During my time in the Kansai area (part of Japan, where Kyoto, Kobe, Nara and Osaka are located), I had the chance to visit Nara, the ancient capital of Japan. This short entry will tell you more about my visit…
During my last week in Japan, I had the chance to encounter the beauty of Sakura Blossom in Japan.
Attached to this entry are some pictures from Saitama, Kyoto, Tokyo and Nara! Beautiful cherry blossoms everywhere in Japan 
There are so many different types of trees… and colors! Really nice, just to wander around and take a look at the beautiful blossoms… I can just recommend it, if you have the chance to see Sakura season in Japan, go for it!!!
So we are back from London… and we (my girlfriend and I) had a nice and exiting time in London. The city itself was more dirty then I expected… definitely dirtier then last time (2005 or so). But the people were nice, the hostal was really good for the low price we paid and the weather was perfect!
This week was really packed with work… but we found time to go to the concert of the local best band of the world “Die Ärzte”. They came over to Cottbus, for the first time in 10 years or so. It was a really nice concert, on Saturday we are going to Berlin, to see them again.
I didn’t gave up on my wish and plan to finish my report about the last days in Japan… but I don’t know, when I will manage to do it… sorry for that 
This week, my girlfriend and I are going to visit London.
It is rather a short trip then a real holiday… but we are getting some free time from Cottbus
I am looking forward to see, what has changed since I last visited London (autumn 2005)….
I saw that the tube system (underground subway trains) is under construction in many different places. Going with the tube in London is different from taking the subway in Japan… as far as I remember. But visiting such a big and nice city will be a good experience after my absence from the wonderful Tokyo for now over 1 and a half month.
So stay tuned and press thumbs for good weather in Britain 
The last couple of days were Golden Week Holidays in Japan.
Golden Week is the first week of May, where several Japanese holidays occur during this first week. This is also one of the main times for Japanese to go somewhere for holidays. This leads of course to packed highways, full air planes and so on… and of course to this interesting side effect that Tokyo is (once in a while) really empty.
So I hope that all of my Japanese friends and contacts, who stayed home for Golden Week have a nice and good time back in Tokyo and Saitama!!! Now is probably the best time to get out for a nice walk thorugh some parts of Tokyo. Wish you all the best…
For those of you who aren’t staying in Japan… here are some information about Ōgata renkyū (Golden Week Wikipedia Article)
Yesterday was the First of May in Germany… the national holiday for protests and fights with the police. It was also Fathers Day, the day when men (and sometimes women too) drive or wander around and drink really much.
We went to Dresden in the early morning, not many drunk people on the streets then.
We meet with a couple of friends a bit outside of Dresden, after we got our rental city bikes. And then we started our first part of the 6 hour cycling marathon The first couple of kilometers were really tough, mostly up-hill with narrow ways and big stones and so one… not really comfortable with the city bikes, most of the others had real mountain bikes, they could handle this much better then we could. After 3 hours or so we made a longer stop at a small outside grill station. And then back to the city center of Dresden. So another 2 hours of cycling… and the bones started to hurt really much. We arrived in Dresden Neustadt in one of the biggest parks there to lay around in the sun… really nice weather.
Afterwards we went on with the cycling to go to the student apartment of a good friend, who has studied in Dresden. We managed to arrive there at 5pm or so… for a nice barbecue session with lots of good food and some nice beers.
Since we had to bring back the rental bikes, we left at around 7pm, taking the tram to get back into the city center (we were just lazy and exhausted ). And after that, back with the train to Cottbus. Of course there was some problem on the course, so the train had a 25 minutes delay… who would have guessed it?
I really miss the punctuality of Japanese trains! Give me back JR and the great service!!!!
