Last year was pretty intense for me, the two biggest events being moving to Tokyo and getting engaged

Christmas was a very busy period as well (sorry I didn’t have time to visit everyone), and I still haven’t decided my New Year’s resolutions! And that is a first for me

Anyway I wish you all the best for 2012!

Happy 2012!

So yesterday afternoon we decided we needed some extra energy to keep us going and we were craving some sweets, so we looked for a Japanese cafe. We passed Starbucks and other American chains, dismissing them since we wanted something more authentic… And then we found this cute place, kind of modern Japanese cafe. We asked for some dango (I don’t remember which variety) and matcha cappuccino.

Failure!!! The dango was actually salty and the matcha cappuccino was really bitter, even after adding tons of sugar (so much it wouldn’t dissolve anymore..) it was not even close to sweet. So we ended up in Starbacks afterwards…

Salty dango and matcha cappuccinos

Today we didn’t think about it twice and went into a cafe chain, Tully’s cafe, playing safe this time. A nice chocolate and cheesecake lifted my spirits, but I wouldn’t have defined the cake as really sweet a week ago

Chocolate and cake at Tully's Cafe

As you read it, I’m no longer living in London, but going flat hunting in Tokyo! I arrived on Friday July 1st with 2 pieces of luggage (and my boyfriend who did the same). I was very tired, so after getting to the temporary accommodation I had a quick nap and then went to my office, to meet my new team and get a sim card for my phone (which seems is pretty uncommon over here). I had a nice oyakodon for dinner (new kanji learned!) And went early to bed.

Saturday, all day flat hunting and in the evening we visited a couple of izakayas with a colleague from London who has been here for half a year. Which means I’m not having an early start on Sunday

And this is all for now. I’m still jet lagged, but enjoying it so far! I think it will be a great year

A couple of quick notes to finish:
- obviously I need to change the name of the blog I’m thinking of naming it «Una friki viajera» but I’d love to hear your thoughts
- many times I’ll be egocentric and say I, I, I, when I should say we, but my boyfriend is very fond of his privacy, so please forgive me

See you soon and have a good Sunday!

Life of londoners is, well, busy
And there are many reasons (or excuses) why I find it hard to blog.

First of all, I always think that nobody cares about what I say. There’s too much information in our lives, mostly irrelevant and superficial regarding subjects that we care about. And I don’t want to spend time doing something that people will find boring and just mark as read in their readers.

Secondly, I’m a perfectionist. I started writing in English with the goal improving my writing skills. Unfortunately, that means I spend quite some time proofreading the tiniest of texts and it’s hard to find the time (and energy) to blog.

And I could keep going, but I won’t bore you with the details

I still don’t know how I’ll focus the blog, I’ll figure it out as I go. Of course comments will be welcome!

By the way, this post has been written with the wordpress android app, which I’m hoping will help me with my resolution

Stay tuned and see you soon!

And if you’re like me, good luck with your new year resolutions!

How it looks like

A closer look

Tiles in detail

For those of you who haven’t heard about the movie, I recommend you watch the trailer. It looks like there will be plenty of action, and for some reason it reminds me more of a James Bond movie rather than a crime/investigation movie.

IMDB:  Sherlok Holmes (2009)
Sherlock Holmes – Official Trailer [HD]

We arrived at Barcelona on Friday evening and were invited to a splendid barbeque at my host’s house. Julio, Cesar and Miguel were already waiting for us and pretty hungry! They shouted at us from the terrace, urging us to go inside. So we hurried and after a quick “Hola! Que tal todo?” we started eating. Excellent meat and even better company

After dinner we played a game of Intrigue, which Cesar won after successfully negotiating with the rest of the players, and we went to sleep almost at 4 am! Not bad, specially considering how little sleep I got during last week

On Saturday we woke up late (well, at least some of us did ^^) and went directly to the tournament area to have lunch. We chose a Japanese restaurant where we met other participants already having some sushi and noodles. Delicious soba, though a bit expensive for my taste, since the portions were rather small. Maybe I’m just getting very used to the awesome Japanese restaurants in Soho (London)

This year, in parallel to the female championship, there was the so called “Partners tournament”, just for male players, with handicap -1 and 4 rounds. The girls tournament was originally planned for 4 rounds, but we decided to rush a bit and play 5 rounds, since we were 5 participants. In contrast, the parallel tournament had 11 players.

So, it was 2 rounds on Saturday and 3 on Sunday for the girls. I played against bye the first round, so not a lot of exciment here .

Second round against Ari, I won by resignation. She tried a very deep invasion which I was lucky to kill and I managed to keep the advantage, so she resigned.

Sunday, third round against Zuriñe (what a warmup!). A huge semiai crossing the board from one side to the other. In the end one of my many groups surrounding the attacked group was heavily damaged, and I though I didn’t have enough liberties, so I resigned. I was scolded by other players and told to never resign in this way again. At least if you don’t have time to read it (byoyomi already) play it! Sorry guys, I’ll try harder next time!

Fourth round against Sonia. I ended up playing San-ren-sei, which I rarely do, and it was a calm game, trying to count all the time and making my territory bigger than hers. Won by 10.5 points.

Last game against Isa. She always plays very fast and I was dragged by her speed. Anyway, my brains were completely burned by then and I played several kos which made my life miserable, I didn’t kill a group that should have been killed in order to win the game and I resigned.

I ended up in third position and won a Korean tsumego book donated by Lluis Oh. Thank you Lluis!

All in all, a very pleasant tournament, meeting people I don’t usually get the chance to see and playing Go! Thank you and congratulations to Julio for organizing it!! I’m looking forward to next year’s.

PD: I’ll probably post my games later on, in order to motivate me rather than impressing anyone that comes across them xDD.

And they say London is cold….

My favourite picture so far:
http://www.elmundo.es/albumes/2009/01/09/temporal_nieve/index_2.html