Arabian restaurant in Yoyogi Uehara...

Dinner with Brastech's friends in a new Arabian restaurant. The food was good but the best was the decoration and the utensils were original.
The picture is an Arabian coffee... very thick with mint (I guess)...

Palace

I have moved from the original building to a hotel for a month already...
No space enough in the building and the IT department had to move out :((
The hotel is just in front of the Imperial Palace Garden, which landscape I can see from desk ^-^
I also cannot complain much as on the 1F, there is an art gallery. Today, there was a new exposition and so much beautiful flowers in front of it.
I couldn't resist to take a picture. Please don't pay attention in my tired face after a hard work.

Nagoya

Nagoya Station building has a Guinness world record.


On the 15th floor, entrance of Marriot Hotel, the view is wonderful...


The globe is "Aichi Expo":

First time I heard elevator saying: "We are soon moving to..."


An interesting place on the top of the building...


Then I started my day in Nagoya...

Shinjuku Gyoen

Yesterday, my lunch was a picnic in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, under this huge and powerful tree.
This garden was constructed on the site of a private mansion belonging to Lord Naito of the Edo era. It was re-designated as a national garden after World War II.

Many families enjoying a great day in the garden, doing picnics with their children, playing balls, walking, taking pictures or just observing the wonderful place God permitted of be.
The trees in the pic below are close to the Japanese Garden:

French Garden has Avenue of Plane Trees, where I just couldn't even breath how beauty was behind the lakes...

This is called "French Formal Garden":

It's the favorite garden to many photographers...

There is a big Green House, similar to Jardim Botanico in Curitiba, with some Brazilian plants, many types of flowers and cactus.

Keiro no Hi

The 3rd Monday of September is the Respect for the Aged Day.
Respect for the elderly and longlivity is celebrated today in all Japan.

In this country, I really feel how much the grandparents are important in a family.
As a tradition, the elder child takes care of the grandparents and continue the family's business.
If the elder child is a man, he's wife and children live with the grandparents.
If the elder child is woman, she has to find a husband who can take care of grandparents business and themselves. In old days, the husband was taking the wife's lastname to continue father-in-law's business.

On this special day, the family gives flowers and gifts for their wisdown and as a respect for them.

It's culture that has mother's day, father's day, boy's day, girl's day, aged people's day... for those family living far away each other, the children travel to visit your family at least once a year... however, I can say, people close to me they see their parents at least 3 times a year, even costing lots of money (it's more expensive traveling inside Japan then abroad) or traveling all day... and bringing all the wife and children with him...

It's a respectful culture.

Harajuku & Yoyogi Park

Harajuku is a very bizzare city, strange people get together in front of Meiji Temple (one of most important temples in Japan).
They have different style, however, you can see it started with punks...

Now a days, even foreignes are like them... heheh

In the entrance of Yoyogi park, every Sunday, a group of "Elvis" make their own show...

Yoyogi Park is the Central Park in NY, Parque do Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo, Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing...
Many people doing everything... jogging, playing soccer, baseball.. music instruments like guitar, birinbau and others.

Some people train for their theather acting, there are some dance groups, singers...
And guess! Of course some people doing capoeira.

The park is huge, you can walk for all day... and the more you walk, more strange people appear...

Tennozu Isle

It was a perfect day!
I woke up early, cleaned my apartment, did some laundry and went to the library.
As the weather was so good, I decided to go to Tennozu Isle, where the Meguro River is born.
It was my first time there; I've passed through it to go to Haneda Airport or to go to Odaiba, but never stopped.

The complex is really nice, huge companies like JAL, JTB, Citigroup, TV Tokyo, Sony are there. From the stations, there are skywalks linking all the main buildings.






At the Sea Fort Square, you can have a rest in the shadow and look at the fishes...




It's possible to see Odaiba from the bridge.



The way back, guess... I walked from Tennozu Isle to home... about 7 km... as passing in a new path is my hobby, I found a beautiful temple in Shinagawa.



After an hour walk, I reached the Gate City (Osaki) for a rest.



The supermarket there is so beautiful.. and soooo expensive!!
As I had heard already, the prices are digital:



Passing in all the parks in the way back, around Meguro River, I arrived in Nakameguro 2.5h later ;-)

Need some rest !!

Newspaper in Portuguese

The most famost newspaper in Portuguese in Tokyo is "Jornal Tudo Bem".

http://www.tudobem.co.jp/

I've just gotten an email from them because they are issuing the weekly edition every Saturday from next week.

... and it made me remind that I was interviewed by them last year...


... edition 602... "A procura de brasileiros qualificados"...
I hope more Brazilian are having chances after that publication.

The Made in Japan magazine is also interesting:

http://www.madeinjapan.com.br/site_made_novo/index.shtml

Besides my office is the Imperial Palace

The great thing of working at that place is the Imperial Palace right crossing the street. From my desk, I can see the palace "lake" and the trees of the park.

This afternoon, while walking behind the office, I saw 2 swans sleeping.

The picture is from my keitai (mobile phone) therefore it's too small to identify their head turned 180 degrees, and just resting it on their own back...

Sometimes, at lunch time, we have a picnic in the park, inside the Imperial Palace.
Such good feeling being so close to the most important place in Tokyo ^-^

Skype

Interesting blog, while I was looking at the information about eBay lattest acquisition...

http://ebayhomebusiness.blogspot.com/

4.1 billion USD for Skype is a huge business.

Kamakura & Enoshima

Kamakura was the economic center in Japan in the past.
It has the most important shrine in the country: Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. It exists since 1063 a.C.
There is a special path to reach the shrine, where next week, they will present the horseback archery.

In the temple on the top, there were traditional students praying.

The design of the temple is similar to one I saw in Taipei. It's very colorful and there are many animals sculptured in the max details.



In 1252, the 2nd biggest Buddha in Japan was built in Kamakura. The Great Buddha, originally inside a temple, remained as it is after a tsunami in the XVI cent.









They made special slippers for the Great Buddha.







In the Zeniarai Benten Shrine, I washed a 10,000 yen as believed by locals that the washed money will come in double.

The place is very beautiful and interesting. The rock tunnel is completely natural in the middle of a mountain, with a small beautiful waterfall and inumerous "koi" fishes.

The Shrine represents the fusion of Shinto and Buddhism.


In the afternoon, we reached Enoshima. The beaches are good for surfers and sailors. Many jetskies also are seen...

Wonderful day... Kamakura and Enoshima are places everybody should visit at least once...

1080 Tsurus

Close to my place, in a buddhist temple, there is a small special shrine where people can hang the swans in origami as a wish to someone's health.
It's beautiful to see Japanese faith making those more than 1000 small origamis...

Worm Diet

Believe me if you can...
I've just heard about this diet famous in Japan...
It's the worm diet... yeah! worm. You get a worm egg and the worm will grow up in your intestine.

The models have this worm until the end of the diet. They eat as usual however the worm will get all the proteins and fat during digestion.

It seems last year this type of diet made a lot of success between the Japanese models.

Amazing what they create here and how people follow these things...

Arghhhh

Breeze of Tokyo

It's a great restaurant, with a wonderful view of Tokyo.
On the 36F of Marunouchi Bldg, the dishes are delicious and the environment is really nice.
Romantic place though!

It was a business dinner but I can say I enjoyed a lot!

http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g763349/

Farewell Party

Today was my boss' farewell party. He is moving to a much higher position in a foreign company.

I'm very proud of him. After 1 year working with him, I learned how to manage people, as he is one of the best managers I've ever had.
He has a simple, honest, efficient style of management, and I'm sure that's why he got the new position.

He built our current team, which is an amazing group. We are mainly foreigners, from Hongkong, Taiwan, India, Korea and of course Brazil. It's the most international team in a Japanese company, which made us to work very close to the international vendors.

Well, talking about the dinner, it was in a Hawaiian restaurant, Mahana, in Ebisu. The environment and the food are very nice, original and comfortable.

Have a good new job my boss! You deserve that!!

Hokkaido - day 6

Waking up at 5am, we were back to Kita Hiroshima in 1h.
We were still able to rest a bit and as the onsens open only at 10am,
we took the shower in the campervan (1st time we used it).
The water was warm and it was really good for a shower in a
campervan!

After packing and all clean, I looked around the van and
thought how it was good to be in the campervan for all those
days in Hokkaido.

It was a great great time!
I'm already missing all the good moments and places in Hokkaido!

If I can live those days again, I would do exactly all the same.
Even my hand... because of that, I saw nurses trying to kill the
mosquitos and sing funny songs in the hospital...

Because of Hokkaido, I know how much human and nature are in
harmony... and there are places you can find in Japan where people
are not materialists at all... where people really care about
taking care of the nature...

Thanks God, for the wonderful trip to an amazing Hokkaido!

Hokkaido - day 5

In Nemuro, we were presented to the history about the islands around the peninsula. They share some of the islands with Russia and Japan is asking to give back one of them officially Japanese.

The signs in the city are also written in Russian, what shows how many Russian are around there. Every morning, Russian fish men deliver the crabs and fishes to the Japanese seafood places. We went to Hanasaki Port, where the crabs are fresh and cheap. In one of the small fish places, a lady offered us to serve a huge crab for 1,500 yens. As a lunch with crab costs at least 5,000 yens in a normal restaurant, of course we had the lunch at that small restaurant at the port.

To have an idea, we spend half an hour to eat the crab, and the body of the crab was also used to serve the local sake with crab meat. Very unique experience with crabs ^-^
The sake is also softly sweet, with the special taste of the crab, bringing a sensation that we cannot live in a country without seafood…
In the restaurant, we met people from miyazaki with so strong accent that for a second I thought it was Russian ;-)
There, the fish men told us many stories about Ainu culture, Hokkaido and the nature.
When we were ready to pay the lunch, the lady said 2,000 yens with the beers. I thought it was the price per person…. But it was in the total :D

Ready to go, and knowing we don’t need dinner, we follow the wind to the Cape Ochiishi, where we met an old photographer in a Harley, with his wife. Amazing people are in Hokkaido.

After passing through Hamanaka, we reached Kushiro Marshlands National Park. Not much time to see everything, but the main landscape was the savanna.

Driving up the mountains was not easy, because of the fog… the landscape is beautiful during the winter, so we decided to start our return to Sapporo.

At night we made a stop in Hidaka.