Istanbul – Persistence of Memory

Kat and I first visited Istanbul 2 years ago, almost by accident. We were thinking about going on a cheap vacation an weren’t quite sure where to go. Then we saw a flight sale that we couldn’t turn down so we just thought “why not?” We’d never even thought of going to Turkey before and quickly discovered that Istanbul is, seriously you guys, THE TOPS. We had such a blast there that we decided on our current trip we’d have to return. Going back to a place you love after a long absence can be a tricky thing. Have things changed? Have I changed? Will I be able to recapture that beautiful experience or was it just a fleeting moment in time that cannot be recreated?

Kat was excited to celebrate her 31st birthday in one of our favorite cities! Next to her is a bag of crabapples that, apparently, some Turkish people like to eat. Those Turkish people are dumdums because they taste exactly as disgusting as you’d think crabapples taste.

There have been several places on this trip where we’re going somewhere for the second time (Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon), but none of them had the grip on us that Istanbul does. The people are wonderfully friendly, the food is fantastic, traveling around the country is remarkably easy an Istanbul is one of the most chic, liveliest cities in the world. Istanbul is also, to me, the most interesting place we’ve been socioeconomically. The way Turkey and Istanbul struggle with their identity, particularly the role of Islam and religion in daily life and government, is fascinating to me. Drinking an Efes beer at a trendy bar with Istanbul hipsters while the call to prayer echoes across the city from hundreds of minarets may be old hat to Turks, but to me it’s always an amazing experience that causes me to pause and think “This place is SO DAMN INTERESTING.”

“Kat, listen to the call to prayer? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah, it’s great. HEY, DID YOU KNOW I TURN 31 TODAY?!”

I was amazed to return to Istanbul after 2 years and find that NOTHING had changed. Countless times, I found myself thinking “Oh, RIGHT. I REMEMBER that restaurant/shop/thing there!” I was able to get all of my favorite foods that I’d been craving:

Cay. Turkey is fueled by these little tulip glasses of tea. I usually had about 4 per day. Turkish coffee, surprisingly, isn’t consumed as much — usually only after dinner with a sweet thing.

Balik Ekmek — literally “fish bread.” Just a grilled fish sandwich. Touristy to eat at the restaurants right under the Galata Bridge but super fun.

Meze plate. So much awesomeness on this, I can’t even begin. The winner here is the green goop in the center which is a pistachio and whipped cheese concoction that I’m pretty sure Kat would leave me for were it a sentient being.

Turkish breakfast. Turks do brekkie right. That stuff in the middle there is kaymak with honey — sort of like clotted cream. It goes straight to your arteries, but what a way to die.

Midye. Mussels stuffed with rice and spices. They sell these things EVERYWHERE on the street and, normally, I’d be a bit concerned eating shellfish of unknown provenance made by a unshaven Turk but they’re delicious and I haven’t gotten sick yet.

No Turkish meal is complete with raki, an anise-based liquor similar to ouzo. It’s clear in the bottle but becomes milky white when diluted with water. Science! This is not a flavor Kat or I typically enjoy, but somehow with mezes it just goes really well.

The great thing about having already been to Istanbul before is that Kat and I had already done all the tourist “must-do” things, like all the sites in the Old City. Don’t get me wrong, those sites are amazing, but we were more interested in getting to know Istanbul more intimately and seeing places and neighborhoods we missed the first time around.

We stayed in Besiktas, which is a well-to-do neighborhood full of fun bars and restaurants. It’s a great place because not many tourists make it up there. Coming from Asia, we had a big culture shock in dealing with people. In Asia, you look different so you are instantly categorized as “foreign” and people know right away that you won’t speak the language. In Turkey — particularly in non-tourist areas — everyone thought, at first, that we were Turkish. So there was an initial awkwardness every time we’d walk into a store or restaurant and the person would expect us to speak Turkish. When we weren’t able to speak Turkish, they then assumed we were Spanish or, to a lesser extent, French. One guy at a restaurant began speaking to me in Spanish, I answered back in Spanish “I’m American!” He laughed and laughed and then continued to speak to me in Spanish. What can you do?

We had an AMAZING experience attending a Besiktas soccer match. The stadium is quite old but amazingly beautiful. There’s a big mosque right next to it and it’s right on the Bosphorus, making it the only stadium in the world where you can see another continent from the stands. I’m a huge soccer fan and love attending matches in foreign countries. Let me tell you, the Turks are AMAZING fans. I’ve been to matches in America, the Netherlands and England and they’ve got NOTHING on what I saw in Istanbul. These guys are serious.

It’s no RFK Stadium, but their mascot IS an Eagle, so it’s kind of like being back home at a DC United match.

Let’s not forget another reason that this city is awesome: Istanbul has not one, but TWO funiculars, and we rode them both. What’s great about these funiculars is that not only are they funiculars, but they’re actually USEFUL for getting you places.

Kat on the Tunel funicular. Different continent, same crazed look of excitement

I find myself frustrated writing this blog entry. I love Istanbul so much and I feel like no words I can write will do it justice or really give you an accurate idea of why this city is so amazing. Instead, I’ll just leave you with some shots of the city and hope that they give you an incentive to go see for yourself how Istanbul is truly one of the world’s great cities.

 

 

 

10 hours in Dubai

So after five months in Asia, Dave and I packed up our bags for our favorite city in the world. Just across the river from Asia. Where the rest of the country and half of the city are. Oops? We left Osaka on an 11:30pm flight bound for…Dubai!

Emirates Airlines does this thing where they space out their flights from Asia and to Europe and vice versa.  This is either awesome if you want to try and see some of Dubai while you fly nearly halfway around the world or terrible if you just want to get there already. You can either sit in the (very nice) Dubai airport waiting for your connection, or you can go into the city for a few hours. Emirates will sponsor your visa, give you a meal coupon, and a hotel coupon. Depending on your connection time, it’s a night’s sleep or a day out. We chose day out.

On the flight,  I had to pretend I wasn’t crying but had some sort of “contact lens issue” (note: I do not wear contacts) because yes, I was that girl who cried when watching Les Miserables and Jean ValJean died. Or maybe I cried because I had to hear Russell Crowe sing for that long. YEESH.   I also cried at the end of Silver Linings Playbook, mostly out of an urgent, desperate need to be in Philadelphia. Bradley Cooper knows how to make a gal homesick. Maybe it was just seeing a diner. Or rabid Eagles fans. Anyway, the stereotypes reduced me to tears and since I already cried once on an plane, whatever, right?

Once I wiped the crust from my shut-for-five-hours-after-weeping-on-an-airplane-eyes, we breezed through immigration at 5:30am after a 10.5 hour flight and found the hotel transit booth. When you check into your flight Emirates gives you all the vouchers you need but note: you DO need to apply for the visa and the vouchers online in advance of your flight so do your homework!

We checked into our airport hotel and each took a shower. We were careful to not so much as sit on the beds — the minute we might have done that it would have been over for us.

We then ate breakfast. What a difference 11 hours makes. Breakfast went from grilled fish and miso to olives, cheese, hummus and cucumbers in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

We watched 4 minutes of CAMEL RACING (!!!) in our room and then took off around 8am.

I have a feeling we aren’t in Japan anymore, Toto.

We were desperate for more caffeine but knew that we’d need to be back at the Dubai airport by 12:30 to make our 2:30 flight so we had four and a half hours to get the gist of Dubai.

So, we did what we’d normally do and hopped on the subway. Amid the commuters, we saw as much of the city as we could. Here’s what we managed:

1.) I was INSISTENT that we take the subway as close as possible to see the Burj Al Arab. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel once on it and have been captivated since. Unfortunately, you have to pay to drive up and pay to enter the lobby so since we were broke and had like 10 minutes to see everything we just took pictures form the closest metro station, shrugged our shoulders, threw up our hands, and went back into the air conditioning.

this hotel is on a man-made island. obvi

UAE flags!

 

2.) Next, we hit up the Mall of the Emeriates. Bear in mind we showed up at like, 8:45am. I think two coffee shops were open but again — AIR CON!– so we had a coffee and relaxed for a few minutes. It was weird to have someone approach you in English to order something. A barista brightly asked us what we’d like. IN ENGLISH. Our heads spun. We were worried about learning Arabic — oops?! Two coffees please.

Then we went and gawked at where you can go skiing inside .

WHAT

This is where I learned that the mall has PENGUINS. AND THAT WE WERE THERE THE DAY BEFORE WORLD PENGUIN DAY.

AAAIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, this is when we began to feel verrrrryyyyy tired. We had like, 5 hours sleep thanks to Ambien. In typical fashion, I started getting intense about all the things we wanted to see. IMMEDIATELY. WE ONLY HAVE SO MUCH TTTIIIMMMMEEE! ALL! THE! THINGS! AAAAHHHH!

Dave just started talking like Consuela the maid from Family Guy:

we looked around the mall a bit more,

the gap in arabic

before heading to (sigh, Dubai) ANOTHER MALL.

3.) The Dubai Mall. We walked through it to get to the main event: the Burj Khalifa.

It was, truthfully, the nicest mall I think I have ever seen.

Suck it, King of Prussia

And then we went and gawked at the tallest building in the world.

IT

whoa

IS

WHOA!

BIG

WHATTTTTT!!!!!!!!!! (whoa unattractive angle!?)

It dwarfed the 50 story buildings next to it. Very impressive.

pffft other tall fancy buildings

Whatever

Seriously! crazy!

We sat outside for a while reminiscing about the Petronas Towers we saw in Kuala Lumpur:

The Burj Khalifa is TWICE AS TALL.

Petronas Towers – KL

Then, we had time for a quick sandwich before it was back to the airport. We wanted to walk around the old town of Dubai a bit but we didn’t have enough time.

And 10 hours after we disembarked, we were back in a tin can in the sky flying 4.5 hours to our favorite city in the whole world: Istanbul.

So, all in all, I thought Dubai was interesting. It was an interesting mix of people: we saw more Filipinos and Indians than we did actual Emeriate people.  The wealth in the UAE is astounding. I don’t think we ever felt so broke as we did there. The buildings are amazing. The types of cars we saw on the street, incredible. The clothing, from fancy hijab to flashy labels were impeccable. Everyone who was dressed like a schlub was either on a 10-hour layover or on vacation.  If you lived in the Middle East and needed to let loose somewhere, I can see how Dubai would be a real destination.

I can imagine that as an expat there it may be a bit dull. We have a friend who lived there for two years and she seemed to like it well enough but is not interested in going back after her stint was over. It seemed as an expat you can either migrate from hotel bar to hotel bar to mall to hotel bar, work a ton, or be a housewife. No wonder everyone is dressed to the nines — all there is to do is shop! Also, there are so many people here to take jobs Emirates don’t want. It was interesting being back in a diverse place again. Japan is like, 99% Japanese. Koreans live in Korea. We haven’t been somewhere that was a melting pot since we were in Malaysia. And then the UAE had to go and beat their record for the tallest buildings.

Dave reacted pretty violently to it — he hated it. He snarked on it so bad. He whined as we walked through another mall. He was looking for CULTURE. And INSIGHT. AND AN EXPERIENCE.

I felt like we got a tiny glimpse into what it is like to live there. I can’t form a proper opinion in 10 hours but I can eat some olives for breakfast and take pictures next to a real tall building. Malls ARE part of the culture there. Dave wants to never return, claiming Las Vegas was hotter and more fun and served the same purpose with way more booze so why bother?

I was intrigued, but Dubai was not the most exciting place ever. Am I glad we slept horribly for 2 days to get a glimpse into life in one of the richest countries in the world? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. Would I move there? Dubai-ous.

 

Sayonara, muchachos!

After we shivered in the world’s tiniest hotel room with mystery fevers, we traveled north from Hakata to Osaka where we would base ourselves for the remainder of our time in Japan.

Osaka itself –sadly– we didn’t see much aside from nightlife. Being sick was really hard on us. On one hand, we were thankful that this was the ONE time we were really sick on the trip (OK and then there was the great food poisoning epidemic of early 2013) but all things considered, we’ve been lucky. We have not had to explore how our travel insurance works. HOORAY.

So, Dave already gloated about not being attacked by chompy deer told you about one day trip to Nara, which was fun except when a pack of domesticated deer bit my hip and scared the crap out of me. NOT COOL, DEER! USE YOUR WORDS, DEER!

We are not amused… and when we are tired we still have #shinglesface

The next day we hopped on a slow local train to Kyoto. We were super excited about Kyoto. We wanted to see oldey timey Japan! Geishas! Palaces! Temples!

Here’s a little preconception about Japan that we were incorrect about. We totally figured Kyoto was a village.  We knew Japan was densely populated, but we were unprepared for places that were so huge. Kobe – a city and area famous for Kobe beef—you’ve heard of it—MILLIONS of people. Fukuoka, the city that is a blip on tourist radars but home of Hakata ramen – over a million people.

Kyoto is not a small place. With a population of over  1.5 million, it’s twice the population of DC proper and has skyscrapers. WHERE AM I GOING TO SPOT A GEISHA AMONG SKYSCRAPERS AND FUTURISTIC BUILDINGS?

We did a flurry of a day trip to Kyoto. We bought a 500 yen day bus pass which ended up being the best $5 we spent in Japan — we hopped on every bus we could and still managed to walk our feet off– but our cost per use was down which pleased Dave greatly.

So in Kyoto you look one way and it’s temples and palace and quaint Japanese life. If you look downhill, there are skycrapers and a subway system.

shiny Kyoto train station

But that’s ok because I SAW A GEISHA. We got caught up in the old city in some sort of classic car race (?!) and a geisha in a cab was stuck behind them.  I couldn’t even snap a photo– all time stopped– I could barely breathe. She was sitting in the back of a cab, concerned about this extra traffic. She was so put together, so beautiful and so glamorous I feel like she was in front of me for three full minutes. I heard nothing. I didn’t breathe.

It was like, 30 seconds. Maybe.

I felt like at that point we could just go home. We saw what we needed to see.

The checklist looked like this:

Palaces

Palace!

Temples

pagoda!

more temples

Ladies in kimonos

covert shot

Beautiful gardens

don’t go chasing waterfalls…

Quaint alleyways

cute!

Not just a beer vending machine (which had eluded us all of Japan previously)

Dave found a new BFF

BUT!

A sake vending machine!

Hello, lover….

So that was Kyoto. The express train through it. On one hand, I’m sad we didn’t spend more time there. On the other hand, how many freaking temples can a girl look at and still appreciate them like the first ten? SERIOUSLY? I feel ok about it.

Because we were staying in Osaka which was super fun with great food. I feel like Tokyo is the New York of Japan without any of the real character and Osaka is like the Chicago. Flies under the radar except for everyone who knows how fun it is. Rules were a bit more lax there (FOR JAPAN), the food was delicious, and the city easy to navigate. We had a good time in Dontonburi amid all the mascots:

crab juice? KRAVKALASH!

SCARY CLOWN

 

FUGU FISH! (we did not partake)

might as well be Andy Rooney, #amirite?

Oh and the other beer vending machine we found.

weeeee!

So in Japan summary — if we had to play the crass middle school  game of Screw, Marry, Kill:

I think we’d

Screw Hakata

Marry Osaka

Kill Tokyo. And all the armbands. No actually we will inflict it no harm. We fear the armbands. Also our friends live there, so they’d be fine. We’d just make it more fun.  Change the rules. Armband for fun!

ARMBAND!

So it was one more round at the super fun taiko drum game

DK’s turn

me taking the game VERY seriously (NOTE: I WON)

And we were off to Dubai! We flew 10 hours to Dubai– had a 10 hour stopover which we’ll tell you about next– and then flew 5 hours to our favorite city in the world: Istanbul

Goodbye Asia… until a Turkish ferry takes us to the Asian side!

p.s. #2 London

p.p.s: #3 Seoul

 

 

 

 

Nara – And then the greatest thing ever happened

From Takayama we took the train 1000 km south to the southern city of Fukuoka. The intention was to use Fukuoka as a base and do a few day trips around Kyushu (the southern Japanese island) and to Hiroshima. Well, that didn’t happen. First Kat got sick (sick enough that we were researching hospitals, but fortunately she got better), then I got sick. So we spent 3 days holed up in a miserable businessman hotel in an 8×12 foot room. It wasn’t super awesome, but such is life on the road sometimes. We were happy to lave Fukuoka and hopped on the Shinkansen up to Osaka.

We’ll write more in a future post about Osaka and Kyoto, but I had to write a very quick post about a day trip we took from Osaka to a small town called Nara. Nara has some interesting temples and is home to Japan’s largest Buddha (which is housed, coincidentally, in the world’s largest wooden building). That stuff’s all great and all, but that’s not what makes Nara a place of interest. The reason that you should go to Nara is that in Nara you can do this:

We didn’t talk about the time that I went deer hunting in West Virginia. Not that I’m hiding it, it just didn’t come up in conversation is all…

This is not a petting zoo. In Nara, domesticated deer just walk around the whole town, wandering into traffic, terrorizing children and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Something I did not realize about deer: they SMELL. Pretty much like horses. All over the town are people selling special deer biscuits that you can buy and feed to the deer. This being Japan, the deer actually BOW TO YOU to get you to give them biscuits.

You want to get respect, you gotta give respect

So, we thought, oh this will be cute. We’ll buy some biscuits for the deer and feed them. So we paid our 150 yen (about $1.50) and Kat went to go feed the deer. And then this happened:

 

“ohhh, aren’t you guys CUTE?! Ok, let me give you a biscuit!”

“Heh heh, ok, guys. One at a time, now. Don’t push.”

“GUYS, SERIOUSLY, STOP. Behave yourselves or no one gets biscuits!”

“RULES EXIST TO KEEP US SAFE! OW! DID YOU JUST BITE ME, YOU LITTLE BASTARD?!”

“JESUS. FINE. HERE. TAKE YOUR BISCUITS. I’M DONE WITH YOU ASSHOLES.”

While the deer were assaulting Kat, I was off on the side gleefully snapping pictures. It was the greatest thing ever. I was laughing hysterically. Kat didn’t find it so funny. “They were BITING ME and you were LAUGHING,” she kept saying. I continued to think it was hilarious until this sumbitch tried to eat my green tea soft-serve:

Look here, Bambi, you try to steal my ice cream again and you’ll end up with your mom, NAMASAYIN’?!

That’s when things got serious. Kat and I decided that we’d both had enough of this novelty and it was time to get on the train and escape back to the deer-free safety of Osaka.

Big in Japan

So, reality had hit by the time we made it to Japan. Gone were the days of sweating 24/7, guzzling 3 liters of water a day, and eating whatever we wanted because my pedometer said we walked 15,000 steps. After the cruel transition to a high of 11 C, we coped with warm food, soju, red meat and extra rice.  We also drank a bit more since we were with friends and Dave and I were feeling puffy and rather literally, “Big in Japan” when we left. I arrived with a preconceived notion of Japanese food was that it was light, very healthy, and delicate.

This is half true. The other half is fried, covered in mayonnaise, and consumed with drinks. Oops.

However, after months of rice, noodles, pork and fish we were really looking forward to more rice, noodles, pork, and fish but with a completely different flavor profile. Also soup. So much soup. We ate well in Japan not just because we spent two weeks in the home of a professional chef and a excellent home cook. We also ate delicious things out in the world which was fun.

We already wrote about one sushi experience which was good and fun, but we ate the best sushi of our lives elsewhere.

QUARTET OF TUNAS

Obvi– Tsukiji market is the place to go for serious, fresh, I-am-making-really-inappropriate-faces sushi.

Ikura, sea urchin, and tuna roll

Seriously. Look at this!

I had eaten some and forgotten to take a pictures of the whole meal — oops!

I miss it all the time. Because we were there on a weekday a ¥3,800 meal was reduced to ¥2,500 which we found to be an exceptional value.

go here (sorry, blurry)

you will not regret it

The chef was affable and engaged Brock in a bunch of chef bro-to-bro stuff and then pointed on a picture of a tuna where all our delicious things were. I’m sure that’s the chef fraternity handshake — POINT TO ME ON THE TUNA WHERE DELICIOUSNESS COMES FROM.

We also ate amazing food at “the Fish Shack” i.e. Nogizaka Uoshin which is where we took our friends (at their gentle suggestion) for a “thanks for letting us stay with you for weeks the least we can do is buy you dinner somewhere nice” meal.

Look at the menu:

…..uhhhhh…..

Japan never said it would make it easy for you to get to this deliciousness. Luckily we know some Gaijin who have cracked their code.

I will forever think about this sashimi plate

DROOL*****

and the scallop sashimi we ordered. It was absolutely insane.

DOUBLE DROOL***

We also ate awesome ramen during our time, and we hit up a few of the major favorite chains in Japan.

Ippudo, for delicious lunch special

they played jazz here #bougieramen

Ichiran, to eat in a cubicle (seriously) and not speak to anyone. You order at a machine, fill out a form on the specifics (noodle tenderness, amount of spring onion, etc) and then a tiny window in front of you opens and the ramen arrives. This wins for BanhMiandYou-approved porny soup fav.

YUM! according to my wishes!

Dragon Ramen in Osaka

me getting my noodle on

Dave being sad about leaving Asia

We ate delicious spicy ramen at “Ramen Stadium” in Hakata which was just about the only part of the city we saw since we got really sick while in Fukuoka and spent the next 2 days shivering with fevers in a tiny 10 square meter business hotel with a back-breakingly firm mattress.

After we recovered and moved on to Osaka, Dave was insistent we try Okonomiyaki (as was my BFF  in London! Hi DZ!) and we went to a famous place in Dontonburi and were blown away. Dave called it a “Japanese garbage plate” and it is sometimes known as “Japanese pizza” but it was delicious so who cares what is is?

half eaten

the Cadillac: pork belly, scallions, veggies, jiggly bits and sauces

Kimchi and spicy greens with scallop

Cabbage and other veggies are fried in a thin batter on a griddle right in front of you and topped with delicious things like pork belly, a fried egg, and the ever-present Japanese mayo. It was messy and we were way too too sober to eat it– it was definitely drunk food. Another time!

Dave was also insistent about takoyaki. On paper, this is like, Dave’s optimal food. Fried balls of squishy batter with squid inside and topped with BBQ sauce, bonito flakes and a bit of mayo.

Or –as you do– EGG SALAD?!?!?

WHAT?

He kept trying them hoping that THESE would be the ones that made him swoon but none did. He was gravely disappointed.

We ate lots of weird snacks. Some at izakayas: grilled meat on sticks, hilarious mix of Doritos and other chips, fried things and chicken nuggets.

haute Japanese cuisine…

fried bar snacks — a universal!

And as previously mentioned, drank beer. Let’s just say after we left our “Let’s squish in ALL THE FUN” trip to Tokyo, Dave and I dialed the booze way down. We were supposed to return from this trip SKINNIER than when we left.  There is no cute, peppy song called “Phatter than before in Philly” or “pudgy in Pennsylvania”. And I’ll be damned if this turns into a fitness blog so beers down, pedometer on, salad. Go!

…..

(here’s where I should confess we had Turkish clotted cream and honey on fresh [white] bread for breakfast…Turkey is a cruel temptress)

Takayama – Oldey Timey Japan & Ryokan

So after two weeks in Tokyo, we took our Japan Rail Passes and our backpacks and hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train). Two trains and 4 hours later we were transported back in time to 18th century Japan in a town called Takayama.

This sums up all you need to know about Japanese trains. Salarymen get their bento box lunch and promptly pass out, dreaming of one day escaping the dreariness of their day to day existence.

Takayama is one of Japan’s many hot springs towns and a popular tourist destination for Japanese and Gaijin alike as it is known for having some of the most well-preserved Edo-period streets and buildings in Japan. The whole point of coming however was to go to a ryokan, or a traditional Japanese hotel.

At first I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to a ryokan. Nice ones are incredibly expensive and, per usual in Japan, the language barrier is pretty intense. Further, we’d heard that those that do cater to tourists are often overpriced and not particularly nice. But we eventually decided that sometimes budgets are meant to be tossed out the window and, besides, it happened to be our second wedding anniversary so why not?!

A lovely river flows through this beautiful little town. It was a pleasure to walk around.

Takayama turned out to be a charming, lovely place. Making it even better was that we got lucky and accidentally found ourselves there on one of their two annual festival days! There are dozens of giant floats that parade around on festival day on creaking wooden wheels, dragged by men in traditional dress. School children sit on top of the floats playing drums or recorders and occasionally chanting. The floats are hundreds of years old and they only come out twice a year for festivals. All other times they live in these giant warehouses that are located all throughout the town.

Here are two of the floats. Of course, this is Japan so there’s also an armband (lower left corner) making sure people don’t have TOO much fun. Gotta keep people safe from the unsavory element brought out by a parade.

 

These things seemed pretty heavy. I would have helped but, you know, Gaijin probably wouldn’t be able to pull a rope the proper “Japanese” way.

So we had a lovely day of walking around the festival, but the true main event was to be our ryokan experience complete with its own onsen (hot spring bath). When we entered the ryokan, we were greeted by the owner, an extremely kind older lady named Mrs. Tanabe who, surprisingly, spoke a decent amount of English.

The entrance of Ryokan Tanabe. You feel soothed and relaxed the second you enter the door.

We removed our shoes and were shown to our room, which in traditional style was simply a room with tatami mats on the floor and no furniture other than a low table. This room is your bedroom, living room and dining room. You are served dinner in the room, following dinner your maids come (in traditional dress of course) and clean up and move the table away. They then take your beds out of the closet (which are, like, thick cushions that roll up) and set those up in the middle of the room. In the morning, they reverse the procedure and set up your table for breakfast. While in the ryokan, you wear your traditional Yakata robe — not just in the room, but everywhere. It feels a bit odd to be walking around in public in what is essentially a cotton bathrobe, but everyone else is doing it too. Kat was able to choose the color of her yakata, but I was given just the standard one given to all men. Bummer.

For relaxing times….

So, what exactly do you DO while you’re waiting around for your in-room dinner and breakfast? Obviously, you go to the onsen downstairs, which is the hot spring bath.

This is the men’s onsen. Kat says the women’s one was nicer.

We had to do a bit of research before going to figure out how the onsen works. First, they are separated by sex, so Kat and I had to go to separate onsens. You go to the changing room just outside and take off your yakata. You then take a (very, very small) towel and that’s sort of a washcloth/genital covering (though most people don’t bother with that). You first take a little stool and sit on it (why you have to sit on this stool, I have no idea) and you wash yourself at one of the little stations which you see at the left of the photo. This is critical — you MUST fully bathe before you get in the pool, as that pool water is shared by everyone. No one wants to sit in someone else’s dirty bathwater. After that bathing is done, you go and either sit in this pool OR (and this was my choice) you go sit in one of the cauldrons outside which is constantly being filled with running fresh hot spring water (you can see the blue tub in the background). The tub was a bit tight for my western butt, but it was still really nice. We relaxed in our separate onsens for about an hour. Kat had a nice chat with an australian lady, while I had a hilarious cultural exchange with three Japanese dudes. They were REALLY surprised to see a white guy in there and they kept stealing glances at me. Finally one had the courage to ask where I was from and they were surprised to hear America. Thankfully, while the Japanese are super uptight, even they seem to recognize the ridiculousness of everyone just hanging around naked chatting as if you’re not.

So we came back to our room, clean and relaxed and feeling great. Little did we know that the true fun was about to begin. The maids came at 7 pm to serve dinner. Dinner was in the Kaiseki Ryori style — basically oldey timey haute cuisine, with over a dozen courses (click the link if you want a more detailed explanation of the food). This dinner was one of the most amazing of my life and I’ll remember it forever. The food was delicious and so unlike any thing else I’ve ever eaten.

Our 16 course dinner all laid out at once. Being true flashpackers we BYO’d some cheap sake from the 7-11 to save some money

 

These were little baby squid that BLEW MY MIND

KSK sez “This should be my life everyday, no?”

Shogun DK

Beef with root vegetables cooked at the table over a hotpot

See that sashimi course right there in the middle. Yeah, I got to eat that and you didn’t.

Then it was time for sleep. Sleeping on the mats on the floor wasn’t bad, though I could have done without the buckwheat pillow. It was ok, but I think I’ll stick to a standard bed.

We had to be up at 7 am for breakfast. Breakfast was a less ornate affair and was traditional japanese breakfast, which was interesting but, to be honest, pickled fish at 7 am is a bit much even for me.

Breakfast is served. Kat clutches her iPhone as if oldey timey Japan might try to snatch it out of her hands.

This was some really strange miso paste that was cooked at the table over a hot pot. It was delicious but we weren’t really sure what to DO with it.

After breakfast there was only time for a quick shower before we had to check-out of the ryokan and head to the train station for an epic long day of shinkansen train travel that would take us 1000 kilometers away aaall the way to Fukuoka in the south of Japan. Takayama was a cute town and the ryokan was an amazing experience that I recommend everyone do if they’re visiting japan, but one day and one night was enough. Time to get back to modern Japan and all the weird, wacky stuff that comes with that. More to come!

 

Remember what bubbles sound like?

I write this on the Shinkansen, the bullet train, going 300 km an hour. With my cheeks nearly flapping and the scenery whipping by me – mountains to farmland to a few houses to a small city and back to mountains – we are journeying away from Tokyo and away from our friends.

We spent two weeks with our gay BFFs and had a total blast being with them. Dave and I had hit a place on our trip where we (and I say this with love, and Dave would totally agree) needed a break from being just the two of us. It’s really hard to expect your significant other to replace the scores of friends, family, co-workers, gchat snarkers who you normally interact with on a daily basis. I am a serious extrovert and having only ONE PERSON to chat with was beginning to drain me. Dave was totally over my incessant chatting. If Dave had to hear ONE MORE WORD about my pink hair upkeep I think he’d probably throw himself in front of this train we are on. Why bother chatting? We practically had the same thought patterns. We might as well not even speak, sometimes.

We’d be walking down the street in Saigon and I’d be avoiding sidewalk potholes and absent-mindedly thinking about a certain Family Guy episode or something, and then Dave would ask “so…. Kat… have you heard about the bird?”, and I’d be like:

A)     GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

B)      UUGGHHHHHHHH. YES. HOWWWWWWWWWW

So, to have other people to talk to who think about OTHER THINGS! aside from Family Guy, when to turn left or right, stop here, do you have the key, where is your passport, are you sure it’s this way, remember that weird song we heard in Indonesia, remember that thing we ate that was alive, remember how sucky Melaka was in hindsight, aren’t you excited to leave asia, aren’t you sad to leave asia was really refreshing. Also they are real people with real lives and jobs. Fascinating, how quickly we’ve forgotten how to be real people. Southeast Asia warps your sense of reality really sharply. I am going to get punched  in about five minutes when I get home and just remark upon someone within earshot like we do right now.

It was just so easy being with our friends. Like old times but also like new times? Also how did we all start speaking the same way instantly? Also they speak Japanese so they were not only their normal fun selves but also USEFUL. They knew cool places to take us. They told us cool places to go when they were out in the world being real people. They had fun friends we hung out with. Not having to be the decider about every minute detail of the day was restorative.

Also, being with urban family was so necessary. These friends of ours, we don’t really know when we’ll see again and we probably annoyingly were all up in their grills all the time because we felt like we needed to squash a year’s worth of fun into two weeks.

And HOW.

Otters and wolves and cubs — oh my!

Most of the photos aren’t cute, which means we had a great time, right?

Let us suffice to say that we learned how to say “Beer Blast” in Japanese. Beer Blast is a daily open bar special at a friendly gay bar. Friendly in that I was the only lady there both times and BOTH TIMES someone told me I was pretty. #WIN

Also, for the uninitiated in the finer points of the Japanese language, it’s “Bir-u Blast-o”.

We drank all the things, watched the “Moey Shambin” SNL skit 400 times, ate awesome food, and laughed until our cheeks hurt.

Izakaya Friday

We picnicked under cherry blossom trees, sang karaoke, and made fun of how Japanese manic pixie dreamgirls walk pigeon-toed because the think it’s quirky and cute.

That is a rule worth ignoring

We watched 40 episodes of Veronica Mars, ate the best sushi I have ever eaten, and made sinful pizzas.

the remains of an amazing dinner

We also hosted a Passover seder and leaned mightily to the left.  Also I have a weird bruise on my knee.

Leaning mightily

I was like, hello?

The other fun thing about with our friends, was they have a great set up for guests. Their guest room was huge, and we had a dresser to put our clothes in. They also, magically, live in was that they dubbed “America Town”.

murika!

Once you got to their apartment complex which is full of Americans, you would know how to say “thanks” for someone holding the elevator for you. You could drink the tap water. I had a minor meltdown the first time I realized this was possible. and was like, “are you SURE?!”. THEY HAD A DRYER, with which I entered into a very real, emotional relationship. I would put clothes in the dryer and pat it affectionately.  I COOKED. In their AMERICAN-style kitchen. I made my mother’s spaghetti and meatballs immediately. I made CARNITAS. For anyone who has been outside of America for long, even mediocre Mexican food is impossible to find. It needed to happen, or else.  They had a French press and we had coffee every morning without having to leave the house or negotiate a language we do not speak. This was perhaps the greatest luxury of all: being able to caffeinate freely, to American rocket fuel standards. There was a STORE where they would come back with Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese. Frozen Pizzas. Tortillas.  FIZZY WATER! WINE!!!!! WHERE YOU COULD PAY IN US DOLLARS!

Being surrounded by so many small, simple, American luxuries that I took for granted every day before this trip and that I had forgotten about for five months came rushing back and I was overwhelmed. I was achingly homesick yet also having more fun and felt more NORMAL than I had in weeks.

Also they have a dog, which meant we had a dog for two weeks.

PUFFIN THE SOI DAWG

I took her on many a walk and she even snoozed one night curled up under my legs and I exploded with the urgency of having a dog of my own. Once we get to Philly, find jobs, buy cars, get an apartment and become real adults. Small details, really.

It was really hard to leave. I walked with my back pack to the subway station from their house crying (I like to think) dignified, resolved tears behind my big sunglasses and huge backpack. We weren’t just leaving friends but we were leaving a brief respite in America and it was so easy and fun to be in Japan during the day or whatever and then America at night. I ATE CHEESE, for crying out loud.

But more importantly, we ate cheese with some of our favoritest people in the world. And we have more friend times with the rest of our International Urban Family (IUF)  ahead too which I think may save us from our own ennui.  Ok, kidding, just Dave’s. Friends like Brock and Josh are the bubbles in the Monica & Chandler champagne  of life. Thanks, guys! xoxo