Still moving

Boom.

Boom boom boom, come check out my new room.

But there seems to be something missing....

Oh yeah, EVERYTHING.

And where does one go when everything is missing?

BOOM!

Ohyes.

In true IKEA fashion, it is not very centrally located. However, I needed stuff, and I couldn't be bothered looking more than one place. Also, I've been wanting to check out Japanese IKEA just for the lulz.

Turns out that except for a few regional differences, it is exactly identical to every other IKEA in the world.

Seriously. Even the meatballs.

Only difference is the currency.
And the amusing furigana. "Miitobooru"

This Japanese kid in the café line in front of me was literally jumping up and down singing "mi-to-bo-ru! mi-to-bo-ru!". He was very very excited about meatballs.

I went the same day as my moving, so I started with the food. And what lovely food it was.

Polarbrød. For reals.

After that I don't even need to show you pictures. You know what IKEA looks like.

The only thing was the tatami and the futons. They were new.

IKEA tatami room furniture. I don't think they sell the actual flooring though.

IKEA futon.

Plenteous stuff was bought. The really impressive thing is that I didn't even know that plenteous was a word until after I made it up. I surprise myself sometimes!

About thousand NOK of stuff. I was feeling splurgy.

But it was only after I checked out of the main store that I discovered the true treasure hidden away out here in IKEA Funabashi.

The food. Oh my god they have The FOOD!




KNEKKEBRØD!

SILD!

PØLSE!

MED BRØD!

It's way too early for this but when Christmas rolls around you can be damned sure I'll come back out here to buy

And oh my sweet mother of cheezhus

*heavy breathing*

Such familiar. Much home!

Kjöttbullar is the Swedish umeboshi.

Peace out.

"Exotic" foods

Having been a bit under the weather this week, I decided to tackle my homesickness by throwing money on it, splurging on some rare foods so that if nothing else at least my stomach would feel at home.

First, bread.

I cannot overemphasize the sheer unadulterated sucktitude of Japanese bread. It's like they've fundamentally misunderstood the concept. First off, there is no crust. Even if it looks crusty, that is a lie. It will be soft, squishy and awful. They'll serve MASSIVE thick slices, but the size is incredibly deceptive; the doughy white substance compresses to almost nothing at the slightest touch. Yet that is probably a public health requirement or something, because the small amount of solid matter that actually is there is made almost exclusively of butter. It tastes like nothing, contains nothing and will make you fat. BLERGH!

While I do like rice, my stomach grew up on BREAD goddamnit, DARK NUTRITIOUS FILLING HEALTHY DELICIOUS BREAD! With SALTY STUFF ON TOP.

And finally, finally,

Real, crusty, crumbly, rich, fragrant, delicious. Even though it did turn out to be kind of stale, my bread-starved digestive system was all appretiation. But wait, it gets better.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

I could hardly believe my eyes.

And my luck continued!

KOS!

Along with bread, cheese another thing Japan does with less than stellar expertise. Most of it is really weird - like an imitation cheese made by someone who only heard tales about the stuff from a drunk sailor*.

*who took out his foot and said "THAT. IT SMELLS LIKE THAT!"


But locating a familiar brand, I figured that heck, I can be French today. Let's cheese and wine this bread I found!


And since I still didn't feel like I'd blown my daily budget quite enough, I also got some smoked salmon.

Yuuuuuuuuum!

"So what is Norwegian culture?"
"Basically this picture."

Got home and dug my old and careworn yet still perfectly delicious brown cheese that I save for special occasions, and got ready to feast.

Viola*:

Violas never get enough attention.

Look at my face so happy!

Mmmmm fooood

Yes!

YUM!
But seriously, you have no idea how rare a simple meal like this is here.

Homesick-level: Reduced.

Happy-level: Increasing.

Feeling like such an obvious stranger wherever I go these days, it was really good to tangibly remind myself that there is a place where I do belong. Makes it easier to keep on not belonging. Beh-long. Be long. Blong. 

Go suck a cheese slicer!

GOODNIGHT!

Another field trip!

Friday was another National Holiday, so we went on another field trip. This time, to Itoshima, a small (and I mean -small-. I didn't see a single vending machine!) hamlet about an hour from Fukuoka.

Naaaaaatuuuuuureeeeee!

Objective? Cooking of Japanese food. In groups, we went to someone's house to cook their recipies. After the bus ride, we still had to climb a short way to get to said house, and hot damn you guys I had no idea how much I missed nature!

Nah-tuh-reh!

The house we went to was an awsome place. A large, quite old, traditional style Japanese house shared by seven people from all over Japan, living here to live closer to nature than what city life would alow (from what I understood. There wasn't a lot of English going around, and you should all know by know that I don't actually speak Japanese).

Even the washbasin in the toilet was pretty!

Sitting in a tatami room looking out into a beautiful garden. But hey, city life has convenience stores and strip clubs, so who needs this shit.
(Imma move here instead, I think. Tokyo won't miss me.)

We had a vegan in our group, so the food was accordingly non-meaty. Our dishes? Miso soup and onigiri (rice balls filled with filling). All the ingredients were locally sourced and AWSOME DELICIOUS! YEAH!

Edible nature!

This was our recipie:

Yes, I can read that. No, I didn't know all the words.

And the hiragana-savvy among you might already be pointing and laughing in my direction. Because what would be the filling for the onigiri if not my old enemy,

Uuuuuuumebooooooshiiiiiiiiii

This is how you make umeboshi onigiri:

You make an onigiri.

You add the umeboshi.

Like so:

And then HIDE THE UMEBOSHI SO THAT THE POOR UNSUSPECTING SOUL BITING IN TO THE RICE BALL WILL GET A MOUTHFULL OF THE STUFF BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO RUN!!!

Like so:

Look at the thing I made!
It's so cute! :D

We made lots of rice balls:

You can see the filling because we are
talentless louts.

Also, spoiler alert: Making miso soup is actually really, really simple.

You add all the things and then heat it up. No really, that's pretty much it. It's almost as simple as Fårikål.

There were two groups cooking in this house, the others made rice-stuffed tofu yum out in the back yard.

Got all the food out back there and ATE IT!

Yuh-yum.
Also, I don't think I've ever in my life had a meal this healthy. Nor ever will again. Greasy meat is almost as magnetic to me as my futon on a school morning.

Eventually, we walked back to the bus place along the idyllic country roads.

Tangerines were growing everywhere.

I had to try to immitate one.

All the groups presented their food, and then we went to the OCEAN!

And it was so BIG! Very un-fjord-like!

We, naturally, immediately threw our shoes off and ran into the waves like a bunch of five-year olds.

Obligatory beach show-off shots:

I couldn't quite get it up.

And of course we had to try to do a jumping shot. Didn't quite work though.

Went back after this, but didn't actually go home until around four. Because beer is good for you!

Also, this guy:

Anyways, did things had fun. See ya'guys later!