In the evening of December 21 I arrived at Fukuoka airport, somewhat delayed. For some reason about a third of the passengengers were kids below school age. A kid in front of me stared at me with eyes like saucers on and off from the minute we took off until the minute we landed. Usually the kids smile back at me if I return their stares with a happy face, but this kid didn't move a muscle in his face. Interesting. Of course the other kids stared at me too, but they were more ordinary, commentating me to their mothers or friends.
Anyway, after I had picked up my luggage and went through the gates Emma was waiting for me; she too with eyes like saucers. I had forgot that she isn't used to seeing me with a beard. After getting the luggage to the car we went to a hotel where we would stay for the night. Emma's home is quite far from Fukuoka city so we wouldn't be able to return at a resonable hour if we went out there. And going out was our plan. We were going out for dinner and later karaoke with Mayuko and Mouri, who I explained about earlier, and an American friend of Mayuko's named Ryan. At the hotel I got a really great knitted sweater from Emma as a birthday present. Unfortunately, since my plane was delayed we had no time to relax at the hotel, so we headed straight to where we would meet the others. After meeting them we went straight to the restaurant. It was a cozy place decorated with fishing nets and a strange device made out of bamboo that we had a long discussion about, trying to figure out if it was a fishing device or just a kind of ornament. The guy behind the register finally eased our minds by telling us that it was just an ornament. I wish I had taken a photo of it. The food was delicious and we talked about this and that and time just flew away. Since Mayuko, Mouri and Ryan had to take a train before midnight we had to part without going to karaoke, but we made plans to go to karaoke together before I go back to Sapporo anyway. On our way to the hotel Emma and I passed a famous place with a long line of food stands (only there at night) that I have seen a couple of times on tv. The place is called Nakasu and is apparently famous all over Japan the same way that Susukino in Sapporo is. After passing through Nakasu we stopped by the shopping complex Canal City, which a friend in my class had told me about earlier. It is pretty with a little canal and fountains and beautiful lights. It rained a bit but not enough to get us soaked. 

The following morning we went back to Canal City. First we went to a nice restaurant and had some really tasty tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets). There is a huge difference in quality between the tonkatsu you buy for a reasonable price and the kind you get at more expensive restaurants. You should try the expensive kind at least once if you're in Japan. It is wonderfully crispy and the meat just melts in your mouth. It's watering in my mouth just thinking about it now... After the meal we walked around and visited some shops. At a little square by the little canal we visited the night before there was an american Santa Claus and also Shrek and the donkey promoting themselves. The donkey had a really funny walk because only the front legs touched the ground. I pity the guy in the suit. After walking around in Canal City and some other places we headed for a restaurant in Emma's home town where Emma's family was waiting at a table filled with delicious dishes, half of which I have never heard of before. This was a bounenkai (year-end party). After everyone had eaten and drunk all they could we left, and Emma, her parents and I went to find an open karaoke-place, and we ended up at Emma's father's friend's snack-bar again, to my delight. There were already some customers there this time, and they were already karaokeing. We sat down by the bar like earlier and soon joined in the karaokeing. I tried singing the song Emma's father sang earlier (Yujiro Ishihara - Koi no Machi Sapporo) after Emma's father sang the first half of it. It went fairly good actually, which is much more than I had expected since I've only heard it a few times, and everyone clapped their hands. When the other customers left they all shook my hand and one of them asked me to come sing on a stage. I have no idea what he meant and he was probably too drunk to remember it, but it was a really funny moment. When they had left we continued singing and drinking until everyone was tired and ready for bed.

I the morning of the 23rd I opened the box with Christmas stuff my parents had sent me. There were a whole lot of food, candy and Christmas decorations. I unloaded the food related stuff near the kitchen and brought the other stuff up to Emma's room. We put up the decorations and listened to a tape with Swedish Christmas music my parents sent me, and I tried to explain some of the lyrics. A little later Emma, her mother and I went to an okonomiyaki restaurant nearby. I had a huge Osaka style okonomiyaki with bacon and vegetables adding soba noodles and I got stuffed like Kaonashi (if you go see Spirited Away you will understand what I mean). After that we did a little shopping for the Swedish Christmas dishes that I was to make on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately some of the things needed, like syrup, are not available here. In the evening Emma's friend Chie came over. I got a birthday cake (with a Merry Christmas message) from Emma and her parents, but I was still stuffed with okonomiyaki so I couldn't eat more than a small slice. 

And so came Christmas Eve. For breakfast we cooked rice porridge (rice boiled in milk into porridge) with cinnamon, sugar and milk - usually eaten around Christmas in Sweden. I love it, but Emma couldn't eat it because it is similar in consistence to the Japanese dish okayu (rice boiled in water into porridge) but the taste is completely different; rice porridge is sweet but okayu is salt. So I ate her bowl of rice porridge too. Delicious! 

A little later Emma's friend Mari came over and we started preparing the Swedish Christmas food. I didn't actually cook anything, but just acted as a leader reading the Swedish recipes and telling Emma, her mother and Mari what to do next. We started with the dish Janssons Frestelse (Jansson's Tempation) which is a dish with shedded potatoes, anchovies and fresh cream grated in the oven. Since it is difficult to find anchovies in the stores here my parents had sent me a can, but then e encountered a problem we hadn't expected. Emma's family doesn't have an oven! Well, at least not the kind of oven all households in Sweden have. There is a tiny toaster oven and a slightly larger one too, but there is no way to set the exact temperature needed, and they only fit a small plate. However, we got around that problem by pre-boiling the potatoes a while, preparing the dish in small plates, and then grating them in the ovens for a while until they looked fine. And it went fine! The result didn't look like I'm used to but there was nothing wrong with the taste! Yum! At the same time we had prepared meatballs according to a Swedish recipe, and the only problem with them was that the bread crumbs used for cooking in Japan is apparently of a different kind than in Sweden, so we had to add more than double the amount than in the recipe. But they too turned out delicious. When putting the food on the table I took out a can of sill (Swedish raw boneless fish filet in a special sauce), Christmas knäckebröd (the Swedish stale bread I have written about earlier, but spiced with special Christmas spices), Christmas must (a carbonated beverage somewhat similar to cola but with different (Christmas) spices) and snaps (most simply explained as Swedish spiced vodka). Snaps (also called nubbe) and is served in tiny glasses. You sing a little song (called snapsvisa or nubbevisa) and then you drink the whole glass in one breath. It doesn't taste very much, but since it contains about 40% alcohol you get a hot sensation in your stomach and the heat then spread to the rest of your body. Anyway, Since I am the only Swede I had to sing the snapsvisa by myself, but everyone tried a snaps. I was the only one who swept a whole glass though. The others tasted a sip and that was it, but they seemed to like it; it was just a bit too strong. The food was delicious and I felt like I was in heaven with the Christmas must and knäckebröd and the other food. The others were not quite as exhilerated about the food as me (which is understandable since half the pleasure with the food is the memories and feelings associated with it) but they liked it, especially Janssons Frestelse. 

After getting stuffed Emma, Mari and I went up to Emma's room and I brought out the Christmas presents I had brought with me and the ones I got in the package from Sweden. Emma gave me a really great woolen scarf that she had knitted herself. It is really long so it must have taken a long time to knit it. Among the things Emma recieved was a cup I painted during a school trip to Geijutsu no Mori in Sapporo, and a little book in Japanese about Swedish culture. Then we ate some of the candy my parents had sent me, and drank the remaining must. In the evening we had some glögg. Glögg is heated wine with Chrismas spices, but what we drank is a kind of lemonade version which is sweeter and has very little alcohol (if any) in it. After a photo session with Mari's polaroid camera, and some writing on the developed photos, Mari went home and another wonderful Christmas Eve came to an end.