Norway and What I miss from Japan and like about Singapore

I would like to start this text in the most honest way I can: I know I haven't written in a while. It was pointed out by so  many of you caring and devastated people out there saying things like 'please give me something unrelated to the horror in our neighbor country to read about asap' and 'just put another of your texts up and make me laugh with you for a second, 'cause I cannot read another line about the massacre'. I just got numb when I heard about Norway. Nothing seemed to matter, but to get hold of the people I knew there and make sure they were safe; being away from Sweden made me feel like this was happening 'at home'. My family and I were fortunate to have no one we knew get directly affected by the awful events, but our thoughts will be with those who were for a very long time. I feel very silly writing the following, but I will still post it. As much as the attack in Norway affected my stay in Singapore on a deep level staying in my mind for ever, I will also have recollection about the following.

Our dear friends Tomoko, Yumio and Aiko are of course the ones I miss most moving being away from Japan;. However, I've decided it's not 'good bye', but rather 'c u l8r' which is the tune, so even though I just recently got a bit misty and did actually shed maybe a tear or two, this blog will be about the things I miss the most.
Japanese metro awareness and sushi in Tsukiji is probably what I miss most about Tokyo. In Singapore, not too many understand the concept of standing still on one side and walk on the other to make it more convenient in an escalator. In Tokyo it’s almost frowned upon if you get it wrong. In addition, the actual metro trains are v small here and extremely packed; coming from Tokyo, with probably the best developed metro (and Oedo lines and JR..) in the world, would probably make anyone spoiled. I just really miss it. 

Something which is quite funny though is that on the metro here, people much have snapped up a few things from Japan. It for an example allowed sleeping in whatever position, at any time of the day.

Sleeping Singaporean

I’ve also take a vow of celibacy regarding sushi: I shall not have full desire to another country’s sushi as long as I shall live. Quite ridiculous, but once you’ve tasted Japanese sushi there’s just no way going back. I’m still in mourning over having to leave this important part of the previous diet, so it’s not out of the question to try it here, but I just can’t bear it right now. It’s too painful. However, I have firmly decided to replace the need for sushi with abusing fruit and vegetables on a highly strong, daily basis. I’ve also decided to buy at least one thing we haven’t tried every time I go for groceries. I mean, who knew you could eat aloe vera as a vegetable?    

Aloe vera

The fact that almost all newspapers in Singapore are in English is just fantastic! I’ve so missed being able to follow the news and knowing what headlines say, since EVERYTHING is written in Japanese in Japan. Here, we even get a newspaper every morning on our door step! I’ve never been so fascinated by what all the Tans, Pohs or Pongs are doing every day. It’s with less enthusiasm I read daily about the craziness in Japan; below is an article about a Japanese politician who basically thinks Japan brought on the March 11^th earthquake and tsunami, due to its people’s selfishness over the years. I hope he gets a chance to explain his point of view to the family members who lost children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters and grandparents. Or maybe he should help cleaning up the nuclear power plant?   

Singaporean news in English

Another thing which is great about the communication here, is that they understand us in 90% of the cases and we understand their ‘Singlish’ in at least 40%. In addition, once they hear us, the people who can, become clearer (for the sake of the ‘slow’ westerners) and leave out the ‘la’, ‘mae’ and most of the Chinese words. They use those to bind the sentences together and hence they mean almost f*** all. That makes a huge difference, even though on the phone we often have to ask them to repeat slower, repeat what we think they are saying in our own word out loud and then wait for them to confirm. That part is also quite important to know, since confirmation here is simply ‘can’. This is not a can of something like soda or so, it’s simply an abbreviation of ‘I can’. And they pronounce it [ken]. So if you ask someone ‘Can you tell me the name of this bar?’ and they answer ‘Can [Ken]’, the name of the place is not Barbie’s boyfriend. You just have to ask ‘OK, what is it?’, to get your answer. Just to get it straight. 

I do miss the really cute, Japanese tourist items you can buy everywhere in Japan. Here there are a lot of stores which have typical Japanese things, but of course not at all as much. I was also quite worried that stores would not be as accessible as they are in Tokyo; it’s just nice to know you have a 24-hour noodles shacks around the corner, which often is just as busy at 04.00 on a Tuesday morning as at 19.00 on Saturday night, and that you can buy a liter of milk or aspirins basically around the clock even on Sundays. However, Singapore is not far behind. Most malls are open until 22.00 every day of the week, but many of the clubs close already at 03.00 = no all night-karaoke for us so far! Many of the convenience stores also close around 22.00, besides of course 7-11, but I miss Tokyo in that sense.    

Japanese inspired umbrellas

What I seriously do not miss is the extremely bad isolation in Japanese houses; Jonas once described it as a subtropical climate close to the heaters (situated in the ceiling btw, since everyone knows that’s ever so practical with hot air rising and all), so that you were hotter than hell on the top part of your head and your toes were blue in the winter time. Since you did need the hot AC for at least five months, vs. the cold AC for only two, it really didn’t make sense. In our current apartment it’s approximately the same temperature and humidity in the bedrooms as in an average Swedish green house. Therefore our plants grow about 5 cm a week and the buds I took from them yesterday now have 1 cm long roots. I’ve also let the seeds of yellow- and red cocktail tomatoes + sweet Indian cucumber dry on the window sill, and will try and plant them during next week.  

Money plants growing in our bedroom