Before arriving in Tokyo, one of my personal goals was to climb Mt. Fuji and I finally achieved that on Sunday/Monday. It was a grueling effort but definitely worth it. Other notable news from the week includes dancing to the YMCA in front of 25,171 people after the 5 inning at Tokyo Dome. And of course there was work too and I have been as busy as ever at DHL!

After last weeks presentation I have been working towards completing my main assignment of suggesting a way to improve the WEBMART process. I think I have found a way and the key is worker productivity. Initially I was supposed to make a proposal for site remediation but any benefit from doing this would be very difficult to measure. I have to state the expected improvements on quality, cost and time. I spent most of my time last week analyzing data for transaction numbers and man hours worked over the past 6 months. It was tedious spending so much time on Excel but when I looked at the results it became clearer in my mind what I could propose. I aim to try and correlate the number of items needing shipped with the man hours assigned to the WEBMART department. I spoke to my mentor about this and he gave me the green light on this idea so I’m good to go! Last Thursday we were invited out for dinner with a couple of graduates who had recently joined DHL too. They were keen to get to know us better and the evening was a lot of fun. They wanted to improve their English with some slang terms so naturally we were happy to oblige!

As I mentioned at the start, I climbed all 3,776m of Mt. Fuji along with Zvezdelina and Andy. DHL kindly allowed me to take the start of this week off to allow me to do this. They even helped us get the necessary clothing in the form of fleeces and winter jackets! All of these garments were the lovely DHL colours of red and yellow. We provided DHL with some free advertising too because each item had “DHL” emblazoned on the front and back! I spent much of Saturday gathering all the supplies I would need such as thermal underwear and a head torch! I also brought enough food to last a week but you can’t go taking any chances! Having struggling to find the bus station at Shinjuku Station, we eventually stepped off of the bus at go go-me (5th station) just after 10pm on Sunday. Being in the mountains was a great feeling because the air was much fresher and the temperature a lot more comfortable than in the city. Night climbing is very common at Mt. Fuji because it allows you to watch the sunrise from the summit. It took us around 6.5 hours to get to the summit and we arrived just in time for the sunrise. The view from up there would have been phenomenal had it not been for all the clouds below but the sunrise was spectacular none the less. It was pretty cold up there but it was probably similar to a Scottish summer’s day! The walk down was much more comfortable but still took around 4 hours! I arrived back in Tokyo very tired but extremely happy that I was able to have managed. Afterwards we went to onsen which was fantastic because it helped soothe my aching limbs!

After catching the baseball bug last week we had our next fix by going to see the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters vs. Chiba Lotte Marines at Tokyo Dome last Wednesday. This night was to get better and better as it went on. First of all we never got lost on the way this time! Secondly, it was international night so we gaijins got excellent seats for half price. Best of all, Andy, Zvezdelina and I got asked to dance the YMCA on the field after the 5th inning! It was a lot of fun and we managed to get photographs with the team mascot, Brisky the Bear, and some of the cheerleaders. It was so much fun and I was surprised not to feel embarrassed in front of so many people. That was a baseball experience I doubt I can ever top!

I used my day off yesterday to do some exploring in Ryogoku where the National Sumo Stadium is situated. Unfortunately our time in Tokyo does not coincide with a sumo tournament but I was lucky to spot a sumo wrestler on the street nearby. He was a man mountain and at the risk of being eaten I just took a few pictures from a safe distance when he wasn’t looking!

The rest of this week is shaping up to be pretty good and there are several farewell dinners being lined up for us. On Thursday we will be attending a boat party on the Sumida River which should be great fun since we will be kitted out in traditional Yukata! Hopefully there will be more karaoke too because I am starting to get withdrawal symptoms...