On the boat

I'm now on the boat that will take me to Gällnö.

The boat has free WiFi if you need that. It also has a small cafe.

Also found out that taking the boat is discounted for senior citizen. Tickets are bought onboard the boat.

Visiting Stockholm archipelago

The archipelago in the Stockholm area consists of thousands and thousands of islands.

I will this weekend take a boat from central Stockholm to one of those islands, Gällnö.

There are several boats that can take you to different islands. Going to Gällnö takes about 2h, and the boat trip cost about 15 EUR.

Bohem art Hotel, Budapest

I'm now back in Sweden. But might do a few more posts on the Budapest trip.

We stayed at a Hotel named Bohem art hotel. It was located one street away from a tourist street, and we had easy access to some nice locations. Most busses and subway lines are however 4-5 blocks away.

The room was excellent, and so was the service. The breakfast itself was worth the stay. Loved the hotel, and the location is ok.

Public transportation in Budapest

It's quite hard to use the public transportation system in Budapest if you compare it to cities in other countries.

There are almost no signs in English, and it's impossible to hear the station names that they are calling out (unless you can pronounce Hungarian). Some cable cars have electronic displays that shows the station name.

The public transportation is also very noisy and warm (in the summer).

Everything is however not bad. The Budapest card gives you free access to public transportation, and Google maps can say where to board a certain train/bus, and how many stops to stay on it. Prepare to get off the train/bus before your stop. They usually open the door before they have done a full stop, and they only stay about 10 seconds at each stop.

Szécshenyi bath

Visited Szécshenyi thermal bath today. It's a well known bath in Budapest. Very nice to visit, since it has many pools, both inside and outside. There are also many different types of saunas.

The entrance fee is about 3500 ft and you can rent a towel for 500 ft + 1000 ft in deposit.

Celeritas shooting range

Just came back from two hours of fun at the Celeritas shooting range.

Have been shooting with pistols and rifles. The conclusion is that I can't hit an elephant with a pistol, but that I rock when it comes to shooting with assault rifles :-)

Now you know my weapon of choice if a zombie outbreak occures.

I tried all of the weapons at this link.
http://www.celeritas-sch.com/packages/gamer.html

Dinner at Borsso

Had a great dinner at Borsso, a modern Hungarian restaurant.

It's a bit more expensive than other Hungarian restaurants, but has great ratings at Tripadvisor. The prices are however still cheap if you compare to countries in western Europe. A dinner with starter, main course, dessert, one glass of wine, one beer, water, and a glass of quality Tokaj cost about 1400 ft per person (about 50 EUR).Not bad for an expensive restaurant.

Cooling in a new way

It's strange, I have travelled to many warm countries, but I have  previously never seen fans that also are spraying water. Almost all fans in Budapest do that.

You can also find an Icebar here, a Swedish concept.

Something that you currently don't need is warm headwear.

Arrived

I'm now in Budapest. It's very warm, actually a bit too warm. About 34 celsius.

Had a lunch at a place which probably is a bit fancy. The portions were at least small. The waldorf salad was yummy, and so was the beer.

Btw, the coffee was huge.

Going to Budapest, Hungary

Is about to fly to Budapest for a short vacation. Will only spend 4 days there, but will try to blog about it.

The only thing that I currently know that I definitely will do is shoot lots of different weapons at a shooting range.

First goal after landing will be to bay a pre paid sim card with datatraffic.

Inside Kolmården zoo

You can easily spend a whole day walking around looking at animals and shows. They have 3 different shows; dolphin, seal and  raptor (birds).

The area is quite large, but walkable, and there are many places where you can rest or have a picnic. There's also a cable car that takes about 20 minutes that will take you around a large area that has African animals.

Visiting Kolmården in Sweden

Kolmården is a large zoo about 140 km drive from Stockholm. It takes less than 2h to drive there.

The zoo has lots of different animals from different places around the world. They also have a couple of shows. All shows are included in the entrance fee, 395 SEK for adults.

We rent a small car to get there.  The total cost for renting the car, paying for the miles and gas, became about 750 SEK, 80 EUR.

We started our trip around 8:20, but first had a typical Swedish breakfast.

Summary of the Japan trip

Well, I have now been back in Sweden for a couple of weeks.

I have tried to think about the trip, and summarize what I liked, and what I didn't like. It was however hard to find anything that I didn't like. I enjoyed tho whole trip, and I would rank it as one of my better trips.

Japan has everything that I like to see and do. Very nice nature, cool and odd things, great shopping, good food and so on. I expected Japan to be very expensive, but it wasn't expensive if you compare it to Sweden. The only things that were really expensive in Japan were fruit and vegetables.

Some of the best things in random order

• The trains
• The people
• The food
• All odd things, such as the toilets

Some things that could be improved

• People are smoking at the cafes, and it affects non smokers
• It would be nice if more people spoke English

Signing off for now:

Kaj

Ps, I tested the crabs. They weren't as crunchy as I had expected them to be. They were also a bit sweet, and I really didn't expect that. They tasted a bit of dried seaweed, and they gut stuck in your teeth.