Kappa-bashi

If you own a Restaurant in Tokyo you will have to go to Kappa-bashi sooner or later. The street is famous for restaurant utilities and so-called food samples. This japanized term does not describe delicious samples of food but almost real looking plastic mockups of dishes. You saw some of them already on my photos for sure. You can find anything from every kind of Sushi, over Peking-style duck till the opened chilled can to attract customers to your business. The fake delicacies have a price though - the mockup of my favorite food "Gyudon" (rice bowl with half a cow) costs hefty 80 Euro. I prefer eating the real deal 40 times!

Happy Birthday Richi!

Out of touch

After almost two years I am about to go to the University of Leipzig again. Between now and the last time lays half a year of work and a over a year long stay in Japan. It is a little bit awkward for me to be in a classroom situation again and to listen attentively to the lecturer, who is supposed to be wiser about things in life. I have the fear that I can not take that person serious anymore. Nevertheless I had my foot on the real side of life and now will have to go back to the theory about it. Generally, the time seems to have stood still for the "left behinds" here in Germany. Who says that I will get along with them anymore? This has nothing to do with arrogance, but more with the fact that my clockwork does not work with the same beat anymore. And I am not only surprised by the relationship with others - I don't recognize myself either: The old Paul meets the new one and both feel somehow alienated. A little bit schizophrenic, right?

Shampoo Robot!

After my return I was asked, if Japan really is such a modern country like you can see in so many travel reports on TV. When it comes to sanitary facilities (butt spraying toilets + dryer, infrared wash basins, etc) we really seem to live in the stone ages compared with the Japanese people. But the engineering progress does not stop at the barber shop either. Many use the so-called "Shampoo robot" (can be admired on the photo with wonderful Jenglish). You put your head in this kind of like a suction housing looking device and tiny robot arms will begin to massage your head more or less sensitive. I did this once and the whole store was concerned about me. They probably feared the reaction of a naive western barbarian. They probably expected me to dance around the thing, cursing, calling it witchcraft...

Straßenbahnen - Trams

In one of the biggest stations in Tokyo (Ikebukuro) is a big picture gallery with the topic trams around the world. You can see poster there of trams from several major countries. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that the example-city for trams in Germany was of all things the city where I was born, Frankfurt/Oder. This city is far from being major in Germany, so it is kind of a weird choice. On the display of the tram you can read the part of the town where I lived when I was a small child. Weird coincidence....

Farewell dinner

Just before I left Japan I was invited by one of my favorite students to eat Okonomiyaki. Kotoe (picture middle) was one of my first students in my Job as an English teacher and soon I would teach her husband Taka, her crazy brother Koji and her friend Yoko. So it happened that I was busy whole Sunday afternoons just with this group, which I enjoyed a lot because they are a very uncomplicated bunch.



Together with buddy Koba we went to a nice Okonomiyaki-Restaurant in which we not only consumed large amounts of Japanese food, but lots of beer as well. All of them grew very close to me and I hope to see them again in the summer.

Hanami 2008

I am back to my home country for 3 days now and slowly I get used to not to use the Metro every day und to eat bread instead of oishii Gyuu-don. There are still some impressions I want to write about though.

Just before my departure the Sakura tree was in blooming once again. I was very lucky because the timing has to be just right, if you want to see the full bloom of Japan's national treasure. Unlike last year I went to Ueno-Park. Here, countless of Japanese cavorted through the area to get the best pictures of this year's Sakura.





The annual spectacle is not only about watching beautiful flowers though, but also to drink insane amounts of alcohol together with friends and co-worker - with sometimes questionable results...