Wanted to try out hitchhiking from Toyo to Osaka but as I really didn't know where to start I ended up looking at a map to figure out what higway I should head for. Needing to be there the next day to meet up with old friends fom the Handai times I opted for a nightbuss.
The nightbuss if a budget alternative in Japan and will cost you somewhere from 7-10K yen depending on when you go and what company you go with. I remember sometimes getting 6k yen ticket at the travel agency on Osaka campus 4 years ago.
Considering you will save one night of housing which will cost a minuímum of 4k if you stay somewhere else than a capsule hotel or sleep in a manga kafe.
The shinkansen (bullet train) that will take you there in a matter of hours will put a dent in your wallet of circa 20k + 1 night of cousing. The uber cheap and super hippe way I guess would be hitchhiking and couch surfing for a price of 0 + 0 yen if you have the resolve to do it. But let me warn you. Communications are an illusion for those of you who rely on wifi. What you really want is a Japanese phone to get in touch with people or someone to led you a 3G modem. A 3G moden to rest from softbak is avialable at 1.5k+ yen a day and is hardly an economical option. Stupid me thinking that I might not need to bring my old japanese phone.
Well in Osaka there is abunch of cool things to do. Like eat for example. Osaka is by many considered the gastronomical capital of Japan and is definetly the center for both Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki. That would be a Japanese style cabbage omelet and the second fried squid in ball shapes.
There is a danger here though that most people having eaten takoyaki have experienced. It's hot! Hot, hot hot. Not in spicy terms but in heat. I and almost everyone I know always burn their tough and gums when not having eaten it in a while.
For a flora of options head down to shinsaibashi or namba station and head for dotonburi and the ebisu area. Along the river one can find as many stands as one could wich for. While there don't forget to grab a shot of the very famous glico man as well.
Like mentioned before
Japan is a universe of it's own. Machines rule at times and the pervertedness repressed by the asian culture of face has given Japan it's unique qualities. One example are these wending machines selling little dolls. Check out the progress of topic.
But something that we laught at so many times was the fusion of east and west. One could go on and on about it in a range of areas like fashion, culture and economics. But more fun is just showing you this picture.
"Nerd" might not be famous of being the most attractive social status. Specially not in the US. But nerds are defined climbing the ladder of popularity. I was thinking of this because when hearing the mention of games someone at HEC Paris imminently comented with some stereotyping of elf dressing people in the woods (Clearly "live action role playing" LARP). I remember when I relieved that I did a few of those games. This was followed by my friends great surprise at my nerdiness. For this was back in San Francisco where nerds are nerds but LARP nerds are much greater nerds. But nerds are not the same internationally. For example it's kind of cool to be a nerd in Sweden. Well as long as one embraces it and goes with it all out.
There are also some preconceived ideas of what Nerdery is. Here are two examples.
This first one is a tad more fantasy LARPing with magical powers a la America. I remember when I was first shown this. I have to admit I did laugh quite a bit about the marshmallow lightning bolts. After all what a waste. Marshmallows are for eating.
Here is another example of LARP but the European version, or German to be exact. It tends to seem a little more interesting. Given that the prodigy playing does help. But also the seriousness of the nerdiness. I remember my brother Patrik going to the Czech Republic partly to get a hold of some authentic plate mail gloves for his LARP gear. I figure if you go for something do it properly, at least it's way cooler if your the best at it..
Maybe this is why Nerdery and specially computer games are so well un-nerdy or main stream back home in Sweden. Cause we're good at it? or is it cause everyone kinda play's, making the minority situation defunct?
Here in France it's a tad different though. Nerds are still Nerds and the cool peeps need to wear that trendy shirt or whatever. But it's definitively going our way (yeah the nerdy way). As popular culture gets more and more inspired by movies and video games the experts on these are the nerds. Thus they rise in popularity as they are seen as the originals and early adopters.
But it seems as in cultures where it's less accepted to be nerdy the nerds are nerdier and more well nerdy and well less hard core.. Why might this be?
Anyway here in Paris I tend to connect more with the gamers just like everywhere else. Last night we visited movie maker and game enthusiast Robin to drink wine, watch one of his films and discuss games. I have to say I'm a bit jealous. Seriously where else can you at least drink good wine while you nerd away (also jealous of his radio controlled Wall-E unit). Ok true. back home it's beer but it's just not the same. Although I do love beer it just doesn't seem as refined.
One of Robint's many gadgets of multimedia art. A light saber or shower head, old hand grenade, ancient handheld flash mount and shower nob. Either way really cool or really nerdy, or Both!
More on games after the weekend as I have a board gaming date with a bunch of French gamers.
After pondering on the hard and life changing question, whether we should get another baguette for breakfast or not my girlfriend quickly ended my philosophic contemplating.
- oh we don't need another one we have this.
Whereas I reply isn't that cake?
And get a yeah as a response.
It all suddenly became clear to me. In this country of Marie Antoinette, breakfause and other meals can be sweet. It was until now my misconception that her quote might have been a tad disconnected from relity. In fact it would have been a very natural response, from a french person. After all if one does not have bread. Cake will certainly do.
-"nom nom nom"
Yeah that was me munching away at my cake here. it's a "Marbre" cake or a "Tigerkaka" (literally tiger cake) in Swedish. I'm not sure what it's called in English but I'm sure it's familiar to you as it's one of the easiest cakes to make.
Although I'm quite familiar with this type of cake I rarely eat it other than as desert or as a complement to a cup of coffee. Here it's breakfast. Breakfast is usually small and sweet here. Quite the contrast to a more hardy Swedish breakfast of crisp bread, cheese, porridge and serial. Mind you now that we're not talking about some über sweet serial from some candy company what I'm talking about are the equivalent to All Brans or hardier. Maybe a bowl of Musli. Oh I miss my Musli now. I even miss the beloved porridge. Maybe it does need a bit of jam in there to make it go down nicely but still..
Then again food is always what you miss from home. And when In Rome do as the Romans so I should stop complaining. After all I do enjoy my freshly baked baguettes, croissant or even cakes in the morning. Maybe I'm just becoming Frenchified, thus the complaining...
Mushrooms. Magic and delicious but preferably not at the same time. In fact the one and only time I had the magic version was by mistake at the young age of 17. The path there was paved by a many a flavorful meal of the non magic version. Fungi might not sound that tasty but mushrooms can definitively be. A fleshy fruit like body floating slightly above the ground it can truly gold a flora or rich flavor.
In Sweden we have a long tradition of eating mushrooms. And not only for taste and nourishment. It was a common practice to consume "flugsvamp" or Amanita muscaria a poisonous one that can put the consumer one step closer to a battle rage or a drunken state which was harnessed before and during battles for my Viking ancestry.
These days we pick mostly other mushrooms. One favorite and delicacy is the "kantarell" or chanterelle. quickly pan fried in butter and maybe cream is probably my favorite way of preparing it. It is truly a challenge not gobbling it down too fast as it's soo rich and tasty. The season for picking is throughout autumn and preferably after a wet summer and autumn. Picking it is itself a nice way of spending a Swedish autumn day. Walking along in the Forrest teeming with color with some friends or family has long been a tradition of most real Swedish people.
While the french love of pleasure is quite a bit more obvious than the Asian or american one (at least if you exclude the love for fatty food), When does it become too much? In the US there is a expression PDA or public display of affection. Here in Paris, France there is no such term. It's completely natural to display such feeling openly. Also it's not against the law to drink in public like many other western countries. heck in many a western country a brown hobo lock alike paper bag is required to carry your preferred liquid poison pleasure. But does this poster intrude on the over the top?
Would it be OK in your country to Do a commercial like this? I know the heroin chic style of fashion was quite in for a while. is this pointing towards a come back?
In my opinion quite a few narcotics laws are outdated and misplaced. I mean weed is way more healthy than both alcohol and tobacco. An overdose still indicates an unhealthy over-usage, an dependency issue. Has the french love of pleasure become so blatantly routine that only an overdose would give rise to interest?
A few of my friends go: Oh that's
totally like my second home, when they arrive in a country they've
spent some time in. I go just like that when I arrive at airports.
It's a strange homey feeling oozing out of these air harbors After all, the
similarities are much bigger at airports than in society in general.
Saying this I am not trying to cover up the many annoying experiences
of the many crappy airports out there. Yes there are a whole bunch of
them. The Swedish ones that I rank as these are Skavsta and Nykopings
Ryan air airports. But I won't get started with my carrier bashing in
this post, too.
The thing I wanted to highlight that I
so often forget is the importance of being comfortable in a flight.
Pillows, blankets and candy is not what I'm talking a bout here. It's
the importance of staying warm and rested. Why? Well your health.
Feeling like I'm getting down with a
little something the only place that I can think of with abundant
sneezing and sniveling in a confined space was my flight to Paris. So
If you are ever planning to fly with a low cost carrier or any
carrier that likes recycles the air a godzillion times and puts the
air conditioning on freezing to save glod. Bring warm clothing. And
maybe also one of those Japanese moth guards surgeons and Japanese
subway commuters weir.
One of the last things I did before I left Kuala Lumpur was to watch Robinson (The Swedish precursor to Survivor). Here in Paris I'm overwhelmed with the changes that comes with the continent swap. The age of buildings, the blue sky and flaky weather, the clean streets and the good quality food. Yes yes, some might object and say that there is good quality food in Malaysia too. But they are wrong. When I'm talking about food I'm not talking about the extremes that one might find after large about of energy and/or money spent. I'm talking about the readily available options every day people choose and value. Here the food culture if much more focused on the simple, organic and quality of basic stuff. Although I have to say the Italians might be the best at this concept of complexity and simplicity in one. The french are definitively up there and has it's own angle to it. But! this is not what I wanted to talk about. It seems that whatever I start thinking of it's an inevitability that the topic will change to food. There are other things with the same symptom of inevitability. On e is the fact that all free forums will eventually turn into a mating forum. Yes meeting people with the end result of pairing up or mating. This is especially true for online forums. That is also a side topic I'll deal with later. What hit me after the initial chock of coming over here was the homeless people in the streets. I'm not sure what I was expecting but there are a whole bunch of em here and many are surprisingly young. My awareness of this problem seem to have taken a dip as the surge of things dirty in Asia seemed to have washed away the shadier parts of my European memories.
Well that or that I've once again forgot how few homeless people we have in Stockholm. But when I think back upon the number of encounters with people needing money in Asia the homeless seemed to make less of an impression on me way out east. True, the pure numbers I've seen over there easily triumph the ones here but these ones seem to stick out more. Over there it fitted in in the surroundings of dirty and ghetto rigged as a way of life. Here they stick out like sore thumbs in the midst of historical buildings and "bobo" cafés.
Why the epic price difference in movies. Seeing as digital distribution and digital equipment for showing these movies are available at modern cinemas and heck, even back in my old student dorm. Well back then we just called it downloading HD movies. But still the technology is out there and it's being used. So what then warrants the monstrous price difference in movies across the globe. For example. Here in Malaysia I can watch a movie with student prices for something like 6 Malaysian ringgit, 12 SEK or 2$ US. Back home in Sweden it would cost something like 120 SEK or 13EUR. Since we could (at lest in theory) render almost all personnel redundant it's no longer a matter of wage differences. Still Cinemas back home are struggling economically whine the ones over here are doing just fine. Could it be that the prices are so high and the viewing experience so much worse that we just don't value watching movies in cinemas any more. Well I know it's not the experience. I've watched like 10 movies in a couple days. Given those days where spread out on the times I've dropped by KL but still.. Must have cost me a fortune now that I think about it. something like 100 Malaysian Ringgit in total. That would be something like 200 SEK or 20EUR, roughly.
So when will we see the first totally automated around the clock cinema in Sweden? Well most likely after it becomes a reality in japan. After all they love their vending machines. Why not a cinema vending machine with baby vending machines inside?
An Epic hive of automation!
I'm not sure if you remember the days when girls and boys around you where filled with angst and emotion swelling over and well annoying the shit out of at least me. Those days where junior high school and high school I guess. But not everywhere. In these lands on the south east it's still flowing well in the late twenties. And it's mostly girls. After traveling around here for a while I've befriended quite a few people, on Facebook..
Let me tell you the Facebook life here is something else. Not sure if it's because it's the only outlet of emotion in communication that is allowed or if it's just such a convenient way of saying what you think in a alone against the world fashion that was never available before online social networks.
Either way. Every day I face the horror of emotional outreach towards the world and sadly towards my notifications and mailbox too. Is it just me? Is it just me that think filtering out all a persons messages and post is the only solution left to avoid tidal flows of teen angst from scorns of Asian girls in their "way to old to be writing this"
Ok you might be arguing that it's a bit late since they are all kept at home by overprotecting parents until they are married off and then the parents live with their kids anyway..
Well it's not a uncommon fact that women well in their middle years still fret over uncommented posts, messages and Facebook statuses here. Yes many a time at my office and others have there been intrigue in the air and bewilderment over unjustified neglect in Facebook response... And then comes the teen angst flowing out on the digital tides we all surf on. Personally I think it's one wave to big and too not concerning me to handle but who knows. Maybe it is everyone's duty to listen to this, or filter this shit out.
As I walk by Hard Rock Cafe and Hotel in Kuta Bali and see the masses flock outside I'm reminded again of the strong brand focus Asia has. I mean if you want to be somebody you need to look like somebody and to look like somebody you need to wear a brand. Why? well obviously the only way to be some one is to be wear what people things some one should wear.
In the ghetto west and later in street sub cultures like hip hop and such sneakers and shoes became the status symbol. For the rich maybe cars or yachts. Here it's definitively all about clothing and bags but the brand focus and the desire to consume all the is something is just so extremely powerful here. It's ofc better to wear a Burberry jacket in 30+ degrees heat and feed your kids nasi lemak and water every day as you ride around on your bad ass scooter. And then defining a bad ass scooter as one with a few LEDs on. Where did that desire to be unique go? and Why is it better to life in a dump and pay up your butt for a brand on top of the same cotton shirt as your neighbor wears. Yeah the poor one that put his kids to school...
It's a well known fact that some black artist are obsessed with becoming as white as possible. As crazy as this might sound it's not something new or rare. It's something widespread and commonly sought after, in Asia. In fact one could intemperate Mr.Jacksons pioneering efforts as a attempt to unite cultures and extend a reaching hand to east and south east Asia. Here in the lands where all women and children strive to become whiter, it's easy to see how that might be a factor bringing people closer together. Now another attempt is made to exploit this well knows pioneering ability of black american soul artist to become white...?
Why not use the NIVEA whitening lotion and You could become as White as RIHANNA!
Well someone made a bobo. That or I've completely missed the up to date announcements of popular american culture. This being a completly plausible explenation to my ignorance.
But when is enough enough. On plenty an occasion I've spotted Asians usually Korean or Chinese so white that I'd think I was seeing ghosts if it wasn't for the fact that I'm not a superstitious fool or that they usually wear Louis Vuitton or Gucci.
Spending some time in magical and mystical Ubud one might say that one really felt the mystical energy vortex that is supposed to be there. That the energies inspired and replenished. For me, this was not the case. Although I did enjoy my time in Ubud, it was riddled with a bounty supply of visits to the bathroom.
It's during these time when the doctor procures you a diets of overcooked rice that one says; enough. Enough, of everything that is supposed to be culturally enlightening.
I've been stuffing my face with western food, bad movies, ice cream and chocolate for the last few days after this. The binge is however over and I've returned to a more balanced diet of all kinds of stuff. I've come to the conclusion that the idea of only indulging in local food soon becomes too much. After all I spend less time at "home" than away. I now dream the sweet, sweet dreams of mackerel on crisp bread, herring and "kaviar" (swedish food).
I did miss most of the kings cremation as a result. Apparently this is an event that people gather for, from near and far. I did catch two glimpses of it over the heads of the crowd which is satisfactory to me at this time. Yeah not the big cultural consumer right now. I just hope this is not the start of a transformation into a Aussie Balinese... The Horror
I've recently spent a few days with my friends at a nicer resort at the Genting highlands. We've been chilling out and taking it easy. But once in a "nicer" place it's become so obvious. I've been noticing quite a lot and now that I think about it it's really so prevalent in many aspects of south east Asian life. Maintenance, details, and thinking things through. These are qualities that the general populous lack in a large degree here. What struck me was the big, little things or the many little things. One thing is the lack of wifi at a resort suite. Seriously what resorts/hotel only has that in the lobby. I also found the following.
Ants
Gecko poo
Leaking toilet
Broken mosquito net at the balcony doors (I have to admit there are no mossies here)
Otherwise the room is nice and even has a Jacuzzi. But going around the resort one sees degradation, piles of rubble and toilets that have obviously been raped by an dirty elephant. It's like whoever is planning the maintenance routine wants to make damn sure there is always repair work to be done. Since it's obviously better to repair broken things than maintenance things for an extended lifespan, visual look and feel.
It's not only here though. It's just that at the other places I've stayed one might expect these things. Well that's not quite true either. I did stay at the berjaya times square for a while. A luxury place in most standards but with broken lights, small cracks in the wall plaster, a water heating system one has to turn on 10 minutes before hot water, unusable wall plugs and interior that might fall apart upon touch.
This symptom is also true for many a bungalow I've stayed at at island resorts and hostels. Somehow it feels more acceptable for a island bungalow to be falling a part a bit. I guess it's the island maintenance problem. An logical defect in thinking although not as much as this.
This issue is also prevalent in Indonesia and other countries in the area. Not only in buildings but also in all aspects of life. Many a time I've seen some nice handy craft or thing I've thought was interesting on first glance only to have my impression spoiled by some small defect they but there afterwords for some reason. One example is some wooden sculptures in which they drill a crude hole and puts a plastic string through.
There are so many cases where actions seem to be determined by decisions of "for the sake of having it". Why would someone have a pool you can't use, or plenty of faulty things and none of good quality? Or having people doing paperwork five times over instead of making a digital copy saving energy and money. Or using a wind power plant that's already there to get power instead of shipping gasoline out to an island to power generators.
I guess they might be doing it to create jobs. Maybe one should tell them that creating jobs that have no better solutions than manual labour could be better. Fuck! Hire a bunch of carpenters and maintenance people to fix all the half broken things with a fifth of the lifespan of a taken care for one. Maybe even do some road maintenance. But hay it's way cooler to be repair guy than a maintenance dude. Maybe that's what it's all about?
I guess it's really a culture that likes to do things for the sake of it. I think I'd fail here. I wonder what all my local friends here do about it.
