Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

Because some flags looked tired, we changed all to the laminated ones
and put more countries.
I'm sure that you can find your national flag wherever you are from.

Is that your favourite one, Naoto??
I should try to memorize all...?

From 18:20 tonight, Chofu city will have fireworks festival.
Normally, we have fireworks during the Summer,
so it will be the last chance to see them this yeaｒ in Tokyo.
I go and see them almost every year, but I'm not sure about tonight...
About 10,000 fireworks will be displayed in the night sky.
I guess you can enjoy both almost full moon and beautiful fireworks at the same time☆

From 1st to 7th of October, we'll have AIG Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo.
I sometimes play tennis, just a bigginer though:)
If I don't have work and can get a ticket, I think I'm going to watch the games☆
Anyone play tennis??

Tickets are available from 2,700yen.
Why don't you watch the real game and compare
the atomosphere there with that of your country?

When you enter the front door,you will notice some photos of our guests.
We changed them regularly and old ones go to the photo album.↓↓

I like taking a look at them while I'm having lunch;)
I wish I could take pictures of all of you...
These will be our trasure★

Do you love cars??
If so, you should come and visit Tokyo Motor Show starting from Oct. 27 (Sat) - Nov. 11 (Sun).

I'm not so interested in cars, but it's still an attractive event.
According to Tsuyoshi, you can see brand new cars from all over the world.
Also, you can enjoy lunch there, take some pictures of unreleased cars with beautiful ladies;)
They have some events for kids such as motor cycle sports school, test-ride event and so on.

I want to get a car license first...

Some of you may have seen him before at Sakura hostel.
He used to work here as a trainee just like Teru
and moved to Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro.

↑↑Looks bashful??
His name is Mitsuru, but we call him "Ebi-chan" because his family name is Ebihara.

Oh, by the way, if you forget to put "chan" after "Ebi", he will become a shrimp↓↓

Ebi means shrimp!!
おかえり、えびちゃん♪

On Autumnal Equinox Day(today!), the sun rises in the due east
and sets in the due west, and the day and night have the same length.

During Autumn, you can see beautiful moon, especially on the nice days.
We have some moon viewing festival from today to 25th.
There, you can enjoy nice music, traditional foods and tasty drinks!
more detail is available here↓
www.hiejinja.net
www.yokomizoyashiki.net
www.sankeien.or.jp
www.tatemonoen.jp
www.chinatown.or.jp

Of course you can enjoy moon viewing by yourself.
In that case, just prepare Japanese silver grass, sweet dumplings and sake:)

We have a new trainee here from last week.

His name is Teruyasu, just call him "Teru".
He is the youngest staff but has very unique career so far.

He moved to Malaysia when he was 12 years old and stayed there for 6 years.
Then, he moved again to America and just came back to Tokyo in May from Wisconsin.
He has an experience in Bosnia as an art therapist for about three months.
Actually, I don't know much about him yet, I guess he is a good artist!
He was taking care of children at shelter for battered women there.

I guess he was very popular among kids because of this nice smile:)

Do you remember our grand project of collecting "hello" from many languages?
When did we start? Maybe in July.

Now we have hello of more than 20 languages. English, Spanish, French..... Polish, Thai, Maori, Serbian, Arabic.... and more.

Come here to add your hello before the page gets full!

Our next project is to collect "thank you."

Hi, I just came back to Tokyo.
I really had a great time:)
Before going, I was worrying about the weather in Yakushima
because I heard the typhoon was coming to that area.
But...↓↓

Look at this beautiful weather and beach☆
The first day was so hot that I could swim though I didn't.

And the island is famous for its ancient cedar trees, known as "Yakusugi."

This is called "Kigen-Sugi" and more than 3000 years old!!
I'm wondering how more years it will live...

Also I ate a lot of local foods of Kagoshima.
This is one example.

Looks good, right??
Of course, I had my favourite food, Ice-cream, too♪
↑↑Shirokumais so popular here and available
at almost all cafes and restaurants.
Sooo yummy and huge!

Thank you for reading ;)

As you know, Tsuyoshi is one of front staff.
But he works as a carpenter and a repairman as well.
He fixes computers which our guests use at the rounge.
He repairs ladders which our guest broke accidentally.

Now, he is making a shelf for our office
using parts of ladders which our guest broke accidentally.

And he made a shelf for our kitchen!

If you hear the sounds of tunk or whirring sound,
it means he is repairing or making something for both our guests and us.
Thank you oni-chan!

One of our new Sakura members, Aki finised working for 1 and half month with us in Asakusa, and moved to our sister hotel, Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro yesterday.
He was attentive and friendly to everyone.
Oh, and I have to say that I loved the towels he folded up neatly :)

We'll miss you!

P.S. Aki, I hope we'll have a chance to work together again, and let's have some beer sometime soon☆

Hiro (left here in Dec 2006) is now working at our brand-new sister hotel, Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro.
Just as always, he won't let us put his nice picture on here. So I will simply lead you to the website of Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro.

Can you see the two guys in the photo of the reception?
The one on the right is Hiro! (The other is Naoto, by the way.)

Clive (left in Dec 2006) has a new job and is still living in Japan with his family,
Hope you are enjoying your new life, Clive!

Hiromi and Abe (left in Aug 2007) are now breaking new ground in Japan.
Both of you will do something big, we believe.

Where is Satoshi (left in Jun 2007), then??

NO BODY KNOWS!

Ooops!! =:-０)

Let us hear from you sometimes, Satoshi~~~

Did you happen to take our pillows?
Sometimes, our pillows were missing from the rooms.

They are big and if someone try to take it, it will be found easily
and may be very inconvenient to carry with.
I know it's very comfortable, though ;)

From tomorrow, I'll take summer holidays and go to Yakushima island.

It is my first time to go there and I don't know much about it.
Has anyone been there before?
I just got this guide book yesterday.

Oh, I don't pack yet...

Me and Tomoe went for a lunch together.
We chose Hitsumabushi.

It was our first time to eat it though we have eaten Unagi bowl many times.

Hitsumabushi is the local dishes of Nagoya, Aichi prefecture.
Why is it a name of "Hitsumabushi"?
The thing of a bowl which puts in boiled rice is called "Ohitsu."
It calls putting a thing equally on them, saying "Mabusu."
Two words are connected, ("Ohitsu"+"Mabusu")and it is called "Hitsumabushi".

Japanese often eat eel during the summer because it is good for summer lethargy.

Just 6years ago, I saw the shocking news from the TV.
I thought it was the clip from a movie like most of people did.
I was 18 years old at that time and planning to
go to the States for studying English, so a series of things
after September 11 affected me a lot.

In April in 2006, I visited the world trade center site before new building was constructed.
When I faced the site, I couldn't think anything.

I just stood rooted to the ground for a while and left.

This is what I got from Tomo as a souvenir!
I have many stuffed elephants but this is the first one from Vietnum.
Welcome to my room♪

His legs look longer than his nose :)

These are for male staff.

Instant pho!!

These two of our guests told me that they are regular readers of my weblog.

I was really happy to hear that because I don't know how many people are reading this...
I think I'm always making mistakes in my English but I hope you can enjoy it☆

If you have something what you want to know about Sakura hostel or Japan,
please feel free to ask and I'll do my best;)

Hey! Tomo came back from Vietnam safely last night.
Yes, I must say "safely" because our flight arrived at Tokyo while the large typhoon was approaching to the city. I had never experienced such a scary flight in my life. We had more than two hours of repeating turbulences and air pockets and everybody, I believe, expected the worst situation. Some people screamed and others were just dumb with fear.
Me on the plane ⇒⇒⇒

I'm truely happy to have survived the flight in typhoon and brought back lots of souvenirs for Yuri and others :D
Souvenirs ↓↓↓

Don't worry, Naoto. I have something for you too. Dozens of instant pho ↓↓↓

What surprised and impressed me most in Ho Chi Minh City was this ↓↓↓

On the first day, I felt completely at a loss to cross the street busy with hundreds of motorcycles pssing by. I spent more than 10 minutes wondering how I could go back to my hotel right on the other side of the street. It felt farther than a kilo meter although it was right there in front of me...

But on the last day, I got a knack for doing that! Don't look at those motorcycles in a mass. Don't run but walk slowly and dodge them one by one.
Don't know what I'm talking about?? Now it's your turn to travel to Vietnam :)

On the night of typhoon, people were trapped inside the hostel
because the wind was incredibly strong.
So, they started beer party in front of the reception.

They bought all kinds of beer available at the nearest convenience store
for the sake of comparison.

It looked really fun and I wished I could join them....

Where do you think it is??

↑this photo was taken in Hida-Takayama.
One of our guest took both ↑↓photos and he showed me one morning.

Because I was really touched by them, I asked him whether I can use them on this weblog.
He kindly agreed to my favor:)
I thought he is a professional photographer, but he is not.

↓He is Mr.Clinton, who took those photos.

Thank you for everything!
I enjoyed talking with you and this beautiful cloth will be my tresure☆

This morning, many guests were going to Mt Fuji.
So, I told them that the big typhoon was coming and it's not a good idea.
Then, they started to discuss their plan in front of the reception.
They asked me that how big it was or how dengerous if they still went to Mt. Fuji.

When I took this picture, one of them said "That's gonna be our last picture!"

Many people are trying to climb to the top of Mt.Fuji through summer.
They want to see the sunrise from there.

Shuko, our cleaning staff just climbed to the top last month.
Actually, I did it when I was in high school but no one believes me.
It's not so hard to climb but it's so hard to go down...

The other staff here should try it;p

What are these koalas??

We've got more than 20 koalas so far from Australian guests.
Some people gave us 5 and some people gave us kangaroo's one.
I'm sure that Aussie have to bring at least one koala to go abroad.

My name tag has one since last year.

Thank you anyway!!

As I noticed in this weblog on 12th of Aug, our guests appeared on TV this morning.
Here's Ryusei from Korea!
He'll be our next featured guest on our website;)

This is Jesus from Spain!

At first, Sakura Hostel was also supposed to be on TV,
but we weren't for some reason...
Anyway, we were happy to see them on TV♪