I am turning Japanese, I really think so

The latest news is that we are going to Japan. I am eagerly waiting for Chuck to write his “beloved friends” email telling you the story of how this happened, his new team, managing the time zones, his Q&A, etc. I will not ruin the surprise and will leave a space in the blog for his tale. Here I am writing a bit about what I have been able to discover so far about this fantastic place.

We are planning to leave Luxembourg at the end of October. With all the moves I have learned that it’s good to learn as much as possible before the trip, specially about the things one likes: where to find a (GOOD) coffee shop (VERY important), a metro map, the gym, free libraries, bookshops, and of course restaurants. Chuck will be happy to know that there are at least 2 good Mexican places and even a Peruvian one (btw, just so that you measure his desperation, Luxembourg’s only Mexican place is Chi-Chi’s … really).

Having said this, no information is enough. It is all different when you finally land in your destination. Information can prepare you but the real thing does not happen until you have a foot in the new city.

For example, we are going to live in Shibuya (渋谷区, Shibuya-ku?), one of the 20 something wards in Tokyo. From what I have heard this is one of the busiest places in Tokyo. Remember that crossing that always features in Japanese movies or documentaries? Well “that” is in Shibuya. One of my to-do things is to stand there at rush hour and not move. If I manage I will just spin around a few times, that will freak them out … I promise you a photo.

Chuck’s office is also in Shibuya. By the way, there is more people in Shibuya than in the entire Luxembourg and more restaurants too. There are about 200,000 people in the 15km2 area of Shibuya. I can see that after a year in Luxembourg we will have a bit of a culture shock. Here we can see cows from a friend’s apartment!

We have to find out if he is going to walk or take the metro to work. These days, in Luxembourg we both walk to our offices, an unsustainable luxury... Because there are no street names, we cannot put the address in www.multimap.com and just check the distance. To find a place in Tokyo you have to refer to buildings such as Tokyo Tower, Tokyu department store, Parco, Yoyogi Park, etc. I think it will be quite confusing and I will most likely be lost most of the time.

Interesting, I have heard that I should not think of buying shoes over there. Expensive, yes, , but the reason is that they will probably not carry my size: a decent 40.5 (Peruvian) 9.5 (American). Just think of the delicate Japanese women feet … I’d probably scare them with mine! On that note, I have heard Chuck saying that he is looking forward to feeling VERY TALL.

More later; I am hoping that this post will tempt Chuck - who these days is buried in work from Seattle, Germany, UK and now Japan (I have seen him carrying 4 watches).

L'île de la beauté

It has been a year since our trip to Croatia. Incredible. We have been living in Luxembourg for more than a year now, the schueberfouer (main Luxembourgish city fair) came and went and we missed it again. However we did manage to find a week of holiday in the sun again. This time in the island of Corsega (Corsica in English, Corse in French).

Our route was Luxembourg to Paris (by car), a night in Paris followed by Paris to Nice to South Corsica by plane (a propeller). Our ride started a little bumpy, at 8am, we had a call from the hotel in Paris saying that they could not take our reservation and had changed us to a "sister" hotel in the same area and in an "upgraded" room. Yeah right, we agreed of course, but we are still doubting what did they mean by an upgrade ... all Parisians hotel rooms (those we can afford) are equally tiny, that includes the suites !

An hour into our journey from Lux to Paris (Chuck will argue it was 1.5 hour) Ale discovers that she does not have her passport. Uppps … the options 1) tell Chuck, get out of the car and run for your life, or 2) don’t tell Chuck, ask him to take you back to Luxembourg because you think that the iron (we don’t own an iron) is still on and burning your house. Actually, Chuck was so shocked that he turned around and without saying a word headed back to get my passport.

Finally in Corsica our holidays began. Ahhh, wonderful beach, we made it to Santa Giulia and after the usual waiting time te check in and find the right place we dropped all our stuff in our rented apartment and went straight to the beach.

The highlights of our trip?

1) A new record in beach “paletas”. Yes, we spent most of our time perfecting our new found sport and after a mediocre start of less than 10 hits we went all the way to 240 our 6th day in the beach

2) A transparent sea spotted with wonderful and inoffensive jellyfish (which I called fried eggs because of the way the look … amazingly nobody thinks the same)

3) Pizzas at the beach, ahh , almost every day. Until we realised that our bathing suits were tight(er) and decided for the Trois Deux salads next door

4) Chestnuts in everything, Corsicans even have a town called Châtaigne
(Castaña, chestnut) and we found them in almost every dish we tried

5) Brocciu cheese "the poor man's cheese." Made from the whey that remains after the production of sheep's or goat's milk cheese. And of course … charcuterie

I am not joking, check out this site for more info about the food in Corsica www.theworldwidegourmet.com/countries/france/corsica/corsica

Corsica is a beautiful island, the French call it the island of beauty “Île de la beauté” … although we spend most of our time in the beach (we have a fantastic and enviable tan to prove it) we also spent a day travelling around the island. We made it to a nice high spot in Alta Roca, found an old Genovese bridge, had a wonderful lunch of osobuco estofado and ice cream and visited Bonifacio, the southernmost part of Corsica, almost “kissing” Serdeña.

After a week in the beach we feel ready (again) to face the Luxembourgish greyness and we look forward to the coming autumn y la visita de los Brescia.