Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

I was surprised to hear this music from a TV commercial.

This is a TV commercial of QP Mayonnaise (our local brand of mayonnaise).
It is very rare to hear Mexican music from TV hear. I wonder who sings this.

Another version.

I usually work morning shift but on last Saturday,
Naoto and I changed our shifts and I worked evening shift.

As the atmosphere was totally diffrent from the daytime,
I did enjoy myself with our guests.
Normally, people are out during my working hours and they start to come back around 8pm.
Our rounge area is always abuzz and they look fun♪
I wished I could have drunk with them!

Look at the calendars of April and May.

Every year, from the end of April to the beginning of May, we have a special period of holidays.

April 29th is the Day of Showa (the birthday of our late Emperor).
May 3rd is Constitution Day.
May 4th is Greenery Day (I don't know what Greeney means...)
May 5th is Children's Day

We have these four national holidyas within a week during this period, which we call "Golden Week."

This year, because Constitution Day falls on Sunday, we get May 6th off, as well.

Look at the calendars very well.
If you successfully get April 27th, 28th, 30th and May 1st off, you will get a vacation of 12 days!
Wow! Wow!

If you are even better at negotiating with your boss and get May 7th and 8th off, your vacation would be 16 days!!! That is a real "Golden Week."

But this could happen only if you are woking for a company which doesn't work on Saturdays and Sundays. Never happens to us because.... we are Sakura Hostel♪

Do you have this kind of special holiday weeks in your countries, too??

About 80 percent of our guests are from France now.
So, we are trying to learn some French, at least numbers.
Compared with Spanish, it's very difficult for Japanese to pronounce...

Sometime, they become our teachers like this↓↓

Eiro is trying to say "your welcome" in French but...

it seems he can't pronounce it correctly:P

Merci♪

It's not rare that Naoto is doing something weired
but what do you think he is doing?

It seems he is trying to find something under the vending machine.

He knew that there are many coins:)
He said it came to about 1200 yen in total!

We put those money here↓↓

Thank you for your cooperation:P

What are they doing so seriously?

Seems like they're playing a game...

... seems like Tsuyoshi lost.

Hey guys, you have to go back to work.

Moshi moshi, Jimmy speaking♪　　
　　　　　　　　　　　

Before, we had a chaos in the office.

Who made this chaos?

Of course, Naoto did.　　↓↓↓
　　

This morning, Tsuyoshi completed his masterpiece on the wall.

It is very kind and has guidelines for Naoto to know where everything should be put back.

As Hirotaka has requested (see the weblog posted on 8th of April),
we got chocolates from our guests.
I ate so many kinds of chocolates from all over the world
but I can't say which is the best.

Hiro, I'm not sure whether you can take some because we can eat them all now.
When is your next shift?
Next Sunday? 　I'm very Sorry:P

Are you okay??
Please give some comments to cheer her up!
She is sick in bed today:(

We all hope that you will get well soon.
Don't worry, nobody goof off the job so far;)

Oops!

Hmmm, you should come back as soon as possible.
Don't worry, I'll visit our Sensou-ji Temple and pray for you on the way back home today★

Some guests told me how nice the STUDIO GHIBLI museum was.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take pictures inside
but I could understand how they had a great time there by their faces:)

This picture above is taken by Eiro.
He also went there about a week ago.
I heard that there is a short film which you can watch only at that museum.

Hmmmm....I think I gotta go.
If I were 3 years old, I could ride on Neko(cat)-Bus☆

Do you remember Tempei(right side) ?
He was the staff here for a few months but quit for studying.
As he is very friendly, he got some friends while working and Daniel is one of them;)

One of our repeat guests, Daniel is leaving tomorrow and
they went to Tokyo dome to watch the baseball game together.

Daniel knows most of our staff not only us but who already left here.
If Shinji reads this weblog, please give some comments for him;)

What I want to eat now is this↓↓

It's called Sasebo burger and original from Sasebo city in Nagaseki.
What's the difference between normal burger and Sasebo's one?

According to Sasebo's tourist information site,
the big difference is always homemade.
Some shops bake their own buns, and the burger is grilled after the order is taken.
If you have a big hunger, you can't wait:P

In Tokyo, there are a lot of restaurants for Sasebo burgers.
Anyone who already tried it?

When I was watching TV a few days ago, I heard some unfamilier words from it.
Such as JC, JK, Oke-ru...
Are they Japanese or English? Or some different languages?

Can you guess what they mean?
JK is not John F. Kennedy:P
JC is not Jesus Christ.

JK is Joshi-Kousei!!
Joshi=Girls
Kousei=high school students

Well, then JC means Joshi-Chugakusei.
Chugakusei=Junior high school students

They say, fake school uniforms are very popular among JK(should I put "s" for it?) now.
In Tokyo, there is a school uniform shop called Conomi
and you can find your favorite style.

Of course, they have their own school uniforms but after school.
they change clothes to fake one or just arrange it to their "original" style.

If you see JK wearing uniforms around Shibuya, it might be a fake one.

Koban (交番) is a small building with uniformed police officers.
They keep watching the community, give people directions and react to the emergencies
that happen in the community.
It shares the same idea with "police box."

You can find one in front of Kaminarimon Gate in Asakusa.
The police officers of this koban always look pretty busy
with many visitors including Japanese and foreigners.

Don't hesitate to ask them for directions when you got lost.
They don't smile a lot and are very kind.
We heard that there is an officer who speaks Thai in this koban.

Did you notice that one new guy is working with us from last Dec.
Let me introduce him today☆

]

Hi, Everyone!!
Nice to meet you all.
As you see me in this picture, night sift here at SAKURA HOSTEL is really really demanding.
My dear glasses are always barely hanging from my face like this at the end of the sift.
I even sometimes see Jesus Christ coming from up in the sky to pick me up at the end of the sift.

But I Enjoy working here coz I meet interesting people every day from all over the world.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that it's a very nice thing to be kind enough to give our night staff a small gift with love like a piece of chocolate or something.

I will be waiting for your visit and chocolate!!

Ciao Ciao.

It's been a while since we had personnel exchanges.
Today and tomorrow, Hiro from Sakura Hotel Hatagaya is working with us:)

How are you all going today? Im Hiro Araki from Sakura Hotel Hatagaya and am here in Asakusa for `2day Training session`.
Last weekend one of my best friends had a beautiful wedding ceremony in Shirogane, Tokyo. It was a traditional type of wedding and there were about 150ppl that turned up. I caught up with heaps of `way back` friends from my primary school. It was absolutely one of the best times!

I hope you enjoy your great time in Tokyo!!

Cheers!!

Hiro Araki

I can see two ooooooooooold faces behind him:P

As you can see on this picture above, we had many Thai people in the last month.
This month also, there are a lot of bookings from them.

One of the reason is their new year's (called sonkuran) according to the old calendar.
It starts 13th of April for three days but before and after 10 days, some of them take a long vacation.

Actually, my friend in Thailand is taking a vacation for a month(envy!)
and visiting her friend in Switzerland.

What would you do if you could take a month-long holidays?

Do you remember the names of our sakura (cherry) trees??

We named them "Satsuki" and "May" when they were planted two years ago.
I don't remember which is which, though.

They are in full bloom now but are still baby trees♪

What do you think it is?↑↑

Hint is...
http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/blog/2009/01/soooo_cute.html#comments
Yes, it is salt-and-pepper shakers but the big difference is they are ☆elephants☆
How lovely they are!

Now, I have two sets of shakers at home...

In most areas of Tokyo, you are not allowed to smoke on the street.

If you ignore this kind of signs on the street and still smoke, you might get fined 1,000 to 20,000 yen, depending on the administering ward.

On the other hand, there is no punishment for drinking alcohol on the street.
You don't have to hide your bottles in a bag here. Different countries have different rules.

Ebi-chan and Johrel were working over night and this morning,
Johrel showed me this picture above↑↑

Can you guess what happened to him?

He tried to eat an eclair this early morning but cream inside was spilled out....
and he could eat only half of it:P

Hahaha:D
I like this his shy face;)