Cthulhu & I

Cultists in Japan

Japan is starting to freak me out. As soon as I enter a shop, the personel starts to mumble weird things,not quiting until I move out of sight. In one shop, where no personel was close, speakers was mounted by the entrance, chanting the same strange mantra. When I try to escape out on the streets, I'm being followed by strange cars, driven by people wearing white headbands with a red sun on, shouting after me from megaphones mouted on the roof while the passangers wave yellow handkerchiefs at me.

When I go back to my hotel, trying to calm down, I have to go through a strange ritual of changing shoes two times before I have to remove them outside of my room. Also,I have bow a bit while the owner happily chats at me in onsense-words.

The last hotel also left little notes on conventions to follow so I wouldn't make a fool of myself while pouring my tea, tying my nightgown or going to the bathroom. Outside, the streets are marked with yellow lines on where to walk, which everyone happily ignores except for some times when it seems terribly important. Cyclist have decided that I'm an evil person and wherever I go, they try to target me, whichever side of the yellow line I walk on.

Two times I narrowly missed kicking small boys to death when they tried to grudge me. Instead, Mr. Cthulhu has come to rescue, scaring the bejeesus out of them. Mr. Cthulhu, by the way, is a bit pissed ecause he can't find any samurai swords in his size. I haven't even been able to bribe him with a kimono. New longer reports in swedish cannow be found on http://motbilder.blogspot.com.

Big in Japan

Big and pink to be more exact. Mr. Cthulhu & I went to the Kanamara Matsuri festival in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki. The festival is held at spring every year and is celebrated by carrying around a 3 meter high pink dick. See some excellent pictures in the Japan photo album.

Japan is a great place otherwise. Normal with weird twists along the way. The Japanese hotels, Ryokans, are a good example. They have no beds, instead the first mission is to walk along the walls, searching for hidden doors where a matress can be found. Room service is erratic. In the last place, it came several times during the day. In the morning to empty the waste basket and remove the water oiler, in the afternoon to bring it back and the evening to make the bed. The TV shows only strange japanese contests and the toilet has strange buttons with japanese intructions, at lest one which controls the heating of the toilet ring. A bathrobe and a pair of slippers are provided so you can get to the bathroom that is at least three floors away. Instructions on how to get there are neatly provided in japanese.

Outside is even more fun. All restaurants, marginally bigger than shoeboxes, have plastic versions of the food on display outside. Strange gamehalls called "Pachinko" are everywhere, the idea is to throw metal balls into a machine to provide as much noise as possible. I think. People in stores start to speak gibberish as soon as you enter, never stopping until you flee.

Of lately, I have been stalked by hattifnatts which appears in shop windows and amusement parks, staring at me and waving their little hands evilly. Mr. Cthulhu has found two travelling companions, teddy bears with a taste for slaughter. Cuteness with a bit morbidness seems to be a japanese speciality. Kimonos is used some times, although the standard dress seems to be a funeral suit worn by evil clones called "salary men" who seems to spend most of their time buying comic books in the local stores.

Whale Shark

Whale Shark! Whalesharkwhalesharkwhaleshark!

In Miri, bordering to Brunei, I went for some diving. Miri is not really that well known, but hade beautiful corals and great marine life. But the best was the whale shark. When I was diving, suddenly my divemaster started pointing, measuring with his arms like wild. And there it came. The whale shark. It was a small one, only 4.5 meter, but when you're close to it and it is swimming straight at you, it doesn't feel that small. Feels quite big, really. According to my divemaster, it took him around 1000 dives before he saw his first whale shark so I feel kind of lucky. Take a look at the pictures here, here, here, here and here.

Otherwise, I thought that the Sultan would come running when he heart that I and Mr. Cthulhu were in town, but as yet, we've had to be satisfied with his wise and strong countenance on the numerous pictures around town.

New Blog

Created a new swedish blog for my swedish posts. Apart from my swedish travel letters, there will also be political comments on current affairs.

Candid Camera

My camera troubles continues. About a week ago, the cameras protested about one of my memory cards and wanted to format it. No one of them could display the pictures (about 100 of them lost). I will check in Japan if they can be recovered. And now one of the cameras have totally stopped working. Thankfully, I still have the other one left, but I missed some great pictures of both lion fish and mandarin fish because of it.

Well, apart from that I've had a great time in Kuching, looking at the rastapopolous monkey as we Tintin enthusiast calls the Proboscis Monkey. Also, Mr. Cthulhu & I visited their cat museum with 2 m cat statues, cat tea pots, cat stamps, cat movie posters and whatever. A great museum! Now I'm in Kota Kinabalu where I have a booking to climb the Mount Kinabalu, around 4 km high. After that it's onwards to Brunei to shake hands with the Sultan whom I on radio have nominated to the Nobel Peace Price. I really hope he appreciates it.

Eqthquake Weather

A few days ago, when Mr. Cthulhu and I were relaxing in our room in central Singapore, the room suddenly started to shake. After some thinking, we realized that it wasn't the room that was shaking, it was the whole building. As I had just taken a few sips of korean wasabi booze, I first thought it was me, but after a while I understood that there had been an earthquake. According to the newspaper, people all over Singapore had panicked during the earthquake, although no one at all was hurt and no damages were done. The center of the quake was in indonesia, where people had a much harder time.

After Singapore, we left for Melacka where we found the really excellent Museum of Enduring Beauty. Enduring in the meaning 'Enduring pain' that is. The whole museum were about how people had mutilated themselves during all times to look beautiful. There were crushed feet, tattoos, anorectics, nose jewelery and other nice items. Mr. Cthulhu enjoyed the museum a lot.

Here in Kuala Lumpur, I've started to wonder on how kinky the Malaysians must be. I've seen S and M Jewelery store, S and M Department store, S and M Mobiles. I went in to the department store, but I must have too bad an imagination, because I didn't see anything dirty.

From Hell and Back

The last week, Mr. Cthulhu & I have been with some friends on the malaysian Tioman Island. There we have fought monkeys and battled giant evil lizards that tried to block our paths to the naked natives (naked native to be honest). Longer report on that in swedish here.

Otherwise, we have also been to Singapore where we saw a fantastic display on what would happen to sinners in the buddhist hells. New pictures uploaded from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Here are some highlights:

Indonesia:

• Nice little statues from Bali.
• Bats in the local bird market in Yogyakarta. Should taste great.
• Mr. Cthulhu learns to play guitarr.
• Hampus, the tourist attraction.
• Cool indonesian puppets.
• Beautiful city of Pangandarang.
• Jeans street in Bandung.

Malaysia:

• Strange underwater thingie, approx 50 cm (20 inches) wide.
• Hungry lizard.
• Crawling chaos.
• Creeping horror.
• Nice little kitty.
• George Bush.
• Fishy hat.

Singapore:

• Subway rules.
• Merlion.
• Sleeping dragon.
• Sweat.
• Weird house.
• Rabbit with huge pointy teeth.
• Buddhist hells here, here, here and here.

Plane 714 From Jakarta

Not really 714, but still! In three days I will leave Jakarta for Singapore and Malaysia but right now I'm in the middle on the Indonesian capitail where thankfully there's no water left on the streets from the previous weeks flooding.

The weather here in Indonesia has been a bit random so me and Mr. Cthulhu has spent a lot of time in front of the portable DVD-player (a DVD movie costs around 60 cent). Mr. Cthulhu is still irritated at Pirates of the Carrabean II and what he referrs to as "that crappy caricature pirate". Apart from avoiding the rain we have had our share of explorations. In the north of Bali, I dived down to the ship US Liberty (not the one Israel bombarded during the 6 day war). The ship was show down during the 2:nd world war and now lies in three peaces with lots of marine life around.

Mr. Cthulhu and I have also visited the volcano Gunung Bromo which makes for excellent photos (to slow connection to upload from here). Outside Yogyakarta we visited an old temple where the visiting indonesian tourists misstook me and Mr. Cthulhu for the attractions. I guess we had around 20-30 pictures taken of us together with different people.

The Monkey King (known from swedish childrens program) is well known here and I've found a nice marionett doll of him. Also, the masks from Bali are great. Apart from that, I've been trying to find out where I can eat bat and snake, no success yet. Frogs are the nearest I've came.

New longer texts in swedish here, here and here.

Very Nice Is Bali Bali

Had an interesting weekend right before I left for Bali. In Cairns in Australia I found a second hand dive computer for only 350 AUD, 500 less than the ordinary price and an excellent choice right before my 2 days dive trip to the great barrier reefs. Little did I know that it was the start of a series of unlucky event.

First it turned out to be raining out by the reefs. Even when the it stopped, there were great clouds which did nothing to help the visibility. Second, the reef sharks that so nicely had followed the boat, disappeared instantly when it was time to enter the water for the night dive. So no shark sighting. After that my camera stopped working because I had forgotten to recharge the battery. So no more underwater photography. And as the butter on the toast, the dive computer disappeared, nowhere to be seen. So that was a 350$ investment gone to hell.

This was of course not the last of it. When I came back to the hotel and recharged my battery, the camera still didn't work. I had a warranty, but as I would leave the country ni two days, there was no time to use it, so the next day I went to buy a new camera (albeit a cheaper model). When I came to the hotel, I checked the battery in my old camera and lo and behold, it worked! It was only the recharger that was broken. Of course, I couldn't return my new camera, as the camera shop had closed and I would leave the country the next day.

The morning after I went up early, at 5:10AM to take a shower, before my taxi went to pick me up. When I tried to get in to my room again, I couldn't find my keys! I had managed to lock them inside my room, together with my luggage and Mr. Cthulhu who was blissfully sleeping, how ever much I knocked and shouted. I went down to the reception, only to find that it was closed during the night, with a sign pointing to another hostel where there should be a common guard. At the same time I managed to lock myself out from the main dormitory, now being stuck inside the reception with no keys, the only options to walk out into the street in only my shorts.

The other hostel was of course also closed. I went into another hotel to get help in phoning the night guard, but he was nowhere to be found. By some negotiating I managed to get the owner of the kebab shop to open the door into the dormitory for me. I walked up to my room again and looked in through the window into the room, seeing my keys on the table. As there was an open ventilation fence into the room, it was possible to get to the keys. By some experimentation, including a dishbrush, two chinese chopsticks and a metal pipe, I managed to push the keys to the floor, and then grab them through the vent. Five minutes before the taxi left, I was into the room again. Five minutes later I was dressed, packed and waiting on the street. I got to the airport in time, with no more trouble.

Right now, me and Mr. Cthulhu have arrived in Bali. We are staying in a hotel, around 200 m from where the first bali bomb exploded. The hotel is great, with open air bathroom, swimming pool and a nice restaurant, right beside the main shopping street. Tomorrow, it is time for diving again where I will try to dive down to an old wreck from WWII.

I Am A C-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n

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