Random pics of Ebisu and the Indian Festival in Yoyogi park

Yesterday I went to the Indian festival held in Yoyogi park. Every so often there is a festival concerning a new country organised in the park. You can buy food, drinks, music, dance, objects, clothes etc related to the country. The Indian festival was a lot of fun:

Last week I went to Ebisu (an area in Tokyo) with a friend and after having lunch together, we walked around to get to know the area a little bit. Herewith a few pictures of Ebisu:

Above is the facade of a fancy French restaurant.

Bye everyone.

Weekend in Yamanashi prefecture

Hello,

Last weekend, I went to the Yamanashi prefecture with Ruriko and Yuka. 

We left Tokyo by bus at 7 am and arrived at Yamanakako (biggest of 5 lakes by Mt Fuji). Yuka had reserved bicycles for us, so we took our bikes and started cycling around the lake. It was great to be around nature again. The area and the lake are both beautiful. We stopped for lunch and later for tea and cake at a very nice little cafe which almost made me feel as if I was back in Belgium. We then took off again and finished our tour of the lake. Some family members of Yuka have an apartment not too far from there, right by Mt Fuji. Yuka's parents got there a day before us and came to get us by car. Yuka's parents invited us to a delicious dinner in a local restaurant. After the restaurant, we went to a local shrine which is really beautiful and peaceful. In the middle of a forest. We then went to the apartment which was amazing. It was right by Mt Fuji (which was acting shy and hiding behind clouds) and in the middle of nature. Yuka's parents are very nice and funny people and the 5 of us had a lot of fun together. We spent the whole evening speaking together until around midnight. We woke up at around 7:30am and prepared breakfast all together and spoke for quite a while again. We were meaning to go hiking around the area, but the weather was quite bad so Yuka's parents drove us around different places to show us this amazing Japanese prefecture. We first went to a place from where we were supposed to have a very nice view of Mt Fuji. Unfortunately it was very cloudy, but beautiful nonetheless:

Yuka's dad admiring... Mt Fuji:

View opposite Mt-Fuji:

Yuka's parents invited us for lunch and delicious ice cream and then we went on visiting the area.

We saw the 5 "Mt Fuji lakes": Yamanaka-ko, Kawaguchi-ko, Sai-ko, Shoji-ko and Motosu-ko (ko meaning lake). We went to visit the ice cave which is a cave that was used as a fridge back when we didn't have fridges. It was a lot of fun. Herewith a sign that was at the entrance of the cave:

Visiting the cave was exactly as described on the sign :-)

We went back to the apartment where we rested for a while before we had to head to the bus station to go back to Tokyo. I'll have more/better pictures to show you once we exchanged pictures with Yuka and Ruriko since they both have a camera, which take better pictures than my phone. Certainly when the weather is not that good. Meanwhile, herewith a last little overview of the trip, which was a really great way to kind of give a closure to my stay in Japan:

Bye

One meeting, leading to another, leading to another...

So today, I accidentally met this guy with whom I spoke for about an hour. I really enjoyed talking with him about travelling, hiking, learning new languages, music, etc. I find out he plays the bass and that tonight he has a gig with this band called The Watanabes for the first time. I ask him where it is and at what time and decide to ask the friend I was supposed to meet today to join me to check it out. Before going, I check out the band on youtube and realise I actually have heard some of their sons which I really like:

Below is one of my favourites:

The Watanabes - Whales can sing

And this one gives a good idea of what it feels like to start living in Japan:

The Watanabes - Love Princess

The gig is held at this bar called The Ruby Room in Shibuya, so I'm not very original and arrange to meet my friend at the Hachiko statue (usual meeting point in Shibuya, and so packed on Friday and Saturday evenings, that it is hard to find whomever you're supposed to meet...) and we head out for The Ruby Room, which turns out to be this small bar with a great atmosphere:

When we get there I introduce my friend to the guy I had met that same day and we start chatting away until the first gig starts: Shun Kamiyama. His style is electronic and he has a great voice. you can check out some of his music on his webpage. My favourite of the songs he played that night has to be "I don't care".

Then it's the turn of The Watanabes with Ayumi (the guy I met today) and another guest musician, and I have to say they sound a lot better live! After their gig, Ayumi introduces us to Duncan, the main singer of The Watanabes and we chat away for a little while. He's a great guy and when I ask him if their music is to be bought on iTunes, he just gives me their album for free!!! We chat for a little while longer with both Duncan and Ayumi and later on, Kim recognises a guy passing by. She asks me confirmation and yes, he is the main singer of this band we saw playing at this other gig, in Roppongi probably around 2 months ago. So we stop him just to let him know we really enjoyed his band that time and start chatting with him as well. Really cool guy too. Sam is his name and the bands name is Jimmy Binks and The Shakehorns:

Herewith one of their songs called Mama's got cookies.

And herewith a cover of Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you know what a great evening I had.

Bye

Leaving Japan :-( Going to New Zealand :-)

Hi Everyone,

As most of you already know, I'm leaving this beautiful country soon. Living here for 4 months has been a great experience! I met amazing people, not only from Japan, but from all over the world (just the way I like it). I made friends that I will never forget and I'm sure some of these friendships are going to last for a lifetime. I learnt so much more about the Japanese culture and language. It feels great to know your way around in Tokyo (not everywhere of course, this city is way too big and changes way too quickly). To be able to speak to people in the street, station or super market. I've said this many times already, but whenever I get to spend the day with my Japanese friends, and we speak mostly Japanese all day long, I get really happy. Japanese is not an easy language to learn, but it is all the more satisfying when you manage to communicate in Japanese. Having intensive classes when I got here, was a great way to get into it, but I learnt most of my Japanese thanks to my Japanese friends' patience. They never hesitated to invite me to do things with them and sometimes even organised activities for me. I'll miss them, as well as my other friends here, that's for sure! My housemates, the people I met in the hostel where I stayed in, in June, etc.

However, I am not sad. I know I'll keep in touch with my friends. Maybe they'll visit me, wherever I am. Or I will visit them, wherever they are. And even if we don't meet again, we can keep in touch. I'll come back to Japan as well. I love this country, and I want to continue studying Japanese. Aside from knowing this is not a goodbye, but a see you soon, I am not sad because I know this is a new start. I'll be moving to Auckland, New Zealand at the end of this month and I'm actually excited and looking forward to this new adventure. This week started off very nicely since I received my working-holiday visa, which allows me to work in New-Zealand for 12 months. Hopefully, I'll be able to quickly find a job there. It should be easier than finding a job in Japan, since I have a valid working visa, and I speak the language. I'm looking forward to discovering the amazing nature of New Zealand and its great people as well. I have gotten along very well with every single Kiwi I ever met. In my experience, they are nice, open-minded, funny and relaxed people. Well, I don't think I need me to tell you how amazing a country New Zealand seems to be. Everyone that knows I'm going there is telling me how they always wanted to go there too and how jealous they are I'm really going. I'll try to get them/you even more jealous by posting pictures of this amazingly beautiful country. Maybe some will come to visit me, even though it is quite far from Europe...

I'd like to make use of this post to thank my family and friends, who are always supportive of my "life decision", however crazy they may be. No one ever doubted my decision of going to Japan, and everyone is still supporting me now that I announced I'll be going from Japan to New Zealand. I'm very grateful for that, because this is what makes it possible for me to take such decision so "easily". Sorry, this almost sounds like I'm reading a speech right after winning an award or something. But if I can not say this now, then when can I? This is nothing new of course, and I hope my friends and family know this too. I try to tell them once in a while, and now is a perfect time for a reminder of how amazing they are :-)

Big hug to everyone. I hope that wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are enjoying yourselves just as much as I am ;-)

Belgian Beer festival

I went to the Belgian beer festival on Saturday. It was a lot of fun, of course, since we had good Belgian beer and even good Belgian food ;-)

Herewith some pics and videos (the sound of the video's isn't great, sry):

We saw Marka (Belgian Singer-Songwriter) - video:

And Arsenal (Belgian band) - video:

I'm going on another short trip this coming weekend, so hopefully I'll have a few pictures to share with you when I come back :-)

Have a nice week

Ueno park and zoo

On Friday I went to the Ueno park and zoo with Hiro and Tommii where I had a lot of fun.

Herewith some pictures:

Morishita linguistics

Playing around on an evening at the Sakura House Morishita. For some reason, I can't upload the video straight to the blog so I hope below link works:

Morishita linguistics video

It's nothing special, but enjoy :-)