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 ;)