Tsukiji Market

Our dear friends at ComIn had planned to go to the famous fish market, Tsukiji, with us. On saturday we went to the destination.
While waiting for Yoko and William on the train station a woman came up to us and asked if we were "the swedish girls". That was Neta. She works at another IKEA and was joining us that day. It is nice to meet new people all the time!
While walking to the market place we passed a magnificent building. we decided to have a look. When entering there was a mass of some sort. Munks was chanting and burning incens. Nice to be able to just walk in on such a occation.
Any how. There is some thing very special about this place. Do you know about the musical-group X-Japan? They are to Japan as Metallica are to America you could say.
Some years ago one of the members of this group commited suicide and this templel was the place he was buried in. They had a table like a shrine for this fomer X-Japan member who was called Hide by the way.

Hongwanji Temple

Inside the Temple

Hide's shrine

Then we went to the market! It was about noon, so most of the fish was already gone. If you want to experience the real thing you have to go really early in the morning! Actually we saw a tuna fish being cut up. We had no idea they were so big!
You would find all sorts of funny things at the market. Mostly things you could eat, mostly stuff we never knew existed. So now we know where wasabi comes from, that the dryed fish-fens are used in warm sake and how japans most expensive mushroom looks like!

Then we went to lunch at an extremly tiny restaurant. The table was a small desk facing the wall, we all sat in a row. When standing outside a waitress came out and showed us a sign that said something like "foreighneirs can not dine here because we do not speak other languages than japanese". Fortunatly we had Yoko so she ordered for us. We have never tasted so good grilled salmon!

Mushrooms, 24 150 yen for these 2.

Sushi chefs slicing tuna.

Fresh Wasabi.

Lunch at a tiny little restaurant.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at a lovely little café. Just enjoying each others company.
At eveningtime we walked to Ginza. Looked at architecture and did some shopping. Very lovely!
Here are some pictures from our day:

A rosty house.

Multy-colored roses. And, yes! They are authentic roses!

A personalized bike.

Don't remember the name of this building. It is in Ginza and it is huge!!! Fantastic architecture. It is hard to show that in pictures though...

Lorries and trucks in japan are very small compared to the ones in Sweden....

Snacks that goes good togeather with beer. We did not taste this one! Actually it's raw squid that is marinated in its own intestents...

A glass building in Ginza.

Workshop at IKEA

This week we have had a 1 day-workshop about showrooms . We learned about all different styles such as scandinavian modern, swedish modern, popular modern, contemporary and so on. It´s quite complicated to tell them apart. But it was very interesting and fun. After studying we were told to look at the 5 first showrooms in the store and now we where going to tell which one belonged to what style. Now that´s tricky! But after some thinking and    re-thinking we actually succeded with the mission. We also were given corner rooms to update. Before start we had to know which style they belong to and then we could give suggestions.

Studying the styles

the corner room we worked with.

An other showroom.

And an other one.

In Japan people have very different taste than at home in Sweden. So translating our skills and everything we have learned in school has been quite an interesting journey.

"Code-red!!", yellow bags are in disorder

IKEA Yellow bag container



We have said before that we are amazed about the high standard in IKEA Japan, everything is so clean and tidy all the time. Almost like customers hardly touch the things...
There are containers with the yellow bags at the store. Every bag is nicely folded and placed in the basket. If we look at an IKEA in Sweden after a busy weekend for example, the bags don't look like this. So today we made a komment about this to a co worker.
And you know what? There actually is a special code that they call out in the speakers when a yellow bag container is messy, so that an employe can run over and re-fold the bags! Amazing.

The "Tokyo-train disease"

On Monday we were really tired. Like falling a sleep everytime you sat down. We thought about it and figured it had to be because of the hectic shopping this weekend. So we went to bed early that night, hoping to be more awake on Thuesday.
But actually, Thuesday it was even worse! Our legs and feet had never been so heavy. Why!?
Could it be because of the new surroundings? I mean, we ARE in Tokyo for godness sakes... It is strange because we are both so tired at the same time.
Now people started to comment the fact that we looked tired. Louisa couldn't take it anymore and asked a co worker if they had any enery-drinks in the vending machine. She bought 2... But stil deadly tired!!

A cross-eyed Louisa

Tuesday was also an early night. Louisa went all in an got 10.5 hours sleep. Wednesday started good. But after 30 min at IKEA it came back! At this point the mind doesn't work right an the imagination goes a bit wild.
Our explenation today was that they had turned off the ventilation in the store so we had a lack of oxygen. It had been bad weather and cooler so there wasn´t a need for aircondition like last week. Nobody else was effected because they were used to it, I mean, they live in Japan, we are just visiting. Their bodys kan take the lack of oxygen.
And one other thing, all Japanese people can fall asleep anywhere. We watch people sleeping everywhere, mostly on the trains and train station. It's quite amazing. And when a person is asleep the body releases some kind of hormon that makes people around you get sleepy aswell. That's the answer!!! Got it!!!

Haha!

But at Fika we have had enough and Louisa drank 2 cups of coffe with a lot of sugar and Poof! The tiredness was gone. Anna consumed some sugar aswell and had the same result.
The thing is, we have been eating so much sugar, tasting everything good so we decided this weekend we were going to stop. And we got a deficiency of sugar!
When we thought about it we came to the conclusion that you need that kind of energy here. There are hardly any fiber in the foods in Japan, not like in Sweden. All food at home contains wholegrain and that is our main sours of energy. So for the first time in history, we can (must) eat sweets every day!!

A quiet weekend

It has been a hectic week, and we have been very busy.It starts to show, so this weekend we decided to take it easy. Sleeping long on Saturday, and going to Harajuku och Sunday, gathering new energy for our upcoming tasks!

This is a shop window in Harajuku.

Pretty shop window in Harajuku

Louisa boughtt this Lolita-dress. Could be a halloween costume, but actually it is going to be like a piece of art at home. Pretty to look at. And I got it on sale! 75% off.

A 108 page powerpoint and karaoke

At last the day has arrived for holding the 2 hour presentation for the Com&In team!
The time was 2 pm this Thursday. We all gathered in a comferens room. We had already prepared everyting and the nervousness was present...

Everyone got a pen and pencil with the entrepreneureal collage's logo. The reaction was very "Kawaii". And we had a big box with Anna's pepparkakor with us which was also very "Kawaii" (Kawaii means cute). Happy excited faces infront of us.The nervousness was gone and we started by presenting our background and the school. Then we talked some about the japanese-swedish collaboration and its history before turning our attention to 6 swedish homes. Homes of our friends and families.
Our audience really participated and asked questions all the way through. It made the contents even better, and they felt like they learned more about swedish living. Actually, it was so good that we got asked to go to the other 4 IKEA's in Japan to present the same thing to all the other Com&In teams!!! So in a couple weeks time we are taking a trip around Japan, representing Sweden, Leksand, the entrepreneureal college and our selves like real embassadors.

The team!

This we had to celebrate! And that we did by going to a expensive sushi restaurant and then to Karaoke!!! We are no longer karaoke virgins...

There is a new swedish restaurant opening in Roppongi, and they are looking for a swedish chef, if you are interested. =)

This is the fancy restaurant. Actually there were quite a lot foreigners dining here along with businesspeople. The restaurant is located in a hidden place. It´s was difficult to find. Impossible is the right word, unless somebody told you about it. The interior was from the 80´s, and there was a big japanese woman guarding the entrance. She looked very serious. When entering the restaurant the staff shouted in japanese. The same when we left. It was a bit scary...

Beginners is Sachimi. We have never tasted such good fish before! It really is a big difference!

 

Louisa and the sashimi



And this is how 8000 yen sushi looks like. Fantastic, how good it tasted!

We told the others that if we are going to sing karaoke it has to be ABBA ;)



Anna singing ABBA.
We also sang Brian Adams and Lady Gaga!!


This was an evening we never will forget! Thanks to the tasty food, singing entertainment and fabulous company. Thank you Fami, Sonia and William for doing this with us!

Back at IKEA

We have had a wonderful long weekend. But finally we are back at IKEA learning about interior design. This Wednesday we got to work in the storage area witch we call BA10. There are a lot of different departments and everyone has a different code like that. We try to keep notes but it's one of those things that take a long time to learn. But we manage by asking sometimes.

We are so greatful to have such dedicated leaders at IKEA. They give us important tasks, and let us figure things out by our selves and get constant feedback. Thank you Com&In team at Shim Misato!!!

Day 2 in Shinjuku

On the second day we arrived in Shinjuku to meet up with Mr. Koba (embassador for the entrepreneureal college) He took us he took us to a town called Otsuka where we were attending a lunch meeting with japanese medium small busineses. Once again we were proud to represent our school and spoke about the philosofy about its educational system. They were an interested to have a collaboration with the school and maybe start a student exchange program. So in the future more people from the entrepreneureal college can have internship at japanese companies!
We had a fabulous lunch at the meeting aswell. It was really interseting to attend a genuin japanese business meeting. After a while peolpe loosened up and started to talk quite much through the interpritatior, who was a japanese woman.

Visiting a little tempel in Otsuka after the meeting.

Later that evening we had dinner with Lasse.N and his friends who we adore! We hope for a long terme relationship.

Swedish embassy

Lasse.N and the swedish deligation came all the way from Leksand, Sweden to celibrate an anniversary at the sister-city Tobetsu up in Hokaido. On Thuesday they came to Tokyo (Shinjuku) to have some business meetings. We met up with them and followed along to Roppongi and the Swedish ambassy. We had the plesure to be invited to a meeting to discuss a collaboration. We were really proud to represent the school that day. And we also met some very nice people whom we exchanged business cards with.
We also got a quest from Leksands Bröd to look in to if  IKEA  are selling knäckebröd, and if not, discuss how to promote this and we are taking our task seriously.

Waiting for the swedish deligation to arrive at the hotel

Arrived in Roppongi. On the way to the Swedish Ambassy

After the embassy we took the train back to Shinjuku to attend a lecture about Japanese lifestyle and entrepreneurship. It was very interesting! We learned about a small village somewhere in the japanese countryside where the majority of the population is over 65 years old. They make really good money by picking leafs in the forrest and selling them to restaurants for garnishing dishes. One woman in this village earn around 800000 SEK per year! The man who was telling us about this invited us along with an embassador from the Entrepreneureal College to stay a weekend at his cabin in Nagano. So in 3 weeks time we are going there. The purpose is to strainghten the relationship and also visiting entrepreneurs that do hand crafting.

After the lecture we got invited to dine with everybody at a japanese restaurant. The food was delicious, and the company was even better! We got a chance to talk to everybody and getting to know the persons behind the swedish deligation. We will keep in touch when we return to Leksand. We feel honoured and happy to be a part of this.

On the way to the restaurant in Shinjuku. Neon lights everywhere! The temperature was around 25 degrees celcius.

Starters was this litte pease of tofu with wasabi on top. You pour a little bit soya on top before eating.

Trying warm sake for the first time. It reminds me a little bit of glögg.



It is traditional to have fresh food. We fried it on the table.

A day out with a japanese family



On friday at the staff-party a co-worker asked us if we wanted to spend a day with him and his family.  On monday (japanese nationalday) we met up with them and spent the day visiting markets and a tempel.




Here they are! Our new japanese friends. They have lived in America for 2 years so they speak English. And the wife is studying a bit Swedish aswell. We hope they visit us in Sweden in the future. 



First the took us to Gueno Park. This place is famous for its sakura festival in the spring. It grows a lot of cherry trees here, and the festival is when they are in bloom. Must be pretty beautiful. Besides cherry trees there was a tree called Ginko tree. The fruit of this thee is considered a delicasy, but they smell really bad!

There was a lot of tourists in Gueno park this sunny day. One litte girl was taking a bath in afountain.



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This is displays fo traditional japanese deserts outside a caffé. We went in and had some green tea ice gream with sweet bean paste and seaweed yello. Even the deserts in japan is good for the health!




Ameyoko Market.



You could buy everything! Here is some squid.



Pretty tea jars.



On the way to another market place called Kappabashi market we walket along a street that had several stores that only had a special kind of cabinet for sale. Apperantly you use these cabinets to put a memory from someone who just past away. Like a little cemetary at home.



Anna & Louisa at kappabashi market.

On this market you woul buy kitchen stuff, but further down the way to a temple they were selling more traditional things, like these lovely kokeshi dolls.

Very good service, you get a carefully wraped package if you buy something.

It was a really hot day! Over 25 degrees celsius and very humid, so an ice cream burger suited the aucation.

The tempel is called the Sensojitempel and is located in Asakusa

Pressy shrines

Group photo. "let's work together"