Weird things in your suitcase

When going back from Sweden I had quite a few strange things in my suitcase. I bought some licorice root extracts (because who doesn't want to make food that tastes of licorice?) and some salmiak salt (chemical stuff that tastes like licorice), since that is not available in Japan. I also keep buying fun props that may or may not be useful for magic tricks. This time I found a shop that sold huge CocaCola bottles for 10 dollars. So I bought two. This meant I could not fit anything else into my suitcase, so I had to fill the bottles with all my clothes and other luggage...

I flew from Stockholm to Helsinki, and then from Helsinki to Nagoya. And from Nagoya I was going to fly to Sapporo. Upon arriving in Nagoya I had a small delay. I was politely dragged into a small room far away, where they frisked me, took out everything from my pockets, and unpacked everything from my bags.

We talked for 30 minutes or so about how wonderful it must be to work at Sapporo's most prestigious university, and whether or not my bags contained drugs (they do not). They kept showing me photos of different types of drugs and asking if I was sure I did not have any of these in my bags. They also explained that "even marijuana" is considered an illegal drug in Japan, so even having that would qualify. I told them that I did not have any drugs and they kept asking and unpacking my bags.

Since I had a kilo or two of magic props, once they reached those parts of the bags, there were many many suspicious looking items. There were many: "And what in the world is this?!" After a while they asked if I do magic. But by the time all the weird props started appearing out of the bags, they seemed pretty relaxed and they thought it was funny that I did magic.

But apparently I look like a drug smuggler. And they also thought it was suspicious to have "only two" heavy bags when visiting Europe. I had plenty of time between my flights, and the flight to Nagoya arrived early so I still made my connecting flight to Sapporo. Once they let me go from the customs, I hurried to the domestic terminal where I again received special treatment at the security check and had to be frisked, and remove lots more things than most people. So I guess I also look like a terrorist, haha. But the customs people told me that it was one of the drug sniffing dogs that had indicated that it thought my carry on bag contained drugs (which of course it did not). They also said that sometimes the dogs indicate for other reasons than drugs, but since they are dogs you cannot really ask them about why they do what they do.

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!

Swedish chocolate

In Sweden people eat chocolate. My brother recommended a new product from the Swedish chocolate maker: chocolate with salty almonds. It was great.

You can also find chocolate with licorice cream inside. This is great too.

I also stumbled across a store selling common chocolate bars but with non-standard text on the wrapping. These say "congratulations", "hug", "kiss", and "make out".

Good food and puns at Minh Mat

My brother and his wife wanted to take me out to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant they had found. The restaurant is called "Minh mat", and Minh is presumably the name of the owner. It also happens to spell "My food" in Swedish. The menu was full of "Minh's recommendation"/"My recommendation" type of word play.

We ordered a few starters and three main dishes and shared all of it. That turned out to be a huge amount of food, but it was all good. I ordered frog legs because it was the strangest (most exotic) thing on the menu. They were not bad, but the other main dishes were even better.

I was also given a big bag of licorice products. Licorice candy, chocolate, tea, and much more. In Japan, everyone hates licorice, so it is not sold here. In Sweden everyone loves licorice, so whenever I am in Sweden I eat too much licorice.

Not a semla

Something called "semla" that was not actually a semla

My Swedish friends had found a place in Sapporo that serves food that is vaguely Swedish. It seems to be inspired by Swedish food, but possibly made by someone who has only seen the food in photos. They had something called "シューセムラ・マンゴ" ("shuu semura mango", cream puff semla with mango flavor), which kind of looked like a semla ("semura" in Japanese). It was a cream puff with mango jam that had a lid to look like a semla. This is very very different from a real semla. It was still good, though.

My friends tell me that the salmon they tried in the same place tasted pretty Swedish, though. The interior design was pretty Scandinavian, and they had lots of books in Swedish and Finnish.

Learning small number with Moomin

There was a big book on what to do with licorice. In Sweden (and the rest of Scandinavia) licorice and salmiakki is very popular, but in Japan people hate it. Here was a whole book about using licorice in chocolate, ice cream, alcohol, meat dishes, and more.

Warnings about the dangers of eating licorice.

Japanese sweets and Australian licorice

One of my friends has a sister and a niece living in Australia. The sister and the 1.5 year old niece are visiting Sapporo right now. I was invited to come meet them. A girl I know who is getting married soon would also be coming, with her husband to be.

We had many nice things to eat, including water melon and some traditional style Japanese sweets. I also received two bags of licorice from Australia. In Japan, most people hate licorice and just spit it out if you trick them into eating it. This means it is not sold here, so this was a very welcome gift.

Licorice!

Two friends from Sweden are in Sapporo now. They brought some licorice for me!

Licorice + Calpis = greatness

When I was in Sweden in October I visited a shop that sells only licorice themed things. Candy, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. I bought something called "licorice essence", that you can use to make licorice flavored cakes etc.

When my brother visited Sapporo recently we went to Ropossa and had lots of fun. My brother had brought some licorice candy, and a Japanese guy we ran into there thought it would be a great idea to trick everyone into eating this, that Japanese people consider to me slightly more disgusting that chewing on dirty bicycle tires or something else they would never ever consider eating.

In Ropossa they also serve flavored Calpis. Calpis is some kind of yogurt flavored sports drink, and you can get it with strawberry, melon, grape, original, and many other flavors. I once mentioned that I had bought this licorice essence and that it would be interesting to try to make licorice Calpis with it. No one else thought that sounded remotely interesting or like a great idea, but I brought my licorice essence to Ropossa anyway.

I got to mix the essence with non-flavored Calpis, and got something looking vaguely like coffee. To me it tasted mainly of Calpis, and a little bit of licorice. To everyone else, it tasted so bad they had no idea if there was any trace of Calpis taste left. And this horrible taste stuck in the mouth for a long time too, they complained. If you let it wait for awhile, the licorice taste became stronger (maybe the ice in the glass melted and diluted the Calpis taste a bit?), which was great.

In the end, they took half my glass of excellent licorice Calpis and put it in the freezer. They want to give it to another regular customer there who hates strange food. Since all "normal" Japanese already hate licorice, they believe tricking him into drinking this will be great. And he usually drinks ice coffee, that looks pretty much the same too.

Licorice!

Two Swedish friends are visiting Sapporo and they brought licorice. Licorice is not really sold in Japan, because Japanese people in general consider this to be the most disgusting thing ever.

Licorice

Ice cream with chili and licorice

In Sweden, licorice is very popular. You find it in candy of all sorts, and in ice cream. If you look harder, you can find it in cakes and in normal food too. And in tea.

Licorice shop

In Japan, almost everyone considers licorice to be the most disgusting thing they have ever tried, and they often spit it out right in front of you (which they themselves think is very rude, but they say that in this case being rude is the only option, haha).

Licorice roots

I stopped by a licorice shop where they sell hundreds of different types of candy (all tasting of licorice, of course), but also have tea with licorice etc. The tea is quite nice. This time I also found toothpaste and shampoo with licorice! I have not tried them yet, but I bought some.

Licorice in shampoo and toothpaste

Ropossa, chance meetings, strange candy

One of my friends told me that he wanted to meet my brother. He suggested we could all go to the "magic snack" Ropossa, since he had not been there since we were there together at Halloween a year and a half ago.

Ropossa is fun in many ways. The "mama" shows magic (she is very good at spoon bending, for instance), which is fun to watch. She also likes to scare people, so she uses all kinds of strange toys to do that and burns "flash cotton" in huge amounts near you when you least expect it, etc. The place is also full of toys and games that you can play. Last but not least, the people that come there are usually very interesting and fun too.

When we entered, I introduced my brother and the others, and the Ropossa mama immediately asked us to wear strange things on our heads and to go stand behind the counter and pretend to be working. Then she took photos of us. That kind of thing happens a lot.

My sister in law, my brother, my friend, his wife, and his junior high teacher

When things calmed down, my friend told me that he and his girlfriend had gotten married about a week before, so we congratulated them on that. Then another regular visitor to Ropossa showed up and said hello to me. My friend kind of froze up and asked me what the name of that man was. I said what I believed his name was, and my friend then stood up and very politely said hello to that man. It turned out that he had been his teacher in junior high, and the teacher still remembered him. Strange meeting.

My sister in law kept asking throughout the evening if it was "really true that that guy is a teacher?!". No one else seemed to find any reason to doubt that, but she found him to be very unlike a teacher, I guess.

Licorice

We played some interesting children's games and more and more people kept arriving. Most of which I knew. One was the magician Akkey who was forced by the Ropossa mama to show everyone some magic. A very funny man who is the principal of a kindergarten also showed up. He asked me what I had in my bag that I was lugging around, and I answered that it contained gifts from Sweden that my relatives had brought me. He then suggested that everyone should eat some of the licorice I had received. Japanese people in general hate licorice and think it is the most disgusting thing ever invented, but he suggested that that would just make it more fun. Seeing the faces of everyone there trying to keep some small licorice candy down was indeed quite fun. Both me and my brother like licorice (as do most Swedes) and kept eating just because it is good.

My sister in law kept asking if indeed this guy was a kindergarten principal for real.

Waffle mix

The principal asked a girl that works in Ropossa to have some of the candy, which she declined. He insisted and in the end she had one. Akkey asked for some Coca Cola to get the disgusting taste out of his mouth, but the girl then said that everyone would have to wait because she was not finished eating her piece of candy yet. They had to wait and suffer for quite some time, haha. My sister in law once again tried some Swedish licorice (which she does not like), but she spit it out. She could not find any tissue or any good place to spit it out, so she just spit it out into my brother's glass of tea.

Toothpaste

I usually ask my relatives to bring or send me Swedish toothpaste when they ask if I want something from Sweden. My brother brought me some toothpaste, and some waffle mix to make Swedish waffles (which my magic bar owner friend wants me to make for him).

M

Last Christmas presents?

My brother had brought me some toothpaste and some deodorant as a late Christmas present. There were some presents from my parents too, that seem to contain more licorice tea.

Presents from Sweden

My parents sent me some Christmas presents. They arrived when I was not home, but in Japan everything is open 24 hours per day, so I took my bicycle through the snowstorm to the 24h post office that was holding my package and got it around midnight. It turned out to contain licorice (yay!), green tea with licorice (yay!) and dried apples from the family summer house garden. Apparently the apple trees there gave ridiculous amounts of apples (70kg?) this year, so my parents made apple cakes, apple pies, apples as gifts, apple juice, apple jam, and all kinds of things. They also dried some of the apples and sent them to me. They were very good. There was also a cute hedgehog toy animal in the package.

Omiyage

My Swedish friends who come to Sapporo several times per year are here again. They will stay for Christmas and New Years. They brought me tea from Sweden. They brought several different teas, but they all have licorice mixed in with the tea! Great for me, bad for Japanese tea drinkers.