Fuji Q and Christmas

Today almost everyone in our school went to Fuji Q Highland and it was awesome! The weather was perfect and there weren't many people there so the lines were really really short. And also, I only paid 500yen! And that was for the entrance to the haunted house, which was great.

I rode the two most crazy roller coasters I've ever ridden (maybe because I've only been to amusement parks in Sweden?), and had an awfully great time.

In the line to the first roller coaster we somehow ended up sneaking in front of many people in the line because our friends were in the middle somewhere, but my heart couldn't take it, because I strongly dislike when people cheat their way to a better position in a line myself, so we went back to the end of the line again after a few minutes. It felt much better again :)

And wow, the mountains here are amazing! I haven't seen much mountains in my days, but I think most people would get impressed. And watching Fuji-san from the distance was stunning. It looked like some background someone had put up on a big big piece of paper, but it was a real mountain. Amazing.

--

Now it's Christmas time here in Japan, but it just doesn't cut it when Japanese people are wearing Santa Claus hats without a single snowflake in the ground or in the air (except for on the top of Fuji-san). And since when do you use the phrase "Happy Christmas"? It was a pretty cute sign though.

I feel good about not buying any presents this year. People don't need more stuff, I don't need more stuff (I actually still want to get rid of some things I have), so everyone gets happy! And if they don't, well, then I think they should rethink their idea of Christmas, if they celebrate it, that is.

However, I don't feel good about commercials during Christmas time. Big corporations trying to print into everyone's brain that their product is the thing that Christmas is all about, and everything is about buying, buying, buying. It's horrible, and it's sad that so many people are led to believe that that's the way it's supposed to be.

Think about what really means something to you and other people and their life. How can you help to make friends and family happier without buying things for them? Can you buy them experiences? Help them start pursuing their passions? Try to make their life better, not their house harder to keep clean. That's just mean. Oh what a rhyme!

Good night! : )

Almost barefoot running is not only good for the body, but also for your social life!

Today was a holiday in Japan so I didn't have school, and all plans were cancelled, so I had a completely free day to do whatever I wanted on. I spent it on studying, doing laundry, watching a scary movie (The Descent 2, it was really scary!) and wrote a long post about quitting facebook on my simplicity blog Liberty Through Simplicity.

I'm working on the blog at the moment, and hopefully it will be filled with useful and interesting information and stories in some time! :)

My continued use of my fivefinger shoes has made my feet stronger now, and I don't feel sore and tired in my feet anymore after I've been on a run! I can run normal long runs with them and it feels great! After I've done my short workout afterwards in a nearby park I walk barefoot the short way home, and it's a great feeling, even if it's mostly asphalt all the way.

Some weeks ago I had been on a run but was really tired, so I took of my fivefingers and walked barefoot home, and one the way some old guy was just walking out of his house and saw me and started laughing! So I stayed and spoke with him for a while and it was really fun! Good practice for Japanese as well.

On friday I'm going to Fuji-ku highland with the school. It's an amusement park next to Fuji-san, and they have reaaally high roller coasters! I'm looking forward to it!

Metal in Japan!

Yesterday was an awesome day. First I had a nice calm morning with breakfast and a shower. After that I brought my guitar and my amp to the other guest house in Nishi Kawaguchi to play music with Bill. It went way over my expectations in awesomeness, and we discussed plans and ideas about the band.

Later I went to meet Ayako in Akihabara, and we went together to her friend's place in Seijogakuen-mae to play and listen to music and eat food :)

:D

..........

And this is how my desk looks at the moment. I really like it :) If I want to do something at the computer, everything is already set. If I want to study, all I have to do is to put my books on the desk and open them. No cleaning or rearrangement required!

Morning routines in Japan

I've just been out on a run, followed up with a slow breakfast. It's a really great way to start the day I think, to take more time than you need before you have to leave for school, start working or something similar.

And I can recommend to at least try a morning jog or a morning exercise of some kind before school/work/other life. It gets you energized and more effective, and it also feels great to have the exercise done almost before you've even started the day! Now that I'm living in Japan it's a really nice way to explore the place where I live as well.

Another great thing to try in the mornings:

When I wake up, I sit up, pull away the curtains, put a pillow behind my back, and just sit there for 10-15 minutes.

I'm sure some people think: "Why don't you just hit snooze and sleep another 10-15 minutes?". The answer is: Because then I'll be back where I was when I woke up the first time again; tired, wanting to hit the snooze button. Again. Instead of just sitting there, still having the warm, cozy feeling under the blanket, still being in the bed, but at the same time slowly waking up in a nice pace, having a bit of calm before starting the day.

Of course you should even try to sleep enough as many nights as you possibly can to get the most out of any day. I try to get 8 hours of sleep every night, and I've noticed my study results are better than those in high school when I only slept 6-7 hours. That small difference has made a big... difference in my everyday performance.

Sleeping and exercising is great ways to increase performance in almost everything you're doing, so give it a shot! You might surprise yourself :)

Impressive minimalism

Many times when people have entered my tiny room here in the guest house, they've been surprised of how clean and nice it is, and often say that they'd like to have their rooms in the same way. I can't blame them, I really like how my room looks and feels. Thing is it's not very hard to fix.

Solution:

1. Don't buy more stuff to put in

2. Get rid of stuff you don't use

And if you follow step 1 and step 2 every once in a while, you'll get there :)

The only thing I really miss with my 1.8m x 2.5m space (which is mostly being covered up by a built in closet, a built in bed, a refridgerator and a desk) is a place to hang by laundry.

Even though the point with living with less stuff and buying less isn't that, you can actually be admired for having less. Lots and lots of people think it's precisely the other way around, how mixed up things can get!

When I went here, I brought nothing but one backpack of essentials and my guitar (in a guitar case), and far more people have been (I think) inspired by that than would I've brought 2 fat travelling bags packed with things I don't need.

If you want help on how to let go of stuff you don't use or need but you still want to keep, you can check out this post by Leo Babauta's mnmlist. He's also written a post about how to easier follow Step 1.

Why would you even think of doing this? There're lots of reasons! There are many people writing about them, like Everett Bougue, Leo Babauta and Tammy Strobel.

The person who got me to start think about this stuff, and change my life for the better, is no one less than my awesome friend André Fohlin. Thank you, André! :D

Remember: Live life, don't fill it with crap!

WriteRoom

Lately I've been fighting to get back to routine; Keeping the same sleeping times each night, wash my clothes before it piles up, and study just a little bit more :)

I finally cleaned my desk today, and it actually feels WAY better sitting here now. I didn't use my desk very much until I made this change, and now it feels more productive just sitting here! I strongly recommend to clean your desk, and KEEP IT CLEAN.

I was talking with my friend this morning about saving papers from school, and neither of us are doing it. No one back home will be able to read it anyway ;) It's really nice to know, when you hear your friends whining about their rooms getting filled with piles of old papers, that your room is free from it, and will still be clean when you get home to it!

It's amazing how much crap you keep in your room without thinking of it. I'm trying to stay aware of it and keep it clean, but I still find papers, small cell phone decorations, more old papers and similar things lying around. But they're not making it until the end of the day after I've found them!

Right now I'm trying out a new writing application for OSX. It's called WriteRoom. All it is is a full screen of a black background, and green text and a marker in the middle. It's really relaxing and it brings focus to your writing. It actually works pretty well.

I will shut down now and study for a bit before I start reading my book and go to bed. I can recommend the book I'm reading, called Focus. It's available for free, written by Leo Babauta. Much of it are already on his blogs, but lots of new stuff as well, so be sure to read it even if you've read his blogs!

Mr Man!

Yeah, that's me!

Yesterday in Warabi, a sports festival was being held, and the different blocks here competed in different games. It was really funny and I met a lot of new funny people. Mostly small Japanese children. We played catch, only when I was the one being hunted, everyone else was the hunter, and when I was hunting I was alone. It was great fun! And I did an amazing promotion with my fivefinger shoes in the 100m sprint!

I also got my Amazon Kindle that I ordered a few days ago together with some friends who also felt that reading some books would be nice. It's amazingly awesome this far, and it's hard to tell you're reading from an electronic device really.

We're almost done with the first book in school and according to everyone else the next one is gonna be harder, but they said kanji would be hard too, so I don't know if I can trust them anymore ;)

Tomorrow's plan is to go to Lilla Dalarna to have some real Swedish food and mostly just to check the place out. It's located in Roppongi, which means "Six Trees" if you want to know.

My hand washing is going pretty well except for that the clothes dry up reaaally slowly afterwards. I do my very best to squeeze the most out of them before I hang them up, but it just won't do. Any suggestions except for a dryer?

See ya, rockstars!

Omedetou gozaimasu, Marcus-chan!

Yesterday we had a birthday dinner for Marcus who joined the "23 years and awesome" - club. We made tempura and Emma made marängsviss. It took some time to make the dinner though, and since you have to be out of the dining area before 0.00, we had the dessert in a nearby park. It's still around 19-23° at night here, so it was really nice.

Some interesting theories by various Japanese people:
- Drinking cold drinks in summer time lowers your body temperature so the risk for catching a cold increases.
- Eating natto makes your blood flow better.

Schools is going okay. My new class is a bit more noisy than the old one, and I liked my old class, but I wanted to speed up a bit. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case with all of our new teachers. Yesterday we didn't learn anything new at all. No words, no grammar. We made old things in the book, and now we're almost at the same chapter in the book as my old class. Sometimes I want to skip school so I can actually study, but I'm aiming for my 100% attendance so I can get a few extra coins after a year.

I've been out running a few times a week lately, and I can already feel the increase in my daily energy. I've had a problem with being almost sick for about one week at a time, and it's been stopping me from getting good routines on running.

I've also started to start my mornings with just waking up, and sitting up. Just sitting for 10-20 minutes, and calm down and just have some quiet time before breakfast. It's really refreshing!

When we went food shopping yesterday I also bought a loaf of seemingly dark bread, so I'm gonna go try it out now! Bai bai!

Achievement Unlocked: Complete a guitar set

YES! It's complete! Now I have a fully functional guitar amp (VOX) and a fully awesome guitar (Ibanez) and all for less than 3000 sek. And it's really good stuff as well, so don't you worry!

I just found that myspace has finally updated the video section so I'm posting a link to Ultimate Awesome's videos right HERE! Check them out now! Because now me and my friend, Bill, are getting ready for creating some new brutal awesomeness here in Japan!

If you want to see some pictures my friend took from the national museum of Tokyo (and some other photos) you can check my friend Erik's blog.

Oh, and I'm sorry for being really bad at updating. I guess I don't live an interesting enough life here to have anything to tell you about. Or I'm living a too interesting life to have time to write blogs? Well, I'll leave the answer to your imagination and have a great night!

And remember to live your life you want, not the one others expect you to live! (Think about it ;D)

Frag count ++

YEYEYEAH! My first frag is confirmed. I was making my bed the other day, and noticed a small brown orange thing by the wall in the bed. So I reached for it to pick it up, but it ran away. So I picked up my spray of demolition and KILLED THE LIVING FUCKING SHIT (excuse the language) out of it. FUCK YEAH!

Anyways, to the other good news: I've preformed so awesomely in school that I get to jump ahead a few chapters and start in a new class after fall vacation! :O It's awesome but also a bit sad. I like my class, but if I never try something new I'll miss out on tons of stuff, so I'll do it. We've finished 3/4 of our tests for this semester. This far we've done: Listening, speaking and reading. On wednesday we'll have writing.

Next week we have monday and thursday off, and after friday fall vacation starts! It's about one and a half week I think.

Tomorrow we're going to a zoo, and on Saturday, my friends and I are going to Tokyo Game Show. Pretty awesome I'd say.

Other things have happened as well but, I have to go to the bathroom. Maybe I'll tell you some other time. We'll, that's it for now!

Thursday

I've been sleeping alright for two nights now but I can still notice that before that I'd been sleeping pretty bad for quite a few nights, because I'm still tired even if I sleep slightly more than eight hours a night. But at least I'm getting the daily rythm back on track. We had a Japanese test last week. I got 93/100, so I'm pretty happy. The errors were things like forgetting a letter here and there and that's pretty much it. Still, I'm aiming for a better score next time. We had a kanji test yesterday and I think I almost nailed it. 18/20.

I think the teachers here are pretty good but they all have the same few flaws. They keep repeating that things are difficult and hard, instead of encouraging by saying "it gets easier over time" or "it might seem hard, but just practice and you'll get there". It really does have effect when teachers are encouraging instead of almost giving you excuses not to learn things because they're very very hard. And also they divide the reading between girls and boys sometimes, and it's just unncessary. But here they really make difference on girls and boys. Girls can only be beautiful, and boys can only be handsome. You can't call a guy beautiful and you can't call a girl handsome, even though sometimes that's the case.

Well I'm just gonna stick with being an "otonna" which is a mix between "otoko" and "onna" which means "man" and "woman", because I'm apparently not living up to the Japanese standard of a man. Men can't be scared of insects or cry to movies ^^ I guess that's what people think in the west as well when I come to think about it. Fuck that, I cry as much as I want when I watch movies!

Oh, now Hannes called me on skype, I'll write another entry later. Have it good ;D

War

So anyways I was in Ikebukuro yesterday with some friends and checked out some guitars. I tried one out and got to rock out with an electric one and it felt sooo good! I really miss playing electric guitar. At least I've been acting guitar teacher for a Korean girl for a week now and she seemed to be satisfied, so maybe I can do this for almost a living some day?

Summer break is over and the school has moved to a new building. It smells like smoke on the whole third floor and the sound isolation guys was probably on vacaccion during the building project.

Today I was really brutally tired in school because I had a surprise guest in my room last night. No, it wasn't a hot romance, I'm as sorry as you are for that, but it was something like it. At least I was lying sweating all night and didn't get too much sleep, so it was pretty much the same thing. Anyways it all started with me lying in my bed hearing some noises. They were really coming from outside the window but I thought it was from inside the room so I sat up and switched on the light and started to look around for a bit. Everything seemed to be alright, until I got the idea to check under the bed. I laid down flat on my stomach in my bed and glanced down under the bed, and oh dear, there, deep in under the bed, on the wall was... a cockroach. I was about to panic but then I convinced myself to sit up and take some deep breaths. I checked again and it had moved a bit further up the wall, and it would be hard to hit with my slipper if it crawled any further up the wall, so I quickly made up my mind to annihilate it. I grabbed my slipper, reached down under the bed and SMACK!

I missed. And the cockroach crawled up the wall and disappeared somewhere in the wall. The night... was ruined. I was lying listening to every sound, and when I was in some coma like state, something like sleep, I dreamed of cockroaches and sending Starcraft 2 marines after it. Didn't help much though. And then cats outside started making annoying noises and lots of weirds sound came from the outside. Also I woke up by the sound of my pillow falling out on the bed, dragging the computer mouse and lots of other things with it down on the floor, and I thought the cockroach was back pushing down things from my desk so the adrenaline started pumping real bad again.

So now it's war, and I've bought traps and spray of destruction for the poor bugger when IF he gets back. And I also turned down the AC to 17 degrees, I heard rumours they don't like cold temperatures and I'm a Swede, so I can take it. They also don't care much for clean rooms without food and dust lying around so I cleaned my room pretty well and placed out a trap (I have 9 more) under the bed now so I think I can sleep safe tonight.

Good night!

Short update!

Summary:

Summer vacaccion. Went to Odaiba. It was nice.

Went wall climbing. It was nice.

Went clubbing a few times. It sucked (big surprise).

I arranged a crayfish party. It was awesome.

I went to a public bath (wannabee onsen) yesterday. It was great.

I've started to get up earlier in the mornings. It's really great.

The new school building is great except that the smoking room is on the same floor as my classroom and after the FIRST DAY the school (completely new built) opened, it already smells horrible in the corridors and you can almost smell it a bit in the classrooms as well.

Bigger better badder entry, soon in your browser!

Star Wash

Yesterday I handwashed all my clothes. Saved me about 3o minutes of waiting for the washing machine (and 200 yen), and made it possible for me to leave with my friends earlier and go bowling and eating :D I did get a few blisters though, but that's just part of the hardening process.

And today I got my ass kicked in Starcraft 2 by the other Bill. Well well, back to the kanji studying!

Are wa Daniel desu ka?

This might be the funniest video I've seen in a couple of years! Please check it out!

First run!

Today I woke up way too late again. 14.20 to be more exact. My day is turned completely upside down, so today I felt I had to do something exhausting so I can go to bed in time and wake up at a more appropriate time. So I went for my first jog since I got to Japan!

It was pain running in the heat and the humidity, and I also haven't recovered completely from a football accident almost three weeks ago. What's up with that anyways? It felt pretty nice running in my fivefingers though, and afterwards I did some bodyweight and stretching on a lawn near a temple close to where I live. Now I need water. Tons of water and breakfast.

IKEA *heart*

Today Erik, Andreas and I went to IKEA to get some quality gear to make our lives just a little easier here in Japan. It was with hearts swelling of pride that we entered the real Swedish embassy in Japan. I have to admit I was more excited about IKEA than I was about Tokyo Disney Land, and it was a more awesome experience overall.

Here are some things I thought could help me out in my daily life:

1. Bed clothing. I haven't had any since I moved here, and now the room looks a bit more like a real room.

2. Textile shelves, that you can hang in your closet so you can make better use of the height in it.

3. A coffee cup.

4. Lamps for my desk lamp that I found on the free take area in the guest house.

5. A pillow.

6. Skorpor - Kardemumma.

7. Salta Sillar.

8. Alhgrens Bilar.

9. Prästost (Priest Cheese ;D).

10. Snackers to put cheese on.

11. 3 bags of dark roasted coffee.

12. A big bowl to hand wash my clothes in.

13. An IKEA bag to use as a dirty laundry bag.

Of course we had Swedish meatballs with potatoes, brown sauce and lingonberry jam as well.

Ah, the pride :'D

I bought one of those for my nightly comfort.

Erik and me at a classic Swedish dinner table.

Isn't it lovely?

Typical Swedish dinner table. Right?

The Japanese don't care much for nice row breaks.

Wonderful names.

Almost me!

Swedish literature on the shelves.

Even the Japanese looks Swedish.

More awesome names ^

Ah, so AWESOMELY wonderful food! REAL bread!

Even Andreas pulled the corners of his mouth up, that's how awesome it was.

Erik was really really happy. Can't you see it on his face?

This was found on the train station on our way home. Maybe people will change their dirty thoughts after seeing this picture?

This is how awesome my bed looks after getting bed clothes and lamps for my desk lamp! I love it, it feels more like home now!

This was probably the best buy for today. I can use the vertical space in my closet as well now, and that saves a lot of space on my floor and my desk!

It was a great day!

And oh yeah, my computer started hating windows, so now I can't play Starcraft 2 anymore, so I'm trying to fix it as soon as possible. Let's just hope that Windows 7 doesn't kill my laptop's battery, as the rumors say.

Oyasumi nasai!

More pictures from Tokyo Disney Land!

Erik's birthday

Today was Erik's birthday. His age is now equal to mine, and we are more synchronized than ever before. Also, we (Me and some people from the school) went to Tokyo Disney Land today. I didn't really know what to expect, but some parts were good, others a little worse.

First off, I slept too little last night, since Starcraft 2 had just been installed on my computer, and the summer break has just started, and also I had to go to bed 2 hours earlier than usual, and that made it way harder to sleep. So I was really tired pretty much the whole day. And then on the train station at Disney Land I did a so called "Gaijin Smash", which is when you as a foreigner, gaijin, do something wrong and get away with it because people are afraid to speak English with you. In Japan you have to use your ticket both on the way in and on the way out of the train stations, and I had paid 100yen (about 8kr) too little for the ride, so I would've had to pay for another ticket if I was gonna get out. But that's when I used the power of gaijin; I put in the ticket in the machine, it flashed red and small gates closed in front of me, ALMOST, because I was too fast and had already smashed through them and was on safe ground before anyone could ignore me from a distance! BOYAH!

The weather was rainy and windy, pretty much as I want it to be, classic Swedish summer. But it was much warmer, I wasn't cold at all. My shoes started leaking after a few hours though, and my socks felt like kitchen cloth, just after you've used them for cleaning some filthy filthy cup of really old, almost dried up chocolate. It wasn't nice.

The first thing we did was to get on a Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and it was awesome. After that we went on a fake Africa Safari in a boat, and in the front there was a Japanese guy talking. And could he talk... He was the most energetic person I've ever seen, and he was so happy and awesome he could've just standed there talking for 10 minutes without the boat ride and I would've been just as happy.

We also went on Space Mountain, which was an awesome indoor rollercoaster in almost complete darkness. It was BRUT'L. Erik and I was screaming "Bankai!" to eachother repeatedly and enjoyed the ride to the fullest.

But the highlight (read: not highlight) was the 4D (yes, FOUR DIMENSIONS, brut'l, aye?) movie with Michael Jackson from 1987. Fine, it was one of the first 3D mo... excuse me, 4D movies (the only?) ever made, and it was probably really impressive back in the days (the year of awesome) but I have to say it was a bit like watching the muppets with Michael Jackson as a guest in the show.

Anyways, we were there way too long, because the wait for Space Mountain was like 4.5 hours, so the visiting hours for our party was 10-21. In wet shoes. It was an itty bitty tiny bit too long for me, but I'm happy I went there!

Here are some pictures:

I've gotten complaints about me not being in the pictures I post, so here I am!

Here lives the Emporer!

Erik (the birthday child) and Bill 2.

Erik (still the birthday child) and Bill (still 2).

Markus (class mate), Erik (birthday chi... whatever) and Bill 2.

Bankai!

Who is that girl? She was following us around the whole day!

But at least she was happy :3

I liked that spot.

But enough is enough.

It looked awesome when it got dark outside.

Some flowers. Whatever.

It's 4.48 am now. I'm going to bed. Oyasumi!

This is the beginning

As most people know, I got a nasty cold just one week before I got here, and I had it for two weeks. Then when I finally recovered, I didn't rest long enough, so another cold was waiting for me just a few days later. Now it seems to be over again, so in a few days I will try starting continuing some routines which I had back in Sweden. I've been eating out very much, spending too much money on things I don't need and haven't exercised much at all.

This week I will try out a new wall climbing place, buy a rice cooker and start cooking my own food, and when I feel really well, start running before breakfast again. I really miss running, and the feeling of having exercised really hard, stretch, and then have an awesome meal and just cool down in my room afterwards.

My strive for vegetarianism has been a complete failure here, since I've just begun trying, and I don't know enough Japanese to be able to ask the right questions and read the menus properly. And avoiding plastic products? At the moment it seems VERY hard, but I will work on it. Everything is in plastic here. When you buy a bag of Werther's Original, every piece of candy in it is in it's own plastic bag. Sometimes, every potato chip in a bag of potato chips is in it's own plastic bag. You get straws when you buy juice if you don't say that you don't need it, and you get a plastic bag for EVERYTHING you buy. Sometimes you get one plastic bag per item you buy.

Japan may have come a long way concerning technology and conformity, but sometimes they just don't get that conformity isn't about having to open a plastic bag every time you're eating a single piece of candy, or the need to stuff away millions of plastic bags in your already tiny room with just enough space not to have tons of plastic bags in it.

Well, from now on, when I'm recovered and don't feel tired and sleepy all the time (I still do a bit, because of the heavy weather) I will try sorting out my lifestyle here.

See yaaaaaa! (Jaa ne!)

Pictures 1

Isak in a arcade hall in Ikebukuro, after watching Predators at the theater (it sucked).

BlazBlue tournament in the same arcade hall in Ikebukuro.

Awesomeness in Ikebukuro.

BBQ and random awesomeness in a park in Warabi, celebrating Daniel's birthday (which was two days earlier).

Some pics (more is coming)

Sunset at a Jinja (Shinto Shrine) very close to where I live.

Erik, Markus, Emma and Fredrik (behind Emma) on the train station in Takadanobaba, where we bought some school books.

A street leading home from the station in Warabi.

An awesome flower pot on the way home from the station in Warabi.

The Shinto Shrine in the darkness.

Audi HQ in Harajuku.

My room before I rearranged the desk and the fridge.

Totemo Sorry!

I'm sorry, I'm really bad at updating!

So: I was sick until last thursday when I finally recovered from my cold. The same day we went to see Predators at the theater in Ikebukuro (a city close to our school). I didn't have very high expectations but it didn't live up to them anyways. 1.5/5 is the final score for the movie. Sorry predator, I'll hold my thumbs for the new Alien movie instead! After the movie we went to an arcade hall across the street and tried out a few games and watched some Japanese people play BlazBlue. They were crazy.

Friday I went to another arcade hall with Erik and Bill nr 2, only to get my ass kicked so hard I didn't know it was possible. My goal every round was to score at least one hit on the other player so he didn't get "perfect". Then I got home and played some Starcraft 2 with Hannes. Only 2 weeks until release (and summer break!)

Saturday, Isak and I went to a maid café. It was awesome, but pretty damn expensive. At maid cafés you have to form a heart with your fingers and sing a jingle everytime you get served drinks or food ^^
Later on the evening we went to a club in Roppongi. It sucked. It were "free" entrance, but you had to buy a drink to get to the dancefloor, which was overcrowded. And if you didn't have a drink in your hand all the time, someone from the staff comes over with a menu and a flashlight and makes you order something, and if you don't, you know where the exit is. So I bought another drink and drunk everything except the last "slurk" and then I put the bottle in my pocket (I had my really big rave pants with lots of big pockets), and everytime the guy came over with the flashlight and menu I just picked up my bottle and showed him I still had some left ^^
And yeah, one of the things that sucked the most, was that only girls were allowed to dance on the bar table! If you tried to do it (and if you're a guy, read: MAN) someone from the bar comes and poke you in your ass (yes, in your ass) with a stick and tells you to go down. Didn't stop me and my friends from trying a couple of times each though ;D

On sunday, I was woken up by Isak who knocked on my door and told me it was a bbq in a park on the other side of the station, about 30 minutes away by walking, so I got up and we set off. It was a really cool park! I tried out some headstanding and some Japanese guy 50 meters away noticed and did the same thing, so we inofficially started a headstand competition. Which, for the record, I won! ;D So I went over there and talked to them. It was pretty fun, and we had a very short gymnastics showdown. And also: It's hard to explain in Japanese, to Japanese people, what a "dalarhäst" is. I told them it was a small wooden horse with red paint on it. The penny never quite hit the bottom. Anyways I got their phone mail address (you mail between your cell phones here, you don't use SMS), and we're gonna hang out sometime soon.

Today I was hanging out with Nanako, a Japanese girl I met online, in Shibuya and Roppongi. We went up in Tokyo Tower (Pictures will be posted shortly), and went to a karaoke place. They really take karaoke serious here, the entrance looked like the lobby of a luxary hotel, and had many floors; our room was on floor 9. I showed off my brutal power singing skillz by singing Aha - Take on me, Roxette - She's got the look, and Robbie Williams - Livin' la vida loca. After that we went to Shibuya and parted. And yeah, I got a cold today again, so now I'm back to normal ^^ (Don't worry mum, apparently most people here get colds all the time).

In general: School is fun, even though most of it at the moment is repetition on what I did at school in Sweden, but it's great, because then I can focus on studying new words instead of being troubled by grammatics! The class is: 5 Chinese, 3 Swedes, 1 Nepal guy, 1 guy from the Netherlands and 1 Spanish guy. We have a different teacher everyday of the week.


That's all for now!
I will try to write more and shorter entries in the future, and I will post the pics soon! Pinky promise!

The horrible trip.

So, I've been in Japan for a couple of days now.

The trip was HORRIBLE. My plan on sleeping only 1.5 hours before going, so I could be able to sleep on the plane, didn't work out at all. I slept a total of 1.5 hours on the plane, at most. And at Heathrow airport, I was so hungry and so tired. I had some weird burger that didn't taste anything, and tried to read my book, but it was really hard when being so tired. Add to that that I had a cold at the time, my throat was drying up every now and then and I had to drink tons of water. It was really hard sitting comfortable for 11 hours on an airplane as well, even though I bought an awesome neck support pillow!

BUT! There were also some awesome things on the trip! For example, I met a funny family on the plane to Heathrow, they were going to New York for a couple of weeks, and we had some fun conversations. And on the plane to Narita I sat next to a Japanese couple that had been to their honeymoon in Spain for 8 days, and they started talking to me (I even got a high five when saying congratulations!). I got to use my Japanese skills a little as well which was very exciting. I also watched "How to Train Your Dragon" on the flight, and it was awesome!

When I stepped out of the airplane it felt like something was wrong. It was like walking into an aquarium, it was so humid! And I had some troubles finding my friend Flink at the airport, since we were at different exits. But I bought two phone cards (one was eaten by the machine so I had to get another one) and asked a guard to help me use a pay phone to get in touch with Flink. After like 15 minutes, he had realized that he'd been waiting at another exit and made his way to where I was.

1.5 hours (something like that) was the time it took by train to Warabi where I live. Even that trip was horrible because my ears were feeling blocked, and my nose was blocked, and it was warm and I was super tired.

When we arrived we had some food at a fast food place. It was really funny to hear the staff saying "hello" and "good bye" to all the customers as they arrived and left the restaurant, and all the automatic lines they were saying all the time. People say you grow tired of it over time, but at the time it was awesome.

But at least I was there. I was done. The trip was over, and now I'm here. I'll give you more details of the stay in another entry, coming up soon!

Departure in T-5h

So! Here is my complete pack list!

8 pairs of underwear
8 pairs of socks
2 pair of pants
1 sweater
3 t-shirts
1 tanktop (or whatever you call it)
1 shirt
1 thin jacket
1 pair of wrist supporters
1 pair of vibram fivefingers sprint
1 pair of shoes
wallet
card holder (including driver's license and bank card)
pass port (including visa)
moleskine tokyo city notebook
2 tokyo - city guide books
1 book (el choco)
laptop
external disk (500gb)
mp3 player
nintendo ds
glasses
12 pairs of contacts
camera
bank tool (for logging in online)
sunglasses
deoderant
toothbrush
försvarets hudsalva
usb-stick 16gb
a bandana
my guitar

I'm wearing 1 pair of underwear, 1 pair of socks, 1 tanktop, 1 pair of pants, 1 shirt, 1 pair of shoes, 1 bandana. Except for that and the guitar, everything fits into just one backpack :) Now I'm gonna catch a few (and I mean few) hours of sleep before breakfast. Good night, and I'll see you soon!

Oyasumi nasai! (Good night!)

Preparations!

Yeah!!!!!!! So it almost begins.
The day after tomorrow... Is the day I'm moving to Tokyo for a year to study Japanese and be awesome. Today I've prepared furiously by being sick, climbing, walking and I've even put all the stuff I'm bringing with me in my bed (except for some underwear and socks that're in the washing machine), so I could have a nice overview of them. And so can you, so here I'm adding a picture of it!



A complete list will follow tomorrow night!