3,2,1, Action!

Tonight, I and my good friend, Kaori went to see the annual perfomance by Tiempo. Tiempo is a Latin culture center where has Spanish, Protuguese language, flamenco, Argentina tango, salsa, guitar, and art classes. They also has a spanish restaurant and a dance floor. Every Saturday night, the dance floor is filled with those who like to dance salsa!!!

The show was going on with a story of girl's dream that she wants to be a movie actress. So the movie director leads her to the art, dance, and music world showing the all activity of Tiempo. (It quite works well, not only as an artistic performance but also as an introduction of their activity at Tiempo!) In the finale, everybody including back yard staffs went up to the stage in applause. I was surprised the numbers of ppl who belong to this group of Tiempo!!! and they are all amateurs but it was really fantastic show.

These latino atomosphere and activity, actually reflects on some other festival in my town. It is called "Isla de Salsa". This salsa dance festival is hold in the end of August in a small island for two days every year. This is hot and cool festival at beach side. My friends and I had a great time there last year! Can't wait for this coming summer!

Hot Stuff!

Tonight I went to the chinese restaurant "HINABE-JO" "Fire Pot Castle" to celebrate on my friend's birthday. Why did we go to such a place for birthday party??? It was actually her request. She said "I need hot stuff"!!! All right...

As the restaurant's name says, the most of dishes are very spicy and hot. Look at this, incredible amount of hot chilipeppers! Once you eat it, your tongue and throat gets burning and your sweat gland tissues get to start working very hard! We needed to drink beers a lot!


Look at their smiles! Now you can imagine how much we enjoyed tonight! Sometimes we need spices in our life, don't you think so?

Local Music Live Scene

Basically I was grown up with classical music and when it comes to talk about music live, for me it's always unplugged. So I didn't like the sound through the amplifier so much.

Last year, I got a friend whose boy friend (G) was a singer of some music band, so I had a chance to go and see their live show. They are very experienced singer and guitarist and showed good perfomance. The most impressive thing was that their music was not somebody's copy but their original. Even they sometimes play other's songs, but they arranged it and played completely as their style.

Since then, I sometimes go and check some live shows in my town. They have various kind of music back ground, Rock, Soul, Blues, fusion, R&B and so on. I especially like acoustic style live show. And Early Believers (Basement) is such a place where I can feel an ideal music live.


Tonight, one of my favorite vocalists from New Zealand and G played and sang on the same stage. If I see the audience, it's easy to get to know about the musician's reputation. And in the audience, there were other local musicians who usually play there. They are all friends and come to listen to the others, talk, exchange their information, somtimes do business (EIGYO) or PR. and inspire themselves! I like this atomsphere. It also activates my music life and makes it more creative!

Daddy-Long-Legs

This photo was taken in a sunset time on a pitch after the football game on Sunday. The shadow reminds me of a childhood book, "Daddy-Long-Legs" by Jean Webster. This book is well known as the title with "ASHINAGA OJISAN" in Japan. The fact is that the name of "Daddy long-legs" is a kind of spider which has extremely long slender legs including Harvestman and the Japanese name is "ZATO MUSHI". But the Japanese title doesn't say anything about a spider at all!!! Anyway this shadow in this photo makes me look like having long legs, but not slender ones at all.

Spiderman

When I'm down, this makes me feel better.

http://freekeer.free.fr/spider.htm

Much ado about chocolates!

This year again, I was involved in this typical Japanese crooked event, St. Valentine's day in the office. I saw lots of chocolates on our professor's desk, which seems very expensive, even they are small! GODIVA, Pierre Marcolini, Jean-Paul Hevin and...... Those are given to him by my female collegues included me.

Unlike most other countries, where Valentine's Day is a time for lovers to exchange gifts, in Japan, the day of love is one where it has become customary for women to present chocolate to men they have affection for. Even those for whom the women have no particular feelings for do not miss out, though. They sometimes receive giri-choco, or duty chocolate, which the women hand over through a sense of duty. Yeah it's very commercialized but we have to admid that it's almost one of our culture.

Men do not usually give presents to women on Valentine's Day in Japan. Instead, they are supposed to return the goodwill shown to them on Valentine's Day with a reciprocal gift given on March 14, or White Day.

In my office, as always, even I don't know when and who made this rule, these silly ideas and moods make female to give a chocolate to their boss or other male collegues. It may be a good time to show our feeling to thank to him or them by this. It's only just one time a year, you know. But nowadays, lots of high quality brand chocolates are popular and even among men. And it's surprising to see all one floor is filled with variety of chocolates in the department store of Japan since February starts. I guess some girls may spend much money easily in February! I won't be the one of them next year!!!

Kinko's

Recently I've finished writing my thesis and I was looking for a bookbinder shop. 'Cause I could print out papers by my computer and printer at home, and just only needed to have them bound. So I went to the nearest Kinko's in my town.

Kinko's provides such services; copy and printing, binding, making original cards, envelope, letter head, poster, personal photo calendar, high-speed Internet access and computer usage, digital photo printing and enlargements, enterprise-level document solutions, and so on.

I thought this shop was made in Japan, because of the name! It sounds like Japanese, isn't it? But it was not true. I was surprised to get to know their history!

"In September 1970, Paul Orfalea, just out of college, borrowed enough money to open his first photocopy shop in Isla Vista, the campus community of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Instead of calling it "Paul's Copies," he called it "Kinko's" after the nickname given to him by his college buddies because of his curly, reddish hair."
-What!? The name of Kinko's comes from his curly hair!

"The first store was located in the corner of a building that also housed a taco stand (which later proved advantageous when Paul cut a hole in the connecting wall, allowing him to order lunch without leaving the store)."
-Hahaha, that's good idea! It seems he already knew how to succeed in business at that time.

"Now, 30 years later, Kinko's has expanded to over 1,100 branches in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, China and Great Britain."
-Wow its a long and surprising history! That's why we have Kinko's here now!

Now I'm very satisfied with my thesis book bound by Kinko's, as quick and in cheap! Thanks!

Snowboarders' life

Basically I prefer to go to snowmountains alone or with a few friends taking with my own board and to enjoy snowboarding, the fantastic view from the mountain and quiet surrounding there pretty much.

This weekend, I joined to some ski tour group with 17 ppl who come from the US, the UK, Canada, AUS, and Japan. I didn't know most of them before I joined, but spending 48 hours with them together in every moment was enough to get to know some. Though some of them are too much funny, talkative, quiet, shy, and troublesome, everybody there seems so natural and open-minded. And more ppl gather, more we get problems or happenings. But they would be a fun if you can be a part of them and I enjoyed them.

We stayed at MINSHUKU which is a Japanese private guest house in some village and it was typical Japanese style and old. But OBACHANs there who took care of us were very nice and the atmosphere was good! We chatted with KOTATSU and sweet oranges and slept on TATAMI with FUTON. Breakfast at 6:30 am were rice, miso-soup, TAMAGOYAKI, YAKIZAKANA (baked fish), NORI and TSUKEMONO including TAKUAN and HAKUSAI!!! Amazing thing was that everybody ate those breakfast with smile, and nobody complained about typical heavy Japanese breakfast!!! Can you believe they ate YAKIZAKANA and NORI with rice as a starter of all day meal???

The weather was cloudy and snowing but snow at Mt.Mizuho was great condition this weekend. It was over 2m on top, almost snow powder and no pain even if we crush, drop and roll over. I guess we're very lucky to have this condition even in CHUGOKU area.

Thanks to Hawaian Matt who brought me to a crazy steep course which needs brave and challenging spirit! And thanks to Mee, Mika and Matt C. who organized this great tour!

Fantasista Nakamura!

I know some NAKAMURAs in my life, but my favorite NAKAMURA is definitely "SHUNSUKE" who's a football player in Reggina, Serie A now. He's a MF and has a golden left foot. Today there's a match vs North Korea in the first game of the final qualifying round for the 2006 World Cup at Saitama Stadium.

"Japan scored after four minutes, the home team failed to convert numerous first-half chances. The flow of the game turned in the second half after North Korea scored in the 61st minute. A draw seemed inevitable before substitute Masashi Oguro snatched victory for Japan by slotting in a 91st minute goal. The game looked set for a disappointing draw before substitute Oguro latched on to a lose ball and drilled it home to seal an emotional victory."

Well it tends to forcus on Oguro and his goal which is worthy of praise. Yes, it is actually. But I know the second half was changed since Nakamura turned up to play on pitch! His eyes and skills were fantastic! The game with bad mood was totally cleared by a creative and aggresive style of his play. Fantastico!!! I believe he was the key person on the victory tonight. He's going back to Italy this weekend and a match vs A.C. Milan is waiting for him next Monday. What a tough guy! Buona fortuna!

Rainy days and Mondays

"Hangin' around nothing to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down"

This is the song of Carpenters tuned in my head in such rainy days and Mondays. Today was not exceptional. I had started a blue Monday with this song since I woke up. Basically I like rain and rainy days, but going out in the rain by motor bike is not so nice. Especially it gets worse in winter!

Anyway I had to ride a motor bike to go to the office today. A 30 mins riding in the rain completely made me forget singing that song and I got so tired and exhausted when I came to work!!! However, fortunately, my work was over earlier and went well on such a terrible day! On a way back to home, the rain has stopped and the sky was clear. There's a Japanese saying, "OWARI YOKEREBA SUBETE YOSHI", means all's well that ends well. For this reason, I cannot dislike this song and it never gets me down!

My new guitar!

I bought a guitar today! I'm sure this new instrument develops my music field more!

Welcome to "La Vita e' Bella"!

Recently I've just done my big project, so now's a good time for me to reflesh myself! Hope this blog works it.