Bureaucracy

In Japan, you practically need to write your address and phone number on three papers and put your personal 'hanko' stamp on each of them and then wait one week for your application to be processed to be allowed to go to the toilet. Then there's two additional papers to sign for using the toiler paper. Well not really, but almost.

I'll be returning to Sweden during the Christmas vacation for a few weeks.
Since I'm studying here, I'm holding a visa for staying in Japan until the end of March next year when the new school term starts and then I'll have to renew my visa. However if you're leaving the country for and coming back, you'll have to get a re-entry permission visa, even though you're having a valid visa. I'm not a big fan of excessive bureaucracy so it got me grumbling a bit, but at least it didn't seem that complicated, only it'd cost 3000 yen (>200kr).

So I got on my bicycle and rode down to the immigration bureau building, fill out two papers and show my foreigner registration card and passport. The man wearing a suit in the very official looking building tells me I have to go to the basement floor and pay the re-entry fee to receive a stamp that I put on another paper and fill out to prove that I've paid the fee for the visa.
At least it's a big relief that I can understand enough Japanese to understand these kind of instructions and even fill out the paper in Japanese and write my address in Japanese. Of course, you can't expect the staff at the city's immigration bureau to speak English, no way, this is Japan.

Anyway, I get in the elevator and go to the basement floor, expecting to see another office with official looking people wearing suits. Coming out from the elevator, there's a guard with a uniform sitting at a small desk, bowing to me and pointing out the way, so far everything as expected. I walk by the guard and continue 30 meters, finding a.. Seiko mart convenience store! Look back towards the guard, who nods towards me and points towards the convenience store with his hand. Why is there an absolutely normal convenience store, like those you see absolutely everywhere in Japan, selling official visa application stamps and papers in the basement of the immigration bureau? Anyway, the young typical convenience store clerk girls shouts their typical 'welcome' in Japanese and I get in and buy my official stamps.
After a little while, it starts making sense. Japan takes their bureaucracy seriously, but what their really fanatic about is consuming. You have to be able to buy anything at any time with good service.

I get in the elevator and go back up to the first guy, hand over my papers, hoping he'll check them for a while, put an official looking re-entry visa paper in my passport with a few stamps on and things'll be settled. Of course it wasn't that easy, I had totally missed out that I need a paper from my school that they allow me to leave the country during the vacation. At least the immigration guy with the suit told me my application papers were correctly written and I can just hand them over again as they are when I come back, hope so.

So, next step were going to school and filling out an application paper for getting the paper proving that they allow me to leave Japan during the vacation. At least I have no problem remembering how to write my address in Japanese after filling out all these papers. Also I had to write the reason for leaving the country and hand over a copy of the flight tickets, which of course was impossible since I have an e-ticket, but could be solved by e-mailing the e-ticket info to the school. Then I just had to wait one week for receiving my very official looking 'The school allows this student to leave Japan during the vacation'-paper with a couple of stamps and signatures on.
Tomorrow is time for round two at the immigration bureau.

If they finally allow me to leave the country, they'll be taking my fingerprints and photo when reentering, as the politicians have decided recently that all foreigners entering the country are potential terrorists. Not that there has ever been an act of terrorism by foreigners in Japan, but the main reason they've given is to prevent terrorism. One would think they should have checked up already if I'm a terrorist or not when they gave me a visa to live in the country..
Well they do take their bureaucracy seriously...

Studying, studying

I've finished the 'beginner level' of Japanese a while ago and am an intermediate student now, which means I should know enough survive daily life, feels very good.
The new book we've started studying a month and a half ago or so actually has real texts, compared to the beginner level studies which are just basic sentences and exercises presenting the new grammar. Feels nice when you notice you can actually begin to understand real texts written in 'normal written Japanese'. Of course, the kanji characters used in the texts are only those we've studied so far, about 650 or so.

Also the listening exercise have become normal daily spoken Japanese between Japanese people. Not exactly about space science, but Japanese people speaking to friends (normal, non-polite langauge that is) is fast as hell and quite tricky since they leave out half of the words and the remaining words gets cut off halfway cause it's faster that way. The polite language and conversation between people who are not close friends is alot easier to pick up.

Took the JLPT, the Japanese language proficiency test (日本語能力試験) last week. It's the one big test for non-Japanese people used to measure Japanese language proficiency, practically necessary to take if you want to get any job where more or less advanced knowledge of the Japanese language is requred. The JLPT comes in 4 levels, where 4 is the easiest one and level 1 is the most difficult. Level 3 & 4 are quite useless, since they only cover basic Japanese. Often level 1 is required, sometimes level 2 is alright.

I took the level 3 test, which is for people who have learned all the basic Japanese required. Had previously bought the last years test and taken at home, which was very easy, I could practically nail every question on that one, with a few exceptions. This year's test was kind of in another division of trickiness though. However reaching the passing rate of 60% correct answers shouldn't be any problem though.

The JLPT is known for having quite big differences of difficulty from year to year and is said to be more difficult every other year, which seems to be quite right. Kind of like they look at the statistics for the test and notice the average score was a bit high/low this year and decide to make it more tricky/easy for the next year.

My goal right now is skipping the level 2 and going straight for the level 1 in one year from now. The level 1 is however absolutely in a class of it's own when it comes to difficulty. The level 2 is supposed to be a quite manageable test if you know Japanese quite well and the passing rate on the test is 60%. The level 1, however, is even tricky for Japanese people and requires 70% correct answers. Most people who manage it are Chinese people who already know the kanji characters, or Koreans who have a language with very similar grammar.

But on the other hand, I love challenges and I've managed to learn a big part of the necessary Japanese in 8 months and one third of the necessary kanji. Also, I'm can match any of the Asian students in my class when it comes to using grammar, so why shouldn't I be able to reach the level 1 in 12 months from now? About 1200 kanji to go... And after all, the JLPT is supposed to be easier next year. 頑張れ！

In the meantime, it's becoming increasingly difficult to remember all those not-so-often-used Swedish and English words and sometimes even in which order the words are supposed to come. I guess I'll be coming back to Sweden with mad skills in the Japanese language, but having to take a Swedish for immigrants course.

A thought about cabbage after a long time..

I'll have to apologize about my non-existing blogging the last couple of months. I'm having a great time in Japan with school and everything and had a great summer vacation with a trip to Kyoto. Haven't really felt much like writing anything, and when I do have felt like writing something, there's always 5 other interesting options to consider.
Thinking I should try writing shorter text and maybe I'll bother updating more often..
Looking at other blogs, at least in Sweden, the way to become popular is to write as stupid as possible and throw dirt on everyone else, especially famous people. Ahm well, I'm not really into that stuff, I will just try to wake up this blog again in my own way. Hope anyone bothers reading it.

Oh and just something I've been thinking about the last month or so..
The small small bugs that appear in the cabbage when it's getting old, can anyone tell me where they come from?
I keep the cabbage in plastic and not outside or anything, so it's not so likely the small bugs come from outside, so the bugs are in the cabbage when you buy it, right?
However, when the cabbage is still fresh, it's impossible to see any trace of eggs or small bugs, meaning they're probably too tiny to see. Then the next question is; do they disappear when you wash the cabbage with water a bit? If they're really tiny eggs and possibly inside the cabbage itself, probably they don't wash away that easily I guess. So my theory that you're eating these really tiny eggs everytime you eat cabbage, makes sense, right?

Doesn't really bother me, I'm not sensitive and can't see it anyway, but would be nice if someone could answer where these tiny little cabbage bugs come from. If anyone still checks out this blog that is.
Oh, and I'm happy to receive any requests on topics to write about from anyone who has interest in Japan or life over here in anyway. It'll give me some motivation to write something.

Life as a housewife in Japan and the world's most ugly building

Since I'm having summer vacation right now and my girlfriend is working long days, I've kind of experienced the life of being a Japanese housewife lately. I mean, I couldn't really have her start doing the laundry and cleaning the apartment when she come home after working 11 hours when I have the whole day off, so now I'm taking care of all this stuff lately.
Probably I should have tried getting a job for the summer and make some well-needed money, but haven't been in Japan for that long yet, so it's nice to have some time off. I figured I'll probably just be getting more and more busy in the future.
While it's nice to have time to relax, I had no idea how easy it is to get busy all day with just doing some cleaning and going to the supermarket and studying a bit.

One thing I've noticed now and even had time to document is that the world's probably most ugly building happens to be right outside my window! In Sweden and especially in an old city like Stockholm, the government is very restrictive about letting companies build new buildings. Hell, you're practically not even allowed to put up a sign anywhere in Stockholm. While it's good to preserve the uniqueness of an old beautiful city, it means not enough places are built for people to live and it gets kind of too conservative sometimes. Things seem to start happening to renew and expand Stockholm more quickly lately though.

In a young city in Japan like Sapporo, it's kind of the opposite. It seems any kind of building can be built anytime anywhere. It creates a kind of uplifting chaos. A mix of all kinds of buildings packed together on a small space. It's not very beautiful though, but it somehow makes me happy. Kind of an uplifting chaos.
You can find lots and lots of enormous shopping malls and the commercialism in Japan is like nothing I've seen anywhere. I've been to the United States two times, which is supposed to be the home of commercialism and I've been to quite a few other countries, but nothing even comes close to Japan.

Anyway, I took some photos from my balcony, thought it might be interesting, and surely, isn't that pink/white striped building the most ugly thing you have ever seen?



Yes, I mean the pink/white striped apartment building in the foreground, what were the architect thinking about? Can someone explain to me? (Christian maybe?). The tall building in the background is the JR Tower at the Sapporo station.



It actually looks slightly better (less bad) by night.




Also from our balcony, to the north. A pachinko hall. Meaning a place where people can go when they feel like wasting their money on watching small metal balls bouncing around and smoking too many cigarettes. I've never tried it, probably never will.



Bonus: Fireworks over the Sapporo Factory (huge shopping mall) to the south, also taken from our house but not our flat.

My school and some advice on studying in Japan

On request, here's a post about the school I am attending and my thoughts about it.

The name of the school is Japanese Language Institute of Sapporo, in Japanese 札幌国際日本語学院　（Sapporo kokusai nihongo gakuin), it's located close to the Maruyama park in the west of Sapporo, a few subway stops from the most central parts.
The school fee is 646,800 yen per year, which is about the same for all Japanese language schools in Japan, some are slightly cheaper and some are slightly more expensive.

There are 4 classes per day (Mon-Friday), 45 minutes each with short breaks in between. I start school at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and finish at 4.25, there are also morning classes for those who have studied a bit longer.

The pros:

The teachers are good. Of course, some are worse and some are better, but in general, they hold a good standard.

The books we use are good, a bit too much of the polite language and too little of how you actually communicate usually with friends and others of your same age, but that's the way it is at all language schools in Japan I've heard. After all, it also is very important to be polite in Japan, and you will start learning how to speak to friends as well after a couple of months. It will be a bit frustrating in the beginning though.

The cons:

When you sign the contract and accept the school's rules, it says everything you need for the course is included in the school fee, no extra purchases will be necessary. It's not entirely true. While the text/exercise book and kanji book is included, the grammar book is not, you'll have to buy it. In the first 10-15 chapters or so, the grammar is not that complicated, so you can manage with just the explanation that the teacher gives during the lessons. After that, the tempo gets a bit higher and the grammar a bit more tricky, and for me it's impossible to see how to follow without a book giving grammatical explanations in English.
The book's not that expensive though (around 2000 yen if i remember correctly), just I don't like signing a contract where it says everything's included in the school fee, but it's not.

When I started the course, the class consisted of 12-14 students, now as more people have joined, there's 20-22 students and the classroom is packed. Quite many in a small class room, a little bit tiring, but quite alright.

Finally, no soap or hand towels at the toilet at school. Sure, they want to save money, but at least soap? Even the public toilets here usually have soap.

These are no big issues to me however. I came here to learn Japanese and it's going well so far and I'm having a good time. That's what matters.

If you're from Sweden and thinking of attending the same school, one thing worth mentioning is that it really is becoming a lot of Swedes here now. When I started, we were 8 Swedes, now there's about 10-12 Swedes. Might even be the second biggest group after the Chinese students. While I don't mind Swedish people, it will be negative for your learning if you only hang out with other Swedish people after school and speak Swedish everyday.
But all that is completely up to you of course. The school provides you with good conditions for learning Japanese properly, but if you don't use the language regularly outside of school, it will take a lot longer time to learn and will be easier to forget. Your brain will not start thinking in the Japanese language.

So my advice is, go out to the bar, have a few beers and forget that you can hardly speak Japanese. Meet some Japanese people, make friends and use those few words that you have learned. Another good idea is to meet a Japanese girl/boyfriend.

If you're a shy person that feels very worried about trying to speak in a language you just started learning and tends to take the safe alternatives, like speaking those languages you already know, I would say the best thing is to specifically search for a school where there's no one who speaks your language. The smaller towns in Japan probably have less western students and the Asian students usually don't speak English well, and certainly not Swedish..

Useful links for searching language schools in Japan.
http://www.aikgroup.co.jp/j-school/index.htm
http://www.nisshinkyo.org/ (Click top left corner for English language).

The 'ganbatte' mentality

Something I've noticed is that an important part of the Japanese culture is to always do your best. When it comes to working, studying and especially when helping other people or providing a service for someone. It's all about how hard you try.

My challenge to you is to bother reading through this whole long text. Ganbatte kudasai!

There's a Japanese phrase that's very often used, 'ganbatte kudasai' (頑張って　下さい). 'Kudasai' just means 'please' and can be left out, so don't focus on that word too much.
This phrase is used in pretty much exactly the same contexts as in one would say 'good luck' in English. For example, before taking a test, facing a difficult task or to a person who's striving hard to reach her goals.
However, the meaning of this word (verb) 'ganbatte' is more close to 'please do your best/try your hardest' than good luck.

This captures something interesting and vital about the Japanese mentality. If you'll think strictly about the difference in the languages, it's like people in an English-speaking country (Swedish as well) would settle with just hoping that luck will give you that little extra push that you need, while the Japanese encourages to do your absolute best to manage.
'Good luck' is usually answered with 'thank you'.
In Japanese, the response to 'ganbatte kudasai' (please try your best) is usually 'hai, ganbarimasu' (yes, I am trying/will try my best) accompanied with a small bow.

I'd say that telling someone to please try their best in English often would have a slightly bad sound, as if accusing the person of not trying hard enough. That's not the case at all in Japan. Here, the most important thing is that you try hard and it's actually polite to encourage someone to do so. In the same way as it's polite to wish someone good luck in English.
You can also say 'yoku ganbarimashita' to someone (also accompanied by a bow), meaning 'you did try your best'. This phrase would in English quite surely have a slightly negative sound as in; 'you did try [but it wasn't good enough].' In Japanese it's just a way of showing respect for another person's efforts.

Of course, this difference in the languages doesn't mean that all English speaking people rely on having good luck while the Japanese push themselves to the limits, but all those small differences in the language are also part of the culture and found in everyday life, I assure you.

I guess many people have heard about the Japanese's long working hours, practically non-existing holidays and willingness to work hard. I can't say anything else than that from my experience so far, it all seems to be true.
Back home in Sweden, a job is first and foremost a way of making money to make sure you can eat food and pay the rent. Your family is the most important thing, on second place is usually your friends, free-time and hobbies and on third place is work. For some people, work might be number 2, and for a few people it might be the most important thing, it's not very common in Sweden though.

In Japan, signing that full-time contract doesn't mean you'll be working from 9 to 5 every day as it might actually say on the contract. To me, it seems more like you're signing the contract for selling your soul.
Not only will you be expected to work until the work is done, not until the hour written on your contract, which probably means very long days, you'll usually be expected to do it without any extra overtime payment and might have to work in the weekends as well. Vacations are short and even if you might be allowed to take vacation in theory, it's not really okay to do so as long as your superiors and colleagues don't take any vacation.
When you do manage to finish work for the day, you're often expected to go out and have a few drinks with your colleagues, even if your family is waiting for you at home. The group and being a part of it is a very important thing in Japan, so choosing to go home to your family instead of going out with your colleagues might mean you become an outsider at work and ruin your chances to make a career at the company.
(Edit: The Japanese companies are required to pay overtime salary for overtime work according to the law, I've heard that often they don't do it anyway though).

I do like that it's important to try your best and usually people will notice that you try hard and give you credits for it.
For example, I consider myself to be a quite ambitious student. I have decided to spend time and money on learning Japanese and it's something I want to do. For me, that means I will want to focus 100% on studying. So I prefer to do my homework and studies carefully rather than finishing it quickly so I can spend time relaxing or hanging out with friends, usually I'll have some time for that anyway. In Japan, the more ambitious students are given credits by the teachers for their efforts which the less ambitious students are not, as opposed to Sweden where the obsession of treating everyone equally has gone so far that it's absurd. A bit of competitiveness is something I think is very good.

However, studying is one thing. It's something I do because I want to learn Japanese. The question is just, when my studies has been finished, if I find a job here, am I willing to sign that contract for selling my soul to a Japanese company? After staying only a few months here, I'm getting a bit worried there's this risk my brain has turned 'ganbatte' enough after a few years.
Or maybe I'll rather go back to Sweden, find a job and enjoy my 5 weeks of vacation per year.

Finally, some examples on how this mentality takes shape.

Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, especially when providing a service for someone, it's very important to show that you do your best, which means the service at stores or restaurants in Japan is outstanding.

There's an enormous pride taken in doing your job properly, even if you have a crappy job like standing outside a parking lot with a funny flashing neon red-colored stick and directing the traffic. Even if there are hardly any cars coming and there's more than plenty of signs put up already, those guys will stand straight and make an elegant circular motion in the air with the neon stick with an enormous grace. In Sweden, we don't have those guys with the neon sticks, but if we would, probably they'd at least be looking bored and tired. In southern Europe, they would probably be sitting on a chair and sleeping at work.

One of few digitalized guys with a neon stick making sure no one parks in front of a building in Tokyo. Usually they are real guys.

If you go to a store in Japan you will notice that the staff is often running inside the store if they're going somewhere. Actually, often they'll be taking such small steps running that it's quite obviously a slower way of moving than if they'd be walking quickly. It seems to be more about showing the customers that they really are on their toes and do their best rather than getting as quickly as possible from point A to point B. The gas stations in Japan are really serious about their service though. There, it's not about fake-running, working at a gas station in Japan really means running between the cars, polishing, bowing and a lot of shouting polite phrases.

The most funny thing is how quickly you start adjusting yourself to all kinds of routines and rituals. Probably my friends will ask me what the hell I am doing when I get back to Sweden.

(For non-Swedes; yes you read it correctly, 5 weeks of vacation per year is normal in Sweden).

Humidity and cleaning the bathroom

Japan is a very humid country, especially in the summer. If you're in central Japan, for example Tokyo, in July-August, don't expect to be able to walk more than 10 meters without being soaked in sweat. Japanese people call this 蒸し暑い (mushi-atsui), pretty much meaning humid and hot.
That was a big reason for me to go to Sapporo, on Hokkaido in the north of Japan. The climate is quite a bit cooler and a lot less humid here, also it's always windy which is nice in the summer, but not so nice in the winter.
However compared to Sweden, even Sapporo is a lot more humid, which has some consequences.

• Everything here in Japan is packed in lots of plastics. If you buy a pack of cookies, of course it comes in a plastic bag like anywhere in the world, but here, each cookie is in a small plastic bag of it's own also, or there's one of those small bags included that absorbs moisture, that only comes in shoe boxes in Sweden. Partly because of the humidity but also because Japanese people are obsessed with having all food very fresh.
  It becomes a lot of plastics, I am telling you. Just too bad that you can only throw away plastics once per week here in Japan. All refuse is sorted into burnables, non-burnable and plastics and has specific days when you're allowed to throw it. So you need to keep your garbage in your apartment until the day when it's supposed to be thrown.
  

• Here in Sapporo, the laundry might be dry after about 24 hours if you're lucky. Sometimes 24 hours is not enough. I wonder if it's possible at all to get your laundry dry in southern Japan in the summer?

• There's always some funny pink stuff growing on the floor in our bathroom. The Japanese bathrooms are entirely made of plastic and has a bath tub and a shower next to it. Japanese people love taking a bath, but showering in the bath tub is not okay. Anyway, the floor's surface in our bath room is not even, which is good since a perfectly flat plastic surface would be a lot more slippery. However, the cute little pink colored stuff loves the small bumps in the floor, combined with the humidity and no window in the bathroom, it's obviously very good conditions to grow quickly, and it's an absolute pain in the ass to get rid of. We have some kind of bathroom cleaner, on the bottle it says you're supposed to just spray it on, wait a few minutes and wash with water and you're bathroom is clean (not that I can read it at all, but my girlfriend says so). Hah! More than one hour of rubbing the floor like a maniac with a sponge is what it takes to get rid of the pink bastards. And within a week they'll be back again...
  

夏休み！Summer vacation in Sapporo!

Celebrated the beginning of my summer vacation last night by paying a visit to the Sapporo beer festival that started this weekend, an absolutely huge party with a great atmosphere that goes on every day for 3 weeks!

The festival has 6 big areas, each with a capacity of a few thousand people. The big Japanese beer breweries; Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory has one area each, and then there's one area with international beers and one area with German beers.

If there would be a 3 weeks beer festival in central Stockholm with capacity of maybe 10 000 people (rough estimate) I am sure it would turn into a war field. The Japanese people really like drinking but tend to go home earlier and behave more responsibly than drunken people in Sweden do.

Though Sapporo might seem like a quite ordinary modern city at first, with not so many beautiful buildings (for a person coming from an old European city at least), it's actually a really nice place to stay.

There is just lots and lots of festivals of all kinds throughout the year in Sapporo. In the summer, other than the beer festival, there are also more traditional Japanese festivals with dancing and music. In the winter, Sapporo hosts the world famous Sapporo Snow Festival, with lots of huge snow and ice sculptures. Also, the city is kept very clean and very much in order, all this adding up to the feeling that there really is lots of things done to make the citizens thrive. It works very well for me at least. Probably this is the reason why Sapporo seems to have a quite young population.

Of course, in Japan, it's not okay to have one month of vacation and just relax, actually it seems like it's a sin if you have more than a couple of hours to relax per week, you should always be busy. So I've got a huge pile of papers to complete and new kanji to study during my summer holiday. As if that wasn't enough, they've put a test on the first lesson the first day after the summer holiday.

Finally, some more photos from the beer festival!



Waitress girl with silly hat.




Party!



Group photo with friends.. And some random Japanese people who were just passing by and decided they wanted to be in the photo as well.

Earthquakes

Took myself a little blog vacation kind of.. Felt lazy to write anything and been busy as usual. Lots of kanji characters to learn and grammar to study.

I guess everyone heard about the powerful earthquake in the Niigata prefecture of Japan, causing a lot of devastation.
My first thought was, probably it was mostly the old traditional Japanese houses that collapsed, not built to resist earthquakes, and the fire at the nuclear power plant didn't seem so serious either.

So far I've felt a couple of very small earthquakes here in Sapporo. It's kind of like sitting on a diesel bus not so far from where the engine is located while it's idling at a red light. Vibrating a bit. Haven't made me worried really. Modern buildings like the one I live in should be built to resist quite big earthquakes, right?

After reading this article (in Swedish) though, my thought is 'how the hell can they build the world's biggest nuclear power plant in the world's most seismologically active (is that correctly spelled?) country and not make sure it can handle a powerful earthquake?

According to the article, Japan's regulations for nuclear power plants used to be that they need to resist earthquakes of up to 6,5 on the Richter scale, however last year these regulations were changed. Now, the companies operating the power plants themselves can set the regulations, which then has to be approved by the government.
Also, it says this earthquake was 2,5 times more powerful than what the power plant was built to handle.

Okay, you can't trust the newspaper reports completely, but it sounds like complete madness to me. I thought everyone knew that nuclear power plants can be very dangerous unless strict safety and security regulations are observed.
Makes me think, if they don't build the nuclear power plants earthquake-safe to save some money, why should my house be? On the other hand, the Swedish nuclear power plants had a lot of safety issues lately and we don't even have the risk of earthquakes.
It's all about the money. Why bother about a small risk of some kind of incident if we can say a few yen? Kind of reminds me of the situation at my job before leaving Sweden.

Or maybe we simply just don't have a chance anyway if mother Earth decides to shake us hard enough, no matter how good engineering. Well nothing I can do about it anyway, so no need to worry. Of course, the earthquake is big news here also, but people in general don't seem worried or chocked really, I guess they're used to it.

If you want to read daily news from Japan in English, I can recommend Mainichi Daily News.

Swedish Midsommar (midsummer) on Hokkaido

There's a place about 30 minutes by train from Sapporo called 'Sweden Hills', which is a town on the countryside consisting entirely of Swedish style red houses with white corners. About 2000 people live there, only Sweden-loving Japanese people though, no swedes.

Went there the weekend before the last one for Swedish midsummer celebrations, it was a very surrealistic experiences for sure.. Not only because it was one week too early, but because here in Japan I run into the most traditional midsummer celebrations I have ever taken part in.

Firstly, it is kind of chocking for a Swede to arrive at a place on the Japanese countryside which is a more or less exact copy of the Swedish countryside; Swedish houses with Swedish flags (some Japanese flags also, but from what I can recall they were in minority), just mostly the cars in front of the houses were Japanese brands instead of Volvo.

Secondly, for young people from Stockholm (probably most young people in the rest of Sweden also), the Swedish midsummer mostly means eating lots and lots of food and drinking too much beer and Swedish style schnapps and then it all ends in a big fog of drunkenness.
The Japanese people however, were taking their midsommar celebrations a bit more serious than that. Many of them wearing the traditional Swedish folk costumes, they had raised the maypole, and of course learned all the traditional Swedish midsommar dances, including 'the small frogs'. They had even made some folk musicians from Dalarna (province in countryside Sweden) come and play the midsommar songs. Other than that, we were only a few Swedes there.

I was mostly sitting in amazement, laughing and watching the activities going on. Also, I'm very happy I could buy some proper rye bread (which I of course finished in a couple of days). The white bread you find everywhere in Japan is just terrible for us Swedes.

Of course, I forgot to bring my camera, but at least took a few photos with my mobile phone camera, not too bad quality eh?



Japanese people wearing Swedish folk costume.




Swedish maypole.




My girlfriend and one of the hundreds of Swedish houses.


Update: If you want more info about Sweden hills, visit their website at http://www.swedenhills.com. It's only in Japanese though.

Is Japan really that expensive?

I know many people believe that Japan is so expensive that you can hardly survive here, so I figured I should give you some information on that based on my experience.

Compared to Sweden, practically everything is cheaper here in Sapporo, especially compared to Stockholm.

Rent for a newly built apartment with 2 rooms and kitchen and furniture included:
64 000 yen/month (currently about 3770 Swedish kronor)
A small apartment for 1 person, usually without furniture, will be about 30 000-40 000 yen/month. If you're lucky it's quite possible to find one with furniture included though.
Gas, water and electricity is not included.
I paid 6000-8000 yen per month for the gas when I stayed at a dormitory. The gas is used for heating the apartment and for heating the water. At my current apartment, there's an electric water heater though, which I certainly hope is cheaper. It's supposed to be at least.

For food, I've calculated that I eat for about 500-700 yen per day when I eat at home, and I eat a lot compared to most people.

What's expensive at the supermarket are some vegetables and fruits, like kiwi and melons for example. They're really tasty though, so if you just buy them sometimes, it's worth it. Don't get addicted though.
Some nice department stores sell the exclusive melons for many thousands of yen, it's nothing people buy regularly though, usually people buy as a gift.
Stick to the moyashi (bean sprouts) and you can reduce your budget seriously, one quite big pack is about 25-30 yen (~1,7 kr) and they are incredibly good.

At the restaurant, a lunch menu can be about 600-1000 yen (35-60kr), and dinner, totally depending on where and what you eat of course, but on a typical Japanese style restaurant 900-1700 yen.
If you want to party, the all you can eat and drink offers is a good alternative. Costs about 2500-3000 yen for 2 hours of free eating and drinking.
In general, all restaurants hold a very high standard (compared to Sweden at least).

If you meet a nice girl/boy and need a double size bed, it's about 74 000 yen (4350 kr) for a nice one from Mujirushi (Muji in Sweden) including mattress.

A new bike: 10 000-15 000 yen (590-890 kr), an old bike: 3000-5000 yen.

Taking the subway: 160-300 yen per trip, depending on how far you go.

Electronic gadgets, clothes and shoes are all cheaper than in Sweden. Some things alot cheaper, some pretty much the same.

Of course, if you'll go to Tokyo or Osaka, most things will be slightly more expensive and the rent probably alot higher and you'll probably have to spend alot of time on the train to and from school.

The polite Japanese

I guess most people have heard that Japanese people are extremely polite and helpful. It's definitely true. Probably they're the best mannered people in the world, here it's almost like a crime to not be polite and helpful. Also the service in stores is outstanding, I appreciate it alot. Which is not so good since it makes me spend more money than I want to. I'm lucky that everything's cheaper than in Sweden at least.

Ask someone on the street where to find something and they'll completely stop what they're currently doing and do all they can to help you. If they don't have a clue either where to find what you're looking for, usually they won't say 'I'm sorry, I can't help you' (well it happens sometimes that they do), instead they'll call somebody who knows or just do anything they can to help you.
If they still can't solve your problem, they'll start bowing and apologizing time after time.

In Japan, people tend to say thanks or i am sorry if there's even just the slightest chance that someone could have been offended in any way. It's like it's always better to say it than not to, just to be on the safe side.
So, if you're only going to learn one japanese word, learn 'sumimasen'. An extremely versatile word meaning excuse me/i am sorry/thank you. You'll get very far with that word only.

However, I've found that on one occasion the Swedes are actually more polite; holding the door for the person behind you.

In Sweden, it's kind of rude to not cast a quick glance over you shoulder to see if there's a person right behind you when entering for example a department. And if there is, just put your arm out and hold the door a little bit when you enter, so it doesn't close right onto the person behind you. Practically everyone does that.

Here, in general, people don't hold the door for the person coming up behind. Maybe because the Japanese usually seem kind of stressed? I don't know, haven't managed to figure it out yet. Doesn't really make sense since on all other occasions, the japanese always take their time to be polite and helpful no matter how stressed they seem to be.

On the other hand, I can live with people not holding the door since it's very much compensated by their good manners on all other occasions. Like people not speaking on their cell phones or listening to loud music in the subway for example. That's just incredibly annoying in Sweden.

I've always wanted to live in a mansion...

And I thought I'd have more time to use the Internet after moving and having an Internet connection at home, HAH!

Been really busy with buying stuff and sorting things out with the new apartment, which is really nice by the way and the house is brand new actually. The rent's 64000 yen per month, which is about 3900 swedish kronor. Not too much for a brand new Mansion, is it?

Eeh? What's he talking about? Mansion?! Isn't that like a huge villa with 10 rooms, servants and a garden?
Well, I thought so too, but as you might know, things are often a bit different in Japan...
Over here, a mansion is simply an apartment with more than one room.

Anyway, our mansion has two rooms and kitchen and came with furniture and washing machine included, not so far from the city's central station. So, not expensive compared to Stockholm at least..

Also had an exam at school the this week, so I've been studying quite a bit. Got the result on Friday, the exam consisted of 4 parts;
1. grammar 2. reading comprehension 3. words and kanji 4. listening comprehension.
I got 100 out of 100 points on all the first three parts, perfect in other words. This big exam was easier than the tests we have regularly.
The listening part didn't turn out that well though, I got 79 out of 100 points, which is not that good. That part was quite difficult and it was the last part, which wasn't so good for me. As some people back home might know, when I'm a bit tired, I'm not a good listener at all.

Lack of updates

Sorry for the lack of updates, I haven't bothered ordering an Internet connection for my room, since I am leaving the dormitory soon and moving to an apartment with my girlfriend.
Haven't felt much like spending time and money on going back and forth to the Internet café either. I'll get an Internet connection for my new apartment as soon as possible though, so hopefully I'll have some time to write.
Anyway, here's a couple of long posts for you.

Advice on learning Kanji

This post is for you guys and girls also struggling with the kanji characters.

I'm not an expert and haven't studied kanji for much more than a month or so, but this is my 5 cents so far on how to learn them.

1. Study and repeat EVERY day. Don't take a break and not study for a few days every now and then and then try to catch up by studying like a mad man.
If you don't repeat every day, you'll learn them and then forget them again in a few days and start mixing them up with each other. It's better to study the kanji for a shorter time everyday than for a long time every 3rd day. But of course, it still takes alot of time, so try to find some joy in the studying. Otherwise you've gotta be really stubborn.

2. When you try to learn a kanji, associate it with the meaning it carries, not with its pronounciation. Otherwise you'll be in one hell of a mess as soon as you learn a few kanji. A friend here just got into this trouble, that's why I'm warning you.
Do you know how many kanji that has the pronounciation 'sha' for example? Try searching for 'sha' in a kanji dictionary and you'll see. It's quite a few. So, associate the kanji with it's meaning and think of its pronouncations as a separate thing.

3. Try to find the general meaning of each kanji and remember that this meaning can be slightly flexible. If you just learn that the kanji '外' in the context of '外人' (gaijin), means a foreigner, you'll be lost when you suddenly see the same kanji in another context. Instead, learn that '外' by itself carries the meaning outside, or something coming from the outside. Then you can figure out what it means in other contexts as well.

4. Make kanji flash cards. Get post-it notes and write the kanji on one side and the meaning and it's pronounciations on the other side. Keep the notes with the kanji you're currently studying in your pocket and look at them every now and then. I always keep them next to my bed and have as a routine to look at them before I go to sleep and immediately when I wake up. Actually, I notice that my brain is often thinking about these damn kanji immediately when I wake up, before I've even looked at them.

5. Buy an electronic dictionary with handwriting recognition. They're a bit expensive and I don't know if you can find them in other countries, but it's a really good thing to have. If there's a kanji I see but don't know, I write it on the screen of my Casio ex-word (xd-sw9100 if anyone wants to google it, I can recommend it) and it shows up with an explanation.
I bought the "Kodansha kanji learner's dictionary" separately on a memory stick for my electronic dictionary, which is very good. It's a dictionary specifically made for people who want to learn kanji, unlike the other dictionaries included in the Casio ex-word which is made for Japanese people and therefore shows the kanji you're looking for and example sentences, but not how to pronounce it. The Kodansha dictionary shows the pronounciations and how to make the strokes correctly when writing the kanji, so it's really useful.

6. Go to Japan! It's just boring to study the kanji when you're in a country where you don't have any use of your new knowledge. Personally, I just couldn't find the motivation to study kanji in Sweden. Here in Sapporo, when I'm in the city or anywhere, I always keep my eyes open for the kanji I know and feel a bit happy when I for once manage to figure something out. Like the name of the subway station where I'm supposed to get off for example.

Right now, I'm just worried about how I'm supposed to remember all the kanji when I return to Sweden and don't use them anymore.
For your info, the books we use at school is 'minna no nihongo'. Text book, grammar book and kanji book. We study about 25-35 kanji per week.

If anyone has more advice on how to learn kanji, please write them!

You've gotta love the kanji

When you return to your room at 1 in the night, not so sober and not really in the mood to sleep yet, what do you do? I guess most people would watch tv, play computer/video game, eat something etc. At least your answer probably wouldn't be drinking some nihonshu (sake) and sitting down to practise writing kanji characters for an hour.

Lately I have had a growing fascination for the kanji characters, the more or less complex Chinese characters used in the written Japanese language. Which of course is good since it's the most difficult part of the Japanese language to learn. Indeed it takes alot of time to study the kanji and it's easy to mix them up or forget how to write, even for Japanese people. Many of the other students (the Chinese doesn't have any problem with the kanji though of course) at my school seems to see the kanji as the troublesome, tiring part of the Japanese language and sighs alot about it. However, for me, it tells alot of interesting stories about the culture and how the language is constructed, which is a very good source of inspiration.

When first looking at a kanji I haven't studied before, to borrow a good expression from a friend back home in Sweden, it may seem like a 'brädhög', a pile of planks. And indeed, sometimes I­'ve felt like I'll never be able to remember all these strange characters, they all look alike anyway.
At those times, I've thought of the Chinese people in my class. The Japanese language use the kanji characters combined with more simple characters (hiragana and katakana) to form different words, which makes alot of different combinations possible. Therefore to learn Japanese, around 2000 kanji is enough. The Chinese language uses solely the kanji characters, which means they have to learn ten times as many characters or so.
So if the Chinese people in my class, which (no offense my Chinese fellows) seems like quite ordinary people, have managed to learn tens of thousands of characters, why shouldn't I be able to learn two thousand? It's quite simply alot of practise.

It's a satisfying feeling when you study something you've never tried to learn before and notice that your brain actually after a while decides that 'alright, if this is so damn important, I'll remember it'.
When you break it down and look at the different parts that makes up the kanji and write it a few times, it's ­suddenly not a brädhög anymore, and you can write it without any major problems. It's kind of like when I was a kid and built stuff with lego bricks. A feeling of creativity.

What I also find interesting is how the kanji is made up and how they are combined. My main reason for going to Japan was to learn more about the culture and how Japanese people think, and the kanji is an important part of that.
I'll give you a couple of examples.

If you can't see the Japanese characters correctly, I suggest you install the Japanese character set on your PC or you might have to change the character encoding of your web browser, because I am not going to spend time on posting the Japanese characters as images.

The Japanese word for interesting is 'omoshiroi', which is written like 面白い.
The first part, '面' is pronounced 'omo' and by itself carries the meaning 'face'.
The second part is '白い' is pronounced 'shiroi' and means white.
Thus, probably someone a long time ago thought that a white face is interesting and it came to carry that meaning, I guess.
Believe me, Japanese people in general and Japanese kids in particular still think so..

The kanji for man, '男', pronounced 'otoko', is two other kanji characters that is put together to one.
'田' which means a field, and '力' which means strength.
So, a man is a person who is strong in the field.

The kanji meaning like or love, '好' is also two other kanji characters that's been put together.
'女' which means woman, and '子' which means child.

It might seem a bit old-fashioned that a man is someone who's strong in the field, and to like or love is a woman and a child, but keep in mind that these characters wasn't exactly made yesterday.

One more example which I find a bit amusing.
The word for animal in japanese consists of two kanji characters, '動物' 'doubutsu'. The first kanji '動' (dou) carries the meaning moving, which is also used when writing for example a car, 自動車 (jidousha), which quite exactly means a self-moving vehicle.
Well, let's get back to the animal, 動物 (doubutsu). So the first kanji carries the meaning moving.
The second kanji, 物, means a (living or not living) thing or object. So, an animal is quite simply a moving thing.
Brilliant, isn't it?

For me, these small discoveries gives the written language a depth which the western languages doesn't have at all.
I mean, a word in english or swedish just consists of the letters that forms the pronounciation of a word. You learn that a certain pronounciation carries a certain meaning. The characters themselves however, doesn't carry any meaning at all.
Sure, it's practical, but boooring. Therefore, I can think it's kind of sad with the huge amount of katakana words (words taken from other languages, mostly american-english, which is written with katakana characters) used in the japanese language.
For many of those words there's already japanese words, but it seems to be kind of cool to write the foreign words instead, I don't know. In my opinion, it makes the japanese language lose some of its depth.

This is the good thing about learning a language as an adult, I have the ability to reflect and question why things are in certain ways.
Japanese people I talk to don't really seem to have thought much about how the language is made up, they've just learnt it as a child and accept that things are the way they are.
The bad thing is, if I'd have the mind of a child I wouldn't question anything, I'd just learn it and it would take a lot less time.

Sapporo by night

Photos taken from the JR tower at the Sapporo station, in the city centre.

Sorry about the quality, I'm lazy to find out how to post them with higher resolution at the moment. Don't have an Internet connection at home, so have to go to an Internet cafe.

A bit less than 2 million people live here. Sapporo is alot more densely built than Stockholm though, practically it's densely built city all the way without any big green areas. The city is surrounded by mountains with many good onsen baths and skiing slopes (I've been told).

Beer

Quite a few weeks ago when I went to a bar, I stumbled upon something I had never seen before.



Heineken Dark Lager! I had to get one of course. Tastes a bit like Newcastle Brown Ale but a more weak taste and not as good. It's not too bad though. You have this one back home also nowadays?

Japanese beer in general is so-so. Most brands are like american beer; hardly any taste at all. If you want to try a Japanese beer which you'll probably find abroad, go for Sapporo Beer, it's good I'm telling you!

English texts in Japan

In Japan, it's really popular to put some short english text on products, outside stores and as slogans for companies etc.
Sometimes, the texts makes no sense at all because the english is too bad to be understood. Sometimes the language itself is understandable and in some occassions it's even pretty much perfect.
However, even if the grammar is good, the context those small english texts are placed in often doesn't make too much sense. It's like their just put there because it's cute or cool to have some english text on the product.

As a foreigner who consider myself to have quite decent knowledge of the english language, this is quite amusing.
Not in the sense that I make fun of the japanese inability to write english correctly (uhm okay well a little bit to be honest), because I actually think this is quite cute and I appreciate it. I don't want the japanese companies to change and start using the english language in a more professional (and boring) way. It's part of the Japanese culture and I enjoy it.

By now, unless you've already visited Japan or read my previous post about the Scandinavian bread store, you're probably quite confused and wonder what the hell I am babbling about, so I'll just give you a few examples.

My frying pan:

"One petal was found.
Some petals gather and it becomes a flower.
They gather and support each other and make a living.
We have to value "GIVE AND TAKE".

Sure, I get the message, and it's a nice thought you know. One may just wonder what it does on the bottom side of my frying pan?

A bag of candy I got at a birthday party:



Like with the frying pan, quite an amusing, cute little text, isn't it?


Mints I bought at the supermarket:


Dry Hard (with a vengeance?) Mints.
Actually contains caffeine also it says.

Ash trays from a bar I visited:



"Have a good time" "Can you make smoke rings?"
Actually this is just cute in that special japanese way.

Busy days

Started school on Monday, so my first week of learning Japanese will be accomplished tomorrow (writing on Thursday night, but can't post now due to no internet connection at home). It's been busy days for sure. Actually, my days has consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, studying a little, going to school, coming home and having dinner (finally figured out how to use the timer function on my rice cooker, so the rice is done when I come home, just need to make some sauce etc), relaxing for 30 minutes or so and then studying and going to bed.
But hell, I ain't complaining. I want to learn the basics of this language as soon as possible so I can even have a decent dialogue with people other than swedes and the few english speaking people I meet. I'm here to learn Japanese after all.
Don't have much things to do anyway, so I'm fine with studying most of the day. Life certainly gets quite different when you don't have a mobile phone, no Internet connection, can't understand what's on the tv, hardly know anyone other than a few other people who are also studying, and if you want to talk to someone else, you can't manage to have a conversation consisting of more than a couple of sentences with 99% of the people you meet.

My class consists of 12-14 students or so. There are some Chinese and Koreans, then there are one person each from Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, Spain and Italy, and finally two swedes except for me.
We have four lessons per day, 45 minutes each. Starting at 1 in the afternoon and finishing at 4.30.
So far, it's a good group and good teachers I'd say. Mostly, we're practising saying basic sentences and responding properly.

Most of the things we've gone through so far I already knew (but had put them somewhere in the back of my head), but it takes some time anyway to get used to using such a different language.
What's taken most (all) of my time outside school is the writing. It takes hours and hours just to write a bunch of pages of homework. When you're not used to writing the Japanese characters, you constantly have to think for a short time about which character you're going to write and how it's written. When writing a few pages, that short time adds up to hours. And that's only the kana characters so far. But of course, it's necessary to learn the basic characters very well first, so you have something to start with. It certainly helps that I've practised this stuff a little bit before. It's not really difficult things, but this time it really is about bashing stuff into your head time after time until your brain stops complaining and chooses to remember those essential things as something for daily use. A bit different from learning it in Sweden and storing it far back in your head.

For those of you without much knowledge of the Japanese language, the kana characters are some hundred or so characters which makes up the syllables of the Japanese language, they're mostly used as particles for the more complex kanji characters and to write foreign words.
Next week we'll start with the kanji, the more complex chinese characters of which we should learn a bit less than 2000 during the coming two years. As you might know, they have different meanings and are used in other ways in the Chinese language, so you don't get Chinese as a bonus when learning to write Japanese.

Please note that I'm not whining at all, actually I'm happy ­with everything so far and see it as a good challenge to learn Japanese.I'm certainly looking forward to the day when I'll be able to use the language well enough to express most of my basic thoughts, feelings and needs. Hopefully it won't take too long.

Being a foreigner in Sapporo

Around here, you don't see that many non-asian people. If I go to the downtown city area, I can probably see 3-4 western people in a few hours, so no wonder most people you will give you a quick glance or two when you're a tall, blonde swede. The Sapporoans are quite shy and quiet people though, even more so than in the other parts of Japan I've visited, I'd say. Practically noone will start talking to you even though some certainly seem curious. This probably also has something to do with the fact that people in general don't speak english or are too shy to try speaking english. These situations certainly makes me curious at least and I'd like to figure out what goes on inside the head of the average Japanese. Not just their thoughts about foreign people, but the whole culture. This is my main motivation for learning Japanese at the moment.

At the local Coop store (yes, same name as the food stores in Sweden, but as far as I know, the Japanese Coop is not a sponsor of Hammarby) where I buy my food they seem to say all their polite phrases extra loud and often to me, compared to to Japanese customers. As if they're happy to have a Swedish guy coming every other day to their food store? Or It might as well just be because I always seem a bit lost, look at everyone and everything, compared to the Japanese customers who just hurry up to find the stuff they need and buy it.

My second theory is that this feeling that many Japanese seem curious or have some thoughts about foreign people might partially be constructed by myself. It's easy to feel alienated and looked at when you 1. certainly do look different and 2. don't understand many of the things that's going on around you. Maybe people just cast a glance, notice that there's a different looking person in their surrounding and get back to thinking about what to eat for dinner.
At least, everyone treats me very well and is just as respectful as to Japanese people so far, and I certainly appreciate the Japanese respectfulness.

Some slightly funny situations that you can get into as a foreigner in Japan;
Last weekend, I was in the city with two other swedish guys. Some young Japanese guy who walked by was obviously curious on the foreign people, so he walked by really close and kind of 'accidently' touched my swedish friend's back a little and then kept walking. It was quite obvious though since he had a big smile on his face. I don't know what his purpose was, but it was certainly entertaining.

A few days ago, I was taking a run before going to school. I ran to a park not too far away. A tv-team was in the park doing an interview, looked quite serious wearing a suit etc. When I ran by, I kind of thought they turned the camera towards me slightly, but I wasn't sure.
I didn't find my way around there well, so I came to a dead end and had to run back after only a few minutes. When I run by the tv team this time, they did turn the camera towards me, and the guy doing the interview raised his voice until he was almost screaming and spoke quickly like a sports commentator. I had no idea what he was saying, but I could understand the word 'kaerimasu!!' which means returns.
Probably it was more fun with a foreigner taking a run than the interview. Japanese tv-shows are all about instant entertainment, so probably I'll end up on one of those entertainment shows, who knows.

Food-porn and Commercials

Since I've had a ­terrible cold the last days and spent all days in bed and don't have an Internet connection, I've had too much time to spend on watching tv.
Now I thought swedish television wasn't very good, but compared to japanese, it's outstanding actually.
'But that's just because you don't understand much japanese at all' one might say.
Well of course, to a certain extent, it's true, I might not be totally correct with this report, but usually it's quite easy anyway to figure out what kind of a tv-show it is.

From my research, there are three main categories which you always seem to run into if you browse through the channels.

The most common are japanese entertainment shows, and they are all about quick entertainment and quick laughs.
Something 'funny' takes place, for example someone is supposed to run 3 laps around the studio accompanied by some cute pop music, and a screaming commentator. Afterwards there's always a bunch of people making comments for a good while about what just happens.
In my opinion, funny entertainment for 3-4 minutes or so, then it gets boring.

Secondly most common are commercials. It just never ends. Which actually is not too different from the entertainment shows.
Usually, something is funny and there's some happy pop music and some male voice screaming or very cute female voice speaking and then a company logo. Other common commercials are women's clothes, food stores and fast food.
One commercial I actually found kind of funny (it wasn't supposed to be funny though) was for dog's clothes. Not some kind of lame blankets, oh no, this was only designed fashion clothes, and it just went on and on for 15-20 minutes or so. Jeans, shirts, socks, you name it. Of course, everything accompanied by cute music and a cute woman's voice and another cute woman caressing the dogs. There even was a punk style dress that covered the entire dog with black leaher with just two holes for the eyes (hopefully some kind of opening in the back also, I didn't notice).

Thirdly is what I'd call the food porn. Some people, more commonly women than men, try different kinds of food, the camera zooms in to an extreme close up of the piece of meat (or whatever they're going to eat) when it's picked up by the chop sticks and put in the mouth, followed by the person eating exclaiming 'oishii!!' (delicious!) while still chewing the piece of food. Also, I have seen eating contests a couple of times. Of some reason the competitors are always slim, cute women, which really makes me wonder how they manage to eat so much. I have no idea if it was faked, but one of them had 60 pieces of sushi without any problem. In another contests, the poor women had 8 big bowls of ramen noodle soup each.
The food porn is often found in the commercial breaks also.

So far, I've managed to see three tv programs that actually seemed to be quite serious.
First one was the news, second one was the weather forecast which followed the news. This was actually more serious and detailed than the weather forecasts in Sweden, and swedish people are known for taking weather forecasts seriously.
Thirdly, I finally found something that actually seemed like a serious documentary.
I had no idea what it really was about though.

The spirit of Tomte

One thing that can always entertain you as a foreigner in Japan ­­are the hilarious english texts you'll run into every now and then.
Me and my swedish friend ­found a chain of bread and bakery stores here in Sapporo that market themselves by selling Scandinavian bread.

It's just a surprising fact for me, being a Scandinavian, that we eat buns similar to donuts with ginger and some kind of white cream cheese on top, and the inside filled with squid and some kind of vanilla cream.


Ehm well, actually I have never ever seen such bread in Sweden, and I hardly believe it can be found in the other Scandinavian countries either.
All the bread in those stores were sweet, white bread, sometimes with chocolate on it, sometimes just with other strange stuff.
However, the funny way they market themselves and the absolutely hilarious texts on their plastic bags just makes me want to visit them again and again!

The text on their plastic bags reads:


"Scandiavian natural roman - best bread message. Our little friend "TOMTE" use magical secret power for delicious BREAD that. Well enjoy in next morning. Children who living in NORTHERN EUROPE tell us secret that just baken BREAD. Yes... TOMTE's secret.
HOKUO as. BREAD country SAPPORO is very similar with TOMTE's land."

And the second one I found:""We are tomte." The Scandinavian region of northern Europe is the fabled home of gnomes called Tomte. Tomte love children. At night, when everyone is sound asleep. Tomte go about casting magical spells to ensure the next morning's freshly baked bread will be especially delicious for the children. Cherishing the spirit of the Tomte, we at "Hokuo" take a highly skilled and gentle natured approach to bread making."

Why Japan?

Why does anyone decide to go to Japan to study Japanese?
Since this is a question people tend to ask me, I meant to write an answer to it before leaving Sweden, but I just never got it done.

The truth is just that I find it just as hard to answer every time.
I could start writing all the clichées about an interesting culture and a mix of the old and new and so on.
Well, I don't know really. I had visited Japan twice before and it did seem interesting in many aspects, so it seemed like a good idea to go there and stay for a while and see what I discover, instead of working with loading airplanes for 30 years and ruining my body.
I need an adventure and a challenge­. Learning the Japanese language and getting some knowledge of the Japanese culture seemed like a challenge good enough for me.What it'll lead to eventually, I have no idea. Maybe I'll stay here and study at university or work or go back to Sweden to study or end up somewhere else.

Arrived in Sapporo (updated with photos!)

After a long journey, all in all, 28 hours or so, I finally arrived at my dormitory room in Sapporo. Quite big (big for a japanese room that is) and clean and nice. Even have a toilet that can wash my buttocks with water, real japanese style.

Firstly though, let me tell you about the journey. Except for the long waiting in Denmark, things went quite well, could travel business class with Sas, so I could certainly eat and sleep well.
Took a bus from Narita, Tokyo international airport, to the domestic airport Haneda, there awaited the cutest Boeing 747 anyone has ever seen, ready to take us to Sapporo.

The entire aircraft was painted with Pokemon figures in bright, cute colors. Also, the interior of the aircraft was Pokemon everywhere. Even the cups for drinks and the epilon of the flight attendants had Pokemon creatures on them. Only in Japan.

Another Pokemon-edition Ana Boeing 747 passing by:

Life in Sapporo so far has been quite confusing I have to say. In Tokyo, you can find information in english easily, people speak english and signs that doesn't have english at least has Japanese text written with western characters.

In Sapporo, I have in two days of walking around the city seen three western people except for me, one of them another swedish guy who lives at the same place as me. The two others were americans at a cafe. 99,5% of all Japanese people I meet insist on speaking only Japanese and all signs are written with kanji characters only, meaning I can't read them. So it's easy to feel lost, feels good to have another swedish speaking person to talk to sometimes, and my girlfriend who can help me understanding all those damn kanji characters.
I think Sapporo will be a very good city to learn Japanese though, since you are totally lost as a non-japanese speaking foreigner here.

So far, I enjoy my life here though. Food is very good (fruit is 100 times better tasting than in Sweden), 90% of all products in stores are cheaper than in Sweden and the japanese service just makes me really happy. I'll get back to the Japanese service though. Hopefully I can get an Internet connection at my room some time soon.

Why I dislike the danes

Have been waiting pretty much all day now at Cph airport for the Sas flight to Narita to depart.
The fueling staff decided to go home, so all flights are delayed a few hours, the airplane we're (hopefully) getting on is currently being refueled though and the boarding staff said there would eb seats left. So unless any other problems appear I'll be off to Japan in an hours or so.

(please note that this was written during a long day of waiting and i was hungry and tired, so my dear fellow danes, sorry about it)

Ready for departure!

Big lack of updates, I have been busy lately with my last days at work, getting a visa for going to Japan and settling things here prior to departure.

My excuse is that the point of this blog anyway has always been to write about my life in Japan, and I'm not even there yet.
But tomorrow the time has come to take off for Japan and Sapporo!

Well hopefully at least.
Since I've been working at Sas ground services (part of Scandinavian Airlines), I can get to Japan quite cheaply. However, staff tickets have standby status, meaning that I can get on if there are free seats available at the time of departure.

Just too bad that we're (me and my girlfriend who is Japanese and coming with me) going to Japan in the middle of tourist season. Just like me, Japanese people are starting school by the beginning of April, meaning many of them have vacation at this time, so most flights are fully booked.

Tomorrow looks a bit less terrible than most other days though, so I keep my fingers crossed.
Worst case scenario is we'll have to sleep for a few nights at Copenhagen or Frankfurt airport,
I can live with that if I can just get to Sapporo before school starts on the 5th of April.
Hopefully though I'll be sitting in one of the business class lie-flat seats of Sas' Airbus A340-300 series aircraft bound for Narita, Tokyo international airport tomorrow afternoon.

From Narita, I can hopefully take a flight directly to New Chitose Sapporo airport. I might have to change airport in Tokyo though and go to Haneda, which is the domestic airport of Tokyo and has alot more flights for Sapporo.
Haneda (Tokyo) - Chitose (Sapporo) actually happens to be the most busy air route in the world with some 45 wide-body aircraft arrivals and departures per day. For you non-airline workers or aircraft geeks, widebody means a big aircraft, usually carrying 200-550 passengers.


That's it for now. Need to start packing some clothes!

Shinzo Abe

Have to say, I am really starting to wonder what kind of man the prime minister of Japan is.

Read an article today about him refusing to apologize for crimes commited against women during the second world war, he even goes as far as denying that the crimes took place.

(There's a few more articles on the same subject which can be found at the bottom of the article I linked to).

Now in english

I decided to write this blog in english instead of swedish to reach a wider audience.
Therefore, the 'about me' -page and the first post has been translated to english.

I hope my knowledge of the english language is good enough to not affect the quality of the blog too much.

Beginning of the end?

During almost 3 years. I have been loading airplanes at Stockholm Arlanda airport for Sas ground services.
Yesterday I decided to quit.
I have 3 weeks left before I work my last day and about a week later set course for Sapporo in the north of Japan.
My plan is to study the japanese language for two years at a language school there.

Why do such a thing you might wonder.. Why not? Souns like a neat thing to do, doesn't it?