it's already time. oct 3rd, i'll arrive in japan!



we tossed/sold almost everything



made books smaller and lighter. removed any hard covers and then cut away the whitespace.

in order to take the "japanese language proficiency test" (JLPT), N2 level, i went from uppsala to stockholm. via bus-then-train it's about an hour, by car 30 min.

uppsala station

spår＝(train)track。ut＝out。gång＝go, time(s)。"out-go-(way)" —> = exit 。






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yesterday i went to my wife's unpaid-internship place for the first time. it's a "horse-riding club and secondhand horse-equipment shop" in a town called knutby (knut=knot, by=town). my wife mainly runs the shop

EDIT: she had to quit because the owners were crazy, constantly increased her work hours, started insulting her all the time, broke the work contract (in fact, never signed any work contract!) etc.
this is their website (which she maintained): http://www.kaptensstallet.se/

it's about 50 minutes by bus from uppsala, then there's a 30 minute walk. the bus costs about 580 yen (for a normal, short bus ride a bus ticket is usually 450 yen).


linje＝line。「summer-times on our busses (starting) from 12(th) june」



neighbour's cows
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what's swedish like?







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students' day ("walpurgis")! the day for anyone who's ever graduated highschool/gymnasium. compared to other towns uppsala has the biggest celebration in sweden. first, the timer on this building hits 0, everyone puts on their graduation caps and then a men's choir sings. this year they sang in swedish and (for some reason) estonian.





after that, everyone does "hanami" except there's not really any flowers to "watch".
「forbidden to take with (you to this place)!：portable grills, furniture, glass」


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the head of our singing club is a priest so we meet at a church. we sing "sacred harp", 1700-1800's traditional american music. there's a club for this in tokyo too! unfortunately the songs are all in english, outside of the USA it's a pretty new thing. it's religious music but our group isn't at all tied to the "religion" (the american groups seem to be like that though; saying a grace before a meeting and whatnot).

how to sing:

a certain church in uppsala






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movie theater


hospital / clinics


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my wife and an exchange student went to a traditional farm. by bus it's about 20 minutes from uppsala.

fri＝free。luft＝air, (sometimes) sky。friluft(s)＝outside "in the open air"。muse(et)＝museum。gård(en)＝garden, yard, orchard。


sheep live here but we didn't see any


traditional fence. try to make your own!
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i eat stuff like fermented rye/oat/buckwheat waffles, salmon, sausages, potatoes, onion, and bananas. i also make my own nattou (fermented beans), kimchi (saurkraut), kombucha (fermented tea), and drink green tea and flavored "bubble water" (mineral water).

my wife and i quit eating processed foods 3 years ago and now we literally can't eat them without throwing up or getting insomnia and nightmares etc, so we can't eat table sugar, white flour, cooking oil etc or anything that contains them, such as ramen, (most types of) soy sauce, sushi rice. from all that we've read online, it's still a lot easier to find pre-made or restaurant stuff in japan on this kind of diet than in sweden or the USA.


whole-grain rice, fermented rye/oat flour, kimchi.


fermented waffle, raspberries, coconut cream


kombucha (green tea and honey, or nowadays I make it with dates instead of honey since it's cheaper and works better)

スウェーデンの動物 / svedaj bestoj / swedish animals



キツツキ / arbbatulo / woodpecker





豚 / porko / pig

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