Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

We had long travelers here in January.
When they left, we felt very sad...we miss you guys!
Actually, one of them, Stuart is here right now♪
If you wanna meet him, you guys gotta come;)

In February, I went to Guam with my friend and had a great time there.
Where should I go this winter...maybe good hotsprings near by:)
Tomo is going to spend her vacation in Hawaii!

From March, Eiro started working with us as a cleaning staff.
He is now, working at the reception once a week.
His English is geting better☆
Keep up!

Jack became the staff here in April.
On the other hand, Shinji left to prepare for studying abroad(USA).
How are you, Shinji?

In May, one of our staff got married and we had a party for him/her.
Unfortunately, not me:P

From June, our company started personal exchange.
Yumi and Rumi spent a few days here as an Asakusa staff.
So far, we had about 12 people as exchange staff.

Sakura hotel Ikebukuro opend a cafe in July.
It has a really nice atmosphere and serves attractive foods and drinks.

501 brothers were here in August.
I thought they stayed with us more lately...
it's just because Chris is here with his family right now.
His room is not 501 at this time, though:D

Tsuyoshi joined a football team of Sakura and had a game in September.
I heard that his team is not weak but they need more members to be substitutes.
I hope they will win the game in next year★

In October, it was my turn to work in our sister hotels as an exchange staff.
As I've already worked at Jimbocho's one, I went to Ikebukuro and Hatagaya.
I had a useful time at each places.

Many many Thai people stayed with us in November♪
As you might know, I love Thailand so, this month was a good circumstance to me.
I can feel a kind of Thailand without going;)

Though we had so many events and memories through this year,
the biggest happening for us is Koji's leaving.
He was one of our original staff and had worked together for two years and half.
Because he was a night staff, I didn't have enough time to talk with him:(
Hopefully, he sometimes visits us and have some drink together!

Thank you for reading such a long post and wish all you have a happy new year!!

I took some pictures with funny statues and figures
existed in Asakusa town.
This is for our new activity starting from January.

If you try it, you'll get a little (sometimes a big) prize☆
I'll let you know the detail soon when it's ready!

Ebi-chan(middle) won at the horseraces today and treated us some snacks:D
Tomoe and I got ice-cream and Naoto got cupnoodle♪

It was the last race in this year and the biggest one (called Arima Kinen) in Japan.
I've never played the horses but it looked fun!
Maybe, I'll try next year and give something back to Ebi-chan★

FYI, Naoto lost:P

How long is your New Year's break?
One week? 10 days?
Sakura Hostel never close, though:P

Near the end of the year, Japanese have a party called"Bounenkai".
This party is for looking back on the year and refresh themselves.

So, if you go to bars now, you can see many many people drinking a lot!
"Bounenkai"'s literal translation is a forgetting party.
People drink a lot and try to forget everything they have done this year;)

Though it was very warm on christmas day, it's terribly cold today.

Most of our guests started off by saying "it's cold!!"
I'm unusually sensitive to the cold and always saying "it's cold" during the winter:(
But today, the other staff are the same thing.

I really miss the hot hot summer!!
I wish Japan, at least Tokyo becomes the city of everlasting summer...

Do you happen to go to Shibuya or Harajuku area today?
If so, Design festa art gallery is taking a christmas art party today.

It's from 3 to 8PM at their cafe.
You can get a glass of sparkling wine for free;)
Why don't you take a look with your friends?
You might can see some performances there!

How are you spending your christmas holidays?
I'll report our christmas party which was held on the last night.

First of all, we watched the movie together.
"Love Actually" is one of my fovorite one:)
Have you ever watched before?

The main part of this time was Tsuyoshi&Naoto's magic show!
When they were practicing, I saw their tricks many many times
but I could still enjoyed them;)
It was soooo funny.

Look at their mustache.
I painted it for them to be Super Mario brothers:D

Our guests also seemed enjoyed themselves.
The next year will be much trickier...I guess☆

Of course, we had a bingo game.
All could get one prize and lucky person got Yukata!
I hope they would like it.

Thank you for joining our party♪

Special Thanks to Tanaka san;)

Naoto and Tsuyoshi is practicing the magic
they will show tonight for our christmas party.
I still don't know what they are going to do
but am also looking forward to seeing it♪

I just found some tools like these↓↓

Hmmm...playing cards are for a magic but what about hammer?
I hope it's not for hitting me:(

See you tonight★

Do you know Koji is leaving soon....
His last night will be on 24th, so we had a goodbye party for him last night.
Unfortunately, only I couldn't join because of the cold but all staff seemed enjoyed it.
I wish I could be there!!

Do you remember her?

Hiromi, who had worked with us for the first year joined us:)
I wanted to see her, too!

How about him?

Satoshi was our cleaning staff before and is working at Sakura House now.

He is one of poor guy who had to work at night after the party.

And he is the another victim...

Johrel has just started working with us:)
I'll introduce him later again.

When I came to hostel this morning, I found ebi-chan just got up
and heard some of them were still sleeping somewhere.

Please send some comment for Koji (Staff of Sakura house&hotels are also welcomed!).
He was a specialist of night staff here.

↑after the party...

In November, there was a very important Karate competition held in Tokyo.

Some Karate teams stayed with us at Sakura Hostel, too.
One from South Africa, one from Ukraine and one from Slovenia.

Do you play any martial arts?

The manager of our sister hotel, Sakura Hotel Jimbocho, (his name is Hajime san), plays Aikido.

What about you?

These are for presents for Bingo game on Christmas party, 23rd.
If you are lucky, you'll get a beatiful Yukata (kimono for summer)☆

I'll buy more prizes for you, so you can request now!

You gotta come:)

When I looked up seeds of morning glories in a dictionary,
I found the word on the title of this post.
Don't you think it sounds really cute?
Could you tell me the origin of this name if you know?

These seeds are from our morning glories Tsuyoshi had planted this summer.
There are still some seeds I need to pick.
I'll take some of them for my garden:)

I like red-violet colored ones.

In November, we had many guests from Guam Island.
One is a group of fighters and they had a tornament in Tokyo.

At first, they looked a little bit scary:P
but were really kind(they gave me a candy!) and polite guests.
One day, one of them came back with a medal around his neck,
so I guess he won the match.

The other one was John:)
He had stayed with us before and it's his second time.
He is looking for a job in Tokyo right now.
I hope he could make it☆

If you are interested in Japanese culture, Oseibo is one of the things that you should know about.

My Japanese-English discionary translates Oseibo to "year-end gift."
Does it make sense to you? I hope it does.

Usually, you send gifts to those who have important (mostly business) relationships with you. For examle, you send a box of beer to your business partners, boss, teachers or someone who you want to thank a lot.

Do you have such kind of custom in your country?

In December, Japanese are always busy and in a hurry(I'm not, though).
From 15th of Dec. to 17th of Jan, the government of Tokyo Metropolitan
decided not to open the auction to the public.
I guess it's because most of fishermans are rough-natured persons and it's dangerous:P

So, if you have a plan to go there in that period, you don't have to get up so early.
Of course, the other shops and restaurants are open for us.
The best time to go there will be around 8AM and have some fresh sushi for your breakfast;)

Tsukiji Fish Market is one of the most popular tourist atractions in Tokyo at the moment.

Every morning, we see many of our guests wake up before 6:00AM and go to the fish market to see the Tuna auctions. The auctions are really exciting to see, we believe.
But please remember that there are some rules and etiquettes you must observe.

No flash.
No touching fish.
No talking/shouting loud.
No entering/walking in prohibited areas.
Such and such....

Let's be careful about the etiquette to keep a good relationship with people working at the market.

We heard a good news from Thailand yesterday.

As many of you might know, the major airports in Bangkok were closed for a while because of some sort of political demonstration.

Due to this problem, we received quite a few booking cancellations from Thai people and those who were supposed to transit in Bangkok on their way to Tokyo. That was a sad moment for me to feel how unstable the tourist industry is.

The airport is now opened and starting to operate as usual. We are hearing a good news from Thai guests who finally managed to arrange the flights to come to Tokyo. We are glad to welcome you guys. Have a great stay in Tokyo☆

Christmas party will be held at our hostel!!
This year, we'll have a movie night and Bingo party.
We are still thinking which movie we should have.
Do you have any idea?
Our options at this moment is "Love Actually"(my favortite),
"Miracle on 34th street"(Tomoe's reccomendation), "Music and Lyric "
"The Family Man"(Eiro's favorite) and "Lords of dogtown "...

If you are interested in joining our party, just come to Sakura Hostel.
Guests from our sister hotels and tenents of Sakura House are all welcomed♪
Of course people who had stayed here before (YOU!) should come:)

We'll let you know more detail information soon.

Futon for the winter have just arrived today!
Naoto and I checked how warm it was before you sleep;)
It was pretty warm and I'm sure that you can sleep very well:)

Have a sweet dream★

This is the result of the most visits from last month(November).

Hmmmm...it looks not so changed from the one in October.
Thailand is unranked and Malaysia comes in ninth place.

Japanese yen is very expensive thesedays...
it's good for us to go abroad but not for our guests:(
I hope it becomes normal rate soon and more and more people come and stay with us★