history of a man

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

I wanted to talk about what it’s going to be my life from September of this year.

One month ago more or less, I was informed that I had been one of the 29 european students selected to take part in the Vulcanus Programme 2005-2006. This programme, organized by theEU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, selects every year a group of europena engineering students for a one year trainee in Japan, in technology innovation projects.

The programme has two parts: the first one, four month long, I’ll learn Japanese and attend to seminars about Japanese culture in Tokio. The second part, eight month long, will be the trainee, that I will do in NTT Data Corporation.

You are maybe wandering why I had choose to go to Japan… :P Apart from being a very good opportunity in all aspects, the true is that Japan is a country that has always attracted me, and living in Japan for some time has always been one of my biggest dreams, that it seems i will achieve. And as my dear Barb always says “Is just the posibility of making one dream come true, what makes life interesting”… ;)

When I got the email telling me I had been selected, I could hardly believe it. Last year more that 800 students from all the EU asked for the 30 places of the programme, and last year the EU had ten countries less. I still don’t believe it, and I think that I will not get used to the idea until I am there… :P

I will tell you more about the programme and my arrangements for one year in Japan soon.