Ladies and gents, I present to you; Timmins, Ontario! (Don’t ask me why I am here. Long story. Let’s call it a holiday.) At the moment it is a whooping 7 degrees celsius here, which is quite different from the 36 degree weather I left back in Tokyo. In any case – Timmins life is probably as opposite of Tokyo life as I could get at this point, and it is just what I need. Tokyo life was going faster and faster, so what better remedy than going to a small town with 45.000 people in Northern Ontario. Life here is sloooooow (and I’m lovin’ it atm). Now, let me give you a tour of this fine little town and its eh… unique establishments.

…this is the airport…

…and this is downtown! They have karaoke in all parts of the world, it seems.

And this was taken right outside a Wal-Mart! Check out my exotic location! I am at a Wal-Mart! Now, for the North Americans reading this blog it is probably not very exciting with a Wal-Mart,  but we don’t have those things in Scandinavia, nor in the middle of Tokyo. I even saw the electric wheelie-cart-thingies for overweight and disabled people at the entrance, but I was told you need a special license to drive one of those. (Is that true? In that case, what a bummer, I really wanted to try out one of those things.) I was ready and excited to experience some real North-American culture! And oh boy, the sizes of food here is insane. Everything comes in twelve-packs and bags weighing in at several kg. This wouldn’t have worked in Japan. Where would we store all of the food after we bought it? My trip to Wal-Mart ended with me being excited to the point where I forgot to take pictures inside the Wal-Mart. Oh well. Next time.

And here we have… uh… empty space? Oh Cananda(!), and all of your space! And cars. And a factory in the background. Scenery is complete!

I am please to show you little golden gems like “The Pita Pit” and “Joanne’s art and gift centre”. I don’t think I have ever seen more terrible typography mashed together in one place. This is not all bad though. It is kind of like the Eurovision Song Contest, there is so much ugly it kind of implodes and turns out to be a pretty exotic and funky sight. I am sure Joanne at the “art and gift centre” agrees with me.

More taverns. I didn’t know they were that popular. I also realized that the only type of bars in this town are sport bars. What a refreshing change. I haven’t sat my foot in one of those in years. And if I were to get tired of the sport bars, I can always buy myself an edible fruit bouquet. After all, it is the perfect gift for any occasion. And advertising never lies. Not in Timmins.

Hey Norwegians! We have Vinmonopolet, but Ontario has THE BEER STORE. How can we compete with that?! That is like ten times cooler than the Norwegian Wine Monopoly. The Beer store has a wonderful logo which I doubt they have changed or renewed in at least 30 years. Beautiful. And well thought through advertising, with the phone number covered up by shrubbery.

Look, more space. And another beauty bar that will open soon. This town is booming. Ok. Maybe it isn’t. But this town is really charming, the people here are real, the barbecue parties are awesome, and people know how to party even harder than the Norwegians. And the best part is – I have time to sleep in. (Look! I actually look kind of fresh in the picture below!) Northern Ontario bliss.

Oh, hello there Toronto! Nice to finally see you again, even if it was only for 10 hours or so. I haven’t blogged for a couple of days, and part of the reason was because we bought a ticket with United Airlines. United, you broke my Taylor guitar! Ok, you didn’t. (You did break Dave Caroll’s guitar though, see video below.) But you did lose my luggage, hence no blogging for moi.

(We went from Tokyo through San Francisco, had to grab our bags and recheck them because that is the way ‘Murica works. So we rechecked them in San Francisco, and jumped on the plane to Toronto. Unfortunately, our luggage didn’t make it onto the plane. We waited at the airport in Toronto, hoping that United would follow neat rules of logic and send the luggage on the next plane to Toronto. They didn’t. This wouldn’t have been terrible, if it wasn’t for the fact that we were going on another flight to Northern Ontario the next morning. And I felt quite… unrefreshed after 24 hours of traveling with no access to clean clothes. Air Canada was nice enough to give us a small overnight kit which even had a deodorant stick. A lifesaver! Thank you Air Canada! In any case – lost luggage isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ll survive.)

Time for another short restaurant review! We found another Spanish restaurant, La Taperia in Yotsuya-sanchome. The style of the food here is a little bit more “old style” Spanish than the previous restaurant we went to in Kagurazaka, El Pulpo. However – the quality was good, and one of the most beautiful things about Tokyo is that you can discover these “time capsule” restaurants. The food stays true to the era when the restaurant opened or the era when the chef got his training. This reminded me of early 90’s Spanish food (which is not a bad thing!). The food was good, and the service was great. They also have English speakers at La Taperia. The food was quite a bit heavier than at El Pulpo, but it was tasty and good. As in any other restaurant in Japan, the cheese plate was nothing to call home about, but compared to the price it wasn’t the worst one I had. The meat dish with a blue cheese sauce was surprisingly good. We were recommended a bottle of Spanish white wine, and it complemented most of the dishes quite well. If you are in Yotsuya-sanchome, it is worth a visit if you are in the mood for a bit of heavy Spanish food.

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I went to the Mori Art Center in Roppongi on Friday, and for once it was actually allowed to take pictures of part of the exhibition. This is Kusama Yayoi “Love is Calling”. Beautiful! I felt like I was walking in wonderland!

This is Sparta! Uhm… Ok. It isn’t. But it is Saitama! I am a Tokyo kind of gal, so I rarely ever travel outside the city borders, but I have a friend who lives in Saitama, and we met up at her place. OUTSIDE THE CITY! In the next PREFECTURE! Wawa-wi-wooo! (Adventurous!) I guess I should mention that this place is only like 50 min away from Shinjuku. (Still adventurous!) But look! They have fields of stuff growing right next to their apartment! And we saw bats! Over the river! (I was very excited about this, mind you!)

I saw plants growing in the wild for the first time in several months, and even the air felt crisper and cleaner than in Tokyo.

More plants!

A house! In the middle of a rice field! My first thought was that it would be awesome to live like this, in the middle of nature, but then it got darker and a lot of bugs came creeping out from everywhere, and I thought it must be quite the hassle to try to keep the bugs and bats out of your house in the middle of the rice patty at night. To finish up our evening walk, we went to a bamboo forest near by. Lovely!

Remember how I wrote I painted a box blue for no reason. Then I painted my face for no reason. Snapped. One, two. Painting my face and snapping pictures of myself used to be one of my favorite past time events 10 years ago. Not so much these days. I know what I look like, sans makeup as well. I washed my face and returned to bed.

First and foremost; I found the exit. I don’t remember where I found the exit though. Or why I needed to find an exit. But I found it. This made me happy.

I also tried a new sushi place. It was ok. Not the best place I had been to, but not the worst. Nothing to write home about, so I won’t write about it on the blog. // On the right – one of the super-duper big trees at the uni campus. Which I don’t have to see again until September! Hooray!

Even in sunlight the light inside the classrooms seemed dull and dark. This is what studying does to you. Remember to be grateful for your summer vacation kids! // On the right; it’s Gokiburi-hoi-hoi-time. Or in plain English; you buy little hotels for the cockroaches with sticky-tape inside of them. The roach goes into the hotel to eat, and ends up spending all time until eternity stuck on the floor. Poor guys. We don’t actually have much trouble with roaches where we live, but all of a sudden the temperature went up a whole lot in a matter of a day or two a couple of weeks back, and two small guests found their way into our house. (Welcome to Japan!) But fear not, we have top service and plenty of options which our guests can choose from, including The Bellagio, The Venetian and Caesars Palace. The Bellagio, located right next to a small crack in the wall seemed to the top pick for our summer guests. The other hotels seems to suffer, not a single guest have visited them for weeks. Bad for the service industry, good for us.

Quirky flower shop in Mintato-ku. I wanted to buy one of those deliiiish-looking basil plants you can spot in the front of the picture there, but then I remembered I had to enter the overcrowded highway to hell, *cough* the Oedo line *cough*, and the chance of bringing the plant home in one piece during rush hour made my heart sink. I would end up torturing the small thing, which I had already appropriately named Herr Basillusk den 18. (Yes, this implies that I might have killed of 17 basil plants before contemplating buying this one. No comment.) Pictures getting my newly acquired basil plant stuck in the train door floated vividly through my mind, and I opted out of buying it. On the right; I reached Shinjuku without the basil plant, but with enough time to snap a picture part of the skyline.

I tried a fancy new drink from one of the automated machines. Think of Kiwi fruit. With all the kiwi-seeds intact. Then think of yoghurt. Then think of them together. Yay? Nay? It was actually far more delicious than I anticipated. I might have to take the train to this station again just so I can buy another box of juice. On the right… recognize this guy? I finally got to go to the Studio Ghibli museum again! More pictures and text about this will come.

It’s Saturday. But I forgot to post this on Thursday, and I am in holiday-mode, so I am posting it now instead. I was looking through the archive, and I can not believe it has been five years since this picture was taken. Jeez. Time flies. I guess five years have left me with less eye makeup and less lipstick.

Holiday makes everything go slow and I am not sure if I like it or not, because I end up doing a lot of random things at random times (hence the box I painted for no reason, or my face I painted for no reason, or the doodles I doodled for no reason..). In any case – I decided to learn how to make snowflakes. The real deal, with six points! (Not the silly ones with 4 or 8.) I found a video by Vihart and I had to try it myself. Nothing like festive christmas decorations in July.