From Tokyo to Kyoto [Preparing]

Ok, I know, I know, I wrote earlier that I should update the blog later that day but, as usual, I'm bad at it, blame it all on Maria. ^^ Anyway, our spring break started last Saturday and will continue for three more weeks, during this break we will try to show out guest Maria, from Sweden, what Tokyo is all about. Maria, Hanna, Camilla and I will be going to Kyoto for a few days (in about six hours actually) so neither Hanna or I will update this blog for some time now, but a good thing is that we will write much about Kyoto in our next post. Take care!

Maria the seconds before her first experience of ramen (great noodle soup).
From left: Maria, Hanna, Camilla. In the background: Henrik, Helge & Rickard drinking ramen (in Japan you don't eat soup, you drink it).

RGB Table

Just testing to add a "youtube video" of a movie I recorded first weekend of March when Shona and I went to a photo museum in Ebisu, Tokyo. Instead of photos we had the chance to see all the winners and nominees of some sort of Japanese Oscar's awards about eletronic stuff and animation (or something like that). Found this RGB table that consisted of small white lamps changing its color depending on what was laying on the table; for example, a blue paper makes the table blue and so on.

Will update this blog later today but at the moment Hanna and I are so filled up with happiness and joy thanks to our friend Maria who just arrived to Tokyo.

Some restaurants and two cafés

So, a new update that will cover the last days and earlier events that Hanna already has written about. Things are going just fine here, the school has change it pace from fast to really fast, guess it all has to do with the kanji signs we learn every day; at the moment we’ve learned over 100 kanjis, may I say that I’m impressed! ^^


Forgot to tell you guys that I bought my first digital camera in the end of last January, over one night I got from heaven to … well, another cloud in heaven. I’ve become a paparazzi, or guess I should say that I’ve become a Japanese, photographing everything and nothing, taking movies of people playing with drum sticks in arcade halls, people singing karaoke (what else), the overcrowded subway trains etc, etc. I managed to fell in the stairs two weeks after I bought the camera and of course it hit the floor with a bang, that usually means that something in the camera gets broken and this was one of those times as well. Went back to the store a few days later and was told that, actually Hanna was told … hm, let’s take this from the beginning. We tried to make a story that we were stupid tourists that didn’t understand why the camera was broken, Hanna had the big part as “the girl who speak English” while Camilla and I played the small parts “dumb tourists that don’t know either English nor Japanese”. One thing is for sure, we will never get an actor award for this ‘Broken Camera’ play, the girl behind the disk figured out immediately that I had dropped it on the floor; from playing tourists we went back to real life again feeling so stupid. Anyway, the camera is back on track.

070222 – From hangover to Hanna’s birthday
Since Hanna had a fun night with her friends Beer, Sake and Bailey’s (those are dangerous ^^) she choose to take some rest; instead of having a rest Camilla and I went to “our café”, Excelsior Caffé, in Ikebukuro to test their new soya latte. I ordered my latte first and when I received it I saw that a guy in the staff had made a really nice leaf picture on the top of the latte. “Wow, impressive. They really put some effort in making that leaf picture here in Tokyo”. The second after Camilla shouted: “Hey, Patrik, you just have to watch this!!!”; I looked at her latte and saw the most incredible thing I’ve seen when it comes to … ehrm, lattes.



Apart from soya latte they have wonderful drinks such as white chocolate mocca (yepp, it is as good as it sounds) and cold cocoa. Yummie, yummie, yummie!



Later that day we celebrated Hanna at a great restaurant that we’ve already told you about and I just had to take a shot of the restaurant that was next to our restaurant we were visiting. ‘Sweden’ … guess what they serves at that restaurant? … You’ll only have one guess … Of course, ‘ice cream’ is the answer; I missed the polar bears though. ^^ Also, a great picture of beautiful Hanna on her birthday.



070223-24 – From white restaurant to green tea café
While Hanna went to a great fashion party after school Camilla and I went back to Matsudo to visit a restaurant we see each day on our walk from/to Matsudo station, it’s a really tiny restaurant all covered in snow white and brown colors. It looked as one of those luxury restaurants you know that you’ll never visit but this one is an exception, the food is really cheap here. Like Wasami in Shibuya (where we went and celebrated Hanna) you order small portions of food and share the dishes with someone else, in this case with Camilla. Camilla ordered a well-tasting gratin including pasta, tomatoes, some sort of meat (don’t remember which one) plus some more tasty ingredients. I asked the waiter for a dish including chicken and got a chicken rolled in with aluminium foil that was on fire while they served it to me. Fun with new experience … how the hell am I going to fix this, burning food?!? The chef put the fire out for me and then I was able to enjoy the chicken like normal people.


The day after I went to Shibuya and met Shun. We moved on from Shibuya to Harajuku and got to a great green tea café serving nothing more than just green tea; everything had something with green tea in it, green tea latte, green tea candy, green tea ice cream, green tea bla, bla, bla, bla, bla. Unfortunately the glass veranda were just for smokers but I just had to take a shot to show you.


070228 – From a busy school day to a Skype session with Grande Mama Hanna uploaded a picture of me doing some errands at the post office; it was me sending a present to my mother for her birthday that is today. I slept a few hours last night so today school wasn’t as fun as it used to be, however I kept awake while some in the class had some hard times trying to stay awake.


When I got home I called my mother a.k.a. Grande Mama a.k.a. Lena and we talked for just a few minutes; so glad that we all have the opportunity to mail or skype or call whoever we want. Sweden feels closer to Japan than it actually is and I haven’t figured it out yet that Hanna and I are actually on the other side of the planet, Sweden feels like it is one city from Tokyo. Oh well, better go to bed instead of writing crap, take care everyone!

PS1. Hm, feels like the theme for this post is “restaurants and cafés”, sorry for that. ^^

PS2. Ending this post with this picture that I took an early morning some weeks ago, hoping that it will send some warmer degrees to all you people living in cold Sweden.

Latest week

Konnichiwa!! This has happened the past week:

Wednesday morning: The Oba-sisters invited us together with Jürgen and his friend Mario to visit the famous fishmarket in Tsukiji. We met them there at 8 am and soo tired! Unfortunatly the fishmarket was closed. This particulary day... But we had a very nice sushi breakfast anyway. Very wierd to eat sushi at 9 am, but delicious anyway! Totemo oishii desu!



Below Wednesday morning still: Patrik is doing some mysterious buisness at the Yubinkioku, the Post Office... What can he be up to?? I was very proud of him. He managed all by himself. He didn't say ONE word in english, but ALL in japanese!


Thursday morning... Hannas birthday February 22nd. After a drunken night, with a middle life light crisis, I woke up very very hungover... and found at the reception, a birthday present! Very heavy schoolday, with the aftereffects of alcohol, but enjoyable because Thursdays is Osaki-sensei day!! We LOOOOVE her!!! Later: Birthday party at Za- Watami in Shibuya with André, Andrew, Max, Magnus, Patrik, Camilla, Rickard, Henrik and Tobias.




Friday February 23rd: Fashionparty in Kodemmacho. Maybe some new collegues? Hiro-san from Gant Japan invited me. Next month he is taking me out with the same people to sing karaoke in Japanese!!

Update

Sorry, sorry, sorry!! We've had SO much too do. Everyday we are learning 6 new kanji's and each day we have a new test. It is like our heads have become harddiscs and it is starting to get very full.... we need external memorysticks!! Loads of them. Check out the picture from class.


Update: The last two weekends has been about Biljard. Oh my God!! Patrik is so good! Check out some pictures.





We have a new routine. Because of all the kanji's, we need some special studytime - we are in LOVE with Ikebukuro. Every morning from 9.30 you can find us either at Starbucks or Excellsior Café.





Last weekend, Patrik and I were invited to my friend Rira's house. We had a VERY nice Saturday and Sunday with her sisters, her mother and brother in law and especially with their THREE dogs, one was actually a robotdog called Aibo. The food was the best we've had since coming here!









That's all for now. Oh yeah, we are looking for a huge flat or a house!! From April we are definately moving from this guesthouse/hospital/schooltrip house...

HELP!!!

Party in Roppongi

070127-From Roppongi with love
Last saturday we were invited by our new friends Rie and Yukari to go clubbing in Roppongi. It turned out to be the most expensive night so far in Tokyo, but it was fun!!

The girls took us (Hanna, Patrik, Rickard, Joakim and Magnus) to a trendy Nabe place. Nabe is food that is given for you in a basket to cook on the table. This was incredibly delicious and also we can't stop drinking the Cassis/Orange cocktails we come across everywhere. This restaurant had one that was so good that I had to have another, and another... and another... Oh dear...






Patrik and I have been craving for a dance-floor with trance music and we found one! The club was called Vanilla, and the dancefloor was a very interesting experience. Everytime the music was builing up, the japanese clubbers started to sing!! Everyone seemed to know the same tune and at first we thought it was a popular song, but after a few more songs we realized it was like a "trance-mantra" the sang together... We paid 2000 yen entrance and we got two drinks included. This Vanilla Club also had VERY nice drinks! We found another soft dancefloor (without "Mantra-trancing Japanese Clubbers). It felt SO good to finally dance!!

The place quickly turned very crowded, so we decided to leave. The problem in Tokyo is that you have to spend an entire night out, since the trains are not running night time. Last train is at midnight and the next one is the morning train at 6 am. We spent the night in a karaoke room.

070126 – From empty spaces to a full pub

I don’t know where to begin or where to end, we’ve been in Tokyo for three weeks now and it feels like we’re discovering new things every day. Hanna and I are doing great in school, well … sort of. ^_^ The teachers are some of the best I’ve ever had, if teachers in Sweden behaved like they do here, all pupils in Sweden would get good marks. I’ll just tell you about last Friday and write more about the weekend later on this week.

Even though we’ve been here for such a short time we already have routines. Usually Hanna, Camilla and I start the day with a walk next to the big river in Matsudo. Hanna has a cold so this Friday morning Camilla and I went by ourselves. After that we got to school and the day seemed to be an ordinary day … well, what I was thinking wrong. After school we splitted up. Hanna went with Magnus and Joakim to Shibuya to get an iPod while Camilla and I went to Akihabara to buy two digital cameras (Camilla was looking for a webcam and I was looking for a digital camera). It ended with that neither of us bought a camera. Instead, we went home to Matsudo, ate some great food at a local restaurant called Arashi. I don’t know the name of the dishes we ate but what you get is a really hot plate (no hands, no hands!) with a lot of rice, some pork, garlic, a raw egg, some butter and … a lot of other ingredients. Then it is up to you to decide whether you want to eat it the way it is or using the spoons you get and mash it all around and then eat it. Delicious dinner for just around 500 yen/30 sek/3.5 euros/4 dollars. After that Camilla and I went to the food store and bought some ice cream and candy to cheer us up just because we didn’t found any cameras and to make Hanna’s throat better. Hanna hadn’t got home so we went to Camilla’s room and after eating the ice cream and some candy I went up to my room to skype some friends.

At the same time as I thought it felt good to be lonely in an empty space, it felt bad to be lonely. Some minutes later Camilla sent a message on MSN asking if we were to grab a beer at a local pub with Henrik and Rickard … of course we did. We went to a pub we’re passing twice every day; the name of it is “Pub House”. The look of the people’s faces when we got in is impossible to describe. This night there were two women working and they were shouting something when we got in, I can’t remember what they shouted though. The local was about 15-20 square meters big and it included a small bar, at the bar there were six chairs, unfortunately they were occupied by the regular customers so the four of us sat down on some sofas. We didn’t knew it then but when you choose to sit on a sofa in a pub (well, we didn’t have any other choice) you have to pay sort of a servant amount. That means that they treat you like a king or queen, you’re not aloud to pour up beer/sake/whatever to either yourself or others, if the staff discover it they stop doing whatever they do and run to your table to pour up some more liquid into your glasses. Speaking of drinking habits in Japan you shouldn’t pour liquid in your own glass; instead you have to keep watching your friend’s glass so it never gets empty. In other words, if you want to get drunk, keep on drinking, if you don’t want to get drunk, just sip.

So, let’s get back to the pub. We ordered a beer, thinking that we would get one beer each; instead the staff served us four ice-cold glasses and then poured the beer into the glasses. So, one beer shared by four people definitely led to that we ordered in five more beers during the evening and every time we ordered one more the staff got more and more exited saying “OOOOOooohhhhh!” every time. The customers and the staff wanted us to sing karaoke (what else?!) so we did and not just one song but pretty many songs. The evening ended up with a lot of karaoke, shocho (which seems to be sake) and laughing. Life in Japan is … great!

Small japanese Dictionary -just for fun!

Remember that you pronounce R as L... Have fun!

no-to = notebook

ka-do = card

terehon ka-do = telephone card

baru pen = ball pen

shapo penishiru = sharp pencil

kasetto tapu = casette tape

tepurekoda = tape recorder

terebi = television

komputa = computer

chokorato = chocolate

kohi = coffee

ro-bi = lobby

toire = toilet

erebeta = elevator

esukarata = escalator

neckutai = necktie

depato = department

shi-di = CD

takushi = taxi

doa = door

rondon = london

gorufu = golf

Isn't it cute?? As you can see the japanese language is easy peasy!! The only problem is that we have to write it as below... But it's fun!

タクシ　ゴルフ　ロンドン　シヂ　デパト　タプレコダ　エスカラタ　テレホン　カド

Karaoke in Shibuya

070120- From Matsudo to Shibuya

Yesterday we found ourself once more in Shibuya. It is an electric feeling to be standing in the middle of hundered thousands neon lights. Almost epilectic, but impressiv.





We started out in "Cheese Cake Café", with a very nice view over the famous crossing in Shibuya. We had sandwiches, coffee, cheesecake and some sort of coffee pudding for only 60 kronor. Then we went shopping!! Muji is incredible cheap here. We recommened all our friends to never shop at Muji in Sweden again! A Muji pen is 5 kronor here, a sketchpad only 5 kronor, a very nice t-shirt 50 kronor and the famous CD-player that looks like a lamp (sorry Nicke...) It is only 600 kronor here...

At 4 pm we met Rira by the famous dog statue in Shibuya. (It is actually a very cute story; A man died, but his dog kept coming back to met him at Shibuya station for ten years.) Rira was happy as usual and we went to the same place as last time. They did have some VERY nice food there! We had A LOT to drink! Mandarin and Cassis cocktail, Apple and Peach cocktail with fresh kiwi, Hazelnut Coffee Drink with milk... After that we just HAD to sing karaoke once more!! We ended up in a small place in Shibuya on the 5th floor. Patrik discovered that he was a fabulous Barry White!!





New week in school. Patrik and I are in the same class!! Everything is great, though we REALLY need to study more... We are starting some routines; every morning at 8.15 we take an hour long walk in Matsudo, havregrynsgröt for breakfast and at 11.30, off to school. We always eat an Onigiri for lunch. Japanese life is very easygoing ;)

See ya!