Japan : Trip to Kansai, 奈良市 : 大仏殿

En français

In the afternoon we went to visit 大仏殿 the largest wooden building in the world, with inside the world's largest bronze statue of Buddha 大仏. The great Buddha is part of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", an UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with other temple in Nara. It is 14.98 m high and really impressive. We entered the temple and turned around the statue. There are also other smaller statue in the great hall.

We then continue our walk around in the temple complex before going back to the station for a well deserved dinner before taking the next train to 京都.

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About learning : Screw the method

En français
I guess the title says it all, I got a little tired about learning languages. Not that I don't want to learn, just that I want to learn so bad that I just don't. I think I lost myself trying to apply other people's methods that seemed to work for them and possibly other people around but kind of flop for me. Not because they are bad methods, I think more because I was just doing things wrong because that didn't really match with my personality.
I think instead of trying so hard to get something their ways without actually getting the full grasp of it because I'm obviously just myself and not them, I should have got back a little bit and reread (my own crap) the first few posts of the "About learning" section of this blog.
I did learn 3 languages to fluency without having to read about any method before starting-even though two of them are probably starting to fail me due to lack of use but let's overestimate myself like every one else seem to do- so what the hell is wrong with me right now and why the hell don't I speak Japanese after almost one year here.
I can already here people saying that it's ok and that I'm just being too hard on myself. Sorry but screw that too.

I think I just want to speak so perfectly that I got scared and don't speak at all. Fact number 1.
I'm just too much thinking about how people are looking at me. That's a hard one to admit but Fact number 2.
I'm underestimated myself quite a bit, and it's hard to stop. Fact number 3.
But let's face it no matter how bad things turns out for some reasons I don't understand I still have some people calling me a genius at least once a week, no matter how wrong it sounds to me.

Now let's be back to my own shoes or should I say use my super powers and see how it goes.
There is no right method to learn a language because the method should be adapted to the language itself and to the culture behind it and to the person learning it. That's how I learned English mostly reading and watching Hollyoaks. I learned German taking classes in the morning and watching anime in the afternoon with the kids. I learned Italian just for the love of art as my teacher said.



So I just have to figure out what fits with Japanese and Chinese and I think that's not going to be too difficult. I just have to stop trying and let it flow. Let's get to work!

Japan : Trip to Kansai, 奈良市, the deers

En français
The next day we went to visit 奈良市. 奈良市 is famous for its deers so that was the first thing we went to see but I wasn't really expecting something like that. We went to walk in the park in the Buddhist temple complex of 東大寺 to go visit the temples obviously and the deers were everywhere. We even bought food for them. They were all really friendly except for one of them that keep on giving hurting my leg with his head, hopefully it didn't have horns. I was told that deers are bad like pigeon but I think that are a lot cuter.
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Japan : 猪苗代スキー場

En français 
I went to 猪苗代スキー場 with some friends to ski. That was really awesome. We left Chofu at 9.30 pm to go take the bus for 猪苗代スキー場 from Shinjuku. We arrived at the station at 6.40 am as planed. The night in the bus wasn't really comfortable and we arrived all tired but still excited enough to dress up for our day of sky. We first started to practice a bit near the station to warm up and then some went to take a class and I went with the snowboarders take the chairlift to the submit of the first green piste. Then we went higher and higher, almost to the top and I tried my first red piste. I find it pretty amazing knowing that it was the second time I was skying in my life and that the first one was 17 years ago. I really enjoyed myself and had the pleasure to hear my ski partner said he was lucky to have teamed with me as I was able to go at the top of the mountain.
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NaNoFiMo Epic Fail

En français 
I think it was meant to happen at some point. I mean me failing a writing contest. The goal of this one was to finish two novels by writing 50000 words.
The achievement is that I finished one novel and wrote 1934 words.

Basically I spend my all time working on "Demon and Fairy" and didn't even bother to add one single word forward to Viorel's adventure.
So yes this is kind of epic as I always managed to pass the word count usually.
I'm not going to make excuses for it. I can't stand people making excuses about... like... anything so I'm not entering myself in this category. I failed I know it and I'm taking the consequences for it. (or lack of consequences in this case, kinda :P)  I'm simply telling that this month I didn't feel like writing. I had enough. Of course I want to finish the story. But that will take some time.

That doesn't mean that I want to stop being a writer, that just mean that I needed time to breath. I mean even Viorel is breathing, right? So why should I rush everything. I wrote almost all year and collected the writing contest win.

So what did I do last month instead? Because I didn't even write this blog properly as I usually do. Well I looked at the world with new eyes and I liked what I saw... I gave myself some time to dream and to think things through and I'm not completely finished with that.

Now the plan for the writing will not be JanNoFiMo as expected but to work slowly on "Vampire heart" and to prepare Attic Mirror for the print.

New Year's Eve in Yokohama

En français
I went to spend New Year's Eve with some friends in Yokohama. There is a attraction park there and we wanted to see the count down.
We left Chofu in the afternoon. We first walk near the lake before going to have diner in China Town. It's nice to visit China Town with Chinese people because they can explain you stuff that you wouldn't know if you were alone. Also that's a good way for me to improve my Chinese.
Then we tried to go to the rainbow bridge but after not knowing the way then kind of finding it, we discovered that it was kind of far to actually get there and we went to the attraction park. We tried several games. I just went to the roller coaster that was my friend's first time and he still found it a bit short, for me there is nothing like ええじゃないか. Some did Dance Dance Revolution and ended up with a crowed looking at then, too awesome. We then went to look at the count down on the big wheel followed by fireworks.
All in all that was a very different New Year's Eve than the usual meal we have in France, but I didn't loose anything in the change. I started the new year with people a really like and that was really the funniest and most exciting new year I have ever had.
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PS : Unfortunately my camera's battery died before the end of the evening.