May
May was a non-travel month. We moved back into our house. Our home. Did some arts and crafts. Attended a funeral. Had a friend visit for a weekend from Oslo and go for afternoon tea and dinner. Her new boyfriend was introduced. Contemplated life and love. Did some pet...
Cheerio London!
Four very standard British days in the capital of the UK, staying at, you guessed it, The Standard. The first night took us to a lecture at the Royal Institution on Paranormal activity by Chris French. Naturally, all experiments that were done debunked the myths about...
Back home, for a little while
It was time to spend some time back in Stavanger with these activities: Saying hello to our tenant, Ms. Spider. Café visit. Stopping by the office to eat cake and say goodbye to a colleague on his last day. Change tires on the car (not personally, "vi har folk til...
Easter
A prolonged Easter was celebrated with family in our cabin in the mountains.
Hello again
Back home, my first order of business was to say hi to my little rascals.
Sayonara Japan
We savored our last authentic Japanese breakfast and strolled over to the terminal. In the airplane we cozied up in our seats with all the SAS amenities for the 14 hour flight to Copenhagen. For the first time ever I flew over the North Pole as we took the Polar route...
Back to the mainland
Switching breakfast for lunch, we checked out and ate late before ubering to the Okinawa airport. Bye bye Okinawa! In the evening we were at the Hotel villa fontaine premier at Haneda airport. Unfortunately after sunset, so we missed the views of Mount Fuji 🗻 (yes, it...
My chill day
Finally a day with no plans. At least for me. Terry went into Naha again to do some more shopping. I stayed by the pool at the hotel. Although there’s no summer heat it’s still warm in the sun, and I read/napped on a sun bed. Later on I checked out the indoor...
Aquarium and a whale shark
Another long bus ride (never forget an international license when hiring a car in Japan) took us to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. It houses an over 8 m long whale shark and many huge manta rays plus many sea mammals and fish. It’s one of the largest aquariums in the...
Naha, Okinawa’s main town
Naha is close to the airport and more than an hour with bus from the hotel and serves as the Okinawa administrative center. During the day here I visited Fukushuen Chinese garden with its koi ponds and Chinese architecture and waterfalls. Afterwards, I stopped at the...
Chill day and American village
Our first day without any big plans. The sun was out and there was a slight breeze, so after a big Japanese set breakfast including Okinawa doughnuts, we sat on the beach for a while. The weather wasn’t quite warm enough for swimming but the sun was hot enough to...
Okinawa
Okinawa, the group of islands south of Japan, is our final destination on our 4 week trip. It took about 2 hours to fly here from Kansai airport. Kansai airport is fascinating in itself, built on a manmade island in the middle of the sea and which is now sinking. Our...
Osaka castle, SpaWorld, and Kobe beef
One last day in Osaka and crammed in three more things. First off, Osaka castle. If you’re watching the Shogun series, this is the castle they refer to (although in the old 80’s Shogun series they filmed at Himeji castle instead). Two big moats surround the castle and...
Japan’s largest cemetery, Osaka by night, and more cats
Early morning in Koyasan we attended the Buddhist prayers at 6:00. Still freezing cold. There is no way we could manage the ascetic life of a monk. We bought a sanbucan, a citrus from this region, previously reserved only for samurai and feudal lords. It did make us...
Buddhist temple stay
South of Osaka lies Koyasan in the mountains. It’s the center of Shingon Buddhism and there’s a temple on every corner, literally. Our lodging for the night was Fukuchiin temple. The journey there was via train, a very steep cable car / funicular, and then bus (the...
Universal Studios!
All day at universal studios. We had to get up early in the morning to get in line before they opened because apparently they open an hour or more BEFORE the official opening time. Huh? Also the published wait times said up to 240 minutes of waiting, but when you got...
Foodie tour
Off we go exploring Osaka, and the first thing we encounter is “Americamura” or the American neighborhood with youngster fashion. I finally found jeans that fit me… at the Levi’s store. But! They were made in Japan of Japanese fabric, plus I had my name embroidered in...
Osaka
Leaving Hiroshima behind, Osaka is our last big stop on mainland Japan. Finding our way was a bit of a challenge since there is an entire town under the main train station creating a third dimension of floors when navigating by google maps. We walked through a covered...
Miyojima island
Outside Hiroshima is the island of Miyajima, one of the most scenic spots in Japan. I had a special interest in visiting because, just like in Nara, there are free roaming wild deer on the island that walk in the streets. The island is also famous for oysters, so I...
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Hiroshima was a must on our list over places to visit in Japan, so today we spent our time walking through the Peace Memorial Park reading about the atrocities of the Second World War and its end in Japan. The park is situated a block away from the hypocenter, and...
Kabuki theater, tea ceremony and Naked festival
Rushing off in the morning, we managed to secure seats to a Kabuki theater performance, a 400 year old and traditional Japanese art form combining music and stylized acting while wearing very heavy stage makeup. It was a comedic “suicide” play (!). More traditions...
Monkeys, bamboo and deer, but no zoo
So many animals to see today, and all in the wild. The monkeys at Arashiyama were cheeky as expected, and there were hundreds of them. A short distance away is the tall and dense Arashiyama Bamboo forest with many couples taking pictures in kimonos. An hour’s train...
Kyoto
Our day started with a private guided tour with Yuka. She took us to several temples and shrines, and explained all the artifacts and history. A cute temple had lots of colorful balls. They represented monkeys tied together on their hands and feet symbolizing...
Sake to geisha
Since Takayama has so many sake breweries, we took the time to stroll in the old street and visit a couple before departing the town. Kyoto was our next stop, the cultural capital of Japan, and also its old capital. Our guide informed us that Tokyo in fact means “New...
Winter dollhouses
Our breakfast at the ryokan was up to par with their dinner. Can’t say I miss bread or cereal. We made time for a stop at the onsen in the morning too. I tried another one right next door that was even prettier. No pictures allowed naturally, but you can see them...
Castle garden and onsen
Before leaving Kanazawa we strolled through the castle and the Kenrokuen garden. We were lucky enough to get a free private guided tour of the garden, and made it just in time for a tea ceremony. In the evening we arrived in Takayama and checked in to a traditional...
Shinkansen to the west
Shinkansen is the superexpress train in Japan with speeds up to 320 km/h, and we took our first longer trip on one of these lines up to Kanazawa today. Our hotel, Uan, is so sleek and artsy, and we had to try on the Japanese pyjamas, or yukatas, with belts and wooden...
Amusement day
The island of Odaiba was on our plan today. On our way there we stopped at Tsukiji fish market with lots of tiny shops and vendors selling fish, meat, tea, and more. (For those of you who watched “Jiro dreams of sushi”, the market was featured in it). Next stop was...
Shrine, eating on the floor, and cocktails
Today we went on an excursion to Nikko, 2 hours north of Tokyo. Nikko has UNESCO listed shrines and temples, of which there are maaaany. We went to the biggest, and possibly most ornate, shrine in Japan, Toshogu shrine. It is also famous for its sleeping cat sculpture...
Cup noodles and Chinatown plus 9 courses
Another small day trip out of Tokyo today to the coastal town of Yokohama. We visited our first (and probably only) museum dedicated to cup noodles. They were compared to such inventions as the airplane and telephone, so the Japanese revere cup noodles and ramen more...
Japanese cooking, big Buddha, more shrines, bars and Godzilla
We did so much today! But you kind of have to because there’s so much to cover, it’s impossible to do everything. Our morning was spent on a traditional Japanese cooking course where we cooked, among other things, wagyu meat (and ate it). A train ride away we found...
Arcades, samurai, ninja, cats, sushi
Akihabara was our first stop. This area is famous for lots of character shops, electronics and arcades. We tried a couple of retro games, like dance dance revolution. Asakusa was next up, with the lots of little stores, and we visited the samurai and ninja museum and...
Guided tour, samurai fest and crossing the road
Seizo, our companion for the day, took us crisscrossing the city today. First to Meiji shrine, then to the shopping area, Asakusa, and its Buddhist temple, Sensoji. He taught us the rituals to clean hands and mouth, and offer a 5 yen coin for luck and bow. And...
Imperial palace garden and ramen!
The downside of arriving early in the morning is that hotel checkin is in the afternoon, so our tired faces and sweaty bodies spent the first hours exploring the nearby neighborhoods which included the imperial palace east gardens and Tokyo station. The gardens are...
Konnichiwa
Early, early in the morning we took off to Copenhagen with the first flight from Sola, and continued on to Tokyo on a 13 hour flight. A meal, a few movies, a moisturizing mask (both of us), and forty winks later, it was already Saturday and we were welcomed to Japan...
Last prep for Japan
Very last day to get ready for Japan. Everything is packed and the cats have received a last kiss. Except the black flash, who still sits patiently and hisses under the stairs.
Eating at the circus before A streetcar named Desire
Trying to switch to Tokyo time has been a complete failure, waking up closer to noon the last few days… We went into town after a rummage through our house to find things for our travels. Terry’s son and girlfriend (his son’s, Terry doesn’t have an extra girlfriend as...
Tåkefall
Another night at the theater, this time at Rogaland theater at the play “Smokefall” or “Tåkefall”. I understood that there was some symbolism at play but I have to admit that it did go over my head a bit. However, the scene with two twin brothers fighting inside the...
Bonnie and Clyde with a touch of Farmen
Riksteatret is in town (or at least in Sandnes) with “Bonnie and Clyde”. I swooped a ticket, especially curious about seeing the Farmen winner in the flesh doing what he does best. The show was good, more music focused than story focused. My favorite was the burlesque...
Farmen finale
Spending (too much?) time with my parents while in Norway has led to watching many more tv programs, and among them are Farmen. Even though my parents left for the cabin today, I still felt compelled to watch the finale of Farmen today. It was fun to see that the...
Kielland 175 years
Another day of literature and lectures starting with a talk on the Norwegian author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. It was held by one of the professors I had during my Nordic literature study at the University of Bergen last year, which was what drew my attention. He was also...
Adriatico
http://adriatico-stavanger.com (I doubt this blog has a large enough audience for anyone to care about unmarked advertising - and if anyone does, it’s now on the record that I’ve received a free apple juice at Adriatico but not as compensation for mentioning the...
«De små jentene» by Isakstuen
This week, the library is celebrating that it is 175 years since the famous Stavanger author, Alexander Kielland, was born. The week is filled with lectures and activities with tighter or looser ties to Kielland. I attended a talk by Monica Isakstuen. I read one of...
Valentine’s with Fredrik Græsvik
We got up early to go to the cinema. Not for a movie but to watch the reporter Fredrik Græsvik, who previously worked for TV2, talk about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Maybe not what you’d have in mind for a romantic Valentine’s date, but a great talk...
Tekna quiz and “peiling på parforhold”
I had two webinars to watch - one Terry joined, the funny one with Steinar and Cathrin Sagen, but the quiz was less popular. I ended up forming my own quiz team “Solo” and still managed a defensible score in the end. Terry helped remotely with a couple of IT-related...
Tollak til Ingeborg
I was lucky enough to score some tickets for the sold out performance “Tollak til Ingeborg” on Finn, and we all went to watch this dark story by Tore Renberg.
Middle seat sucks
Trivandrum to Doha - 4 hours, and Doha to Oslo - 7 hours. Middle seat. ‘Nuff said. I thought the unwritten rule was that the middle seat gets both armrests, but on the last flight I didn’t get an arm rest or leg space. The poor sleepy fellow next to me had flown from...
Last day in Kerala
One last day of meditation, yoga, Ayurveda food and drinks, swimming and lounging, massage treatments and walking about with a muddy face mask and a tea towel on my head wearing a green robe while eating dinner. And all week we’ve been seeing eagles circling above,...
Shopping street
After meditation and yoga, most of the women spent their last day here up in the local shopping street. It’s a mix of both touristy and local shops. I was lucky enough to bump into our group leader on the way there and she guided us to the most amazing shop filled...
Kovalam
The hotel offered a free taxi to Kovalam, the closest town. The catch was of course that we had to stop by the Fabindia shop. I went in with the intention of not buying anything, but that was easier said than done. I found a bright pink dress and ear rings and bought...