Author Archives: Marjorie

a Process Engineer once again

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As we prepared for our wedding, Atsushi and I both held this hope dearly between us – that I would be able to work as an engineer again, after settling in Japan. For somebody who really loves her career (and I hope my career loves me back twofold haha), I was teary-eyed when hubby told me it makes him proud to have an “engineer wife”. A lot of factors could hinder me from working again. And so I prepared myself to that possible reality. But our fervent prayers were answered; from tomorrow, I will no longer be a shifu or housewife and will work again as a Process Engineer.

But if truth be told, I am nervous, for reasons that I really couldn’t quite fathom. Hubby has been reminding me of the reasons why I need not fret in that our talk always ends up with me blushing and hugging him or me squeezing his hand because of happiness that my husband (and our colleagues as well, he argues) believes in my capabilities.

I’ll be working at a company that is both old and new to me.

Old, because I have been previously assigned here; sent here to work from Manila. Hence, I already know the nooks and crannies of the office (well, except the 36th floor which is for the CEOs and top management).

But new, because this time, I will not be working as somebody assigned from our branch office in another country but as somebody who is already based here in Japan.

Old, because I have already worked with a number of colleagues in the company and ergo I know a lot of people already.

But new, because the first project I will be involved in are composed of engineers that I haven’t worked with before.

I will be meeting again a lot of colleagues who wished me fare well during my last assignment here, two years back; colleagues who kept on asking me when I am going to marry and to whom I replied that I have no plans to get married and to which they would reply back it’s mottainai.

So again new, because the last time I was in the Yokohama office, I was very much a single. But I’m coming back now, very much a missus.

Nervous, yes. But nonetheless, very excited.

To God be the glory.

great customer service, anyone?

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I think anybody would readily agree with me that nothing beats Japan’s excellent customer service. Want proof? Here’s one:

From the southern-west part of Japan, Okasan went on a business trip to Yamanashi prefecture. Thoughtful as she is, aside from her Inden-ya present to me, she bought us shiro (white) wine. Yamanashi sits in a basin and because of its location, the prefecture has been famous for its sweet grapes. And ergo, the winery.

After her Yamanashi trip, she then went to Tokyo as she also got invited to a special film showing. Cinema staff then took care of her wine bottle. But alas, after the movie, everyone found out that for some reason, her bottle of wine got broken.

Can you imagine what a cinema staff would do had it happened in your country?

Anyways, what the cinema staff did was they got the address of the recipients of wine (us!) and they promised to deliver the wine to us. That was Monday.

Friday, I received the package. Of course i’m happy, there’s another delivery! Another gift/mail to open! Yey! 🙂

It was a box specially designed for bottle deliveries.

The wine was inside one of the smaller boxes whilst a letter was on the other small box. As Hubby put it, the letter contained their deepest apologies as well as explanation of the contents of the package.

So here’s the wine, safely wrapped with big-bubbled bubble wrap.

And yes, cinema people replaced the broken wine with a wine they bought straight from Yamanashi. Not replaced with just any wine that can be bought in a neighboring mall in Tokyo.

Oh, they didn’t stop from there. Because it was a special film showing, some brochures about the movie were being handed out. Okasan’s copy got wet as well. So cinema staff promised to send a new one along with the wine.

But they didn’t just send a new brochure. They sent one that had a sign by the lead actor Daiichi Yasuo.

Simply amazing customer service. Can anybody else top this?

Inspires me really. To go the extra mile.

Oh by way, The movie is entitled “Love Tomato” or “Koisuro Tomato” in Japanese. It was filmed in the Philippines and has a Filipino title of “Kumain Ka Na Ba?” (Have you eaten yet?).

It stars the beautiful Alice Dixon. She’s 43, can you imagine??

 

Here’s one scene of the movie. Sorry it’s blurred. Photo taken from the brochure print.

Okasan gave us a copy of the movie. The print may be weeping (yes, blame it on the wine) but it is workable, probably. Weekend is for movies so Hubby and I definitely have this movie in our lineup. Over a bottle of wine, most probably.

 

principal sponsors wedding favors

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I have already incorporated our rustic/travel theme in a lot of details in our wedding. To break the monotony, we thought of non-travel/rustic related thank you gifts to our principal sponsors, Bestman and MOH.

We initially thought of giving them Alamid coffee – The Philippine Civet coffee, tagged as the world’s rarest brew. But owing to a number of reasons, we had to select another option (will post a separate entry about this coffee). Other than looking for a good calendar for our guestbook, one of our goals for my March Japan visit was also to look for a good principal sponsors wedding favors.

Found the perfect one in Keikyu Kamiooka. Lupicia.

They have this pretty set that’s perfect for giveaways. The flower ornament is just so pretty(!!) and almost-rustic. We chose Sakurambo (cherry) flavor.

The loose tea leaves are inside the round canister. What made us finally make a go for this as our giveaways actually is that you can customize the lid of the canister. They have a number of designs for different occasions and among the designs available for weddings, I chose this design, for obvious reasons. You can just imagine how giggly I went when I saw the colors on this design. As for the font, it would be too long if we specify “Atsushi and Marjorie”, hence, we settled for a simple “A & M”. And of course, the date has to be inscribed on it as well.

It comes with a matching Sakurambo (cherry) flavored tea honey.

Now the one thing missing in this set is the tea ball for the loose tea. They were selling some in the shop but it was at 400yen each. I looked for one in Gourdo’s in Manila as well and found a very very pretty lime-green colored tea diffuser. Perfect accessory to complement our colors. Except that it was at 300pesos. haha. Found this one in another mall though and I couldn’t be any happier.

It looked so pretty on the VIP table.

And oh, another thing that made me all giggly with this set is that the package comes with a paperbag that has our colors. Yep, both orange and lime green. The lime green came off as pistachio green in my phone camera though. Look at the odd color of the hand haha. In real life, they are colors that would definitely make a bride giddy.

Perfect. Just perfect.

my Kanji flashcards

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I just love it everytime the intercom buzzes and when I pick it up, the voice on the other line would say a cheery “takyoubin desu!” or “youbin desu!”. This means “package delivery!”, by the way, or something similar to that.

Got my beginner Kanji flashcards. Ordered online by hubby from Whiterabbitpress. Recommended by Apple, a friend I had through W@W; Apple will hopefully be taking her JLPT level N1 this December. Isn’t she just amazing?! I wonder when can I take the JLPT level 5 or 4 haha. Anyways, for now, I-am-so-excited for these!

Of course I opened my pink case first. ~sheepish grin~

And the lessons continue. 😀

 

furniture leg socks

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When our dining set was delivered to us, Watanabe-san put some thin brown cardboard on the bottom of each table and chair leg so as to protect the wooden floor from any scratches when we move the furnitures during usage. Alas though, it appears it wasn’t enough.

So I finally bought our furnitures some socks. I wanted the brown-pink pattern, consistent with our house motif, but the packs the shop has for the pretty brown-pink pattern weren’t enough to cover all our dining chairs’ legs. Hence, I opted for this one.

I tagged this as “only in Japan” since it was in Japan that I saw these first, some 7 years ago I think. I do believe though, that these socks are already available in Manila.

 

fusion

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Japanese and Filipino food fusion also comes great.

Bicol Express. The coconut milk I bought though is not so creamy.

Shredded nori. Bought it at an unusual price at 102 yen. Unusual because normally, pricing is at 5yens so it should have been 105yen.

Bicol Express peppered with nori. It may not look much, but it definitely tasted great.

Pardon for the blurriness of the pictures.