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Japan - the country of contradictions / Japonia - kraj sprzeczności.

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 Over 2 months in Japan and I have a brief idea of this country, so full of surprises. It has started really well, the day of my 30th birthday we took a cruise from Busan to Fukuoka, business class! I even got a birthday card together with my ferry ticket! We were guided to our super comfortable seats and handed a pair of slippers and a big box of goodies. I didn't realise at that time how symbolic these gifts were. The first thing I saw, when entering our compartment were vending machines - hot and cold drinks (free and unlimited!) and... ice-cream. Another Japanese symbol, as I would find out later on.  3 hours on the ferry flew by - we tried most drinks from the machine, got ice-cream and even got a souvenir picture at the deck with my birthday date. And so we finally stepped on Japanese land! And the stop was... a covey belt sushi restaurant. I was happy as a little kid, watching my sushi plates arriving, accompanied by happy music. Surprisingly, there were many vegetarian sush
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Seoul - city of... sugar/Seul - miasto... cukru!

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 Just before going to South Korea we watched a short documentary about "health obsession" among koreans. We were impressed how public health sector encourage people to eat healthy and exercise in a very organised and methodic manner, focusing especially on older people. Apparently, Hyundai even created its own catering factory to ensure that employees would get a healthy, balanced meal every day, and went further, offering their meals for further distribution. So we got this image of Korea being a mekka of healthy food and healthy people. In fact, they are a population with the second highest longevity in the world, right behind Japan, and of course aspiring to become the first. I was really curious to see how this looks like in every day life of Koreans, what they put on their plates and what habits they have. It started pretty well - on our 1,5 hours flight from China, we got a really nice, warm lunch - definitely much better than what we ate in Chinese Airlines. They took
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Baku - city of contrasts / Baku - miasto kontrastów

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 After few intense days in Paris and some calm time in an airport lounge due to our flight's delay, we landed in Baku. The airport was almost empty and one of the first things we saw was an ancient board with letters shifting with loud sound - so here we are, out of Europe. We were still foolish enough to order a taxi online, proudly ignoring a small crowd of taxi drivers that immediately surrounded us as soon as we exited the airport building. We were quickly reminded that what we got used to, doesn't apply in here - we were foreigners, so we had to pay more. Showing the price on my mobile's screen didn't help at all - the driver just turned around and brought us back to the starting point. So we gave up and went with one of the guys from the crowd, agreeing to pay a triple price - it was already 11 pm, we were too tired to negotiate and just wanted to get to our host's place. In the end the driver turned out to be a pretty nice guy, with his few English words and
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