World-In-My-Eyes

Low activity-Shiny happy people-happy new year-don't get fooled

2006-12-28T19:44:00.002+09:00

Best reader, the time I had in Japan is over for now. So from now on, I will take a long break from the blogging. Maybe for a week, maybe for eternities, I don’t’ know. It's been great fun and I will miss Japan. What I will miss are the hard long nights at the lab, all the people, the positive energy and optimism. I feel I have been working at Disneyland for adults. And I feel great optimism.

Now is the beginning of a new area; "the extended adolescence" is over, unless someone here has other suggestions of how to extend it even more, please mail me ;)

"Shiny happy people" by REM is a video that can make Saddam Hussein happy right now (Go america go!). Happy new year!

One night in Tokyo and the rough gets rougher

2006-12-23T22:10:00.001+09:00

Last night was a really interesting night in Tokyo. It all started after 10pm.
Where should I start. I was at shinjuku district, and went to the imperial palace (really huge). After that, I decided to go to starbucks to load up with coffee since my plan was not to sleep between Thursday and Friday since my flight would leave at 1140and I would have to be at the airport early.

I realized that starbucks have weaker coffee in the evening and that people go to starbucks when they go out. it was sooo crowded with drunk teenagers. hilarious. one couple started to make out and a bunch of old ladies threw them out...hahaha

starbucks closed at 11pm so my plan was to go for dinner. I found a nice place in Ginza are. Last set of sashimi (I had sushi for lunch at the fish market) and then just to buy yakitori on the street afterward. When I sat on the restaurant, I noticed that I was the only girl at that place. I don’t' know why, but it was creepy. Since I had already orderd food and I find it embarassing just to leave I figured out that I might as well stay. As I had my dinner, I looked out of the window and a guy looked in through the window and started to stare at me while I was eating. I couldn't eat, don't know if he was hungry but that feelt weird.

Anyway, left the restaurant. Ginza is really classy at day but extremely trashy at night have to say. The abiance feels different at night. So my next plan was to go to the stone spa that is open 24hours a day. It was listed in a guide book so I suppose that they overpriced a bit (2700yen) but I didn't feel like looking for other places and that sounded like a safe place. And yes, the stone spa was nice. Except the fact that I was the only one there. Weird.
So the girl who worked was not happy when she saw me at midnight. I guess she wanted to close earlier. I had the whole stone spa all to myself, talk about waist of spa! that was the most depressing part. Alone at a really nice spa, tragic tragic tragic

she said that they closed at 3am. so I was fine with that, my plan was to take the normal subway to Narita airport. So I left the spa at 3am, rested and relaxed. I had found a nice jazz café that looked nice that I planed to go to, but it was closed. The street was crowded with weird dressed people. old men with young woman, as usual. So I foud a” normal" bar where I just order a café latte. All of a sudden, when I looked out of the street a guy just collapsed in the middle of the street.

the funny thing is that I asked the owner of the bar if we should maybe call emergency or something but he just totally ignored it (the Japanese ignoration, you know). aha. there he was, laying in the middle of the sidewalk, people passing by no one cares. I thought that I just tell a police and so I did (with a lot of communication problems). My next plan was to head to the train station, too much action for me in such a short time. on my way, I found an open pharmacy, so I thought, I need to buy that hairoil that I can't find in Sweden, it's a small package anyway. So I went in to the pharmacy, there again, Old guys with young ladies. the girls were shopping the most expensive things (guys paying of course). The guys are the sugar daddies, but honestly, if the girls want to use the guys they might as well go shopping for electronics or real hard cores tuff, not make up. talk about stupid girls.

So by now, I had only 200yen left in cash. I forgot to tell you the adventure I had when I tried to look for an ATM in the afternoon. didn't work well but most places that accepted credit card, I paid with my card (even when I only bought coffee). On my way to the station, there was another guy just laying on the street, but I think t his guy was being robbed in front of my face. I started to run. So I arrived to the station, paid with my credit card for the train ticket to Nairta. But here comes the next problem
I had locked in my language in the lockers at the train station when I arrived at 7am on Thursday morning to Tokyo. According to what's written on the lockers, the price you pay is valid for 24 hours, and my stuff had been there for 22 hours so I didn't think about the lockers. But the problem is that I needed to put in another 500 yen in the lockers in order to open since it was the day before. And I only had 200 yen, no ATM open.
I started to laugh at that point.
What should I do? Most of the stores were closed and even if I'd buy things, I can't take out money at the same time in Japan. This is absolutely one of the disadvantages about travelling alone, no one to borrow small money from (believe me, bigger problem then you might imagine). So my plan was to go back to the pharmacy where I bought the hair oil and return it in order just to get 300 more yen. I was nervous about the fact that the pharmacy guy wouldn't accept it. Thank god I had left the recete and it worked, went back to the station and took the subway.

Here comes the next problem;

I was soo exhausted after all what happened that I fell asleep on the tram that I missed getting off at "Tokyo station".
But what I did was that I continued the whole way, and changed pathway. I was suppose to change at Tokyo station to go with another JR line but instead, I continued to the last stop and changed to Narita. I arrived at the ariport 845 but I didn't have to carry my bags so it turned out ok :)

From Shibuya in Tokyo

2006-12-21T17:07:00.001+09:00

Ok good fox, friends and enemies. I made to Tokyo this morning with the night bus. As I posted from the previous trip that was made by the night train, we got nice kimonos and blue flipflops. Belive it or not, I got a kimono and nice flipflops on the bus as well. And the seats was foled so deeply that they became like a bed.

I was in Osaka yesterday, unfortunately only from 7 in the morning until 23. There were so many things that I didnt manage to visit. At least, I was at the "human right museum". BAD museum, sooo PC that I was about to vomit. First of all, it was located far away from the center, takes time with the subway. Second of all, I was the only one there + the 5 staff who were stalking me. The third of all, it was not really about human rights, it was about... ...... wait I had it...it was about...I have no clue. They had a section about womans right in Japan. Since the economist ranked Japan among the worse countries when it comes to this issue, you can imagine how terrible the exhibition was. They had unproportionally much about Korean and their discrimination by the Japanese. But nothing really about democracy, about peoples right to wote. Their eqipmet consisted of 5 huge flatscreen tvs and a bunch of small tv monitors...

Anyway, Osaka is like a mini Tokyo. They also have a huge fish aquarium, that I recommend. And a universal studio that I didn't manage to visit since I got lost in the nice Korean square and went shopping for chrismast gifts (and I found two hagen danz bars (spelling)).

I have always woundered how starbucks managed to become this huge but now, after visiting a couple of the major cities in Japan, I know why.

Starbucks is ALWAYS located at the bottom floor of a huge mall or central station. When people walk around, they get tired and feel like sitting down and have a coffe. So the first available thing is Starbucks. THey managed to become big just because of the location. Japanese pepole dont like strong coffee normally. Another thing that I noticed is that if you find a McDonalds and a Mac store, you will definetely find a Starbucks. That was the case in Fukuoka, in Osaka and in Tokyo (not at shinjuku though, they had a mac store and a McDonalds but the starbucks was 200 meter away maybe).

Ginza and Hibiya dori are really nice to visit, mostly because of the fact that you can get an update on how its going for your stocks and hear the news while youre waiting for the traffic light. Ginza is also clean and really snobbish, they even have carpets on the side walk at some places.
The not snobby part of ginza is the fish market, a gods gift to people who loves fish. I had sushi and Fugu there. so if I wont write in a while, its becuse the fugu killed me.

Shibiya is interesting in many ways. There is a scene in "Lost in Translation" when Charlotte walks and has a huge tv screen with a gifaff walking on a building. I saw that building and its located at shibiya, but they changed the motive.

Anwyay, after this break I will go to Odaiba area, an area near the water, have a nice drink, read my book and have dinner. All the relaxing sight seeing and shopping is making me exhausted!

From Canal City in Fukuoka

2006-12-19T14:45:00.001+09:00

I am right now at Canal city in Fukuoka, typing on a japanese keybord so in case of misspellings (I have them in normal case anyway, haha). I have to say that I am really impressed by Canal City. They created a huge mall and the architect is genius. It's located outside and inside at the same time so it works good during summer and winter. This building provides so much income to the Japanese economy. you can find everything here. Just the building itself is worth a visit. you can probably google pictures of the building if you want.

So if I cant answer emails, it's because my internet acess is limitted now. Tomorrow, I will be in Osaka.

One left

2006-12-17T23:19:00.003+09:00

Today is the last day at the lab. Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Fukoka, on wendsday I'll be in Osaka and on thursday and friday it's Tokyo (for the 3rd time, me like Tokyo). During this trip, my plan is to do some sight seeing but what I want is books and magazines. I also want a nice sofa where my behind can be adjusted to and coffe to go with the sofa where I will turn my ass from one side to the other, that's the only activity. I want drinks too during this trip, drinks with umbrellas.

Today Diana left. She will be missed.

Today the last day at the lab. I got a really good rekommendation letter. Today, I actually felt appreciated and admired for the first time during this visit. I am confused. I thought that the professor hated me, but if I get a good recommendation letter then I guess it should be good. Right now I’m just confused. The first second they're strict as h***, the other one, nice as heaven...

Just older not wiser

2006-12-17T23:19:00.002+09:00

Not many days left in Japan, I have to start reweing things that this trip taught me and thing it didn’t teach me. What kind of wisdom shall I bring from this country?

1) Cheap service sector. The fact is that people back home do everything themselves; they cut the grass in the garden, wash the car, make the food. They work after work, at home. People don’t really work after work here, they eat out and that’s pretty much all they have time for. Just the fact that I didn’t have to work after work was nice. I will miss taking a taxi after having a huge dinner downtown.

2) The adorable kindness. There are so many stories about the kindness. One of them is the following one; I was walking in my own thoughts one rainy Saturday afternoon to the university, wearing a waterproof jacket but no umbrella. All of a sudden, I got interrupted in my i-pod circulating world by a woman who stopped her car, got out of it and started talking Japanese fast and loud to me. She grabbed an umbrella, gave it to me, said something in Japanese and went in to the car and continued driving. I was still in my i-pod world but I got the fact that she felt sorry for me, without an umbrella that she just gave it. A total stranger. The umbrella I got is the best one I’ve ever owned.

3)The convince store: open 24h a day and this is the best thing;.

4) The garbage separation; when I finally got how it, it actually makes more sense than the one back home. I will bring a brochure in English and lend it over to the environmental party. Just to prove to them how useless they are.

5)Communication; to make a long story short, communication is important. To be diplomatic is more important than to say the truth (the previous post on the survey on simple communication is still applicable but be more diplomatic).

6) The retired people: They seem to live a good life in Japan, they are active and most of them have a tighter schedule than young people in Europe. The cheap service sector (se point nr 1) …blablabla, yes you know the story.

7) Fat vs skinny Japanese: once and for all, the fat Japanese you’ll see are like normal weighted Americans you see in the states. You'll find a fair amount of overweighted young people - but not among the older ones. The traditional Japanese food like rice, fish and green tea with rice cookies as dessert (consumer: old Japanese) doesn’t make people fat while bakeries and Mr Dounut (consumer: young Japanese) makes people fat.

Two left

2006-12-15T15:00:00.002+09:00

It feels like a “real tv” situation when people leave one after one. Today, Kai left.Diana and Diana still here though.

Just drop the bomb!

2006-12-14T12:06:00.001+09:00

Nagasaki is mainly famous for one thing, the atomic bomb that hit the city on the 9th of august 1945. Every morning, at 11.02, people can hear chimes go off, as a reminder of the atomic bomb..
When Germany and Japan started WWII, they probably didn’t know that ten million people would loose their lives. In a way USA was forced into a war by Japan it selves.
So what would have happened if the bombing wouldn’t have taken place? To leave things the way they were would simply have made the war longer since Japan would have been suppressed by Hitler’s Germany. To attack Japan would have cost many solders, both Americans and Japanese, lives. I guess that the states really wanted to show their power to the former Soviet Union as well. The bomb that fell over Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb, even more powerful than the one that fell over Hiroshima which was a uranium bomb. Some critics means that the strategy the United State used frightened the Soviet Union, witch gave them a more defensive strategy during the Cold War. Do we have the bombs to thank and the states for setting them? Unfortunately the people here in Nagasaki and their ancestors are the ones to be thanked for scarifying their lives. If the bomb wouldn’t have taken place, the most probably thing that would have happened is that either the Soviet Union or the Natzi Germany would have dropped it, and that would definitely have made the world a less safer place.
And on the other hand, the use of nuclear weapon taught us a lot as well. The power of it. Imagine having daily terrorist organizations like Hizbollah using it?

A photo of Olof Palme was found at the museum. He was the Swedish prime minister but got assassinated. The murder has still not been found but the weapon that killed him was found in November this year,

I’ve been here for a semester now and I am actually tired of the constant talking about the bomb. A friend of mine who’s working at the atomic bomb institute (special institute at the hospital) is even more feed up with the bomb. With all respect to all the people who were scarified. I have to say that it’s about time to drop the bomb. It’s been 61 years. The economic compensations that the city has received in form of research funding and economic compensation to the families are huge. I don’t mean that money can compensate, but it feels like as if they’re using (here comes the drum rolls and the magic word) atomic bomb in order to make the world feel sorry about them.

I don’t say that it’s unique for them, other folk groups or citizens has done the same. According to a certain professor, the money even comes from donors that might be criminal or from institutions they shouldn’t come from.

Once again, with respect to all the Hibakucha (the name of the survivors)
.
The hypocenter, or the place where they dropped the bomb is not far away from the hospital (and around 500m away from my university building) and the only building that survived the atomic bomb is the international house for medical students (a building that they plan to tear down)
.Before I came to Nagasaki, I thought that the environment would be destroyed since scientists pretty much predicted that nothing would be able to grow within 70 years. Today, Nagasaki is a vivid city, mostly due to it’s port, but I still get the feeling about the fact that it is among the poor cities in Japan. The prices for housing, food and different services are really low compared to Kyoto and Tokyo. Nagasaki is a nice city.

In love in Japan

2006-12-13T18:12:00.001+09:00

The goal of this blog is not to tell really boring stereotypical stories about Japan that people already know. But now I think I want to break those rules and become really sentimental and boring in that way. Below, I have posted some random photos. This woman was selling...guess what? Yes, boiled sweet potato outside a Temple for tourists. The equipment is impressive, the heat is provided by the wood that allocates water steam.

The crowded subways...the stereotype picture of Japan.

A nice view of Tokyo from Tokyo Tower

The fact that Cameron Diaz is popular in Japan is normal (she is popular all around the world). More uncommon people that are popular here are Jennie Garth (from Beverly Hills 90210) and Dr Bombay (calcutta). You got to love the neon light though...

The famous fugu fish, only prepared by special shefs and only in Japan. If they don' t remove the liver correctly then the eater of the fish will chok to death (I will try fugu this week).

This photo is not very good but it is actually a guy who is working while he is wating on the traffic light. Always at work ;)

What's going on?

2006-12-06T13:21:00.002+09:00

Since I'm between 8-16 hours ahead of my readers, because of the time distance, I’d like to update you on what has happened today while you’ve been sleeping.

In Japan

Pachinko take tied to North nuke quest (About how money from pachinko machines goes to Kim Jong’s pocket. Ehhh, really news? I wrote about this issue on my blog in September)

Brazil raising cane big time as ethanol gets Japan's attention (Japan competing with Brazil on ethanol production? Hahahaha, we all know what happened when they tried to compete with the rest of the world by producing Whiskey, we got Suntory “the water” Whiskey. Japanese can only make good sake for god’s sake!).

Drug-resistant TB 'super strains' found in Japan (what a breaking news, really! Everybody who has been at a Japanese hospital knows what I am talking about, for you other people, I guess the word cockroaches is the only word you need to hear).

Summary: God, sooooo boring. Can’t…stop…yawning….

In Economy

No i-pods to North Korea (com’on raise your hands if you’re surprised)(in Swedish)

Summary: resign please…boring boring…can’t…keep…my ….eyes from falling asleep….

In private life

I am still blogging in beta and in Japanese (and this is now the 8th time I am trying to post this post. It ends up in the middle of my blog instead of on top, despite the fact that the date in my settings is correct, I really hate the beta blogger).

I went to a SPA at 11.45 pm (!!!) last night and came home at 1am.

Total summary: My private life is just as boring as the news. And my private life is just un necessary to follow, and so are the news.

Another Brick In The Wall

2006-12-05T16:15:00.003+09:00

In Japan, the university charges a small fee. This fee is subsidized by the government and is around 600 dollars/semester, depending on what subject is studied. A student who can’t afford it but have the abilities to study at the university gets scholarships and governmental support.
That’s excellent! That means that people will pay select education carefully and the university won’t be just some kind of place to go to when people can’t get jobs.
The universities in Sweden are free. According to the simple economic “supply and demand” curve, the supply of university educated people is greater than the demand. The problem is when you also have people who studies subjects that doesn’t lead to jobs, for instance philosophy. It’s not free to go to university, so why shouldn’t people pay for that?

The funny thing is that the fee in Japan is that it’s cheaper for married people. Talk about discrimination, this fee has nothing to do with the fact that it’s cheaper for the university to have married couples. This fee is a way to trick people into marriage.

Another brick in the wall is a geat video. I published the video on the blog but I realized that I had done som miss spellings so I had to change it. So the video is deleted from the blog now (I hate to blog in beta).

Harvard philosophy department or too much wine?

2006-12-04T17:51:00.005+09:00

Blogger in beta and in Japanese!

2006-12-04T17:51:00.004+09:00

I just figured out that I should update my blog to the hi-tek Beta verson. So I did and now the whole publish site is in Japanese. Ahh, my blog was better in the primitive alfa verson with english text than the Hi-tek Beta verson with Japanese text. And I can't ask people at the lab for help, they'll see what I've written about Kim Jong! So from now on, if you'll se something published 3 times, it's not because I can't blog in beta but it's because I can't blog in Japanese!!!

FIdel Castro and Kim Jong

2006-12-02T20:28:00.002+09:00

Today is the day. Fidel Castro has been ruining Cuba for 50 years.

What makes me really depressed is the fact that no major magazine has written about it.

You know you've been in Japan for too long (Part III) when

2006-12-01T17:34:00.003+09:00

1) you panic if you can’t find a vending machine
2) you drink hot coffee out of a can
3) you think it’s normal to get treated differently because you’re a woman
4) you start to like hierarchy because it it saves a lot of time
5) you miss the dark bread so badly (they only sell white bread in the store) that you are willing to walk for hours for some dark bread.
6) you think that good whine is Beaujulais Village
7) you think that good whiskey is Suntory whiskey
8) you find it more normal to eat out that at home
9) you fall asleep as soon as you get on the tram
10) you think it’s better to keep in the snot instead of sneezing.

Three left

2006-12-01T17:34:00.000+09:00

It’s amazing how easy it is to get to know people within 3 months, especially if you don’t have too many friends. Even if you manage to get to know people, you never really know someone. Yesterday, one of them left. He knows that he will be missed by all of us.

When you live in a foreign country, I’ve always thought that it’s important tog get to know the people who live in the country in order to integrate. As a former Lebanese in Sweden, I often get the feeling that integration can not occur properly because foreigners and Swedes don’t integrate with each other.
The integration politic in Europe doesn’t only depend on the politicians but also on the foreigners themselves. I have seen it everywhere; people seem to want to hang out with people from their own countries or continent at least. I saw it when I was in France in 2002, In the states 2005, in Sweden and in Japan.
I know that I won’t live in Japan for the rest of my life so I’ve been hanging out with two Germans and a Canadian. The problem is not that I don’t want to get to know the Japanese but the fact that they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Japanese. And so far, they never asked; Diana, what do you do Saturday night? And If I suggest something, it’s always; I am going to a party at my friends place.
The professor’s wife seemed kind of surprised when I said that I had a plan last Saturday night. I don’t get it, they don’t want me to get friends outside the lab but still, no one at the lab would like to do something with me outside the lab?

This article in Financial Times is really tragic and confirms what I want to say, though it's about pressure from parents/school on children. Poor Japanese kids.

2006-11-29T19:55:00.000+09:00

10 death sins of advices

People ask for advices constantly, sometimes just to exchange thought but other times actually only to get some kind of sympathy. So here are my 10 advices of the day.
1. if you take 120 minus you age, that is how many per cent of your saving you should have invested in stocks.
2. Rather take economic advices from monkeys than from economist
3. Luck matters in EVERYTHING, make sure to get a lot of it.
4. To get a job is not a matter of what you know but who you know
5. Everything cost, even if you might not pay for it, someone else has to pay for it
6. Fat food doesn’t make you fat
7. Expensive creams doesn’t remove your wrinkles
8. Stay single for as long as it’s possible
9. Agree on the credit BEFORE you do the job
10. Don’t work without getting payed. The myth is that it looks good on the CV, but that’s pure crap.

As Baz Luhrmann said in “Everybody’s free (to use sunscreen) about advice; “Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

Animal testing for dummies

2006-11-27T17:38:00.004+09:00

Since I’m pretty much doing animal testing all day long (hour after hour day in day out) I figured that it’s about time to explain how animal testing really works.
So to make it easy for my readers to understand what I am talking about, I will mention some people that fit on the description of a certain method, type of animal or a certain behaviour that is studied.

ddY mice. The behaviours studied on these mice are not reliable and not repeatable. If you do a test one day, it’s most probable not to get the same result the second day.

Kate Moss= i.v injection. Efficient method to inject the drugs, Katie knows it well.

Truman Capote= Phenobarbital, with this drug, the animals start moving slower and gets really relaxed.

Tom Cruise in love= Hagueleagues test. with hagueleagues test, you put a beam on the palm and feet of the mice and record how long it takes for the mice to feel something and start moving. Like Tom Cruse in love.

Bill Clinton= knock out mice (known as the “active mice”). “I did not have sex with that mouse”.

Picasso= Paw pressure test. I’ve studied this test for 3 months and still don’t know what it wants to say.

Kim Jong Il= black mice (se Donald Rumsfeld) These mice are evil, they never do the things you want them to do.

Terrance and Phillip (from South Park)= all above mentioned mice. They are not clean, they poo and pie everywhere.

Feed up on oysters=daily problem of the industry countries

2006-11-27T17:38:00.003+09:00

I never thought I’d say this, but yesterday, I had sooo much oysters that I’m feed up. The best thing about this restaurant is that it served THE Snob food (with a big S) nr one in THE Trash restaurant nr one (we had bugs and had to wear jackets because they didn’t have any windows. But it was the best and cheapest oysters I’ve ever had. After that I went to a green tea spa. My friend Diana is braver than I am so she tried to take photos. For you information, people are naked at the spa.

Ultimate video

2006-11-25T15:37:00.000+09:00

Queen- Under Pressure

As I posted before, "Under pressure" is the ultimate song to listen to on repeat when you're under pressure. I found the you-tube-video and I have to say that after watching the video, the song got better. This makes me soo happy that I can almost cry.

What a mighty good whale

2006-11-24T21:45:00.000+09:00

This is not a food blog but last night I prepared whale for the first time. Japan and Iceland are the only countries as far as I know, where you are allowed to eat whale.
The meet is bloody, red and contains hardly any fat. The price for 100 gram is around 5 euro. It’s not expensive but definitely worth a try. Before preparing, I asked Margit, about a recipe and she was kind enough to suggest a couple. Combining the recepies I got, this is how I prepared the whale.

Take the file and put some salt and pepper+paprika. Fry it with extra virgin oil on a LOW heat for 1 min per side. Pour red whine and cut some mini onions and garlic and keep the whale in the whine. I this is the basic principle if you want to make low fat beef without making it too dry (and if you don’t have time to put it in a marinade).

The result; it tasted like a shoe sole. But actually, I liked it. You don’t have to come to Japan to try whale, it taste like a badly made beef.

How do you prepare meat with no fat at all? The only thing I can think of is to have whale raw.

The good and the bad

2006-11-21T15:27:00.001+09:00

The daily dose of paternalism is something that has been increasing lately I noticed. You have the government who’s always present to tell you to put on a helmet when you bike and give you recommendations on what to do and not to do. Besides from “Big brother”, you often have your boss whose making you feel like a character from “1984”. But he’s doing it “just to protect you”.

F A Hayek said something really brilliant once; humanities worse enemy is not the bad leader but the good leader. Hayek is right; by “protecting” citizens, you create unnecessary fears. That is what happened after 911, people got different recommendations from the government, something that increased their fear, unnecessarily, and created chaos.Japan is amazing in that sense.
The liberal market here makes you think that the Japanese government will let the citizens do whatever they please, but that’s wrong. Recommendations, rules and restrictions (se picture, taken from the boarding point of the train in Nara) makes me furious. I might be a tiny little woman, but I don’t need protection. The reported rapes in the media won’t scare me, since they’re only a few and there are other things I should fear.

People in Japan walk around with face mask in order not to catch any diseases on the tram. I guess that it's only a matter of time before people will walk around wearing helmets, just to be sure that nothing will happen to them. And THAT is something we should fear more.

The trip (Part II) day 1 in Kyoto

2006-11-20T11:31:00.002+09:00

Just posted some photos from the trip to Kyoto. The first photo is the classic "philosopher's path". Along the path, you will find many shrines and temples. A friend's theory about why it's called "philosopher's path" is because it's long (and according to him boring) so you'll have time to think, since you can' t do anything else.

The rest of the photos is taken from the Ginkakuji Tempel (or the Silver Pavillion). It is situated along the philosopher's path.

Do we have to bear this beer?

2006-11-18T13:49:00.000+09:00

When it comes to beer, many countries feel some kind of national proudest when you start talking about their beer. In England, every body drinks Newcastle, in The Netherlands it’s Heineken, in Finland Lappin Kulta, in Belgium Hoegaarden, Guiness in Ireland, in USA Budweizer or Samuel Adams and in Japan Kirin or Asahi.

But my question is; why is Beer so connected with nationalism?

The first Kirin factory was actually started by a Scottish guy, Tomas Glover. “The Glover garden” is the beautiful garden and house of mr Glover and it’s situated on the mountain in Nagasaki. He was Scottish, but instead of importing good beer from Scotland, he started his own brewing factory here.

Why Mr Glover had to start his own brewery and make terrible Kirin beer instead of importing beer is a mystery to me. I guess it’s better to have a terrible beer than no beer at all?

But the good news is that you get adjusted to the taste and after two months it’s not that bad.

Another tragic beer is the Budweiser. There is a really funny Monthy Python episode when they compare American beer with water. I have to say that you can definitely compare Japanese beer with water. Or Japanese drinks with water, please put SOME alcohol in it at least.

A good thing on the other hand is that many countries don’t produce any whiskey at all, since it’s obviously pretty hard to make a good one. But not Japan.
“For relaxing times, make it Suntory time” is a classic line from “Lost in Translation”. I guess Monthy Python would make a really good joke out of that since Suntory whiskey is not a whiskey. What if Europeans would start making Sake instead of importing it? It would be terrible sake. Europeans don't know how to make sake, so import it. Japanese don't know how to make beer or whiskey, so import it!

I was going to go to a beer brewery today, but I figured out that it’s better to work on a Saturday instead of having bad beer.

And I just found out that my father was in a bus accident back in Sweden. My family and relatives haven’t told me anything. He is supposed to do fine and have fun with the nurses at the hospital. I can’t wait to have a nice Ardbeg whiskey with dad when I come home.

Answer to the "interpret at the tram" quiz

2006-11-16T09:58:00.000+09:00

I posted this photo in October and asked people to interpret the photo about "priorities at the tram" but I didn’t get ANY answers. Here is the answer about priorities of the seats at the tram.
1) people with broken arms
2) people with children
3) pregnant woman
4) I don’t know this one actually.

(This is how I interpreted the sign: 1)guy is hard 2) guy gets sex 3)woman gets pregnant 4)woman delivers a baby)

The myth of Kyoto

2006-11-15T18:20:00.001+09:00

Kyoto is one of the greatest myths of all our time. With ancent temples, shrines and pagodas, a philosopher’s path and vivid night life, it’s not strange that the Kyoto protocol was written in one of the mythical places of Japan. Since the protocol is a myth.
The Kyoto protocol has effected the world economy, and the goals that were set up were too high for many countries to even follow. George W Bush is the only guy who got that. Just by not signing a protocol doesn’t mean that countries won’t take their responsibilities.

The danger about the Kyoto protocol is that the countries that contribute to pollute most are the developing countries. By strict regulations, people will risk to loose their jobs, and not being able to support their families and stop the economical development.

By letting the technical and economical development occur, you simply develop better technique and methods to keep the environment clean. Because honestly, most countries can’t live up to the goals that were set, and even if they’d do so, research show that the carbon dioxide pollutions will reduce just marginally. That’s why Kyoto is a myth.

I posted some photos, the first one of the mythical Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavillon (it's pure gold) in Kyoto, the second photo is the mythical Kyoto Tower and the third photo is a mythical japanese style toilet (from Tokyo actually), and in the japanese style toilet is where the Kyoto protocol belongs...

The daily dose of terror

2006-11-14T18:23:00.000+09:00

Newspapers today don’t have much to write about and scare us with. In ancient time, when we had war it was easy for journalist to find something to write about. But not today.
So, what to do? Let’s scare people with the environmental threat! The glacier ice is melting, the pollution will kill our children, the consumption is bad, meat is bad, you are bad!!!
The fact is that the earth is going through a natural environmental change. The anent Neanderthal didn’t drive around in big Jeeps, and still…the polar ice managed to melt. In fact, you could actually grow grapes in the cold Sweden in 13^th century.
So continue to consume, it will save people more than killing them.

The trip (Part I) the night train to Kyoto

2006-11-10T18:42:00.001+09:00

Ok, I just posted some photos of the night train to Kyoto from Nagasaki to demonstrate everything that I wont' have to say. The price one way was 12 000 yen (756 Sek or 110 USD), and this is what we got; beds and a train that has not been renovated since the 60's. At least we got kimonos, sheets and really nice blue flip flops to wear. The thing is that you were allowed to smoke in the train. As I walked through the train, I got the feeling of being in a prison. The trip to Kyoto took around 12 hours and as soon as the people got on, they went to bed to sleep...This is something EVERYONE should do before they die. The cigarette smell, the smell from the 60's, the flip flop and the kimono...I bet if you'd take one square centimeter from the train, you'll find all the bacteria there is in the world plus three new undiscovered on. It was fun…

Deeppresso???

2006-11-07T14:32:00.001+09:00

I found this "Deeppresso" (observe spelling) in one of the vending machines in Nara. Do you think it's FOR depression or AGAINST depression (it's the same thing I know but you know what I mean)?
Still haven't found a vending machine with used underwear.

Party party party

2006-11-04T17:44:00.002+09:00

As I previously posted, I'm back from the vacation and a brief report is to come when I have been able to catch up with some work at the lab. I miss Tokyo and the neonlights already :(
what I don't miss is the Tempeles and the Shirins, think I got an overdose of them.

Anyway, going on vacation is actually really exhausting in so many ways. But that won't stop me from going out this evening.

So sorry to say it, but I'd rather go out tonight than post a report on my blog on this trip. And besides, the around 500 picutres taken from this trip is saved at my new lover (=ipod) who's not at the lab right now.

The thing about the clubs in japan is that you can go there directly from the lab (ok, just take off the lab coat at least).

Back from the vacation

2006-11-03T11:26:00.000+09:00

Brief report about the interesting trip is to come.

Vacation

2006-10-27T16:06:00.000+10:00

Ok good fox! I’m off to Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo now to get some vacation. It’s expensive to travel in Japan, but I hope it will be worth it. I’ll travel with the Ching hanza tonight, and I’ll wake up in Kyoto tomorrow. A brief report is to come.

I wanted to go to North Korea on vacation, but I guess it wouldn’t be a vacation. It’s only one hour from here but probably, they won’t let me in so I’ll just skip it. I don’t think it’s dangerous to go there, the problem is that I’m an open capitalist who loves America. Kim Jong simply doesn’t like these kind of people so I’d probably get into trouble if they’d google me at the airport :(

And when I think about walking around in the streets of Tokyo with my i-pod and Big In Japan by Alphaville in my ears...ahhh...I can hardly wait to leave the lab.

Take care soo long...

The extended adolescence

2006-10-26T23:05:00.000+10:00

Growing up is not easy. As an un mature adult, I can’t help fearing the fact that being adult seems to be….boring. So, by going abroad for one semester makes it easier to live like an extended adolescence.

First of all, being between 25-35 (+ a couple of years) is not old. We are raised to believe that time is running when we’re 30 and that we ought to settle down with someone and get married. Especially for woman, since we have that biological clock that’s ticking, we ought to settle down, get married and fix our lives. We compare our selves with our parent generation who had a fix job, two children and a new bought house in our age. Times are changing as Dylan said. Once and for all, being 30 is not old for not settle down!
Why do we have to get settle with one person? First of all, there is not ONE person but several that you might like in different situations, how do people decide who’s right and not? Sorry to say it, but there are so many adorable men in this world. Most of them aren’t as holes as most woman say. Who is right and who’s not?

Another thing that I don’t like about married people is that when they do get married, the individuality fades away as fast as cheap nail polish on an Indian summer.

But on the other hand, growing old alone don’t seem to be fun. And to raise children alone is cruel…it’s a catch 22.

You know you've been in Japan for too long when (Part III)

2006-10-25T17:26:00.001+10:00

I thought this toilet was an urban legnd but I dont' dare to try the "music button"...

I was going to write about how elegant japanese woman are and that I kind of feel like Marylin Manson who just entered a perfect pink world, but then I got these flip flops as a birth day gift so I think I'll do it another time...

Every photo of the people at the lab have some kind of "rabbit move". I don't dare to ask them why or what i means, but could please anyone explain what this is? Should I start doing this?

I managed to go to the bank alone today and get my refund. My advice is; learn japanese before you go to the bank. Last time I was at the bank, they lady bowed so I bowed back and my intention was not to stop until she'd stop. So we keept on bowing back and forward for 5 minutes. It was a competition of last man standing. But I have up and the bank lady won... Please don't do this when you're at the bank, probably the bank lady has a boss who's watching her and she won't giv up until you give up.

Free riders

2006-10-24T21:00:00.001+10:00

Desire must be human’s best friend and worse enemy at the same time. First of all, with desire, you feel pain, the unbelievable attraction to get something or maybe someone. That makes you suppress other things. But at the same time, it makes you work so it’s efficient. Imagine a life without desire, a life where you can get whatever you want or whoever you want.
I have this unbelievable desire right now to get this paper published so I can put the name on it. As I previously posted, the only way to get the name on the paper here is to be in Japan when it is being published.

So here is the strategy from now on; I finish the final version of the first paper in order to get it published, go on vacation, drink sake, spend time at Starbuck’s, read books and maybe write some kind of report and cook dinner for my friends for the rest of my time here. Since I wont’ get my name on the other paper anyway, I might as well take a long vacation and enjoy Japan from a tourist point of view. I got the scholarship for this trip anyway.

Sorry to say it people, but if it wont’ be visible in your CV that you’ve struggled then don’t do it. It’s just stupid to work hard for nothing. Work hard for something, that’s fine.

Just let the turtle illustrate what I’m trying to say. Now let’s guess which turtle is the smartest one…Simple behavioural test from animal models, applicable on human beings.

The truth is out there!

2006-10-23T22:24:00.001+10:00

I went out in Fukoka this week end with a Canadian Girl, Diana (too) and I just simply have to review the club life in Japan out of a non feminist point of view.

Let’s start with entrance fees: for men 3000 yen (23 USD or 180 SEK), for woman 2000 yen (15USD or 120 SEK).

Woman could dance on the stage but not men.

The female bartenders wore little clothes. The male ones were fully dressed.

In that price, 2000 yen for woman, there were drinks included all night.

I thought it would be a really creepy environment with really drunk people. But actually there was nothing like that. No one got into a fight and they didn’t even have any security guarding the place.

This proves that alcohol policy is something that is ought to be taught instead of forbid young people to drink alcohol.

I have to say that the Japanese were really adorable. They were wild and crazy, not the way I am used to see them normally. Everything simply just comes out when they are out.

In the club, “happy coq” (suspicious name, I know), I meet a lot of American marines, who were on some kind of permission. Many Japanese women go to that club to find themselves an American man to marry, just so they can move out from their parents place. The Japanese guys were there to meet non Japanese woman, since they have a reputation of being “easy” compared to the Japanese woman. I actually had a 19 year old stalker (he looked like 15) who followed me the whole evening just because I talked to him for a short time.

And about the American marines, they were really cocky at “happy coq”! Since the Japanese women were running around them, their self confidence raised up to an unbelievable level. Please chill out. Back in Alabama, nobody will even look at you!

I had a great time at the place that kind of felt like a harmless meat market. When Diana disappeared, I could just start dancing with the Japanese around and have fun with them. That would not have been possible in Sweden. If I’d dance alone there, people would think “who’s that looser”. And from now on, I know that the Japan is more than just work work work because the truth is out there.

Diana wrote on her blog about "girls night out" from a more interesting point of view on this blog.

Nothing is interesting!

2006-10-20T20:08:00.000+10:00

There are a few advantages when it comes to being in research. For instance the dead time between the experiments, the meetings and the paper writing. I usually read news or try to learn some Japanese. The problem when you read the news every day is that nothing seems to be important or interesting in the news world.

The only good thing about Kim Jong II bomb testing is to provide media with something to write about. It must be awful to be a journalist now days, nothing is really happening and in order to write about something at least, the news papers come up with stupid things to put on the front covers like “Katie Holmes not allowed to scream during labour”. WTF? I’m reading a news magazine, not a gossip magazine. If Kim Jong wouldn’t test bomb then that is the only news we would have to read.

I don’t say that I like war, but please, behave or just don’t write anything in the newspaper. The majorities of the texts produced in the papers and on internet is crap anyway.

They'll never take away our freedom!!!

2006-10-18T19:45:00.000+10:00

I’ve previously written about the situation here in Japan for the poor little kids. They are constantly being watched by either their parents or by the school. The parents require them to be the best student, the best ping pong player and the best pianist. It’s a hard knock life for them! Even people who doesn’t even want to continue school are being put under pressure. Why can’t people just accept the fact that some people are meant to study at the university and some are not?

The religious free schools (read Muslim free schools) that we have back home in Sweden provides this kind of society .That is following;

Children should not integrate with other non Muslims. That could give them an idea of changing their religion and that means that the parents won’t be able to have them under their rules.

In the end, this whole drama thing comes to sex. That’s what it’s all about. To be clear, a woman is nothing else than an “orgasm machine” for the men and that’s why she ought to wear a wail, because men simply “can’t behave”.

To connect these two stories that I’ve noticed, the first one from Japan and the second one from my time in Lebanon and Swede, the conclusion is; Society needs to protect children from “dangerous” parents!

The main philosophy as a neo liberal is to have a small government who can leave us alone so that we can decide what to do with our lives. BUT at the same time, we need a government who can make sure that the liberal (parents) ones won’t suppress others to become un liberal (children).

I still remember the time when I asked my mom if she was happy about moving from Lebanon to Sweden and the answer got to be; I’m happy to get this social welfare protection but I’ve lost my children on the cost of that…
What she meant was that “we were not under her rule” like we would have been back in Lebanon.

My mother is the coolest mom though. She went against the river and allowed me to move out of my parent’s house to study in Uppsala and she encouraged me to go to Japan. That, if something, is really impressive since all of her friends never let their daughters move out before marriage.

And that’s why we need the government. It’s easy to think that humans free minded, and on one way, I believe in that. But in order to be free minded we need influences from other people. And that’s why we shouldn’t let the religious free school take over the country.

The picutre has....ehhh... nothing to do with the text. Let's just say that it's a symbol for freedom or something. (It's a view from my apartment that I get to enjoy every morning)

Priorities at the tram?

2006-10-17T23:12:00.000+10:00

They say that one picture says more than 1000 words. How would you interpret this sign about priorities of the seats?

Top of the world?

2006-10-17T17:22:00.001+10:00

Climbing a mountain is something everyone should do when they visit Japan. You'll get the excersize and if you bring a smoker with you, then you'll get a rest aswell on your way up. Here are some photos from the mountain climbing this week-end. Besides from the snake we saw, the only dangerous thing on this trip was the fresh air that 4 metropolitans had to bear in nature...

Google and the Stalker-goes together like a horse and carriage

2006-10-12T12:51:00.000+10:00

Obviously, people Google other people and it’s not uncommon anymore not to admit it, even though, still, it’s a bit of a tabor. To google people means that you’re a stalker.

The fact is that if a person doesn’t Google you, than that means that they’re just not that into you! If they’d care about you, they Google you, but if not, they don’t waist any time on “googling” you.

The problem is that some people are really hard to Google, maybe because they have a common name or maybe because they just don’t leave any marks on the internet, If you want to google that person, you need to follow a certain procedure;

You start by writing the name+city or +company. If you don’t get any information, start by searching for other things, like a union he/she is a member of. Are they members of a certain sports club? And from that, which other people are members of that club? Search on their names and continue...

Google is really the best gossiper of our time. What did really people do before google? Read gossip magazines and hered reputations from 4 way sources???

Thank you Larry Page and Sergey Brin for bringing us google, you really are the geeks who were smart ennough to become rich on "the cool" peoples demands.

North Korea-Japan's problem?

2006-10-11T12:11:00.000+10:00

The test bomb that were previously held by North Korea is something that USA won’t accept and the UN security council say that it’s something that has to be taken seriously. The extensive consequences that might occur probably depends on how the world reacts. How will for instance USA react? They can’t react against a country with nuclear bombs. It’s a difference to invade a country like Iraq without any nuclear weapons or bombs. Probably, USA won’t be able to do anything.

If USA won’t be able to deal with North Korea, than Japan is the most probable country to clean up this mess. Shinzo Abe is the new prime minister who, compared to Junichiro Koizumi, wants to change the international politics and the North Korean nuclear bombing is used by the Koreans to change the opinion in Japan.
Not only Japan but South Korea and Taiwan, with support of USA will be the countries forced to develop nuclear bombs.

What’s the point with the test bombing? Probably to get the attention of USA. What kind of reactions do they want? Maybe to return to the six part negotiations?

North Korea has been occupied by Japan and in war with the USA. The country is closed so not much is known about the country. The ideology is independence and to hate USA is one of the main conditions for the ideology. The Bush administration made it easy to do so. The leader is to be admired and to brain wash children to praise the leader is something that makes the country dangerous. The country is a pure threat to democratic countries. Communist countries where the people are starving and the leader is considered to be god should never under any circumstances be accepted. That’s why this ought to be taken seriously.

My moral sense

2006-10-10T17:38:00.001+10:00

I've finally taken this Ethical test that has been rotating around at the internet. The questions are really hard I have to say and for some questions, my answer turned out to be the first thing I could think of. The good thing about the test is that it's only 12 questions.
I am 100% Ayn Rand and 99% Aristotle, wow. I knew that I kind of shared many of Rands theories but not like that! Rand is for many pepole (read socialist) a coldhearted objectivist with no moral sense, something I wouldn't agree on.
I thought I would be more cynics.

Your Results:
1.
Ayn Rand (100%) Click here for info
2.
Aristotle (99%) Click here for info
3.
Aquinas (82%) Click here for info
4.
Stoics (82%) Click here for info
5.
Nietzsche (75%) Click here for info
6.
Spinoza (72%) Click here for info
7.
Kant (72%) Click here for info
8.
John Stuart Mill (71%) Click here for info
9.
Cynics (61%) Click here for info
10.
David Hume (60%) Click here for info
11.
Jeremy Bentham (58%) Click here for info
12.
St. Augustine (57%) Click here for info
13.
Ockham (55%) Click here for info
14.
Epicureans (53%) Click here for info
15.
Plato (52%) Click here for info
16.
Jean-Paul Sartre (47%) Click here for info
17.
Prescriptivism (41%) Click here for info
18.
Thomas Hobbes (40%) Click here for info

The meat market?

2006-10-09T16:25:00.000+10:00

The "Kunchi festival" arranges every year a market for people to go out, eat and have fun. It was kind of like a market we have back home. You could buy grilled corn, ice-cream, locally produced plates and than also meat...alive.

The chickens on the picuture is often caputred by children, put in a plastic bag and then transporet home. The children plays with the chicken and feed it until it gets big ennough to be eaten by the family.
The mini turtle...really small and Giga cute!
The less cute "pets" like beatles.

Kunchi festival

2006-10-09T16:06:00.001+10:00

Every year in October, there is a festival arranged in Nagasaki with a huge market and a spectacular show. To get tickets to this show, you have to pay a lot of money and buy the tickets 2 years in advance.

I managed to get this ticket for free and was at this spectacular 4,5 hour show this morning. The show included dancing, geishas and some kind of theatre that showed the history of Nagasaki.

This shows when the people from The Netherlands enterd the port. The children are playing the music to put people in a "trans" condition.
Children playing the empiror.
This guy was carrying a huge "tower" all by himself. Whenever he started to rotate, the crowed got crazy and started to scream.
The dance of the geisha.

The creapy thing about this was the music that kind of put people in "trance". The huge ships shown on this picutres had tires made out of wood and were heavy. To rotate them requires strenght. As soon as the rotatioin of the ship started, people started screeming and jumping around...

The feeling of being a part of a sect where children are playing the music and where people are screeming as soon as a certain kind of behavour was made didn't feel good. The feeling that you had when you were a child and saw Sainta Clause is the same feeling you get when you'll se the geisha (if you were afraid of sainta clause).

Retired? No, I'm not tired

2006-10-07T14:43:00.000+10:00

Old people work here. Back in Europe, people complain about how tired they are and how theirs shoulders hurt. How awful and stressful it is to combine the family life with the profession life. People are “worn out” and tired, 40 hour working week is terrible, make it 20 instead. Retired people “have the right not to work so why should they work” even though they are perfectly healthy?

The old ladies who’s gardening the university park are really cute in so many ways. They clean the garden, have green tea breaks together and work with enthusiasm. The times I’ve been complaining, I’ve felt really awful.

I’m twice their size and half their age, but still, they’re working harder and they never complain. They just do the job. Same thing with old ladies at the supermarket…

The old ladies should be sent on a field trip to Europe to teach us some working moral.

Under pressure

2006-10-06T20:40:00.000+10:00

I have to lend in the first version of the scientific article we are about to publish tomorrow to the professor and I am not donne yet. This will be a long long night.

The system is; if we get it published during my visit here in the paiper, than I will get my name on it. If not, no name=no glory. That is a stupid system!

At least I got tickets to the Kunch festival this weekend. I heared that you have to book them 2 years in advance. And I didn't have to pay a single yen! Free is good.

BTW (back to work)

Be cool, stay in school!

2006-10-05T18:40:00.000+10:00

I’ve been listening to Swedish radio this morning and they were talking about the school student’s lack of respect to the teachers. I have to say, moving from Lebanon to Sweden when I was young I really felt that the Swedish youth had no kind of respect at all. They were cursing, attending classes late, not doing the homework etc. Back in Lebanon, we got beaten up badly for these kinds of behaviour.

The new parliament would like to make the school more strict and disciplinant, with different rules that have nothing to do with the student’s ability to learn things. The school in Japan is completely opposite to the one back home.

By making the Swedish school like the Japanese school, the politicians manage to create students that can not be free minded, because they have to follow the orders of the professor. It suppresses the creativity and the spontaneity of each individual to become the way they want to become. By crating strict disciplinant laws that each student has to follow, we take the focus from the main task that the school has, which is to teach students things and give it a task to teach students to obey!

What the school in Sweden needs is not a strict hierarchy with discipline. The school has to teach students how to respect other peoples opinions, no matter if they don’t follow their own and how to behave against other people, not make them become something they aren’t.

I sometimes get the feeling about the fact that the authorities love power, and that’s why some people became teachers, in order to feel some kind of power. The past years when the teachers role has become less of an authoritarian, the status of becoming a teacher has decreased. I have another subjective example, my uncle. He has 3 childrens and he is purely mad at the school because he thinks that the schools teach his children to become free minded and that they’re not disciplinant enough (what he’s really afraid of is that when they grow up, they will be able to break free from him and he won’t be in charge of them).

Sometimes, I also get the feeling about the fact that people who has leading positions are psychos in some kind of way. They get this horney feeling from giving order instead of helping people.

Puberty is hard enough as it is. By forcing adolescence to be something they aren’t will, I think, make more people drop out of the school. And that is not cool.

Iojima Hill, not Iwo Jima Hill!!

2006-10-03T19:07:00.000+10:00

What is better to do on a Sunday after having a 4 hour sleep, to much sake and karaoke the day before? A day trip to Iojima hill. Ok, this is not the Iwo Jima hill that Johnny Cash sings about in “The ballad of Ira Hayes”, but it could easily have been that hill. I was disappointed when I searched for the real spelling, since I thought that I did visit the “Iwo Jima” (it’s like finding out that you will se Robbie Williams but instead, you end up with Robin Williams).

About the Iwo Jima: During the pacific campaign of WWII between the US and the empire of Japan in 1945. Japan lost many man and the USA, as Johnny Cash sings, “There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill, Two hundred and fifty men But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again”. The overtake of Iwo Jima was important to the USA since it gave them a base on the way back to the states to land. The Japanese had their radar at the Iwo Jima hill which notified incoming B-29 (Boeing used in attacks). Iwo Jima was also used for incoming Japanese aircraft, heavily loaded with bombs and fuel.

About Iojima Hill: It's kind of a resort with spa and nice hills and a Costa Del sol. I'd rather wisit Iwo Jima instead.

The last photo shows the Japanese coast guard today. I'm glad that it doesn't have the same size today as it did during WWII.

The best of a "Japanese steotypical Saturday Night"

2006-10-02T21:48:00.001+10:00

The Karaokep place. Really retro and wounderful. It looks like as if they haven't changed a thing since the 60's. Even the owner in the bar!

Second photo is a Duett with Kai , either "Something Stupid" By Sinatra, "Ring of Fire" by Cash or "Amazing" by Aerosmith
Third photo: Two Germans singing...
t...
Kai and Torsten,Two Germans trying to BBQ the Japanese way. They look pretty male even thought it's not a read bloody steak!

The free riders?

2006-09-29T17:46:00.000+10:00

I have to admit that it's really interesting to se how people react when the proffessor enters the room. They bend their head and keeps on nodding...no comments on anything he says and IF they say something they say it as shortly as possible. He keeps on interrupting them while they have the presentations and so on.

I figure this out way to late. I did criticize an experiment two weeks ago and he did not turn out to be happy about it. Then I got quite and now he asked me something else and I just keep on nodding. But before he left the room, he said something about "I am to nice but I try to be harder. You are a hard student and I do not like it so I should not be nice to you".
Waz???

Ok, just to make a long story short, here’s what happened. I found out one week ago that I had to pay 74 000 yen in situation fee here in Japan. The problem was that my university in Sweden were suppose to take care of that so the asked my to send over the bill. The problem was that the university here did not accept that. They want the students to pay the fee so they can se that it’s from the students. Ok, so I paid from my Swedish bank account 74 000yen plus 20 euro+ the receiving bank fee. Fine.

Three days ago, the office called and asked for their money, they will arrive I said by the end of this week. But No, now!!! The deadline was the 29th anyway so why did they get all so excited? Relax, they’ll arrive, and as I said, 10 days after the transfer the money arrived today.

Three days ago, I had to transfer another 74 000 yen from my bank account. Nice. So I paid 40 extra Euro and got the transfer directly here in Japan at a bank.

Now, they will refund me the university, but only 69 000 yen. Nice? They try to give you the idea of being so official with everything and that we foreigners all are some kind of cheaters. I told my bank that I would pay for the whole transaction fee, so why do I only get 69 000 yen back.

They say that corruption is weak here. I say that it’s not. It’s just invisible. Another instance is my apartment. The extra fee I had to pay for cleaning (was not in agreement when I signed the contract) or the different depositions fees for everything?
Either that or the fact that there are free riders?

(BTW, the phot is taken outside the fountain of the unviersity, really cute turtles...)

First we had coffee and then we had life

2006-09-28T15:26:00.000+10:00

Fast life means fast coffee. Normally back home, that means powder coffee, but not here. Fast coffee means filter coffee...

What if Global banking could strike two days before the day after tomorrow?

2006-09-27T17:19:00.000+10:00

Globalization has already started as we all know in many areas. But at the same time, there still are a couple of areas where we have a long way to go. For instance, in the global banking area. Easy, efficient and cheap way to do transaction between countries do not exist.

1. Let’s start with the costs; to transfer money to a bank account in another country cost around 20 Euro. Often, you have to pay the cost of the receiving bank so the price will normally be between around 30 Euro, JUST for the transaction. And IF the foreign bank wouldn’t receive the money, you still have to pay the fees and pay to get your money back!
To take money out of the ATM cost you around 4 Euro each time you take the money from that stupid wall.
When you pay with your Visa/MasterCard, they don’t charge you extra but they take an extra fee for the exchange rate.
2.About easiness; if the people who’s working at the bank has problem with the transfer, than the problem has to be changed or everybody who’s working at the bank
3. Efficiency. That word is unfamiliar to the banks.
4. Service; they don’t have to provide you with service. You have to pay anyway.

It’s like the “Soup Nazi” (in Seinfeldt) in reality.

Considering the fact that there are so many people living abroad, I am amazed about the fact that no one has reacted. Or at least, they could speak.
The banks are really genius and I feel really stupid! If I was Bill Gates, I’d start an efficient, cheap and easy bank. Yes, I would charge people, but at least reasonable amounts. I’d have so many people choosing my bank instead of the other ones. It will be like the “ryananair” or global banking.

So the word “Global Banking” is a word you can eliminate from your dictionary. It does not exist IRL!

Bad luck

2006-09-26T22:40:00.000+10:00

Here is my day so far, Imagine solving all the problems when you’re on the opposite side of the world! And I am not allowed to be pissed off or sarcastic because people don’t get pissed off or sarcastic here!!!! (don’t read this if you’re on a good mood).

I have to pay the fee to the university and I did it last week but the problem is that it takes 10 for the money to get transferred. The thing is that my university in Sweden was suppose to pay for it but here in Japan they want the students to pay for it so they can se their names! What a fucked up system! No one else in this university has "Uppsala University" who's paying for them! Anyway, so I had to CALL the bank and wait in line for 12 minutes. Finally after on and off, the lady didn't even know what a "swift" is or what a "branch" is, we managed to transfer and they faxed the recite to the university. Now they want me to pay again in cash because they wont’ get the fee before Friday, witch means that I'll have to pay extra!

2.Then I got an article published in Sweden that I clearly said that I DID NOT want to publish! It’s already been published by someone else.

3. The girl I am renting my room back in Sweden is gone to England, she doesn’t answer my e-mail or my phone calls. She is according to the law supposed to rent to the end of December but she took of and I have no time to look for her. Now I have to find someone else while I'm in Japan.

4. My experiment went sooo wrong, so here we have a week of work for granted!!! I could have gone sight seeing for a week instead! 3. I can't login on my internet bank because the "dose" we out of order. The number "2" don't work. 4.My salary from the pharmacy that I just got for working in august is wrong! It's a lot of money missing so now I have to deal with that to.

5.Tomorrow I have to bear my landlady (se received e-mail below, sent by a German guy who had to deal with her today).
Pissed off white trash redneck liberal cynical, but not optimist right now!

Here’s the mail about my landlady!
***************************************************************************

Alright, now listen: One of the secretaries of my Prof got a call from THE Lady in our house. I should come over immediately for “room check” and payment of the last months rent. ???? Hä?? What’s going on here? I will move out tomorrow, she can do whatever check she wants tomorrow? No, .. today, she got no time tomorrow. In the end I went home to find this Lady sitting in front of the TV. I just read your email before and thought about this issue the whole way back. My adrenalin level was rising. Those kinds of people really getting on my nuts. I knocked on her door; she was asleep. Nice. She is calling me at work to come to my room immediately and she’s sleeping. I didn’t clean my room so far and I didn’t put my stuff together, so I was curious about her reaction. She came to my room with a huge folder. She started to ticking one of her hyper-important blanks. “ …. Bed….. hm, exist, ….. writing table, yes…. Air conditioner, …present…. Toilet, yes exist….. lamp..uh, yes…” I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or damn her. What was that?? No, I don’t take the bed with me. And usually I don’t tear out the toilet. Well sometimes I destroy hotel rooms when I had too much of alcohol, cocaine and sex. But otherwise I’m kind’a relaxed guy. Well, in the end I had a good laugh. She kept on talking Japanese in one piece. I thanked her a thousand times and we agreed on handing over the key tomorrow. Smiling. Honestly, I’m not sure whether you need to be like that when you’re a caretaker of a student house. I had the same experience with my old caretaker in Germany. My hypothesis is: They only employ people with an IQ below 70. During the job interview they will ask sth like that: “Are you flexible? Yes? Oh, you’re overqualified. … Do you speak at least a little English? No? You’re our man. …. Can we see your brain CT scan? Ah, you just got a walnut in there, excellent. We’ll give you double salary.” This is ridiculous. I once helped an Arabic student back in Würzburg. Our janitor kept on talking German, even insulting him on his inability to speak German! I was furious, there is a smart guy from somewhere, coming to Germany to learn the language or another subject. And the moron of janitor is insulting him. Unbelievable. I bet this German caretaker never travelled to a foreign country.

Polite? Yes, right!

2006-09-26T13:29:00.000+10:00

Whenever you ask Japanese about the way, they do pretty much EVERYTHING they can to help you. If hey don't know the way, they ask someone else who's passing by, look in the phone book or ask the neighbor. They are simply the best embassies for the country. Back home, if a tourist asks for the road and the people don't know, they just say "I don't know " and keeps on walking. That's why I'm skeptic to this courtesy test!

The result of living a life of unliberty for youth-poor Japanese kids!

2006-09-25T17:16:00.000+10:00

Going out for a beer in Nagasaki is NOT easy. Back home, we just go to any of the open pubs downtown. But not here. The clubs for Japanese are complicated and the few clubs for foreigners are really hard to find. The pub “Ayers bar” is mentioned in “The Lonely Planet” so I and the German guy, Torsten decided to go there. The thing about that club is that it had only one little sign outside, and it was placed in a basement without windows. You couldn’t even hear the music outside the club. It’s as if the youth are “hiding” the fact that they go out and have fun. On the surface, the Japanese youth are really calm but when they go to these clubs, they freak out completely! For instance, there was a totally naked Japanese running around the club.

About the naked guy, I don’t dare to publish the photo of him on the blog (I can send it over to you by e-mail) but as far as I’ve seen the photo, the reputation about some certain Japanese male body parts is true…

The pressure on the youth is enormous here, both in academic, sports, music. Yes, they just simply have to be best on everything. The hierarchy system between the teachers and the students is strict. I find it really interesting to se how people behave when the professor enters the room. Most of them bend their heads and keeps on nodding. If they get bad recommendations letters from their professor, than their whole career is ruined.

Lee Jones (blog URL:) wrote that the youth are constantly being watched by the school or their parents, something that never gives them any freedom and that could be one of the reasons why the crime rate is pretty low here.
That’s maybe true, but also the fact that they go to these underground clubs and freak out. They are just simply like all other youth in the world when it comes to having fun (I know it’s not really breaking news).

There was an American band that played at the club, sounded a bit like “Linkin Park”. They dragged me up onstage so I could sing (beat that you karaoke singing people. I don’t dare to publish those photos either). People seem to like American music here though. And covers and Elvis. You can still smoke in the bars and restaurants here (we’ll se if Abe will do something like Gulliani did to NY) and they don’t place the booze bottles behind the bar but in front of the bar instead (talk about trusting people).
And then they gave us an “entrance band” that looks like the ones you get whenever you’re hospitalized. The drinks are really weak, mostly because of their really bad enzyme system.

This is pure fascination. I’m a convinced solipsist right now. It feels like as if the whole world is a creation of my own mind and I’m about to wake up soon…

Lost in Japan

2006-09-23T01:03:00.000+10:00

I have been talking way too much politics lately so here are some up dates about other things.I have to say that there are a few highlights every day in Japan. For instance, shopping.

1. About moderation…when it comes to commercial I guess the slogan is “modesty is boring” (I think David & Victoria Beckham would like it here). I went to buy a mouse for my laptop today at a really huge electric store. And everything in that store had some kind of “special offer”. Have they ever thought of the “don’t cry wolf” domino effect?

2 Let’s continue with the sea grass! Obviously there are different forms of sea grass and obviously people can make a psychological analyze of a person by looking at the choice of sea grass (back home in Sweden, I do that by looking at peoples laptop on “the previous visited pages”). But not here. I thought that I should have something else than Takanara (Japanese dish). So I bought sea grass to have on my egg sandwich (I’ve seen people eating it here). And since I’m a poor student, I picked the cheapest sea grass for 100 yen (0,7 euro), I mean, it comes from the same sea as the fancy 1000 yen sea grass. When people saw the sea grass they looked at each other and started to speak Japanese. The Japanese are really polite so they never tell you about your mistakes (for instance they never told me that I killed a mouse because I gave it to much Phenobarbital (=we give that in order to make them fuzzy before surgery)). But they started laughing later and said, you shouldn’t pick that sea grass. Why not I asked…and in bad English she said…”wiji gjiv animall thiz”. How was I to know? Back home we put the animal food in a separate shell, not the rest of the shells.

3. After dealing with so many animals, I don’t find it discussed by their urine and poo (adjustment time is 3 weeks).

4. The old people who keeps on talking Japanese even though my Japanese is bad. When I tell them “nihongoga skoshiwa kadimas ka”, they just keep on talking anyway. They clean up the streets every morning. It’s actually early in the morning that you’ll see them. My favourite is actually a guy who looks exactly like Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie and who sell Bonzo trees outside my building.

5. Names of the streets. Since they don’t name their streets here but buildings instead, it feels like as if I’m in the middleeast (but in the middle east, they don’t even name the building, they just call it “the building where Abu Jeans has his fruit store”). I’ve been lost in Nagasaki so many times.

6. The evening ritual. At around 6 or 7 pm, there’s a big traffic jam outside the university. I asked my lab mates if that’s a normal time to get off work. But they say that it’s a normal dinner break from work. So, I have a lunch break and a dinner break (with the ritual of buying things at the supermarket with 20 % off).

7. When I asked people here what they do on their spare time the answer has been; “Spare time, what is that?”

8. Since I look like a foreigner, people have asked several times if they can take a photo (mostly girls). Imagine what would have happened if I was blonde or blue eyed. Well, this is really god for the self confidence at least. They should send all people with bad self confidence to Japan.

9. The irony. Don’t be ironic here. They don’t understand the jokes and you’ll have to explain everything (and we all know what that does to the joke. They think that “the book of the rat anomy” is fun when you say that you want to read every page of it).

To be continued...

Farewell Koizumi

2006-09-22T00:47:00.001+10:00

Junichiro Koizumi, the former prime minister of Japan is a true inspiration source in many ways. He was until today the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party but has now retired.

Japan has been the strongest economy in the world, mostly because of it’s openness and their god diplomacy with their neighbours. Within Japan, Koizumi has pushed for new ways to trigger the moribound economy. He has been aiming to act against bad debts with commercial banks and the most controversal; privatize the postal savings system. He has also reorganize the factional structure of the LDP, moving it from it’s traditional agrarian base toward a more neoliberal as the poulation grows in major cities and declines in smaller ones. He spoke of the need for a period of painful restructuring in order to improve the future. By privatization of Japan Post (which many rural residents fear will reduce their access to basic services such as banking), Koizumi has also slowed down the LDP's heavy subsidies for infrastructure and industrial development in rural areas. These tensions have made Koizumi a controversial but popular figure within his own party and among the Japanese electorate.
Internationally he has become famous as the assertive prime minister, for example when it comes to the Japanese self defence force for Iraq. The stance against China and South Korea, the pursuit of pro active negotiations with North Korea and emphasizing Japan’s claims against Russia has characterize He has also created a friendly relationship with the United Stats and George W. Bush, even though people here in Nagasaki are a bit ambivalent against the USA (probably a memory of the atomic bomb).
It’s not a coincidence that Japan has one of the strongest economies in the world. I can compare the Japanese economy with the future Swedish one now when the shift in the parliament has taken place.
Today, Shinzo Abe took over. Let’s just hope that he’ll keep on doing the good job.

(The picuture is not taken by me, the first picture on this blog actually not taken by me. Ok, it's 2345, I came at 9.30 this morning, 14 hours at a lab and you can get 15 spinal cords and read some japanese news, if you ever wounder what to do one day).
Gozaimas

The invisible land

2006-09-20T22:13:00.000+10:00

Ok, three days after the election (I promise that this is the last time, everyone else is writing about it) I have to say that I am kind of disappointed about the media here in Japan. The Japan Times haven’t even mentioned the election in Sweden, even when we’ve changed the parliament. In Sweden, the media at least attend the election in Japan.

This is the second election I’ve been able to vote. The last one, I was an exchange student in France and it was harder to follow the election. When you only have access to the papers online (by then, they didn’t even publish the whole paper), you’ll only get to se one side of the coin. Thanks to all the blogers this election, it’s been easy to know what’s been going on. I just want to thank all the bloger that made it possible to do it this time (whenever I know how to put a list of my favorite blogs, I will do so). And at least in France, the media reported about the result. But on the opposite side of the world, Sweden is just the invisible land.

Hierarchy!

2006-09-20T12:25:00.001+10:00

The hierarchy system here in Japan is incredible. My job here at the lab is to do some behavour test on animals, and investigate if the substance that we’ve injected has been up taken by the body. And write their article in English.

Yesterday, I did some test on animals where I investigated the threshold. The results were not perfect, but they were ok. Not the way we expected them to be. Another colleague had done the test the day before and she almost got the same results.

Out of power!

2006-09-19T15:46:00.000+10:00

I just wanted to send this photo, freshly taken form the Typhoon that sweept over the city, to our former prime minister, Göran Persson, who's been ruin the country for about half my life.

I want this tree to symbolize the hugeness and the amazing power Göran persson has had for the past 10 years.

Even a big (and fat) tree will eventually fall!

Back from the Typhoon, electricity cut and “out of the world cut”!

2006-09-19T14:42:00.002+10:00

A strong Typhoon swept over this Sunday, cutting off all electricity an internet connection. It has been frustrating not to know until now what’s going on in the real world. I just found out that the left wing side lost the election back home.
As far as I know, from now on, I’ll have respect for typhoons. This Sunday when they told me about it, I thought; “it’s not a hurricane exactly so I’ll go out shopping”. Everything was closed and people were looking out of the window giving me the “go home look”. And I’m glad I did, 2 minutes after I arrived home, the hypocenter of the typhoon swept over and blew off a three outside my house.

That was a real close to life experience!

I was impressed by the police who knocked on everybody’s building and asked if they were all right. They even brought candles and ordered us to use them with safety.

You know you've been in Japan for too long when..(partI)

2006-09-15T22:43:00.000+10:00

-you think it’s normal to drink green tea for lunch and dinner
-you think it’s normal to drink green tea
-you think it’s normal when an elevator sounds like an old Nintendo computer game
-you think it’s normal to thank someone 10 times for borrowing a clip.
-your basic food is fish
-you think that the average height is 150 for woman and 167 for man.
-you think it’s normal to work until 10 pm on a Friday night when it’s your 25th birthday!

I need a volunteer

2006-09-15T19:55:00.000+10:00

Here’s the deal; I’ll inject a substance in your body, whose effects are unclear to humanity. Take samples of your liver, lungs and blood. As the final touch to it all, I’ll be in need of the white substance in your spinal cord (ryggmärg). And you’ll die. Any volunteers?

Well, that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing now. It would be nice to watch what's happening in the real world.

Fair? We're woman

2006-09-14T23:29:00.000+10:00

This should make any hardcore libertarian as mad as Michael Moore on an empty stomach.
I wrote about population drop in Japan. This is the reason why population drops.

If a woman works at a company, she can get fired for being pregnant (that happens often), since it’s not illegal to fire because of that cause. Once she’s fired andt has a child, it’s often very hard to go back to work since employer seldom hire people who’ve been, according to them, “unemployed” (because that’s what you are if you give birth). Many researcher here on my lab are very young and very talented. If they’d have a baby, they’d probably loose everything they have worked so hard for.

Being pregnant is a burden men can’t bear. Since women are the ones to do it, it would be fair to let them keep the job (most of the people would agree on this). But on the other hand, to let them keep the salary is not ok, since they’re not working. It’s not a human right to have a child, but in order for humanity to continue, we need to make sure that babies are being born. And this theory is unfair in a way, since men don’t have to loose anything. But it would be even more unfair for the employer to pay when someone has a child.

Either way, there is no solution to the problem. The best way to solve this is like this; The woman work thought the whole pregnancy, in case of illness because of pregnancy, same rules will be applied as in any case of sickness. When she gives birth, she can take “vacation days” or other free days. After work, she can start working if she’s not sick, same rules will be applied as in any case of sickness.
This is actually what career woman have been doing. This is the cynical reality, sorry to say that if you haven’t figure it out!

They say that having a child is the most amazing thing that can happen, and that includes men. So society, men and woman will be winner by changing the rules here in Japan at least.

So when I asked the Japanese if they found it fair, they answer was;
-Fair? We're woman.

The rules of the game-about gambling in Japan

2006-09-12T20:04:00.000+10:00

The economist wrote in the 7/29/2006 (Vol. 380, p60-61) issue that Japanese pastimes of pachinko and pachislot. The gambling machines eat approximately $260 billion of Japanese income a year. They mention a couple of cases where children have died in the car as a result of the parents playing. And many parlours are run by Japanese Koreans, some of whom are said to evade taxes and divert funds to North Korea.
I tried out my luck on one of those games, and to tell you the truth, after only 2 minutes, I was 2000 yen poorer (around 14 Euro). This is not a common case, most of the people win in the beginning but loose everything later. Pretty much all the people next to me who were playing had plenty of slots.
The economist wrote that the government might give up on attempts to regulate the industry if it finds itself missing the tax revenue generated by pachinko players.
Every individual should be able to take responsibilities for their own lives. The social democrats defend the Swedish monopoly by the argument that the monopoly protects people from being playoholics (what other word can be used?). In what way is that possible? Why is gambling where the government has the monopoly safer than the one in a free market?
I stopped after 2 minutes, when I had lost 2000 yen. People who don't stop have a disease. Just like other diseases, they should be treated. I just don't think I want to pay for it. I can pay for the treatment of cancer patient, but not playoholics. It's wrong to pay the treatments of the "playoholics". Many critics mean that a disease is a disease so why not help those patients as well. The critics would probably add "the found the playoholic gene".
There is no playoholic gene and people have to take responsibilities for their own lives. That's how the world works. Only naive people crawl to gamblers.

Too much ado about nothing.

2006-09-12T17:47:00.001+10:00

Japanese are really funny sometimes. Like for example now when I just asked if anyone had a painkiller for my headache. The whole lab gathered around, looked in their boxes for pills and medications. Read everything there was to read on the boxes, asked each other for advices, and looked at the internet. They just stopped working for half an hour and started a huge debate about which painkiller I should take or not. Everyone in this lab knew that I had a head ache and everyone was involved. If I would have known that that would have happened, then I would never have asked for a painkiller. I felt like a character in “Seinfeld”. Finally, they picked up the big pharmaceutical box and agreed on the fact that I should take…salicylic acid. I just smiled and thanked them. (I guess that the only ones who will understand this joke are pharmacists).
It’s really the thought that counts.

Blog recommendation

2006-09-11T14:46:00.000+10:00

http://pro-test.org.uk/StandUpForScience.html

for people who are intrested in animal research!

Pain with capital P

2006-09-11T14:39:00.001+10:00

I study pain here in Nagasaki. The physical pain is pretty much the worse thing you can experience and for that reason, we need to find god methods to reduce the pain.
When you study pain, you need to do some pain test on animals in order to se if the substance they’ve been given has a pain relief or not.
Today, I preformed a test called the EPW. Briefly, you have electrodes attached to a Neurometer that conducts small electric waves. The electrodes are being placed at the animal and the electric strength is being increased until the mouse start moving (that means that the mouse can feel something).
I have to say that I felt like an evil dictator. On the other hand, they didn’t really feel that much pain since the intensity of the electric shock wasn’t high. And imagine how many people there are around the world who feels more pain. So I guess I shouldn’t feel like Saddam Hussein, he didn’t torture for knowledge, he just did it for fun.

Skyroping- Deuxieme photos

2006-09-11T12:28:00.001+10:00

Back from the short weekend (went from lab at 19 on Saturday).
Sunday was great. In many cities in Japan, you can take a Skyrope to se a beautiful view of the city. Here are some photos I took of Nagasaki. Can you imagine that the plutonium bomb pretty much destroyed everything here 61 years ago?

The highlight of the weekend (believe it or not) was actually the Atomic Bomb Museum. It is among the best museums I’ve been to (I hate museums normally). A report about that is to come later.

Saturday night was kind of interesting; I pretty much spent it alone in “Muchi Machi”, a computer game hall playing “drum mania V2” (a drum playing game). The sad thing was that I wasn’t the only one alone there. Many old men and women were there alone as well, playing and smoking. A good advice, bring earplugs with you to those places.

Saturday lunch

2006-09-09T16:23:00.000+10:00

After being tortured by our professor (we have a presentation on Saturdays), we threw a big lunch part today at the lab. The Japanese made Jakisoba (a dish with noodles, pork and vegetable), Okonom (vegetable, pork and egg) and my absolute favorite, sushi.

Population drop population growth

2006-09-09T11:58:00.000+10:00

The worlds population will grow to well over 9 billion by 2050 but Japan's is to drop by staggering 16 million in the same period. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) predicted in its annual report. Japan is the 10th most populated nation which is similar to several of its Asian neighbors such as China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But its negative population trend matches those in the West, particularly European nations. A growing population and in Europe and North America in particular, combined with a shortage of nurses and doctors are driving up demand for health workers and causing an influx of skilled female migrants from poor countries, was written in The Japan Times the 7th of September.An open and tolerant world where countries with shortage of people allow immigrants from countries with an overpopulation to work is that the world need.People need to look at the advantages and freedom that globalization and free-market world can offer. That is pretty much the only thing that can solve this future problem as far as things are now.So, start learning Japanese, because there will be plenty of jobs here in the future.

Shopping in Japan part II

2006-09-08T23:02:00.001+10:00

This bottle contains almost pure salicylic acid. It's bought at the supermarket and is really good for people who wants a skin like a baby. The amazing thing about this bottle is that I don't think that they would sell it in the States or in Europe. One of the labmates insisted on doing our own commercial for the product.

Why do they sell gallons with 4 L of Sake at the grocery store when most of us are working at 10 pm on a friday night?

A day at the lab

2006-09-08T22:34:00.002+10:00

A Chinese colleague and I went to get two albino mice to perform surgery to study why cancer patience won’t get a pain killing effect from morphine. We did put them in the same “cage” and went to the lab. We started by giving the female mouse some analgesia and made sure that she was unconscious. Since we wouldn’t perform surgery on both at the same time, we made sure that the male mouse was alert and could play in the cage. So, we gave her the analgesia and put her back in the cage with the alert male mouse. In the meantime while we prepared for surgery, we didn’t put any attention to the mice. So when we went back to the cage, we saw that the male mouse was “raping” the female one while she was unconscious.

If animals should have the same right as humans then that means that we should be able to report that to the police.

Not many men would have sex with a woman if she was unconscious, because they are raised not to. But of course, as we all know, there are some rapists that would. Animals are not raised to follow a certain behavior, they just follow their instinct.

2006-09-08T14:14:00.000+10:00

Happy Kingdom, thank you lord!

Imagine this situation: A princess gives birth to a girl that can not heritage the monarchy because she’s a girl. The second child turns out to be a boy, the kingdom is happy.
Now, let’s say that the girls becomes a transvestite an eventually changes sex to become a boy, shouldn’t he/she/it be the one to take over the kingdom?
This story is just as stupid as the fact that the heritage of a kingdom depends on the fact that if there is a penis growing inside the princess stomach or not.
They say that seasons change, time change, well everything’s change. Maybe it was about time to change the monarch rule of Japan and many other countries as well.

I have stop blog on my lunchbreak. I always arrive late to the cafeteria and the onlyt hing I have been picking up for lunch now is suchi and shoppi.

Building Buildings photo blogg

2006-09-08T12:34:00.001+10:00

My favourite building of all time! The Tv-house in Tokyo, baby, The Tv house in Tokyo! Sc**w all the other Tv houses in the world...

I think this building is a bit pervertly made...

Spaceship? No, just a sports building in Tokyo

Did George Lucas get inspired by looking at this building when he created R2D2?

Is this Legoland in Denmark? No my friends. Even tought Legoland is among the biggest tourist attractions in Denmark, This building is just a tyre building. Imagine having tourist in a country just to se a tyre building.

Turning tower? No, Twisting tower!

Why is Crime rate in Japan low?

2006-09-07T20:05:00.001+10:00

It’s well known that the crime rate in Japan is really low.

Murders per 100,000.
1. Russia Federation 18.072.
United States 6.323.
Malaysia 2.73
Taiwan 1.17
Spain 1.08
Japan 0.58

Rape per 100,000.
1. United States 34.20
2. England and Wales 14.69
3. France 13.38
Taiwan 8.82
South Korea 4.38
Spain 3.23
Japan 1.48

Serious Assault per 100,000.
1. Australia 713.68
2. England & Wales 405.20
3. United States 357.94
Taiwan 37.30 Spain 23.94
Japan 15.40

Robbery/Violent Theft per 100,000.
1. Spain 169.85
2. United States 169.02 3.
France 144.10
Taiwan 14.35
South Korea 11.74
Japan 2.71

From The Analysis and Comparison on Statistics of Criminal Cases in Various Countries
http://www.moi.gov.tw/W3/stat/english/etopic/89criminal.htm

Once again, why is the crime rate this low?

I have asked some Japanese at my lab why they think that crime rate is that low. The answer is that they could never imagine taking something from someone or hurting someone. They are raised not to.The family is important here in Japan, you are dependent of you family and you family depends on you when you get old. Respect is one of the first things that is to be taught at school.

Does it mean that we don’t raise our kids in Europe well enough?

Since I arrived here, I haven’t broken one single rule. To cross the street when the light is red would be one of the things I’d never do here. I would feel like dead woman walking across the street…
Families and society are important when it comes to reducing crime. To invest capital by giving more police would not necessary mean that the crime rate would fall automatically. But to invest some kind of human capital would maybe give a better chance to reduce the amount of crime. That is what we can learn from Japan.

Ahhhhh-frustration beats

2006-09-07T16:21:00.001+10:00

This is so frustrating...I can't mange to communicate correctly with my labmates when my professor is out of office. Right now, I wish I had my experiment plan and time schedule ready *crying*.

I just meet the animals at the lab for the first time and they don't seem to like me! I thought at least that they were the only ones I would be able to communicate with here.
Semmimasen

Premier pictures

2006-09-07T14:33:00.000+10:00

Outside my building on my way to the university this morning. It's impossible to capture the greatness of the surrounding mountains because of the blocking buildings.

The weather is nice, 27 degrees. But it's really damp aswell.

This photo was taken outside my building. It's really cool when the buildings are built not only on top of the mountains

Has the enviromental party been here?

2006-09-07T14:02:00.001+10:00

One thing is sure in Nagasaki, it’s hard to find information in English about pretty much everything. You can not find information in English about how to call, how to get copy card or how you go to the doctor etc etc.
There is only a few things you can find information about in English here. And one of those thing is about how to separate garbage . That proves that Japanese are capable of providing tourist with information. When they want.
Swedes are always talking highly about themselves and how they separate their garbage. The only thing I can say about that now is; HAHAHA!

I just want a simple cell phone!

2006-09-05T23:48:00.002+10:00

Ok, let’s getting started!
This blog will mostly take place in Nagasaki, Japan by a student who's writing the undergraduate thesis and will start a phd. The language is soo different, people speak worse. The students at my university work really really hard.
I haven't left the lab until 21 for two days now and I haven't even really started with my project.

The first werd thing that took place was actually when I tried to buy a cellphone.

Mobile shopping in Japan:
Me: Hi, I would like to buy a simple phone, for text message and calling.
Shop assistant (with really bad English): Well hwe gjot thizone fore youho, velly god, for text message, for calling, camera san, for e-mail, internet without cable, work all around the woljd. velly god.
Me: ok.. do you call that a simple phone?
The funny thing about that Hi-tek phone is the fact that the phone signal sounded like old nitendo computergame music. Well, everything here sounds like old nintendo computergame music. It's like being in a Hi-tek supermario world

Gozaimas!