A good work week

It's been a fast 4 day work week with tomorrow already being Friday for me. I've also kept myself busy and interested by working on some presentations and gathering information on the online advertising markets in Asia. Had a few good meetings this week also. My meeting today was in Japanese again. It went well but the conversation was so frustrating. Answering client questions about research methodology is already sometimes challenging but having to first understand the interpretation of the question and then responding back which in turn gets translated just doesn't seem efficient at all. This is why it is always best to know the language in the country in which you are doing business in. In this case, we're doing the best we can since I don't think anyone at my company speaks Japanese. Translation is also happening through coworkers which is hard because 1. they are not trained translaters and 2. I feel like there are things I say that I want them to translate but they don't. If I had a real translator that would not be any better because the technical terms for online advertising and explanation of some things really takes at least a little understanding of it. It's not straight translation of words or phrases. All in all we are making a lot of progress and seeing a lot more interest in business than we projected at this point in the year.

Food update. What have I been eating lately? I haven't been cooking much this week. Tokyo has so many "quick food" options like ramen, precooked meals, seaweed wrapped rice balls, etc that it makes eating simple if you want something fast. 2 day example of my diet: Yesterday I had cereal for breakfast (home), curry and naan for lunch (restaurant), and peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner (home - thank you DL ppl for sending me the PB - probably Debbi/Michelle/Rachel). Today I had a late breakfast after a client meeting (egg sandwich), small premade salad for lunch (it had potato and egg in it), and precooked noodles and rice ball (bought on the way home). Not very exciting I know.

Think I'm going to crack open a Kirin now and unwind.