Kay and I both had some days off work for the new year's holiday and we decided to go visit Joanne in Beijing. Not mainly because we wanted to go to Beijing, but because that's where Joanne happened to be located. Of course, I won't back down from a chance to set foot on the Great Wall, but it is proving hard to convince the ladies. Anyway, I padded my itinerary with one extra day on each side of Kay's flights to give myself some more room to maneuver. After all, one never knows if there is a sudden urge to [View Full Entry]

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In one of those deals that only make sense to airline marketing staff I grabbed a heavily discounted ticket from Stockholm to Bangkok. I paid SEK 5.400 for a ticket that would take me from Stockholm to Copenhagen and then onwards to Krung Thep. The poor sods wanting to board the plane in Copenhagen would have to pay SEK 19.000. Go figure. This modus operandi kind of set the parameters for the trip in general. It was kind of marred by minor hassles all along the way, delayed and broken down trains, illness and scrubbed flights. Perhaps I am starting to [View Full Entry]

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I had planned for Sunday to be the day I took Nagoya castle and aquarium off the to-do list, maybe even the shrine or a braizen dash towards Matsumoto to suck in the view of its famed moated castle, alas neither of this did happen. Instead I had given in to jetlag of the highest order. Not managing to fall asleep until three in the morning I instead chose to waste the day away sleeping in late and not really doing much. In the afternoon I headed over to the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium - home of the Nagoya Basho tournament - [View Full Entry]

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As the Moomin-painted A340 descended towards Centrair, the major regional airport on an artifical island south of Nagoya, the sky seemed somewhat blueish in colour, but as we came closer and closer to the ground the sickly grey haze got more and more prominent and started to consume objects at the horizon, and then creeping steadily closer and closer. For some reason I have developed an idea that much of Japan (and other cities in Asia for that matter) seems to be consumed by this grey hunger. Buildings in drab concrete whites, beiges and greys don't add m [View Full Entry]

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Every time I seek to travel eastwards the net seems to be cast tighter and tighter, the loopholes farther and farther between. Unless you care little for money, you really need to have a good strategy as you make a play for those coveted tickets for the central hubs of Hong Kong and Bangkok. Kay and I decided to meet up in HK on the coming Thai holiday and even though we for once were quite early about it it was still impossible for me to find anything not outrageously expensive. The airlines like to throw in some salt by promoting [View Full Entry]

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The entry into Japan had been arduous and the exit proved to be a likewise unnerving ordeal. I had prepared most of my packing the night before and knowing the airport was just some fifteen minutes away by subway I caught some much needed sleep and only got up at five before heading out to catch the plane at 7 am. At five thirty the streets were quite dead, and I had to walk an extra bit with my bags as several subway entrances were not yet open. I don't know why, but a gnawing sense of unease entered mymind and [View Full Entry]

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Drawing so close to the end that I can almost feel the stench of the horrible airline-omelet already. Still, I have one more string to play before the bungy-cord inevitably swings me back across the frozen tundras of Siberia all the way back home to a dreary, miserable and cold November. Still, the good thing about an elastic cord is that it really doesn't manage to keep you in place for long. Anyhow, although I could have made this a fairly lazy day I was determined to end it on a high, and my trip to Kyushu island really could not [View Full Entry]

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The hotel had a fairly early check-out time at 10 am, but it suited me fine anyway, as it would put me on the road to Kumamoto without delay. Through the last days I had seen more and more people walk around town with face masks, and unlike a common belief that this is due to protect themselves from heavy pollution there is another important reason as well, they are not wearing it to protect themselves, but out of courtesy to other people. Yes... it is because they are ill, infectious, contagious, impure, dangerous to the productive society. But in a [View Full Entry]

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Waking up to another beautiful sunny day in Kagoshima I pondered on doing a trip to Mt. Sakurajima for some hiking. However, save for the fact of going there, there wasn't really anything to focus my interest on. There is a viewpoint where you can supposedly get a better look at the crater which spews out smoke pretty much daily, but due to security zones it didn't really sound that promising. Instead I decided to go in the opposite direction, to scale the hills west of town to take advantage of the clear skies and take some good tourist-style snaps of [View Full Entry]

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Well, well... what do you know? As my imminent departure drew near, someone figured it was time to ease up on the clouds. Frustratingly so, the blue sky began to peak out again. I guess someone wanted to make sure the weather wouldn't keep my plane grounded as if to really make sure I got off the island pronto. Naha's immediate proximity to the airport meant that I could just casually check out and walk a few hundred meters to the nearest monorail station, and then find myself at the airport concourse some fifteen minutes later. The whole process of leaving [View Full Entry]

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