And a little bit more delayed

Hm, now it will be evening when we arrive Phuket and we start to regret that we have not booked a hotel for tonight...

Slow start

Not exactly the start of the holiday we wished for, our flight to Phuket delayed almost three hours due to heavy rain here in Tokyo this morning. On the other hand, the rain just makes it feel even better to be on our way to sunny beaches in Thailand so it`s difficult to get too upset. We should arrive in Phuket in around 10 hours, early evening local time, and tomorrow morning we'll take a ferry to a somewhat less busy island and then we'll see what happens during the week.

Hibachi

Latest addition to the house hold, an old hibachi - stove like furniture heated with charcoal - that we found at an antique market today. After some tough price negotiation starting at 18.000 yen (1.400skr) we could by it for 10.000 yen (800skr) and according to some people watching the discussion it was a good price. We saw a similar hibachi, a little bit bigger but not as well kept, for 3 times the price so it shouldn't be too bad at least.



If you want to read about the history of hibachi check this hibachi article at wikipedia

Lucky bag

The time after new year you can see "lucky bags" in almost all stores in Tokyo, closed bags that are sold for 1000, 5000 or 10.000 yen and are supposed to include things for much higher value. For some people, like Maki, who get fed up after 10 minutes in a clothes store this is the perfekt way of shopping. We just went by Ebisu departement store and got one 10.000 yen lucky bag with us home. I was surprised when I saw there was some really nice clothes in the bag and the sum of all price tags was 75.000 yen and still one sweather had lost the tag. The big smile om Maki's face when opening the bag tells me that there will be one or two more of the same kind purchased tomorrow.

Ocean view

The new year has started off in the best way weather wise, so even if it's in the middle of the winter we couldn't resist to go out on a motorcyle trip. This time we went to Miura Hantou just south of Yokohama were we got some nice views of the ocean and also surprisingly enough of mount Fuji (which we tried to capture in the background of this photo). The approximately 15 degrees in the sun drop quickly to about half when the sun sets so the drive home after taking this photo was a bit cold.

Street view

Interesting setup with a studio in a display window on a street in Harajuku and the TV cameras on the outside (on stands to the right side of the photo). A live interview with a famous politician was broadcasted when we walked by. Not too exciting to watch but still quite a crowd was gathered.

Happy new year!

On the first day of the new year we thought we would do something traditional and go to a temple to celebrate. It turned out we were not the only ones with that plan. We have now been waiting in a line for 30 minutes and come about half way to the biggest and most famous temple in Tokyo, Meiji Jingu. No wonder the streets in Tokyo are just as empty as in Stockholm on midsummer, everybody seems to be lining to get in to the temples.

Happy new year everyone!