I don't believe I ever actually officially retired this blog. As it has now been over a year since I left Japan, allow me to do so here and now. I had a great run, though sometimes I might have had a tendency to write a bit too .... well, boring posts. They were often too long, and maybe just not interesting enough. But we live and learn, eh? I know I certainly learned a lot during my time in Tokyo.

I wish you all a great time moving forward! Maybe we'll see each other again in the future.

Best wishes,

Robin

Through Christmas and Beyond

I returned to Sweden this Christmas. However fun we may have had in 2008, when I hosted a great Christmas party for some 30 friends of mine, it still very much made me realize that I would forever see Christmas as a family holiday, and that spending it without my extended family just wasn't the same. So as the Christmas of 2009 drew closer, I knew all along that I had to return.

Which also meant I had to leave my apartment, as I wasn't about to pay the rent of 79 000 yen for a month I was hardly even going to spend there. And so it came to pass that I left the apartment on December 15, after moving all my stuff to a friends place (except for the piano and the TV, which I had to get rid of). The only problem was, my flight to Sweden wasn't until the 20th, and all of my friends had managed to find some reason why I couldn't stay at their place for a few nights.

And so came the most interesting few nights I had had in a long time. Having heard that the Japanese sometimes slept in the most peculiar of places, I decided to make an experiment out of the whole situation, and try a few of them out for myself.

The first night? McDonalds! This most American of burger chains have in Japan become something of the perfect stopover for anyone stuck far from home when the trains stopped running: the late-working salary man, the young couple who decided to leave the club early but have no interest in spending money on a love hotel, or really just anyone waiting for the first train.

I should say that I myself have actually slept there for an hour or so on a couple occasions in the company of friends after a late night out, but only for an hour or so in the early morning. Now we were talking an entire night. Which, I soon discovered, wasn't quite as possible as I had thought.

Oh, you can sleep there as much as you want. It's not like they will kick you out, like they would anywhere else in the world. Not until 2 am, that is. Apparently, even at locations that are open 24/7, they close the seating areas for cleaning between 2 and 4 in the morning. Which I didn't know because, well, I had never arrived before 4 am before.

So I left, spent two hours wondering around Kabukichou and the eastern parts of Shinjuku in the blistering cold, being asked I don't know how many times if I wanted a "massage", and then finally found a McDonalds that were open again. Now, of course I could have just taken into a hotel for the rest of the night, but that would have been cheating, wouldn't it?

The second night, on the other hand, was truly wonderful. That night I spend at an onsen (hot spring / spa) on Odaiba, the artificial island off the coast of Tokyo. I can't begin to tell you how relaxing that was! So relaxing, in fact, that I just had to return two days later, for the fourth night of my experiment.

On the third night I went to an Internet cafe. These are hardly like the ones found in the rest of the world. At a Japanese Internet cafe, you can have an entire cubicle with cushioned floor all for yourself. And, at least at the one I visited, I had free drinks and soft serve ice cream. The only drawback was probably that the inescapable proximity to a computer prevented me from getting quite as much sleep that night as I had hoped for. But overall, I would say it was a really nice experience.

The forth evening I returned to the onsen for another very pleasurable experience. On the fifth night I had planned to try out a capsule hotel, but I instead ended up staying through the night at a Christmas party I attended. Which meant that for the second time in my life (the first was in Shanghai in the summer of 2006) I left for the airport in the morning wishing I hadn't gotten quite so much to drink. Like last time, however, I was feeling a lot better by the time I reached the airport, and the flight itself was pleasurable as always.

Going through Beijing, my first thought when I eventually reached Stockholm Airport was "my god this airport feels provincial." My second thought, as soon as I looked out the window, was "SNOW!" It was the first time I had seen snow in maybe two and a half years (I don't remember if there were any the winter before I left for Japan), and now the entire Sweden was teeming with it!

Despite landing in Stockholm, my first destination in the country was actually the ancestral home of my family, the venerable city of Gavle, where I would pay a short visit to my maternal grandmother and my aunt. I also got to see the youngest one of my cousins for the second time in my life.

The next day I took a train down to Stockholm, where I had an evening meeting / startup party with my business partner, and then took a taxi out to the suburb of Nacka where I would celebrate Christmas with my father's side of the family. Though my dad and brothers hadn't arrived yet, I was heartily welcomed by my aunt and my cousin Amanda. I had arrived at the place I have long associated with the best Christmas celebrations in my life, and I felt right at home!

And Christmas sure didn't disappoint. I will spare you the details - except to say that my uncle makes the best pickled herring I have ever eaten! - but needless to say I am longing for next Christmas already.

On the 26th of December I went down to Laholm in southern Sweden to celebrate first a friend's birthday, and then the arrival of the new year a few days later. Celebrating New Year's Eve with the group of friends I have down there has become something of a yearly tradition for me, and though I am always up for variety and trying new ways, it's not like I will see much of most of them any other way now that I live abroad, so until they too scatter through the world it's not impossible that I will keep coming back there.

Not this year though. For the celebrations of the arrival of 2011, much grander plans have already been set in motion. But more about that in ten months or so.

I returned to Japan on the seventh of January. Landed on the eighth. I had two stops on the way, including the very interesting Moscow. The airport felt small and quite old, but still there was something exhilarating about being in Russia for the first time in my life, even though I never set foot outside the airport. I ended up in an Irish Bar while waiting for my flight, a nice place with a nice bartender. It only took two Bloody Mary to make me feel a bit tipsy, which says quite a bit about the difference in quality between Russian drinks and Japanese ones. They were damn good too, so Russian bartenders really seem to know what they are doing.

By the time I landed in Japan, the airline had lost my luggage, but it felt so good being home that I was hardly even upset about it. I got it back a few days later, so no major harm done. I now live in a guest house in Kita-Toda. It's a really nice place, and one I have been thinking about moving to since I first visited on an after party back in last April. Now I finally do live here, and I'm loving every second of it. The people are just the best, for one thing. Also, for a guest house, the rooms are huge. The kitchen is really nice too, and the common area has a really large TV.

The male shower room even has a pool inside, but I have yet to see it filled with water. Before I leave I'll see if I can't get a drinking party organized in there. Hot steamy water and some nice drinks. Like a more classy version of what the Finns are doing in their saunas.

Time for me to get something to eat now. I'll tell you more soon about the company I have started, my plans for the coming year, and of course my further adventures in the Land of the Rising Sun. Until then, have it groovy!

The Return

Eight months have passed since my last post. That's a hell of a long time for neglecting a blog.

I am still in Tokyo, still alive and kicking, and soon hopefully prospering like never before, so what better time to dust off this old blog than the present?

Let me begin by summarizing the past eight months in a few short words: I moved to Shinjuku (that's still in Tokyo), and I'm about to start up my second company. Those are all the things that matter. Sure I've been partying, shopping, studying, working, hanging out with friends, and so on. But I did that before as well, so that's not much of a change, now is it?

What I should probably tell the world is that I've started studying Spanish. Officially I did that a couple months ago, but off the record I didn't really start until last week. So don't start a conversation with me expecting I'll be able to follow much. Yet. I do expect to learn pretty quickly though - considerably faster than the painfully slow rate at which my Japanese skills keep progressing. Spanish, being a European language and all, should be like child's play by comparison. Especially when you add a few personal factors, such as my life long interest in the language (due to my family having owned a house on the southern coast of Spain from before I was born all the way up until the year 2000), and the fact that I know several very interesting Spanish speaking people.

I had lunch with a Chinese classmate today during which the subject of which is the most romantic language in the world came up. My classmate mentioned French, which of course is what you'd usually hear. And I suppose I could see why - French certainly doesn't sound ugly. I would argue however that the prize goes to Spanish. It may not conform to the traditional view of a flowery romantic language, I'll admit to as much. But it is my kind of romantic. Sexy, adventurous romantic. And that is the kind of romantic that matters.

The Arrival of the New

Two days ago, Linus left the apartment. With the Swedish krona looking nowhere near about to rebound anytime soon, I suppose he just thought the place was getting a bit too expensive to be worth it. However it may be with that, his departure definitely served to mark the changing winds that has been roaming around me the last month or so, indicating that something major just might be about to happen.

Of course we have known about his plans to leave for quite some time now. For almost as long, we have tried our best to find a new tenant to move in to replace him. We had one potential prospect, a girl in our school who was looking for a new place. Things had pretty much already been decided with her, when she suddenly had a change of heart and opted to return to Sweden instead.

So back we were at square one. Our search for a roommate continued. Had March arrived with no new tenant in sight, we would likely have been forced to leave this place to its own destiny. There is just no way we would have been able to afford the rent if shared by only me and Legato. Which would have been a great shame, as it's really a place worth living in.

As it turned out, my first ever attempt to utilize Craigslist, only a few days before our deadline, turned out successfully. A day or two after the listing had been posted to the site, I received a mail from a couple from Vienna, asking about the apartment. Uriel and Clara were their names. After some further correspondence, we closed the deal, deciding we should meed in Shinjuku on the day of their coming to Tokyo. Which was today.

So right after school, Legato and I left for Shinjuku, accompanied by Helene, a girl from our class. On our way I got a call from Uriel (calling from a Payphone), telling us they were waiting at the South Exit of Shinjuku station. Should have been easy enough, right?

But of course it wouldn't prove quite that easy. Shinjuku station, for one thing, had got to be the most confusing station in Japan. Originally planned at a time long before it would become the bustling center of modern Tokyo - and one of the busiest train stations in the world - it is quite literally a patchwork of ever added segments and reconstructions, nowadays situated between/over/under/inside no less than seven or eight large department stores. Adding to that confusion, of course there just has to be more than one South Exit. See where I am getting at?

When we had finally managed to locate each other, we worked our way towards the Sakura House office to take care of all the paperwork. Dropping within Seven Eleven to allow our new friends to withdraw some cash for the initial rent payment, we ran into another problem. Their card issuer would not allow the transaction. Deciding to try out way at Shinsei Bank instead, Clara and I ran away to their Shinjuku branch - the same branch in which I opened my account a few days ago.

When trying to use a foreign card to withdraw money in Japan - even if said card is backed by a major, international company such as Visa or MasterCard - your options are quite limited to say the least. It's not that people don't use Visa here. As long as your Visa is issued in Japan, no problem! As long as it's not... well, then you do have a problem, unless you know what your options are.

Shinsei Bank. Citibank Japan. JP Bank (Japan Post). And Seven Eleven Bank. Those four will always take your card, on that you can be pretty damn sure. The most convenient of them is the last one, mainly because Japan is the country with the most 7 Eleven branches in the world, and in each one of them you will find the means to withdraw your money. But they also take a slightly inconvenient fee of 21o yen per transaction. Which of course adds up with the fee your bank back home takes for allowing a withdrawal from outside the EU.

In either case, 7 Eleven appeared to have failed us this time. Surprisingly enough, the same would prove to be the case with Shinsei. So scurrying halfway across Shinjuku to the Citibank branch that can be found there, Clara and I began to doubt whether we would actually get to see any of that money today. But as they had withdrawn ten thousand yen earlier this morning at the airport, using a Citibank ATM, we concluded that Citibank would surely be where our luck would return!

In a way, it did. While the same problem at first did occur, a member of the staff suggested that Clara tried to withdraw smaller amounts at a time. Amazingly, that indeed seemed to have been the problem. It was probably due to some strange limitation on the side of her bank. So a number of 20,000 yen withdrawals later, we could finally get on our way back to the others and on to the Sakura House office.

Where the Japanese paperwork bureaucracy set in to prolong our stay there long into the afternoon. Further, small things that elsewhere would have been solved in a minute or less has a tendency to be made overly complicated in this country, resulting in formalities like this taking much longer than they possibly should be able to.

Despite all these problems, however, nothing could reign in my great mood today! The sun was shining the whole way through it all, its beautiful, warming rays letting it be known that spring will soon be here for real. There was definitely something in the air, something that simply cannot be explained, making me feel freer and happier than I have felt in months.

Returning home, I was however somewhat disappointed to see that my package still have not arrived. That Swedish candy I am waiting for would have done wonders for my studies. But I suppose tomorrow has got to be the day then. And until then I guess I'll just have to make do with some more of this tea. Time for homework now, and then some further studying of kanji. I am really getting a hang of them now. Feels great, I have to say. I find myself able to read stuff I had no idea I could actually read. Really makes it all worth it. Now let's see how long it takes before I can actually start reading newspapers. They say you need to know almost two thousand kanji for that.

Again, wish me luck.

A Somewhat More Unusual Day

No traditional school today. Instead we met up at some gathering hall in central Ikebukuro (i.e. walking distance from home) for a speech competition between the chosen representatives of fifteen something classes from the three branches of our school, two from Shinjuku right here in Tokyo, and one from some other far off place.

I was supposed to have had an audition for a fashion show today as well, but that was apparently postponed. So finding myself with nothing to do following the end of the competition, I opted to tag along with Staffan and Linus to a gaming card store they were heading for, to look at some Magic the Gathering cards. While it has been a long time since I last played the game, and me going back for real is a very unlikely scenario, the visit to the store did make me somewhat interested in at least getting a preconstructed deck or something, to allow me the social benefit of being able to attend any gatherings that some of my friends may have from time to time.

After the store, I returned home, put on some rice for lunch (surprise, surprise), then for some reason started cleaning the kitchen. Don't ask me why. I suppose it just wasn't clean enough. I then watched the latest episode of the L Word, and once my rice was done I started eating. I am actually just about to go for seconds, and then I will hit the books. The goal is repeating 50 kanji and five chapters from the book today - and to know it all well by the end of it.

Today I have had the greatest craving for Cinnamon Melts, by the way. If you don't know what that is, it's this great sweet available at McDonalds here in Japan (and in the US, I believe), almost like cinnamon rolls but warm and creamy and with lots and lots of cinnamon. And if there is any spice I am not far from being addicted to, it's definitely cinnamon. Especially in pastries.

Unfortunately my economy is still not at the point where I could easily afford a 290 yen indulgence such as that, so it will just have to wait until I've done a few more modeling/acting jobs, or started getting students as an english teacher. Or found some other parth time job that wouldn't interfere with my modeling aspirations. All in good time, I suppose.

For now, my books await.

Bank Account

When school was over for today, I went to 新生銀行 (Shinsei Bank) in Shinjuku to get that bank account I was talking about. Apart from being one of the coziest banks I have ever been to, the service was great, and everything went more smoothly than I could ever have expected. Though I had to sit down and wait for almost half an hour (in a quite comfortable chair, I might add), once my number was called it didn't take long before I walked out of there with my brand new ATM card.

Even nicer was that I didn't even had to get up from my chair while the whole thing was taken care of - they came to me. And another nice touch was that they allowed me to choose the color of my card from among twenty something different nuances. I picked a very nice shade of almost viridian green they called crocodile. I would have given you a picture, but my camera wouldn't give a close enough representation of the color. 

I am currently awaiting a package from my mother, by the way, containg no less than two kilograms of pick and mix candy. While very popular in Sweden, such candy doesn't exist at all here in Japan - one of the very few reasons I wonder whether I could really live here indefinitely. But I suppose as long as I have a steady supplier, I'll be alright. Thanks mom! You're a life saver! :D

Wish me Luck!

Ever tried standing around near the top of a mountain plagued by dreadfully cold winds wearing nothing but a black suit while waiting for the director to decide enough of the mist has gone away for you to actuallt be able to continue shooting? No? Well, here's a little piece of advice: don't.

Today I went back for a third shooting of Zettai Kareshi, and it was cold. But what the hell, I'll get paid, and I'll probably be seen pretty well in the picture too. But it sure wasn't easy standing there extremely still, pretending to be a deactivated robot, when you really wanted nothing but running back inside to sit a few more minutes leaned over that wonderful heater they had there.

On the way back I discovered the first McDonalds ever that wouldn't take plastic. This country is truly ridiculous when it comes to that. The second largest economy in the world - and not even Seven Eleven will take your Visa or MasterCard? And now a McDonalds!? Come on! No, what this country needs is a major card revolution. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

I am going to get a bank account tomorrow, I think. About time, you may say, but I haven't actually had that much use of one until now. Of course, had I opened one up when I first got here and transfered all my funds to it, I would not have been affected by the global currency crash. But as they say, hindsight is a bitch. There was no way I could have known.

Now, however, as I hope to get more and more modelling and acting jobs - which of course I will - a greater need for a Japanese bank account has appeared. I was contacted yesterday about the payment for the first job I did, which can be picked up at the office of my agency any day now. But having them transfer the amount to my account would save me the trip - which is time and money both. So after school tomorrow, I will go to Shinjuku to open a bank account.

In the meantime, do wish me luck (1) getting the fashion show job I am currently awaiting an answer about, (2) receiving ever more calls about jobs from my agencies this coming month, and (3) winning Drömvinsten on Lotto.