Poland: Lekomat

In the airport there was a machine called a "lekomat". It sells drugs. In Swedish, anything that ends in "-mat" is a machine like that, so so far the words are similar. In Swedish, "lek-" means "to play", so it sounds like a machine that will play with you (or at least sell toys). The "healing" word in Swedish would be "läke-", where "ä" sounds similar to "e", so it is still close.

Poland: Strange green tea

In the airport, I found something called green tea. It was indeed green, and possibly tea, but it was very different from Japanese green tea. It was flavored with strawberry and aloe vera, and tasted pretty much like green colored aloe vera. Not great.

Kórnik: Flat tire

The best time to get a flat tire is perhaps not when you are on your way to catch a plane from Europe to Japan...

When we were on our way to the airport, we got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. It was a little bit worrying, since for this business trip we had had to sign a paper stating that if there were any extra costs because of for example missing your flight, the university would not pay. So if we were late to the airport, I would have to pay my return ticket myself.

Team work = one guy changing the tire, three guys watching, and one guy taking pictures.

Luckily, our Polish guide said that the Polish roads are very bad and this kind of thing happens all the time, so he was used to changing tires. He was slower than a formula 1 team, but changed the tire in less than 10 minutes and we had no problems at all in reaching the airport on time.

The only thing close to where we got our flat tire was a place selling Swedish made gardening machines.

Kórnik: More scenery

We went out to see another palace like place, that also had oaks that were many hundreds of years old.

Kórnik: Great food

I had a traditional soup based on sour rye, ham, and mushrooms. Very good.

We went to a restaurant in Kórnik that our guide's sister (who lived in Kórnik for quite some time) said was the best. It was very nice, had great food, and even had "normal" toilet paper, haha!

The restaurant interior was very nice.

I also had the recommended local specialty: a duck filled with apples. The white things are steamed bread.

A toilet in Poland with toilet paper that you can find in Sweden too!

Kórnik: Botanical garden

It was already spring in Poland, though we still get lots of snow in Sapporo (that is by the way much farther south than Poland is).

Outside the Kórnik castle there is a huge botanical garden that we took a quick stroll in.

The strange knobs on the ground to the right of this tree are parts of the roots of the tree.

We saw some frogs mating.

My professor thinks all trees in Europe looks like this, and wondered why. We were told the ball shaped things are a parasite that lives in some trees (and I have never seen something like this in Sweden, so not "all trees in Europe").

Kórnik: Very low toilets

There was a toilet that cost you 2 Polish zloty to use outside the castle museum in Kórnik. It was one of the lowest toilets I have ever seen. It also had the cardboard/sandpaper toilet paper.

Kórnik: Castle museum

Here are some pictures from a castle in the village of Kórnik that is now a museum.

There was an extra charge if you wanted to take pictures (doubling the price).

You had to wear slippers on top of your shoes so as not to wear out the floor.

There were lots of armors and weapons, which I like. I used to do historical (European) fencing when I lived in Sweden and we would sometimes visit places with collections like this:

Someone living in the castle was apparently a collector of exotic weapons, so there were also daggers from Asia.

I bought two or three daggers like the one on the right when I was in India, though the ones I bought were in very bad conditions.

I want a hat like this.

I want braces like the one in the center of the picture.

Kórnik

On our last day in Poland, we had a few hours between leaving the hotel and the departure time of our plane. Our friend from Poznan took us to the village of Kórnik where we saw a church, a castle/museum, a botanical garden, and a great restaurant.

Poland: Interesting airplanes

A model of our Pokemon plane

On our trip to Poland (for a boring meeting, so not much time for sightseeing I guess), we flew the route Sapporo-Tokyo-Frankfurt-Poznan. Usually we have to get up really early (4:30 A.M.) but on the other hand that usually means we arrive in Europe in the afternoon or evening, which at least is nice. This time, we had an evening flight, which meant changing airplane in Tokyo at 1 A.M. (everything turned out to be closed by then, no money exchange, no cafe, no shop) and arriving in Frankfurt at 5 A.M. local time... not very pleasant.

We did get to ride in some interesting airplanes, though. Between Sapporo and Tokyo, all the big carriers run jumbo jets, even though it is just a domestic flight. This time we flew with ANA, and our B747-400D was a Pokemon special plane. So the outside was painted with Pokemons, the engines were poke-balls, and the interior also had lots of Pokemon stuff.

The flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt was also with ANA, and we got to ride in the new B787, which is only used by ANA so far (if I understand correctly). It was a very nice plane.

The last hop to Poznan was in a tiny airplane. Since even my domestic trips from Sapporo are in jumbo jets, it was the first time in many years I rode a plane that small...

The engines of our Pokemon plane had poke-balls painted on them.

The seats had Pokemons.

And the outside of course had Pokemons.

We got to ride the ANA B787.

It said on the seats that ANA is the first to use B787s.

Then we had a really tiny plane for the last hop.

Arriving in Poznan

I have arrived in Poznan, for my first ever visit to Poland. The flight was uncomfortable (we changed planes at 1 A.M. in Tokyo and at 5 A.M. in Frankfurt) and there is much more to say about it too... But Poznan seems very nice, and I have already eaten way too much food (all of it good, so far).

More updates to come, once I get some free time.