Lite höjdpunkter

Så det var en smärre evighet sedan jag uppdaterade min blogg. Jag har nu ganska kort tid kvar här i Japan och funderar vad jag vill göra med den tid jag har kvar här. Jag har gjort ganska mycket men det finns ändå mycket jag inte gjort och skulle vilja göra. Dock så är det skola nu och ont om fritid eftersom jag faktiskt vill klara de kurser jag tar här. 

 

Men nu tänkte jag inte prata om vad jag vill göra, istället visa lite vad jag gjort sedan jag skrev här sist. Så lite höjdpunkter på vad jag gjort är.

 

Jag har varit på Disney Sea, d.v.s åkt en massa karuseller med Disney tema: 

 

Jag har besökt Hiroshima. I Hiroshima klättrade vi upp på ett litet berg, besökte ett museum som berättade historien om atombomben som träffade staden och mycket annat. 

 

Sedan lagom innan skolan började igen så blommade körsbärsträden, så jag var även och njöt av dem i en park i Tokyo. 

 

Vidare så har jag varit på Fuji Q highland. En hiskligt massa karuseller och attraktioner. Vi åkte alla spännande berg-o-dalbanor de hade. I jämförelse med vad jag åkte i Sverige så är de i Sverige för småbarn. 

 

Det är de höjdpunkter jag haft sedan jag skrev något sist. Det finns väldigt mycket roligt att hitta på här i Japan så länge det finns tid och pengar förstås. 

 

Mitt hemresa är även bokad och den 8e augusti sätter jag återigen fot på svensk mark. 

Tokyo Tower

It's been a lot going on here since I last wrote something. At this moment I have spring break, and have had it for some time now. It's great to have a break, when I have break in Sweden there is normally tests or something waiting for when I begin again but not this time, instead there is .. nothing! Feels nice to have a real vacation for once! 

So what have I been up to this far is various things. One of the things is visiting Tokyo Tower, I believe it's the second highest viewing point you can get in Tokyo. The highest is of course Sky Tree, but because of the price to go there I was with a friend to the second best thing (or best if you take prices in consideration). It's recommended to go there, and preferably in time for the sundown so you can see Tokyo in daylight and at night, and not to forget, you'll also see a wonderful sunset!! Pictures don't really catch the beauty but here is some anyway!

 

Snö

Igår snöade det friskt här i Chiba, och även i Tokyo. Somliga gick så långt och kallade det snöstorm. Nog för att det snöade på rejält under hela dagen så hade jag aldrig någon stormkänsla över det hela. Jag och några andra studenter firade snön med att kasta snöbollar på varandra. Några andra passade på att bygga stora snögubbar, det fanns gott om bra snö att leka med! Dagen efter nu så ligger snön tyvärr kvar. Jag har ingen termometer men jag tror temperaturen ligger runt nollan.

Alla utbytesstudenter jag umgås med har sett snö förut (tyskar och finnar) så inga chockade miner. Var dock några asiatiska utbytesstudenter som verkade extra fascinerade över snön. Japanerna själva var uppenbarligen förberedda för snö, för nu kör de flesta fordon större än personbilar runt med snökedjor runt ett hjulpar. Jag tror inte de har varken sandat eller saltat vägarna här, men 1 dm snö och snökedjor? Visserligen har jag inte sett någon med dubbdäck, så kanske det enbart är sommardäck som används här året om. Idag är det knappt ingen snö alls på vägarna, om den är bortkörd eller smält kan jag inte avgöra, men i vilket fall så kör många runt med snökedjor.

Sen tycker Japanerna om att hålla rent utanför sina affärer, så utanför de flesta affärerna var det snöfritt, så jag förmodar att någon stackare har fått skotta hejvilt. Vid mitt boende har de gjort en gång som är ungefär 2 skyfflar bred, med tanke på att det tog dem cirka 4h att göra den så hade de nog enbart skyfflar. En rejäl snöskyffel och det hade gått på halva tiden!

Cykelbanorna och gångbanorna är dock inte speciellt snöfria eller isfria, men är inte värre än i Sverige. Tåls att nämnas att japanerna har aldrig någon speciellt hög gångfart, men nu är det är is ute så har den sjunkit ännu mera! Nog för att det är bra att ta det försiktigt, men lite fart kan man ändå ha.

 Allt som allt var det kul med snöbollskrig, men jag önskar att snön hade försvunnit tills idag, den är mest i vägen.

Christmas

Another year has now passed by. It went by fast, in a blink of an eye. I've now been in Japan for about 4 months and still having a great time here! Sadly it's now the end of the winter break and on monday I've to go back to school once more. I've been doing some christmas celebrations and new years celebration during the break, but mostly been sleeping and doing nothing at all. It feels like I've been relaxing a bit too much maybe but it was holiday after all!

So how did I celebrate christmas this year? On the 24th I was on two christmas dinners. The first one was at Ikea together with friends, then directly after that one there was another dinner at the dorm where everyone brought different dishes and shared. Myself I made meatballs. My meatballs did not really taste and feel like they would if I would have done them in sweden. Mostly because I did not find bread crumbs in the food store so I took something else as a substitute. In the end they were eatable at least (but the one I ate at Ikea was better). There were a lot of good food at the dinner, finish traditional food thingy, finish sallad, Italian pasta thing, sushi and the list goes on and on. But because I already ate a dinner right before I was not that hungry, but I tried most of the dishes anyway!




Other things I've been doing this winter break is visit LaLaPort, a huge shopping mall. it was 3 floors that consisted of mostly cloth stores. To be honest we were there for about 4 hours but still we did not manage to get to the 3rd floor, so what is up there is still a mysterium. But the other 2 floors were mostly clothes so I presume the third floor is the same. It was me, Mikko, Katta and Milla going. I do believe the girls appreciated the trip more then me and Mikko (girls and their clothes). After the shopping spree ( I did not buy anything) we went to Kaiten sushi.

Kaiten sushi (回転寿司) is a sushi resturant where there is sushi plates going around on a conveyor belt and you have to fetch the one you have to eat. You could also just order what  you want to eat and then the plate will show up on the band. I've been to 3 different kaiten sushi places, one was a small place where the chef stood in the middle of a conveyor band putting out dishes and people just shouted what they wanted to him. The other two have had a touchscreen where you can order, and the on one it was a small special band for the orders and it came a train with the orderd sushi. The last one had special plates for ordered sushi. When you are done they scan the plates you have and you pay according to how many plates you have eaten, and in some plates different plates have different prices.

So what else have I've been doing this break? I've been to a Onsen with my tutor and his friends. It was really awesome, and you could sit outside in hot water and ponder about everything and nothing. There was alot of different pools that claimed to have different health properties if you choose to believe in stuff like that. If the water is healthy or not I dont know, but it sure was hot and nice. They also had a steam sauna and a dry sauna. It was a really calm and relaxed atmosphere!

Another cool thing is when we went to the onsen we went there by monorail! It was of a hanging type(?) where the rail was above and the train was hanging down. Was just as a normal train but maybe a bit more smooth ride. And it was a bit up in the air so had a good view!

And I have a lot more to write but this is already way too long. So じゃね！

Winter Break!

Finally winter break!

It feels like it been a long time now without any real time to rest, so finally is there a break. My plans for the break are of course celebrating christmas and new year. But now lets not start about the future, lets start with what has happend in the past! It's been a little while since I updated and I have done somewhat noteworthy things recently.

I've been to the universitys international festival, with mostly consisted of presentation of 3 countries. It was about Mayar and two other countries that I now forgotten all about apparently. Most noteworthy about the festival was the belly dance performance, and the meeting afterwards where countries gave out free food. At the gathering thingy afterwards some school class was there with their teacher that runed around dragging their students to us foreign students there, wanting us to convince them to go to Chiba. I just tried to stay away from that, but damn that teacher guy was persistent! That was a fun day anyway.

I've also visited Ikea once more, this time with Katta (the other swedish at Chiba) and then some other swedish people and together we ate Christmas dinner at Ikea. There was all the traditional swedish food that are supposed to be eaten at Christmas so I did not have to miss "Julbord" this year!

Furthermore I've been to Ageha, a night club that several people claimed to be the biggest one in Asia. Sure it was huge, it had 3 dance floors I believe and a pool. Sadly none was swimming in the pool. Before we went to Ageha we had a nomehoudai (all you can drink) in Shibya. Noteworthy was the table next to were me and my friends sat that consisted of what I believe was middle school teachers. I've never met drunk teachers before, I have to say I hope I'll never see that in Sweden neither. But it sure was fun, they even wanted to take pictures together with us. All in all it was a epic night with good company and good music at the club!

In one of the weekend I was also at Sakura, a city close to Chiba. There we went to museums and visited old samurai houses and also an old hospital museum. It was summer weather during the trip and I got to see a lot of different cultural thingys, perhaps not my biggest interests but I thought it was really interesting!

Winter

So now there is finally winter here in Japan and the christmas decorations has appeared in the stores. The decorations are mostly the same as in Sweden, except that the english greetings varies from Merry Christmas to Many Christmas and such alike.

Because the winter has nog gotten here I was today to Ikea with my tutor and got myself better bed wear, nothing wrong with the blankets I've been using thus far but nice with some real stuff. The Ikea in Japan is exactly as the one in Sweden, about the same floor layout, the same food shops and yhea everything is the same. The only different thing is that here you can buy Glögg that actually has some alcohol in it at the store! Probably not as good as the regular ones in Sweden but it's still Glögg I guess. I also got myself some gingerbread, just because I could.

The thing the japanese people claim to be winter is actually very close to swedish autumn. Its about 10 degrees in the days or less and the trees hasn't even lost all their leaves yet! I have been warned that will get colder to about -1 degree but still that is not that cold. This winter gives me great joy when hearing about all the snow and -10 in Sweden, cant say I miss that at all!

 

 

 

 

 

鋸山

Yesterday me and a couple of friend was to  鋸山 and climbed to the top! Or well there was stairs all the way to the top, but the legs got tired anyway! We went to the mountain by a rented car and it took over one hour to get there (1.5h?). First thing we did was taking a bite at a local resturant thingy that served a lot of different fish dishes, I don't know the name of what I ate but it was different things from the sea and rice to that, really good food! After that we went to the mountain, got some fortune telling at a local shrine and looked on some old statues spread out on the mountain. And most important we went to the top of the mountain and looked at the nice view!

After climbing the mountain we went to a local onsen. It wasn't a natural hot spring but nevertheless it was hot and really nice! I've never been to a onsen before so it was a good experience, must go to more onsen!

After the onsen (looks odd without kanji 温泉) we went back to Tokyo, went to a Okonomiyaki ((お好み焼き) place and ate good food. Kinda fun that you pay and also has to cook your own food, but it's social and really good (and apparently kinda simple).

All in all: An awesome trip! \^_^/