First trip to okinawa is in winter. Unfortunately, the weather was cloudy, so I could not get some good photos of the sea. However, the Shisa （シーサー）, the traditional Ryukyuan decoration, can be seen everywhere. Shisa is believed to protect from evils in Okinawa. Shisa to me, it’s more like a smaller version of the Chinese guardian lions. Some photos that I am happy with are here.
Bonjour !
I am back from France. It was a great holiday – yummy food, spectacular views and lovely weather. The Olive there is amazingly tasty! I start eating Olive almost every week after I come back!
Friendly people, a surprise to some people. Yes the people I met in France are very friendly despite that they try to teach you how to speak French from time to time, something I would love to do at certain point in the future.
I am absolutely astonished by the beauty of the nature in France. I have never seen such a blue sky in my life. (Hey, please don’t laugh, I am from China).
I took this picture below in South France. This photos is not edited by any software. It is almost hard to believe the sky can be so blue for people like me from China.
Almost everything is *old* in France. Oh, Maybe I shall use the word “Vintage“. Historical buildings and museums are well preserved. I stayed one night at my friend’s house that was built about 200 years ago. The owner of the house is a young couple, which I can’t imagine in China.
People live in totally different lifestyles compared to the ones here in Tokyo. We went to forests to hunt a mushroom for dinner! We went to climb a mountain that has no route.
I saved my friend Anthony ‘s life there, by the way, which he never admit.
I would like to really thank to my friend Steve. He took us to a lot places with his car. The Castle, the wine, the blue sky. It’s the best holiday for me so far!
Bonne nuit!
Guided by Anthony, our trip to Australia started a fine day. This rainbow is captured en route to Fremantle, an old town of Perth. It contains well-preserved 19th century buildings, and perhaps is the one of the most recommended  historic site from your Perth friend.
Sendai is the cultural and economical centre of Northern Japan, and some food which we found there are very rare in Tokyo. Who can name the below food?
Without knowing where I was going and who exactly I was going with, I joined this snowboarding trip. I was just told by my friend that there was a good deal of snowboarding trip. I accepted and it turned out that 11 people joined the group. And it was a lot of fun. Village, snow, mountain and hot spring. But also the nightmare – the night on the bus where I struggle to sleep, at least for me.
My friend told me to assemble at Ikebukuro at 10:00 on Friday and in fact the bus took off around 11:20 just because I was late for playing tennis last time. What a big revenge! The nightmare lasted the whole night that I couldn’t believe that many other people were able to sleep well in the bus while I couldn’t get sleep at all.
After arriving the hotel at about 6 early in the morning, we picked up the wears and snowboards from the rent room and took bus to the ski resort. It was a big challenge for me as in my case I hardly slept during the previous night.
Browbeaten by other friends claiming that snowboard is much cooler than ski, I was “forced“ to pick up the snowboard in the rental room. I never tried snowboarding before. Without surprise, I suffered light injuries of my arms and legs and I have to give up going to mountain to ski again the next day.
However, I found that snowboard is not just cool, but also fun. My friend Steve gave us personal training, which mainly target for the girls though.
While the good thing was that part of the snowboarding trip. I got the chance to have a look around in the place Hakuba 白馬 with nick, mie and chao, who were exhausted same as me. The place was amazingly beautiful after the snow on the second day. And we cannot help ourselves to play snowball. There are a few of nice cafes and restaurants in the small village. We picked up this Italian restaurant and had a really nice lunch in this snowy world. Would be really romantic if you take your girl there I could image.
Wuchao and Nick were playing snow 😉
Overall, it was a really good trip except the night bus. I would definitely go there again by Shinkansen.
On the second day of my Kansai trip, Anthony and I went to Nara, where you can encounter these lovely deer in the park and street.  It only takes about 40 mins from Kyoto to Nara by the ＪＲã¿ã‚„ã“路快速 train.
Nara is a place where you will encounter a spade of deer asking food. It is such a small town, which makes that you can almost walk from one side to the other within 10 minutes. Although we did not book the hotel in advance, it didn’t take long for us to find one despite the busy tourist seasons.
Having spent 3 days in korea(most time in Seoul), I find that there are considerable japanophiles here. Although Japan occupied korea several decades before, it turns out not many Koreans hate japanese. So many Japanese stuff here, japanese resturants, Japanese signs everywhere, japanese TV channels, … I even got an enthusiastic help from three korean girls while I was trying to find a hotel in gumi. They told me that they thought I was japanese once.
It feel like that all these things just happened yesterday. I have not seen the my classmates and friends in this video for a quite a long time now, and I know I may never meet some of them again in my life.
What nostalgic moment for us!
The other day, I had to go to see a dentist in Japan. As you can image that it would be difficult for a foreigner who does not speak Japanese at all to go to see a dentist in Japan. People here rarely speak English, which is totally different from I imaged before I came here.
Fortunately, I found a Chinese speaking dentist via James, and the dentist is also very nice person.
She was so nice that gave me a quick surgery on my broken tooth and setup a temporary one for me. She told me that it will be expensive if I do orthodontics in Tokyo.
She told me that my tooth got phlogiston and it took more than 1 month to do it. So I’d better to take the surgery in China then setup a ceramic tooth. To my great surprise is that she refused to receive any fees including my temporary teeth. I really appreciated her professional services and kindness! This is the first time I ever felt that not everyone does their job just for money.
That’s the clinic address:
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塩浜齒科醫院
With pretty much mixed up of combination of feelings in Tokyo and lots of training class and work during the daytime, almost 5 weeks no writing blogging. Finally I got some motivation to add something here. I will try to write things in a reverse order since me landing on Narita airport. My elementary school teacher taught me that is called cut back. Ok, let me go head.
Now just came back from dinner with my current manager and colleagues. Although I felt somewhat uncomfortable because of alcohol, I have a very good time in my deep heart. We went to a Japanese restaurant and have a good plentiful Japanese food. We talked much and I learned a lot because what we are talking with is senior people, haha. The interesting thing is that Jose (currently my boss’s boss 🙂 is learning Chinese. So most of our talk is in Chinese and simultaneously translate it into English again for him. Here I would like to say a little more about my manager Jessica. She is so nice not because of everyone told me whilst I mentioned her, but the feeling when you talking and hanging with her and this feeling makes me very comfortable, of which I would like to build.
To be continued…
I just finished four days C++ training. I was extremely impressed by the instructor’s deep insight into C++ knowledge. Before I join Morgan Stanley, I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of C++. After this class, I found that still have a long way to go!
James Qu who is a Chinese and has been living in Japan for decades took us, the new tokyo comers to the east costal area – izu this weekend. As he speaks perfect, at least to me, Japanese, we didn’t have any trouble of communicating the locals during the trip.
Izu is located to southwest of Tokyo and right South of Mount Fuji. Noted for its beautiful coastal scenery and hotspring resorts, it is a popular site for Tokyo residence during weekends and national holidays.
We took the shinkansen from Tokyo (Shinagawa) to Mishima and rent a Toyota to start our izu trip.
© Zhu Xinquan. The car we rent
The meandering road made me sick in the car.
© Zhu Xinquan Look at these terrible roads in the mountain
Luckily, I recovered from the car sick and enjoyed a nice hot spring in Atami.
The view is absolutely fabulous.
© Zhu Xinquan The izu sea
When this dish was served. Believe me, the lobster was moving in the dish!! I wish that I had taken a video of it. I almost felt a bit uncomfortable as if I were able to hear its groan for losing half of its body, which I am going to eat.
© Zhu Xinquan
To be continued…
