Sayounara Solitaire

Yesterday we had an honourary going-away party for Alexander, a fellow swede here. It all began with him bringing us delicious sweets from the motherland (This time though, from a japanese IKEA) which consisted of favourites like Ballerina, Estrella, Ahlgrens bilar etc. So we occupied a table in the guesthouse and gathered people from all nationalities to feast the swedish treats. All goodies were actually very well received by everone - with a notable exception - The salt liquorice...

Now this might seem weird, but japanese people are totally and utterly intolerant to salt liquourice. It's true! So far we've conducted tests with 100% positive results. Every single japanese person we've offered salt liquourice have shown extreme dislike towards it. They've all wanted to just spit it out without even swallowing it. I'll have to keep digging deeper in this matter!

Anyway, afterwards the Beijing 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies began so we all kind of camped in front of the TV for half an hour (The openings were actually some four hours long...). All seemed to be in awe of the skillfully conducted ceremony, especially the chinese girls here!

Later on we went to Shinjuku with around... thirteen people I think. Some new french girls who had just arrived tagged along as well. While the majority of people insisted on going to the gay district of Shinjuku, some of us decided to go to somewhere... straighter. Not that many of them were homosexual (two of them) but the gay district is actually not that exclusive as it sounds.

Me, Alexander, Alexandra and Malin (oh, and her newly aqcuired japanese boyfriend!) strayed towards a place called Mysterious. It was litterary like stumbling 150 years into the future! The bar was a narrow neon walk with cages both under ground, on the floor level and some elevated ones. The waitressess wore clothes resembling those of Blade Runner and StarWars, which was awesome! So we had a few beers and drinks and some complimentary snacks and decided to explore Shibuya. Oh, worth mentioning is that Alexandras drinks were blinking. Apparently the japanese can't find enough places to stick electronics into.

While in Shibuya we went to the same bar as a few weeks ago. Some of you may recall me telling about a certain bartender who was... well, in lack of a better word, crazy - and way too drunk to handle customers. Naturally we went there, and we found out that his birthday was coming up later this month, where he told us to come again and watch him play Iggy Pop! Won't miss that =)

Ah, I totally forgot! The picture in this entry is a T-shirt with kanji written on it. Loosely it translates "I want a japanese girlfriend". Although more correctly it says "I'm now accepting applications for japanese girls". This was Alexander's finale ode to Japan - to wear his T-shirt for the first time! And oh my God...

Y0u wouldn't believe how much attention it generated! Japanese girls on the train started giggling and taking pictures with their cellphones, japanese guys on the streets were going "Oooh nice!" and even some late-night homeless guys were ponting in shock! Apparently T-shirts like that are very uncommon here, while quite popular in Europe for instance. It was so funny to see women waving in delight from the other side of the station, like 50 metres away, hoping to grab his attention.

All in all, it was a good night. We got home around 7 in the morning, so I haven't had so much sleep (It's 1PM now). Today I'm going out with a few classmates again, namely korean people. Some japanese people who we met the last time are going too, so hopefully there will be lots and lots of practice for me!

Our planned scheme is fail-safe; Meet ---> Restaurant ---> Karaoke ---> Izakaya ---> Some weird place where we inevitably will end up in.

Can't go wrong.