Tokyo Marathon

The big race is getting closer now. Yesterday we went to pick up the start numbers and the race starts tomorrow 09.10. Unfortenately the warm weather that has spoiled us during the week seems to be replaced by cool air and possibly rain. Anyhow it will be a great experience with 30.000+ runners joining.

Ulf brought yellow and blue swedish national fotball team tshirts for us to run in so please cheer us on if you see us along the way!

Latest fashion

Without knowing Ulf had been travelling across the pacific with a Batman sticker on the bottom. Was it grand son Lucas who thought granddad needed a fashion update?

Stockholm

Few places are as beautiful as Stockholm at springtime. I was very lucky with the timing of my business trip to Sweden and got a fantastic late winter/spring day in Stockholm. This is the view from västerbron during my morning jogging.

Man's best friend

There was a time when dogs worked hard to be called man's best friend - helping out with hunting, searching for mines, helping blind people, bringing cognac to people lost in the snow etc. Nowadays in Tokyo dogs do not only get expensve hair cuts, they also get to be driven around the city in small wagons. Who is who's best friend now?

A Japanese 4

A nice surprise was waiting when we got back from the mountains. The result from the Japanese Language Proficiency test had come and I passed! It's only level 4 and doesn't mean I can make myself understood in many other situations than when ordering a beer but it's still fun. Maybe it can also add some motivation to study for level 3 this year...

Sunny Nagano

The first, and quite possible the only, ski trip this year is almost over. We've been in Nagano, Togari onsen, this weekend and are now after the traditional Soba (japanese nodel) stop back on a busy highway and slowly approaching Tokyo. It's been a lot warmer than expected for mid february, just like skiing in april in sweden. Nice with the sun but it's been so warm that the snow is almost gone. 3 years ago when we were here the same time of the year they had 3 meter snow in the valley.

Koppun-kap Thailand!

It's time to go. We've had a fantastic late honeymoon - sun, swimming, snorkling&diving, thai massage, motorcycle picnic, really good food and relaxing evenings. Picture above from the favorite coffee shop where we almost (Maki actually did) fell asleep both nights in Railay.

Now we have completed the short parts of our journey home - longtail from hotel, bus to Krabi city and 3h mini van to Phuket airport. Soon time to board the flight to Bangkok and there we'll get on the Tokyo flight.

Bye for now Thailand, wouldn't be surprised if we come back soon again!

Deep blue

Last day in Thailand was a relaxind day. We started with going out on a half day diving trip with a longtail boat, Maki snorkling and I scuba diving. It was two fun dives with nice environment like caves, tunnels and corals and a lot of fish and also sea horses (first time for me to see).

Rest of the day we spent on the beach and in the evening finished off at the same bamboo café built over the water were we ended up yesterday evening. Now sleep and tomorrow morning start the journey back home. It will be something like 20 hours in total and we'll be home just before work starts monday morning.

Phi phi islands

We made a 30 hour stop at phi phi islands from yesterday morning to mid day today. It was a big difference to Laanta island with lots of more people and more focus on bars and night life. We had a good day though starting with some easy hiking to se some nice view of the islands. In the afternoon we got on a 4h sunset cruise to do snorkling and kayaking around phi phi - monkey beach (no sight of monkeys though) and maya beach ("The beach"). The sunset we could enjoy wathing from the yacht while having a cold brew. Not bad at all. The evening we enjoyed walking around the shops and restaurangs close to the pier and we happend to come across this fireshow on the beach.

Today we did a bit of shopping and swimming before getting on the boat to Railay, small area around two beaches south of Krabi on the mainland. This is the last stop on our trip and we'll stay here two nights before we start heading back to Tokyo on Sunday around noon. So far we have only been walking around with our bags for 2 hours before we could find a place to stay but from now on should be fine. Right now enjoying an evening coffee at a nice beach bar, tomorrow morning scuba diving for the first time this trip.

Jump

We went to a deserted beach this morning before returning the bike. Kind of fun to have the whole beach to yourself to play around with.

Tonite we will try to make plans for tomorrow and the rest of the trip until Sunday. Railay is an alternative that has come up while we have stayed here.

Welcome to the djungle

Yesterday we spent the day cruising around on a very small motorcycle that everyone around here use. One stop was the well known waterfall in Laanta island. It took a 30 min hike along a small river in djungle like nature before we came to the fall that reminded more about a shower than a waterfall. Even if the fall wasn't that impressive the nature and scenery made it well worth the walk. Besides meeting a group of Swedish people coming along the trail singing the theme to "djungelboken" out loud (to scare away animals as they claimed) we were pretty much alone out there and got nice time by the fall.

Honeymoon

View from our balcony at the www.baanlaanta.com resort in Koh Lanta. Yesterday when we got here after a 4 hour nice boat trip from phuket we noticed that they had given us a free upgrade to a bigger room with sea view - much appreciated for our delayed honeymoon trip. We spent today with going on a longtail boat trip to four different islands to do snorkling and swimming and exploring a nice cave. The plan was that we would get on another boat tomorrow and move to a different hotel on one of the smaller islands in the archipelago, but we felt we had done enoug boat travelling for a couple of days so when we got a good deal at keeping our free upgrade bungalow for two more nights we couldn't resist. The balcony was too nice.

Now we don't have to make any new plans until thursday, and if we are not too lazy and can leave the view from the balcony we will try to go to Phi Phi island then. We'll see.

Sweden abroad

Finally arrived Phuket around 3 hours ago. Booked hotel at the airport with a strong feeling that it was far from a good deal. But we got a package with 1h transfer taxi, the hotel for tonight and ferry to koh lanta tomorrow morning including pick up at the hotel. The alternative of fixing all that ourselves just didn't seem appealing at the time.

Just had a quick walk in the area close to kata beach in Phuket before sleep and I hope that the islands we are going to tomorrow is a little bit less busy. Maybe even less swedish flags and snus signs in swedish.

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!