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.