Yokohama

Tokyo – On site

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Once again me and my backpack are on adventures and this time I set a new personal record, only 6kg including my backpack is by far the most lightweight luggage so far. The big question is, what did I forget? So far its only my toothbrush I miss.

My trip started yesterday with a short flight down to Copenhagen, here I had a few hours waiting before boarding the direct plane from Copenhagen to Tokyo. After a short delay since the Swedish air space was closed because of major radar malfunction. Anyway the plane was really old and not really fun but for the price I paid for the tickets I must say it was Ok. Once arrived in Tokyo everything went very smooth and even if I arrived in a huge city it doesn’t feels like it. No stress and everything was really clean and even the boarder control went without any problem.

With a jet lag from hell we decided to check in at our hotel and sleep for a couple of hours before our dinner with the yakuza, neither of me or Andreas really knows what to expect so this can be interesting

Ps. We got a remote control for the toilet, from controlling the heat to play music and I dont know what, how awesome isnt that? Gotta love this country

 

First night

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I survived the meeting with the yakuza and what a night. Just as we had decided they came and picked up us at our hotel. Im not sure if it was planned from their side but all the stereotypes was fulfilled in form of they came in a big, luxury, discrete in a form that you know exactly who are in the car even if you cant see them because of the tinted windows. A short, kind a nervous trip later we stopped at one of their restaurants and we started to try out the Japanese kitchen. Sashimi, chicken neck and a lot of other different dishes went down together with plenty of sake. Overall we were kind a nervous and we both know that how you behave is very important in Japan but none of us knew/know how to behave then you are at a dinner with the mob. Anyway we tried our best by looking on how they behaved and do the same. A really fun and kind a weird evening for a swede like me and since we got invited to meet them again I guess we passed the test.

With a dry throat and a slightly headache we jumped on the metro and made a visit to Studio Ghibli museum. Probably by more luck than skills we successfully took our way through this maze of metro, commuter trains and railroads and were greeted by a huge, smiling Totoro. The museum was really nice, kind a small and everything were on japanese and only a few things were translated to english. Thats a shame but the museum is still worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood. Besides sketches, pictures and stories about the different projects they also had a cinema. The movie was in japanese only (no subtitles) so I didn’t understood much but it was really cool to see.

On our way back to the hotel we took a detour through an park. According to my research it should be autumn now and i’m kind a surprised how green and beautiful everything is, around 25 degrees and a blue sky is totally an ok autumn for me so I don’t complain.

 

Todays picture

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Today we have been good guys and been working, well…we can call it working. It all started that with a pickup up at the hotel and and off we went so Andreas could do some interviews and take some photos. Me? I just tagged along for who could miss an opportunity like this. 8 hours later we are back at our hotel and discussion what we should eat to dinner, i bet rice will be involved.

Publishing some random pictures from the trip so far:

Back in Yokohama

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Today Ive been on a train, for a long long time. After I checked out from the hotel I jumped on the tram towards Shinkansen and back to Yokohama, Tokyo. The trip was pretty fast since I was lucky and bought my ticket to a “super express” train which means only two stops on the way but still, it took over six hours. Once i arrived to Yokohama I somehow, don’t ask me how succeed to get on the metro without a valid ticket. It should not be possible but somehow I did it and it wasn’t a problem until I tried to leave the metro system, since you need to swipe your card to leave. Well, bummer for me but I just walked closed to the first person who left and I was a free man again.

On this trip I stayed awake but no sight of Mt Fuji, the nature was really beautiful but its hard to take pictures then you go by train in 300km/h,

Art baboo party

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Yesterday it was a big party at Art Baboo, the local bar we have spent a couple of evenings at under this trip and what a party. Live “music”, good drinks and of course one or two tequila shots. Really fun even if it was kind a hard to follow in the japanese singalong. The bartender and all the guest did their best to make sure that we have an awesome evening and we for sure did! You just have to love this country

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Didn’t bring my camera which may be lucky but I took some photos with my cell phone so you have to excuse the quality.

 

Time to say goodbye

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Its soon time to end this trip but before we can leave our host promised us and goodbye dinner. The japanese culture are using symbolics and gestures and I don’t know if it was a coincidence, because it was a really good place or just the symbolic that we had the dinner at the same place as we met them for the first time. Looking at the outside it doesn’t look much and inside, well I think the restaurant would have problem with the authorities in sweden but no matter what, it one of the best dinners I ever had. How about the symbolic that we kind a ended where we started? Well I liked it!This whole trip we kind a been spoiled by our hosts and this evening was probably the worst one ever. One dish after another and it was special this, special that, of course with a bottle of sake or two and a friendly conversation about everything. Its quite fun that they were at least as interested in our way of life as we was about their and I guess we are all way same, even if you choose different paths in our life.

Our idea to stay sober, get in bed early and wake up to get to the airport in time didn’t worked out. Actually it took like 5 minutes after we left the hotel we realized this and out plan change to lets stay out partying until its time to get to the airport. Our newly improved plan worked as a charm but as you probably understand we were not in out best shape once we were heading to the airport and by jumping on the wrong train it looked like it could be tight with time. Then for the first time in history we had some delays in train and suddenly a little bit tight would be very tight so off the train we went and instead took a taxi. 2 hour train ride were exchanged for 1 hour taxi drive and we didn’t even had time to leave the parking before we both were snoring in backseat.

 

The positive thing with our plan was that Ive been sleeping for like 90% of our 12h flight though, that is amazing!