I’ve just eaten a large, triangular plate filled with wonderfully delicious – albeit slightly spicy – Pad Prik King Moo Krob, served with a steaming bowl of Khao Suay.

Across the table sat Charlotte, eating Khao Pad Gung Rad Pak Phad. The food was so good that we were almost reverently silent during the meal, despite the otherwise incredibly noisy food court where we sat on our respective wobbly metal stools.

Stopping over in Chiang Mai for a few days before our plane to Europe departs from Bangkok turned out to be a smart move.

From 15–17 °C in Osaka to a heat that reminds me of a nice Swedish summer day. A pleasant 23 °C, my phone’s thermometer app informed me, is the current temperature here in northern Thailand.

My first visit to Chiang Mai was in 1988 with my old scout friend Magnus Ekström. We hiked between mountain villages for a couple of days, floated down a gently rushing river on a shaky bamboo raft for a few hours, and rode through the jungle on female elephants one afternoon. All according to my diary from that trip.

Charlotte and I were here and did roughly the same four-day trek during our honeymoon in 1998 – although that time we weren’t offered any opium.

My most recent visit to Chiang Mai was in 2019 when I attended a Qigong teacher training. Those were fairly tough weeks. I stayed in a small cabin owned to a local police officer and his kind wife.

Chiang Mai has probably doubled in size, and the number of buildings, motorcycles, and cars may very well be ten times more than during my first visit almost 40 years ago.

Yet the charm and friendliness of locals remain. You encounter them at the markets, in the alley restaurants of the old town, and in the shops along the leafy backstreets of Nimman.

The food served by the street kitchens here in the north is just as magically good as I remember it.

Tonight’s dinner was no exception – it cost SEK 35 but tasted Michelin-worthy.

Sometimes I wonder whether change actually adds anything meaningful – or if it’s just there to fuck with my brain.

Kansai. Evening. In love (again).

We are now down to the very last hours of this phenomenal Japan trip – an adventure that Charlotte has researched, planned and arranged from beginning to end.

It’s Charlotte who managed the tickets for every leg by plane, train, ferry, tram, taxi, and bus. She booked all seven great hotels we’ve stayed in and kept track of every interesting place included in our shorter and longer excursions that needed to fit into various projects we’re working on.

We were actually supposed to make this Japan trip last year, but my three-month sciatica ordeal in the autumn put an abrupt stop to that.

It has followed us this autumn too – the sciatica, that is – but mostly as a quiet fellow traveller. Thankfully. I haven’t needed to take a single morphine pill on this trip.

A year later, I now realize that I simply need to learn to live with the damaged nerve and file that crap somewhere on the list of age-related ailments.

Back to Charlotte.

My wife is an exceptionally skilled travel organizer, a calm and steady guide and an irreplaceable travel companion who truly deserves to be celebrated.

Not only because of this trip, but for all the long ones we’ve been on together for almost 30 years.

When Charlotte sets her mind on a destination, she plans everything meticulously with equal parts enthusiasm and precision. You can’t pay for the kind of dedication she has.

Just this year she has arranged trips to Athens (February), Nice (April), Riga (June), Rhodes (August) and now Japan (September–December). Plus all the shorter trips to Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Had I even tried to mange all these logistics myself, I probably wouldn’t have made it farther than Borås or possibly Vänersborg. Lovely places in their own right – and two cities I actually visited on my own this year – in addition to Osaka and Hiroshima, which I headed to (with planning help from Charlotte) in January, just as soon as the aforementioned  sciatica eased a little.

I sincerely hope it’s been clear just how inspired we’ve been during these six weeks in Japan. We’ve truly tried to enjoy everything we love about this country.

Sure, there have been a few squeaks along the way. The tiny Japanese hotel rooms can sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic, but after so many trips together we know the squeaks pass quickly.

The moments when we’ve laughed loud and long have been far more frequent. Having humor in a relationship gets you through just about anything and makes the relationship last longer than anything else.

Our very first trip to Asia (1997) was to India, where we, as a fairly new couple, got to experience what a few days of serious “Delhi Belly” really means. It wasn’t overly romantic, but somehow still valuable.

And now here we are, in a hotel next to Kansai International Airport (KIX) outside Osaka. Planes take off and land constantly. New travelers arrive full of expectation. Others, like us, leave filled with joy and great memories.

We’re more content than satisfied with this trip. Every time we visit Japan, we just want more. More of the great food, the beautiful design, the kindness, the nature, the architecture, all the small everyday details, the impressive logistics, the exemplary communication and the unique blend of ancient traditions and the hyper-modern.

It´s been incredibly fun to share everything that fascinated and inspired us here. Japan is truly a country you experience with all your senses.

And thanks to my partner – my tireless comrade-in-arms and skilled travel specialist Charlotte – who put together such an outstanding itinerary and arranged this tour with such finesse, I leave here with luggage full of memories that should last until our next visit to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Thank you, my love! You’re the best travel agent ever! Next time we’ll bring Elle-san.

Yesterday was an amazing day that started with the daschound (bottom left) and ended with a tall tower (bottom right). I’ll willingly admit that I was a bit hesitant about heading out to Nara Park (奈良公園) outside of Osaka to see the bowing deer. But I don’t regret going, deer-spite my initial doubts. On contraire. The colors in the park are nothing short of deer-lightfully intense right now.

On the way back to the hotel, we were drawn to Osaka’s Eiffel-tower-inspired Tsutenkaku (通天閣), but neither of us had the energy to ride up this time – it had been a full day of deer-cisions, interesting deer-tours, and endless deer inspiration.

Aside from some inevitable street scenes over the next few days, several weeks of research for our forthcoming book project about Japan, at least a dozen travel articles (and photographs for the launch of our new design hotel website for Kyoto) have now been completed.

Yesterday was our second day of biking on the “art island” Naoshima. This time we cycled around the entire island, stopping in a couple of small villages and sleepy fishing hamlets. Another day of beautiful weather.

There’s a really warm atmosphere on Naoshima. People we passed on the street greeted us with cheerful smiles — “ohayō gozaimasu” (good morning) or a little wave and a friendly “konnichiwa” (hi/hello).

It reminded me a bit of Vejbystrand and other small towns and islands we’ve had a connection to over the years.

Tomorrow we’re getting back on the Shinkansen. This time to Osaka, where I’m looking forward to meeting up with my buddy, photographer and “fellow wanderer” Henry Arvidsson for a night of burgers & beer. A bit farther from home than our trip to Svalbard earlier this year.

This is from yesterday’s visit to Naoshima, which felt like stepping into a slow, sunlit island dream. We had booked a museum showing works by Monet and James Turrell, the American light-and-space artist whose installations somehow make you feel both grounded and weightless at the same time. But most of the day was spent biking and hiking along Naoshima’s winding coastal roads and sandy beach paths, stopping every now and then to take in the island’s spectacular sites and lush, varied flora. Every road bend revealed something new – palms, pines, wildflowers, and colorful shrubs shaped by wind and sea. The whole place had a laid-back vibe that reminded us a little of Okinawa and stretches along the California coast.

We found an unremarkable little seaside café that served a most terrific Japanese lunch before eventually catching the short ferry back to Tamano, the quiet port town where our hotel is on the mainland.

It was for sure a most spectacular day on one of Japan’s most inspiring islands. Heading back there again tomorrow.

Last night we ate two beautiful bowls filled with juicy udon noodles in miso, topped with tempura shrimp and fried tofu. Absolutely delicious. We found this at a tiny little place Charlotte knew about, right next to the geisha district of Gion here in Kyoto.

We eat dinner out roughly every other evening. On the main road just a couple of blocks from the hotel, there’s a well-stocked grocery store called Fresco.

On the evenings when we eat at the hotel, that’s where we buy our dinners.

Tonight we were so tired after all the walking, shooting, and filming at the temple Otago Nenbutsu-ji – and still pretty full after a hefty lunch in Arashiyama – that we grabbed a couple of onigiri – triangles of rice with tuna and mayo wrapped in nori (おにぎり) – two packs of shredded cabbage salad, and a couple of cold Kirins.

Why didn’t we eat at one of Kyoto’s fantastic little izakaya joints that are literally everywhere?

The thing is, even though it’s cheap to eat at regular neighborhood restaurants here, it still adds up over seven weeks in Japan – far beyond what we budgeted for meals.

Besides, it’s actually pretty fun to shop for dinner at Fresco, especially because the selection of tasty and inexpensive ready-made food is so enormous.

I think the woman at the checkout in “our” Fresco recognizes me now. The last few times she’s offered a small smile when she drops the chopsticks and a wet wipe into my bag.

The hotel we’ve been staying at for a week has a large breakfast room that, once the buffet is cleared away at 9:30, stands completely empty. That’s where we eat dinner undisturbed, with a bit of jazz playing in the background.

Jazz is commonly used in stores and restaurants as ambient music – a huge relief not to have to listen to any auto-tune crap. So thoughtful.

There still isn’t a single day when Charlotte and I don’t say to each other how ridiculously good we have it here. We’re already thinking about our next trip back.

I wonder if other visitors also reflect on how lucky they are to experience everything Japan has to offer.

I can’t remember the last time I photographed, filmed, and wrote this much during a single trip to Japan.

Charlotte and I are both childishly enthusiastic and we can barely wake up before wanting to head out to discover, explore, and keep getting inspired. Japan is so addictive.

For me, the most important thing at this stage of life is to keep working on getting better at what I love: being creative and expressing that in different ways. And traveling, of course.

The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (the one Seinfeld quoted in a clip I saw on Instagram) often spoke about three simple principles: ignoring what others think, focusing on your own improvement, and working with virtue and discipline.

The Japanese seem to have taken this to heart – both in how they work and in how they interact with the world. What they do, they do simply (minimalistically), they do it with focus, and they do it properly. A life philosophy that seems to permeate so much here.

Unsurprisingly, Charlotte and I have already developed an addiction toward a few particular eateries here in Kyoto. One of them is Motomachi Doria –  the Japanese interpretation of an American diner where they serve delicious comfort food.

At its core, my favorite “Doria” consists of a bed of rice, rich cream sauce, tender chicken, then cheese melted until it forms that irresistible, slightly caramelized top layer.

Each time we return, Charlotte and I exchange the same look: “Should we really order it again?” And then, inevitably, we do. It’s warm, it’s simple, it’s satisfying without being heavy.

Captured this grey heron along the Camo-Gawa River yesterday evening at the tail-end of “blue hour”.
The light here feels almost otherworldly. The November sun sits way lower and casts a much softer, warmer light than it ever does this time of year back home in Malmö, Sweden. And with Kyoto getting roughly four extra hours of daylight in November, days are so much longer. It’s an ideal combo for a photographer in a city that, even after my third week here, continues to inspire.

The low sun enhances everything – the narrow backstreets, the blend of old and new, the textures of manmade and organic materials. I don’t think I’ve ever seen autumn rendered so beautifully anywhere. else.

Soft serve – or sofuto kurīmu as it’s called here – has been a part of Japanese culture since the 1950s, when it first appeared at a Tokyo amusement park and quickly won the hearts (and taste buds) of the country.

Over the years, Japan has turned this cold treat into something close to art: smooth, creamy, and impossibly light.

It’s available just about everywhere – from busy street corners to quiet mountain shrines – in popular flavors like matcha, black sesame, yuzu, and even sweet potato.

But the one flavor that always seems to elude me is coffee. When I do find it, it’s usually by chance – at a small café or a countryside ice cream stand – and it tastes just glorious!

Done right, it’s not too sweet with just the right hint of bitterness, and that unmistakable roasted coffee bean aroma. It’s one of those fleeting Japanese treats I’ll remember long after I’ve left.