Being a foreigner in Tokyo, I have come to know the Immigration Bureau quite well; during my two years here I have already gone there five or six times. And now time had come to visit the Immigration Bureau once again to apply for an extension of my spouse visa. With the Corona virus affecting […]
Apart from love and patience, being a parent seems to require flexibility more than anything else. In many ways I find that my wife and I are acting like a zipper, taking turns to care about our baby and connecting with each other to seal the space of love we are carrying. It is a
This has been the happiest week of my life, but in some ways also the most difficult. Let me back up to last Friday, May 29. When I start writing this, I am sitting in a car park outside a children’s hospital in Tokyo. The time is 2.25 and the rain has finally stopped. We came
I love the ceiling in our apartment; in a way it feels like we live in an old factory when I look at the ceiling and see the uneven surfaces, the rough unpolished cement, the imprints that the wood used for making the ceiling has left behind. I fantasised about living in an old factory
I could not imagine Tokyo being this quiet. It has been Golden Week, the longish Japanese spring holiday, and with traveling out of the question and shops and parks closed, people seem to have been quietly staying at home; streets almost empty and only a few trucks on the nearby highway. I woke up early
While we were wondering what kind of world our baby will grow up in, a delivery came – a piece of the past had found its way to our doorstep (actually our genkan, but never mind…). A few weeks ago I tried to send a postcard to Sweden – these days that is not possible, and apparently
The beauty of Japan is never more clearly manifested than in the weeks of cherry blossom blooming. Normally I would cherish this time, be outside as much as possible, visit beautiful spots, take a train to the mountains, have picknick with my wife in a park, but this year everything is different. This weekend we
There is no typhoon to blame this time. There is no end in sight. No date, no prognosis, no nothing, except for uncertainty that spreads quicker than the Corona virus. And fear. I sense fear around me as well as inside – there is no typhoon, nothing we can see. Just questions, wondering if the
There is normally not much vacation for people in Japan. This I do not like. But on the other hand there is a lot of red days scattered around the year, making long weekends something of a not so unusual golden lining to everyday life. This I love. So Monday was day off. Sunday was
I really feel like I am living in a dream. When I think of my life three years ago, having just started to study Japanese in Sweden, wanting to be able to better communicate with my nieces.… Meeting all the little kids in my family had become my source of joy those days, and I was
On the train today we managed to get a seat for my wife. I find that holding her bag with the maternity badge up in front of me increases the chance of someone obliging, offering their seat to my wife. So my wife was sitting and I stood in front of her, looking at her.
Happy new year. Our first New Year spent in Japan, and quite different from Sweden. After trying to celebrate a traditional Swedish Christmas (something that was quite unsuccessful, since my wife are very particular about what she eats and the range of pickled herring anyway is very limited) we decided to try to do a