I have just arrived Narita a few hours ago, Tokyo from Seattle in the USA. 

After I got home, I had a meeting call with the customer, and had the quick lunch/dinner, then I am settled down now on the cozy bed in my room in Tokyo.

Today what I want to share with you are the current feelings of me both work and private.

Here it is.

Every time I go back to the States, the interesting feelings remains. 

Something within me, inner of myself asks me or encourage me whether I am doing my best or not. It reminds me of when I decided to study English with no fair but only courage and aspiration with the strong belief of better future at age 19. I went to the middle of nowhere in the USA called Kansas State. It was the first trip to abroad in my entire life. After, I went for master degree in the UK but the Status is always the special place for me to change or adjust myself mentally. 

Seattle is also very special place where I have visited more than 5 times so far, I even stayed for a month once for a customer project right after I started my career. I once came to Seattle for the Christmas date when I was a student. 

This city is rapidly growing like you cannot imagine, as the giant IT companies, Amazon, Microsoft, SalesForce and much more are located, thus, tons of employees live nearby. 

So, it would be a bit wired to say this, but I cannot stop comparing the speed of the growth of the city as well as me 19 and me now if I grow myself as a good human being or not. I ask myself if I catch up the speed of the world. I am not afraid to say this, but only live in Japan, you would easily forget the rest of the world as here is the isolated little galapagos Island with old people. You will be easily far behind of the speed of change. 

I think the ways to be competitive worldwide is not be smart or knowledgeable, but it is to be flexible in any changes ahead. You need to learn, and prepare when THE time comes.

The chances are come to anyone but, those who prepares can only grab the chance.

So, I will not give upon on myself to be better me though I sometime get lazy, sleepy, and tired just like ordinary people.  

What is your thoughts on this?

Good afternoon everyone. 

It is Me, Yuruko!

2018 was the year that I have started blogging and I have blogged 5 articles. 

Sadly, I am the girl who lacks of the skills of keeping up doing things. But this year I will try to upload at least 12 articles here. Yet I have the feelings that I want to share my ideas to the world, so I will keep up this. Wish me luck (finger cross)

The first one is done Yeah! hahahahaha

Anyway, I want to introduce of my lifestyle in Tokyo more in this year, so please keep findings more fun and interesting blogs from me!

Today, what I want to tell you is this! 

It is an instant noodle.

Do you know the origin of this?

I went to the museum of the cup noodles in Yokohama the other day and learned how it was born and why. I thought this is the genuine innovation from Japan and I want to share this surprise with you. Hopefully, you might get some inspiration from here.

1. Ando momofuku

He was the father of the cup noodle/ the establisher of the company of Nisshin Shokuhin. 

First, during his era, it was the after WW2 Japan was poor and food was not enough for all people. When he look around he found out that people are making the lines for warm food and he got inspiration if he can create those cheap yet tasty happy food for everyone. 

2. Instant noodle

Then, spending countless try and errors by getting idea from the kitchen from home, he managed to invent instant ramen which he defined as 1. tasty but not get bored of 2 preservative 3. non time consuming for cook 4. cheap 5. safe and clean.

3. Cup noodle

One day, he went to the United Status to see what American people eat instant noodles. Then, he found out that the Americas eat noodles putting the mug and hot water. This hit his idea and he created the current cup noodles. Now we can cook cup noodles with hot water and 3 minutes. 

What we can learn from here is:

1: Identify problems from the society

2: Find the solutions by taking time and try and errors and even get the ideas from any different categories to make things better and better, and release the product to the market

3: See the feedback and the real use from the people

4: Recreate and release them

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I think the point is that usually people will give up in the phase 2 because it takes time and we do not know if we are on the right way or not until we get the feednback from the market.

So, what we can do is we release thing to the market ASAP then see what will happen.

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Well, Thank you for reading this blog for today!

xoxo

Today I want to share one of the latest fancy experiences of mine! 

 I was so lucky and my friend gave me the cruising dinner ticket, so I decided to take the chance to experience the very first cruising dinner last Sunday.

As the ticket had only one option which is enjoying sunset French dinner, me and my friend picked the convenient date and we headed the location. 

Before going there, I was so nervous that what kind of clothes I should wear in such a fancy dinner, but i decided to wear just a simple white jeans and a simple T-shirts with simple white cardigan. Believe me I was so white. 

The cruising dinner takes just 2 hours from 16:20-18:20. So both me and my friend first went to Shinbashi Station and went to the Hinode Pier. It took around 10 minutes or so from station to the Pier.

After we finished the reservation checking and confirmation procedures, we took some pictures of the ships like this! 

When the time came, we finally on-boarded! The look of the ship inside was like this! 

You see, there was a piano man!  We enjoyed the French dinner with the beautiful live piano music with the beautiful Tokyo Bay view.

As time goes by, the color of the sky turned from blue into orange and then dark blue. It was very nice.

The food was also nice.

I had appetizer, soup, bread, fish as a main, and dessert with a cup of tea.

What I liked here was the gorgeous Tokyo Rainbow Bridge view.

It is worthwhile of 8,200 yen with these experiences.

I will definitely recommend this to my family and friend! 

You can find the information from here if you are interested!

https://www.symphony-cruise.co.jp/en/

Hi dear reader! It has been quite some time since the latest post! I have been a little busy at work. Well, sometime people say Japanese work too much like a hell I sometimes think it is not bad as long as they love them. I do not know if most of them love them or they do not have other choices.

Anyway, I experienced so much these days so instead of thinking about which to post, today I want to share some true fact and fiction about Japan. 

1. Sushi 

World loves sushi so much in movies, books, etc but do Japanese actually eat sushi everyday life or not that might be a question for you. Well, we love sushi like as much as you do. But it is not as ordinary food as you imagine. We eat sushi sometime in restaurant, or shop at supermarket. But for us the most important points for sushi is the freshness you know. The price depends on the freshness pretty much. One thing that you might not know is we do not have California roll in Japan. It is from California in deed. 

2. Ninja

Some friends of mine ask what is ninja look like, or I know ninja! It comes from Japan right with confidence. Well, Yes it is but Japanese do not care about Ninja at all you know. It might be from old days but we do not live in there!　

3. Samurai

Well, Same thing, we do not do Harakiri anymore! 

4. Anime

Anime is another well known thing around the world. I think this is a fact that many real Japanese has grown up with anime e.g. Pokemon, Doraemon, OnePiece, dragonball, Sailor Moon, This is very true story. I do not know why we like these so much. but that is how it is.

5. Ramen

Ramen is getting popular in many places worldwide. Ippudo, Ichiran, Shoru.... I have seen them in NY and London at least. Here in Japan, Ramen is very popular too! and it is relatively cheap like 500 yen -800 yen or so which is equivalent to 5 bucks to 7 backs. 

Well, I want to talk about this topic much more but I will leave the rest till the next time! 

When I Googled Harajuku, it came out like 'Harajuku (原宿) refers to the area around Tokyo's Harajuku Station, which is between Shinjuku and Shibuya on the Yamanote Line. It is the center of Japan's most extreme teenage cultures and fashion styles, but also offers shopping for adults and some historic sights.' (by Japan guide: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3006.html) 

I absolutely agree with this opinion. Harajuku is really well-known as an extreme teenage cultures/fashion place but today I want to introduce another shopping idea for those who are looking for nice female shoes mostly for like my age 20s.

Last weekend, I was really looking for nice but non heel shoes which can be used as both casual and business scene because I was tired of wearing and walking high heels. So, I was thinking to go to DIANA (https://www.dianashoes.co.jp/history.html )where they sell fashionable, comfortable, yet affordable heels, Ballet Shoes, Sandals, and more. 

Then I found these nice things for autumn. I fell in love with this immediately.

At the same time, I also wanted to browse sneakers. So I visited several sneakers stores in Harajuku including SKECHERS, New Balance, and ASICS. I ended up not  buying sneaker for that day, but I thought a white shoes from New Balance looked cute and fashionable yet I didnt like the confotrableness.

All in all, I recommend going to Harajuku not only observing Japanese extreme extreme teenage cultures and fashion but also browsing/ windowshopping nice shoe items both sneakers and heels/flat shoes. It is nice! 

Last Wednesday, my colleague was kind enough to invite me to go out for dinner after the work. We went to Ginza first and then went toTsukiji with his prior colleague, Christian. Both of them worked FAST, Norwegian search company which was acquired by Microsoft now. Christian was Norwegian but actually he is a real Japanese at least than me, really. He has been in Japan more than 10 years and now he drives his own company doing natural language processing as CEO. How cool is it! 

After casual talk with two of them at one of the casual bar at Ginza, we went to nice, casual, but tidy, shabby sushi restaurant at Tsukiji. It was Cristian's pick! The name of this place is 秀徳, Hidetoku. It was located very close to Ginza surprisingly. We walked from Ginza to this place taking around 10 minutes. 

We had amazing sushi and very rare Japanese sake with nice tidy and cozy/ shabby place. The way they serve each dishes was very much like French, one-by- one way. Actually, we chose Omakase course, which the chef picked the best food today thing, and it turned out so perfect dinner. All of us were moved by its deliciousness so much like it cannot be better. 

At the same time, we talked about the job, some business talk, and Japanese economy and more. One thing I want to insist here among the conversation about Japan is that we need more software company which stood out among the world. Here, engineers should receive more salary so they will do better and great work not only just reacting or operating work. So we talked about how Japan can become better at the end. 

It was not a cheap place but it is definitely the place for good and decent sushi place with very good Japanese sake those who can afford it. 

Well, we all work for a better quality of life right?  We deserve it! But you need to book beforehand as there are only 10 seats! 

One of the really cool perks of spending summer in Japan is the summer festival. You’ll be very excited to see the fireworks wearing a beautiful kimono. However, today I am not going to introduce about the single summer festival. It's about the summer festival that my favorite Japanese pop singer has hosted. It is aiko! This time she has brought 37,000 fans all together in Chigasaki where it is famous for the beach and surfing near Tokyo. It can almost feel like a dream come true when she came up on a stage and started to sing 13 songs with amazing lights and fireworks with her funny facilitation. This time it was 20th anniversary for her! 

I will highly recommend to go out any summer festival for your favorite singer in Japan.

What are your tips to enjoy summer in your country?

Yesterday I received the message from my friend from university and we decided to have a little cafe/ lunch together. We have not met for quite long time about 6 years since I was 19. So, I was very happy that she invited me to chill and catch up what has been happened for us. We had a pretty good time here at nice cafe called Aoyama Flower Market at Omotesando. It was surrounded by beautiful real sunflowers. Both of us talked from the work, life, friends and so much more. But, this store was definitely stood out from the rest. Since we’re so happy to pick here today through end of summer, I’d share this with you guys in case you’re looking for some nice cafe as well.

When you get out from the train at A4 Exit at Omotesando station, there is a nice and colorful flower shop in front of you. It is called Aoyama Flower Market.

It is not a flower shop nor cafe. It is a mixed one.You can experience relaxing time while enjoying lively fresh seasonal flower.

Today's one was sunflower. I really liked the atmosphere because I feel like I was was in the real nature.

The food is also good. There are some carry, salad, puncake, and some bread with nice fresh fruits juice, tea, and lemonade.

It opens at 11:00-21:00 on Monday -Saturday.