I promised you some daily life japanese… Ok, here it goes.
Imagine you arrive to your new apartment, and you start moving around checking everything. You go to the kitchen and you find this:
Then, you take a look to the washing machine…
… you find this in the door of the bathroom …
… and this next to the bath.
And last, but not least, this is the controller of the WC!!!
I am on my way to study the different user guides I found under the TV. That is something I could ask to be removed. I have 12 channels, and all of them are in perfect Japanese. =) I hope the Olympics can be watched using the original infography. 🙂
I am in Tokyo!! 🙂 I only had time to arrive to my apartment, unpack everything, buying some stuff for the apartment and going to have dinner in my same street, and now back “home” to write a few lines and early to bed to profit tomorrow’s day. 🙂
* The trip went pretty well. I flew through Frankfurt so I could practice some German in the first flight. The flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo has been really long. Fortunately, I could sleep a little bit, not as much as I would have desired, as I did not have the chance to take an aisle seat, so I was pressed between the window and my seat neighbour. But three films, the dinner and the breakfast entertained sufficiently.
* I wrote in a company blog some time ago, that I think border control as we understand it today should have future. We need a visa (which you apply with a lot of papers, later on, in the plane, you need to fill in a couple of forms justifying why you are going to Japan, and so on, then you go and explain what you have written to an immigration officer, and later on to a customs officer. At the end, almost 30 minutes of queuing.
* In total, it took me about 4 hours since the aircraft landed until I got to my apartment. It’s true it’s quite far from the city, and that I took a bus instead of trains, but it is still a lot. Oh, sorry, it was not a bus, it was a limousine. 🙂
* What’s your impression about Tokyo? Two things come to my mind: first, the humidity. It’s really tough to be outside (or inside with open windows). The image I have seen from the bus, and after a short walk in my neighbourhood, it is a bit chaotic. Old and new, small and big, colourful and grey houses together, small streets that look like the entrance to a house, lots of cable everywhere, streets and railways cross at different heights, etc.
* I like globalization. I like being able to find olive oil in the closest supermarket to my place. I just did not like the price. (1000 yen = 6 euros)
* Language is a real problem. I still don’t know how I managed to know the time the supermarket closes (23.00), because no one spoke English there. The same happened with the taxi driver, or in the restaurant. The worst thing is that I say some times to them “tack” or “hej”… Hehe.
* By the way… Tomorrow, I will show you some Japanese in the daily life…
* Ohhh! And Carlos Sastre just won Tour de France!! Perfect timing. 🙂
Today, I’ll write in Spanish. Sorry for my non-spanish-speaking friends.
Ya estamos en verano. Una diferencia increÃble: nublado, lloviendo y fresco. Pero parece que esto no es novedad. Siempre hace malo el dÃa de Midsommar… Que es precisamente de lo que quiero hacer un par de comentarios, porque me parece bastante curioso.
Como en muchÃsimos otros paÃses, el solsticio de verano es un dÃa de fiesta en Suecia. De hecho, hasta hace un par de años, cualquier sueco te hubiera dicho que es el dÃa de la fiesta nacional, y todavÃa hoy sigue teniendo más importancia incluso que la Navidad.
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Que viene a ser:
Las pequeñas ranas, las pequeñas ranas, son divertidas de ver.
Las pequeñas ranas, las pequeñas ranas, son divertidas de ver.
Ninguna oreja, ninguna oreja, ninguna cola tienen ellas.
Ninguna oreja, ninguna oreja, ninguna cola tienen ellas.Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
La parte final no es más que el sonido de la rana, y viene acompañado de saltitos de rana alrededor del MidsommarstÃ¥ng. Y esto lo hace todo el mundo… Asombroso. Un par de vÃdeos de Youtube. El primero en un Midsommar multitudinaria, y el segundo, alguien lo grabó con mi cámara hace un par de dÃas… pero afortunadamente está muy oscuro. 🙂
Creo que va a haber que incorporar algunas de estas cosas a nuestras hogueras de la noche de San Juan, que al fin y al cabo tienen el mismo origen. Aunque seguro que no pasa como ayer…
Yesterday was the Swedish National Day, which is a brand new festivity in Sweden. It’s the second year that they celebrate it, and therefore there is no tradition in it. Before, being the national day, it was the national flag day, and therefore everything is blue and yellow. It’s quite funny to have such colours in the flag for these kind of events.
Does anything specially attract your attention in this picture? Probably, the similarity of the different flags, belonging to Finland, Denmark, Estonia (this is different), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Europe (also different) and Ã…land. I have been asking myself the reason of this, and even asked some locals whitout any success. At the beginning I thought all of them would be based in the Swedish Flag, as all Scandinavia was ruled once under Sweden, but I was wrong.
It seems that all flags are inspired in the Dannebrog, the danish flag, which is considered the oldest flag in the world, with records back to the 14th Century.
Interesting, isn’t it? =)