Asakusa Diary - The Staff Blog

We have another traveler from France who is going to explore Japan by bike.

He left his bike here and will go to Okinawa by bike when he comes back!
He also left a message in Japanese on his bike:

It basically says: "PLEASE don' t take my bike!"

This is Benjamin:
Today a guest came in and showed us this:

It' s bread from a German bakery called "Bäckerei" (O.o)
See two German guys enjoying German food in Japan:

Enrique is a model who is popular in Toronto, Canada. He is a H&M retailer as well.
Since he works in the fashion industry, he always wears cool clothes.
One day he was looking for a male's school uniform called, ''Gakuran.''
He came over to ask ''Where can I find a school uniform?''
I recommended this cosplay shop in Akihabara, but he wants to get a real school uniform.
I had hard time finding it, but Doctor Know-all, Tsuyoshi knows the place to sell a school uniform.
It sells near from our hostel actually.

Make a nice pose ^^

The term ''Gakuran'' is a combination of gaku (学) means "study" or "student",
and ran (らん or 蘭) means Holland or the West in general.
Therefore, gakuran translates as "Western student (uniform)".

I'm so happy taking a picture with such a nice model :D

Helblindi is turning into Samurai.

Look at my sword!

Wait a second, is that...?

Just an umbrella.
Go on and fight the rain. lol

Do you know this beautiful singer?

Her name is Goldee.
We found her song on Youtube the next moment I fell in love with it!!
Click the photo!↓↓

It just makes me wish to fly to the Caribbean beach!

Guess how I found her.
Yeah! She was recently in Tokyo to take her new music video and stayed at our hostel!! =D

Goldee, thanks for staying with us!
I'm very much looking forward to seeing you in the new video ;)

Marcin were walking around Asakusa, and he found a great gift.

He got a tiny cute Yukata. Yukata is a casual summer kimono.
Originally, they were worn as bath robes by both men & women,
but nowadays, people wear them casually during the summer, such as fireworks shows
and summer festivals.

Guess who is gonna wear it?

His dog!

Can you imagine his little pooch puts it on?
That's so adorable.
I'll show you guys the picture of his dog wearing Yukata later on.
Marcin, please don't forget to send me the picture.
I can't wait to see it!

You can easily tell which country we welcomed people come from the most in April if you were here!

Yes! France was No.1!!

Special thanks to Nicolas Brun♪
It's always great to see you!
I believe we can see you again very soon :D

Merci beaucoup!

Our Breakfast Revolution

We made an effort to make our breakfast more attractive.,
First, my college friend, Masaki who visits to Japan for a few days is making a breakfast menu for us.

He took an art major with me in college. He made a nice calligraphy.
Drinking and making art is the best way to come out a great idea for him.
He did the same thing while in college, too. lol

Look, it's more emphasized, right?

Next, today is Hiro's debut of making soup.

Soup Minester Johrel taught him how to make a delicious onion soup.
Onion soup is great, but personally, I love Johrel's cream mushroom soup.
Hiro, keep practicing to make a good soup to fill up my stomach lol

Danilo-san from Italy came back to our hostel for the first time in almost a year!
He brought some photos of staff taken at his last time stay. Thank you soo much, Danilo-san!
He is always smiling, and very very kind.

Danilo 2010

Danilo 2009

You must have changed the spectacle case in the past year!

We look forward to update your photo in 2011 again :D　
Take care for now☆

His T-shirt says "I don't speak Japanese."
You liar! I heard you were speaking very good Japanese!! :D

Harris from Colombia brought us some gift.
A pretty drawing from Colombia and sweets from Spain :D
We love them so much!
Muchas gracias!!

Check Harris's blog!
You find some cool photos of Tokyo on his website!!
http://conociendotokyo.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donperrocc/sets/72157623914979262

Genius artist, Marcin designed my name tag.

My ''O'' became Sakura flower. It is related to Sakura symbol of this hostel.

How pretty.

''Look at my driver's license!''

Well...I can't see clearly.
Let me see.

OMG. This is the coolest driver's license I've ever seen.
This gangster cat names ''Nameneko.'' Nameneko comes from the word ''なめんなよ (Namennayo).''
It is a japanese slang, that means ''Don't bullshit me'' or ''Don't look down on me''
and generally used in daily conversation since it become a big hit in 1980.
But a lot of people showed this license for checking ID, so that police complained about it.

This is how Nameneko looks like.

This is not a composite photograph. Those kittens actually wear costumes.
People make them to stand up and put them on those gangster costumes. Amazing right?

You definitely should get one. You can get those items near our hostel.
It costs only 100 yen.
When a police man asks you about this license, just say ''Namennayo.'' lol

In Japan, people don't hitchhike normally.
But this guy is ambitious for hitchhiking.

It takes 7 or 8 hours to get to Kyoto by car.
If he is so lucky, some truck driver will pick him up, I guess.
Good luck, man.

Marcin is an artist. Yesterday, we went to Sakura International Party together.
We had to wear pink item, so creative Marcin made a nice Sakura piercing.
He cut Sakura picture out from our brochure, and put a hole in the middle, and put on his nose piercing.

What a genius.

Robin's family is the cutest family ever!
They are so friendly and always told me interesting stories.

One day, Robin showed me an incredible item.
It is a beautiful Robin's family picture in crystal.
This is a special remembrance I guess.

From the top

From the side

And one more great info from Robin,
they went to the Ninja restaurant in Akasaka, named NINJA AKASAKA.
You can check out how cool the restaurant is!
http://www.ninjaakasaka.com/youtube.html

Thank you for staying with us, Robin, beautiful Robin's wife and cute children!
I hope I will see you guys in the near future.

Do you know Jiu-Jitsu?
We have a big tournament in Tokyo today and tomorrow.

This is the second time to welcome the fighters from Guam for this tournament.
Though they are strong fighters (looking scary?), they are soooo polite and friendly.

Sakura Hostel Asakusa is now full of fighters!!

Hi, Nienke!
How are you doing?
Your dad told me that you are working very hard;)

He gave me lovely ceramic box today.
I'll put some pierced earrings in it♪
Arigatou...

I like talking with you every morning☆

Next time, you should come with him!

Have a nice day!!
Matane...

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.

Remy!! (right)

He got an black one when he left.
Thank you for staying with us.
You should come back next summer again for drinking together at beer garden;)

Brian!!

Though he is not staying with us now, he came to buy our T-shirt:D
Thank you Brian for reading our weblog.
How do you like it?

Blue is your color!

It was really nice to see you again, Francisco!
The last time you were here was in March, 2008.
http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/blog/2008/03/free_hugs.html

I'm so surprised at your Japanese skill!
How did you learn?
I didn't use any English in our conversation.

Thank you for tequila!
I think I can drink it all by myself without sharing with Tomo:P

Maid cafe♪

As you might know, Akihabara is famous for maid cafes.
Have you ever been there?

Yes, I have!
About three years ago, I tried it with our Spanish guests.
My impression was...fun but I could have enjoyed if I were guy.

I heard that there are similar cafes in Thailand and I wanna try it, too!

Because Jesus is not coming.

He comes with summer every year and stays with us for a month.
He must come. It's been always like that since our hostel opened.
But now, he has a little problem and decided to postpone his trip to Tokyo this year.

Ohhhhhh, noooooooo!!!

Come back to your home, Jesus-san. We miss you.

What are you doing, Ebi-chan??

He's trying Tim Tam, Australian biscuit coated with chocolate.

Our guest, Chris, brought us some and taught us how the local people eat it in his country.

1. Prepare a warm drink like coffee and a Tim Tam.
2. Bite both ends off the Tim Tam and use it as a straw for your drink.
3. Eat your Tim Tam up quickly before it melts and falls apart.

You cannot avoid automatically bending down your head like Ebi-chan does on the photo.

Thanks, Chris.
Why did they name it Tim Tam, by the way? It sounds a little cute.

I'm not sure whether you are checking this weblog
but thank you for your mail and some brochures of your lovely country(island).

I think you were the first guest from Guadeloupe and also it was my first time to know it.
When I checked your island on the internet, I found it's worth visiting.

Do you mean you can show me around if I visit there?;)

Enrique(the left), from Mexico, just left for his country now.
To be surprised, he speaks Japanese very fluentry
(almost perfect!)without going to Japanese lunguage school.

He sometimes went for a drink with us.
Before leaving, he said "I don't want go back" many many times:)

We hope he'll come back again and I'm sure that
when Tomo goes to Mexico the next time, she'll visit him.

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☆

Hi, Nicholas!
How are you?　I hope you are still checking our weblog.

We had received some gifts from you♪
Because I was not here on that day, Naoto almost took my wine:(....

But don't worry!
I got one and already drunk ;P

Also, thank you for some photos!
We are looking forward to seeing you the next time:)

Chris, Alex and Kevin were staying (living?) with us for a loooong term.
They checked in separately and staying at the different rooms
but they became friends and often hanged out together.

Actually, they sometimes checked out to go the other places and eventually,
three of them were in the same room (501).

We (our staff) enjoyed fireworks and party, and watched TV (olympis games) together.
Unfortunately, Alex checked out the day before yesterday and so did Kevin yesterday...
Chris is also going to check out soon:(

Please come back again and have a party;)
We'll keep beds for you guys in 501♪

☆Richard and his friends☆

Have you guys arrived at your home safely?
Thank you for staying with us:)
I hope all of you had a great time here in Japan.

Sorry, I forgot to ask all of your name...
We are looking forward to seeing you again:)

Do you know what country this is at No. 10 from last month?
It's Finland!

If you are wondering why Finland is ranked here, the reason is....

these long stayers from Finland.
(From right to left) Janne, Miika, another Janne and Jonne have been staying with us for such a long time. Three of them are leaving tomorrow and going back home. So sad ;(

Come back anytime, guys. Your home is always here ♪

Do you happen to know him??
If so, you are the great reader of our weblog;)

Jesus came back last week and it's his third time here.
When we see him, we realize that the summer has come this year!
He always spends a month here and makes many friends to travel around with.
His Japanese is getting better every year:)

I hope he'll have a great time again:)