28th March, Friday

Hi to everybody,

today we will have just one practice around 2pm in which we will present our free dance.
To not be tired we were having a little walk after breakfast and before practice.

The weather wasn't so great and I actually felt like staying in bed and read a good book or watch a movie. The bus to practice took 1,5h due to the traffic.

Our practice was really well and we felt even better than yesterday. The ice in the practice rink is good, we hope in the main rink it will be the same because we will not have any practice before the competition in the main rink.

After practice we were going home to the hotel again because we didn't want to wait 2h for the draw.
Marco was drawing for us. We had the chance to draw between starting number 1-16 and unfortunately marco drew the number one for us. We knew right away that with the starting number one would be difficult to qualify and we would have to skate a clean Programm.

After taking a shower in the hotel we had another little walk and met the pair coach Knut Schubert on the street. We ate a typical noodle soup with him. Now we will got to bed early to be fit for tomorrow.
So good night everybody.


28th March, Friday


Today is the first day of competition. We woke up early even though we didn't do the very early practice at 7 am in the morning. Because to do that we would have had to wake up at 4 am to do make up and hear and drive 1h with the bus.

We warmed up really good and were in a good mood to skate a great short dance. We knew we had to skate great because we were the first to skate and the chance to not get in the final was pretty high.
The 5min warm up on the ice were really good and when we skated our Short Dance we had a good feeling with each other.

The ice rink was not full of people yet because it was still early ( 11am ) but the people which were there were really nice and clapping a lot. It was really nice to perform here in Japan again. We enjoyed it and we did a really good short dance.
I, tanja, almost lost a part of my costume but it was not tragic and i didn't loose it. We didn't get so much points but it was ok.

We were watching the other couples and that was really long because we were all in all 33 couples. Anyway, after the first 3 groups we realised we would not be in the final. Unfortunately we didn't qualify by 0,90 points. With the 21 place we were the first couple not to qualify.

I felt really disappointed and sad. The competition feels unfinished and really strange without skating the free dance. But we didn't wanted to sit sad on our rooms, so we went so see more of Tokio with our friend Nicolai Sorrensen, from Denmark. It was a nice evening disturbing from the dissapointment.

So good night to everybody and especially to home sweet home.

29th March, Saturday

Today I woke up and knew it could be a nice day without any stress or obligations.
So I was going to breakfast and decided than what I wanted to visit first. It was great weather so my choice was the shinjuku gyoen national garden.
Now I am writing this while sitting in a wonderful relaxing park in the middle of Tokio. It's full of blooming trees and wonderful flowers. I drink a Japanese green tee and experience the Japanese way of living.

After I will visit another park and some temple in Asakusa. I will also make a waterbus tour to see Tokio from the river side. It'll be an exciting day but the bittersweet taste of not skating the free dance today is still staying.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody and enjoy the small enjoyable things in life.

Greetings from Tokio.
Tanja

24. March, Monday

Monday morning, wake up at 6AM. Thanks god i already packed the night before because waking up that early sometimes is really hard!!!

My mom drove while I was asleep in the car and we picked up Tanja and Barbara on our way to the airport The flight was actually good, we flew with Austrian Airlines from Milan Malpensa over Vienna to Tokio Narita.

25. March, Tuesday

We arrived at Narita Airport around 8 am! The immigration procedures were quite fast, luckily we got our suitcases pretty quick and the organization bus was waiting for us.
It took almost 2 hours to arrive at the Hotel due to the traffic!!!

After refreshing a bit we went visiting the city, Tokyo is always beautiful especially during spring time!!!
At first we went to the Sensō-Ji Temple in Asakusa, walked through the wonderful market. Unfortunately we didn't see any cherry treeswhich are blooming now, it would have been even more fantastic!!!!!
Then we walked next to the Tokyo Sky Tree and on our way back westopped at the Yoyogi-kōen Park, also beautiful..!!

As soon as we came back to the Hotel we went to eat and then directly to sleep!

26. March, Wednesday

After a wonderful sleep in a real bed and not a seat like in the plane we went to have a great breakfast, we decided to go for a walk in the Roppongi discrict. It was awesome, we were able to see the National Art Center, buy some souvenirs (Sake also) and then back in hotel getting ready for our practice!

We have been told that the way to the icerink in Saitama with the shuttle bus could take from 30 minutes up to 2 hours, so we decided not to take any risk and take a ride around 4pm with practice at 6.30 pm. It took 1 hour due to the traffic.

The practice rink is huge, and the main rink too but nothing compared to the giant main rink.
We never skated in front of 18000 people!!!! That will be awesome! We practiced our Short Dance today on and it was ok. First day on the ice after the long trip is always hard!

Now is time to go sleep!
Speak to you tomorrow!

Love from Tanja&Stefano