Business trip to Tokyo

One more week of work has passed. This one was relatively short though, since I was free at Monday and had work in Tokyo at Friday. My boss suggested me to go to Tokyo at Thursday night, an offer that I gladly accepted. The work we did was to check that all the things needed for the exhibition had arrived properly. It was quite fun and I felt quite at home in the warehouse where we stored the goods. It made me think of Daloc, the good old door factory back in Toreboda. Speaking of Daloc, it might be that I try to find a job there for the coming spring. I had plans, and even an offer, for a job as an aupair here in Tokyo, but the family suddenly changed their mind and now here I am, without anything to do next year. Any suggestions? In despair and lack of better things to keep myself occupied with, I've applied for some courses at university in Gothenburg, starting this January. I chose English, History and French (in that order), even though I'm not too keen on any of them. I was planning on choosing German or Danish (the former because I actually have some German friends and the latter to mock fate), but both of them were only available if in the autumn semester. Fate won. Well, I might find something better, an aupair job somewhere else, Daloc or maybe another internship. Enough about the future. The last week has been like the previous ones at the company. It's quite fun to work, as long as I have something to do. And this week I have, to my own and my colleagues astonishment, started making my lunchbox every morning. Instead of eating cold rice balls (it's better than it might sound like) every day I've been making omelet, rice and fried vegetables every morning. Some unknown guys at work have been giving me compliments for my work and the word "jouzu" (=skilled) is now used about me in another context than that of when I say “excuse me” in Japanese and everybody is thrilled about my language skills. It's interesting to work in a Japanese company, really. I'm not one of the common salary men and therefore I can see the office from a different point of view. I'm not expected to work overtime, understand everything directly, lift heavy stuff or whatever. And besides, the fact that I'm an internshipper and not a full time employee is not the only factor that makes my office life different from the others’. To begin with, I'm a girl, which gives me a totally different position at work. But still, I'm a bit louder than the average Japanese girl and the office guys are confused when I come and ask them stuff in Japanese without seeming too shy or scared. I'm also a foreigner, which might be the biggest difference. I'm not expected to speak Japanese, not at all. I'm not expected to know anything about Japanese culture, TV or even being able to eat with chop sticks. So, sometimes I'm seen as some sort of super human, that can do all of that, and speak English and French as well - wow! Well, it's weird at work. But nice. At lunch I'm eating with the girls. They are curious about Sweden, and ask a lot. Sometimes it can be a little boring though, when they only talk about wedding dresses or cute actors for hours in a row. Japanese girls' worlds can be a little unrealistic sometimes (not all of them are like that though). The other day when I said that my favorite Japanese actor is Oguri Shun the most girly girl at the office said "But! I'm sorry to say, but he has a girlfriend, a model, did you know that?". I was a little confused and didn't really know what to answer but said "Well, uhm, ok how does that matter? I have a boyfriend for that matter... but..." and she answered "Oh! Well, then it's OK!". It would be depressing if I actually was aiming at getting some rich Japanese star that might be the most retarded guy in the world to be my boyfriend... Well, she has quite many favorite actors, so maybe she has a chance with some of them. Anyhow. I returned to Tokyo yesterday, and as usual it feels like coming home instead of going away. When people ask me what's going to happen in Tokyo this weekend, what fun stuff I'm going to do, I usually explain that I'm going to take it easy and rest. Most Nagoyans don't go to Tokyo to calm down, but to go mad about shopping or clubbing. Today Tomoya and I have been sitting at various cafes, he studying English and I Japanese or knitting. I had the best chai latte in a long time at a nice cafe in Kouenji and ate a vanilla muffin in Mitaka. I was stupid enough to forget my knitting bag in the cafe in Mitaka though. But, since we are in Japan, it was still there 5 hours later when I came to pick it up. This night we watched the film version of the book I wrote about in the previous blog article, Ensemble c'est tout. It was OK, but since I finished the book some days ago and remember it clearly, I was annoyed with the things that were changed or omitted. Tomorrow we are going to study some more and maybe do some window shopping. The Japanese autumn fashion is making me crazy.
(Bonus information: Tomoya is studying while listening to music. He shuffled his iPod and got confused and lost all concentration when Coffinshakers' Pale man in black started playing...)

OGURI SHUN!

(Bonus information: Tomoya is studying while listening to music. He shuffled his iPod and got confused and lost all concentration when Coffinshakers' Pale man in black that I put in the play list ages ago started...)