I took a break, recently. I realised I hadn’t stopped working for more than a few days, recently. I went on holiday, recently.
I miss Europe, I fear. I think I will settle somewhere on the continent. Probably to the north, escaping the simmering heat death we have arranged for ourselves as a species. I suspect Tokyo will not be livable in a couple of decades’ time. Partially avoiding the oozing melt of the world’s largest city, partially window shopping a new life for myself, and partially catching up with old friends. London and Edinburgh, Oslo and Helsinki.
As part of my job I’m obligated to take two weeks’ concurrent leave every year where where my communication with the office is heavily limited. They say it’s for compliance. I say bring it on. So I thought, it’s been quite some time since I had the chance to see friends and family, time to switch off (the latter, I failed to do entirely on account of frantically trying to so see as many people as possible – at least while I was in the UK). I flew over with Finnair, who I can heartily recommend. Comfortable and elegant inside, and Helsinki airport is a breeze to transfer through.
Oslo 1
My first port of call was Oslo for just a single night. Quickly taking the chance to hang out with Tobias, a Norway-based and entirely solid member of the university friend group that has managed to persist in the near-decade since we all graduated, we took some time to wander around the East side of the Akerselva. Much like London, the East side of Oslo was until relatively recently looked down upon as a working class suburb. Now it’s cool. Great!
Given it was a warm day, we also took the chance to cycle down to Malmøya, where I was shown a perfectly still nook in the post-glacial coastline to go swimming in. Well, perfectly still aside from the three boats in the middle of the bay throwing a rager with ancient bangers blaring loud. I wondered for a while about how often people are arrested in Oslo for piloting a vessel drunk. People Having Fun aside, the experience was transcendental. Just 20 minutes’ ride out of the city? This level of beauty? What??
Finishing up the day, we stopped by Tobias’ charmingly appointed apartment where he showed me some of the products of his experimentation with pickling, fermentation, syrup-brewing, jam-making… I became (and still am) quite obsessed with his pine cone syrup and the broader Nordic tradition of foraging for ingredients in the expansive forests around the cities. We tied up the day with a couple of quirky pizzas, the most memorable including reindeer meat and pomegranate seeds as ingredients. Really fantastic, please go and try it some time. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant.
Retiring early due to jetlag and a very early start incoming the next day, I slept soundly.
London
Where do I even begin with this place? Maybe with context: I remember clearly Tobias saying of the UK in general, and London specifically, something along the lines of: I love to visit and miss living there, but you feel that something has gone wrong fundamentally, and it’s almost impossible to say what that is. Basically, I came to agree.
Aside from a real flying visit about a year ago for work, during which I was way too busy to comprehend where I was, let alone reminisce, I have been out of the city for nearly five years. It’s weird to think that over time it’s become as close to a hometown as I’ll ever have. Weirder still, watching the city roil underneath me from the window seat, I had one phrase come to the fore completely unbidden: this city is full of ghosts.
I stayed four nights in Hackney Wick in the popular money spinner that is repurposing student accommodation as a bare-bones hotel during the summer months while the students are away. Honestly it was fine, outside of never quite getting an undisturbed sleep. Some nights it was the neighbour flicking their switches on and off for an hour or so, other nights bizarre door slamming at three in the morning, and the final send off being a drunk lass wailing about a breakup outside my window while her friends comforted her at 5 AM. I imagined that was normal for them.
The area itself was right in the middle of gentrifying; you know, new-builds, edgy raves, young families, a decent amount of graff around the place. I still remember one of the coolest girls I’ve ever seen sitting in the window of a warehouse rave and looking down on me, cigarette in hand, like I was worse than trash as I committed the onerous crime of walking past the venue. Impeccable. It genuinely made my day.
For much of my time in London I had one of my best friends from Tokyo, Tana, visiting at the same time. It was surreal given that the last time we had met was in the departure hall of Frankfurt airport a year earlier. People come, people go I guess. Especially when all your friends are determinedly scattered over the four corners of the earth for some reason. I introduced her to my university friends and we went out as a gaggle to several nights of pub quizzes, cocktail bars and thrift store shopping. We got to watch a publican kick some youths off his terrace for smoking a joint. I agreed with him, it was ridiculous they had chosen that pub terrace given there was a much prettier park nearby to light up in instead.
I really enjoyed the slow realisation that, for a lot of the local youth, stealing the Lime bikes that are idly scattered across the city as part of the wreckage from a tsunami of venture capital money is not only done to save some change, but also as a status symbol. They were just riding around on them, alarms bleeping, seats slammed low, going nowhere! Please keep doing that, it’s so funny.
The feeling that all is not well was one triggered by many little moments like this. It’s not new by any means – London is the heart of a dead empire after all – but I was constantly reminded of how anyone not flying at least moderately high in life is getting by on breadcrumbs. It’s never been a cheap city, nor accessible for those who don’t know what they’re looking for, but much more so than ever before I came to see just how sharp the dividing line is between the haves and have-nots. Maybe it’s because I currently live in Japan, where inequality, while growing, is muted compared to the spectacle of London, and the juxtaposition was all the more jarring for it. I don’t know.
Eventually my time in the city came to a close, with a farewell to Tana at King’s Cross, and stepping onto that familiar train north, to Edinburgh once again.
Edinburgh
I stepped off at Waverley overwhelmed with nostalgia. That pastoral, rugged familiarity of Scotland! The four and a half hour run from London that I had done so many times before. Haunted, but with comfort.
I thought my accommodation was really quite comfortable, and having thrown my items in a heap on the floor I made a beeline to catch up with Taisie, another friend from university who had decided to remain in the city. In the end I only had time for a brief hello before I needed to meet my younger brother. Right in front of my old student apartment. Like any good middle class student, I and my gang of housemates ended up living in New Town. In reality this was actually quite an old part of the city, just not as old as the appropriately named Old Town. For a moment I wondered if there was a part of the city named Desolate Ruins.
On an unnaturally sunny and warm Scottish afternoon, we strolled past the imposing stone tenement blocks towards an old favourite, The Cumberland Bar. This was one of those places that are very specifically Edinburgh (Edinbourgeois?) in atmosphere, built into the bottom of one of the aforementioned tenement buildings, with thick stone walls, and a pub garden nestled down below street level. We took a couple drinks and I gave my brother a camera as a birthday and Christmas present for the year. I think he likes it, who knows.
One thing that I was disappointed by was that Edinburgh very much one of those places infected with London prices, but it appears not London salaries. I don’t know how it is for locals living there, who may know some secret spots with better deals but I couldn’t see it being easy to balance daily life against the cost of living it. I had heard of the cost of living crisis from afar, but seeing it in person was another thing entirely.
All that being said, I still miss the place and if the right opportunities presented themselves, I would probably move back. There’s something about that view north across the Firth of Forth when you rise up over the small hill that St. Andrew’s square sit atop…
Eventually it was time for me to return to London. I did this by taking the Caledonian Sleeper, an overnight train. I booked my own cabin with an ensuite and was really excited to try it out. My recommendation? Don’t bother with Edinburgh or Glasgow to London on that train, rather it’s better to go from somewhere further out, like Fort William or Inverness. The reason being that it took me some time to fall asleep, and in the end I only got a few hours in. When my alarm went off in the morning I was seriously cozy and could have slept for several more hours. Nevertheless, showering while rolling through the countryside somewhere near Milton Keynes was a weird but pleasant experience.
Aside from a brief night spent on a friend’s couch (I even had a lovely hotel room booked for myself but he insisted on getting trashed and I duly obliged) I began my move to Heathrow to leave the UK. I felt a little conflicted. This place has always held a strong draw for me, but that draw was now missing, or at least not as present as it was before. Maybe it’s shifting goals in life, maybe it’s growing up. It’s certainly not Maybelline. I think I’m going to be stuck mulling over these thoughts for some time. The Very Exciting Mind of the Anxiously Overthinking Expat Brat..?
Oslo 2
After a chaotic night in London, I took a midmorning flight back to Oslo. Smooth, easy and with pretty clouds to look at, I had an enjoyable flight over. On arrival I was subjected to the still-galling experience of entering a Schengen-zone country and being treated with some degree of suspicion; How long will you stay here? Who are you staying with? Are they meeting you here? Thanks Brexit.
Tobias and Tasie were also flying over from London separately, but after their own chaotic experiences in the capital, we decided to take time for ourselves on the first night. I went to Mathallen, an old warehouse repurposed as a food hall, glowingly recommended by some opinion piece in The Guardian, I think. It was Fine. But also every second group seemed to be American. Was it Yanks Go To Norway week? Who knows. I took an early night after the chaos of London and slept profoundly. I keep using chaos to describe London here and I really can’t think of a better word? Anyway…
The next morning I made my way over to one of the many municipal swimming spots in the Oslofjord. Somewhat nervous, not knowing what the customs were around changing and leaving your stuff by the water, I skulked around a bit until I saw a local arrive and confidently throw his bits to the side and hop in. I feigned the same. I love cold water, and though by no means chilly, compared to the soup that the ocean and public pools turn into here in Japan, (as a result of night time temps barely dipping below 30 degrees…) the water felt perfect. I paddled around for a while and swam out some distance after deciding there was nothing stopping me from doing so. King of the bay! King of the bay!
The next day was forecast rain, so naturally we went hiking. I think all of us don’t do well with warm weather (let alone little old me wanting to die in the awful sauna that is the Tokyo summer). It brought a very relaxing ambience, and since we all had rain gear, it wasn’t a problem at all. Tobias flexed his knowledge of forageable delights on us, picking and plucking all manner of treats from the forest. We stumbled across the site of a forest rave, a mysterious teepee and a couple of random tents that may or may not be in use. In Japan I’d be concerned seeing those tents, but in Norway they have the allemannsrett, or basically, do as you please wherever you like, but don’t be a dick about it. I liked that.
The day after I met an old friend from when I studied in Kyoto on exchange, Marius. We went climbing with one of his friends, an early education teacher from the UK, Sarah. She spoke Norwegian much better than me, but as with when I learned Japanese, somehow having a non-native speaker made it much easier to understand and remember new phrases and exclamations. In regards to my Norwegian, I’m book smart, not street smart. I’ve learned through watching the news, reading books and the like, but have no experience with daily life. Felt great to be blindsided by the barista asking me whether I wanted a small or a large. Thus it became my internal challenge to remember as many random exclamations and throwaway phrases as possible…
Nevertheless, Sarah was waiting for the government to process her citizenship application. It seems not too burdensome, aside from the waiting, and to be honest, I wouldn’t mind swapping out my now-despicable (at least to EU member states) British passport for something less fucking worthless. New life goal? Lets see.
Kongsberg
I protested. I really did. I am a committed bus-hater. But eventually reason ran out and Tobias and I swapped out the train for the bus from Oslo to Kongsberg. The reason in question? The track’s fucked mate. I will admit the journey was totally fine, but Tobias’ promises of big wide seats certainly did not materialise. Talk about a breakdown in trust.
Kongsberg, located about two hours west of Oslo sits in the foothills of the biggest mountains in the south of Norway. It’s a rather sleepy town, founded on silver mining, but also with a bizarrely advanced weapons manufacturing industry. I was there during some kind of shooting festival, and there were quite a lot of visitors from around the world. We saw the King’s guard practising for a parade. It had it all. Tobias’ mum, Trine, was kind enough to let us stay in her house while she wasn’t using it, and I think this was where I finally came to relax.
All through my trip, I had been seeing people, dashing here and there to make appointments, putting on my social face and all that. I’m naturally quite introverted, and it takes a little bit of effort for me to appear societally acceptable. Finally in Kongsberg, it was just Tobias and I, hiking, cooking, reading and touristing just a little. It was just the tonic. I think back to the time there with great fondness. I got to meet some of his family and on my last night in Norway we had a dinner party, somehow all in Norwegian and I didn’t manage to make too much of an ass of myself. I was pleased with that.
On one day we borrowed Trine’s car to drive out to the start of a trail that would take us to the top of Blefjell, a local high point, with their rambunctious yet adorable Norwegian Elghund, Wilma in tow. Imagine a fluffier salt and pepper Shiba Inu, but friendlier to people, but with a scorching prey drive. Lovely little killing machine. As far as day hikes go, it was perfect. Beautiful weather, with interesting clouds and showers threatened but never materialised. The majestic, ominous Gaustatoppen in the distance, with the sunless village of Rjukan beneath. Tobias pointed out some cloudberries, which I found unexpectedly delicious. Some lingonberries which were less so (lifelong fruit disliker here). Wilma, in the meantime had a great time, killing three lemmings.
Another day we visited the silver mine that the town was founded on. No longer operational, it was open to punters by means of a silly and noisy train ride into the caverns. They promised us it would be cold in there. It certainly was! I’m glad I heeded their advice to bring a jacket with me. Given that it was raining that day, it was cool to see the cold air spilling out of the mine entrance, turning into clouds that rolled away, hugging the ground.
I felt a real sense of comfort during my time in the Oslo region, one that I wasn’t expecting, in all honesty. I had been a little worried that I would experience something akin to Paris Syndrome (where idealistic Japanese tourists, galled at the reality of a big European city, often require consular assistance or even medical evacuation). Rather than being disappointed, I was enchanted. For who I am now, and how I live now, the fit was near perfect.
Helsinki
Helsinki was cool. Not just cool, but really, really, cool. I was only there for one night, hardly enough time to experience what a city has to offer but just from the short time I spent there, the vibe was considerably different to that I have experienced in other Nordic cities. Maybe it’s Finnish being completely incomprehensible, rendering even mundane advertisements into curious riddles, maybe it’s the pragmatic and outdoorsy attitude. I leaned of a tradition of washing your carpets in the sea and scrubbing them with pine soap on specially made piers. This is a very good thing.
I met with another couple of friends there, where we went to the touristy quayside market to eat some fried fish, then to the steps where the music video for Sandstorm by Darude was filmed, bought some Salmiakki liquourice, and then enjoyed some beers in the park as the sun went down. Not quite so touristy.
On the second day I was able to roam around the city, taking photos of strange architecture and pleasant beaches. I was shown inside the metropolitan library, which had some kind of hypermodern, alien architecture, that allowed locals not only to rent books and the like, but also use (entirely for free), 3D printing facilities, top-end drawing tablets, laser cutters, gaming rooms, recording studios and the like. I wondered why Japan, with all the money it splurges on public projects, doesn’t seem to think as deeply about the humans using it.
Lunch was served at a buffet inside an old volunteer fire station that felt straight out of the fifties. Imagine the kind of faux wood vinyl walls, plush green velveteen seats, huge portraits of former fire captains and so on that would look as much at home in a Soviet potemkin village as on a western sitcom for the era. We idled a little longer, walking around the city before I eventually, reluctantly, had to make towards Vantaa Airport, and my ride back to what was promising to be yet another sweltering summer day in Tokyo.
To be honest, when I eventually leave Japan and people ask why, there are many reasons I could give, but I think in the end I will always revert back to one refrain: Summer Is Hell.
It is not everything! 