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!

Bye bye Sweden

These last 6 weeks were great, I've had the chance to see so many people and the summer in Stockholm has been wonderful. Thank you all for meeting up! It really means a lot to me.


I'm going home/back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. This was the last trip before my Japanese scholarship ends, which means I won't be back here until April next year.

The plan after that is to stay in Sweden for a year, finish my PhD, and then return to Japan in April 2011 for work. Not sure about what kind of job that would be or for how long... Oh well. Any ideas/comments/bashes are more than welcome!

Ok, that's it.
Take care!

Stockholm, I love you

I've been home for almost a month now and it's been wonderful. Stockholm is best in August, with the sun and the warmth. And I'm not the only one here who enjoys those things... The people of Stockholm (and all of Sweden?) likes to get tanned and always has a habit of getting pretty much naked as soon as the weather allows for it.

This guy is not embarrassed to show some skin.

Another thing that's the same is the subway. How can it be so crappy? Last week I had to walk half the way to work (Slussen-Teknis, for those who know where that is). Not a completely bad thing, because it was a beautiful morning. But still. And the price for a monthly pass just keeps on getting more expensive for every time I return home...

Can't get on this train.

Something that's new though is tattoos. Big ones. Visible on arms and necks and faces. Every third person I see on the street has one. Or two or five. After spending two years in Japan this looks scary.

Girl my age with stuff on her arms.

Obviously I asked before taking the picture. Totally screwed up the aperture and ISO settings and it got blurry. But you see my point, right? Big tattoos for everyone to see.

The best thing about Stockholm is sailing in the archipelago. I had one weekend this year and got so lucky with the weather. Perfect wind and not a lot a waves.

Pure happiness.

I've been taking pictures like crazy but I'm running out of (free) space on flickr so I might wait with posting there for a while. Gotta get things sorted out first.

Ok, that's it.

Take care!

Pakistan mangos in Stockholm

I'm back home! It's been a year since last time... Too long, I missed Stockholm.

I had a good flight. Spent most of the time talking to my neighbour, Thomas, from Germany. He was in the middle of a divorce from his Japanese wife and was now taking his two sons, 7 and 12 years old, to Hamburg for vacation. The boys had spent 5 years in Japan (separated from their dad) and the youngest one only spoke Japanese. So there we were, 4 Europeans, chatting away in our common language: Japanese.

Today I met for a lunch with my friend, Annika, and as we were digging in to our pasta salads a truck stopped next to us full of Pakistan mangos! I love Pakistan mangos!

So many boxes!

Naturally, the drivers of the truck started laughing at me for taking pictures of their load. Sure, I may have looked like an idiot, but they were amused and gave us samples!

Annika with our gifts.

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately and put some of them on my flickr page. Here are some, just click them to see more on in the photo stream.

Shinjuku - the gray city.


Shinjuku - where kids sleep on the street.

A fennec puppy. Cute, huh?

There are a lot more in the stream, so feel free to take a look!

That's it.

Take care!

12 meals

I've been taking pictures of what I eat. At first it was more like a project just for myself. 10 years from now I want to look at these photos and remember what places I used to go to for lunch and dinner.

But then I thought that it could be a nice thing for the blog. So here it is. In no particular order.

1

Maguro Ichiba or "The Sashimi Place". Raw fish on rice!

Maguro Ichiba: Bakudan Don. Tuna, squid, egg and natto. Yes, I can eat natto!

2

Keisuke or "The Black Ramen Place"

Keisuke: Black Ramen. Extra large bowl and rice on the side for free!

3

Oishiiya or "The Chinese Place"

Oishiiya: Jaajaa-men. Miso sauce on cold noodles. I never eat the egg soup in the back....

4

Morikawa. This is my favorite. Fried or simmered fishes. :P

Morikawa: Today's fried fish. Probably red snapper (tai) but I don't know.

5

Pig. Steaks and hamburgers!


Pig: Sirloin steak with butter on top!

6

FamilyMart or other convenience stores (konbini)


The Konbini Triple: Sandwich, onigiri and juice.

7

Kamira or "The Cabbage Rolls Place" (though I almost never have the cabbage rolls)

Kamira: Tonight's (bangohan). 2nd favorite after Morikawa.

8

Mumbai or "The Indian Place"

Mumbai: Chicken curry, naan and mango lassi.

9

Toogarashi or "The Korean Place" or "Bibimba"

Toogarashi: Bibimba, and this is the only thing I order here. So good, so cheap.

10

Yaa-yaa-ya or "The Other Ramen Place"

Yaa-yaa-ya: Ramen with an egg.

11

Kodawariya or "The Chicken Place" or "Kara-age"


Kodawariya: Grilled chicken breast (Amiyaki suteeki).

12

Yamaneko or "The New Place"

Yamaneko: Anchivy and olive pizza. Yes, there is good(!) pizza in Japan... and it will make your stomach full and wallet empty.

Ok, that's it.

Take care!

Say hello to my little friend!

I got a DSLR!

It's a Nikon D70s, which means that it's an old camera. 5 years, or almost ancient when it comes to DSLRs. I didn't really choose it though. Long story. Let's just say that it sort of fell into my hands.

Anyways, I'm having a lot of fun with it! Especially together with my new lens, a Nikkor 50mm f1.4. With it I can take pictures with very narrow depth of field. See below!

Natsuko playing the guitar.

The focus is only on her left hand. Actually, only on her index finger. A little bit too narrow perhaps? Gotta be careful.

But still, photography isn't about equipment, right? It's about seeing something funny.

Tomo showing his strength.

How can he do that?

Ok, short one today.

Take care!

Fear and Japanese Pickles

Cute bear, right? It's an alarm. Pull the string at the bottom and it goes wiiiiwiiiiwiiii! A woman got stabbed the other week by an unknown guy about 500 m from our apartment and now I carry this little guy for protection... Sort of takes away that feeling of complete safety in Japan, doesn't it? Maybe I was naive to believe in that?



I'm making tsukemono (Japanese pickles) these days! It's the easy version, where you just put vegetables in salty water and press them under a heavy glass weight for a day.



Cucumber. Looks a bit slimy but it turned out pretty good.




Komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach). This became way too salty! Got to rethink the recipe...



Went rafting in Gunma-ken with Tomo, Matt and a bunch of other people last weekend. Good times! It's so good to get out in the nature. I wish every weekend was like this.




Wetsuit crew! Believe me when I tell you that they were needed. See below to know why.



Gunma-ken is up in the mountains and there was still snow left on them, melting in the summer sun. Naturally the rivers were freezing.




BBQ in the evening and Go-san is warming his hands over the fire after a long day in the water.




We're trying to grow some vegetables on our balcony now. Here's an aubergine.

And some tomatoes. Still green though.... Maybe another week or two and they might look more tasty?

I've posted a lot of old pictures on Flickr. Here's a link to my Japan set.

That's it.
Take care!