Joël and Tea!

Finally home and I could meet Joël and Tea (my nephew and niece). They have grown a lot! Joël is now almost 3 and Tea (in the picture) just a little over a year.

I spent with them few days... Poor Tea she got the cold and had to go to the hospital for a check. It was serious but with the right medicine she could get well again in about a week.

This is the first time with skies for Joël. It will take a while before he will be able to go on his own, but it looks like he enjoyed this new game ;)

Welcome Snow!

I love snow! The next day after my arrival, there it was! some nice and soft snow! Unfortunately it lasted only a couple of days, but it was really nice!

Italian Nightmare: Poor Tourists!

Back to Milan! This picture taken at the airport. Some things in Italy, never change...

Italy is well known for the good food, nice places and open minded people...and for having particular skills in being careless.

Italians have the bad habit to loose your luggage. This is especially true if you have a connecting flight in Rome or departing from anywhere in Italy. We were one of the last flights arriving to Milan and the airport wasn't crowded. Even so, I had to wait about 1 hour before getting my luggange. Why? No idea.

The cart shown above is all lost luggage from another flight....but wait... check this picture...

The people in line here, are there to file a complain for their missing luggage! Amazing, about 30 people didn't get their luggage. I guess that for those tourists, experiencing italy for the first time, it didn't start well...

I was lucky enough, so far, that my luggage never got lost.

Ever wondered what happens to your checked luggage?... Check this video!

On the Way to the Airport!

Time for some holidays! I'm going back to switzerland to visit my parents and relatives. This is the picture before leaving on the way to the airport. The air was chilly but an amazing clear sky day!

It will take about 16 hours to get back home going thru Finland for a connecting flight. What will be the weather like in Switzerland? The forecast said temperatures below Zero and possible snow... let's see!

Kobe Luminarie

Every year in Kobe at the beginning of December, there is a 14 days memorial called "Luminarie". It started the first time in december 1995, the year of the big Heartquake. It is a play of Lights with Italian/Japanese design.

Every year, about 6 Million people come to visit it. All around there are small shops selling all kind of delicious food and candies.

My absolute favorite, is the "Yaki-tori" which means grilled chicken. You can have in two different ways: Salt'n Pepper or Soya sauce. I prefer the Salt'n Pepper style which is really good...
(I think you can tell from my face ;)

This year, one of the big hits, is the followin:

Can you guess what this is? Some people thought is an apple, but it's a potato. A Fried twisted potato called "Tornado Potato" or, to say it in japanese "トルネードポテト" (Torunedo-Poteto).

I really enjoyed the food. I went there 4 times to try different things. Can't wait for the next time!

3D Photography !

We have heard it before, but now 3D TFT screens without the need for special glasses are finally here. The first ones I've ever seen! They are made by Fuji Film that also produces a special 3D cameras that you can use to take pictures or movies in 3D.

It works really nice, even though your eyes might get tired watching it long time. The quality can still be improved, but the effect is really interesting. It looks like the image has depth!

The whole set (Camera and Picture Frame) is sold around 1000 USD.

This is not the only company interested in 3D. Sony has already launched the production of their 3D TV and will broadcast the next World Cup in 3D. (Article Here).

Wireless WC?

The world is changing fast, and everything is now... wireless. Wireless PCs, Wireless phones, Wireless Headsets...and, as in the picture, Wireless Toilet. Yes. This is the remote control for the toilet in a shopping mall near kyoto.

Even for japan, is something that you don't see everyday. That's why, the instructions hanging on the wall, are quite long and complex! You might need about 5 or 10 minutes to read them.

It's important to read the instructions, because they also explain how to flush the toilet the manual way, in case you run out of batteries, which can be a little embarassing if someone is waiting outside ;)

I don't know if you've noticed, but there are a lot of buttons on the remote, and not "Just" one button for flushing it...

There are 3 buttons for opening and closing the lid, two buttons for flushing (for big or small amount of water), 7 buttons for washing yourself (front, back, pressure, positioning, temperature), 1 button for drying and 1 button for extra deodorizing...

Next time you visit japan, don't count of being in and out in 5 minutes, give yourself time for the full SPA service ;)

I've got a Job! (Sort of...)

Up to today I thought that writing a blog would fall into the "Leasure and Free time" category. But there is actually some people out there, blogging, and making money.

How does this apply to me? Well, about 2 months ago, the school posted an ad on its website saying that they were looking for....a Blogger. They required someone to write a blog about the school life and stuff about 3 times a week. In exchange, they would waive the school fees for 6 months...not too bad!

So, I've applied and now I'm the official Blogger of the school. I will maintain the school blog and do translation service for them when required. The school fees, are about the same amount as if I would work about 2 hours/day on weekdays...so, in the end, is like having a "Half, part time job";)

The school's blog is here. I will keep updating my blog, since the type of informations are a little different. I'm happy about this, since I can work but still have time to study...

Kyoto: Gold Temple and Leaves Changes

This is a Picture of the Golden Pavillion in Kyoto. I wanted to visit it for quite some time but I didn't have the time. It is one of the main buildings of this temple. It hasn't always been a temple. At the beginning, around the 1220, was a residence.

After the last owner died, he left in his will that his residence should become a temple Zen. It was only in 1994 that this place was inscribed in the World Cultural Heritage.

Not only the Temple, but all around it, there is a really nice garden with ponds and small waterfalls.

But the real reason why during the past two weekends a lot of Japanese are travelling around, is the Change of color of the Leaves. They are of various tones of Red.

I thought would be silly to just go out to watch leaves. But, is really different than Switzerland. In Switzerland we don't really have the change to see it. Probably due to the Rainy November that destroys the leaves quickly and makes them fall on the ground.

The only thing, is that in Japan, when there are this kind of events...a lot, really a lot of japanese travel around. Trains were full and Buses really crowded...

Exams, Exams, Exams!

This is a busy period. After taking the Java Programming Exam, This week on Thursday we had the Trial Test for the upcoming Exam of Japanese JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) that will be on December 6th.

This year I'm going to take level 3. Is not difficult, since I've been living in Japan for about 9 months and my attendance has been of 99.72%. Yes, you read right, we get the attendance recorded up to two decimals. The reason why was not 100% is that I got to school 7 times late (but always below 10 minutes) which translates in a lost hour every 4 times being late.

Even with my attendance nearly reaching 100% I have difficulties keeping up with my fellow classmates from China and Taiwan. Koreans Score quite high, too. I was surprised about it, until I found out that Kanji are Used in Korea too, in addition to their writing system. If you want to know more, here an article.

The reason I'm taking Level 3, is that for this level, only knowlege of 300 Kanjis is required. For Level 2, the kanji knowledge required, goes up to 1,000.

After the latest Test on December 6th, I will finally have some easy time until January...

Sun Java Programmer 6 Certified!

Today I did it. I passed the Offical Sun Microsystem Java Programmer 6 Certification! It hasn't been easy. I've been preparing for few months and during the past 4 weeks I've been going thru lines and lines of programming code and Practice Tests.

During the past week, I've been practicing daily for 5 or 6 hours. Even so, the test was really tough compared to Practice Exams.

At the same time, we had various tests at School in Japanese. I think the tougher thing for me is memorizing. Memorizing new vocabulary, grammar rules, Japanese Characters and their readings and on top of it rules and methods of the Java language.

Sometimes I have the feeling that I can only push 'that much' in my brain ;) ...

As I was quite brain-tired during the past few days, I've found that eating chocolate helped a lot. I've tried with Fruit Sugar, but it didn't help that much. Why Chocolate? no idea, but it was tasty and it worked ;)

Next step, the EJB 3.0 Certification, called SCBCD: Sun Java Business Component Developer 5...

Killer Caught !

The big news during the past week: They captured the prime suspect for the killing of Lindsay Hawker, a British girl that came to Japan a couple of years ago. The picture above, is the same person, even you could not tell at first. His name is Tatsuya Ichihashi .

There is an article with some informations on wikipedia , the family's website and a Blog with latest news on the subject.

The news is big because it involves a foreigner and few mistakes done by the police two years ago while trying to catch him. Since then, he run away, had a plastic surgery and moved elsewhere.

This until last week when he was finally arrested. The media coverage is huge on this. Probably because this small victory shed some good light on the dark shadow that covered the police department when he slipped away 2 years ago. (Some of the rumors says that the reason he could run away, was that the police had problems with Walkie Talkies while chasing him)...

If you have time, take a look to the JAPANTODAY website. You will be surprised about the quantity of news on murders and suicides.

Since we are talking about creepy stuff, here another little information. In Japan, the suicide Rate is quite high and this is known. What is less known is how they do it:

Mostly, they choose Normal Train instead of Subways, probably due to the fact that the speed of the train is higher in open areas than the one of the Subway (btw. subways are not only underground in japan).

When someone jumps in front of a train, things can get quite messy and all Train traffic is interrupted. For this reason, there is a fix rate for Suicides: about 300,000 USD. Yes, you read right. The Train Company will ask the family of the deceased to pay the bill...

So, not only the family has to bear the loss, pay a funeral that can cost up to 40,000 USD, but even get a huge bill for disturbing the daily commuting...

Life can be expensive in Japan, but Death... has its own price too.

At the Karaoke!

In Japan people is crazy about Karaoke. Whenever they have the chance, they go to Karaoke. Karaoke centers are quite modern and well organized. They have multiple floors and multiple room sizes, from the single room to rooms to host even 20 or 30 people. I'm not a big fun of karaoke as i'm really terrible at singing ;)

We were about 20 people and we got two rooms, one big and one small...

This is how the karaoke set looks like. They have thousands and thousands of songs in there, two microphones, two digital wireless pads to choose the songs and one Pad to read the song lyrics.

It was fun to see my classmates singing, and you can tell from the video above ;)

Cheese Chocolate!

The past week has been quite busy. Many Tests and a lot of topics to study. Besides Japanese, now I'm studying for the Java 6 Certification. Not difficult to understand, but there are many rules to remember. I needed something to boost me up...

Here it comes! The Hokkaido Cheese Chocolate!

On the back of the box it looks like is cheese wrapped with chocolate. Actually, I think they just added some cheese to the chocolate mix.

I didn't feel a particular strong cheese taste, but it smelled a little like cheese...

For the one of you thinking that is odd to mix cheese and sweets, you may want to try Parmesan Cheese and Honey. I tasted it few years back in Milan for the first time and it had quite an interesting taste :)

Give it a try!

The last mild days before winter...

Yesterday (saturday) was probably the last day with a mild weather. No Clouds, warm weather, really nice.

From today it started raining, and temperatures have been announced to get lower from next week.

I took these shots at Harborland near kobe station. The one at the bottom is an hotel!

Tekka-don!

Today I wanted to eat a Tekka-don, which is Raw tuna on Rice. I was going to the usual place near Kobe Station. Is not particularly good, but convenient, but....

But... at the last moment, i took a different way and found another shop. I've decided to give it a try. Surprise! not only the real thing was better looking than the plastic model at the entrance, but it really looked fresh and the size of those tuna slices were amazing!

The price? The same as the other restaurant, 800 Yen ($10).

After that, since I was feeling a little sleepy, I wanted to get an Espresso. Espresso's are not cheap here. Around 300 Yen ($4) at starbucks. Sturbucks is the only place so far, where the espresso is really...an espresso-shot. Small cup, big taste. ;)

I miss to start the day with an espresso each day... In december I will go for few weeks to switzerland...and i'll bring back a Moka italian style coffee machine ... not the same as an espresso, but still goot to start the day with!

New Level, New Textbook!

With the beginning of the new Class, we got, after a week or so, a new textbook. Now things are really getting more difficult. When I started learning japanese, the grammar didn't look so difficult. But the truth is the opposite.

Besides the text book above, which is only in japanese, I went to the book store and bought 3 big books on japanese grammar: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. There is really a lot. The language itself and the basic sentence structure is easy, but there are so many special words that are used to give difference in meaning to the sentence.

After more than 6 months, what i can understand watching TV is maybe just 10%. It looks more challenging than expected, but i'm not giving up ;) !

Outlet Shopping Day!

Today was shopping day. I went near The Akashi bridge where they have quite a Shopping Center. There are many Outlet Stores (something like Fox Town for the experts ;). I was suprised to see how GOOD the prices were. Really outlet prices! For instance Lacoste Shirts Retailed in Switzerland around $90, were sold for about $50. I saw Samsonite's luggages discounted 50%.

The Place for the stores looks like a small shopping town on the sea side. They little boy jumping up and down in the video above, seems to have a lot of fun... Too bad it was just for kids ;)

I'm not really a Shopping fan (unless about buying electronic stuff :p), but I found a nice pair of Nike shoes for around $70 USD.

I go out by chance right at sunset. I was lucky! The view was simply astonishing...

An Amazing BBQ Day!

Today Was an amazing day! Clear blue sky and we got there, not a cloud! Wow! Warm as well, we could just stay outside in t-shirt.

Today was the Official Welcome BBQ party of the Toyo Japanese College (神戸東洋日本語学院). The school organized everything, from the grill to the meat. We only had to bring our own drinks.

I'ts a pity the BBQ is only once a year... I remember my last BBQ (before this one) was with my Colleagues in Acer in the summer of 2008. Grilling is my passion ;)

After lunch, we went to the shore, and everybody started jumping. So i took some pictures of which i post a couple of them...

I think these will be the last days of sunshine and mild weather before the winter comes. Then it will be quite cold until April next year.

Interesting thing: Japanese houses don't have a Central heater. They use Oil heater or the Air Conditioner that can be switched to "Heating-Mode" in winter. All electric. I was a little bit surprised and i'm not sure why. Interesting thing is that most houses are family houses not high buildings. Maybe the cost for a central heater and realated installation (besides the cost of oil) is a reason why nobody has one...

Japanese Dictionary

Before learning Japanese, I didn't know how one can search for Japanese words in a Japanese dictionary.

To be able to find unknown words, you still need a little of knowledge on how to write them and their background (the technical terms are "Number of Strokes" and "Radical" (the base character that is the base for complex Kanji).

Luckily, being in the 21st Century comes to help. We have now Digital Dictionaries. No, i'm not talking about the Junk dictionaries sold in Europe, and if you don't know what i'm talking about, just check them out next time you go to your local electronic store.

What i'm talking about, are Full Featured Electronic Dictionaries like the one i bought a couple of years ago. They are not cheap. They range from $200 up to $700 or more depending on the features (in Japan, with some dictionaries, you can watch TV as well).

My dictionary is not that advanced. Only Black and White and no TV, but still the price was (2 years ago) around $500. Additional language modules can be added separately, even though, when you choose your dictionary, you choose your main language (i.e. JAPANESE-CHINESE, JAPANESE-ENGLISH).

The Menus and functions are in Japanese only, so you need a little of experimenting the first times.

So, here is how it looks like:

In this case, i'm writing the word, you've seen on the top picture, and I need to be careful to follow the exact order of the strokes and the number of strokes, or the dictionary will not be able to figure out the word i'm looking for and might return another one.

Once the word is found succesfully, i get all the informations needed, like all different meanings, suffixes and Radicals (the base kanji) in this case Tree (木 - KI ) which is also, in this case, the pronounciation of this kanji. Just saying the word "KI" without knowing the Kanji, might mean machine but also Three and about 20 other things, each meaning, has it's own different Symbol.

Really a big help!

New Hi-Tech Mouse

Since lately i've talked about some Technology news, here another thing that is really eye catching. The Apple Magic Mouse. Check out the video here it is all a multi touch sensible surface (it can identify how many fingers you are using and, based on that, perform different actions)...

New Term Started!

Last Week, Tuesday 13th, The new term started. Most of the students are the same, but we moved on the 3rd floor. 80% of the class made it from A class to C class. We basically skipped B class. I hope we will get more chances of reading real texts and not have only grammar.

It's actually getting difficult. Now we are studying the level of politeness. There are many in Japanese. So far we have seen 4 levels:

1) Speaking to friends
2) Speaking Polite
3) Speaking Honorific (i.e. talking to your boss)
4) Speaking Humble (say things about yourself to your boss)

The interesting one is the 4th one. With this way of speaking, you talk about yourself in a lower level compared to the person you are talking to. For instance: You will use level 3 if you ask the person if he had lunch, but to the same person you will use 4 to say that you had lunch.

It's kind of difficult, because the vocabulary changes dramatically. The word for "eat" is for the respective levels:

Level 1) Taberu
Level 2) Tabemasu
Level 3) Meshiagarimasu
Level 4) Itadakimasu

As you see, is like learning a full new vocabulary for about 50 words (for now) and remember which one goes where ;)

Here a picture of me at the lesson:

Well, you might wonder what happened to my hand. The interesting thing is that the class on the 3rd floor belongs to the Medical School in the same building ...

Besides hands, there are legs, various body organs, skulls, heads and brains for disassembling. This class will last until April 2010 ...

Windows 7 Launch!

Microsoft is officially launching Windows 7 on October 22, 2009. Guess what, it was already on the shelves for about a week in switzerland and starting yesterday in Japan. I guess Microsoft hasn't been so strict on the launch date (for instance Apple for his new Operating system Snow Leopard, they said August 28th...and wasn't available anywhere before that date).

When windows Vista first came out and i've tried the beta, I've said to myself "What is this?!". I had the same feeling as when Windows 2000 came out: Bulky and heavy and full of glitches. No way it would replace windows XP. On so it was.

Now, windows 7 is here. And I have the same feeling as when Windows XP came out. The fixed some of the glitches, polished it a little and running faster. Windows 7 is indeed better!

I've installed it for the first time about 5 months ago (still in beta) and then the final version from my Microsoft Technet Subscription in August on my Netbook. The netbook is a Celeron 1.6 Ghz, 1GB of Ram. So, kind of limited. Nevertheless, it runs smoothly even on non cutting edge hardware.

To cut it short, I think this time Microsoft did it right, and we will start soon seing Professional PCs equipped with windows 7 upgrading from windows XP, since almost no business customer did a migration from XP to Vista.

If you are curious to know, what else is out there, you might want to check the Microsoft Courier device here and make sure to watch the video!

Got your Drive?

I've seen a lot of scooters, but this one, looked kind of amazing ! From time to time, on the street, I run into some special vehicles that I've seen before.

I don't know, are they concepts? are they custom made? They sure look good!

As you can see, today was a sunny day. It has been mostly nice weather since the beginning of september. The climate is currently mild even though at night gets quite chilly. I still remember when I got here in April... it was raining everyday until august. Residents said "This year is crazy!" ...but isn't something we usually say every year ;) ?

Aloha !

At Kobe station, every weekend they have stands where they present promotional goods. This weekend the thema was "Hawaii". They had Hawaiian goods, drinks, shirts and even a Hula show.

Small girls were dancing Hula, i think the smalles should have been around 4 or so. It reminded me at the time spent studying in Hawaii more than a decade ago.

If you have never been to Hawaii, it's worth visiting. The flight is a little expensive, but is really worth it! There is what hawaiians call "The Aloha Spirit" that cannot be described with words. Is in the air in hawaii. If you have the chance to go there, don't miss it!

This is a Buger!

This is a burger from Mos Burger. They guarantee that 100% of the meat comes from Japan. Another thing is that they now advertise that the cheese is coming from Hokkaido. The name Hokkaido written in Japanese is: 北海道 . I found this name intriguing.

Imagine you don't know where Hokkaido is. But knowing the Kanji could give you some hints: 北 = North / 海 = Sea / 道 = Street. It's an island on the most northern part of Japan. In Japan, if you sell something and say is from Hokkaido, it will sell good. People thinks that food from Hokkaido is good and natural.

Some time ago I had the chance to test some Raw Ham from Hokkaido. It reminded me to the Italian Parma Ham. It was pretty good... but i wouldn't live there ;) it can get quite cold up there in winter ;)

School Backpacks!

This is the approved School Backpack in Japan. Every kid at elementary school, have the same bag. It can change in color and texture, but the shape is always the same.

From my point of view it looks kind of old style... but probably is doing its job well since they have been using it for years!

Normally, when you see School Kids, in some school as mentioned before, they need to wear uniforms and their equipment is similar. One time, not long ago, on the subway i saw some kids probably going on a school trip. They all had the same hat, shirt and small side bag. All looking the same. While waiting at the subway station, they were sitting on the ground, all perfectly lined up in 4 rows of equal length...but this didn't prevented them from being, as any other child in the world, excited for the trip and being kind of loud on the train ;)

Looking for Part Time Work...

Today i went to this Company which is called "Hello Work". I'm not sure it's a public or private organization, but they help people and foreigners find work in japan.

They were very kind and organized. The reason i went today is that on Thursday they have a Japanese/English Interpreter.

It took a while to get everything prepared. After filling-in some forms, they asked me about my work experience and looked for some open positions.

Of course this is only a part time job to help me going with expenses. Unfortunately (A) i'm allowed to work only 4 hours a day and (B) the pay ranges from 800 yen to 1500 yen / hour.

The work position for which they asked me to mail my CV is for Photoshop Retouch/Designer which is not my main area of work, but that shouldn't be a problem. The pay is 800 Yen/hour + travel expenses. Since this work place is located in Osaka i would need about 1 hour travel to get there.

Even if it's not so convenient to get there for just about 3 hours of work, having an activity there, might help me using the Japanese I've learned so far... and save some costs...

In any case, i'm still evaluating, because this would "cost" me 5 hours of study-time to get about 2400 yen (25 dollars) a day... is it worth?...

My classmates for 800 yen/hour are washing dishes at restaurants...and don't need to travel that far... but of course I would prefer to work with computers than washing dishes...besides, added to my CV later on, it might be of some value... dont' you think? ;)