Whats up chat we’re back. So this week I went to Hakone and this weekend I flew to OKINAWA!

But before I dive into Okinawa, we have to begin with the start of the week, and the end of BUSI 220…

BUSI 220

This week we had a design challenge involving 3rd places. We had to create a prototype that brought people to experience the feeling of being in someone else’s 3rd place. Working with my team was quite enjoyable, we all had diverse perspectives so when brainstorming and finding solutions it was exciting to hear what came to their minds. My team was quite introverted, so I had to step up to grab the reins a bit. I felt like I was dominating the conversation, and I think it may have come off that way, but I was just trying to lead my team. In the future, I’d like to experiment with different ways of integrating others into the project besides just me doing more work.

The design abilities we learned I thought were a useful tool to add to my kit for future endeavors in engineering and entrepreneurship. I liked the analogy that Hesam used–comparing these skills to notes in music. In the future when I encounter obstacles I’ll definitely refer back to these notes to get myself unstuck. I especially liked when we went out into nature and looked towards it to generate ideas instead of waiting for them to come to us. Additionally, I liked the concept of observations and inferences about our environment. I think my ability to infer things has been suppressed since as an engineer you’re always looking for the one correct answer. But stepping away from that and looking at it with the perspective of design was very freeing. Lastly, I enjoyed gained interview skills when talking to people. Specifically learning how to ask open-ended questions. This was difficult for me to grasp, I guess asking concrete questions was just embedded in my nature.

I think Tokyo–or Japan as a whole–is fantastic for investigating magnificent engineering marvels. Just a couple days ago, I went to the driving range with Richard and look at this amazing golf ball placer:

There are so many “overengineered” things in Japan that you just encounter in random places. I think there’s a lot more diversity in engineering design compared to America where there’s one agreed upon design that’s slightly changed from company to company. Every time I walk into a bathroom it’s a puzzle because every. single. one. is different.

I thrived during this last week when we built the product. I love being hands-on, it’s like I enter a flow state and completely forget time. Same with being at the OEDK. However, I struggled integrating other people into the process. I’m quite cynical and distrusting towards others, I think that they won’t complete as good a job as I will so I just take on all the work. I’ve probably been traumatized from past group projects in school. But my team this time around this definitely wasn’t the case and they helped me begin to overcome my distrust.

I think if I were to take only one thing from this course, it would have to be the importance of punctuality and the prevalence of sacrifice. I started slipping up, waking up later and later and showing up to class less and less early. Eventually, I was late to class and was rightfully reprimanded. But from this I built up more care for the class and others and it helped to build my discipline. Moving on, because class was always from 10 am to 3 pm, we had a limited amount of time outside of class to do what we wanted to do. This requires extensive planning if you want to do anything in Japan as most things close quite early. So having this class helped develop my research and planning skills.

 

OUTSIDE OF CLASS

 

Ok now we can get to the fun stuff. Let’s start with last weekend. I went to Hakone and on the train ride there, look what I saw:

Unfortunately, throughout the entire trip it was cloudy. But that is Mt. Fuji!! Hiking is closed until the middle of July :(, otherwise I would’ve hiked it.

Hakone was awesome. In my morning haze, I didn’t bring any cash with me, so traversing with limited money on my Suica card and a credit card was quite stressful but exciting. I went to one of the best hot springs in Japan (couldn’t take any pictures obviously) and it was a nice way to end the day after managing every travelling expense and making sure I could get back to Shinjuku and not have to walk 40 kilometers.

I also visited the art museum, a shrine, a waterfall (in the middle of nowhere that I had to hike through mud for an hour to get to and I couldn’t even get within 20 meters of it), and try out the specific sweets they make there (IT WAS VERY DELICIOUS, HIGHLY RECOMMEND).

Now what we’ve all been waiting for: OKINAWA. I decided to make this trip a couple weeks ago as I wanted to make the most out of my weekends. Initially it was going to be Hokkaido but I couldn’t stand being cold any longer, I wanted heat, humidity, and the ocean. It was a 3 hour flight and I had a terrible, terrible headache but thanks to the flight attendant who noticed me in pain, she gave me some Japanese medicine that worked like a CHARM. I wish I asked what the brand was, it was two mysterious white pills. idk.

After I landed, I looked at transportation. I thought Okinawa was going to be small, but it is a VERY large island with outstanding American influence (ie. limited public transportation). So I rented a bike for my travels. I got lost, found an abandoned school, went to a grocery store, and found some gentrified apartment buildings. I then went to a castle that unfortunately burned down in 2019 so they were rebuilding it.

Oh I also went to their fish market. It was packed with tons of things I didn’t know existed. I tried out Okinawan beef (because cow tastes better when land is scarce) and this bright blue fish:

I want to preface that I hate seafood. I don’t like the taste, texture, anything about it. But OH MY DAYS this was absolutely delicious. There was no fishy flavor, it just tasted amazing. Fresh fish is drastically different. Highly recommend.

Then I saw this kid at the park washing his computer with the public fountain?? Me and his dad were laughing together because I was just dumbfounded at this sight.

Then with only one hour before my flight, instead of going to the airport (like a wise person would’ve done), I had to go to this Chinese garden. Wow it was beautiful. Definitely worth it.

 

 

With very little time remaining, I darted to the bike rental place, hailed a taxi and got to the airport SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE THEY CLOSE. If I missed this flight, I miss the next class, dropping my grade a letter and I have to pay an exorbitant amount for a flight. NOT A GOOD IDEA. But I must say I don’t regret it.

Okinawa was fantastic. I would dive into more detail, but the flight has me quite sleep deprived. I slept in a capsule hotel and this guy’s alarm woke everybody up and he didn’t turn it off for an hour straight.

Stay tuned, because next week WE GO TO KYOTO AND OSAKA!!!!