ABOUT ME

I've travelled to 83 different countries so far with Azerbaijan being my latest addition. However, this does not make me as interesting a man as people might expect. In fact I'm such a bore with blasé attitude and a touch of ennui that will easily make others yawn. I wear shortly trimmed beard, which is rather unusual in Japan unless you are a homeless man, a higher education teacher, a café owner or something. Owing to my rather exotic facial features, some Japanese people speak to me in their struggling English, and that even in my ancestral hometown of Urawa (now part of Saitama City).

ABOUT THE NAME, xapaga

This is the handwritten Russian Cyrillic alphabet of my surname, Harada. One can find xapaga on YouTube, Google Sites, TripAdvisor (but not on Facebook, Instagram, Line, WhatsApp or Twitter). Actually there's another xapaga chap on Twitter, whom I do not know personally.

CURRENT MISSION

Tokyo has so much to offer that I can't put everything in my little schedule book. Then I came across Google Sites. Being mortal, I shan't be able to be omnipresent in every bit, but I hope this will be of some help to you.
https://sites.google.com/site/xapaga/home/europeaneventssep2019

PHILOSOPHY

Life is short (ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS). Enjoy it to the fullest. But be compassionate to others. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (OMNIA ERGO QUÆCUMQUE VULTIS UT FACIANT VOBIS HOMINES ET VOS FACITE EIS HÆC), but remember that religion is the opium of the mass (Religion ist das Opium der Massen). Precariats of all the world, unite! (Prekarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!) Truth will triumph (as in the old sticker glued to The British Council Library books). ‘Why, oh why do the wrong people travel, / When the right people stay at home?’ according to Sir Noël Coward (1899-1973). Everyone will be dead sooner or later (Mementō morī).

我为什么加入 Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I might be able to show you round some of the tackiest tourist traps of Tokyo and its sleepy (if not that sleazy) sort of suburbia if you so insist; but as I'm a busy man, do not expect too much from me. Thank you.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Being a meticulously cautious man, I have no such experience in terms of hosting or staying with a stranger. Besides, my landlord doesn't allow me to accommodate travellers, which is all on contract in the first place. Been to just a few gatherings. My most memorable one occurred in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa back in 2015.

兴趣

In short: globetrotting, intercultural events in Tokyo and visits to symphony concerts abroad.

In longer terms:
I'm into travelling and language in general and often visit Goethe-Institut Tokyo (Goethe Institute Tokyo organised by the German Government), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (OAG, the German East Asiatic Society), Deutsches Institut für Japanstudium (German Institute for Japanese Studies organised by the German Government), l'Institut français du Japon - Tokyo (French Institut in Tokyo, Japan organised by the French Government), la Maison franco-japonaise (Franco-Japanese House), Instituto Cervantes Tokio (Cervantes Institute Tokyo organised by the Spanish Government), Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Tokyo (Italian Institute of Culture in Tokyo organised by the Italian Government), Österreichisches Kulturforum Tokio (Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo organised by the Austrian Government), Finnish Institute in Japan organised by the Finnish Government, Japanisch-Deutsche Gesellschaft (Japano-German Society) and American Center Tokyo organised by the US Government for mostly free of charge (gratis) cultural events. I also like photography, symphony concerts, opera, theatre, oysters with white wine, medium rare steak with red wine, microbreweries, single malts, old brown rum, craft gin, YouTube uploads, Amazon reviews, discussion for the sake of it, World War II atrocities and heroic deeds, city walks, train rides, museum shops (preferring the shops to exhibitions), spaghetti, sushi, oyster bars. I don't watch TV, being a radio listener. Actually, I don't even own a TV set.

• culture
• photography
• wine
• classical music
• languages
• sushi
• trains
• microbreweries
• oysters
• old cinema
• single malts
• world travels

音乐、电影和书籍

Music: Classical and quasi-classical music by Beethoven, Berlioz, Borodin, Brahms, Bruckner, G. Delerue, Elgar, P. Glass, B. Herrmann, Kalinnikov, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saëns, Scriabin, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Strauß family, R. Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, Verdi, Wagner, Walton, J. Williams; Serge Gainsbourg from 1959 to the mid '60s; UK "prog rock" music of the 1970s (e.g. M. Oldfield) and '80s "Thatcher experience" sort of UK pop music (e.g. Eurythmics, Madness, Naked Eyes, The Police, The Style Council, etc.).

Films: Hitchcock films such as _Vertigo_ (1958) and _Marnie_ (1961); _L'Année dernière à Marienbad_ (1961) by Alain Resnais; _Les Parapluies de Cherboug_ (1964) by Jacques Demy; Luis Buñuel's "2nd French period" films such as _Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie_ (1972), _Le Fantôme de la liberté_ (1974) and _Cet obscur objet du désir_ (1977); _Diva_ (1981) by J-J Beineix; _Haunted_ (1995) by Lewis Gilbert; _Atonement_ (2001) by Ian McEwan; its film adaptation (2007); _Le tout Nouveau Testament_ (2015) by Jaco van Dormael.

TV: British stuff such as BBC _House of Cards_ trilogy (1990) starring the late Ian Richardson.

Literature: Sherlock Holmes series (1887-1927); _Tonio Kröger_ (1903); 20th century Japanese literary classics by Natsumé Sōseki (1867-1916) and Mori Ōgai (1862-1922).

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

Pray bear with those plural things below. Was once locked inside a toilet cubicle in East Berlin in the last phase of GDR (DDR). Encountered an invisible supernatural being in the English Lakes (which turned out to be a famous haunted spot during the time of Wordsworth and De Quincy) in 1996. Saw the apparition of a dead girl in Turaida, Latvia in 2003. Had a striking sense of déjà-vu in Canglang (Great Wave Pavilion) Garden in Suzhou, China in 2008. But I don't particularly follow those psychic or paranormal matters, though.

教，学，和分享

I'm a native speaker of Japanese teaching the abysmal basics (AB as opposed to ABC) of the English language, British culture and occasionally English lit to mostly 19 to 22yo "false beginners" sort of ladies who are rather hard to please in Japan's pseudo-academia. I also speak German and French for fun, having visited Germany more than 30 times and France more than 20 times. I like Vienna (Wien), Mainz, Wiesbaden, Alsace (Elsaß), Brittany (Bretagne), the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the Adriatic (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia's Dalmatian coast, Montenegro and Albania), the Italian speaking part of Switzerland (Svizzera italiana), Cornwall, Lancaster in the north of England, Singapore and South America in general, especially Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Valparaíso, Chile. You can find me at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/xapaga1 and http://www.tripadvisor.com/members/xapaga and
https://sites.google.com/site/xapaga/home

我可以与沙发主分享些什么

Let's go for a drink. Though I strongly deny my being a dipsomaniac (‘Work is the curse of the drinking classes’, as Oscar Wilde rightly pointed out), I can easily drink a whole bottle of wine in a sushi or an oyster bar. I never smoke, which forces me to take great pains to find good, non-smoking bars and restaurants here in Tokyo; but I know some anyway, where I suggest we should meet up for a drink or two.

我游览过的国家

Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

我居住过的国家

Japan, United Kingdom