A Fish and tai-chi dawn

What do you do when the jet-lag gets you up at 4am in Tokyo??

The short answer is : you find a fish market, then hang out at the imperial gardens (then head back to the hotel for a lunchtime nap). But that does not mean it was an uneventful day and the long story of it goes something like this...

Since we both failed to stay awake past 6pm last night, which is about when we expected to pass out, we woke up before the crack of dawn, after a solid 10 hour sleep. Being wide awake at 4 am in Tokyo has its advantagtes though as thats when the fishmarkets open! So of course we took advantage of the situation and made tracks for that. After some searching we found it, and on the way acquired a handful of other travellers who were also lost and looking for it. And it was quite interesting...

From Tokyo fishmarket and palace

It was heaving, both with tourists and employees, and watching all the fishmongers was fascinating - they were all quite specialised at their tasks. You had the furrier boys who only pulled carts laden with the produce, the gutters who only gutted fish, so naturally you missed it if you blinked. Then there were the price-taggers who semed to only be restocking and pricing fish and of course the purhasers who inspect and buy fish at the auction. This was the piece-de-resistence (pardon my french) and watching the auctioneer shout prices like a machine-gun and hearing the bells indicating the imminent end of the auction was quite catching. Since this is the event most tourists come for, apparently we have become a nuicanse, so we are not allowed to roam freely anymore but instead we are put in a tiny area near the back overlooking the least interesting bit, the frozen tuna sales. Take a picture of the auctions outside of the 'tourist-pen' and you are quickly ushered inside by a man with a multi-lingual sign. This applies even if you have escaped the pen, as we quickly found out, but we did manage to escape it in the end and went hunting for the breakfast sushi stalls. But only after deciding that this little fellow we found earlier was indeed the ugliest fish around. Can anyone supply us with a name for it? We'd like to know.

After shadowing a group of Japanese looking tourists (revealed by their lack of wellingtons) we did find a little hole-in-the-wall that served sushi, and it was indeed straight from the market and very yummy. The only thing we lacked was a little elbow-room, but who can complain about that really, and of course coffee, which no breakfast is complete without, but Starbucks on the way to the Imperial palace, which was the next stop, fixed that.

It was about an hour or so of a walk to get to the Palace Imperial gardens, including the coffee break, through a virtually empty Tokyo, remember, after all these adventures it is still only 7 a.m!! Which we only realised by the fact that we were customers #2 and 3 at Starbucks this morning a full 5 minutes after they opened :). But even getting there at almost 8 the path to the Palace gardens was virtually empty, and strolling around them as the morning sun started to rise above the skyrises.

>>>Vaniah<< Johan has nodded off so I'm taking over. As he mentioned, the journey to the Imperial gardens was possibly better than the gardens themselves and very beautiful in the cloudless Tokyo morning sunshine. When we got to the entrance of the gardens, we were disappointed to find that they were closed, and only after a brief discussion amongst ourselved realised that it didn't open until 9am and it was indeed only 8:30! So we wandered off to amuse ourselves for half an hour but instead were previleged to find this guy enjoying the peace of the morning. I can assure you that we kept a respectful distance.

The gardens themselves were quite beautiful, I think though that they were designed to be enjoyed in the springtime when all the cherry and plum trees are in full bloom and the gardens become a sea of colour. On our visit however the predominant colour was green and without a guide to tell us the story behind the gardens, it was only a peaceful and lovely place.

The final big adventure of the day was lunch. By 11:30 we were both ravenous so determined not to spend more than we should we looked for a local lunchtime place and found this outside a place full of local Japanese businessmen...

The idea seemed to be that you order and pay for you food using the machine, then go inside where it's been prepared for you and pick it up. Of course, it's all in Japanese however some of the buttons have helpful pictures on them. After randomly pressing a few buttons a note was printed. Afraid that we had mistakenly ordered half the menu, we went inside and signaled panic to the chef. He then came outside and helpfully showed us how it worked. Phew! Btw, if you'd like to know the secret, e-mail us and we will be happy to reveal all :)

After a final random meeting with a very pleasant Englishman who gave us some suggestions of places in Tokyo to visit, we headed back to the hotel to have a nap before meeting up with some friends tonight. And here we are...

090909 and jetlagged in Japan

As I'm typing this, I am in our hotel room on the 36th floor of our hotel in Japan looking at a spectactular view and listening to the Japanese children program on TV (yes, they are the same here too).

So, first impressions of Japan are a bit blurry based of course on the fact that we haven't slept for more hours than is civilised which means that we are fighting to stay awake. All the same, I think that we have managed alot today:

1. Made our way from the airport to our hotel
2. Bought what we thought was a refreshing local drink - big mistake! Words cannot describe what this drink (see picture as warning) tastes like. We can think of one which begins with V and ends with E... Note to self, water is a much safer option here.
3. Successfully found, ate and paid for a meal at a Japanese buffet (we where the only non-Japanese people there).
4. Used the loo - a real adventure in Japan
5. Negotiated the Tokyo public transport system successfully, including buying the correct ticket and getting off at the correct stop...

The verdict... Tokyo is indeed a very modern, beautiful city with all the mod cons that you would want (and some that come as a bit of a surprise), and definately somewhere that I could live for a while. But like all modern, capital cities, I suspect that Tokyo is just a picture of Tokyo and not Japan. So I will enjoy Tokyo for what it is and be careful to remember that there is a whole Japan out there which will hold it's own unique charms and surprises.

Can't wait.

Less than 24 hours to go

Tomorrow is a day of flying, it will take only an hour to get from Stockholm to Helsinki where we change planes and then we have another 9 and a half to go before we reach our destination of Tokyo. Actually, 11 1/2 hours gets you to Narita airport and then you have another hour's travelling to go before you get to Tokyo... or according to our hotel's website, 66 minutes if you take the airport limousine bus and 67 if you take the train. Can't argue with that kind of precision... makes you want to keep your stopwatch handy though :)

Our stuff in the flat has been moved to the attic (again) and our bags are all packed so we have nothing else to do but listen to soft rock music and surf all the places that we would like to go to.

There is always a strange feeling the night before you embark on something big/ life changing/ in unchartered territory, an anticipation mixed with a nervousness. A twinge of anxiety that something will happen a just the last minute and your one chance will be swept away. I don't know why I feel this way, maybe I'm a natural pessimist (though I've never though of myself as one) or maybe I don't feel like I have done anything to deserve something this special... Who knows... I guess the way forward is to commit it to God and then go to sleep :)

Tomorrow is an exciting day!!

Mr and Mrs

What a beautiful day to get married and start our new life together. Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to the wedding and we can't wait to see some of the pictures that you have taken and hear the stories of the things that happened while we weren't around. Like the one about the coast guard - I'm sure that there are more...

Well, it's been four days now and we have been so busy with lots of final stuff that it hasn't really sunk in that we are now Mr and Mrs but I'm sure that once I start hearing Mrs Elmström a few times then it will feel official. Today I created a new e-mail address for myself, full marks to anyone who can guess what it is :)

We also have 5 more days before we leave for our big trip. Officially it has already started however I think that we will really start to feel that it has started when we get on the plane headed for Japan... Can't wait!!!

I know that many of you were not able to make it to the wedding so we've put together a few photos that were taken on the day to give you an idea of what the day was like.

If you'd like to see a few pictures from the wedding please click on the photo below.

Back with a thud

For our second day in Tallin, we decided to do something very Estonian - go for a walk in the nearby woods. The Estonians have had a very chequered past, having been conquered by all of their neighbouring countries, yet have maintained a very individual and separate culture through their ideals of closeness to nature and self-sufficiency.

It is a beautiful country, if a little more expensive that we would have liked. I guess that is the impact of the European Union which is uniting Europe in the quality and also cost of living...

We did come across one beautiful Estonian tradition though... We haven't investigated it but it looks as if when couples decide to declare their commitment to each other, they leave this as a symbol for all to see. I wonder if there are any bridges near Nynäs...?

Well, we're back in Sweden now and if there aren't any more posts for a while, it's because we are busy getting married, catching up with friends and family who have come along and then getting ready for this crazy trip.

Have a look at our wedding website if you haven't already done so.

More top tips for Tallinn

Tallinn

Top tip number one. When looking at a menu thinking, mmmm that steak looks nice, rethink. The Estonians do a lot of things well, (kitch-shops, amber, old-towns, views, city walls etc) but beef is not one of them. When given a choice, choose fish.

Number two is more of a warning if you are driving. How many times have you pleaded with the bus driver to let you off when stopped at a red light just outside of where you are going, instead of having to go 2 miles down the road to the bus stop only to be refused due to health-and-safety. Not so in Tallinn, when driving on a main through road (compare it with an a-road in England or a blue 'riksväg' in Sweden), and a tram stops in the outside lane just ahead of you - break, for the love of god, break. That might just be a tram stop and people might start pouring out, as we discovered yesterday. I was ... surprised ... to say the least, but I think we managed to keep the bumper clean.

Top-tip number three is twofold, if you are aiming here to shop for more reasonably priced alcohol, look for beer and spirits, wine is not that cheap. But make sure you have done your price check before. We found a few discrepancies in the pricing here. We've been looking for two types of wine, valpolicella and chardonnay since we are going to need about 40-50 bottles of that soon. So we made tracks to the big outlets, because obviously thats where the cheap wine would be, and we found one pretty soon that had exactly what we wanted and in bulk, so all looked good, right?? Wrong!!!
Fortunately while all the other Swedes ran wild amongst the shelves we've had gotten a few reference prices to check up on;


Masi Campofiore: Sweden 83 SEK -Tallinn 95 SEK
Tommasi Valpolicella: Sweden: 99 SEK Ferry, 91 SEK (262 SEK in the restaurant!) Tallinn : 89 SEK

Lindeman Bin 65: Sweden 73 SEK Tallinn : 100 SEK

And those are just a few examples, fortunately we brought the price list from systembolaget with us. I originally aimed to bring that as a reference to check the descriptions and recommendations, since I am not that good at reading Estonian. It turned out to be quite useful to avoid being ripped off as well.

So come prepared!

Top tip #4. Spend some time in the old town in your walking shoes and do it on a weekday. If you have a look at the pictures, you'll see that there were not that many people around. IT was quite nice to wander around, read the plaques, take lots of pictures and to stop at lovely smelling coffee shops and watch the local kids go wild. I expect it to be quite different during weekends in peak tourist season.


So we might have failed in our quest to get a huge batch of wine, but this is my first visit to Tallinn, and I really enjoyed the walkabout in the old town. It reminds me of Gamla Stan in Stockholm, but with less aggressive shop/restaurant owners trying to sell you stuff. We also managed to book ourselves into a spa hotel and made use of the hotel pool in the evening, as if the 4 hour walk wasn't enough exercise, but it felt really good afterwards.
And on top of that, just next door is a huge marina, with some gorgeous evening views accompanying a decent dinner, but again, be warned - eat fish, not meat .

Slow boat to Tallinn

After the stress of packing up all our stuff and high-tailing it for Stockholm, we decided that we needed a little break before the crazyness of the last minute wedding tasks. Cue a cruise to Tallinn using the disguise of needing to buy alcohol for the wedding...

Contrary to what they will tell you on the internet, it is possible to book a cruise on the day that you want to go, and you will probably get a better price if you do this all at the last minute. Of course, you are taking a punt here so only try this option if you are a little flexible on the dates.

My eyes have now been opened to the true meaning of a booze cruise. This is a true example. As well as the expected restaurants and disco's, a huge area on the boat was dedicated to the duty-free supermarkets. You can buy almost everything there, from wine to whisky to perfumes. Everything it seems, except for a corkscrew! Top tip: take your own corkscrew on board with you if you'd like to enjoy a bottle in your cabin.

Another top tip: don't expect lots of space in your cabin when you go for the cheapest priced cabin. However, we found that you don't actually spend a whole lot of time there so it's a bit pointless to splash out on too much luxury!

After an uneventual night (I only woke up feeling a little queasy once), we were rudely awakened by the speakers announcing that there were only two hours remaining for us to have breakfast and get out of there. Very thoughful of them :(

We approached a very wet Tallinn... beautiful from the distance but still exciting to be in a new country, and on such a noble quest.

More later on how we get on...