July 2007

High heeled sneakers? (20070701)

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I have never seen sneakers with high heels in any other country. Here they are everywhere.

Short pants and related culture (20070701)

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I saw some more "carry around something heavy with a jumping boy while wearing only a loincloth and a jacket" today.

Trying to blend in (20070701)

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From time to time you see the Gothic Lolita fashion in Sapporo (only among young people). This is a foreigner, which is very rare in this kind of clothing in Sapporo. I need to get more (well, any) friends that dress like this.

Mormons (20070701)

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If you stand still for too long in central Sapporo, Mormons approach you and ask if you want to hear a wonderful message from God. My experience is that if you say no they tell you anyway. I ones go them to laugh when they asked me "have you ever met missionaries like us before?" and I said "oh yes" with feeling.

Back with a vengeance (20070701)

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Today I went back to Monty Python, wearing my nice jacket (though the button blew away during a winter storm bicycle ride). They let me in and I had some very delicious food. The amount of food is very small though. But very very good.

Kaaahhhnn! (20070703)

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We had a "jinpa" with our lab today. Since "jinpa" is considered an English loan word, perhaps explanation is unnecessary. It of course stands for "Jingis Khan Party" (obviously, at least if you are Japanese), which in reality means just barbecue (Jingis Khan implies lamb). A sad lack of "crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women" but you can't get everything. I like the chair that is brought every time and every time turns out to be way too low (since we use the same grills every time too). Most fascinating food: chicken throats. Fairly good, compared to what one might expect. There was also the usual assortment of intestines and other less delicious but chewy things.

Susukino Festival (20070705)

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There is a festival in Susukino now. You can have your head bitten by a dragon, which seemed very popular. Why, I have no idea.

Susukino Festival Again (20070706)

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Today people were performing karaoke and other things in front of drunk visitors to Susukino. Mainly to get a chance to mention the shady place they work at. There was also blindfolded "guess the brand of the fourth beer" competitions for volunteers. And a t-shirt that read "Snoopy I like sleeping outside".

Next Job? (20070706)

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The yellow sign reads "misutaa madamu", i.e. Mr. Madam. There are many such places, and for some reason many of the old women who teach Japanese in a class I sometimes attend keep suggesting I should go work in such a place. Evidently I make a strong impression in high heels, dress, apron and make-up.

Forbidden to walk (20070706)

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When parking my bicycle where the signs says it is forbidden to do so, I noticed that the sign also says that point three of forbidden things is "smoking and walking".

Too Strong (20070706)

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I am too strong, or possibly Japanese bicycles are not made to withstand any more muscle power than possessed by tiny Japanese. I managed to bend the handle of my bicycle out of shape when trying to get some power for acceleration (I have powerful legs and OK arms). So now this handle too is busted, the metal has gone soft and wobbly.

Flower festivals (20070707)

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Today I passed the flower festival, where people, just like me, photograph flowers.

Susukino festival again (20070707)

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Today I saw a Japanese rockabilly band with huge Elvis style haircuts playing in the middle of the street. People were excited and danced appropriately in the streets too.

Inappropriate signs (20070707)

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Who in their right mind names their store "Skank"? The answer seems to be "Japanese people". Also, their is a new drink available at Starbucks (or Sutaba as people normally call it here): "affogato coffee". Presumably it is a mix of avocado and coffee (which sounds bad). Somehow, "swirkle" is also involved.

Cool shirt (20070707)

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Today I wore my home made (embroidery by yours truly) shirt which says "Still single" in Japanese. It is a huge hit with my volunteer teachers who think I am insane and good at embroidery (as well as writing Japanese). When returning home by bicycle, no less than three times people commented that it was "very cool". Once I had my picture taken by a Japanese guy. Once it was two young girls on the phone with a third one that reported to the third that "there is a crazy man with a still single shirt standing next to us waiting for something". I asked if they were trying to tell me they wanted to help me out of my troublesome loneliness, The one on the phone seemed vaguely interested so I said that though I don't look the part I am very rich too. They thought it was funny at least. They were also very impressed by the fact that I happen to attend Hokkaido University. As my brother once said: "It is hard to convince people that you don't have to be a genius to do this, when it is so obvious that in your own case it happens to be true anyway". This picture was taken by another foreigner from my volunteer class who I ran into last week when returning home. Same shirt, different pants.

First hotel (20070708)

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I spent three nights in Italy (and one night in a plane). The first night was in this room, which was cheap and very nice. The owner was also very nice. She asked me what Japan was like, and I said it is very efficient, trains are always on time etc. She said "Oh, the complete opposite of here then!". Indeed. Breakfast was also very good, but crowded since everyone had woken up at the same time. Italian breakfast consists of espresso and cookies. For foreigners, there is also fruits and yogurt available.

Italian pizza (20070708)

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Right below the window of my hotel room there was a pizzeria. I bought a pizza (cheaper and larger than in Japan, though not by much), but it was not very good. Not bad, but since Italy is famous for pizza I was again disappointed (last time in Italy was the same). They tell me northern Italy has bad pizza and you have to to the south to find the good ones.

Italian culture (20070709)

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I spent an hour taking pictures in Genova (I had to promise to take many photos in Italy when I spend Japanese tax money on such un-business like trips). There are many old looking houses etc.

Spam (20070709)

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As expected, you cannot get away from spam even by leaving your computer on another continent.

Gardens (20070709)

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In Genova, a harbour city, they even have gardens in the sea.

Pirates! (20070709)

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My second place favorite thing in Genova is the ship from the movie "Pirates!" by Polanski. Number one is shopping for cool t-shirts in the slum/dangerous part of town.

Sweden! (20070709)

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A Swedish flag strategically placed in a place for drinking alcohol. The number one activity of Swedes abroad.

Italian design (20070709)

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A friend had jokingly asked me to buy nice Italian shoes for her. Though after some thought it was withdrawn, since my taste in clothes cannot be trusted. I would have bought these, and apparently they would have been considered cool. Perhaps not wearable, but cool.

Difference between Italy and Japan (20070709)

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When it rains in Japan everyone brings out tiny umbrellas that barely cover your head. In Italy they bring out umbrellas that could cover three people comfortably. Also, in Japan they are efficiently and quietly sold by convenience stores (and everyone else when it starts to rain), while in Italy they are very aggressively marketed by poor people following you around in the streets.

Trying to work (20070709)

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I took a train to the tiny village of Camogli, which is an expensive jet-setter vacation spot. I was supposed to give a research presentation there. The description of how to get to the conference hotel was somewhat brief, and it also turned out to be very optimistic on the time necessary for the different parts of the trip. There was of course no information other than "take train to Camogli" given, but since on person on the train thought that my train would "probably" stop there, I was satisfied despite the train leaving on a completely different time than the one announced for trains to Camogli (Italian trains are rarely on time, it seems). Of course, since it cost about a tenth of the price of the previous days 2 hour trip, I expected a short trip and was worried that we had missed my stop after an hour. We had not, it was just a super slow train.

Then of course there is only a bus every 90 minutes from the station to anywhere near the hotel. But it said in the instructions that the bus takes 5 minutes, so I figured I could walk and take some pictures. Of course, you are not so much walking as climbing, since Camogli lies on the side of a mountain, with the hotel on top. It took me 90 minutes to reach the bus stop you are supposed to get off at. I later took the bus and it is not a 5 minute trip. From this bus stop, there was a shuttle bus for conference people, but it did not run when I got there (only early in the morning). But it was "just a 10 minute walk" anyway. Strangely, the sign near the bus station seemed to say it was a two kilometer walk, which I guess if you are a trained runner you could to in 10 minutes even with the elevation, but still... For me it took 30 minutes.

The hotel (20070709)

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For normal people, the cheap rooms in this hotel cost 250 Euro (aka "a lot"). For conference people like me, it was a little bit cheaper. The cheapest food available was also not very cheap, nothing below 20 Euro. If I had stayed all three nights here, it would have cost as much as the airplane tickets, which it did not seem to be worth. But if you asked the staff how long it takes to get down to the beach from the hotel, they always told you "15 minutes". Evidently everyone is assuming you will be going by motorcycle and be speeding. But who needs to go there anyway, when they have their own soccer field for the hotel? Italians...

The view (20070709-10)

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The view from my room and from my breakfast table was very nice.

Killing time (20070709)

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Tonight there was a conference dinner. Since I did not really want to spend four more hours climbing up and down the mountain, I took the hotel shuttle bus to the dinner place (another super expensive hotel). It turned out to leave us there an hour and a half before the dinner started, so I walked around "downtown" Camogli with another researcher. He was also called "Jonas", but in Greek ("Janus"), since he was from Greece.

Stuck? (20070709)

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I passed this cat two times, with about an hour in between. It was in the exact same position both times, looking very pissed. It was gone later in the night though.

Missing (20070709)

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Speaking of gone, the head of this statue seemed less than perfect.

Also a nice hotel (20070709)

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The dinner was in this hotel, which had a window between the restaurant and the pool. They had also named their conference rooms after star systems, such as the ones from Star Wars. Which is cool.

The dinner (20070709)

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The dinner was excellent. Which it had better be, since I will not be refunded money for food by my university and it thus cost me 65 Euros. There was raw fish, pasta, not raw fish and dessert. The other Jonas guy said, when asked by the funny waiter, that he did not need any refill of pasta. He mainly did it because he thought it was the polite thing to do in expensive places. Everyone else then rushed the waiter with "OK, but I want more!", so finally Jonas too gave in and asked for more pasta anyway. Luckily, another waiter was then arriving, so it worked out in the end.

The dinner view (20070709)

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The view was very nice from this hotel too. A Mexican guy working in Denmark was sitting with his back to the window and kept turning around to look at the view. Finally a woman from Turkey working in the U.S. said "Why not move over here, there is room for you and you will see the view". He said he did not want to cause a disturbance by having to move all the forks etc. from his place to over there. There was some discussions back and forth, so I finally said "Think of like this: if you move, there will be more of this excellent view for all of us, since you are blocking it. Be kind to us and just move it". Everyone laughed at this, but said I was very cruel. I said I was just saying what everyone was thinking, but they claimed that was completely not the reason they had suggested it in the first place. He did move after my entering the debate though. Which was nice for my view.

More Italian breakfast (20070710)

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Same as everywhere else, cookies, fruits and espresso. But the view was great, so no one sat inside.

Work (20070710)

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This is what it looks like when I work.

Lunch (20070710)

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For 10 Euro the conference offered you lunch. It turned out to be Italian fried bread with vegetables on (foccacia or however they might spell it). Served cold. And normal bread, also cold.

Leaving (20070710)

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After my own presentation, I left the conference, since it was not related to my own work and the hotel was expensive. I went to the railway. By bus, which I only had to wait 30 minutes for and luckily caught the last one of the day; evidently communication is not a high priority in Camogli. Everyone seems to have either a scooter or a BMW/Porsche instead. At the station I found a note that said "tickets are sold one floor up", so I went there and found a closed shop (well, who could expect people to work after six anyway?). I finally found another living being at the station and asked her if there was any way at all to buy tickets. There was, some automatic machine on the first floor. Which was right next to the note saying that tickets were sold somewhere else. And broken. There was one more around the corner though. Everything was of course in Italian, not my language of choice. It also asked about 10 questions after the expected "from where" and "to where". I have no idea what it was, but seemed to get through. It told me I'd have to pay 2.1 Euro, which seemed reassuring, since that was what I had paid to get there. Of course, inserting coins into the machine only resulted in it spitting them back out again. Finally I inserted a 5 Euro bill, and it printed my ticket for me. Of course, it could no longer spit out coins, so I got a 2.9 Euro gift voucher for buying other train tickets (not usable in these machines though). Great. I am sure that will come in handy in Japan. The train turned out to be 45 minutes late, so I got on the train after that one instead, since it arrived earlier (being only 35 minutes late).

Another difference between Japan and Italy (20070710)

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Apart from everything being late in Italy and on time in Japan, and the size of umbrellas, another thing I noticed was that in Japan everything is very clean. In Italy everything is very dirty. There are signs like this one ("we don't want your dog's shit here") but it seems to have very little effect. Another difference is that in Japan you usually get very good service everywhere, with staff being super polite to customers. In Italy they seem to think of customers as a nuisance, and treat them quite rudely.

The third hotel (20070710)

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The third hotel was nice, though I had to pay for two (still much cheaper than the previous night), since the only room available was for two. It had a stylish clock (though impossible to tell time with) and a beautiful stairway (no elevator, though, so more climbing was required).

Train again (20070711)

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Wise from previous train experiences, I decided to leave early for Milan, where my plane was waiting for me. Already when buying the ticket, the sign said 15 minutes late. As usual in Italy, this time estimate was very optimistic. We left 25 minutes late and arrived 45 minutes late.

Wii (20070711)

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Wii was demoed in the Milan station. It is cool, but somewhat old here in Japan.

Milan (20070711)

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Having arrived earlier than expected, I spent some time walking around the Milan station and taking pictures. A large contributing factor was the stupid jet lag you get from Japan. I kept waking up at 5 in the morning despite being dead tired. Of course, now that I am back in Japan, I cannot wake up before one in the afternoon anyway.

Souvenirs (20070711)

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I have a friend who is crazy about Ferraris, despite being a girl. There was a whole store devoted to Ferrari at the airport. There was also a store with Swedish vodka.

Flying (20070711-12)

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Flying from Milan to Osaka takes about 12 hours. Flying to Italy was boring, because everyone around me was on their honeymoon (so the got special food, better than mine, and were not the least interested in talking to me). One old Japanese man asked me if he could speak to me, so I happily said yes. He then asked me in Italian if I was Italian, but when I said I was not, he lost interest and stopped talking to me. Flying back was also boring, since the plane was empty and there was no one around me to talk to me. Also, for some strange reason the planes both ways managed to find turbulence the whole 12 hours! So you were not allowed to move away to try to find someone else to bother (or use the bathroom; though most people ignored that because if someone keeps feeding you drinks for 12 hours you might just want to go despite the signs and speaker saying "please don't, it is dangerous"). Trust an Italian airline to find a route with turbulence the whole way. Of course, we arrived late too, but not so late as to miss my connecting flight. In fact, I had so much time over that I signed up for a JAL mileage card to have something to do. At least it involved speaking to someone. Having a girl ask you how much money you earn per year is cool when the answer is "almost five million". Sadly, five million of Japanese yen, which have more zeroes than Monopoly money. But still.

Almost Italian food (20070712)

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Back in Japan, I bought a "spaghetti and omelet sandwich", since it seemed strangely appropriate when coming back from Italy. It was better than the "deep fried chicken and weird cheese sandwich". Both quite Japanese though.

English (20070714)

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OK, so "ladi's" is not that bad, but when you have an official sign at the largest shopping complex in town spelled "nouth exit"? And what is a "straight burger"?

Moss (20070716)

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Isn't this just the cleanest desk and most exciting literature you could imagine?

The Sea day (20070716)

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Today was the holiday "Sea day". So we went to the sea. There you could see people paraglidesurfing, taking pictures of birds, or me in the sea. We arrived late, so there were not many other people there, and almost no one in the water. Japanese beach customs are said to be more like barbecue than swimming in any case, but if you arrive at 11 instead of 16.30, at least there are many more people there.

Swimwear (20070716)

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Japanese swimwear looks more like an evening dress back home.

Clean Japan (20070719)

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Today I practiced English with a Japanese, which was nice. Japan is super clean everywhere, has been my impression so far, but the restaurant next door to the one we went to made me wonder... For the first time so far I also got to see pictures of someone I know here as a kid! Very nice contrast to my own pictures, that people tend to drool over as super cute. Probably because my hair was not black. It still isn't but it seems that that is no longer enough, sadly.

T-shirts with kanji (20070720)

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Ever since I made a t-shirt that said "Dr. Pigeon" written in Japanese, I have had many complaints along the lines of "You cannot wear a t-shirt with Japanese text, no one does that, since people will understand what is written". Instead, I should wear something with vulgar or broken (or both) English text. But today, as I have long thought, I found a Japanese store selling t-shirts with Japanese text. They say "Hokkaido University", "Ambition" and "Martial Arts".

Police (20070720)

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Today was Sapporo Culture Night, so I visited the police station, where you could listen to burglar alarms, ride police motorcycles and watch their well trained dogs.

TV (20070720)

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Next stop was a TV station, where you could watch yourself using green-screen technology with exciting backgrounds. And get free candy.

City Hall (20070720)

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Third stop was a tour of city hall, that has a huge fossil skeleton and a weird wall in the lobby. They also have a very nice observation deck on the roof of the 19th floor.

Flowering fire (20070720)

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There was also a big fireworks party in Sapporo today. Fireworks are called fire flowers or perhaps rather flower fires in Japanese. They started when we were just leaving the observation deck, so getting the curious tourists to stick to the schedule and go downstairs turned out to be hard. Nicest of the things I saw before we were herded downstairs was the heart shaped things.

Nice flooring (20070720)

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Evidently they have very nice floors in the city hall!

The mayor of Sapporo (20070720)

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This is the mayor of Sapporo, at least according to the sign. Younger than I would have guessed.

More Fire flowers (200070720)

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When in the mayors office, which has a very nice view, we watched fireworks again.

Asian socks (20070720)

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I have never seen such socks in Sweden, but probably I have just not been paying attention. Taking this picture turned out to be somewhat controversial.

Good deal (20070721)

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Today's story of strange behaviour in Japan: This guy was browsing around in some stores in Sapporo. In one of them a cute girl shop attendant came up to him and started asking him about what he wanted to buy. He was so captivated by her looks that he could not stop talking to her for a long while and after about 20 minutes of conversation he felt he had to buy something. So he ended up buying the bracelet in the picture for 6000 yen (expensive).

Hosts (20070721)

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Passing this spot in Sapporo you see lots of young men in stylish clothes hanging around. They seem to be mostly hosts from a nearby host bar, trying to get women to come to the club and talk to them for lots of money. Some are instead from hostess bars, carrying with them pictures of the girls you can talk to there. No one ever approaches me, which I guess is good.

Adventures in home cooking (20070721)

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Today I was invited to some home made Japanese food party. It turned out to be more of "you do the dishes that has piled up for the last few weeks, and the everyone together do the Billy boot-camp exercise video thing (some new all the rage thing in Japan)". There was however food too. Funniest was probably the water melon, since it turned out that one of the guests is super allergic to water melon and has once passed out just by breathing in the smell of water melon! So the water melon had to be eaten really really fast, while one person waited in the bathroom. Since there was still the smell to deal with, the next hour was spent with tissue stuffed through the nose, which looked funny.

I still rule (20070721)

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I was once again challenged to a game of Scrabble, which ended in the usual way.

Baseball (20070721)

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I tried to ride a bicycle uphill in searing heat today. The whole experience was made worse by everyone else cramming cars and people everywhere in my way, since there was some kind of baseball game going on too.

Italian again (20070722)

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The whole riding a bicycle uphill forever in searing heat was meant to take us to an Italian restaurant. The person who had once been there said that "it is very close to this zoo". Of course, at that time they had gone by car, so going uphill was less of a problem. The expected 40 minutes turned out to be 70 minutes, with a huge detour up some irrelevant mountain. The food was very nice, though the amounts of food were not that great.

Best choice (20070722)

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You could pick what kind of pasta you wanted, and I picked this. Since I pick food that tastes good, everyone decided to steal my food (the best choice) from me! This compounded the problem of small portions.

Doors (20070722)

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There was a temple nearby, with many many gates to pass through to get up to where the actual temple was.

Roses (20070722)

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We continued uphill (but had to leave the bicycles finally, since it was too steep) towards a rose garden. There were roses and other flowers, rose flavored ice cream, origami style brochures, a great view of Sapporo and toilets with no privacy. I also met one of my teachers by chance (very surprised to see me in a rose garden), and one of the people who practiced Swedish with me the first time I lived in Sapporo (and who I had not met since then). Also surprised to see me.

Festival again (20070722)

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On the way home, we voted two to one to go some other way with less uphill roads. Thus we ended up in some street festival instead.

Japanese again (20070722)

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The evening was spent browsing for shoes and eating Japanese food as a contrast to the Italian lunch.

Shopping advice (20070722)

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On a recommendation from me (not always a good thing, I have been told) these gloves were bought. Japanese and Chinese women wear long sleeved gloves in the summer, so as to avoid the dreaded suntan. Being pale is the thing. I am of course pale enough to light up a dark room, so whenever people claim to have a nice pale shade, I just usually show my computer nerd skin color from for example my shoulders. Unbeatable around here.

Sapporo by night (20070722)

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This is just a picture of Sapporo, in the evening.

Bicycle parking (20070722)

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Since you are not allowed to park your bicycle near any of the places people want to go by bicycle too (the government comes by with huge trucks and hauls the bicycles they find away to some impound), I today decided to try this thing. A many layered bicycle parking garage.

More English (20070724)

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"Please your cup"? I'd rather not, at least not in the middle of the cafeteria.

Furry insects (20070725)

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In Japanese this is a "fur insect", at least as far as I know.

Odori Beer Garden (20070725)

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The Odori Beer Garden has opened, which is a place were you can buy rather expensive and unappetizing food and fairly cheap beer. I am told the beer is not very good though. You can buy enormous cans though. Since I think beer is disgusting at best, I only walked around and took a few pictures.

Nice stage (20070725)

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Six young boys were singing a capella in front of the station in the middle of the night. Very capable.

Oops (20070725)

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I was asked to water the plants and feed the fish for my friend who went to Malaysia for 10 days. Since the fish was supposed to have some kind of long term food thing already, I only needed to go there twice I was told. It seems I was misinformed as to the health of the fish, that seemed quite dead when I got there. The plants are still doing OK though.

Bread? (20070726)

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Today I went to buy some fruits, but could not find any that looked nice. Fruit is also super expensive in Japan. I instead found a bargain bag of what is tentatively classified as bread.

Dry hard (20070727)

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Why not call your breath mints "Dry hard"?

Fireworks festival (20070727)

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Today I went to a fireworks festival. There were all kinds of fireworks, shaped like Miffi-chan, pineapples, all kinds of strange things. And lots and lots of other people. So we ended up under a bridge, that blocked the view a little.

Fans (20070727)

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I gave a fan (worth 100 yen, also known as "nothing") to a Chinese friend who wore a matching Chinese dress. It says "Urgently hiring boyfriend", more or less. We also managed to sneak it into the bag of another friend without her noticing.

Japanese names (20070727)

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Who decided "Japanish bar" was a good name?

Japanese slogans (20070730)

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"We Can Present you fayc pite Hair style". Huh? I don't even understand what they wanted to write.

Movies (20070731)

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Someone was making a movie on the university campus. Maybe I saw some famous people.

The little pigeon (20070731)

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The taxi company is basically named after me I guess.