November 2015

• Tokyo Tower and One Piece theme park
• Skytree
• Kyoto (Temples and shrines, Nijo Castle, Bamboo forest…)
• Tokyo Trick Art Museum
• Pocky day (11/11)
• School festival in Tama (多摩)
• Shell fish (貝) in Chiba
• Shinjuku Gyouen

December 2015

• “Catch your fish and eat it”-style restaurant
• Christmas market
• Tokyo Disney Land
• Christmas party with laboratory
• Christmas Eve

January 2016

• New year
• Ueno Zoo
• Asics presentation and unexpected drinking party
• Watching Star Wars in 4D
• Ice scating
• Gibli museum
• Onsen in Hakone
• Presentation at Tokyo University of Science and birthday

I would probably be able to write full blog posts about most of these things even though it’s some time ago, but since it takes a long time to write many posts I decided only to write short summaries for all of them and then distribute it over a few posts. Therefore, this post is just an initial overview, and I will add these posts with “MPP: ” before the title. So now you know what’s coming up! I hope I will find time to write them soon.
I’ll be back with more! See ya!

The post Overview of missing parts and pieces from my last trip to Japan appeared first on Kristines Blog.

It took an hour by train to get there (Hiroshima is a very large place!), and 15 minutes by ferry to get to the island on which the shrine is located. At this time, it was already 2PM, and we had not had lunch yet – so we were starving. Hiroshima is known for several foods. One is “anago”, which is similar to eel but a bit different. Another is “Hiroshima-yaki” which is Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki in which cabbage, meat, soba or udon noodles, and egg are layered an fried and finally covered with sauce and commonly mayonnaise (I think it’s really good!). In addition, Hiroshima is known for oysters (Kaki), but even though the Japanese style of eating them is easier for me than the European style, I really have a hard time eating those. Finally, Hiroshima is known for their Sake (Japanese rice wine). When we came to the island with the Itsukushima shrine, we chose to try Anago – and we probably received the smallest portion served on the whole island. ^^ I didn’t take a picture of the food, but I had my picture taken near one of the other restaurants on the way to the shrine. ^^

It was raining the whole day, which was a bit too bad, but it was still very nice to do something else than work. Taking pictures with my camera while holding an umbrella, was a bit annoying though. But I did manage to take a few pictures anyway!  There were a lot of deers walking around everywhere on the island, and they were not at all afraid of humans. Some of them would even approach people in hope of getting food.

One of the main sights of this shrine, is a large gate placed in the sea. Sometimes at low tide, you can walk all the way to the gate, and at high tide you’d need to go there by boat to see it. When we were there, it was low tide, so we could walk out there.

And of course we also took pictures of proof that we were there!

From what I’ve heard, the gate is only standing on the sea bed by it’s own weight and is not dug into the ground. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it surely looked like that when we went and looked. If it’s true, it’s surely amazing that it hasn’t tipped over, but apparently this locations is quite shielded from waves etc.

I could imagine that this shrine would be extremely beautiful on a day with sunshine and high tide surrounding the shrine with water, but seeing it at low tide like this – despite the rain – was also very pretty.

Praying at this shrine should apparently be very powerful, so of course we went to do so. In addition, we drew our fortunes, and I got a very good one! The shrine itself was beautifully red colored, and protected by two dogs I think it was (I would have guessed lions though. It’s the two statues on each side of the building in the below picture.

I was particularly amazed by a bridge which seemed ridiculously steep (might be difficult to see how steep it actually is in the picture), which made me feel like climbing it. Too bad the entrance was closed off. ^^

In the original plan, we had a dinner reservation at 7PM, so we were planning on going to see Hiroshima dome afterwards. But while we were are the shrine we received an e-mail from the professor saying that the plan was changed and that the dinner was starting at 5:30, so we had to hurry back all of a sudden. In addition, the dinner which we had thought to be only 5 people turned out to be 24 people, and I had to introduce myself sooo many times, answering the same questions over and over. It was extremely exhausting!! However, we tried many different extremely good Sake (Japanese rice wine)! One of them was extremely good and had a fruity taste – I can really recommend that one (安芸乃風雅)!

The next day, I had a poster presentation and speed presentation (3 minutes) on the conference. The whole conference was in Japanese, and only my presentation was in English. Therefore everything was a bit more exhausting than usual, since I had to focus all the time. In the evening there was a short conference dinner (eating while standing) where I had to introduce myself to a lot of new people again, and again answer the same questions – but it was ok. After that, we went to Hiroshima station to meet with the students, but as it was really far away, we didn’t stay late. It was a bit too bad, as I felt like having fun with the students, but I think we were all exhausted as well. The next day some of us went to eat the Hiroshima style okonomiyaki for lunch, and it was so good! But the portions were so large – everyone were fighting to finish, but in the end, I was the only one who left anything on the plate (Japanese people are really raised to eat everything on their plate).

The students were not going back until quite late in the evening that day, so they had some time to go sightseeing. Luckily for them, it was sunny this day (of course). Me and the other PhD student went directly from the Okonomiyaki store to the airport, and flew back to Tokyo. I was home around 7PM, and completely exhausted. The trip was a lot of fun, but I had hoped that there’d be more time to have fun with the students – but it was a trip for work after wall, so it can’t be helped. ^^

Even today, I am still feeling exhausted, so I left the university a bit earlier than usual (that means before dinner time), and therefore I had a bit of time to write a post! That’s all I have to say for now!!

The post Conference in Hiroshima appeared first on Kristines Blog.

Monday last week, my supervisor and boss from Denmark came to visit Japan. Monday afternoon, they were visiting the university I am currently staying at, and giving a few presentations. After their presentations, the second year master students gave poster presentations in the laboratory next to the experimental equipment they use. I knew that the students are fairly insecure in English and that this job would definitely make them nervous, so I suggested that they could give a test presentation for me and then I’d ask some questions to them in English. In the end, they all ended up taking me up on this offer, so my time from morning and until 2:30PM was spent with practice poster presentations. I was really happy that they accepted my help, as they so far rarely comes and ask me for my help with English. And I think their poster presentations went well, and at the same time was good practice for them. In addition, I learned a lot about each of their projects.

As this is Japan, and Japanese custom is to take visitors out for dinner, we went out in the evening to a yakitori restaurant – which turned out to only have beef and pork. That was a bit misleading, since “yakitori” traditionally is only chicken parts, but the food was really good. As another part of Japanese custom, we got plenty of beer and sake along with the food. At the restaurant, we were a total of 7 people including the professors, an employee at Hitachi, and two PhD students (one of which was me). I hadn’t particularly planned to stay out late this day, but after dinner me, the Japanese professor, and the other PhD student ended up going to a beer bar. The professor left after maybe an hour, but we ended up calling the lab to see if anyone was still there. In the end, two of the first master students joined us, and it got pretty late. After the first Izakaya we decided to go to Shinjuku ni-chome. This place is known for a large number of gay bars, and many of the bars require that you have been there once before in order to get in (that means that you need to go there with someone else who’s been there before).  Luckily for us, one of the guys went there for fun with his friend in the weekend, so we were able to get in as well. It was so much fun!!! The mood in there was completely different from what I’ve tried so far. Later that evening, they found out that it was my birthday the upcoming Wednesday, and in the end I got birthday song and everything (using karaoke). I was home around 4AM, and had to go to a meeting at another university the next day, so I didn’t get that much sleep.

The next day, Tuesday, I think I got up around 9 or 10AM, and went to meet my Danish professors near Akihabara. We had a meeting/workshop in an office building near Akihabara station, and there were a total of 4 presentations. It was a bit tough for me to focus on listening being slightly hungover and a bit tired, but I managed! When coming here, I did not know that they also planned taking us out for dinner in the evening… I should have known though – we are in Japan after all!! So this was another night of a lot of beer and sake, and this day also Japanese Shochu (焼酎). This is a high alcohol percent drink which, to my experience, does not taste good. But somehow I ended up drinking it anyway. In Japan, you really cannot empty your glass at all, since someone always keeps pouring to make sure you don’t dry out. ^^ It was a lot of fun, and because of that I ended up staying later than planned again, but the next day was a full day seminar and also my birthday.

So the following day was Wednesday, my birthday. There was a full day seminar in the laboratory I am staying in, where the 4^th year bachelor students had presentations (in Japanese). I was not particularly hungover this day, but I was quite tired during all the presentations… I did not fall asleep though!! In the evening, there was a drinking party (飲み会), which is common to have after this type of seminar event in the lab. What I didn’t know, though, was that they had planned a bit of surprise party for me (it was my birthday), coming in with birthday cake and some sort of thing to put on my head saying “omedetou” (おめでとう= congratulations).

The cake even had my name written in Katakana (クリスティーン).

It was a bit weird to celebrate my birthday away from home and without my family, but it was a really nice birthday present, and I was really happy! The rest of that night included sushi with the professor, Japanese style drinking games with the students, and finally karaoke until 5AM. I ended up singing a lot of Japanese and English songs (can’t say it sounded good, but it was fun). ^^

I only slept 3 hours the following night, since Thursday we had a meeting at Hitachi in the Ibaraki prefecture. That meant that we had to meet at Tokyo station at 10AM, and take the train (the trip takes around 2 hours). I was a bit tired, but I think I managed surprisingly well during this day. I didn’t even fall asleep in the train on the way there. I was a bit tired during the presentations, but it was okay. After presentations and a factory tour, we went out to dinner with some of the guys from Hitachi. Of course this day, again, there was alcohol on the menu. This time, however, I stuck to beer.

At around maybe 8 or 9PM, we went back to the station to return to Tokyo, and in the end I was home around 11:30PM. I slept for 10 hours that night, and went a bit later to the university the next day (I think that was for the best). ^^

Friday was supposed to be a relaxing day for me, but I had a meeting with my supervisor for 3-4 hours in my office, and after that we went out to eat sushi in Shinjuku. We went back straight away after eating, though, so I was able to rest a bit that evening. That was also important, because the next day, Saturday, we were leaving for Yonezawa. In addition, we had decided to meet up at 10AM in Akihabara, to buy some gifts for my supervisor’s daughter. After around an hour of shopping, we had what we needed, and headed for Tokyo station. From there, we took Shinkansen and went to Yonezawa. It was a pretty nice trip of 2 hours, and the final part of the trip was through the mountains which were filled with fall colours. When we arrived, we were picked up by my supervisor’s friend from school, and in the evening we were served dinner in his home with his wife’s home cooked “oden”. It was fun to try to have dinner with a Japanese family.

That brings us to today; Sunday! Today we went sightseeing in Yamagata. More specifically, we went to Yamadera, a temple placed in the mountains. It was quite a climb, but the view was really pretty, and the fall coloured trees really made the place so much more beautiful. In addition we were lucky with the weather.

Afterwards, we went to Yamagata city and ate Soba.

I am usually not a fan of cold noodles (below picture), but decided to try it anyway. And it was actually really good!!

So lately, I have been quite busy, but I experienced so many interesting things, and it was definitely worth the additional energy! It seems like I will be a bit busy next week as well, but not to the same extend. For now, that was what I had to say!

The post The most busy (but fun) week so far! appeared first on Kristines Blog.

Oh well, let’s see. Since my last post I moved apartment, went on a 3-day trip to Karuizawa with everyone in the lab (it was awesome but I barely slept), got visited by my boyfriend for two weeks, went sightseeing in Tokyo, went to Kyoto for 3 nights, and when we got back to Tokyo we went drinking with some of the guys from the lab. Today my boyfriend took off to go back to Denmark, and on Thursday morning my brother is arriving to Japan. Phew… That was a lot of things! I think I’ll have to split this up into more than one post… ^^

Hmm… Let’s start with the lab trip to Karuizawa (Nagano). This post will not contain many pictures, but I took a lot of photos in Kyoto, so I will include more pictures in some of the coming posts. The trip had the main purpose of housing the presentations from the 3^rd year bachelor students, who over the summer had been working on projects with the help from their senpais (1^st year master students). The PhD students (me and another guy) and the 2^nd year master students didn’t have to prepare anything for the trip, so we arrived one day earlier than the others to have fun. We went by car, and as always when driving in Japan, it took quite some time because of traffic jams! However it was nice to chat in the car, and I got a chance to talk a bit to some students I didn’t know from the lab.

We arrived around 2PM and went to do some sports in an indoor gym. I am not particularly a sports kind of person… the only type of sport I am any good at is badminton… but the sports we played there were no regular sports. Well ok, initially we did play regular volley and my right arm ended up all bruised because I’m not used to it, but after volley, the genre changed a bit. For example, we had goal shooting competitions in basketball (with your back turned against the hoop) and soccer goal shooting competition (where you had to spin around a bat 10 times before shootingぐるぐるバット). I didn’t even get to kick the ball as I fell over after spinning before even getting to the ball. ^^ It was a lot of fun, but I ended up with a few bruises – that’s how sport is!

After the sports, we went to the shared bath お風呂 (women and men separated though ^^) and it was very nice after those hours of sports. We were only two girls, so I got a chance to talk to a girl from the 4^th year bachelor students who I hadn’t talked to before. Her English was pretty good – particularly the understanding – and we spoke in a mix of English and Japanese (it’s usually like that when I talk to the students ^^). In the evening, we went to a specific small Japanese style house to drink (飲み会). There were several of these small houses and they were located a bit away from the main building, so it seemed as if they were built with the purpose of housing drinking parties where people are loud. ^^ Usually the students are pretty shy about talking to me – particularly in English – but after only a few drinks they became a lot more chatty. Before this trip, I had only really talked to the 1^st year master students and the PhD student, so it was nice to get a chance to get to know some of the others a bit as well. I showed some Danish drinking style to some of the guys who had started drinking whiskey. In Japan, they really like to mix whiskey and sparkling water to make “High ball”, but I said that in Denmark it’s a lot more common to drink whiskey on the rocks (only with ice). After that, we somehow ended up drinking pure whiskey shots with Danish “Skååååål” (cheers) even though that’s not really Danish style… but I guess drinking strong alcohol like that is Danish style after all. ^^ All of a sudden one of the guys who were sitting in the window disappeared (fell out)… luckily it was ground level so he was okay. After we realised he was okay, we also realised how funny it had actually looked. ^^ I think we went back to sleep around 5AM that night, and had to get up in the morning the next day to play soccer.

I was surprised at myself for actually being able to get up around 8AM and go play soccer. I can’t say I felt very good, but we were all in the same boat, so the pace of the soccer game was not very high! The rest of the people from the lab arrived around noon, and the presentations started at 1PM – everything in Japanese. I had barely slept and was a bit hung over, so it was VERY difficult staying awake during the presentations, but I didn’t fall asleep!! The Professor did though… he slept through one of the presentations from start to finish… I felt so sorry for these guys who’d worked their ass off to prepare. But oh well, at least the associate professor was watching through all presentations and asking questions every time. It was difficult for me to understand the contents of the presentations, since I couldn’t really understand what they said as I was tired and it was difficult words, but I did my best 頑張っていた! In the evening that day, the official drinking party took place and half of us were already exhausted before even starting (because of the party the day before). However, after getting a few beers and getting back into party mood again, the tiredness and hangovers were forgotten quickly.

I was seated near the professor and associate professor, and spent the first few hours talking to them. Before this, I didn’t really have much of a chance to talk to the professor before this, since he’s a busy guy, so it was nice. The bachelor students had to say something funny about their senpais in front of everyone, and even though I didn’t understand it all, it was so much fun. After the initial party, it moved into the same small house we used the day before. Here I got to talk a bit more to the professor, but also a lot to some of the bachelor students who were not there the day before. I learned about the Japanese style “drink call” songs where you sing someone’s name and then they have to finish the glass. Some of the guys even had their own special song that everyone knew. ^^ I taught them the Danish version of this type of song (e.g. “ka’ Kristine, ka’ Kristine, ka’ Kristine drikke ud”), but they couldn’t pronounce (or remember) it so it ended up just being “ka’ Kristine, ka’ Kristine, ka’ Kristine” in repeat instead. ^^ I realised one thing, which is quite different between the Japanese and Danish party style. In Denmark, you’d always have music at a party, but not in Japan. The noise level in Japan (from people) though, is much higher. ^^ But I really like the Japanese drinking party style – better than the Danish. Everyone got so drunk this day, and in particular one guy who I ended up half-carrying back to his room. Again this day, I kept partying until very late and after the party I was talking to three other guys until at least 5:30AM. I only got two hours of sleep that night. Despite this, I went to eat breakfast before going to play soccer again the next day. I was really tired, but I was not as hungover as the day before.

The drive back home that afternoon was very long. Not just because I was exhausted, but because it was during silver week (Japanese national holiday), and we were stuck in traffic jams for the whole trip. I think we took off around 2PM from Karuizawa, and I was home in my apartment around 9PM. And the trip is usually 3-4 hours! I had a hard time understanding any Japanese in the car even though I had been speaking mainly Japanese during the trip – but both my body and brain were completely exhausted. When I got back to my apartment, my boyfriend was waiting for me (he had been sleeping since he arrived ^^), and that was really nice! I didn’t have much energy though, so we just went to a convenience store to get him some food, and then shortly after I went to sleep.

During this trip I experienced so many new things and learned a lot… particularly about Japanese drinking culture… Everyone here have been so nice and welcoming, and I’m very grateful!!

The post Lab trip to Karuizawa appeared first on Kristines Blog.

Last week I worked hard on finishing a draft of a paper I am writing before the weekend where I had taken an extended weekend with Friday and Monday off. Thursday, however, went with listening to presentations by the first year master students – in Japanese. That was soooooo difficult!!! One thing is that I was not familiar with most of the topics, but even though I usually understand around 60% of normal Japanese conversations, I understood like 10-20% max here. And this was in the first couple of presentations where my mind was still fresh and ready to take in new information. The procedure was that each student had prepared a paper about his or her work, similar to a conference paper. They then went to read it aloud for everyone, and the professor would then interrupt and ask questions. When the first student went up to present, the professor told him to write the title in English on the whiteboard. They had not been told so beforehand, so they had not been able to prepare for it – so there were some interesting titles in between. Of course the rest of the students could look the words up while the first one was presenting, though. And it did help me a lot to at least have an idea about the subject, before trying to listen. In addition, most of the figures in the papers were in English, so I was able to generally understand the outline of the studies in the end.

This meeting started at 10AM and finished around 5:30PM. I think I worked for another hour and accepted that my brain could not take in anymore knowledge (もう嫌だ), so I packed up and left. Almost just immediately after leaving, I got a message from one of the students on LINE where he asked if I already left the office. I said that I was still nearby, and apparently, some of the students were planning going out drinking for a bit and asked if I wanted to join. I was surely done with working for the day, but I thought that going out drinking for a bit didn’t sound too bad. We ended up going to two different Izakaya, and in the first one, they actually sold Carlsberg (too bad it was not Tuborg Classic though) – I drank Japanese beer though (生ビールで). I ended up speaking plenty of Japanese – it’s amazing how my Japanese skill magically improves when I drink beer.  It was a lot of fun!

The next day (Friday), I went to see a Lion King musical. I had been invited to join by a friend I initially met online through the lang-8.com website. It was absolutely amazing!

They were both dancing, singing, and acting with amazing skill. In addition, we were sitting at the very front, 3 people on the first row, and 3 people on the second just behind. It was soo close to the stage!! I felt very lucky to get the chance to see this show, as it is not very easy to get tickets (of course it was in Japanese). After the show we went out for a little walk around the area with a copy of the statue of liberty.

In the evening we met with some other people and went to an Izakaya. For anyone who is not aware, an Izakaya is somewhere you go to drink and eat at the same time. You order dishes to the table that you share. I really like this type of place as you get to try many different dishes. Again this evening, I ended up using Japanese a lot, but compared to during the day, I used English a bit more.

I had not planned anything Saturday since I expected I would be hungover the next day. I felt surprisingly good though, so I decided to take a stroll and do some shopping in Shinjuku. When I was standing in an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green, someone suddenly spoke to me in American English. He asked me if I was sightseeing by myself, and had this been Denmark, I would probably have said I was meeting someone even if I wasn’t (thinking he was a creep or something). But knowing how difficult it can be to as someone not speaking Japanese in Japan, I had the feeling he was a completely normal guy, longing to talk a bit to someone speaking English. He had a few hours before he had to be somewhere else, and was looking for a bar to go to. He had absolutely no clue about where to go though, so I asked him if I should tag along for one beer. I checked google maps and found the closest bar, and we went there. I spoke to the guys owning the place in Japanese, and they asked me where we were from and complimented me on my Japanese. I still am a bit too shy about speaking, so it’s nice getting compliments when trying. He was very shocked when I told him I had only been in Japan for about 1 month. After talking a bit and ordering two beers, he asked us if we knew of the “gay town” in Shinjuku. Apparently, this bar, which was located in Shinjuku ni-chome (新宿二丁目), was part of the gay district in Shinjuku. During the day (as it was when we were there), it is an office area, but in the evening it is gay town. His explanation was very funny. He said something like “In the evening, everyone – gay.” Then making pointing gestures saying “gay, gay, gay, gay”, “him too, gay”. It was a lot of fun to talk to him, and after that I realised that the two guys in the bar running the place were gay too. ^^ I would never have gone into this place if I was by myself, but I’m so glad I did! After that I had got enough new experiences for one day, so I skipped the shopping and went to rent some Anime, bought dinner at a supermarket, and went back to my place. After I had finished eating my supermarket noodles, I ended up going out again and had a few beers with the guy who invited me to see Lion King. This was a very weird day!!

Thinking I would just clean my apartment and do nothing special Sunday, I ended up going to Akihabara with another friend and the American guy from the day before. Even though I think I have seen a lot of anime, this American guy beats me (I went through his “watched-list” in the gay bar). It was a lot more fun to go browse with other people sharing the interest, than going alone. I ended up buying even more figures (small ones though), and after spending many hours in Akihabara (without going to a maid-café though), we set the course to Shibuya. Here we went to a bar, had a few beers and some weird “snake sake”. It got a bit too late, and I ended up getting home quite late. I had to get up 6:30AM the next day, since I had to go to Disney Sea with the same people I went to see Lion King with (they were visiting from Kumamoto).

I had taken Monday off to go to Disney Sea and ended up only sleeping 4 hours since we had to be there were early. But I got up in time and just managed to catch the right train on time (ギリギリセーフ)! It’s an art in itself to master the “fast track tickets” in there in order to skip the several hour long queues (although there sometimes also are queuing in the fast tracks). Sadly, we were too late to get these tickets for the most popular ride “Toy Story Mania”, but we managed to try 6 different rides. I was pretty tired in the beginning, but it helped a bit to ride a roller coaster and get the adrenalin up. We watched some musical in English and there was also a water show with the “bad guys” from Disney movies. This was quite fun to watch as well.

We had to wait for a couple of hours in order to be able to use the fast track tickets we got for “The tower of terror” and “Indiana Jones”, but it was worth the wait (we could sit somewhere and get a coffee and check out the souvenir shops). The tower of terror was so scary, but a lot of fun. Indiana Jones was also a lot of fun, and the picture that was taken of us was awesome, haha. We ended up being in there for 10 hours (which was a bit too long after sleeping 4 hours – but I’m glad I stayed!!). We had dinner at a small yakitori restaurant, had a few beers. During this day I almost spoke no English at all.

So all in all this extended weekend was filled with experiences, and I was very tired Tuesday at the university. In addition, I had gotten one of the female students to help me make a reservation at a hair salon Tuesday evening at 6PM. Here they understood absolutely no English, and it was interesting to explain how they should cut my hair in Japanese. ^^ Since I have to do a presentation this Friday, I ended up going back to the university after the hair salon, and work until 10PM. And today there was a typhoon over the central area of Japan, so Tokyo got very heavy rain and thunderstorms. That was also an interesting experience, but now I think I have provided a wall of text tall enough for today. ^^

The post Some Crazy 5 Days appeared first on Kristines Blog.

I got a tip from one of the guys in the lab about a place called francfranc which sells various things for your home. I went to the one located around Shinjuku station, and I came back with two bags of stuff. Japanese people really have a sense of service, and actually one of the things I’ve appreciated most so far is quite simple. If you buy something in most stores and the bag is heavy, they tape some additional padding on the handle to make it feel nicer, and in my case they also double bagged it. In addition, since it was raining, the put a small raincoats on my bags. ^^

These are the things I ended up with from francfranc this time (might come back ^^)

After also going to Daiso and buying lots of stuff really cheap, I went back and started putting up the new stuff I bought. I mainly went for pink or generally very colourful things – I usually don’t do this but I think I’ve been smitten by the Japanese love for “cutesy” items.

Anyway, if you saw the images from when I just moved in, you should notice the change in the images I’m posting today. ^^ Starting out with the bathroom where I added a few things, and changed the original shower curtain with the only colourful one I could find. I feel it has a little bit more spirit now.

Next is the kitchen where the main issue is a lack of space. I bought a small toaster and generally have that and the water boiler standing on the only free space. I also bought some small hooks mounted by tape in Daiso so I could hang some kitchen utils on the walls, making space for other things in the cupboard.

And of course the hooks are in different colors (the hidden one is yellow)…

I added an artificial flower to bring some color to the other side of the kitchen as well, and also put a hook up for the brush.

One of the things I bought was an flowery apron and a cooking glove, and I hung those on the wall to spice up the boring yellow/white-ish wall.

Even the cooking glove is very cutesy and shaped as a heart ^^

I also bought new plates, knives, forks, and spoons, and those got a spot on top of the fridge. The new forks, knives, and spoons were placed in my new wooden holder along with my chopsticks, and I’m quite happy with the result – a hint of nature. ^^

And under the plates hides a squirrel!!

Finally I spiced up the living/bedroom as well (I guess everything except the toilet in in principle the same room though). I added artificial flowers to my desk lamp..

Replaced the white, hospital-like, bed covers with new ones, added some denim pillows (and a donut + pikachu)…

…and put some artificial leafs on the wall (I was desperate to get rid of that completely blank yellowish wall, and right now this was the best I could do ^^).

When looking around from in front of my laptop, I see a bit more colors now – even though the walls are still very white-yellow in most places.

So now it is starting to feel a bit less plain and boring, but I think I’ll try to go look for some anime posters for the other wall soon. Well then with that, I’ll head to bed. では、そろそろ寝ます。

The post Adjusting to my Tokyo apartment appeared first on Kristines Blog.

We spent the night in a cosy little guesthouse/hostel with shared bathroom and bunk beds.

http://www.1166bp.com/1166BP_english.html

The young woman running the place was extremely nice and easy to talk to. She could speak both Japanese and English, but she spoke Japanese to me most of the time – however in a way which was very easy to understand. She had made a “logo” out of lego for the place, it was kind of cute ^^

There was no air-condition and I did fear that it would get very hot in the rooms, but it wasn’t so bad (and there were electric fans at every individual bunk bed). We were all very exhausted, and went to sleep straight away.

The next day we took off early (maybe 8:30AM) driving in the direction of Tokyo. We had a few stops on the way, and every “rest place” on the highway was an experience in itself. There were plenty of souvenirs to buy (or just look at), many different types of food, and at one of the places there were put up a lot of flowers. My friend insisted on taking a picture of me next to the flowers, since I wore a dress with flowers on. Oh well, why not – I made sure to pose “Japanese style” ^^

The last visit before going home was a sunflower field. Here they had made a business out of letting people walk around the sunflower fields, setting up food stands and such.

There even was a monkey show and you could go and cut sunflowers for yourself for 100 yen a piece (around 5kr). I went to cut one, but there were so many wasps so I was pretty quick about it. ^^ I think the one I ended up with was pretty, though (despite its flaws).

When I got home with my sunflower, I realised that I had no vase to put it in. My improvisation then gave this result:

Now the sunflower is starting to hang a bit with it’s head, but it has been spicing up my desk for almost a week – so the cola bottle seemed to do its job.

With that, I will end my tale of my trip to Nagano. I will be working in the weekdays now, but I will probably still experience enough new things every day to keep blogging regularly.

The post Road trip to Nagano – Part 3: Final appeared first on Kristines Blog.

Anyway, today I will tell about my first time experiencing an Onsen on the Nagano trip (I had gotten Nagano and Nagoya mixed up). I ended my last post around the time where we had finished temple sightseeing, and the next stop was an Onsen (Japanese hot spring). This place:

http://www.uruoikan.com/

This was so nice!! We don’t really have anything like this in Denmark, so I’ll explain how it works (I was really glad I was there with people I could ask things – I was completely clueless).

When we entered the Onsen, there were shoe lockers right at the entrance. Most of the floor had a carpet except for right at the door, and you don’t step on the carpet with shoes on. So you take off your shoes, pick them up, and put them in a locker. Then there was a sort of vending machine on which you could choose what you wanted to do (buying tickets). It was around 650 yen for the entrance with no particular extra features (which is for example towels or other things). But I couldn’t read what it said on the buttons, so I don’t know exactly what it was that you could get. After handing over the ticket to the guy behind the counter, we could enter the Onsen.

Usually (also here) it is split into men and women, since you have to be naked – even in the pools. So there was a room with lockers where you undress, and then you enter the next room with no clothes on – maybe with a small towel (it might get wet though). Of course I didn’t take any pictures in there, but actually I found a picture on google maps of showing the shower area of the place we went to (left hand side area with small chairs), where you have to wash before going in the water.

The water in the pools was very hot and the pools were very shallow, but it was soooo nice!! Apparently each of the pools should do various good things to you. One was would help against muscle pain, one was good for the skin, and there was even one where they said that it was going to help you losing weight (that’s some awesome water ^^). Everything was of course written in Japanese, so if it hadn’t been for the two Japanese girls I was with, I’d surely have missed out on a lot of things! There were bubble baths and an outside pool as well. Again, I found a picture on google maps that shows the outside view, however we were there in the evening so it was dark with cosy lighting. Outside was a very nice place to cool a bit down, since there was a bit of wind and it rained a little bit too.

I think we spent maybe 1-1½ hour in there just talking and relaxing, but in the end, I could really feel that I could not take any more of the heat. When we got out from there my face was completely red, and I think it stayed like that for a couple of hours!

When getting out in the lobby again, I also learned that it is tradition to drink milk after Onsen. They had various types of milk you could buy in vending machines, however the real traditional one was some particular one sold in the shop there. I went with a cold coffee instead, as I don’t like milk, but it had a bit of milk in it so…. close enough

I think I will leave it at that for tonight, and then wrap up the Nagano trip next time I have time to write something. またね！

The post Road trip to Nagano – Part 2: Onsen appeared first on Kristines Blog.

We had agreed on meeting up at a station I didn’t know, and it wasn’t a metro station in central Tokyo, so my metro app (tokyosubway) on my phone didn’t include this station. So I found a different app (Japan Trains) which includes other trans as well, however this app didn’t show the direction of the trains (at least I couldn’t see it). Therefore, I left a lot earlier than necessary to make sure I would be there in time. When I got to Waseda station, however, the trains were not moving. The train personnel person said that there had been an accident, and that the trains wouldn’t move the next 30 minutes. Despite this, I managed to get to the “new unknown station” just in time (ギリギリセーフ^^). When I arrived, however, I received a message from the girl who invited me, that now there had been another accident and her train wasn’t moving so she’d be late.

As I hadn’t met her friends before, she sent a photo of her friend to me and vice versa, so we could find each other.  I was standing next to someone who was looking at her phone when I was receiving the photo. We both looked up and around and then we looked at each other, back at our phones (with the image), and at each other again… And when she asked, “are you Kristine?”, and I responded “yes” we were both really relieved that it was not the wrong person (that would have been awkward ^^).

So far so good, now we just had to find the guys who were going to pick us up by car. Only one problem; you see, the girl who was late was the one who knew me, the other girl, and the guy driving the car (we didn’t know each other). The other guy was a friend of the driver, and therefore me and the other girl had not met the guys before and we also didn’t know which car they were driving. In addition to that, they were late due to traffic jam. Despite this, we did manage to find each other without much problem, and it was quite funny that everyone went “hajimemashite” (nice to meet you) to each other when we entered the car. The idea from here was then to pick up the last person at the station she was stuck at, but it took around an hour to get there due to traffic. But well, in the end we got on our way to Nagano – slightly later than planned though.

Tokyo-Nagano is around a 3-4 hours’ drive, so we had a few stops on the way. In the car we played the Japanese game called “Shiritori” where you say a word e.g. めがね (megane; glasses). Then the next person has to say a word starting with ね(ne), for example ねこ(neko; cat) and so on. If you say a word which ends with  ん(n) e.g. かばん(kaban; bag) you lose the game since no word starts with ん. I was struggling a little bit, since the game of course was in Japanese, but I think I did somewhat okay and I already knew the rules as well. However, just as they confirmed that I knew about the way you lose the game, and I firmly said that I already knew that, I went with きん(kin; gold) and realised my mistake immediately, but too late. I even managed to do it once more with せきにん (sekinin; responsibility), and here it took me a lot longer to realise why they were looking so surprised at me. But oh well, what can you do ^^ It was very good Japanese practice anyway! In addition most of the conversations were in Japanese, so I spent most of the time in the car focusing hard on following the conversation (it was very difficult, but good practice).

When we arrived to Nagano, I was pretty exhausted from focusing so hard on the Japanese (and getting up early). Our first stop was the Zenkou-ji Temple and it looked so old and awesome! I think it had much more charm than the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. And there were turtles and carps in the water! Oh and a ninja store (selling ninja-like tourist items like rubber shurikens ^^) and even a store which only sold origami paper (Japanese paper folding thingies).

(Click arrows for more images)

The evening afterwards included the Onsen experience, dinner at an isakaya, a night in a cute guest house, and a late night stroll searching for a nice place to take photos of the stars – not to forget sun flower watching the next day! However now it is really late and I have work tomorrow, so for now….

…to be continued. おやすみなさい！(Oyasuminasai; Good night)

The post Road trip to Nagano – Part 1 appeared first on Kristines Blog.

I started out the day by going to see the Meiji Shrine, which is one of the main tourist attractions in Tokyo – and for once, I felt that the number of foreigners was higher than the number of Japanese people. There were so many tourists! But the gardens and the shrine surely was a pretty sight, and I found the souvenir shop interesting to browse through (though I didn’t buy anything).

(click arrows for more images)

After walking around the shrine, I took a walk along the Takeshita street.

This drained my energy – there were SO many people (and it was hot as well). Check out the image below.

Every store along this street was filled to the brim with people, so I didn’t go inside any stores other than the large Daiso. I think I mentioned Daiso before, but it is a very cool store where everything is 100 yen (108 incl. tax) unless another price is stated. The image I got from all the other stores along this street was that they sold “cutesy-themed” items for example like pink accessories and clothes with bears. They might have had some awesome things inside, but I really couldn’t get myself to go inside those tiny stores with so many people. Maybe another time – I guess going on a Saturday might not have been the best time.

When I finally got out of the crowded street, I decided to walk to Shibuya. Even though there still were many people, the number of people on the streets here reminded me more of Shinjuku, so that was better. By this time, I had already decided to go back to my apartment, but I just wanted to briefly see Shibuya Crossings and maybe get a Coffee at Starbucks while looking at the huge intersection. However there was extremely crowded and no seats, so I ended up going back almost straight away. I didn’t even get a photo of the intersection, as I had to be somewhere up high to get a good shot – so all I got from there for now was a photo of some of one buildings (but I’ll come back again another time).

I think I have come to the point where sightseeing alone is not so much fun anymore, and today I actually just felt like relaxing with some anime, manga, or by studying Japanese. I am usually spending most of my time behind a desk, so all this fresh air is exhausting! ^^ And I haven’t been able to watch anime the way I do back home since the websites to stream anime aren’t available in Japan (they are blocked). And buying DVD’s really isn’t feasible in the long run – even a second hand DVD with 3 anime episodes (70 mins total) cost me around 100DKK.

So how do Japanese people watch anime for a reasonable price? One answer to that question is DVD rental. And not only can you rent DVDs, but also CDs and books including manga. I thought this was a perfect solution for me, but of course, I am not able to get any subtitles – not even Japanese. It’s okay, but some of the long dialogs with complex words are difficult to completely understand. However, it is definitely good practice, since I have to focus much more on listening. In addition, since it is not live TV, I can pause and look up words on the go.

So I went to Takadanobaba (close to where I live) to get a members card of Tsutaya, and to rent a few DVDs. They helped me filling out the application form, and went through everything in Japanese, but he was speaking very slowly and they had a sheet with some information in English he pointed at. I think they might have been able to speak a bit of English too if I hadn’t spoken Japanese to them first. I ended up returning with two DVDs and a member’s card – great success! Becoming a member and getting a card cost 324 yen – and renting the two DVDs for a full week was 388 yen. It would have been less if I had chosen a shorter period.

I have had problems using the smallest coins, but these amounts of money are perfect to pay using coins – so I did! Now my wallet is a little bit less heavy (I still have a lot of the smallest coins though).

That was it for now! I don’t think I’ll go somewhere new tomorrow, but I might go back to Akihabara since apparently there are people cosplaying on the streets every Sunday. ^^

The post Sightseeing and a way to spend my coins appeared first on Kristines Blog.