Swedish barbecue

Two of my friends from Sweden were in Sapporo for three or four weeks. In Sweden, having three or four weeks of vacation in the summer is very common, but in Japan it is of course unheard of. My Japanese friends that travel abroad either go on very intensive three day trips or they quite their job and go on a trip for a few weeks and then go looking for another job when they come back.

Anyway, since there were so many of us from Sweden here at the same time (three Swedes!) we were invited to a barbecue out near Sweden Hills. Actually, there is another girl from Sweden living out there, but she was not available. The food was great, of course. My friends who invited us have a big garden and just pull up potatoes, cut some edamame or whatnot when they want to eat vegetables, so the food is always very very fresh.

I also got a bear shaped cookie

Serene countryside, and pesticides

The view from my friends' place is excellent, especially in the summer. The winter view can look white and nice too, but the summer sunset is the best, I think.

During the barbecue, one of the neighbors suddenly showed up and started spraying pesticides on the wheat field. But when he noticed that we were having a barbecue, he stopped.

Japanese pesticide application

Midsummer barbecue

After the Swedish style midsummer dance finished, I was invited to the home of some friends who live around there. They have fields that they rent out to someone else who grows wheat there, and they have what is either a really large garden or a pretty small field for growing things themselves too. They picked a bunch of strawberries in the garden, which made the day feel much more like midsummer than the previous dancing and somewhat Swedish food. The strawberries where excellent.

Rice balls

Garlic

We then had more food, because the only things I seem to do in Japan is either work or eat. We had a barbecue in their garden. We put things that are normal in Japan on the grill, like rice balls and fish. It was great, of course. It is also nice to have a barbecue at their place because if you want to have vegetables, they just go and dig up potatoes in the garden or cut off some asparagus etc. So you get really fresh vegetables. Their asparagus was "already too late in the season", they said, but it turned out to be great.

In Japan, everything is slightly different. Like not having any actual fire for the barbecue...

Countryside supermarket

I visited a country side supermarket. It looked like a concrete warehouse with some canvas to work as walls in some places. Turned out to be a quite nice, though small, supermarket inside.

Swedish midsummer in Japan

Outside Sapporo there is place called Sweden Hills, and they celebrate some Swedish holidays there. Usually not on the actual day of the holiday, but still.

This newly wed couple had a wedding ceremony in front of everyone at the midsummer festival.

One of the things they celebrate is Swedish midsummer. This is one of the biggest events during the year in Sweden (possibly second after Christmas, which is number one). Usually you go to a nearby park where there is a May Pole, sit on a blanked and have a picknick, dance around the May pole, and get drunk. This is if the weather is good. If the weather is bad, which is common, you do not do much except complain about the weather and get drunk.

Musicians from Sweden

Someone gave me a wreath of flowers

Swedish midsummer also usually means eating strawberries. Other things that are midsummer food are fresh potatoes (on a good/warm year the first potatoes become available around midsummer in Sweden) and pickle herring.

Raising the May pole by hand

People dancing traditional midsummer dances around the May pole often wear wreaths of flowers on their heads. The dancing is often accompanied by live music from folk music groups.

Dancing

At Sweden Hills they have people playing Swedish midsummer songs, and they are very good. They also ask some folk dancing group from Sapporo to come and lead the dancing around the May pole. Many people wear Swedish traditional dresses. As I lived in Stockholm, I only know one person in Sweden who owns such clothes. To me it is always a bit weird to see 70 people, all Japanese, wearing such clothes. I had never seen more than three people in such clothes at the same time before I came to Japan.

Japanese player of the keyed fiddle, in traditional Swedish garb

Some Swedes I met in Sweden Hills were surprised by my experiences, though. Where they live (in the countryside in northern Sweden) pretty much everyone has such clothes, and they wear them at midsummer. Sweden Hills has a sister city in northern Sweden, so I guess they think that most people in Sweden behave like the people in that place do.

The dancing around the May pole is fairly Swedish, but they use mainly songs and dances that I never hear when I was a kid (which is when you attend the dancing in Sweden). They also never do the most popular dances, like the one with the frogs. This year, there were lots of Swedish exchange students visiting the midsummer festival, and after the dancing was over, they went over to the musicians and asked them if they could play the frog song. Then they danced this dance too, before leaving. It is not really midsummer without that song, and luckily the musicians knew the tune.

A guy I know

There was also a clown entertaining people at the festival. It turned out to be a guy I know. It was the first time I saw him perform. He was really good, of course. I was impressed by how he can communicate without using any words at all. I have a hard time communicating even when using words, haha.

"Scandinavian plate"

My Scandinavian plate

There was also food available. There was something called a "Scandinavian plate". This was advertised as Swedish midsummer food, and lots of the food you got was kind of Swedish, and some of it was midsummer food. There was bread and cheese, which is common in Sweden. The bread was not particularly Swedish, but at least it was not sweet bread like most Japanese bread. There was a potato, and at midsummer we eat lots of potatoes in Sweden. This potato did not taste like Swedish potato types, and at midsummer you are normally supposed to try to get the "fresh" potatoes (the first potatoes of the year), which at this time of the year are really really tiny in Sweden (like grapes). There was also ham, which is common in Sweden but which is pretty strongly connected with Christmas food. There was also pickled herring, which is midsummer food (though we have it at other holidays too), and which was excellent. All the food was good, but apart from the herring it was not really something I would expect to eat at midsummer in Sweden.

"Swedish" meatballs

I also bought a plate with "Swedish meatballs". These looked like Swedish meatballs and the taste was very nice. The taste was not the taste of Swedish meatballs, but still good.

Pickled herring

I also bought an extra, very big, container with only pickled herring. The herring turned out to be excellent and to taste like Swedish pickled herring. I was told that someone living in Sweden Hills had made all of this herring herself. Impressive.

Not very Scandinavian food

I also bought the "recommended food" that a young girl recommended me. It was a Japanese crepe with maple syrup, soy milk based whipped cream, and bananas. Not Swedish, but pretty good.

No Ice Hotel

Parts of a sign were still left, but this was the most Ice Hotel like thing there.

One of my friends asked me: "There is something called the Ice Hotel outside Sapporo. Have you heard of it?" Since I was introducing this hotel on Japanese TV last year, I had indeed heard of it. I even visited last year.

My friend wanted to go see this Ice Hotel and asked me to come along. I asked if she was sure they were still open, since it closed in early March last year. She said that she had checked with their Web page and it said that they were open two more days.

The things that are between the car and the truck is what was left of the Ice Hotel when we got there.

When we got there, there was no Ice Hotel left anymore though. It had melted a week ago. Since we had a very warm winter, that was not very surprising. You would think they should have updated the Web page with that information, though...

A guy who was clearing away some of the non-melted parts from what used to be the Ice Hotel remembered me from last year.

Meeting Swedish people and eating sperm

My two Swedish friends that often visit Sapporo are here for a conference in Tokyo (and then decided to visit Sapporo too, since it is relatively close once you are on this side of the Earth). We have some common friends in Sweden Hills, and they invited us to a nabe party (eating hotpot).

I asked if I could invite a woman who lived 7 years in Sweden but who is now back in Japan, and was told that that would be fine too. Then it turned out that our host and this woman ran into each other by chance a few days before the party, so by the time of the party they already kind of knew each other.

A girl who lives and works in Sweden Hills but who is Swedish was also invited, so in the end there were 4 Swedes in the same room, and even more people who speak Swedish quite well. Very rare.

The hotpot was good, of course. Suddenly, the father of the house decided that we should add "tachi". It looks like boiled brain (though you can eat it raw, grilled, deep fried, etc. too), but if you point this out people usually say: "Oh, it just looks that way. It is actually sperm". Not sure that is much better.

The taste is OK, but the texture is not. I am not a fan. Most people in Japan consider it expensive and fancy food (though it used to be cheap, I am told), so you should not complain when they serve it to you. I was pretty much the only one that ate it. Except for the father, of course, who likes it.

Emu meat, crocodile meat, kangaroo meat, cake, and home grown popcorn

After a hectic Halloween, I was invited to my friends in Sweden Hills. I had some Swedish presents to give them from my mother (that I brought from Sweden last time I was there), and they turned out to have a birthday cake for me. They also had emu meat, crocodile meat, and kangaroo meat to try. I have had kangaroo before, and something that was probably alligator. Emu was a first, though.

They also had popcorn that was 100% home made. They grew the corn themselves in their fields, then dried it themselves. They gave me some to take home, and they popped some popcorn in a pot. They kept taking the lid off to see if it was finished, and have lots of popcorn fly out of the pot when it turned out not to be finished, though.

Seeing reruns of myself on TV again

Me, not being interviewed for 5 minutes like I though, but sitting smack in the middle.

One of my friends in Sapporo recorded my latest appearance on (Hokkaido only) TV and made a BlueRay with this program. They sent it to my parents. My parents do not understand Japanese, and since it is BlueRay it was hard to add subtitles. I was thinking of translating the show and sending the subtitles to my parents, but apparently the powers that be have tried and mostly succeeded in making that very difficult.

Anyway, when I was in Stockholm we watched the show together, and I explained what was going on. I also got some better screen shots now that I had control of the TV.

The previous story describing the contents can be found here.

Talking about the ice hotel built just outside Sapporo.

Trying to decide what face to make when I was in the small frame.

Presented with my name

Bowing politely as the information about age, my place of work, etc. shows up.

When asked if I speak Japanese I said yes, but that I was not a native speaker, and showed my shirt that said: "I am not Japanese", in Japanese.

You could fax/e-mail/etc. stories of visiting Scandinavia to the show, and some of these were read at the end of the show.

The first e-mail that was read to me was from one of my friends! Which I realized halfway through the mail... "This story sounds familiar?" I was not sure if it would be OK to say: "I know this girl!", so I kept my poker face, haha.

Speaking Japanese and using Japanese body language

We also talked about Swedish handicrafts

Japanese barbecue and fireworks

Barbecue

Homegrown potato, homegrown dill ("because you are from Sweden"), and chicken

Hotate (scallop?) brought over by a neighbor

Desserts

I was invited by some friends out in Sweden Hills to come over for some barbecue. They have their own fields, so the vegetables are always extremely good at their place. For instance, they dug up potatoes right before starting the barbecue.

Huge tomatoes

Blackberries

Unknown plant

They also had some Japanese fireworks. And lanterns from IKEA.

Japanese fireworks

IKEA lantern