2016.4.3

It was rainy in the morning, but fortunately I did not use the umbrella, and it became cloudy and rather chilly in the afternoon on the contrary to the weather forecast today.

I went to Tokyo to attend a free publishing seminar from 1 pm to 2 pm. There were six participants who wish to publish the book.
They say every day more than 200 books are released and there are merites and demerits for both self-pubishing and commercial publishing.
They gave me a book about Writer's Income and Expenditure.

After that I went to the Meguro River (目黒川: meguro gawa) where is one of the most famous places to see beautiful cherry blossoms in Tokyo.  I started from the Nakameguro station. There were so many people along the river to see about 800 cherry blossom trees for 4 km long with 28 bridges. The view from each bridge was very nice. There were many food and drink stands here and there.
I met Professor Hagiwara with his beloved dog, Rana-chan at Tenjin bashi (天神橋). He used to work at UNIDO, and has been an African issue specialist, and was my teacher at the Ability Garden in 2004. We went to nearby Pizzeria and enjoyed talking many things including about his published book and the new book. Since this was a part of his special event "Find Rana-chan at the Meguro River, " and I was the 22nd visitor, he kindly gave me a prize.
After saying good-bye, I kept walking to Meguro station and took some pictures of cherry blossoms.
There was a sponge cake factory again near the Tenjin bashi, so I bought a small box of the cakes. This was the second Sunday in a row to find the sponge cake factory.

I am glad to see the beautiful cherry blossoms today.

2016.4.2

It was cloudy and rather chilly.
I went to Shinjuku to attend the monthly meeting.
Then I had lunch with three people and enjoyed chatting.
In the afternoon I attended a seminar for an hour and heard interesting success road stories.

At night I had a thank you & farewell party for the local representatives. It's been two years since we were in charge of the local representatives. And this is the last gathering. There were 8 people out of 10 attended. We went to the second party too. It was interestibg to know the local history.

2016.4.1

A new month has started. April is shigatsu (４月), the fourth month and its old name is uzuki (卯月) in Japanese.

April is the start month for Japanese people and academic year and fiscal year of 2016 have just begun.

My new life has also started. My new job is at Roppongi. After getting off the subway, I took underground way to the office. There were street museum exhibitions.

The cherry blossoms were full in bloom.

At lunch time I was invited to the welcome lunch.

The commuting time became a little bit shorter but working time became 45 minutes longer. Job description seems interesting. There will be some business trips. I am looking forward to visiting many places and meeting new people.