history of a man

First of all I want to calm down some people that has written me, the situation in general here in Thailand is of normality, apart from the fact that the two airports of Bangkok have been taken over by the government opponents. The terrorists attacks with hundreds of victims that are on the news have happened in India, here there have been some incidents with the demonstrators but nothing so bad.

Anyway many flights have been canceled, including the one that was supposed to take me yesterday to Siem Reap (Cambodia) from Chiang Mai, where I am now. It was a direct flight, so it didn’t have to stop in Bangkok, but it seems that the plane is “trapped” in Bangkok, or at least that’s what I’ve understood from the explanations they’ve given me.

All this has forced me to change a little bit my trip plans. Yesterday I took a night bus to Bangkok, where I am now, and I’ll spend here one day and tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll continue to Siem Reap with another bus. I will lose almost two days with this change, but at least I’ll try to do a couple of things in Bangkok that I couldn’t do last week, specially visiting the royal palace.

That’s all, this is just a little annoying but nothing to worry about, at least so far. The people here seems to be more tired than worried about the situation, and there seem to be no reason to be alarmed. I’ll inform you if there is any further change to the situation.

More than two years have passed since the last time I wrote in this blog, and although I’ve often thought of writing again, I never found enough motivation for doing it. Many things have changed during this time, and now that I’m about to start a new adventure, I think it is a good occasion for writing again.

In my last post in Spanish I told that I had moved to Milan, and I had already been working there for a couple of months for an Italian software company. What started as a temporal job lasted two years, with good and bad moments, but in general it was a really positive experience.

I lived in Italy for almost a year, until last year’s October. At that time I started missing home, so I decided to return to Madrid. When I informed the company of my intentions, they offered me to continue working for them from home for some time, which was a quite interesting option for me given that I felt quite well in the company and I had not searched for any alternative job yet.

So during the last year that has been my life, working as freelance from my home in Madrid and going for a few days every month to Milan. A quiet and comfortable life, with no labour stress and the happiness of having again daily contact with my family and old friends.

But the last months I felt that something was missing, and after meditating long about it I decided that I needed to try new things. For this reason I informed the company that I was leaving the job at least for a few months, and from the next Wednesday I’ll be free to start a new phase in my life. In the following posts I’ll tell you more about my future plans.

Regarding the blog, I re-arranged a little bit the general look of the page, and I also added a couple little things, in particular a new element showing my last updates in twitter, and I started writing again in the English version of the blog, which I plan to keep updated more often than before.

Well, that’s all for now. It’s a pleasure to be back here.

Already three months since I arrived at Tokyo, and i could keep on writing for hours and hours about all the things I’ve seen and lived in this strange country that is Japan. I have a strange feeling when I think about these last months, in a way the time has passed so fast that I can hardly believe that it’s already December and Christmas is almost here, but in other way I’ve become so used to the daily life here, that sometimes I feel as I’d been living here for a much longer time.

The Vulcanus group in the Kyoto workshop

It’s been a really busy time, and specially the last month was really intense, with lots of things to do, travelling, studying, and also parties. I would do special mention of the Kyoto workshop and the weekend we spend in Nara after it, about what I want to write soon, and also the official proficiency test, that we had last Sunday.

De broma en clase de japonés

About Japanese, to be true I expected that by this time I would be able to speak it better, but not as it was with the German when i went to Vienna, it’s being hard for me to get into the language. Despite the intensive classes we have had, my conversational level is still really limited, and my reading ability even worst. But I’ll be still here for many months, so I hope I will improve with the time.

La Tokyo Tower

By the way, maybe you would have notice the change in the look of the blog, with new heading picture included. I took it from the Tokyo Tower, and in it you can see the Rainbow Bridge in the left side, and a little bit of the Tokyo’s skyline at night. This tower, situated in Minato-ku, was built in 1958 inspired in the Eiffel Tower of Paris (although 9 meters taller), and is one of the symbols of the city.

The new “image” of the blog

To finish, I want to thank it to all the people that follows my adventures here in Japan. I want to be more active with the blog from now on, since I am now more relaxed after the Japanese test. I have many things to write about :p

View from the Tokyo Tower

Yesterday I returned from Brussels, where I’ve been last days. The reason of the trip was attending the pre-departure briefing of the Vulcanus programme, I was selected for two months ago.

I took a flight on Sunday, after sleeping less than 3 hours and packing everything in ten minutes. After 2 hours sleeping in the plane, I arrived Brussels and went to the central station by train. It got lost looking for the hotel, but after 5 minutes walking in the wrong direction, I found the right way.

Once in the hotel, i left my luggage in my room and went visiting the city (it was my first time in Brussels). When I returned to my room i met Jan, from Czech Republic, who was my room partner. We introduced ourselves and talked some time, before going to the hall, where we were supposed to meet all the other Vulcanus people.

They came after little time, and we had a beer together in the hotel bar. Once all have arrived, we went to have dinner to a restaurant. It was very funny meeting all that people, from so different places, and realizing that we are going to spend one year together in Japan. After dinner, some of us (Darek from Poland and Fer, Juane and I from Spain) went to have a beer in an Irish pub.

Juane, Rebeca and Juan (ES)

Next day, after sleeping around 4 hours, we met in the hotel hall, and went together to briefing. The briefing itself was very interesting, and we were given a lot of information about everything related to the programme: life in Japan, things to bring with, the schedule for the first 4 months (the language course), etc. Some of us also signed the contract, and I got some more information about where i’m going to live (a little apartment in Tokyo), and about what’s going to be my trainee in the NTT Data Corp :)

We had lunch in an Italian restaurant, and after that Anne, a German girl who were in the programme two years ago, told us about her experiences and answered our questions. It was not until then, that i really realized that I’m going to be one whole year in Japan… it was a strange feeling, like vertigo. :P

Juan (ES), Pedro (ES), Rasa (LT), Rebeca (ES) and Fer (ES)

After the briefing we did some group pics, and some of us went to the building’s roof where we enjoyed a fantastic sight of Brussels. Back in the hotel we rested a little bit in our rooms. I talked a while with Jan, and afterwards I met Fer and Cris (IT) in their room, and we had a beer together. Then we went to the hotel bar, and waited for Anne (the German ex-Vulcanus) and were talking some time with her and Christian (DE).

Then we went to eat a kebap, and met the remaining people, but most of them were already leaving. Anyway, some of us stayed: Cris and Enrico (IT), David (FR), Hannu (FI), Anne (DE), and Fer, Rebeca and me (ES). We had some beers and talked a lot about the programme and Japan. We also asked a lot of questions to Anne (thanks for your patience and for staying ‘til the end “remolona” :p).

We went to bed late, and I almost lost the flight back to Spain. Thanks Jan for waking me up ;) And that’s almost all. Jan and I went together to the airport, and I arrived to Madrid after two hours sleeping in the plane.

Now I must study all the documentation they gave me, learn Japanese (hiragana and katakana at least), and prepare everything for a year in Japan. I still can’t believe it :D

Last friday I presented my Final Term Project, the last step left in order to finish my degree, so from now on you can call me “Mr. Engineer” :p

The presentation has been a little “surrealist”. I’ve done it in a record time, and luckily they have liked it very much :p After it I talked some time with the professors and my project tutor. It was a very funny and interesting chat :)

The weekend I celebrated it, on friday with some friends, and on saturday with my family, both days ’til late in the nigth (early in the morning?).

I’m very grateful to those who have been with me during this last year for your support, without you it’d have been impossible for me to finish my project.

Thank you!