While drawing up Marte’s webpage (hopefully the new design will be up shortly if I can get around to it), I decided to make an illustration from the various graphic parts. It was kind of quickie tossed together in photoshop, but it just feels great to have a day where I was half-creative again.

Here is a ton of pictures of Shanghai’s skyline at night. I realize there is a lot of pictures here, but I thought they were all so pretty I had a hard time choosing between the different ones. It felt like something taken directly out of a scifi.

If you ever find yourself in Shin-Okubo, you have to try out one of my favorite fish restaurants. There is no English menu, and I don’t think the staff speaks any English either, but the fish is really fresh and delicious, and there are a couple of pictures of some of the dishes on the menu as well. We just went there the other day, and as always the food was really nice and the prices are reasonable. The picture above is maguro-sashimi and sake.

Senriki is not a sushi shop, so you will not find sushi here, but you will find plenty of fresh sashimi, and a lot of cooked and grilled fish dishes as well. In this picture the place looks kind of empty, but it is usually pretty packed. It was completely packed when we arrived, I just didn’t dare to pick up my camera and take pictures of the place with people sitting everywhere.

This is fresh hamachi-sashimi, it was really tasty.

And crispy buri (yellowtail in English). It was really tender and juicy on the inside, but perfectly crispy on the outside.

And of course some uni (sea urchin – kråkebolle).  Super creamy and extremely fresh. And to go with it through the whole meal, I had some chilled sake. They also have the heated sake with the fish-fin in it for those who like that. This place isn’t pretentious at all, it is just regular small bottles of sake and nothing fancy, but the selection of seafood is still excellent. The restaurant is right up the street from Shin-Okubo station, so if you are ever in the neighborhood, go visit!

Nothing like starting the day with my favorite breakfast. I think that tobiko is one of my absolute favorite things to eat in this world.

I have been saying for months that I was going to help Marte fix up her webpage a little bit (just because she is awesome), but since things have been crazy busy I haven’t gotten around to it, but today I sat down and started drawing some of the various parts for the graphics. This is just a small preview, I have to draw a couple of more fishes and flowers and put it all together. I think it is going to look cute, it is really fun to draw Japanese-inspired tattoo illustrations.

In Shanghai, Hello Kitty is made of gold.

And our hotel was so luxurious and nice. This was right in front of the elevator on our floor.

And then, after eating only Chinese food, we spotted a Pizza Hut and actually ate lunch there. I like to try to avoid eating at places like McDonalds and such when you are travelling to all kinds of amazing places with amazing local foods, but we were hungry and it was conveniently located. I don’t think I have been to a Pizza hut in maybe 8 years, but it was actually really good. Much better than I remember it being.

In China Hello Kitty wears communist gear.

Super-duper nice dumplings. We walked for 45 minutes to find this dumpling place, but they were extremely good and they tasted unlike all other kinds of dumplings I have eaten. I was still pretty full from lunch, so I could only eat one of them, but it was still worth the walk.

I don’t think the picture truly captures how big the Cartier sign was. Across the road there was an Apple store with an equally big sign.

Our holiday in Shanghai was quite jazzy. We spent the evenings in jazz bars listening to talented people. I am still in awe over how good these people were. I knew it was going to be decent, but they were really talented.

Another great talk by Dan Ariely. This talk is about the hidden reasons we think it’s OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we’re predictably irrational – and can be influenced in ways we can’t grasp.

Here is the video I took when we went on the silly and sparkly sightseeing tunnel in Shanghai. It was, well, interesting. And sparkly.

I should also mention that this is the first time I have ever opened iMovie, and just being able to add music to a video felt like an accomplishment. I also figured that I from time to time want to upload little movies (from Japan), so I made a youtube channel. Subscribe or befriend me if you want to ♥

This video explains what is going on in Japan to Japanese kids. Like my friend Wilhelm wrote: “Apparently the power plant really needs to go to the bathroom and makes people uneasy with its flatulence. A diaper will however solve the problem.”

Since the western media still is overfeeding us with all kinds of articles about radiation and power plants, I wanted to share a couple of articles that I found a bit different and interesting. I have no idea if these have been floating all over the internet or not already since I was a week in China, but they are great reads.

• The Last Foreigner in Japan. This is an interesting article about all the ex-pats who are leaving Japan, and how the author who is staying behind feels about it. In the comment section below the article there was a great remark: “For me there have always been two kinds of expats — there are those who come to live in Japan and those who merely come as tourists. Some of those tourists actually stick it out for twenty years without ever really living here.”
• Uniqlo Donates $25.6 Million To Japanese Red Cross. Reading this article made me really happy. Uniqlo makes a great donation, and even more impressive than that: CEO Tadashi Yanai will make a personal donation of 1 billion yen.
• Japan’s infamous mafia (Yakuza) are helping out with the relief efforts. Say what you want about the yakuza, it shows that everyone has good in them. A member quotes: “There are no yakuza or katagi (ordinary citizens) or gaijin (foreigners) in Japan right now. We are all Japanese. We all need to help each other.”

Please keep in mind that the true tragedy are all the tsunami and earthquake victims. Do whatever you can to help them. Donate money. Send stuff. Do something. I will go out tomorrow and buy supplies and ship it up north. ♥

Got back to Tokyo last night, and it felt good to be in a country with calm people and a reliable internet-connection. (China was niiice as well though, don’t get me wrong!) However, just in the first four hours of being home there was six earthquakes (probably aftershocks). I assume it is Japan’s way of saying welcome home. No major quakes. Today has been spent doing laundry and other housewife-like things and then going shopping for food. The supermarkets have almost completely restocked everything (apart from cup noodles) and there was no long lines anymore. I have tons of pictures from Shanghai to look through. Hope everyone else is well, I haven’t checked anyone’s blogs because bloglovin was blocked in China. Anyway – good to be home!