A moment....

I work in a Japanese company which like many other companies in tokyo, is located in a multi-storeyed building on a floor quite high up. Well not the top. I keep telling myself one of these days I will go to the top and take pictures of the tokyo during daytime from up there, with my new camera. One of these days. On the lucky side, my office has completely glass walls on two sides which offer a majestic view of the sprawling Tokyo ...and further... as far as your eyes can reach.

The Japanese work hard. I arrive in office at sharp 9 and leave at around 9 hours later at minimum... if not more. And during that time, the entire environment reminds me of a bee-hive buzzing with activities. All of us just drones. It is completely unlike an Indian office, where people would take breaks every two hours for a smoke. Or just walk over to someone else's desk and chat for a bit ... as we say ... "gup shup". No. Japanese are all work and business at least during office hours. Just giving you an idea of my workplace anyways.


But just now I raised my head and saw two of the colleagues standing close to one of the glass walls... peering in the distance. In complete synchronization, they both took out their camera phone and started clicking away at the evening sky.

A minute later most of the other guys abandoned their work and joined them, whipping out their camera phones and taking pictures as well. They actually abandoned their work. I was curious so ofcourse I walked to the glass wall too and pressed my face close to it.

This was an exceptionally clear day, with no clouds fogging up the view. And I could finally make out the clear view of the object that had made all my colleagues abandon their work for a few minutes.

Fuji-san.

Mount fuji. Japanese revere it. And it seemed so clear and close, as to be in touching distance. Having been to Hakone, I can appreciate its distance.

It was a beautiful sight. And what was more beautiful was the fact that my hard-working colleagues still took time out to enjoy a moment.

People say corporations are not real persons. True. corporations have no ethics or emotions. They don't have a heart or an appreciation for beauty.

But people who work in these corporations, do.

Or should.

snore!

Went rock climbing today with our australian friends.

It was fun. It cost around 3000 yen for around 3 hours. They tie this harness and rope around you... and then you have to rely on your poor muscles to haul you up on a sheer 30 foot fall .... using just jutting rocks embedded into the wall, for footholds.

Was fun.

As an aftermath, slept all day.

Snore!

sunday

We both went to Inokashira park today.

It was beautiful. Tokyo has few open places. Especially parks with lakes and birds. You can even go paddle-boating.

took lots of snaps of my favourite model.

Beautiful day with a beautiful companion :)

11th

Fridays

We both are a weekend to weekend person I guess. Working days are just motions we go through to get to the weekend.

Oh we both love our work.

But weekends are when we are together.

5th

Today am a year older ... do I feel any different? Why do we celebrate birthdays ? ... what do we exactly celebrate ? another year towards getting old and finally fading away? ... another year of your life span subtracted? Another year of your youth lost?

Or maybe we celebrate surviving yet another year gone past...

or ...another year lived fully.

Half glass empty or half glass full?

bday!!!

It was Abhi's birthday today. Unfortnately, he couldnt't take a leave as we had planned earlier. So we had to settle for just coming home a little early.

We decided to celebrate it by going to one of those theme restaurents in Shinjuku. Back when Abi was working for Kizna Corporation, he had gone with his colleagues to this theme restaurent called "The Lockup" which was modelled on a dungeon/Prison. We went to lookup the place but sadly it has moved elsewhere. No idea where.

We then, decided on this another theme restaurent called Arabian rock, which was based on Arabian nights.

Wonderful Sunday

Abhi has been working hard for past few weeks working on a company product and working with Mr. Robert Thau, helping with an opensource project of his company. This Saturday we decided to crash and slept all day.

Woke up at 10 a.m. in the morning and decided to make a trip to Ueno Park today. I was virtually pulled out of my bed, and Abhi made me tea as always he does on weekends and I can never ever thank him enough for doing that, or else i would have missed out on what turned out to be one of the most memorable and beautiful day:)

Last week we had been fighting on petty issues like "Who is going to clean , why are you always busy, What does your computer has that I don't???:))" I am so glad Abhi is very intelligent not to answer the last question ..hehe but basically we were missing being HAPPY ... Same old monotonous routine and work, we badly needed a break!!

On the street we live there is a huge Sakura tree and i really cannot decide what is more beautiful, Flower on the tree or the petals flying everywhere:) The moment we stepped out, we were speechless, our camera was in action ...and i started what I love doing the MOST, be the model for my hubby's camera :D We collected the petals from the ground, and starting showering it on each other like 5 year olds...But if You know us then You know that its nothing unusual :P esp when we are together :)

Ueno park is just 2 mins walk from the station and you could feel the festival the moment you reach that place, There were sooo many people, everyone happy , everyone craning there necks, posing for the camera to get the best shot of them with the beauty around. People were having picnics under the Sakura tree , having a merry time,eating, drinking, with there families and friends and We were feeling so lucky holding each others hand, walking down the lane with Sakura all around. When we grow old , we are going to think about this day and feel so blessed :)
Ummmm....Before i get tooo senti ...hehe ...Lets talk about food :D because it was SOOOO yummy, had Amazing yakitori , fried chicken and something like a muglai parantha :D Japanese style :D

We spent most of the evening just strolling in the park taking pictures and then we went to local market near the station,which had the feel of almost an Indian market, Like Gafar market or Palika bazaar but chotto takai ne unlike the Indian version :D

We were tired by now and thought should do a bit of shopping and should return home and relax and watch a movie, but i didn't know that God actually planned very exciting evening for us ;) and it wasn't the end Yet!!!

In the train back home , a very Unusual and Amazing thing happened, unusual because Japanese people hardly ever come and talk to strangers on train and Amazing because we met and made some reaaally awesome friends :)

There was Sang-san smiling at us :) ....and asking "Hey are u Indians"(He is also from India) ....and it started a whole series of fortunate events :D We had noticed a huge International young crowd boarding up the train and we were feeling a bit jealous ...hehe ... Since we don't know Japanese yet its really difficult to make friends and sooo difficult to get to know people who can speak English. But we didn't know that we were soon to be part and would be having dinner with them soon :).

Everyone in the group is from Jesus Lifehouse International Church, and different nationalities, Australian , NewZealand, Koreans , Indian ...and many more and in a second we were talking to everyone and when they offered that we could join them for dinner, Abhi just couldn't resist and promptly said yes !:D and we walked to sizzlers and had a most apptetizing dinner, for once we were talking our hearts out , everyone was really nice and soo friendly, we never felt like we had just met them :)It was simply wonderful:) We were talking about everything from culture to expenses ...and it was sooo much fun that we are looking forward to it again !!:)

I know Lord Shiva looks after us ..and gives us the best , hehe but now i feel even Jesus thinks that way , we sure are blessed :)

Isn't it ? ;)

Here are some pics from the Party. Okay a lot of pics actually :

Dave and the Gang!

Sunena and Renee(hope we spelled that right)

Sunena with Simone and Mika... Friends in minutes :)

Sang and Simone

If you want to see the rest of the pics, please go here : http://community.webshots.com/album/549279077TSBdDi

Thank you Tommy!!!!

First a message to a very special person : Hey you know this is the coolest gift we got so far !!..sorry for being so informal , Abhishek talks about you soo much..I feel I know you just as much as he does !
OOOoops!!( *reminding myself* I am NOT writing a email!)

Hi everyone!!...and thank you for being here :) This is Sunena and I am making my first post and I am so excited that I have forgotten to give introductions completely ...well anyways doesnt matter ...its nice to be a little unpredictable and leave a little suspense (Dont you worry , I am NOT trying to be a suspense novelist...so please don't panic).

The special person above is Tommy Giles, who is a friend of Abhishek and they have this cool connection and I have this terrible urge to eavedrop at their converstaions ...because they are plain funny !! and I was thanking giles because he presented us with this domain as a Christmas gift ! so thoughtful !! We always wanted to do this but but it never happened somehow ...

So Tommy thanks once again for this wonderful gift to share our lives with millions around the world !