shufu

an ordinary wednesday – part 2

Coming home from our long morning walk (read here), it was high time to make lunch. Our 20 months old child is now capable of bypassing all child locks in our house; he easily enters the kitchen part of our living room, he easily opens the child locked kitchen drawer, he finds his way to […]

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an ordinary wednesday

Lately I have met challenges that really has forced me to bring out every ounce of creativity and patience that I have been able to find. My son is so curious, he is quite independent and he has the will of his mother, so as soon as the day starts, I start trying to balance

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help at home

The vacuum cleaner is a powerful home appliance. Not only does it clean floors, carpets, air cleaner filters and camera bags with cereal from a little accident during breakfast this morning, vacuum cleaners can also inspire both awe and fear in babies. When I was a child my younger brother really disliked the sound of

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a matter of tissues

Facial tissues are really a thing in Japan. When in Sweden I would use kitchen paper we here use facial tissues. When in Sweden I would use napkins, we here use facial tissues. Facial tissues are everywhere, even in some restaurants you get a package of facial tissues on the table (oh I long for

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corona blues

With a four months old baby and all the joys and challenges he brings maybe I should be too busy to miss anything, but this week I have been overcome with nostalgic feelings from the time before the face of the world changed. Maybe it is tiredness, maybe it is that autumn is coming, maybe

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kitchen love

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

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non-essential person

Is this the new normal now? To be afraid of people, to see a city shut down. When going to the supermarket I felt like I was in the middle of a zombie-movie. And I really do not like those – a half deserted town with stores closed and where people are slowly walking, hiding

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お疲れさま

Tokyo is under state of emergency and my wife is on maternity leave from today – a beautiful symmetry in the middle of all worry and despair. She has dutifully been going to the office, taking great care to stay as safe as possible. お疲れさま my love. Now finally our maternity leave begins and we

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pasteries and empty shelves

What has happened? If I had stepped out of the door after just having woken up from a two months’ sleep, I would not have known there was a pandemic going on. The supermarket was as crowded as before, there was a queue outside the café, there were too many people outside the station. Have

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apples

Apples. I do not eat apples. I am allergic to apples. I like apples but I cannot eat them. They mess with my stomach. Last time I ate apples was in Sweden, I was invited to potato salad. And when I tasted apple in it, I was too coward to leave the potato salad on

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living in a dream

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

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today I am angry

Today is my birthday. And I am angry. I am sure there is some connection, but today I am just… I am simply angry, angry at people. And a little bit at my wife too. Those morning commutes on an overly surrealistically crowded train, where young people sit on priority seats, sleeping, playing games, ignoring

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