We watched the Coppola movie tonight again and it's with mixed emotions that I think about our decision to NOT to go to Tokyo for a year, as suggested in the beginning of this year. I'm really fascinated about Japan and the lifestyle there, even though you have to accept to feel like an alien, mainly due to language constraints. I realized during my work visits there that it's a very challenging place to live, but also extremely exciting. Still not more complicated than Seoul and definately much more of a thrill. Our final decison might have been the most sensible one from a family perspective, but but ... some opportunities never come back. New ones might pop up instead.

Bill Murray is acting really cool in the movie and Scarlett Johansson is very pleasant indeed. I also like the slow pace of the movie and atmosphere all together. I can also easily identify myself in the lost situations that he's in, where the mind is drifting away a bit. Feels like I've been in his shoes many times, but instead of hanging in the bar, I have been using the threadmills in the gym or the swimming pools. In Japan you are considered as a criminal if you have a tatoo, so I was stopped in the swimming pool and they came with thick tape to cover my tatoo before entering the water. It can provoke other people, I was told afterwards. They also forced me to use a cap over my hair. Then I was instructed to swim in a "right to left" lap in my swim lane even though I was alone in the lane and even told again a couple of times when I was swimming straight in the middle. The Japanese are funny guys and over-organized quite often.

Nellie caught lots of attention when she was over there in March. Her blond blue-eyed happy face made lots of Japanese women very curious, but we were used to it from Korea, so for Nellie it was just normal.

I wonder how lost in translation and confusion Nellie is right now. Born in Malayisa by a Polish mother and a Swedish father, who communicate in English. She's spent most of her life so far in Korea and is quite well travelled for her age. Her only Christmas was spent in Australia, but now she has settled down for a while in Sweden. I still think that a year in Japan would have looked good in her CV (for toddlers).