On being nominated for Best of Blogging @ Clear Admit

A much needed update to my blog. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was nominated for Clear Admit's Best of Blogging. Fantastic! A really busy schedule prevents me from waxing literary, so bullet points will have to suffice. What has life brought my way these days?

• I'm in love with Japan. I almost applied for exchange to Keio but other conflicts prevented me from making it work. I'll likely take a few block weeks during one of the terms at LBS and then spend a month in Japan.
• Leaving for Milan on Thursday for a trip related to my Operations and Technology Management Class. I'm visiting the Agusta Westland Helicopter operations near Milan to do a diagnosis of their assembly plant which should give me an opportunity to apply those Lean Diagnostics skills I used in my previous consulting work. Agusta Westland usually makes the Air Force One helicopters but Obama won't be getting one this year.
• Speaking of Obama, the non-profit I'm consulting for, MyBnk was in the news lately. The Chief paid an impromptu visit to its London office during his G20 visit to meet Lily Lapenna and her crew and to thank them for educating common people on financial principles in these tough economc times. Go Lily!!!
• Event prep for Crossroads, the LBS Art Exhibition, is going great guns. Tomorrow we take over the quad and install an exhibit. It's a clothes line strung across the quad, hung with colorful bras and boxer shorts and equally colorful resumes, rejection letters and candidates' responses to rejection letters.
• I recently visited Saatchi Gallery in London. Their current exhibition "Art from the Middle East" is f@#king awesome, like nothing I've ever seen before.
  
• Several friends from Boston and Sweden visited me in London. That was awesome! Shout out to Keith, Kate and Ariana!
• I love Marketing Strategy – it's the most amazing course I've taken so far, and Dan Goldstein, who teaches it, is the best prof I've had so far.
  
• I highly recommend that every rational young adult read "Stumbling Upon Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. It's a provocative look at why we as adults may or may not find happiness elusive
• I highly recommend that you watch 50 Dead Men Walking, IRA, moles, great 80's rock, heart-pounding thrills – the movie has it all. It's Brilliant!
  
• I highly recommend that you iTunes download "They Don't Love You" by Juvelen and "Rive" by Electrified Jet Shamisen Okita (Think Kill Bill, fusion traditional Japanese music and rock, except its driven by an electric Shamisen. Awesome!).
  
• And finally, I just got back from a lecture on leadership at LBS by Ian Davis, ex Global Director of McKinsey. He's one of my heroes! Getting a chance to shake his hand and speak with him one-on-one was just incredible.
  

More soon. Sayonara!

Why I'm in love with Japan. Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo Midtown.

Cherry Blossoms in Kyoto

Toyota City, Nagoya

Making a mockery of the tea ceremony. Not sure that one dunks the green tea biscuit in the green tea, but what do I know, I'm gaijin!

The fair ladies of London Business School

And you thought the London Tube/Paris Metro was hard to navigate? Try Tokyo

Japan Trek Day 1

I'm reliving the scene from Lost in Translation, where Bill Murray is jet-lagged and up at 3 AM sipping Suntori Time Whisky. Its been less than 24 hours in Japan and I'm already in love with this country. And, this has nothing to do with the fact that I'll be interning for Japan's largest investment bank.

For starters, the flight here was easy and I'm glad I splurged my points on business class. We're staying at the Four Seasons Chinzan-So and the Japanese garden makes reaching Zen-like bliss a walk in the park.

I just love how the people, in general, are incredibly polite and helpful. I mean the concierge and bell-boys at the hotel go as far as walking you to the elevator and pressing the button to your floor before stepping out and then formally bowing as the door closes. And, if thats not enough, they wave their arms in front of sliding doors, just so you do not have to inconvenience yourself by setting off the motion sensors.

The toilet does everything except talk to me. And the subway rides start and stop smoothtly unlike the jerky rides on the Tube that send standing passengers careening into each other. And the landscape is spellbinding -- even "the outdoors" are perfectly manicured, with pine and cypress trees planted in rows on top of perfectly shaped ridges. They do know how to get their feng shui right around here with industrial, commercial and residential buildings all melding seamlessly into each other. Its not jarring, how the city is laid out unlike say NYC - short building, tall building, warehouse or London - brick, stone, brick, stone. The lines flow cleanly from rooftops to flyovers to canals to parks and fountains.

Pocari Sweat, Is it in you?

Why is this person resting her bum on an extremely large tongue?

The language does inject hilarity for the accidental tourist. Starting with swear-words (of course), the biggest dis is to tell someone that their mother has an outie. And the unfortunate use of English at times makes for silly double entendres. For example, the ubiquitious vending machines (1 for every 25 people) sell a sports drink called "Pocari Sweat"! And, I'm so buying a T-shirt with garbled English signage... something that says "Try Touching American Meat Goat - Heavenshow!"

Tomorrow, we're visiting the Toshiba factory, Roppongi and Akihabara for some manga subculture fun. I have Coldplay's "Lovers in Japan" running through my head.... "dreaming of the Osaka sun, dreaming of when the morning comes!" More later! Sayonara!