30 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Internship, Tokyo

I didn’t think the internship would take me so much time, but after a couple of 無礼講 (bureikou, some kind of time where managers put aside their title, and have fun with employees), meeting with other interns, etc. , in the end I just went to bed after showering every night. So where am I working?

Well, first, it’s in Ebisu, a rather famous part of the Shibuya-ku. Then it’s a big building right next to the Ebisu station:

The Yebisu Garden Place building

The big one

The big one

YGP By Night

YGP By Night

At the bottom of the building, there is the “Garden Place”. Placement of benchs and fountains are a bit different but you get the idea:

Now there are some kind of windmills all around the place

Now there are some kind of windmills all around the place

And there’s also what looks to me as a French castle:

Looks nice

Looks nice

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See after 2:00, looks like that now. Don’t know why but there’s always wind blowing under the ark and feels nice and fresh. Maybe there’s some kind of ventilation system, I don’t know…

I’ll probably put photos of the inside of the building soon, basically it’s open space, with like 200 people in the same office sitting face-to-face.

22 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Crazy Japan, Student life

I am currently in the middle of packing since I am leaving for Tokyo tomorrow (I mean today) and I have to check out from my room in IUJ. The Open Day DVD was out two weeks ago, and I spent a couple of days ripping it and uploading it. Some performances are really worth seeing:

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The European performance.  French guys will have immediately recognized the Claude Francois’s classic, Alexandrie Alexandra. Second part is some german/russian song, but don’t ask me what the title is.

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In Open Days, Team America’s performance is always something you should not miss. This year, even though the quality was a bit behind last year remake of Evolution dance, it was still the case.

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Japanese locals performance: aerobic dance? That’s kind of impressive. Is that the Japanese parent of jumpstyle?

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Notice the creativity of Japanese students… Plus they don’t hesitate to dress as women for the show, the GSO-EC president (student organization) is dressed as a girl in the middle at the beginning. And they finish with Run to you (DJ doc) or its Japanese version DJ ozma. Visualy it’s great, and I think it will stay in memories as the best performance of this Open Day, setting high standards for next year Open Day…

You can check out other performances here: GSO-EC youtube channel

Ok, back to packing!

21 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Student life, Surchauffe cérébrale

Because videos are always better than long posts, check out this video:

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Maybe it’s time to call Pimp my ride Japan?

8 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Student life

busy timesYou could say it is just as usual. And you would probably be right. This week is the last week of the term, meaning exams + term papers & group presentations. Time flies, it’s already been a year in IUJ… Many things have happened in the recent weeks (e.g. IUJ Olympics), but I keep that to have something to talk about in the coming weeks. Unless you’re very close family, you might not now what I will be doing for the next two months. Easy to guess, it is an internship. 2 months in Tokyo working in Ebisu, living in Takaido, close to Shinjuku and Shibuya. I’ll be working for a japanese company. I don’t know about writing the name of the company on this blog, I7m still wondering if it is a good idea or not. We are 3 students from my university to intern in this company. Internship is about Marketing / Business development. Honestly it sounds very interesting and I consider myself lucky to have found such an opportunity. It looks nice, seems to be in the hands of very nice people, they have organised activities for the interns. And most of all we will be actually working/learning, not making photocopies/coffee.

23rd of June ==> 24th of August. Uni starts end of September, therefore I still have one month where I have yet no idea of what I am going to do.

I think this summer is going to be a great one…

7 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Crazy Japan

I find that always amazing to see Japanese driving French cars, especially in the countryside. In Tokyo, I’ve seen a couple a 206 (Peugeot), one Renault Kangoo, one or two 2CV by Citroen. Of course in Tokyo you see far less french cars than German or American cars… In the countryside (well at least in the area where I am living), I’ve seen more than in Tokyo. And people have less german cars, because of the lack of money I guess.

Again I’ve seen a couple of 206, 306 and 307. Only Peugeot. But I was even more surprised when I saw this car on the parking lot of the local hospital:

Peugeot 406 Japan Coupe

That’s right, a 406 Coupe with custom wheels. Maybe in Tokyo I would have been less surprised, but in Minamiuonuma, it was kind of a shock…

406 coupe japan back

Notice the Peugeot Japan sticker, and the “Musketier” series.

6 Jun, 2009  |  Written by Alex  |  under Crazy Japan

Fanta World - France

Thanks to Fanta, now Japan knows what we really like to drink, Muscat Fanta. Not to mention they already have Fanta Grape in Japan. Didn’t try Fanta France, but I am not a huge fan of Fanta Grape…