Open Doors - Sweden

First of all: sorry for taking such a long break from blogging. I do have a number of topics on hold - especially after travelling in Morocco, the Gambia and Senegal, but I kept putting it off. However, no more procrastination. More topics to follow soon.

Last year, an American friend of mine stayed with me in Copenhagen for a few days after having spent two weeks travelling in Sweden. He thought almost everything was the same in Denmark and Sweden. I do feel a strong bond with the other Scandinavian countries. I grew up feeling much more of a Scandinavian than a European, although logically one does not rule out the other. It only takes 30 minutes to get from my home to Malmö, which happens to be in Sweden but which is also the closest city to here and I go there quite often. I like being there. I like spending time with my friends and family elsewhere in Sweden, as well. My answer to a very hypothetical question some years ago, if I thought I might be able to live anywhere else than Denmark, was Stockholm. It came out of my mouth very spontaneously. But I don’t agree that 'everything' is the same as here, which is what I told my American friend. This brought about the inevitable question, 'So, what differences can you think of?' 

Put on the spot, right then and there, only one thing popped up in my mind. Oddly enough, the first thing I could think of was that most front doors in Sweden open outwardly, whereas they open inwardly in Denmark. Admittedly, a strange detail to think of first! I used to teach paramedics and firefighters and know that both countries have their opposite standards due to fire safety: the Swedes want to open their doors outwardly so presumably it’s easier to escape quickly, and the Danes want theirs to open inwardly because presumably it’s easier for rescuers to break open (=’kick in’) a door that is hinged that way. Speculation. But the fact is, even though I know very well it’s like this, I often find myself in auto-mode and forgetting about it, as I am standing outside a friend’s front door in Sweden. Sometimes I just stand that tiny bit too close to the door, so that when it’s opened – out towards me – I have to make a quick move backwards in order not to get the door slammed in my face. A few narrow escapes, but no casualties or broken wine bottles so far.

As I desperately scanned my brains for something even remotely intelligent to tell my American friend, I thought perhaps he was right in a way. There are far more similarities than differences when it comes to history, culture, national character, customs, humour, equal opportunities, social order, politics, etc. But then there are the huge differences, in no particular order: The Swedes have stunning nature and wildlife, our largest mammal is the badger. A lot of loan words from other languages are translated into Swedish, whereas the Danes tend to integrate them unchanged. E.g. technical terms such as computer, printer and firewall are unchanged in Danish, whereas they are dator, skrivare and brandvägg in Swedish (and I like that!) The Swedes excel and we suck at winter sports (they have mountains, ice and snow, we have molehills and slush). I don’t know what those hats are for at the crayfish dinners, I don’t particularly enjoy Kalles kaviar and I’ll never learn to eat 'surströmming' or understand the fascination for snuff.

Surströmming, fermented Baltic herring. If you have ever smelled this stuff, you'll understand why this picture was taken outdoors!

But maybe the former president of Iceland, Vigdís Finbogadóttir still hit the nail on the head, as she stated that whenever she had been to a meeting in Russia and got back to Helsinki, or had been on holiday in southern Europe and had a stopover in Copenhagen, she felt she was already home.

I love Japan, long to go back, but I also think this series of TV commercials was one of the better ones from SAS.

Handling handles ...

These days I am constantly reminded about precautions in connection with H1N1 and other vira: 'Wash your hands frequently', 'Use your arm, not your hand, when you sneeze', 'Stay at home if you get ill' and 'Use a paper towel when you touch a door handle'.

I always do the first three things on that list. But how is the fourth one possible? To get from the teachers' room to one of my classes I need to open 6 doors. I wonder how many paper towels I'd need for just one day at work? I know it makes sense to be careful, but still....
However, when I got to the central train station I had second thoughts about touching the particular door handle in the picture below - and it wasn't H1N1 I was thinking about!

Even my teddy bear now has a Facebook profile

I know that headline won’t make much sense to those of you who knew I didn’t even have a Facebook profile until about six months ago. I kept thinking it would be another time robber. Just another place to keep updated online. But I finally gave it a try and ended up finding out it was actually a good way of keeping in touch with people, especially friends living abroad and those I don’t get the chance to see very often. An added bonus has been that I also got in touch with people I used to know a very long time ago. However, this post is not about me, but about teddy bears.
So, where does the teddy bear fit into this picture? To those of you who may be afraid I have now, finally, lost my marbles, I can assure you I am of perfectly sound mind! It is just an experiment provoked by the fact that I found out many Facebook groups with negative, sometimes even very hateful contents were allowed, whereas Facebook admins regularly deleted 'teddy bear accounts.' I decided to check it out and discovered there is a whole subculture of teddy bear enthusiasts who have a profile for their cuddly toy. Everything I read in those profiles was just a lot of fun and perfectly harmless. But the Facebook policy is that all accounts must have a real person (above the age of 13) behind them. I wonder just who they assume are behind these teddy bear accounts, if not real people? Surely not the teddy bears, themselves?! On a more serious note, I do understand there needs to be rules, but I see no harm in teddy bear fans.

So, I decided to join the disobedience and open an account for my teddy bear, Sofus, who kindly agreed to take part in this experiment. I took a couple of snapshots of Sofus, wrote whom he wanted to get in touch with (‘Looking for contact with other bears around the world. Bear-friendly people, raccoons, koalas and pandas also welcome’) and filled in the questionnaire. You can find out about Sofus’ interests and his taste in music, films and books in the screenshot below.
Next step: how does one find friends? I assumed one probably makes new friends in cyberspace almost like in real life: find out where everyone else is and go meet them. Consequently, Sofus joined a few Facebook groups, including the Teddy Bear Network, Save the Polar Bear & People for the Ethical Treatment of Stuffed Animals. Immediately, the friend requests came pouring in, mostly from profiles of other cuddly toys. These messages were hilarious. How wonderful to discover there are so many other people out there with a sense of humour at least as ridiculous as mine. In less than one month Sofus had about 350 new friends. I can recommend clicking on the picture below to see the details. And these are just a handful of Sofus' friends.

The number has gone down and up ever since then, depending on how many profiles are deleted. It seems there is a drastic cut about once a month. Until now, Sofus has been out there for close to four months without being tracked down by Facebook admins. But I think it’ll only be a matter of time….

Sofus success did backfire, somehow, as there were a zillion invitations for various games people wanted ‘us’ to join, but which I would have no time for, or (to be honest) much interest in. But everyone received a reply apologizing for Sofus not being able to take part, but his family didn’t allow him much internet time, and being such a big bear, his huge paws made typing extremely slow and difficult!

But I was amazed at other people’s enthusiasm and time spent on their bear profiles. So I’ll support teddy bear’s rights to be on facebook, any time.
Above: Oatmeal Bear, who is quite a smart dresser and seems to have a lot of outfits!

Sofus’ Facebook profile: (check it out while you still can ....!)

Reporting - Authenticity or Manipulation?

Some years ago a news team from German television visited the technical college I taught at back then. The background was that a law had been passed in Denmark which gave young people under 25 the ‘choice’ of either losing half their social welfare benefit or enrolling in a school or college, if they wanted to keep their full pay after 2 years of unemployment. It was definitely twisting the arms of these young people, and the strong opposition to being force fed with education, which some of these young people had, led to very bad results at some schools. At my college some of these students had had fine results. I think mostly because we did not simply enrol them in our usual classes but had created new projects especially for this group, of which many suffered from distinct school fatigue and had had a lot of previous failures in the school system, and we also took the time to ask them what they needed and what they wanted to learn.

I happened to be teaching one of the classes in question that day and had no problem being followed around by a news team making an item for the ‘Tagesthemen’ news programme in Germany that same evening. I knew they were considering passing a similar law in Germany, and although I did not know the exact agenda of this news item, I just assumed it was part of a pro and con discussion. They needed some footage in a classroom, in the workshop, and an interview with me and a couple of students. After a while it seemed as if even the students forgot about the crew being present in class. But that changed. The cameraman came over to me, “This doesn’t really look much like a classroom, does it?” I didn’t quite understand. I thought it did. And although I was not happy about rearranging the tables so it looked more like their idea of what a ‘typical classroom’ looked like, the students seemed eager to please the crew and had already started placing the desks in a different way (maybe the layout of a classroom from, say, at least 25 years ago). I was beginning to think the whole thing was a bad idea. But they were smart - they just asked for one thing at a time. And with one of my bosses hanging around nearby and encouraging me to do what they said, it was also a little hard to put down my foot and say "no way!" With hindsight it’s easy to see I should have stopped them. I don’t like being manipulated.

After they had filmed in the classroom it was time for the interview. Although the reporter did not give me the exact questions beforehand, he did let me know what kind of things they would like to know and what topics he would like to talk to me about. That was really good, because while they were setting up the equipment it gave me time to think a bit about it and be better prepared for what I was going to say. The reporter started his introduction and then asked me the first question, and I replied. Dead silence. “Hmmm, this won’t work” he said. I began trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and he said. “Your German is much too good! Couldn’t you speak with a heavy Danish accent or something?” In my most polite and patient voice I had to say I could not. The truth is that I would not, and I was starting to get extremely annoyed with their staging. Asking a language teacher to speak a language she knew quite well in an awkward and clumsy way was challenging my professionalism, and I was too proud to do it, really. The result was that he asked me to answer in Danish. “It’ll sound more authentic”, he said. They would later have it translated and partly voiced over, he said. It felt strange to answer in Danish and watch him nod as if to show he was listening, even though he didn’t understand a single word of what I said.

Afterwards he wanted to talk to some of the students. I thought it would be best if the rest of us waited in the canteen, so the students could say whatever they wanted without any pressure on them because their teacher, or anyone else, listened. We waited there for two entire lessons, because he ended up talking to every single student. I found out later he was trying very hard to find a student who was negative about having to attend school. But nobody wanted to say anything bad about it, which seemed to disappoint the reporter somewhat! In the clips they ended up using there were just young people who said they were happy getting a new chance in the educational system.

I doubt any of those students had ever watched the late night news ‘Tagesthemen’ on ARD, German national television channel 1, but I bet they all did that evening, and had their VCRs on. I wasn’t at home that evening but a student gave me a copy of it. ‘Zwangsarbeit’ (forced labour) the headline said and the news reader had a raised finger. The technical college I worked for then was within the field of transportation and logistics, so why there was bucket and mop on screen, I am not sure. And perhaps they had been slightly carried away with symbols: The bucket and rag were in the Danish national colours and apparently the Germans needed to see the Little Mermaid on screen, too, in order to know it was a story about Denmark! But the news item itself seemed fair enough to the views we had expressed. That two-minute clip on the news was the only thing that came out of that day at school. We hadn’t had much time for any of our regular classes.

A ‘typical’ classroom situation, according to the German news team. The crew had asked us to re-arrange the desks, so they were all lined up in rows. They could not get the whole classroom into the field of vision, so they removed some of the desks and pushed the teacher’s desk forward so you can see it. The curtains are drawn to avoid backlighting and the doors of the cupboard are carefully arranged so the situation will look ‘random’. They wanted me in the frame as well, so I am there in the background, more or less stuck between a desk and two of the students, and talking to one of them. In ‘real life’, I would never stand like that. I am very aware of body language and I would never ‘tower’ over a student, looking down at him. And, by the way, that was the only clip they used with me. They used some short clips from interviews with one of my colleagues and one of my bosses, instead.

What the two girls in the front row are looking at, or whom they are talking to, remains unknown to me, as there was nobody behind the teacher’s desk!

An Earthshaking Experience

Tuesday morning I woke up as my bed was shaking. No, not just my bed: the whole building was moving and the window panes were making a strange, rattling sound. When I looked at my clock radio I noticed it was ‘dancing’ around on my bedside table. What the ….?! Then, it was quiet for a few seconds before the vibrations started again.

I figured lots of things were possible. Perhaps a gas explosion? Or maybe a truck ran into our building? No, that would have had to be eight or ten trucks to last that long, and there really aren’t that many of them around here, anyway. I ran through a few possibilities and discarded all of them, including the theory that it must be my upstairs neighbour who kept a medium size pet elephant which was in the process of learning how to dance flamenco. The following day I heard that the 5-year-old daughter of one of my friends thought it was Santa Claus flying by their house! The one thing that never crossed my mind was that it might have been an earthquake. Even the dancing elephant seemed more realistic than an earthquake in my part of the world. But it was, in fact, an earthquake.

I haven't seen any amateur film clips of the incident, which may not be all that surprising, considering the fact that it happened at 06:20 a.m., but here's a news clip from DR 1/Update mentioning the quake. The Swedish radio host in the clip exclaims in his live radio broadcast that it felt like an earthquake, but then adds with a laugh that it couldn't possible have been.

Watch the news clip at DR Update.

It’s not the first earthquake have experienced, but certainly the first one I experienced at home. The epicentre was near Ystad in Sweden, about 65 km from Copenhagen. The quake reached 4.7 on the Richter scale. For people who live in areas of the world in which they have serious earthquakes, 4.7 won’t really seem like anything at all. But for those of us who are used to the ground staying where it is, it was a lot! In comparison, the tremors caused by the collapsing twin towers in NYC were 2.1 on the Richter scale. We are surrounded by water and I have occasionally been on sailing boats which were tossed around at the mercy of mother nature. That’s what we can expect. But I would appreciate if the ground under me stays where it is, thanks.

They are inspecting the tunnel & bridge across the Sound between Denmark and Sweden for structural damages. I did not hear about any serious damages or injuries. Just minor cuts and bruises when falling pictures hit people in bed, etc. There was one casualty, though: a turtle called Mimi was killed by a falling cupboard. R.I.P.

Links:
Earth Times
Copenhagen Post

This and That …. [Japan]

One of the main reasons why I like travelling so much is of course to experience something different. Sometimes these differences result in major culture clashes, something I have always learnt something from. However, at other times these differences are just small, everyday stuff that I stumble across. Apart from the incidents I have already written about, I’ll mention a few other things which caught my eye and made me start thinking ...

One of the things which really puzzled me was the way in which the seats in certain waiting rooms were arranged. I saw a few of these during my trip. The picture above is from the station at Kanazawa. Single seats with quite a distance between them, all facing the same way. They look as if they are meant for people suffering from social phobia. Maybe for the hikikomori* if they ever do venture out into the surrounding world! ;o) If someone out there can explain this phenomenon to me, I’d be grateful.

The next picture shows a bench by the river in Hiroshima. Now, I doubt the partitions are there to separate the people sitting on the bench. Instead, I imagine they are there to prevent people from lying down. No loitering or sleeping out.

Are these benches or tables? I think perhaps a little of each. These ‘tables’ were at the park surrounding the Kinkakuji at Kyoto.

I really enjoyed staying at the ryokans (traditional Japanese inns) where your bed was a futon rolled out on the floor, covered by tatami mats. At the ryokans I stayed at, my room always had a sliding door leading out into a small garden or green courtyard, even in the middle of a big city. The inns were rather small, and the hosts always gave me their undivided attention and very individual and personal service. The first picture above shows my modest room at a ryokan, an 8 tatami mat sized room (approx. 160 sq.ft.). During the day, the futon was rolled up and put away. The second picture is from a private house in which I stayed as a guest. ‘My’ bedroom doubled as a dining room during the day. My hosts got up earlier than me and have already put away their futons for the day in the room next to mine. I like the idea of flexible rooms. But I don’t think many modern Japanese live like this anymore. Perhaps they have one traditional Japanese room in their home, only.

I see heart starters more and more places, but not as many in Denmark as I spotted in Japan. I used to teach paramedics, so maybe I am more aware of such equipment and easily spot it when it’s there. I don’t know. At places frequented by many people, you usually found them in Japan, such as here, at a temple in Kyoto, when it’s right next to a Fuji film vending machine and a machine on which you can make a souvenir coin with your own name on it.

In my country, if someone picks up a magazine in a shop and starts to leaf through it, I guess nine out of ten times, the shop assistant will tell you in no uncertain terms to either buy the magazine or put it down! But in Japan I saw lots of people, mainly younger men, not only leafing through the cartoon magazines, but taking their time and reading it carefully. It seemed to be OK. In one shop, when I wanted to buy some detergent I addressed a young man, who was standing right next to me reading a magazine, as I needed a little help deciphering the writing on the product I was holding. As I had begun talking to him, I suddenly realized he was actually reading a strip cartoon with strong pornographic contents, and I was trying to pretend not to ‘notice’. But he made no attempt to close the magazine or do anything else to indicate that what he was doing wasn’t OK in public, so I assumed even that might be perfectly acceptable (?) And he actually did help me find the right kind of detergent. Incidentally, he is not the man in my picture. That photo was taken in another shop.

I don’t want to seem too soft. My golden rule when I meet other cultures, other traditions and other rules is not to be judgemental. But sometimes the left side of my brains is powered down and the right (more emotional) side takes over completely. So pet shops full of puppies kept in ‘cages’ that resembled fish-tanks really broke my heart. I considered a Turtle-Diary-or-Free-Willy attempt, but I managed to control myself. Two years ago, in Turkey, we were having lunch opposite a pet shop, where they had a number of puppies in a cage out in the baking sun, with no shade. I actually walked over to the shop keeper and asked why the dogs didn’t have any water, ‘Oh, yes, water!’ he said and gave them a bowl of water which they fought over and finished in no time, so he had to fill it again. I think my life would be much simpler (and my blood pressure lower) if I could manage to just mind my own business. But it’s difficult for me not to interfere.

Other things seemed more similar to home. I saw a notice about dogs while I walked along the Philosopher’s Walk in Kyoto, and although I don’t understand what it says, I assume it must be the same general idea as the signs we have in our parks (right picture).

Sometimes when friends from abroad are visiting me, they comment on alcohol being displayed freely on the shelves in the super market. That would be the standard, at least when it comes to beer and wine. I suppose most of the time liquor is kept behind a counter. But in my local shop in Fukuoka I noticed that even some strong spirits were on display in child height.

I saw bottles of water outside many homes, such as this one in the Nagamachi Buke Yashiki District in Kanazawa, and I finally asked someone what they were for. My first guess had been that it was in connection with some sort of ritual. Like when you put out a bowl of rice for your ancestors. But no, no, that was not the case. I was told it helped keep cats away. But how?

We have a lot of bikes in Denmark. Personally, I have two: a 3-speed bike for city use with a basket attached to the handlebars and a 24-speed mountain bike for .... Well, I don’t really go on all those rides through the forest that I had planned to! There is now an official policy in Copenhagen to make it the best European city for bikes within a time frame of about ten years. In Copenhagen, we have separate bike lanes between the sidewalks and the road. I am simply just not used to bikes coming towards me on the sidewalk, which is what they do in Japan, so I often saw them rather late and only managed to step aside in the last moment. A few near misses but no injuries, fortunately.

Of course I have seen intersections like the one in this photo (taken in front of the main station in Kyoto), where pedestrians can cross in all directions at the same time, but I have mostly seen those in the States, and now in Japan. As I stood there, waiting for the light to turn green, I could not figure out what the advantage was of three-stage traffic lights. First stage: green light for motorists in one direction, second stage: green light for the motorists crossing the first direction, third stage: red light for all the motorists while it is green for all the pedestrians. True enough, if you are a pedestrian, you can get to the corner diagonally from where you are in one go, but won’t it mean that all the vehicles will have to wait even longer? And even the pedestrians, if they arrive when the light has just turned red. Embarrassingly, I’ll have to admit I am too stupid to understand why this is supposed to create a better traffic flow like they claim. Someone, please enlighten me.

Generally, we like to think the Danes are very advanced when it comes to green energy and protecting the environment. Although this is true, especially concerning wind power, I saw lots of things in Japan that we don’t have (all that much of) at home. Including street lights powered by solar cells. The sun would provide the light regardless if it was day or night. Great!

Another thing which was ‘great’ was the bamboo, of course. The bamboo in my family’s garden was maybe 6-8 feet tall. The grove I am standing in here has a sort of bamboo which gets … somewhat taller! I really like all the ways in which the bamboo sticks are used in traditional construction, such as for the gutter and drain of this house at the Shugakuin Imperial Villa. I always admire good craftsmanship.
Now that we seem to be playing ‘Where’s Wally’, here’s a picture of me with a cherry tree in Shinjuku Gyoen. Someone told me Europeans look so pink. I tried to prove that by blending in with the pink cherry blossoms.

I wonder if school uniforms were ever used in my country. I don’t think so. Japanese secondary school children all wore sailor suit style uniforms. I don’t think primary school children had uniforms, but I am not sure. I liked all the coloured caps kindergarten children wore.
As for the traditional clothes, my thoughts on all the beautiful traditional kimonos I saw would fill too many pages to bring up here. I also thought the traditional wedding clothes were exceptionally elegant. This couple was at Miyajima. At all the hotels and ryokans I stayed at, there was a yukata (thin cotton kimono) to sleep in. At the ryokans these were often worn outside your room, as well. I already knew I was supposed to tie them with the left side on top (the right side on top is reserved for the dead!), so I felt slightly enlightened and sophisticated (wink wink) at my ryokan in Tokyo, where I noticed the way other tourists wore them was not always like this. I heard the tradition behind the left side being on top, is from when people wore swords and daggers. As most people are right handed, these would be worn on the left side of your body. If you had to pull it quickly, there would be a risk of your hand or weapon being caught up in the hem of your clothes if the right side was on top. Just watch Richard Chamberlain in ‘Shogun’, or any samurai movie! ;o) Men and women wear clothes the same way. Actually, last year a Japanese friend asked me why on earth our clothes, e.g. shirts and jeans, were closed differently for men and women. I did not have a clue about the tradition behind this, but a friend who’s an anthropologist and folklorist eventually gave me an explanation, which had some similarity to the explanation about the kimonos: when men had to pull their weapon it would be safer to close their hides (or whatever they wore back then) with the left side on top, in order to avoid their hand getting tangled up in their clothes. If they wanted to signal they were unarmed, they would place the other side on top. As women were generally unarmed, that would be their typical way of dressing. I have no idea whether or not this is the real explanation, but it does make sense, somehow. All I can say is that I have jeans that are men’s/unisex and jeans which are for women, exclusively. And it’s a lot more difficult to zip those women’s jeans if I try to use my right hand!!!

If it rained, I would wear my rain jacket. I prefer to have my hands free, so I don’t use an umbrella very often. I didn’t see many other people wearing rain clothes there, though. I wonder if it is considered uncommon or un-cool, somehow. Instead, there seemed to be umbrellas everywhere. Literally: everywhere! I ended up buying two during my stay and just passed them on to someone else when I didn’t need them anymore. They were inexpensive, and you could buy them at every other corner, it seemed. Typically, it seemed people got caught in the rain and just bought another one and brought it home. I took this picture in the hall of a private home. They (a family of three) had more than twenty of them in their hall.

Something else I didn’t know from home: all the cords suspended over the streets. A rocky underground would make it difficult to dig them into the ground, I’m sure. Also, with frequent earth quakes and possible damages to these cords, it also makes good sense to have them in the air, so they can easily be repaired. So a street scene like this is part of the Japanese couleur locale for me.

I enjoyed the ability to find beauty and value in something, which not everyone can. We had a big garden, where I grew up, and my father had come across a some rocks while digging in the garden, and unlike most of our neighbours, who arranged for the rocks they found to be taken away, he kept a few of them on ‘display’ as he thought they were interesting. I saw that many places in Japan – and I am not talking about the big, symbolic rock gardens but just a few square feet of garden in front of a private home. I found that interesting. I wonder what age a rock like the red one in my picture has. I wouldn’t be surprised if dinosaurs had stepped on it.

Finally, why change the course of a path through a park just because there is a tree right in the middle of it?
*Link:
Hikikomori

Aesthetics [Japan]

There are at least as many different styles and trends in Japan as anywhere else I’ve been, of course. But more than anything I noticed two aesthetic tendencies that almost seemed to contradict each other. Tradition vs. manga. On the one hand an extremely simple, subtle, minimalistic style (which I really enjoyed) and on the other a very loud style both when it comes to the use of colour and form (which I am slightly more half-hearted about).

I really liked the simplicity and serenity of the traditional building style. A wooden structure, shoji doors, tatami mats and big, empty spaces. Simplicity in the most positive meaning of that word. It gave me such inner peace to enjoy the tranquillity of a temple or the park surrounding it. And this was of course one of my reasons to visit Japan: To enjoy some peace and quiet. To relax. Even though I travelled a lot around, I also managed to enjoy these peaceful moments. It was almost possible to physically feel you beta brain waves turning into alpha waves and your blood pressure reducing. (Click on any of the pictures in order to view full size).

The pictures above are, left to right, from the Manshu In Temple at Kyoto, where I am standing completely lost in my own thoughts, Kinkaku Ji also at Kyoto, and finally a part of the rock garden at Hokoji Hansobo. I felt that so many things in Japan were made with a great sense of detail, precision and a specific sense of aesthetics, exemplified in the pictures below. A plate in the pavement (sidewalk) with the names of two streets in Kyoto, and my lunch at Nikko. We only made a fast ‘pit stop’ for lunch, but even this ‘fast food’ was so beautifully arranged, as always.

One of the first words I learned in Japanese was koke (moss). It was everywhere. We tend to look upon it as a weed at home and do what we can to get rid of it. I returned home with a completely different view. It was so beautiful, especially at the rock gardens, when the sun would shine on it.

Many of the modern buildings could probably have been almost anywhere in the world, but I did see a tendency to use various small geometrical shapes repeated almost infinitely. The first picture below shows the Tokyo Forum, which was almost zeppelin shaped with thousands of squares and triangles in the design and structure. The second picture is from the square just outside the main station at Kyoto.

With the risk of simplifying too much, I’d say that modern Danish architecture is also based upon clean and strict geometrical shapes, but often much larger shapes without the many small details. World famous buildings created by Danish architects include the Sydney Opera House (Jørn Utzon) and the new Triumphal Arch in Paris (Von Spreckelsen). Like the Tokyo Forum, the IT University at Copenhagen, which I attended a few years back, also has an open atrium which spans 5 or 6 floors and lets in lots of light. But the architectural statement is completely different. And believe me, it would definitely be an advantage not to have any fear of heights, when you sat in one of the rooms projecting over the grand atrium hall. It felt like sitting in a box floating above an abyss!

I also noticed the use of repetition many other places, especially in some of the temples. One object may seem trivial and insignificant. It is a completely different expression when you have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of the same or similar objects together. Clockwise we have pictures from Sengen Jinja, Ryozen Kwan-Non in Kyoto, lamps in the Gion district in Kyoto and another picture from Ryozen Kwan-Non.

One of the things that left the most lasting memory with me was walking through the literally thousands of red torii by the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto. When you looked at one gate at a time, it was nothing special, but together they were extremely beautiful.

The koi carp was a symbol used for celebrating the boys’ festival. Many people had put up one or two by their houses. But by a river in central Kyushu we stopped to take a look at the hundreds and hundreds of koi carps. Again, a special moment because there were so many of them in one place.

I really, really liked Japanese food (please see my separate post about this) but I did not like Japanese sweets so much. I enjoyed the display of sweets, though. Everything was presented so beautifully and with such a feeling for detail. Even the way they wrapped the box for you was an art.

The last two pictures above represent the second trend I referred to earlier. Very colourful. Very detailed. Very eye catching. Many signs, shop windows, clothes, etc. were dominated by strong colours and cartoon illustrations. One day, I went into a pharmacy as I needed to buy a small bandage and it took me a while to find what I was looking for even though, once you spotted it, it was extremely obvious what it was, as there was a clear illustration on it. My mind, however, was probably still set in Denmark mode, and here such packages look extremely ‘clinical’. I don’t know what to associate with the colours and style of the Japanese pack. Maybe chewing gum?! But the Danish pack certainly looks dull!

Finally, it seemed as if almost everything was available in the pink/fallen angel colour scheme: elevator doors, river boats, markings on the pavement, cars, you name it!

Music playgrounds [Denmark]

I have come across a few music playgrounds during the last couple of years. It wouldn't be fair to say that they are a common phemomenon, but there are a few of them around. However, I have only seen them in Denmark, and I would be happy to hear if anyone has information about any similar playgrounds in other countries.

I recorded the following two clips at the Tivoli Gardens in mid October. The clips are very short, as they were shot with an ordinary digital camera (for stills) and not a digital movie camera, but hopefully they'll still give you an idea of the concept. It just wouldn't be enough with a photo. You need to hear the sound, too!

The instrument made of the plastic drainpipes is known as a 'tæskofon'. The closest equivalent I can come up with in English would be a 'slappophone'.



I was at this particular music playground with a friend and her 3-year-old who simply loves being allowed to make a lot of noise. My friend thought the cacophony made by her son along with all the other 20 children there sounded like a composition by Palle Mikkelborg. (No offence, Mr. Mikkelborg!)

Music playground at Frederikshavn

Getting Around [Japan]

I did not go by either parachute or submarine, but otherwise I think I used lots of different means of transportation. My own two feet (a lot), bicycles, cars, busses, local trains, metro, trams, Shinkansen (a lot), ferries, planes….

Cars
I am no car enthusiast. I don’t even own a car myself. I live right in the heart of Copenhagen where it’s faster to walk from one end of the city centre to the other than finding a place to park. But the Japanese have great cars. And they seemed to change them often. In Denmark you see (and hear!) old bangers coming down the road regularly. I didn’t see that in Japan. And my friends drive the coolest cars I have seen in a very, very long time. In the picture above is a Mazda MX-5 near Mount Aso in central Kyushu.
Seeing my friend retrieve her car from the underground deck was another first for me. I had not seen this system before (maybe I don't get around that much, after all?) It reminded me slightly of a system we had on the old car ferries in Denmark before we "paved" the straits and sounds with bridges. Then, cars drove onto a ramp and were hoisted up to another level by a hydraulic system, leaving room for more cars beneath. This parking lot outside an apartment block in Japan was quite clever. A brilliant system, and a beautiful vehicle!

A few differences from what I am used to: All taxis have automatic doors. The rear door on the left opens and closes automatically. So keep your extremities close to your body or you risk getting squeezed by the door. The other difference I noticed is much more important to me: you don’t have to wear seat belt in the back seat, so most people don’t. I reached out for the belt a few times both in private cars and taxis when there wasn’t even one, and I felt uneasy. I was lucky enough to be able to walk away from a dramatic car crash when I was 25. One and a half somersault with half a screw. They don’t even perform platform diving any more spectacular than that. I hurt my knee – that was all. Realizing that seat belts literally do mean the difference between life and death, I made a promise to myself then and there that I would always wear a seat belt when being in a car. This spring in Japan was the first time I broke that promise to myself. And yes, the fact that I felt "uneasy" about this is somewhat of an understatement. I really wish my Japanese friends would make sure to install those belts for their children, in the back seat! [Please read comments for correction!]

Shinkansen
As far as I understand, the word "shinkansen" means "new trunk line", but I never heard anyone use this term in English. Instead it was the "bullet train". Around 25,000 horsepower, in other words: d*** fast hoof-beats!

I have been in high speed trains before, e.g. the French TGV which is about 5 to 10 per cent faster than the Shinkansen, and yet travelling by train in Japan felt faster. Maybe because we were in densely populated areas along most of the route and the buildings were very close to the rails. I had a distinct feeling the train speed must be faster than a plane travels on the ground right before take off, and I reminded myself to look it up. I got away from that again, until today. The take off speed is 260 km/h for a Boeing 757, 290 km/h for an Airbus A340 and it was 360 km/h for a Concorde. The Shinkansen travels at around 300 km/h. It took a little while for me to get used to the speed with which the buildings and landscape came flying by. Or rather, the other way around! No wonder they have all those safety railings at the platforms. There was a strong turbulence and suction when these trains passed.

There seemed to be only one thing these trains did not have and that was room for luggage. In a carriage with room for around 60 people there would be space for 4-6 suitcases. A large number of the passengers in the Shinkansen were business men who only brought a small briefcase. Still, I knew there must be something I had overlooked. I later found out many people sent their luggage to their destination the day before they went, themselves. As I moved around so much all the time, I couldn’t do this, or my suitcase and I would have made two completely separate travels.
I like travelling by train. I can relax, read, listen to music or talk to my neighbours. Most Japanese people I talked to on the trains seemed to automatically assume I was American. When they heard where I was from, some of them behaved as if they had just caught a rare butterfly. And I found out what most of them associated with Denmark: (Hans Christian) Andersen or Danish pastry. I later found out that could be one and the same thing, as there was a chain of bakery shops called Andersen.