In answer to the general demand : I give you Sakura again ! More blossoms, more pink, more drinks !
Enjoy the Japanese spring...

And the best of Sakura : a pinky-pinky song performed by our favorite boys-band, the NewS ! I'm jealous of their glossy lipstick...

I feel like I didn't share enough my daily happiness to live at Nishi-Waseda. Tokyo is often described as a cold frantic megapole - mostly by people who have never lived here and who have been impressed by the pictures of Shinjuku skyscrapers or Shibuya crowded crossroad... but no one lives in such areas, which are totally dedicated to shopping centers and corporate offices. Afterwork, people get back to much peaceful areas, and actually Tokyo looks like a group of quiet villages, connected with several centertowns like Shinjuku, Ginza, Roppongi...
My daily Tokyo is a charming area located between the campus of Waseda University, the big station of Takadanobaba and the Kanda river. It's mostly a student area so everything is cheap, from the restaurants to the hairdresser - and culturally diversified in order to appeal to the international students.

Neighborhood in pictures

Area Guide, at the top of my street


The flower shop at the corner


Street View


The most eye-catchy detail of the Japanese street :
wires in the air


Houses samples






Street flowers






No Japanese street without vending machines...


It's forbidden to smoke on the street, except at the smoking corner;
People under 20 years old are not welcome...
A man is sat behind the window all day long to check if the law is respected...


A very messy shop in front of my house, selling flowers and, apparently, food...
I think that all the business survives thanks to the vending machines...


Coin laundry (and eel restaurant just behind)


Dry Cleaning shop


Temples








UFO


Linving among roofs and wires


Side view


Tramway station


Kanda River in winter (I can't wait the sakura to blossom all way long)


River side


The way to the pool


The shrine across the river




The temple across the river




Unexpected Chinese restaurant on the riverside

To Martine and Nicoleta, coming soon...

My nice Japanese-language-tutorate teacher offered me an inkan - a Japanese seal that you use at the bank or in any situation when you have to proove your identity. Japan is not a country where the hand-written signature is supposed to proove anything. Instead, you have to take care of this little piece of wood, metal or plastic the imprint is your identifier. Of course, you have to make the imprint register at the city yard for it to be officially yours.

As a foreigner, I don't really need an inkan in my daily life, but I was fascinated by the gift - first, this one looks like a piece of jewelry :

乃絵美

I was not a early-adopter like A***, but the Renaissance Gym Center just behind my street became my new daily place-to-be - especially the underground, where the pool is.
It would be useless to list all the good points of this pool compared to any French one - opened until 10pm, clean, with enough hair-dryers for everybody, and so on - so I just picked-up some scenes, representative of the smooth atmosphere of the place. For obvious reasons, I could not take pictures, so I just drew the following images.

In a Japanese pool, Aquagym lasts at least 1 hour and all the people keep focus all time long.
It looks like a perfect ballet.


In a Japanese pool, young and hansome coach likes to chat with grandmothers,
without fearing that the rest of the staff have fun of them.


In a Japanese pool, housewives come with their baby for  them to get used to water;
the session's coach in a young man carrying a doll and everybody seems to have a lot of fun.


In a Japanese pool, when a staff member makes a little girl jump into the water with a big splash, he's almost submerged by a wave of kids begging for the same thing.


In a Japanese pool, you swim in line and it makes you feel that you are alone in the water.

幸美のために

幸美ちゃん、

先週東京来てくれて、本当にありがとう。幸美ちゃんに会うときいつも楽しくて、私はまだ日本語が下手ですが、一緒に深いコミュニケーションができる感じがあります。さらに最近幸美ちゃんもよくフランス語を勉強しますので、私たちの間にある絆はだんだん強くなっています。
将来にフランスでも日本のどこでもよく楽しいホムステーをしましょう！

ノエミより

It's not original, but the first images I had from Japan have been transmitted to me through animation dramas when I was a little girl. Of course, with the French voices and the translation of the main part of the Japanese names into irrelevant American-style names, I had no idea that these stories were taking place in a far-away country called Japan. But I was fascinated by this world where the kids were wearing school uniforms, where old men had very weird wooden shoes, where small towns had so many stairs... where little girls had magical powers...
With Kimagure Orange Road, one of my favourite anime was Magical Angel Creamy. I can not call myself a fan of the cartoon anymore, but I still cherish the memory of it...

For-you-just-for-you, the opening song of Creamy - in French, it's even better...

- Creamy, adorable Creamy - générique

このアニメを覚えていますか。子供の時一番スキナアニメでした。アニメを見ると初めて日本の生活が見られて、どんな国か全然分からなかったけど、とても楽しかったです。今でもこの時代の思い出は強くて忘れられません。

The so delicious "Salon du Chocolat" came from Paris to invade Tokyo and especially the 6th floor of Isetan Shinjuku. The theme was the Opera and many "chocolate artists" were here for the occasion, mainly from France but not only : Italy, the Netherlands, Japan were also choco-representated.
In this pre-Valentine tornado of cacao-based products everywhere, it's not enough to say that the Salon was a success - it was damned crowded as you can guess, and in addition, chocolate seems to have some strange powers on Japanese people, who turn unexpectedly excited when they are in contact with too much sugar... but it's true that the Salon looks like Charlie's chocolate factory and anyone would be crazy in front of so much chocolate.

パリのサロン・づ・ショコラが東京に来ました。今日まで新宿の伊勢丹デパートで見られました。フランスのチョコレートメーカが多かったけど、フランスだけではなくて、色々な国から来たブランドもありました。今年のトピックは「オペラ」です。
すぐにヴァレンタインになりますもで、このイヴェントは成功しました。皆は本当にわくわく、多分日本人はチョコレートの多さになれてこなかったと思います。しかし私もフランス人でも、このサロンはすごいと思いました。

My sister will turn 20 years old the next week. It means that, for the moment, she's legally a French adult but not a Japanese one. In Japan, you have to wait 20 years-old to be allowed to vote, drink alcohol, enter night-clubs and so on. It's long to wait, but to make it funnier, at the beginning of the year, you are invited to the Seijin-shiki, the Coming-on-age ceremony. For girls, it's the perfect opportunity to wear an amazing kimono - transmitted by the grandmother or... rent for the day - and to make pictures for the album your future husband will show to his parents before they meet you. Just to check if you look good in a traditionnal dress. Well, it's important for the wedding day, isn't it.

As I am already 25 years old - the Chrismas cake : until the 24th it's fresh and everyone wants to eat it, but from the 25th, it's not appealling to anyone anymore... that's a Japanese metaphore - I was not allowed to follow sis inside the Ceremony room, so I just took a few pictures of the beautiful fresh cakes around me.

It is definitely a day for the girls. Young men, all wearing black, were almost unvisible among the clouds of colorful butterflies surrounding them - very loud butterflies anyway, over-excited and screaming at each other about the beauty of the dress or the sophistication of the hairstyle... Even the boys who bravely put on a traditional suit too were too dark to be noticed in the crowd. Then, with their high shoes and even higher hairdressing, it was impossible to avoid watching at all these girls in kimono. With their white fur around their shoulders and their flowers on the head, they definitely looked like unreal creatures coming from another world to bring us colors and nailart.

For leaving the lobby and enter the fresh cakes' ceremony, go to Mogusa !

For my friends who would plan to have a quiet, relaxing time at the hot springs during the holidays : don’t underestimate the sense of humor of our dear Nihonjin. You could regret it.

このビデオを見て、今温泉は怖いと思います。

Last Sunday, I was a bit desperate considering that I was going to spend this perfectly sunny day inside an exam room, alone with Mister Japanese Language Aptitude Test, Level 2. No need to say that in addition to the fact that it's an exam, the Japanese Language Aptitude Test is a tricky, nasty, unlovable multiple choice test. Instead of evaluating your real abilitity to talk and write in Japanese, it tests your sense of time management and your capacity to avoid traps. For example, there is a kanji you know. You could even write it without any problem in a sentence. But in the JLPT, you are proposed 4 kanji with one or two different strokes only; and because your are a human being, the simple fact to read it make you loose your knowledge of the kanji. As a result, to be ready for the JLPT, you should know everything scientifically. Knowing a kanji would need : knowing every part of it and the ways they complete each other in the right order to make the right shape and to make the right meaning. And it is the case for every part of this exam. A nightmare for me who have never been able to memorize anything by heart but poetry. Even in French, I don't know one single grammatical rule ; just reading and letting my instinct think for me, I have always had a good orthographe. To make it simple, I would have prefered to write an essay and to have an interview with a human person in front of me to judge of my concrete skills. But anyway.

The good surprise of the day was the place. I had to commute until Hanakoganei station, on the Seibu Shinjuku Line ; 20 minutes from Takadanobaba with the Express train. The University of Kaetsu is a nice campus surrounded by trees, and above all, silent. Even if I leave in a very quiet area in Tokyo, the silence does not have the same quality there. It was amazingly peaceful. The premices themselves were great, modern and visually interesting. I could'nt prevent myself to shoot it during the break : welcome to the Kaetsu University...

練習の日曜日、日本語能力試験の二級を受けました。すごく大変でしたが、場所は素晴らしかったので、やっぱり大丈夫でした。次はキャンパスの写真です。明るくていいところですね。嘉悦大学へよこそう。