Golden Week

The Golden Week (GW) in Japan is a long national holiday in May:
May 3rd: 憲法記念日 (Kenpou Kinenbi) / Constitution Memorial Day
May 4th: 国民の休日 (Kokumin-no Kyuujitsu) / National People's Day
May 5th: こどもの日 (Kodomo-no hi) / Children's Day

This year was great, having 5 days in row to have a wonderful rest. As one of the highest season for trips, the prices go up about 5x than usual.
Then, the best option is to go where nobody goes and Brazilian needs to be ^-^
Japanese don't go to the beach out of the season; the weather forecast was positive and in 5min I decided where to go and got tickets.
Waking up at 5:00am to be seeing this wonderful view in Atami and Ito. Shinkansen last stop in Shizuoka is Atami and it's necessary to take an Ito Line to Shimoda city, Shimoda Peninsula in Shizuoka. As it's too early no direct train is running.
The trip was very good, seeing wonderful views from the train and were very excited to get to the beach...

Umbrella size H

In Japan, you can get an umbrella in any convenience store.
Those are always transparent.

They also have in any size... I've seen those HUGE one but never imagine to have one... hahahaha.

Even with sandals, I didn't wet my feet because of extra sized umbrella!

This rain was on Saturday... good as we had to rest after all night party !!

Sunday was great! Sunny and wonderful all day... went jogging to Arisugawa Park in Hiroo and came back walking. Bough many CDs and DVD... studied a bit, read a bit, sing a bit, dance a lot!

Party area: Roppongi

It's a very crowded area even on the week day. Completely different from the rest of Tokyo, Roppongi is famous because of the pubs, discos, show events for foreigners.
As most of the bars and restaurants have English speakers, foreigners like being around. From everywhere, the meeting point is Roppongi.
The newest most famous building in Tokyo is called Roppongi Hills right close to the train station and many important foreigner companies have their office in that building.
Beside down there is a bar called Heartland, from the beer heartland they created this pub. DJ always does a good performance with western musics making the place looking like an european or american bar.
Dancers sometimes make the environment very different! They guys were pretty good and I wish I could see more...
Crowded inside, crowded outside...
People drinking, dancing, chating in many languages.
After 3am they move to other bars and discos. The one I went long time ago is called Muse (Amusement place) where you can dance, drink, play dards, billiard, table tennis, karaoke, huge! I've never seen so many different people in one place.
On Fridays, the place is so crowded you cannot even walk around.
And of course you see things you think doesn't exist in Japan :O

4:30am and you get tired? no... hungry. Then you have some ramen or shoronpo on the corner... in a standing bar.. which makes you feel desperate for a chair...
and in a uncomfortable seat you have a ... wine? no, a glass of jasmin tea!

Koboyama

Koubouyama is in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo; 1:15 from Shinjuku, odakyu line.
Woke up at 5am to pack and prepare for the tracking.


http://navi.city.hadano.kanagawa.jp/kankou/hiking/hiking_b.htm

Start @ Hadano city, walking about 10min from the station and you get to the bottom of the mountain already.

Some starts take you up there in few minutes.



The mountain around there are not that high, they are just long and make easy for walk. The highest point is 175m and we walked through 7.5 km til Tsurumakionsen city.




After all those wood stairs we had a huge surprise!

First time I see the Fuji san so clearly with those snow...　well, I can't believe I was on the top of Fuji san four years ago...

Spent more time there looking at the Fuji than hiking hehehe

Isn't it worth?? wonderful weather, the most beautiful view of the Fuji and a nice hiking team !!

Onsen and Bar in Konbu area

The houses are huge in Hokkaido, you don't feel you're in Japan, everything packed... the gardens and the garage are 10x bigger than in Kanto area.

I miss living in a house...




After 2 days snowboard, a good onsen house where they serve famous takikomi gohan in a special pan... it takes 45min to be prepared and while they cook, I was relaxing in the massage chair...





There are many bars in Niseko, and nice places actually.
The visitors are also very interesting... very different from Tokyo, they are directors and teachers, singing very well and dancing as I never saw in Tokyo.

Nice people in Niseko! They are great, happy, enjoy the life even in a very cold winter...

Love Hokkaido! confess in the summer is preferable (^-^)v

Snowboarding in An'nupuri

The Nikko Hotel is great, big room, nice staff, wonderful ofuro, and right on the bottom of the mountain.

It's a western style hotel, of course with the Japanese details everywhere... very organized, renting snowboard,boots, was very easy and cheap...

They have everything in the hotel to make things easy to the snowboarding and skiing people.

1st tentative from up the mountain, getting out from the lift was already a challenge ^-^

Still not so bad uhhh?

Was quite ok for the 1st slide from there...



After crashing a lot, taking break some times...

Very comfortable with the snowboard, more than ski actually.

Unfortunately lessons were finished in March and I was not able to learn everything as I should... had lots of fun though!!!

Arriving in Niseko

Woke up at 4am and took the 1st train to Haneda.
When I got there, my flight was canceled...
Had to wait 30min til the next flight, I could have slept more...

At least Haneda is beautiful and comfortable.
Don't need to be crashing with luggages and people around ^-^



Arriving in Shinchitose International Airport of Hokkaido, took a bus which drove me to very beautiful places.

2h later, I was already checking in the hotel and had a quick lunch (shoyu ramen ^-^)

Rent the snowboard and boots. Quite big though... and heavy!


I tried snowboarding the 1st time 4 years ago, but only for 2h and not did much...

The weather was great, warm (actually too warm) and did some training on the board... quite difficult... even to stand and not let the board going fast...

After 2 tentives, I was able to get the balance and when down til the lift station.

Quite hard to walk up to the hotel side, but at least I was able to slide down after at the end.

Had a wonderful ofuro in the hotel, which was empty. All the ski station and hotel empty. In Hokkaido, it's an easy going life! Nobody disturbing and everybody nice and happy.

Sakura Matsuri

Today, there was a festival of sakura in my area.
Bands playing famous 80's songs, groups performing taiko (japanese drum, ...)

After 2 weeks, there are still some sakura, but the amazing thing today was to see a sakura rain as the wind was quite strong and the river's water got all light pink all over...


Nowadays, you can see families all around on Sundays. 10 years ago, usually only moms and kids were going out, but now, dads are together, usually taking pics of the kids.

Good to see that in Japan.




In Daikanyama, barbecues were taking place in the parks, with music and some strange characters all around.

Brazilian music instruments

Viva Brasil this month was mainly Caetano Veloso songs.
Japanese amateurs have a Brazilian name, such as Alexandre, Marcos, Joao...

The boom of bossa nova in Japan started with Lisa Ono which is not known in Brazil. She is a nikkei Japanese Brazilian and made all the bossa nova singers to start appreciating singing, not only listening.

New singers become professional or even semi-professional every month. Even non-professionals those participate in the Viva Brasil event, announce their own live show.

I heard from a professional, percussion and little drums are from Brazil (Sao Paulo). There's a store in Takanobaba where usually famous artists buy the instruments.

Rolling Stones 2006

Bigger Bang tour!

Saitama Super Arena is not that big and made us to see the super old rock guys very close ^-^
My seat was on the bottom, 3rd line !!

The arena got full in couple of hours and the organization was pretty good. They only could not take my camera as it was very well hidden.

When they got in scenario, everybody stands up and never sit down again!

Half of the songs were very famous, which means very old... and it was great to see Japanese people jumping and singing like a crazy..


The stage moved to the middle of the arena and I was able to record the show for couple of minutes. The last song... I couldn't even take pictures as I couldn't stop dancing!

Ohanami

Ohanami means "party" under sakura trees.

There are many beautiful places with cherry blossom trees.

One of famous places is the Meguro River which is 2 blocks from my apartment.



Every "nature" such as koyo season, sakura season... there are festivals and festivals everywhere.

At night, the view is also very beautiful, I just didn't have time and it's still very cold for me hehehe





People in Japan eat a lot... everywhere, in all the events, they eat yakisoba, sausage (a huge one as the lady already ate), chicken (yakitori), ...


And of course... here in Tokyo everybody drinks a lot. They drink under the trees and get really really drunk, almost falling...


Japanese people are nature lovers and they enjoy every single flower. From now, many flowers season festival will happen.

I'm glad to be in Japan and enjoy these moments with them... and getting drunk as them... incredible... I remember I couldn't drink even a beer when I was in Brazil...

Fun till last moment!

I know how to have fun myself haaaa...?
At night, wonderful swimming in the beach, hot swimming pool, like onsen and cold water pool...
After all day in activity what's better than a haagen dazs...?

Thanks my life.



Right before flying back to tokyo, swimming in the beach, in the pool, more jetski and more haagen dazs aaaa
aaaa
yokattaaaa, Guam, foi otimo! adorei mesmo.
o pessoal foi muito bacana, a praia maravilhosa, o tempo lindissimo, as atividades inesqueciveis, tudo tudo foi otimo, nao tem nada q nao tenha gostado!

Para-Sailing

Usually 2 people go to para-sail because of the weight... but do you think I would go with someone there? I like doing myself !! argh, everything myself!!
And I went about 35m up, more than others hehehehe
The view was wonderful as the weather was good and the higher I was going the sensation was of more and more freedom.



The water's dark blue from the top was a new color ... the view of the mountains were unique and the boat was becoming small and small...







I got addicted to the jetski, canoeing and snorkeling... the jetski was really fun, the faster better! 110km/h in the 1st try... the next I have no idea as I couldn't even check the meter hohoho

Tumon

In Tumon, downtown, there's the longest aquarium in the world. Some of the fishes I saw the first time, like this very blue fish, with nemos...






and very pink ones, as they had been colored...








As it was probably close to 22:00, the sea-horses were already sleeping... they use well their tails...

What a wonderful life...

Look at this... the beach waiting for me ^-^

I walked all around inside the water as it is not deep at all... I could see people walking from the Alupat Island to the hotel.

Many Japanese though... as expected. And locals can speak quite good japanese.


What a beautiful sunset on the 1st day already huuuuuoooooo
and all for me from my room !!

30C and cool wind, my cough stopped completely... I might have allergy to everything in winter...

It was great to feel perfect and full of energy to run around the beach and get color on my skin...

And of course, as Brazilian, I had to eat the huge 10oz special steak... which was ok, not better than Brazilian churrasco but still fine... I can say I didn't leave anything on the plate heheh

Amazing as I can eat like this... I'm so small and thin... but probably it's because I spend lot's of energy... usually I eat a lot more after the exercises... which makes my weight not changing much the lots of exercises... but I forgive myself as I still can keep my body fine... most of my friends on the same age cannot wear the bikini I can still use... I'm doing my best to keep like this at least till my 40s :D

Going to Guam

Leaving Japan to Guam... from the airplane, a wonderful view of the Mount Fuji!

After 3h... Guam from the airplane. When I took the above picture, I didn't know my hotel was exactly there... and the small island in the middle is where I went snorkeling ^_^

The hotel room was huge comparing with the rooms in Japan ;-)
The bed was comfortable, the room service very good, hotel staff very nice, and the view from the room....
... the small island I saw from the airplane. It's Alupat Island in Agana Bay.

Viva Brasil!

Todo segundo sabado do mes tem um show ao vivo de musica brasileira aqui pertinho de casa, Rakuya, eh um restaurante/bar com musica ao vivo.
Esse evento, chamado de Viva Brasil, qquer pessoa pode participar. E' so levar um violao e botar a boca no mundo.
Eu ja participei mas foi eh no samba. Toda vez q tocam um bom sambinha da' aquela vontade de pular e dancar e a gente se diverte pacas!

http://vivabr.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

Olha, sao so japoneses cantando, tentando esse portugues q e' dificil pacas pra eles. E' incrivel como tem gente cantando bossa nova, samba, MPB... muitos profissionais inclusive tocam so musicas brasileiras.

Hamarikyuonshiteien

Yeah, this is the name of the park...浜離宮恩賜庭園
Close to Tsukiji, the famous fish market place...

The park used to be the place where the emperor praticed eagle training things.

Huge park in the middle of the huge buildings, such as Shiodome...

First warm day this year!

Friday

Great lunch time with the team at Kikkon in Sankei Bldg.
They have huge rooms and we had great time.
I got some flowers from the team, which was really lovely.

I'm always lucky working in teams with nice people. HSBC, Reuters, Mizuho. All nice people and I'm glad to have great friends in all the companies I have worked.

Meeting celebrities at "Que Sera"

The handsome guy in the middle is a famous actor in Japan, Sano san. Saturday was his live show, as his hobby is to play guitars and do music live around Tokyo.
The musics were quite old but the performance was really good.
The place's "Que sera!" and it seems famous people are usually there...









I met Kaneko san, who went to Brazil to a report about the Fat Family. He's really nice in person, smiling all the time and his voice is exactly like on the TV... like a happy guy ^-^

Update on Brazil in Tokyo

Every month there's an event presenting the Brazilian news in music, CD and DVD.
Promotted by Mr. Kepel, it was great to hear samba (those themes were famous when I was in Brazil) and new singer like Shirle de Moreira.

Kepel's online shop has many news about Brazilian musics where I got some CDs last year, those I was looking for a long time...
http://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mpb/

He's also has a tour event every year to Brazil and I saw some pictures of him at Milton Nascimento's huge house. woooo

Farewell

One more farewell... Great Dmytro, from Ukrania, is leaving the company and we had a dinner with lots of drink... lots and lots...
We will all miss our "Santa Claus" always laughing and very very patient with everybody. He never got upset with anything... maybe after figuring out his in my blog :O huahuahauaha







And this is the big boss of one of the departments. Not my big boss, but great boss in a party. He's very happy person, very social and drink a lot.
Thank him, I restarted my drinking days. kyaaaaaaaaaa