Hey all, okay yesterday we were dubbed “American Pit Crew” for the removal and replacement of the robots covers! Today we were dubbed “Professionals” for the repair of the covers. And let me tell you it’s not as easy as it seems!!!!!! If fact it is a royal pain in the ass!!! But we did well; we learned all kinds of new techniques today! We also started the mechanical maintenance portion of the robot. That started with oiling, polishing, and verifying that the trumpet works… (I think they had a couple trumpets that just needed to be cleaned LOL) … then we actually moved to the robot! That was fun as hell. Our instructor totally fucked one set of the covers up, then handed them to me and said “repair”. It took me about 20 minutes, but when I was done he said “You Professional Now! You Good Job!” it was funny as hell, especially since he only knows about 15 words in English. It’s all good though, he’s a great guy! Afterwards we went to the bar for dinner (at the hotel), and had a few drinks.
One of the things I haven’t mentioned is that there only about 3 or 4 people who understand English (very limited at that) in the department we are training in. And at breaks and lunch I go into the smoking lounge, and only 2 of the 3-4 people smoke, so it’s like playing 20 questions and trying to figure out what everyone wants to know. We are getting better at communicating w/o speaking though. Everyone is curious about us, wanting to know hobbies, about family, about America, etc., and conveying these ideas takes some creativity and effort when there is know one to translate. Sometimes they are shy to ask what a word or phrase means, and they will talk and laugh about it in Japanese, teasing the one who is shy! It’s a riot!
Okay well it’s a weekday so not much to tell. We are going out to a bar (outside of the hotel) tomorrow with some of the guys, so I should have an interesting blog tomorrow, and some good pics!
Later Gators,
-Fred Jr.
