Weekend in Tokyo

Hello, how are you? I hope you're doing fine, I had a busy but funny day! It started very early, I cleaned the apartment, and went to my next job interview. It was in an Izakaya which is located at the 44th floor of a huuuge building next to the Tokyo Metropolitan Goverment office, the view from there was so great! :-) Anyway, the boss was very nice, but told me that work in an Izakaya can be very hard and tiring, so I actually don't think I get the job, but he said he'll call me back in a few days. Let's see. Actually I like the restaurant in Roppingi from my last job interview last Thursday better anyway :-)

Then I met up with Charlotte for lunch and Purikura in Shinjuku, since I was there anyway. Have a look at our cute Purikura!

This time I downloaded the high quality version from my cellphone :-) And yeah, I am that short, haha!

I went to the check-out of my room in the guesthouse after that, and the guy who picked me up was a nice Danish guy, who is also doing Working Holiday in Japan! We had a nice chat during the car drive to the guesthouse company, and I asked for his number. Maybe we can go and have a drink somewhere, I thought it can't be too bad to know people here in Tokyo.

After that I got to meet the lovely Lou again!!!! :-))) It was soooo great to see her again, since she is such a cute and likeable girl. I love to spend time with her! We had a snack at MacDonalds, went to Game Centers again, did Purikura and had a yummy dinner at Saizeriya. I have become addicted to that restaurant chain ever since starting to live in Tokyo. Have some fotos of the day!

 Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building. I went to the free observatory platform last year.

 Lou was looking so cute today!

 Fuzzy Gloomy Bear! Lou managed to get the pink one for her little sis!

 Lou at work :-)

I had to think of Hana when I saw those debu neko! Lou tried to catch that one, but seemed we were not so lucky today :-)

 Christmas Illumination ain Kabuki-cho (Shinjuku)

Sorry for the blurriness!

Last but not least one of our purikura!

Thanks to Lou who spent the afternoon with me and thanks for that new phone strap you got me from the Ufos, that was so kind! 

My day with Hana from Finding Tokyo

A lot happened the last couple of days! I was finally moving to my my friend Charlotte and I just love the apartment. I shall take pictures of our new home soon :-) Hopefully there are no Pauls here, hahaha!

Wednesday I went to the job center with Juli, and it was great. The people there were really helpful, I got several job offers! I had one job interview today, and another one will be on Saturday in Shinjuku. I also sent off two of my resumees to apply for a translating job and a bilingual reception job. Let's really hope I will get a job out of these four offers!! :-) I think I didn't get the job in Shibuya, they did not call me back... XD About the job offer today in Roppongi, I will have a trial day next Tuesday!! Thanks again to Juli who woke up so early to come with me :-)

Well, after the job searching, I had a wonderful meet-up with Hana from Finding Tokyo!!!!!! I was really excited to meet her, cause I've been a fan ever since I discovered her blog. And finally, she was standing in front of me, even more beautiful than on the rare pictures of herself she posts on Finding Tokyo. I guess I was so nervous I sometimes talked in weird English, hahaha!

We had yummy cake in a cake shop in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City! Hana paid for mine cause she wanted to make up for her coming late. No, you did not have to, Hana! It was rather my fault, for being soooo over punctual (bad German habit of mine, haha) If everyone who I met was paying for my cakes to make up for coming late I would be fat as a debu neko now, lol.

Oh my God, here she is!! She was so pretty and fashionable, and I liked her from the first moment we met. Hana was always smiling and in a very good mood! Because of her good looks she should be more self confident to post more pictures of herself on Finding Tokyo, don't you think? :-) 

 Later on we had dinner in a Pasta Restaurant. Hana, I'm sorry for making you eat Pasta, though you planned to cook it later at home, too! 

We also took purikura, which is a mandatory after a meet-up in Japan :-) I would so love to do some purikura with her again, cause she is a lovely purikura partner!! It's like she makes the purikura even more prettier! Here you see the page of my purikura collection album from Wednesday.

Here's the one I downloaded from my mobile phone. I always forget to take a pic with the people I meet with my digi cam, so I hope I can compensate that with a purikura, haha!

I wanna thank Hana again for spending the day with me! She gave her free day for the meet-up, so I hope you had fun and that it was worth it! Let's hang around again! Next time maybe already with Sara Mari? :-)

For all of who don't know about Hana, check out her awesome blog at Finding Tokyo!

EDIT: You can read Hana's post about the day here: http://www.finding-tokyo.com/2010/11/meeting-with-thanh-theo-eyelash-recommendation/

Plans changed :-)

I wanna thank everyone who was so kind to leave me comments on my last post. You are such great people, and I would have loved to meet one of you instead of that horrible guy. Your kind words really helped a lot to get over with the incident soon. Now that it's over I wanna thank my friends again for rescuing me from the uncomfortable situation, what would I have done without you? :-) I'll definitely watch out from now on who to meet and who better not.

It's almost 2 am here in Tokyo and although I'm kinda tired I can't sleep properly. It is raining cats and dogs in Ikebukuro, and the raindrops are so big they're hammering on my windows which is really, really noisy. I'm also afraid that "Paul" might appear again. For all of you who don't know yet, I'm really scared to death whenever I see an insect and specially here in Japan cockroaches are just like everywhere. I'm also so afraid of just the word "cockroach" so my friend and roommate Charlotte told me to just call those "Paul" from now on, lol. Well, this doesn't make me less afraid of them, but at least it is more funnier this way. So the next time we get a visit from Paul, you know who is meant, haha!

Well, about the title of this post, I have changed my plans of moving. I'll be moving a week earlier to Charlotte's place than planned. I just can't stand it any longer in this guesthouse, I wanna leave asap. Exactly speaking today, in about 9 hours, lol. It is a National Holiday in Japan, so she is free to help me with carying my stuff. I'm really happy to get to live with such a cool girl, it will be more fun from now on! :-)

Today Juli and me went to the unemployement center for foreigners working in Japan, but it was so crowded they told us to come again on Wednesday at an early time to be the first ones in the row. So we'll be there tomorrow, hopefully with some chances for a job! After that we had lunch at Saizeriya (which I totally love, it is cheap and very tasty food) and a nice chat!

So today I'll leave you with some nice purikura pictures which were taken during the last weeks to make up for the pictureless post from yesterday! I know many of you like purikura, so enjoy!! :-)

 With Lou from Glamourberry

With Juli

I'm sorry for always doing the same pose and baka face, hahaha! I'll try improving in making good looking purikura :-) Oh and I forgot to say: Hello to my new readers! I've got about 30 more readers since my arrival in Tokyo, is it really that interesting what I'm doing in Japan? XDD Anyway, welcome to my blog and I hope  you'll enjoy reading!

Well, I think my windows will burst, the rain is really strong!! Good night to you then!

Can a day be wonderful and horrible at the same time??

The answer: yes, it can definitely! And most of it was my own fault! It all began so good with a wonderful lunch which I enjoyed with a friend (but that is worth an own post, so I'll write about that sometime later).

Well, I've met a person from mixi, which is a japanese community similar to facebook.  He contacted me about half a year ago or so when I was still back home in Germany, and said he was learning German and why not meeting up in Tokyo when I start my Working Holiday. And because I'm such a nice and trusting girl I tend to give everyone a chance before I judge the person. Meeting up with blogger friends is a complete different story, because you kinda know these people by reading their blogs and have the feeling you know how they are. You also get to see fotos of the bloggers, which you don't get to see at mixi usually. So we met at Tokyo Station on the platform of the Yamanote Line. And my first thought was: now I know why he does not have a profile picture at mixi. I don't wanna sound mean or something like that and I'm surely the last person on this world to judge other people's outward appearance cause I'm not really cute and goodlooking myself but, you know, he was not the most handsome guy. We had a walk at the Emperor's Palace and hardly talked. I began to feel quite uncomfortable, as it was getting darker every minute and the area we went through was quite calm with less people. It was so weird. I was wondering what the people around us were thinking... a young girl like me (most people tell me I look like a highschool girl ) and an obviously older guy, hmmmm. I had a safety gap between us while walking. Anway, this guy really creeped me out since everytime he asked me something he touched my arm or back. I was like don't touch me, it's gross!!! I was really afraid and mailed to my friend's mobile phone to get me out of there. So I got a call, and pretended there was a problem which only I can solve, and I have to go, bye! I felt so relieved when I boarded my train. My god, this was a total desaster, and I'm sooo thankful my friend rescued me, thank you I owe you my life! XD 

As I'm writing this post I'm asking myself how stupid I was to meet  up with someone you have never seen or don't really know. I mean it is always risky, and sometimes it is even fun. But this has definitely taught me my lesson. I received many advices about how to deal with that problem, so let's see what I can do.  My greates fear is that he developes into some kind of stalker XD And thanks again to my friend and his friend for making me feeling better again, I'm sorry for interrupting your peaceful meetup. You are great people and I'm so thankful to have such cool friends as you.

PS. That guy was a heavy smoker. That's maybe why he looked so old.

PS2: As if the day could not become any worse, when I returned home I had a big ugly guest in my room waiting for me to say hi and scare the hell out of poor Thanh Thao: a cockroach! I wanna leave this guesthouse asap and move to Charlotte's place! One more of these and I'll just die.

PS3: Sorry to all the readers who expected a great post like yesterday. See, not even in Japan everything's fine and cool... This must be a boring post for you as well, since I have no fotos as well XDD

Early Christmas XDD

Do you guys have those days, too, where you feel like it is Christmas and birthday and Easter and what not on the same day? XD Well, for me and my soon-to-be roommate Charlotte today was such a day. 

It all began with a call I got early in the morning (no, it wasn't from the place I applied for a job, too bad) from a blogger friend who suggested to meet up in the last minute for lunch. Let's call this friend the sponsor due to privacy reasons :-) He said it is okay to bring Charlotte for lunch, too, so we met up in Shibuya to take the train to Jiyuugaoka. We met the sponsor there and went to a fancy Shabu Shabu Restuarant with a unique interior, you'll see later why. It was a "Tabehoudai" which means eat as much as you can :-)

 This is Shabu Shabu, you get a hot pot of broth in which you throw met and vegetables :-)

 The meat (it was beef). Since I'm not a huge fan of meat I gave my plate to Charlotte :-)

 Instead I ate loads of vegetables

 Charlotte and me! Well, my face is quite foggy, cause the broth was boiling! XD Oh, btw, you can see my new haircut I got yesterday! It is nothing spectacular, though! Just short again :-) And I love it to have short hair!

 The unique interior of the restaurant! It was like every party has an own spaceship or something like that! And much privacy!

 The Sponsor said it reminds him of "Doctor Who"

 They even had a Christmas Tree!

 The place was caled Nabe-zou (and me trying to pose again, but I'm improving! :-)

We had a lovely chat while eating a great Shabu Shabu :-) And since it was a tabehoudai we could get as many food and drinks we wanted. I had a melon soda which was way better then the one I had last time. Thanks again to the sponsor's invitation which was soooo generous and nice (and specially to treat Charlotte as well, since they actually don't know each other). After lunch we strolled around in Jiyuugaoka, to see many shops :-) Then we were invited again to have a dessert at an expensive looking cake shop! That was too much, much more than we deserved! :-)

 Kuri (Chestnut) Montblanc, which was so yummy :-)

 Hot Cocoa :-)

 Kuri-shuu (Chestnut Cream Puff) Look at the beautiful plate!!

 Charlotte's Cream Soda (and her peace XD)

 My chocolate noisette :-)

 Two happy girls with their desserts :-)

 And since we look so happy, again a shot from the two uf us :-)

If it wasn't enough that we were treated to the Shabu Shabu and the fancy desserts then here comes even more, lol. Charlotte had wet hair today cause it hair usually dries very slow, and we talked about that, and that we did not bring our hair dryer to Japan cause we're totally fine wthout, the sponsor went to Bic Camera with us and insisted on buying one for us?? How awesome is that?? We tried to convince him that we received already so much today, but of course we were unsuccesful, lol. So we picked up the most cheapest dryer we could find, but of course we got the most expensive one. Did you expect something else??? XD And I forgot to take a foto of our awesome new hair dryer, cause I left it at Charlotte's place :-) Next time, then!

So this is why we'd say today was an early Christmas for us. This has never happened to us before to be treated that well from a person we've met the first time in real life. I'm really luck to  know this generous and wonderful friend! This was more then I ever expected, and it was even more than we deserved! (We have a bad conscience cause he spent so much money today... but we're also sooooo thankful!) So, it doesn't matter at all that I still have no job yet and that I'm slowly running out of money, (lol) because days like these make up for it and will stay in our memory like forever! I knew I'd make awesome experiences here in Japan, but this was beyond expectations :-) Thanks sooo much again (also from Charlotte) for this wonderful day!

 Salad at the L'Occitane Cafe which I shared with Charlotte

After the awesome meet-up we met Charlotte's friend Angelica for going to a CD-Shop where she got event tickets for her favourite singer, and then we went to the super stylish L'Occitane Cafe  for a ligt dinner (Yeah, the cosmetic brand, why don't we have the Cafe too in Germany??  There are only stores from L'Occitane back home). Okay, so much about our awesome start into the weekend, it is already 2 am here and I shall go to bed now! Good night!

I'm an Alien now!

From today on I'm officially an Alien in Japan XDD I went to the ward office to pick up my alien registration card, which I wanna show you (and don't mind the ugly foto, haha!)

Yeah, I have a Rilakkuma wallet :-) And for all of you who don't know: my nationality is German XD

After that I went to Okachimachi to meet-up with Juli, she is also doing Working Holiday in Tokyo! I was strolling around in Amayokocho (a kind of open market, but also with a lot of stores) while waiting for her, and there was again some kind of salary man in his fourties I guess who began talking to me! (This was already the second time, some week ago it happened in Shibuya) I was like what? What do all these salary men want from me and why does not some cool looking guy approach me?? XDDD That was kinda creepy, and I ran into the next shop, hahaha!

Anyway, we had a great chat and loads of fun in the Game Center (Thanks for the food!, btw.) I have no fotos, cause my camera battery died and I left it at home in the guesthouse :-(  Oh, yes and while sitting in the cafe (we had seats at the glass windows) another salary man gave a wink to Juli from outside. Even while walking away he turned and gave her another wink! Oh dear, the weirdest things happen in Tokyo, haha!

Oh, did I say I have no fotos?? :-)

I so hope I will get a phone call tomorrow from the place I really wanna work at, let's hope the best. If not I must keep on searching and that's really tiring! I wanna have a job :-)) 

Oh yeah, my sis and me will go to the hairdresser tomorrow afternoon! So these may be the last pics from me with long hair, I still don't know yet what hairstyle I should get, but hopefully I can get some advice from the hair dresser :-) See you and good night!

What a day :-)

Hello friends, how are you?? I'm glad you liked the song from yesterday's post :-) I hope I will discover more of such catchy tunes during my stay which I can share with you.

Remember I complained about the rain yesterday? Well, today we had lovely sunshine and a blue sky again :-) The weather can be so unpredictable, haha! But I realized it was a little bit colder today, maybe it's time to wear my winter coat??

Okay, now the reason why to write this post: I had my very first job interview in Tokyo and afterwards a fabulous meet-up! In the morning I called the place I would love to work for soo much and they gave me an appointment for today at two pm. When I hung up I realized it was already two, lol. So I immediately called back to say I'd arrive half an hour later. Actually, I was so nervous about my Japanese but in the end the interview was nothing to be afraid of, really! Basically you're just sitting there and the boss looks through your resumee and asks you a few simple things and you just had to do nothing, lol. Of course I had to explain my situation, why I'm in Japan and why I'd love to work there etc. So the next three days they will have other applicants for an interview, too, and I really hope they'll call me and say it's okay for me to work there :-) Cross your fingers for me! Well, I keep on job hunting, just in case, haha!

Well, after the interview, I had a lovely meet-up with Lou from Glamourberry! I guess many of you know her very cute blog, if not I highly recommend you to follow! She has been living in Japan since March this year and she always holds very cute giveaways! We arranged a meeting at Shibuya's Hachiko statue, had coffee and then hung around in Shibuya and Shinjuku! Let the pictures speak, I guess!!

 Super cute picture from Lou

 Okay, for the fairness, a pic from me, too XDD I suck at posing!

 Lou highlly concentrated at work! (More about that later XD)

 Shinjuku Skyscrapers

 What was that? Some kind of huge electronic shop? XD

Dinner at La Pausa

 

One of our many purikura :-)

Look at all the stuff she got from the Ufos, and simply gave me! (Japanese snacks, a cat paw, Rilakkuma, Chopper and Kappibara-san! Thanks to her I also got a phone strap for my mobile!)

Lou is really such a generous, likable and cute girl, I so much enjoyed the day with her! We had lots of fun chatting, strolling around and playing at game centers, she is really my new Game Queen! She spent so much money at the Ufos, and got so many things out of them and gave me so many things!!! I've never seen anyone more talented at the Ufos! XD Thank you so much, I will use them thoughtfully :-) I'm really happy to have found such a fantastic friend in huge and anonymous Tokyo. Let's hang around again! 

Oh, how much I love meeting fellow bloggers, it is always so much fun! If you have the chance to do so, too, take the opportunity and meet the people!

Rain!!!

Ohhh, it can actually rain in Tokyo, too!! XDD Today it was raining for the first time since my arrival, and it was quite chilly as well. The temperatures will drop from now on, at least my friend said so, and told me to watch out not to catch a cold, hahaha! Saying that to a person who has not been sick for over 5 years might become bad luck. 

Well, of course I did not have an umbrella, but my sis was so kind to buy one for me, lol. Despite of the rain I went to look for jobs in Shibuya, and after that to meet my friend Aline for dinner in Shinjuku. I have not seen her for over 8 months, ever since waving goodbye to her at the airport back home in March, when she left for her one year exchange programme with one of our partner universities inYokohama :-) It was a funy evening and we spent a lot of time just chatting and catching up what happened the last couple of months. I can't believe she is leaving Japan in about 3 months, so I hope to get to see her a lot of times befor she heads home :-)

Today I just wanna share a video from a song which I've been listening to a lot lately. I heared it in a purikura machine for the first time, lol and ever since wanted to have it! It's "Sunshine Girl" from moumoon. There is an English version of the song, too. But as we know, Japanese are...well, not good in English, (I don't wana insult those Japanese who ARE good in English, and there are some XD) so it probably sounds the same to you as the original version, haha! But here you are, enjoy!

Lately in Tokyo

Wow, it's been a while since my last post! Sorry for that. Somehow I have the feeling time goes on faster here in Tokyo than back home, haha! So, my first day of real job hunting was... well a total fail XDD Everywhere I asked I was told they don't hire foreign students or Working Holiday Makers. I was like what, you don't know my level of Japanese or my educational background, but it seems they don't care. Anyway, I'm not the person to give up so early, so I'll continue searching. I got some tipps where to apply for, so I'll try that next. Also, I'm going to the Working Holiday Makers Head Office in Tokyo next week, I've heard they offer some help so why not try that. :-) 

As for today, I was strolling around in Harajuku with my future roommate Charlotte, as she had to buy some things. Here are the fotos of the day, I did not take so many, sorry :-(

 I know some of my followers are Lolita Fashion Lovers, so this is only for you!! <33

 Same as here!!

For Shou-chan and NeNe, who love Liz Lisa

 Random Food of the last days

 Sashimi :-))

After Harajuku I was meeting with my friend Kerstin in Shibuya for dinner and coffee :-) It was so good to see her again and to have a refreshing chat :-) I really miss doing that with my friends back home, so I'm really happy to have my future roommate and Kerstin here in Tokyo. :-) Argh, I wanna move out of this guesthouse XDD Still two more weeks to go. 

Remember my last post about my meetup with Kirin?? She posted too about our meeup, you can read it here at her blog Tokyo Kawaii. I highly recommend you to subscribe to her blog, it is really interesting and informative!

Btw, I received my very first letter to my new address! Since I'm always hanging around at my future home already I can always get my letters! So friends, fill my letter box! Lol! That's it again for today, see you next time!!