First day in japan (2.7)

So we had survived the long 9 hour flght from Helsinki to Narita airport with Kimi and were a bit exhausted. We tought that since the breakfeast that the plane served was a bit unsatisfactionary that we would go and eat breakfeast at the airport.
I found us some place that was not so expencive and we went there with Kimi. I decided that I wanted to try immediately something typically Japanese so I took the Tororo soba (buckwheat noodles served cold with condiments), Kimi on the other hand took the pancake set. After eating we went back to the east terminal wing to find the JR-group stand so that we could get our JR-Passes. After the exchange of tickets against vouchers we were of to Tokyo station with the amazing N`ex train. We arived there and i called my frien Kosuke so that we could meet him. He told us the way to his house by train (he lives in Chiba) so we went to take it when something unexpected happened. While on our way to the platform I heard someone calling out to me! It was Robert, a friend from Finland who had arived to Japan 1 month prior to me and what a coincidence it was! We had made no arangements to meet eachothers and heck, I did`nt even know he still was here in Japan. We took the same train and talked a bit. They were on their way to the Tokyo Disney land so they hopped of the train a bit earlier.

Extra cat picture for your reading delight

After that we soon arived (tired) to kosukes station where he came to get us.
We walked to his house to take a shower and to leave our stuff there. After all that we went for a walk around town and to eat. We went to a high tower to look at the view of the city.
After that we started to get a bit hungry so we desperately searched for a place untill we found one near the station area. We ate Curry,Yumy!
Well after a bit further strolling we went back to the house. We were super tired, seriously never ever been this tired in my life so we decided to go to sleap at 6p.m. allready !!!! We slept a good 12 hours that night.

Chiba

Bye bye once again Finland !

OK, I'm off !

My flight leaves at 4p.m. finish time and will arive somewhere around 8 a.m. in Japan. 

See you ! 

Sunday glorious sunday

So as you can propably imagine I'm pretty pumped up for next sunday when we leave for Japan. 

Me and Kim are gonna meet up somewhere at the central railwaystation in Helsinki and take the airport buss to the terminal. 

We have fixed our buisinesses in order and have our flight ticets our JR-Passes and we have allso allready changed some Euros to sweet, sweet Yens. 

As stated previously I will be trying to write my blog as we are there.  Allready we have found few very intresting things to blog about like an all you can eat restuarant in Kyoto and an all you can eat desserts buffe in Tokyo. These are just some of the highlights that I am going to blog about, so do folow me as you'll gonna hear a lot more of the fun and whacky things in and from Japan. 

As a side note: 

Though this trip is shure to be great and amazing it's still going to be clouded by the fakt that my father passed away litle over a week ago on saturday. 

But still I'll make most out of this trip since I'm shure thats what he would allso have wanted. 

It's been a rough week as you can imagine, but life  goes on, as hard as it might to be. 

Bless you Dad and rest in peace. 

Where the sakuras blossom

Now then that I have graduated from my Highschool it's time for yet another trip. 

This is something that had allready been brewing in my head since last january when I came back from Japan.
I swore to myself that I'd go to Japan again in the next summer and ... surprise, surprise, guess who is going to Japan :) 

Well this time I'm really pumped up for the next round, mainly because now I will be staying there for 17 days and will be visiting various locations as : Hiroshima, Nagoya, Tokyo, Kyoto etc. And this is still just am idea, but I was thinking of visiting the area where the tsunami wreaked havoc last year, Sendai. I'd like to see the reconstruction with my own eyes and write about it.
I really felt for the poor people who had to go thru this travisty. They not only lost their homes but they allso lost relatives, friends, neighbours.
But on the positive note this catastrophy brought the people, the city and the country even closer to eachother. 

"Ganbare Nippon!"

This time I won't be traveling alone as on the last time, but I will be joined by Kim Valkama who is a friend of mine from school. I asked him allready in good time if he would be interested in making this trip with me and he concidered it thoroughly and answered gladly yes. 

So the time line will be 1.7.2012. thru 18.7.2012 and once again we have orderd the famous " JR-Pass " which is a standard aquipment for any traveler out of Japan who wish to travel IN Japan. It's inexpencive and very convinient. 

And as allways, I shall be keeping my daily blog to the best of my abilities and hope to have you, dear reader, with me ! 

Cheers ! 

Robert 

Brasília and home sweet home

When we arived at the airport in Brasília we were greated by Clara who was a friend of Petras. She had come to pick us upp and to take us to her house with her car (thank god!). The drive took about a half hour because the place where she lived was at the other end of the city. The passing buildings and places were amzing, modern and amazing. It is one of the most beutifull capitals I'v ever seen, even though it is only a new capital.
we unpacked our things in the livingroom of Claras house and went to great the family. It was a big house.

Açaí

We took a tour of the house and ate some mandarines before taking our suff to our rooms. Petra was sleaping in Claras room and I got my own bedroom. I went to take a shower and so did Petra and we met afterwards in  the kitchen and had some supper. It was getting late so we only went to the internet and then to sleap, we were a bit tired. The next day went to meet Claras boyfriend. Her boyfriend was going to show us a bit of the city while Clara had to go to take a couple of classes at the univeristy. But before she left we all had some Açaí, a type of ice cream of berrys, and it was delicious! She had to run after we had bought them but we proceded to eat our portions and then we went to get the car.
We drove around the city and stoped at last to a tower with an viewing point of the whole city. We went up and the views that layed before us where breath taking. You could see allmost the whole city, you could see the unfinished stadion that they were building for the olympics that Brazil will hold in 2016. 

We stayed very loong up there and when we finaly had got enough we had allready to go and get Clara and then we were allready leaving to the birthday party of Claras friend. Afterwards we went to a bar to drink and play some pool and to dance. We met up with my cousin Tuomas there. We had some drinks and played some  pool, later we danced som Forro. I danced with Petra and an other girl, Svetlana, who was an brasilian despite of her name. She teached me the mooves and I learned them more or less. We had tried to dance Forro in Rio allready but there I didn't really learn them. But as the saying goes, there is a time and space for everything. 
So we got home late that night and obviously went straight to bed. The next day we were alone eating breakfeast with Petra because the whole family had work and school. A friend of Tjagos, Claras boyfriend, was to come and pick us upp at 2p.m. to show us around some more. So we had the whole morning to ourselves. We went out to their yard to take some sun, I myself got bored quickly and started training on the sandbag that was hanging near the porch. Afterwards I took a shower and went to the computer. We had a quick lunch with Claras mom who had come home to eat. After eating we had some time before we got picked up by Tjagos friend. When he arived we went to pick up one of his friends who was coming with us to tour the city. We went to a marketplace where they sold everything imaginable. We bought some Erva-Mate to bring back home. Then we mostly just strolled around the premices and went to a big department store from where we allso bought some souvineirs. I bought some Cachasa, a type of spirits from Brazil, Then we had to leave allready home to eat because it really took time to stroll around and we were going out again that day. We went to a bar called the UK where they had two bands playing rock musik. One played Rolling Stones covers and the other one played 50's rock. The latter I really liked! 
The next day we woke up had breakfeast, luch and went to shop some clothes with Clara and Petra. Petra bought her dress for our graduation, I myself didn't buy anything, except for coffee :) 

So this was our last day and it felt so short. When we came back home to Claras, we started to make food with Petra. We had promised them to make some Finnish foods so we made the meatballs with mashed potatos again and for desert we made "pannukakkua". They relly liked it and Claras mom asked me for the recipe. After finnishing eating we went to pack our bags for the next morning because our flight left early and for that reason we allso had to wake even earlier. I packed quickly because I was still going out with Tjago to an apartment of his friends just to chill and play the guitar. So thats what I did and when I came back in the evening, or night actually, Petra and Clara were still awake watching some pictures from an album. I went to sleap for my part because I was exhausted.
So the next day came and we woke upp at 6 a.m. to take a shower and to eat breakfeast and then to leave for the airport. We took our last goodbyes to Clara at the house and then here mother at the airport. 
We were sad that we had to leave because the time seemed to have gone by so quickly that we hadn't realized it, but we were allso glad to come back home.
This time the flights and conections went smoother than when we arrived, the plain was only 20 minutes late at the airport of Brasília, the rest were on time and we came happily home at 3 p.m. Finnish time. 


So as a Summa Summarum of the tripp : IT RULED !!!! got to do it again some time in the future. 

Road to Natal and Brasilia

When in Natal you just got to visit the beaches there. It´s so full of different beaches and there is not so many people in the city so they are not totally cramed full, thogh they are really popular. When we arived in Natal on the evening and arived at the house of a friend of Petras called Filipe. We had dinner with them and had a plesant talk about different things and it was funny because the father kept offering me more and more to drink so in the end I was a bit drunk to be honest, but hey we are just having some fun. Right ?
Anyway the next morning we woke up at around 10 a.m. to have breakfeast. It was great, I tasted my first Tapioca (a pancake made from the Manjoca, a sertain typical rootfruit in Brasil) and it tasted great. We ate it with cheese. After the very filling breakfeast we went to see a fort near the ocean and then we went to the beach of ponto negro. The water was really warm and the sun was hot as hell! Just the way I like it, of course.
We stayed there for a long time and then went to the shoping arcade of the artesans to look around, everything was really beautifull and cool. We were allready getting a bit hungry because we had stayed at the beach for a really long time and the sun was already setting when we got home to Filippes to eat. It was again a great feast we had. Then afterwards we made a little road trip for St. Miguel de Gostoso. The place was really beautifull and it was only a couple of hours away from Natal. If even possible the beaches there were more beautiful than some of the ones in Natal. and so surprise surpsise we went the next day to the beach again there, but the nigth before we made some caipirinhas for ourselves and had some fun, haha ofcourse right. Yeah so the next day we allso spent a long time at the beach after that we went to se other beaches nearby and checked them out. There was one beach that was known for its "whale rock". It was a rock near the water that had an underwater  tunnel or it was more like a hole and when the waves hit it the water went in the other side and spurted out at the other. It was really fun ! When we were geting hungry we went to eat at a local resturant near the hotel where we were staying. We had two dishes that where prepared from local ingreadients and they really tasted great, like everything so far. We then went to pack our stuff after we had finished eating and then we were on our way again, towards Natal. We had to sit for 3 hours  in a trafic jam and came home late. We went shopping and then out to eat. The next day we left early in the morning for Brasília.
So now I have experienced the beautifull Natal, it realy was an amazing city with many good beaches and amazing views!

Party fever strikes again

Party, party, party... Thats all I think we have done on every evening, but it´s okay cause were taking it easy and relaxing. We have now seen many of the most famous places of Rio de Janeiro, like Cristo Redentor, AKA. Christ the redeemer, we have been in copacabana, lapa, ipanema Etc. We have had so much fun here that its not real ! Although I think it is Petra who has had the most fun because she has once more united with here friend that she has not seen in three years. We have been living at her, Isadoras, place where she lives with three other persons and now with us too :). We have been going out every evening so far to see some samba dance or some sights or just simply going out to a bar.

Yesterday we were out in Lapa where we went to watch the people dancing the Forroh! It was fun, we talked with a lot of new people, and propably the jewl of that evening was when I beatboxed with a random guy who rapped to my beat. Hahaha, it was hillarious! I don´t know, maby its because I have been lucky or that I have hangd out with the right people, but I have never been afraid of beeing mugged or anything like that. But that does not mean that I will let my guard down in the future eighter. It is obviously easier to move around in the city and on the streats when you have someone that lives here as your guide, it is allso great chance to practice my portuguese. 

The beaches have been amazing and the water allso. We were swiming and taking sun today in Ipanema and Copacabana. We have allso been a bit shopping here and trying out the restuarants, and oh boy do I like the food or what. 

The places we have been have usually been "pay per kilo" type of places, and the name says it all. You pay by the kilo. It´s really cheap and good food (100g/2-3R$, aprox. 1 or 2 euros per 100g)  and the same goes for the dessert, pay per kilo :) yummy! 

Oh and when I now got started on the food; the coffey is allso really delicious and strong, but they like to add mutch sugar or artificial sweetener to it and they allways stand in awe when this weird person replies to them that he does not need no sugar or sweetener to his coffee. 

Yup, tomorrow we will leave at about 20.00 for Natal, so untill then.