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

IKEA

We also went to IKEA. Now IKEA has a few stores in Japan too, but the closest one to Sapporo would be in Tokyo... which is very far away. All my Japanese guests to Sweden so far have enjoyed IKEA, which is a bit weird to Swedish people. It is just a store with cheap furniture... but for foreigners it is apparently a place you can spend hours and hours in.

IKEA bags

Last week I noticed that someone had hung a bag from IKEA in the laundry room in my apartment building. This is a common sight in Sweden, since these bags are very durable, large, cheap, and generally great for laundry. It is more surprising in Sapporo, since we do not have IKEA here. The closest would be in Tokyo (which had 2 last time I checked) or Osaka (which had 1).

On the way home from Tokyo, the girl next to me on the train also had an IKEA bag, which was a funny coincidence, since me and my Swedish colleague had told our Russian colleague how great these bags are on the train that we rode before getting on this train.