Make friends@London

I think to make friends in London is very difficult.
No, it's more 'difficult to make friends beyond your nationalities'.

I think London is pretty mixed city. You see a lot of couples who have different ethnic backgrounds.
But, to make friends, I think they stay in their community.
British make friends with British (or Aussies, Americans)
French with French
Italian with Italian
Japanese with Japanese

It sounds strange but I don't like to make friends with Japanese people in London. I feel strange. If you want to have Japanese friends so much, why you don't stay in Japan?? There are tons of Japanese! Also, I don't like the competition among them. To live abroad is still special to Japanese, so there are always competition. Who's best speaker of English, who's the most popular one, who's foreign friends most...! I was tired of this.

I've been writing netgative thing, but I simply like to make friends of different nationalities! I am alwasy curisous in other culture, so I like to make friends of different nationalities.

I think if I could speak English very fluently like Northen European people, I would be able to make friends easily. But, who cares to make friends who don't speak English very well??

Ah, I should stop moaning. I really do.
I've been feeling lonely recently. I don't know why.
I don't have many friends here, so I should try to meet more people. Be positive!
(ahh, this post is really bad. No structure at all!)

Free online yoga

I think I've been doing yoga more than 2 years now. I'm not the person 'I love yoga! Yoga is my life!'. I do simply because it works for my body. If I haven't done yoga once a week, I start to have headache, feel stiff on my shoulders.

There are a lot of yoga classes in London. Also, big gyms, such as Virgin and Fitness First have yoga lessons as well.

The price of yoga lesson is relatively cheaper. The price around £7 - £10 for pay as you go lesson.
I've never attended free course. It seems to be bit dodgy...
I will write in next post, but the lesson I currenly attend is £7 for 60 mins.

My yoga freind recently introduced me the great website called Yoga Today.
They offer free online yog every week!

© 2012 Yoga Today

The free video, I was surprised how good quality. I couldn't believe the video was free of charge!

They offer 3 differents account.

• Free account - You can watch free videos only. But, you can purchase the video.
• 3 months contract (prepaid) - $29.97. For 3 months, you can watch as much as you want.
• 1 year contract (prepaid) - $89.95. Absolutely you can watch any videos for a year.

I am not good at continuing, so I am currently a member of free account. But, if I use this site regularly, I will upgrade 3 months.

I go to Yoga once a wekk, but if I do more than that, it will be very beneficial to my body ;)

Flower @Columbia road

Columbia Road is famous for the flower market. There are a lot of shops (stalls?) in the road. It's only held on Sundays from 8am until 3pm.

The place is a bit hard to get there.  The nearest station is probably Hoxton, Overground station.
I walked from Shoreditch High street, Overground station.
But, actually there are a lot of people holding bunches of flowers, so just try to find those people!

Chrysanthemum - not only symbol of Royal family but also funeral flowers in Japan!

Most of shop owners are East Enders ;) Love their accent

I love Hydrangea. The pot was £5!

All the photos which I took hiddenly (how can I say in English??) I didn't have gut to take photos in front of owners. I'm sure they don't mind, but I am too shy to ask!

The place has lovely & independent cafes as well.

Towards the end of days, there are not much selection sometimes, but the price of a lot of flowers get reduced.  I went there last Sunday, the Orchid was sold only £5.
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Columbia Road market
Bethnal Green, London E2
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Hiromi @Ronnie Scott's

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to Ronnie Scott's to see Hiromi last Friday night, yei!!!!

Before going to Ronnie Scott's, I and my boyfriend were supposed to go to Byron to eat burger in Soho. Unfortunately due to out of order of their boiler, we couldn't eat there on that day. (Why so many boiler problems in Britain??) Instead of Byron, we went to honest burger. Honest burger is very popular burger shop in Brixton, and they opend soho branch recently. To be honest, I prefer Byron, but, it's nice to try!
... I will definitely write about 'Best burgers in London!'

looks much nicer in real!

Ronnie Scott's

Not allowed to take a photo

The left photo is inside of Ronnie Scott's. But, actually you are NOT allowed to take pictures! When I took a photo, the waitress was really scary, so I thought she was joking!

Normally, I put the photo as big as possible, but this time, I sizedowned... I'm scared!

So, Hiromi's gig...
Ah, Hiromi is a Jazz pianist. You can check her here

OH MY GOD, it's amazing!!

When you are listening at Jazz bars, there are times that you feel you HAVE to crap your hands for musicians' skill. But, about Hiromi, she's just amazing every single seconds! Also, she really make flow, so you sometimes miss to crap your hands.

If you search 'Hiromi' in youtube, there are a lot of videos of her gigs.
(Yes, you have to check her gigs. I don't like studio recording sounds.)

Hiromi, the Jazz pianist

I asked her to take a photo of her, but I don't think she wanted to do (sorry, Hiromi-san). You know, you can feel those feelings from the people.

I've read her interview once, and it said she cared about gigs, but she didn't really care about MC or after gig since she believed it was ok for her as long as she could deliberate her thankness to the customers.

Anyway, thank you Hiromi-san allowed me to take a picture of you!


If you want to see her gig, check Ronnie Scott's. She plays there at least once a year.

Jazz @London

I love Jazz ;)
I'm not the expert one, but I love Jazz. I don't like the classic Jazz, but I do like more funky style. I think it's because it's Acid Jazz boom when I was young!

However, I'm not a big fan of Jazz bar. It's too posh! Even very funky Jazz gig, you cannot dance. People just close eyes and moving their head... that's it. (I want to daaaaance!!)

Anyway, here are my recommended Jazz bars. All are very famous ones, so I'm sure you've been to or you've heard. I'm lazy to explore small Jazz bar...!

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club

Ronnie Scott's is probably the most famous jazz bar in London. Quite famous musician plays this place. If musicians are pretty popular and your seats are not table reservation, I recommend you to queue earlier. Once, I had to stand whole the gig because all the seats were taken. Standing was not bad, but it's small venue, so I was really obstabcle for staffs serving drinks to customers...

Yes, they serve drink and food, which are quite nice. Not cheap, but not expensive.

Very lovely venue, so it suits for dates ;) or company's Xmas venue. It locates in the right middle of Soho (easy access).

The 606 Club

I went to this place only once, but this is absolutely my favourite place! It's a bit hidden place... you feel very special ('Oh yeah, I know London jazz scene!' ;p

Because of licence issue, you have to order food. I don't remember how much it is, but I only ordered the cake, so it must be expensive (or I wasn't hungry...!)

The tables are really close to the musician. The whole experience is really special!

*** It seems the place was moved to new place! Oh no!! Sorry, I don't know how it is now... 

Vortex Jazz Club

I thought Vortex was very famous jazz bar, but it's not crowded at all.. When my friend asked me go there, I was 'Oh my god! I'm going to Vortex! I should queue!!)', but it was no queue. Plus, all the staffs were volunteers.

The ground floor is restaurant and bar. It seems very lovely. It is located in Dalston.

Dalston is used to be very dodgy area, but now it's very cool place. But, still better to be careful if it's late venue.
If you live in the West side, it's bit difficult to go there.


There are other places such as Jazz cafe in Covent garden and Jazz @ Pizz Express.
I will write them in the future.
The reason why I put down Jazz is I go to Ronnie Scott's today! yei!!

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Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club 
The nearest tube station is Totteham Court Road and Leicester Square
47 Frith Street Frith Street  London, W1D 4HT

The 606 Club
The nearest tube station is Fullham broadway
90 Lots Road London SW10 0QD
They moved to above address from Ealing.

Vortex Jazz Club
The nearest station is Dalston Kingsland and Dalston Junction (overground)
1 Gillett Square, London N16 8AZ
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Work with British people

I went to our company's headoffice yesterday.

The office in London where I work has only Japanese people. I don't normally talk in English ... that's why my English level is still low ;( But, most of workes in our headoffice are British.
So, today I would like to write down 'to work with British people'. Because I am Japanese, it will be more compasiron with Japan.

Don't like confrontation

Most of Japanese people don't like confrontation. Japanese are famous of the people who cannot say 'NO'.
I thought British people were direct, but, our company's British people are like Japanese. They don't like to tell people directly.
I had to tell my Japanese co-worker that her work was not good enough. I didn't want to tell her, but I was the only one who understood her work. So, I told her although I hated to do. But, actully all of my British colleagues knew about it, even our company president. They didn't want to tell her because our company's very small, but it's quite interesting thing.

I think my view 'British people tell directly' is probably coming from my image of American??

Human error?!

This 'Human error' is very new to me. Some mistakes happens, people just let them go because of human error. That never happens in Japan! If there is some human errors happen, then we have to take some action to remove those human errors from now on. Discuss to remove future errors.. That's why we have so many extra working hours in Japan!

This 'human error' excuse, actually I love it! Yeah, we are human, we make mistakes.

When I had to do bit of customer support, I was alwasy jealous British team cause they could say 'I am sorry but it's human error'. If we said to Japanese customers, they would be furious! because it's unbelievable excure to Japanese.

Do my job

It really depends people, but I think job description is more clearer in Britain rather than in Japan. People don't do other than their job description: they can refuse to do.

In Japan, of course you can refuse, but you will b labelled as 'non-flexible person', and you will be treated as 'useless person' (unless you have very amazing skill or knowledge). I guess it's from Japan's 'cooperation' value. (Actually, I do jobs out of my job description, it's because I am curious!)

The above my comments contains criticism, but I guess it doesn't really matter nationalities to work with. It really depends on person, not nationality.
... this conclusion really denies my post!
Hmmm, I think I am still tired from my business trip to the headoffice!

Floatation therapy

I went to City Relaxation Centre to experience the floatation therapy on last Sunday.

One of my best friends gave me the voucher of this therapy for my birthday (She's sooooo sweet!)

What is Floatation Therapy?

Floatation therapy is a method of rest. Basically, you float in very high salt water. Imagine people floating on the dead sea. It's like that... sorry I am not good at explaining... better to read the wikipedia page.

The staff in City Relaxation Centre explained to me that you would experience the gravity zero World. It help to refresh and relax both physically and mentally, and it even cures the blood circulation.

Ta da! Here is the tank!

I was in the tank... pretty scary!

Tips for floatation therapy

You'll get the explanation before starting, such as 'Don't touch your eyes' thing, but here are my tips for the therapy.

• Don't do if you have any scars!
  I had my fingers cut. It's really hurt! ... I was very stupid! How couldn't I notice it?
• Don't forget the ear plug!
  The staff forgot giving me the ear plugs. I was annoyed the water came into my ears during the whole session... yep, I was stupid!
• Don't do if you are chrostophobic!
  Pretty small tank...

The person I've met in the lounge, he sounded that he had a great experience. He thought it was only 5 minutes, but it's already 1 hour passed.

I? ... no, rather I felt I wouldn't do that again. I don't know because of the small tank or no ear plugs, but I was sick after the session... I felt I got carsick. But, this may be the whole point of this cause this is the gravity zero World...!?

The venue, City Relaxation Centr, is ok. The staff is very friendly guy, so I don't want to say bad about that place. However, you can see the place is owned by a 'MAN' (sorry no offence). Not really 'Relaxation place' atmosphere. But, again the staff is lovely.

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City Relaxation Centre
The nearest station is South Quay (DLR). 2 minutes walk. A bit difficult to find a place. Better to check the google map before you go.
23 Skylines Village, London E14 9TS
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Dance, Dance, Street dance!

I went to the street dance lesson taster offered by dancebuzz last night.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I love dancing although I'm not good at that ;(

The dancebuzz experience is ... not bad. I think it's ok, but because I misunderstood some of things, so I cannot say it's 'good'.

Class
I bought a taster of street dance lesson. I thought I would see how the course would be taught before enrolling. It's kind of true, but actually we just join the middle of the course. I mean the lesson I joined yesterday was the second lesson of the course.
That's no problem, but I was looking for the course which we've learnt how to dance with one song through the course. The lesson of dancebuzz's course is like pay as you go style. Each week, they dance different song. It's simply misunderstanding of mine, but if I knew it before, I wouldn't go there.

Venue
It was held in Fitness First. When I went to the venue, of course the staff didn't know about dancebuzz. And, I have to say people at Fitness First I met, they were not really professional nor friendly. We didn't receive enough information (where's changing room, where's studio, bluh bluh bluh), so everyone seemed to have a bit of problem.
About Fitness First, is it so loud recently?? I've heard some gyms have their own DJ, but I thought Fitness First is not. If you don't like the music, it will be annoying...

Teacher
The teacher was a great! My teacher was male, so it's quite powerful lesson... I was out of breath after 20 mins! He paid attention to us, and he gave a clear instruction and didn't have strong accent! That's helpful for non native! Also, he broke very small part of sequence, and repeat the same parts. It's very helpful people like me who cannot remember choreography.

The whole experience is not bad, but since it's like pay as you go style, I will go Pineapple studio cause it's cheaper!

I don't have any dance photo...

A Night at the Natural History Museum

Last Friday, my friend took me to the event after hours at Natural History Museum.

I thought the museum did this night events because of the film of Night at the Museum... probably it's true. But, this event is held only once a year! If you missed it this year, check 28th September next year. It seems this event is held on the same day!

The entrance of the museum by my sh*t mobile phone!

The venue was great! ... but don't count on me. I love anything 'night events' at museum!
There are a lot of events going on. The highlight was probably 'to collect stamps'. It sounds not exciting, but if you collect 5 stamps from the different sections, you can apply the 'sleeping over at night museum in October'. How exciting is that!

I didn't eat, but there were foods provided. It looks Mezzo style. I don't know the museum's deli and restaurants were opened.

My friend's friend works at there, and I and my friend had a chance to attend her presentation. Basically, she researches some types of flower seeds. She sometimes has to go jungle to collect seeds... wao! She sounds an Indiana Jones but flower version!

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Natural History Museum
The nearest tube station is South Kensington. Follow the sign of V&A. Get out the exit, and just 1 minute by walk.
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Bincho @Exmouth Market

Regarding food, Britain has unfortunately bad reputation.

When I came to Britain for the first time, I was really shocked how bad it was. It's probably I came to London after Paris.

Having said that, British cuisine has been really changed (at least in London). You still encounter the bad restaurants, but you sometimes find the good ones, too.
To escape bad ones, you should check your friends' recommendations and online reviews. (But, still the taste will be varied depends on the cheffs!)

Bincho is not amazing, but this is one of my favourite restaurant in Japan.

Bincho's main food is 'Yakitori (焼き鳥). Yaki means 'Grill' and 'Tori' means 'Bird'. Yakitori means 'Grilled chicken'.

I didn't go to Bincho my first couple of years in London. Yakitori is so easy to cook. Just grilled!
But, Bincho's yakitori which is properly cooked, is very different from what you cook at home.

Bincho grill uses Charcoal.

If you love food, you can taste bit of Charcoal, something smokey on chicken, which creates amazing taste.
If you are vegetarian, you can order Tomato, Shiitake (mushroom), Asparagus and so on. But, these are grilled on the same place as chicken, so if you are proper vegan, I don't recommend to eat them.

Bincho has two branches right now. Soho and Exmouth Market. They used to have the restaurant at OXO tower (Seriously?? Yakitori is for the working class food!).

I recommend Soho one. It's completely the same menu, but Soho grilled better than Exmouth. But, Exmouth is more specious, and it is kind of off the tourists area, so you can experience more local... getting more posh though.

One of my best and lovely friend!

The Bincho owner is I've heard a British man who lived in Japan and his wife is a Japanese. They know the Japanese thing. But, there are so many typos on their menu! Especially, the Sake list, they messed up the production places of Sake, which really doesn't matter once it goes to stomack I guess, but kind of shame if they keep the "Japan".

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Bincho
Bincho Soho: 16 Old Compton Street, London, W1D 4TL
The nearest tube station is Totteham Court Road and Leicester square (7 mins by walk)
Bincho EC1: 55 Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4QL
The nearest tube station is Farringdon and Angel (10 mins by walk)
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Dance, Dance, Bollywood dance!

In Japanese, we have the saying 'Heta no Yokozuki (下手の横好き)', which means 'be crazy about doing though one is no good at it.'

For me, this is dance!
I am not good at dancing, but I love dancing. I've never really continued (I'm easily lost my motivation!), but on and off, I tried to learn something such as Cuban Salsa, Jazz dance, Street dance...

Now, my boom is Bollywood dance!

...I couldn't find any other free photos of Bollywood dance ;p

I just find it really funny and happy!! All the dance movement makes me smile ;)

Not many, but there are quite a few Bollywood dance lessons in London.
I put down some places I've attended/ found. The information can be out of date. Please search it again before your attending.

[Pay as you go Bollywood dance lesson] 
1. @Pineapple studio
The Pineapple studio can be said the most famous dance lesson in London. It's famous for Debbie Moore, the founder, Louie Spence, TV celebrity and Andrew Stone, TV celebrity.
* I happened to join Andrew Stone's dance lesson. He's really powerful, and I was out of breath after 15 mins...

The price is to pay a teacher £7, to the studio £4 (2012)
Lvel: All

The lesson is general level. It's the same teacher as below Danceworks, and teacher told me it was the same level. But, I think Pineapple's levels are slightly higher than other dance classes although it really depends on lessons.

The place is Covent Garden 7 Langley Street, City of Westminster, WC2H 9JA 020 7836 4004

2. @Danceworks
The price is to pay a teacher £6, to the studio £5 (2012)
Level: All

This is my first Bollywood dance lesson. The teacher is really beautiful girl (I know the appearance is nothing with dance ability, but learning from the beautiful teacher, I feel I can be like her!). The teacher is good, but I and my friend cannot get used to the atmosphere...

Level is biginner to intermidiate. Not easy, but I thought it's good challenging level ;)

3. @dancebuzz
The price is £10 for Taster class

I haven't been this place. They offer the Taster Class which is helpful before signing up for the course. I may try it soon ;)


I was thinking to put down the course as well, but my lunch break is finished (yes, I am writing during my lunch time at office!)

Currently, I and my friend join the course which is really really cheap!

Gherkin - Open House in 2012 -

Every year, I joined the Open House in London.

Open House is a two-day event which has been held normaly on September throughout in London, and a lot of buildings including even normally closed to general, will be free to the public. (I've heard you need to pay to enter some buildings, but it's very little like £3.)

This year, I finally managed Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe) !
Obviously, Gherkin is the most popular venue through the Open House, but sometimes it's not on the list. It may be the last chance to enter Gherkin, so I and my friends went to there.

Gherkin from the top floor

Ceiling

Absolutely amazing!
Maybe, that's not that impressive, but to enter Gherkin, we had to wait for

4 HOURS!
(Plus, it rained heavily, so we were all soaked in the rain...)

This probably made me believe it's worth going...

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The Open House for Gherkin was 9am to 5pm in 2012
10 minutes tour with 30 people
We could see only ground floor and top floor.
You must bring your Photo ID.

We started to queue 8.20ish am, and we were probably 570th people who queued.
According to one of a volunteer, they stopped people from queueing around 10am.
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A first post!

I don't know how many times I tried to have my own blogs.
... That is not correct. I HAD my blogs, just I cannot keep more than 3 posts!
I cannot stick to anything very long.

In my last blog which were written in Japanese, I kind of tried hard to keep it, but I started to feel awkward after a couple of months: Anything I wrote down, I started to feel 'show off my life': Look what I did, Look what I saw, Look my life is amazing!
(The reality is my life is 'so-so', which is probably worse than 'my life is shit!' as a blog!)


Anyway, I set up my blog this time is simply for improving my writing skill in English.
I think my speaking and listening are quite improved, but my writing skill is really poor. So, keep writing blog, and hopefully my writing will be amazingly improved a couple of years later!
(To improve my writing, I will ask my boyfreind to check. But, just in case, I will write 3 posts before I ask him.)

Here is my profile (That's what people do for the first post, right?)

• A Japanese girl in her 30s (ah... nearly 40s!)
• Live in London for last 5 years
• Work at a British company
• Have a lovely British boyfriend ;)