Lovely Fukuoka...thanks Ylva!

First of all I would like to thank Ylva for meantioning Fukuoka/Hakata (same city really but usually the name differs depending on which side of teh river you're at, west is Fukuoka and east is Hakata). If you hadn't we would never have stopped here. We really enjoyed the city and the sun :o)

I just have to show the really smart mirror we have had in both our first and second hotel room. One square of the mirror never gets covered by moist from showering. Great stuff.
We had a slow morning and didn't leave the hotel until 10 AM. Our first stop was the train station to leave our bags and the second stop was Starbucks for breakfast :o) We then headed to the Ohori park and Fukuoka castle in the western part of the city. What a beautiful place, especially in the sunshine and abcense of other people.


The park also has many different sport fields. This empty tennis court is for you Mike!


Toilets are free everywhere in Japan and most of the time you can find western styled ones...but not in this park. I had to use one of the traditional toilets for the first time. It's more than a hole in the ground. You can flush!


There isn't a lot left of the castle except the walls.


But from the view from the highest point was great. We even saw snow on the mountain tops.


And we managed to read the Yahoo Dome on this sport arena.


Very sunny!



Can you see the air plane? I guess the airport is even closer to Fukuoka/Hakata than Bromma is to Stockholm.


A lot of workers were working hard trying to keep the stone walls in shape.


On our way down to the lake that is covering the western part of the park we found this beautiful path with a homeless man's tent on the right side.


View of the Ohori lake with the city in the background.


Starbucks had a great view of the lake and was the only coffee place we could find around the lake.

A lot of restaurants in Japan use food samples to show the different dishes that the serve. They usually look quite real. Here is a picture showing what it can look like. Rickard and I bought a beer glas like the one you can see to the left in the picture.


Rickard is hiding in the pavilion...


More sunny pictures!


After the park we went to Nakasu, the amusement district of the city, for the best noodles in Japan. We found a place where it said on the sign "English can be used in our noodles restaurant. Please feel free to come in". How can you resist visiting a place like that? I don't know how true the sign was but at least we managed to order some really good noodles!


The restaurant was very private. You couldn't see the neighbour eating or the staff of the restaurant.


And you had your own water tap in the stall.



Apparently you are supposed to enjoy your noodles from one of those carts, but they are only opened in the evenings so we missed out on that.


After lunch we went to Canal City, a very big mall with both a Disney store and a Barbie store as well as a Hello Kitty store.


And of course, it also had a Moomin store and Moomin coffee place where you could have coffee with Moomin sitting beside you. For the Canadians reading this. Moomin is a Finnish childrens books character that is very popular in Japan.



After another visit to Starbucks, only to by our 9th mug, we took the train to Hiroshima. In Hiroshima we found a good picture of how vertical space is being used in Japan. It's not uncommon for cars or bikes being parked on top of each other as well as stores and restaurants being found on all kinds of differents levels in narrow buidlings.


We're staying at another Dormy Inn hotel (we stayed at Dormy Inn in Nagasaki) for our stay in Hiroshima. My sister Helena and her family stayed here when they visited Hiroshima 2 years ago. They thought it was great, but compared to our last 2 hotels we are not too impressed. The standard is lower and the view is the wall of another buidling a meter away from our window. But it was cheap and breakfast is included :o)


We went to a family restaurant on the basement floor of the neighbouring building to the hotel. We had some trouble ordering (for the first time since we arrived), but managed to get beer and to enjoy shabbu shabbu, kind of like fondue but where you put everything (fish, meat, chicken, sallad, mushrooms) in a big bowl on top of a small gas burner on the table and then pick out what you want with chop sticks.


We have now enjoyed bear and snacks in the hotel. The plan is to go to Miyajima island tomorrow, a sacred island where you're not allowed to die or give birth apparently. More info about that another day!

Nagasaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaki!

The day began on the 12th floor with breakfast from the Family Mart situated on the 1st floor. Yogurth, sandwich and juice. No rice this time!

A cute fire truck on the street. I should have put Rickard in front of it so you would have understood how small it really is.

Out walking narrow streets and walkways.

We then returned to Oura Catholic Church.

The church was built in 1865 by a French priest and was Japan's first in Gothic style. It immediately attracted "Hidden Christians" who came out for the first time in 200 years (Japanese were forbidden to practice the religion until 1872). We also returnet to the Glover Garden has a spectacular view over the bay... It would have been more spectacular in sunlight though, but at least it didn't snow or rain. The garden contains the earliest wooden Western-style buildings (dating from the latter 19th century).

I found my ship in one of the buildings...the Royal Caroline.

Apparently it is Nagasaki's most popular tourist attraction. We only had to share the park with a school class and some old people though. Oh, the park has the oldest asphaltroad in Japan...very important to know!

Asphalt road.

On our way to the station to leave our bags in a coin locker we passed the Meganebashi bridge over Nakashima-gawa River. It was built by a Chinese abbot in 1634 and is the oldest stone-arch bridge in Japan. The name means "Spectacles Bridge" and if the river is calm and clear you should be able to see a pair of spectacles reflect in the water.


By accident we managed to pass another Starbucks on the way to the train station. They had a brand new collection of mugs (put up yesterday) and we just had to by the 7th and 8th mug of this trip. We had some coffee as well!

After leaving our bags we headed north by foot to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. It was very interesting. I learned that the Nagasaki bomb wasn't meant for Nagasaki but for Kokura further to the northeast, but because of clouds it couldn't be dropped there and was instead dropped over Nagasaki. We also visited the Memorial Buidling as well as the Hypocenter Park and Peace Park where we had our lunch bought at Family Mart (yes, this time rice was included).

A replica of the bomb.

We found a Swede in the museum...Olof Palme.

Hypocenter Park.

The Peace Park.

Heading back to the train station we visited a shopping mall with a Ferris wheel (pariserhjul) on the roof. I couldn't find the Japanese school backpack (a Randosero) that I really want to buy. It's so cool but very expensive (but apparently there are cheaper ones somewhere). My nephews backpacks cost about 30000 JPY (about 2500 SEK or 365 CAD). And the ones I've seen in stores are even more expensive.

We happend to see a Swedish suitcase brand that I have never seen in Sweden though. Can you tell that it's Swedish?

We also happened to see this add for tires with DiCaprio...

Rickard as a samurai.

We had our first bento dinner on the train. Bento is like a food box with different compartments. They are very popular here.

We have settled into our new larger hotel room in Hakata/Fukuoka! Our last was really small compared to this one ... I bet two of last nights hotel rooms would fit in this one. At the same time it's quite a lot cheaper than our last one!

Time to prepare for another day on the streets tomorrow!

See you later alligators ...

1322 km in 493 minutes

Wednesday meant leaving Tokyo for the outback ... hmm not maybe the outback but the less populated areas of Japan ... still quite populated though compared to Sweden :o)

The best way to experience Japan is by rail so the Japan Rail Pass we bought in advance in Sweden came in handy. It is very expensive going by train in Japan, but with the Japan Rail Pass that is only available to temporary visitors and needs to be bought outside of Japan, its affordable.

We had 1322 km and 493 minutes ahead of us when we got on our first Shinkansen in Shinagawa, one of the train stations close to where my brother lives. We changed in Shin-Osaka (by Osaka) and again in Hakata/Fukouka. The first two trains were high speed trains (not the fastest, but still very fast) and the last was more of a commuters train. They all had a girl walking around with a refreshment cart selling everything from cookies to whisky. I wanted to take a picture of the whisky sign but I didn't want to offend the girl pushing the cart. What we also liked with the trains was that the seats were reversable so you can always sit in the direction of travel.

The trains always stop at exactly the same place at the stations so you can always prepare where to stand and wait.

First train, quite cool.

Second train, very cool.

Third train, less cool.

Turning seats.

Our lunch yet again consisted of triangular rise "balls" with a little something inside and nori on the outside (the green stuff used to make maki sushi rolls). So good! One costs about 10 SEK or 1.3 CAD. We should really have those in Sweden. I would definitely buy those instead of choklad for 10 SEK. Watch the movie below to see how they are properly opened.

Lunch.

How to open the lunch.

We arrived in Nagasaki at half past five PM and decided to walk to our hotel instead of taking a tram which was a good choice since it wasn't more than 1 km between the station and the hotel. After checking in and leaving our bags in the small room on the 12th floor (top floor), we went out for dinner.


The hotel was right beside Chinatown so we had chinese food for dinner. I think we are the only tourists in Nagasaki at the moment so the staff at the restaurant thought we were very funny trying to eat noodles with chop sticks. I think we did a very good job. We had beer with dinner...the bottle was huge compared to the glas ...


After dinner we headed for Glover Park and the Catholic church Oura (one of Japan's oldest churches). They were both closed so we are heading there first thing tomorrow morning.


Oh, and by the way...we saw snow on the way south as well as snowying. And there is -10 somewhere in Japan (unknown where...since we only could understand the temperature on the news).

Jan, apparantely there is an International Quilt Festivale in Tokyo at the moment. Maybe you should head over here :o)

Well, that's all for today. Sightseeing tomorrow followed by a train ride back to Hakata/Fukuoka.

Shopping and gardens

Yesterday and today was spent strolling through beautiful parks and getting our shopping on.

Monday's first stop was in Ginza shopping district and I finally got to visit an Apple Store. The only purchases were made by Caroline though. We visited a couple of stores, bought rice balls for lunch and walked to the Imperial Palace.


We decided to head back to Ginza and visited magnificent Tokyo International Forum on the way.


Ginza part two included a visit to the department store Itoya which specializes in paper goods and office supplies. It was seventh heaven for Caroline.

Today we ate lunch with Håkan and a collegue of his in a small, charming sushi restaurant, and then enjoyed the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden. The garden was finished 1659 and a serene place in the middle of busy Tokyo.


With our minds at ease we were ready for more shopping and visisted the kitchen district Kappabashi-dori. A whole street of kitchenware. Great. I bought a knife of course and we picked up some other small items as well.

Tomorrow it is time for Shinkansen and the long journey to Nagasaki. I better get some sleep.

More Tokyo!

We spent the day with Håkan, Rica and the children

first visiting Meiji-shrine in the Yoyogi Park (by Harajuku station),

Tokyo's most important shrine. There were lots and lots of people there waiting to enter to throw coins for happiness. We never got that far because of the wide line up (I guess we won´t be happy this year). Instead we watched 2 wedding couples

in traditional outfits walking through the crowd which was an experience in itself. We also tried to spot some people on the outskirts of the Yoyogi Park that usually perform dressed up in 1950s outfits. We saw quite a few guys looking like Elvis Presley but neither of them were performing.

After Yoyogi Park we took the train to Shinjuku where we had lunch at an Americanized diner (I had pancakes and Ceasar salad) before heading to the Metropolitan Government building that's divided into 2 towers.

We went up to the 45th floor in both towers (it took 55 seconds with the elevator) enjoying the sunny view. The sun made it difficult to see Mt Fuji though. But we had a good view of the hotel where parts of the movie Lost in Translation took place as well as two used tennis courts on top of a lower building. We also got a nice view of my favourite building in Tokyo, the Mode educational institution cocoon tower.
Rica and the kids went home while Håkan, Rickard and I stopped at Shibuya to watch the intersection which is often pictured when Tokyo is mentioned. It was pretty crazy. We had coffee at Starbucks again only to enjoy the view of the intersection (we got great seats on the second floor).

I also bought 3 more mugs at Starbucks (I'm a collector of Starbucks mugs). And then I bought 3 more at another Starbucks on the way home. Usually I only buy one when I visit other countries ... but this time I'm going wild trying to fill up the empty space in my suitcase since we brought so much stuff here.

We spent the evening at home trying to book hotels for the 7 days adventure Rickard and I are leaving for on Wednesday. We only managed to book a hotel in Hiroshima for 2 nights, a hotel my sister Helena and her family stayed at when they were here.

Tomorrow will probably be spent in Ginza and we will hopefully manage to visit the Imperial Palace.

Good night and sleep tight...!

Arrived and settled in!

We have spent about 36 hours in Tokyo by now. The flight was more than fine, no delays, good seats, food and movies and our luggage arrived at the same time we did. We were welcomed to Tokyo in Swedish by one of the customs officials who after seeing our passports said "Tack så mycket".

Tokyo also welcomed us with sunny weather...it felt like spring but the wind picked up in the afternoon which made it a lot colder. A "friendly limousine bus service" took us to a hotel 3 minutes from my brother Håkan's place in a little bit than a hour.

All the food we brought, even the cheese and fish eggs, seems to have survived the flight. My brother was especially happy with the 10 bags of granola from the German food store Lidl.

We were quite yet lagged after not to many hours of sleep on the flight, especially not for Rickard who watched 3 movies, but since we arrived at my brothers by noon it was no point going to bed. After a quick lunch my oldest nephew Mattias showed us around the neighbourhood. I thought my brother lived in the suburbs but apparently he and his family lives pretty much in the city centre with lots of tall buildings around.

The afternoon was then spent looking through travel guides and catching up with my brothers family while my brother tried to work from home, which wasn't that easy with his 3 sons being at home getting into the occassional sibling fight.

All of us had dinner at a kaiten-sushi place (also known as sushi-go-around) close buy. The 7 of us ate 58 plates in total. Yummy!

Rickard and I went to bed by 8 PM and didn't wake up until 10 AM the next day. It feels like we had beeten the jet lag by then :o)

Today Håkan was our guide taking us to the electronic Mecca of Tokyo Akihabara and then to the Senso-ji Temple. I ended up buying a pencil and a CD by Madonna in Akihabara. The temple was enormous and very beautiful but most memorable from the temple was the orang-outang that on stilts jumped over small obstacles. We also had time for a coffee (latte) at Starbucks, but it wasn't as good as I remembered. Maybe that is because I usually have Frappucinos (cold drinks).

The evening was spent at home listening to a lot of my brother's favourite music...

Time to find the adapter so I can charge my camera for new adventures tomorrow!

Caroline (since Rickard still is being forced to listen to Håkan's music)

Time to fly away!

The Crazy Swede is on her way again! And not alone this time. I hope you will all welcome my boyfriend Rickard to this blog!

As you may have figured out the destination for this trip is not an English speaking country, it's Japan. Rickard and I have never been there before so we are quite excited. My brother and his family has lived in Tokyo for 3 1/2 years so it's about time that we visit.

We are almost done packing. 13 kg of our total amount of luggage is candy, granola and other food items that my brother is craving (see picture). This means that we will have a lot of room to fill with Japanese things :o)

All for now. I hope we will be able to update you on our adventure regularly.