Malaysian restaurant (smelly, but good), and then went on to a bar near my hotel which had a karaoke night. I was cajoled into singing, and it occurred to me this was probably the first time I'd ever sang karaoke outside of Japan. People seem a lot less forgiving in the US, and it was not by any means one of my greatest performances! I think the lesson to be learnt here is that some things are probably best off staying in Japan.

Still, that small embarassment aside, we did have a good night out, even rounding off with a couple of drinks in my colleague's hotel bar (my hotel didn't have its own bar). Generally it has been my experience that nights out on these trips to the US finish pretty early - basically just dinner and a couple of drinks, then back to the hotel by 9 or 10. The immediate viccinity around the hotel isn't much of a late night sort of area, but we did at least manage to stretch it out until about 1AM, which was moderately respectable I suppose.

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