Tag Archives: National day

Hip, Hip Hurray for Sweden

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It seems we started to celebrate the National Day in Sweden on June 6 in the beginning of the 20th century, in honor of the election of King Gustav Vasa on June 6 1523.

Some other important events have also taken place on June 6, such as:

  • the succession of Christina by her cousin Charles X of Sweden (maybe related to X-men but I am not sure ;-)) in 1654
  • new instrument of government, which restores political power to Riksdag of the estate, in 1809
  • Sophia of Nassau marries the Sweden-Norway king to be Oscar II in 1857
  • new instrument of government , which makes Sweden constitutional monarchy in 1974.

And this year Chie and Johan sneaked into the ambassador’s private apartment 😛 Don’t tell anyone but we did. And then we had to sneak out the back door when he was returning.

After that little adventure we found a few friends, most of them working at sony Ericsson. Except for Jean and Oliver. Jean though is married to Mats, who works at Sony Ericsson. And Oliver has a father that works at Sony Ericsson and is named Mats. So pretty much everyone was somewhat related to Sony Ericsson, including Björn, BA, Chie and me.

We had a Swedish bento with meat balls (of course), daim and ballerina, and some other stuff too. Chie used her charm to get all the daims from everyone. I just got one ballerina cookie which was not a ballerina cookie because it was jam instead of chocolate 🙁

We also had time to play with Oliver. Driving his toy cars. Or just running around.



The others were mainly talking or showing of for the camera 😉



Swedish National Day at the Embassy

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Big day. The Swedish national day. And we had been invited to the Swedish embassy by the ambassador Stefan Noreen and his wife Grazyna.

Sounds special does it not? But basically all Swedes registered with the embassy as living in Japan was invited. About 350 people had come to enjoy other Swedish people, some buffet, drinks, and Swedish folk music (if that ever can be enjoyed 😉 ).

We even had the Swedish flag raised. Though with no wind it was difficult to say if it was the Swedish flag or just some blue flag-looking thing hanging there.

Chie and I met Andreas (a friend at SonyEricsson) outside the embassy. Inside we met Björn and Staffan from sourcing and Christoffer from some hardware department, maybe base band. Around 5:30 pm Mats, his wife Jean and their aka-chan (baby) arrived.


National day at Swedish Embassy Andreas, Chie, Björn, Christoffer

Andreas, Chie and I had decided to have a dinner together after our visit to the embassy. When the other heard about it they wanted to join us. So instead of 3 people having dinner we ended up a party of 8. Which made it a little bit more complicated to find a table.

The original restaurant did not have a table for 8. Yasaka too was full. We found a table for 8 at Mai Thai, a Thai restaurant in Ebisu. Chie and I had been there before and it is quite a nice restaurant. Not too expensive but good Thai food.


Staffan, Mats, Frodo, Jean 1/2 Staffan, Mats, Frodo eating, Jean
Björn, Christoffer, Andreas. Johan eating coconuts ice cream.

The whole dinner Andreas and Chie were fighting. About who should babysit while Mats and Jean had their dinner. I was afraid they would tear the poor baby apart for a while. But they manage to share the baby like good friends.


Frodo, Andreas & Chie Frodo & Chie

Afterwards we went to Westin hotel for a cocktail but they did not accept aka-chan in the bar. We insisted that he was not a baby but Frodo. So not below 18 years but older than 200 years old. But without luck.

We ended up at an outside bar instead. Not the same view as from 22nd floor but the same fun.