Thank you 2019! Hello 2020!

Trips to Japan

There has been several trips to Japan for me this year and the majority of them were to bring groups around showing them the country I call my second home.

Of course, we visited the main cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima as well as smaller cities such as Kanazawa, Kiso, etc. I had such wonderful group members every time which made the trips even more memorable.

(A few photos from three of my trips →)

Guiding and interpreting

We had a beautiful summer this year and also a record in the number of tourists visiting Stockholm by cruise ships.

During the season from May to mid September, I guided tourist groups from English speaking countries and Japan as well as business groups.

One of maybe the bigger challenges this year was to interpret during a sales presentation and tour in the factory by two Swedish companies to their Japanese clients at two occasions. But I learned so much from it!

Music

There were three larger events this year that were especially memorable:

First one was my nyckelharpa and I featuring in the Japanese drama called “Idaten” broadcasted by Japan’s public boradcaster, NHK. So happy that the nyckelharpa got a few seconds of fame!

Another event was during the Dan Andersson week in the end of July in Ludvika. The dance group I am a member of presented own choreographed dances to the poems and music by Dan Andersson. I was playing and You can see the whole performance here.

A very memorable evening was in Uppsala in November this year. I played during a dinner where Swedish and Japanese universities attended and it was such a special feeling when I played and sang the Japanese song “Furusato” and you could hear the voices from the university representatives rising one by one singing with me. I got goose bumps. You can read more about the evening here.