September 2007

More festivals (20070901)

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People doing weird things in the streets. Beats having cars there, I guess, though I was not allowed to ride my bicycle either.

Running (20070901)

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Running. And lots of it.

Why? (20070901)

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Why do the same store have one sign saying "liqure and tabacco" and one sign saying "liquor and tobacco"?

Over eating (20070901)

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We went out to eat. Since we were 6 people, there was no space for us in the packed streets. The food is in order: renkon (lotus root, perhaps? tasty, ordered by me), some kind of snails or such (dead, at least), sliced raw squid in squid entrails sauce (not that great), sliced raw octopus in slimy sauce, vegetables covered in small slightly dead raw albino fish, rice and salmon in tea (good), fried octopus parts, salad containing slime and tofu, raw but sliced squid on a base of ice, the squid entrails sauce you dip the squid in, sour vegetarian food, sashimi (raw fish, squid, clam, shrimp, what not), fish with vegetables in sauce (good), barbecued fish (don't forget to eat the head!), potato salad with salmon and fish eggs, rice. There were some other types of food too, but the photos were not that great.

Let there be light (20070901)

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An acquaintance who moved out of her house (leaves for China forever tomorrow) had a light that she did not want to throw away (mainly because it is a pain to throw away garbage in Japan, especially big things). Since no one really needed a lamp, and I happened to be in more or less the same neighborhood, I was ordered to take it. Riding a bicycle for 45 minutes with this thing in your hand is perhaps not the greatest joy ever.

Japanese Italian food (20070902)

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The basket set contains fried potatoes, fried chicken and some form of cheese covered rice with shrimps.

More Japanese Italian food (20070902)

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I found a restaurant that sells Italian food, mainly pasta. Everything comes with renkon, which one of my friends claims is the best food ever. The food was good, but the juice was not.

School uniforms (20070904)

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I don't know who decides on the exact look of the school uniforms for the high schools in Japan (they all differ), but isn't the skirt of the girl here rather short? What do you do in winter? In winter they wear boots, but since it is colder inside than outside in Japan, I would still think studying would be rather bad.

Japanese people are small (20070904)

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Today I noticed that Japanese people are rather small. Especially when recently born. Also, not the excellent taste in music (as deduced by already being used to the "horns").

Japanese food (20070904)

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Why do Japanese people believe the best thing to go with ice cream is a piece of bread? Perhaps because Japanese bread is not like bread at all, but instead very much like cakes.

Photos of photos (20070904)

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This restaurant staff was about to take a picture of some of their food. They laughed at me.

Company (20070904)

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There is a sad lack of people who deign to hang out with me. At least there are plenty of insects that like to hang out in my room though. Such as this rather large spider. Hopefully it will eat some of the other guests.

Badminton (20070905)

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Today I and one more person from far away got called out to go play badminton on the other side of town. When we show up, we are told that the room with a badminton court is actually being used the whole evening by some other association of importance. So we change to "OK, then we are here to visit person X instead". The one who said we had to show up and play. Who was not at home, but was actually down town shopping... All in all, a rather failed evening. Later, the hard core badminton people showed up and told us that the badminton would begin two hours later. Taking pictures of people doing sports in the dark is rather hard.

Weird Italian food from Japan (20070906)

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In my new resolve to only visit restaurants I have never been to before, unless I have company (which is rare), I once again ended up eating "Italian". Unfortunately, they had two dishes that seemed to weird to miss out on, so I had to order both and ate too much. The first was a pizza with cheese, mayo, and potatoes. The second was the rather ambitious combination of hamburger, pizza, spaghetti, French fries, deep fried shrimp, and a small salad.

Kobe again (20070908)

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One of the most important parts of Kobe, the delicious sweets, are sometimes available in Sapporo.

Sapporo fashion (20070908)

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Fashion report from Sapporo. Currently, try out pink maid uniforms, or perhaps a gas mask (left person in right picture).

Aesthetical food (20070908)

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Looks pretty, tastes OK.

Aesthetical floors (20070908)

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If you touch the picture on the floor, it changes (as if you dipped your foot in water). Actually, you only have to shadow out a part of the picture.

Snacks (20070908)

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A dried piece of fish, perhaps not the most exciting snack I have ever eaten.

Hokkaido Marathon (20070909)

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Today was Hokkaido marathon. And very hot. Bad timing for them.

Strange food (20070911)

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Meat balls that are too sweet and too soft to be like Swedish meat balls, cartilage on a stick, baked potato salad on salmon. The potato salad was good.

Good food (20070913)

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I had to leave our lab early to try to be on time for a dinner invitation. "Let's all cook something together, and you are in charge of bringing desserts." Of course, it turns out that the organizer is not there on time, but sends an e-mail later that she will be late. Later also calls, saying she is leaving the same university now (one hour after the appointed time) and will be there in 30 minutes... and that there is no time to by food to cook, so let's skip that and go to a restaurant instead. The restaurant was nice, and I followed my recent strategy of picking the most expensive thing on the menu, if nothing particularly stands out. Hand made (?) beef stew having simmered over 10 hours. Quite nice. There was also evidently a need for pancakes, that came with a small mountain of whipped cream, so a lot had to be eaten. Especially since the one who wanted pancakes only wanted to taste a small part. The rabbit shaped (or so named) pink rice desserts were then perhaps somewhat overkill. I ate mine anyway.

Shabu shabu (20070915)

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Today two people from Tokyo both showed up in Sapporo. Since one of them rarely comes here, we were to have a party. Of course, two hours before this was to start, he got a call from his company and had to go back and work. But the rest of us still went to eat. I suggested the all you can eat for 2000 yen place right where we were when discussing when to go, but it was voted down. "It is expensive and I am not hungry enough to make use of such expensive meals." Me pointing out that we normally never spend less than 3000 yen per person in other places was ignored. I suggested shabu shabu instead, since I have not eaten shabu shabu since I was in Tokyo with my brother 2 years ago or so. Not something you order when you are alone. Having one more person on my side, we quickly declared this the winning suggestion and just went, and the rest surprisingly enough followed. Shabu shabu is named so because you take thin slices of raw meat and swirl them around in boiling water. The sound effect for swirling motions in Japanese is "shabu". Of course, after ordering all kinds of weird stuff and all the shabu shabu, we had to pay roughly 3000 yen per person... Then we went for desserts somewhere else (included in the all you can eat menu), adding another 800 yen. Since I have too much money anyway, I was still happy with this food, but I fail to understand the reasoning of Japanese women.

Not my fault (20070916)

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Japanese bicycles fall over all the time. Why? Because it is windy here, and they put the balancing parts of the bicycle too far away from the middle. Also, if one goes, they all go.

Suspicious (20070916)

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We had a Sweden party today and went to a park to set fire to things. Foreigners out after dark is evidently suspicious, so the same police car passed us about seven times before deciding we were not about to steal the gravel from the baseball court or something. Also interesting was one type of fireworks that looked very much like something we have in Sweden. Where you would expect it to fly up into the air and explode. The problem was in figuring out which part to put on fire to make it do whatever it was supposed to do. Since you don't want to be holding the Swedish things in your hand when they go off, we were cautious and failed to understand what to do. We tried to send our kid representative Swede over to some Japanese people to ask them, but she refused. She was not budged by the argument "it would be embarrassing for use since we are grown ups and should already know". We finally figured it out. You have to hold it upside down in your hand or nothing happens.

Stalked again (20070915-20)

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My stalker or whatever it could be is back. Over 30 phone calls from a secret number, being too short to have a chance to pick up and talk. Since it is a secret number you cannot call back and ask (which also makes it unlikely to be a fishing type phone scam) what they wanted, and you cannot ask your phone to block the calls either (works with normal numbers though). Who calls at 2 in the morning? Well, I might since I am up anyway, but still... Evidently, for about one dollar per month, your cell phone provider can block even people with secret numbers for you.

The elderly (20070917)

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This Monday was a national holiday. The day of the elderly. Since I was alone and bored, I went to a fancy (expensive) restaurant. There were only old people there, but the food was good.

Japanese product names (20070917)

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Who would order a spam burger? Not that the name is the only bad thing about it, but still. Pink grapefruit soda combined with spam and fried eggs. And they call the store chain Freshness burger.

Strange pizza (20070917)

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It said that the pizza would contain sausages, but I was expecting them to perhaps be cut into smaller pieces. Instead, the pizza actually contained a couple of sausages that just lay there in the middle. Tasty, though.

Puncture (20070919)

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How do you manage to get you rear tire to look like this?

More Japanese product names (20070921)

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If you don't like crunky chocolate, perhaps you would prefer panky chocolate?

Spelling (20070921)

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The word "cabacula" in Japanese actually comes from English. It took me quite a while to figure out which English word. The Japanese writing conventions for foreign words are somewhat less than transparent, especially when actually written with Latin letters. The English original is "cabaret club".

Nomikai (20070921)

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Today we had nomikai (from "nomu" - drinking, and "kai" - meeting). First off was all you can eat Chinese food and all you can drink anything. After two hours of this, we waddled over to the bar next door, for two more hours of all you can drink. The people who could still stand on their own went on for bowling, in which my team won, more despite me than thanks to me though.

Mafia business (20070922)

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Today was spent with two Japanese friends looking at houses (I need to move soon). First we went to see the house being built by a friend of a friend, but it was not that great. Nice place, though, so we went to check out some other houses in the area. The guy showing us around failed badly according to my friends. One should not chew gum while talking to clients, nor talk on the phone while driving them around, or be rude to them etc. His colleagues also failed, since we came back after lunch, taking a detour, just to pick up some print outs he should have for us by then. Since he was not there at the time, no one else could hand them over, evidently... They all looked like hosts working in the host bars in the red light district too, I was told. We continued on to another firm to see houses closer to the entertainment district. The photos are from the quite unbelievable car we were driven around in there. No suspension, so when going over the railway nearby I almost flew out of the car. The back seat was huge, had curtains, a large DVD collection, some books, food, and other things. The driver's seat was wide enough for two, and reclined enough to sleep in. The front also had a TV screen with a DVD player, blaring Japanese pop at us from the very loud surround system during the whole trip. Three different cup holders too. And illegally dark tinted windows. Yakuza (Japanese mafia) according to people I know. The boss of the company also showed up (in his pajamas?) and also looked very yakuza. They also claimed to not be able to show an apartment we wanted to see, but my experienced friend claimed that this was likely not true, so we went across the street to a third firm. They showed us that apartment with no problems. It had a very nice view, so I will try to move into the building next doors to that one, it turned out.

Chinese (20070922)

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The mother of a Chinese friend is here in Sapporo and spent a few hours cooking real Chinese food for me (well, not only me, but still). Enormous amounts of food. All very tasty. Also interesting is the Japanese TV explanation system for peoples names. So Chinese people also write their names with kanji (these being Chinese letters and all). And since even in Japan people cannot be sure what a person calls himself just from reading the name in written form (same kanji can be read in different ways), they also write out the way to read the name. So why do they write the normal Japanese way of reading a kanji when the person is Chinese and the name is pronounced completely differently in Chinese? Last picture is "fruits" they tell me.

Sushi (20070923)

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As a foreigner in Japan, you need a native to vouch for you to get an apartment. This person will have to pay anything I should have paid, if I don't. University policy is more or less "never sign that stuff, then we would have to pay", so I was told to ask one of my friends. Having excellent friends, most said "no", and the one who said yes lives two hours away by airplane. This makes sending paper work slightly less than fast and convenient. Today someone came up with a new person living here to ask, and that person said yes! So I had to buy both of them sushi, as thanks. This was the first time ever I went to a normal sushi place (instead of the cheap, fast food style, sushi places were sushi moves around the room and you grab whatever you like that passes you by). I ordered the cheapest thing they had, since it seemed the most delicious. The other two ordered other things and I paid out of my nose.

Japanese culture (20070924)

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I was standing around in the park trying to answer e-mails with my cell phone when these guys approached me. One of the tried to ask me a question in English, but he was not that great so I could not understand what he was asking. All the time they filmed us with a camera too. I kept asking him in Japanese what he wanted to know, and he kept saying things like "man this is difficult" in Japanese and then once more trying to ask me his question in English... Finally, I understood that he wanted to know if I thought his photo of a forty year old woman's face was sexier than the photo of a forty year old man his friend had on his shirt... Neither was especially sexy, so I just indicated the woman. Then he had to bend over and be hit on the ass with the green baseball bat by the other guy, while singing something in Japanese. I still have not come to understand the finer points of Japanese culture.

Ignored (20070924)

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A TV crew interviewed everyone in the park. Except me.

Tourists (20070924)

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A huge group of Chinese tourists came along and started taking pictures of the TV tower. This made the Japanese slackers lying in the grass take pictures of the tourists taking pictures. And me take pictures of all of them.

Interesting names again (20070924)

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Who thought that naming a store with clothes for young girls "Johanna ho" was a good idea? Especially if you write it in Latin letters without capitalization.

Cuteness (20070924)

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In Japan cuteness is everything. You have to start practicing your posing when young.

Nice inventory (20070924)

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This shop sells several "shoes" but only one "book". I also like that they have "inner wear" instead of "underwear". No wonder they are one of the largest department stores in Sapporo.

Home cooked food (20070924)

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In return for the sushi as finder's fee for finding a sucker to guarantee my apartment, I got home cooked Japanese food today. The Japanese dish tasted like Swedish food, but the Chinese dish was quite good.

Nice shirt (20070925)

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I found this shirt today and thought it was funny. It was also super cheap, so I asked if they had larger sizes. I was told this is "free size", so there is only one size which fits anyone. I asked if this included Europeans, and was told that it likely did. Of course, this is girl's clothing, so I had some problems even figuring out how to get this thing on me. For a normal guy-shirt, this is fairly straightforward, but this shirt was more complicated than I believed possible. Size wise it fits me, but the arms parts become stretched enough to be quite transparent and looks really weird... But who can resist things with pearls and jewelry sewn on? Perhaps the funnies shirt I have bought so far.

Catchy slogan? (20070927)

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Evidently the students are supposed to gather under the slogan "Do One Go". Whatever that means.

Too much food again (20070927)

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Today I was treated to lunch by a grateful colleague. It was a lot of very nice Chinese food. I tried a new Italian restaurant in the evening. It was also very good, with a huge (rare in Japan) pizza with potato salad (!), bacon, corn and broccoli, some salad like things and three desserts. For only 100 yen more you can have three main dishes and all the desserts you can eat in two hours instead. Strangely enough people keep telling me they think I have lost weight. Perhaps from the stress of trying to make a stamp to sign things (since you cannot really sign things here, that is insecure; real security comes from a stamp that no one else can fake (unless they bring your stamp with them of course)).