March 2008

Raw pig, cooked pig, pig's feet (20080301)

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Today's dinner, pig sushi. So raw pig, on a bed of rice. We also ordered cooked pig, in the form of pig's feet. Trying once is OK, but not something I will go out of my way to try to find again.

New stylish accessories (20080302)

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My old strap for my cell phone broke a while ago, so I bought a new one that looks like a katsu-don dish.

Almost bread (20080302)

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Today I flew to Tokyo. This is the airport food, which surprisingly enough looks a lot like bread. Tasted almost like bread too.

Working (20080303)

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In Tokyo I was mainly working. All my friends in Tokyo claimed to be suddenly out of the country when I revealed I was in Tokyo. At the conference I was attending, there was a girl form Finland, two guys from Norway and Iceland, and me from Sweden. I searched around for someone from Denmark to complete the set, but could not find anyone. It was a rather boring conference, since most people where from Tokyo Tech (the place the conference was held) and thus just went home after the day's presentations where over. Which left me all alone to watch exciting things like people removing plastic form the floors of the party room.

Fancy hotels (20080303)

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My hotel for the conference. Next conference I am booked at a five star hotel, though.

Free gifts to foreigners (20080304)

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I got an English language newspaper today when I had my breakfast. From some random stranger.

Not the same as in Sapporo (20080304)

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We have meters of snow in Sapporo, but in Tokyo the trees are already showing flowers.

The azz club (20080304)

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Tokyo tech evidently has an azz club. They seem to mainly play jazz, but still I like the name.

Cool but small (20080304)

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I found a pair of embroidered pants for guys, that looked pretty cool and where very cheap. And three sizes too small.

Sweden (20080304)

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The ice cream store "Sweden" (a chain of stores) sell nothing that looks like Swedish ice cream to me.

Tokyo (20080304)

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Tokyo, lots of people, lots of rain, lots of umbrellas, lots of high houses.

Other people having fun (20080304)

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People were having a lot of fun looking at and listening to the taping of a comedy show or something like that. Quick paced Japanese linguistic humor is still beyond me.

Cheap food (20080304)

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As much Indian food as you can cram down for 1000 yen. Very cheap, but not that good either.

A literal apple pie (20080305)

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The funniest apple pie I have tried so far. It has a whole apple inside and a thing layer of crust around it.

Akihabara (20080305)

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Akihabara used to be famous for high tech stuff, and there is still some left. The main thing now are "maids". So there are endless rows of maid cafes, maid bars, maid restaurants, maid relaxation places, maid massage places, and who knows what. And huge numbers of girls in maid outfits handing out fliers about that.

Omiyage plus batsu-game (20080305)

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In Japan you have to buy presents for everyone you know whenever you travel. Here are the souvenir cakes of Akihabara, maid cookies. They are also a form of batsu-game, which means one in ten is filled with something disgusting and you don't know which one.

Stylish (20080305)

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I want a jacket like this, but not at the price they were selling them.

The international airport express (20080305)

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The international airport express to the international airport also has some information about the "goulmet" opportunities here.

Omiyage (20080306)

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I spent 3500 yen on omiyage, buying only the best. Which is Tokyo banana.

Perhaps my favorite Japanese word, first seen in action (20080306)

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When I first studied a little bit of Japanese back in Sweden I was fascinated with the fact that there was a dictionary entry for "Chinese jumping vampire" or something like that. Which is "kyonshi" in Japanese. And now I have seen it used in Japan, stuck to the face of one of the robots in our lab so he will stay quiet and not jump around and attack people.

All you can drink, times 2, party with the lab (20080306)

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We once again had a four hours of all you can drink (and quite a bit to eat) party with our lab. Revelation of this time: our new secretary is also about to flee the country (but to France, not U.S. like the last one). Everyone blames me, since this never happened before I got here. Correlation is not causation!

Even more omiyage (20080307)

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Someone else also brought souvenir gifts, this time with playing card theme.

All you can eat, health food plus chocolate fountain... (20080307)

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Today I went to the somewhat strange combination of "all you can eat", "health food" (as in hand made and no industrial pesticides etc.), and "chocolate fountain". Good, cheap, and too much. Best part was perhaps the grey-black thing that looked the same as the bowl it was served in.

Perfectly normal Japanese food (20080308)

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What I am told is perfectly normal Japanese food looks like rather disgusting snails to me. They are not snails, they are the same as any other shellfish, I have been scolded.

Not Viking but Pirate food! (20080309)

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Today's restaurant was a lot of fun. The interior was pirate themed, with parts of pirate ships etc. stuck everywhere. And saddles for horse riding, for some reason. The staff was dressed in clown outfits, and the food was roast beef. They also had a pizza made from nan-bread, and "nan" means "what kind" in Japanese, so it was called "What kind of pizza is this?" or "Nan-pizza". The pun was too good to resist, and the pizza was good too.

Almost work, but instead pizza (20080310)

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Today I was preparing to do work with my two small robots, but we were thwarted by the fact that the coop does not sell chocolate after 6 during the spring holiday (March). So we went out for expensive and nice pizza instead. And ordered way way too much salad.

Experiment (20080311)

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Today the experiment could finally start, so I spent the whole day shouting "Won't someone please do a five minute robot experiment! I will give you chocolate in return!". Since it is the spring holiday now, not that many people showed up. Those that did could then read some weak puns, hear robots tell some other weak puns, and then even hear robots laughing at other robots doing so (or booing). Research, making the world a better place step by step.

"Jonas is more nuts than me"-party (20080311)

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Photo of another design of apple pie, almost devoid of apples. I was invited to the final session of a farewell party for my closes friend in Sapporo (not to the main party though...). Mainly, she has been telling everyone at work wild stories about how crazy this Swedish guy that she knows is. So as to appear less crazy herself (which seems to not have worked that well, they still correctly regard her as nutty). So her colleagues were very interested in meeting me and seeing how strange I could be if I was even stranger than my friend. So I was ordered to attend wearing my strangest t-shirt etc. It was pretty much a success, I am told.

Computer science (20080312)

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For some reason, in our computer science lab we have props like stuffed sheep toys smelling of lavender.

White day (20080314)

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White day, the day when you have to return chocolate to all the girls that gave you chocolate on Valentine's day. With a grand total of 0 of those, I was not very busy. I spent the day doing more experiments with my robots, but perhaps since people had already received too much chocolate, today was a slow day.

Moving (20080315)

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I was present and on standby if anything needed to be done when my friend moved today. They had hired movers, so there were five pros doing whatever needed to be done, so I had a pretty soft day. In the end I helped flip over a few tables and carried some cartons of kitchen utensils around for awhile. Most exciting was when the movers were hauling bookshelves out the window on the third floor and stood balancing on a rain wet and slipper platform that was shaking its was down whilst holding the bookshelves in place so they would not fall down and hit pedestrians passing by...

Parking (20080315)

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To save space, parking lots come in several floors.

Gifts (20080315)

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When moving in Japan you have to give gifts to all your new neighbors. Traditionally towels, for some reason. The only use you seem to have of these towels if you get some is to pass them on the next time you move yourself. Some people also recommend handing over soba noodles, with the explanation that this is the true tradition. And that "soba" can also mean "nextdoor". When I moved, not even one of my neighbors dared to open the door (though I could hear them move up and check who was ringing the doorbell), so I had to eat most of my gifts myself. My friends had similar problems tonight, trying to hand out cakes. And they look much less scary than a foreigner, since they lug around a half year old kid too.

Sweden (20080315)

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Speaking of lugging around babies, they do it with a Swedish made contraption.

Meat (20080315)

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As thanks for standing around and being available, I was treated to meat barbecue. Which is good. Normally my Japanese friends order mostly weird stuff (guts, bird throats, who knows what), but this time we actually ate mostly actual meat.

More straps (20080316)

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Since you are completely out of style if you have only one strap on your cell phone (even if it is a likeness of katsu-don), I bought one more today. Looks like a cookie.

French (20080316)

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Today I was invited as a special guest to a party for a guy from Switzerland and all the students that learn French from him. I understood a surprising amount of French, but since I have not touched French with a stick in 15 years, I was mostly unable to say things in French. The food was possibly French, and consisted of among other things small fishes with large eyes and cheese fondue. Which in Japanese style (and Swiss, I was told) you eat by taking the cheese with a spoon and chewing down. Dipping bread and stuff in the cheese is optional. Strangely enough, people never confuse Sweden with Switzerland, despite most people confusing Switzerland with Sweden when speaking to me.

Twin (20080316)

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This Japanese girl looks very much like my friend in Kobe, enough to be her twin. She is actually a twin, but to someone else, I am told. My Kobe friend and she both take the same pose when confronted with a camera, too, which is why it is so hard to convince other people that the look alike.

New things to buy (20080316)

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Downstairs below the restaurant, people were window shopping, or something.

Me (20080316)

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When eating too much salad and pizza (the day before the robot experiments) other guests kept talking about European aubergines, or "younasu" in Japanese. Which is exactly how Japanese people pronounce my name, so I kept wanting to go "yes?". Today, we ended up in a cafe where they serve juice from European pears, "younashi" which is another variant of pronouncing Jonas here. I tried to order that but the waitress claimed they did not serve that today.

Parting gifts (20080317)

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A friend who is soon to move back to Taiwan (there are lots of those) gave me gift today. It is a stamp with basically my name. "Lake" + "Mountain" + "Dove", hand carved by some old and knowledgeable pro. Hard to read, but much cooler than the "lake"+"mountain" 100 yen stamp my brother has.

Drunk people (20080319)

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March 20 is a holiday (spring equinox) so people were out as late as I was today. I had my dinner at 23.30, and some drunk people were kind enough to speak to me. One guy I had met once before and he remembered me for an impressive card trick, evidently. I did two more today and he was very very impressed. Mainly because he kept imagining things happened that actually did not, but who was I to correct such favorable impressions. He also had two your girls (sisters) that he knew there. They claimed to think I was "very cool", which is probably a first. As one of my kind friends later said "they must have been reeeeally drunk". The bartender at that place is also very nice, and he helped a lot in telling me what the other drunk people where talking about, which I sometimes had trouble keeping up with (and hearing). He also knows a lot of magic, which is why we have playing cards in the photo that everyone thought we had to have taken for us. He also claimed to have taught me everything cool I said and every magic trick I did, which I affirmed in good spirits.

Thanks (20080320)

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Someone has a Mexican hamburger place called Tack, which is Swedish for thank you.

Lest (20080320)

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In Japan there are many hotels that offer rooms for "stay" and "rest" (only an hour or a few hours). This hotel however offer rooms for "lest".

Parting party (20080320)

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Today I was to be present at another parting party for my friend who tries to convince people she is not nuts by showing them me as a distraction. It was a "bring food yourself" party, and I was ordered to bring cake. I tried to bring "relaxing bear" new honey flavored chocolates and cheap banana cakes from the convenience store as a joke, and was almost killed. Note to self, ironic jokes do not work. I did bring real cake too, which was all that saved me. The food was good.

Strange things (20080320)

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Stuff my neighbors are throwing away. Which I can understand. But why did they have them in the first place?

Tax returns (20080322)

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Japanese people often complain that they don't believe they are getting their money's worth from the hard earned tax money that is given to me. They think my research is pointless and that I am not doing very much of it anyway (and they are very direct in telling me about it; so much for any face saving non-confrontational cultural images one might have of this country). So I sometimes offer to pay for dinner for them if they want to tag along. Today we had a full course Italian dinner, at a place that has one a pizza design contest three years in a row. Even the desserts were good, which is not that common in Japan.

Me again (20080322)

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After dinner we ended up in the same cafe as the French speaking people, and today it was possible to order the "younashi" juice. And cappuccino.

Valentine (20080324)

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Today I got Valentine's chocolate (only 40 days late), a card with an H.R. Giger illustration (!) and a t-shirt that says "I love Kobe". Excellent! The chocolate was bought in Sweden.

Graduation (20080325)

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Today was the day of the graduation ceremony at my university, so people were dressed up in hakama (skirt like pants) or suits. The boys mostly wore suits (I saw only one in hakamas) and the girls were about evenly divided between the two styles. A foreign student in our lab looked cool in hakamas, but I was strongly forbidden to put any pictures of that on the Internet. There was also a lot of crying, since most people will go back to wherever they are originally from tomorrow. All my friends that are going to Tokyo, Taiwan, or wherever, talked a lot about how much they were crying when they said goodbye to some other friends, but of course not even one was crying when they said goodbye to me...

Goodbye lunch (20080326)

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Two friends leaving for Chiba and Taipei respectively wanted to have lunch at the schools fanciest restaurant today. Despite it being the high class restaurant of the biggest university in northern Japan, they spell "meat" with "r" instead of "e" on the menu.

More experiments (20080327)

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I discovered a deadline of 2008-03-30, for a very high level conference. And I had no research to write about for this conference, so I had to whip up a new system and do new experiments to have something to write about. I figured five days should be enough. Today the system was finished and the experiments began. The system generates stand up comedy performances in Japanese and programs two robots to perform them. The experiment consists of me trying to bribe passerbys with chocolate to get them to watch the performances and say if they are funny or not. Only 11 evaluators showed up today.

Experiments continued (20080328)

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I continued the experiments today, and got another 22 evaluators, which gives a fairly decent total. The results were OK, though not outstanding. Best part was when a family passed by and the father said to his 10 year old daughter "Robot experiment! Doesn't that sound fun?! You go and do the experiment." Of course, the generated stand up comedy is shockingly full of dirty words, and many university students wrote comments that they were very surprised by the robots being so foul mouthed... I just gave the girl some chocolate and said that the experiment was not for kids. Then the father thought she had a) gotten too much chocolate, and b) it was unacceptable to get chocolate without actually doing the experiment. After some discussions, he ordered his wife to do the experiment instead. She was very entertained by the dirty jokes, though, so this was very good for my results.

Midnight food (20080328)

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I entered the data into the computer, ran a home made program on the data that generated all the tables and stuff I needed for a paper and speed wrote the actual paper. Then I went looking for food and found some potato salad and garlic pizza at around midnight.

Japanese entertainment (20080329)

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I was invited for possibly the first time to go and be the exotic entertainment/crazy foreigner tonight when a group of people from a department store had their party night. Japanese entertainment consists of eating strange food (here wasabi leaves and sliced up squids), drinking enormous amounts of alcohol, singing karaoke while drinking more alcohol, and evidently dancing on the tables. It was fun, but I think they had even more fun, since I did not recognize even one song, and had no idea if the dance moves meant something or where just imitations of the original singer or something completely different.

Made in only (20080330)

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Pretty much every day I pass the store "Mad in ONLY".

Warmer (20080330)

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It is warmer here now, and a lot of the snow has melted. Some flowers from the Odori Park ambitious flower shows are starting to show up.

Questionnaires (20080330)

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Japanese people like questionnaires it seems. I went to see a live performance of a famous comedian (funny, but full of words and cultural references I did not understand too), which like every other even I have ever been to included a questionnaire asking you what you thought about it.

Japanese food (20080330)

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While walking around in Susukino talking to my friend who had invited me to the comedy performance, some of the people trying to pull drunk people into shady and expensive clubs started talking to us. They were mainly impressed that I could say hello in Japanese despite obviously not being a native. In the end they showed is a small restaurant that they recommended and we ordered salmon. Which turned out to be only the head. In Japan, many people consider this to be the best part, while in Sweden I would just throw it away. So for the first time I ate an eye roughly the size of my own eye. The taste is OK, but the consistency is disgusting. The back part is very creamy, and the front part is hard and sharp (and you are actually not supposed to eat that part someone kindly told me four days later...). Behind the eye there are some more disgusting cartilage too. While edible, hardly the best part of the fish in my opinion.

Japanese comedy (20080330)

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This was the show I saw.