This week I returned from an intellectually stimulating, culturally fascinating 11-day research trip through Japan.  (Thanks again to Foreign Press Center Japan for awarding me this very generous reporting fellowship to examine in depth the topic of my choice, with invaluable assistance from a translator and a meeting scheduler!)  I will blog about the trip later.  In the meantime, I just have to share this one photo (out of the 1,080 that I shot).

I walked by this ramen restaurant in Osaka, en route from the Instant Ramen Museum to a train station.   If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I would have stopped to eat dinner here simply because the slogan made me smile.  (Now that’s powerful marketing!)  Instead, I had just enough time to snap a picture.

This slogan reminds me of my Storytelling Team at Yahoo!.  We’re all so happy to work with each other.  And we tell each other that.  A lot.  =)

And on Monday, we’re going to be even happier because it’ll be the first day of work for our two new hires!  Hopefully seeing us so happy about their arrival will make them feel even happier, too.  I certainly, unexpectedly stepped into that self-perpetuating cycle of good cheer when I arrived at Yahoo! five months ago.  And, somewhat surprisingly, that new-hire giddiness keeps going… for the whole team.  In fact, on Thursday, my boss was enthusiastically recounting how excited they were when they saw my resume, and how my teammate exclaimed to my boss after our first phone interview that “she’s perfect! we found her!” and … and that’s when someone in a nearby cubicle asked us to keep the noise down.  (That’s what happens when marketing folks stand in the financial-operations aisle!)

When you work on such a happy and appreciative team, it feels less like work and more like fun.  =)