Japan, post script

Today it’s exactly a year since I left Sweden for the great adventure. In 10 days it was 8 months since I came home. Yet Japan still haunts me, and it probably will for a long time. For starters, when I left it was partially because I thought I was done with Japan, I had studied the language for a year and then I’d lived there for 4 months. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything special at work anyway, so I might as well go home, right?

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I’d have to invent a new language just to be able to put to text just how wrong I was. All the things I mentioned in my last post I miss. I miss Shibuya, I miss Roppongi, I miss Shinjuku, I miss Akihabara, I miss my roommates, I miss the daily comments on whatever food I was having for lunch (curry, more often than not). I miss my Swedish boss, and I miss our Norwegian/Japanese boss. I miss getting shitfaced in the weekends and karaokeing horribly. I miss the people on the street. Stockholm is just so empty. I miss there barely being breathing room on the trains. I miss the sense of camraderie and… togetherness I had with my friends.

And no matter how much I try or want to, there are a million “what ifs” I just can’t stop repeating in my head, over and over. Even now, as I just started studying again, I can’t keep myself from comparing my film studies to my earlier Japanese ones. Not to mention the fact that 95% of my interesting stories and amusing anecdotes now come from Japan, and prefacing all of them with “like the time I was in Japan,” just gets old really fast. I now almost find myself planning my post-movie studies studies after whatever’s the most likely to get me back to Japan, or to some other far-off part of the world. Archaeology and going to a dig somewhere? Chef and go be a chef somewhere? and so on, so forth.

One of the things I was wondering before I left, and as I was going home was how I’d be changed by Japan, and I have. One of my favourite examples is when my cousin and his girlfriend graduated, just a few days after I got home. After the family dinner and stuff we went out for a drink or two. To the Sky Bar at the SAS Hotel by the central station. Now, in Tokyo, the sky bars are at the 45th floor, maybe. This one was on the 9th. What the fuck, Sweden? Before I left, I thought Stockholm had a good size, it wasn’t too big and not too small. Now, let me tell you, Stockholm so tiny it’s not even funny. And all the bars close too early and the alcohol is expensive and you can’t buy it at corner stores and there’s  no karaoke places and it’s way too hard to find Japanese rice and there’s no yakiniku sauce and the thinnest slice of meat is too thick for proper yakiniku anyway and  the list goes on.

But at the same time, I know that it won’t ever be the same when/if I go back. None of my friends are left and, well, everything would just not be the same. Too much have changed, people have gotten on with their lives. Except me, partially because of a documented emotional breakdown in February/March that led to me having doctor’s orders to take it easy for a bit. But it is in nostalgia that the problem lies. Going back would never be the same, and I’m not sure that going somewhere else would equate, either. And that’s the thing with experiences, maybe I shouldn’t go back at all, maybe I should but just as a vacation, or maybe I should find my way into living there again. Maybe I should go somewhere else, like the UK or the US or Australia or somewhere else entirely. The most important thing though, for me right now, is that I should stop reliving those few nights in my head, over and over, I should stop asking myself “what if” or “why didn’t I”, I should stop scolding myself for every thing I did that I in hindsight shouldn’t have done and I should stop longing for a time that by all accounts is over and done with. Maybe I’ll see some of the people I got to know over there again, maybe I won’t.

The only thing I know is, we’ll always have Japan.

The End is just another beginning

As I write this, I’m sitting at Narita airport, waiting to board my flight to Copenhagen.

After eating a breakfast consisting of some tuna sushi and a glass of Umeshu on the rocks (I’m addicted, so what), I got kind of… thoughtful. I’ve been in Japan for over four months, the next-longest I’ve ever lived somewhere, and I’ve met some great people while being here.

Like the Americans I met when I went to the Tokyo Game Show, the people that ruined my ability to generalise about all Americans being like the stereotype. The only bad thing I can say about them is that they suck when it comes to responding to messages. And that their extreme sense of “you’re my guest, I can’t make you pay for this” is really uncomfortable for someone who’s from a country where, if someone’s having a party, you bring your own drink, and whatever you’ve brought, that’s what you’re drinking.

Like the Dane me and my Norwegian room mate randomly met while walking home from Roppongi, and whom proved that there are cool people from south of the Swedish border as well.

Like the Finnish girl I karaoked my heart out with to the tune of the Smiths, just two days ago. The fact that noone else even knew what song we were singing just made it better. Now all that remains is the question of how much of our Indie Cred we still have left.

Like the Dutch guy who trashtalked my APM, and whose friends looked like pork scratchings on a towel. (stealing jokes from accomplished comedians make me look funny)

Like my Norwegian/Japanese boss who’d worked in the US for a while, swore like a sailor whenever his computer did something bad and got pissed off by Sigur Rós’ singer’s voice.

Like the women at the office, who commented on my food every day, often to the tune of some giggling.

Like my Swedish boss, that made it possible for me to go here, and was great company both during work days and when we went out.

Like the Swedish girl everyone but her and I thought either were or should be dating. Let’s just say it gets kind of awkward when a guy twice your age tries who you’ve just met tries to talk you up to a girl the same age as yourself. Not to mention the Australian guy who… I think told her how great my penis was. (for the record, the Australian had no information or experience of my genitalia.)

These people have practically been my family while I’ve been here, because if there’s one thing we all had in common, it’s that we all were alone in a big, strange city filled with tiny people. They probably meant more to me than I’ve yet to realise, but what I do know is that I’m going to miss all of them a whole lot.

As I wrote the above, I started thinking about what Japan has meant for me. To start with the halcyon days of studying Japanese at Stockholm University, fresh out of Upper Secondary School and a great love of Japanese comics and cartoons. Back when Japan was nothing more than a country far away where everyone totally acted like in the comics and everyone were a huge nerd. Back then, I didn’t really know a lot about anything. After studying Japanese for a year, and getting some new, good, friends, I got a new perspective, both on life and on Japan. Now, Japan seemed more comical, with most things we were told sounding like hyperbole and jokes, wrapped up with a smidge of truth. I started to look more critically at the cartoons I watched, realising that a lot of it lacked in both substance and plot.

Then, I got the mail saying that I had been accepted to work as an intern at the company I left a few days ago. When I took the bus into Town, I was struck by how much it looked like I thought it would, the clutter of two-story buildings, with power lines running all over the place. I realised how true-to-life some of the, well, scenery-porn comics I’d read was.
Another thing, possibly the most telling change, is that I’ve had to become a lot more social. Because when you start out on your own in a new town, you have to get to know new people, you don’t have your old social security net to fall back on. I’ve also come to appreciate, oh hey, I have to get on the aeroplane now. I’ll continue later.
So, where was I? It’s now a while later, I’m on the plane and I’ve watched The Expendables and Fargo. I also discovered that there’s a power socket for my computer built into my chair, so that’s nice.

I just put on the song “Things will never be the same again” by the favourite band of all the indie kids from Gothenburg born in ’92, jj, and I think the title is a nice summary of my being in Japan, or just life in general. But mostly Japan. Because no matter how I look back on how I was and how I now am, I was very… different back then. And even though I can still be awkward and all that stuff, I have found truth in the words of my Upper Secondary class coach/teacher, “fake it ’til you make it” does work. Because if you’re not confident enough to do something, the only way to get confident enough to do it is by doing it anyway. Of course, I’m still the big awkward weirdo on the inside, but that’s a whole different story.

As I’m approaching home, I also start thinking about how Sweden will be like. I do know for sure that I’ll do a quick bow and say “Sumimasen” more times than I should, and I wonder if I’ll stare in amazement at all the gaijin everywhere. Will I be shocked by how tiny it is, or will like being able to sit down on trains again? Will I indulge in Stockholm’s night life, or will I miss the days of nomihoudai and tone-deaf karaoke?
The things I do know I’ve been missing, though, is my friends, everyone from my brother from another mother to my fellow daigakuseis. And everyone in between. I have also been looking forward, no-life geek as I am, to finally playing the bunch of games I’ve missed out on completly while being in Japan. Although I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have the same hook to them after all the time I’ve spent not playing them.

The guy I’m sitting next to asked me what my favourite memory from Japan was, and that really got me thinking. The most unique one was definately when I slept at the US Army base, but picking the best one is harder. Was it being at Zojoji when the clock struck 12 on New Year’s Eve? Was it getting comfortably lost in Ikebukuro? Was it going to Comic Market and instantly becoming the envy of a large part of the self-named otakus of the world? Was it one of the dinners we had with our landlady, where we got to eat some of the best food I’ve ever eaten? Was it showing my mother Tokyo, and going to Mount Fuji and Nikko? Was it that thing that happened to my friend that I can’t tell you about, no matter how much I want to? I’ll probably never be able to tell for sure, but that is also my point. Japan has had some lows, some things that have made me put on The Smiths and just feel like Morrisey’s singing about me. But it has also had some amazing highs, when I’ve felt like James Murphy is telling me to dance myself clean. And as far as I consider it, the good times have outnumbered the bad times, and hopefully that’s not just nostalgia speaking.

I’ve now taken a bit of a nap, and thought about another strange occurrence. My season-clock is all wrong. You see, when I left Sweden, it was September, temperatures were around 15 degrees centigrade and cold winds were blowing. When I then get to a surprisingly sweltering Japan, I realise the for me unseasonal heat, but I still manage to keep it in my head that it’s autumn. Once the temperature started dropping in October-November, I was reminded of Winter’s approach back home. And I did write a number of smug statements on the line of “oh my 15 degrees centigrade sure is cold, isn’t it?”. The thing is, though, that it never got below 5 degrees, and it was usually in the early teens even. I even played Badminton on the roof on Christmas Eve. So I feel like I’ve lost out on some biting cold, some massive public transport delays and some magnificent blizzards. I also feel like it’s somehow still September, and would probably be even more convinced if it weren’t for having just celebrated New Year’s Eve. I’ve been harsly reminded of how ingrained cold weather is in my very being, and I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that fact. But in the end, I guess it’s inevitable. Deep down, I’m just a cold-hearted guy.

Last addition: I’ve now been in Sweden for 18 hours, and have also come to realise that I’ve missed the darkness. I don’t even know why, but when I was flying in over Stockholm yesterday I just felt like something clicked, and that was the darkness.

Quite possibly the penultimate Japan post

So, Christmas and New Year’s, eh?

On Christmas Eve (when Proper People celebrate Christmas), I had Christmas lunch with my Swedish boss, meatballs, potatoes, gravy, knäckebröd, caviar (the non-fancy Swedish one you put on bread) and julmust. It took 20 minutes to heat everything, but it impressed our Japanese co-workers, and was hella good. After work I ran home to change clothes, and then went to Roppongi with my Norwegian room mate and her boyfriend, where we met up with a bunch of Scandinavians (and a Dutch person). We then went to an Irish pub, where we had American/Irish/British/something Christmas dinner. I can’t quite remember what we had, but it was pretty delish. After that, we went to the club next doors and drank and danced for a bit. Took a cab home with the people I live with, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone trying to offer people in cars going the other way candy before.

Christmas Day, our landlady had a Christmas party/Bounenkai to which we were invited, and it was amazing, to tell the truth. Great food, amazing cakes and at least a few of the Japanese people could speak English. Although the guy that said you had to mix the (not exactly cheap) Korean munbaeju (distilled pear wine) I had bought when I went to Korea with tea didn’t exactly win me over. It was perfectly fine as a snaps straight out of the bottle, damn it. After sitting around until late talking to our landlady over a bottle of Umeshu, we thanked the powers that be that we didn’t have further home than down the stairs.

Now, to take a break from my regular way of just telling you about my weekends, I’m going to tell you about Tuesday. Although it was a rather special Tuesday. You see, Tuesday was the last working day of 2010. This apparently meant that the company bought us all food, in the form of pizzas, sushi, fried balls of mashed potato, curry bread (why haven’t I eaten it before? Why don’t more people bake food into the bread?), deep-fried chicken and, most importantly, champagne. At half past twelve. And much unlike our regular, strictly 1 hour lunches, this went on for 2½. All in all, it was a nice surprise and a hell of a way to end the working year that was 2010.

On Wednesday, I went to Asakusa, simply because a lot of the Japanese people I talked to on Christmas Day were terribly surprised that I hadn’t been there yet, and it was really great. It mostly reminded me of an older version of Okachimachi, but with a pretty neat Buddhist temple at the end of the market street. It was quite awesome, in that it inspired awe. But nothing like what I’ll be telling you later in this post.

Thursday and Friday-day were something else entirely. You see, dear reader (and there is about one of you), winter comiket was going on. Now, for those of you who’re not massive geeks, comiket is the biggest convention for cartoons and comics pretty much anywhere, with over 500 000 visitors over 3 days. Now, if you put things in their perspective, 500 000 visitors is barely anything, considering the greater Tokyo metropolitan area has around 37 million and Japan on a whole has… lots more. Comiket has some pretty cool things going for it, especially the numerous artists putting out remixes or reinterpretations of both video game/cartoon music and their own work and the really talented people who dress up as people from video games/cartoons/comics. But that’s not what comiket is about. Comiket is, by and large, about porn. Now, if you read back to my first Japan-post, when I went to Akihabara I was SHOCKED and APPALLED by the amount of nakidity present. If my current me met the me of that post, I would slap him in the face and tell him to grow up. I don’t know how many times my mind went “Oh hey, it’s that girl from that pretty coo…. wait are those… and are they… yes. yes, they are.”. Japan constantly finds ways of crushing any remaining sense of innocence I have. I also discovered that so-called crossplaying (dressing up as a character of the opposite sex) is way more common than I ever suspected. In the end, I managed to get my hands on a pretty cool card case from a pretty neat cartoon I like, as well as a CD that someone from a place on the internet I frequent had a hand in making.

Then, Friday night, New Year’s Eve. I suited up and we went to an Izakaya (Japanese pub, basically) in Shibuya with the normal Scandinavia-Dutch gang, plus some friends of people. We ordered nomihoudai and a bunch of food, and I drank my normal 5 or 6 glasses of umeshu. Around half past ten-eleven o’clock I went to Zojoji (a temple really close to Tokyo Tower) with a Swedish girl and the Finnish couple, we got into the temple grounds fairly easily, and once the clock struck 12 and everyone released their wish-balloons, well, it was quite magical. And the following, huge, amount of people heading into the temple to make their new year’s wish was even more impressive. There’s just something about going into a large golden hall with over 100 other people to ask the Buddha for forgiveness or a good new year or whatever you’re supposed to do (I did both, to be on the safe side). I’m not a religious man, but some things just make you speechless in a very… profound way.

After the temple, we planned to go to Shibuya, because someone knew of a party or a club or something. We were told to “go to Shibuya Nichome”. The thing is, all the -chomes are just a way of narrowing down a district, and since Japan decided that 95% of all roads don’t deserve a name, that makes finding other people kind of hard. Especially when their way of giving you directions is “we’re at the seven-eleven by the big crossing in Shibuya nichome”. For the record, there are at least three big crossings in Shibuya nichome, and at least two of them have 7-11s at them. After walking for 20 minutes, ending up by the station and then taking a second cab ride to where they were, we finally rendezvoused and went to the club. The club was a room. Not a big hall or anything, just a room. 50 square metres, tops. Well there, we danced the night away, I had at least two dance battles and got to act as a wall against the… Neanderthal-looking man from This is England. (Not the actor, he just looked, well, like they do in that movie.) Around half past four we decided to call it a night, some of us went to McDonalds while others went home. Now, let me tell you something. When you’ve felt nauseous from overeating for the entire night, eating a cheeseburger and a bigmac is not a Good Idea. I did my part, though, and ate my share.

Oh, and since I couldn’t find the place to insert this in the story itself, I also ran into one of my American friends on New Year’s Eve. And by ran into, I mean he ran into me. And by ran into me, I mean he basically tackle-hugged me. Still, nice to feel appreciated.

Today, I’ve mostly watched people from the Internet play videogames. Oh, and I had some curry for breakfast/lunch/dinner. All in all, a good start of 2011.

Also, I’m going home in 9 days. It’s going to be weird. I’ve even begun to miss snow, something that I’ll be able to keep up for approximately 20 minutes after exiting Arlanda airport.

My year in lists

I should write about when my mother visited and we went to Nikko and Mount Fuji, and when I went to the Ninja restaurant with two of my American friends, but I don’t have the time to do that now, so instead I’m going to make lists. Quite a few of them, even.

List #1, Top five songs of 2010

5. Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars, because it’s energetic and really catchy.

4. LCD Soundsystem – You Wanted a Hit, a fairly unremarkable song from the best live band ever, but the tempo and everything just works.

3. Los Campesinos! – The Sea Is A Good Place To Think About The Future, a song that really only Los Campesinos! could write, filled to the brim with metaphors, sadness and with some of the best story telling I’ve ever heard in a song.

2. Moonface – Marimba and Shit-drums, it’s 20 minutes long and most people will probably hate it, but it’s 20 minutes of brilliance from one of the greatest musicians of my generation.

1. The National – Terrible Love (Alternate Version), I really want to just put the entire High Violet album up here, but I decided to go with the song that had the best video, enjoy.

List #2: Top five movies I saw for the first time in 2010 because I really need to watch more movies:

5. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance. It’s anime, and it’s a remake of a 15-year-old series because the maker can’t think of anything new. That doesn’t chance that it has some of the most beautiful animation I’ve seen and a fairly decent story.

4. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It’s 20 years old, and has Keanu Reeves in it. It is endearingly 90′s, extremely entertaining and excellently, well, excellent. Every time I try to air-guitar and it doesn’t make a sound, I’m get a little bit more disappointed.

3. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. It’s also anime and I might be a huge fanboy for inluding it, but it’s got even prettier animation than 4, the story is very solid and rather heartwarming and let’s face it, Kyon is one of the best narrators ever.

2. Låt Den Rätte Komma In. Swedish, actually frightening vampires, all in all a great movie.

1. Lost in Translation. I watched it a few months after coming to Tokyo, and it completely blew me away. It manages to capture so many true things about the cosmopolis and everything is so magnificent, a truly great movie.

List #3: Top five things about living in Tokyo.

5. The connection you get with other foreigners. When you live in a city where over 99% of the people have another skin colour, you get a very peculiar, instantaneous connection to that person. You don’t have to talk to each other or anything, but you’re both baka gaijin and that’s enough, the two of you are friends.

4. The crowds. Now, I’m a city boy, and therefore prefer to be surrounded by tall buildings and lots of people, I can trust them. In a forest you can get attacked by bears and shit. That’s why I find it strangely soothing to walk in a huge crowd while listening to music, just slowly drifting towards where I’m heading.

3. Akihabara. Probably one, if not the, most famous areas of Tokyo, it’s the electronics and geek Mecca of Japan, and possibly the world. There is a lot of… unsavoury things here, most notably the maid cafés and the insurmountable heaps of cartoon breasts in all shapes, sized and dimensions. The first time I went there, I was shocked and appalled, now I don’t even raise an eyebrow any more. Akihabara has won, ladies and gentlemen.

2. The fashion. Now, I’m far from a fashionable man, I’ve barely even stepped foot inside a clothing store since I got here. The thing is, though, as homogeneous and suppressed as Japan is, with most everyone wearing a suit every single day, that makes the girls in exquisite princess dresses with accompanying umbrellas and bags, the men with impossibly point mullets and anyone else dressed in anything but a uniform of some kind stand out that much more. And no one even looks at them twice.

1. Umeshu. Now, I thought long and hard while writing this what number 1 should be, and this is really the only thing I can think of. Umeshu is what you get if you let some Japanese plums soak in sake for a couple of months, it tastes nothing like Sake at all, but is instead a rather sweet drink, and if I had to choose one drink to stick with for the rest of my life, I think I’d choose it, because it just is so incredibly good.

List #4: Things I must do before I go home:

1. Visit Tsukiji fish market. I have heard rumors about the tuna market being closed to visitors, but I at least want to eat some of the best and freshest sushi in the entire world.

2. Eat Fugu. I might not have a death wish, but just being able to say that I’ve eaten a dish that, if not cooked just right, will kill you feels worth it.

3. Visit Comic Market. I am a huge nerd, and since I will be here for it, I feel like it’s my duty to visit it, if not for the heaps and heaps of porn so for the awesome cosplay.

4. Go to an Onsen. While not as cold as Sweden, I could still use a good warm-up, and what better way than to visit some hot springs? With a bit of luck, it’s sulphuric enough to allow me to fart as much as I want to without anyone being able to tell, for that added sense of sneakiness.

5. Go to Akihabara, and ignore the value of money. This will likely be done the weekend before I go home. The simple reason being that Akihabara has a lot of awesomely cool stuff, and since I’d get fucked over with the exchance rate anyway, I might as well spend some money.

6. Go to a Buddhist temple. I’ve been to a bunch of Shinto shrines, but not a single Buddhist temple for some stupid reason. I don’t even know why I haven’t.

7. See the sunrise on January 1st. I will probably not manage this, but I’m in the land of the rising sun, and seeing the first sunrise of what is technically the new decade just feels like the right (extremely hipster) thing to do.

So yes, that was this [time unit]‘s special list edition! I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll tune in the next time, same* blog-time, same blog-channel.

* will probably not be the same time as this

In other, list-related news, my good friend André has been making a list of his 24 best songs from 2010, go listen to them, they are quite good.

Yes! I am a long way from home

I went to South Korea a few weeks back, and as I’ve been asked by people to write about it, my fragile ego can do nothing but agree.

South Korea is an interesting place, and my first impression of the country was that it looked, well, Soviet-y. Kind of dreary, mostly brown, all that stuff. Then the bus dropped me off at the station closest to my hotel and I re-evaluated my impression. I’d say it felt monolithic, but that’d be lying, because mono is singular, and there was a lot of very impressive buildings where I got off. So the word is polylithic, if that’s a thing. (is now!) Actually, saying that my first impression was Soviet-y is a lie, the first thing that hit my mind when I got off the aeroplane was that I’m in a nation that is at war. Now, I’ve been in the US twice, both times post-9/11, so this isn’t a new thing per se, but the whole thing feels a lot more tangible when the last front line of the cold war is within driving distance.

After filling out my forms, I was let into the country (on a related note, I now know my passport number by heart). As the food we got on the aeroplane was nothing short of suspicious, I decided to get some food, Korean food. I find a place that served it, and ordered a “meat kimchi bibimbap”, because kimchi is the essence of Korea, and a friend from my Japanese studies always ordered bibimbap when we ate at our Japanese restaurant of choice. Plus, it’s really fun to say. I order my food, and is very close to paying 10 times more than the food cost, since the Korean won is to the Japanese yen what the yen is to the Swedish krona. The bibimbap cost 8000, and I pulled out two bills that had a fine and a bunch of zeroes on them. When I got my food, I realised that I have no idea what bibimbap is or how to eat it, I got a big bowl with a bunch of things in, vegetables, dried nori flakes, all kinds of strange things, and the meat kimchi in the middle. I also got a bowl of soup, which is where things got complicated. Do I drink the soup á la miso soup? Do I pour the soup into the bowl of things? Do I clean my hands in the soup? This is also when I realised how much more bad-ass Korean chopsticks are compared to Japanese ones. Korean chopsticks are made out of metal, which makes the whole experience more… serious. After eating the bibimbap, feeling kind of ambivalent about the whole ordeal, I took the airport bus into Seoul.

The first night was fairly uneventful, I checked the TV for any Starcraft games that might’ve been on, took a long bath in the fancy bath tub my room had, and had a minor religious experience involving 4 slices of garlic bread and a grilled piece of meat. I haven’t had either since before I left Sweden, and as nice as gyuunabedon or yakiniku is, it just can’t compare to a good, old-fashioned steak. After dinner I went up to my room and watched something, a movie or a tv-series, on my computer, while wearing nothing but my underpants. Because when you usually have to sleep fully clothed, a warm room has to be taken advantage of.

The next day, I decided to take a walk around Yeouido, I think it was called, the island in the centre of Seoul that housed both my hotel and the National Assembly. This is when I got another new impression of South Korea, authoritarian. The reason being that there were several buses parked along the street, with several riot shields leaning against at least half of these buses. I had noticed them the day before, but at that time I was more concerned with finding my hotel than changing my view of South Korea for a third time in a day. Authoritarian tendencies aside, I have to praise the police, as they helped me find my hotel after walking around the block three times. I ended up asking one policeman, who then waved two more over, one of which spoke English. I asked him, he talked with his colleagues for a bit, walked down the street to an officer who had an iphone, he looked the hotel up on the phone while the other one talked over radio with a fifth policeman. After going down two streets to where it was supposed to be, the policeman asked a street vendor, and he pointed around a corner, where my hotel, believe it or not, actually was. But I ramble, again.

I haven’t looked it up or anything, but Yeoido appeared to be the business district of Seoul, it had a lot of fancy-looking scyscrapers, after all. That was really the first thing that properly impressed me about Seoul, but considering I’m from Sweden and get impressed by anything taller than 15 stories it’s not that big an accomplishment. I walked around for an hour or two, mostly photographing buildings. Went back to the hotel, did nothing for a while, went out to dinner, which was the second time I got impressed by Korea. First of all, most food is extremely cheap, especially compared to Japan, but what surprised me was that you always, always get at least a salad and some pickled things (and the ubiquitous kimchi, of course). The first night, I figured it was part of the fanciness of the hotel restaurant, as the thing did cost 400 000 won, or maybe 40 000? It was relatively expensive anyway. But when even the restaurant around the corner that pretty much only served deep fried chicken and beer gave me a salad and pickled things before my main course of deep fried chicken, and nothing but, I was seriously impressed.

On the way home I went into a 7-11 next to my hotel and looked for some unique Korean candy, all I found was something called “Lucky”, which was exactly like Pocky, and a largely disappointing candy bar called “Mr. Big”. Went up to my room, and discovered that my room had free internet, only it was the slowest internet in Korea on the slowest computer in Korea. But internet is internet.

Day three, I decided to do something, so I took the subway (that cost 1500, which contributed to my view of the won as a currency you can’t take seriously) into town. I was planning on going to one of the royal palaces, but I ended up finding the royal shrine instead. The next tour in English wasn’t for another 40 minutes, though, so I walked around the park a bit and found an area where well over 100 old men either played or watched board games, mainly Xiangqi and some weird thing that mostly reminded me of Othello.

The tour finally started, and I have to say it was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, and I learned a lot both about Confucianism and Korean history. The two most amusing things being that the Shrine had two temples where the spirit tablets of old kings were kept, one for the good ones and one for the less good ones, to be decided by the next king and that no one were allowed to wear yellow in ancient Korea, because yellow is the colour of the middle, and China is the middle. I also learned that the shrine is one of the few royal buildings that has only been burnt to the ground by Japanese invaders once (during the invasian by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, if I recall correctly). I also learned that the third king of Korea invented their system of writing, which felt like a great contrast to the current king of Sweden.

On the way home, I passed by an Indian restaurant and subsequently had Indian food for the first time in months, and it was lovely, although whatever I ordered for dessert was disgustingly sweet. Everything else was great, though, so I’m happy. After dinner I went to the hotel and procrastinated until I fell asleep.

Monday, my last full day in Korea. I was planning on going to one of the proper palaces, but it turned out nothing touristy is open on Mondays. I decided to take a chance on the Ntower, a tower on a fairly steep hill in the middle of Seoul. After battling stairs for a good hour, I reached the top, got a ticket and went up to the observatory. Luckily, it was a lot less foggy than it had been earlier days, and I managed to get a few decent pictures. I also managed to find a store that sold post cards, which was great as it meant I didn’t have to go back on my promise to send post cards to 20 friends and/or family members.

As I got down to ground level, the sun had started setting, and after treating myself to a plate of spaghetti carbonara I took a bunch of crappy pictures of the beautiful full moon. After going down in the cable car I stubbornly refused on the way up I went looking for a subway station. When I finally found one, I had a profound experience. I had too much money to ride it, you see. I had 51300 won, one 50 000 bill, a 1000 bill and 3 100 coins. Taking the subway home cost 1500, and the machine refused my 50 000 bill. So I had to walk a good ten minutes until I found a convenience store, where I bought a bottle of water and some candy, just to get change on my 50 000. I was still unable to take Korean money seriously. I spent the night writing post cards and then went to bed early, since I didn’t want to miss my flight.

Tuesday morning consisted of me going to a post office and sending the post cards, followed by me going out to the airport early. I could’ve spent an extra hour or two in Seoul, but I had nothing I really wanted to do, so there. I bought a bottle of Korean alcohol for my landlady, because sucking up never hurts, and two boxes of chocolate for my room mates and the people at the office. Then I took the tram (they have a tram at the Incheon airport, it was pretty neat) to my gate and sat there for two hours and crocheted on my infinity scarf.

I get on the plane and and I feel the judgement coming closer, it was now that I’d find out if I’d be let back into Japan or not. The immigration guy just stamped my passport and let me in, so I thought it was smooth sailing from thereon out. I go up to the customs guy, and he starts questioning me. Taken by surprise, I answer truthfully. Even though I openly tell him that the only reason I went to Korea was to renew my tourist visa to Japan, he lets me back into the land of the rising sun. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.

The up and coming week has promises of being interesting, as I will be visiting both Fuji and Nikko, and I will turn 20 and go to a ninja restaurant. Aw, I’m 100 words shy of 2000 words, what a shame.

Sickness

Today, we’re going to talk about sickness, but not any normal kind of sickness, but homesickness!

Three days ago, my second… monthiversary in Japan passed by, not celebrated but noticed nevertheless. With that in mind, I decided to really think about what I miss, and don’t miss, about my native Sweden, and I’ll start with the most important thing. Food.

Now, I’m sure my nationality makes you think I am more or less addicted to meatballs, which is not quite true. Although they are my go-to food for Christmas, Easter and midsummer dinners, since I’m not a big fan of herring. What I miss, however, is the equally Swedish falukorv, the not-especially-Swedish large oven-fried fish fingers, the decidedly unswedish chili I used to eat at least once  week, and that’d eradicate the taste buds of anyone else daring to taste it. I miss going down to the Greek restaurant around the corner and ordering “the usual”, even though I’m almost at that point with the curry store near where I work. I miss making Tacos by my lonesome every Friday night. I miss being able to read labels in the store, and I miss being able to throw some food together without worrying about what I’m actually eating. And, lastly, and this is a big lastly, I miss fucking Knäckebröd. I did find a store that sold it a month ago, but then the bread I bought turned out to have some extra, unwanted, protein in them, so I kind of got turned off that store. And not even the eternal carrier of Swedish food internationally, IKEA, failed to supply me with knäckebröd. I did buy some whole grain mustard, though, now I just need something to put it on.

Socially, I miss being able to take the tube home no matter what time it is. Having to either go home at midnight or commit to an entire evening of drinking makes choosing hard. I miss being on the same timezone as the majority of my friends, as it makes communication that much harder. I miss not knowing the dominant language, although what little Japanese I do know makes getting around a lot easier than if I didn’t know anything at all. I miss eavesdropping. I miss feeling like a part of the crowd, even though I’d most likely feel even more like a sore thumb outside of Tokyo.

Functionally, I miss being able to read street signs. I miss street lights that don’t take forever to change. I miss going into any kind of slightly geeky store without feeling like a pervert. I miss not having to ride a train for 20 minutes to buy something. But mainly, I miss central heating. Japan is interesting like that, they get 40-degree-plus summers that plunge into 0-degree winters, and all the buildings are built to keep the heat out, so as soon as it stops being 20 degrees outside, it stops being 20 degrees inside as well. It’s gotten so bad now that I’ve even started to drink tea, just as a way to keep warm. Not to mention the pain of getting up in the morning when it’s 15 degrees in my bedroom, which then got knocked up a notch when I’d done my laundry the day before and was gruesomely reminded that everything take at least two days to dry on these godforsaken islands. Let’s just say I’ve taken a shine to microwaving my underpants.

I apologise for the recent dip in quality of my blog posts, but nothing out of the ordinary has happened, except that time when it did and I were sworn to secrecy. I’ll hopefully have a new, at least somewhat interesting post in a little over two weeks, as I’m doing the ritual visa renewal run to Korea the Friday after next. Worst case scenario you get an interesting post about what it’s like to be declared Persona Non Grata. OR is that best case?

We’ll just have to see, won’t we?

Pretentiousness

As I was listening to Swedish Radio P1′s Summer program today, something that would recommend if it wasn’t for every Swede knowing about it and every non-Swede being unable to understand the language, I heard something that rang very true with me. Ulf Malmros, the director of one of my favourite movies (Slim Susie) said that, during his time at a Swedish television production company, the motto was that “every day has to trump the previous one”, and that is something that I found very true when it comes to my own blogging. Every post has to be more interesting, more profound, than the previous one. And that is something I cannot do, I have done nothing more interesting than when I spent the night in a US Army couch. I have met old friends, I have made a new friend, but beyond that nothing of note has really happened. Except for that time I found a mouse below my bench at a restaurant, that was pretty interesting. And that time I kinda went and bought japanese gay porn comics.

Therefore, I have decided to dedicate this entry to music, the music of Tokyo. The music that I feel captures the mood of Tokyo the best, to be more precise. To start somewhere, I will start with what I listened to when going home on a half-full train after sundown. Something that, to me captures the mood of the sparse city lights passing by the window while you stare out into the abyss that makes up a lot of the padding between the big city centres at night. The band in question, Kent. The reason? I feel that their music somehow manages to grip that feeling of emptiness, the feeling of life passing me by, that I get when I see the cityscape pass me by. So many lives that I will never know, never care about. So many people that won’t care whether I live or die. Stockholm ligger öde och världen håller andan.

To move on to something that Tokyo is extremely famous for, crowds. Wherever you are in this cosmopolis, there will be other people, lots of them. And not one of them is going your way. That very special brand of loneliness is something that, to me, blends beautifully into both the serene etherealness of Sigur Rós and the maelstrom of music that is 65daysofstatic. Something in the music flows past me in the same way that the sea of tiny men in too large suits do, and I continue my struggle alone. Brosandi hendumst í hringi höldumst í hendur allur heimurinn óskýr nema þú stendur.

I must really seem like quite a bitter person, reading back. And while that to a certain extent is true, there is a lot more to it. It’s not that I feel alienated in Tokyo, which I do, because I’m a 6′ gaijin. It’s that between my nationality having a slight preference for the depressed state of mind and my not exactly happy-go-lucky personality, this city of over three times the population of my home country inflicts a certain… impending sense. I’m far from sure what actually is impending, though. And the fact that my personal clock is going into winter depression mode isn’t helping either, although it must be getting confused what with the trees still being mostly green.

Nevertheless, it’s getting far too late and I have a friend coming in from Kyoto tomorrow morning, we are going to tear it up, viking style.

Now I just need to find something to deafen the laughs of my room mates as they, I don’t know, conspire against me or something.

Holy fuck I’m a pretentious son of a bitch sometimes.

brosandi
hendumst í hringi
höldumst í hendur
allur heimurinn óskýr
nema þú stendur

rennblautur
allur rennvotur
engin gúmmístígvél
hlaupandi inn í okkur
vill springa út úr skel

vindurinn
og útilykt af hárinu þínu
ég lamdi eins fast og ég get
með nefinu mínu

hoppípolla
í engum stígvélum
allur rennvotur (rennblautur)
í engum stígvélum

og ég fæ blóðnasir
en ég stend alltaf upp

og ég fæ blóðnasir
og ég stend alltaf upp