First week in Japan

The trip with Japanese Airlines was even more pleasant than I expected. After waiting 3 hours at CDG airport it turned out that I was upgraded from Economy to Business class. The person sitting right next to me was a Japanese man, who lives in Warsaw. Obviously we've exchanged the visit cards. While having not only an interesting trip companion, but also a lot of space for legs and TV with option of watching any movie I wanted at any time those 12 hours of trip did not matter at all! The main airport of Nagoya is located on an island so it was quite a strange feeling to have water all around while landing. As soon as I gave back all the forbidden products to the customs officer, I went directly to the arrivals hall where my dear Daniel-San was waiting for me.
My first impression of Japan is that it reminds me of Disneyland, where everybody is nice (except foreigners who are the black characters), the city is clean, the food looks strange but tastes good and the whole surrounding is very colorful. On the 21st of August , arrival's day, afternoon I've discovered that in Japan there are so called '100 yen' shops, tried real udon soup, found out that it's almost impossible to pay with credit card anywhere in Japan and met Cesar who is Daniel's Panamian friend from the Japanese classes.

Saturday was the day of exploring such areas of Nagoya as Osu Kannon, Sakae and Nagoya Dome. We started from Osu Kannon where the bazaar mixes with temples.

Sakae turned out to be Nagoya's downtown with skyscrapers, expensive shops and entertainment.

The place that I was most looking forward to visit on that day was Nagoya Dome, which is the field of Nagoya's most famous baseball team - The Dragons.

Sunday was a day of discovering Kyoto. I couldn't wait to see Geisha-style dressed girls.

On Monday we went check out the Himeji castle the most famous one of Japan.

As one of the best ways of discovering cities is by bike, on Tuesday we borrowed a second bike from Cesar and went on a very long ride around Nagoya.

Wednesday was a day of visiting Iga, where the Ninja's village is located.

I'm having great time and it would be pointless to waste it on writing posts every day.
I've written this one for my friends who are looking forward to any news from me! I'll create more posts with detailed descriptions of my Japanese adventures after I get back to Poland.

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Kultowe Dobranocki - not only for children

Dobranocki (or Wieczorynki) are nothing else than Good-night stories.
They've been displayed on Polish TV since 1950s. Every night, exactly at 19:00, when most of the children is waiting in front of TV, a Good-night story begins and lasts until 19:20-19:25. It's been like that since not only me, but also my parents remember. There is no such person in Poland who never watched "Miś Uszatek", which is one of the most famous Polish animated TV series and became famous even in Japan!

Miś Uszatek in front of the Palace of Culture - Warsaw's most characteristic monument from the communist times

The other famous Good-night stories of my parents' childhood are: "Jacek i Agatka" and "Bolek i Lolek". I've never seen a single episode of the first one, however the second one was about two brothers - the tall one and the short one - named Bolek and Lolek.

Extremely old bar of soap for children packed in the paper with Jacek's and Agatka's images

My personal favourites, as far as I remember, were probably: "Maya the Bee" and "Gummi Bears". Unfortunately, usually I wasn't able to watch "Winnie the Pooh" on Sundays coz it was my bathing time!

The front window of the shop (view from Jana Pawla II street)

During one rainy afternoon, I've discovered an incredible place in Warsaw! It's hard to say if it's rather a kind of shop or an extraordinary museum. Somehow it's both! "Kultowe* Dobranocki" is how it is called. Getting there is like becoming one of the Good-night stories' characters. At first it gives an impression of a gadget shop - on the first floor there is a plenty of toys, clothes or cards of which the themes are Maya the Bee, Bolek and Lolek (Poland), Smurfs (Belgium), Koziołek Matołek (Poland), Krtek (Czech Rep.) and so on... However, the staircase in the back of the shop leads to the 2nd floor full of the stuff from old times! Even if you find things for sale on the 2nd floor, they will be really unique - such as postcards more than 20 year old!

Me and the Czech guy - Krtek

"Kultowe Dobranocki" can be found at this address:
Ogrodowa 1a street, Warsaw
(entrance from the back of the building)

* "kultowy", obviously a Polish word, is usually used to describe cultural achievements (book, movie, piece of music) that are well known and appreciated

Bieszczady Mountains - where heart's compass turns

South-Eastern Poland - it takes ages to get there from anywhere... From Warsaw it takes 9 hours by bus.

When the sun starts raising nobody should really take pictures, especially from the bus, but how to resist?

As soon as Kulaszne's newly rebuilt Eastern Orthodox Church appears behind the horizon with its bright colors, there is no doubt that the time of arrival is close.

After getting off the bus, the best thing to do in any village, is heading to the shop behind the bus stop and buying chilly kefir and fresh drożdżówka.

Batteries recharged! There is always a new place to go so having a small hike around is not a bad idea...

... nor is socialising with the locals! Making dreams come true is a great thing and this girl had a dream: to have veeeryy long hair.

Good news! Even though the old church in Komańcza, was destroyed by fire in September 2006 (I've taken pictures of it exactly one month before!), the reconstruction seems to be going pretty well.

Last year's drawings that Daniel left in one of Siekerezada's books are still there and surprisingly the owners have covered it with tape so they won't get damaged!

I keep on missing the Bieszczady constantly since 2003 and return whenever I can.
Can somebody take a picture of this what Portuguese call "saudade" and Turkish "hüzün"?