Playing bowling with colleagues | 與同事打保齡球

In my last trip to Japan, I attended our Japan team‘s new fiscal year’s kick-off meeting. The meeting was held at Shinagawa. After the meeting of first day, all the participants joined a team building activity - bowling game.

上次出差到日本其實是為了出席日本團隊的新財政年度啟動大會。這一次是在品川舉行的。在第一日的會議完結之後，所有人都出席了團隊建設活動 : 打保齡球。

We moved to an indoor bowling center located in a hotel near the Shinagawa Aqua Park, which was only 15 mins walk from where we held our meeting.

我們從會議場地走到附近的一家酒店的保齡球場。這裏就在品川水族館隔壁。

After we arrived, we had to find a pair of bowling shoes that fit ourselves and got changed. Then we selected a bowling ball with weight that were suitable to us. I had no idea about what was best for myself as I didn‘t have much bowling experiences, I just picked a 12 pounds ball because I felt that it was the best weight for me (without any reasons to back up this decision).

到達之後當然要換過一雙適合自己的保齡球鞋。接下來就是選擇保齡球了。雖然我沒有經驗，我還是決定用12磅重的保齡球(我亦沒有任何理據支持這決定的，只是隨心而為)。

We were divided into 6 teams of 3~4 players. Each team occupied one lane. After setting up the system, we had about 15 minutes for practicing.

我們以三或四人為一組的分為六組。每組有自己一條球道。將資料輸入系統之後，我們還有大約十五分鐘練習時間。

We started first of the two games of that night. Since we had different no. of players per team, and of course due to different skill levels of us, the teams finished first game at different times with quite a big gap. So those finished early had to wait for long time before second game.

當晚我們共打兩局。因為每組人數不同，加上大家的技術參差，第一組和最後一組完成第一局的時間有頗大的距離。早完成的人要等上好一段時間才能開始第二局。

Without surprise, I ended up at the last place because that was my first bowling game ever. That's OK as it was just a causal team building game and we all had fun!

不出所料，我包尾完成，因為這是我第一次真正打保齡球。始終是團隊建設活動，最重要的還是大家都有一個愉快的晚上，成績並不重要。

My biggest surprise was my Japanese colleagues were warm enough to prepare a consolation prize for the player at last place, who was myself! When I realized that at our team dinner, I was so happy (but also a bit embarrassing) about that! And that also complete the great team building night!