Euphoria!
As the Eurovision nerd I am, I must of course start with a YEEEES!!! Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest yesterday and I am so glad that I will finally get to experience ESC live next year! I'm just waiting for the tickets to be released! Although I was happy because she won, I also felt sad to not see the contest with my family last night which is a bit of a family tradition, especially when I for the first time in years actually liked Sweden's song (the Bosnian song was unfortunately a sleeping pill this year), but I had a good reason to be "Judas" as my brother called me. Yesterday I was in Uppsala at Amelas graduation party. However, this did not stop us from seeing the Swedish performance and stream the points presentations on our Iphones. Then we got to sing and dance to Euphoria which was played several times during the evening!
Just a little more
Today I got a real taste of freedom after being imprisoned by school for many weeks. I still have things left to do but the worst part is over, the last project is finished! During this month I have told my friends to not even call until June. Now it's only a week left till it's over and I get my social life back again!
After today's lecture we barbequed on the school yard and you could sense everyone's relief that the project is completed. I finally feel alive again. This was celebrated with a bottle of wine at Josefinas with Samra until we got tipsy and laughed our way home. Now I have to hold on just a little more this last week and then I'm free for real.
Getting higher than the Empire State
Happy Birthday my Love!
I like to keep my issues drawn, it's always darkest before the dawn
I feel worse and worse every day, I think my horrible pollen allergy has gone into real illness. It's also possible that some of today's condition may due to the party the night before. We danced our asses off on Haris' graduation party, which by the way had really good music! A lot of hip hop, RnB and reggaeton, with a touch of house - just the way I like it. The evening was worth it, even though I'm not a fan of partying in the middle of a busy school week.
Anyway, right now I only wish for healthfulness and for May to be over. And that I have the strength to get out of bed tomorrow, because I have to. I will comfort myself with the latest episode of Revenge before sleep. Good night!
Tokyo - Ginza
Ginza is known as a very luxurious part of Tokyo, by far one of the most expensive. Here are all the famous fashion boutiques and electronics brands like Sony and Apple, and of course the luxurious brands have to have luxurious architecture, which was the reason we went there the first day the whole class was gathered with the teachers. Now we were about 20 people instead of eight. On the one hand that made it a little harder to organize the days, on the other hand, it was fun to see the whole gang again!
We started the day near Ginza, in "central" Tokyo (according to my guidebook it is the center of Tokyo, according to me the whole Tokyo is one enormous center) where you can also find the Imperial Palace.
Imperial Palace and its many gardens are surrounded by moats, we only saw a small part of it. The area around it was interesting though, very flat and open. Very unusual for Tokyo.
This is one of my favorite pictures. This strange park(?) and the Japanese trees in front of a lot of glass buildings create a nice contrast. And yes, I just analyzed my own image. Jeez...
I wanted to feel just as cute as the Japanese women, with a dress and a bow in my hair. When I got home I realized that I probably never will wear the bow again, but it worked great for a day!
We visited the Tokyo International Forum, a large congress center, to look at its architectural qualities.
Mikimoto Building, which looks like a big, white cheese.
Hermés. Of course we went into all these fashion houses to look at the building from the inside. The sales people who are used to their millionaire customers became very nervous every time twenty students came in, haha.
Hayek Center. Every jewelry store has its own glass elevator that goes up to the boutique. Since the elevators are pushed up instead of pulled up you don't even notice that there are elevators until they start moving to different levels. Really cool.
Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Building above, De Beers Jewellery under.
Nakagin Capsule Tower. The special thing about this old capsule hotel is that the capsules are designed to be easily detached from the building and moved. We have been told about this at school many times. Unfortunately it is not in use anymore.
Tokyo - Shibuya
Next time I visit Tokyo, I would like to live in or near Shibuya. This is where it all happens! Shibuya is a major shopping and entertainment district, nearby is Harajuku and the Yoyogi Park that I wrote about earlier.
Shibuya is known for having one of the worlds busiest crossings. The cars get stopped from all sides and an awful lot of people go over there every time there's a green light. From above it looks like a swarm of ants.
In this cylinder-shaped building I have had my best shopping experience ever. The entire department store with all its floors is filled with small shops for young women, most shops give a feeling of shopping in a dollhouse. Ruffles, knitwear, pastel colours, skirts, dresses, bows, sales girls with incredibly high-pitched voices that look like living dolls... I loved it! The time was never enough, neither the money.
Forever 21's accessories floor. Here I went for it. Major clothing chains like Forever 21, H&M and Zara had always their own big buildings with too many stories for you to keep up with everything. I, however, avoided stores (H&M and Zara) that you can find in Sweden.
I was happy after my first purchase in Shibuya 109 and thought it would have to do. Until it struck me that I will not come back for a very, very long time. Then I stopped controlling myself and my economy went downhill. But it was worth it.
First days of May
The weekend was exactly how I want the entire month to be - calm and relaxed, spent with my favorite people. Unfortunately, it won't be like that since I have a lot to do this month, I have to finish everything in school. But I just have to bite the bullet, and start today, because when it's done I will have what I've been waiting for the entire year. I've already gotten a taste of how wonderful summer will be.
Tokyo - Akihabara & Ueno
The day we changed accommodation was the rainiest day during our entire stay in Tokyo. The rest of our class was supposed to arrive that day but couldn't land because of the storm, and had to arrive the day after. In order to not let the day go to a complete waste we fought the storm and went to Akihabara in the evening, also known as the "Electric Town". Here you can find many electronics stores, games, manga, anime and lots of other nerdy stuff.
HAHA, pay extra attention to my squeaking sound at 0:18 when the wind pushes me a few meters back. I really understand why the transparent umbrellas are practical, you have to see where to go. The wind was so strong at times that I didn't notice the difference when I pressed forward against the wind or against someone's back.
On the other hand, it was a terrible quality of these transparent umbrellas. I have never seen so many broken umbrellas, they laid in heaps along the streets!
We took shelter from the rain in an arcade! You can find these everywhere in Tokyo, they are usually several stories high and of course everything sounds and flashes. Had I had more coins I would've wasted a lot more in here. I love the gaming culture in Japan!
I also love these cute little manga characters which you could win in different machines! I fought as hell to win a figure, only to discover that there was a store full of these figures only meters away.
Then we went back to our new home, Asakusa, and our beloved golden turd, hoping for better weather. Luckily, after rain comes sunshine, and next day we went to explore the shopping in Shibuya (coming up in another post) before we met the rest of the class in the Ueno park where the cherry trees had blossomed, just like in the rest of Tokyo.
Kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness
Suddenly everything became green and beautiful outside my window. But even the very anticipated and wonderful summer has its price, in my case it's pollen. I would rather call it a disease than an allergy because it feels like walking around with a constant cold. This year it is worse than usual, my medicine does not help and I feel tired and weak and have breathing difficulties. The trees outside my window do not make the situation better, neither the fact that I insist on sitting outside in the sun as soon as I get the chance. It hurts me to say this, but it would nice with a little, just a little bit, rain... Just so I can breathe normally one day.
May Day
Uppsala is the place to be on Walpurgis Night and May Day! Because it is a university city, the whole city turnes into one big festival with a wonderful atmosphere, crowd of students and party everywhere. I went there as early as Sunday to stay for a few days over the May Day weekend. On Monday, we gathered in a large group of about 20-30 people to celebrate The Last Day of April and Toni's birthday. My girls also came from Stockholm to join us. We barbecued in Ekonomikum Park, pre-partied and ended the night with some really fun clubbing!
Instagram - April
The only thing that has been purchased after the trip to japan (which totally ruined me) is this white clutch, big enough for my camera and perfect for the summer. In protest against the winter weather in April I wore flowers.
Cookies after breakfast, cookies after lunch, cookies after dinner, cookies for life! Or until death, they will eventually be my death.
A picture of me in the middle of the night in a somewhat drunken state, and a pretty one-sided text message conversation with my boyfriend, which took place during a Champions League night. He's the bird, I'm the chicken, no more explaination needed.
Monday's quality time with Cosmo to the left and quality time in Old Town with my boyfriend to the right.
Finally we got sun, flowers and summer feelings even in Sweden. I welcomed the warmth with ice cream!
Building models in school and an image from the Stockholm International Fair, where we were at a lecture about material.
A picture of me and pictures of me and Natalie which look like those we used to take in 7th grade.
Natalie and I went on our usual walk to Skogskyrkogården (Woodland Cemetery), the best place for promenades. Beautiful, quiet and peaceful.
Cherry Blossom
I can never get enough of cherry blossom, even though I got spoiled with it in Tokyo. When the trees blossom in Kungsträdgården (King's Garden) it becomes the most beautiful place in Stockholm, I would not miss it for the world! So we had to repeat last year's visit. Repeat is really the right word, I was wearing pink again, the pictures looked almost the same and I had the same wonderful feeling of happiness since I could finally feel summer in the air!
Tokyo - Towers
The first cloud-free day in Tokyo we thought would be appropriate for visiting the tallest buildings and landmarks in the city. It was also our last day at the capsule hotel in Shinjuku, before we switched to another hostel in Asakusa.
Ace Inn was the name of our first hotel, I can recommend it if you ever want to live pretty cheap in Tokyo in a capsule hotel. I really wish we could have stayed here the entire time, not just for the cozy "capsules" but also for the location.
Although we would move to Asakusa the next day we went there anyway to check out the Tokyo Sky Tree (second building from left), which is Tokyo's new landmark and the world's second tallest building after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It is 634 meters high and much further away than the other buildings in the picture so don't let the illusion fool you, hehe.
The golden turd raised many questions. What does it really represent? Is it weird or cool? Did the architect ever think of that people might associate it with a yellow piece of poo on the roof? It was certainly interesting, though.
Spontaneous image à la cool gang hanging on stairs (above) vs. non-spontaneous image à la forced class photo (below).
Even for us who were under it, it was difficult to grasp the scale of the Sky Tree. It is really large even in width, making it look shorter than it is. But imagine two Eiffel Towers on one another.
Then we went to Tokyo's well-known landmark Tokyo Tower, the Eiffel copy which surprisingly is a few meters taller than the Eiffel Tower itself, and Tokyo's second tallest building after Sky Tree. We went to the top for a fantastic panoramic view.
In the middle of the tower, the main observatory, at 150 meters - these floor windows are not for those afraid of heights. A guy came and started jumping on the glass while we were standing there and we were like DUDE, WTF!?
I could watch day turn into night at this height in Tokyo over and over again without getting tired of it. Being completely surrounded by this whichever way you look, no matter how far away you look, are among the most amazing things I've ever seen.
Afterwards we walked to Roppongi where we ate in a noodle kitchen, visited a hysterically noisy arcade with several floors of just slot machines and ended the evening with drinks at a place with chandeliers and zebra patterned sofas.
Dear Summer, my wardrobe is waiting
Tokyo - Harajuku
Harajuku was a very fun area to hang around in, especially on Sundays this time of year when an awful lot of people gather, especially young people, on the streets and in the huge Yoyogi park. I don't know really how to describe Harajuku. There is so much fun, unexpected and weird in whichever way you look. As I said earlier, the park is full of people who hang out, eat and drink (this is where the otherwise neat and organized Japanese freak out and drink until they pass out - literally) and does everything from playing badminton to tightrope walking, roleplay in sick costumes, playing bagpipes, jumping around on stilts, dancing dressed as rockabillys... The list is long on everything we saw.
The two main shopping streets, Omotesando and Takeshita-dori, really gave a great contrast to the area. Omotesando was full of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Prada, while Takeshita-dori was the complete opposite.
On the bridge near the train station you could see gatherings of people who engage in cosplay, a Japanese form of masquerade. They are quite extreme with their costumes. Unfortunately we arrived a little late and only met a few cosplayers.
This picture was taken right at the beginning of the huge park. I don't have many photos from this park visit, because we knew we were going back there the following week when the cherry trees would blossom. They had just started to bloom...
This street, Takeshita-dori, is said to be one of Tokyo's most crowded places on weekends. For some reason I insisted on coming here at the weekends. I was here several times since I couldn't get enough of all the wacky and kitsch shops with all sorts of funny, cute and totally unnecessary things. I miss it already!
Sometimes I almost paniced when going into all these shops, you don't know what to look at first!
Purikura!!! I had heard about these Japanese photo booths and was quite excited when we found them, it was even funnier than I expected. The pictures make you look like a doll, and afterwards you can edit the images, apply makeup on yourself, write text, add icons, etc..
I thought our pictures were funny, until I saw the guys.
Double Up
It was a birthday celebration x 2 last night when both Melisa and Hanna celebrated their 20th birthday this weekend and had a party together. It was a very enjoyable evening with plenty of singing and dancing. People were in a really good mood yesterday, including me! Thank you hostesses for a successful party!
The evening ended like this for me... No, not really, but as the veterans we are we found ourselves on the dance floor from beginning to end and felt like the annoying guests who never go home when we were among the last at the party. That's a sign of a good evening.
Last days
Back to everyday life this week. Although I laid in bed for a few days after I returned from Tokyo, I still felt tender and unrested when I came to school on Tuesday, as if I've been on a very long holiday, but without any rest. Everything has not quite returned to the usual after the trip. My mind is still influenced by all the impressions, experiences and inspiration and it is only after I got home that I slowly started to melt it. I also got a new sleeping rhythm, something between my old and the Japanese, which resulted in a normal rhythm for the first time since before my teens. I've woken up very early by myself and fallen asleep like a baby before nine. Now, after little more than a week I've managed to shake it, it obviously didn't suit me to sleep normally.
I have a lot to do in school but I'm still trying to squeeze in friends in my schedule, if not after school then before. Samra and I began yesterday with a "healthy brunch" before we went together to our universities.
These weeks in school we will work with engineering and building construction. These days we have, among other things, built models of existing buildings' construction. Yesterday me and Josephine as usual ended up last in class finishing our model, tired and singing to our favorite songs.
Friday, today, meant presentation and then quickly home to escape the rain and bury me under the covers. I've only watched series, done my nails, eaten cookies and made no effort whatsoever. Works well since I tomorrow have three(!) birthdays to celebrate.
Tokyo - WOMB
The first and the best party night. We went to WOMB since we had read that it has been voted one of the top nightclubs in the world. If true or not, I don't know, but we met many wonderful people and had great fun that night!
For the first time in my life I was one of the tallest girls in the whole place! With high heel shoes of course... It was a bit funny that we were always able to find each other only by looking for heads sticking out in the croud haha!
Japan, the country with the best toilets in the world. Not only are most toilets heated, with anus washing and drying, and in rare cases with massage too (I didn't dare to try though), you find roses, sanitary protection and cotton swabs in the female toilet, in a nightclub! What does Sweden's nightclub toilets got? Pee on the floor!!!
DANCE BATTLE! The japanese loved our dance rings. Mary took the price when she began to spin on her back.
My Japanese buddies! Really cute girls, but our communication was not the best.
On our way back to the hotel sometime after five. Sure, I felt tall for an evening, but I don't know if it was worth the pain after the whole night. I at all don't know how we had the energy for everything, but it was a really good night!
Tokyo - Shinjuku
The first day. It was rainy and windy but the weather didn't affect our moods. We decided to start exploring the area where we lived, Shinjuku, which is one of Tokyo's major commercial and administrative centre.
Of course my umbrella broke two minutes after I bought it.
We went to this shrine, Hanazono Shrine, which is a bit hidden between all the houses.
Nearby is Golden Gai, an area of about 200 tiny bars.
Sompo Japan Building, we went up here to take a tour in the Sompo Japan Museum of Art.
Problems with someone always stealing your beloved umbrella? Not in Tokyo!
First view of Tokyo, and Cocoon Tower.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, in both towers there's observation floors with panoramic views, we went up.
Since it was raining, we walked from skyscraper to skyscraper, the next was this one in the picture - Shinjuku Park Tower. We sat at the top, in the luxurious New York Bar with a fantastic view and felt extremely good.
We sat there until it got dark and the view in front of us turned into this.
Then we went back to our hotel to cheer up for our first party night in Tokyo!
