Vilse i Japan

Yesterday (12/26) me and Anders Holmberg went to play some tennis against one of his Japanese friends. Yeah sure, I thought, this can be fun and when I get home I can do my overdue christmas cleaning.
We started with the basics of how to hit the ball witch was quite alot harder when the instructions were in japanese and I had learned everything the wrong way the first time. This practice took about 30 minutes and after that we started to play against each other in 2v2 games (we each had a random team mate). It was really fun even if I could hardly do anything right.
Me and Anders almost never got to rest since everybody wanted to play with or against us but that was totally fine!
At the last hour of the 4 hour session we got to play on the same team agains the Japanese pro players. Needless to say we lost quite hard.
Sweden 0 - Japan 5.

When we were finished one of them asked if we wanted to come over to him for a cup of coffee. Well sure that could not take that long. Wrong. Once there we first got Beer. Then more Beer. Then some fish, candy, chips, some clam wrapped in seaweed, cucumber wrapped in ham, more fish, ice cream and I feel I have forgotten something that we got. Oh and we never even got that coffee since we had to leave after an hour of constant eating. I could hardly understand anything but thank god that Anders did.

We left their house and went to the car (Anders friend and his wife were giving us a ride to the station) and he asks what we thought was "Do you want to go and eat dinner with us sometime" when he really said "do you want to go and eat dinner with us right now".
One dinner later and I was in the so called "Paltkoma". They even payed for the food. Friendly fellows.

Well at the station when they were dropping us of they actually gave us each the tennis raquette we had used for the day.

So to recap.
In one day I got: A tennis raquette, Enough food to feed a family of 4, 2 Beers, A calendar, memories for life.

The Japanese are so friendly and caring I almost vomit a pink unicorn followed by a rainbow everytime I go to bed.

Well not really, but I felt like it was time to write something. And as you all know christmas was like yesterday. So what should you do when you do not want to eat sushi on this day?
Well you go to IKEA and eat their meatballs. I had 15 of them (they did not even let me order 10 of them, god damnit) and truth to be told I liked it, and I ate them all. For the first time in a long time I enjoyed meatballs. Really weird.
After the food we strolled around and bought random items that could improve our stay in Kyouto. I got a broom, 2 pillows, a blanket, 2 marabou daim and 3 bags of Ahlgrens bilar. Swedish candy is made of win and awesome compared to Japanese.
Once home our adventure did not end. No no, no sir it did not. Hanna invited us over for candy, glogg and pepparkakor. We also watched the Swedish "Donald Duck Christmas" and something witch I do not remember the name of. Once that was over we exchanged christmas presents witch we had agreed on we would buy on IKEA. I got the best present ever. A pack of hotdogs and buns.

Fuck.
Year.

Nothing is happening that is worth reporting!

So I had decided this week to visit the Kiyumizu-dera Temple on saturday despite how hungover I was. So I went there just to take a few pictures of it with my new cameraphone wich can actually take pretty decent pictures. Well there I walked around and shot a few, got stopped by random strangers who wanted me to take a picture of them or wanted to be in a picture with me. If I were a bit more genki I might have enjoyed it some more but that is the price for an awesome night out.
But my story for you today had almost nothing to do with the temple except for the fact that it was the place where it all happened. Minding my own business I felt someone grab ahold of my pants. Looking down I saw a boy, maby 6 years old, almost at the verge of crying. As I'm somewhat of an expert in japanese I asked him what was wrong. His answer... Well.. I managed to hear "Oneesan" so I asked if he could see her anywhere (since I have no idea how to say "are you lost" or anything that is actually usefull). He said he couldn't and alot more that I could barely understand or even hear. I proceeded to question him in how she looked and yet again I could not understand anything but "brown hair". Well awesome, search for a girl at the most visited temple in kyoto that has brown hair. This will be easy. But like a gift from God a girl came down some stairs and shouted the little boys name (I assume). His little face lit up with happiness when they saw each other and I was happy I didn't have to search for her myself.
Why this boy chose me who don't even look like I might know japanese I have no idea but I'm glad he found his sister and she was happy to find him aswell. She even gave me a hug!

Crazy stuff is happening everytime I leave my appartment... Well almost anyway.

Long time since any update. But that's cool since I am updating it now! Regular days are not fit to be written about but yesterday was made of pure win and awesome. Grease bar was the place where this took place. A bar wich had ￥3000 entrance fee. Pretty god damn high am I right?
Then what do you know... Awesome live music in the form of asians singing Elvis and they were dressed like him aswell. Awesome free drinks that were free for anyone. I, of course, drank around 10 of those in addition of a couple of beers so I will have to say that I might have earned back my entrance fee. I learned from Anders girlfriend and her sister that green apple sometimes translates into japanese as blue apple wich confused me greatly, I mean... Thats not even remotely logical. Awell they were free and delicious so who am I to question them. They can call them whatever they feel like as long as they are tasty. And free.
After the bar we went of course to karaoke where we met the team from the westerncoast. At this point we had lost some people on the way such as both of the Anders' and all of the girls but Hanna. But that did not matter beacuse that night, we were gonna have ourselves a real good time. We felt ali-i-ive and the world we turned it inside out yeah. Floted araound in ecstasy.

Anywho in conclusion. An epic hangover is the indication of an epic evening the previous night.


Due to crappy person behind the camera I have no pictures of the night to post. Too bad for you! But I do have a picute of my bracelets of awesome

From time to time it's nice to just take a slow day. Snoozed off most of the morning and sat by the computer with minimal movement until about 1 o'clock. By that time I decided I had to do atleast something so I decided to go down to Teramachi and do a little windowshopping. I am however going back there tomorrow beacuse alot of stores have crazy discounts on sundays. On my way there I took the way by the river and I saw some sort of otter along with the usual hundreds of birds. And quite few of the eagle/falcon like predatory birds. But the elusive bastards are to hard for me to take a decent picture...


At the store I fell in love with a sweater but it might have been a bit expensive so I'm going to have to think about it until tomorrow. However my weak mind did not let me leave without buying anything so I got a tshirt and sweater combo for 3000yen. A reasonable price.

Now I have just eaten (ramen noodles, chicken, carrots, babycorn all in a garlic/chili sauce) and I am seriously thinking of a powernap. We'll see about that.

My teachers rocks. All of them must think that we swedes are a bunch of alcoholics since every morning they ask what we did last night and more often than not we say that we went to a bar or karaoke and drank alot of beer. (Due to major confusion I must point out that we just say we go to these places, not that we actually do... Well mostly)With that being said I will say a few words about everybody, beginning with Kurita Sensei.

Kurita sensei, 栗田, is pretty much the average teacher with just a dash of malice. He is tough but fair and tries to set traps for us when he asks something. He has a quite unique method of teaching wich involves us having wrong and then correcting us. We sure as hell learn to say right from it since nobody likes being wrong infront of the class. He is the teacher I like the least but that does not mean I dislike him. He is awesome. He is also the teacher who can speak the most english so he is the one we ask when we have questions about grammar and particle bits in how to build sentences.


Saito sensei, has a too complicated kanji for this computer... She is like the "kind mother teacher"-type. Makes sure that everybody understands and if they don't she tries in broken english to explain. She is the teacher who teaches us hiragana and katakana so naturally she is the one we have the most quizes with. But that is nothing negative as we all like her anyway. She is also the teacher who has thought me the most kanji and that is something I value since kanji is made of win and awesome. I can even spell my own name now thanks to her and it means "Break bird forever". Quite awesome indeed.


Ookawachi sensei, 大河内. The cute student who is our teacher on mondays and thursdays. She knows almost no english so if anyone is lost we have to help him or her the best we can since Ookawachi does not quite understand what we mean. This migh be beacuse of inexperience or just beacuse of her inability to understand english but that does not stop her from teaching us truckloads of japanese every time we have her. She has quite uniqe methods of teaching such as we draw a picture and describe it and so on. It might seem a bit weird but you sure learn what you are supposed to be learning.



Last but certanly not least we have Kubota sensei, 久保田. "Genki som fan" is a very nice description of her since she is always really happy. And by really happy I mean really happy. She comes in like a ray of light and fills our day with sunshine. She is the teacher I like the most and the "well it's okay if you don't understand the first time"-kind of teacher. We have her and Ookawachi on thursdays making them the best weekday for me since they are the funniest and of course the cutest teachers. Kubota can also take a joke and her method of teaching in the beginning was taking our books and pens just to make us ask for them. She got the nickname "dorobo" sensei, meaning thief teacher, and everytime someone mentions it she smiles and says "dorobo ja arimasen", I'm not a thief. We share our laughs and today when I said I was the best cook in japan she jokingly invited herself over for dinner. She also says that she is 20 years old (but she is like 34) and to be honest, she almost looks like she could be that young.



Sorry about crappy pictures but there was some junk behind the camera when they were taken (me that is)

Cheers

In the woods! Run to the hills and all that. It was a sight to remember and thank god I got a new camera so I could share at least some of the fantastic scenery of the japanese autumn. But the real beauty could never be caught on a simple camera, you have to experience it by yourself. We went out early on our day off (thank god for japanese holidays) with our teachers Kubota sensei and Kurita sensei. A very cold morning, and by cold I mean freeze your ass off. But as soon as we started climbing to the summit we forgot about the biting cold and were just awed by the magnificent wilds and temple buildings. Kubota sensei was our tour guide and tried to explain how stuff worked but only the seniors could understand since she (like almost everybody else) is quite bad at english. Thank god for Anders or "Ank-pappan" for his translation work, now and in the future.



I have posted all of the pictures from the trip on facebook so if you want more then there's the place to go.

Yesterday was halloween. The time of the year when you dress up, drink absurd quantities of alcohol and "scare people". It was epic. I will give the night 5/5 as every sense was pleased with the experience. Why? Well let me tell you that my friend.
Grade 1: Friends. Friends always makes everything better. Even if I lost track of them when we hit the bar they still enhanced the experience. We were 21 all in all when we gathered up. All in freshly bought costumes and quite a few beers in our systems. We had quite the party aswell. Death, panda-kun, like 7 power rangers, mickey mouse, pikachu, a dinosaur, cat, a genie, a guy dressed as a girl to match another member of our group and many more. With this many awesome people you know the night will be epic in every aspect.

Grade 2: Karaoke. This is the standard here and if you have read any previous post then you might know that we are there like every week. Today we tried to find themesongs to everyone. I, death, wanted to sing (don't) fear the reaper by Blue Oyster Cult but they did not have it. Still awesome however. You could almost not even leave the rooms without someone yelling "shinigami sama, shashin onegaishimasu" (death, can I take a picture please). Being the center of attention? Feels good man.
As we were quite a big party we divided up in 3 rooms with 7 in each. My room were of course the best and we sang our hearts out! If you ever visit Japan then karaoke is mandatory.

Grade 3. Crazy japs. We could not walk 10 metres without anyone saying "sugoi, kawaii, kakoi" or anything in that order. We were also stopped several times beacuse people wanted to take our pictures. And then take another picture in another pose. And then take another picture with another camera. But I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. Also the guy in yellow is a tiger but everybody though he was pikachu and yelled it after him the whole evening. Thinking back at it now we must have looked like quite a team when we came walking down the streets in our outfits. The closer the bar we got however the more people had costumes but in the outskirts of downtown people were amazed to see us.


Grade 4. The bar. It was a magical place called "World". Where the women were drunk and the outfits were skimpy. And of course, where the shit was happening. Three floors and several bars and people in costumes as far as the eye could see. You had a choice between the chill bar at the top, the dance floor at the bottom and anything in between. I myself stayed most of my time in the "Red Bar" wich was quite awesome despite being quite loud. I also got the chance to talk to alot of japanese there and when you are drunk you are a master in any language you attempt. Well... They sometimes understood me at least. I also met several who could speak english fairly well so that was a plus. I even lost all of my friends but that's fine beacuse the frriendly people there kept me company.


Grade 5, the sign of sheer awesome. Girls girls girls. Everywhere. I have nothing more to say than that. I will let the pictures to the talking (will probobly upload more on facebook)

Oh yes. Finally I got myself a new phone. A red one nonetheless. Lets begin the drunk late night calls shall we? I bought it yesterday and I feel like I just got my first one again. Now I shall update the blogg with better quality pictures but not today since the thing I am writing about is the very thing that takes said pictures. Also I got some crazy ass japanese TV on this thing. Oh yes life will be easier now when I don't have to worry about getting lost when I'm drunk. I also got my alien registration ID card yesterday. Now I'm a real japanese!
A very hungry japanese. Time for food and for anyone complaining about the slow updates on the blogg... I won't update if nothing exciting has happened.

It was raining today. Not very much but it finally feels like autumn here. The rain was followed by a really fast day in school where we played bingo amongs other things.
After school however was when the adventure started. Halloween is comming up an large parts of Kyoto is preparing for this event and so are we. We went to a place called "Loft" wich sold alot of different costumes. Every possible thing you could imagine were sold there, from MJ to Donald Duck and skimpy nurse costumes. I myself bought one that I won't show anyone until friday.
We then went to a manga store where I probobly could spend all money I have. I "only" picked up two however so now I have a total of three mangas for reading. Of course I don't understand much of it but you learn how to read hiragana and katakana faster at the very least.

Also we did not get any homework today so tonight will be reading comprehension! And candy!

I haven't had the time nor the energy to update in a while. I was too busy studying thursday, too drunk on friday and too hungover on saturday.

The firefestival had been overhyped by teachers so it was quite a letdown when we went there. Might have been better if we could understand what was going on. Maby next year will be better!

Friday night. Kareoke night? Hells yeah. How else would we spend our evening?
We started at a guy named Anders place. It was quite cramped there in his 12 square meter big apartment. After that we went out to one of the many kareoke bars here in Kyoto. Perhaps some of us got a bit much to drink there but thats a part of being japanese! After we sung our lungs out we went to a bar where we were chilling for a while. I decided I wanted some air since you can smoke inside and everybody is doing it. Outside I started strolling down the street without thinking. A few minutes later I realize I have no idea where I came from. I laugh  a bit for my self and since I have no phone I can't call anyone to come and get me either so I just walk home alone. The night ended at 4 if I remember right.



(Pictured from left to right: Alissa (apparently), Albin, Mike, Some guy I don't remember, Gabby, Anders. Front row: Hanna, Fia)

Saturday started the best way possible. Rent day. At 10:30. Felt like boiled crap and had to go to Tashika with the rent. After I got home I sat down in my chair and did not move the entire day except for bathroom and food. Well that was the plan anyway. At about 15:00 mike came over. Still drunk as all hell he made a recap in what had happened since I left yesterday, if I weren't so hungover I would have laughed at him :)
The plan was ruined at about 18:00 when Erik asked if I wanted to go to the movies. Sure why not.
They had no good movies on however so we went to the arcade instead. Shoot 'em up, fuck year. Best idea ever. Feeling hungry we went to a small place where the waiter was very good at english and all the japanese were staring at us. We were the center of attention and we were enjoying it!
At 22:30 we left thinking, what  shall we do now?
Well what do you know, kareoke is open on saturdays aswell!
This time I could not drink as much however but we had fun anyway. Also japanese can't drink at all, I saw at least 6-7 who were too drunk to stand.
Got home at about 3 in the morning with 3 cheeseburgers from McDonalds (blasphemy!) and ate them while watching some anime.

Everyday as we walk to school we take the route by the river. A river where fish of every size thrive in the rich waters and birds soar over your heads scanning the borrom for suitable prey. Sometimes there are even bigger falconlike birds flying over the river aswell. There is a raw beauty over this riverside that can only come from unspoiled nature and animal life that we from sweden rarely can experience.
When you walk along the river you are filled with the soothing energy that emits from the crystal clear waters. The sun on your neck and wind in your back. This is what I personally think is a little slice of heaven.

Things are going so fast in school it's almost a wonder that you remember anything at all. But that's the strange part. You remember almost everything the day after. Even if you don't give it your full attention I still learn more than I ever did back home in sweden. Is it beacuse I like this class or is it beacuse they are just that awesome teachers?
It's really cool that in about a week we now know enough to make small conversations with each other in japanese. Well not very good ones but still we can ask about the time, phone numbers and small things about their personal life like what they do for a living ect.
In my class there are 17 pupils. 15 guys and 2 gals, all from sweden. None of us have any real experience in japanese but we are moving forward at the speed of light. We don't have very good comunication between the "groups" in the class yet but the icebreaking kareoke last week have softened the boundries at least. Maby in a few weeks we will be as if we had known each other for our entire lives.


(from left to right, Kim, Allen, Anders, Albin, Saito Sensei)

Japan, the land at the sunrise. A land of opportunities and adventures. Where the shopkeepers greet you everytime you enter their store and then again when you leave even if you didn't buy anything. The land where you can think of something you can buy it. Like alive shrimp at the supermarket, Hello Kitty bikes and a pair of jeans for over 10000 SEK. Today I found the holy grail of snacks. Have you ever eaten cookies but the crumbles end up everywhere? That's just the way the cookie crumble I suppose... But does it have to be that way?
No of course not. The crafty little japanese people have thought of a nice solution to this problem. Make the cookies smaller. Why haven't anyone thought of this before?
They taste just like regular cookies but they are bite sized so you don't have to worry about anything besides eating them.
Oh you, Chokochibi cookies （チョコチツビ、small chocolate) you will forever be a part of my diet.