Another special and long day

Today I have met in Waseda 3 of my colleagues from the event I had the chance to attend in Taipei (Taiwan) last year. It was nice to see: Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese and me!. It has been a fast lunch (due to the lessons from some of them) but afterward had ice coffee with Park (Korea) and nice chat about passions, how to live life with the cultural differences that we have or "clich`es" from his country. Really a positive and nice time with this super gentlement with a bright future.

Afterwards, no having able to solve my phone problem, I have gone directly to meet Mizuno-san (Ms). Mizuno-san was a lecturer from one course I followed but what at the beginning was a "friends" meeting it turned out to be more "business meeting". Mizuno-san works for a Patent Attorney`s firm and I have had the pleasure to visit the office and meet the, around 300 employees. Everybody was very warm and appreciated my "nihongo" and their face changed even more when they learnt what company I come from ;-)
Together with Shimomichi-san (Mr) I have been invited to have dinner in a fancy and luxurious French Restaurant in the Marunouchi Building, in front of Tokyo station. The conversation has been very fluid and fun. We have learnt a lot from each other and started a nice relationship.

After the dinner, almost 23:00! (meaning that in Europe -and South Africa- was 16:00 and time for the Brazil-Netherlands match). Did not have time to go home for my orange T-shirt and went directly to the pub with a great atmosphere. Although most people were japanese (some wearing orange T-shirts, others with yellow and green ), there were also some "gaikokujin" (foreigners). Visually it is quite easy to identify "gaikokujins" but what at the beginning you may think that in Japan everybody but foreigners shall be Japanese... no, no, no! ...there is a big portion of Korean, Chinese (or mixed) fellows that for us could look similar.

This week has been incredible, under really different circumstances, either Japanese approached me or a I approached and started nice conversations. Yesterday was also nice, two boys and two girls shared my table and started communicating (both in English and Japanese). After the match they left for Karaoke but I stayed with some other... let`s put it this way... interesting one(s)...;-) until really the morning (arrived home at 7:30 a.m.). I can say more than ever... whatever happened in Japan... stays in Japan! ;-)

On the football (soccer) side... Netherlands defeated Brazil and that is a reason for being proud of. Congratulations Dutch Friends!!! Hup, hup, Holland!
I have simpathy as well for the team from Ghana. They did an excellent job.
Somehow thanks to the world cup there is a lot of theme for conversation with the people in the streets. Spain is not an invisible country and thanks to Villa-Torres-Fabregas, Xavi... or the rest of the team, now from this side of the world, people know more and better where it is placed geographycally. Great promotion!! (national government and tourist offices/agencies.... take note).