Archive 2009 April

Stefan and I took my aunt to Luzern and Bern for sightseeing. The weather was very nice and we really enjoyed the short trip. In Luzern first we satisfied with our hunger with… Chocolate croissants!! And we were very lucky we could buy the chocolate croissants fresh from the oven! After having sweet croissants we walked around central in Luzern. We crossed a famous bridge. This bridge is one of memorial place for me. About 7 years ago when I was England to study English, I met Nina, she is Stefan’s sister. She stayed in England just few weeks and after she left England, we kept in touch and end of my staying in England, I decided to visit Switzerland to see her. It was summer. Her family welcomed me and took me to Luzern for sightseeing. I remember it very clearly. But at that time I didn’t see Stefan and didn’t expect he is my future husband. Life is always unexpectable.

Ooops! I get off the subject, after Luzern we went to Bern which is capital of Switzerland. The population is lower than Zurich and also Geneva. The scenery of Bern is soo beautiful. (This scenery’s been registered as a world heritage) This was my second time to visit there, but even though I lost my words.

I hope my aunt enjoyed every bit of Switzerland.

Yesterday and today Stefan and I got a lots of presents with full of affection from our family , relatives and friends.

Now I want to write about similarity and difference between Switzerland and Japan of wedding presents.

Normally in Japan when people are invited to a wedding party they bring money and put the money in the special envelope which is called “goshu-gi bukuro” and there is a kind of rules how much you have to bring.

But in Switzerland normally the bride couple make a wish list and visiters check it and then the visiters decide to what they have to give but if the bride couple doesn’t make a wish list and have plenty of things, the visiters give money. And what made me surprise was here it seems to be no specific envelope. Like a ” goshu-gi bukuro”

So some people put the money on the card with tape!! And my sister in law gave me a bunch of tulipes and some of them looks tulipes but they aren’t ! They are fake tulipes which are made by note. And another cute one is a big ballon and in side there are some note with a couple ducks toy!

Every country has some own tipical ways to celebrate a wedding.

P.S I had many chances to talk about wedding party to many people around the world. And as far as I know only Japanese wedding party a bride couple change their clothes during the wedding party. For example White dress- colored dress- “kimono” ( Japanese traditional clothes)

And also compare to a lots of wedding party around the world, the time of wedding party in Japan is the shortest in many countries. Japanese wedding party is about 2hours!!

Stefan and I got married on April 24th 2009. We had a marriage ceremony at the cityhall and after photo shooting by the lake, we had a wonderful and unforgettable wedding dinner with our new family and all special visitors.

April 24th is our memorial day which we met us first time. Ever since we both had to get over some difficulties because of international marriage. But many my friends and family gave me confidence to live in Switzerland to marry. Especially I really want to thank Stefan’s family they always protect me and give me a huge sense of security. I wanna write a lot but strangely I can’t find words anymore now. I know I just got married but can’t realize very well still I need some time.

For table flower I picked up “Gerbera” which was my mother’s favorite flower. She often said that Gerbera looks very cute and cheerful but from the completely straight stem, it showed us strong-willed and a power.

I think “Gerbera” is the most suitable flower to my mother. She was a really warm-hearted, diligent, reliable and respectable person.

I hope my mother also enjoyed her lovable daugher and a new pridable son-in-law’s wedding.

Arigato ne.

I had a really relaxing time in Lostallo. The time elapsed slowly… Even Zurich is relaxing city for me ( I think not only for me for Japanese people) Lostallo you can have a completely relaxing time.

While I was taking a walk with Stefan’s family, we saw rabbits. They were soo hungry like me (^.^;) So Stefan feeded leaves. When they were eating, they showed us their small hips. How cute they are!!

After that I saw nearly everywhere was coverd with white little flowers. Of course I took photo! There is only one dandelion in the centre. Perhaps the dandelion miss other dandelions but perhaps it enjoyed the life with lots of white little flowers.

Today the sky was also blue and sun was shining. I enjoyed the beautiful nature so now I charged enough power to work hard from tomorrow.

I went to Lostallo with Stefan’s Family. Lostallo is in Switzerland but near Italy so people speak Italian. So many signs are written in Italian. As you know official languages in Switzerland are German, French, Italian and Roman. I think seeing signs which are written in 4 languages in a country is one of the futures in Switzerland.

By the way there had snow last few days so on the way to there, I saw a lot of mountains which were covered by snow. But even there were some snow, spring had already come there. So I also could see lots of spring flowers.

At first we had a lunch in Lostallo. Then we went for a walk. Just few hours ago it was cloudy but the sky had already cleared.

The blue sky, white cloud, trees with young leaves. It was a perfect view and somehow I got power from these nature.

After walking we went to the hotel to check in then went to the restaurant to have dinner.

I had a horsesteak and also drank a glass of wine… No a pot of wine. In Lostallo some restaurants served wine with pot. Because Lostallo is in canton “Tessin” and Tessin is famous for pottery. It was fresh to drinking wine with pot!