B-day-Easter-Hanami (picnic)

After party

Champagne

Gavin and Masako

Simon and Nathalie

Gavin and Konen

Hanami

Yoyogi Koen



Amy and Taka

Amy and Sarah

Cheese

The view to the sky from our tarp.

Yum yum





the fountain in Yoyogi Koen (park)

Easter Weekend

We went to Shimbashi, the SALARYMAN district, where all men in black suits drink after work. After walking around we went to a German Music bar/restaurant, sort of mini cabaret with opera and musical, that had been recommended to me by a student. Unfortunately the bar closed at the end of March, but about 10 singers had a small party, they invited us in and treated us like royalty, they sang beautifully and had us join in for some German songs. Masa sang a Time to Say Goodbye with the others and they had me sing some Shumann. Haha. They showered us with bread to take home and other small gifts, Loewenbrau towels and t-shirt haha.

Then we took the train home and went to a tiny local international bar that was playing dance music: ABBA and Love Generation etc. We had a blast, everyone was dancing, it felt like a cozy home party everyone introduced themselves, very fun.

Saturday I worked 8 lessons back to back a little crazy but all good. In the evening we went to our friend Hiroshi's party in this new building, Architectural Body http://www.architectural-body.com, very Fung Shui and cool, 14 different colors all kinds of angles, more later. The people were mostly in their 40s and BU, MIT, Tufts or Harvard alums. We had some very good conversations and they were very accepting and interested despite me being the only foreigner and half their age.

Hanami time is here ...

Can't get enough of Meguro River, probably one of the most if not the most beautiful cherry blossom viewing spots in Tokyo

Free Cycling around the Outer Gardens of the Imperial Palace

Kabuki-za last performance in March, the building will be torn down in April.

Roppongi Art Nuit Blanche

The big white thing

The white bubble people dancing

rainbow silks

a big monster/robot

the beauty of nature and human advancement

Crazy about SAKURA in Shinjuku Gyoen

Rachel and Masa in front of Tokyo's empire state building

Not sure if these are plum or cherry but I am pretty sure they are plum, because they bloomed much earlier than the cherry trees which are gorgeous now.

Masa and I attempted going to the St. Patti's Day parade, but only caught the tail end of it, because we got caught up visiting some parks and scouting out locations for my Birthday-Easter-Hanami (picnic)


Sunset in early March from our balcony

My routine breakfast, minus the strawberries. I love reading the New Yorker and drinking green tea, occasionally green tea lattes a la Argo.

Thank you for all the cards and more!

Some early cherry blossoms.

My little Bonsai from the kit, thanks Hannah C.

General update:

• We have had a few minor earthquakes which scare me just the same, especially the one on the February 17^th in the am, I woke up to the bed shaking. March 13th the whole building was shaking at night.
• Rice field art. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1198381/Bizarre-spectacle-giant-crop-murals-covering-rice-fields-Japan.html Thank you Hannah W.
• I had my first two chance meetings this month, I met a coworker at Starbucks in a different neighborhood from where we work and two friends from Suffolk in my neighborhood after work a couple of Fridays ago.
• A few points about the Japanese culture which I discussed on the phone in detail with my aunt: WW2 is completely hushed up, it also seems difficult to admit trivial mistakes, I am finding the culture of not questioning and blaming others a little challenging.
• One of the biggest surprises when I arrived in Japan was that people don't walk their dogs, they put them in dog strollers. Just google "dog strollers" for an image.
• I finally figured out why the unemployment rate is so low in Japan. In places where in Germany and the US you would have one person working, Japan has 10 workers, for example at a construction site to direct traffic.

A month later: lectures, job and first visitor

Hama-rikyu Garden - spring is almost in the air

I went to an interesting mini symposium at Temple University Japan a couple weeks ago. Good place to meet all kinds of international people: a Hungarian Embassy diplomat, an Irish guy who works at an Italian bank, still haven't figured out what he is permanently doing here, a young Japanese man from the foreign ministry who knew about all sorts of other interesting events and a woman who works with the US-Japan POW association. In the meantime, after numerous interviews, I signed a contract with GABA, teaching one-to-one English. The school is right near our house. The students are supposed to speak at least 70% of the time, which perfect for me. I am here to soak up the Japanese culture and get tips on places to visit and I am getting paid to do so. My schedule is very flexible and the staff and students are really friendly.


Our first visitor, Rich was here for the past whirlwind week. Last Friday we went to Shibuya and Ometosando in the morning, in the evening we went to Kareokee, a bar with lots of foreigners in Roppongi, salsa and ended the night at Masa’s favorite Ramen place at 2:30am. Here is a recent NY Times article on Ramen places in Tokyo:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/travel/31ramen.html?nl=travel&emc=tda1 Thanks Jess! Saturday I had my on my on-the-job training and the guys went to Asukusa. We had dinner at the place where they Quentin Tarantino was inspired for the Kill Bill movies: http://www.gonpachi.jp/en/casual/home/index The guys went out, I unfortunately forgot my key, but didn’t realize until I was almost home so I had to go to the club to pick up when of their keys.









On Tuesday we went to Tsukiji market (the world’s largest fish market) at 6am. To get the full experience, you have to go at that time! Pictures can definitely say more than words. http://www.tsukiji-market.or.jp/tukiji_e.htm

One of the mornings last week we took the train to Shinjuku and were looking for the Tokyo Metropolitan Building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metropolitan_Government_Building with a free observatory on the 45th floor and the Park Hyatt http://tokyo.park.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp where Lost in Translation was filmed. Now imagine, two Americans walking around Tokyo, one struggling to learn Japanese, the other looking kind of Japanese. An old man kindly approached us and offered to help, as soon as he realized Rich only looked Japanese and is actually American the old man hurried off.

Yesterday, Rich and I walked down to the Meguro train station to find the Pork cutlet restaurant. We stood in front of four restaurants with a map, which Masa had printed for us. We tried to match the Kanji, but none of them matched, then phone numbers. Finally we asked an elderly woman about 5’1 who was smoking a cigarette in front of what I thought was the most likely restaurant. Q: Sumimasen, dokoni restaurant desuka? (Excuse me where is this restaurant – in very broken Japanese) A: Koko (here) Apparently the Japanese was sufficient for her to understand. The dinner was delicious: pork cutlets, shredded lettuce, rice and some pickled veggies.

Hama-rikyu Garden