Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back after some Maxis. Still the same energy, still the same sexy voice. It’s making the whole thing quite addictive. おすすめです！！！

Links:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Official Website
Buy it at Alapage.com

Here we go… Weather is getting cool enough to hit the road. First bike touring this year, we decided (with Pierre and Sylvain) to spend the week end in Gifu Ken around Takayama and Shirakawa-go. We will most probably spend the night in Shirakawa-go in one of the typical ryokan. Actually we already reserved the one named Kanja (cf picture). Hope everything will be fine with the bikes….

Links:
Search for Japanese Inns (in English)
Info on Shirakawa-Go and list of ryokan

Week end with Santa Belgica, in Gunma Ken, around Minakami… As usual, week end was perfectly organized by Bernard and Jan. The Montain Bike and Rafting week end is one of the activity I enjoyed the most 2 years ago, and I was quite excited to experience it once more. First day was the Montain Bike trip, unfortunatly too much japanized. The trip was a bit too short, and the instructor was spending his time showing how to turn right and left and so on … We enjoyed the short moments anyway. The next day, Rafting was just great, much better than 2 years ago. The trip was long and a bit risky ( remenber we almost die, falling in the 6degrees water, when we flipped the raft.;-)).

If you happen to go there, don’t miss the rafting of course, but also a really nice (probably the best I went to) onsen: Takaragawa Onsen. It’s a mixte one, composed of 2 parts splited by the river. Like other people here, I am sure I could spend the whole day there, admiring the flow of the river and the surronding montains. Also, It’s the first time I could touch and play with baby bears.

Hello World, this is the first message on my Weblog…
Browsing the web for Japan related websites, I discovered the webloggers community (http://www.domodomo.com, http://www.wirefarm.com, …), exchanging ideas about their life in Japan, things they discover on the Net, and so on and so on…
So here I am as well, I am starting my weblog… Don’t know yet if I will find interesting things to say, or if I will have enough time to make regular updates, but let’s see…

Below are the old messages created before the weblog on my News page:

19 May 2003
I have mainly been concentrating on the updates of my Links page lately. You will find new interesting links in all sections. Please have a look and don’t hesitate to send me interesting ones of the same topics. I have also added a new page in the Music part, a playlist of the music I like the most. This is my best selection. I’ve been listening a lot of good things lately, I’m in discovering new things as some time before when I was younger. Coming back to the links, don’t miss the Quirky Japan Homepage, I’ve learned a lot of interesting things. It’s funny to find answers to things I’ve always been wondering without finding an answers (like why japanese see the green Traffic light as a blue light). Mostly for people living in Japan though. I really wish to add a lot more links to the culture and Japan parts in the future, maybe thinking to write a little more on this website about living here and stuff… when I can get some time for it. Anyway, just thinking how this website would evolve.

16 April 2003
It has been some time already without any updates. Well, I moved to a new server, as my previous host is stopping his service. I moved to www.rcthost.com, following Eddie’s recommendation. It’s fast, it offers some useful functionalities such as the guestbook I am now using. I took the oportunity to work on some of my pages, especially the links ones which were not Mozilla compatible (they are now). I updated the party2002 page as well with some comments.

06 October 2002
Just got a new lens for my camera, a wide angle bought from Eddie. You’ll see the first pictures on the Bike and Outside-2 pages. Also, new pictures page added for Olivier’s sayonara to Japan.

06 September 2002
Back from a 1 week bike trip in Hokkaido and tohoku. I got some (a lot) pictures I posted on two pages.

22 April 2002
Just a small change in the Links page with a new picture and new layout. That’s all.

12 March 2002
Version 2.0 … done, or almost done. I still need to find a good and easy way to navigate between pages. The website is maybe a bit heavy to load, but let’s consider everybody is accessing this site through ADSL, or using the office connection (not recommended). Let me know your feeling through the guestbook or mail… Mainly, for those who are too lazy to go through all pages, you can concentrate on the Pictures pages, page 4 is brand new, and the Special page with a new present on page 3 from my cousin Mickael.

10 November 2001
Here is the version 2.0 of the website, in line with the others pages I created previously. The pages may be long to download depending on your Internet connection… Apart from that, I finally got my motorbike license and got my bike (Honda CB400) which I enjoy riding on the storm.

08 July 2001
I’m trying to give a new style to this website, so you will find new layouts for the Links and Music pages. Also, I’m getting rid of the DVDs page which is really hard to update, and the site Map.

13 April 2001
I added one more page on the photos from Tokyo section. Since I have this Canon Power Shot G1 digicam, I’m taking quite a lot of (crazy?!) pictures. The last ones are from the Motorbike Show at Odaiba International Exhibition Hall (named Big Sight). I’m actually thinking of getting a motorbike license (400cc). No, I don’t want to die soon. Yes, I’m a very safe driver… I hope I will be able to frequently add new pages of pictures, so that nobody complains about the lack of updates (cf. Xav).

30 March 2001
Added a new page on the Photos section. Some pictures of Nagatoro where Seb, Maya and I went hiking. I also changed a bit the part of my homepage dedicated to my sister, added some new pages. I’m now using some predifined functions of Dreamweaver 4 to create Flash buttons, you’ll see on those new pages. I kind of like it a lot.

11 February 2001
Added a new page on special. It’s a christmas present from Mickael.

24 October 2000
I’m continuing the Music section adding Lyrics pages on some of my favorites bands i.e. for now, Radiohead Kid A (2000) and Massive Attack Mezzanine (1998). There will be more to come. Stay wired…

19 October 2000
I modified the “photos of Tokyo” page to make it looks like a diapo gallery. Everything is done with Photoshop, it’s incredible how this software is strong. I also added a new page on my last Golden Week in Nagasaki. It’s quite a long time ago, I’m a bit late. Also, added a few things on the Links page: some links to fantastic Flash-made websites and direct links to the search engines google and metacrawler. That’s all, Folks !! Still waiting for Ranko to sign my guestbook, when she comes back from S’pore.

30 September 2000
I rebuild this website using frames. I realized that it’s a lot more convenient to update the whole site like that. I also made some changes on the cover page using the same layers as before, but making them appears thanks to a Time Line. I added a guestbook, feel free to sign it and give your comments and (finally) my mailer.

14 September 2000
It’s a long time this website hasn’t been updated, don’t you think. Well, I’ve been working a lot on another website for my belgian friends association called Santa belgica. Please check it Santa Belgica. I should say that I love this site, it was nice to work with Seb on this project. Long life to Santa belgica !! As for this site, I standardized the fonts I use so that it’s not dependent on the browser default settings (Times New roman font with Size 2). The whole site should look better now.

I should get some rest now, it’s already 02:26 and I spent such a hard week. Oyasumi …

26 July 200
Big change on the cover page (you may have noticed already). I realized a problem with Internet Explorer: Never use the Keyword links for your objects just like layers ( Div Tag) or images. Some kind of conflict occurs and the image or layer can not be displayed. If it can save some time to somebody, I would be very happy.The banner now has the new style on almost all the pages except the “Tokyo’s pictures” internal pages, this last thing is quite painfull to do, Mama mia it will take some time.

An old japanese song I have got in my head since this morning, I only know one word: Yappari … (!?!?!?)

18 July 2000
I come back to this web site with some modifications as we may have already seen on some pages (the banner at the top, look). I also added some links on the dedicated page.

L’orchidee sauvage.

06 May 2000
Some new english translations have been added on the Tokyo Pictures pages. I changed a bit the jpop page (again) adding some new pictures of the albums I know. There’s now a small part dedicated to Spitz (I could find a picture of the band). Still have to find an idea for the REAL cover page of this site.

I come back from Nagasaki with a fresh mind and some pictures.

22 April 2000
I fixed the problems which occured using Netscape. Now, everything should work fine, except the mail (should be ready soon, though). I added a Flash file on the jpop page (the one which never worked on my old site, hope it’s not the same with this one). On the cover page, you can now use the right click to get a new menu. This feature is unfortunatly not working with Netscape 4.7 or below, but only with IE5 (DHTML dakara). But, there is still a small problem with layers i.e. the menu is always under all the other layers on the page (?!?).

I am about to go to Nagasaki for a one-week vacation. I’ll maybe take time to think of new updates. I can’t help wanting to add new things.

15 April 2000
Brand new Web Site. For this new site, I kept most of the pages and pictures I had in the old one but I strongly modified the way it’s built (no more frames). I’m planning to build a 100% english version (some parts are still in french), or try to make the pages bilingual (Emilie’s page). I’d like to add a Flash introduction too. It’s on the way …

22 January 2000
It’s quite a long time I haven’t updated this website. So, I come back this time with some new pictures from the fish market and Odaiba. I deleted the MP3 on the JPOP part (I know someone who can breathe now ;-).
28 November 1999
Added some pages of pictures from Nikko.

05 November 1999
I am back from France (short holidays dakara). It was just great …

I added a musical section called Music Dot Com which includes my JPOP page and some links to the bands I like the most.

13 October 1999
There must be from now a mp3 for each band in the JPOP page.

12 October 1999
An Update. Big thing added: a page on the music people listen here: J-POP. There are no MP3 extracts yet, but thanks to some pictures and words, you can from now discover the main faces who are making Music in Japan (modern music, I mean).

03 October 1999
I completed the page on my apartment. If you want to have a look to the place I live, douzo.There’s also the contribution of Mickael to this site on Special.

28 September 1999
Mickael, a message for you: Here is the MD player-recorder I bought 3 weeks ago (with exactly the same color). All this for only 28000 Yens. There are all the functions such as optical link for recording. This tiny machine automatically recognize the Source type (digital or analog). You can record all kinds of sounds coming from CD, Computer (mp3 for ex.), radio, TV, yourself (with a MIC), …

26 September 1999
I added some new pictures on the Fuji San page, same thing for Nagasaki. Still regarding pictures, go and see my Home Sweet Home (asked by Mickael). Ah, I forgot to mention the creation of this page (the one you are reading right now).

I finally saw the Matrix (reason is it was released 15 days ago in Japan, a bit late). So, it’s not a scoop, I will say that the movie is great. The atmosphere is a bit similar to the one of the Ghost in The Shell.