Mazury - New year's eve 2009-2010

I spent New Year's eve with Maria and part of her family in Mazury, a region with many lakes in the north east of Poland.

The small and hidden village where Maria's uncle has a house was called Racibor. It is so hidden that it doesn't appear in google maps. The closest place is Spychowo.

Poland in general was cold, but north of Poland was even colder so smoke was coming out of many chimneys. This region reminded me about a comic I drew last year, titled Mayak.

Yeah, it was cold hehe probably the coldest place I had been until then, with temperatures around -16C.

But I was born in the Basque country, so it was not long before I got used to the cold :P

Maria's uncle's house was in a beautiful location near a lake whose surface was completely frozen. Although at the beginning I hesitated whether it was really safe to walk on the lake, finally I decided to cross it. Next day, we found out that it was a bit reckless from my part (^^).

One night we all rode sleds pulled by a tractor. We went to the forest in the middle of the night and had a barbecue there, surrounded by wolfs (a few weeks before they found a huge wolf nearby).

Inside the house it was very warm, thanks to a firewood. They had two dogs who were quite calmed until you would put a balloon nearby!

I played billiard long long hours!!I kind of started getting the hang of it. When something like this happens i can't help it and it's hard to stop myself!

I did not mention anything about the delicious and abundant food that we had. In the picture just a few dishes that we ate. It was very tasty and I learned many polish words for food :D

More pictures at Maria's website here and here.

Kraków, Wieliczka and Auschwitz 2009

Maria and I took a train from Warsaw to Krakow, in the south of Poland. This was the second time I was in the south of Poland.

The first time was during my trip to Bieszczady, where I enjoyed hiking in the company of new good friends thanks to an AEGEE Summer University event. During that trip, Simon and I loved a delicious Polish dish called "placek po wegiersku" (we called it Shabo) so Maria took me to a very nice hidden restaurant where they prepared it. It was awesome!

Of course Polish food has more dishes and they are really tasty in my opinion. Maria had the already famous around the world Pierogi.

Krakow is a nice city with many interesting places to see. When we were there everything was covered by snow which made it even more beautiful.

There were many stands selling a bread called obwazanki. And many pigeons!. We also noticed the presence of many kebabs hehe

Not far from Krakow, in a town called Wieliczka, there is a very famous and old salt mine. So famous that it is included in the Unesco world heritage list. And I can confirm that it deserves to be visited. The most beautiful part of the salt mine, in my opinion, was a huge cavity that was converted into a cathedral with numerous figures sculpted on the salt. Actually, Maria's ancestors participated in creating such a piece of art!

Another famous place that we visited, near Krakow, is the Auschwitz former concentration camp. Although a few weeks before going, the sign at the entrance saying "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes you free) had been stolen, by the time we arrived the police had recovered it already.

Watching Auschwitz concentration camp in person was impressing. Although we all have seen it in the movies, when you are there somehow you realize that it is something real, that happened and could happen again. You can enter to the houses where people were kept, see their clothes, luggage, photos, information about the war..

And of course you can also see in person places where people were hanged, a wall where they used to shoot them down, or a room where they used to kill people with gas. Human beings are capable of the best and of the worst.

Warsaw, Christmas 2009

I spent last year's Christmas with Maria and her family in Poland!! The trip was longer than expected. Due to snow conditions I missed a plane and had to spend one night in Helsinki.

Some friends had told me that their luggage got lost so I decided to carry hand luggage only. It was a good decision in fact as I could give my Christmas presents without trouble. I wonder if Maria liked her mother's new camera more than her new headphones though! :)

A few days after my arrival, Maria's cousins (Ela and Ula) and their parents came to spend Christmas together. Actually they didn't know I would be there, so maybe they got surprised hehe.

They brought even more cakes and cookies and we spent long hours playing board games. Maria's house was nicely decorated and it looked like real Christmas! We had a good time and my favorite game was Shogun, because I could build castles and protect Nagoya from the neighbor prefectures! :D I also enjoyed another game called Fasolki (Bonanza in Spanish) asI could learn important words in Polish as 'pijak' (drunk).

In Christmas day, we did a Polish tradition that consists of giving a piece of 'sacred' bread to each other and say some good words.

Warsaw's streets had beautiful illumination on the trees. We went together for a walk in the old town and visited a Polish church. During the day I walked the streets of Warsaw with Maria and she took many good pics.

Mamá, tú no mires

Around two months ago I made a post about the interview that a Spanish TV channel (Antena 3 NEOX) did to me. It was for a TV show, called ¡Mamá tú no mires!, about Spanish people studying abroad. For that post, I used very nice pictures taken by Maria. Yesterday, the interview finally appeared on the TV and thanks to a colleague from my previous laboratory, Juan Maria Rivas (thank you!), who recorded the video, I could just put it on-line:

If you are interested in watching the other interviews in Japan and other countries, check the Antena 3 videos website, where they are uploading them.

Tokyo, Lost in Translation and Gundam

From Kawaguchiko we took a bus to the capital, Tokyo, where we stayed two nights. Check Maria's post about Tokyo for more information. You may also want to check my previous posts about Tokyo when I came to Japan on holidays two years ago: 1, 2 and 13! :)

We stayed in a youth hostel near the busy area of Asakusa. I hadn't seen that district before and I really liked it.

I went with Maria to some famous districts like Shinjuku, Akihabara or Shibuya.

Although the weather was really bad, it was good for taking pictures. Some parts of the city under the rain, covered with transparent umbrellas, reminded us of some scenes from the movie Lost in Translation.

In fact, we went to the same Karaoke room that appears in the movie Lost in translation. Check Maria's post to know more about it.

Finally we also visited Odaiba, an artificial island famous for its huge bridge, its replica of the statue of Liberty and its huge Gundam statue. It was a bit hard because at the same time a Typhoon was passing by Tokyo!

Shizuoka and Kawaguchiko (河口湖と静岡市)

The next day after being interviewed by the Spanish television, Maria and I took a train with direction to Shizuoka city (静岡市) using a Juu-Hachi-Kippu ticket again.

When we arrived to Shizuoka we met my Spanish friend Raul, whom you may already know from my trip to Hamamatsu. He dedicates part of his time to maintain his blog.

We had lunch in a Sushi restaurant in the train station. There we tasted a local specialty called Sakura Ebi (cherry blossom shrimp).

Raul also took us to see a market with lots of fresh fish and seafood. In this market you could buy whale　meat (クジラ) as you can see in the picture. Raul also told us that sometimes you can also buy dolphin meat.

We were going to stay just for a couple of hours in Shizuoka so we went for a short walk and visited the Sunpu Castle (駿府城).

After this short visit to Shizuoka we took a train to Gotemba and then a bus until Kawaguchiko (河口湖) which is a famous place to stay if you want to climb or have good views of Mount Fuji.

We spent the night in a nice hostel near the station.

Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see Fuji even from such a short distance and we could juar enjoy the views of a nearby lake that gives name to the town.

Note: the pictures of this post are copyrighted by Maria.

¡Mamá tú no mires! - TV interview

During my Summer holidays, a TV program from the Spanish channel Antena 3 NEOX came to Japan to interview some Spanish students. They were kind enough to make a stop in the underrated city of Nagoya (the best!) to interview me as well.

The name of the program is "¡Mamá tú no mires!" (Mum, don't look now!)and its about Spanish students around the world. The different episodes and promotional videos will be available through their website for free.

People from the TV consisted of a cameraman and the interviewer, who also was the boss of the program. The usual presenter couldn't come because she got pregnant. Basically, I was taking them to different places and they were filming it in the street and asking me questions.

After showing them around Nagoya station, I took them to my home where I explained them how to classify the garbage and other daily-life stuff. I also showed them the neighborhood and the manga shops around my house.

Then we went to my University and I showed them the campus, my laboratory and I explained the details of my grant and what the 'hell' I am doing here :D.

We also went to the cafeteria where I usually have lunch and dinner. They recorded me washing (lightly) the dishes after eating and explaining the system to make suggestions for improving the service.

After filming around the University I took them to Osu Kannon, where there was a flea market, which make the visit to Osu's temple more interesting.

Some people were showing interest in us, specially groups of young girls and children, and they used to say "hi" or smile to the camera and wave their hands. I even heard some of them wondering if we were from the ABC television :). It was like being a movie star hehe

Finally, during the evening I took them to see a dancing festival called Nippon Domannaka Matsuri, which I believe, rounded the interview!

Fortunately, Maria was there to report about that day and she not only took fantastic photos of the interview but also about the places and people that we passed by.

I specially like Maria's pictures of people. Normally I would just take pictures of buildings (or tomatoes) because I'd be too shy to take a photo in front of the person.

This one for example is lovely and she took it just two meters from them and very fast!

Note: all the pictures are copyrighted by Maria.