Author Archives: Björn

Yangon Walking Tour

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The tour now had officially started. This morning Sai – our tour leader – was showing us around the city center, passing through some areas, I had already explored during the previous two days. This time though, additional information was available, Sai provided us with a summary of the city’s and the country’s history – all the way from pre-colonial times to the current political setup.

The tour ended in a local restaurant in the Muslim part of town for a late lunch. From here we made our own way back to the hotel – I ended up having a stop at and little wonder around Bogyoke Aung San Market.

Welcome to Yangon

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I have had Myanmar (or Burma) on my bucket list for quiet a while now. With the country having opened up gradually over the last couple of years, I was seeing this year finally as a good time for me to visit. So – as in previous years – I left gray and cold Europe in late November and made my way over to South East Asia.

I made it into Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) in the afternoon coming in via Singapore. As usual I directly ventured out to explore the area around the hotel.

I made my way through the little alleys all the way to Maha Bandula Park to catch a first glimpse of Sule Pagoda (of course followed by a visit inside). I also made it to Botahtaung Pagoda and (just to change the religion) St Mary’s Cathedral.

Note: some of the blog entries on Myanmar will use the local script to remove ambiguity around naming of places. If those do not come through for you, you may want to install Myanmar character support. You can give it a try with this one: မင်္ဂလာပါ (mɪ̀ɴɡəlàbà = hello).

Tokyo on Weekday Evenings

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During the week of course work was the priority; we nevertheless had some good opportunities in the evenings to get to see a bit of town and also (thanks to our hosts) had a superb introduction into the variety of Japanese food – from the well known sushi and sashimi to shabu-shabu (Japanese-style hotpot with thinly sliced beef), tempura, unagi to the diversity of Hokkaido cuisine.

Back to Tokyo …

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Already a couple of times during this year work had brought me (back) to some interesting places – and now it was back to Tokyo.

This time – having learned my lesson from the Singapore trip – I already made it to the destination (i.e. into Tokyo Narita) on Saturday evening, essentially to allow for an additional day to adjust for the timezone difference (which in retrospect this was a good decision, as I barely slept in my first night and was tired all day on Sunday).

Saturday evening I started, where my Tokyo ventures had also started back in 2008 – Asakusa and the Senso-Ji temple.

On Sunday the weather clearly showed that a typhoon was nearing – it was raining all day with rain and wind getting heavier in the course of the day. I had a very early start, making my way by subway to the Zojo-Ji temple; from here I continued to the imperial garden. With the weather conditions deteriorating, I decided to visit the national museum of modern art. For lunch I met back with the rest of the folks at the hotel (two more colleagues from Europe plus our Japanese host). For the afternoon we were basically left with indoor options – while the others went for some relaxation, I ended up in a shopping mall for a look around.

Reykjavik City Tour

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Today was our extra day in Reykjavik. As this was an unplanned day, the cruise company had organized two options to keep us busy. One option was a full day bus trip up to the Snaefellsjoekull peninsula, the other option was a morning city tour, followed by a free afternoon. I decided against the full day trip, as I was simply not eager to be on a bus for the full day.

We were picked up at the ship in the morning after breakfast. The weather had turned bad (as to be expected – – the low pressure areas, that we had avoided, were clearly showing their effect) – it was both rainy and cold.

The bus did circle around town and the guide was providing some background on the city, its inhabitants and the local culture. We had a first stop at he Perlan viewing spot – though the wind was simply to heavy to fully appreciate the viewing platform (and the horizontal rain did not help either).

From the Perlan we continued to the Hallgrimskirkja. Today the organ was playing, which quiet added to the experience compared to yesterday. Obviously the inclement weather made another go for the tower pointless (so good, I had that covered on the previous day).

We left the downtown area and made it over to Bessastaðir, the residence of the president of Iceland to see the attached church (Bessastaðakirkja) and (from a distance) the residence itself.

From here it was back to the ship with stops at Höfði House and the Sólfarið sculpture one the way.

On the ship lunch was waiting for us; today only served in the main restaurant (so the only day on the ship, that I did not have lunch outside).

After lunch three of us made our way into town for an Icelandic thermal pool experience. The original idea had been to try to get into one of the famous big thermal pools (like the blue lagoon) – but those were essentially sold out. So we decided to try one of the public pools in the city of Reykjavik – and ended up in the Vesturbæjarlaug public bath – which had your normal 25m pool, but also some thermal pools with water at different temperatures … it turned out a good experience and also a good introduction into Icelandic bathing culture (which tends to take a slightly higher focus on hygiene – similar to the Japanese onsen culture).

After a relaxing a bath and another stroll through town it was back to the ship for dinner and a post-dinner drink (at affordable ship prices).