Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

Do you remember Clive?

He was working with us for about half a year since we opened this hostel.
http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/blog/2007/01/thank_you_clive.html

I knew that we had a guest whose name is Clive yesterday
but I didn't expect that it was that Clive:D

As he is living in Okinawa island now, he brought us some local fruits and sweets♪
These fruits we are holding is called dragon fruits.
It's gonna be our afternoon snack today☆

Thank you Clive and I'm happy to meet you again!
You are on the weblog as you were anticipating:P

Didn't you lose your weight?

It might be difficult for you to remenber our prime minister as we change a lot.
After Mr.Koizumi cabinet(2001-2006), it have changed 4 times.
On 16th of September, Mr Yukio Hatoyama became our new prime minister.
I don't know how long he will work for us but his wife,
Miyuki Hatoyama is unique and worth to know;)
I hope she would play an important role not only for international community
but for peace and development .

It is said that she had abducted by aliens....:P

It used to be a lot easier to buy a prepaid mobile phone in Japan.
As they now require some other registration cards than your passport, today it is not quite realistic for visitors to buy a phone in Japan.

We cannot guarantee that you can use your mobile phone from your country since we don't use GSM phone system in Japan.

We recommend you RENT one, not to buy one if you stay in Japan as a visitor for less than 3 months.

The rental fees vary, depending on the period of length, but it wouldn't be more expensive than 7,000 yen for a month.
We provide you with more information at the front desk.

Tomoe watched a gorgeous sunset one day.

The view of sunset that Tomoe saw from one of our rooms.

It was so beautiful that she told me to go out and see it, too.
As I am one of the laziest persons in the world, it took me time to raise myself up from the chair.
It's already gone when I went outside to see it...., too late :'-(

It was a sudden news.

The author of the nationally (and internationally) popular manga "Crayon Shin-chan" was found dead last week.
He went to climb a mountain and apparently fell off a cliff when he tried to take a photo.

Have you watched the manga? It's been one of the most popular manga in Japan since we were little kids.

Japan lost a great creator.

Wow, where did you guys get it??

You can hide yourselves behind it.

They bought it on Nakamise street in Asakusa (5 min. from the hostel).
I'm wondering how they took it home.

This is Asakusa at 1:00PM in the middle of Silver Week (the 5-day national holiday week in this September).

Asakusa is one of the most popular tourists' destinations in Japan.
A bunch of people come from all over the nation and world to Asakusa for sightseeing.
They look happy walking slowly and enjoying our neighborhood.

It would be great if we could have a narrow passage for me and Yuri to walk quickly to the hostel when in hurry...

Should we build our private tunnel, Yuri?

One day, when I arrived at the hostel,
I saw Johrel was smashing a chair into tiny pieces.

What I thought were as follows↓
Some scampish guests made you get angry last night?
or
He was sick and tired of Naoto's pranks?
or
He's had about enough of Tomo's unreasonable demands?

I hesitated to ask what happend to him but realized he was smiling:)
Hmmm, he's just doing it to throw it away:P

Don't worry, Naoto&Tomo. He is very mild person♪

Have you ever heard about Cycle Messenger World Championships?

http://www.cmwc2009.com/en/index.html

A few days ago, I noticed that there were some racing bicycles in our storage
and was wondering whether any race is going on in Tokyo.

Tsuyoshi told me that we have a race called CMWC will be held in Tokyo on 22&23rd of September.

"The Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC), was first originated in Berlin in 1993, and since then on, the event has been hosted in different cities around the world. In year 2009, it will be the 17th annual event, and this historical event will finally be hosted by the members in Tokyo. During the CMWC, the daily work of messengers such as "Deliverly" will be simulated and competed through out the event. And at the same time, messengers from different cultural and historical background will unite to share their own experience.

While the competitors are mostly messengers, the events and competitions are open to any one who is interested."

We have three participants staying with us now.
Veit and Fabian from Germany!!

Ralf from Germany, too☆

I hope all of you will have a nice and safe race!

Last night, one of our guests was walking and a stag beetle landed on his head! How often do you get into such situation?! So he brought it to the hostel.

I was actually surprised to see the stag beetle in the city, because you usually see them in the country side or in the mountain. I remember when I was a kid I used to have them fight like a sumo wrestling. You set up a small ring like in sumo and have them fight until one gets out of ring. Beetle vs Stag beetle, Beetle vs Beetle... Good old summer days.

We would've kept it as our pet, but it's best to bring it back to the nature.. so we did.

Ichiro sets record with ninth 200-hit season!!

I believe that most of you know Ichiro even though you don't know about baseball so much.
He is the world-famous baseball player。

When I was in San Diego, I watched his game with my friends.
As I was sitting on the opposing side, I hesitated to support with a loud voice
but it seemed many Padres's fans loved him, too:)

Actually, I don't know much about baseball and can't imagine how hard it is.
I'm just proud of him in the same way as most Japanese.

Hi, Todd and friends!(I should have asked all of your names...sorry!)
It was nice to meet&talk to you:)
Have you arrived home safely this time?:P

From now, your tiger is always with me♪
My name tag is getting heavy with many happiness☆

Come back again!

Naoto was excited one night when he arrived at the hostel for his night shift.

"It's tall! Did you see it?? It's tall!", he says.

He went to see"Tokyo Sky Tree" under construction.

We will have this "second Tokyo Tower" pretty close to our hostel in the year 2011.

They started building it a year ago.
It's now taller than 100 m. (Will be taller than 600 m when it's completed.)

I'm looking forward to seeing the beautiful tower behind Sumida River in two years.
Will we be able to see it from our hostel? What do you think, Naoto?

I saw Yuri drinking a can of chu-hai in the office today!!!!

Yuri says:

I'm allowed to drink. I'm not a minor.
Also, it is my honorable job to try this Suntory new product for our customers.

......

This new chu-hi (Acerola) received Yuri's OK, so will be in our vending machine soon.

Richard!!

Blue is very popular with our guests!

If you were working at a hostel in your country,
what kind of goods would you like to sell?
Post cards?
Magnets?
Chocolates?? :)

Hi, my name is Yuya:D

I love to meet people and talk wiith people who are friendly tourist from all over the world.
Please come down and tell me about your beautiful travels.
Yuya.

**********************************************
He is new night shift staff.
It's too short to know about you!
Where have you been so far?
What's your like/dislike?

I'm waiting for your next post;)
Yuri

Do you know or have you ever used high pressure washer?

This cool machine is Karcher high-pressure cleaner and we just got it★

Tsuyoshi and Naoto tried it outside and it looked fun!

I took it from them and cleaned some tiles but...

I found more interesting things to be done;)

Smoking is not good for you, Vincent:P

In July, our goya (bitter gourd) got flowers.
http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/blog/2009/07/first_flower.html

And then, they produced some fruits like this ↓↓

That's what we've been waiting so long☆
Isn't it cute?

I took three of them and brought to my home to cook it♪

This is called "goya-chample", local dishes in Okinawa island:)
Thank you my mom for cooking.

Some of our staff loved it but the others coudn't because it's a bit bitter.
Good for your health, anyway.

Hmmm...next year, I want to have more sweet fruits.

Julia and Susann gave us this cute bear from Hamburg :)
He was so lovely that Yuri kidnapped him to her home right on the same day.

My short trip to Izu was pretty gentle and lovely.
There is a Japanese phrase, "Taifu Ikka", (台風一過: たいふういっか)
It means a pleasant weather that comes after a typhoon.
That was what I got in Izu.

The temperature was quite moderate and the sky was clear.
Beach-goers are already at work and school, which makes the beach a lot more quiet than the middle of summer.

Izu is a peninsula located in Shizuoka prefecture. It takes about 3 hours by train from Tokyo to get there.
It might not in your guidebook although it is one of the most popular resorts for people living in Tokyo.
South Izu area has many beautiful beaches such as Shirahama (白浜), Iritahama (入田浜) and Yumigahama (弓ヶ浜). Worth visiting if you have a chance :)

We have consecutive holidays which is called Golden week in May
and it's normally about for 5 days.

In this September, we got another one and call it Silver week;)
It starts from 20th to 24th for four days but if you take two days off on Thursday&Friday,
it comes to 9 days off♪

What would you do if you could take 9 days off?

I have many things what I wanna do.
One of them came true today.

It is this↓↓New trash can was delivered this morning!

Have you ever tried to get inside a trash can?
It's big enough for normal people but I just didn't have a chance till now.

Actually, I asked Tomoe to try together but she said no.
Hmmm...once is enough:P