The big movement

From Spring and Sakura flowers to Summer and Park life in central Tokyo.
Last night we had a small moving in party in our house and we had some friends over. Everyone stayed in our room and it was a bit crowded, but superfun! Thank God for futons. We made sushi of course with our new rice cooker - The best invention ever!!

The Big Buddha in Kamakura.

Patrik, Patrik's finest finger, Camilla and Max in our super Japanese room.

At last Hanna's classmate from London, Stephanie from Florida, has moved to Tokyo.

Miniature Buddhas in memory of lost children. Temple in Kamakura.

A Saturday afternoon in the beginning of April; Max, Shane, Erin and we went to Nikko, a small town about two and a half hours by train from Tokyo. Unfortunately it rained and snowed during the time we visited the place (well, at least 90% of the time spending there) but we enjoyed the place a lot anyway and had a great Indian dinner at the Pakistanian hotel we were living in and ended the evening with having our first bath in an onsen, was a pretty cool feeling to be in a hot bath outside while it snowed. The day after was spent by walking around a bit in the middle of nowhere and see a beautiful landscape, felt like we were living in Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' for a few hours. We managed to find the Keigon waterfall but we didn't manage to take any good pictures of it unfortunately so instead you'll have the great opportunity to see some beautiful people.

Hanna doing her thing in Nikko with Shane as happy audience.

Our Pakistanian hotel in Nikko (well, actually outside Nikko ... somewhere in the middle of nowhere).

Early April in Nikko a.k.a. Twin Peaks.

Erin and Hanna in front of Keion Waterfall, Keion didn't want to be in the picture.

Shane and Patrik looking up to Max's spot. In the background: Keion Waterfall is showing some of it.

Later in April Isa, Camilla and I (Patrik) went to party with some people from school in Shibuya, the evening ended with us three doing a lot of funny things together as finding funny signs, drinking drinks (we all laughed pretty much when we saw the drink menu, to inappropiate to mention the drinks' names here though) and taking pictures in Japanese photo machines.

Swedish humour #1: What is the name of that building?

International humour #1: What is the name of that bar?

Isa, Camilla and Patrik + alcohol + a Japanes photo machine = FUN!!!

Shin-Ookubo station (20 seconds from our school). A politician tries to copy Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka.

Swedish humour #2: Anyone for pizza?

Our new class in school contains of Korean, Chinese, Hungarian and Swedish people.

0515PM. Scene: Café in Shimokitazawa - Max and Hanna checking each other noses with sticky fingers as the result.

0545PM. Scene: At the same café in Shimokitazawa - Wonderful interior.

International humour #2: Anyone for s-perm?

Statue from a temple in the middle of Harajuku.

Modern and ancient stuff in Harajuku. Cameron Diaz vs Audrey Hepburn: 0-3 [Knockout!].

From April 30th and one week forward Japanese people are having days off from work and school, they have something called Golden Week, seems to be a week filled with a lot of national holidays such as Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and Children's Day. Luckily we're are also having this week off from school, we started the week with visiting Meiji Park, nice place huh?

Meiji Park. You're not aloud to eat, drink, smoke, perform any form of exercise/sport or visit the forest ... apart from that it is the one of the best spots in Tokyo.

Patrik playing fashion photographer in Meiji Park. Beautiful scene!

Patrik not playing fashion photographer in Meiji Park. Sweet dreams!

Patrik thinking of what to do next in Meiji Park except for not eating, drinking, smoking, exercising or having a walk in the forest.


Have a good time wherever in the world you are! A lot of hugs and kisses from Hanna and Patrik

Other stuff

Since we have been AWFUL at updating, I'm gonna treat you with TWO update the very same day :)

First... Patrik and I have a request; we LOVE your comments! Please don't leave this time without writing something. Who ever you are... We are super curious who else than friends and family reads our blog. Please just say hi :)

Second... Patrik and I are moving. I allready moved, and Patrik is joining me within the month. It is a Sakura House in Yukigaya Otsuka, much closer to school and it is PERFECT! New address is:

Hanna Westergren, Yukigaya Otsuka House 1, room 206, 2-7-1 Minami Yukigaya, Ota-ku, Tokyo 145-0066, Japan

Third... School is starting again, the tempo is even faster now, plus we have to get jobs, but life is supergreat! We will not have time to update very often though, but we'll do our best!

Forth... We are PISSED at SI! (Our language school agent in Sweden) The reason we don't have any money now is because the carged us 6000 kronor to do some VISA application, which other friends at school has been able to do for free, because the did not use an agent. And also, the school fee is only 35 000 kronor for a whole year and SI adds 9 000 kronor on top of that for their "administrative costs" or whatever. This means that the money we get from CSN is only for the school fee 35000 kronor. We had to pay SI 15000 kronor from our own pocket and for nothing. We think SI should tell the students that they DO charge extra costs ON TOP of the school fee. In their catalogue, they say the school fee is 44 000 kronor, and this is NOT true. If you are a student going to Japan to study at this school; make sure to contact the school directly and you can save a lot of money!! Or ask me or Patrik, we can help you for free!! Japan does NOT charge anything to apply for a VISA (except for a little stamp you need wich is only 240 kronor, and that even SI did not include in the 6000 kronor they charge us for the VISA application). And the school is allready in CSN's database. I''m sure there are people who prefere to be on the safe side and pay SI these extra money, but trust us, there is nothing you can not do by your self. Thank you SI for letting us be poor students in Japan...

Fifth... Some pictures from Kamakura, where I went with Maria just before she left. As you can see, spring is here now and all the sakuras are in full bloom!

Sixth... Some more pictures; Of course we had karaoke with Maria several times. We also tried to had a Hanami (watching sakuras in a park) Picknick, but the weather was to bad that day, but we had some sushi and wine anyway.

Last pictures... Are from Sunshine City Tower in Ikebukoro. We were there almost a month ago, but I remembered I have not told you about "Ice Cream City"!! This is a very strange place, they have ALL icecreams imaginable. Strawberry icecream? -hell yes! Banana Icecream? -you got it! Snake icecream??? -Sure!! Well, you don't have Cow tounge icecream right?? -Second counter to the left!.... ??!!?? We didn't try it anyway...

Kyoto!

Maria-san has left for Sweden... And after a few weeks of mourning it's time for an update.

Kyoto. What an amazing place! Far from Tokyo's neonlights and noisy street... A peaceful city with smalltown feeling. We stayed very cheap at "The Cheapest Inn", very nice hostel, where we met Adam from Hawaii, a movie director, who became our travel buddy for the next two days.

Day 1. On a very cheap trainticket we (Hanna, Patrik, Maria and Camilla) arrived Kyoto after 8 hours on seven trains!! But it was really cheap. We checked in, had dinner and bought some clothes, because Kyoto was very cold last week.

Day 2. Started at Nijo Castle, in central Kyoto, walked on the "Nightingale Floor" that squeeked when you walked on it, almost sang like a bird, to warn the Shogun if enemies appeared. Continued to Toji Temple, to see a huge pagod of five floors and also a very interesting market with genuin Japanese handicrafts. This is also where Hanna (me) got hit by a five-year old kid on a bike, and had an awful pain in the hand for the following days ;) With a big wish to see a geisha, we entered the mystical Gion city, where the last day of the illuminated street was celebrated. Lights in all colours along the streets and statues, temples and shrines lit up, made our second night in Kyoto magical. Oh, I also have to tell you that we had dinner at a restaurant... Nice dinner, actually very good; seven course meal, including a WHOLE fish to eat. I'm not joking, every little piece from eyes to tail to skin... He was lying with open mouth and teeth exposed,and we ALL did it! We all ate the fishes. They were blue. Check the picture Camilla took.















Day 3. The little green local train took us to Funashi Inari. The pictures of the red tunnels show everything I think. They stretched all the way up to the mountain and it was absolutely magical. Along the way was some tehouses and some graveyards.





Moving on to the temple where Scarlet Johanson witness the wedding in "Lost in Translation". Loads of tourists of course, but luckily for us, Adam had heard about a hidden temple in the woods. We HAD to find it! High up above a ravin and a creek, was a waterfall and a small temple altar hidden in the mountain. In a cave! Amazing! It felt as an Indiana Jones movie. We were alone in the jungle...

When looking for the "Philosophers walk" it started to rain. We took refugee in a smal teahouse, serving specially made appeltea. Absolutely delicious! The smell after the rain, as we left the teahouse was fantastisc. I fell in love with Kyoto at that point. I think we all did. The air was filled with jasmin, the sun turned red in the white, still cloudy sky, and the japanese flag appeared. At the end of the walk, we were suppose to find "Ginkakuji Temple", but the place seemed to be closed. We had to to be content with another mystical temple in the woods. The light was amazing and our photographers (actually all of us ;) were trying every light option we had in our cameras. Adam had a cool gadget that "recorded" the light so that he could recreate it later. We ended a wonderful day with tapanyaki, food that we fried on the table, and a lot of beers. The day after, Patrik and Camilla enjoyed the nice 9 hour train back, when Maria, me and Adam took the luxurious Shinkansen back to Tokyo. We were back in two and a half hours.