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

Ramen is serious business

I have been in Japan for almost two months and one thing that I have learned is, ramen is serious business. Like saying that all ramen tastes the same will give you some odd looks and always one person chiming in that you are wrong. You should consider the texture, the flavor, the soup it is served with, toppings, thickness of the soup and a thousand more points that make every ramen unique.

To prove this point I got invited out together with some other housemates to try what should be the best ramen ever according to one of the long term housemates.

If you ever wonder if a restaurant is any good you can always check for how long you will have to wait to get your food. The restaurant we went to was on a main street, had room for ten guests at a time and you had to walk in and out sideways to get to your seat. It was really weird to see such a small place being able to stay open in what I assume an expensive location. There was already a line of maybe ten more people waiting to get in and be served this amazing ramen, with us the line suddenly grew to sixteen. According to my calculations (in my mind) this should be an amazing experience.

We had to wait for maybe 45 minutes or so for us to be able to sit and when we finally got our ramen I got pleasantly surprised. I was sceptical at first as to why we would wait for so long just for ramen, but I once again was proven that quality trumps quantity. That is not to say the quantity was small, it was more than enough to get full, but as I was analyzing the different points of ramen quality and soup I noticed the difference between the stuff you buy at a convenience store and this.

It was think, creamy, lots of flavor without being too much, spicy in a non-intrusive way and a perfect temperature to keep you warm on a cool November evening.

Expenses

• 850 yen for a regular size ramen with ajitama egg

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

A trip to Yasukuni shrine

 Wow, already over a month in Japan and I feel like I have only walked around the block once. Everytime I open the door to my house and step outside I am overwhelmed by the fact that I am still in Japan and I still got another eleven months at least here.

I spend many hours studying at school, another three to four hours at home doing homework and it doesn't feel like a chore. Are you supposed to actually enjoy non-play this much? Well, I do and not even once have I felt like it has been too much or I should give up. But spending my time only studying isn't very good now that I have an oppourtunity to experience Japan.

So I decided to borrow one of my housemates' guide book and walk to Yasukuni shrine. At first I planned to just walk and see where I end up but since I have school in the afternoon I thought it better to actually use a map. The road to the shrine wasn't long at all, it took only 20 minutes or so. The streets were unusually empty which made it very easy to keep a good pace.

The original plan was to pass through the nearby park, Kitanomaru park I think it was called, but they were setting up for either renovation or a huge concert, so I let it be. There will be time to go there again.

The weather was incredibly nice and reminded me somewhat of a slightly more humid Los Angeles, a refreshing breeze, a sun barely peaking over the buildings and small white clouds dotting the otherwise clear sky. Against what I normally advise against I didn't bring a water bottle but I didn't feel like I would need it today. A cap to protect my head was more than enough.

As I mentioned the walk to the park was very pleasant and I didn't get caught in any crowds and I could leisurely look at the different stores lined up along the sidewalk. I am still practicing reading kanji which makes it more interesting to see what the next window would be even if it was just a shoe store or a "We heard there would be a demand for aged plastic clocks severely bleached by years in the sun so we sell that alongside with slippers and noodles" kind of store. Sometime I wonder what kind of customers they have and for what reasen they shop there.

When not full of people and cars the Tokyoian streets are actually very wide. Being stuck between nine million people makes you narrow your perspective and keeps your eyes focused much closer to where you are lest you bump into someone and need a hasty "sumimasen" loaded. The people I have met or bumped into this last month have been very polite, smiling and even a few random high fives from young women who apparently have never experienced someone holding a door open for them. Their giggling and quick retreat always makes me smile.

When I arrived at the shrine I first noticed that a lot of mothers clad in black holding the hands of their daughters clad in equally black clothing coming and going to the shrine. I got curious but felt too shy to let them be bothered by a khaki wearing foreigner wanting pictures of them and their kids. I better stick to enjoying the scenery in undisturbed and just let it happen around me. I kind of wished I could be invisible and let the lives around me happen naturally without my foot print piqueing their curiosity. Or something weird like that. You get it.

As I got closer to the main building I saw more and more people, but nowhere near as much as as at the Meiji temple. It felt nice to be at a place of peace and quiet without too many posing people around me. It felt more honest and real. The wannabe hipster in me slightly raised his nose in a "I am special because I prefer another place that is not quite as mainstream Meiji temple.". Another part of me told the hipster he was an idiot and that he should focus on enjoying the now than being proud that his past now is better than other people's present now.

I mentioned wanting to observe without distrubing the surroundings and I think I actually got exactly what I wanted. I walked around the shrine area nad came to a high fence with some very small openings between the planks. I was obviously not supposed to go past this point but I couldn't help at least looking inside. What I saw was something taken directly from an old samurai movie. A very neatly raked stone garden, small bonsai trees complementing its surroundings, black wooden floors and a shrine maiden sweeping the floor with a bamboo brush. She had long black silken hair and wore the red and white clothing very elegantly. At first I didn't see her face, but when she turned around I saw how beautiful she was. I wanted to take a picture but I couldn't move my hands. When she lifted her eyes and looked in my direction I unconsciously skipped back a step so she wouldn't see me. It might seem silly but some things I feel are better not stored as a picture, only as a memory.

Expenses

• Monster Energy drink 200 yen
• Whinnie the Pooh red tea 147 yen

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.