Thursday, April 24, 2008

Back in Tokyo

It's been a while since I wrote here... 2 months! Wow, time flies and all that...

I went back to Stockholm for about 3 weeks in March. It was soooo good to see my family and friends again! A little bit of change of environment was just what I needed. I spent my Easter vacation at my grand mother's summer house in the inner part of Stockholm archipelago and ate a lot of Swedish food (herring, salmon, a mutton steak and potatoes) and had a bunch of Easter beers from small breweries in Sweden and Norway. :P

I managed to get some work done as well, but I won’t bore you with that. ;)

Not many days after coming back to Tokyo (the 2nd of April) I got some distinguished guest; my friends Daniel and Karin. They spent two weeks roaming Japan by train and I did my best to show them around the places I know; streets of Shibuya, bands in Harajuku, sakura in Shinjuku and Ueno, bars in Ikebukuro, electric.... stuff... in Akihabara. I hope I didn't wear you out with all that walking! :D And thank you for taking me to the sky bar of Tokyo Tower Hotel. Very, very Tokyo-esque!

A week passed after D&K left and then I met up with Jacob and Elisabeth from Denmark and Matt from USA. We had a weekend of art/culture with visits at the National Art Center Tokyo, NTT InterCommunication Center and a club in Roppongi called SuperDeluxe. Now this place was the definite highlight for me. We had been told that there would be noise music (what's that? you wonder, then check this video from another event at the same place http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMOR3Fzi2Ck) but I don't think anyone of us four was prepared for how experimental it would be. Seven (7!) hours of... noise. Guitars, computers, mix tables, record players, a fluorescent lamp, a girl screaming (almost) ultrasonic and a cello, strapped to table and disciplined with a brush and a stick... Absolutely crazy and maybe the best introduction to this genre that anyone could ask for. The weekend was wound up at a restaurant where we, thanks to Matt's unbeatable ordering skills, had the chance to try raw horse meat and small squids (also raw?) in soy sauce.

I'll try to put up some pictures from SuperDeluxe later and maybe a video on YouTube (if I figure out how to do that).

Until then, take care!

And now I'm 26...