After a while things change. Roads, names of different places and people around you seize being all cluttered in your head, and you start to feel up to speed with whats happening again. It’s  like you have landed with both feet on the ground again. You start to feel at home.

In a couple of days I will have been living in Tokyo for a month, and only these last few days I have started to get that feeling of “being here”. These first weeks have been so filled with all the things that are part of moving to a new country to study. Not only all the new experiences, but also going through countless bureaucratic processes (Japan is especially fond of these) and getting up and running with all the things at the university.

But I have also had time for some fun, exploring Tokyo and getting to know my surroundings. Today I walked around for hours in Shibuya, just looking around in stores and at people. Sitting in Starbucks at Shibuya Crossing (one of the busiest crossings in the world), looking down on the massive sea of people moving in every direction, has become one of my favorite pastime activities in Tokyo.

Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo

Oh yeah, and while I was in Shibuya today I couldn’t help myself from trying the Japan-exclusive Burger King “Meat Monster” burger. This 1160 calories monster has to be the most awesome hangover food ever invented. Since I was not hungover, it was mostly just insane. One of those “only in Japan” things.

The Meat Monster

The disaster

As everyone is aware by now Japan was struck by a terrible disaster on March 11, now known as the “Great East Japan Earthquake”. I arrived here on April 3rd, just under one month after the disaster struck. I still get frequent questions from people back home about the situation in Japan and especially Tokyo, so I want to make some things clear.

First, there is very little signs of the disaster here in Tokyo now. Store shelves have been for the most part restocked, and trains are all running as normal. Water was on short supply the first week I arrived here, but now that is no longer an issue. The only clear effects in Tokyo that still linger is that the city is a bit darker than usual. Many companies have turned off their neon signs to save power after the problems in the nuclear plants.  I heard this (combined with other efforts to save power) has lead to Tokyo using up to 25-30% less power, which is actually really impressive. I hope they keep the signs dark, we can live without them.

What we do still have is frequent aftershocks, some quite large, and from what I can tell this is what is keeping people most on edge. Every time a big one comes I hear pledges of “please leave us in peace”, “please let the quakes stop”. Which is understandable given what just happened.

Second, there is no trouble with radiation in Tokyo. None. The radiation levels here are the same as in Stockholm, and lower still than many big cities around the world.

So much of what I read in swedish media before leaving to Japan I have found to be blown completely out of proportion, or simply untrue. I visited the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo yesterday, and people there were also very troubled about how swedish media had covered the disaster.

Golden Week

Starting from today I have one week of vacation, the so called “Golden Week” has started in Japan. Several Japanese public holidays happen under this week, which means vacation time!

The plan is to visit Disneyland (the kid inside is jumping with excitement!) in the beginning of next week, and if possible I will take a trip to Kyoto to see some different aspects of Japan.

I’ll get back with some updates and pictures during the week.

Check out the tradition of Hanami at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanami

That was the first paragraph of the paper I had to sign to enter the De-Militarized Zone, or DMZ, marking the border between South and North Korea. The American officer that briefed us on the tour we were about to get made it very clear that the situation along the border is very unstable at the moment, with multiple incidents making the divide between North and South seem bigger than ever.

The american officer showing us around

The DMZ is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. It is maintained by United Nations Command, and is the most heavily militarized border in the world.

As we were walked to the border, we were met with the sight of South and North Korean soldiers staring each other down with binoculars and striking poses. It’s a sight like no other, and you feel really out of place going on a guided tour through a situation like this.

South Korean soldiers guarding the border to North Korea with a North Korean observing at a distance

On the other side of the border the North Korean soldiers stood coldly observing us with their binoculars, and the officer showing us around pointed us toward a funny looking window right next to the North Korean guard.

“Notice the window over there. At this time, communist North Korea is taking pictures of your faces and documenting your visit here. They do the same for us all, they even figured out how long we officers stay on duty here, sometimes playing a farewell song through their propaganda speakers when we’re about to leave Korea. Please do not point or gesture towards them, they will use it in propaganda against the UN.”

Standing inside North Korea

Finally we were shown into the building where North and South meet for diplomatic talks. The officer stood himself in the center of the room and asked us to gather around.

“Those of you on my left, you are now standing inside communist North Korea. Those of you on my right, you are still safely inside South Korea.”

There used to be a shelf with international flags inside the building, but North Korean soldiers went inside and blew their nose in all the flags, and danced barefoot on the tables to mock the south. The shelf has now been changed to a framed picture of flags, hopefully acting as a harder target. And whatever the north korean soldiers had on their feet… it sucked right into the varnish of the tables, still clearly showing the foot-markings all over.

North Korean flag pole

On each side of the border, the countries have raised tall flag poles. The South Korean built a 100 meter flag pole. North Korea responded by building a 160 meter one, at the time it was the tallest one in the world. As we were shown where the flag poles are, the officer gave us one more “fun fact” before we ended the tour.

“Take a look at your mobile phones. Notice how they aren’t working? Yeah, thats North Korea blocking any phone, TV, or radio signals being used in this area.”

“F**k, I hope this doesn’t affect my trip to Tokyo”

As soon as the thought formed in my head, I realized how selfish it was to think about myself when people were losing their homes in the wake of the earthquake. Now, two weeks have passed since the earthquake struck, and Japan is still struggling to recover and facing the serious threat of a nuclear disaster.

I was supposed to move to Tokyo tomorrow, to start  a semester of exchange studies at Tokyo Gakugei University together with my longtime friend and classmate Kenneth. We have been looking forward to this adventure since last year, and as you can imagine the last two weeks have been spent closely monitoring the situation in Japan, hoping that they will get the situation under control.

Unfortunately, as of today, this has not really happened. Things are moving in the right direction, power being connected to the nuclear power plants and so on, but the Swedish Foreign Ministry is still advising against going to Japan, and we decided early on to let them be the deciding factor on wether to go or not.

So,  two days ago we sat down, made the final decision that going to Japan will have to wait, and said to ourseleves: “So what do we do now?” We cant go to Japan, but we are both without apartments in Sweden since we were set on leaving for a very long time. So we started looking for alternatives. Maybe Taiwan? I spent one year studying in Taiwan, and the prospect of reuniting with my friends there and reliving old memories was tempting. However, Taiwan requires us to have a departing ticket booked to even be let into the country. And that was not something we were ready to buy. How about South Korea? Neither one of us had ever been in the country, and we both love new experiences. It was a quick decision, and in less than an hour we had tickets booked to Seoul, South Korea, and a hostel ready for the first couple of days.

Seoul, capital of South Korea

Long story short, tomorrow I begin my adventure, starting in South Korea, and I’m totally psyched even though the plans have changed. The plan is to stay in Seoul for a week or two, and then move on to Japan as soon as we consider it safe.

I will try to blog frequently during my trip, to share my experiences about living/studying in Japan and traveling around asia in general. I haven’t decided what format my blogging will take yet, though I’m considering doing most of my posts as video blogs. This first post was also a long one, I’ll try to keep it nice and short in the future!

Nattvy.

Trots den begränsade tiden hann jag med rätt mycket. Strosade runt i Shinjuku, Ginza och andra stora shopping-distrikt. Kämpade mig upp kl. 4 på morgonen för att besöka Tokyo’s stora fiskmarknad och åt sushi gjord på nattens fångst. Besökte Akihabara, nördarnas mecka. Åkte till Mitaka för att besöka Ghibli Museum, från skaparen av filmer som “Spirited Away”, “Castle in the Sky” och “Howl’s moving castle”.

Dagsfärsk sushi, ruskigt gott.

En helt otrolig resa helt enkelt, Tokyo är nog #1 av städer jag besökt i världen och kan verkligen se mig själv där under en längre period någon gång i framtiden.

Om du åker till Bangkok så passa på att upptäcka staden från flodens perspektiv. Express-båtarna är sjukt billiga och ger en väldigt unik upplevelse

Så här ska livet vara då det är som värst. Gott att dricka med grym utsikt över Bangkok.

“Learn Life from Northern Europeans”

Öppnade en sida i boken och första bilden jag möttes av var denna:

Oh yes, precis så.

Eller vad sägs om denna livsnyttiga guide till hur du gör en mjukmacka?

Who knew it was so easy!

Boken behandlar alla möjliga aspekter av våran livsstil, t.ex. som att männen också är hemma med barnen (men ändå är maskulina) och att vi gillar att åka charter till Kreta och bli solbrända. En total sammanfattning över den nordiska livsstilen helt enkelt. I love it!

* Taiwans fantastiska natur, från dimmiga berg i norr till varma beachen i söder
* Alla konstiga saker jag ätit. Fantastiskt hur mycket av en kyckling vi svenskar låter gå till spillo
* Bli upplockad från gatan för att fotograferas för en modekatalog
* Utforska Taipei med cykel och tunnelbana, slutar aldrig förundras över hur stor staden är
* När allt svammel på gatan började få en mening och jag förstod att jag faktiskt kan lite kinesiska
* Få Pappa på besök och visa honom livet i Taiwan

Nu startar en månads ledighet, något liknande jullov som i Taiwan är lagt för att sammanfalla med kinesiska nyåret i Febuari. På schemat denna månad är resa till Thailand om ett par veckor, följt av Japan i Februari. I Thailand möter jag upp med Mamma vilket ska bli fantastiskt kul. Får se om jag klämmer in en kortare vistelse i Hong Kong också, hade varit kul att se.
Ser också fram emot att börja nästa termin vid NTU, då jag blivit lite varmare om fötterna vad gäller studiekulturen här nu och hittat ett helt gäng spännande kurser mer relaterade till interaktionsdesign. Hade gärna fortsatt läsa kinesiska också men NTU tar saftigt betalt om jag vill fortsätta, så passar nog på det.

Vart är Erik?

(Hint: Blå ryggsäck, grå munktröja)