Saunagaijin

春が来ましたよ！

2009-04-05T13:39:00.013+02:00

Spring is here! And what a beautiful season it is, in Japan.

Within the vicinity of the sakura cherry trees in full bloom, even a metropolis as grand as Tokyo seems to be overshadowed by white and pink 'fluffiness'. The sakura bloom in Japan is a big deal for the japanese people, as it only blooms for a very short time (20 days) and then dies, only to be ressurected again the following year. Because of its immense beauty and tragically short lifespan, it is used as a symbol for life itself, and it has deep roots in the japanese society.

During this short period of the bloom the japanese people do Hanami ("Flower Viewing") which is much more fun than it sounds. Families and friends gather together and go to parks, company workers eat and drink under the blossom and couples sit under the trees drinking wine.

Yesterday I went with my japanese friends to such a "Hanami party" and it blew away all my expectations! It was such a great time. The ambiance was great, food was superb and the japanese rice wine was delicious. It's almost a blend between a Swedish summer-evening BBQ and a music festival. Fuse those two together and you are on your way to a hanami-atmosphere.

As we all know by now, Tokyo isn't famous for its vast wildlife... so when you go to the nearest park to have the hanami-party, you're not alone. Definately *not* alone. This is where the "music festival" feeling treads in; There are always folks around you laughing, shouting and doing their business so while the concept of "Hanami" is a peaceful experience, it does tend to lean towards the "party" feeling a bit because of the surroundings. Although I'm not complaining -- This hanami party is something that I will painfully miss when I'm in Sweden again. And all my friends here.... arrghh, I don't even want to think about it right now.

I also thought I might add some stuff that me and Sayam did before he went to Kyoto (which was planned for me too, but the Swedish economy failed me so I stayed here...) so here goes: Since Ueno and Asakusa are more of the "Old towns" of Tokyo, we decided to stroll around there since the Sakura was blooming and we found some interesting places there before. Our first stop was Ueno Doubutsuen (Ueno Zoo). Prior to entering the gates of the zoo, Sayam bought a mysterious piece of chocolate-banana-candy-stick-thing which apparently transformed him into a child! Let's just view the pictures and let them speak for themselves.

Next was Asakusa, once again. This time we were early, and could spend hours just walking around the old streets and popping into virtually every shop we could find. This place is Heaven
for anyone who likes japanese culture, as the shop here sell almost exclusively japanese items such as chopsticks, tea sets, sake cups, charms, Samurai swords, etc etc... This will probably be my main destination when the time comes when I'll have to buy souveniers . We ended the evening by going into a small, local ramen-ya (A noodle restaurant) where we enjoyed udon-ramen, unagi, steamed rice, tempura fried fish and that warm, soothing rice wine.

Sayam: Hoowhoou... I are great Samurais!
Background Ninja: I'll kill you with my index finger...

Hmm... what else. Ah, today after I finished work me and Shiori took a walk through a park in Shinjuku, which also transformed us into children. Riding swings, climbing the play-nets and just generally jumping around looking like two mentally-impaired adults, which was fun!

Shiori-chan on a horse

Mata ne -- I'll continue writing sometime next week or the week after that, when Sayam has made his return back to the Eastern Capital!

Me, myself & Thai

2009-03-22T18:23:00.010+01:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, I simply haven't had time to just sit down and write and stuff! As some of you already figured out by the title, Sayam has finally reached the restrictive shores of Japan and we're now spreading destruction upon Tokyo together.

Since I'm in the middle of spring break now, we don't have to mind the hour (and we really don't) when we're out. I think our current record is somewhere around 14-hours of just walking around, exploring, and going to various izakaya and other interesting places. I think it reached its pinnacle when my girlfriend started to get a bit jealous because I was spending so much time with Sayam. She had been talking a lot about going to Odaiba (Kind of a romantic dating-friendly island off Tokyo's coast) together and I promised to go, but haven't yet done so... Anyway, I went with Sayam instead, haha. I think we lost around 30-40 man points by walking around there among all "the other couples", but we rightfully reclaimed them when we went to an izakaya and drank "drinks" out of brutal beer glasses that were larger than an average-sized Japanese person.

Eating Tenpura, squid & Karage at a small izakaya in Shinjuku

It's been really cool seeing an old friend again after about eight months. So far we've strolled the high-rise in Shinjuku, window-shopped the craziness that is Harajuku, dodged Yakuza members in Kabukicho, gotten lost in the old Edo-streets of Asakusa, and re-enacted Metal Gear-style sneaking in a ridiculusly luxurious hotel in Daiba. Oh, and Sayam drank a tea-spoon sized coffee for over three dollars.

"Thank you for using Ginza Line. Please set your cellphone to silent mode and refrain from talking on the phone. The next station is, Silent Hill. The doors on the left side will open."

We're planning on visiting the Museum of Science & Art in Ueno this week, as well as spending a great amount of time in Asakusa. We found a truly cool place there with almost exclusively japanese-styled shops and restaurants, close to the temples. A pair of ninja shoes caught Sayam's eyes, while a Yukata for under 3000 Yen caught mine.

I'll write about our adventures to come when we reach the old capital of Japan; Kyoto!

続く ~

Random J-bird

Reunion

2009-03-12T06:49:00.006+01:00

These past two weeks have been complete opposites of one and other. I spent the first one camped in my room, as I was down with the flu. This is by the way the first time I've been sick since I came to Japan. Anyway, I spent about 6 days doing absolutely nothing but sleeping, watching movies on my laptop and basically being an infant. The following week however, I didn't even have enough time to go home some days. Since school here is super-intense and fast-paced (compared to our western equivalents) I had to spend a lot of time catching up lost chapters, as well as trying to hang on to the current ones. To add to that, I've gotten two new students, so my teaching schedule has gotten more active too. Also, as I mentioned in my previous entry my sister was coming to visit, as well as two friends from Sweden.

Sooo... I went to Sunroute Hotel in Shinjuku where my sister and her husband Peter were waiting for me. As I got there I received my long-awaited supplies from the motherland -- a huge quantity of LÖSGODIS which will last until my departure. We then went to touristy places like the Metropolitan towers to take pictures of Tokyo from a high altitude. Not surprisingly, my sister was more interested in taking pictures of various 'cute' stuff around the city.

Tourist? I think so!

Older brothers and sister usually have some kind of leverage over the younger ones in the family, but she has done enough awkward things here for me to have a good reserve of counter-arguments when we're back home. She'll always be the person who put green tea powder into a saucer of soy in a sushi restaurant.

The following day I met Magnus who had recently arrived. He actually got my old room in the Matsudo guesthouse which I lived in for more than half-a-year. He'll be here for two months, just the right amount of time to explore Tokyo. I went to Matsudo to pick him up (He was too frightened to leave the place alone ;) Anyway, long time since I've been to Matsudo... it's a really nice, quiet place and I like it a lot, but it's just too damn far away from everything.

On the same day we went together with my sister and Peter to an izakaya in Kabukichou to eat various dishes and have some cool drinks. Since izakyas usually have an endless amount of drinks for very reasonable prices, we decided to pay the 1500Yen/2h bill to get access their drink-as-much-as-you-can menu, and we basically went through the list from top to bottom.

Peter with his masculine beverage

Being northen european, we of course over-ordered everything and when the staff came to our table to tell us we had to leave in a minute (our time was up) we were still surrounded by 8 huge drinks (we were four people). When we drank them all up, the waitor cleaned up the table and quietly said "Sugee.." (Wow...) to himself.

This guy didn't believe we could finish off a huge batch of drinks enough to sink the Titanic

On my sister's last day in Tokyo, we went to Odaiba. It's a man-made island just off Tokyo Bay and is accessible with the monorail which 'flies' over the bay. While there, I was pretending not to know my sister since she suddenly evolved into some kind of ultra-mega tourist snapping pictures of everything like there was no tomorrow.

Now here I am, with these strange weeks behind me and looking forward to a great Haruyasumi (Spring break) which will begin next week. The only thing I have to worry about now is the final exam...

Also, I seem to be lacking a certain Thai. He got stopped before he was able to board his flight to Narita, and so by that bureaucracy has won yet another battle against sanity. Hopefully he'll get here next week!

Say Hello to my Little Friend

2009-02-16T05:43:00.003+01:00

Today is a good day. To begin with, it seems like Spring is finally about to arrive. Walking home from school, I enjoyed a beautiful blue sky with about 18c in the air! I can't wait until April when the Sakura trees will begin their blooming.

The second reason is that I finally got a perfect score on a kanji test in school. Memorizing them is truly a pain in the rear for a poor little European kinpatsu otokonoko like me, especially when we get 6 new ones each day... and considering they all have at least two pronunciations depending on which word they are used in, it becomes somewhat of a hassle to learn them!

The third, and most obvious reason for this day being counted as a good one is: My best friend from back home has finally left the evil clutches of the Jante-society that most people call Sweden, and is in this typing moment on his way to Asia. You can all follow his journey HERE.

My new tin can

2009-02-06T09:56:00.012+01:00

So after two painful days of packing, cleaning and signing papers (sounds easy enough, but then again you haven't been subjected to Japanese beaurocracy) I've finally made it to my new place. This place is situated right beside the Kanda River (which actually flows a few metres away from my window!) in Nakano Sakaue, a district near Nishi-Shinjuku. It's about 20.000 Yen more expensive than my old place in Matsudo, but this place has the invaluable location: 10 minutes to Shinjuku Station, by foot! Some people would trade both of their legs to be able to walk to Shinjuku station! I really like this place. (Videos available at the end of this post)

The immediate neighbourhood is has that classic japanese feeling with low-level buildings packed together, forming small narrow streets in between. Add the aforementioned river, and wait for ｓpring to bring the Sakura into bloom and you have your ideal living place. However, craziness is only 10 minutes east from here. The Shinjuku centre!

When living in Matsudo I spent about 90 minutes on the train every day, counting both coming-and-going from school. Now I have the luxary of being able to walk to school! It takes about 25 minutes, depending on how many Japanese people are getting in my way.

The company which owns this building is Sakura House, probably one of the largest guesthouse companies in Japan. They, as the rest of the companies in Japan, are a big fan of paperwork. I think I spent two hours filling out information at their office before they gave me my keys. Then I got this funny little Japanese dude talking to me about the furniture in the room, and if I were to break anything I'd have to pay for it: Then I, being a fan of sarcasm, said something in the lines of "So if I take the chair and throw it through the window and down to the street I have to pay for it?" with a smile, the poor guy got all nervous and said "Yes... well, no... please call and inform us before you do that" and that's when I remembered that sarcasm is one of two "Japanese cryptonites", the other one being liquorice. (I told you about that before, didn't I?).

Anyway, I love my new tin can! I live right next to the kitchen/living room too! And wheras my view in Matsudo brought forth mental imagery of post-war Berlin, my current view is downtown Shinjuku!

Beats Matsudo

A big difference with this place is that it's crowded with Brits and Americans. Of course, there's plenty of Korean and Chinese people as well, although the Americans are by far the most prominent. Not because they are *that* many, but they do have the tendency to be utterly loud. And as we all know, God is an American so that's just their way of being. They're cool people though, and I'm not one to be bothered by noise. Oh! And today I found out that there's a Lawson 100 right next to the guesthouse! Lawson 100 is a supermarket where every item costs only 100 Yen (One dollar/9SEK approximately). Awesome!

What else what else... ah, going to Roppongi again today! We had the best time last weekend so we decided to go there again. We've found a very good formula to party there for a very cheap price (Roppongi actually has a reputation of being extremely expensive, which it actually is to the average tourist). I mean, most clubs have an entrance fee of 3000-5000 Yen (About 300-500 SEK) and that will only get you *inside* the club, which is usually extremely packed with people to the limit where you can't move. Add to that ridiculously overpriced alcohol and you have Roppongi in a nutshell =) Then you have the hostess clubs (also known as "Gentlemens' clubs". These places are usually frequented by tourists with thick wallets and a strong scent of desperation.

None of that! The magic word is... "Don Quiote!" ;) When you guys get to Tokyo we'll show you how to have a long, great and surprisingly cheap Roppongi experience! (Batteries not included)

Video 1 (Room)
Video 2 (Also room...)

And I just couldn't resist posting this video of "Suteki da ne?". There are not many people in this world with the voice of Rikki!

Level-Up

2009-02-02T21:56:00.002+01:00

So I'm officially old now.

Even though I went to school completely without my birthday in mind, apparently my classmates found out about and decided to embarrass me throughout the day ;)

First the Swedish people gathered around my desk and sang Happy Birthday (The Swedish version) and moments later, the koreans started singing the korean version. Jack had bought me some strange Pokémon-themed candy, as well as some other stuff. Halfway through the day two korean girls gave me a strawberry cake and a chocolate pudding-like thing.

My classmates had also planned to go out to a korean restaurant during the day to celebrate with some good food and drinks, but my damn stupidity prevented me from joining. You see, about three weeks ago, I found a new place in Shinjuku which I immediately booked. Little did I know that the moving-in date was February 3rd, my birthday. So as it turns out, I must clean my current room: Floors, ceilings, the air-conditioner, the windows, everything... as well as move all my stuff to Shinjuku. Normally I'd postpone it for one day, but if I do that I have to pay rent for ANOTHER MONTH (which is about 56.000Yen, or 5.400SEK) so I'd rather skip my birthday.
Anyway, I'm glad I have such great friends who wanted to make my birthday a big deal ^_^

Some of my presents! The corn-like candy is actually reserved for February 3rd here in Japan. It is an old japanese tradition to throw them on people wearing a certain demonic mask. I don't know that much about the tradition, but it sure was fun to see the teacher throw a bunch of corn at Markus, who was the victim and had to wear the mask throughout the whole class.

Also there have been quite a lot of earthquakes recently; One of which caused a volcano north of Tokyo to erupt, spreading its ashes all the way down here. Now everyone's kind of waiting for a similar earthquake to piss Mt. Fuji off, triggering an eruption and thus ending her 300-year-long slumber.

Japan's volcanoes. As you can see, there's quite a lot of them. And nearly all of these bastards are alive and kicking.

I'm just glad that I'm moving out of this house, which has clearly been built with wet cardboard and ductape. Now that I'll be living in my new Shinjuku place, I might actually even survive 'The Big One' when it inevitabily comes knocking.

Alrighty then... I'm already behind schedule so I can't afford to spend more time on this post; I have to get this room good and clean so that I'll get back my 20.000Yen deposit tomorrow when I turn in the lobby keycard and room keys.

Filler post

2009-01-28T09:04:00.003+01:00

Hey folks. Once again a filler post, sorry! Just to keep things fresh and updated!

So yesterday when I was waiting for the train to get back home from school, some japanese fella' decided it would be appropriate to jump in front of that very train, effectively ending his life in the fraction of a second. Therefore, they suspended the line to clean up all the body parts and blood, so I walked to Shinjuku instead and did some brief shopping and general strolling-around. I got really frustrated since I found this great clothing store with an awesome collection, but about 90% of it was too small for me to wear! I mean, their "L" sizes would barely fit my nephue (Who, by the way, sent me an awesome embroidery as well as a Melvin-themed mousepad)

Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to this weekend! The whole class, along with all of our teachers, are going out to a Shinjuku izakaya on Friday! It's been a while, so that'll be fun for sure. Also, me and a crazy french guy are thinking of going to Roppongi on Saturday night. I haven't been to Roppongi for about four months, so I'm looking forward to that as well. I'll try to get many pictures as possible and post them here later.

Until then.

A new day, A new dawn

2009-01-16T06:32:00.005+01:00

Yesterday the second semester kicked off, only to be interrupted by a 3-day weekend. To my surprise we still have the exact same class -- with the exception of a few Korean people who've fled the country. The new teacher we will have on Thursdays from now on I didn't really care for to be honest. She's like... old and has an ever so annoying high-pitched voice. It's difficult to explain but I kind of get the feeling that she is dumber than a box of rocks for numerous reasons; Mainly though because she confused my name with Kuritorisu (Instead of Kurisuchan) which is the Japanese phonetic equivalent of "Clitoris". So that set my mood off during the day a bit. Thankfully she told us she will retire in three months, so it's alright I suppose. Although some people should really kick the bucket just a bit ahead of time...

Anyway!

I won't complain more. Well actually, I just want to point out that the Swedish currency hit a new time low at 9,6KR for 100 Yen yesterday which got me really concerned because rent is coming up, and if it stays at this level then my rent just went up a great deal, as well as all my expenses really. Okay, now I won't complain anymore (Until my next blog entry).

I have spent my school-free day very productively. I've built a small little tower of chopsticks and eaten a broken-down gingerbread house sent to me from the Motherland. I've also been watching some japanese drama on TV which I don't understand at all. I admit... I'm seriously bored today. Some friends are going to an Izakaya later tonight but I don't even know if I want to break my chain of laziness right now. Besides, who'd watch my TV? Although I am leaning just a tiny bit towards insanityyyyyy.

The voices are telling me to kill youuuu ----

Femme Fatales and The art of getting screwed (the bad kind)

2009-01-12T20:25:00.009+01:00

First off -- hold your horses! I know I've been extremely lazy when it comes to updating this dreaded blog, but I've been pestered no end of times by various people to keep writing, so I will. I will however focus more on current happenings than recapping old news, although I'll briefly guide you through my holiday. So, without further ado, *Dramatic voice* PREVIOUSLY, ON THE LIFE OF CHRISTIAN ERHAMO:

Christmas was as expected a shadow of its true self. My girlfriend at the time was working on Christmas Eve (Evil japanese work ethic) so I spent a 'fake' Christmas with her on the 23rd. I was very glad, though, that one of my very good friends hosted a big Christmas Eve party for 20-30 people, including classmates, teachers, people from various guesthouses and a guy from Switzerland! (There's only one of them). The party was a great success in my opinion, as we had glögg, gingerbread cookies, Swedish chocolate and... well, some questionable South korean dish. We ended up having a great time! I guess being with good friends while having a great time is what Christmas is all about, right?

New Year's was downright crazy. Crazy crazy crazy. You'd expect the most populous metropolis in the world to offer some great fireworks when that digital "8" was substituted with a "9". No no, this is Japan, and they always *have* to be special, don't they? When the bell finally rang, billions and billions of pink balloons and bubbles crowded the sky while our ears were being effectively destroyed by the crowds. No fireworks in sight, amazing... I will leave out the 00:00 - 06:00 part and move on: At about 07:00 AM we went to Tokyo Bay to watch the very first sunrise of 2009. It was beautiful, and pretty cool too considering our locale; The Land of the Rising Sun.

Enough of the recap now...

So, what's on the horizon? Well, the second school semester is about to begin, that's what! I'm actually quite excited to go back to school. From now on I will have a much busier schedule than last semester. I don't have more classes, but I recently started working as an English teacher in Harajuku. It's loads of fun, and very educational for me as well. It's a great system; I meet my student at her cafe or restaurant of choice, where we practice everything from grammar, vocabulary to reading and conversation. I currently make Y2800 (~270 Kr) per hour, with transportation and food/drink costs fully compensated. So far so good, right? Well, it gets worse. Read on friends...

My first student was a 25-year-old rich little bitch who at first seemed really eager and motivated to learn English. The first lesson was very rewarding in every way possible, but the following day's lesson took a bad turn. Twenty minutes into the lesson she starts asking me if I had a girlfriend (which since after Christmas I don't, anymore). That's about the time when I started seeing red flashing ASCHTUNG lights before my eyes. The first thing they (my employer) told me on the interview was that dating students leads to immidiate termination. Since this company is actually the lesser of many bloodsucking capitalist services to be found by clueless foreigners like me, I had no intention on letting it pass through my fingers.

Anyway, back to that brat girl. I told her that I didn't have a girlfriend, and so after a few minutes she came with suggestions that would definately lead to me being unemplyed. Needless to say, I saved my own arse and reported the whole thing to my employer, and they let her go. As it stands right now I don't have a current student, which means I am not bringing in those precious Y5600 a day anymore (double hours). God knows when the company will assign a new student to me, or if they are suspicious of me and rethinking hiring me. Anyway, time will tell.

I though, "Wow, this is truly a day in reverse for me..." But luckily, I had some good friends waiting for me in Shibuya! We were planning on going to an izakaya, and after that hit some funky places. Little did I know that once again I was going to be bent over. Read on, read on...

We got to the izakaya. The gang this time consisted of me, Markus, Masa, Makoto and Akemi. A japanese-favoured ratio, always to my liking! Anyway, the latter caused me yet another downfall. Masa (an aspiring doctor, studying medicine) had to go after about an hour because he had school the day after, left us four people. Now, Makoto had just broke up with his girlfriend because he had a huge crush on Akemi, the only girl with us this time. And as always Markus was trying work his magic stick as well, so she was fully occupied to say the least. However, after a few hours of eating, drinking and having fun, we decided to go the the next place which was a street down from there. While on the way, Akemi suddenly broke free of the horny clutches of my friends and started walking with me instead. The following hour she kept asking for my email and my phone number, and this got Makoto really pissed off -- AT ME!!! What the fuck ?! I was already considering myself a victim this day, and now I was being held accountable for stealing his dream girl? I don't know who to be mad at right now, Makoto for being such an a-hole for misdirecting his anger or Akemi for disrupting my very good friendship with Makoto. It doesn't really matter, either way I lose. Hopefully he is just temporarily insane and we will once again be friends. Thank God I have other great friends who have proven not to be mentally unstable.

So, having survived the most counter-productive day of my life here in Japan, I am struggeling while hoping that the teacher agency will hook me up with a new student as soon as possible.

Oh, and I have a bunch of new pictures and videos too, including some Christmas footage with drunk teachers, glögg in extreme quantities and my favourite afro-american musician teaching everyone how a traditional Swedish Christmas is being conducted. I'm not going to share it with you though, just to be a bitch =] (Real reason: I'm too lazy to upload stuff)

What else, what else...? Ah! -- No, scratch that.

The Tale of the Trekking to the Tall Tail

2008-11-22T02:04:00.008+01:00

Yesterday we went on another field trip with the class. This one was about an hour from Tokyo by train, in the Kawagawa prefecture. When I found out that the trip wasn't mandatory and that it involved trekking a big mountain I was tempted to stay home instead, but I decided to go since the weather was perfect and the almost the whole class was going. My main concern though was that I still lack a jacket, and it isn't usually all that warm and cozy up on a mountain summit.

The mountain's name is Takaosan. (高尾山) which means "Tall Tail mountain". About 2.5 million people climb it every year, since it's easily accessible and has incredible views of Mount Fuji on one side, and the metropolis of Tokyo on the other. Despite being overly crowded it is completely litter-free.

A good start for any mountain trekker; A quick breakfast at Yoshinoya.

The moments when you realize that Tokyo is a never-ending cityscape is when you are leaving it. Even though I spent one hour in a train going *away* from Tokyo, all that was visible on both sides were buildings, roads, bridges and vehicles. The only hint of nature was Mount Fuji in the far background. When we finally arrived at the station near the mountain, we were greeted by both nature and... well, a billion other japanese tourists who also got the idea of climbing this thing. The actual ascend to the top took about 2 hours, on a waaaay too narrow pathway with waaaay too many people on it. An interesting feature is the safety railings along the path. There are always fences or some kind of protective 'wall' on spots where you could accidentally fall and break a leg or something -- But, on places where you could actually fall down 50 metres or places where you could be smashed into pieces there were no railings whatsoever. A japanese person's worst nightmare is dying an unhonourable death. So, me and my friends had this theory that it's "OK" to die if you die in an extreme situation; like falling to your death from a mountain. However, if you just fatally slip then there would be nothing to brag about in the afterlife. Who knows? =)

Some kind of mountainish... guardian... statues. They were placed everywhere from the ground to the summit.

After reaching about 80% of the mountain, my plan backfired on me! Since I don't have the luxury of owning a jacket, I stocked up on the warmest clothing I had -- including a thick, long winterscarf and gloves. Although the sun began to scorch us, and you get very warm while going uphill for hours... So instead of freezing my arse off 600 metres up like I thought I would, I was instead on the verge of burning up. However, none of this mattered when I saw the first glimt of the most beautiful mountain in the world through the trees. Clear blue sky, no wind at all, and there stood Mount Fuji before me. It was miles and miles away, but its sheer size and magnificence made it seem like it's right there.

Shadow of the Colossus. Fujisan is the most photographed and drawn mountain in the world, and it is frequently labaled as "The most beautiful mountain the world". Legend says that when a really beautiful woman climbs it, Fujisan will encloud itself because of jealousy. This goes way back when women weren't allowed to climb it, since that would ruin the view for everyone who was watching the mountain from afar.

Once we reached the summit of Takaosan we had a picknick! Yay! The koreans had made sushi, sandwiches and snacks for everyone. Needless to say, the unmannered (us, the westerners) people dug in! There's something special about having a delicious meal on top of mountain, covered with autumn colours such as red and gold, with Fujisan as a silent observer in the background. It felt surreal, and I made myself a promise that I will climb Mt. Fuji next year. I just hope it doesn't decide to erupt while I'm there... it is an active volcano after all!

I've never been fond of nature. Actually, I got quite sick of it back home. I'm just more comfortable in a big mess such as Tokyo. However, Japan is utterly beautiful in autumn. There is such a cool vividety of colours to be found. Add a clear blue sky and Fuji as a backdrop and you have paradise.

Basukettoboru

2008-11-07T08:59:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I found out that I have the dexterity and vitality of a crippled 90-year-old pregnant blue whale. After class, some korean classmates suggested that we'd go to a park (read: ghetto) area of Shin-Okubo and play some hoops. So there we went, with a team of 6 people and 2 cheerleaders (korean girls from class). When we got there, the courts were already taken up by other people, so we had to play against them. The first team we were up against were a chinese group of people, who were clearly better than us... although we did survive for a long time, they ultimately defeated us.

Next up were a japanese team. Now, this team was quite interesting... two of them were dressed as women (bear with me; we're in Japan after all) and the rest dressed in US rock 'n roll leather from the 60's, complete with the boots and all. We actually ended up defeating them! Then we lost to the chinese triad guys again... From now on, we will be going to this court after school at least once a week to play, so we get some sort of exercise - and it's a lot of fun!

The team we manages to assemble was pretty cool, too! It consists of the following people: Me (duh), Jin (Self-proclaimed best drinker in the world) Opa (Complains that he hasn't moved a muscle in ten years) Lee Tetsu (Chinese guy who complains that we should play ping-pong instead) Markus (Fellow Swede, just as poor physique as me) Kang Chan-Su (The only guy with decent skills in our group) and of course the korean girls who sat under a tree cheering for us.

I've missed basketball so much... you guys playing basketball at home?

Our shooting-guard; Kang Chan-Su

With our bodies destroyed, but spirits soaring high, we went to a korean place nearby and had some beers and korean BBQ. I swear to God, I'm in love with korean food! It's a beautiful mix of meat, vedgetables and whatever ultra-spicy sauce they can mix up to go with it. I'd say it surpasses the japanese cuisine, with the notable exception of sushi... and maybe curry rice (which isn't really Japanese, but, still they think it is). Anyway, the korean place we went to was sweet. Great atmosphere, awesome food... but I think koreans always tend to overdo the drinking... I mean, wow, even the girls outdrink us poorly-trained europeans! Say what you will about koreans, but comparing western drinking to theirs is like... well I can't think of a clever analogy right now but let's just say you don't want to dismiss "asians" as weak drinkers.

Ah, and I notice the Swedish currency is still experiencing some serious ass suckage. Come oooooon! You don't really want me to get a part-time job, do you? Why didn't I go to China or India instead... that way - if I were still alive at this moment from bombings, acid rain and food poisoning - I'd be so much better off, money-wise. So, time for me to get my clothes off the roof, but I'm too lazy to mooooveee... my entire body hurts after yesterday =(

Okay, Svea, now listen...

2008-10-23T09:54:00.005+02:00

What the hell are you doing?

Here I was, happy and content about being able to buy cheap food and buy reasonably priced goods -- and now, the swedish fucking joke of a currency decides to swing by deep down in the pit of unending failure. I mean, come on! The rest of the world is coping with the financial crisis, why can't you? Now, if ever, is a perfect moment for new directions. Throw out the fucking sofa-sitting sleezebags who are milking our government's teats while, uuuhh... watching the Simpsons on the telly? Throw the extreme socialism in the bin and adopt some form of capitalism. Replace the fucking revolving doors that we apparently have in our prisons and either kill off, or at the very least censor off, the population who are over 65 years and all they do is send in complaining letters to various newspapers, complaining about things like crickets making too loud noises after 22:00 or about the national flag having too vivid colours. Execute the king and bring in a national representetive who has the ability to spell his name correctly. Donate the top half of our area to the highest bidder - I don't care, just... do SOMETHING. Invade another country if you will, I don't care! Norway has oil - invade them! They wouldn't even notice the governmental change. Next, claim Denmark, because let's face it - they miss us since the 1600's. After that, crush Finland. They.... well, no actually, let the finnish people be, they're badasses and would destroy us even if we were to outnumber them 100 to 1. I mean, they sit in a wooden box with a million degrees in the middle of winter, spanking eachother with branches and then running out, screaming their lungs off out in the cold dark night for no apparent reason. That's as alpha as it gets... Okay straying off point -- My point is this:

When I got here, I was paying somewhere around 57 SEK for a full meal at a good restaurant. Now, I pay 81 SEK for the exakt same dish. I have a classmate who can't pay next month's rent because his budget got distrupted. Come on! Don't claim to be a modern civilized "top-notch" country if you don't even dare to try methods that would actually adapt you to THIS CENTURY. We had NO reason whatsoever to reject the Euro. Okay, so Britain wanted to maintain its Pound Sterling - fine - it's a global currency. What reason could we possibly have for rejection?

So, Sweden... try not to run the country like a one-legged man running the marathon. But yeah, I guess if the japanese economy would take a drop then that wouldn't hurt. Either way works for me, just... do something! If a nuclear-bombed small archipelagic nation out in the pacific ocean, with constant destructive earthquakes, storms and with an apparant national sport of jumping in front of trains, can handle their coin - so should you.

What's your biggest hold-up? Probably the annoying senior citizens. And we went through that already...

東京ゲームショー年2008

2008-10-12T15:51:00.030+02:00

Since the fall of the previous public world dominator in game conventions, E3 (electronic enternatinment expo) in Los Angeles, Tokyo Game Show (TGS) is now the largest gameshow in the world. Tickets were sold for a mere Y1200 (SEK 80, $11) and for that price, you were set free in a world where no one even knew of the word 'reality'. The typical japanese mentality "Do it exessively, or not at all" applied here as well... and yeah, they went all out on this one. Even before setting foot in the actual buildings (multiple buildings connected to one and other) we got a taste of what was to come. They put out a huge action toy in front of the entrances just in case people were to "miss" the place of the gameshow.

So in we went; To the vast technological jungle of games of tomorrow, endless aisles of tv-screens, game developers, merchandise in the millions and a good bunch of good 'ol fashioned japanese self-objectification of women.

The very first thing we did when we got in was to split up and go seperate ways, because everyone got all hyped up and were seemingly high on sugar. I started out by watching some new trailers and introductions for new games which were of course shown for the first time in TGS. There were actually some pretty damn interesting upcoming titles here which I must admit I wouldn't like, because of the brands. Xbox had a surprisingly interesting lineup, and there was some Dragonball and Bleach games which looked interesting, but I couldn't really photograph there since it was prohibited (Arigatou, youtube). After those ones, my eyes got caught up on something so beautiful... something that brought me back fond memories of the past, as well as the promising light of tomorrow; I saw the SquareENIX booths!

They had kind of a marketplace set up for themselves. Titles likes Final Fantasy XI Online, Final Fantasy XIII, Valkyrie Profile and Dragonquest sprawled up everywhere and so did the people, of course. Crouded as holy hell, but it was worth it for sure! I'm very much looking forward to FFXIII, but the most interesting piece here was actually a new Dragonquest game coming out for the Nintendo DS. Of course SquareENIX knows how to please their audience, so they had set up theater rooms and gigantic cinema screens showing the drooling nerd masses (in which I was part of, of course) the new games they were working on. There were also tonnes of FF-merchandise available for purchase.

After browsing through the SquareENIX area like Michael Jackson at a Toys 'r Us, I decided to go out and watch some cosplayers. My spanish friend from the gueshouse, Alberto, is a journalist and photographer of a spanish gaming magazine, so he guided me around a little bit. The first thing that struck me was the fact that the cosplayers were so utterly professional and devoted to their respective character. But then again, this is probably *the* best cosplay place in the world.

Don't know who these guys are supposed to be, but they're cool.

Rurushuu ri Buritania commands you!

If sugar had a human form, this would probably be its adequate form.

L and Watari decided to show up as well.

Cosplay gone right.

They kind of look like stuffed action dolls, but I assure you, they are real!

Next up was the Playstation area. For me, the choice was simple... I mean, Playstation's upcoming games overshadowed the rest of the developers in a way. Also, Kojima Hideo was strolling around there. Seeing him was pretty cool. He is short, has black hair, looks japanese... yeah. He was demonstrating the new expansion pack to MGS4 I think, I wasn't really paying attention because I had another game in mind: The first thing I did was to rush in like to play "Little Big Planet" which was just too cool for words =) Although I felt kind of slow and retarded when trying to co-operate with my lightyears-before-me-in-gaming-skills japanese teammates sitting next to me. The booth-girl who was introducing the game to us and later helping us play it sat next to me all the time, in an attempt to prevent me from accidentally destroying something I think. The japanese people didn't need any help at all. They have all like... developed their gaming skills since birth. Anyway, it was awesome! Everything is just so customizeable, it almost seems like the developers have left *you* to create the actual game, and just handed you the right tools to do so. I especially enjoyed the versatility of the characters!

"Suneeku" and "Sefirosu" as their katakana names read...

As this is Tokyo, moving around and getting to places has nothing to do with distance; Just with how many people are in your way. In TGS, people are in your way. Like, for instance, if you want to saaay.... play the upcoming Biohazard (Resident Evil 5), there is a 3-hour waiting line in front of the booth. Although this didn't stop four of my friends, who waited an impressive 2 hours and 50 minutes to play for approximately 15 minutes in an exclusive gaming chamber. While inside, they were treated with Resident Evil cosplay women showing them never-EVER before-seen trailers and footage of said game, and of course a taste of the actual gameplay.

They put signs like this one up before lines so that people know how long they are expected to queue. This particular sign was placed at a Konami item shop, where you could buy all sorts of crap which apparently was worth waiting over two hours for.

While on my way to get some food at the restaurant area, I stumbled upon a few other interesting booths. These were actually different game development universities in Tokyo that were promoting their programs. And I'm sorry Blombrink... but I think Skövde is going to have to take a back seat this time. These schools were simply amazing. Both teachers and students were showing the guests around, and demostrating what their schools had accomplished. There were games created by students that could just as easily be done by Capcom, Nintendo or SNK. They were rather impressive indeed =) The games were in different formats, some for Xbox360, some for the PS3, but most had their own formats for demonstration purposes. They were offering education in writing, coding, music composing, graphic design and everything else related to game creation. These schools are probably the creme de la creme of game development.

Examples of game development schools in Tokyo and their "show-offs"

Tokyo Game Show opened up at 10:00 and closed at 18:00, and of course we were there for the whole duration. The first two or three hours I tried to browse the different areas and booths in an organized fashion in an attempt to see and try a little of everything, so as not to miss anything major. This was, however, impossible for me in the long run because of my suddenly awakened nerdiness. Whenever I saw something in the far distant that caught the slightest glimt of my attention, I had to go there. Whether it was the latest beat-'em-up by SNK, the new Sonic game from Sega or that game where your main objective was to pull down the panties of a japanese schoolgirl by some strange independant company - it was all cool! Actually there were a disturbing amount of those kind of games there... kind of makes me wonder how many letters the Swedish newspapers would get from the overly complaining people there if these kind of games were ever to see the light of the Swedish retail market. God forbid, the world is not yet ready to be exposed to true japanese pervertism. Regardless of game, the fact holds true that japanese people take their gaming seriously.

In Tokyo Game Show, they had set aside special areas where people could bring their PSPs and DSs and compete in tournaments. Although less "competition based", I loved the gaming rooms for Phoenix Wright. They had set up rooms with enough Nintendo DSs to fill a small country in cozy living-roomish areas where you could go and enjoy this "far out there" kind of game series. If you're wondering who won the "handheld wars" this time, I have to say that Nintendo DS totally kicked Sony's PSP's ass in both audience attendance and upcoming titles. The DS monitors were full for the whole show, and the game developers have really worked hard on their games. I'm really looking forward to illegally downloading their games to my console as soon as they are released.

Caution; Don't feed the nerds while in-game.

So in conclusion, this has to be one of my best experiences in Japan so far. To be surrounded by thousands and thousands of people with the exact same love for video games as you have makes you feel at the right place. Even though you are on the other side of the globe, you feel surprisingly at home at Tokyo Game Show. Now, for the pictures of booth-babes and cosplayers for Sayam:

Enjoy, and thanks for reading/drooling! (For those interested, here's a video too, sorry for the quality I had to reduce its size considerably)

The cutest of them all

Why?

2008-10-11T09:00:00.005+02:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in ages... and unfortunately I won't be making a big entry this time either. I'm laaazy and it's really difficult to describe the things going on here with just words and pictures, you simply have to be here!

Anyway, a while ago our teachers invited the whole class to go to Shinjuku and party with them, so of course we did. The thing is, they scheduled it on a thursday... which needless to say resulted in not so pleasant classes the day after. Oh, and as usual we didn't stop until morning, so after around 7AM we were leaving the korean bar where we ended up, and went to school =) I won't post any pictures from the actual night out, but I'll give you a glance of the after-effects of being out for 10 hours and then going back to school without going home in between.

So yeah... the friday classes were spent either sleeping on your desk, puking in the bathrooms or lying on the floor dreaming of better days. And believe me, we've had better days. Oh and the guy on this picture called me at around 8 AM going "Aw man my arm hurts and I have no idea where the fuck I am". Apparently he strayed away around Nishi-Shinjuku for some reason, and woke up in the morning thinking that he was in his bed, although he quickly realized it wasn't quite so when the apparent "pillow" was actually a metal bumper on a parked vehicle. So yes, all in all - a good night/morning out!

Tomorrow is Tokyo Game Show and I decided to swing by with a few friends, so let's see how that turns out!

Mata ne!

NHK Studios

2008-09-23T15:43:00.007+02:00

No major post this time around either, just a cute video that I shot a while ago. We were going to the NHK studios in Yoyogi with school, and it is basically a huge building where they broadcast Tv-shows, news, samurai drama series, kid's shows etc... so it was pretty cool to be behind the sets and in the audience. But yeah... I'm not really into this stuff, so I was walking around in passive mode. There was also this huge dubbing studio too which I just wanted to nuke, knowing full well how the final product will end up like. Anyway, here are some pics and videos.

(Watch Video)

A TV set

Anyone who recognizes this creature?

My class entourage. Korean, chinese and french peeps.

Nihon livin'

2008-09-17T17:55:00.008+02:00

I've been in Japan for two and a half months now I think, and I'm becoming increasingly accustomed to the way of... being here. My room is a good evidence of this, since I was unaware until now that my organizing and structuring style seems to resemble that of how Japan is 'built'. Take Tokyo for instance; They cannot expand it borderwise, so they must build vertically. There's basically a "Tokyo 2" underneath the actual city, consisting of subways, stations, shopping malls,yakuza hidouts and daily necessities like manga outlets and maid cafées. Above the surface you've got the so called 'skyliners', which are trains that go above the city because they can't fit the rails anywhere else. In Chiba, the adjacent prefecture, the monorail even ventures in and out of buildings, which is pretty cool!

So, apparently I've subconsciously absorbed the Tokyoitian way of managing space, or the lack thereof... My books which I brought from Sweden (Thanks Sayam!) have a new home on top of my airconditioner and my creepy new Totoro friend is sitting comfortably up on my closet, glaring and plotting his sinister ways... My backpack and suitcase are mushed into the corner alongside my brand new shiny red guitar, while my towel is hanging from my ceiling lamp's wire. It looks pretty strange, but I'm very proud of having fitted a crapton of stuff into this tiny den.

Perhaps those days of playing tetris when I was younger weren't a waste after all. If only my stuff came in the shapes of rectangles and squares I might actually generate an additional free square metre which I could use for, well, anything! I could perhaps purchase a nice green plant or something else that's decorative enough to purge the overall feeling of being locked into a solitude cell in an insane asylum.

So what's going on? Next week two of our teachers invited us all to go drinking with them! Last time one of them got a little too drunk I think, since she fell down the stairs and all... but it's all good! This time we'll try to persuade them to have a drinking contest amongst the two of them.

So, nomimashou dayo. Mata ne!

28 beers later

2008-09-07T13:22:00.016+02:00

Hey guys!

Short post this time around. This weekend I was out with a bunch of classmates in Shinjuku. I think this is the longest party I've ever been to... we started at around 4PM in a chinese restaurant, then we went to an izakaya. Afterwards, a japanese-styled pub. Later on, another japanese drinking place. After that, we managed to get into some strange korean karaoke place. Aaaaand then we ended up in an english pub (but of course, nothing english about it besides its name). Then at 6AM(!) it was time to head for the trains.

Since most japanese drinking places have a drink-as-much-as-you-can for a very very cheap hourly set price, it is very very dangerous to be a swede here ;P Although I am pretty proud to still be standing after this night, I mean... I think most of us drank three times our body volume.

Ah, and tomorrow we have no regular schoolday. They were arranging some kind of fieldtrip to... well, some kind of place in Shibuya... or Yoyogi... don't really remember since I was fading in and out that lesson. It works out good since I don't think many of us are very excited on going back to the classroom where we have to actually use our brains.

So in total, we rampaged Tokyo for 14 hours straight. Best.Night.Ever =) Some pics;

Some of the classmates. Really, really good friends!

Lee the Chinese red dragon, me and John Lenn... err, danish friend Ejgil.

Na Young with her Absinthe shot, and Jonas being chotto yopparai =)

These drinks - all hers. White russians, pink madness and traditionally served japanese rice-wine. Drink-as-much-as-you-want places are... interesting :)

28 beers later.

Just a day in the Eastern Capital

2008-09-03T09:05:00.019+02:00

Another 'filler' entry, sorry guys =) But I thought I'd show you what we are actually doing in school every day. So here's a tour!

@6:00 AM

I wake up by the sound of my two alarm sets (Yes I am a bit sceptical). I push "Snooze" and go back to sleep.

My duo alarm-system

@7:00 AM

I wake up for real, go to the toilet and later get ready to go. The walk to the station is about 10 minutes, and sometimes I pick up breakfast on the way (Like a sandwich or an onigiri). I don't mind the walk. I love japanese styled gardens, architecture and all their abnormalities, and there are lot of them on the way to the station.

House in my neighbourhood. *Wants*

The worst part of this walk is the actual goal of my journey; getting into the trains. I always have to outwait trains because I don't want to physically force myself into the train in hopes of getting a free spot. On the second train, I'm usually first in line (because ALL the other japanese people mashed themselves into the last train). The problem now is that when I walk in first, I'll get a batallion of people mushing into me instead, which is still to prefer over the first alternative.

I always get to school an hour before it starts, or at least 10 minutes before so that I can brush up some of the homework and chat with other classmates who do the same.

@8.50 AM - 12:40 PM

School starts with the ever-so-annoying repetitive bell chime... which I bet most of you anime-tards recognize ;P For those who don't, this is what it sounds like... over ten times a day... Anyway, classes starts with the teacher doing the usual "O-hayou gozaimasu!" and the rest of the class repeating the same line in unison. Yes, it's very juvenile :D

The first things we do are usually kanji tests (homework). Kanji are chinese characters which are ubiquous in Japan, and when you combind them with other kanji they form a word or an expression. The japanese imported the kanji system some 2000 years ago because they had no alphabet of their own. Now there are over 80.000 kanji in total! Examples of kanji and their combinations:

花火 Hana-bi (Flower-Fire) = Fireworks
日本 Ni-hon (Sun-Origin) = Japan (This is where the term "Land of the Rising Sun" originates from)
学生 Gaku-sei (Learn-Life) = Student
大学 Dai-gaku (Great-Learn) = University
時計 To-kei (Time-Measure) = Clock

After the kanji-tests are done we get new kanji to memorize for the following day =) Afterwards, depending on which teacher we have, we go on to conversation. This is usually just chit-chat and the teacher asking us trivial questions like, When did you wake up? Where are you going today? and stuff like that just to break the morning mood I guess.

If it starts getting boring after a while, the hentai-tachi (Swedish guy Jonas, Chinese guy Lee & French guy Julien) starts harrassing the two most pure and innocent korean girls in the world by poking them and making sexual suggestions ;P

French guy Julien, head of the hentaitachi, in action against the innocent Nayoung.

In classes we never use romaji (our alphabet) so I've got a good grip on the japanese style of writing now. I can read the hiragana alphabet more or less fluently now, and the katakana alphabet decently, which is great! I have around 2000-3000 more characters of the kanji alphabet to learn before I can read a newspaper though (The japanese languages uses four alphabets in conjunction to eachother: Romaji, katakana, hiragana and last but absolutely not least; kanji). The tricky part about kanji pronounciation is that most kanji have multiple usages, and therefore also different pronounciations which is a real pain in the rear... Take this for example:

人= hito (Person)
外人 = Gai-jin "Outside + person" (Foreigner)
中に = Naka-ni (Inside *something*)
中国人 = Chuu-goku-jin "Middle + Country + person" (Chinese person) ("Middle kingdom" is China, remember?)

Swedish guy Simon dealing with japanese bureaucracy in class. (VISA renewal... the one thing worse than kanji studies)

When classes are over at 12:40 PM me and some classmates usually go to a random restaurant to get some food before we return home. Today I had curry, rice, fish and vegetables for 480 Yen. I am happy =] So after that, it's time to go to the trains again. It's not at all crowdy on the way back since there is no morning rush hour. I sometimes even get a seat. Someday I hope I can develop the ancient japanese art of sleeping on the train and instantly waking up at the right station. Unfortunately I don't have that kind of biological alarm-clock that japanese people have... but yeah, it's a dream of mine. It's good to have goals.

2:00 PM / 4:PM

Sometime around this hour I'm back home. Where? I'll tell you where. Someplace warm... a place where beer flows like wine.... I'm talking about a place called Asp... er, Matsudo!

Before I go home from the station I usually go to Daiei, which is a 6-7 (don't remember) -floor department store near my guesthouse and buy the bare essentials like; pasta, vegetables, sushi, pocky chocolate sticks... Or if I'm lazy and don't want to cook anything I just buy a bentou-box (Japanese lunchbox). Then I go home! Since this is the largest guesthouse in all of Japan, there are lots of people having birthdays... and since everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone's birthday, there's always going to be some party around, so every now and then we go to the local izakayas or karaoke places and chill out before going to bed. One of the many things I love about this place is that life isn't centered around weekends like I was used to back home. Although weekends do allow for longer and more interesting parties =) They always end with us getting back home around 7 in the morning. Usually we blame eachother for that. "It's Markus' fault", "No, it's Alexandra's fault", "What? It's your personal responsibility!" Personal responsibility: AFK.

But yeah, the weekdays are chill. A notable exception is when we have a fuckton of homework to do, like a few days ago we got four pages of grammar and vocabulary, with about 8 new kanji characters and their usages and combinations, as well as a speech in japanese which we would present to the whole class the following morning. Typically my luck that some french girls had their last day here, and invited us all to an izakaya. Got around 2 hours of sleep that day. Needless to say, that speech wasn't one my brightest moments... albeit interesting ^^.

Then of course there is laundry, cleaning, cooking, studying and the 'putting-my-shoes-on-the-edge-of-the-balcony-to-keep-the-smell-somewhat-fresh' kind of thing. Don't judge me, when you have full humidity and over 30 degrees each freaking day - then we can talk.

Schoes outside my window. Insidious odour, begone!

It's not laundry, it's SUPER LAUNDRY. (Japanese katakana reading: Suupa Randorii)

And that's basically it.

Requiem, yopparaimashou & bureaucracy

2008-08-30T08:03:00.000+02:00

(late entry, sorry) Friday was bittersweet. One of many great friends were going back to his home country, France, so we had a going-away party at a local Izakaya here in Matsudo. The bitter part was that he was leaving, the sweet part is the sheer awesomeness of that night. We (26 people from the guesthouse) had reserved a big section of the izakaya to be our domain for the evening. We all payed 1400 Yen each (80 SEK or 12 dollars) per 90-minutes to get unlimited amounts of beer, cocktails, drinks, soft drinks and sake at no additonal charge. Then there's the cheap, delicious japanese dishes which we of course also ordered from time to time =)

I love izakayas, we have absolutely NO equivalent place anywhere in Sweden. I just love the ambiance and 'closeness' of the eating and drinking experience. In izakayas, people at tables usually share the food, having only their own chopstix, soy sauce, etc, while sitting on cushins on the floor.

Anyway, after a while we all made short speeches about the guy leaving - Raphaël. You might remember him from a previous entry, he was the founding member of the Mr.PoPo cult and probably the only sane french guy here. Now when he's gone, I was tasked with the utmost privilage... I was to continue the legacy of Mr. Po Po! *Dun dun duuuun* (dramatic music cue) ...

After being in the izakaya the whole evening we went down to the river to continue the partying. Some people stopped by the 'kombini' stores to buy more beverage (mind you, at 2AM you can buy almost *anything* xD). Afterwards, we went back to the guesthouse to slow things down a little bit. Oh, and I met a cool korean singer there! She's been living in the guesthouse for quite some time but I never knew she was a musician! So the night ended with me, her and a japanese guy named Nobuo (another musician here) chatting about everything ranging from rave to old 'Hoven.

Raphaël will be missed by everyone, but this night was one great night alright! :) Okay, so on to the less exciting bureaucracy part...

Yesterday I dropped my phone somewhere. I really don't know where, because I noticed several hours after I got home that I was missing my cell. Anyway, I went to Softbank here in Matsudo, (Softbank being a japanese cell-operator) to explain my clumsiness to the clerks and ask them what to do now. They told me to wait, so I did. A few minutes later they handed me a telephone with an english-speaking woman on the other line, telling me that my phone was 700 metres from Abiko station, on a street called 我孫子に. First I thought they tried to call my cellphone in order to see if someone had stolen it, or better yet; found it and looking for its owner. But, instead this woman worked for the government, and they had *traced* my cellphone and pinpointed its exact location! To the swedish people complaining about the FRA-act: Fuck you ;P The swedish government will have the power of internet surveillance, sure, but the japanese government probably knows what my dog ate for breakfast three days ago, and consequently where the remains of the poo were dumped and buried.

Anyway, they gave me a new cellphone (a newer model!) since I didn't want to go chase after my phone on the other side of town =)

Nothing more to report for the time being, hm... Ah, I also have a few new nicknames here. My friends call me Christian or Chris, my teachers call me Kurisu-san or Kurisuchan-san, and some korean classmates call me Kuchan with a giggling suffix.

I'll try to update more frequently, but I never find the time to just sit down and write... if you have any requests about subjects, do tell.

Until then!

You know you're in Japan when...

2008-08-27T16:53:00.003+02:00

’’　ライトがりゅうくにりんごをあげます。’’
"Raitou ga Ryuuku ni ringo wo agemasu."
"Light gives the apple to Ryuk."

’’　りゅうくはりんごが大好きですよ。’’
"Ryuuku wa ringo ga dai suki desu yo."
"Ryuk really loves apples."

’’　りゅうくは死神です。’’
"Ryuuku wa shinigami desu."
"Ryuk is a God of Death."

Yes, one of our teachers is a serious Death Notaholic. The next entry is coming up very soon, I'm currently gathering up pictures from Raphaël's going-away party last friday.

Stay tuned!

Japan rocks!

2008-08-20T16:06:00.002+02:00

... a little too litterarly, actually. Yesterday a medium earthquake struck in north-eastern Japan, which we felt here in Tokyo as well. It's quite disturbing actually, regardless of its measure. You really come to realize how little control you have over the situation since everything around you starts shaking and moving. Seismologists worldwide claim that it takes only a 7.0 earhquake (the Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by a 9.2) to kill approximately 3 million people if it were to strike somewhere near or in Tokyo. If such an earthquake does occur (which is actually some 20-years overdue for us unlucky Tokyoites) there is simply no way that Tokyo would cope... I mean, it doesn't matter how earthquake-proof the buildings are - if the 'big one' comes, it's bye-bye. There are just too many buildings, too many subway systems and too much of... everything really.

Another blogger from Japan put it quite nicely in one of his older entries. He talked about the japanese mentality of earthquakes and stuff like that, and said that the japanese people have kind of a "buddhist" way of thinking. If it happens, it happens. Earthquakes don't target good or bad people, it kills everyone and is thus totally indiscriminating. That's why I don't really feel that safe anymore ;P It doesn't matter how many flashlights or boxes of conserved emergency food I have; if the roof comes crashing down on me it's over.

Also, you know Mt. Fuji? It's not really just a benign beautiful lump of rock and snow, it's also a quite active volcano. You can see it from my house during winter, and from any Tokyo skyscraper during the day (all year around). So yes, it's huge, since it's not really *that* near Tokyo but even I can view it (I live on the eastern side of Tokyo, while Fuji-san is on the far west from Tokyo). Anyway, Mt Fuji erupts every 300 years according to people who do this kind of stuff for a living, and.... the last eruption was, um, 298 years ago. O_____O;;,

Another thing that's kind of freaky is that some scientists believe that the entire japanese peninsula might sink into the ocean after a series of volcano eruptions following earthquakes, which then in turn would cause colossal tidal waves and tsunamis. There's a really cool japanese movie about just that; 日本沈没 (Sinking of Japan; english title) Check it out! http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJ6Cftc-E8

So, all in all, the japanese peninsula is probably the worst place on Earth to found a country. Yet here I am, sitting in my tin can =]

Japan sucks

2008-08-16T18:20:00.002+02:00

Today was supposed to be a good day. A whole bunch of people from the guesthouse were going to Shibuya for some karaoke and stuff, as well as a few korean people from my class. Here are the two main reasons why today sucked ass;

1) I lost one of my contact lenses somewhere around my room, and since they're made of like 95% water it dehydrates very quickly so even if I were to crawl around on my floor looking for the damn invisible thing, it would be in vain because when I against all odds find it; it would be destroyed already. So I spent my day with one contact lense, and here's the kicker: The eye with the contact lense absorbs light differently from my 'naked' eye, which in turn dilates my one eye more than the other. So I walked around looking like a freak with one blue eye with a small pupil and one darker blue eye with a large pupil.

2) Last time I was supposed to meet the korean girls from class, I was 30 minutes late for some reason. Tonight, I didn't want to disappoint them. Yet of course I managed to do so, but this time it really was not my fault! When we went for the station our lane was suspiciously empty. We stood and waited for the train (which has double lines going about every 5 minutes each) but we soon realized that there was something wrong. After waiting for about 15 minutes or so we found out that a FUCKING TYPHOON decided to swing by the southern Tokyo area, so it kinda wiped out some of the trainlines.

3) When we finally arrived in post-storm Shibuya it was still raining quite a lot, so naturally I lent my umbrella to the koreans who had been waiting for us for a reaaaally long time, but I couldn't explain why we were late in proper japanese. Then they stole my umbrella.

So yeah, today sucked some serious ass.

<__<

Sayounara Solitaire

2008-08-09T07:03:00.003+02:00

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.

Into the West

2008-08-06T16:43:00.010+02:00

Today I went to Tokyo Bay with a few friends from the guesthouse. I've actually never been to the southern regions of Tokyo before so I gave it a go! The trip took almost two hours (Yes, Tokyo is bigger than the average rat hole) because we had to switch trains twice, as well as take two different boats to get there. We were going to "Odaiba" which is a fully artificial island built in the early 19th century for domestic defense. It even had a sand beach and a promenáde!

Some of you may know about "Tokyo Tower" already. It's Japan's tallest building and it's also a complete rip-off off the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It's actually taller than the "real" Eiffel Tower. The thinking behind it was some sort of post-WWII "fuck you" to the rest of the western world to symbolise Japan's economic ascendance.

The Tokyo Tower is not the only structure which is inspired by the western world. When we arrived in Odaiba we instantly saw an even more recognizable thing of the west; The Statue of Liberty. Right behind it lies the Rainbow Bridge, influenced by the Golden Gate bridge in San Fransisco. So what we have here is essentially some kind of Salvador Dali painting. No thing matching the other. An eiffel tower, a golden gate bridge, a statue of liberty and... the Fuji TV station? O__o; The Fuji TV-station is one of the strangest buildings I've seen.

Just wrong

Fuji TV headquarters. Eccentric and futuristic!

Yes... we went otaku shopping in Odaiba as well. You didn't think that only Akihabara sold otaku stuff, did you?

Death Note junk, Yay!

Looks like something from a Jules Verne novel or perhaps an underwater Batman vechicle, but no... just a Tokyo boat ;P

VIDEO

Train View + Statue of Liberty

Heaven, a.k.a, Akihabara

2008-08-04T09:35:00.010+02:00

Followers of creationism will tell you that God created Earth in six days, resting on the seventh. That's not entirely true, because on the seventh day God created Akihabara.

I wasn't really planning on going to Akihabara today, but a sudden realization struck me when I was having breakfast this morning -- I don't have any nerdy useless video game/anime merchandise in my possession yet! Said and done, I went to Akihabara! For those of you unfamiliar with the name, it's a famous disctrict in Tokyo where you can get virtually ANY electronics regardless of size, colour, rarity, origin or purpose (and believe me, there are strange electronics made for bizarre purposes here... it is Japan after all). While most cities have long narrow market passages with fruit vendors, street kitchens and so forth, Akihabara has electronic markets. Those who apprently can't afford owning an own floor in this megapolis just do as the vendors do, open up on the street! The result is quite amazing.

Anyway, I went right for the main street to look up some otaku (lit. nerd) shops for me to browse. It bacame apparent right away that you don't really have to look for them, since "they" are huge colossal buildings that are basically everywhere. Apart from electronics, Akihabara is world-known for its otaku culture. This is *the* place to go when you want to be exposed to manga, anime, video games etc. This is also the main district of the famous 'maid cafés', which are cafes with japanese girls dressed as manga characters, "interracting" with the customers in various ways.

The first shop I visited was an 8-floor manga/anime/game shop. It's strange, nearly all shops I visited had exactly 8 floors. Most of them also had its hentai-floor on the 8th. The number 8 is a good number here in Japan. If I remember correctly it has to do with the chinese kanji which is supposed to be lucky. Anyway, the japanese like it. Hentai on the 8th... coincidence?

Photography is strictly forbidden in every shop it seems, so I had to us my cunning to get some pictures! Unfortunately, I was born with utter misfortune, so of course I was going to have trouble with the law...

I was thinking, "now here in the passage way between the floors there will be no one noticing me taking pictures. I might as well photograph the floor map and show my friends what they have on each floor!" aaaaand snap, a cop walks by the very fraction of the second in which I'm taking the god damn picture...

No harm no foul, I'm still here aren't I? Anyway, so I'm on the first floor. This section is exclusively Totoro. For those of you who don't know Totoro -- bless you. For those of you who do, well, don't spread the word because the world is not yet ready to be exposed to the weirdness of this anime. Totoro has been the major nuisance to me since I first arrived in Japan. The fact that everyone seems to love the show makes it even more annoying. The characters... oh God, the characters. They are so beyond creepy I can't begin to express my distaste for it. But you know the guy in the movie "Troy" who kissed the man who killed his son, just to be able to say that he has gone through the most impossible rite of passage? Well, I did a similiar thing (not kissing a guy though). I bought a mascot Totoro character! AAAARGH. It's sooooo creepy. But now I've truly climbed my Everest.

And voilá, here it is. Isn't it the most creepiest thing you've ever seen? It's a show for kids, what the hell! Even adult audiences would get traumatized for life just by glancing at it. Anyway... now this abomination is on my bed and I don't quite know what to do with it.

Okay, so leaving Totoro now. The floors 2 - 7 were divine! Again, it was forbidden to snap pictures but I managed to sneak off a few. One of these floors (I forget which) specialized in mecha toys. 'Mecha' is common tongue here for anything that's associated with huge robots with weapons. I mean, there were enough robots here to make my nephue Melvin stay awake for a month. Oh, and the first floor (apart from the creepy Totoro) had lots of Mickey Mouse stuff (which, in turn, would make my sister Krista sleepless for a week).

A typical mecha collector's item

When I had spent an hour or so at this otaku shop, I decided to try another one. Said and done -- I crossed the street and entered yet another 8-floor shop. Here they had more of a true otaku approach. Not much cuteness (read: weirdness) like the other shop, but more hardcore gaming/anime stuff. Of course they had a hentai floor too (8th). The first floor of this shop was retro-themed. I don't think I've ever seen so many NES games in my life, nor heard so many Super Mario sound effects simultaneously. The 5th floor housed stuff from... well, probably eve video game ever created. I actually ended up buying some Final Fantasy merchandise!

Here are the remaining pictures and videos that I shot on my adventure in Electric Town, enjoy!

It's the cactuar! From Final Fantasy! And it's mine!

This little fellow now serves as my mobile phone accessory! I'm truly becoming japanese...

Pictures of Jap-girls in synthesis

A less subtle sex shop in the iddle

Most buildings are anime-themed. Notice the (how can you miss it?) Code Geass poster -- they are everywhere in Akihabara!

No building matching the other, Tokyo in a nutshell.

Gundam floor. So many robots...

I can almost hear Sayam's warcry from the other side of the world

The clothed ones. I don't know if the general public wants to see the naked ones.

Metaru Gia

And of course the life-sized robots

Why so serious?

Still can't believe I bought this loathesome creature of the dark... I mean, this is not something sane people should find appealing!

VIDEOS

http://www.mediafire.com/?sekrufjdgtn

(Thanks David for uploading)

Meet Gregor Samsa

2008-08-01T07:39:00.002+02:00

Today when I got home from my shopping craze (I needed shorts!) I really wanted to take a shower. Alberto stopped and warned me seconds before walking in, that there's a huge cockroach lurking inside one of the showering booths. There are over 20 shower rooms though, so my chances of picking the ill-fated one was one in twenty. Obviously with my luck I of course picked the one which housed the brown beast. Have in mind that this is not your typical roach; This little number was more like an upgraded japanese-mecha-ultimate-fighter kind of roach - the fucker could fly too!

Since I was unable to fight such a minion of the Anti-Christ I simply changed to another shower room.

Good thing is, I haven't really seen any roaches here besides this one yet. I try to keep my room free from garbage and seldom leave any food unsupervised. What I have seen here is a cat that lives around the block who resembles Hitler, but that's a story for another time.

Night out in Shinjuku

2008-07-30T15:03:00.003+02:00

So yesterday it was time for some more karaoke-ing. This time however, it was some sort of "class gathering". Oh, and also one of our teachers tagged along! At 7PM we met at Shin-Okubo station, and we decided to go to Shinjuku. While there we wandered around like headless chickens looking for a place to go. The problem in Tokyo is quite the opposite from my hometown - In Tokyo it's hard to just "get in" a place because there is so much of everything - everywhere! Too many choices... So you'll have to be decisive or else you're just going to wander around looking around forever.

Finally we found a spacey karaoke party place which was purely awesome =) The korean girls sang exclusively korean love songs, while we european folk stuck to the rock genre (Except for some Disney duet songs, of course!). The teacher sang mostly japanese extreme rock, which was really surprising. She's a hardcore Death Note fan, so she loved bands like "Nightmare" and "X Japan" who have both composed songs for that anime. She actually reminded me of "Misa Misa" from Death Note, for those of you who are familiar with the anime, haha.

After karaokeing we went to an english pub (but of course, no british people anywhere...). The teacher got a bit tipsy and fell down the stairs, which was both unfortunate and funny. While there we met a bunch of japanese people who insisted that we'd go with them to a smaller, more secluded bar. So we did, and we ended up in a strange little place which was about the size of a normal swedish room.

Oh, and two random swedes accidentally stumbled upon the bar as well, but I really didn't want to talk to swedish people all night so I told them I was a polish student named Jurrian. Of course my plan didn't work out that well, because they started to talk and brag of how cool and superior their country was compared to my old and rusty Poland. They even tried to teach me some Swedish, but they said my accent was off... In turn, I taught them "polish".

Anyway, I met some new cool japanese friends there, and at 6:00 AM it was time to return home :)

On a side note, I was supposed to go to a maid cafe with a few french people, but apparently they had been knocking on my door several times but I was sound asleep. But hey, if a 5.8 earthquake can't wake me up then why would a few puny french men!

A message from ground control

2008-07-29T10:10:00.003+02:00

So we've finally done karaoke! It took me three weeks, which I don't really know why... but now it has been done, and my GOD was it fun!

We started by gathering up like 20 people from the guesthouse and went to a local izakaya (which is a japanese-styled bar/pub) and had some beers and some complimentary food to go with it. Once there, we talked about everything ranging from foreign policy to what people called their penises. After spending about an hour and a half there we went almost right across the street and we found a karaoke place on the fourth floor. Japanese-styled karaoke places differ somewhat to western places. For 2000Y (120kr, $19) each we got two rooms (because we all couldn't fit in one) and we could occupy them for as long as we wanted to. Meanwhile, the staff entered the rooms every so often to provide us with life's all necessities: Beer, drinks, snacks and food. The beers and drinks were of course totally free.

Since we were at that karaoke place from about 11pm to 5am, I think they didn't really make a profit out of us... I think most people had around 8-9 beers just at the karaoke place, not counting the ones from the izakaya ;P You gotta love the fact that a karaoke place were open until the morning (and I don't know if they actually closed after we went...) on a sunday!

Needless to point out, singing Queen classics after 8 beers was certainly a challenge, all be it entertaining!

I think the place had every song ever recorded, or so it seemed. Some girls insisted on spamming Disney songs, while us swedes hopelessly tried to harmonize to classic Bowie songs. It all seemed to work out very well actually, back then... but I'm not sure if I want to hear a recording afterwards.

Anyway, I *just* got a call from Eunmi-san from class when typing this. Apparently we're having some sort of class-get-together in Shin-Okubo at 7PM tonight. I better hurry and grab a shower cos my body odour resembles that of a dead weasel.

See ya!

Natsuyasumi!

2008-07-26T19:22:00.010+02:00

Hello everyone!

I haven't blogged anything this past week because of laziness and lack of time. Friday was the last day of school before the natsuyasumi (Summer vacation) which is about three weeks. I kind of feel that there's always something going on here, even though we have school. Now that school's out for the time being, I think there's going to be even more activity around here... Anyway, partying here is not expensive, so it's all good. A short recap of the weekend:

Friday

We started it off by going to a small, dark secluded japanese bar in Shibuya (friday) which had a crazy bartender who was probably more drunk than we were. The guy was like 50 years old but reminded us of a worn-out rockstar in his early 30's. He really was insane though. A japanese women fell asleep on the bar after having too much to drink, and he turns to us and asks us "You wanna fuck her?". Later on he showed us a collage of pictures, and one specifically which was a photo of his ass, and said "Don't fuck this". Strange? Well, you should've been there. That was the number one bar I've ever been to though, and we're definately going back. It was really dark and gloomy, and they had an emo-esque gothic interior which was really cool. And the fact that the bar was so secluded on a smaller, less frequented street, it makes for a great hangout den for Tokyo's social outcasts. People there bought us champagne =) Then at four o'clock we went to a fancy restaurant and got something to eat and drink. At four o'clock. In the morning...

Saturday

Another hanabi festival! This time in Asakusa, Tokyo! Of course we (me, Na Young and Su Jin) had to go! This hanabi was longer than the one in Yokohama. Fireworks blazed the sky for a good two hours, which was great. The first thing we did was to go to a temple-area to get settled down. We got some ice-slushies and just chilled. After the fireworks we went to town and sat down near a river and drank some good ol' sake. I truly love these festivals. There's probably hundreds of thousands of people gathering everywhere celebrating by eating, drinking and watching fireworks. It's such a colourful and nice ambiance, kind of hard to explain ;P As I mentioned in the previous entry, it's tradition to wear a yukata when attending these festivals, and you've got to hand it to them... japanese women in yukata have to be one of the most beautiful sights in the world! It's really unfair to the rest of the world though. Japanese women are already blessed with a superior gene pool, and they really take great measures to look good every day... add to that the most beautiful national dress - the yukata/kimono - and you have an übermensch. The fireworks were cool as well.

Sunday (Tomorrow)

Tomorrow we are celebrating yet another birthday here in Matsudo. We're heading for an izakaya and then for the main event: karaoke party! I'm too tired to write anything further... it's 2:45 and I need to put myself in hibernation to get the energy I need to withstand this summer vacation.

Here are some pictures and videos I shot in Asakusa, enjoy!

Some strange street ninjas messing around for no apparent reason

A temple garden where we watched the fireworks

Even the ones who didn't dress up in yukata look cool!

Two equally important ingredients for a succesful hanabi festival: Yukata women and beer

I can't wait to tell Raphael I saw another Popo guy!

Big fish in a small pond

A stone monolith reading, "Eternal peace and tranquility". Well, honestly I have no clue of what it says. It could read "I'll penetrate you with a pineaple" for all I know.

VIDEOS

Just some fireworks
Beautiful surroundings

Yokohama Hanabi!

2008-07-21T12:21:00.018+02:00

Yesterday was an awesome day. Me, Na Young and Su Jin from class went to Yokohama to watch the famous "hanabi" festival. Hanabi litterarly means "Flower Fire" which translates into fireworks. And boy, were there fireworks... (videos of that at the end of this blog, do not miss!) Also, this was the first day in my life where I only spoke japanese. Go me! Although I speak japanese like a late five year old who hasn't learned to talk yet...

The actual festival would start around 7:30PM but we decided to go there really early and do some sight-seeing and stuff. we began by just walking down the streets there. It actually is different to Tokyo somehow... it's hard to put a finger on it, but it certainly was different. I really liked Yokohama though, less neon-esque than my current home, but I really liked the streets and buildings. Everything was so spot clean and stylish.

Yokohama is very beautiful by the fact that it is very green. Everywhere you see green hills, parks and avenues with lots of palm trees. The cool thing is that you see these futuristic elements and high-rise skyscrapers embedded into the green-themed palette, which makes it look like almost like an utopia. The crystal clear azure sky helped, also =)

The bay area. This is the outskirts of an adjacent park.

One of many high-rise buildings. This is a hospital I think.

Our first stop was China Town. The China Town in Yokohama is one of the biggest ones in the world, and it really had a special vibe to it. The shops in China Town were very, very cool. They were typically japanese by the fact that they were very crowded and too small for their merchandise. What they lacked in size they made up for in floors though, since most shops had at least three floors - regardless of what kind of shops they were. It was certainly cool to walk four floors of panda-toys and dolls. And of course, "some" of us had a compulsive need to be photographed with a man in a panda costume.

Na Young and a panda.

A shrine in China Town

While roaming the narrow and crowded streets it was like stepping foot in another country. Like China, but cleaner and without pick-pockets probably. And while still being Japan, things were pretty expensive here. Although I think I've gotten too accustomed to the Japanese food prices, because I always try to stay away from restaurants serving dinner over 1000Yen. For 1000Yen back in Sweden, you won't get dinner anywhere... besides MacDonald's and other fast-food shacks. We finally found a really cute restaurant in China Town and got some amazingly delicious food and drinks for 800Yen (about $8, or 45-50 SEK).

After dinner we went to "Itaria Gaadensu" or "The Italian Gardens" which were located on a large hill in Yokohama. In old times, rich merchant families settled here, so it was cool to see proof of european-styled mansions amongst japanese architecture. We immortalized our visit by writing down the following on the guest-book in the mansion:

"Su Jin, Na Young and Christian were here. Sayounara. Hanabi!" The artsy illustrations were done by Na Young...

The diplomat's garden.

After the gardens we thought we'd head towards the bay area were the fireworks would start in two hours. We took a little detour to walk the beautiful shopping avenues of Yokohama. There were lots of strange people there... apparently this street is famous for its animal shops, like dressing up dogs and stuff. Creepy, I thought. Kawaiiii, my entourage thought.

Anyway, we went to the harbours to settle down. It took about 30 minutes to find a good spot, since we forgot that half the earth's population also had a keen interest in seeing the fireworks. Miraculously we found an unused square metre of space which we claimed in the name of everything that's good and pure!

When the fireworks finally started, we recognized that all the hype and talk held true. They went on for an hour and 40 minutes with continues fireworks filling up the night sky. Sometimes they fired up "smiley faces" and those mushroom fiends from Super Mario which was too awesome for words. When they fired up Naruto-symbol fireworks the nerdy women behind me screamed their lungs out. I won't post any pictures since clearly demonstrated them better, so in the end of this entry there are links to the videos I shot.

Whenever there are fireworks festivals and similiar events here in Japan, it is tradition for both men and (especially) women to dress up in Yakuta or Kimono, the national dress. Seriously, this has got to be the most beautiful dress in the entire world! When you're in a crowd of thousands of yakuta-wearing women it's hard not to ignore the actual hanabi. And also, if you think that japanese young children are cute, you haven't seen them in yakuta!

It's going to be a loooong time before I see something as impressive as the Yokohama hanabi. But apparenty, this one was the "smaller" of the hanabi events. But honestly, I don't want to imagine even more people watching fireworks... I was planning on doing a stage-dive to get through them all faster at one point.

After the fireworks had ended and the massive crowd of people were heading for the city streets, we decided to go to the Cosmo World! The Cosmo World is an amusement park in the middle of Yokohama with extremely addictive roller-coasters and other entertainment. Na Young had actually never been in a roller coaster before and was nervous like hell, so needless to say I set us up for the most extreme ride I could find there. It was fun, she screamed her lungs out! It's something special to be spun around in a sub-sonic whirlwind and see glimts of the Yokohama skyline while upside down.

I strongly recommend you to check out http://www.npointercos.jp/Yokohama.html for some really good pictures of Yokohama. Anyway, here are the rest of my pictures:

Na Young-san

Who's the idiot doing the peace-sign the wrong way?

The streets of China Town

Anachronism

I guess they were thinking; "If we can't fit it on the ground..."

The colours of an utopia

Na Young with a Swedish 50kr bill

I'm still grumpy that all the video hosts I've found screw up the quality of the film, but still, here are the videos

Hanabi "smileys"
Hanabi finale
Strange cat person
Yukata child

Birthday Party...

2008-07-18T07:05:00.008+02:00

... once again, on a school night. Yesterday (thursday) we had a birthday party for David the swiss guy. There were nearly no swedes this time, a good bunch of french people though. We were supposed to go to a local BBQ restaurant but we ended up on Mos Burger, which is like Japan's McDonalds counterpart. I think we went there simply because Raphael is in love with one of their waitresses though ;P The whole evening eventully got centered around Raphael's awesome T-shirt, the Mr. Po-Po! Kind of hard to explain, so I won't.

Anyway, we ate... then we all headed to Daiei (best store in the world) and bought some beers and smirnoffs (for the girls). We then found the most amazing thing; A one-litre beer can! For 500 Yen we got a litre of beer, in a freaking can! When there's beer in a big store in Tokyo, chances are that you'll have many sizes and flavours to choose from. For instance, the Asahi beer which we got came in the sizes of Medium, large, rediculously huge and kawaii. Pictures below... although not from the actual party, cos my camera ran out of batteries =S

Just a quick update on what's going on. Yesterday, this party. Today, me and Alexandra are going to Akihabara and probably buy matching cellphones, *and* look for Mr. Po-Po T-shirts! Tomorrow, sleep for at least 15 hours. Sunday = I'm going to a fireworks festival in Yokohama with Na Young-san and Su Jin-san! Yokohama is a city which has "grown into" Tokyo under the recent decades. If I recall correctly, the fireworks festival on sunday symbolises Japan's end as an isolationist state when american merchant ships opened Japan's international trade routes.

Raphael's love. He is planning on abducting her and going back to France and live on a vineyard.

A lot of variety in beer ranging from "Kawaii-size" to "Ridiculously huge" The big one is a 1-litre beer can

Malin, another Death Note junkie! Worthy of mentioning is also that she adores the 'cactuars' from Final Fantasy, although she won't admit it =)

Mr. Po-Po needs some of that divine beverage. Priceless facial expression!

Class in session

2008-07-14T08:20:00.013+02:00

I just thought I'd stick in an extra entry about my class, and what it is like studying here.

My class consists of mostly asian people, namely south korean. Then there are swedish, french, taiwanese, chinese and danish people. In my parallell class there are also spanish and british folk. We are about 20 in total in my class though, I think. (Guy in the upper-right picture is Jonas, a fellow swede)

Well, class starts off with a "Minasan ohayou gozaimasu" from our sensei, which translates into "Good morning everyone". From there on, it's showtime. The classes are pretty intense, so you really can't afford to miss anything. I personally have a hard time memorizing everything. However, most europeans in our class suffer the very same fate, and it's beyond me how those übermensch south koreans actually memorize everything.

I must say that japanese teachers are much more fun than their western counterparts. Since they don't speak any english, they try to get their point across by acting out hilarious body language and charades when we look like sitting question marks. I mean, just their 'teacher's notes' are fun! Just look at the examples below.

The above smiley means that you have done something that's... well, not so good. But I mean, it's almost worth doing just that just to get these different awesome anime-esque smileys! I've seen students in our class get smileys that are way worse, so I won't panic just yet.

This one speaks for itself. What western-styled teacher would *ever* make notes in your homework like this? These kind of smileys show that you've done something right, obviously!

Okay, so our teachers are cool - what about the rest of the class? Well, I've known them for just a little more than a week, but it's a cool bunch. Some of them live in the same residence as I do, so sometimes we commute together in the morning (depending on when everyone wakes up). I'm a little embarrassed of the fact that I don't remember everyone's names... I'm having a hard time memorizing some of the korean students' names since some of their name tags are in kanji.

By far the most skilled japanese speaker in the class! Umi-san has helped me countless times with my japanese. She also speaks english fluently, which is cool.

Jack is the one who I was exploring Shinjuku with (which I mentioned in a prior blog). He is the one living with TkyoSam, a semi-famous youtube v-logger.

Two south-koreans who also speak japanese really well. Lee Na Young (left) made a suggestion about meeting up at Nippori station (my train-switch from Matsudo) tomorrow, but I have no idea how we are going to find eachother in an endless ocean of japanese people. Oh, and since my korean is a bit rusty to say the least, we communicate only in japanese, which is *great* practice. Speaking japanese like that usually gets long and hard (that's what she said, huhuhu) but it's fun to be a bit lost in translation sometimes. Kawaii desu ne?

Chinese guy and french guy. French guy's name is Julian, forgot the chinese dude's name.

Today's grammar lesson. Japanese grammar is pretty simple and straight-forward for the most part - especially when compared to Swedish - but because it's so different it gets really tricky when composing sentences. Thankfully, there are not that many irregularities in japanese, so you can memorize a great portion of the language without being a native speaker. Some of it is annoying though... like, for instance, the word twenty (ni juu = two ten) is "hatachi" when speaking of age.

I'm mostly focusing on vocabulary right now though so that I can understand what the hell the teachers are trying to teach. Thank God I know hiragana and katakana... Some of the students didn't acquire them before coming to Japan, and well... the teachers write almost exclusively in hiragana. Some teachers also don't know romaji (our way of writing, the roman alphabet) very well, so it's fun to see them mess up upper and lower-case letters, or accidentally re-arrange the order of them when writing down a word. "Erebeeta (Elevator)" once became "EveLaTor" which was purely awesome.

I hope you enjoyed the brief tour of the class... kind of non-informative, but still ^_^; I'll let you guys (Swedish peeps) know when the video log is coming along!

Sayounara!

World War III and some BBQ:ing

2008-07-13T23:18:00.013+02:00

Yesterday was the hottest day in my entire life. Humid as hell, no wind... anyway, we had a BBQ near the Matsudo river!

There were well over 25 people there, mostly from our guesthouse. Besides being a food and drink party, it was also (as Alexander poetically calls it) the "Battle Royale of food". You see, when over twenty people of different nationalities are hungry and you have a grill that's roughly a third of a square metre, there's going to be bloodshed. With beers added into the picture, you get waterfights, chopsticks fights, guys jumping in the river... etc.

There were a bunch of japanese people there, but there was one who was one who is really worth mentioning; A girl named Aiko (pic below) who was studying SWEDISH. Why would anyone do that to oneself? Study a dying language that barely no one knows - even some of the swedes don't speak it very well. Kind of defeats the purpose of being an overall cool japanese person ^_^;

I deduct 50 cool points from Aiko and anyone else who dares to waste time on learning the Swedish language!

After the madness had calmed down for a bit, we all kind of just chilled in the weather(read: extremely agonizing heat). Also, Julia found some snake skin with a cigarette butt attached to it (Solid Snake?). Pictures of that and more below.

Chiizu!

Japanese guy

We found a snake scale with a cigarette butt stuck to it... Solid Snake?

The mandatory japanese piece-sign

Shinya the party planner. A bit drunk.

Poor Malin didn't seem to get much to eat at the grill... er, I mean war.

Where Americans, British, Scandinavian, European and Asian people collide.

Raphael with the beers prior to the BBQ

More liquour

Alexander looking semi-drugged to death. "Duude, wait... what?"

Roppongi Friday

2008-07-12T12:07:00.003+02:00

Aside from MacDonald's, Roppongi is probably the least japanese aspect of Japan. Anyhow, we went there to party yesterday. There were a bunch of swedes, french, spanish and japanese students from our residence tagging along. For those of you who haven't heard of Roppongi, it's a modern neon-light party district near Shibuya. It houses the rich, famous "Roppongi Hills" area with the Mori Tower as its centerpiece. The Park Hyatt is also located there.

Roppongi's nightlife is mainly geared towards foreigners and japanese women who wish to hook up with them, so it isn't exactly like the other party districts like in Shinjuku or Shibuya. The first place we went to was "Heartland" which is a bar/dance-kind-of -place right below the futuristic blue neon lights of the Mori tower. It was packed tighter than the low rims of Hell though, so we only got a few beers and waited for some japanese people who we were supposed to meet there. There were some... questionable women there. Maybe not the brightest demography, although it was pretty vibrant ^_^.

When the (more interesting) japanese women we had been waiting for came along, we headed out for a club a few floors up another building. It was called "Flower" and we weren't allowed in until some (apparently) famous japanese guy managed to sneak us inside. Said and done, and he bought us some shots and beers while inside! The club had great music and awesome people - and the best part was that we were like the only foreigners there. Also, they had more 'japanese' bar prices... so no rediculously overpriced Swedish alcohol. Flower rocked. Out Loud. They even had beer vending machines - inside the freaking club!

Oh, and clubs in Roppongi usually close around 6am, so of course we partied until closure. Got home around 7 I think... woke up again at 3pm today.

So far I've spent my day taking a 30-minute hot shower, buying a life's supply of stuff at the Daiei store for about 1000Yen ($10), and continued my chilling by watching a few episodes of The Office on my computer while eating some strange japanese cheese-doodles. I was supposed to go to a duty-free electronic store today with Alexandra and Malin, but nothing right now can disturb my lazy saturday.

Life's good.

Makudonarudo

2008-07-10T07:20:00.003+02:00

Yeah, I know it's not very japanese...

I was hungry after school today, so I went to the nearest McDonald's (15m from school...). I stood in line and waited for my turn, and when I was up, I was met with a shocking realization. It tooks some while to melt it all in, but as I walked away I realized how bizarre that encounter was: The man in the counter was actually being... happy and nice! I have never experienced this in a McDonald's before! He bowed when I gave him my mere 600 Yen for my meal, smiled and gave me my change back and bowed again asking me to come back someday and wished me a nice day.

To sum up: Extraordinary service and human warmth in a McDonald's express restaurant.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY

Sign reading: Makudonarudo
Hanbaagaa (McDonald's Hambuger)

More rumble...

2008-07-09T07:40:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was supposed to be my big study day. That changed when a japanese student who is living in the same hotel as we do, invited us all to his university. His class and some others were having a party to celebrate... well, I don't really remember what it was, but it was some sort of accomplishment they had achieved. So anyway, we gathered up a bunch of people and went there. On the way, me and Raphael (a french student) dropped by a convenience store on the to pick up some beer for the party since we were kinda late (I love how availbale everything is, regardless of the hour!). Easier said than done... you see, when japanese people like something, they usually start messing around with it until there are tonnes and heaps of different variations of that particular item. This time, it was beer. Japanese people love beer, and I stood confused for a few minutes trying to decide if I wanted a citrus or tomato(!?!) flavoured beverage.

The party was situated on the university roof, which needless to say, was pure awesomenessseses! Apparently, the japanese student's classmates knew that he was living in a dorm with gaijins (foreigners) and wanted him to bring us along. I met some really cool people there, and exchanged a few email addresses for future meetings. The swedes and danes were of particular interest to them, and they like... gathered up in a circle around each of us and asked a billion questions. They were really surprised and excited about the fact that I liked japanese film and anime, and each time you replied something in japanese (like a few words) they were all like "SUGOOI!!" (awesome).

I also met the coolest nerd ever. When the japanese law students asked me what anime I liked I listed a few favourites, and when I got to "Code Geass" some guy with way too many teeth and tucked-up pants shouted out "AAAH SUGOOI, KODO GIASU SUKI DESU!! RERUSHUU RANPERUUSHU! NI BURITANNIA!" which made my day right there.

Then I talked to some south-korean exchange students about Kim Jong Ill, then discussed Beethoven with a girl who played the flute and cello in the univerity orchestra, and later on mingled with the french people.

When we got to the drunken state, we realized that we had school 8:50 in the morning, and that we should get back to the residence. Yep, first time I've partied on a school night, but it was one of the best parties I've been to in a long while. I'm sorry for the lack of pictures, but I didn't bring my camera to the party =(

Now I have to get going to City Hall here in Matsudo and get my alien registration card! (Gaijin Kaado)

School Rumble

2008-07-07T13:05:00.003+02:00

First day of school! It started out with thunderstorms in the morning (Still hot like you wouldn't believe...) so I had to get one of those epic japanese see-through umbrellas (= one step towards japanization).

Then I rushed to the station and had to wait out two trains because I couldn't get in because it was full. Be aware that the word "full" doesn't have the same connotation in Japan. There's full, and there's japanese-full. I mean, the freaking train from Matsudo has FIFTEEN wagons with SIX doors each running every 6-minutes, and they fill them up rediculously full each time. It's beyond me...

There was this one japanese schoolgirl who litterarly threw herself into the trai... er, wall of human beings, and bounced right back to the platform. She then made a second attempt and somehow fit, probably thanks to the station officers (The people whose jobs are to mush everyone in and close the doors so that the train may leave). After I saw that, I lost my ambition to try to squeeze myself in. I waited for the next train. Same story. Nailed the third one though.

Okay, so I got to Shin-Okubo station where my school is located and went up to the sixth floor where my classroom is. It all went smoothly from here, and my classmates are pretty cool. Like half are korean and the rest are swedish, english, danish, french, spanish and chinese I think. After class, me and Jack went to Shinjuku and scouted some beautiful alleyways hidden in all the craziness. Then I accidentally bought the most delicious treat I've ever had... some sort of baked bread with chocolate and sugar-like substance. It tasted like the catholic GOD or something else equally divine and revered.

Anyway.. our monday teacher's name is (K)yoko Ono... I kid you not! She doesn't know a word of english (handles some engrish though), so the entire session was in japanese. The verdict? I've learned more in four hours than I have for the past three gymnasium years back home - and my teacher spoke a language I didn't understand! That should tell you something...

Oh, language barrier downside = She gave us a bunch of homework so I don't quite know what to do.

A stroll in the park

2008-07-06T12:12:00.015+02:00

Today was a weird day.

Back in Sweden I probably would've called it something in the lines of... unbelieavable insanity. Here in Japan though, it's just slightly over average weirdness.

Me, Alexandra and Alex decided to go to Harajuku to shoot some cosplay action. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a thing where people (usually girls, but the creepy questionable japanese men are there also, of course) dress up as their favourite manga/anime/rockband and basically just go nuts.

The day started with our walk to the station, which was more interesting than usual because we met Kenji! Kenji is the name I gave our local turtle, swimming leisurly in a river next to our residence (You can see Kenji in a video at the end of this entry). We then took a detour through Yayogi park and were met with street bands, dancing girls, kanji calligraphers and all you can think of. Luckily I got my camera, so I uploaded both videos (poor quality due to website!!!!) and photos.

Just as a quick note: One of the strangest cultural collisions happaned this evening. We were down eating some late evening ramen, and I was fed swedish "princesstårta" by a japanese girl using chopsticks. Also, there's a rumour going around the dorm that japanese people are intolerant to liquourice?

For those who are curious, I bought a Full-HD 1920x1080 video camera with 10 megapixel snapshots yesterday in Akihabara. I don't use any of the HD-functions because it would take ages to upload HD-videos. I'm planning on shooting a pretty long "guide-through-Tokyo" video in HD, so if I were to send someone an initial copy, you could distribute it locally, saving me loooots of time. (aimed towards my peeps in Svea)

Let me know!

Here are some photos and videos of today's walk. (Click to enlarge!)

PICTURES
(Scroll down for videos)

Don't ask...

Well, technically they were allies back then, so...

Another example of japanese linguistic skills

Architectual design in Tokyo, this is an Audi building in Harajuku

Some random japanese guy decided to walk by and ruin my picture

Harajuku girl shooting harajuku girls

Someone really screwed the pooch on this one

The mushroom cut is very much alive here

Harajuku women sitting on the bridge

One of many girl singers

VIDEO

Turtle in the river

Active family vs. the Nintendo family

Harajuku girls

The King ain't dead

I... lack words for this one

Bonus video for Aleh in Sweden

Think that's air you're breathing now?

2008-07-05T02:25:00.003+02:00

First of all I'd like to thank the people who are commenting on my blog, both on the comments field and on MSN and Skype. It really does give me fuel to write more =)

Anyway, I thought I'd stick in one extra entry today regarding the weather here so far. I don't really know how many degrees there are here now, but it somtimes gets so insanely hot that it gets to the point of being a real burden. It's about 9:30 am here now, and when you walk out the entrance you are met with a hot wall of humid air instead of a cool breeze which I'm used to back in Sweden. Fortunately, quite every building has AC here, which is vital...

Try to picture a subtropical climate. Add to that, about 28-30 degrees celsius. Add to that, the body heat of a few thousand people waiting for a train. It's times like this I envy the japanese people's lack of perspiration. While we swedes sweat out arses off, the japanese people stand there seemingly unaffected. It all gets better when the train arrives and we all mash under the divine breeze of the AC. Seriously though, people would die in these trains if it weren't for the AC.

It's funny, when we were walking in Harajuku yesterday... someone said "Let's get inside and get some fresh air". It took about five seconds before we realized how ironic this comment really was.

School Opening Ceremony

2008-07-04T16:45:00.003+02:00

Okay, so a few days have now passed and I still haven't really started school, but today we had a grand ceremony where everyone was introduced, both students and teachers, in a big hall. I think there were about a hundred people or more, I'm not really sure cos I was pretty much just trying to memorize my 8-second long introduction speech. It went something like this;

Minasan konnichiwa!
Watashi wa Kurisuchan desu, Sueeden karaki mashita.
Dozō yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

Later on we gathered up a swedish entourage consisting of me, Alex, Malin, Alexandra and some other guys. We went to a café and drank some Ice-tea and just talked and... chilled. Then we strolled around Harajuku and explored some of the clothing shops there, and wow - it's quite impossible to describe the variety and coolness of japanese fashion. There was a store with purely *AWESOME* clothes where I'll definately be going to update my wardrobe later on.

And again, I don't have a camera. Alex is going to Akihabara tomorrow to buy a socket converter so I'll be going with him and check out the cameras. Also, Malin and I planned to go to city hall and get one of those precious "Alien registration cards". If it's open on a saturday, we'll go there tomorrow. With that card, we gaijins can buy japanese cellular phones! (I won't get into them now, they deserve their own entry in this blog...)

Hopefully tomorrow's blog will have footage :)

Encounters with the police

2008-07-03T14:53:00.004+02:00

Okay I forgot to mention about our police encounters in my last entry! While scouting the city, it's easy to get lost - especially if you're a 20-year-old western white guy who understands like 4-5 japanese words. From my experience back home, when a police officer walks towards you, seeking eye contact and whatnot, you've probably done something wrong. In the midst of trying to decipher the enormous map of train stations in Shin-Okubo, a police officer drops by. The first vibe I get is something like, "Crap, what have we done now?" but actually, this police officer just wanted to help us getting to the right stations, buying the right tickets (Note: all ticket sales are done by a wall of... touch-screens, and of course, it's all in japanese with a few exceptions).

This has happened a few times now, and some of the officers don't know a word of english - but are really committed to helping us by doing everything they possibly can. This mentality seems to hold true to most japanese people, as well. Our teacher in school actually walked with us to the station and showed us step-by-step how to purchase and manage communer cards, and when our VISAs were rejected by a sales booth, a japanese man handled it manually for us.

So far, I've heard sirens like... once or twice during these two days. And it's strange, because Tokyo is kinda big! And the bigger a city gets, usually the crime goes up with it. The japanese police seems to have more of a helping duty rather than a beat-up-a-robber kind of deal, which is nice.

Some 70 hours later

2008-07-03T10:08:00.008+02:00

(Sorry for being silent and absent for the past day or two, there were just so much stuff going on that I simply didn't have the time to write. In this entry, I will write about what has been going on these first days in Japan, as well as the trip to get here. Also, the blog will be in English instead of Swedish, since I don't soley have swedish readers. Swedish people may still comment in Swedish =). A few english-speaking friends wanted to me write in english, but I don't what languages to write in in subsequent enties. The following entiries will NOT be of this lenght, it's just that I've mashed together a whole bunch of happenings into one entry, like a general "impression", if you will. This one will also feel more like an essay because of that fact, but the following entries will be more blog-like. So for those who actually want to read unnecessarily long posts, Enjoy!)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Swedish soil

Okay, so the long way to Japan began in Landvetter, near Gothenburg in Sweden. (For those of you who don't know the place, it's Sweden's second largest airport, roughly the size of a normal-sized Tokyo subway station.) Anyway, there I was, waving good-byes to my mother, on my way to the check-in. Before going there, the customs officers destroyed my Axe-deodorant and my tooth-paste since they were apparently lethal and/or explosive devices. What ever happened to the clock-ticking bags? Before Al Qaida and similiar terrorist organizations became creative there was always *one* threat - the ticking bag!

Purchase-a-harbour

(Non-Swedish people; Ignore the pun-title...)
I boarded the plane which was going to Copenhagen, where my connecting flight was, and I met a woman named Claire who was going to Seattle to study litterature and was aspiring to become an author - cool! Not much of a flight though, we talked about random things on the way there, and 40 minutes later we landed in Denmark, and parted.

Since I'm not really fond of airports, I went straight for gate C28 where the SAS Airbus 330 was standing ready. While in the waiting area there, I realized how the demography of the plane would look like. I think there were around 240 Japanese people, and about 15 danish/swedish/other people. While aboard the plane, my seatmate was a japanese physics teacher who was fluent in english, japanese, french and german. On the opposite side of the first aisle, there were three japanese women in their 50's playing Sudoku (which is a japanese math-puzzle, for those of you who have been sleeping under a rock...).

Sudoku is fine, but said ladies played this game for - hold your horses - 10 hours! I mean, what the hell?

The 11-hour long flight

So there I was, sitting in my tin can, far above the world. Planet Earth is indeed blue, and I had nothing to do. Airtravel is fun. I enjoy the takeoffs and the landings, but the time in between can be dull. This "in between time" was well over 10 hours, and with a seating area about the size of a dog cabinette you have to unleash your creative thinking. Unfortunately, I was way too tired and uninterested during this so I simply watched the different channels on my TV (There were touch-screen TVs installed in all seats). The more interesting parts of this flight were my conversations with the japanese man who was sitting next to me. He gave a lot of pointers towards my japanese studies, and talked a lot about Japan in general. I, in turn, talked about Sweden and all its interesting qualities (all, like ... three of them).

The aircraft staff were bilingual, so they knew both danish and japanese. Every hour or so they served green and black tea for those who wanted, which was very nice. My fellow japanese passanger always drank coffee though (Kohi suki desu!). The flight was boring mainly because of its route. I thought I was able to see India, China, Thailand and other interesting counties, but instead, the aircraft flew straight from Copenhagen, over Gotland, southern Finland and over the entire Russian Siberia - 13.000.000 km2 of ice and grass. The real eye-treat became obvious when we were approaching the Japanese isles. Suddenly, generic grasslands and waters were transformed into an extremely mountainous world, packed with cities all around them (Seriously, where there were 'room' for civilization, there were civilization) and in the far horizon, Mt. Fuji was standing tall. I can't really put it into words, but seing Fuji from an airplane window, with clouds soaring around the landscape, is a golden, golden moment. I recommend everyone to experience this. Then I landed! Then I stepped foot on Japanese soil! Then there was bureaucracy...

I've been trying to figure out why Japan has such a homogeneous population with about 98.5% ethnic japanese people. I got my answer in Narita Airport. The hight of bureaucracy! By some screwed up reason, the customs people are dying to know my personal information. Forget standard sheets of information applications, they litterarly wanted more information about me than I, myself, knew about myself. I was handed a few sheets of paper to fill out on the plane from Denmark to Japan, and I wondered, "Why don't they just hand it over when we arrive?" Well, you remember that the flight was 11 hours right? It took a great portion of that time to fill out those sheets, which I'm guessing was intentional. For example, they wanted me to list every item in my personal belongings and how much they were each worth.
Have in mind that I have packed a year's worth of stuff.

Jet lag, new beginnings and a fake taxi driver

Japan. The only country in the world which has been the victim of a nuclear strike - twice. Allied forces ripped it apart some 60 years ago, burning Tokyo to the ground, while dropping bombs which killed hundreds of thousands of people in mere fractions of a second in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A country that had undergone a complete change from an isolationist state to an international hub. USA contributed to Japan's revival by giving them leftover steel. That very steel is today Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Yamaha, Nissan, Suzuki, and Mitsubishi, to mention a few. A country with a population of... well, too many, and with a size inferior to the state of California, Japan is one of the most compact nations in the world.

And among it all, I stood! While arriving in Narita, I met with a swedish guy who I shared a taxi with to our residence. I found it strange that the taxi driver didn't understand when I introduced myself. He was like an amish farmer looking at a nuclear facility when I said my name is Kristian. The thing is though, our travelling agent had made reservations with another taxi driver (who we believed was the actual driver who was driving us!) A nice, fresh, start, eh? It didn't help that I had had no sleep on the plane, so I was pretty inattentive. Language barriers became ubiquous from the minute we landed, it seems. The drive from Narita to Tokyo was about an hour. So obviously, the fake cabbie wanted some buck for his work. When we arrived at the guesthouse, we realized that we had taken a random taxi by mistake, and that the real driver was still in the airport looking for us. The fake driver, tired of trying to interpret our english, took off. Would that ever happened in the western world? A swedish taxi driver would've given us a lawsuit for sure. Not that you can be found guilty in a swedish court of law, but still...

Sitting in the back of the wrong cab...

Our residence is in Matsudo, Chiba. Matsudo is a city in the Chiba prefecture, which in turn is a suburb to Tokyo - So in Swedish terms, Matsudo would be a farmer's den. This 'farmer's den' has a population exceeding that of Gothenburg, a centre that reminds you of movies such as Bladerunner and Star Wars with its futuristic elements, it has 24-hour stores available wherever you go, and huge 50+ store buildings here and there. We have a 30-minutes train ride to school, which is in Shinjuku.

My room is on the fourth (top) floor of this guesthouse, and is about the size of a swedish bathroom. I feel kind of bummed about the fact that my suitcase is taking up a previous square metre of the room, but meh - I got all I need. Besides, the first floor of the residence has a nice, quiet inner-yard, a shower hall, gym, sauna, dining rooms, kitchens and television/chill areas. I haven't really explored much of it, I'll write back if I see something interesting, like this sign on the door to the yard:

Exploring Tokyo

So what is the most obvious thing a foreigner should do, after a jetlagged sleeping gap of over 10 hours? Get out in the craziest city in the world of course! There were some students arriving the same day. Some french, swedish and korean people I think. So far I've gotten to know five other students, who I hang out with so far; Alexandra, Alexander (whose photos are in this blog, since I lack a camera), Jack, Marcus and some other dude. Anyway, me and another swedish dude went to the Matsudo station to check out the train path to shool so that we wouldn't have to look for it when classes started. The 30-minutes train ride was anything but boring really - I used to commute between my home town/craphole and another town back in Sweden when I worked, and needless to say, there weren't really anything to see outside. This route was the complete opposite, there were seemingly endless horizons of buildings on both sides - no building like the other (I'll get back on that later on). We found the school, which is located on the opposite street of a 24-hour open McDona..., er, I mean, Makudonarudo and a few hundred other restaurants and shops and... well, I don't really know what 99% of the buildings are since their names are all in kanji.

Afterwards we went a little further into Shinjuku, which is one of the central districts of Tokyo. I seriously don't know how to put this in words... Shinjuku is simply amazing.

With buildings like this sprawling up from the ground, it's easy to get awestruck

Anyway, we walked for about eight hours (!) and explored some other districts, and well... It really can't be expressed in words how much I've fallen in love with this metropolitan colossus of endless TV screens (ranging from entire BUILDINGS to small plasma screens INSIDE vending machines(!), thanking you for purchasing drinks with a high pitch anime-girl voice), its peculiar contrasts and extraordinarily beautiful women! In addition of housing the largest and tallest skyscrapers of Tokyo, the train station in Shinjuku is larger than Arlanda, the major airport of Sweden. Well over three and a half million people use it daily - about 40% of Sweden's population. Needless to point out, I felt like Mufasa did when he was trampled down by a horde of wildebeest in The Lion King when I stepped my foot in that station. The japanese aren't the largest people on earth, but when stacked in huge numbers they can be lethal to say the least.

I also found a great manga bookstore when trolling around with Marcus and Jack. It's not far from the school, and the collection was indeniably grand, even though the store itself wasn't even a medium-sized one. Inevitably I ended up in the hentai section. (Note: There are LOTS of j-girls reading guy-on-guy manga, lots lots lots!)

Next up on the sleepless tour of two baka gaijins were Yayogi Park, which was one of the single strangest moments in my life. Why? Well, you'll have to experience it by yourself really... It's like this: One second you are in the midst of a wall of skyscrapers surrounded by an ocean of people, and then, you walk into a park (which at a first glance, seems just like a big garden in the middle of the city). It's no garden...

The subtle entrance to paradise

It's a freaking forest in the middle of the largest metropolitan area in the world. It's not really like a forest that I'm used to. It's like walking into an old Kurosawa film with all the old wooden gates, houses and bridges. The trees are so dense that they connect with the trees on the other side, so that you have some sort of natural roof over the pathway, making it very dark and quiet. It seems entirely isolated from the craziness around it, and while you're there, all the city noise is vanished - completely gone.

On the other side waits Shibuya district. Shibuya is the ecstacy drug of Tokyo. It's a very hip, young and modern district with loads of clubs and trendy shops everywhere. And of course, the famous crosswalk!

A small townful of people crosses this scrambled walk when the light goes green. I stole this picture from google.

The decorations seen everywhere are constant, not only seasonal. I mean, we were walking there on a wednesday evening, and the craziness blew us away. I can't imagine how it's like on a major holiday. Everything that could be exaggerated, is. It's like Alexander said - The japanese people do this for one reason - because they can. The plasma screens inside vending machines, the excessively-cleaned streets, the crazy architectual ideas... it's all because they can, and can also afford it! Taking a walk in Tokyo gives proof of Japan's economic power.

After over 29 sleepless hours I went to bed, and it was good. Good good.

I'll probably head over to Akihabara with Alexander tomorrow (Friday) and buy a digital video camera, so I can show you the city in motion and create some sort of 'video blog' in addition to this one. A friend of mine, Jack, actually shares an apartment with "TkyoSam", who is kind of a famous youtube personality for his japanese video blogs.

Okay, so that is a short summary of my first glance of Tokyo. As I've said numerous times before, it's hard to appreciate the magnificent prominence of Tokyo by reading about it like this, but I promise that subsequent blogs will be more 'blog-like' when I'm out adventuring and not like a summary like this one. I apologize if this post reminded more of a textbook info-sheet about the country rather than a blog ;P

Anyway, Alex wrote on MSN that it's time to eat some delicious ramen! (Yeah, he's two floors down and we are too lazy to go up and down in order to talk) So I guess it's time to eat. School starts at 14:45 tomorrow, and I have to prepare a japanese introduction... wonder how that'll go.

(Check out Alex's blog at www.alexanderquist.com) Why didn't I purchase a domain... >__>;

Oh, and did I mention that it is hot as hell over here? Breaking sweats in a T-shirt in the middle of the night is not fun. At all. I don't think we have extreme temperatures here per se, but the humidity and subtropical climate makes it hotter than a 30 degree day in Sweden, when it's like 20 degrees here.

Over and out ---;
Sayounara :D

Five days!

2008-06-25T04:49:00.002+02:00

Japp, fem dagar kvar nu, beroende på vilken sida av min vridna dygnsrytm man ser ifrån. Jag har egentligen inte något att skriva om just nu, utan jag ville mest bara få bollen att rulla samtidigt som jag lär mig bloggandet.

Nästa inlägg kommer jag troligtvis att skriva på det extremlånga andra flyget (Köpenhamn - Narita) i ren uttråkning -- so watch out world!