What's in a name?

This entry contains adult language and bitter rants. You have been warned. :)

During recent years sushi has seen a huge increase in popularity in Sweden. I do like sushi and naturally this trend makes me happy. But I’ve run into some awkward names for sushi restaurants in Stockholm. Check this out.

Sushi restaurant #1

Esa sushi.

According to my Japanese dictionary, the word “esa” is written 餌 and means fodder or animal feed, something you give your pet or to a bird in a pond. “Esa” would not be used when talking about human food. Weird name for a restaurant, isn’t it?

Why did they choose this name? It can’t be on purpose, right? No restaurant owner would regard their customers as animals. I guess ignorance is the only explanation, but the name Fodder sushi is just so ironic.

Sushi restaurant #2Ashima sushi.

Ashima doesn’t really mean anything in Japanese. However, “ashi” could be 足 or 脚, which means leg or foot. And “ma” could be 間, which has many meanings, one of them being space between. So with just a little bit of imagination this restaurant would therefore be called Sushi between legs.

In the window of Ashima sushi there is a bunch of Japanese signs written, as decoration. These are indeed real signs but half of them are either backwards or rotated 90 degrees and they have almost no meaning. I say almost, because to two big ones in the middle (the rotated ア and the ホ) is read “aho”. That is very close to “ahou”, which means fool or idiot. Ok…

Sushi restaurant #3Sushi bar ting ting.

The sound “ti” is in Japanese equivalent to “chi”. In a similar way are the sounds “ng” and “n” pretty much the same. “Ting ting” would therefore sound like “chin chin”, which is willy or dick in Japanese. I have actually asked the owners of Sushi bar ting ting why they chose this name. It turns out that “ting ting” means something you can do every day, in Chinese. I guess the intentions were good.

There is a rather entertaining homepage called engrish.com that publishes photos of mistakes in English made by (for the most part) Japanese people. To me, these restaurant names are just as funny. And it seems there are still some great opportunities for translators to make a difference.

Maybe I should change career? I could be working with hilarious stuff like this every day. Wouldn’t that be something?

Ok, that’s it.
Take care!

Animals

This entry is only about cute things. You have been warned. :)

When living in Tokyo I could become sad when hearing recorded birdsong from a loudspeaker, for example in the subway. So hearing all this chirping from real birds in Svedmyra has been really pleasant.

The birds look tiny here in the blog but clicking the pictures will give you larger versions.

A robin on a branch.



A blue tit peaking out of its nest.



A treecreeper carrying stuff for its nest.



A woodpecker pecking at the treecreeper's nest. The treecreeper was so upset.

Another thing that indeed is nice is to have animals coming up close to the house.

Roe deer.



Rabbits.



A mouse, in a flowerpot...

Our trusty mouse hunters just keep on bringing their toys into the house. Not good...

Alice...



....and Maja.

Ok, that's it.

And it must have been the sweetest thing I've ever written... I think I'll be more vicious next time.

Take care!

Epilog

I can't believe that this is the first post I write this year... That's way too late, I know, but there were so many things going on and I found it rather difficult to write about them before now.

First of all, Natsuko and I got married!



We registered our marriage at the ward office in Tokyo on the 2nd of January. That is 2010-01-02. Pretty neat date, isn’t it?

In March we spent a few days on Ishigakijima (a Japanese island outside of Taiwan) with our families. That’s where we had our wedding ceremony. Ishigakijima is a wonderful place. I really miss it.

The 23rd of March was my last day in the lab. Things went quite smooth in the end and I managed to finish most of what I wanted. I have a lot of work to do in Sweden now, but that should be fine as long as I can keep motivated.

On the 24th I went for a final interview at Kanebo Cosmetics in Tokyo. They called me the day after and gave me a job offer.

I spent the last week in Tokyo meeting with friends, Natsuko’s family and packing 2½ years of life in a bag and a few boxes.



I came back home to Sweden on the 31st of March.

A busy schedule but many things turned out for the best. I guess I’m lucky.





Now I’m living in my parents’ house in Svedmyra, Stockholm.

Things I will enjoy in Sweden are:

Being with my family.
Managing my time, myself.
Sailing.

Things I will miss from Japan are:

My wife.
Warmth.
Japanese food (though bread in Sweden is delicious).


This entry is named epilog but that might not be a true title, because I intend to keep on writing and posting pictures. So feel free to check in from time to time in the future as well.

Ok, that’s it.
Take care!

On eavesdropping

Of all the good ideas in the world, I think half are thought up while we are commuting by public transportations. That little time-space, away from both work and home, it can be so nice for having thoughts just come and go as they want. (The other half of all the good ideas might come from time spent in the bathroom, I don’t know.)

I’m curious by nature and will listen in on people talking in public. Especially if they don’t know that I understand their language. (Yes, it’s not nice but...) I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems my curiosity increases when I only have access to part of the conversation... such as when overhearing someone talking on their cell phone. I will strain my ears to hear the person on the other end of the line. My mind will get all busy trying to imagine who he or she might be and what they are saying. In fact, my curiosity can become so overwhelming that I can’t restrain it. I can’t shut the conversation out. I have to listen even if don’t want to. I turn into an involuntary spy...

... which is why I’ve lately started to appreciate the Japanese ban on using cell phones in trains. And the fact that Japanese public manner is so good that almost everyone here actually obeys it. It's so nice and quiet.

Am I turning into a geezer?




I’ve been putting a bunch of pictures on flickr. Here are some examples:

Mt Fuji from Odakyu line.


At the Izu-Mito Sea Paradise.

Dolphin chasing a ball.


The pacific ocean.

More in the stream.

Ok, that's it.
Take care!

Flickr

I've been playing a lot with my Nikon for a few months now. It's so much fun. Someone asked me to show more of my pictures. So I thought I would change the way I upload what I take.

Until now I've written something here about everything I put up on Flickr. But I won't do that anymore. I'll just upload stuff there at a higher rate and continue to write here about as often as I've done before.

There's a problem though. Flickr limits the number of uploaded photos to 200 (for cheapskates like me) so my old pictures will disappear. But that's just the way it is.

Here are some of the latest pictures I've taken. There are a lot more in the stream. Take a look! :)

Ok, that's it.
Take care!

Disneyland for grannies

As I’ve said before, we live in a part of Tokyo called Sugamo.

Sugamo is known as “Harajuku (or Disneyland) for the old ladies”. Why? Well, not far from us there is a temple (Togenuki – jizou) that is dedicated to healing of physical suffering. The grannies come here in herds to get rid of pains in their backs, knees and whatever.

Now, clever entrepreneurs have seized the opportunity to make some money on the oldies. The whole street up to the temple (and beyond!) is full of stores and stands, offering stuff that any old lady would want. Like tea, pickles, granny clothes, hats or wigs, bright red underwear (I’ll explain another time), fortune-telling and so on. It’s Disneyland, see?

Sundays are the best/worst. It gets packed. Moreover, there is a special festival on everyday that contains a 4 (that is 4th, 14th and 24th in any month)..... And when that coincides with a Sunday it turns into this:


This is 30 meters from our door...

Last Sunday we made a little trip to the area around Asakusa in northern Tokyo. There’s a new tower under construction there called Tokyo Sky Tree. It’s gonna be the highest building in Japan (North East Asia?) with a height of about 630 meters. Not as high as Burj Dubai but still pretty impressive considering the earthquakes we have here. Also, we have special interest because it’s Natsuko’s colleges at Nikken Sekkei that designed it.

There are almost no buildings this size around it. It's gonna look huge! See the link to Nikken Sekkei above for images.

Ok, that’s it.
Take care!

IKEA Japan

To Swedes living abroad, IKEA is where you go when you want Swedish food, candy and (in rare cases) furniture.

The weird thing is that I've only been back in Japan for a little more than a week and I have already paid a visit to the Tokyo store. It's strange because I just spent 6 whole weeks enjoying Sweden and I shouldn't need this yet. Am I perhaps a little homesick? Hmm...

Meatballs (Swedish?), potato chips, and marshmallow cars (Ahlgrens bilar).

We spent almost 2 hours looking at how we could furnish our apartment (if we stayed at the same place for more than 12 months). And we found the best thing IKEA has to offer just at the end, in the food store close to the exit. Swedish "Wästgöta kloster" cheese! We used to eat this all the time when Natsuko was an exchange student at KTH.

Natsuko's reaction when finding this golden treasure.

Someone has told me that one slice of cheese contains the same amount of fat as 2 pork chops... So these days I'm having the equivalent of 4 steaks, every morning. Yum yum!

Ok, that's it.
Take care!