TEAM 23

The company I work for has many different circles that look after your spare time interests (that is to say for the employees that have any time off from work). These include everything from sport circles like soccer and aikido, to more traditional circles like tea ceremony and shodo (calligraphy). They also have a mystery circle, which is still unknown what they actually do. I have joined the shodo circle, the swimming circle and the snowboarding circle, called TEAM 23. Two weekends ago it was time for the first gathering for the winter for TEAM 23. We started at 3.30 AM (!) and drove all the way to Hakuba and back in one day (four and a half hours one way)! Since I don’t have a drivers licence valid in Japan I could sleep in the car, but I felt sorry for the guys driving, but they seemed to be fine. We had a great day together and Hakuba offered us blue birds and beautiful views the whole day. They were a very fun team to ride with, playing around in the snow and doing all sorts of crazy things (unfortunately including some broken bones, but not mine this time). Most of the team members were complaining that they didn’t speak enough English (as many often do, but most of the time it’s just a lack of courage), and sometimes we had difficulties understanding each other. I was happy to be there without the two other Swedish guys at the company, because then it becomes easier for them to speak Japanese instead, thus excluding me from the conversation. And it seemed like they actually enjoyed practising their English, they were very interested students. In exchange they taught me some Japanese words. My favourite was sarra sarra, which means powder (and also soft). I hope I’ll be able to join them for their next snowboarding adventure.

To see the pictures from the trip, click here!

New Years holiday

I had 10 days holiday over New Years (my first paid holiday ever!) and Sara was here to visit me. We had a great holiday together with 4 days sightseeing in Tokyo and 5 days snowboarding in the Japanese Alps!

We went to karaoke in Shibuya, slept in the sun in Inokashira Park, strolled down the streets in Harajuku and Omotesando to have a close look of the non-official architectonical competition between the fancy fashion houses, took us to the Imperial Palace Gardens just to discover we came on one of the few days of the year when it’s not open, but had a nice walk in the sun on the outside instead. We also spent a day in “Akiba”, tech-town much enjoyed by westerners but detested and referred to as dangerous and awful by my Tokyo-friends. We visited Miyazaki Hayao’s studio Ghibli and wished either that it was crazier museum and had more of his anime or that we had lower expectations on it. We also wished we had kidnapped one of those cute little Japanese kids playing around in the cat bus. Souvenir shopping was done in Kichijoji and Shibuya and Sara looked closely on every shelf of the 6 story shop LoFT, storing everything you can possibly need for your home and office to make sure she didn’t miss a single thing. A night view over Tokyo city was caught from the charming Tokyo tower.

The trip to Hakuba in the Japanese Alps was amazing! It was snowing like crazy, so the visibility was crap but it wasn’t hard to enjoy the hills anyway, the amount of snow that came during our stay was mad. Riding with powder up to our knees was fantastic and I even got stuck with snow up to my chest and had to crawl out! We also enjoyed an outdoor Onsen (hot spring), soaking our exhausted bodies in the boiling hot water while snow was floating down in our faces. Sara said it was the best snowboarding she had ever done and I am absolutely willing to agree.

Check out the pictures of all that fantastic snow and from the rest of the holiday in the photo album!

Different worlds we live in

One of my friends is 8 months pregnant. She gets up at seven every morning to make her husband breakfast. I really hope she is doing it out of love and not because it is expected from her. Maybe it's about time her man learns how to cook.

Workaholics

I stayed until late at work last night, on a friday. When I left work, there was still plenty of people working. I can almost see the end of my project, so for me it's okey to work late. But they will keep on working late hours for the rest of their lives. I cannot get my head around it. Am I lazy? Or are they crazy?

One of my friends told me that when he used to work late, he took a taxi home at his company's behalf. But now with the recession, the company won't pay any taxi bills and the boss it forcing his employees to catch the last train before they stop running at midnight.

The secreasy behind skininess

I wonder if Japanese stay skinny because they eat healty food or because it's so damn cold indoors?

Merry Christmas!

Spending Christmas at work wasn't all that bad. It was just like any other day at work, but I was filled with the same excitement as a little child, longing to get home from work to open the Christmas presents Santa left in my mail. I gave my colleagues a few home made gifts with knäck and lussebullar, which seemed to be appreciated (more than when I let them try Djungelvrål). When I finally came home from work, I spoke to my family over skype and opened my presents. I could at least see the white Christmas through skype, that must count, right? Risgrynsgröt with cinnamon and sugar was served for dinner. All in all, it was a merry little Christmas.

God fortsättning!

3.9 on the Richter scale

This morning I woke up of an earthquake. Quarter to six, an early morning call. It was just a small one, but the first I ever experienced myself. It felt like the ground was on a big, moving air balloon. Or a bit like I woke up and the world had turned into a bouncy castle. At first I thought it was a fever dream and it took a while before I realized that my bed was actually moving. I couldn't help but feeling a little bit of excitement, but at the same time it's scary. And they are expecting a big one in Kantō region soon.