Hi everyone, this is the first entry in my travel diary from Japan. I was supposed to arrive here on Thursday evening but the Japanese airlines plane broke so spent a day in Helsinki while waiting for a new plane to fly in. The pilot came to the gate to announc the cancellation of the flight and then the entire staff at the gate made a synchronous bow to us passengers. It looked so coordinated we started thinking maybe they had practiced behind the gate. They even got the Finnish staff in on it too. My first whiff of Japanese culture on this trip!

I came to Sapporo late last night after running through Tokyo airport to catch the connecting flight. Tip: don't pack a thermos flask in your carry-on bag if you want to go quickly through security.

Apart from beer, Sapporo is famous for its entertainment district Susukino which the tourist leaflets cliam has about 4000 restaurants and bars. Walking through some of it last night I can almost believe that. It's a mixture of narrow alleys with old-looking bars that may take no more than ten guests to huge entertainment complexes of ten stories, each story with lots of different bars restaurants or clubs. I had dinner at an old bar at midnight with a group of business people who were still in their suits. Me and another man were seated at the bar when they came in and they had to squeeze past us to get to two small tables. That was all the seating. The noodles were great and only 800 yen so less than 60 kr (7€).

Today I've mostly been walking around town, really enjoying not having a schedule or a deadline. Sapporo is about the size of Stockholm but has much wider streets and taller buildings and is surrounded by mountains. (I'll put some photos here soon.) It's about as cold here as it was in Gothenburg when I left. Spent an hour on a park bench in the sun observing the locals taking photos of each other with a maple tree. It seems I will have to learn to make funny gestures or at least V-signs if I want to fit in.

The building behind me in the photo is the guest house where I'm staying. It's not a big building but last night we were at least twenty guests and there's room for more. There's not much room for luggage and there wasn't much floor space left last night in the dorm room that I share with four Japanese guys. Good thing I didn't have to get up at night. I don't know very much about Japanese culture but I have a hunch that falling and landing on top of a complete stranger in his sleep is probably not ok.

Now it's time for a run! Packing for three months requires a lot of compromises. I had to give up my running shoes but managed to squeeze the Fivefingers (barefoot running shoes with toes) in at the end. Maybe they'll be a good conversation starter?