Nakano report, Canadian Embassy.

I had some Extra time after going to renew my passport today and went to Nakano, Spoke to a cute nekomimi maid for an hour, in Japanese, not sure how I accomplished that, and then raided Nakano Broadway.

Interestingly, there's a new Mandarake shop.
It's not really interesting though, but the entrance looks super cool.

It's kind of like the 4th floor old toy museum, this one is kind of a museum for old plastic model kit.

I found a goldmine of nice ToAru stuff in one of the Mandarake, and that super cute Asuka's figure.
I haven't bought an Evangelion figure in a long time, but that one was too cute. And cheap...
Now I'll have to hunt down the Rei that goes with it.

And I'm adding 1 more Misaka Imouto to my strap/keychain collection.

I posted the collection yesterday on G+ but I'll post it here as well.

While I'm actually writing something on my blog, I guess I could talk about the Canadian embassy in Japan, since I had to go there today to renew my passport.
It's the second embassy I go to in my life, the first one being the Japanese embassy in Montreal.
The Canadian one in Tokyo is super huge compared to that little room in the middle of a big complex building in Montreal.
The Canadian Embassy is called Place Canada, and is a super huge building. I didn't visit any of it though, just went straight to the consulate place. Where I was told, I can only submit passport renewals in the mornings...
That's super stupid, fortunately, the girl let me submit it anyway, so all was fine in the end.
Passport renewal is super easy, hand the papers, pay, and wait 2 weeks (or so), no real hassle so that was fine.

Getting Glasses in Japan

Hello, Here's a little post about something that might interest you. This could be useful information for anyone wanting to live in Japan, or even just visiting, in case something happens to your glasses.
I was pretty nervous about getting new glasses in Japan.
The eye exam was the most stressful part because I though a miscommunication error during that exam could be really bad for my eyes.
I check a little on the internet, and a lot of people gave their own experience, all pretty positive, about getting glasses in Japan. And it was really that easy for me too.

I went to Jins in shinjuku station, because it was the easiest to access for me, and Jins was recommended a lot on other websites. The selection in that shop was a little small, but I think the other Jins should be bigger than this one.

Took me about 20 minutes to decided which frame I wanted, then I went to see them and told them which ones I wanted. They brought me to the eye exam space, and made me do the classic eye exam things immediately. Instead of reading letters you had to tell where the whole in a circle was located, for example think of "c" as a circle, so you would have to say "right", and the circle became smaller and smaller.
There was 0 waiting time, and the exam went smoothly. They also had English speaking staff on place.
I bought the Jins PC lens, which are more expensive (2000 yen per lens). I'll make a review on those soon, after trying them more.
They didn't have my lens on site, so I had to come back about a week later, which was the only small bad point about all this. Beside that everything was super easy, no stress at all, quick  and actually pretty cheap.

Lil Update

Hello everyone! here's just a little update, Nothing big happened yet, so I didn't post many thing. The first few weeks back were pretty much me settling back, and trying to find an apartment, then settling into said apartment.
You can see the pictures of the apartment here: apartment

As you can see it's quite bigger than what I had last time, and it's about the same price, though the other one came with a fridge and a bed and a desk, this one came empty. The main advantage is that it's a 2 minute walk from here to my workplace! That pretty much means I have now 2 extra hours per day since I don't have to commute anymore.

Getting an apartment suck in Japan btw (unless you use a company specialized with Gaijin). Japanese real-estate agency are fucking thieves. My appartment rent is ~68000 yen per month or so, that'S fine, but in order to be able to get it, I had to first pay the first 2 month (february was already halfway through so 1.5month) which is fine, then 1 month for deposit, that I should get back when I leave and 20000 yen for insurances. These are the normal fee that I accept to pay, and understand why they exist, the followings though, are where it gets ugly. 1 month "key money" which is pretty much just money you give to the owner of the place as a gift, 1month agency fee, same thing but for the agency you used to rent the place, 20000 cleaning fees for cleaning the room before I get there (oh btw when I'll leave I have to pay 30000 yen cleaning fee so they are charging everyone twice for cleaning, which mean the same cleaning is being paid twice), 15000 yen for changing the key (which in all reality should be like 2000 yen) + some other samll fees I don't remember.
So right now I'm living on a pretty low budget for a while.

Though I said nothing much happened, at least 2 things did happen that were pretty nice, I met a friend from Google+ in Akiba, I was able to see Tokyo covered with snow, which was pretty nice (pics here: Snow In Shimokitazawa) and I met a friend from Quebec I had not seen in like 12 years or so (since high school).
It's kinda weird, I haven't seen him for 12 year, and I meet him in Tokyo, to then learn his sister is actually one of my friend and he's also a friend of one of my Ex Gf... We were kinda close for a while without even noticing it, yet we had to be on the other side of the globe to meet again!

That's all for today!
Here's a little pic to help you through your day!

Picture of the March page of a calendar I ordered before leaving Japan

30 days challenges: food - Day 8: Gyuudon

Gyuudon is really simple, it's beef, with onions, served on rice, in a bowl.
If you're on a hurry, or a tight budget, it's the prefect meal in japan. There's shop specializing in Gyuudon everywhere, it's usually fast and really cheap. The closest one to my home is Matsuya (who calls their gyuudon; gyuumeshi) and it only cost 280円 for 1 bowl, and it comes with a miso soup too.

Day 8: Gyuudon:

Matsuya is one of the 3 biggest fast food chains specialized in gyuudon, the other 2 being Yoshinoya and Sukiya. I actually prefer Yoshinoya, but close to my house, and close to my workplace, there are only Matsuya.

Walking around Shin-Nakano

I wanted to post this a little while ago, but because it was more logical to talk about the Sakura during the Sakura period, I postponed this post until now.

It's not a really awesome post, it's just me walking around where I live in Japan. Up until now I had only visited north of where I live up to Nakano Broadway. So I decided to do the East and south East this time. I walked kinda randomly so I don't know how far I went so maybe I actually did the south-west too, but I'm not sure.

I tried to take as many pictures as I could, but somehow I feel really shy to take pictures when I'm not in a "touristic" spot...

There isn't anything great near Shin-Nakano, it's a pretty simple and quiet place.
There's a big river just south of my home and there are a lot of bridges to cross it.

Walking south I actually found a part of Tokyo Daigaku, I found a nice shrine, and a couple of shops. A park and a big road to the east, close to Shinjuku.
It was an interesting walk, but I don't know if I can really make you feel it with the pictures I took, but you can see them here: South East Of Shin Nakano

I don't really have any favourite shots this time sorry, so please tell me which ones you prefer!

Sakura

Right now Japan is really beautiful. The Sakura (Cherry tree) are blooming, and it's probably the most beautiful tree in the world, during this period... but this period doesn't last long. The Sakura stay in bloom for about a week and a half. this season was earlier than usual too so it took us by surprise, I think I missed the full bloom in Oume, but I still got to see a wonderful sight.

Apparently there was a lot of Sakura in Oume, that's what my friend told me, so we went there to see them. Beside the supposed lot of Sakura, there's also a museum of the Showa period in Oume, so before going to see the Sakura we went to see the museum... it was pretty boring, it's not really an interesting period for me... I guess... well it kinda felt like Fallout, but in japan... anyway you can see the pictures from the museum and Oume here: Oume

While Oume didn't have that many Sakura, there was still a bunch of them. You can see it at the end of the previous album, but here are some of what I think are my best shots

After walking for a while in Oume, I wasn't satisfied, I wanted to see more, and more beautiful Sakura. So we went to Ueno park. I have already been there twice in the past, but never during the Sakura season... and it was Beautiful! There was a lot of people as usual, and it was pretty much a matsuri for the Sakura. Unfortunately, my camera's battery dead when we got there, so I could only take pictures with Jiyu's camera.
I think the pictures can't really make you feel how beautiful it was, but it's still nice to look at them, you can see them here: Ueno Sakura
Here are my favourite shots from Ueno:

 

When I got back home after that, I went on Google+ and I saw this wonderful picture:

 

(you can see the original post here: Takashi Asao - Google+ - Sakura 2013 )
This picture was taken at the Hotel Chizanso Tokyo in Mejiro. So Jiyu and I went there the day after... This garden is fabulous! Unfortunately, my night photography skills sucks, and I don't have a stand, so Lot of my pictures were blurry, but I still managed to capture a few gems. You can see them all here: Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo
My favourite shots were these:

It's free for anyone to enter and see the Garden of the Hotel, you don't have to pay, or be staying at the Hotel. It's a really beautiful garden, and I'm sure it's still beautiful even when it's not the Sakura season.

That's it for today, I hope you enjoyed it.

What hapenned lately part 2/2

Like the last post, this post is a summary of what happened to me in Japan lately. Most of what you'll read here was previously published on G+. If you didn't read the last one yet, please read it here!

Poutine in Japan

Most play who say they sell poutine in Japan actually sell a very poor imitation of poutine. The gravy is awful, and often replaced with seir sauces, and the cheese is grated, and in very low quantity.
I found a place that's not so bad in Shimokitazawa, it's called Robson Fries. While it's still grated cheese, at least they put a decent amount of it, and their gravy is good... It's still not a real good poutine from Quebec, but they don't seem to have any fresh cheese around here so I think it's the best I'll ever find... I really miss Quebec's poutine!

Akihabara Again!

Of course I'll go to Akiba a lot, it's the main spot for Otaku after all!
But this time I didn't go for a fun purpose, I had something important to do, and I did it. That's all there was to it... but I spent a lot of time walking around until that thing was done. Akiba is still a great place to walk around, and you'll often see Itasha like this one while walking around:

Because I still don't have enough money to waste it carelessly, I didn't buy much, but I found an old album by Kimino-Museum, that I never though I'd be able to find, so I bought it. When I returned home I listened to it... it's fucking aweosme! Kimino-Museum are really the best. It's an album fro when Cherose was still around too so it's perfect... I'm still so sad that he left the bad :(
You can listen to a demo here: monologue ～交差する彼方の旋律～

View from my apartment's window

No real idea why, but I felt like taking pictures from my window. The weather was great, so I took a couple of shots, and this is the best one:

I really like it :)

Akihabara... Again! but this time, with friends!

So I went to Akihabara again, but this time with my 2 friends from  work (the same one I went to see the To Aru movie with). We walked around and visited a couple of shops.

I learned a lot more about each of them, especially the taste of the one on the left in the picture are really similar to mine.
We went to a maid cafe, both of them had never tried it, so I was the one guiding 2 Japanese Otaku in Akihabara. It wasn't my best maid cafe experience, but it was fun anyway. One of the maid was really cute and had a great smile. After leaving the maid cafe we visited a couple of shops, there was however a really b ad pollution cloud coming from china around on this day, and it was really bad outside with big gust of wind, so we enter a random shop and I was surprised to find portal related goods!

While it's really popular everywhere else, portal seem unknow to most people in japan, so I was really happy to see it.
After that we went to a Karaoke again, and finished the day while eating yakiniku at one of their house (guy to the right of the picture).
It was a really nice day. It's a little sad, the guy on the right can't really speak English, and I can't really speak Japanese, so we have hard time communicating. but we have similar taste, I really wish we could speak more.

That concludes part 2/2 of my summary.
Thanks for reading!

Normal life

This is the post that some of you may have been waiting for, and some of you may find boring, but here's the report about my everyday normal life in Japan, and how I'm getting used to it. This will cover most of the first 3-4 weeks that I've lived here, but not the last week, because it deserves it's own post. I'll separate this post into aspect of regular life, and how I've dealt with it.

Apartment: 

You can see some pictures of my apartment in a a previous post: "What happened since the start of my trip to Japan".
The thing is, the apartment is very small, especially compared to Quebec's ones. This is probably a regular small apartment in Japan, though I didn't see so much that I could judge about this. I'm used to have a lot of space, here I don't. It not so much problems except for the storing place. I almost have nothing, and there's not enough place for this. When I want to change the activity I'm doing I pretty much have to move everything; this include sleeping because my bed is usually where I put the stuff I'm not using.
The apartments here are also very badly isolated. So it's really cold, and electricity is expensive, so I can't use the AC that much.. not that it helps so much, it moves the cold air around by shooting hot air inside, but somehow it's really ineffective. so I'm pretty much always freezing... It's not so bad, people who know me knows that I hate heat more than I hate cold... but even I wish to return to a warm home after a cold day.
The bed is really small and it also seems kinda old... I still don't know if the bed is the cause of this, but it doesn't matter how much I sleep, I never really feel rested...
The bath is too small for me, it's just impossible, so all I can do is take showers... not that I usually take baths anyway. Even when taking a shower though, the bath still feels too small lol.

Neighbourhood:

As expected of Japanese neighbourhood, it's really calm, and clean. There's a bunch of convenience store everywhere. 3 groceries store a couple of restaurants and a ton of vending machines around too. Whatever the time is, you can find what you want close. I only walked around the northern part of the neighbourhood so far,  and I actually got lost in the south part too but didn't find anything interesting. I also didn't try every restaurants yet, but the Udon restaurant is really nice, more on this later.
You can see some pictures of the neighbourhood here: Shin Nakano Neighbourhood
Sorry I didn't take much =/
There isn't much to show anyway, it's pretty calm around here.
The only neighbour I spoke to is the one from the door in front of me, and it ha penned because she opened her door on me. Everyone's seems kinda nice though, especially the girl from the cigarette shop, but since I don't smoke I didn't have the opportunity to speak to her since the first time I asked her how to get to the station.

Food:

In the first couple of days, I didn't visit the streets north of the main street, so I though there wasn't a lot of restaurants around. I pretty much always went to the same  restaurant, a gyudon restaurant (bowl of rice with meat, pretty cheap) or bought food at the convenience store.I discovered 3 groceries stores around me, but since everything is written in Japanese it's pretty complicated to get what I need, except for basic stuff which is really easy to recognize. I also noticed that, if I wanted to make pretty much any food, I needed a rice cooker... So I bought one. I didn't have the opportunity to go do the groceries since then so I didn't cook much.
Eventually I went a little farther north and noticed that one street is full of restaurants. I ate curry, udon, sushi. The Udon shop was especially nice, it's a little restaurant where there's only a couple of seats around the chief. The lady who owns the shop is really nice. One night I went there, and I ate with a celebrity in Japan, Nakamura Shidou, a Kabuki performer, and a voice actor. He did the voice of Ryuk in the Death Note movies. It was a rather interesting experience, he was really nice and spoke with me and told me how he like to eat tempura. I can tell you that everyone from Quebec would find it way too salty, even I though it was a little too much.
One of the biggest problem I found in Japan, is that Pepsi is hard to find. Coke is everywhere, but Pepsi is kinda rare. You can find cans in some vending machines, but finding a big format in order to save some money is pretty hard. I finally found a place that has it last week, but it's a 25 minutes walk from here... I think it's worth the trouble though!

TV:

TV in Japan is awesome, games show are really interesting and funny, even if you don't understand; especially Downtown. I love those guys so much, they are hilarious, especially Matsumoto. I got a TV maybe 2 weeks after getting here, I'm also using it as a second screen for my PC. The ads are also pretty funny and wild.

Random:

In snowed in Tokyo like a week ago, you can see some pics of it here: Snow In Tokyo
I was happy about it, it made me feel home! Tokyo under the snow is interesting, but according to most people it happened once, it won't happen again!
Getting a cellphone when you have a short visa is hell.

That's it for now, if you have questions about something I forgot to talk about, or if you want to know more, don't hesitate to post a comment!

What hapenned since the start of my trip to Japan

Hello everyone, here comes the very late, first post of my life in Japan.
Like I said before, I had to deal with some personal drama before I could start posting again, it's not completely over, but I feel good enough to finally make an update on this life changing trip.

I'll start by going over the trip itself. I bought a bunch of DS games before I left so I could play them in the plane... unfortunately, while packing, I never found my charger again... so I couldn't play anything... but it wasn't that bad of a flight, since I was with Air Canada, I at least had a bunch of movies to choose from on their personal display thing. I watched a Jurassic Park again! I also watched The Expendables 2 (never saw the first one)... It's actually a really good action movie. Jean-Claude Van Damme was an awesome evil guy, and we got to see his ultimate kick twice!
Movies aside, during this trip we felt the worse turbulence I ever felt. It was kinda crazy, you felt that the plane had hard time staying straight. A girl was screaming behind me "OHHH NONNNNNNN!!! NONNNN!!!!" really increased the suspense lol. Pretty sure she was from Quebec, she had the Quebec way of screaming. The captain said "we're going through moderate turbulence"... so this was moderate? I really don't want to ever go through Heavy turbulence =/

We eventually ended up in one piece in Tokyo.

Spent the first night at the Tokyo Green Hotel Korakuen, a hotel just beside the Tokyo Dome, and the Tokyo Dome City's Love Illumination. Because Christmas here is about love, and couples... It's cute alright, but it was cold, I underestimated Japan's winter, I should have brought my winter coat with me. Oh well. I didn't take any picture, I should have, but I didn't. The only pictures I have are pictures from inside the room.

You can't really see much on these sorry.

The day after I was in a cheap little hotel, and spent the whole day sleeping. I bought a Melon Pan, but I ate like 3 pieces and threw it away... I used to love them but for some reason now I can't stand them.

On the third day I went to get my apartment. It's a small, poorly isolated apartment located in Nakano, near the shin-Nakano station. It take about 20-25 minutes of walk to get to the Nakano broadway. I though that there was nothing around but I can get pretty much anything I need by walking, there's even a McDonald (didn't go yet) lol. 

You can see pictures of my apartment and it's surroundings here: AppartmentShinNakano

After that I've tried to live a normal life here, I'll give more details on this in another post, and I'll also talk about comiket and other places I went since I got there. 

There will not be a french version of this.

No news about Japan

I'd really like to give you some news about Japan, but right now, all I see is black, I'm in the land I always wanted to be in, and everything is dark. I can't breathe, I can hardly eat, I really don't feel like writing anything about Japan here.

Worst timing

So I'm finally in Japan, and I feel like shit.
It's Christmas,  in Japan Christmas is the couples holiday, but I'm now officially not par of this group anymore.
I hope I can get over this shit soon or it's gonna be the worst period of my life.

Update on the apartment and job hunt.

I decided to go with an apartment, because the shared house are just too expensive for the difference in privacy and convenience. Unfortunately, I waiting too long after my first choice so it's already taken. After that I found another Interesting one, and really cheap too. So I quickly wrote to the guy to tell him I was reserving it, unfortunately, due to his slow answers, and probably to his colleagues faster answers, someone else got it first. Now I ust looking at all apartments again from scratch *sigh* It's boring and takes so much time. At least if I was there I could see them, feel the place, but doing it just from pictures and description isn't that convenient.

The job hunt however is going well. I'm at the second Interview now, so if I don't mess up I should secure it.

Visa Get!

Hi everyone!
I just came back from Montreal, and I got my Visa, so now there' nothing left but to way for the day I leave!

For those who may be wondering:
The process was painless, and overall I was more stressed than I should have been, it's been pretty easy.
The visa I got is the Working-holiday visa though, maximum I can stay with this is one year. If I want to stay longer after this I'll need to get a work visa, or immigrate, that's a whole different story though.

First part of my visa application process and new blog

Hello everyone! First thing, today I went to the Consulate General Of Japan at Montreal to deliver all the needed paperwork for my visa application. I was a really stressful week, getting all this together, not being sure if everything was alright. The process went well though, everyone was really nice.
So all went well and Now I'm waiting for my visa next week, until something goes wrong!
I'm still kinda nervous, can't wait to get it! then it'll only be a question of time before I'm in Japan.

In other news, I'm gonna split this blog in two and bring all the french posts into another blog. I'll post the address later when it's ready.

Big News!

Hello everyone! This is a really big news, well relativly big... it's a pretty big news to me anyway!
Many actually already know this, but I'm moving to Japan in December.
I'm going to stay there. Sleep, eat, work... live in Japan.
For how long? Well the easy answer is "at least 6 month" which is the time allowed with the "Working Holiday" visa's first period. It's extensible to 1 year, which I'll try to do. And by then I hope I will have find a way to get a real work visa or "another mean" of staying there.

This is a huge step and it is actually scary. I do know some japanese, but I'm not fluent. I'm going there with enought money to back me up for 6 month without a job though, so I'm pretty sure I'll be ok.

I'm nervous, there's less than 3 months before I go, I can't wait!

This blog will probably also be more active once I'm there, because I'll be really close to the doujin scene, and my interest in general. You'll all be able to follow my struggling to get used to the Japanese way of life!

Of course I'll miss my life here, especially my friends, but really I'm mostly always in my room on the internet anyway so it will not be that much of a change! hehe.

More pictures from Japan!

Feeling better today so here's the picture Nanae took while I was in Japan.
Pictures of Fuji-Q Highland
Pictures from Akihabara, Ikebukuro, Ginza and Shinbashi with Nanae and Aya
There's still a little pictures left, thos from BenPi from the last days. But overall that pretty much concludes anything about that trip...
Now it sure wont be my last blogging with pictures from Japan... There will be a lot more in 2013!

Last days in Tokyo, return to the Normal life

Sorry for the Silence, but I was enjoying time with my love, and I was kinda tired of writing.

Last day before My girlfriend got back in japan, we went to Asakusa, and finished our shopping in Akiba. I don't have the pictures yet, sorry.

So the day after, Nanae got in Japan, I met her in the morning, really really early, and spent a little time with her, then we met with BenPi. We went to Akiba, played some arcades, when to Shinjuku to pay for the bus trip for the day after, then went to Shibuya to see the huge crossing. We also had a taste of the Japanese Otaku culture, girl side, as Nanae showed us Otome Road, in Ikebukuro.

We finished that day In Ginza by meeting with one Of Nanae's friend.

The day after we went to Fuji-Q Highland, It's an amusement park near to mount Fuji. The reason I really wanted to go there is because that's the place where there is the life size Evangelion unit 1 head and entry plug. We took a couple of pics there, it's pretty nice. After that we did some roller coaster... Nanae went alone is the one that has the steepest drop in the world... it's actually reversed, and does a lot of loops, I don't like this kinds of things so much... it actually scare me a lot.
We also went to their haunted house, which is supposed to be very very scary.... well it was a little I guess... Nanae was terrified, but as for me... anyways, I mostly went there to see Nanae's reaction... sorry.

The day after I went alone to Nanae's house to met her mom.
For my future to be happy, It had to be a good meeting, and I think it went well.
After that we went to the Karaoke! 3 hours of Karaoke, it was interesting, but unfortunately, all Japanese songs have only kanji lyrics so BenPi could only do English song, as for me I was able to do just a couple of songs I knew enough, and very slow ones that I was able to follow (Atashi Marisa was easy to read). Nanae if course had no problem with this, since well, it's even easier if it's in Japanese for her, so she sang a couple of songs, and danced on the sofa there. I got some pics and videos that I will upload later.
After the Karaoke went around Akiba the 3 together.

Saturday we went to a cosplay event in some small amusement park close to Ikebukuro. It was my first time in a small cosplay event in Japan. This has nothing in common with anime conventions or Comiket. It's a little like the cosplay day at L'Imaginaire in Quebec, but without the shop. It was an interesting experience, I think I prefer Canada's cosplay event (conventions mostly) because people seem to have a tendency to speak more to each others. But according to Nanae, since the area was so big, and there was not so many people, it's usually not like this... well maybe I'll see next year. We took a couple of pictures of cosplays, we got the permission of everyone to post them on the Internet. except one, that I will not upload, obviously. The To Aru group and K-On group were really nice. The K-On groups gave us K-ON chips, no idea why, but Thanks!

After that we Went to eat sukiyaki, then we said bye to BenPi for the night, to spend one last night with my love before returning to Quebec.

Sunday we cleaned the apartment, then went to the airport, said Good-Bye to Nanae. Sad time, Some tears, then the FUCKING plane...
I hate planes, especially going to japan. 13 hours cramped in a seat built for midgets.
Then the customs in Detroit... I kinda hate the united states now, so fucking paranoid, and especially after leaving japan where everyone is always so kind and respectful, getting to see the stupid asshole face of the custom guy at Detroit got me in a bad mood for at least an Hour. I'll pick Air Canada for sure next time.

And now I'm back at my house. I miss My girlfriend, I miss Japan, I think my bed is way too fucking big, but at least it's a lot more comfortable than the one we had in japan.

That pretty much sums up everything. Pics will be posted later, and I'll probably update the old albums with better or modified pics later, I'll post about it I guess.

Thanks for following me, during my trip, my blog reached an average of like 40-80 person per day where there was a new post, peak being at 112. I'm really impressed.

Lucky Star City and the Tokyo Tower

So today we went to Washimiya, the city in which the shrine you can see in the opening of Lucky Star is. The city is proud of it and there's a lot of Lucky Star stuff everywhere.

It's my second time there. I didn't speak about it in my blog last time maybe, but last time I went, it was so fucking hot, like really really hot and humid, and I was really hungry, and unable to find a restaurant, and someone from a random shop helped me. So this time I went back and brought them a gift, Canada's maple syrup to thank them!
They we're happy, I'm not sure if they understood everything but it was funny.

Pics are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/109767154943043622747/albums/5742369968559643649

After coming back from there, we went to the Tokyo Tower, nothing much to say, it's a tower, I've been before, pics are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/109767154943043622747/albums/5742373172269968673

Flowering Night 2012!

Hello everyone, this post will be more like the usuall post from this blog used to be, it means it's about Doujin music!

Today was Flowering Night 2012, day 2! So there was 5 band playing today, Opening the show was, My favorite band, Kimino-Museum ( 君の美術館 ) They did a very good performance, even if Cherose was not there. They mainly did the song which only girls sing, except for the last song. Satoshi did a good job singing it, but of course it's not as good as with Cherose... whatever.

Next was Sound of Swing, which is a Jazz band. I don't really like Jazz, I don't like to listen to Jazz, but I can always enjoy seeing the Jazz musician playing, they are really skilled, and it was the case for SOS.

Next was Kairo, it's also the second time I saw them I think. Their signer is really weird, but she has a cute voice. Most band (read all except Kairo) loves to talk a LOT between songs in japan, but Kairo did just a non stop music performance, and this is also a band I like, and it was great.

The speaking the bands do between their song seems like something nice, a way to get close to their audience, but for us who don't understand Japanese so much, it's not so much interesting, but I understand this practice.

After Kairo was 岸田教団&THE明星ロケッツ (KISIDA KYODAN & THE AKEBOSI ROCKETS)
I didn't recognize this bad at first, because the name was in kanji, but it was clearly the most popular band there.  (when I came back home I went to their website and noticed I knew them and actually bought their last CD at M3). Good performance, but I don't like how their signer act on stage. She however has a good voice and the rest of the band has a really good stage presence. There was a mush pit beside me... but a Japanese mush pit can't move me so it stopped at me.

The final band was TaNaBaTa, Good performance too, I especially liked their version of cirno's song when he asked the crowd to sing "chiruno, chiruno, chiruno" while waving their towel it was a 'Refreshing' moment, in this very hot and smelly concert hall.

After this there was an encore, 1 song by TaNaBaTa, and then all the bands got on the stage for the final thanks.

It was a really good show overall, my only 2 disappointing moments were that Cherose was not there, and that, when fi-fy was just beside me I couldn't speak to her because of my lack of Japanese skills.

Back to Akiba

So we're back from our week in the west. The last 2 days were spent in Osaka and Kyoto.
In Osaka we walked around DenDen Town a little, unfortunately we were too early, and everything was closed, we waited a little to visit some shops then left to Kyoto. While there we spent a lot of money on a stupid UFO catcher... "this one will be easy" ... sigh.
For those who don'T know, DenDen Town is like Osaka's Akihabara, but a lot less impressive.

Once in Kyoto, we went to the Kinkakuji (Golden pavillion) it's a really beautiful building, we took a lot of picture. After that we went to eat at Gyuzen, my favorite restaurant from my last trip to Japan, we eat shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, it was delicious.

After that we went back to the hotel, were there was a live performance from a Western concert flute player.

The day after we went to the Nijo castle, that I visited last time, but it's worth seeing it again, especially since BenPi had never seen it. After that we went to see a maiko dance in Gion. After that we took the shinkansen back to Tokyo.

Tonight is flowering night, Woohoo!

The pics from the west will be uploaded soon, there is a lot so it's long to sort.

Version francaise plus tard.