Merry Christmas and a Yoi Otoshi wo!

Hej again!

Winter is here, even though it is more like autumn to me. The leaves that became red and yellow last month have now begun to fall from the trees and I feel a sting in my cheeks from the cold when I go out in the mornings. The stores are decorated for the holidays with fake snow and small lights in blue, green and red. I'm not expecting any snow for Christmas Eve but I think I will get into the mood until then. Especially because I got a big box of things from my parents two days ago. Thank you!! Actually I already opened it, haha. I couldn't restrain myself...

I'm going to Natsuko next weekend. There is a seminar at school on Saturday and I'm getting on the Shinkansen right after that. Monday is a National Holiday so I'm gonna stay in Osaka for 3 nights and head back to Tokyo with the first train on Tuesday morning. School finishes the 28th and I'm gonna be at Natsuko's parents' place over New Year (Oshougatsu). We plan to go to Nagoya as well, since the holiday will last until the 7th. Pretty nice!

Haven't been traveling much lately. I think I mentioned it before, that this period would mean a lot of work for me. I've been to school in the weekends for seminars and meetings, and haven't had time to go anywhere far. But the work has paid off. I have made a molecule that shows a liquid crystalline phase (columnar) and that I will probably be able to bring back home to Stockholm to do some diffusion measurements on. It's not perfectly pure yet so I might need to work on that, but at least it seems like I will have something to bring back home next year. Feels good.

A couple of weeks ago I helped Natsuko's dad prepare some persimmon fruit (kaki) for drying. This is called Hoshigaki - 'hanging persimmon'. What you do is to peel them, heat them shortly in boiling water and then dip them in strong sake (shouchu). I ended up getting 6 of them to bring home to my apartment to dry myself, and I have tried to document the drying process with my Lumix. Check it out in my Photobucket!
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/antonfrise/
There you can also see a night view from a skyscraper in Shinjuku, where I went today. Slideshows 'Shinjuku Government Buildings' and 'Hoshigaki in the autumn' are new!

God Jul!