The Week

You knew it would end up being the title of a post sometime. Imagination doesn't last forever, you know.

I don't think I've had a week this busy, at least not this year. And I'm not getting any younger, much like most people I know, but still.

Monday: "Let's celebrate that guy in BDD, he's been here a month, so let's go out and eat loads of fancy things and talk and be merry"-night with the Company, as I call it.
Tuesday: "Let's take those two foreign guys in BDD to a place where they serve noodles, only it's not the usual noodle-place"-night.
Wednesday: "Let's let the foreigner who's never seen a gym before avoid working out by having him fill out forms for over an hour, until the gym closes"-night. I swear, it's harder to join a gym than it is to get accepted as a foreign national in this country, and Lord knows that takes a fair share of paperwork.
Thursday: "Let's measure everything about the foreigner who's never seen a gym before and explain to him that he needs to gain three pounds of fat, that should screw with his perception of what a gym is!"-night. Of course, they said I needed to put on eight or nine pounds of muscle-mass too, but that's nowhere near as funny. Also, I burn 1977 kilocalories on a day in which I do nothing. Don't ask me how they do it, they just know. Probably just by looking at you for two minutes, or something.
Friday: "Let's have a party at a club really-really far away from everything and make sure the foreigner almost gets lost getting there"-night. Ok, the blame for that has to fall on the Canadian ice hockey club hosting the party for the 200+ people, but yeah.
Saturday: "Let's play tennis, then eat something at a really expensive place in Shinagawa"-day-and-night. With the Company. And fun it was.
Sunday: "Hmm, it's been busy this week at work as well as in my spare time, so let's relax by walking for 238 frikkin' miles through Tokyo"-day. Yotsuya to Aoyama to Roppongi to Tokyo Tower to Hamamatsu-chou. And no, I had no idea where that was, either. Still don't, come to think of it.

So yeah. I've also seen a match or two of the premier league of Japanese floorball. The team is Shooting Stars, and I have two and a half friends on there (the half since I don't know him that well), which I suppose makes me a groupie of a male team of indoor-hockey-people. It's not bad. I even got one of the fastest shots ever, on camera. And this at a time when Shooting have only two players (excluding the goalie) on the field, compared to the opponents, who have four! Talk about a different level.


Oh, and upon crossing a, well, crossing, in Shirokanedai, I saw a tv-show being shot, starring none other than (someone I've recently been informed may very well be-) Kamenashi-san of something-fame. They were just there, filming their hearts out and keeping us from crossing the street and eventually getting almost-lost on the way to the club on Friday night, so I figured they deserved to have their picture taken.

New Topic Goodness! When I was here four years ago, doing the round-trip thing of basically all of Japan (bar Okinawa) with someone who goes by the name of Da Pete, we had access to the Lonely Planet range of guidebooks, specifically the one about Japan. This because we felt it would suit our needs far more than one of outer Mongolia. We may have been wrong, but that's the way it was. Anyway, in it, we discovered such memorable pieces of advice as "A man is wise to climb Fuji-san once, a fool to do it twice" and "Tokyo Tower just isn't worth the effort". Both of which turn out to be true, at least to some extent. If I only had one week in Tokyo, I certainly wouldn't want to spend all of it waiting in line to get to go up to the top of a tower built expressly to top the Eiffel Tower on some far-off continent, but since I'm here for a while, I figured it was about time. Besides, you get to go in an elevator! Who wouldn't pay 1420 yen for that pleasure, I ask you?!

In closing, I offer this picture, as proof that things here might not be quite like things elsewhere. I don't really know what they use their old hair-driers for in Sweden, but I'm pretty sure it's not for keeping the plants for freezing. In summer, with outdoor temperatures approaching 5 billion degrees. Celsius, no less!


The question of the day was just posed by someone close to me. "Do nomads have an address?" Do they? And if so, do they fill in their change-of-address-forms as promptly as the rest of us? See you next week.

The Delay

No, that's not just a clever way of informing you that this post is a week or so late.

It's also a way of getting the subject squarely on trains. You see, trains are cool. I mean, I'm not some kind of train maniac, but in Japan, the people they do love their trains. I had a teacher in junior high who brought a video to class of his huge train-set-thing, occupying his entire garage. He'd love it here. You see, you can't imagine a Tokyo without trains. Well, you could, but it would be a city which would be dead within the hour, basically. And it's almost as hard to imagine a train that doesn't run on time. Yes, this is very much not Sweden.

So I therefore present you with the following:


For those of you into this sort of thing, you'll have no problem reading those sqiggles, but for the rest of you, this is a "Proof of delay" I got just about a week ago, coming home from... somewhere. There had been thunder and lightning all afternoon, and this had caused random havoc on the system. My train was almost twenty minutes delayed. In Tokyo! This will not stand. Any guesses to why they hand out little notes saying "Proof of delay" are welcome. Most creative, furthest-from-the-truth explanation gets a free t-shirt.

Ah, but the train madness does not end there. Instead, it reaches all the way into Shinjuku's Takashimaya department store, where they sell many things. It's what department stores do, or so I've been told. I'm not really big on Takashima, however. It's the Tokyu Hands in the same 14-story building that has wrapped me round its little finger. There, you can by stuff like this:

It's an alarm clock. Which has a little train right there in the middle. One which runs on the Yamanote-line, going round this city of ours in a great big cirlce (and thus excellent to sleep on, trust me on this). But the fun doesn't end there! It's got all the station names printed on the face, including the exact time it takes to travel between them. Thankfully, it takes just about an hour to complete the entire lap, so there was no need to invent a new system of telling time in order to fit it on the clock. And yeah, finally, it plays six different tunes from some of the stations, so you can wake up to that tune you'll hear in half an hour when you have to change trains in Shibuya.

I want that clock so badly I can taste it. And it tastes good.

More pictures!


Feel free to guess which one depicts an ice cream parlor in Shibuya named after the country of my birth, and which one depicts a completely random guy riding around on quite the bike, wearing nothing beneath the waist except a white pair of boxer shorts. As a friend of mine would say, "Only in Japan, kids".

Other than the above mentioned madness, I have spent the past two weeks doing many things, some of the including actual work. Imagine the horror. It's not bad actually, we're still very much in the start-up phase of our projects, but today I've spent a five-digit number of yen on litterature of various kinds to help me on the way. If I study it round the clock, maybe I'll catch up to Tomo. Maybe not.

I've also...
1) been to Hokkaido (the restaurant, not the island. At least not recently), followed by karaoke. 2) played table tennis, ending by skill-shootin' our only ball up on a beam making up part of the ceiling, where it promptly laid still, in an effort that defied some of the laws of physics and pretty much all logic.
3) actually not been to baseball since the last time.
4) in the spirit of my forefathers come up with a project that I shall see if I can get approved. Most likely it won't work, but I'm really enjoying trying my hand at it, and for now, that's all that matters.
5) seen a program on TV about Doga. "Dog yoga", to the lay person.
6) learned that they've changed the man on the 1000-yen bill from Natsume Soseki to Noguchi Hideo mainly on account of the latter having more hair, thus making the note harder to forge.
7) gotten the first bill for my mobile phone. It's not happy reading.
8) gotten my ATM-card. About bloody time.
9) not joined a gym. I might well do so though. Stop laughing, I can hear you all the way from this side of the Intertron.

That should do it. In closing, I present you the following:

My girlfriend went to a wedding, and got this machine that "makes beer out of beer", as a wise man once put it. It was not I. It's called Let's Beer Great, and is of great nostalgic value to anybody having been in Gifu in the summer of 2K1. As, I am sure, is this.

The Dog

I so need a bike. It's not even funny.

Last year, the main part of which I spent in the fabulous city of Nagoya, I lived with two guys. And a lot of very loud Austrians, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, one of the two guys was Norwegian, no less, and went to a 100-yen shop (the slightly more luxurious version of the 99-yen shop. And no, I'm not joking) and came back with a rather ugly, and therefore insanely lovable mini-statue of a dog, promptly named Za Doggu, in proud Japanese fashion. I here offer a small tribute to Za Doggu:

And no, I have not used it to clean any kind of dog. Yet.

There are things you only do once in life. They come in two categories. One is things you'd really, really love to do again (oh, I don't know, experiencing the joy of getting up at 06:30 on your birthday to take the theoretical part of the drivers' licence test), but can't, the other is made up of things you've done you just don't want to do again (such as getting up at... yeah). Today, I did something that I with the aid of a future bike won't have to do again.

I walked from Shibuya to Harajuku to Yoyogi to Shinjuku to Yotsuya. Where I live, so there wasn't much need for further walking. I could have taken the train. There is money on my Suica commuter's card, and I have the knowledge to utilize it properly. But no. So if anybody needs directions to the Subway (the sandwhich place. Or, for that matter, the train station) closest to the Yoyogi police station that I passed on the way, you've come to the right place. The serve a mean roast beef sandwhich, if memory serves.

I took a brake though. In Yoyogi park. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. I had brought with me one very fabulous book and, it would turn out, an equally fabulous magazine. So I sit down, hoping for some peace and quiet (well, except all the people around, and the two bands trying to out-volume each other). And promptly get shit on by a bird. I'm pretty sure that's never happened before.

Right after The Incident, three guys come up to me and start talking to me because I look like a foreigner. Probably because I actually am one. But who knows? Either way, we talk for a while, and then I break out the Japanese, to much applause, and now it looks like we're going to be playing some Footsal (or is that Futsal? I should ask the guy who bought Za Doggu, he'd know) together in the future. That pretty much cancels out my anger at the world for being, well, shit on. The picture has nothing to do with that. It just has lots of people in it. It's taken at a place many of you already know and all of you must know one day.


Walking around this great city of ours/theirs, I also managed to find something that just makes me happy, somehow. Not so much the product itself, but the fact that there are people in the world who work at companies which let them produce stuff like this. And the Dog Cleaner. If you study the picture, you'll realise how I'll spend my Friday nights from now on.

I believe that, as they say, is that. I could regale you about tales regarding mine and Tomo's adventures in the Junior Suites at Tokyo Dome watching the Dragons slay the Giants this week, or possibly show which part of western Tokyo looks most like the Mediterranean (hint: it's not the Turkish embassy, despite it being located here), but I have to save something for later.

As I wrote this, I have consumed far too much of very good Swedish chocolate. Oh, and Mitsuya Cider, once quoted as being "God's gift to thirsty people". By me, quite obviously.

UPDATE! I was just informed of the nature of things by Toyomi, calling from Nagoya (where else?). She has been given a machine that will amaze some of you. Or me, and I hope one more person, at least. Let's Beer Great is all I have to say for now. Make of that what you will.

UPDATE the UPDATE! I was just informed of the nature of some other things by Tomo, calling from room 719, and it looks like... a lot of things. Never mind, I just wanted to update the update, really.

UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE! Yeah, he called again. Lost the charger to his phone, it would seem.

UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE! Now we're talking! And he found the charger. Hidden away in his bag, apparently.

I'm going to sleep very, very soon.

The Tokyo

Across the street from me, there is a lady who is cleaning her window. The window is located eight floors above what mere mortals refer to as "ground", where there is an AU-shop. This shop sells mobile phones. I should know, I've bought mine there. But that is still not the point. The shop, aside from being located eight floors below the lady cleaning the window with a fervor that would indicate she's having inlaws over for dinner, is also located on Shinjuku-doori. If that lady were to stop cleaning for a moment, get out of her apartment, turn right, and walk 10-15 minutes through the rain currently streaming down, she would find herself in Shinjuku. The place to be, as it were.

I have never lived this near the center of, well, anything, really. Cities with twice the population of my home country even less.

I arrived last week, after a flight which left me feeling pretty good, having slept all of 25 minutes. Then I was led into the "special immigration office", feeling way too special, with the ominous phrase "there's no problem, but...". That's not what you wanna hear at 09:27 a.m. in Narita International Airport. No, you want to hear "Yes sir, all your luggage has already been sent to your specified address", or possibly "I'm sorry, only the white helicopter was available to take you into Tokyo today". But it turns out that there actually was no problem, praise the somebody! Sadly, there was no helicopter either, but I'm willing to let them go on that one.

So, six days in the capital of my own personal little world, and what have I accomplished? I've:
1) ...been to baseball twice. Once to see my dear Chunichi Dragons own the Yakult Swallows, and once to experience what may objectively be the best supporters in the sport at the Hanshin Tigers' game against the Yomiuri Giants.
2) ...had 22 pieces of sushi in one sitting. At the Kappa sushi in Harajuku, hidden though it may have been. Thanks to the magic of mobile-phone-GPS and lots and lots of love for the raw fish thing, we still managed to find it. Ha-HA!

It was not at this place, the name of which translates into "Surprise sushi". Isn't that taking the whole concept just one step too far?
2b) ...had one order of "Fresh slices of horse". Seriously.


3) ...been to Ebisu to see England have their b-hinds handed to them on penalties in the quarter final of the World Cup. I also had dinner there with some ten or so other people, less than half of which I knew beforehand.
4) ...been to Omiya, up in Saitama, not too far from where I and Tomo used to study. "Study" being our word for "heading downtown to do random shopping and have fun looking at Japanese people doing Japanese things".
5) ...bought a phone. On which you can play an arcade-perfect conversion of Ridge Racer. Oh, and use it as payment for the subway. The last time I was here, I had to have a card in my wallet and hold up the wallet to a sensor, this time I can do it with the phone instead. And I can buy stuff from convenience stores too. What will they think of next? Anyway, if you're reading this, chances are you already know the number/email address. If not, email my regular one and I'll set up up double-quick-time.
6) ...bought a lot of other stuff too. It's amazing what you can accomplish in less than a week if you put your mind to it.
7) ...started my training at Tetra Pak Japan, which is supposed to end up being magically transformed into some sort of Master's thesis. "Magically" being the key word.
8) ...gotten a fine massage from my hairdresser. This is apparently the way they do things here. It was a good one too. The conversation was almost even better, about this new Cup Noodle (r) timer. You put your cup (preferably with noodles and water in it) on there and that little sucker will tell you when they're done. See #5 about what they will think of next.
9) ...seen Jack Bauer (yes, that's his real name!) do an ad for "Calorie Mate", which is basically just space-food. A brick you eat so you don't need to eat anything else, essentially. And Tommy Lee Jones did some ad for... diapers? Something in a supermarket, can't remember what. Never mind.
10) ...not been late for work once. Thankfully, the soccer was on Saturday night, otherwise the 12:30 p.m.-wake-up the next day might have had dire consequences.

The lady across the street has now finished cleaning her window. Maybe she took my advice and headed off to Shinjuku.

In closing, I offer this picture of Tomo pretty much punching the crap out of Omiya's resident mascot squirrel. At least it looks like it, and pictures surely don't lie, much like this dear InterTron of ours.

Kumadude out.