Common italian restaurant

Last night, I went to an italian restaurant with my wife, and we could order some dishes, which weren't in the menu list. This was because we come here frequently, and the chefs know our favorites our tastes:)

Actually, this dish and wine were not in the list, and they were much delicious!

Here is an web-page of this restaurant.

Started to use Google apps

We've begun to use Google apps in my company since yesterday. It contains some web-based tools like Gmail, tasks etc. According to it, we can check e-mail, even in my house or outside our office.

Of course, it would accelerate our productivity, especially for employees who work outside the office, but it may restrain our works in near future...:(

At first, we have to be accustomed to using them soon. Although I usually use Google tools, our tools in my company are restricted. Actually, we cannot use Google calendar at present, because of the compatibility for our internal schedule system.

A tradition of "O-hanami"

Many Japanese people go to the park to see cherry blossom. Actually, I went to a park near my house with my wife, and took some pictures.

During walking through the park, my wife asked me why Japanese people held parties below the trees of cherry blossoms. I've never doubted such questions, and couldn't reply the answers. I'll look into this tradition tonight!

Anyway, there are some shops, which sell junky foods like Banana with chocolate or sweet apples. They are often appeared in festivals in Japan, and then O-hanami seems to be festival. 

Send to Kindle

Some days ago, I found an article about an application, with which we can push web-pages into our Kindle devices. It seems like a famous application called "Read it later." Actually, I tried to use it and the function is fine for me, because I usually read English or French books with Kindle paperwhite and I don't need to change device:)

According to the introductory page by Amazon, we may use some channels like web-browser, Google Chrome extension or others:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle

If you're a Kindle user, this function would be very helpful, I expect:)

Tried to dance salsa:)

I went to salsa-party yesterday's night with my tango-dance teacher and her student. They could dance it very well, and also they were my teacher then.

We sought the dance studio, after having light dinner near the studio in Roppongi. They explained so much about the brief history of salsa or other music, but I had very few information and experience about this dance, and their explanation for salsa didn't convince me very well...:(
Actually, I've practiced only basic steps of salsa a few month ago, and that's all about my experience. As a matter of fact, basic information is very important to understand profoundly..

According to their advice, the similar dance "Bachata" can include tango steps in it, and I tried to dance it with some tango-step..:) It was ONLY me to use plural steps of tango in the studio!!

Anyway, I'd like to appreciate to today's "teacher" so much!

The 1st tango lesson in 2013:)

It was the first time to take a lesson of Argentine Tango in Ebisu this year. My teachers looked after our students very well, and we learned some figures, with which we would be used in tango party in near future.

Actually, I took 2 lessons for beginners and intermediate students. There were less than 10 people for each lesson yesterday, and it was adequate volume for students:)

Although this diary is written in English, we've learned these lessons in Japanese!

Here are lesson movies by our teachers.

For beginners:

For intermediate students:

My "Air" is broken?!

Since the beginning of this year, my PC, which is indeed MacBook Air, doesn't often store its electric power with its battery. In fact, I sometimes can store and sometimes cannot do it. Due to my lack of knowledge for infrastructure, I cannot judge the actual trigger for this incidents recently.

Some months ago, the PC had been repaired because of its failure of its infrastructure, which was a connecting part between the body and its adapter. I brought my PC to nearest Genius Bar of Apple Store in Shibuya, and actually my PC was transferred to maintenance center of repairing. One week after, it was fixed after replacing the failure.

As noted above, the incident is very similar to one of some month ago, and I went to the Bar to diagnose it this evening. After some brief trial, its battery has some troubles according to the person in charge, and he gave me a substitute of the adapter:) Actually, the version of the adapter is newer than the one of mine. Finally, it was free of charge, because I've registered a service of "AppleCare."

Lonely Planet around Tokyo

The other day, I've purchased Kindle Paperwhite from amazon site in Japan.


Then, I completed reading the following book, whose title is "Lonely Planet around Tokyo". They say that this series "Lonely Planet" is famous for foreign travelers, and this book is my first reading for me with the Kindle. Actually, there are other series for Japanese travelers like "How to walk in earth(Chi-kyu-no-arukikata)", "Rurubu traveller".

In this book, we will find Japanese geographic, history or other cultures. What I'm interested in is a chapter of "Food and drink." As I usually cook in my house, there are some descriptions like O-kome, Miso and Shoyu, which are Japanese traditional condiments or Izakaya, Syokudo and how to use chopsticks. Even we, Japanese, don't know the detailed explanations in this book. So, Japanese will be surprised, if foreign people know this kind of description:)

Ready for exhibition of Tango dance:)

I'm going to attend an exhibition of Tango dance held in Ikebukuro today:)
Indeed, I've practiced 4 months for it, and my back-music for my dance will be "Bullanguera," and you can hear the music with orchestration version as follows:

Setting of iPhone

I use my iPhone in English mode, which enables me to take more time of studying English. Certainly, soon after the changing the language, it has some problems because I could not find the buttons tochange the setting. But, now that I'm accustomed to English mode, and indeed I memorized the exact placeswhere to tap for almost all buttons.

But, some weeks ago, I updated my iPhone with the version into iOS6.0, and lost my way to do it. Actually, I asked my colleague to change a setting, and he said to me why I changed the language setting. I explained him thereason as above, but he has not convinced it... Finally, he said to me: "Do you want to become smart?" with smiling. I didn't intend such a thing, just wanted to ask the setting because forgetting it...

New iPhone would be delayed too long..

They started to sell new iPhone, which was called iPhone 5, on 21st September in Japan, and I reserved it on the next day in one of major carrier of cellular phone. A store staff indicated that we could acquire it almost after 2 weeks ago, but no announce was delivered to me.
So, I went there to ask about my reserving status. According to the staff, it will take more 2 weeks, and totally it might take one month from reserving to acquire new cellular phone...

On the other hand, one of my friend could get the same model of iPhone by reserving electronics retail store last week.

Tim Cook, who is current CEO of Apple Inc., was in charge of supply chain management of Apple products, and then so I expected I could get more earlier...

Too many people...:(

As planned in my blog previously, I went to the park to eat various food in Hokkaido with my friend, but there were too many people in Yoyogi park.

As you can see the picture below, there too many people...

Also, here is a picture below, and they can buy burned carbs. Actually, they smell so good:)

But it'll take about 3 hours to eat the crabs, i.e. we have to line up to take them... 

It was too long for us, and I bought "Ikura" which is salmon caviers.

According to the explanation, we have to freeze it, and indeed a shopper wrapped with old newspaper, and it kept frozen status. After purchasing it, we went to a restaurant near Harajuku station, and ate Yakiniku-lunch:)

Although we've not accomplished our plans, we compromised all of the events. Anyway, today was a funny holiday:)

Food exhibition in Yoyogi park

One of my friend invited us to come to "Food exhibition" held in Yoyogi park. Indeed, I wanted to go there:)

Here is an HP for it: http://www.hokkai-syokudo.co.jp/yoyogi.php

After taking some pictures, I'll upload them here:)