Bowling and steak

Some friends that I first met in Sapporo are now living in Stockholm. When I visit Sweden, we sometimes meet. This time, we met and played a few games of bowling. No one of us is very good at bowling but since everyone is more or less on the same level, it was quite enjoyable.

For kids that are too small to use bowling balls the normal way, a ramp was provided. You aim the ramp and then you roll the bowling ball down the ramp.

After the bowling, we went to a shop that sells specially imported goods from Japan. I can get all the Japanese stuff I could ever want without trying since I live in Japan, but for my friends in Stockholm there are some things that are hard to get (some teas, for example). In this store, I ran into a guy I know from high school who was there with his two children. He used to live in Kyoto, so I guess he also uses Japanese things in his daily life. I was happily surprised to see him. It had been at least 10 years since I last saw him, I guess. Though we talked over the Internet from time to time in Japan, for instance when the Swedish embassy called everyone living in Japan early in the mornings to suggest evacuating from Tokyo with some early flight during the Fukushima incident, even though we both lived very far from Tokyo and did not have to evacuate and if we wanted to could have done so much better without going to Tokyo first...

After the quick stop in the Japanese shop, we went for steaks. I also ordered deep fried cheese and habaneros. This was good, as was the steak. There was also an offer of all you can eat ice cream and ice cream toppings, so I and the kid in our group went for that. They turned out to have licorice sauce for the ice cream. In Sweden, almost everyone likes licorice. In Japan, almost everyone thinks it is the most disgusting thing they have ever tried if they ever try it, so it is not normally available.

Licorice!