Perfect Timing!

Oh hi there!

About a week ago, three people from different parts of the world would meet up in Japan to share their AIESEC experience, do an internship at Bait-Al-Hikma and have a great time for the next 6 month!

These people are:

Ece from Turkey, Eric from Brazil and Felix (that's me) from Germany!

Well... at least that was the theory. Unfortunately nature didn't want to play along. So we had one of Japans greatest disasters since a long time right before our arrival. Now that's bad luck!

Japan is currently going through rough times because of all that. Of course, we wish the people of Japan the best of luck and are confident they will be able to overcome this crisis! In fact, we are really amazed on how calmly most people take this situation!

As for us, obviously, things didn't go all as planned. While Ece and me arrive together on

Saturday, Eric couldn't join us before Monday, since his flight has been delayed (well, h

e could

spend some nice time in London that way). Due to trains being canceled the days after that, Eric and me (living in the same apartment) couldn't meet up with Ece... And then Ece decided to return home for the time being because of the critical situation (leaking nuclear plants etc.) that the country was in.

Ece: We sincerly hope you'll be able to join us again, when things cal

m down here and look forward for your come back!

And what about Eric and me? We were too stubborn to leave.

Now we have to deal with a number of aftershocks from the major earthquake, a fairly empty Tokyo and the remaining people buying away groceries, water and toilet paper like crazy! But things aren't to bad here, really! After all, we have the opportunity to live in Tokyo. This city is huge - and awesome! Since we arrived, we were able to see different parts of Tokyo: Otsuka, where our flat is located, Ikebukuro, where you have dozens of shopping centers above and below the ground, Akihabara, with an abundance of electronic stores! In between the huge buildings and crowded atmosphere of the downtown areas we also found a lot of nice parks and

gardens to relax, like Chiyoda. So Tokyo is not only huge, it also has a lot of variety! I really hope 6 month are enough to explore this city...!

So, apart from exploring Tokyo... w

hat did we do so far? Our internship started last Tuesday, we were introduced to the company and got some information about our project. I don't want to write too much about this here, since I'm not sure that's allowed. Let's just say that the whole work environment is really well organized and we were introduced efficiently despite our lack of Japanese. I'm really looking forward working for this company!

We didn't have any work last Friday, though. Instead, we had a "Tokyo Day", that the company plans to do with us the third Friday each month! This time, we were invited, together with Mai from AIESEC, for lunch in a Japanese restaurant where we were served "Sukiyaki". It was extremely delicious! I already expected Japanese food to be really nice, but this exceeded my expectations! Afterwards, we visited the "Earthquake Museum" in Ikebukuro - which was more fun than it might sound! What we had there was some "hands-on" education on how to behave in emergency situations (e.g. if a fire breaks out or an earthquake takes place). This included an earthquake simulation in a living room, where we had to hide under the table as soon as the earthquake started. And it was shacking quite a bit, really! Mai told us, that it was actually shaking like that, when the 9.0 earthquake on 11th march reached Tokyo! ... I feel quite lucky that I didn't experience this myself. @_@

So, how was the first week? Despite the complicated situation we are in right now, things are going pretty well! I had a lot of fun these days and I'm looking forward meeting the other members and EPs of AIESEC Waseda the next days!