Carlos first week
09 Feb 2005
Here are my first impressions after one week in Nagasaki. It’s been said many times how different the shopping experience is, but you don’t get it until you had to do it yourself. I thought I’d bought cooking oil, it looked the same, but when I wanted to bake an egg in it, ti torned out to be something else. To this day I still don’t know what I bought… Two days later I went to buy ketchup. They weren’t going to fool me again. The bottle was transparent, the contents red, and there was a tomato on the lable: hence ketchup. Unfortinately it was a kind of tomato juice – you can’t win them all. Today I went to buy washing detergent, I took a photo of the old box that was left behind, and went to the shop. Picture me in the store, with camera in hand, looking for detergent. It did work though…. I am considering to turn grocery shopping into a hobby, it is very challenging.
Further challenges were awaiting me in the apartment. The TV remote control has lots of buttons, but all in Japanese. I have a satellite dish, which requires another remote control. After pressing come buttons I saw 4 channels! An hour later I came to the conclusion that I needed to subscribe to get the dish working.
There is a manual for almost all of the devices and instruments in the apartment, how to program the toilet, how to work the rice cooker, except for the TV remote control and a wall phone with a small screen. This is the intercom that opens the door downstairs, the apartment is on the 15th floor. I wanted to find out what all the buttons did and pressed them one by one. When I pressed the red button, a loud alarm went off, it scared the living daylights out of me, but after a few seconds I was able to turn the alarm off. On to the next challenge: the washing machine. I was reading the manual while pressing the buttons on the washing/dryer combo, when the doorbell rang – you can guess…. the police. In my best Japanese (with hands and feet) I explained my quest to understand all the buttons on the phone. The police probably thought they were dealing with a guy with ADHD, but they did get the message and with a “no problem” left. The first washing experience went well, the clothes still have the same size and they smell clean.
From the apartment there are two ways to get to the office (25 km away): Option 1 via the south through a couple of tunnels, I guess with a total length of 7 km – I know this route Option 2 via the north, I don’t know this route.
Nagasaki is supposed to be sub tropical …. not!. At the end of my first working day it started snowing. The next day, it still snowed. I gathered all my courage and started a new adventure: driving on the “wrong” side of the road, not knowing the city and it was snowing like crazy. I was driving south (option 1), all went well till I wanted to enter the first tunnel, which was closed. I had to take option 2, I turnaround and have my first “ghost riding” experience. Luckily the traffic lights were red, so I could correct the situation without too many problems. Somewhere heading north I must have missed an exit, because after 15 km Isahaya (the city in which the ASML office is located) was not mentioned on the signs anymore. I make a u-turn, almost colliding with a bus, and went back to the apartment. An hour later I tried again, and made it to the office. On the way the policy did stop me once, to say that I had to dive with snow chains. Luckily they come standard with the car. Finally at noon I arrived at the office.
As you can reed, I am not bored here. Oh, before I forget, the “park-your-car-experience” in the apartment building. Picture this: you arrive in front of a closed garage door. Next to the door there is a small panel in which you insert a parking card, pin code and the door opens. You drive your card onto some kind of platform, put the car in “P” and on the manual break. You leave your car, press a button on the panel and the car will be automatically parked….. At least that is what the written procedure says.
Ide-san, the office secretary, told me she was afraid that something would happen to me and that she would prefer to go with me on my first time of parking the car. But I thought, what could be so difficult, I follow the procedure, park the car, no problem….
So I arrive at the parking garage, door is closed, and I find the panel next to the door. So far so good. Unfortunately, there is no way to insert the parking card. There is a small sign (obviously in Japanese) where I would expect to insert the card. The sign probably said “no need for a parking card anymore, press your pin code on the screen”. Okay, so I pressed the pin code and the door opens, I park the car on the platform. Then a red light comes on a loud noise starts and a female voice starts speaking in Japanese to me. Get out of here, is my first thought, is this what Ide-san was afraid of? I get out as quickly as possible, and nothing else happens, so I finish the procedure, press the button and the doors close and the car gets parked. A lot of panic for nothing. That nice lady on the tape, probably welcomed me and said to leave the car and finish the procedure so it could be parked.
Don’t worry, all is well me with, this is just too funny not to tell.
Further challenges were awaiting me in the apartment. The TV remote control has lots of buttons, but all in Japanese. I have a satellite dish, which requires another remote control. After pressing come buttons I saw 4 channels! An hour later I came to the conclusion that I needed to subscribe to get the dish working.
There is a manual for almost all of the devices and instruments in the apartment, how to program the toilet, how to work the rice cooker, except for the TV remote control and a wall phone with a small screen. This is the intercom that opens the door downstairs, the apartment is on the 15th floor. I wanted to find out what all the buttons did and pressed them one by one. When I pressed the red button, a loud alarm went off, it scared the living daylights out of me, but after a few seconds I was able to turn the alarm off. On to the next challenge: the washing machine. I was reading the manual while pressing the buttons on the washing/dryer combo, when the doorbell rang – you can guess…. the police. In my best Japanese (with hands and feet) I explained my quest to understand all the buttons on the phone. The police probably thought they were dealing with a guy with ADHD, but they did get the message and with a “no problem” left. The first washing experience went well, the clothes still have the same size and they smell clean.
From the apartment there are two ways to get to the office (25 km away): Option 1 via the south through a couple of tunnels, I guess with a total length of 7 km – I know this route Option 2 via the north, I don’t know this route.
Nagasaki is supposed to be sub tropical …. not!. At the end of my first working day it started snowing. The next day, it still snowed. I gathered all my courage and started a new adventure: driving on the “wrong” side of the road, not knowing the city and it was snowing like crazy. I was driving south (option 1), all went well till I wanted to enter the first tunnel, which was closed. I had to take option 2, I turnaround and have my first “ghost riding” experience. Luckily the traffic lights were red, so I could correct the situation without too many problems. Somewhere heading north I must have missed an exit, because after 15 km Isahaya (the city in which the ASML office is located) was not mentioned on the signs anymore. I make a u-turn, almost colliding with a bus, and went back to the apartment. An hour later I tried again, and made it to the office. On the way the policy did stop me once, to say that I had to dive with snow chains. Luckily they come standard with the car. Finally at noon I arrived at the office.
As you can reed, I am not bored here. Oh, before I forget, the “park-your-car-experience” in the apartment building. Picture this: you arrive in front of a closed garage door. Next to the door there is a small panel in which you insert a parking card, pin code and the door opens. You drive your card onto some kind of platform, put the car in “P” and on the manual break. You leave your car, press a button on the panel and the car will be automatically parked….. At least that is what the written procedure says.
Ide-san, the office secretary, told me she was afraid that something would happen to me and that she would prefer to go with me on my first time of parking the car. But I thought, what could be so difficult, I follow the procedure, park the car, no problem….
So I arrive at the parking garage, door is closed, and I find the panel next to the door. So far so good. Unfortunately, there is no way to insert the parking card. There is a small sign (obviously in Japanese) where I would expect to insert the card. The sign probably said “no need for a parking card anymore, press your pin code on the screen”. Okay, so I pressed the pin code and the door opens, I park the car on the platform. Then a red light comes on a loud noise starts and a female voice starts speaking in Japanese to me. Get out of here, is my first thought, is this what Ide-san was afraid of? I get out as quickly as possible, and nothing else happens, so I finish the procedure, press the button and the doors close and the car gets parked. A lot of panic for nothing. That nice lady on the tape, probably welcomed me and said to leave the car and finish the procedure so it could be parked.
Don’t worry, all is well me with, this is just too funny not to tell.