Back in SF; epilogue

It's almost two months since I got back to San Francisco, and I really don't know if anyone still reads this. Something like an epilogue still feels like it's needed. Round things off a bit, if you like.

The last couple days in Japan were, as you might know, hectic. After farewell parties and packing and generally feeling kinda blue about leaving, I spent the last night in Tokyo in a hotel close to Shinjuku station. Next day, I had a couple hours before the plane left in the evening, so I went to the big and actually very nice park that is a short walk from the station. Ari, my language exchange partner, came and met up with me there and kept me company that last day in Tokyo.

The plane back to SF was depressing. I really didn't want to leave. Such a shame - I had upgraded my ticket to business class, had a seat that turned all flat, unlimited drinks, computer games (and power for the laptop) and lots of space - it should have been the best flight ever. Somehow, it wasn't.

When flying from Japan to the US West Coast, one arrives way before leaving, so this day was not just generally miserable, it was also very, very long. And it just kept going when I arrived in SF. Sue was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but we managed to somehow go past each other. After waiting way too long, I thought, I jumped into a cab and tried to find the place where my car was stored. Didn't work out - the cab driver was as mapless as he was clueless. Instead, I told him to drop me off in Chinatown, where there should be, according to the internet, two stores that carried the cell-phone and operator I wanted.

So I get off in Chinatown, with my two bags (backpack: 22 kgs / 50 pounds, carry-on: 8 kgs / 20 pounds, big suitcase: 31 kgs / 65 pounds) and walk up to where the first store is supposed to be. The store is not there. I walk two blocks in the sun, soaking in sweat, only to find that the other store doesn't exist either. Maybe I got the addresses wrong - I walk around Chinatown, up and down, back and forth, searching for probably half an hour before I give up and start looking for a pay-phone. In my pocket there is a list of phone numbers, and I have two friends who might not be at work, if I could just make that call.

I find three pay phones. Two without the handset, one without any dial tone. One of the wheels on the suit case has given up, I'm more dragging the bag than rolling it. This day, that started about 30 hours ago in Tokyo, is turning into a serious nightmare... Eventually, I walk into a small cell-phone store where I've been before and asked some questions, and ask if I may use the phone - the guy is nice and says sure. So at last I make that call, Sally comes and picks me up, and from there things got better.

Later that afternoon I went to pick up my car from storage - it was still running after six months, sweet! Kristian let me borrow his apartment for the night, and the next day I moved back into my place.

The following week I didn't work, spent the time unpacking and meeting friends. I went for an interview for a new position (at the same company), and I got it, yay!

A week later I got a slightly magical letter in the mail - I won a green card in the diversity visa lottery! Again, yay! This might be the universes way of making up for that miserable first day.

So now, as I said, it is two months later. Almost. I'm glad to be here, but I also miss Japan - I miss singing (ok, I'll be honest, more like screaming :-) ) Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right" on the top of my lungs at 4am with a beer in one hand and a karaoke-mike in the other. I miss the food, the sashimi at Chihiro's, the tonkatsu at "the tonkatsu place". (Really, have no clue if that restaurant had a name ... the sign outside only said "tonkatsu").

For a guy who is only there temporarily, Tokyo has an unreal feeling to it. It's hard to describe - as an obvious foreigner you're not really expected to understand and obey all the rules of society, and you're also somewhat of a novelty act. It's even more so if you speak some words of Japanese. It really feels a bit like it's not for real. Like it's a fantasy. There's very low crime, almost none, everything is clean, the girls wear short skirts even when it's literally freezing outside, the city is impossibly huge ... all signs of unreality if you ask me.

Anyone I run into since I got back asks me "so, how was it?" and I don't even know where to start. Even after two months, I have no clue. I haven't found an angle on it, a story-arch, a good way to tell it. To explain. Maybe this post is a start of that "getting a grip"-process.

People treat me as if I've been on vacation, albeit a long one. But I'm not sure that's appropriate - my time in Japan feels more like a series of disjointed little episodes. I can't answer "what it was like" by saying "well, the flight over was on the 3rd of October, and then... " and go from there, it's just too much.

Maybe I'll just give them the URL for this blog. I think that might be the most appropiate way of telling all the stories... So please start from the top. :-)

Now, that said - I don't know if there will be more posts here, but I suspect there will. Obviously I'll have to drop the Japan theme ... but it is fun to write a bit every once in a while. I hope I'll be able to keep it up.

Sayonara.

What a mess!

Whoa. Sitting down for a few minutes, trying to take a little breather.

It's been a crazy hectic week. I was busy before that too, sure, but right now is the last dash before leaving Japan. So right now, Saturday afternoon, I'm packing my bags (leaving the apartment on Tuesday), I'm preparing a presentation I will give at KDDI on Monday, explaining my work. And I'm also getting ready for another guys farewell party that starts in a couple hours. My apartment is a mess. At the party tonight, I'd like to go clubbing and party all night, Tokyo style, but I think I'll have to head home around midnight - if I party all night, Sunday will be a lost day. And I just don't have that time now...

It would be nice to have time to sit down and summarize my time here, but this is unfortunately not the time. I promise, there will be one, eventually.

Leave comments if you want me to write more; it motivates like nothing else! :-)

渋さ知らず - Shibusa Shirazu

As I was writing and reading my last post, I felt oddly uninspired. I'm sure it reads that way too. I mean, I've had a nice couple of weeks, but I was retelling the story because I felt like I had to, not because I really wanted to. Not that there were any secrets or so ... I just wasn't excited to share it.

But then I suddenly remembered something I did this fall and would really like to share, cause it was crazy cool.

I really wanted to go to a jazz club, get in the groove, listen and have a beer or two. I had looked at the concert lists for a couple places, and found one band playing that night that seemed interesting - they were called "Shibusa Shirazu" (渋さ知らず) (means something like "never know bitterness") and seemed kinda interesting. I couldn't convince anyone to go with me (well - at least not anyone that I wanted with me), so I went on my own.

It was outstanding. Rocking. Funking. Dancing. Crazy. They're a band of 20-30 people (depending on occasion and venue) who improvise most of the time. There were, in this small jazz club, three drummers, three guitars, two bases, a violin, trumpet and trombone and saxophone, a three person choir, a conductor and several others that I've forgotten for the moment.

When they started playing, they had this obviously rehearsed but really cool groove going within seconds. It was hard to stand still. Two unusually cool-looking girls come on stage and starts to dance. After a while, the conductor picks a couple guys, and have them improvise. Oh my, how it rocked. I really HAVE to see them again before I leave Japan... After a while actors came on stage too, and sort of acted with the music ... it's real hard to describe, but it was a jazz-funk concert and art happening at the same time.

The finale was the best part. The band is playing louder than they did before, the horns are blowing their lungs out, everyone is going for broke and everyone in the audience is dancing or clapping to the music, when the dancer girls, both at the same time, very slowly and deliberately steps up on the first row of seats, and then over the shoulders of the people sitting there, stepping onto the tables in the next row, while using their hands to support themselves on the heads of the audience. While the band is rocking and playing, the dancers slowly walks and dances over the audience to the back of the place ... the horns pick up their instruments and walk the aisles... oh boy. Damn.

I gotta figure out where they play next time. I considered buying the CD, but it so wouldn't be the same thing. I'm worried it'll ruin the experience.

I got this feeling there that I can pretty much only get from extremely good live music. I've had it no more than a couple times in my life. It's when the music just hits a string inside me, and my emotions and the music just reinforce each other, some sort of harmonious loop, until I feel so good I might burst. High as a house! Seriously ... it's a crazy feeling.

When I left, I had this ridiculous big smile on my lips that I couldn't wipe away... I walked down the street grinning like a fool. :-)

It was so worth it.

New Year, Sue's visit, more

I don't know how these things happen. I have the best intentions, always. And still ... things go wrong.

Take now, for example. I meant to keep my blog regularly updated, I really did. I was going to write something every week. I got stories enough to tell. But somehow ... other things took precedence.

I haven't even managed to upload those pics that I was going to upload with the last post. But I haven't gotten much complaints, either, so maybe it wasn't all that important. I'll try to get it taken care of though.

Ok, got that out of the way. Now...

Since last time, I've had Sue here visiting, it's been New Years Eve (that was something else, I'll get to it) and I've seen the Japanese Emperor and Sumo wrestling and played soccer for four hours straight. And gotten rid of a month-long cold! Whoo!

Now, Sue arrived two days before New Years which was not, as would soon become apparent, enough to recover from the jetlag before the Big New Years Party. Anyway, she did stay with us all night (good work, Sue!), even if she got a bit grumpy towards the end... :-)

The evening started with a group of friends at a Korean restaurant in Shin-Okubo. A lot of people in the extended group of friends are from Korea, so it was a natural choice - and the food is yummy, even if I have no clue how to spell the thing we ate. Sam-gyop-sai? Anyway, it is a dish where the meat is grilled on the table right in front of the guests, who then take a sallad leaf, put some meat in the leaf, some spices, some kimchi, fold it all up and gobble it down. Plus a number of beers with that, of course.

The plan afterwards was to either go clubbing or go sing karaoke. There was a silent majority (consisting of Japanese, Koreans and one slightly less silent Swede, yours truly :-) ) for karaoke, but a loud minority for clubbing. This created the impression that most of us wanted to go to the club (and it wasn't as if I was heavily opposed to that, either) but as we were leaving the restaurant it suddenly became apparent that most people in the group wouldn't join us to the club. That kinda sucked. So, a quick change of plans - no clubbing. We decided to first go to the square in front of Shinjuku station and wait for the clock to strike twelve (there are some huge public screens there, we figure there'd be a countdown or something). And afterwards, find a karaoke venue with "nomihoudai" (unlimited drinks) and a decent room, and so party the night away.

After some minor issues, like losing track of the french guy in our group, we got to the square by Shinjuku station. We had managed to get something bubblyish at a small store - we were all set. Ready. Staring at the big black screen, which was turned off. In anticipation, we assumed - surely it will soon come on, with big letter going "10 ... 9 ... 8" and so on. Right? It has to, right?

Wrong. As we were standing there, chatting and waiting, staring at the black screen, we suddenly noticed people shouting. I took a look at my clock - 00:01. There was another clock, much smaller than the screen, off to the side, which was looking a bit colorful and new-years-happy, but way more discreet than we expected. Guess that whole countdown thing is not all that popular here... Well, nothing to do except quickly open those bubbly bottles, empty them, and off to the karaoke club. Anti-climax, for sure.

And things just kept anti-climaxing. It wasn't easy getting a good deal on a karaoke room just after midnight on New Years eve, and we ended up in a room that was way too small for twelve people. I still had fun, but not as much as I normally would.

New Years day we mostly just slept and ate some.

The 2nd of January came, and it was time for action again. The 2nd of January is one of the two days of the year when the Japanese imperial palace is open to the public, and the emperor comes out and gives a speech (best speech ever - two sentences!), waves and goes back inside. So now I'm buddies with the Japanese Emperor.

We also managed to squeeze into a temple (crazy packed!) on that same day. And the following days we went shopping, touristing, what not.

The next memorable thing that I did was attend a Sumo competition. It's really impressive when those big guys clash together - it echoes throughout the hall. Our seats were high up, just under the ceiling, but it was still very easy to see what was going on. We were drinking beer, chatting, and watching the fights. Somehow it reminded me of watching baseball - things stand still for five minutes, then there's 30 seconds of intense action, and then it stands still again. Watching it becomes a very social activity.

Oh, I forgot to tell you the reason that we went there. Months ago, at the "Mental Health Weekend", a couple of us were chatting with this guy who is a vice president at the KDDI research labs. (It's here). Back then, he promised to take us to a Sumo tournament ... I thought it was just drunk talk, and from what we hear, so did he - but one of the younger Japanese guys who were there held him to his word. As it happened to turn out, the vice president got tied up in a meeting and couldn't make it to the actual fights, but he did come for the dinner though - and what a dinner, yummy! Apparently the restaurant was popular with Sumo wrestlers too, it was in the neighborhood of the fights, and pretty darn expensive, well, compared to what I eat here normally at least. And the VP paid for it, cool!

I think that was the main events of the last couple weeks. Sue, who knows about the blog but is too lazy to read it, could probably add something in a clever comment... :-)

Kurisumasu in Japan

It's kinda odd... Today is supposed to be the day after Christmas, but the rain is absolutely pouring down and I was at work both yesterday and today ... that Christmas spirit is proving to be a bit elusive, to say the least. But no matter, even in Japan Christmas does have a certain charm.

Like even more packed shopping streets than usual. Huge electric billboards proclaiming "Happy Christmas". Rightly so, I'd say... I'm bored with all these merry Christmases anyway ... this year, I want a Happy one! :-)

As usual, I did most of my gift shopping just before the big day. Running around Akihabara 4 days before Christmas is _not_ recommended - ridiculously many people! I did find the gifts I was looking for, though. Eventually.

I spent Christmas eve at Restaurant Stockholm together with my Swedish student / Japanese teacher, eating a typical Swedish Christmas dinner. There was meatballs and sausages and ham and salmon and potatoes and even some of Janssons temptation (although suspiciously low on anchovies). And along with my dessert, I even had a glas of punsch... (very sweet Swedish alcohol - yummy!). Haven't had anything like that in years.

And I almost forgot the most interesting thing that's been going on the last couple of weeks - there's been "bounenkai" almost every single day. "Bounenkai", in Japanese, pretty much means "forget-the-year-party", and that's what it is. It's a closing of the previous year, so that we can start the new year fresh. I've had Bounenkai with my team at work, with one of my networking groups, a company wide bounenkai and then one with my soccer team. And a bunch of christmas parties adds in to that, too... It's been a bit crazy.

In Sweden, and to some extent in the US too, Christmas is a holiday you should celebrate with your family. (To Swedes, Christmas is what Thanksgiving is to Americans ... a time to eat all the good stuff in the house and meet all the relatives). New Years Eve, however, is typically a big party.

In Japan, it's pretty much the opposite. Christmas is a reason to party and give and get gifts, whereas New Year is a family occasion. Of course, having no relatives or family here, for me they will both be party occasions. :-) And then Sue is coming in a few days, so that'll be even more fun!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a MERRY NEW YEAR, everybody!!!

Japanese christmas pics will be up soon... Finally!

One Down, Two To Go (with pictures!)

A couple weeks ago one of the three Swede's at KDDI went back to Sweden. He was kind of split on whether he really wanted to leave, but his contract was up, so he didn't really have much choice. I guess it's nice to be home in time for the holidays, though. I should try that sometime. So now we're only two Swedes at KDDI. And one French guy, and one Dutch.

Since he was leaving, we had to send him off in style. We've been going to a lot of Korean restaurants this fall, so that was obviously how we had to start the night. We then went on to Karaoke and was considering clubbing, but after we got a good deal on a karaoke room and 飲み放題 (unlimited drinks) for the whole night, we realized it was better to make good use of that. Imagine! 2500 Yen, about $20 or not even 200sek, per person for a karaoke room and unlimited amounts of beer, drinks, whatever you prefer. And nowhere to go until the trains start running at 5:30am ... time to ROCK! :-)

There's bunches of pictures here. The guy with shortest hair is Peter, who is now back in Sweden. Just FYI.

Weird Party

My, I've been lazy. There really hasn't been much in the way of updates lately, has it? Sorry about that. Sometimes I guess I'm just too busy actually doing stuff to have time to sit and write it down. :-)

Two weeks ago, Saturday, I was strolling around Odaiba (sort of a high tech island here in Tokyo, as if the rest is not enough high tech) when my Japanese teacher / language exchange partner, Ari, called. One of her co-workers was throwing a wine party on saturday night, and would I like to join her there? Sure, it's a party, I need to meet more people.

So in the evening we met up in Meguro, me late, as usual. After some trouble with the cab-driver and the instructions we had for finding the place, we finally got there. The house seemed empty and deserted, and since we were like three hours late we thought maybe the party was over. Luckily, I suppose, the wife of the family, Ari's co-worker, arrived just then in her car. So yes, we were at the right location, and the party was indeed still going on. We got in.

There were loads of good food and decent wine, not bad at all. But there was a strange atmosphere at the party ... the wife was around 30, Japanese, and her husband was around 50, western. And even if she is indeed quite smart (I don't know; she might be), she kept walking around and pushing her boobs out so much I was worried her back might snap. Yes, it did look that weird. She didn't say much either, mostly smiled and kissed her husband ... Creeped me out. Can anyone spell "t-r-o-p-h-y w-i-f-e"?

Then, since she was around 30, most of her friends were as well, and most of his friends were similar to him. So now, we have a party were most (if not all) women are Japanese, late 20's, early 30's, and almost all the guys are western and getting close to (if not way past) 50. They had all been in Japan for at least 5 years, and were quite successful, running their own companies or managing other people's.

These guys were definitely not beyond hitting like crazy on those girls, either... It just felt really weird. I mostly hung out with a group of young Japanese people, a couple guys and a bunch of girls who were all really nice.

Anyway, obviously, this was not one of those nights when I went on partying all through the night. I made sure to hit the last train home in the evening...

There is a little epilogue to this party too. One of the guys there, let's call him C (this guy is definitely not above googling his own name, so that's why I'm not spelling it out) spent most of the evening acting like a teenage boy .... and I don't mean that in a good way. He had somehow made it a goal to get to see the underwear of as many girls as possible ... as soon as he got them one by one he tried to convince them to show him their panties. Sometimes it worked out, too. All very strange and quite creepy. Anyway. He also took lots of pictures, and so he sent some to me. All nice and dandy. But just when I thought he had actually done something normal, I reached the end of the email ... and there, attached, was a huge picture of C together with Keith Richards... Weirdest thing. It's like name-dropping, only worse ... picture dropping! I was just like ... well, there really isn't much to add to that.

The world is full of weirdos.

Mental Health Weekend

I am hopelessly behind. It's clear by now. The things that I am about to tell you happened over a week ago ... but it might be a story worth telling.

The company was about to have it's yearly "Mental Health Weekend" - a chance to relax at an Onsen, that is, a Japanese hot spring, and let the mind unwind. Good dinner, bathing in the hot spring, some sort of party and sketching classes was on the menu. "Mental health" ... yeah, right. "Mental Weekend" is more like it.

The bus ride took about two hours, and we were steadily going higher up in the mountains. After a while it looked like wilderness ... well, almost. If one forgot about the power lines and other signs of humans being around. It's all relative, ya know, but for Japan I this might have been wilderness.

We arrived at the Minakami Onsen, a fairly large hotel built around a hot spring. The first thing to do was a lecture about something - this was friday afternoon, and the company had to make it seem as if we were working. But me and the other two foreigners there were free to roam - since we wouldn't understand the lecture, it being in Japanese and all, nobody really cared. We chose to stroll around the little city that was Minakami - strangest thing, I wouldn't have thought there were cities like it in Japan.

The town was mostly falling apart. We walked from one depressing building to the next, from an outdoor pool with green water to a pedestrian bridge that was closed because the wooden boards that made up the gangway were rotten. We found a house that was about to fall out onto the street, and most certainly would have already had not someone used two metal poles to prop it up. Check the pictures. Finally, we just bought a couple beers and some snacks and sat down on a bench and relaxed for a bit.

We got back to the hotel just when the lecture was over. Time to hit the hot spring! First, to the hotel room, switch to yukata (a thin kimono) with a warmer jacket over. Then down to the two pools with water straight from the spring ... it was hot indeed. As we were sitting there, slowly boiling, one of the employees came by with a thermometer, checking the temperature. So I asked, and the larger, cooler pool, was forty degrees - the smaller one was 49. I tried the small one as well, but I couldn't make myself put more than my legs in there. Hot, hot, hot.

Then dinner. In a large hall loads of small tables were lined up, and behind each one. a leg-less Japanese chair was placed. We all had one table each, filled with strange but yummy Japanese foods. Beer and sake was served as well, of course.

After the dinner it was party time. It is always fun to see what happens to the usually so well behaved and well mannered Japanese when they drink and party ... I swear, it's not the same people! There was basically unlimited alcohol there, of all sorts and kinds. Plus loads of snacks - some more normal, like potato chips or wasabi peas, and others more unusual, like dried squid (which was actually not so bad at all). Or cheese-sticks with fish on the outside. And then there were karaoke, of course.

The party went on until late. After the hall that we were partying in closed, a bunch of us went up to someones hotel room and kept the party going. Sometimes it seemed as if an experiment was being carried out - "how much can a westerner really drink?" Our glasses were always filled, and not only that, there were a few people who insisted on trying to keep up with us foreigners in the drinking race ... most entertainingly, a man who is a vice-president at the company. We took pictures, he looked at it and exclaimed "But I'm a vice president! I must look respectable!" and then he laughed and drank more. :-)

It was, on the whole, a very tough weekend ... I gave up on the party around 3:30am (hey, I was at least the last foreigner standing), and then it was up around 8 to get breakfast and then go to sketching class. There's not much to say about that ... most of Saturday kinda went by in a bit of a haze. I finally got home around 5pm. And then it was just about time for the next party ... but that's a different story.

Oh, and there are some pictures here.