Sensations désagréables au réveil, lorsque l'on réalise après quelques pas encore endormis d'une nuit épaisse chargée d'orage, qu'il n'est que mercredi, alors qu'on se croyait déjà en fin de semaine.
Eiko dort encore, même mon chat Pitou n'est qu'à moitié actif, la chaleur aura eu raison de son appétit.
Preuve des temps modernes, je commence ma journée par lire les mails, que
j'espère avoir reçus pendant la nuit. Parmi les nombreux messages de spam ou
les messages d'alerte de CNN que j'ai presque peine à distinguer de la
catégorie précédente, tant ils sont nombreux, je trouve un mot d'une amie
actuellement aux Etats-Unis, avec qui je communique régulièrement et qui comme
moi, se trouve projetée dans une terre lointaine.
Les messages traversent le globe, sans toujours s'arrêter par la France: on
n'a plus les mêmes sujets de conversation ou la même sensibilité aux choses
lorsque l'on est expatrié.
En flânant sur l'Internet, je tourne la tête pour remarquer une pluie battante et l'orage qui gronde et je me dis qu'il est peut-être préférable de prendre le métro plutôt que mon scooter ce matin. Cette décision peut peut-être me sauver la vie aujourd'hui.
Je sors de chez moi alors que l'air a cette pesante odeur, caractéristique des jours de pluie.
La station de métro est déjà moite des pas des voyageurs matinaux, mais le train n'est pas encore plein: j'ai eu la chance d'arriver parmi les premiers dans la queue et de trouver une place à côté de la vitre, mais rapidement, les gens se bousculent derrière moi, au fur et a mesure que le train s'arrête pour accueillir plus de voyageurs.
Me voici maintenant bras droit collé contre la vitre, dont la condensation se mélange désagréablement avec la sueur au contact de ma chemise.
Derrière moi, je sens quelqu'un chercher quelque chose dans son sac, me donnant de brefs coups dans le dos à chaque tentative, alors que la respiration lourde d'un autre me parvient par le côté.
Tout le monde a cependant cette même attitude résignée, baissant la tête silencieusement, en espérant que le train ira peut-être plus vite aujourd'hui pour rendre le périple plus court.
Dans les quelques dizaines de mètres qui séparent la station du bureau,
tout le monde effectue la même danse.
D'une marche dynamique, on esquive les autres passants moins pressés, en
prenant garde de ne pas entrechoquer les parapluies, alors que la musique de
fond est assurée par le bruit urbain des voitures roulant sur la
chaussée humide de l'autoroute qui traverse la ville.
En réalité, on remarque à peine cette nuisance sonore, tant elle est
permanente.
Finalement au bureau, c'est avec plaisir que je regarde la pluie ruisseler contre la vitre. Je suis sauf et la journée peut commencer.
Between two rainy days, the sky opened yesterday (June 26th) to grant Fred
and Mari-chan a bright and beautiful piece of Heaven, as they were celebrating
their marriage.
The ceremony took place in Hachimangu in Kamakura, while Hiroen was in the simply-called Kamakura Yama Roastbeef restaurant, a name that does not leave a lot of space to imagination in regards to what we had to eat ;).
You should however be fool to think that this place only serves meat, as we
had a sumptuous dish of sashimi (raw fish) before the main dish.
The roastbeef was indeed one of the most tender piece of meat I was given to
eat.
The wedding reception was a total success, thanks to the contribution of all of Fred and Mari-chan's family, relatives and friends: songs, speeches, poems, everything made the whole reception very intense in emotions and joy.
My personal contribution was limited to taking pictures of the wedding, it was probably safer to give that task to me instead of letting me sing ;).
The gallery is only visible if you know the login and password, in order to respect Fred and Mari's privacy.
Picture taken in Ark Hills, next to the former
Asahi TV premises, one morning before going to work.
Somehow, I feel that ever since the major companies in this building started to move to more fancy ones such as Roppongi Hills, Ark Hills has been showing a certain peacefulness behind some apparent activity, close to making it look like a deserted city.
This is especially true at 8am, when the shops are slowly opening their doors and the staff is mechanically preparing the scene for people who haven't come yet.
Ark Mori Building is struggling to renew its look and keep attractions up, while knowing that its killer sister (Roppongi Hills is also a Mori Building) is actually drawing all the attention.
Lucille is just
born today from Caroline and
Rudy, one of my best friends from junior high school!
Rudy and I met when we were just 11 years old and we've never stopped seeing each other since then.
It's really great to know there are friends you are just going to keep forever... Seeing that beautiful little baby, something like 18 years after we met, makes me soooo happy for Rudy and Caroline.
A new cycle begins and I hope our own children will get along with Rudy's or Joachim's (and other friends' to come too!) so that this circle of friends repeats for many generations again.
The friendly face on the left
hand side could be the new employee of the month, just with the smile he's
showing in this picture, but there's more than that.
This man is actually Toshitake Kuwahara (I have to admit it was the first time for me to hear that name too), he's the current mayor of Shibuya, craddle of Japanese fashion for teenagers, and he had the good idea to make a website in English for the 11,000 foreigners living in Shibuya-ku, in Tokyo.
From the list of sport centers in Shibuya to the schedule of the shuttle bus going to the main points in Shibuya, not to mention the various instructions to follow in case of administrative formalities, the site contains a handful set of information, which took me a few clicks to find in google.
The site is apparently quite recent (at least the English version of it) and deserves to be advertised to get a higher rank in the search engines!
There, now that I've done my duty as a citizen of Shibuya,
let's mention that the name of that shuttle bus above is the Hachiko Bus.
Everyone who has been going out to Shibuya knows this place, next to the station, that hundreds of people set as their meeting point everyday.
The story tells that a University teacher going by the name of Eizaburo
Ueno adopted a dog and named him Hachi in the 1920's.
The dog used to accompany its master to the station every morning and was
welcoming him in front of the station every evening, year after year.
When the professor eventually passed away, the dog kept going to the station to wait for his master for another 10 years, until he died himself, at the exact location where he had been waiting for his master for all those years.
Japanese who were touched by such fidelity erected a statue for that faithful dog and placed it where Hachiko used to wait for his master.
That story is over famous to people coming to Tokyo, but I've just realized I had never told it in this weblog.
A satellite image
taken not too far from Spain's southern coast revealed some ancient ruins that
appear to match descriptions made by Plato of the lost city of Atlantis.
Two rectangular structures could be the silver temple and the golden temple devoted to the Greek Gods Cleito and Poseidon.
The article in Discovery Channel explains how the different elements in Plato's writings could match locations and events in history.
If this is really the city of Altantis, I'm wondering if there are still posters of Patrick Duffy (the Man of Atlantis) stuck on the walls somewhere...
I mean, this guy from Atlantis must be the only one of his kind to have made it to a TV show, so he must be a star in his hometown ;-).
It's been already 3 weeks since the pictures have been
ready, but somehow, I forgot to post a link, so here it is: the traditional
team party for the
visit of our regional manager in Tokyo.
NT, Unix, networking, programming, you name it, the guy knows it all inside
out!
Recently, he was even doing some troubleshooting, opening PCs to mount their hard
drives on other machines, because of an unsuccessful patch on NT (did I
mention how much I enjoy having a Mac at home?).
How many top-level managers do you see do that recently?
Anyway, he's quite an amazing man (remind me to make him read that before the appraisal process at the end of the year!), and it's always with great pleasure that I meet him, both professionally and personally speaking.
It was also another shooting session for me, as I'm practising for Fred's wedding to understand how to capture the atmosphere of a party, without killing the mood...
What I've learnt this time: the key elements are a wide angle len to capture the whole scenes, fill-in flash to fix the subject and to have a good rendition of the ambient light, tilting the image to make it more dynamic and enjoying the party yourself!
Last weekend, Eiko and I have finally moved out for a new
apartment that we found just about 5 minutes walk from where we lived
before!
The search was not easy as we were already quite busy with preparing everything for the wedding and for the honeymoon, but we wanted to move out for a better place anyway.
Plus, if we had stayed one more month in the old apartment, we would have had to pay the renewal fee.
If you're not too familiar with this concept, you have to know that Japan's society is still very feudal in many ways, especially when it comes to renting apartments.
On top of the deposit, which I think is quite common in most countries, the
applicant for an apartment should pay what is called a "key money"
(礼金), which is merely money you will never see again.
Some sort of gift to the landlord (note how the term totally fits in this
medieval context) to thank him to let you stay.
Yeah right, apart from the fact that the amount of the "gift" is actually
set by the landlord and not by yourself...
Usually, it's about 2 to 4 months of rent...
Finally, every two years, you are compelled to pay a renewal fee (usually the equivalent of one month of rent), which is supposed to pay for the damage you may have caused for the last two years (regardless of how damaged the apartment actually is).
Obviously, this is just another way to say "thank you, o Landlord for letting the miserable vermin that I am stay a little more!"
Anyway, as we didn't want to pay this renewal fee, we visited a bunch of apartments and found the good one the day before we left for Bora Bora.
We quickly initiated the procedure and prayed for the landlord to consider
our application.
Fortunately, when we returned, everything was almost set and we were good to
go!
The place is actually about the same size as the previous one, in the same district (we wanted to stay in this very pleasant area), but it's just more quiet and brighter, as it's facing South.
Pitou likes it a lot too, as she found her spot right away: next to the window, watching people go by (we're on the second floor).
We're still in the process of unpacking and when I see the mountains of boxes, I actually wonder how everything can fit in the closets but somehow it does (so far!).
Oh yeah, one more thing: the apartment came with some LAN plug to provide
instant Internet access, so I didn't even have to bother asking a new ADSL
connection and wait for 3 weeks to get an answer.
On top of that, it seems even faster than the connection I had in the previous
apartment!
I guess the service is just not the same as in France, if you compare my experience to Bruno's!
