We're not alone on this world...

...Specially not in Tokyo! Wherever you are, be sure there are thousands of other people with/around you. As announced in my previous post, I'm writing about Tokyo again. I wanna share some pictures of crowds of people. It may not be so special to those who've never been to Tokyo yet, but for me it was kinda overwhelming seeing all those people on the streets for the first time two years ago. I'm living in a city with roughly 600,000 inhabitants, so it is usually not crowded here. I could just watch those crowds in Tokyo from a cafe or at the station for hours which I actually like a lot. Everyone is moving so fast (even women with very high heels, XD), while having one hand on the mobile phone and the other one on their bags. I even once saw a guy on a bicycle, holding an umbrella with one hand, his mobile phone on the other while listening to music on his Ipod. And he did not fall, leave out bump into people. What a skilled person! XD Anyway, let the pictures speak!

 In Shibuya (you can see many western people there, too)

Shibuya (look at the crowds in the background)

 Same here

 And here

Me and my friend at the famous scramble crossing in Shibuya (Sorry for using this, I had no better one). I think the green light was green for over 3 minutes :-) Next time I wanna grab a seat at the Starbucks (and watch the crowds from there)

 Harajuku/Omotesando at night

 These fotos are actually from Osaka, but the rush hour should be the same in Tokyo!

Same here. I guess many people were asking what the heck I was taking fotos of while standing in their way, hahaha.

What do you think of people watching? Do you like it or do you avoid crowds of people? Of course it is not funny when you're being an active part of the crowd, for example at rush hour time. But it's so fascinating that everyrthing seems to work, from commuting to whatever. Whenever I'm in Tokyo, I adept to the walking speed there, and when I've returned to Germany, everyone seems to slack around, hahaha! Anyone wants to come to Shinjuku with me?? (Daily commuters: about 3 million people ('A') 

Last but not least, Sara Mari celebrates her birthday today! Many of you know her, she is really an enrichment to the Bloggoshpere with her blog Moments like Diamonds! Sara, I've sent you a birthday card, hope it will arrive soon! Have some virtual cake to bridge the waiting time!

I hope you'll enjoy a lovely weekend! Till next post!

Now it's official

Hi my friends, here I am again with some great news to share with you! But first of all I wanna share the fotos of the day, as my sis and me had a date with our japanese friend today. We had lunch together at the Cafe Relax, a japanese cafe and restaurant which is very popular. We ordered the daily set meal, which was really good. 

The set menu-starting at the middle and then clockwise: Kara-age (fried chicken), rice, salad, salmon, Harusame (noodles) and Miso soup

Even a dessert was included in the set menu! Left: Soymilk Mouse Right: Mango Mousse

After the lunch we went to the main office of a huge bank to change my sis' money into japanese Yen! The exchange rates are horrible at the moment, I almost cried when the (almost) 800 Euro were "only" worth 80,000 Yen... Two years ago I got 110,000 Yen for 800 Euro!! Anyways, here's a foto for all of you who haven't seen any Yen yet. (Unnecessary info though, but I've seen the first and real 500 Euro bill of my life today! I doubted they exist, only having seen them in movies, hahahaha!)

The 10,000 Yen is the biggest bill you can get, then comes the 5000 and the 1000 Yen bill. Other money comes in coins, with 500, 100, 50, 10, 5 and 1 Yen

Okay, here are my great news: I just booked my ticket to Japan a sec ago! Now my Working Holiday is kinda official, and I can't go back now. I was lucky enough to find a cheap flight with British Airways (yeah, waiting was really worth it, since my sis paid more for exactly the same flight). 

I will be leaving Germany on November, 1 at 10:50 a.m. from Düsseldorf Aiport via London Heathrow and arrive in Tokyo Narita on November, 2 at 9:10 a.m.

My Working Holiday will last for one year and I'm extremely excited. For all of you who wish to meet me in Tokyo, or happen to be there at the same time, I'm always looking for new friends, so feel free to contact me at anytime for a meet-up! Don't be shy, I'm very friendly and easygoing XDD I'm already looking forward to meeting Nic, Sara Mari and my other friends in Tokyo. Gosh, I'm so excited as I can't wait to come back to Japan again, it will be already my fourth time but I'm still not fed up with Tokyo, haha! 

Oh, yeah just an important note at the end of this post: for all of you who also write letters to me, be sure to send me the last letter before Nov, 1!! I will take your letters with me to Japan and continue to write to you from over there. If your letters come later than Nov, 1 I can't take them with me and you probably have to wait a year long for a reply, 'cause I don't want my Mum to send all of my personal post all the way to Tokyo. As soon as I've got my address in JP, I'll let you know. Hope we're still be penpalling a lot! =)

 

Okay, I'll go to bed early today as tomorrow is the great day for my sis. We'll bring her to the airport and see her off. She really appreciated all of your nice words and wishes, btw. Thank you guys!

Travel Post: Odaiba

I'm back to blogging after a little break due to some things. Concerning my WH, there is a high possibility I will book my flight within the next 3 days. I've found a really cheap flight, but still have to carefully think about it. But then it would be settled then, as soon as I've booked something I'll let you know. 

Thank you so much for your respond to my last post, I will try to keep my travel posts balanced, writing about Tokyo and other places. So today I wanna write about Odaiba in Tokyo.

I guess many of you know about Odaiba, an artificial island in the south-east of the Tokyo Bay. It is a very popular place for shopping and amusement. I had the chance to visit it already two times, the fotos I use in this post are from Sep 2009.

  A map of Odaiba

You have to take the Yurikamome Line from Shinbashi Station to get to Odaiba. (Yurikamome means "black headed gull" btw). It's a train that has no driver, similar to the trains at most bigger airports which bring you to the next terminal. I really enjoyed looking out of the window while being on the Yurikamome :-) The only bad thing is that the tickets are rather expensive, for that price I could reach other far places in Tokyo :-(

A Statue of Liberty :-) You can see the rainbow bridge in the background

The Rainbow Bridge

Fuji TV building and a huge park. I remember seeing many japanese + their international partners on that day

Fuji TV building and Aua City, a huge shopping mall

Sunset

There are great shopping malls, which you can only find in Odaiba. I have been to Venus Fort, Aqua City and Decks Tokyo Beach. Venus Fort is so special because it is a recreated Venetian shopping street. The designs were really beautiful:

Yeah, that's really the ceiling!

A beautiful fountain

I also loved the light in the mall

Odaiba has also many attractions which I couldn't see yet. For example:

The ferris wheel of Palette Town

There are also museums, game centers, parks, Onsen and what not which I'd really love to visit next time. Because the tickets for Yurikamome are quite expensive, you should take a whole day to spend there, and to see everything you want to. I can only recommend Odaiba, anyone who wants to go there with me?? XD

Travel post: Naoshima (Setonaikai)

Today I browsed my old pic folders and thought it is maybe time to write a travel post again? I remember that I promised to write a post about the Konpira-san, too. Bad me, I just forgot! XD

So I wanna  write about the island of Naoshima my sister and me had the chance to visit in the Seto Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku. I bet most of you are going to Tokyo or Osaka when you visit Japan, but hardly get to see other places, right? Except for Hokkaido I've been on all three main islands of Japan, and I really hope to explore more of them in my WH year.

Naoshima is the yellow island :-) Actually we wanted to go to Shodoshima that day XD On the map you can see all the districts of Kagawa prefecture.

We took the ferry from Takamatsu City which took about 25 minutes to Naoshima.

Only water and some little islands around us

The special thing about Naoshima is that it is a kind of "Island of Arts". You can find funny sculptures everywhere on the island, and many museums as also. We were able to visit the Benesse House and the Art House Project. The entrance fee was about 1000 Yen each time, but it was really worth it. 

I just love the beautiful landscape

Me, my sis and our friend Yui next to a huge sculpture :)

I love this pic XD

A huge pumpkin sculpture

Pumpkins seemed to be popular :-)

Bonus shot: our dinner back in Takamatsu :-)

It was so unbelievably hot and humid that day, I even got lightly sunburned at my shoulders. But it was really worth it, having spent the day in such an sophisticated and cultural place. Normally I'm not really into arts and stuff, but I can recommend a visit to Naoshima, because there you can have both a visit to the beach as well as a chance to improve oneself further in regards of arts. Next time I wanna visit Shodoshima for sure! I'm already thinking about what to post next, what would you like to see? More from Tokyo or the countryside of Kagawa?? With this is mind, see you next post!

Update and about Ufo Catcher

Hello, it's been a while again! I'll write more today to make up that I was absent again the last couple of days. I hope you won't get bored reading :-)

On Saturday I went to the farewell/birthday party of some japanese friends who will leave Germany again after a year of studying here in Düsseldorf! I'll miss them heaps, but I can see them again soon in Japan :-) It was a funny evening. Have some fotos!

Some of the girls and me (hope they're not angry with me for posting :-)

The cute plushie guy having some snacks :-)

Today was just an "I stay at home all day" day. Actually I wanted to do so many things, but it was raining most of the time, so I decided to learn some more Japanese (yeah, I'm really studying again), thinking up good topics to blog about, write some letters and watch TV :-) My sis and I love the "24" series, and now we're at season 5.

I wrote these three just in about 2 hours :-)

Just in case someone's interested in the backside of the letters...

When I thought about topics which I could blog about I came up with stories or weird things that happen to me while being in Japan, and I think posts about Japan are always popular, so why not? So today I wanna write about Ufo Catcher in Japan, which I personally enjoy everytime I'm there and I'm also pretty good in catching stuffed animals :-) (No showing-off here, hahaha!)

Game Centers are pouplar throughout Japan, and when you've experienced them once you'll understand why. I myself could hang around there the whole day, either watching people playing or doing it myself, hahaha! There are also many purikura-machines in Game Centers, so watch out for masses of school girls taking them after school :-)

Some of the trophies I brought back to Germany. I gave a lot to my sis, so this is only what I have atm. You can imagine how bothersome it was to drag that huge Korilakkuma back home in my hand luggage, hahaha! It was caught by my friend Yui.

A Game Center at Halloween's

Some Pirates Rilakkuma

Various plushies :-)

I'll enjoy them again soon, but what should I do with all the plushies I get?? I'll only have a room in Japan, and not a whole apartment, hahaha! Maybe I should get some for a stuffed animal giveaway? XDD

Last but not least: The famous Nic Nic is throwing a lovely giveaway! She and her husband have an online shop for japanese cosmetics called A Pop of Kawaii, be sure to check it out!

Have a lovely day my friends! :-) I'll have to work again tomorrow! See you!

Working Holiday in Japan

Hello, it's been a while again for me to update! So, last week I had my first working day, and it went quite well! My working hours are from 7:30 am to 11:30 am, and my second job starts at 4 pm to 10 pm. I was really exhausted, but also felt good, to earn my own money for my year of Working Holiday. Speaking of that, it is finally decided!!! My friend Lara and me decided to experience the adventure of Working Hoilday in Japan together, starting this November for a whole year. We are really excited, for her it will the first time ever being in Japan, for me the 4th time. I have never been away from home for as long as 6 weeks (my last trip to Japan), and now it's gonna become a whole year! There will be bunches of organisation work in front of us, but is so nice to talk about it and plan everything together. I'm sure there will be some difficulies, too, but I'll do my best and make sure we have the time of our life over there. Of course I will also blog from Japan, be sure about that! And think about the giveaways I could do with all the cute stuff available only in Japan :-))) I hope you will stay loyal followers on my blog, as soon as I'm over there, I promise it will become more interesting! More about plans in the next posts :-))

Another topic: I was tagged by Vanessa for the Stylish Blogger Award! Yes, again another award! The idea is to share 5 random facts about yourself (I have to watch out, not to take the same again as in other awards :-)

I love knitting so much! Currently I am working on a similar cardigan

 I love Kinder Schokolade! The best German chocolate ever! Have a try!

I was a Sailor Moon addict as a child and still am! :-))

One of my most favourite bands: The Brilliant Green!!!

Last but not least: I love blogging! And without you, my dear followers, it wouldn't be half as much fun!

Bonus Pic: Today, my dear friend Ai sent me these lovely presents!!!! I love cute stationary!! Thank you Ai, I love you so much!!!!!!