SAKURA....or maby not :P

Magnolia it is...Ive seen the past 3 days the magnolia trees blossoming..we have a lot of white magnolias here but my all time favorite is actually the red one...the huge flowers that just is hanging there straight from the twig..no leaves..no nothing..just huge flowers :)
Makes one think of the spring last year when we were in Japan and the sherry blossoms (Sakura)..I miss it..we both do..maby one day we go back..and stay a bit longer.
Now its spring for sure.

Shorinji Kempo

Ja jag vet..jag har pratat om detta med kampsport och mig..jag är lite kass på att ta mig till nya saker..men efter ihärdiga diskussioner och googlande här hemma beslöt vi solidariskt (faktiskt^^) att prova på Shorinji Kempo. på hemsidan står det så fint: Budoart med inriktning självförsvar Jag vill inte ha nån "krama och kräla" kampsport och jag vill inte ha 50 vapen som alla kräver eget bälte och namn typ :P
Utan nått snabbt effektivt och som jag inte behöver tävla i om jag inte vill... så detta passade perfa..bästa var att resvägen hemifrån var under 30 minuter..träningen 2ggr i veckan..2h åt gången..o det blev här som det slutade på typ.. :S

Vi provtränade i onsdags..ja..vi var där..så nu vet jag hur jag kan få en stor pojke att kräla för mina fötter..nästan frivilligt:P jaja..handledslåsning..men det msåte väl räknas som NÄSTAN frivilligt...right?
Iaf..skitkul..mycket mindre meditation och lullande på Japanska än vad jag trodde (japaner är ritualiseter och detta var typ 5 minuter japanska mest " HAI!, HAI!" inga bugningar..hör o häpna.

Genuint svinkul..lärde oss lite blockeringar..lite låsningar o tränade på 2 olika sortens sparkar. Folket på klubben..FANTASTISKA! Vi blev bemötta som vänner från sekunden vi klev in tills vi lämnade dojon. Om någon kampsport är värd o prova så passar detta nog de flesta. Träningen var lågintensiv vilket gjorde att man lätt klarade 2h..problemet är..när vi kom ut efter 2h träning så kände man sig lika genomtränad som efter gymmet..vi var knappt svettiga. Vilket gjorde att både jag och Centi kände att vi lätt kunde kört 4h till av samma träning.

Därav vår skeptism..skall vi köra Kempo är det som direkt ersättning för alla de timmar av Combat jag gör på gymmet..för att faktiskt utveckla teknik lite mer..men som det känns nu så kommer det inte ge mig samma cardio träning som Combat vilket innebär att Kempon blir som tillägg på mitt redan befintliga träningschema av 8-12h/vecka. Ja, ni hör ju själva..det skulle innebära att jag skulel träna i snitt mellan 12-16h/vecka.
Det är ju sjukt..då kan jag säga adjö till studier och fritid med vänner..och det är jag inte så sugen på att släppa faktiskt. Så det blev tyvärr ett nej tack vi vill inte köra Kempo..inte för att det inte var vansinnigt roligt med skitroligt folk utan..för det blir för många timmar av träning och detta kan inte ersätta något annat jag gör (Gym, Combat, Pump).
Tråkigt men sant...dock är jag väldigt sugen på att gå dit på måndag igen..för man fick ju gratisträna 2 ggr innan man var tvungen o bestämma sig...för träningen..var ju faktiskt skitkul.
Får ni chansen..provträna! och kanske fastnar ni ännu mer än mig och finner tom tiden i vardagen för att satsa på detsåsom Kempon förtjänar att utövas.

Saturday -Ponyo

Saturday started with oatmeal for breakfast and 1 egg..(starts to feel like a boring routine)

anyway after that I went to the gym..was supposed to have Combat but suddenly when standing there I started to question if Iman (one of our instrucktors) suddenly went from box to combat..

He hadnt..just like 1min before we started he announced that this was not a combat class but box..

It took me a few sec to realize i was not to shadow box for 60 mins but I actually was supposed to hit something.

Good thing I had Erika as the only part of the front row maffia in the same class so we hooked up and fought togehter..or against eachother..u get the point.

anyway..it was a fun class. my abs got what they deserved but otherwise it wasnt the old " I c stars above my head every 5 mins" experience as Pedrams box classes..so I actually could breath without help all class:P

After training me and Centi hit the stores and bought 2 pairs of jeans (one for me and one for him)

Centi has not yet become him self after paying for the shopping spree :P

After that we went to a movie 15,30 in the middle of the day ..we saw Ponyo.

It was a happy Anime film..same creator as House moving castle and spirited away.

Though Ponyo was a childrens movie it had a morale like all the above mensioned movies.

This was the most "childish" I have seen this producer do but Ponyo was good and to watch it ont eh movie is only to support SF to take in more of japanese anime to sweden.

This one was a happy film, you left the cinema...smiling :)

Kinkakuji, Ginkakuji and Ryoanji garden..15 stones

Kinkakuji- The golden pavillion. 3 stories high covered in 24 carat gold.

the lake just outside the building has small "islands" and is symbolising japans all 4 islands.

This was a building where he took women to impress them..sa there on the veranda in a house covered in gold drinking tea and watching "his japan"..who wouldnt be impressed? :P

We left the pavillion for the Ryoanji temple and its stone garden..to b ehonest..a fotballfield with 15 stones isnt impressing me at all. So we didnt stay to long..after like 30 mins me and Cet i was out on our own adventures in the newly arrived city of Kyoto.

From here we jumped into a cab that drove us back to the golden pavillion instead of the intended silver pavillion (they both soundthe same..K or G..same same:P)

So we took an other cab with a really nice taxi driver that was a hobby photographer..he gave us a photo he had taken of the golden pavillion int eh winter and wrote on the back:

"Welcome to Kyoto, The Golden Pavillion under the snow, We love Sweden 09,4,3 Photo By Ken Kato" He is almoust the best memory of the people of Japan..always friendly, always polite and just adoringly CUTE!!!!!!

Ginkakuji- The Silver pavillion..was supposed to but never was due to war covered in silver.

Its truly magnific and the garden in great..there it was also a sand garden where they had formations of sand in a very artistic way..they even hade Fuji in sand miniature :)

From here we walked a little café street and watched the cherry blossoms..after that we headed to the Geisha district..today result..8h of constant walking!!

By feet are killing me.

Kenroku-en, Japanise garden

Its big and extremly beatiful.

located in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, is an old private garden developed from the 1620s to 1840s by the Maeda clan, the daimyo who ruled the former Kaga Domain.
Along with Kairaku-en and Koraku-en, Kenroku-en is one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan. It is open year-round during daylight hours and famous for its beauty in all seasons; an admission fee is charged.

the garden has something to offer every time of the year..we ar ehere in the spring and we have the magnific sight of all the cherry blossoms, magnolias and great weather during our visit.

Kenroku-en means "Water and View" every garden woth mentioning in Japan has three element that needs to be forfilled: A feeling of space, elderdom, view, running water, ingeniousnes and secludedness. This garden has it all :)

After the garden walk we went to a gold-leaf factory.

This is indeed the factory that made all the gold for

the golden pavillion that we will be viting in a few days :)

Its fun to c how 24 carat gold kan be so thin that you need to blow to get it on things.

There was ppl that had entire rooms covered in this..its a bit to much in my taste :P (pic)

We bought with us some gold leaf that we can put in food and drinks. It s very nice japanise decoration :) so next time its champagne u get 24 carat gold in it aswell :)

pit stop Kanazawa city

vi　ar i Kanazawa stad bara over dagen..imorgon bar det av till　Kyoto.
detta ar forsta stallet med internet..fattar det inte..hogteknologiskt land men inga internet cafeer...helt sjukt..dessa japaner har allt i sina mobiler sa det finns inga internet cafeer i hela javla japan typ...
och detta tangentbordet blir jag tokig pa..den vill　skriva bara massa ジャパン fattar ingenting..kontstiga knappar vettni

byter plotsligt och far leta runt i flera minuter for att hitta ratt kombination..urk

annars Japaner Japaner..korsbarsblommor till forbannelse..sake..ra fisk, ratt kott och en hejdundrans massa soya och kimonos (inte funnit nagon tillmig annu..hoppas pa Kyoto)
fantastiskt folk och ett fantastiskt　land dock bor sagas...vedervardig mat..sushi ar fan enda goda forutom massa friterat kott typ.
jag kommer kasta mig over svens husmanskost nar jag kommer hem.

ingen kan engelska men vi forsoker sa gott de kan..vi pekar nickar och grimagerar..ahahha
Vi har tittat pa sa manga olika tempel sa Centi trottnat pa allt vad helgedom heter man blir latt illamaende av dem nu..har nog avverkat ett tjogotal hittills..sakert

gruppen vi aker med ar ett 20 tal pensionarer (de tog slut pa 7 liter sprit igar!!!!) en barnfamilj fran stockholm samt ett par med en bortskamd dryg snorunge till dotter..verkar lagom labil.
Vi ater mindre gott ..japaner ater tom alger, misosoppa och ris till frukost!!
nu skall vi ga och forsoka finna natt att ata...vaga vagra MC Donalds..vi har inte gett upp riktigt annu..hoppas ni har det bra i sverige allihopa
KRAMIZAR
Centi och Gaia

(when i get home I will write everything in english day by day..so dont grief the swedish above..Greetings from Kanazawa Japan)

saketesting and for ones a NICE dinner!!!

think the cenario..jellyfish for Breakfast :(
The damn ppl here eats MISO soup and rice even for breakfast..and my good the dessert are just..jelly..so everythign on a dessert table is..WOBBLING *turns green* slimy and wobbly stuff I just dont do..thats it, here goes my limit.
I ate like nothing..good thing we brought with us a whole box of Pepti proteinbars^^

before we went to the main Shogun house (its like royalty the family that took in the taxes for the city back in 1615) there was a cute little morning market and they had Fuji apples..huge ones..and I was so hungry and we had got NO fruit in 6 days..I thought it was pretty strange but didnt ask about that to much..but decided to save our apples for later..we reflected that ppl were looking strange at the ppl in our group that ate there apples..We got htat later on explained by our guide..fruit is extremly expensive in Japan and one fuji apple is devided within the entire family..nobody eats one apple on there own..I was happy I had just put our apples in to our backpack. ^^

at 11AM..were in a SAKE factory..its a small family store and they have made SAKE after there own recepe since 350 years back. SAKE is supposed to be a drink from god. meaning..if your drunk everything is ok..since your drunk..and If you do anything stupid..you can always blame that you were drunk and then its ok..strange Japansice ppl.
The gods must hate the ppl..because SAKE tastes like shit!
we tryed three different priceclasses and it got a bit better but its still not drinkable:/
The elder ppl in the group thoguth it was ok..dont know if it was "alcohol" or if they relaly thought it tasted good.

Dinner tonight is Shabu-Shabu!! The dish is traditionally made with thinly sliced beef, though modern preparations sometimes use pork, crab, chicken, duck, or lobster. Most often, tender ribeye steak is used, but less tender cuts such as top sirloin are also common. A more expensive meat, such as Wagyu, may also be used for its enhanced flavor and texture.
Shabu-shabu is usually served with tofu and vegetables, including hakusai Japanese cabbage, chrysanthemum leaves, Japanese nori (edible seaweed), onions, carrots, Japanese shiitake mushrooms and Japanese enokitake mushrooms. In some places, Udon, Mochi and/or harusame noodles may also be served.
Pretty much we got 2 different dipping sauce adn a huge plate with thin sliced beef we got a boiling little kettle and we boiled the meat..dipped it in the sauce and then ate it.
It was very delicious but I got totally stuffed and stilla fter this it was 10more courses and for dessert..Miso soup and a bowl of rise.
The dinner was great..truly almoust the best thing we ate since we got here except fro our meatsticks from Tokyo when we were out on our own.
We got 7L of Sake and rise boose in 4 bottles..and It all needed to be emptyed..I drank plumvine..that was really nice actually..even Centi thought it was ok..he has been drinking beer every dinner so I beliave he starts to get sick of it by now:P

Shinkansen-Lunchboxes-Tatami mats and Futong

Jet lag is gone..mine atleast..now its Centis tiurn..he has been vide awake the part 3 days and Ive been totally dead..this morning he barely got out of bed..*tihi*

We left Tokyo and head up tot he mountains with the Japanize fasttrain called Shinkansen.
We stiopped in Kamakura to watch like 200 tempels (we run around like crazy and managed to c like 5 of them all in the 1 hour we had) we also saw the gigantic sitting buddha (pic)
Back ont he train we got japanize lunchboxes..one would think that ther eis a lot of sushi in Japan but we actually didnt get more than like 2 little maki rolls in the box..rest was pretty unindetified stuff.
tasted..not much..looked..like boiled jellyfish :S
We saw the Fujimountain from the train and our guide told us that every spring they find about 4000 dead bodies up there form ppl that had killed them selves. Fun job cleanign up the mess after the winter huh.
The night is spent in Honshokaku. It s a japanise Ryokan with hot springs(japanise bath) adn we have a room with japanise furniture..the comming 2 night is spent sleeping ont he floor on a futong (japanise madrass).
Dinner was a traditional japanise dinner..more boiled jellyfish..and damn they are crazy about there sherry blossoms they even cut out the vegetables as flowers and dyes the riseballs pink?!?!

Edo- Tokyo Museum and dinner on our own ^^

So from 9AM untill lunch we went to the Tokyo museum..It was intresting but not th emost fun Ive experinced..I always have such a hard time with museums..well not if its like a Van Gogh museum but..historical non interesting Shit :S

Anyways it was ok we learnd a little what happened in Tokyo under WW2 so it was interesting from that perspective.

Just Beside the museum is the big arena where all the SUMO fights are in Tokyo. Me and Centi run around trying to fing a SUMo wrestler but didnt do to well.

After a nap due to the terrible jetlag we went out to eat.

Peter our guide har pointed out for us WHERE the local restaurant were and ofc we couldnt do worse than go there and try to grab something eatable. after a bit of a walk (we saw 2 from our group at MC Donnalds when we passed!!!) we found a cosy little restaurant where it looked like we could manage..(they had pics of the food so...)

So we went in there..adn what follows was prety funny.

I started looking around and saw that all ppl there were couples..on a date.

We looked at what they were eatign and trying to find it on the menye. (What does not one do)

after getting in a sallad and a few meatsticks (size like 2 toothpics in lenght) we thought we had it all under control. So I ordered in a few more meatsticks (they grilled them in the kitchen just infront of us)and we actually managed for 3000YEN to be stuffed. (about 234SEK)

If was an adventure and something we leart was what your supposed to do with the wrapping of your eating sticks..you are supposed to fold it to a stick holder..so you can put down the sticks when your talking^^ SMART!

Ofc we learned the entire group this trick even the McD couple :P

Meiji-Asakusa- and Ueno park

we started at 9AM in the morning after a hotell breakfast with some eggs and bacon (the japanize eat rice, tofu and miso soup int hemorning..URK!!!)
Our buss picks us up and we are of to a whole day of sightseeing.
Meiji shrine was beatifull. the Tori gates is a typical sigh of a shrine location, if we only knew how damn many we are to see of them. weather is great but cold..we have like 7 degrees last week it has been raining in Tokyo but 2 weeks ago they had 20 degrees so PeterVik our guide only had packed down summer clothes..we are ofc orderign sunshine and +20c to the comming 2 weeks ^^ After a round tour at the Shrine we went to Asakusa and to look at Sensō-ji. its a budist temple the shopping street to the temple was crouded but still Centi was surprised that it wasnt more ppl in Tokyo he thought he was to walk uppon the people and totally panic since it wouldnt be any space to barely breath..he was wrong.
The Japanise ppl are very good at not walking on eachother and you never bumped into anyone.
after asakusa we went to eat tempura..its a japanice food type with fried vegetables, shrimp and fungus. you dip it in soya and put some herbsalt on it..doesnt taste much..but we are during this trip to learn alot about the japanise kitchen.
after the lunch experience we are to go to the Ueno park the cherry blossoms were great..adn we learned about a japanizetradishion..SAKURA(cherryblossom) is used to give taste to everything eaten in the spring, tofy, icecream, cakes..candy..etc.
the japanice news are filled with how big the blossom is and the weather talks of nothing else in the tv.
at the time in Uenopark it was full party. Companies gathered one day and night to selebrate the SAKURA this by a company picnic, sometimes they even had food ^^ mostly it contained a lot of SAKE and other beverages..they drank untill they passed out and then they continued when waking up..through the night.
The Japanise ppl are totally hysterical about there cherrytrees :)
we even were invited to one group to sit down with them during our roundtour.
The ppl of Japan are just truly nice and through hart friendly.
our hotell the coimming 2 more night is Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Main Tower
Its a very nice hotell but it took almoust 15 mins before you got intot he breakfast due to the long line of guests wanting to eat :)

BB Gothenburg..Japan here we come!!

everything is packed and ready..the flight goes from Gothenburg to Amsterdam and then from AMS to Tokyo..11h 28min.
I have packed books, gaming cards and they have promised us dvd:s so we can watch movies.
Its the first time I fly this long..so this will be the first time ever i will experience jetlag..
hopefully it wont be to hard managing it..starting saturday we will be most bisy.
Friday we arrive at 10,35 japanice time (+8h) and then we will ge the day to get a bit sleep and then in the evening we will go to a japanize local restaurand and sit on the tatami carpets ont he floor and eat a tradishional japanise dinner..exiting..