on the train to Utsunomiya

isn't she cute?

bag country

people LOVE bags in Japan. i mean, really. to the extent that they have bags for bags.

let me explain. if you're in a fancy coffee shop/restaurant, they will put up something that looks like a small but high-legged laundry basket for you to put your bag in, so that it a) doesn't stay on the dirty ground and b) is safe.

yep. they really do.

Japanese TV series

i was catching up on the latest tv series while in Japan. funny stuff. but only in Japan would you get the following situation:

a mother asks her married daughter's colleague if he's in love with her daughter. he eventually admits that he is but asks her if she would let him tell the daughter to find out what her feelings are, as they've been spending a lot of time together. the mother, who's also concerned about these potential feelings, agrees.

next scene, they're kneeling around the table at the mother's place (this is Japan after all). the daughter arrives with her husband and wonders about the presence of her colleague. eventually, they settle down and the colleague, keeping his eyes on the mother, tells the daughter about his feelings and asks her to marry him. the husband looks worried but says nothing.

eventually, the daughter tells her colleague that she has no feelings for him. he apologises for the situation. then the husband apologises to the colleague for having had to go through this! in any other country, none of this would have happened. the husband wouldn't have let the colleague speak (the mother had said he was there to propose), and would surely have punched him thereafter. or something to that effect. no?

icre-cream

Japan is an amazing country, and not least because of the culinary experiments they make. so far, i've tried cactus, popcorn (yep), mascarpone and mozzarella ice-cream. some of them were definitely very weird, but there's a lot worse. i remember seeing a programme where they were making each other eat various seafood (bright orange sea urchin anyone?) and vegetable ice-creams.

things i love about Japan in summer

- the heat
- the humidity
- fruit pieces
- trains with fans instead of aircon
- the smell of grass (the green kind)
- going into an air-conditioned building when it's really hot, and coming back outside once you're really cold
- city lights at night (too cold to appreciate in the winter)

customs

i'm not the kind of person who ever gets stopped at airport customs. sometimes, people have actually been really dismissive of me. like, why are you standing there? like you're gonna have something to declare...

so i thought the guy was really trying to show he could do it, asking me if i had any of the pictured things in my luggage. first picture: porn. i'm a girl, what do you think? then, lots of pics of drugs. the first one i looked at, smiled and said no, and as i realised the others were all drugs too, kept smiling and saying no. he was smiling too, like he was saying, yes, this is stupid, obviously you don't have anything, i'm just doing my job.

then he asked me if i would mind going to another room. i thought, there you go, they have to do this to every 50th person or something. i had time to kill anyway, so i said it was ok. except by the time we got to the room, there were suddenly 4 customs officers with me. i thought, ok, fine, they need a token woman cos i'm one, this guy's too young anyway so the boss needs to be there, and an extra witness doesn't hurt.

in the tiny room (which looked very much like the tiny scary rooms where people get questioned in movies), the same guy asks me all the same questions. it must be to show the boss that he did ask, although i thought it was pretty pointless. then they ask if they can go through my bag and suitcase. sure. except, they go through the stuff really thoroughly. undoing socks to check nothing is hidden. my blue painkillers caused a stir. what were they? painkillers. what for? to kill pain (obviously). head pain? no, muscle pain. how often did i take them? when i was in pain (funnily enough). it was starting to feel very awkward. they seemed to think i was actually doing drugs. but they were very nice and polite, so i didn't worry too much. when they saw my camera film, one guy put it back but the boss took them all out again and actually seemed to want to open one of the films to check there was nothing else inside. that's when i started worrying. he also looked like he wanted to take the actual suitcase apart.

eventually, they put all the stuff back, much more neatly than i'd packed it. until then, everything had taken place in Japanese (which shows that 3 months of not studying it didn't do too much harm), but then the boss came out with a long sentence in Japanese and i just couldn't understand it. i looked a bit desperate, i'm sure, as i asked if he could say it in English. turns out the token woman was fluent in it. apparently, the dog had smelled drugs on　my suitcase. i was flabbergasted. i hadn't even been near anyone who'd do drugs (not that i know anyone who does anything more than smoke marijuana, which is legal, in Switzerland). they asked me if my friends did drugs. i said no.　the only thing i could think of was my father's new cat. it sounds silly, but i really couldn't think of why their dog had sensed anything that wasn't there.

anyway, that was why they'd taken me in and searched me. again, they were very polite about it all and none of their words or behaviour had made me feel uncomfortable, apart from their actually searching through my stuff like that. but the feeling of unease stayed with me most of the day after that. i've tried to come up with a reason, and i think i've nailed it: my father's house is being renovated, and my room had just been white-washed. it's a very smelly process, and full of chemicals.　and my suitcase was on that floor a whole 10 days...

long-haul flights

i'm not really fond of planes. i hate having to fly somewhere, but mostly because that means you have to get to the airport (which may or may not be anywhere near where you are), be there between 1-2 hours before your flight leaves (hopefully on time, when it does), then go through check-in, x-rays, waiting around at the gate with little info as to what is really going on. and then mostly the same at the other end.

long-haul flights i have nothing against, mostly because they generally mean i'm going somewhere nice. childhood memories flood back. the sound of the engine, sleeping on the floor. anyway, one thing that has improved since then is the food. and these last few years, a long-haul flight breakfast meant pancake, omelet, sausages and tomatoes. another reason to be happy! except this time, it meant yogurt and bread. typical. also, i usually fly with nice big 747s, and the A340 i flew this time just didn't cut the mustard. it's silly to say this, but in comparison it's tiny. among other things, stretching your legs walking through economy class takes half the time. felt like a fish in a fishbowl...

small villages

having just spent a week in one, i highly recommend going to small villages lost in the middle of nowhere. all the better if they can be surrounded by sunflower fields and vineyards. even better if they're the small medieval fortress type.

day 4 - 'rest' day

it was apparently decided by all (my grandmother included), that we shouldn't visit her today. and so a whole new perspective of freedom and rest opened up to me. except that in reality, it wasn't to be.

when i spent my holidays at home where we lived before, there was never any feeling that we should do something. but since the move halfway across France, my father seems to believe that we have to go and see places. all i wanted was to sleep, eat, swim and sunbathe. instead, we drove 40kms to a little town that was no nicer than all the other little towns there are around here. there, we had a Laotian lunch (my father and sister went to Laos many years ago and he apparently thought this was a great idea). we then went to a place that makes blue dye. we were supposed to do a tour, i think, but the next one was in ages and we were all tired so all that happened was that my sister and great-aunt bought a couple of things and off home we went, all tired.

a little sunbathing and some swimming did take place at home, but considering all the driving i have to do these next few days, i really would have welcomed a day at home...

day 3 - driving

so off we went to Toulouse at about 10.30. the hospital being where it is, we took the scenic route, because it's really difficult to find one's way on the motorway ring around the city and the scenic route took us straight to the hospital. on the plus side, it's a nice drive.

once there, we saw that my grandmother was doing all right, all things considered. i had a chat with the nurses, who were very helpful, and translated everything for my grandmother, who really had little idea what they were doing to her. then i went off to sort out the insurance thing. when i eventually got back, my grandmother had got out of bed and changed, and she looked all the better for it. after another quick chat with the doctor, this time, we left and took the motorway home (as it's easy to leave that way, as it's cleary marked). 2 hrs later we were back home. and tired.

day 2 - emergency

woke up at 10.30, blissfully unaware of the crisis looming ahead of us. my father and sister were going to take my grandmother to the hospital to have her eye seen to. she'd had an infection in it for a few days and the lack of any betterment made my father put his foot down. so off to the nearest hospital (50km) they went. there, they were seen immediately and told off for not coming sooner, told the eye could very well already be lost but that they couldn't deal with it there and that they had to drive to Toulouse (another 100km), to get something done about it. great.

in the meantime, i'd been asked to look for flights back to Denmark, as my grandmother understandably refused to be hospitalised in a country where she couldn't speak the language. and if she was leaving, so was her sister. while i was at it, i had to check how to, once there, get from the airport to the hospital as quickly as possible.

several hours later, during which we couldn't do much as we were waiting for a phone call telling us what to do, it turned out my father had convinced my grandmother to stay in the country despite there being a stay in the hospital involved. apparently, she was taken to the OR for some stuff that would at least (hopefully) stop the infection from spreading to the brain, if not save her eye. she's to stay in the hospital for at least 6 days (if all goes well), which means daily trips and 3-hr long drives for us.

i am of course worried about my grandmother's health, but i am starting to wonder whether i shouldn't just go somewhere i don't know, for my next holidays. i just never seem to be able to have more than 3 days without some crisis taking over.

holiday - day 1

got up late. not as late as i would have liked (about 10.30), but what the hell. had breakfast. went for a swim. had lunch. did some sunbathing. talked with my sister. read some of my book. went for a snooze. had dinner. went for a walk. talked with my sister and my father. technically went to bed but really continued talking with my sister. heard the fireworks. got up to have a look at them (great view from our garden). looked at the beautiful stars instead (i'm not really into foreworks). really went to bed.

friday 13th

some of my friends were down right worried about me flying out on friday 13th. i couldn't care less. i'm really not supersticious. i normally feel it's bound to be a lucky day! and it was rather nice.

my taxi to the airport was on time (and cheap!). once there, i saw that one of my friends was behind the check-in counter. it was luggage-only, so i'd put myself in another queue, but he called me over, got rid of the other passengers, and we had 5 mns to chat. he very nicely didn't make me pay the overweight i had (4 kg - the cheese i was bringing the family). then i bumped into my old piano teacher. i hadn't seen her in 4 years, despite my various attempts. being the mother of 3 boys, she's incredibly busy. but i think we'll be able to manage from now on.

i thought my good luck might continue after that, and it probably would have, if my father hadn't got my arrival time wrong. i had to wait for him for an hour... not living near the airport anymore is certainly taking its toll...

so ready for my holiday!

i haven't been on holiday since the new year, and my longest holiday in the last 6 years was about 10 days long. do i need a long break? you bet i do. and in case i wasn't already convinced, my body's really letting me know it needs it. i've had trouble getting up these last two weeks (not normal after an average of 8hrs of rest and not a lot of work), i feel tired all the time, my right arm is killing me for no good reason (i haven't done anything out of the ordinary that required my right arm more than the left) and the tension is building up in my stomach, which is rock hard from it.

all that stands between me and my holiday is now one night, 3 hours of lessons, and a trip to the airport (which i really don't consider being part of the holiday, as that's the part i really, really hate). hopefully, in a little over 24hrs i'll be in a swimming pool in south-western France, for my first real time off in months.

a quote from John McClane

in the latest opus of Die Hard, when the needing-to-be-saved hacker asks McClane what his plan is, McClane replies: "I'm going to kill the bad guy and save my daughter." this quite obviously doesn't actually answer the question. and when i heard it, it really reminded me of someone i know...

Et si c'était vrai...

dans ce roman à propos d'un homme qui tombe amoureux d'un presque fantôme (la femme est un fantôme mais elle n'est pas encore techniquement morte), le héro dit ceci: "Personne n'est propriétaire du bonheur, on a parfois la chance d'avoir un bail, et d'en être locataire. Il faut être très régulier sur le paiement de ses loyers, on se fait expropier très vite."

rainbows

the weather was extremely weird, yesterday. on the one hand, there was really heavy rain, but on the other, there was also sunshine. at the same time. which resulted in the most fabulous rainbow i've ever seen. it was crystal clear all the way from one end to the other. pretty amazing. above it was another rainbow. it wasn't anywhere as clear, but it was a beautiful view.

Ozawa!

no, this is not the name of the latest summer single. it's the name of the best conductor alive today. ok, maybe i'm biased because i'd heard so much about him, but really, this guy is amazing.

Seiji Ozawa is 72 years old but acts more like a kid. i was at a classical concert last night, and he conducted the last piece of music. and what a show! it was surreal. he was bouncing around (well, not actually around, as he was always in front of his musicians) with a vitality few people have. he was good. but even before that, i felt like a groupie when he came on the stage. as as imagine people (well, ok, mostly women) felt when they saw the Beatles back in the 60's. i went to that concert only because i knew he'd be conducting (that, and it was very cheap). and god am i glad i went!

where's the summer?

July has started and yet, the weather keeps changing as if powered by a yo-yo. the most summery weather we've had so far was April, with some good weather in May too, but since then, it's been hot a week and cold the next. one week i'm wearing next to nothing, the next it's back to winter clothes...

my own private anniversary

surprise!

i'm not a big fan of surprises, but last night's was good.

i'd invited some friends to a potluck dinner. i'd just buzzed in V., one of my friends, and was waiting for him to arrive and to my surprise, he was not alone. he had my best friend, who as far as i knew was still in Africa, in tow! V. said he hoped i didn't mind he'd brought an extra guest. quite the opposite! it was really cool. well done guys for keeping it secret...