Bjarne Tellmann's life is, as usual, significantly more fascinating than mine... Bjarne writes: "We are now happily settled in Tokyo after moving in July/August from Athens. Tokyo is a fantastic place in which to live! One of the greatest features is the restaurant/food scene: all (virtually without exception) excellent. Tokyo has the highest restaurant density on Earth, with over 164,000 restaurants in Tokyo, as compared to only ca. 20,000 in each of NY and London and about 13,000 in Paris. In other respects Tokyo is also a consumer paradise. It is also (which was surprising to me) a walking city, so you can get virtually everywhere with the (excellent) subway system or by foot. For a city of 33 million people (if you include the Kanto plain), this place is amazingly harmonious and well organized. Housing is surprisingly good - very modern and large and right smack in the center of one of the best parts of town. The building we live in is virtually exclusively inhabited by expats from all over with kids, which is great for Mia and Liv (as well as Alessandra). My commute, door to door, is 7 minutes. Alessandra is happy and taking time off from work to spend with the kids. Mia (now 4) is going to the Montessori School nursery and seems to be very settled. Liv (now 1) is still at home but I think she is soon ready for her first foray into a nursery environment, even if only for a few hours per week. People here in Japan are very polite and very hard working. I am trying to study Japanese but so far there has been little time to really dive in. The culture is of course very different but, strangely, it doesn't take very long to settle in. The expat community is very large and consists mostly of people who we have a lot in common with. You kind of just slip right in without too many adjustment issues.
"Work is great but demanding. It started with being mercilessly required to sing karaoke in front of the top 45 managers of Coca-Cola Japan on my first day. Talk about an ice breaker! If there is any justice I think it hurt them more than it hurt me. We sang "Don't Worry Be Happy" which has been now billed as the Legal Department's new motto! I wear two hats in my new role on the Coca-Cola Company side of things: in Japan, I am the General Counsel. Given that Japan is the most important market for Coke outside North America, it is a role with a lot of pressure and visibility but I have a great team and I am getting up to speed quickly. One great aspect of the new role is that I am on the Management Committee, which gives me a broader level of managerial and commercial exposure beyond just being on the legal side. I also wear a second hat in which I keep my toe in the bottling waters as Assistant General Counsel for Bottling Investments. In that role, I manage legal affairs for Coke's directly held bottling investments across Asia-Pacific, including China, The Philippines and Singapore. I am also responsible for various global functional areas on the bottling side, including competition law, where I am currently managing projects in both the EU and China.
"On the fun side, I have been taking martial arts classes but, after careful contemplation, I actually settled on Krav Maga, the Israeli style I took while I was in Vienna, rather than on a traditional Japanese style. Talk about a globalized world! The Israeli-trained Japanese fighters are tough as nails - lots of Samurai spirit against one haggard old Viking!
"I also attended my first Sumo tournament with colleagues the other night, which was very interesting. Instead of nuts, we munched on sushi, yakitori sticks, seaweed crackers, dried and salted scallop sinews and beer. Not sure how popular those snacks would be at a Giants game but it was actually quite nice (though I did have a bit of a stomach ache when I got home)! On the less fun side, we survived our first typhoon in September, the epicenter of which went directly over Tokyo. Quite a night. Next morning we met with a team of Japanese Coke bottlers: after a suicidal drive on the highway in 100 mile an hour gusts, we arrived: all of them had lined themselves up the stairs in uniforms, with headbands with Japanese written on them, shouting salutations - "Ohaio Gozaimasu!!". They had made posters of our President and the GM for Tokyo and pasted them on the walls and doors. Also a bit different from a typical meeting in Europe or the US! All in all, we could get used to Asia. It really brings you into its orbit!"
