Updating...

I'm ok. Just too busy to write normal posts. Busy work week (I'm really happy about this), some social events last weekend and in the beginning of this week, and some visitors at home.

Furthermore, the small old laptop I bought for home appears to have some kind of spyware/virus, which is becoming more challenging than I expected... Try to deal with kind of problem with a japanese windows. :S

I hope you, dear readers, understand my temporary silence, which will finish in the beginning of the next week, as this weekend I am going to Kyoto for some sightseeing. :)

I have a couple of things to show and tell you... I'll be back soon.

Gonpachi

If you have seen the film "Kill Bill", you will probably recognize this location. It is a restaurant called Gonpachi, which inspired Quentin Tarantino as scenario for some of the scenes. I haven't seen the film yet, but the place impressed me very much.

Don't cross

How many lines of defence can you see?

Why is it always like this...

... bad weather during the weekend.



Ready to get wet!

Clouds

Yukata

Two nice japanese with the traditional yukata (summer kimono) posing for the gaijin photographer.



It's really common in summer to see women wearing these beautiful dresses, especially during the weekends. Also men wear their yukatas in the weekends, but in a quite lower number.

Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri

One of the most important festivals in Tokyo take place around 15th August. One of the main attractions is this parade were people carry these statues and the rest throw water to them. The pity of this year's festival was the weather. It rained the whole weekend, so throwing water when it's raining it's not that funny.



By the way, don't ask me what all this event is really about, because I have no idea... For me it was like the Semana Santa, but in summer and a bit more abstract...

Churros

In the same market as in a previous post, I also found a stand where they sell since 1988...


Churros!! The same shape, the same ingredients... the same name!


It's a pity that he did not speak anything but Japanese. It would have been interesting to ask where the name came from.

Popular Market

When I went to the fireworks, I found out some kind of market where you could find many things to eat while looking at the fireworks. Here you have some of the things you could buy there:

...yakisoba...


...corn...


...squid...


...and the dessert, bananas covered with chocolate with different colours...

Morning

I live this everyday and I still do not get used to the silence in the morning and everything in order: no race, no shout, no one speaking by phone, talking... not even praying... Nothing. Just calm, order and introspection: newspapers, books, nap, english course,... And, of course: one after the other.

Akihabara: 1st Edition

Where would you start a visit to Tokyo? Exactly, anywhere but in the electronic quarter... Where did I start? Yes, you are right... Akihabara, the area where you can find all kind of shops with all kind of electronic devices. You can find there:

...sirens... (quite a niche market)


...a pink stand with a pink laptop... (and probably they do sell it)



...and of course, a superhero...


...and friends...

Metro

One of the fears I had at the beginning was the infography in the metro. Someone told me everything was written with Japanese characters...


Fortunately, the situation has changed, and now you can always read names of stations you can understand...


I love the flash on the labels... ;(

Tokyo does not sleep

Last friday was my first night out in Tokyo. It started with a dinner of a new dish I had not tried before: okonomiyaki, which is something similar to a tortilla (ok, this similarity might not be clear for other eyes...), with different vegetables in it.

After that, we went to a karaoke, Japan's national entertainment. This was quite fun, but I will elaborate more on the karaoke concept some other time, because the idea we have in Europe of a karaoke is quite different from the japanese style.

After karaoke (around 4.00 am), my party colleagues went to a disco, but I preferred waiting for the first train (5.00) to go home. So, what could I do? I went to a place called Don Quijote (I might be wrong with the spelling, but it's how it sounds, and it is a well known brand in Tokyo), which is a sort of department store where you can find almost everything at a good price, and bought a futon for my forecast guests. Yes, after 4.00 am.

I think we can include without problems Tokyo in the list of cities in the world who do not sleep, together with New York and Benidorm. :P Tell me in which other place you can buy a mattress at 4.30 am without moving from the pub area.

By the way, just imagine me carrying the mattrasse back home in the metro... I was even photographed...

Sushi

Many people think, Japanese eat sushi every day, but it is not like that, and it is even difficult to find places with good sushi. Today, I found one on my way home, and I decided to buy some for dinner...



... and just for 9 euros. Not expensive at all, right?

Afterwork

Last week, we had an afterwork dinner some of the people who are in the project. It was in the japanese way: a place close to the office, with lots of food and drinks, and a way to talk with your colleagues in a different environment.

According to what I had read, people in this kind of events normally speak more about work, but in an informal way. But, in this case, we talked about work (of course), but also about other stuff, like similarities and differences about cultures, languages, companies, etc.

Very interesting experience, apart from being an excellent teambuilding activity, always needed when starting, and a new oportunity to taste exquisite food and try the famous sake.

By the way, in the restaurant we went, I faced something a colleague from Spain told me.., Going to the toilet, and find these two doors:



Which one would you choose? My colleague told me: "you'll have to wait until someone else enters, so you know which is for you"... He was right: I didn't wait and I chose wrongly the first time.

Summer Festival

Or at least, that's what I think it was what I found last thursday when I arrived to my station. The "main square" full of people dancing like this:



After 10 minutes of looking and listening to this music, I came back home whistling this... I will try to get the MP3. ;)

Fuji-san

Interesting experience. I had heard about it, as a must for long-term stays in Japan/Tokyo including summer: climb Mount Fuji and observe the sunrise from there... together with 10000 more people. What??? I thought we were climbing a mountain... 10000 people hiking up? Two ideas came to my mind at this point: either the figure is an exageration or it is not that hard... I was completely wrong. 10000 people is a good figure for that kilometric queue hiking towards the summit during the night... and it was not that easy.

We had to climb from 2305 m to 3776 m. So, around 1500 m, quite a lot. At the beginning, everything is ok, not many people, wide paths, and softer slopes... But, after a while, the paths are thinner, the people who were waiting in the different stations join the way up, the oxygen reduces (and you do notice the difference), and the sunrise is closer. Not everybody reaches the summit before the sunrise, but it is quite ok if you are already around 3500 m as we were.





The worst part was after the sunrise, when everybody who had stopped decided to go up at the same time. It took us a couple of hours to reach the summit, but we did it. And, after eating something up there (good business) and taking a look to the crater of the volcan, time to go down, which was even harder than ascending... At the end, 30 hours without sleeping, and the proud to have reached the ceiling of Japan... and this is just the beginning. I still have more than 5 months left here. :-)


Any way, I agree with the japanese. It's a once-in-a-life experience. There will be no second time, that's for sure. ;)

7 days and growing

Today is my 7th day in Tokyo, and the balance is positive so far. I have adapted to the daily life faster as I expected. In the late years I have escaped from my previous problems with "strange" or "new" food, and therefore I am also doing well in that sense here.

And, of course, I have already been working here for one week. I guess I am really going to like this assignment, where I will be in more operative tasks than in the previous ones, and in a very interesting mix of nationalities (Japanese, Swedes and Australians are the main groups, but there are also some Chinese, Hungarian or Spaniard).

In that sense, after reading a lot about Japanese culture, and its application into the work, it is completely true that every country has its particularities regarding work, but some big multinationals as mine, make you feel at home anywhere in the world. Ok, here it seems the work days are longer than in other parts of the globe, but apart from that, the culture is the same. I guess I would be much more shocked if I worked for NEC or any other pure Japanese company.

And tomorrow is time for Mount Fuji. Yes, we are going to climb the highest mountain in Japan, which is pretty close to Tokyo, and it is a tradition to climb it in summer, during the night, in order to see the sunrise (if you are lucky and it's not cloudy or rainy or...). I will probably tell you more about this some time next week.