Ten days ago, the whole Roppongi neighborhood was transformed by the Roppongi art night: pictures On Sunday, I went on a walking tour of the Imperial palace: pictures Check out the other shared albums too!
Last weekend, I also went to a monthly Salsa dance event, apparently the biggest in Japan. It was a lot of fun! The level was quite high, but it was beginner friendly too. The dresses were quite interesting in general, and there were performances, some of which were closer to cabaret/burlesque than Salsa. I'll try to take pictures discreetly next time. :) Another show was Colombian/Cali Salsa, a type of Salsa with crazy footwork and lots of aerials. It was very impressive!
This entry was posted on Tue, 2012-04-03 - 15:40
Last weekend, I finally made it to the park in Hiroo. I was lucky, the last two Sunday mornings were sunny, so I spent a long time there. We don't get many sunny afternoons, often clouds start coming in after midday. The park is beautiful! I posted some pictures on Google+. Plum trees were in full bloom last week, and other flowers started appearing this week. But no Sakuracherry blossoms yet.
This entry was posted on Tue, 2012-04-03 - 15:08
There was a storm outside this evening, with lots of rain and wind. The Japanese warning system seems to work well, a lot of companies and schools closed early and sent the people home in the afternoon. I also got a warning email from Sakura House. Now, many trains are delayed, some aren't running at all, and all flights are canceled. I'm glad to be at home! And this gives me time for some long due blog posts.
This entry was posted on Tue, 2012-04-03 - 13:00
I'm back in Tokyo, and it looks like I beat spring to it. It's raining and cold, and I can't see any green and flowers. But it will come soon, I'm sure. The cherry blossoms are forecast for in two weeks! Looking forward to the beauty and the party.
This entry was posted on Sat, 2012-03-24 - 11:31
I'm not in Tokyo at the moment, I'm visiting Mountain View for two weeks and will then go to Pittsburgh, to dance with all my friends at Steel City Blues! It's very exciting to be in the States again, I have to say that I really like the Bay area. Plus we had gorgeous weather last week. It's a bit sad that I'm missing the beginning of spring in Japan, but I'll be back soon enough.
This entry was posted on Mon, 2012-03-12 - 03:36
The weekend is over already and there's no time left for a real blog post. But I finally got around to posting some pictures on Google+. Please register on https://plus.google.com/, add me to your circles and I will start sharing the pictures with you! E-mail me if you have questions/problems.
This entry was posted on Sun, 2012-02-26 - 17:34
There is a lot to do around Tokyo, and Google offers a lot of activities too. I finally got my bank account and my alien registration card sorted out, and started buying stuff for my room. I haven't cooked here yet because of awesome free Google food, but I've met some interesting people at this guest house. And the agency offered a Sushi workshop on Saturday, pictures will follow.
This entry was posted on Sun, 2012-02-19 - 10:01
A new chapter in my life has just begun! On Monday I arrived in Tokyo, where I'll be living and working for the next six months, doing another internship with Google. I'm only starting next week, so this week I have time to walk through the city, register at the ward office and the Swiss embassy, open a bank account etc. First impression: Tokyo is awesome!!!
This entry was posted on Wed, 2012-02-01 - 09:20
Buggy is awesome!!! I got to roll three times last weekend and four times this weekend, now I know how the game goes. First, I get up at 4:30 (and yes, this is what my weekends will look like from now on!), eat a yogurt and walk to CMU. There, the drivers get into their buggies and do the drop testSounds dangerous! - They don't actually drop us from the air, they just let us go on a downhill slope, to test the brakes every morning before rolls. We get rolled back to our headquarters, which is in the Atrium of a building, so we're actually inside. Other organizations only have a tent...
This entry was posted on Mon, 2010-09-27 - 01:32
Hey everybody! Life has been really busy and I'm sorry I didn't get around to posting earlier. This morning was the Pittsburgh Great Race, and I ran 10km! It was awesome, perfect cool weather, water stops whenever I needed them, and a great atmosphere. This year, there were 14'000 participantsTeilnehmer, so it was really a huge thing. And I'm so proud of myself, I ran all the way, didn't have to walk or stop at all! Well, to be fair, I have to admit that there are more downhill parts than uphill, with a total difference in altitude of 150m. But it's still 10k!
This entry was posted on Mon, 2010-09-27 - 00:10
The trip was really great! We traveled by greyhound buses, and it's quite strange. Apparently they sell way too many tickets, so there were about 20 people after us that couldn't get on the 2a.m. bus and had to wait for the 6a.m. connection! Luckily we knew we had to be there ahead of time, so we spent about 2.5 hours in the bus station. The drive was nice, I slept well with my neck pillow, warm cover, eye cover and my ohropax ear plugs.
This entry was posted on Tue, 2010-09-07 - 18:00
My life is awesome, but I'm really tired, so this is going to be a short post. First: I'm going to be a buggy driver! Second: We're going to Washington DC next weekend!
This entry was posted on Sun, 2010-08-29 - 04:14
My first week here is already over! On the first two days we had information sessions and immigration check in. During the breaks, we were taken very good care of by the International Student Union and met many other Exchange Students. We started organizing ourselves and spent most of the week together, we're a group of maybe 20 people from all over the world, it's really great!
This entry was posted on Tue, 2010-08-24 - 04:15
Our apartment is really cool and quite big. It's a bit old though and very dirty, we'll have to clean everything. Mostly the kitchen is in quite a bad state, with random food everywhere. But then, I arrived one week before the classes start, so we thought we'd have time to clean everything. Now it's Saturday and we only did half of the kitchen (but the worse half). We'll see!
This entry was posted on Sat, 2010-08-21 - 19:58
On Thursday, we went to Pittsburgh Downtown and took the Duquesne Incline to go to the Hill opposite the City Center, giving us a nice view of the Pittsburgh skyline. We walked along the crest and took the Monogahela Incline back down.
This entry was posted on Fri, 2010-08-20 - 20:08
I arrived at 2pm14:00 in Pittsburgh, with a time zone difference of six hours. Once outside the airport, it was really hot, about 30°C and still heating up. Compared to the cold airplane and cool airport it was quite a shock. So I was pretty happy to get on an air-conditioned cab, and 50$ later I was at our apartment!
This entry was posted on Fri, 2010-08-20 - 20:07
To make it short: it was cancelled. When we arrived at Zurich airport, we saw that the plane to New York wasn't going to fly, apparently they had some technical problems. So we waited for 5 hours to be rebooked, fortunately my dear family and boyfriend were there to keep me company and provide moral support. We spent the time reading and playing Jass.
This entry was posted on Tue, 2010-08-17 - 23:24 and is filed under .
