Day 40: Meanwhile, back at work

It's snowing...in Tokyo
Photo by Jinko Hashimoto / 写真の提供：橋本仁子

Day 40 (14 Jan). All good intentions to return to campus today. I don't like to say 'back to work' because Japan was more a work trip rather than holiday...there is a serious distinction to be made here. 

Zen contemplation
of the virtues of exercise,
at 6.12am

Given the return to work, I decided it was time to get back 'on the bike'. I have trussed up my old road bike with the mechanism that allows me to convert it to an exercise bike of sorts (I guess there's a more technical term). I can sit on it and pedal away, watch the trees or the birds or check twitterings (of the electronic sort). Travelling in Japan inevitably leads to more kilos because I tend to eat more, or to be given more to eat. It puzzles because one does walk so much further too, between stations and so on. So at 6.12am I was, let's say, undertaking a zen contemplation of the merits of getting on my bike...that is all. 

Next move was to get ready to go to work, back in the car, up the highway and into the office. I have a 200km return commute to work each day, about 75 minutes each way. For friends in Sydney, it's not such a big deal and, as we've seen, nothing unusual time-wise in Tokyo to get from A to B; yet, friends and colleagues in Brisbane do wonder why I do it. There are lots of reasons I guess, but I wouldn't underestimate the value of the time given over to thinking about things, or listening to the radio, without the interruption of emails, phone calls, people dropping in for a chat...and so on. So, it's hit the highway...and away we go. 

Work, at 6.12pm

I'm old enough to remember offices without emails; I remember how we all thought how convenient and marvel of technology we all thought they were when they initially arrived, we even used to print them off just in case we lost them. It took a while to see them as replacements for the old office memo with the list of recipients stapled to the top, awaiting your 'yes, I've read it' initials. Well, these days, I have to say ugh.  I'm pretty well over them, especially the way they pile up in the inbox. Day one back in the office was really all about that, clearing, or trying to clear, the inbox. 

At 6.12pm I was still in the office (now there's a scene we've all seen before) but by then, I had found out that I had missed the biggest snowfall in Tokyo for years. Thank goodness for email! Jinko forwarded a photo of the garden...another angle from the ones I had been taking the week before (you can see the unit block in the background). Given the upward direction of the temperature gauge here in Southeast Queensland, it was indeed a welcome incursion into the email inbox...