Japan

Another week, another interpretor, another human being to get along with. I don´t know how old she is, but I´m sure older than me.
She moved from Tokyo to America 10 years ago. Most of the time her english is easy to understand, except she´s wearing a cleanroom mask. Then it gets irish - hard to understand.
Doesn´t matter, because at the moment there´s not too much to interpretate. As a result out of this lack of action, I tried to communicate on the basis of a small talk. The outcome was not overwhelming.

Most of the interpretors I met in the past where either peaches or Ginko seeds. Yellow or white outside but yellow inside,means inside they are all Japanese.
She is different. She´s more like a banana. And she likes pink cleanroom suites, has a pink pen and a pink mobile phone. Which makes it difficult to find a fruit. (Wait, I remember some kind of cactus fruit, pink outside and inside white. But there were also this black seeds in it...)
On the way to the lunch she asked, if I already have a japanese girlfriend. No! I´m married, I answered. So she asked me, why I´m trying to learn japanese, since all guys she knows learning japanese only try to find a japanese girlfriend. This may explain the black seeds.

Sorted my mind. This lunch the question came up, whether we Germans like japanese food or not. I like it. But speaking of this I remember a scene from "lost in translation" which was not translated into english in the movie I´ve seen yesterday. It was the scene in the sauna. The two German guys were taklking about the japanese food and the one said he loves japanese food, but he would like to have some REAL german food. The other persons agreed.
Watching this scene yesterday I found my german collegue in exactly the same situation. Not in the sauna (he don´t like it), but whenever we have the discussion about the food he says he´s missing the german counterpart.

To be honest: The only time I felt homesick during the last 7 weeks, was when we had Spaghetti Bolognese in the canteen.

There´s also something else very interesting about Japan. Yesterday I went to Shinjuku, to "Tokyo hands", which is a huge (really huge) department store, where you can buy everything.
Passing most of the sections just for fun, I was interested in the toy section. To go there from the lift, you have to pass some really crazy stores from famous designers all over the world, e.g. D&C, Jill Stuart. The shops itself is not that curious, but when I realised, that they were selling stuff for babies and small children it became a little bit unusual to me. When I entered the Jill Stuart shop I didn´t know what to say. A barbie collection for children. Everything in light blue and pink. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!
Allright, I think if you don´t have to take care of your money and you simple want some unique present for your nephew or child, this is the place to go. Maybe there are also shops in Paris or London.
When I arrived at the toy shop I was impressed. Wooden toys are IN at the moment. And now guess where it is from....
Germany! I couldn´t trust my eyes, when I read "Holzbaukasten". But the worst thing, which almost broke my heart: They are selling handcraftet, most expensive german wooden christmas figures (angels, "Rauchermaennchen") in the TOY shop!!! Every little child in Germany is not allowed to touch them and here they were sold in a toy store.

Poor little angels....