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!

Happy New Year!

An interesting observation of mine as I walk through the streets of Tokyo or am out clubbing in the nightlife districts of Shibuya of wherever, is that the girls I generally find the most attractive among the native population of this city, are the ones that look the least like Japanese. Quite tall, hair dyed dark brown, or at least another shade of black, and skin at least a bit darker than the ghostly pale skin tone most seem to strive for - those are all attributes that would increase the likelihood of me looking twice at someone. Add a fashion style that says luxury rather than cute or slutty, and that second look is almost guaranteed.

Not that this is anything new. The ethnicities I tend to find the most attractive are, I think, those found in southern Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and South America. So you might wonder what the hell I am doing in a country like Japan in the first place. You might. But doing so would of course fail to take into account all the wonderful things that make this country - and this city in particular - one of my absolute favorite places in the world. So let's stop wondering, and get on with the rest of this post.

Something very interesting that I learned today is that apparently the Japanese word arigatou, meaning "thank you", is a loanword. It comes from Portuguese obrigado, imported around the time when westerners (read: Portuguese) first came to Japan. Who would have thought that?

Anyway, as today is the first day of the new year, that of course means that yesterday was New Year's Eve! And that in turn means I had some great fun with a bunch of my friends. It was probably the most spontaneous and least planned New Year's Eve I have experienced in quite some time though. By the time I left my home for Shibuya at seven forty five in the evening, I still didn't know where we would be around the countdown to midnight.

We started out at the nice french-italian restaurant La Boheme in Shibuya (on the way to which we passed an Apple Store, which made me think of how much I want a Mac again). The restaurant had a very nice atmosphere, feeling a bit "old school" European, with interior walls of stone and everything. It felt somewhat exclusive, to be sure, but the place was actually quite affordable.

As for the food, we ordered in a bunch of pizzas with various toppings, and some tasty chicken as well. This was the first time I ate pizza since I left Sweden. They were considerably smaller than Swedish pizzas, but oh so tasty! I started out drinking wine, but then switched to drinks, finding a very nice, slightly sparkling orange tasting drink whose name I unfortunately can't remember.

Around eleven thirty we left the restaurant, as they had another reservation at twelve. We worked our way back to the large crossing outside of Shibuya station, where we got just in time for the countdown! The crowd went wild, and the new year arrived. Sad to say there are no fireworks on New Years in Japan - I wonder why. After gathering up on the opposite side of the crossing, I opened the bottle of champagne I had bought on my way to Shibuya earlier that evening. Sharing it with about half the people I was there with (it was only enough for so many, but I did have the prerogative of choosing who got a glass), we cheered for prosperity and success in this new year.

And prosperity and success is exactly what I would like to wish all of you out there. Happy new year to all of you! May 2009 be the year when all our dreams start coming true.

That naturally should have come at the end of the post, but as I am not really done yet, that will not actually be the case. Back to my story, we have reached the point where the fellowship start breaking up. For after the cheering with champagne, the group split in two. One half went to karaoke, while the other, with me among them, went clubbing. The choice of club fell on Atom, mostly because I said I wanted R&B and House, and none of us seemed to know of any other club in the area playing that kind of music. Which reminds me, I really should check out some new clubs one of these days.

We danced the night away, went to McDonalds for breakfast, returned to the station and went separate ways. When I exited the station in Ikebukuro I noticed that people seemed to be camping outside of several department stores. I am guessing that means that the legendary city-wide January sale starts today. Worth checking out to be sure, but I am definitely not in the kind of rush that made those sorry ass souls stay out there in the cold for I don't know how many hours this night.

Another interesting flock of people I ran into on my way home this morning was a group that had gathered on the walking bridge across the highway to look at what I think was the sunrise. If it was anything else, it was nothing I could see, and the sunrise was pretty nice, so that was probably it. They even had a camera set up, with some old man taking pictures.

I stopped up there for a few seconds to look at it with them. With one last glance at that beautiful sunrise, I then turned around and continued my walk home.