Living with a baby is like living in slow motion and in a time lapse at the same time. Lately the nights seem to never end; how many times is it possible to wake up during the night, how little is it possible to sleep and still be aware of being awake – nights when […]
How did I manage to do cooking all those years in Sweden without the number one most fantastic indispensable yet most simple kitchen utensil ever created? What I am talking about? Cooking chopsticks – long wooden chopsticks that have completely transformed my way of cooking and have me enjoy my time in the kitchen like
Children are really celebrated in Japan, a dear friend in Sweden pointed out when I explained about the 100 day celebration for our son. I felt it was a very accurate statement, and I found myself noticing that I had not thought about it myself for a long time – perhaps I have already been
Last week I was asked by the local newspaper Smålänningen from my hometown in Sweden if I was interested in a story about this blog, and much to my surprise I did not even hesitate before I said yes please. Old me would have tried to convince myself that it was a bad idea, that
Raking leaves is really the only thing I do not like about autumn. When living in Sweden, raking leaves on a big lawn every fall was my least favourite chore. I found it boring, tedious, a necessary evil that had to be done before being able to enjoy the clean beauty of winter. So raking
At the same time as the second wave of Corona infections is unsettling Tokyo, a heat wave is sweeping through Japan. Even the nights are too hot for a walk outside with our baby, but being in a one room apartment day and night is also not ideal, so we have been taking walks underground
Living with a baby is learning to live in a new world, and beside all novelties such as sleep deprivation, diaper changing and experiencing new levels of previously unexplored worries and wonderous joy, there is also a whole new set of words that move in with the baby. Some of of them I think my
Whether it is my age or the humid summer in Japan I do not know, probably a bit of both, but since moving to Tokyo I have come in contact with skin problems I never had before. Those and the accompanying visits to the doctor, together with all the hospital visits that having a baby
Getting used to changes, I find more and more, is like climbing over the threshold of friction and then keep moving; the effort required to make change happen, to overcome the urge of wanting everything to stay the same, is the force required to make an inert object start moving and once overcome, once the
Having been engulfed by the baby bubble, my awareness is now on things I did not think about before (and vice versa I am sure, like having to think really hard to know what day it is). Being a first time father, I have no experience of being in the Swedish baby bubble, so instead
With experience from living in apartments in Sweden, I have been amazed at the quietness of our neighbours in our apartment building (or mansion as we say here). Apart from the front door (I am sorry, I mean the metal sheet covering the entrance to our apartment) which lets through all the sound from anyone
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