The Japanese working day is ridiculously long compared to that in the west. The traditional nine to five working day is fairly unheard of and instead there is a ten till nine  day or something like that. Thats not to say that they do any more work than us but they have a culture whereby they feel the need to stay in the office until their boss has called it a day. This is also for fear of upsetting their colleagues and thus uspetting the social harmony of the office but i don’t agree with that in the workplace. It’s far more fun and usual to gloat to co-workers about your impending holidays or days off or whatever.

Luckily I work for a British company so don’t have to follow such stupid rules but yesterday I did get a taster of what such a long working day is like. I had to teach another Spring school kids lesson special between 10am and noon which was a small and very likeable group which I enjoyed very much and passed by fairly quickly. After that I had my regular schedule from 1 pm which also included lots of new kids classes as April brought about a new school year. Having arrived in the school at 9:30 am it was 9 pm by the time I left for a few cheeky pints.