Soooo, as promised finally some photos of  Furukawa. Furukawa is a really small town even though its spreading quite far.  About 30000 people life here, but its almost as big as a German town with 100000 people. Thats because they only build small houses here.

Anyone who wants to make their living in Japan should experience towns like this first. Thats what living in Japan is really like. Really quiet and nice to live, but also very quiet during the weekends, which is a bit annoying.

First some pictures I took out of the shinkansen while traveling from Tokyo to Furukawa.

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And now some pictures of the dorm I’m living in. Only pictures from outside now since I still didn’t figure out how to store my stuff

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And now some pictures of the surroundings. More pictures will follow soon.

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Ya mata de ne!

so, what to say.
Yeah it’s exactly as I anticipated. Living here is very nice and interesting. I’m pretty sure that it won’t get boring any time soon, so the 6 months should pass faster than I want them to. Furukawa is a pretty small town compared to the big cities you probably know about. It’s spreading a bit wide, so traveling from one end to the other is not possible by foot, but you might make it on a bike in 1 hour (due to the stupid traffic lights here, they don’t have any induction loops in the streets here).

All the people I’ve met so far are very kind. Of course sometimes I feel like an alien on earth wandering around, since Furukawa is a bit small and hasn’t seen that many Gaijins yet. Especially blond ones . All the small kids look at you with big eyes and totally pass out for a while… until some of them start to cry and run away… hahaha .  There may be some older people (haven’t meet one yet, but was told about them), that don’t like Gaijins, but those are really rare. The rest of them are very kind, and with a bit of Japanese you can get everything you want here. I don’t know how long it actually took me to get a prepaid card in a softbank shop, but it must have been 2 hours… and the girl was very kind and tried to help were she could and the most important part… it didn’t feel artificial at all (Well maybe also due to other reasons *g*)

My colleagues are also very kind and I had a nice welcome in the company. Working in Japan isn’t comparable to anything else on earth. It’s all about the rules… example given: Be at your desk at 8:10, morning exercise at 8.12, start working at 8.15… 10.00-10.05 short break, 12.20-13.05 long break another short one from 15.00 to 15.05… and you will probably see no one who doesn’t follow this timetable. The only rule they don’t obey is that work ends at 16.55 and it is officially written in the company rules that you should end your work by then… 16.55 and no one leaves. The thing is though that after this time no one really works anymore at all. It’s more like staying in the company to show your sympathy to your colleagues, and it is REALLY awkward to pack your things and leave. (First thing I was told from my Gaijins colleagues: “Just leave, they won’t care”, and they really don’t). But it’s really not that bad as they always tell you on the internet… working for 14h a day isn’t really what you will experience as a normal worker or engineer. There may be some days when it’s busy, but that’s comparable to Germany. The only thing is that you will usually get paid for the overtime, and won’t be able to just work less on the next day (The rules man, the rules ). (edit: No they don’t get paid for the time they stay longer than 16.55 every day, overtime hours are something different)
There also many rules outside of work in Japan, but some of them just exist and no one really cares. Especially about the road rules… average speed in the town is 70km/h.
So that’s enough talking for now. Here are some pictures I took in Ueno-kouen on Thursday. Pictures of Furukawa will follow soon.

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yatta! I did it. Still alive and kickin right in Japan

Well exept for the length of the flight everything was easier then expected. The way from Narita to my current guesthouse was also pretty easy… well of course some japanese vokabulary helps. It’s also not as expensive as I expected. Trainticket from Narita to Ueno (50 min) did cost 1000yen… compared to Germany you could even call this cheap.

It’s pretty warm here and Sakura Season is at its best. I already went to the next Park at Asakusa and took some fotos:

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About 20 degrees but already a bit bothersome due to the high humidity here in Tokyo. Well I don’t know what it will be like in the summer… but I guess I’ll change my suite every 2 hours

Thats all for now… It may take a while now to update this page, since I don’t know when I’ll be back online. Until then…