My FlickrMap

Flickrmap.com is a web service that allows you to put a flash based world map on your own website or blog. This is my own FlickrMap. :)

A belgian guy at the World Cup - live blogging from Berlin

I am in Berlin this weekend for an initiative that looks a little bit like a mini-world exposition event. What it is about?
Well, the idea behind the project - go to www.weallspeakfootball.com for more info - is a once in a lifetime gathering of football fans around the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. They invited people from all over Europe to have the opportunity to get together, live together for a few days and enjoy the exciting atmosphere around the FIFA World Cup - and break down barriers by blogging about all this!

I just arrived in Berlin a few hours ago after a rather long car trip from Antwerp. Being the first Belgian guy in the apartment, I feel kind of embarrassed. Robbie Williams said it spot on a week ago during his concert in Brussels: "Where the f.k is Belgium at the Football World Cup"? Hmm, the players on holidays I guess. But I am here in Berlin for a few days...After having some German food (no, not Bratwurst) we are drinking a few Germans beer. And I already had my laugh with the Germans and their car flags everywhere. :) They really think they will win this tournament...

Anyway, interesting is what Times Online wrote yesterday about this World Cup blogging initiative:

Coca-Cola has produced one of the most readable World Cup blogs with weallspeakfootball.com. Taking as its theme the unifying force of “the beautiful game”, it has four “pro bloggers” and a revolving roster of six guest pan-global bloggers living in the same Berlin flat. You can apply to be one of the latter and share your thoughts with “the world community”.

I am a pan-global blogger...Coool... Right now I am just drinking beer, guys.... just drinking beer...
For more info about the project: www.weallspeakfootball.com

'Tokyo' from the band 'Gaijin Invasion'

How are you? I had to think about the world expo, Japan and all my friends in Japan last week...on March, 25th, when it was one year ago that the world expo started. One whole year. To celebrate this a week later, please watch this funny gaijin song about Tokyo. I think it is rather symbolic. ;)
Does anyone know if this is Yoyogi Park?

Morizo and Kiccoro go back on sale

It's almost one year ago that the world expo in Japan started...Last year at this time, I remember that we had to prepare a lot of stuff for our press conference in Tokyo, presenting the Belgian pavilion at the World Expo. Hectic times. And that first week in Japan, I was really confused to walk around in that completely different culture. Luckily for me of course, there was always one thing I liked. The food. Japanese food.
We are one year later now, and from time to time that whole expo seems just a very odd memory...but it isn't. Why? Because we will always have Morizo and Kiccoro, the expo mascots, to remind us about it. Apparently, several months after the end of the Expo they go back on sale. Who is still buying those two strange dudes?

My World Expo Japan poster

Click for a larger view. Let me know if you are interested in also having such a poster...

Post Expo Reunion Weekend

Update 17/02. It was a great weekend. Not everybody could join the party, but those who were there enjoyed it a lot. Lot's of games. Enough beer. The Jacuzzi. Waaater in Spa. Nostalgia about Japan to share. We should do it again, with our Japanese and foreign Expo friends if possible...I just posted some pictures on my Flickr photo site.
First of all, I hope all of you are still doing fine! I know, it has been way too long since I posted here on this blog. One of the reasons has been that the 'tourist-time' for me ended a few weeks ago. I am back on a payroll, working for a small but interesting company not too far from where I am living right now. And like everybody knows, a new job is really time and energy consuming...

You know what? A big part of the staff of the Belgian pavilion will come together next weekend (February, 10-12) in Theux, a small village in the east of Belgium. It's an event we planned about three months ago, and I really think it's gonna be cool to see everybody again. By the way, if other international folks who are by hazard in Belgium at that period, just give me a buzz, and we will make it possible that you also join the party... :)

Be sure that I will post the weekend pictures on this blog!

Foreign visitors hit record number in Japan

The Japan Times Online: " The number of foreign visitors in 2005 hit a record 7.45 million, up 10.3 percent from the previous record of 6.76 million in 2004 and topping the 7 million mark for the first time ever, according to preliminary Justice Ministry figures.

The 2005 World Expo in Aichi Prefecture was a big part of the boost, officials of the ministry's Immigration Bureau said."

I was one of them. Yeah...