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Changes!

2 months for a learning period at a hotel is pretty short term and I wanted to be able to learn as much as possible. So instead of sticking to bellhop and front reception I asked the GM if there was anything else I could do or at least try to do.

After some planning we decided that I’d get to participate in a few weddings and in an event held for children. I also got the chance to join some of the lessons they give to the new recruits and before going back to Finland I would GIVE English lessons to them in return. Oh and also some working in the western restaurant Rose and Japanese restaurant Yoshikawa. So exciting!

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The wedding concept at Mito Plaza Hotel

So Mito Plaza Hotel is a bridal hotel, meaning there are A LOT of weddings throughout the whole year. There is a total of almost 260 weddings per year at the hotel. The Japanese also love “maedori” (前取り）which is when the bride and groom have a photoshoot before their wedding, sometimes even 6 months in advance. It’s also traditional to have a “kaoawase” (顔合せ) , where the families of the bride and groom get together, give each other presents and get familiar with each other.

There are commonly two types of weddings, Japanese and Christian. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian (the state religion being Buddhism), but since western movies are a thing the Christian and western wedding concept has become quite popular in Japan. Mito Plaza Hotel has a chapel, so the western stylized weddings are held in either there or in the common area of Atrium Garden. There are two freelance priests that come to the hotel to do the bridal ceremony.

There is a Japanese wedding shrine inside the hotel that is commonly used, but some of the guests also want to use the actual shrine close to Kairakuen, the famous Tokugawa shrine.

The time schedule for a wedding is usually decided beforehand. The ceremony lasts approximately 30 minutes and the party after lasts precisely 2 hours and 30 minutes. In comparison a Finnish wedding ceremony could last from 30 minutes to 2 hours and the party could go on until midnight, meaning at least 6 hours of partying.

If you would like to know more about the bridal culture or concept at Mito Plaza Hotel, feel free to dm me about it!

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Dear Diary: 4月24日 Inbound training (+video)

Today I had 早番 (hayaban, ‘early shift’ or in other words, morning shift) as early as 6:20 am. The new employees had a training day and today their curriculum was all about the inbound, so it was I my job was to train them. GM helped but it was mainly me teaching them English and since it was their first time in the lobby I teached them English AND how to approach guests in the lobby, how to guide them to their breakfast table, how to make small talk and answer simple questions in English. None of them spoke English even intermediately, so they really depended on my examples and advices. They mainly watched me work and took notes when I gave them tips and made sure their pronunciation was correct.

Afterwards we all went to see the Taiwanese and Singaporean inbound off and I got to teach the newbies how to hold the national flag properly. We had a lot of fun and they were so enthusiastic and listened to me with so much adoration that I think I gained enough confidence to last me for the rest of my internship. I’ve always liked teaching and it’s even more fun when the trainees want to learn and ask a lot of questions.

We had review meeting with me, GM and the trainees and they all told us something they learned today. Here some of my favourites that made feel so proud of them:

It feels good to smile to the guests and see them returning your smile. Even though there is a language barrier, smiling is an international gesture.

I felt frustrated with myself for my inadequate English skills and am going to study more English to be able to communicate with people from different countries.

Facial expression and body language speaks more than any other language, so they’re like, important.

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Dear Diary: 4月22日

Inbound again! We made some adjustments with GM and decided to pay more attention to my Japanese learning than the fact that my English is immensely better than all of the other staff combined. In contrast with all of the other days, today morning my task was to practically ignore the foreign guests and focus all of my attention to the Japanese guests. GM even teached me some greetings and topics to use to initiate a conversation with the guests. 

First, I was to check their meal coupon for their name and if it was easy enough, use it to start a conversation. Here is how I approached the guests:

ご朝食でございますか？ ‘Go joushoku de gozaimasu ka?’ - You’re going for breakfast?’

ご案内いたします。’Go annai ita shimasu’ - I’ll show you the way / guide you there.

ご朝��権をあつかりいたします。’Go joushoku ken wo atsukari ita shimasu’ - I’ll collect the breakfast ticket.

・・・様、今日いい天気でございますね ‘Ms./Mr./Miss ・・・, it’s a nice weather today.’

昨日どちらかお出かけにされましたか？ ‘Sakijitsu dochira ka kankou wo saremashita ka?’ - Did you go sightseeing yesterday?

Today and yesterday were the last days for Nemophila in the Hitachi Seaside Park, so a lot of the guests went there yesterday or were planning on going there today, so it was a waterproof way of initiating conversation successfully.

At first I was a bit tired and afraid of making mistakes, but after several (and I mean SEVERAL) try and errors I got the hang of it and the rest of the morning went smoothly. A lot of the Japanese guests complimented my Japanese and an encounter with me clearly lifted their spirits.

Later I went to work in the restaurant Rose for the rest of the day.

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Dear diary: 4月19日!  Meal coupons and inbound travel

The Japanese use a word ‘hitori kotoba’ ( 一人言葉) to describe people who talk to themselves. Most of my coworkers always talk to themselves while working in the office, so it’s pretty common to call them out on it! They know they’re being loud and always get flustered when I mention it haha.

Today was a busy morning, since we had over 100 inbound guests from Taiwan. They were from 4 different travel companies, so they had different schedules and departure times.

Gonna do some explaining here! When guests check-in, they get meal coupons either by purchasing them separately or get them as addition according to the accommodation packages they’re using. These meal coupons give the guests free passage for breakfast. Usually there is a bellboy or a front desk worker by the elevator, who will show the way to the designated breakfast restaurant. In the restaurant, the guests can choose their breakfast from three different kinds of options: Japanese breakfast (washoku 和食), American style breakfast (yooshoku 洋食) or a healthy continental breakfast. The Western stylized restaurant Rose is the main restaurant serving breakfast, but when there are a lot of guests, in addition the Japanese restaurant Yoshikawa serves breakfast. Yoshikawa serves only washoku though.

Ok, back to the inbound and the coupons! The main color for the meal coupon is GREEN. But in case we get inbound guests, the game gets a little bit trickier! The front reception adds different colors to the coupons it gives out, so it’s easier for everyone to tell the guests apart and ensure they’re eating with their group and a breakfast they specifically ordered. Today we had green, yellow, pink and purple coupons. Guests with purple and yellow coupons had their breakfast in Yoshikawa, pink coupons went to the Plaza Cafe, and lastly all of the green coupons went to Rose. The Japanese guests staying at the hotel also have green coupons, so the Taiwan inbound had an another additional coupon with a picture of their designated breakfast.

After the breakfast all the inbound guests took some photos with us (especially me haha) and then left with their buses to do some sightseeing etc. I was assigned to stay at the front reception until 12pm. One of my coworkers was training a new trainee and while I listened to her explanations I decided I wanted to make a post on how to read the hotel’s daily schedules. Gonna post that later with photos!

At 12pm I left with GM to Tsukuba to join a meeting with three other hotel’s general managers. They were from Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba, Kashima Central Hotel and Keisei Hotel. The meeting was about breaking cooperation with Keisei Hotel and just mainly general stuff about the hotel’s sales, bridals, inbounds etc. The meeting ended around 4pm and we were back in Mito a little after 5pm. Wrote this report so that means I had another 11 hour shift! Whew!!

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Dear diary: 4月17日

Here some notes I wrote after work on 17th of April!

Today I started my shift at 6:45 am and participated in guiding the inbound Hawaiian and Taiwan guests for the breakfast. Compared to the Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese and Korean guests, the Hawaiian guests were early birds. And I mean EARLY, since most of the guests usually come to the breakfast one by one during a span of 2 hours. But the Hawaiians were patiently waiting behind the restaurant’s doors 15 minutes before the restaurant even opened!! There were 35 of them, and since their seats were decided beforehand, we needed a lot of staff to guide them to their seats. Since I was the only one speaking English, I did most of the guiding. I helped the restaurant staff with taking their orders and delivering the food to the tables. When all was dealt with, I headed back to the elevators to tended to the Taiwanese guests and helped the Chinese-Japanese translator Ri-san. 

We also stood outside the main entrance and waved to the inbound groups when they left. Me and a restaurant staff member, Uno-san held the Taiwanese flag and took some pictures with the guests.

Next I was stationed by the main entrance and the elevators and greeted the Japanese guests. Today the hotel served as a place for the memorial of the Tokugawa family’s passed family member. All of the guests were wearing black and it was of utmost importance to remember not to smile too widely while greeting the guests. It was a sad day for them we had to respect that. The Tokugawa family in Mito are the descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a Japanese ruler (shogun) who united the country in 1600 and shut down the borders. Other nations (except for English and Dutch trade) were out of the picture until the end of Edo period in late 1800′s.

After the memorial started I headed to the restaurant to help the staff with the lunch rush. Today was a quiet day and there weren’t too many customers, so I ended up doing some cleaning, setting tables and chatting with the staff. After 1 hour I headed back to the entrance to guide and greet the guests of today’s next baquet, Ibaraki Prefecture management quality (経営品質 keiei hinshitsu) discussion (協議 kyougi)

After that my day was finished.

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Inbound inbound inbound! (+video)

So first some vocabulary! There are three kinds of tourisms: inbound, outbound and domestic. In Japan’s case inbound tourism is when international tourists come to Japan, outbound is when Japanese people go abroad for leisure and domestic tourism is Japanese people traveling inside Japan. Got it?

So spring and autumn are Japan’s high tourism seasons mainly because of cherry blossoms and autumn colors. The weather is also doable since Japanese summer tends to be very hot and thanks to the four seasons winter is pretty boring. During spring Mito Plaza hotel has its peak with inbound guests and there are several travel and tour companies coming to the hotel every day. There is always at least one group of at least 20 people staying at the hotel, but at the highest we had 7 different groups and the total amount of inbound tourists was as high as 180 people. But 2-3 groups per day with 20-30 people is pretty normal.

The peak is mainly during April, since nationally April is the cherry blossom season.

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Hospitality - おもてなし/omotenashi

The GM at Mito Plaza Hotel values omotenashi a lot, so be sure to memorize it!

The main thing to keep in mind in the hotel business is ‘omotenashi’, or hospitality. Customer service at Mito Plaza hotel is about service and hospitality, and it’s important to remember that one does not equal the other. Service is something that is ‘atarimae’, obvious and should be considered as mandatory. Hospitality is one step beyond that. Instead of executing standard customer service, hospitality makes extra effort to ensure customer satisfaction.

The English word ‘hospitality’ is derived from the Latin hospes, meaning "host", "guest", or "stranger". Historically in ancient cultures hospitality involved welcoming the stranger and offering him food, shelter, and safety. I could search for more cool meanings, but I guess that covers enough background for such an important word.

In a hotel hospitality is about reading the guests needs and answering to them before the guest even gets the chance to ask for anything. In Japan it’s all about opening doors for the guests, carrying their bags, putting surprise gifts in their rooms, remembering their birthdays and even playing with their kids.

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Front reception and Bellhop!

According to my learning agreement I’m supposed to be working at the front reception and bell. Even though I have pretty decent knowledge on Japanese language, it’s still not enough to be able to fully work as a receptionist at Mito Plaza Hotel. So basically the things I get to do at the ‘furonto’ are sorting out the room keys, putting the bills and reservation confirmations in order and making sure the area surrounding the reception is clean and tidy. That’s about it. I sometimes spend some time behind the front reception, at the office and study Japanese language. My coworkers are super eager to help me every chance they get.

I work front reception during the morning and after eating lunch at the cafeteria, my location changes to working at the bellhop. The bell opens front entrance and elevator doors, helps the guests with their luggage, performs room service and postal service, communicates with the shuttle bus and taxi drivers, manages guest car parking and helps the guests with checking in and out. My tasks are a little bit simpler. I join the bell boys (or girls since all the staff working at the bell are girls) when they do deliveries and check ins/outs. I’m also easy on the eye at the bellhop so I basically just stand there and smile at the guests. Oh and of course surprise them by talking to them in Japanese haha.

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The wedding consulting office.

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The flower shop (花屋 hanaya) Patio sells flowers and flower arrangements for various purposes. 

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Mito Plaza Hotel - Restaurants !!

Mito Plaza Hotel has three restaurants, a cake shop, a souvenir shop, a flower shop and a wedding clothing store. The western restaurant (洋食 chooshoku) is called Rose, the Japanese restaurant (和食 washoku) is called Yoshikawa and the third restaurant is a Chinese (中華料理 chuukaryori) one called Szechwan. 

Restaurant Rose also has a separate room for Teppanyaki (鉄板焼) called Jin. Teppanyaki grills are typically propane-heated flat surface grills and are widely used to cook food in front of guests at restaurants.

The restaurants have reasonable prices and the food quality is excellent. Most of the customers visiting the restaurants are local people and only a few of the hotel guests actually visit the restaurants for lunch or dinner. 

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Mito Plaza Hotel - General information

The hotel has 85 guestrooms in total. There are 68 twin rooms, 6 single rooms, 6 double rooms, 2 twin rooms with outside Jacuzzi, 2 junior suites and 1 plaza suite. The guestrooms are in the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors. There is also a relaxation lounge in the 3rd floor, where the guests can enjoy free drinks. read newspapers or even watch TV.

The check-out time at the hotel is by 11:00 am and the check-in starts at 3:00 pm. The hotel provides room service and laundry service for the guests.

The main attractions for Mito Plaza Hotel are weddings, conferences, banquets and exhibitions. The hotel has three big banquet rooms than can be divided into smaller banquet sections. There are smaller banquet halls for smaller groups,  two Japanese stylized banquet rooms and a Japanese wedding shrine. Outside of the hotel is a rectangular chapel for western stylized weddings.

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Mito Plaza Hotel and Leopalace21

The head of the Human Resources Office in Mito Plaza Hotel had made arrangements for an apartment for me for the 2 months I was going to spend interning at the hotel. We went with the general manager Mr. Hashimoto (GM from now on) and the front desk worker to finish the paperwork for my apartment at Leopalace21, pay the deposit for the 2 month stay and to get an internet connection for my apartment. It was a lot of difficult Japanese for my brain that had just stayed awake for 24 hours haha. 

Afterwards we went to see Mito Plaza Hotel. As a custom I would spend the first night in the hotel guest room and move in to my apartment the next day. In a way it was good chance to get familiar with the level of the hotel, learn the layout of a double room and just RELAX. After resting for 30 mins I headed to the western restaurant, restaurant Rose for my welcome party. 

The next day I ate Japanese breakfast (和食 washoku) with GM and afterwards checked out of my room and joined the office’s morning meeting. I was NERVOUS since I had to use my immaculate Japanese in front of all these people who’d be working with me and training me for the next two months. The office was also mainly filled with higher ups haha.

After that we went with GM and Miss Kugenuma to buy me a suit! I was supposed to borrow one from the hotel, but my 180cm height turned out to be way too tall for them and there was simply no clothes for me. GM ended up buying me a suit, pants, two shirts and a pair of shoes. The suit store, Aoyama even gifted me a snoopy shopping bag after the purchase, since according to them, I was ‘cute’.

Next we went to my apartment to get me settled in. It was the first time after coming to Japan that I was left to my own devices and I happily unloaded my suitcase and turned in for the day. My on-the-job-training was going to start the next morning at 8am!!

I’m going to make yet another post to go into more detail about my apartment!

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Departure and Arrival - The story begins!

What I’d first like to make clear is that how nervous I was of going to Japan. My appetite was as good as gone a week prior and I couldn’t eat anything on the plane, since I felt like it would all come up right away. I’m not a comfort zone person and get bored pretty quickly, but this was the first time ever I was THIS nervous of travelling. It was weird, since I’ve traveled in Japan by myself at the age of 19 and was doing just fine. I guess the most I was nervous with was my language skills, since I hadn’t used Japanese for years and now I was supposed to work and live with it??

My flight company was JAL, so all of the movies and music were either in Japanese or had Japanese subtitles. The flight attendants were also all Japanese. There was also a mom with her small baby sitting next to me. Fantastic.

The flight took almost 10 hours. The thing is, when you’re travelling from Finland to Japan, you lose a lot of time. The flight takes 10 hours yes, but the time difference between Finland and Japan is 7 hours. That makes a total of 17 hours difference between your departure time in Finland and arrival in Japan! After arriving to Narita airport I had to find my way to Mito Plaza Hotel. A friend of mine helped me to find alternative ways with different prices. The cheapest way to Mito would cost the least but it would also take almost 3 hours, hence the fastest way would take only one and half hours. I had no prior ways of contacting the hotel staff of my arrival time, so I figured the fastest way would be best, since they probably knew my flight schedule and would expect me to take the fastest route. 

So a train from the airport to Ueno, and then another train all the way to Mito!

At the Mito station I met the general manager of the hotel, Mr. Hashimoto Norihiko and a front desk worker, Ms. Kugenuma Nagisa.

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As my first informative post, I’d like to start from the beginning, meaning the country. 

Enter: JAPAN 

Japan consist of 4 different islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. Honshu is the main island and it has all the good parts, like Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and the city I’m interning in, Mito. The main language is Japanese and and majority of the population doesn’t speak English. English language is mandatory in schools, but they start studying it in 5th grade and the lectures are mainly focused on grammar and memorizing sentences, instead of vocabulary or practical speaking. Starting next year (2019) the English lectures will be started at 3rd grade to ensure English language skills for future generations.

Mito is the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture. Ibaraki Prefecture is the northeastern part of the Kanto region, and it is between Tochigi Prefecture and the Pacific Ocean. It shares a border with Fukushima Prefecture in the north and Chiba Prefecture in the south. The total population of Ibaraki Prefecture is almost 3 million and the area is 6 000 km2, resulting in a density of 476 people per km2.

Compared to Finland’s density of 16 people per km2 the difference is quite noticeable!! Still, when compared to Japan’s BIG CITIES, like Tokyo for example, Ibaraki and especially Mito are tremendously small. Tokyo’s population of almost 14 million people is spread in the area of barely 2 000 km2, meaning the population density is as tight as approximately 6 300 people per km2

Densities this high require a lot of order and discipline. Japanese are very 厳しい (kibishii), meaning ‘strict’. For instance talking on your phone in the train is prohibited (禁止 kinshi)  and eating and drinking while walking is also widely frowned upon (よく無い yoku nai).

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こんにちわ！Hello !

So it’s been already 4 weeks since I started my internship in Mito Plaza Hotel in Mito, Ibaraki. For a while I’ve been wondering what to write about in this blog. What would my readers wanna know the most? Are the people checking out this blog more interested in my internship or in me and my story, or maybe in the differences of the Finnish and Japanese culture? Or maybe just interested in Japan in general? For all that I know the only reader I have is the next Fin, who is aiming to go to Japan as the next intern of Hanako project. And by the way if that’s YOU then hello friend! You’ve come to the right place and if you’re still thinking whether you should or shouldn’t apply for Hanako, just DO IT. If you’re a little bit nervous or afraid or unsure whether moving to a foreign country for 2 months an living by yourself in an environment where practically no one speaks English language, DO IT. Get out of your comfort zone and enter the void. In Japanese, the verb 成長する (seichou suru) means ‘to grow up’ and the Japanese tend to say that you should always keep on growing and improving yourself and your skills, no matter what. Here a Japanese proverb: 為せば成る なせばなる (Naseba naru) その気になってがんばりさえすれば、できないことはないということ。 [Trans:]  Where there is will, there is a way It is said that there is nothing that you can’t do, just as long as you are interested in it.