Waiting for the cherry blossoms and starting to say good bye

I just got back from my last capoeira practice in Japan. I'll miss Norie, Gruiro, Tessore, Neguinho, Raphael, Junior, Himesan, Estudante, Kingi,... all of them are very, very fine people. Even if I don't know how to spell their capoeira names I'll never forget them. Playing capoeira with them and being part of their group was one of the highlights of my stay.

Odd. Yesterday I felt homesick after videoskyping with my sister for 2 hours. Now I feel that it is too soon to leave. BTW, in case you don't know yet, I'm arriving in Vienna on April 21 around midnight. However, I'll only stay until the 24th, then I'll go visit Gwen for a week in France. The two days I'm in Vienna might be very busy because of some work related stuff. If I don't get a chance to see you then, maybe we could meet on May 3rd. I'm not sure when I'll be in Vienna again after that.

Another odd thing is the perception of time. It's seems like I've arrived in Japan only last week. I remember my first impression of Tsukuba as if it all just happened yesterday. I particularly remember the cherry blossoms everywhere and my first earth quake (btw, now I got so used to them that I hardly take notice of them). Soon the cherry blossoms will be every where again. Here is a picture I took at the same place I took the cherry blossom pictures I posted previously (April 1, 2006).



Cherry blossoms are very special, but by far not the only amazing thing in springtime. Plumbs have been blooming for weeks now (and to me they look very similar to cherry blossoms), and there is another tree that is blooming right now, and I've never seen anything like it. The blossoms look like white roses, and they are huge! Here is a picture I took but it's a bit hard to see how big they really are. There is one flower right in the center of the picture which has almost opened all the way.

Google Maps & Privacy

It seems possible to get extremely high resolution images using Google maps. In fact, it seems possible to identify different people. Check out this page including examples. Scary isn't it? Here is a direct link to a Google map.

Snowshoeing in Nikko

Yesterday Asanosan (our group leader) took us on a wonderful hike in Nikko. It was fun to go hiking with colleagues from work, and it was great to see mountains and snow again. The scenery was beautiful. I enjoyed the silence which was only disturbed by the sound of the snow crunching underneath our snowshoes :-)

After the hike we went to an onsen (Japanese hot spring). I don't like very hot water, but somehow I managed to sit in it for a bit. Afterwards I felt amazingly relaxed, it was great :-)

Today's Favorite Song

I usually don't have favorite songs. I have a list of artists I enjoy listening to very much and there are songs I like more than others. But recently I found a song that just instantly puts me in a good mood and which I have listened to almost everyday since I found it.



I found it via the Late Greats blog. You can actually download the full track there. I don't know if that is legal... however, in my case I can argue that I would have never found those artists otherwise. And now I know which album I will buy next :-)

Fujisan

I took this picture just a few seconds ago, right after sunset. Its the view from my window. As usual my camera didn't get the colors right, but it might give you an idea of what the real thing looked like :-)

Danke!

Danke an alle die mir letzte Woche Interviews gegeben haben! Ich hab schon angefangen die Ergebnisse auszuwerten und find sie total spannend. Ich hab dank euch eine Menge gelernt. Und es war schön wieder daheim vorbei zuschauen und alle wieder zu sehen :-)
Ich werd noch ein paar Interviews in Tsukuba machen, und dann fang ich mit der Verlosung der CDs an :-)

Übrigens, ich hab jetzt etwas Neues im Blog: die Liste der Lieder die ich zuletzt gehört hab. Jetzt wisst ihr nicht nur was ich so mache, sondern auch was ich grad für Musik hör :-)

Falls ihr am Computer Musik hoert, probiert vielleicht einmal last.fm. Ausprobieren kann man es direkt auf der Webseite ohne was zu installieren. Wenn man aber will, dass sich das System Entscheidungen merkt, dann zahlt es sich aus sich gratis beim System anzumelden. Wenn's einem taugt kann man dann (gratis) ein Program runterladen mit dem man dann verschiedene nette Sachen machen kann.

Meine nächsten zwei Monate werden chotto stressig. Ich muss einiges abschließen bevor ich im März Urlaub geh. Es sind kaum noch 7 Wochen bis ich hier fertig bin mit der Arbeit, wahnsinn wie die Zeit verflogen ist! Ich werd vielleicht nicht mehr so oft dazu kommen etwas zu berichten. Mitte April bin ich dann übrigens wieder in Wien, wenn auch nur für ein paar Tage, in diesen werd ich dafuer keinen Stress mit Interviews haben :-) Danach fahr ich Gwen in Nizza besuchen)... und danach wird's spannend (noch ist nichts fix) :-)

Ansonsten... das Wetter ist herrlich (sonnig, blauer Himmel, angenehm warm, frische Luft), die Arbeit macht im Moment auch besonders viel Spass, und vorhin war ich grad in Karate, sehr fein! Ich werd morgen wieder hinschaun. Da bekomm ich dann auch endlich mein Dogi (Trainingsanzug), bin schon sehr neugierig! In Japan ist es scheinbar üblich, dass man seinen Namen ins Dogi hineingestickt bekommt. Bei mir gab's leider ein Missverständnis. Ich heiß jetzt "Eriku" beim Karate, knapp daneben ;-)

Aja, und einen wunderbaren Jetlag hab ich auch grad. Ich bin heut ohne Wecker um 7h aufgewacht! Mal schaun wie lang's noch so bleibt :-)

Also dann! Danke nochmals fuer all die Hilfe! Und bis bald hoffentlich :-)

Pictures

I got back from Vienna last Thursday. It was great! Here are some pictures (sorted chronologically).

Painting Christmas presents at made by you:



Dinner at Christian's place:



Dinner at my parents' place:



Singing Christmas songs in Kobling:



Rekawinkel:









Rome:





This was one of the strangest tour guides I ever experienced. Here Roberto (our tour guide) is trying to show us pictures in a book while we are standing in the Colosseum. The group had a size of almost 40 people. We waited about 20 minutes to get in, and only spent about 10 minutes inside.



At the Vatican we randomly ran into the Pope's blessing of the New Year. The Pope is standing at the window of the building in the background. He hung a rug outside of the window so people would know which window to look at.



We also (randomly) ended up in the New Year's mass. The one thing I'll probably never forget is people using the confessional (Beichtstuhl) to make phone calls on their cell phones.