Salmon with tequila $  0.00   I cook it myself

It’s a difficult issue where I am now, I have two directions to choose from and so far I haven’t been able to choose. I´m letting time decide, but that’s not wise at all. The thing is this.

A) I can choose to study an MA in Interaction Design, at the ZHdK for one and a half years. That means to get to know technological gadgets and to develop a project regarding technology, interaction and scenography. So I want to develop Ideas I have in my head for a while now that involves scenography with technology , but not the usual way, but developing more into interaction with opera singers and set design, really exciting project. And I could meet many interesting people to start my career and doing what I really want, experiment with interaction and design, and art. I am sure I can develop something really fascinating, the problem is the money, and I have to find a part time job to help pay whatever we have to pay. But it will be amazing to do it.

B) To go in an architect office, they want to hire me; they make interesting projects in Europe. I can have economic stability, and I could make also connections, so to speak. I´ll integrate more in society, get a job, work hard in nice projects and do it right.

The problem is that I won´t do my dreams at least in one year, and ill work in an office, that I kind of don’t like it. But I will have more money to do whatever I want to do.

That’s my problem, School began this Monday , I’m going , and the job starts on the 26 of march, so I cannot make the decision, If it wasn´t for the money I would go for option A) but you know this times are crisis times and all that shit. Could you tell me some suggestions?? Could you help me decide??

Tacos de pollo, la takoteca Basel, 10 CHF  really bad!!!!

This New Year tells me that it will not be easy for various reasons; I have realized I have lost many of my sudden creation attacks, which they were superb in a sense that I was feeling alive.

But from now on I will be objectively, and talk about what I THINK, NOT WHAT I FEEL!

I have crossed many countries and many lives within my life, I have witness many aspects of live I have learned from It. My situation at this moment is as follows:

1 I live in Niederurnen a really small almost ghost town that compared to Tokyo this town would be just the size of SHIBUYA  station,

2 I’m trying to decide what to do, should I study? To get to know more people? And to evolve in something really cool? Should I work? To make money? That’s why we are in Switzerland in the first place! The ideal thing is to work in a theatre in Zurich, and be happy making set designs and maybe directing an opera. The question is how can I achieve that here in Zurich?  What path should I take? I honestly don’t know which path to take because maybe there´s no path at all, I have to carve my path to get there! which I find hard . But hard is not the problem, for things being hard, makes it more exciting, the problem is where to start?

mountain by Niederurnen 

night shot with moon light

I have a couple of projects I want to do, but the question will be how I get to get them done. I have realized I have excellent art Ideas, really good ones, but I have lost the way to make them, I suddenly became a guy that says things but not MAKE things. And that scares me a lot.

atelier in kochstrasse 18 zurich

I’m not young now, I have to act now. Because I’m starting to get isolated here, thank god I have the atelier at Zurich.  There I can be with people and talk about Ideas and clear my mind. Think about doing things in a good way and not cheating my mind with ideas they don’t exist.

IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ice cream in Nagano, march 2012

300 yen 

On Sunday 23 of December 2012 I discovered a new sport, which enables patient and endurance, it’s so easy and yet difficult to achieve in a long distance track, it’s called SCHNEESCHUHLAUF of more simple snow shoe walk.  Let me tell you about this sport, it’s a damn great sport. It´s meditative, cardiovascular, no special skills needed.  It´s this kind of sport that gives a twist to trekking on the mountain. Our goal, Amden: mountain: Leistkamm

3 people gathered to make this adventure, although our track wasn´t more than 15 km long, it was long enough in a way, on how slow you walk through the snow. On the other hand it wasn’t that long because you get in a meditative trance, hearing your heart beat on each moment you take fresh air , stopping a bit to get inspired by the magnificent landscape, feeling how the sun paints on the waving canvas of the snow.

with anja a nice friend!

I was inspired by this sport, it’s not as exciting as ski, but is more meditative and you end up felling great after a good workout and a perfect time with yourself.

It is essential to have this kind of activities here in Switzerland, to get inspired by the country, to become more Swiss and not to get bored here!!

sunrise rolls    vietnam restaurant in Berlin  4 Euros

Last week I went to Berlin for 6 days to write along with my friend Ramiro Torres an opera about Godzilla, as expected Berlin was cold and cloudy. We meet in an apartment Ramiro rented for out time day, It turned to be  an apartment with gay decoration, although I am a gay friendly guy  I got impressed by such fancy artsy gay images,  which I found so fun and crazy to see, I guess  my gay friends will be always crazier than me.

To start writing an opera was a big task, Ramiro is a play writer, I’m a scenographer and director but we have never done this before, We took the idea of the project thinking that we had enough experience in our fields, and it would be interesting to write an opera of a monster that is 300 meters tall, spits fire and is indestructible. Wow, what a task how would we do that? we knew our disadvantage of not knowing  how to write an opera in the traditional way, would be an advantage rather than a handicap, and we had to decide how to make the opera , what would be the main story. 

We decided to base it in the first movie but with actual stories of the making of Godzilla, and not to base it entirely in all the movies.

While writing the opera every day, we had a chance to go to some places in Berlin, like a party from my friend Lisa Borges; she made a magazine and was the opening party of a beautiful well crafted magazine.   We also saw Tannhäuser the Wagner opera, in the deutsche oper, it was really perfect to see something refreshing and not so expensive, it was amazing the singers and it had 6 minutes applause, a wonderful production.  

I kind of walked around the city for a while looking at the nice west and east part of the city which it is a great contrast. I love Berlin because it always gives you surprises in every corner, you actually feel alive there, and it is fantastic the way Berliners are.

Lovely Berlin, I miss you already

jugo BOMBA all the fruits  plus different cereals, super king size, 

$ 45 pesos 

Hello life!!, are you strong??? Are you fragile?? I usually confuse life and Mother Nature, is it the same? Is it male and female? Got your message life, I got your message of your power to our fragile body and mind. I got ill, thanks for reminding me that. I got ill not because I’m a irresponsible human being, but I got ill because I’m not functioning well in my task of being a link in evolution, rather imp a self acting person that sometimes  when being confused shifts landscapes of minds. I´m a person that reacts in so many ways that me evolving personality is a spiral rather than a straight line. I don’t see the clear picture; I usually go around it, looking everything else except the clear picture. And that sometimes have give me some great pleasures and some frustrations of not doing what I really want. And as I grow older I realize so many things I have done, and so many things I haven’t, and that is how human works I guess, we are the only ones with high expectations and the only ones who can fall so high. Life , thank you for making me ill for a while, maybe this day I will realize how to get back in the natural system  of being a link of evolution, just like bees,

I was in Mexico for three weeks; somehow I got perfect sense of balance between warm energy and cold energy. Which I normally took it for granted. In Mexico, my cradle, I realized I have been shifting countries for too long now, but I also realized not everybody had been living in  8 different countries for more than 1 year, I love Mexico, and that love grew stronger this weeks, I also realized, that nobody in the world is guilty of not achieving my goals, I’m the guilty one, I’m to blame, I usually looked for excuses in individuals, then in people, then in societies, then in countries, and now, as I have the best wife anyone could give me, living in a perfect ( too perfect) country  which I could make dreams come true, and somehow  I’m numb, that’s why nature made me ill, so I  have a warning to do my things I have to do, not  tomorrow, not after tomorrow, today, today , today.

In any case, today my life begins with a new impulse, with a new emerging energy!!

I’m:

1 meditating early in the morning

2 having healthy breakfast

3 repairing my weaknesses

4 walk for 45 minutes

5 learn something new

6 one hour of set design knowledge,

7. Learning software

8 having great time with my wife

9 learning German, (Swiss German)

It is hard to write about what I really want, I always get back to self things, but now talking about life is in a way twee or corny, but, I learned in Japan that corniness is vital to have a balance.

And Japan is corny, Mexico is corny, Switzerland is super corny, 

 jamon serrano sobre mozzarella      
torino      7 euros


Japan is hard to digest; my mind hasn’t been able to understand all the things I learned in Japan, but I guess Japan does not understand, but feeling, and living in this spectacular land. Now I have moved to a new phase, a different country, same richness, not as interesting as Japan, but with great possibilities, after Japan everything is easier, Japan has thought me a lesson. No matter what you do, there’s always someone better than you, and someone, who don’t understand you at all!   And another one, no matter what happens, stay cool, don’t get angry, and then, when seriousness is gone, drown your problems with sake and karaoke!!The Swiss have the ability to get the best out of boring, they have achieved a great lifestyle, and great thinking, because of the cheese, tae them their cheese and they became chaotic.

1-      It’s unbelievable the problems they have here in Switzerland, people can argue for hours and even get in a fight for a pumpkin color; they fight about whether they should eat it tomorrow or next week. 

2-      It’s also crazy that in a table game things get so serious, and they are actually bad losers, and they can be angry for a week because they lost in checkers or in EILE MIT WEILE!

Swiss are polemic, but they get bored between the polemic and they try not to talk about their polemic things,

 

at the vineyard

                                            our new house
Anyway, today, after being two weeks in Mollis, we have finally a chance to move to Niederurnen, a word I still cannot say. Sevi´s parents are something more than my parents in law they are my adopted parents, They are so unique, I feel sometimes in a fairytale, but they have both the mother and father their feet on the ground and I hae learned allot about their way of leaving!  I have been in their vineyard taking the grapes and making wine.

 

The schlaepfers

 

Mollis is paradise and Niederurnen as well. I is a big change from our 3x3 room flat in Japan to a tree storey, 7 room house in heidiland, I have to see what to do with all 

 

opernhouse

I will look for a job tomorrow as a set designer or as an architect, I hope it doesn’t pass too long without working, otherwise I will get bored!  I have some opera projects, one in japan and the other one in the vineyard .

 

allone in the cinema to see magic mike

  

werners way

 

 pizza napolitana

pizzeria da peppe, near tokyo tower

1600 yen

 

Am I sure of my decisions???? You bet your ass I am!!

Gathering my feeling for the whole year and trying to put them together in an attempt to summarize my year and a half in Japan is not easy, nor re assembling my inner scenographer structure.  Cleaning all the extensive experiences I had in theatre and opera and looking and feeling objectively what I have learned in the Japan inner and underground world of show and entertainment it’s quite a task.  I should probably write a book about all this, experiencing so many different topics about Japan mysterious land; I can only say that Japan is a black hole. The more you stay the deeper it gets, the harder it is go get out of it.

 

Let me tell you first about general Japan. This country has obligated me to stand by myself on guard, and it has knocked me out several times. Japan has no mercy, Japan will eat you alive if you cannot control it, and if you are not at ease with yourself.  Japanese ways makes you wonder how really the western civilization is standing, it’s inevitable to compare the non expressiveness and the slow   but thought again and again reaction against the fast and furious and sometimes dangerous western reaction. It makes you re think your abilities, your discipline, your interaction, your real values and the structure in yourself.

In fairness to art and scenography, Japan has been able to give me a wild ride into the wild kabuki, the spiritual Noh, the craziness of their musicals, the intellectual straight plays and the strange developing of their opera.

                                night in tsukishima 
 
It has made me sometimes scared about my talent; I am happy I´m not a fashionist set designer, rather more an experimental and traditional one. If I had known Japan was a powerful set design country, I would be more prepared to attack Opera city. The New national theatre that is. They have given me all the knowledge every set designer needs, I know that my quality as a set designer is infinetely more powerful than before, and I am really scared about that. because I’m going now to a new country, Not mine, and I have to accomplish the things I didnt´quite accomplished ere in japan.I wanted to experience more the Japanese mind, I wanted to have Japan in my veins.

                                 tsukiji market  5 am

 But we are leaving Japan, despite my personal love for it!, It has made  me rethink my personal and  professional life,  Is time to leave Japan,  otherwise I would stay 3 more years, and  that’s too much for a foreign couple.

Our next ziel is the Suisse Alps,

 

 

 Tofu Tiramizú    sora no niwa restaurant
 550 yen



So many projects in my head, so much time, so slow I am!!
It is said that waiting by the door won´t bring you a pizza, you have to order it!!
And by this time, I am back in Tokyo, for one week and a half, after this spectacular time in Mexico, Japan has so much tings to offer, so many things, so many spaces, I just can´t get enough of it!! I have assumed that Tokyo is like a drug!, It’s just keep getting deeper and deeper and you cant see the ending°!


But Japan is a place where you have to discover ithe  purity, of its  atmosphere, it is a place where the main thing to catch is the essence of things and places, not to contain so many places you had been. Japan is a place for cleaning the spirit, and yes, I have done that for the past 6 months!!! For me it is a place to compare it with other countries it has been unconsiously made for that!  It is also   one of a few countries which isolation determined the countries power of essence, of tradition, of manners, of culture, of intereaction, It is a place where a successful and the  fastest transformation has been taken place in the peoples culture.  It has one of the cutest girls, maybe too cute. It has the most strange way of thinking , Its gastronomy has been developed to perfection, is not about putting in, It’s about taking out and having it as perfect as heavens taste.

So probably I will leave Japan soon!!!!

                                                                          shibuya

sorrowful it is , and I believe that maybe my time has come to leave this incredible country,  A country which I have never dared to call it home, because it’s not about how long you have lived here, it’s about how did you fashioned with the people. Because Japan is all about the people, not like other countries, 

So I have decided to put a list of things to do before I go;

GO TO MAID CAFE
GO TO GHIBLI MUSEUM
CLIMB MOUNT FUJI
GO TO 3331 ART GALLERY
FINISH MY ULTRAMAN MONSTER COLLECTION
DANCE IN AWAODORI
LEARN HOW TO MAKE TOFU AND YUBA
MAKE COSPLAY AGAIN
TSUKIJI MARKET SO SEE TUNA AUCTION
KEEP IT SIMPLE AND ENJOY THE FOOD WHEREVER I GO!!

SAMSON & DELILAH, AN OVERVIEW, 

Sevis, birthday delight to me!!
price: priceless



One of the main things that clearly transformed my view on opera is the way Opera is made in different places around the world; it is for me the indisputable most gorgeous show on earth, (and big rock shows). But after being one and a halve years in Japan looking every day  on every opera how  it was made in the New National Theatre  and then going to Merida which everything runs in s l o w    m o t i o n    and making everything in a month , that definitely told me three things:

1: In Mexico we leave everything at the last moment (even operas) and in Japan they plan the operas long before they knew what opera was!! 

2. - Mexicans are capable of achieving anything without planning if we just plan  long before the AFTER PARTY  at the end of the opera shows,

3. Mexicans are really efficient, even more than Japanese, but we have a lack of discipline, 

4. I can’t imagine some Mexican  production  ( opera , architecture, theatre ) being planned long time in advance, This has never happened in Mexican history ,  I supposed if something was really planned in advanced  it would be super mega spectacular!!!!!!!   But the last time that happened was when the MAYAS predicted millenniums before   the end of the world!!!!  So, the Mayan end of the world and the concept of Mexicans preparing for a show years before will never happen! ( perhaps the Mayas prediction will).
 

I had a chance to encounter perfect artists in this show, singers and musicians where excellent along with the production manager and executive producer!!
We had great harmony and perfect timing to finish as soon as possible this opera, monumental opera that is, 
SAMSON AND DELILAH is so far the biggest one I had made.
I got in touch with my feelings again and all along the process of constructing the set and staging it came always close to perfect! I now know I have learned good stuff in Japan, stuff that makes my process quicker! I have synthesized the production plan, and had  great people who helped me build the set. 
The director Cesar Piña really believed in me all along, and he has such confidence in me that he knew I was going to make a great job before I knew!!
                                                                   Peon Contreras theatre

I have also made a great friend.   Carlos Arce!!! Great lighting designer and great person! I hope I can work more with them!
Japan has been a great place to learn, and I am really proud of being here with my mentors, ISONO SAN , SAZANAMI SAN AND SHIMAKAWA SAN,  
I hope soon I can make another great opera!!!

                                             Jorge cervantes, leo Vásquez, Rodrigo Guadarrama, cesar piña, Carlos arce

menwhile outside my hotel room window!

 
puchero de verduras!!! Gratis!!!!!


I have been a Yucatan son for over a month and a half, I have tasted almost everything there is in terms of culinary art. Merida has transform me into an experimented human guy , I just love how Merida has evolve in one of the best food in the world, I just would say it is a bit too much condiment and the portions are so scary big!!, beware and take care of the food when you come here. Is not the quality, is the size!

42 degrees Celsius just clears my mind, in fact it erases my mind, can you actually think at this temperature?? , sure you can, just grab a coconut ice cream at the main plaza the neveria colon, and you´ll be in hot heaven!! 


This is what we have so far mounted inside the PEON CONTRERAS theatre!, we still have a lot to put in the theatre but so far is looking fab, it is actually looking better than I expected I think we can manage to finish before the Tuesday, I hope we manage it!!!, I have struggled a bit with the people in Merida,! Its time is different as normal time, they are way slower! But in fact they manage to do everything right with pressure. no pressure, no work, well that’s Latin American way, and that’s how it’s not supposed to be but because we have it in our blood, we have managed to transform that into a good thing.

4 am 1 june 2012 inside theatre peon contreras