Jonas's travels: Sapporo, December
Atrocious spelling ahead!
Since I use a laptop (weird keyboard layout and really small keys) with Japanese keyboard layout (even weirder than normal), many typing mistakes are made. If you feel the need to impress me with your proof reading skills, feel free to send e-mails to the address printed further down.
Studying (20051201)
Today being a Thursday, I spent most of the day trying to learn
Japanese. This did not go very well, but it was fun. First there was
the class at the department of engineering at Hokudai, then there was
the volunteer course in the house where I live. People keep giving me
candy when studying here. I don't know if it is a Japanese custom or
if I just have a charming personality. Though considering that it was
probably about as charming when I was in Sweden and never received any
candy...
The law (20051202)
Surprisingly enough, if you kill someone when riding your bike,
you may be subject to fines or imprisonment. What a surprise.
Student habits (20051202)
Japanese students work habits. Who nows if they work so hard they
pass out, or if they have the more relaxed Swedish attitude of
"university: a good place to catch up on some sleep after a hard night
of partying".
Photos (20051202)
A lot of people were speaking quite loudly in Chinese
today. Since I didn't understand what they were saying, I took a
photo. I like the "blowing nose and doing the peace sign" photo, but
they said they liked the group posing better.
Scrabble update (20051202)
Before todays game of Scrabble there was talk about revenge and
the crowning of a new champion. Although closer than previous games,
there was still no change in the title of champion.
Mochi tsuki taikai (20051203)
Today I learned how to make mochi, which is sticky rice cakes that
have almost no taste, but can be eaten with various types of food. You
basically pound rice with a large club, and then shape the gooey stuff
into cakes.
Movie production? (20051203)
On my way home I saw this outside the railway station. Big cameras and
a blue screen, but why?
More mochi (20051204)
I have lots of mochi, which I got from the mochi making
thing. But I don't have anything to eat with the mochi, or any way to
prepare them. Note to self: eating mochi ice cold from the fridge is
not tasty.
Norway (20051205)
I was watching some TV today, and for once I understood almost
all that was said. Turns out they were speaking Norwegian for 1 hour
on some TV show. Unfortunately, the whole show was about a new kind of
crab that has moved into Norwegian waters.
Bread! (20051206)
Today I ate what could pass for bread in Sweden.
Polish (20051207)
The Polish people in Sapporo are incredibly well organized. Every
week they have some sort of secret lunch, and this week I was
invited. Though my comprehension of Polish lags far behind even my
poor Japanese skills, it was still nice.
Engineering (20051207)
Today I noticed that the engineering building, which is quite
large, contains not only many restaurants and small convenience
stores, there is also a barber shop. That is sadly lacking in the
building I work in at my Swedish university.
Technical Japanese (20051208)
Today I had a lesson in technical Japanese. We don't get as much
candy as in the other Japanese courses, but we did dissect a portable
heat pack, which was nice.
Too hot (20051209)
Today when I woke up there was some snow to be seen. It melted
while I was in the shower though, so riding the bicycle to "work" was
a wet trip reminding me of Swedish autumns.
Usual Friday (20051209)
This weeks Friday consisted of me being beaten in badminton,
eating Taiwanese snacks and winning in Scrabble. This week I broke the
200 points barrier and scored 45 points for a triple word bonus
"acquit". But they tell me that next time, for sure, there will be a
new champion.
Shopping (20051210)
Today I spent some time doing the Japanese number one spare time
activity: shopping. These trousers were funny and cheap (and the colors
on the back side are even worse). Since my masculinity had been put to
the question with regards to the fox strap I have for my phone, I also
bought a small switch blade for my phone (actually a key ring, but
close enough). Very manly, and cheaper than the fox.
Other clothing (20051210)
On account of it finally being weather that made me feel like
home, I went out tonight. Other people were wearing very cool things that made
me think the previously mentioned trousers will not be considered very
weird... And it turns out that evidently it is considered strange to
ride a bicycle in a short sleeved shirt at 5.30 in the morning. Which
also may have had something to do with the fact that a snow storm had
started by then.
Early mornings (20051211)
This being a Sunday, I was scheduled for some badminton early in
the morning. Some additional planning might be needed in the future to
avoid the "coming home filled with tobacco smoke and basically going
straight to badminton" syndrome.
Sales people (20051211)
People often ask me what my arbaito (part time job) is, do I
maybe teach English? Being somewhat on the lazy side, and being from
Sweden which is even more expensive than Japan so I consider this
place quite cheap, I neither have nor want a job. However, the very
cool Christmas uniforms may get me to reconsider.
Treasure find (20051211)
I was trying out my 300 yen leather jacket, since the weather is
a bit wintry and I have a long way to go on bicycle each day. I found
a 100 yen coin in one of the pockets, so the jacket was not an
expensive 300 yen jacket but in fact a quite cheap 200 yen
jacket.
Japanese clothes (20051212)
The way people dress here is sometimes surprising, for instance
marijuana gloves or miniskirt in the snowy winter weather.
Party (20051213)
On one (of quite a few) traditional "drink yourself unconscious"
holidays in Sweden, there was a quite unrelated party here
too. In traditional Japanese style it consisted of large amounts of
food for very little money, and the for a Swede unbelievable two hour
free drinking for almost no money at all. This was followed by two
more hours of free drinking at another place, but I fell into my
habitual way of going home and sit in front of my computer
instead.
Good luck (20051215)
Today I received a Chinese good luck knot from a very kind class
mate. Good luck could come in useful, for instance when riding my
bicycle on the slippery streets.
Batman (20051216)
I would like to visit Batman.
Christmas gift (20051216)
Bought a nice Christmas present for a friend in the cold Sweden
today. Japanese style clothing.
Tension (20051216)
Tonight the traditional Scrabble game was unusually close, with
me lagging behind most of the evening. I claim the initial draw of
crappy letters was partly to blame. In the end I got a lucky twin
double word combination with a double letter "k" which pushed me to
the top and there was still no change of champion.
Weather (20051217)
Today it was snowing. This makes going by bicycle more of a physical
exercise than usual. I don't know if I should be glad for this or
not. Some people here in the building keep mentioning that if you (as
I do) always eat at restaurants, you will more or less swell up like a
blimp, which is not good. But I'm sure they mean it in a kind
way...
International dance party (20051217)
Today there was an international dance party in my building. It
consisted of free food and drinks, impressive shows of different
dances and a chance to try out some dances. Once again I passed the
Bon Odori test of not knocking anyone else unconscious, and once again
I was mostly doing something else when the rest of the room was
dancing salsa. To quote one of the kind people from my building: "Has
Jonas started on some new dance already? That isn't even close to what
we're supposed to do, right?". Some people here are almost as cold
hearted as my friends back home. There were a lot of people that I had
met before at various unrelated events here. So now, more or less
everyone I know around here know I suck at dancing. Everyone also had
their picture taking with the smallest and cutest of the dancers, and
so did I. Despite there not being a single Swedish flag to be seen, I
ended up in the "sorting and other boring things" of flags group.
Japanese night life (20051217)
Tonight I met an Australian musician who does work for the
Swedish technical flag ship Ericsson, ate chicken buritos, wore some
weird head gear (mandatory, they told me) and did other (in Japan)
normal things. I also got delayed by about 90 minutes on my way home,
by trying to help a guy home who didn't want to go home, didn't
remember his own address (nor did anyone else know it), and couldn't
walk by himself. This involved fending of drunk Canadians who wanted
to take him drinking even more (though plainly he had had enough),
being nearly strangled (by this quite strong and heavy guy),
requesting and getting help from some very kind Japanese passerbys,
borrowing a sled and finding the mobile phone with a home number. It
also involved slipping on ice and falling several times, balancing
three times your normal weight is harder than walking by
yourself. Although I had canceled the early badminton game, I still
got very little sleep, since the reason it was canceled was an early
party. Coming home at 6 doesn't suit me, I guess. Luckily, tomorrow is
a work day, so I can get some rest.
Technical Japanese party (20051218)
Today there was a party with Nepalese songs, Japanese songs,
enormous amounts of food and origami. I made a crane and a cube. We
also learned that it is important to get similar sounding vowels
correct in Japanese, least you present yourself as a 娼婦 (shoufu, prostitute) instead of
a 主婦 (shufu, housewife).
Fan mail? (20051219)
Today I found an envelope in my mailbox. It contained no
information as to who it was from, but it contained three nice photos.
A general theme in content can be discerned by careful study... Well, at
least I seem to have won the "most colorful pants" competition at the
dance party. If I received unsigned mail with photos of myself back
home in Sweden I might believe I had my first stalker (just in time for
my imminent TV debut too!). Unfortunately, since I was very much present
when these photos were taken, I think I know who they are from, so I
will still have to wait a little bit more for my first psychotic
fan. Actually, I might already have plenty of stalker mail back in my mailbox
in Stockholm, I guess.
Health food (20051220)
Today I took a picture of an acquaintance's lunch. Shows you that
the available food in the student restaurant is quite varied.
Picture party (20051221)
Today I was seduced by the lure of free food and tea and went to
the last counseling meeting of the year. It was quite nice, we were
drawing pictures of the past year and the year to come and then
telling the other ten or so people what in the world the pictures were
supposed to show. Well, at least thats what my limited drawing ability
made me do. Many other people drew quite well.
Christmas package (20051222)
Today I received two enormous packages full of for instance
several kilos of chocolate. This is nice, since I have given most of
the previous food shipment from Sweden away by now.
More midnight madness, or at least Scrabble (20051222)
Whilst reading the excellent description of what eating
natto is like (and other interesting food stories), I got a phone
call. The title of Scrabble champion was at stake. The outcome lead to
a total lack of surprise for many of the involved. There were also
interesting reactions to Swedish candy and other things.
Emperors birthday (20051223)
Today is a national holiday, the Emperors birthday. I celebrated
by playing badminton, being beaten in table tennis and shopping. I've
been informed that the Christmas party the day after tomorrow is a
dress up event. Seeing as how my cold hearted "friends" called me a Don
Johnson wannabe last time I put on a jacket, I decided to get a
shirt. Getting a shirt matching the weird trousers turned out to be
somewhat problematic though. But I bought a nice scarf. Today I
noticed that not only Japanese women wear short clothes with regards
to the legs, it is evidently ok for men too. Though apparently not at
our party, they tell me...
Phone functions (20051223)
I think I may have found most functions in my phone so far. This
far I have: a phone; e-mail; 2 megapixel camera with optical zoom (can
of course also shoot movies); twistable upper half, if you want to
take pictures of yourself; voice recorder; e-book reader; Internet
capability, web surfing etc.; built in TV and radio (can record and do
frame capture); watch (with alarms, timer, stop watch etc.); calendar;
barcode scanner; text scanner; compass (3D); some sort of IR
capability; music player; calculator; shake counter; a pen light; note
pad tool; games; slot for memory cards. Well, this is all I've found
so far, I think.
English (20051223)
I thought it might be time for some more creative English. Very
economy.
Lucky (20051223)
Today I and a friend went to a nearby newly opened Little Spoon
restaurant. When leaving everyone got to draw a bead from a
contraption. I got a green bead and my friend a white. White meant he
got a spicy rice cracker (also on sale for 50 yen). Green meant I got
a lunch box. This may not be the best thing that has happened to me so
far (considering I have basically no use for a lunch box when I always
go to restaurants), but I guess I can always give it as a Christmas
present to my brother or something.
Fish? (20051223)
Having now seen some of the cooking that is going on in this building I stand fast in my decision to always frequent restaurants.
Meat (20051224)
Today I found out that it is quite easy to get interesting meat
here. We eat moose-like animals in Sweden too, and sometimes you can
get bear, but I have never seen walrus meat on sale at home.
Christmas (20051224)
Today was Christmas eve, which started with a few hours of not
finding a bug in my computer program, followed by four hours of
Japanese lessons. After this I ended up in a very nice restaurant,
with an excellent view, good (and of course cheap, since this is
Japan) food and with excellent company from the same Japanese
course. And then I ran in to a Korean friend from the same
course. Some somewhat cold slipping in the snow covered park
followed.
Signs (20051224)
Why someone bothered to put a warning cone on this thing, I don't
know.
Presents (20051224)
A Christmas present from Sweden.
Kitchen party
Upon coming back I found a kitchen party. It consisted of staging
photos for someones new camera, eating Swedish cookies, banging your
head against a wall after eating Swedish "strange tasting" candy,
dancing to Maria Carey songs, listening to violin music and looking at
photos (for instance of people with cat style make up).
Christmas dinner (20051225)
Today I woke up too early, fixed a bug in one of my computer
programs and played badminton, all before I found my camera. Then it was time for dinner. There was nice
piano playing, food (such as the cheese fondue that is being eaten
with a spoon in one picture), company and view.
Strange clothing (20051225)
To my great delight I found out that I was not the only one
wearing clothes that made other people say "what in the world is wrong
with you" (well that was at least the meaning, I believe, my Japanese
is still sadly lacking in strength). There was a nice heavy snow
fall to cool you down after having been indoors in the surprisingly
hot Japanese buildings. Before coming here people told me it would be
freezing cold inside, so far I have only found one such place.
The killing of Swedish songs (20051225)
Many Japanese like
karaoke, so we ended up in a karaoke room with some acquaintances. The
two first pictures show the most entertaining performer of the night
and the best singer of the night (about two seconds before the
entertainer, in the background, assaults her with some more snow,
which was more or less needed for the photo, since too much snow had
been removed already before the camera was procured from the
protective depths of clothing it was nestled in). Since I can't sing
without causing more or less bodily harm to other people, this is not
one of my greatest hobbies. It doesn't help that everyone (except two
people I know in Sweden) I know sings very well. An interesting trend
emerged tonight: after I "sang" a Swedish song, some people said,
"well, I have to leave now, there is a TV program I would rather
see". After my second appearance, everyone went home... To make
the trend more apparent, one can consider these quotes from people
leaving early: "Well, Tabuchi san, this was nice, let's do this
again. Maybe at New Years". "Well, Jonas, let's do something else next
(unspecified, though to be fair, I will be in the Kanto area instead
for New Years) time". Hmm... Maybe next (if there ever is one) time I
should follow my instincts and do what some of the other (though only
guys) did, shut up the whole evening. At least karaoke places provide
magazines of varying quality (though none in a language I can read)
and live fishes to watch.
Work (20051226)
Despite December 26 being a public holiday in Sweden, I spent the
day at the university. This was the day I had promised to come and
pose in my Japanese pants so a colleague could take pictures of what
normal Swedes look like. With impeccable timing, this day also later
turned into the day of the personal meeting discussing important
matters with my professor. As icing on the cake, riding a bicycle in
these pants turned out to be quite chilly today. Though of course some
people are always trying to be worse, like the guys setting up a tent
in agricultural departments experimental field in the middle of the
snow storm today.
Celebrity (20051227)
The first step to fulfilling my dream of not having to do any
real work (though it has been said that that would not be much
different from the current situation) and instead living on fame
alone, has now been taken (I am not adverse to marrying money either,
so if you are rich and interested in a lazy husband, let me
know. Being a woman, and beautiful, a big plus in ranking of
applicants). I received a bunch of copies of the newspaper I was
interviewed by. So soon the fan mail (don't forget to include cash,
right!) will start pouring in, I guess.
Chinese recommendations (20051228)
Today I went to a restaurant that a friend had recommended. A
friend of this friend plays music there. The food is also good, though
the price is high for Japan (though still not expensive compared to
back home). The problem is getting there, since there was a snow storm
today. This means that there was about half a meter of snow on the
road, since nobody seems to be interested in removing it. Going there
by bicycle was maybe not my smartest decision yet, though it was
certainly good exercise.
Bored (20051228)
Today I was bored, so I went and took a "before" and "after" picture
in a Japanese hair salon (which interestingly enough is pronounced
almost the same way as hospital). Then I bought a pair of shoes for
very little money. This was caused by my previous shoes more or less
disintegrating during todays bicycle ride in the snow storm.
Evening activities (20051228)
This evening being a Wednesday, I played some badminton. The game
was interrupted by huge amounts of free sushi, which was very nice
(despite me eating some natto sushi more or less by mistake). The
badminton game then continued with four more players, which was fun,
but painful. The plans for going to the most dangerous part of town
(at least as far as I've heard) were canceled in favor of a Scrabble
game. It turned out to be very tense, with a 6 point only win for team
Sweden. Actually, Japan would have won if Taiwan had played as they
should, everyone agrees, haha.
"Bread" (20051229)
Noticing a sad lack of breadlike photos lately, I promptly went
and bought some lunch of the almost bread category. While the
croquette filled sandwich was something of a surprise, the taste was
pretty normal. The tuna filled sweet cake was more of the "exotic"
kind.
Service (20051229)
I spend my days either trying to ride my bicycle, which is like
going to the gym (i.e. not something I enjoy), or walking, which is a
bit like ice skating in my shoes (i.e. quite fun). Why don't I get
this kind of service? (OK, so this sled might be a little small for
me, but still...)
Snowball fight (20051229)
Today at one o'clock (the scheduled time) three guys gathered for
a snowball fight. On account of the rest of the participants being
girls, the fight was delayed about twenty minutes. Todays learning
experience: hiding in a phone booth doesn't help. There was also some
posing for photos before the fight, after the fight and whilst trying
to brush of snow from clothing. When searching for clothes not filled
with snow in my room I met a pigeon, which is always nice.
King of cooking (20051230)
Today I went to Chiba to spend New Years with a family I know. I
learned how to make gyoza, the left half is made by me. This brings up
the interesting point that by continuously eating at restaurants
(since it is so cheap in Japan), I have lost a lot of weight. The
natural conclusion seems to be that I am an expert cook, resulting in
too tasty food and weight gain when I am cooking at home in
Sweden.
Too hot, as usual (20051230)
The weather in Chiba is too hot, it does not seem like winter to
me.
Japanese culture (20051231)
Today I learned more about Japanese things unavailable in
Sweden. Such as fixing paper walls and going to temples on New Years
Eve.
Complaints should likely be sent to Jonas. If you would like to have a high resolution copy of one of these images (or some other you suspect I have), please feel free to let me know.