Wedding song ideas!

友達に「俺の結婚式で歌を歌ってくれ」とお願いされましたが、
結婚式で皆の前で歌うお勧めな音楽は...
Love me tender?
Sukiyaki Song?

Thinking about a song to sing at a friend's wedding party... Hmm
P.S. I don't have the greatest voice :)

Have a nice weekend!

Pe ulita...

Pe ulita...
Originally uploaded by Mihai Japan

Fratilor e CRIZA.... de timp. Cea mai de pret avutie a noastra care, din pacate, nu tine cu noi. Ne ajuta daca ii dam importanta din timp insa este de o incapatanare crunta! Vine si pleaca mereu cu acelasi ritm. Vreau sa ma uit la un film recomandat de Adrian, si vreau sa stau citesc cat mai multe caractere de pe watasino burogu
Vestea buna primita luni este ca JLPT mi- au dat OK pentru nivelul 3. Vreau sa ma pregatesc pentru 2 insa... n- am timp. Japoneza trebuie citita, scrisa, mai ales caracterele Kanji( de nu stiu cate ori) ca sa se inradacineze bine. Insa timpul si nefolosirea lor duce la o rapida uitare. Nu, n- am nevoie de lecitina inca- sunt grele, sunt altceva.

Cyberdyne HAL

Cyberdyne
Originally uploaded by DirtHerder

Incepand de vineri, in Japonia HAL se va putea inchiria contra sumei de aproximativ $2200/luna. Este destinat personalor cu deficiente locomotorii si persoanelor in varsta. Hal este un costum- robot care odata imbracat va putea citi comenzi date de creier si va ajuta la efectuarea anumitor miscari. Este dotat cu o baterie de 10 kilograme iar computerul este situat in zona centurii.
Nu se stie exact cand va fi pus spre vanzare. Costumul poate fi inchiriat in functie de marime( S,M,L). Varianta castumului cu un singur picior poate fi inchiriata pentru aproximativ $1500/luna.


Am gasit o demonstratie HAL pe Youtube

Nikon UP300 x

Dupa revolutia I-POD, Nikon a prezentat marti noul headset UP300 pentru continut digital. UP300 va fii pus in vanzare incepand cu luna decembrie( comenzile incepand din 15 Octombrie) si va costa intre ~$600(4GB) si ~$700(8GB). Nikon spera ca pana in anul 2013 sa vanda in jur de 3 milioane de bucati, barbatii intre 20 si 30 de ani fiind principalii cumparatori. Oare de ce si- au stabilit deja piata?

Nikon unveils wireless headset for digital content › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

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Kanji Reader Device

Red Flags of Kanji
Originally uploaded by Jim Atwood

Somebody interested in learning kanji would be interested in the Kanji Reader. A litlle device with a bilingual interface, a high precision optical scanner able to digitize kanji and other Japanese characters( around 3000). It seems that it can do both E-J and J-E.
It is not that expensive and I think it is very handy considering that it is the size of a pen. Personally, I still need to learn the "analog" way and then I would like to have a device like this to help me when I need it.

More details about the device here

Golden week

Golden week is celebrated in Japan. Beautiful morning on May the 3rd. I met my friends at Natsudomari.
It was hard finding the spot where there were, but I managed to find them after a few calls. As soon as I arrived I started putting the meat on the already prepared fire.

Having a barbecue in a long while has been a really good stress relief.

It wasn` t that hot but some us took advantage of the early summer.

Arond 5 p.m. we decided to return home, finished eating the red pepper and packed up. On the way to Hiranai I stopped to take this picure. A little foggy but the calm and relaxing colors were reflecting that day` s "colors" .

The next day I` ve been working around the house, making a locker, watering the flowers, cleaning after my mess.
Yesterday I went shopping and could` t go home before investing in my heart- Canon.
After a long over night charge, today, I made myself some time to test my lens. Around the house and most of the time near Aomori` s Ferry port. Got there just before Natyan left for Hakodate.

Bay Bridge was covering half of Hakkouda.

While cleaning the water in my son`s turtle tank, this guy stood on the table watching me all the time...

The water in the vase is getting blue after putting the roses in.

Tommorow the party starts again! :D
Take care!

Japanese Speech Contest in Aomori

I arrived at work and was surprised to hear that there is an articol in the local newspaper about the Japanese Speech . I was impressed by the other competitors knowledge of Japanese and of their fluency in speaking. The first prize was obtained by the malaysian Competitor- " Japanese and Malaysian gastronomical culture" . When first arrived in Japan she was surprised to see Japanese eating cold food during summer and hot food during winter. The first time she didn` t find it that tasty, when eating cold noodles, but after a while, tasted it again and enjoyed it. Her feelings were expressed clearly and fluent.
The second prize obtained by the romanian competitor- " My son, my good rival" . There were explained the feelings of a romanian father, whose son` s japanese is getting better than his, even if the boy is only 3 years old.

Source: Toonippo newspaper

Japanese Speech- Busy weekend

Sunday? Emotions, repeating the speech, dressing up, preparing to speak in front of almost 100 people. I debutated in the 12th edition of the local Japanese Speech Contest for foreigners living in Aomori and in the nearby areas. A few friends of mine joined the competition and I had the chance to meet other foreigners from China, Egipt, Russia, Phillipines, England. I was the only one from Romania.

Everyone picked their favorite theme and had five minutes to debate on it. All the themes had interesting titles . It was good to meet all the other participants before the contest. We all gathered in a room next to the hall where the contest took place. Some of us were eager to meet and talk, some of us had emotions just like before a contest when tens of people are waiting for you to speak. It was fun to speak to everybody. To some of them I was speaking in English and to others I was speaking in japanese. Don` t know why. Free choice?!?

I was the third one to enter the stage, after Alex from England( "Friends") and Son from China("One night in Tokyo"). Amazing! Fluent japanese, good introduction, beautiful theme, polite ending and smart responses for the jury.

And... here I am, on the stage, with the microphone that was near my chest. I had bend over to speak in it( not too smart to adjust it to my mouth). The name of my theme was- " My son, my good rival" . The crowed laughed a few times and then, off stage.
All the following speeches were original, funny, to the subject and well thought. I was standing in the middle of the hall, right in front of the stage. Even for me, a competitor, it has been interesting to see the others make their speech. A few times I couldn` t stop from laughing. If the next time I won` t be competing I will sure be standing behind looking at the competitors.

When the speech finished, the jury gathered in another room to decide the winners, while we had the chance to see a nice Hula Dance Show.

One competitor from China was nominated with " Beautiful performance" prize.
The competitor from Philippines was nominated with " Amazing Voice".

3rd place for the competior from France- "Mountain Hakkoda"
2nd place for the competitor from Romania- "My son, my good rival"
1st place for the competitor from Malaysia- "Japanese and Malaysian gastronomic culture" .

At the end of the competition we swapped telephone numbers. I would like to meet everybody now in a while and talk about... everything.

Today I took a trip to Hakkodate for an urgent visit.

Tommorow back to work

Did I tell you that Saturday after work I went for just two hours up the mountain? Yes I did, it is the previous post :D It was great, but from what I` ve heard from my friends, today and on Sunday, there was so much powder, almost 4 metres. No way to go off course.

Have a nice week!

Short Review

March has been a pretty busy mounth and because I haven` t been writting on my blog for a while, I decided to shortly describe my happenings. A few days ago, I was asked by a Y360 friend what am I doing beside snowboarding? I first I thought that she likes the winter landscapes on my blog, but thinking about it I realised that my blog, starting from December last year turned into a winter blog, even the often keywords on it are powder, snowboard, winter and so on. Ok, I admit I wasn` t that sincere with you and I` ll try to expand my horizons in my blog.

As you all may know, the World Women's Curling Championship 2007 Aomori Japan has been hosted in Aomori City between March the 17th- 25th. I was tried to do my best by helping the organisers and the competitors by working as a volunteer interpreter. I was asked to work in three different locations: The Arena, where the games took place and two other different locations- hotels that were hosting the Media Representatives and the Competitors. It has been a pleasure to work at this Championship I had the occasion to talk with many people on different subjects. The presence of the foreign competitors gave me the occasion to exercise my foreign language skills that are quite... rusted, I have to admit. While trying to translate the first language that was coming in my mind was...japanese, not Romanian, not English and not even Italian. Am I growing Old???

It all ended before I realised but I have many good memories, a few photos with the competitors and ... many gaps in my known foreign languages.

Project "M" is called the worked that me and my friend Mark are trying to put together since December last year. Recently we visited Shiko Munakata ` s Museum to improve our knowledge in his personality and his work. I waited for a few months to "meet" him, and visiting his museum was just what I needed. We also had the chance to watch him work- a video of his life is broadcasting while the visiting hours.

Ok, enough work, here comes the fun part. A few days I went to this Yakitori restaurant and I ate a litlle of everything. It wasn` t my first time to eat Yakitori but it seems that the Yakitori made in a Yakitori restaurant are more delicious. It my sound stupid, but I thought that all the Yakitori are the same everywhere. Well, I was wrong. The smell of the charcoal, the crusty meat and the variety of the menu is worth all the cholesterol.

And of course, I have been to Hakkoda on Saturday. The smell of spring is present here too, but luckily, the old snow of 290 cm was covered by a new " white carpet" of 5 cm. It was enough for me and another 10 friends to go up the mountain. The sky was clouded and that temperature was 1 degree below zero on top and 4 degrees plus at the bottom of the mountain. Before going to work I got up on the gondola as many times as I could- 6 times I think.

I left for work at 3:30, raised my body temperature into an onsen and arrived at 4:35. Just in time and ready to make some Ramen. It seems that the snowboarding season for the 06/07 is over but the ski season is just starting for me. I forgot to tell you that I took my first ski lessons of ski last week and I quite enjoy it. It needs some time and practice to slide as a normal skier though.

Wishing you a nice spring!