[English]
I broke (or it was broken) my new camera last week (on Friday night), it could not read the memory cards anymore. So like a good Italian I sent it back for repair on warranty, I was desperate because I knew that I would have to wait the mandatory 6 months before having it back (which is the usual time when you want to repair something in Europe). BUT HEY!!!! We are in Japan!!!! So the guy took my camera and told me : “I am bery soly but soon is ‘olidayu so we canot garranty repair before january 2nd.” I must admit that actually surprised me in a good way … then he added : “we will do as fast as we can!”. When Japanese people in a store says that … they mean it. I got my camera back yesterday at 5:30PM !!!! it was less than 5 working days later!!!!!

JAPAN FTW!!! (FTW = for the win … got it mom?)

[French]

J’ai cassé (ou plutôt il s’est cassé) mon nouvel appareil photo Vendredi derniers, le lecteur de “Memory card” ne fonctionnait plus. Donc, en bonne Italien, je suis allé rapporter l’article avec la garantie, en m’attendant à devoir attendre dans les 6 mois (comme d’had quoi). C’est là, au contoire du magasin, que je me suis souvenu que j’habite au Japon maintenant. Le responsable m’a donc tenue c’est belle paroles : “Je suis vraiment désolé mais vu que c’est bientôt les vacances je ne peut pas vous garantir une réparation avant le 2 Janvier.” Cela m’a donc agréablement surpris … puis il a ajouté : “Mais nous feront le plus vite que nous pourrons!” Et quand un Japonais dans un magasin vous dis ça, il le pense … VRAIMENT! Conclusion : J’ai reçus mon appareil photo (totalement comme neuf) hier à 17:30! Moins de 5 jours ouvrable après!

Incroyable!

[English]
I visited an elementary school today. While some of you might still be discussing if letting me anywhere near small kids is reasonable or not, I have to say I was surprised at how much fun can Japanese kids be. This couple of hour with them makes me wonder : At what point in time does those active, optimistic, ingenuous, incredibly fun, small beings grow up and becomes those gigantic losers that makes the 90% of  Japanese adults? By loser I intend people totally deprived of  self-esteem, self-respect and common sense in human-relationships.
One more thing that impressed me : DOKKOISHO DOKKOISHO ~~~~ SORAN SORAN!!!!

[Français]

Aujourd’hui j’ai visité une école primaire. Alors que certain pourrait se demander si me laisser approcher des enfants est une chose raisonnable, je dois avouer que je suis surpris par la “funnitude” des enfants Japonnais. Les quellesques heures que j’ai passé avec eux m’interroge : à quel moment ces petits être actifs, ingénues, optimistes et incroyablement marrants deviennent ces losers(lire LOUZEURS) gigantesques qui forment 90% des adultes Japonnais?. Par loser j’entends ces gens totalement dépourvue de self-estime, de respect pour soit-meme et de sens commun en matière de relations avec autrui.
Dernière déclaration? DOKKOISHO DOKKOISHO ~~~~ SORAN SORAN!!!!

[English]
Lately the work has been slow and the training slower. Not many interesting stuff is happening, but we have boring a plenty.
Tomorrow I got to go to an elementary school and present stuff about France … problem I have nothing (what do you expect for a 20kg luggage restriction). I will just indtroduce them to French 70’s pornography (11yrs old is old enough right?).
Here is a nice pic I got with my LX3. What do you think?

[Fançais]
Dernièrement le boulot est lent et les entraînement encore plus. Rien de bien interessant ce passe, mais dans le chiant on en a tout le tour du ventre.
Demain je dois me rendre dans une école élémentaire et présenter quelquechose à propos de la France; problème : je n’ai rien amener de bien Français avec moi(20kg de baguages oblige j’ai laisser les souvenirs à la casa). Je vais juste leurs faire un topo sur la pornographie Française des années 70 (11 ans c’est le bon age pour ça non?).
Voici une photo sympa que j’ai prise avec ma LX3 neuve. Vous en pensez quoi?

[ENGLISH]
I am not in a writing mood right now. So I will just leave those pictures to your own interpretation.
[FRENCH]
Je ne suis pas d’une humer “rédactrice” tout de suite. Je vais donc laisser ces images au grès de votre interpretaion personnel.

Yesterday I just pulled the trigger on a new gadget : a Panasonic Lumix LX3.
This a digicam compact not DSLR. Being the geek that I am : before buying it I have asked around and anybody that loved photography was hard pressed to find anything bad about it. Plus all the professional’s reviews around the web were more than positive that this is the best cam in the compact category.

I mean the LX3 got fan groups around the web and blogs dedicated to it.

Expect more and better pictures to be posted soon (now that I begin to know my way around Adobe Lightroom too).
Here are a few LX3 dedicated blogs:
Panasonic Lumix Lx3 Blog
The Lumix Lx3 blog

And here is a flickr group about pictures taken with that camera:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/843626@N22/

See you soon!

PS : The only problem is that you can’t change the language of the menus on the jap model … so it will take me a while to fully master it. Or does anyone has a hack around that?

On Saturday 14th (right before the bday party) I went to Kamakura with some other international students (and the MIFA volunteers) to experience Zazen and visit some temples.

Well it was fun and beautiful (and apparently I parted way with my Karma thanks to a small Jizou Bossatsu). By the way sitting for 30 minutes in zazen hurts!

here are some pics. HERE (a cortesy of MIFA)

Here are the pictures. And they are telling way more than I can remember (I should slow down a little). Anyway the timetable was :
- 8PM meet at my place
- 11PM go to karaoke!
- 5AM go to sleep with no voice.

It didn’t go as planned since I had a little voice left at the end.

Thanks to Yusuke for the pics : Ed’s BDay

I think I will do something tomorrow since it is the real day. But I don’t know yet what to do.

I am kind of proud to introduce you to my first lesson in front of a class.
Be reassured I will not turn into a professor just yet. It is just that I really liked the subject and – even though only 3 persons in the classroom were able to follow me – it was satisfying.

Here are the slides:Ray Tracing Now

In my next post I will talk about the week end …. but now I am just sleepy.

See you all!

I am sorry that I did not post some updates sooner. But it is just that I was lazy. It took me too long to edit my photos from Halloween (do not leave a Canon Powershot in the hands of a drunk guy with a Gorilla costume … or else you will have 1000 pictures to edit in the mornings to come).

If you want to see the pics from our trip to Roppongi in Halloween … just go on Facebook … if you just can not go then I will had some pics on this post. It was fun and it made me realize that going out in Japan is much cheaper than every other country I went to. Plus once Japanese people are getting crazy … they go all the way, no half measures here.

The day after Halloween we had the most incredible idea : let’s wash away all the booze we guzzled yesterday by going at the sento (public bath). IT WAS AMAZING. Absolutely the most relaxing thing I have ever done. We went to one of those modern sento – with sauna, bubble bath, outdoor bath with TV, … – in Azamino (3 stations away from the dorm). I felt like I was brand new. I think this will become a monthly or twice-monthly tradition for me (some people like my Scandinavians friends would go everyday if they could afford it).

From Sunday to Monday the temperature dropped a rough 10 to 15 degree … it is crazy. One day I was going out in shorts and the next day I was popping flue pills like a freaking junky. I will have to ask my landlady for a second futon soon (luckily I shipped my winter clothes right before departing from Italy … so they are already here).

That is it. Not much stuff because I have been trying to not spend too much money … so I limited the “crazy fun times”.