Taiwan

Hi! this is a post about a trip to Taiwan in 2003. It was exactly the period when SARS reached the highest peak... in Taiwan the situation was becoming serious but... the tickets were paid already so we decided to go. So, here is a picture of me inside the airplane... wearing mask of course!



Unfortunately I don't have many pictures from this trip. But Taiwan is a really nice place. People are very open and friendly. We have been in Taipei and some places in the surrounding. If I'll find other pictures I'll update this post later on.

Well maybe I can describe you the typical Taiwanese Tea Cerimony.



The tea is in put in the white pot you see in the pic. There are two types of cups. One cylindric, very small and long, are only used to smell the tea. The other, a usual tea cup, is instead used for drinking. After the tea is prepared it first spilled in the cups. But you don't drink this tea. It is just used to warm the cups and to smell the tea. Then the tea is made again (with the same leafs) and put in the cups. Finally you can drink. The tea is very good in Taiwan. There are many mountains in the island. The best tea comes from the highest places.

When going back to Japan Taipei's airport (because of SARS) was a desert... I've been even stopped at the custom, you imagine why? The policemen were so bored and they wanted to talk to someone... we were 2 of the really few passengers those days.

Onbashira

The Onbashira festival, litterally the honorable pillar, is one of the most famous celebration in Japan. It is held every 7 years in Suwa, the city in Nagano Prefecture from which Kumiko is from and where I lived in 2003.

Every 7 years the main temples in the city exchanges the pillars they have in their gardens with new ones. These pillars are actually trunks of huge trees cut from the forests in the mountains surrounding the city.

There is lot of work to do and everything has to be done in the traditional way: cutting the trees, shaping the trunks, making the ropes, transporting the tree, everything is done by hand or using ancient tools. The aid of modern instruments is not allowed.



The trunks have to be transported from the mountains to the city for tens of kilometers. This is done by men pulling the ropes while other men are riding the tree. The way to the city is not an easy one. The trunks must be pulled down some incredibly steap slopes and thrown to a river. Floating to the river, the trunks are then transported to city. While these dangerous operations are done people continue riding the trunks!!! As you can imagine accidents can always happen...
It actually takes months before the trunks arrive to the city. So the celebration is done in different days during the year, following the trunks coming to the temples. I wasn't there myself but I've been told the most exciting (and dangerous) part is when the trunks are taken down from the mountains to the river. I've seen some pictures and it looks both crazy and amazing.



Once the trunks arrive in Suwa, they're taken off the river and transported to a street that takes to the temples. Several hundred thousand people arrivee to see the festival. As you can see from the picture the streets are incredibly busy and it takes two days for moving the trunks of few kilometers. In the meantime a large part of the city become a party place! People are just in a great mood. There are lot of stands where you can drink sake for free and families living in that area invite strangers for lunch (it happened to me too!).



And there are lots of events in the streets: parades, dancers and japanese drummers among the others.




This is the end of the celebration: the trunk has arrived to the temple and the people are trying to make it stand up. There are four temples and each temple has 4 pillars, i.e. 16 trunks. The city is diveded in 16 areas and to each area is responsible for one pillar. It is a great honour to be the boss of your area, but the biggest honour is to have the tallest pillar (of course each pillar has a different height and the biggest goes to the main temple). In the picture you can recognize one boss: he's on the top of the pillar wearing a white yukata.

Unfortunately this post is not enough to understand what is really Onbashira. But believe me in one the most amazing things I've seen. For the ones of you that can read japanese, you can check this link 御柱web.

Some party in Sweden...

This was probably the last party I had in Vårdgymnasiet...
It was October 2003 if I remember correctly.

Roma & Pompei

Hi! Here you'll see some pictures of a trip I and Kumiko did in December 2003. We stayed in an agriturismo near the lake Bolsena, north of Roma. From there we visited Roma and the ruins of Pompei.


This is Pompei, a picture taken from the entrance of the ruins. It was so intereasting to visit it, really amazing. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good... you can see I am so wet...





And this is the Coloseum. We went there in the evening so it was already closed and we couldn't get in... but, we could make some pictures we the Centurions outside....




Of course we visited San Pietro. But a shame, not time for the Vatican Museums and Cappella Sistina...





And the last one picture is Fontana di Trevi, as you probably recognize ;-) We didn't have that much time in Rome, so we just saw few of the attractions of this incredible city. Hope to go there again soon!

Trip to Poland 2004

These are the 3 pictures of my trip to Poland in October 2004.
For the great time, showing me the place, your amazing hospitality, your kindness and all the rest thanks so much Ula! You're wonderful!

Gdansk

This is the beautiful old part of Gdansk. I was very nice walking there, looking at the amber shops, enjoying the nice caffe shops, and viewing the old harbour.




Sopot
Sopot it's a very nice town close the Sea. And it has a good nightlife too. We went out dancing in a "fancy" pub, called Mandrinka (?) famous in Poland because of some TV program. It was really cool going out there and see all these "fancy" people.


The beach in Sopot

The beach in Sopot is very nice and huge! We walked for many kilometers but unfortunately the weather wasn't good that day... Fortunately there are lots of cofee places along the seafront.





This is a wood wharf in Sopot, in the same beach as the previous one. It is a huge structure, as I understood from Ula the biggest wood wharf in the World.




And last but not least ;-) Ania and Ula. It was so nice spending time with you girls.
You look so good in this picture ;-)

Cagliari

This post will be about Cagliari, my hometown.

For the ones that don't know about it, Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia. It is a nice town, cosy, small enough for not being chaotic and big enough for getting most of the thing you might want.
Cagliari, in Italy, is known as la città del Sole, the city of the Sun, because it is always warm and sunny even in winter.



This first picture is taken from the boat that takes you from Civitavecchia (Rome) to Cagliari. You can see the port and the via Roma, the main street in Cagliari. Above via Roma there is the old town with the Castle.



Cagliari, from the Castle

This picture is taken from the top of the castle in a part called Cittadella dei Musei, that is a part of the castle that hosts some museums. From here you can see, far on the right, the Sella del Diavolo (Devil's seat) an hill near the wonderful and huge beach Poetto.



And these two pictures are taken in the Poetto beach. You might now believe it but it was January!!!! And I was just wearing T-shirt!!!!! The weather was just fantastic that day considering it was "winter". Anyway, this is a very big beach more than 10 Kms long. People here call it the 100.000 beach, beacause it is calculated that everyday more than 100 000 persons go there. It is very close to the city, from many parts of the town you can just walk there.

Ok, that's it for now!! I hope you got some clue about Cagliari. Maybe I'll write another post later.

Carlo's blog

Ok here is my blog!!!!