It’s funny how it goes sometimes. Basically since I got to Japan, my girlfriend and I have been doing stuff non-stop every time we meet. Not always useful, must-do stuff, but also things like going to the movies, or sightseeing Kyoto (which has a lot to offer in the sightseeing department, especially temples) or, at that, sightseeing other parts of Japan. We’ve always felt that since we can’t meet that often — I have studies, she has work — we should treasure the time that we can meet.

We’ve had this mindset since I got here, and then we both realized that we need to take time to “nothing” as well. It’s important, that elusive “nothing”, but you easily forget it’s there.

Yesterday me and my girlfriend basically met up around lunch time and then hung at my place the whole day, with no plans or deadlines or things to do other than making dinner, which was fun — I had found a recipe for making potato au gratin in the microwave oven which we tried out together (I have no real oven) and it worked out extremely well. I was skeptical but yes, it did turn out into a gooey mess of goodness (which we’ve come up with improvements for, for the next time we crave that sort of thing). We hung out and had no plans, and it was precisely the thing we both needed. Relaxing and not having to hurry was something that we’ve seen way too little of recently in our relationship.

The deliciousness of our potatoes aside, from here on we’ll be sure to take that elusive “nothing” into account. An obvious thing I suppose, but easily forgotten perhaps.

So, I went to IKEA with my girlfriend the other day — there’s one in Osaka, which is the closest. We had to take a train, then switch trains, then take a bus — all in all, it took us nearly 2 hours to get there.

I only really wanted to buy sill and maybe bread while there, but we both wanted to look at furniture, since IKEA is in Sweden too (considering it’s Swedish, that’s not surprising) and the furniture is the same regardless of the country you’re in.

I don’t go to IKEA very often, personally, but when I do go I like it a lot. I love the way they market their stuff, setting up little pretend-rooms throughout the store, and letting people sit down and check things out at their own pace. It definitely gives you a good idea just how well this and that would fit together, and testing beds is *always* fun. Bouncebounce.

The store was pretty damn big on the outside, but on the inside it was smaller than I expected. It was two floors big, and it took us just under an hour to go through the whole thing. We had sort of expected to be there for quite some time, but in the end, at 2.30 pm, we had seen everything we wanted to see, and I’d bought my food that I wanted.

Speaking of food, the “market” they have there is quite nice, but small. I found lots of Swedish food that I really wanted, among them Swedish bread (tears of joy… Japanese bread sucks…) , sill (fish in glas jars, sort of like marinated, I guess?), Swedish beer, glögg, smoked salmon, etc. And the prices were actually comparable to the Japanese stores, amazingly enough.

Anyway, since it was so early we decided to not eat dinner there, but instead decided that we should make a Swedish dinner at my girlfriend’s parents’ place to let them taste “Sweden” once and for all. So we bought more sill, more salmon, and meatballs, lingon jam, and Swedish beer. No glögg though.

It turned into sort of a christmas dinner thing, in the end. The salmon and potatoes are kind of one dish by their own, as are the meatballs and potatoes, so people sort of just picked and tried stuff from the table. Surprisingly everyone liked it a lot — even my girlfriend’s mother, who usually hates potatoes (I made mashed potatoes, which might have done the trick — the cream sauce might have done the trick too).

In any case, that was my IKEA day. It’s always great fun to cook dinner for lots of people, even though it’s not usual for guys to make food in this country. The girl’s dad always seems a little unsure how to take this all — his daughter’s boyfriend swings by and whips up food for one and all. Must not be a very common sight in Japanese households, but noone is discouraging in the slightest, so I’m gonna continue making weird dishes from my northern origin in the future. (Next up is this chicken + curry + rice thing that I love. I already have the recipe, but I’ve never actually prepared the dish myself. We’ll see how that goes…)

2008 was probably the fastest year I’ve ever experienced. I had only just gotten used to it no longer being 2007 when it suddenly was 2009. I started 2008 off getting prepared to come here to Japan in April, so the beginning of the year more or less flew by as well. I remember whining about there being something to do every single day there at the end right before I got on that airplane. Things don’t seem to have slowed down since.

In a couple of months I will have been here for an entire year. I haven’t done nearly all the things I wish I’d have done by now, but I still have plenty of time left to play around with, and now that I’ve decided to take it a little easier with my studies from here on, I will have time to do the things I haven’t had time for until now.

I wish everyone a happy new year.