Things I love about living in Japan

At lunch today, I found out a couple awesome things about life at a Japanese company. There are certain things about life in Asia that you have to love because they only exist in Asia and certain things, only in Japan:

- we get the entire last week of December off as a holiday! This is a major boondoggle as I had thought I only got 20 vacation days + 15 national holidays - this adds 4 more days to that count!

- at last year's Christmas party, all the first year female associates were required (ahem, highly encouraged) to wear their high school uniforms. Why? Because...this is Japan. And so they did. (in the US that would so be a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen).

- also at last year's Christmas party, several teams put on various skits "requiring" many of the men to dress up in drag, or wear spandex, etc. Why? Because...this is Japan.

- most Christmas parties by Japanese companies are strictly for employees only - no spouses or dates allowed. Why? Because that would make it really awkward for the executives who have a wife, a mistress and a secretary (work mistress) and have to decide which one to bring. So they self-impose an "employees-only" policy so they can tell their wives and regular mistresses that they're not allowed to bring them.

- every morning my secretary comes into my office before I arrive and organizes the files on my desk, takes my timesheet from the previous day, sharpens my pencils and handwashes my dirty coffee mug.

- all of the toilets in our office come with "flushing" melodies that you play while you are using the bathroom so that other people in the bathroom don't have to hear you tinkle and everyone uses them. At first I resisted because I felt like I didn't have to be ashamed of peeing, but now I play it as well because...well because this is Japan.

- lunch specials in Tokyo are almost always the magic price of 1000 yen (about $10). Usually this includes a tiny soup, tiny salad, rice and main dish, tea or coffee and a tiny dessert. It's the perfect sized lunch at the perfect price. Even super high end restaurants where dinner is $100+ will have lunch versions of their meals available for around 1000 yen. Some restaurants have "one-coin" specials for the first 20 people for 500 yen (about $5...yes, $5 in Japan is a coin that is a little bigger than a quarter).

- Japan is full of milk-flavored products: milk flavored ice cream, milk flavored popsicles, milk flavored pudding, milk flavored candy. Which is awesome because I LOVE MILK. Milk flavored popsicles are delicious - like a stick of frozen condensed milk.

- in Japan, the convenience store, called "com-bi-nee" is truly convenient. Not only can you get snacks and drinks and random sundries, it's also where you go to pay your phone, utility or health insurance bill, buy concert tickets, use an ATM or pick up your Amazon delivery.