Miracle man

Thank you for all comments. Virre, there is a miracle man coming to my familys house this Sunday to help me with my back pain. He is a master of key (ki) energy points and will try to push on different points in my body to remove my back pain. My family has been helped by him when no other treatments have worked, it is going to be interesting.

If you wonder how my days look:

1. Waking up at around 0730-0800.
2. Helping preparing breakfast
3. Work starts at 0900
4. Lunch at around 1130-1200
5. Work until around 1600-1700
6. Taking a hot bath
7. Preparing dinner
8. Dinner at around 1900-2000
9. Go to bed at around 2100

I have one day off per week.

I live in a house in a very big house in the country

The japanese countryside is great. The surroundings and the atmosphere is special here. I have already seen snakes, cranes, strange spiders, frogs and more. I have mosquito bites everywhere so scratching myself is one of my hobbies here. I have also tasted delicious vegetables that I have never seen before and my family almost never eat meat so it is perfect for me. I have so far built a structure for hanging rice crops, chopped down bamboo and harvesting, tieing(?) and collecting rice crops. In the evenings I take a nice hot bath and help with dinner preparations. Two days ago we went to an Onsen, a japanese spa and that was fantastic. It was wonderful just to relax in a pool with hot hot water..outdoors of course. However everything comes to a price. I have started to feel great pain in my lower back. My family has promised to take me to a doctor/akupressurist (?) so if that helps then I will stay longer. If it doesnt help then my japanese adventure ends much sooner than expected and since money just flies away in Tokyo I will be forced to go back to Sweden. I guess I have some work to do now...

First stop

Tomorrow I will begin my adventure as a wwoofer in the Japanese countryside. My first stop will be Saidokamijyuku (斉渡上宿), about 110 km north-west of Tokyo city, have a look here.

Heading for the countryside

I just found out that my family can accept me on Tuesday and that my first duty will be to harvest some rice for 2-3 days. After that I have no idea what I will do, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Pics

I suppose you would like to see some pictures from the trip. I have chosen a few out of the many hundreds I have taken so far.

St. Basil, Moscow.


Great wall of China

With Tao, Tiananmen square, Beijing.

From The Peak, Hong Kong.

With Kana at the Zubrowka party, Tokyo.

Wish you have a pleasant

One funny thing at the train to Beijing was our route plan that the first class travellers had in their compartments. They somewhat forgot to write exactly what they wished us a pleasant. This will be demonstrated with a clip I made in Borat style (sound is required).

Pictures

My travelmate Hannele has added some pictures from our trip in her photo diary, please have a look here: http://www.hanni.nu/fotodagbok/

More pictures will be added continously.

Go no Go

The past days I have done nothing but just taking it easy and relaxing at home. My throat started to hurt a lot a couple of days ago so staying at home was the best I could do. I don't want to be sick when I go to Gunma. Yesterday evening I met up with Kana in Shinjuku and she helped me find rubber boots that I need for the countryside. Afterwards we ate dinner and had a coffee/chocolate at starbucks. Starbucks seems to be very popular among the japanese since every starbuck we went to was really crowded.

Today I wanted to go to a Go center in Takadanobaba but when I found out that the fee was 1200 yen, about 90 SEK I decided not to go. I never thought it would be this expensive to play Go in the country that made the game popular all ove the world. Hopefully I will be able to play in Gunma for free.

By the way, the yen has become really strong to the SEK. Just some months ago you could get 1700 yen for 100 SEK, but now you only get 1400 yen. Not good for me at all. If I could only find a nice work here.. it wouldn't be difficult if only my japanese was much better.

Tokyo

Tokyo has been great so far. Last saturday I went to Tokyo game show. I played guitar hero, winning eleven 2009 and little big planet. There was so much to see and I don't remember everything but a highlight was to see the in game of Mirrors edge, that game is going to be really cool.

On sunday me, Mattias, Haru (his girlfriend) and her friends went to a mountain outside of Tokyo and spend the whole day hiking. Since monday was a national holiday many many japanese went to this sight to spend their day in the nature and leaving the hectic metropolis. At the peak, it should have been possible to see Fuji-san but it was too cloudy this day.

Yesterday evening we went to an izakaya and were later invited to a party. My contribution was a bottle of Zubrowka (famous polish vodka) and apple juice and the others loved it. For those who wonder if Tokyo is expensive, a 70 cl bottle of zubrowka was about 100 SEK. In sweden it would cost 240 SEK. Anywho... if you want to try out something new to drink.. try Zubrowka and apple juice. It tastes like applie pie and the drink is acutally called apple pie drink.

I'm not sure yet when I will go to Gunma but it will probably be next week. There will be an event on saturday and since I'm on the VIP list I really want to go. Have a look here.

Tomorrow I will maybe meet up with Kana and she will help me find rubber boots and sandals that I need for Gunma.

Three ladies

I finally arrived in Tokyo, but first I must tell you about my sightseeing in Hong Kong last thursday. I googled to find out some of the sights in Hong Kong and decided to go for the Peak and the junk boat (a chinese sailing boat used in the 19th century). First I had to go to the tourist information center not far away from my hostel which was situated in the center of Hong Kong. Arriving at the tourist information and fixing the ticket for the junk boat, a woman and her two kids sat down just next to me to get some information of the same sights. When I was finished I overheard their conversation and decided to ask her if they wanted to join me to the peak. She accepted and together the four of us headed for the peak. Jill was her name and her daughters Eve and Ella. Jill was from England, currently living in Singapore and was now in Hong Kong as her husband was there for business. Jill was really easy to talk with and I was very pleased to have some company because it would have been boring to sightseeing all alone. The Peak was great and the view form there was incredible. After a lunch at the peak we headed for the junk boat. From viewing Hong Kong and Kowloon from the top we now saw the city from sea level and it was a great way to view the bay and the surroundings. After stopping in Kowloon we had a rest and discussed what to do next. They planned to see the light show at 20.00 but since it was several hours to go for that and the girls were getting tired they decided to head back to their hotel and when Jill invited me over I didn't hesitate to accept it. Jill and her husband stayed at a 5-star hotel in Hong Kong and going from a hostel to that was a great feeling. The view from their room at 40th floor was amazing and just chilling at the pool with a top notch service was incredibly nice. I stayed there for dinner and left at around nine o clock. What a great day it was and I will always remember these lovely ladies as a part of my Hong Kong visit.

Intense

After walking around in Hong Kong for about one hour I found a Hostel to spend the night. However ther was no one there which was really strange. Just when I was about to leave the place I met an israeli who also wanted to stay there. I said that no one opened so he said that there was another hostel just next to this one and there I am right now. 300 Hong Kong Dollars a night which is about the same in SEK. It lies in the center of HK so it is great. But HK is really intense, by far the most intense city I have ever visit. Beijing and even Tokyo is much more pleasant. The streets in HK are really narrow and there are buses, trams cars, taxis and people going everywhere and you are surrounded by these huge skyscrapers. I thought I would like it but so far I'm not convinced. Today I will try to do some sightseeing but I have no clue where to go, time to google.

Hong Kong

Ni hao! I've just arrived in Shenzhen and waiting for my 'limousine' taxi to take me to Hong Kong. I'm sitting in their VIP room now with Internet (obviously) and drinking nice tea. The trip will take about 90 minutes and cost 120 RMB, about 150 SEK. Quite worth the money. The trip so far has been great. The Trans-Mongolian train was really relaxing. All I did was resting, watching Hajime no Ippo (thx a lot Niklas), playing my DS, eating, reading and playing backgammon and MIG with Hannele. The train stopped about every 4 hour so stretching the legs and getting some air were the highlights each day. Beijing was great as we were able to meet up with my friend Tao from malmo who was in Beijing on holiday from his assignment for Tetra Pak in Inner Mongolia. He helped us a lot with everything so it was really great. I really loved Beijing as well and it was much better than I expected. The chinese were are all really helpful and I would really like to go back there. Well my limo leaves in 15 minutes so I have to prepare myself now.