Christmas in school

Shumu as gingerbread man during Lucia. On his sign it says: "No nigger-jokes please".

Contestant as a geisha. I say watch out miss universe this swedish chick is HOT!!!!

We had a christmas party in school the day before the holiday begun. There were lots of different activities arranged. For example, a kimono dress-up, many people in ugly costumes, calligcraphy competitions, people making fried noodles, some korean pancake stuff, cookies, cakes or porridge done in the swedish way (which I cooked ^^). Anyway it wasn´t really that enjoyable. The food was free though so we didn´t have to pay for lunch later. The event that was worth coming to school for was the dragshow. Guys dressing up as various kinds of ladies entering a small stage to make some short performances. It was hilarious, sadly I didn´t get many pictures though because the crowd blocked my camera aim, and I was too far away from the stage. The winner was announced judged from the noise of the applause the audience caused when the competitors names were dropped. The best one won, a energetic and witty swedish guy named shumu. He looked like a real drag queen, reminded me of Diana Ross somehow haha... The picture of the gingerbread man is Shumu, but from Lucia though.

Sayonara Canadians

Ok, unfortunately Amanda and Paula didn´t stay in Japan very long (You should have skipped a week or two in Thailand I think "ey?"). Despite that your stay was soo short, I had a greeeat time! The ninja restaurant was really special, and I´m glad a certain hostfamily paid for our fancy meals, drinks and desserts :/ The frog and the bonzai tree was truly art, but not beautiful enough not to be devoured ;) Those dishes and the ninja-waiters tricks were really something. I liked the melon penetrated by a sword which later was withdrawn and let out seeping smoke. And about the karaoke, although we only were the three of us, it was niice. Amanda was pretty tired for some reason... haha. But she was doubtless in a party mood at the same time though. I got some pictures of her nearly sleeping on the couch. That "salaryman" (as they say in japan) who we accidently bumped into after the karaoke created a pretty odd situation haha.. well he was drunk and we made him lose his boss so 5/5 stars to us. Well I had loads of fun partying and spending time with you. I hope you´re doing fine in Canada, oh and Paula if you´ve got cash and sparetime for quite a while, the trip to India, or of course the "trans siberian railroad" is still of current interest!

Purikura

Paula finally managed to persuade us to take some purikura. The large amount of glitter everywhere, the stress about selecting the best pictures in time and decorate them before the countdown runs out always hit at first when I think about purikura. BUT when it´s finished I´m basically always glad to have put up with some trouble for it. The result usually turns out hilarious or ridiculous.. and they stock great memories! :D There is one thing I definately won´t change my mind about though, I will never buy a stupid purikura-album hahaha OMG.. it´s a crime!

Paula !!!

Only two days ago, Paula a veeery good ol´friend of mine who I haven´t met in two years came to visit Japan!! She and her friend Amanda (If you read this Amanda, notice that you´re not referred to as Amy, the taunting is done ok!? :P). They flew directly from a 6 weeks vacation in Thailand where they were bathing in the sun all day long. Here it´s winter though so they had a small temperature shock I think. The fact that they for the time being only had summer clothing was kind of funny I think hehe... But no actually poor guys. Anyway it was amazing and soooo indescribably fun to actually see and chat with Paula again! We´ve only talked to each other maybe 4 times or so on the phone since we split up from the exchange. Her friend Amanda is really nice, she actually taught me how to make Indian chai, or masala chai tea. I might need it written down on paper though and I think I´ll be able to find the spices and ingredients actually, I know just the place for it! Anyhow We met in Harajuku yesterday because they were planning a shopping spree, but it was also for practical reasons since they needed.... clothes. Rie- san a funny lady from the hostfamily where Paula and Amanda are staying right now also joined, she was nice to talk to and ha a great sense of humor. During the time we all strolled around the various stores hysterically searching for cheap and interesting clothes we chatted about lots and lots of stuff. Unfortunately we only visited ladies departments, but I do look "stunning" in dresses though so it didn´t matter to me at all of course. Later on we ate some Udon, and finally finished the night at a cafe with a relaxed atmosphere. The thing is they only stay until this friday so basically every minute of this week is planned in detail. It´s such a shame that they can´t stay longer.... well it can´t be helped. Tomorrow we´ll have karaoke night together with some school friends to Paula, Nozomi, and maybe Pim if she can make it. It´ll be great fun! I´ll take school with a grain of salt this week, it´s soon winter holiday soon anyways. This week will supeeerb!

Meeting old school pals!

I`ve met my closest school friends from my exchange many times since I came, Shouhei, Ooishi and Shinya. But this time when we gathered at the place we usually meet up, two other classmates showed up! I was gladly surprised to see them again. They´re studying at university in Tokyo as well, but still live in saitama not far from where their old highschool is located. Anyway since all of us were so indecisive, finding a bar took a while. But I´ve been in Shinjuku many times by now so I came up with enough examples and ideas of good spots. We went to a cool irish bar with a nice atmospere called the dubliner. We basically chatted about funny memories from school, and mimicked teachers we used to make fun of, talked about cultural related stuff and what we´re planning to to from now. It was really nice! But since it was Sunday and I had planned not to spend large amounts of money I though it would be wise to go home. But instead of doing that I ended up eating japanese food, and then finished the evening with going to an izakaya (a japanese style bar) to have a drink. I HAVE been taking good care of my budget so far, but from looking at my daily expenses this month I wouldn´t have guessed that I´m a mere student. It´s soon christmas though so of course so.. a lot of money goes to presents and cargo costs. I´ve also been eating out a lot recently. But no problem, I´ll just eat porridge with soymilk, rise and salad mix until christmas! Wish me luck.

Indian cousine party

About a week ago Maja and Linus invited me and some other friends to a party at their apartment close to Ikebukuro. Because of the fact that they´re very skilled when it comes to cooking (especially Linus since he took cooking classes for some time) we were very eager to find out exactly how delicious their homemade indian dish would taste. This put some pressure on them of course hehe... It was really tasty I must say. although they had difficulties with the frying pan and oven caused by some electrical problems for the time being (the blame is on sakura-house!) they managed really great! It was a stew made from peas and typical indian spices, together with nan bread and rice so it definately felt very authentic I think... yum yum! They weren´t completely satisfied with the taste of the nan bread though since it was kind of difficult to attain that acquired taste. But it was really good anyway. Later on we started drink pretty much beer and mixing drinks which lead to quite intense "drunkenness". We had a great time, but it was getting late so me and Pim had to hurry back home to catch the last train. Sadly we missed the last train traveling all the way to the final station :/ The train we catched stopped a bit further than halfway to our destination so we had not much choice but to walk the rest. Anyway we still hade some liquer and beer left so we started to drink beer and midori along the way to keep the mood and body temperature up. It was hilarious, we had deep talks about our own ideal opinions about this and that, what attitude you should have towards certain things during life etc etc. Pretty much interesting or trivial thoughts that leaks out much easier being severely intoxicated haha.. that was fun... I hope no one saw us stumbling alongside the railroad.

House party

I didn´t get many good pictures from the karaoke though. But since I was kind of blurry I think it´s OK.

Last week I was together with Pim, Maja and Linus invited to a house party in Ootsuka through my room mate Hannes. Some of the people we had already met at a club and hung out with at a restaurant once so it was nice to meet them in another state of mind as well! Anyway the apartment was really nice. Tsubasa and Hiyoko (the owners) were very cool and friendly. They had recently moved in and had of course bought some furniture from IKEA ^^ haha... Anyway their friends were hilarious. Michi for example has some friends in sweden, so she had bought a swedish beginners course-book and wanted to learn useful sentences. She´s also working as an assistant connected with squaresoft company (that impressed me quite a bit since I´m a BIG Final fantasy nerd ;)). Another special character was Isao, a natural comedian who for example liked to mimic the photographer in lost in translation with different gestures and lines such as "I want mysterious" or "more intensity" Sooo good! They also had dj equipment in the apartment since Tsubasa is a skilled dj and owns a certain club chain located in dfferent parts of Tokyo. During the evening we bought a great deal of ingredients for "Nabe" a delicious japanese stew, and alcohol shared among everyone at the party. We also ate some ginger bread, swedish pickled herring, and glögg (spiced wine with a sweet taste) bought from Ikea.. Yummy! I think we were around 15 people altogether, and the amazing thing was that everyone were really open-minded and relaxed so the "keigo"(a polite way of speaking japanese) disappeared quicker than I realized. The chemistry was really good, and we chatted like pretty close friends. We finished the night with karaoke not far away from the apartment, and got ourselves even more drunk. It was a memorable night. When I went home together with Maja and Linus we stupidly walked at the wrong direction for a while we , so we had to get some help from a random person at some convenient store. After the train trip back home, I couldn´t have fallen asleep faster.

Asakusa

We also found a nice café before we entered the crowd in kaminarimon. They had tasty coffee, cinnamon toasts, macha cakes, liquer and beer since it was a bar as well. The interior was very old fashioned and they had some weird looking globe-shaped TV and a small gloomy room with big portraits in black and white. The music was calm and relaxing. When I thought about it I noticed that at some point they played instrumental temple music, which I cinsidered quite funny. Still nice though ;)

Helena and Sanna (trying to look cool)

I went to Asakusa lately with Helena and Sanna, two swedish girls from school who I´ve become good friends with lately. Swedes and koreans are basically invading ISI-language school for some reason. Approximately 70-80% of the students consists of these nationalities which means it´s like a small swedish community within our school. Good luck for rookies trying to learn japanese efficiently. Well this picture shows the pretty famous "kaminarimon" or Thundergate which it translates to. They have countless of stalls lining up and crossing each other with loads of japanese souvenirs, clothing, food, sweets, chinaware etc. Thre are both high class items and crappy stuff, as well as super tourist products of course. But all in all, the selection is great, and you can find really cool presents here, and on top of that it´s really beautiful. We mainly went to Asakusa to buy Christmas presents and for some sightseeing. The temple is pretty big, and there´s a huge jar-shaped stone thing in the middle of the temple area stuffed with incense. The smoke is meant to cure headaches and secure health in the future, so I took a deep breath hoping that the normal alcohol consumption sofar won´t destroy my health completely. After finding some flashy christmas presents and tasting some free of charge rice cookies we felt pleased.

Stunned

Last week a certain Yurie called me. At that time I thought she was still guiding around tourists in Thailand but she had apparently returned home to Japan only 4 days earlier she contacted me. Anyway, I hadn´t heard her voice in almost two years time so I was overjoyed! She´s just like I remembered her, energetic, open-minded and hilarious. I met her and the grim viking Nozomi at a bar called "Hub" (an english pub franchise) together with some friends from school, Pim and Hannes. We had soo much to talk about, and the happy hour (actually two hours), weren´t really enough. Anyway, they had a pretty big selection of drinks for 240 or 320 yen each which is unbelievably CHEAP! I can´t really complain about that. Well, I´ll be hanging around with these people a lot from now on that´s for sure.

Halloween

Garr! This was the second time I met my good old friend Nozomi since I came to Japan. Maybe you´re wondering about the reason why exactly she chose to dress up like a danish viking? She was there as an exchange student several years ago ...so we can speak a tiny bit scandinavian if we´d like, although swedes don´t really comprehend danish despite the strong similarities. The thing is that danish pretty much sounds like someone trying to talk and vomit simultaneously. Anyway she had learned some weird swedish phrases from a friend: "ska vi knulla på östersjön?" which means shall we fuck on (in?) the baltic sea?. Reeally useful in other words. The picture is from a club in Roppongi where basically everyone were transformed into ghosts, prisoners, rabbits or..vikings etc. Nozomi helped me and Hannes to get on the guestlist which was really nice! Unfortunately me and Hannes couldn´t get any discount on the entrance fee for putting on scary suits, that was only possible for girls (:)....so shallow). Oh one of the more positive spots with that place was that everyone were provided with free food as well^^ Eating drunk is the shit!

Enter

Peaceful

After a great deal of laziness and lack of disciplin I´ve finally managed to create a blog.
As an opening picture I though a gate to this quite impressive temple located in the Yoyogi park, would fit right in (a huuuge park very close to Harajuku station in Tokyo). Anyway, I figured it would be wise to use english so that I won´t exclude any funny characters I´ve come across lately, or my closest friends of course from following my everyday life in Japan. I´ve been living here for about one and a half month now together with two swedish pals: Hannes and Pim (we get along surprisingly well, a great combo I must say!). It would be a stupid idea to summarize everything we´ve been up to so far, experienced and seen etc, but roughly we´ve been clubbing from dusk til dawn quite often, eating deeelicios japanese dishes! Singing karaoke (where we can drink as much liquer as we like for hours^^) like lunatics, met interesting people and endured one month in the crappiest guesthouse I´ve ever witnessed. We basically slept in cells, and shared stinky/moldy toilets and on top of that developed a pretty close relationship to the cockroaches living in the kitchen. However, we met a lot of interesting people at that guesthouse, and right now we live in a brand new guesthouse-apartment in Tokyo with all kitchen supplies and necessaries we need, in a large and comfy room as well. There is no comparison at all. I´ve also met a few good old friends from my exchange-year more than several times now, and it´s been truly awesome. I´ve missed them a lot. Life is really wonderful here. Well from now on I´ll keep this blog updated and I hope you´ll enjoy it. Do feel free to write some comments!