Halloween party at borderless house

This is just a small and quick post about the halloween party my housemates held in October. Just wanted to share the awesome meal they made and the cute little rice jack o' lanterns.

A curry dish with rice, salad and a wonderfully adorable halloween theme was just what we needed to celebrate the scariest time of the year!

We spent the longer half of the evening cutting seaweed eyes, noses and mouths. Totally worth it!

Hope you all had a great halloween and lots of trick or treats! I know I did!

Expenses

• 500 yen each

Small cheese fondue party at our sharehouse

 This was actually some time agao, I just found these pictues. A couple of the previous housemates visited and to celebrate there was a fondue party! With food even!

Our sharehouse has room for up to sixteen occupants which means that from time to time the shared space can get a bit messy, but nothing that a free afternoon can fix. We got the living room all tidied up while some of the Japanese housemates went shopping for ingredients to dip. The picture don't show it, but we also got a setup for a chocolate fondue with marshmallows and other kinds of snacks.

From what I understand cheese is very expensive in Japan, especially the higher quality ones. You can still get some of the softer massproduced cheese for a very reasonable price, but I think any cheese connoiseur would just consider it very hard butter. It is pretty good, usually sold in slices individually wrapped, making it quite easy to pack a slice for your lunch box if you so wish. As a Swede I find it a bit overkill with so much plastic, but who am I to complain. I love buying new writing paper just for the sake of having new and fresh paper that most likely will never be used.

We had loads of bread pieces, croutons, vegetables, fruit, waffles, fried mushroom, marshmallows and crackers. Some of it was of course for the chocolate fondue afterwards but I still tried parts of it dipped in cheese and it was okay! The fruits and the cheese flavor never really mixed, it was more like the left side of my mouth tasted the fruit while the right side tasted the cheese.

When you eat cheese there seem to be some rule that you have to drink wine to it. This sharehouse loves wine! You open a bottle and everyone gets a glass. Simply put, it was unnecessary to sample cheese dipped broccoli without some red wine. 

To save ourselves from too much dishes we heated up the cheese in small procelain cups usually used for creme brulé. The cheese turned really stringy and it didn't take long until we had small cheese webs running along all the different plates.

It was a great evening, lots of good food, laughs, weird comparisons of Japan and Sweden. This has to be done again!

Expenses

• I think we paid 400 yen each for this

My room

I apologize for not updating my blog in a long time. I have had so much fun and studies to attend to that I simply crashed into bed when I came home. I think I am slowly starting to learn the differences between a life in Japan and Sweden. For example the vegetable prices are higher in Japan and why the diet is like it is.

But that's for another post.

Today I wanted to share my room and where I live! As I mentioned earlier I got lots of help finding a place to stay via Go!Go!Nihon and ended up at Borderless House in Iidabashi.

My room is not very big, but more than enough for one person and to study alone. My first impression was really good, lots of space to put away my clothes and stuff and the futon is incredibly comfortable and sturdy. I am not sleeping on the floor per se as it has legs, but being so close to the floor is nonetheless very comfortable. I have my own key, airconditioner and even a small balcony that I have never opened.

I enjoy the pretty spartan feeling without lots of stuff everywhere and games to distract me. In Sweden have many different gaming consoles and loads of games for all of them. Even when I really didn't want to play them I felt an "undesired attraction" to play something, like an addictive procrastination. So this works very well for me. I admit, I have three-four games installed on my laptop and I have longingly looked at the new Nintendo 3DS LL and PSP Vita everytime I visit Akihabara, but I think I can handle the withdrawal pretty well.

My desk is large enough for either the laptop or my Japanese books and paper to write on, but not both. So I really have to put away my laptop when I study which helps me focus. Well, Chopin or Vivaldi always keeps me company but at least I am not procrastinating.

It is a bit scary to realize that gaming has had such a strong hold of me, like I want to enjoy it but now I feel more guilty when playing than enjoying it. Well, that will sort itself out now when I actually concentrate on what's important.

As I wrote before, my bed is low and hard enough for support but soft enough for it to not hurt. Sleeping on the side is a bit difficult but I feel that it forces me to sleep on my back which also makes me sleep that much better.

Behind the curtains are my balcony, but since it is so small and mainly occupied by my airconditioner I don't think it would be that interesting to see.

The drawer on the side feels very IKEA-like but is much deeper than anything I have bought in Sweden. Perfect to store a finite amount of items.

I might invest in a laundry basket since I have a habit of spreading my dirty clothes around the floor, but other than that I find my new home in Japan more than adequate for me.

Expenses

• 84 200 yen/month (Supposed to be 90 000 yen but thanks to a longterm contract and referral by Go!Go!Nihon I get it slightly cheaper. I will also get back my deposit and the management fee by the end so that's almost 100 000 yen that will go back in my pocket.