Photos from the summer vacation

Did some travelling during the summer vacation in August.

Firstly, here's a few pics from the Iwate prefecture on northern Honshu (the main island of Japan).

All photos are clickable for high resolution. Photos may not be used for any purpose without my permission.




A famous cave called 龍泉洞, Ryusendo. Pretty cool stalactites huh? (thanks wikipedia for reminding me it's called stalactites).





Signs in funny English are always appreciated. Luckily they can be found at many places in Japan. Even in caves!





Because of the high humidity and hot summers, the greenery in Japan is just incredibly dense. Just have a look at that tree, there's not just leaves on the branches, the whole tree is covered with leaves. The greenery on Hokkaido is a bit less dense because of the colder and more dry climate, but still more dense than in Sweden.
In the foreground, my dad, who came to Japan together with my brother to visit me and do some travelling together.




An interesting car in Morioka, the main city of the Iwate prefecture.





Two boys on bicycles in Morioka.





From Morioka we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, the place where you will want to go to see the old Japan and visit lots and lots of temples and shrines. Here's one of the Buddhist temples and a more modern building in the background.




三十三間堂 The Sanjusangendo, a temple with 1001 Buddha statues lined up inside. Definitely a place worth visiting. No photos allowed inside the building. According to my brother, one of the monks inside the temple started hitting an old woman with a stick who didn't follow this rule.




My dad eating soba noodles. He clearly need to practise his slurping skills though.




Gion, the old parts of Kyoto.




Gion again. I have more nice, authentic looking where there are no cars to be seen. However I was really annoyed about Kyoto city allowing cars drive on these narrow streets with old houses packed with tourists. It's such an effective way to ruin the atmosphere that I just had to take a photo of it.



Gion, Kyoto.




Salarymen doing fishing after work.





Swedes eating their fill.




Number 1 selling sports bicycle at Bic Camera was a... Saab! Since when do they make bicycles?




Bamboo.




Kyoto station. Modern beautiful architecture in a city packed with old, beautiful temples and shrines.



The machine for cleaning the floors can be used in the stairs as well, how cool isn't that?



The Shinkansen.




Delays are unacceptable. We're setting off for climbing Mount Fuji, will upload photos from that adventure next time.

Swedish media on Japan

http://nyaijapan.blogspot.com/2008/04/same-old-same-old.html

I agree.

Sneezing in Japan

There's one thing that annoys me every time it happens here in Japan. When people sneeze. Not that they sneeze more than anywhere else in the world or sneeze in my face or anything like that really. Just the fact there's no word to say when people sneeze.

In Sweden people say 'prosit', which sounds like it comes from French or something, in English 'Bless You'. If I'm not mistaken there's some old belief that you're possessed by a demon/devil when you sneeze and someone needs to say these above mentioned words to help preventing anything bad from happening to you. Nowadays it's practically just used as a polite phrase.

In Japan, there's practically a word for everything, but no word to use when people sneeze. However, Japanese people in general insist on being very polite and show consideration for other people, so usually they just have to say something rather than not saying anything. This means when someone sneezes, 9/10 times their friend or person they're speaking to will say '大丈夫ですか' (daijoubu desuka) which means 'are you alright/okay?'.

Each time I hear it I find it more stupid. Why the hell would someone not be alright only because they just sneezed? Personally I sneeze every time I go out from a dark place and get blinded by the sun. I don't find it that dramatic. The next time I sneeze and someone asks me if I'm alright, I'll answer 'No, I guess not, after all I just SNEEZED so probably I've caught a bad case of lung cancer, but thanks for asking'.

Well, to not only be a whiner, I've decided to do something about this! I'm going to come up with some word in Japanese to use when people sneeze and see if I can spread the message. Anybody who reads this and speaks Japanese, why don't you give me a hand and figure out a good word to use when people sneeze and write me a comment!

About photos I promised to upload. Erhm well, they're on their way in a few days or so. When I've got time :P.

Spring holiday

Alright, now I'm having spring vacation for a few weeks, so by public request (erh well not really), I'm back with a new post!

If my English (and Swedish) seems to be getting worse, then that's probably correct. Seems to be forgetting alot of words lately. Studied the Japanese word for 'kitchen sink' a couple of days ago. I had the word in English and in Japanese in my book and in my electronic dictionary, but I ended up walking around a whole day trying to figure out what a kitchen sink (流し, nagashi in Japanese) is called in Swedish. Finally the word 'diskho' popped up in my head, should be correct, right?

Anyway, this starts to occur more often recently, I also notice that I've learnt the Japanese names of many vegetables and food products, but I have actually no idea what they're called in Swedish or English or if they can even be bought in Sweden. I've also become able to cook more Japanese dishes than Swedish. In other words, I lived with mommy before moving to Japan.

I was invited to a party last week and was asked to cook some Swedish food and bring. I couldn't think of any other Swedish food than pasta and meat sauce, pasta and tomato sauce and pasta and cheese sauce, which is not really Swedish food anyway, so I ended up cooking some Japanese food instead.

That's something else always occurring lately, I'll end up talking about food constantly. Possibly if I'd have a tv at home I've become brainwashed enough to start watching the 'food porn' that's always on Japanese tv. Ehm well not really.
If anybody's coming over to Sapporo, be sure to not miss out the soup curry, a local specialty here and possibly the most tasty stuff you can find on the planet. Spicy curry soup with vegetables and usually pork or chicken.




So what's been up the last months?
I've:

• Been to Sweden for Christmas holidays and back. The most striking thing I noticed back in Sweden was the non-existing service. In Japan, as a paying customer, you're a God and will be treated that way. In Sweden, a customer is practically someone who comes in to the store and causes trouble by wanting to buy products, demand service and possibly even rude enough to ask different questions. Kind of hard to get adjusted to the Swedish service after living in Japan I think.

• Been slightly shocked by the amount of snow that's just been pouring in Sapporo constantly from November until the beginning of March. Finally most of it has melted now. The amount of snow that falls during one year in Stockholm was practically falling every week in Sapporo. Also slightly shocking to see (old) people's devotion to clear the sidewalks and entrance to their houses of snow every day. The Sapporo snow festival in February was very cool, I'll upload some photos from it next time. Also went skiing at Niseko, the most famous ski resort in Japan, last weekend and had a nice stay at an Onsen (温泉), hot spring bath, I'll post some photos from that as well, I promise. Well sorry I don't have any photos from the naked hot spring bath, but from the skiing.
  

• Managed to update my visa! Quite surprised they actually decided to allow me to stay in the country for another year, I thought I'd disappear somewhere in the bureaucracy or miss filling out one of all the piles of papers and get kicked out from the country.

• Been busy with studying kanji characters and word. Seems like that that's the big challenge now. What we study at school now is mostly reading texts. Carefully going through all the grammar and special expressions in the text in the book until hopefully at least the students that has been listening understands everything in the text. The actual reading and grammar feels like it's just getting easier and easier lately. Since we've studied all the essential basic grammar quite long ago already, it's just about adding similar expressions and different types of special expressions. Not that difficult actually. The challenge is the kanji and words that's increasing in a high tempo. Lately each chapter contains about 50-70 new words which we have 3-4 days to learn before we proceed to the next chapter with about the same amount of new words again. I certainly can't say that I manage to remember how to correctly use all the words right away and especially not how to write all the kanji characters. However, usually I can remember at least how to correctly read most of the kanji and words and understand the meaning of the words when seeing them in the text. I hope then they'll be stored somewhere in the back of my head and after hearing/seeing them in other contexts a bunch of times, I kind of get the correct usage of the words confirmed and become able to use them myself. At least that how I feel like it's working. I have kind of stopped thinking about how many kanji I've studied, the amount is not that relevant really. Because the kanji characters has tons of special readings and differing meanings from case to case, it's alot better to just try to see it as learning words, no matter if the word you're studying consists of kanji characters you've already studied or if it consists of kanji characters that are new for you, what's important is to remember how to read it correctly, the meaning and finally which kanji characters it consists of. I've found it to be an easier approach than trying to categorize the kanji 'one by one' in my head. This might have been a change in my head while getting more used to seeing and remembering the kanji characters though, I'm not sure. What's for sure though is that both me and Japanese people in general tends to forget how to write alot of kanji by hand, it's kind of quite enough to remember how to read them and the meaning of the word in a society where everyone writes on computers and mobile phones anyway.

That's it for now. I'll be back with uploading some photos from the last months sometime this week! On Saturday I'm off to Osaka.

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.