Sayonara

I have spent the last week in bed sleeping and I kind of just woke up. I have had a really high fever and other symptoms that imply that I was sick! Today I’m feeling better but I’m still mostly sleeping. It feels great to be able to just sleep and not have a bad conscious afterwards. I think I got sick because I’m starting to feel quite stressed. I have to pack my entire life that I’ve had here for the last 10 months in small boxes and it’s not that easy. I have already sent one box home by boat but I have to sent at least one more.
Saying goodbye to all of my friends is another thing I have to do and I was planning to have a farewell party but now I’m rethinking because I don’t think I have the time nor the nerves to organize all that. I’ll maybe have a dinner when my friends from Sweden come in next week but other than that I don’t think I will do anything. I’m glad that I’m feeling better now because I’ve been invited to a party at my friends company and it seems as there will be a lot of embassy people coming there. It’s a great opportunity to make contacts and I really want to go!
Finally I got myself facebook so now you can add me, I’m under ‘Indra Sharma’. There’s two of us but I’m the first one. Please add me so that we can stay in touch!
People around me are getting very sad and depressed because they soon have to go home. It seems especially difficult for the half Japanese exchange students, they have a special connection with Japan that makes it very hard. I think that it’s the prices you have to pay being biracial. Others are leaving their girlfriend/boyfriend behind and that must really suck since they don’t know when they’ll see each other next time. But it’s said that real love survives everything and I actually believe that, lets hope they do too. I’m very glad that I’m not in that situation though.
This is the last time I blog but I’ll continue posting photos in my photo album!
I don’t know how to finish this, it feels so strange. I’ve had an awesome year and I believe that going on this exchange has been one of the best experiences in my life. I’ve made so many good friends and met so many different and interesting people. Many of my friends and family back home have also come to visit me here and that makes it even more special since I should share all this with them. I’m going to miss so many things: the city, the food, the weather, shopping, my uni and my friends. My life. Still, It feels okay to return home mostly because I really want to get my real life started. Now that I’ve seen more of the world I can’t wait to finish school and start working. I’m starting my last year at Uppsala University this fall and it feels nervous but also good. This year has been like a dream, I’ve just had so much fun.
I don’t know when I’ll have the time to come back to Tokyo but I hope it will be soon.

I LOVE TOKYO!!!
Matane
/Indra

Count down

Now it’s soon time to return back to Sweden, it’s unbelievable. Today it’s almost exactly one month left! My feelings are very mixed, I’m very sad but also content in a way. And I have three friends coming to visit me in Sweden in august so I guess that it feels good in a way. The time between my arrival in Sweden and school starting is quite busy. I have planned so many things to do (as always) and there is so little time (as always).
I was feeling homesick last week because my brother and my cousin graduated from high school and I missed it! I really wanted to be there because I remember my on graduation and honestly it was the greatest day of my life.
In about two weeks I have another friend who’s coming to Tokyo. He’s staying for about one week and I have to start planning what I should show him. I think that he already knows quite a lot about Tokyo already so he might be hard to please.
There is so much to do in this enormous city and almost everything includes spending money. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve visited so many places and met so many people. It’s amazing how I can feel so at home in city that is so different from what I’m used to. I feel really cool when I know when I can find my way around crowded places and when I see other foreigners getting lost I just laugh inside of myself. The language feels much better now, I can get by with daily conversation but of course there is still a lot to learn. I never get used to the kindness of Japanese people. When Hanna and I where in Kyoto we got lost and this man interrupted his power walk and took us to the place that we where looking for. It took him almost 20-30 minutes to get us there but he insisted. My friends in Tokyo have taken really good care of me, they are probably the main reason why I like Tokyo so much.
I have been teaching in Tokyo to earn some extra money and yesterday I met a new student. I told him that I only teach in Ikebukuro, Shinjuku or Takadanobaba so we decided to meet in Ikebukuro. When I arrived there he called me and wanted me to get into his car and go to his place where I would teach him Spanish. I told him what I already told him and that it was written in my presentation online that I only teach in public cafés. To get into his car and go to his apartment would probably be one of the most stupid thing a female teacher in Tokyo could do. So he parked his car and came to the café I had selected. Maybe he’s harmless but you never know. Tokyo is very safe, I mean we have to consider that it is one of the worlds biggest cities and I believe it’s safer than Stockholm. But there are still things that are accepted here that I don’t have to confront in the same way back home. For example there was this man who’s at least 20 years older that me, he has a girlfriend and a child but he’s still trying to seduce me (in front of his girlfriend). I’m not saying that it doesn’t happened in Sweden but at least people would think that he’s weird but here it seems more accepted. This man is not Japanese but his girlfriend is and I’ve talked to my Japanese friends about infidelity and it seems much more accepted here. I might be wrong but it’s my impression. One of my girlfriends told me that I should get a Japanese boyfriend even though I had a boyfriend in Sweden at the time. She said: “He will never find out”. None of my friends in Sweden would say such a thing. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion concerning infidelity but I’m to conservative to believe in anything else than monogamy.
I have changed a little bit since I came to Japan in the sense of shallowness. I’m super shallow now, I’m thinking about my skin, cloth etc. so much more that back home. Some might think it’s good but I don’t because it steals very much time from other things but I can‘t help it. No one can ever again tell me that advertisement doesn’t effect you because it really does and not only mass media but also the signals people around you send out. So everything you do gives a message to people around you. Always.

Almost a backpacker

My friend Hanna left me this Friday after have been here for over two weeks. I had so much luck because my University was shut down for one week because of a measles epidemic. We have done so many things and now I’m totally exhausted. We went to Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe for four days. I liked Kobe the most but I was very disappointed about Osaka. I don’t know why but since it’s the second/third largest city in Japan I thought it would be awesome but it wasn’t at all. I wrote second/third since Yokohama is believed to be bigger than Osaka because there are about 9 million people going there from other cities just for working everyday. But Osaka is bigger if we look at the actual population living in the city. I really liked Osaka Castle though, it was beautiful. We went to Kyoto by bis and it was quite fast. When we arrived we didn't have a hotel but we found a really good and cheap one almost right away. It's very unlike me to travel without reserving a hotel before...it was an adventure, never done anything that crazy before ;)
Of course I showed Hanna Tokyo and she loved it. I organized a dinner in her honor so that she could meet my friends. We where about 20 people having dinner and she really liked my friends. Hanna also did me a favor because she got in an argument with a guy that I had invited who wanted to take me on a date. Now I don’t think he will ever want to take me on a date again! That’s great because I don’t want to date him at all. After the dinner we went clubbing. The first club we went to was located in Roppongi and it was really weird because about one hour after we arrived the music was shut down because the police was standing outside. It seemed as the club didn’t have permission to be open after a certain hour so they had to hide that they where still open. We wanted to dance so we got our money back and went to another club and Hanna was surprised since one of the guys we went there with said that it was a rather small club but compare to Swedish standard it was quite big.
I took her to different type of restaurants and places. I’ve spent so much money! We also went shopping and I’ve bought so many things. I was worried before because I hadn’t hardly bought anything here but now I think that I have maybe bought to much.
Taku also took Pia, Hanna and me to a Sumo game. It was an amazing experience and one old Sumo-san liked Hanna! He was a bit to old and fat ’cause Hanna kind of like skinny guys her age. He said she had greats curves for a vegetarian!
I’ve now been single for about two months and I’ve been confronted with a new type of problem that I haven’t had before (since I haven’t been single for about 4,5 years!!). I don’t know how to turn guys down. Before I could say that I had a boyfriend but now I can’t use that excuse anymore specially if the guy asking me out is a friend of a friend. It makes it even more difficult if it’s a Japanese guy because Japanese people almost never use the word ‘NO’ in their language. You have to say something that implies a no but I’m really bad at that. In Sweden you can say ‘No, I don’t want to’ but in Japan you can’t because it might be to direct and that’s being rude. My Japanese girlfriends have taught me that I should just ignore the messages or that I should say that I’m too busy. I’ve tried both ways but none of them works so I think I should go back to my usual mean me and just say:’ Sorry, I don’t like you’…