TOKYO meets PARIS

My head doesn't almost hit the ceiling while taking a shower any more! (Yeay!), but the toilet seat is not warm either! (nooo!) None of the food smells like ocean! (Yeay!) But it's not that fresh either! (noooouuu!) I have to slow down my body clock to European take-it-easy rhythm of life again (Yeay!) But the inconvenience of not having a convenient store each 200 feet might be quite shocking too! Specially on Sundays when you arrive in old school Germany and your fridge is empty and everything is closed! (Nooouuuuuu!) You feel like you are not coming only 8 hours back in time, it seems more like 10-20 years back in history! No more "sumimasen" (excuse me), "Onegaishmas" (please) and people bowing to you wherever you go! (Noooouuu!!!) but also no more "door ga shimarimas" (or whatever the sliding doors of the elevators are singing each time they open and close) and shop assistants starting to talk something to you in loud voice trying to sell you things as soon as you enter a shop or laud billboard trucks playing annoying commercial songs on the streets. YEaaaaaaaay!

Anyway, after 6 weeks in Tokyo, I couldn't help noticing how "crazy" for Paris the Japanese are...
Let's start by saying that I was staying in a residence house called BELLE MAISON, the building next to mine was called Belle Salle... Not just that, but I haven't seen anywhere else so many French restaurants, cafes, boulangeries and patisseries. A lot of Italian restaurants too, but more French.

vs.
Tokyo Tower Eifel Tower

vs.
Tokyo Midtown Blue Trees - Champs- Elysees's ones


I've never had a cappuccino this pretty in Paris, but this is how you always get it in a French cafe chain in Tokyo




Les macarons, not just to be eaten... but smelt all over you


Even the typically "French custom"(in my opinion) of decorating toilets with empty perfume bottles has found its transmutation with Tokyo tower and a small Moet -cap-origami-kind- of-mini-chair...

So, having to look at that for 6 weeks... there is no other place I could possibly be now!

I AM BACK IN PARIS!

Yeayyyyy!!!!!

There is Nothing to Fear but Fear itself...

...said Franklin D. Roosevelt once, and now I know ...I mean I felt 100% what he ment, and he was absolutely right...








After 1,5 hour lining up to get on the highest, fastest (or whatever else roller coaster was available at the Fuji-Q amusement park) for a 60 seconds ride...I'd say that the waiting was the scariest and most exciting part of it all. Because you are just standing there, pissing in your pants, looking at all those scared-to-dead-faces of the people who have already got off... and your imagination is playing your worst enemy in those minutes.




So eventually, you find yourself standing there among hundreds of people, asking yourself SHOULD I DO THIS? DO I REALLY HAVE TO DO IT? IF THOSE 4-year old 110 cm tall (minimal high) children can do it, DOES IT MEAN I CAN DO IT TOO??? WHAT IF SOMEBODY PUKES ON ME? IS MY SAFETY BELT TIGHTENED RIGHT? IS MY BLOOD PRESSURE HIGH OR LOW (since from time to time you hear some advices in English, who shouldn't do this ride)...DO I HAVE ANY KIND OF HEART DISEASE I MIGHT NOT BE AWARE OF???all that kind of stuff going through your mind for an hour and a half and literally making you crazy..and then it's all gone for like 45 seconds...



Once you're on it, you just scream and expect the worst to come, but than it's over and all you see are the bored-to-dead-faces of the staff (who are helping you to release your seat belt). They are clapping, which I guess is supposed to mean: "Well done! You've just survived the scariest ride in the world", but they have habituated this "ritual of clapping" so much and do it in such an uninterested and unexcited manner, that it makes it even less meaningful. And you just feel like one of the tons of people, who have already had the guts to do tit Well, of course I am exaggerating a bit. It is scary and it is fun.




Well, if I have to be completely honest, I chickened out for the scariest one (that is spinning you around, up side down, with your legs up, backwards and giving you the feeling that you are almost hitting the ground, before you head up again...)
But I did the highest AND the fast accelerating ones (second one turned out to be my favorite, since it feels and it sound like you are in a space craft)...So I am pretty proud of myself and can go to bed with honor now!







So, my point is that FEAR, as a substance of life, is there to remind you that you can always go FASTER, FURTHER, HIGHER and to push you beyond your own limits! The very moment, when you feel fearless- THEN you should be afraid and ask yourself: " Wait, am I missing something here?! Am I still alive???"

Because "LIFE IS A ROLLER COASTER".

A little piece of advice for you kids:



PS Big thanks to TLS for planning and organizing this day full of joy and excitement!

xoxo

Ugh It's VELENTINE ...again..

Jeez, times goes by really fast. Just when you try to enjoy your life, Valentine 's Day would pop out to remind you how unhappily-not-in -love you are. Or how, even thought "love has reasons, which reason does not understand", there will be some reason, be it time or space, why you cannot be with the one you want to be the most... (Does that even make any sense?!?)

Well, good news is, this year's 14th Feb. is also:
1. CHINESE NEW YEAR (so I've been told),
2. the "DAY OF FORGIVENESS" back home in Bulgaria,
3. my friend's goldfish birthday.

SO plenty of reasons to have lots of chocolate, go out and have fun!

Let me go back to the FORGIVENESS (since there is not much I'd like to say about LOVE right now...) So, 40 days before Easter (if I remember right), always on Sunday, you ask people to forgive you. First you ask your parents, your grandparents, your brothers, your sisters, your friends: "Please forgive me" and the answer is: "May it be forgiven to you!" The good thing is: you don't have to specify forgive what. The important thing is to ask, and it will be forgiven to you.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness it the attribute of the strong.
There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.

So, please forgive me!

shoot in Shimoda-japanese public "bus"&hot "spling"

I have already explained how a casting day of a model in Japan goes. This is what happens when you get a job. After 3,5 hours driving south of Tokyo we arrived (Luckily, I got to do this job for the "spling summer" collection catalog for a Japanese brand with my lovely flatmate) . It was dark and it was raining. We were shown to our "loom" in a cozy holiday house on the beach.

Since we were told that there will be a dinner upon arrival we sat and waited until somebody came to pick us up. In a while the client (middle age woman) came in again and said:

C-client, M1-model1 M2-model2

C: We are going to take a Japanese public "bus". You know?
M1: Bus? Oh, that's ok! (I thought we were going there by bus)
C: Japanese public "bus". You want?
M1: Yes, it's ok. We can take the bus.
C: Ok. You will need a towel.
M1 (thinking) A towel for the bus???
M2: Do we need to take our bathing suits as well.
C: Japanese public "bus". No! No! No bathing suits.
M1: A towel?
C: Yes, Japanese public "bus", very healthy.
M1 (imagining) ...probably some kind of open bus, and since it is raining, we need towels to dry ourselves.
C: You want?
M1: Yes, yes, it's ok. We can take the bus...
M2: No! No! Ok, I understand. I got two towels for both of us. (M1 still doesn't undestand but doesn't bother saying anything)

SO we left the house. For my surprise we had to get into the same van, that we came on from Tokyo, so I was still confused where this public bus was. I started imagining some kind of lift going up to the mountains. Maybe I was just too tired...and hungry...

Anyway, during the drive my friend M2, as an English native speaker, explained that what they meant is a "bath" and not "bus". Ok, that explains the towels, I thought. But why no bathing suits? I started another dialogue, similar to the one above. It came out that there are hot springs in the area, and we are going to a nude bath.

And yet, we arrived at the restaurant. No bath?! Whatever. Let's eat. After a very nice dinner, with green tea, tempura, rice and...

"sea vegetables" salad,

sashimi,

eel and last but not least...

Shimoda's famous fish (including eye balls!!!)


Finally we left and went to the BATH





What makes working as a model in Japan so easy:

-breakfast box ("tamagoyaki"- fried egg; rice balls; fried chicken) every time the same! In case you don't like it they are almost always prepared with sandwiches or croissants. And if they still don't have what you like, some of the countless assistants will go to the next convenient store to get you what you ask for!

-facial massage- each time before you get your make up done! Only in Japan!

-photographer explains/shows exactly what he wants

-public (photographer+ 2 assitants, make-up artist+ 1 assistant; hairstylist+1/2 assistants; a driver; director of the production; PR of the company you are shooting for...and at least 5 more people you have no idea what there positions exactly are, everybody on the set looking at you, taking pictures with their Iphones and exclaiming "kawai"(cute) every time you change your pose)

-warming pads (they stick them all around the invisible parts of your clothes, put them in your pockets or even in your shoes...)

- gas heater when you are shooting outside, air-conditioning on at least 30 degrees when you are in a studio or in the car so that everybody can go around in their t-shirts...

-van (no matter how many people from the team there are, the models always get 2 seats each, a blanket, pillow and warming pads...so that you can stretch out and sleep, while the assistants are crammed on tiny pull-out seats )

candy basket in the bus

-perfect organization

-get all (bath, food, convenient store) paid for

-lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant
If you were told that you will finish your job at 3pm, it means that you will be finished by 1pm and will than be taken out for lunch.

Conclusion:

In the course of 2 hours we saw somebody eating an eye ball, saw all the female clients naked, saw a 4-inch long spider and tried a sour-salty plum.

If you don't mind using the "sign language" and not being aware of anything that is going on around you. If you like seafood and the smell of seaweed even in the subway and are capable of smiling with your best "angel look" all the time 12 hours a day, then you should definitely come model in Japan.
You will be treated with the most respect and care. You will never be cold, hungry or feel disrespected in any way.
What is more, you will be surprised by the ability of the Japanese to plan out every detail and predict every possible scenario of the entire day. You will experience excellent service, hygiene and politeness like you have never seen it before anywhere in the world.