Blue note

This week-end was full of fun!

Thanks to a friend, I could entered for free into a famous jazz restaurant called "Blue Note" :

Featuring : CHICO presents GYPSY PROJECT.

There performed famous songs like "Bandoleo", "Djobi, Djoba" but I also savoured their original songs (Latino, Tango). It's not my style of music but listening to them was really amazing. The Guitarists, violinist, pianist, accordionist were lively and full of energy. All the audience was dancing at the end of the show :

The receipt, original :

Then we went to a convenient store to have a drink and as there were Halloween parties everywhere, we met a VEGETA (with a Vuiton bag...hidden in his back) :

(Don't search for me, I'm not one of the cute cats...)

Oh I finally bought my iPhone case. Kawaii right :p ??

Food food fooooood!!!!

Tokyo is a city full of restaurants, with varied food, not only Japanese but a lot of Korean, Indian and Italian restaurants.

We usually have lunch close to the workplace and I took some pictures.

Bibimbap(Korean):

Jya jya tsukemen (Japan?):
"Tsukemen" is a Japanese dish with cold noodles with a bowl of soup.
You dip the noodles into the soup. Yuuuuummy♪

Yesterday I met some graduated members of the lab I belonged to during my exchange program in Osaka.

Most of them are now working in Tokyo and they organised a welcome party!!
Lucky me ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆ !!!
We went to an izakaya aaaaand here are the pictures :

chicken wings with different flavor (spicy, sweet, balsamic soy sauce?, green onion)

Hum, this is... raw horse meat...
It was the first time for me and it was a bit challenging but it was really soft and tasty...

Gyoza!

To conclude, we went to a noodles shop and as we were kind of full (really??) "tsukemen" is the best dish to end the party :

Tea ceremony

Today a friend of mine invited me to a tea ceremony. 
It was opened only today for the beginners (like me).


It took place at the "Tonogayato" garden where the land belonged to the creator of Mitsubishi a looooong time ago. Then he gave it to the government and it becomes the 3rd most beautiful Japanese garden in Tokyo :

When we arrived they served us a cup of Macha (Japanese tea), the REAL one :

Performing the tea ceremony is really difficult, you need utensils (folding fan...), a specific way to dress (kimono with white socks...) and of course HOW to drink the tea.

I sat at the most important place, just next to the teacher so I was the one who starts eating the sweet.

I've never been so stressed by eating something. Of course you have a way to take the sweet, to put it on the fold paper, to clean the chopsticks you just used to take the sweet and give the plate to your neighbor. Eating the sweet itself was another challenge...

You also have "rules" by drinking the tea. For example when you take the cup, you turn it twice on the right before drinking the tea.

Then when you finish drinking, you comment the cup itself "ooh, the cup is really well made". 

But it was an amazing experience, I was really lucky.

This is the room of the tea ceremony:

Old Japanese tobacco pipe :

Hehe

Do you want some tea ? :

 At the end we walk in the garden and I agree, the garden was really nice to visit :

Izakaya!!!

Izakaya is a kind of "restaurant" for salary men (mainly) where they used to go after work to have a beer and eat some yakitori.


I'm working very next to the Izakaya spot (5 minutes by walk) :

Of course, I really like to go there even if I don't have the opportunity... So we went on Friday night after work with the team and it was like in the Japanese drama :

Then we concluded by a karaoke! Weehee!

Japanese amazing invention 3

Did you know that Japanese women are used to make up?
And as they are very tidy, when you go to a store, they will ask you to put a "face cover" not to dirty the clothes.

Goddess festival

How good it is to start the day with a Starbuck coffee :D 
I noticed that they have the "short" size here.
I never saw this size in France...The price is slightly higher here :

My friend recommend me the goddess festival which took place at Jiyuugaoka :

Japanese people never miss an opportunity to do festivals.

They are always lively and full of food stands!! How happy I was!!

I ate a "korokke" (croquette)

Then I saw some Hawaiian dance. The girls were seeeexy♪

Sunday @ Harajuku

On Sunday morning I decided to do some shopping at Harajuku, ★THE main district for fashion★

You will find all kind of fashion stores : H&M, Mango, UNIQLO, Zara and....the Japanese ones of course(which I can't fit into so...)
If you find a L size or a 40/42 then you are pretty lucky, otherwise the size starts at 32!!!! 32!!


With all my courage and strength, I decided to enter @ Laforet store known for its various trendy stores.
There were Gothic / Lolita / Princess clothes everywhere (shiny and glittery)... 


They were doing a hello kitty campaign :

I found this poster which I can't resist taking a picture.

How pretty boys are they? Huuum ★lovely★

Oh and for lunch....SUSHI!!!!!

.....and for dinner : SUKIYAKI @ my friend's place!!

FYI, I changed the frame of my glasses!! (I wonder why I bought contact lens for a whole year...)

On saturday

In Japan, this week-end was a 3 days week-end. Today (Monday 10th) was the "Health and Sports day".
I'm sure that a lot of people traveled around but I decided to meet some friends and do some tourism. 


I went to Shinjuku, the district for shopping, dating and eating :D 

For lunch : Japanese style buffet (with no vegetables...:p)!

I also made the noodles by myself!!

Then I went to the top of a shopping mall building and who will imagine to find a big park there?