Lost In Japan

We’re in the middle of a huge O-Warai (大笑い i.e. “Big Laugh”, meaning comedy usually in stand-up/skit form) boom which has continued basically since sometime in 2007 when the likes of Kojima Oshio (Oppapi) and Harisenbon. It seems that what Japanese people like to do the most is to laugh; because there seems to be [...]

Many Swedes, like myself, have a special love-hate relationship with the likes of H&M and IKEA – publicly we might say that we despise them for being providers of cheap crappy goods and marching towards world expansion in an imperialistic manner. Privately, however, we all shop (or have shopped) furniture at IKEA, praising them for [...]

In answer to the poll “What foreign TV series do you want to view thoroughly this summer holiday?”, in itself not such a strange question, there were some in my opinion highly unexpected results – please see below:
1. Full House
2. Bewitched
3. Columbo
4. 24
5. ER
6. Dae Jang-geum (Korean)
7. X-Files
8. Winter Sonata (Korean)
9. Knight Rider
10.Beverly Hills 90210
11.Prison [...]

I received a piece of Japanese candy (“okashi” or “wagashi” in Japanese) today which had this wonderful English text on the package:

The spirit of OKASHI. It is what gives a peaceful and pleasant mind to the human race. All the time, man seeks romance in the OKASHI. We have been working hard and carefully, and [...]

…at least that must be the case, since I only scored 6 out of 10 correct in National Geographic’s Tokyo Quiz.
It started out easy, and my being full of conceit, thought to myself that this is will be a walk in the Ueno Park so to speak; but no… They really threw some difficult questions [...]