I came to Stockholm to make a friend, brought a present and my giftbag was a handmade bag an old japanese lady I had stayed with earlier this year gave me, surely as a commercial present, as she sells these things. For me the bag was this: a commercial gift. I remember Miyoko anyway, learned a lot from her and had fantastic breakfast and slightly awkward conversations because of my bad japanese. I was and still am in awe of her energy and dedication to live life to the fullest, make connections and share the beauty she finds everyday during her walks along the Tamagawa river. I didn’t need a souvenir. But the bag was beautiful and the story of this highly dynamic, joyful and social lady from Japan, whose bag has now arrived in Stockholm to bear gifts for a new friend is endearing without any buts. My friend will remember the bag, maybe even use it as I noticed he always carries one of those with him, maybe more than the gift itself. Miyoko now has one more example of how her work continues to evolve and travel around the globe. And for me, the feeling that because of me, because I wanted to learn japanese and go to an old lady who doesn’t speak anything else, my politeness which compelled her to let me stay at her place, even though she only hosts women, because my quest for paradise, people and places, because of a turntable I never use, which made a guy become my student and then eventually my friend through conversation, because of all this a simple cloth bag with a samurai on a horse travelled 10k kilometres as a symbol of good intentions.