Click here for pictures
It is interesting to see how my trips have evolved over the past few years. I started off traveling alone or with travel groups since I couldn’t find anyone who liked to travel like I did (active, adventure trips). That was 5 years ago. Germany was a major departure in my travel style. It was far less about seeing the place than about spending time with good friends. It was a very light itinerary and I had lots of company the whole time. So much so that I took off for a solitary trip to Salzsburg to maintain some semblance to how I used to travel.
The idea for Germany originated with a lovely Christmas postcard from Eva, one of my two favorite people from HBS PLD. The post card said “Germany wants to see you” and came with a repeated invitation from Eva to come visit. As a coincidence, Art of Living was hosting their 30 year anniversary in Berlin during July 4th weekend.
Lately I have become deeply involved with a campaign sponsored by Art of Living to promote meditation to New Yorkers called ‘I Meditate NY’. The ‘I Meditate NY’ contingent was traveling to Berlin for the World Culture Festival, complete with the American Flag and custom t-shirts made for the occasion.
70000 people were expected in the Olympic stadium where Hitler gave his marching orders to do what he did. Less than half showed up. It was raining and bitter cold the whole weekend! We braved the cold and wet, layered up in all that we were carrying plus ponchos to keep the wind out. It was nothing short of dedication that kept us there. More than the spectators, it is the performers that I admired. 2000 performers from Bulgaria led by Elitsa Todorva, Outlandish from Denmark, thousands from Argentinians with their famous yoga rave and tango, Swiss horns, Greeks, Germans, Chinese, Ballerinas from somewhere and so many others that I am forgetting. They all performed fabulously without exception in the cold rain. The ballet performers slipping every now and then, the tango pair that just gave up the concrete stage and took to the grass, they improvised where they had to but didn’t quit. Good for them!
While the day time was in the stadium, the first couple of evenings were spent in guru chasing (chasing Sri Sri , founder of Art of Living in hopes of spending time with him), something I still cant bring myself to do for more than a couple of hours, I easily give up. Oh well… By Sunday evening Eva had joined me (from Munich) for her first taste of an Art of Living satsang (spiritual music in a group setting). Crammed into a large hall, we spent a few hours sitting on concrete to listen to some divine music. She was polite about it, but perhaps it was a little too crazy for her!
Sunday night took Eva and I to the up and coming new East Berlin with its fancy restaurants and night life. Monday started with brunch at Literaturhaus restaurant. Eva, Poonam (from New York) and I then spent some time wandering around in museums and a boat ride on the Spree river. Poonam then went on to another satsang and guru chasing while Eva and I continued on.
I had already spent a few hours on Friday with Raisa, also from New York, wandering around Brandenburg gate all the way up to Potsdamer Platz and hence was a bit familiar with this part of town. We tried visiting Dali museum near Potsdamer Platz, but it was closing just as we got there. Eva made up the loss by buying me a catalog of his works at this museum. We visited Checkpoint Charlie and the little of the Wall that is left. What was even more amazing was to hear Eva’s stories of her experiences visiting East Berlin when the wall was still up!
Dinner was at the Lutter and Wegner restaurant where I finally stopped asking for tap water after being flat out refused (waiters at previous restaurants were perplexed at my request but would serve it after perhaps writing me off as an ignorant foreigner. Germans drink bottled water, usually carbonated). Interestingly several vendors came into the restaurant selling newspapers and books (apparently a common practice there). We also visited at Borchardt for an after dinner port; this is where the politicians, stars and other celebs come although we didn’t see any that night.
That was about all the time available with Berlin. There were several architectures, modern, communist and neo classical all to be found in one city. Food was good although Munich stands out better in memory for culinary experiences. Tuesday was to take Eva and I to Munich, which according to Muncheners is the center of the universe (or at least of Germany)!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Munich 2011
Click here for pictures
Munich started with a trip to the grocery store near Eva's where the sausage counter caught my attention. I had never had blood sausage thus far and upon some encouragement from Eva and her husband Johannes, I bought some. It was… ok. It may take some time to acquire a taste for the, er, blood taste! My buddy Daniel, classmate from UK, was to arrive that evening. Emmylou, also from PLD was to visit from Netherlands 2 days later (she was on her way to Paris for a weekend of champagne shopping along with a bridal party!). Eva’s sister Sophie was also going to join for a couple of days making us a party of 6 at full house.
That evening took us to Marian Platz and then onto Haufbrauhaus, perhaps the most popular beer garden for tourists and locals alike. The neighborhood felt European with cobblestone paths and street vendors selling paintings etc. I have to say the beauty of the neighborhood was rather marred by a Planet Hollywood right next door, why they would allow a place like that to open there is beyond me!
The idea of a beer garden is that there is a large outdoor seating and you can bring your own food and order something (most likely beer) from the restaurant. Beer was served in these massive mugs (should I call it a jug?) and I needed both hands to lift it. I barely finished half of the beer while Johannes gulped down two of those. Earlier in the evening I was introduced to Aperol which quickly became my favorite drink while on this trip. With a lovely orange color, it’s an Italian aperitif, less bitter than Campari and served as a spritz.
The next day Eva, Johannes, Daniel and I made a trip to Neuschwanstein Castle, inspiration for Disney’s magic kingdom, built by Ludwig the second back in the late 1800s. It was beautiful, perched amidst the hills, all by itself. It took about an hour to tour the unfinished castle. I bought some merchandise, chocolate and souvenirs. After the castle we drove a couple of miles to a pizza place from where we had a picture perfect view of the castle far away nestling in the hills. It looked like a drawing!
We went into the Olympic stadium, took the cable car up and meandered our way through the alps. We stopped by a flowing river and built cairns. All very leisurely. Dinner that night was at a Greek restaurant near Eva’s. The owner was rather generous with free uzo shots and food was great and plentiful!
Emmylou joined us the next day, she and Daniel had been put up at the same hotel close to where Eva lives. I felt rather privileged on being given Eva’s studio office as my independent apartment, rather luxurious! I like to believe I am special (and so lucky!).
I had promised to make Indian dinner for all and luckily met a woman in a bus who pointed me to an Indian grocery restaurant near Marian Platz. After a lazy morning doing our own thing, we all met up there in the afternoon, I tried the curry-wurst, sausage with curry powder sprinkled (unoriginal, but rather tasty). Munich was getting ready for the 2018 olympics decision and there was a huge stage ready to celebrate, we walked around to take it all in.
We went shopping in the market and the quest for chicken cut up in small pieces suitable for Indian curry began. Eva took us to a butcher where I took great pains to explain how small I wanted the pieces. Somehow he was not getting it and finally allowed me into the sanctum sanctorum (butcher table) to point out how I wanted pieces made. The only word spoken for a few minutes was ‘cut’, he did as I asked and we were both happy (at least I was)! Eva and the gang were, needless to say, amused. But rather pleased with the dinner when it was all done, I am told!
The next day was going to be another busy day with a trip to Tegernsee. Daniel was leaving us in the morning and it was going to be Eva, Emmylou, Sophie, Johannes and I. The train ride was about 2 hours and the lake was amazingly beautiful. It was very quite and serene, I was a little surprised to not see it over crowded like American beach towns tend to be in summer. Not that I was complaining! We took another boat tour and went into random shops to look at things.
My favorite part of the day was a trip up the hill to a restaurant known for its views. I forget the name of the place, but indeed it was breathtaking to look over the lake and town. Max Planck’s Schloss Ringberg (castle) was somewhere out there. We had meant to hike up, have a quick drink and come right back down, but landed up staying several hours. There was a wedding up there and several ladies were dressed in their best wedding Bavarian dresses! Johannes is a camera professional and had been giving me a few tips on how to take good pics, I experimented a little up there and rather like the results!
It was one of the most tiring but fulfilling days. I had one day left and somehow the thought of going to nearby Salzburg had been growing in my mind. So off I went the next day to the home of Mozart and location of Sound of Music.
Salzburg 2011
Click here for pictures.
The first inkling of what kind of a place Salzburg was going to be was in the train. It was overflowing with tourists; backpackers, families, couples, singles, all of them! In all the places I have visited, the one thing I can always count on seeing are Chinese and Japanese traveling groups. Never have I not seen them and Germany was no different (wow, I am good at negatives, aren’t i?!) In case you didn't know, Salzburg is the hometown of Mozart and also where the Sound of Music was shot.
As promised by Eva, the first thing you notice in Salzburg is the never ending display of Mozartkugel, chocolates stamped with face of Mozart by Mirabell all over! You cant find these anywhere else (Mirabell has some sort of trademark on the name and/or shape of the chocolate). Salzburg was the picture perfect European town, the perfect tourist eye-candy. Shops, cafes, food carts, narrow cobblestone paths, street performers, river (Isar), cathedrals, people.. the works!
Salzburg is a hilly town (the hills are indeed alive!) and very reminiscent of San Francisco with homes built into the hills all the way up. You can hike for hours and visit churches etc. along the way. I was not in the mood for major physical effort and kept my hiking to a minimum. I had bought a ticket for a hop on hop off bus tour which I lost. Just as well, I decided to wander around and people watch instead. It was a pleasant surprise to run into Jaune Plensa’s face of a girl installed in the grounds of one of the churches, she is also to be found in Madison Square Park, NY this year.
For the evening I had purchased concert tickets to hear Mozart in the fort on top of a hill. That was quite an experience, the view of the entire surroundings was breathtaking, the hills, river, town, cathedral tops… I can easily recall it all into memory now! The concert itself lasted a little over 2 hours. Prosecco and Mirabell candy was available during breaks. They are quite a Prosecco loving country, I must say!
The day went by quickly and sure enough I was back in Germany, ready to say my goodbyes. The surprising thing is that although this was one of my most relaxing trip, I felt the most tired during and after my return. My conclusion is that I need some activity on my trips and good amount of ‘me’ time. As much as I love being with dear friends, no trip is complete without the right dose of solitude spent only in company of the place that I am visiting.
I bought some white sausage from the airport and after much debate with myself did not buy any more alcohol (in Salzburg I had already bought Dom Perignon for Eva and Johannes and a liquor for a friend back home)
And that was that!
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Japan begins with Tokyo
Pictures are here.
Japan was not on my list of immediate places to travel to in 2010. And yet, it so happened that I landed up there at the height of cherry blossom season with friends Eugene and Anu. Eugene and I were part of the hiking group NZ trip last year and Anu and I had talked of taking a trip couple of times but it didn’t happen until Japan.
This was the first time I spent as much time as I did planning a trip (I usually prefer to pay others to do all the planning work!). Hotels were mostly my responsibility and I had some trouble finding a place in Kyoto. We were going to arrive in Kyoto on a Sunday when everybody in Japan and the world who could afford it, would be there to see the cherry blossoms. Anyway, it all worked out. When I reached out to friends for advice on what to do and where to stay, I was surprised to see how many people have visited Japan (often for business). Either Japan is more popular than I thought or my network has grown bigger than it used to be!
Couple of must do things on my list were dress up as geisha, see kabuki (Japanese theatre) and experience a stay at the capsule and ryokan hotels, both of which are Japanese novelties. Eugene and Anu had much bigger must see lists, they were the experts on the shrines and temples we simply had to visit.
We landed on April 1 which happened to be Anu’s birthday. We had originally planned to have a big birthday dinner and all that, but we never got around to finding a place in advance. Anu is vegetarian and I was telling her of the Indian restaurants I had heard of but which we were not going to visit because we were NOT going to Japan to visit Indian restaurants. What do you know, as we walked around in Ginza neighborhood, where we were staying, trying to figure out from (all Japanese) signs if there was a place serving any veg food at all, we landed up at an Indian restaurant! They had TV screens playing hindi movie song videos from the 90s and we started educating Eugene all about Bollywood of the 90s (he was polite in displaying interest).
We were quite tired and after a fruitless conversation with the English challenged Japanese-Thai-Vietnamese-Indian mixed origin waiter to determine if we could go somewhere else to hang out for fun, we called it a night. The next morning we were to meet Minako, a friend of Eugene’s, who was going to show us around Tokyo.
We started the day early with a 6am visit to the famed Tokyo fish market, one of the largest wholesale fish markets in the world. We got off at Tsukiji metro station and walked past several shops fully open for business with tempting sushi on display. The fish market was surprisingly low on fish-smell. Wet floors, lots of little little motor trucks buzzing around and seafood of every imaginable kind (huge and tiny) all over the place. There is a giant tuna auction at 5am which is now closed to tourists because they apparently got in the way. Anu got shooed away when she almost entered the sacred precincts of a stall trying to get a shot of the guy cutting the fish with a very long knife. I picked up some ikura (small orange salmon eggs) on my way out and ate it later, it was far more dense than the one in American and less salty.
We met Minako at our hotel after breakfast and went on to Edo museum with impressive exhibitions depicting the lives of the shoguns, the daimyo (feudal lords) , samurai, the complex class system of the retainers and so on. There were row houses mimicking the real ones that the lower class folks lived in (all of 10sq m!) There was a replica of kabuki theatre with a video that showed the behind-the-scenes action. After over an hour, we moved on Ueno park to see the sakura, Ueno park has a lovely walking path lined with cherry blossom trees. A few street vendors were selling food. We went up a small shrine where a couple of guys dressed in monk like garb played a lovely flute. That was where I had my first taste of takoyaki, the most common street food I was to find in Japan. It is basically fried octopus dumplings served in a box topped with okonomiyaki sauce, mayo (no idea why it needs mayo) and fish flakes. Its cheap, easy to eat hot food on the go.
We had bought a 7 day JR pass in the US that allows unlimited train travel on the JR and Shinkansen (bullet train) anywhere in the country. We spent, what seemed like, forever in a booking office reserving seats for the various train trips we were going to take. You cant reserve seats in the US and it better to reserve seats in advance even though all trains have a couple of unreserved cars (first come first served seating). We would give our requirements to Minako and she would chat with the agent for what seemed like 5 min or so, she would turn around and translate everything that had been said in 20 seconds! I suspect most of the conversation between them was apologies and polite nothings.
When we were done, we went to the Imperial palace which was closed (check hours for all shrines, temples, museums and palaces before visiting since they all vary). We went onto Meiji shrine where we saw a Shinto wedding photo session in progress. The photographers were such perfectionists, fixing every hair and fold of clothing in its place. And then there was a little wind upsetting the bride’s veil and it started all over again. We moved on. This shrine is where I learned the Shinto form of prayer. You bow a couple of times, thrown some money in receptacle, clap twice (attract the attention of the gods?) and then bow again a couple of times. I never got the exact number of bows right, but you get the general idea.
Sometime during the late afternoon. we went to Tokyo tower, took the elevator up to (cant remember which) floor and saw the 360 view (including the Zoji temple nearby). I find myself not very impressed with tall buildings anymore and this one is definitely not all that, but nonetheless, the tower looked pretty as it was lit up after dark (we took some shots of the lit up tower serving as the backdrop to the Zoji temple). In general, the tower is worth a miss.
On the agenda was also Kabuki Theatre in Ginza district. Of all Japanese theatre that I researched (Noh, Bunraku) , this had seemed the most attractive option. We went to kabuki-za theatre which is about to close down for renovations and is the only place in town with English ear phones. The line was quite long, maybe 60-70 people deep. The show goes on all day from 11am till 9pm , but you can buy tickets for one act if you stand in line couple of hours before the act begins. We did our duty and stood in line and imagine our disappointment when they called sold out just as it was our turn!! Bummer!! Would we really not get to see kabuki on this trip?
We kept walking around Ginza, which is basically NY Times Square multiplied by 10. Glitzy stores and buildings, busy and very active. We went to a soba restaurant for dinner, our feet by now felt like lead. Minako left us in the hands of a non-English speaking wait staff after translating our orders. We were the last ones to eat there at around 9pm and the waitress told us as apologetically in Japanese (that Eugene somehow figured out) that they were now taking last orders.
The next day took would take us to Mt Fuji/Hakone, we left Tokyo feeling like we were not quite done with it. Something to think about in the coming days.
Japan was not on my list of immediate places to travel to in 2010. And yet, it so happened that I landed up there at the height of cherry blossom season with friends Eugene and Anu. Eugene and I were part of the hiking group NZ trip last year and Anu and I had talked of taking a trip couple of times but it didn’t happen until Japan.
This was the first time I spent as much time as I did planning a trip (I usually prefer to pay others to do all the planning work!). Hotels were mostly my responsibility and I had some trouble finding a place in Kyoto. We were going to arrive in Kyoto on a Sunday when everybody in Japan and the world who could afford it, would be there to see the cherry blossoms. Anyway, it all worked out. When I reached out to friends for advice on what to do and where to stay, I was surprised to see how many people have visited Japan (often for business). Either Japan is more popular than I thought or my network has grown bigger than it used to be!
Couple of must do things on my list were dress up as geisha, see kabuki (Japanese theatre) and experience a stay at the capsule and ryokan hotels, both of which are Japanese novelties. Eugene and Anu had much bigger must see lists, they were the experts on the shrines and temples we simply had to visit.
We landed on April 1 which happened to be Anu’s birthday. We had originally planned to have a big birthday dinner and all that, but we never got around to finding a place in advance. Anu is vegetarian and I was telling her of the Indian restaurants I had heard of but which we were not going to visit because we were NOT going to Japan to visit Indian restaurants. What do you know, as we walked around in Ginza neighborhood, where we were staying, trying to figure out from (all Japanese) signs if there was a place serving any veg food at all, we landed up at an Indian restaurant! They had TV screens playing hindi movie song videos from the 90s and we started educating Eugene all about Bollywood of the 90s (he was polite in displaying interest).
We were quite tired and after a fruitless conversation with the English challenged Japanese-Thai-Vietnamese-Indian mixed origin waiter to determine if we could go somewhere else to hang out for fun, we called it a night. The next morning we were to meet Minako, a friend of Eugene’s, who was going to show us around Tokyo.
We started the day early with a 6am visit to the famed Tokyo fish market, one of the largest wholesale fish markets in the world. We got off at Tsukiji metro station and walked past several shops fully open for business with tempting sushi on display. The fish market was surprisingly low on fish-smell. Wet floors, lots of little little motor trucks buzzing around and seafood of every imaginable kind (huge and tiny) all over the place. There is a giant tuna auction at 5am which is now closed to tourists because they apparently got in the way. Anu got shooed away when she almost entered the sacred precincts of a stall trying to get a shot of the guy cutting the fish with a very long knife. I picked up some ikura (small orange salmon eggs) on my way out and ate it later, it was far more dense than the one in American and less salty.
We met Minako at our hotel after breakfast and went on to Edo museum with impressive exhibitions depicting the lives of the shoguns, the daimyo (feudal lords) , samurai, the complex class system of the retainers and so on. There were row houses mimicking the real ones that the lower class folks lived in (all of 10sq m!) There was a replica of kabuki theatre with a video that showed the behind-the-scenes action. After over an hour, we moved on Ueno park to see the sakura, Ueno park has a lovely walking path lined with cherry blossom trees. A few street vendors were selling food. We went up a small shrine where a couple of guys dressed in monk like garb played a lovely flute. That was where I had my first taste of takoyaki, the most common street food I was to find in Japan. It is basically fried octopus dumplings served in a box topped with okonomiyaki sauce, mayo (no idea why it needs mayo) and fish flakes. Its cheap, easy to eat hot food on the go.
We had bought a 7 day JR pass in the US that allows unlimited train travel on the JR and Shinkansen (bullet train) anywhere in the country. We spent, what seemed like, forever in a booking office reserving seats for the various train trips we were going to take. You cant reserve seats in the US and it better to reserve seats in advance even though all trains have a couple of unreserved cars (first come first served seating). We would give our requirements to Minako and she would chat with the agent for what seemed like 5 min or so, she would turn around and translate everything that had been said in 20 seconds! I suspect most of the conversation between them was apologies and polite nothings.
When we were done, we went to the Imperial palace which was closed (check hours for all shrines, temples, museums and palaces before visiting since they all vary). We went onto Meiji shrine where we saw a Shinto wedding photo session in progress. The photographers were such perfectionists, fixing every hair and fold of clothing in its place. And then there was a little wind upsetting the bride’s veil and it started all over again. We moved on. This shrine is where I learned the Shinto form of prayer. You bow a couple of times, thrown some money in receptacle, clap twice (attract the attention of the gods?) and then bow again a couple of times. I never got the exact number of bows right, but you get the general idea.
Sometime during the late afternoon. we went to Tokyo tower, took the elevator up to (cant remember which) floor and saw the 360 view (including the Zoji temple nearby). I find myself not very impressed with tall buildings anymore and this one is definitely not all that, but nonetheless, the tower looked pretty as it was lit up after dark (we took some shots of the lit up tower serving as the backdrop to the Zoji temple). In general, the tower is worth a miss.
On the agenda was also Kabuki Theatre in Ginza district. Of all Japanese theatre that I researched (Noh, Bunraku) , this had seemed the most attractive option. We went to kabuki-za theatre which is about to close down for renovations and is the only place in town with English ear phones. The line was quite long, maybe 60-70 people deep. The show goes on all day from 11am till 9pm , but you can buy tickets for one act if you stand in line couple of hours before the act begins. We did our duty and stood in line and imagine our disappointment when they called sold out just as it was our turn!! Bummer!! Would we really not get to see kabuki on this trip?
We kept walking around Ginza, which is basically NY Times Square multiplied by 10. Glitzy stores and buildings, busy and very active. We went to a soba restaurant for dinner, our feet by now felt like lead. Minako left us in the hands of a non-English speaking wait staff after translating our orders. We were the last ones to eat there at around 9pm and the waitress told us as apologetically in Japanese (that Eugene somehow figured out) that they were now taking last orders.
The next day took would take us to Mt Fuji/Hakone, we left Tokyo feeling like we were not quite done with it. Something to think about in the coming days.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Mt Fuji/Hakone
Pictures are here
We took the Odakyu line from Shinjuku station. Shinjuku is a huge station in Tokyo and we thought it would take us a long time to find our platform, but we found it quickly enough and had time to spare. Eugene and Anu were not quite getting along since each had ideas on what to do and see and in what order. We ogled at food and sweet displays in windows for a bit. Our reasons for visiting Mt Fuji area were multifold. First, Mt Fuji ofcourse. Second that area is known for its onsen (hot springs bath) and it is close to Tokyo. I had booked us a traditional ryokan (Japanese guesthouse) which are known for their traditional stays, hospitality and Japanese meals for dinner and breakfast.
Though I had written in my reservation form that one of us was a vegetarian, they didn’t get the message. At check in time, Anu embarked upon a conversation with the manager about being a vegetarian. After a few minutes he got what 'vegetarian' meant (no meat, no fish, no chicken) and then he started explaining things to Anu. What it was I don’t know to this day. When Anu didn’t understand what he was saying in return, he was soon drawing things (presumably food options) on paper. I asked if it was mushroom, he said no. After several minutes of back and forth, fluent and rapid conversing (Anu in English and the guy in Japanese with neither party really understanding the other but not giving up on talking either), Anu made peace with the understanding that he was saying she can put the fish aside and give to her friends and she would get extra veg stuff. At dinner she was indeed served differently, she got crabs and clams where we got none! How do you say ‘no shellfish’ in Japanese? I think that’s when Anu started adding ‘no sea’ in her explanation of what is vegetarian. Eugene and I were not complaining, we shared the crab and clams. Anu didn’t quite sleep hungry since there were several other small dishes (including awesome tofu) that were good enough. Anyway, it was to be the single best vegetarian meal for days to come!
There was more fun to be had. Anu then asked the lady serving us for a fork. She did not understand. Hand gestures and more repeated “fork, knife” followed. She finally got it and just cracked up. She was thoroughly amused that someone would ask for a ‘foku’! When asked for foku again the next morning at breakfast, she positively lost it laughing and giggling uncontrollably. She probably told the tale for days! I must say for a chopstick-challenged, foku-using, no meat, no fish, no sea traveler, Anu was a bold one in Japan!
Before I forget, there was a cute printed welcome note on the table (repeated verbatim here) “Ms Uppal Jinny. Welcome I enjoy a hot spring and Japanese foods, and I am relaxed, and please spend it.’ Yes, me too and I will be sure to spend it! Other English signs all over were equally hilarious. We were to see may such cute and funny signs in many hotel rooms At least they try!
The rooms were small, tidy and organized with tatami mattresses to sleep on. There was green tea, flask for hot water and cups, a wrapped sweet (usually mochi), a yukata (cotton kimono) with obi (sash), individually wrapped toothbrush with the smallest brush head I have ever seen, a tiny tube of paste, precisely enough for two uses. It was the same deal in all hotels we stayed at. All rooms in all hotels were small, even the trash cans were tiny, but somehow everything was efficient and in its place. The lady who served us dinner also taught Anu and I how to wear our yukata and made a small butterfly shaped knot at the back made our sash.
The onsen in this ryokan was divine, it was outdoors in a small alcove protected by trees and a high wall for privacy. There was a smell of sulphur and it was very sedating (the smell notwithstanding) and I meditated in it for a while.
Earlier that day we had taken a train and then a gondola up the mountain and stopped off at Owakudani with open hot springs. We took a short hike up to where the springs were and had black eggs, eggs boiled in the springs. We also had a black colored bread with some meat filling in it. That was followed by wasabi ice cream (it grows on you and does have a kick in the aftertaste). Unfortunately in all this, Mt Fuji was cloaked in the clouds and we never got a good enough view to take a picture of. Hakone was surprisingly dead for such a popular tourist town, not that we were complaining. Back in town, Hakone had a sweets festival going on and we went to a bakery where they were serving one of the featured sweets from the festival (participating bakery/hotels serve one featured desert along with tea). In general I was beginning to be impressed with the displays of food and deserts whether the fake food in windows or what is served in your plate. Apparently fake food is a huge industry in Japan with restaurants spending as much as million yen in fake plastic food customized for their menus.
We took the Odakyu line from Shinjuku station. Shinjuku is a huge station in Tokyo and we thought it would take us a long time to find our platform, but we found it quickly enough and had time to spare. Eugene and Anu were not quite getting along since each had ideas on what to do and see and in what order. We ogled at food and sweet displays in windows for a bit. Our reasons for visiting Mt Fuji area were multifold. First, Mt Fuji ofcourse. Second that area is known for its onsen (hot springs bath) and it is close to Tokyo. I had booked us a traditional ryokan (Japanese guesthouse) which are known for their traditional stays, hospitality and Japanese meals for dinner and breakfast.
Though I had written in my reservation form that one of us was a vegetarian, they didn’t get the message. At check in time, Anu embarked upon a conversation with the manager about being a vegetarian. After a few minutes he got what 'vegetarian' meant (no meat, no fish, no chicken) and then he started explaining things to Anu. What it was I don’t know to this day. When Anu didn’t understand what he was saying in return, he was soon drawing things (presumably food options) on paper. I asked if it was mushroom, he said no. After several minutes of back and forth, fluent and rapid conversing (Anu in English and the guy in Japanese with neither party really understanding the other but not giving up on talking either), Anu made peace with the understanding that he was saying she can put the fish aside and give to her friends and she would get extra veg stuff. At dinner she was indeed served differently, she got crabs and clams where we got none! How do you say ‘no shellfish’ in Japanese? I think that’s when Anu started adding ‘no sea’ in her explanation of what is vegetarian. Eugene and I were not complaining, we shared the crab and clams. Anu didn’t quite sleep hungry since there were several other small dishes (including awesome tofu) that were good enough. Anyway, it was to be the single best vegetarian meal for days to come!
There was more fun to be had. Anu then asked the lady serving us for a fork. She did not understand. Hand gestures and more repeated “fork, knife” followed. She finally got it and just cracked up. She was thoroughly amused that someone would ask for a ‘foku’! When asked for foku again the next morning at breakfast, she positively lost it laughing and giggling uncontrollably. She probably told the tale for days! I must say for a chopstick-challenged, foku-using, no meat, no fish, no sea traveler, Anu was a bold one in Japan!
Before I forget, there was a cute printed welcome note on the table (repeated verbatim here) “Ms Uppal Jinny. Welcome I enjoy a hot spring and Japanese foods, and I am relaxed, and please spend it.’ Yes, me too and I will be sure to spend it! Other English signs all over were equally hilarious. We were to see may such cute and funny signs in many hotel rooms At least they try!
The rooms were small, tidy and organized with tatami mattresses to sleep on. There was green tea, flask for hot water and cups, a wrapped sweet (usually mochi), a yukata (cotton kimono) with obi (sash), individually wrapped toothbrush with the smallest brush head I have ever seen, a tiny tube of paste, precisely enough for two uses. It was the same deal in all hotels we stayed at. All rooms in all hotels were small, even the trash cans were tiny, but somehow everything was efficient and in its place. The lady who served us dinner also taught Anu and I how to wear our yukata and made a small butterfly shaped knot at the back made our sash.
The onsen in this ryokan was divine, it was outdoors in a small alcove protected by trees and a high wall for privacy. There was a smell of sulphur and it was very sedating (the smell notwithstanding) and I meditated in it for a while.
Earlier that day we had taken a train and then a gondola up the mountain and stopped off at Owakudani with open hot springs. We took a short hike up to where the springs were and had black eggs, eggs boiled in the springs. We also had a black colored bread with some meat filling in it. That was followed by wasabi ice cream (it grows on you and does have a kick in the aftertaste). Unfortunately in all this, Mt Fuji was cloaked in the clouds and we never got a good enough view to take a picture of. Hakone was surprisingly dead for such a popular tourist town, not that we were complaining. Back in town, Hakone had a sweets festival going on and we went to a bakery where they were serving one of the featured sweets from the festival (participating bakery/hotels serve one featured desert along with tea). In general I was beginning to be impressed with the displays of food and deserts whether the fake food in windows or what is served in your plate. Apparently fake food is a huge industry in Japan with restaurants spending as much as million yen in fake plastic food customized for their menus.
Kyoto
Pictures are here.
A shinkansen ride later, we were in Kyoto. Immediately we noticed a ton of Kimono clad women. After check in, the famed Philosopher’s walk was a few minutes away by walk and the whole town seemed to be out and about enjoying the lovely sunny day and entire streets lined with cherry blossom trees. Philosopher’s walk is a couple of miles long with shrines practically every couple of blocks. We stopped in at Nanzenji temple but not for long. There were several others we wanted to see so we ambled along. We did spend some time at the Eikando Zenrin-Ji temple with the backward looking Buddha (there is a whole story about why he is looking back, google it). We went up the pagoda and took pictures of the view of Kyoto all around. We definitely wanted to goto Ginkakuji (silver pavilion which was at the other end of the walk) before it closed at 5ish, so we walked as fast as we could amongst the sea of people and made it just in time. Kyoto, in general was one of the few places as crowded as it was and Ginkakuji had long lines of people streaming along the single path around the gardens. There was a beautiful zen sand garden. The idea behind a sand garden is that it resembles life, always changing and shifting. How typically Zen! After Ginkakuji we simply needed a break and we sat down to tea and also tried amazake, a fermented rice drink with pieces of rice swimming in it.
We then went to Gion geisha quarters, to see the Geisha and Miyako Odori, the traditional spring dance by the geishas (Anu had researched this beforehand and said it was a must see). The geiko (geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) of the Gion district, which is the most famous thanks to Memoirs of Geisha, perform in this show. We didn’t get tickets right away but got the timings of the shows and when the box office opened so we could come back the next day. We then walked up and down the Geisha quarters hoping to spot a geisha and generally looking up menus of restaurants lining the street (all rather pricey). We stopped at a place and had some meat on skewers with beer. As I stepped out of the restaurant, I saw a Geisha step out of a taxi and dart quickly into a house. It all happened very quickly and I didn’t have time to fish my camera out. Given the shape of their kimonos they cant take very long steps, but they sure can walk quickly if they want to! Anu was disappointed she missed the sighting, though we were to be rewarded the next day.
The next day brought breakfast at the hotel with the first good cup of coffee I had had in Japan (I think it’s their half-half that tastes weird and ruins the coffee). We started at Heian Shrine which was a stone’s throw away. We went on to Imperial palace which was sold out for several days! We were just not destined to see any palaces, were we? We visited Kinkakuji (golden pavilion) which was a marvelous gold painted shrine in the middle of the pond, (there is no access to get inside), the gardens around it were lovely. Its hard to describe the beauty of Japanese gardens, they are just sooo… perfectly manicured, everything is either deliberately arranged in perfection or accidentally falls perfectly in place to create an effect so that what beholds your eyes could not possible be prettier. We had tea ceremony here and afterwards stopped by a million stalls selling daifuku (mochi) with every possible filling (chocolate, white sesame, gold sesame, sweet bean, brown sugar, cinnamon etc. etc) We also visited Fushimi-Nari shrine that has over 10,000 tori gates of varying sizes. There is walk that lets you walk through all of them, couple of kilometers long. They are bright orange and walking under them is an amazing experience.
We had earlier gone back to the Gion theatre for the Miyako Odori show and after some English-Japanese language confusion at the ticket counter, got excellent orchestra seats close to stage for the show. We also paid for a tea ceremony which was a rather touristy experience I must say. There was one pretty geisha stirring tea with an expressionless face and another (with an equally expressionless and pretty face) who came over to the audience serve tea to a handful of (I assume special) guests. Anu and I clamored to take pictures as the geisha (actually I think she was maiko) walked back and forth from her seat like automaton. The show itself was spectacular, I was struck by the explicit lack of emotion on their faces and yet if you pay attention you can probably tell what feeling they are communicating. That lift of the brow or something changing in the eyes, so subtle you might miss it if you were not 100% in the moment. There were 8 scenes, with a different cast in each and at the end all 60 performers came on stage for a grand finale. Being close to the stage made all the difference! We happened to be sitting next to a Geisha accompanying an older man and ofcourse we simply had to request her to take pictures with us.
Anu and I we ended the day back in Gion looking for a place to dress up as geishas but got there after studios had closed, which was a bummer! We found solace in a yummy green tea parfait and called it a night. It had been quite a day! Eugene had skipped Gion in the evening and had gone to check out Noji shrine after dark.
Food pattern and experience:
Our eating pattern had basically become this: grab boxes of food and drinks from grocery stores and eat in the train to somewhere in the mornings (except when breakfast was covered by hotel/ryokan). Breakfast in Japan is essentially the same as lunch or dinner, rice, meat/fish, pickled something etc.. Lunch would be on the go or also on the train. Once in a while we would buy something from the train purser who would come by with their food cart. The store food in Japan is quite fresh (even sushi) and the packaging is very attractive. Their vending machines have mostly cold drinks of a gazillion kinds though they also serve (luke)warm coffee and tea in thick plastic bottles that can stay at the same temperature as you buy them for hours. I didn’t like the luke warm state, let my drink either be steaming hot or cold, anything in between confuses me.
Several train stations also have soba stands where you buy your meal in a machine outside the stand, go in with the ticket, hand over to the cook and he serves you piping hot soba or udon that you can have sitting on a bar stool or standing up. Very efficient, no mess no fuss method. As the mornings were cool to cold, the hot interiors of the soba stand were very welcoming. Dinners were either in the ryokan, a restaurant or street food on the go (once dinner was the Green tea parfait desert in Gion). Food (everything in fact) is rather expensive, even a grocery store purchase would come to about 1000yen (over $10 at 90 yen per dollar). Ordering in restaurants was simple enough, just point at pictures, everything was written in Japanese anyway and the few pictures they showed were good enough.
The morning to Osaka, I had noticed a small 8 oz sake bottle (for 100yen) in one of the stores and was curious, I bought it just for the hec of it. Later in the train to Osaka, Anu and I started the Indian song game of Antakshari, we had the sake with jalapeno almonds and had the time of our lives. Eugene was sitting a couple of rows away and a good thing that, he would have been too embarrassed sitting with us (as he perhaps was later, we restarted the game in most train/bus rides, we continued for several days till the end of the trip. Its now Anu’s turn to sing with ‘aa’)
My wow moments with food came with the tofu of various kinds and Hida beef in Takayama (more on both later). While the sushi and sake were great, I did not think they are earth shattering. I think you get pretty fresh sushi and good sake in the north east. I was rather bored of the Takoyaki by end of trip, but no so much of the mochi.
A shinkansen ride later, we were in Kyoto. Immediately we noticed a ton of Kimono clad women. After check in, the famed Philosopher’s walk was a few minutes away by walk and the whole town seemed to be out and about enjoying the lovely sunny day and entire streets lined with cherry blossom trees. Philosopher’s walk is a couple of miles long with shrines practically every couple of blocks. We stopped in at Nanzenji temple but not for long. There were several others we wanted to see so we ambled along. We did spend some time at the Eikando Zenrin-Ji temple with the backward looking Buddha (there is a whole story about why he is looking back, google it). We went up the pagoda and took pictures of the view of Kyoto all around. We definitely wanted to goto Ginkakuji (silver pavilion which was at the other end of the walk) before it closed at 5ish, so we walked as fast as we could amongst the sea of people and made it just in time. Kyoto, in general was one of the few places as crowded as it was and Ginkakuji had long lines of people streaming along the single path around the gardens. There was a beautiful zen sand garden. The idea behind a sand garden is that it resembles life, always changing and shifting. How typically Zen! After Ginkakuji we simply needed a break and we sat down to tea and also tried amazake, a fermented rice drink with pieces of rice swimming in it.
We then went to Gion geisha quarters, to see the Geisha and Miyako Odori, the traditional spring dance by the geishas (Anu had researched this beforehand and said it was a must see). The geiko (geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) of the Gion district, which is the most famous thanks to Memoirs of Geisha, perform in this show. We didn’t get tickets right away but got the timings of the shows and when the box office opened so we could come back the next day. We then walked up and down the Geisha quarters hoping to spot a geisha and generally looking up menus of restaurants lining the street (all rather pricey). We stopped at a place and had some meat on skewers with beer. As I stepped out of the restaurant, I saw a Geisha step out of a taxi and dart quickly into a house. It all happened very quickly and I didn’t have time to fish my camera out. Given the shape of their kimonos they cant take very long steps, but they sure can walk quickly if they want to! Anu was disappointed she missed the sighting, though we were to be rewarded the next day.
The next day brought breakfast at the hotel with the first good cup of coffee I had had in Japan (I think it’s their half-half that tastes weird and ruins the coffee). We started at Heian Shrine which was a stone’s throw away. We went on to Imperial palace which was sold out for several days! We were just not destined to see any palaces, were we? We visited Kinkakuji (golden pavilion) which was a marvelous gold painted shrine in the middle of the pond, (there is no access to get inside), the gardens around it were lovely. Its hard to describe the beauty of Japanese gardens, they are just sooo… perfectly manicured, everything is either deliberately arranged in perfection or accidentally falls perfectly in place to create an effect so that what beholds your eyes could not possible be prettier. We had tea ceremony here and afterwards stopped by a million stalls selling daifuku (mochi) with every possible filling (chocolate, white sesame, gold sesame, sweet bean, brown sugar, cinnamon etc. etc) We also visited Fushimi-Nari shrine that has over 10,000 tori gates of varying sizes. There is walk that lets you walk through all of them, couple of kilometers long. They are bright orange and walking under them is an amazing experience.
We had earlier gone back to the Gion theatre for the Miyako Odori show and after some English-Japanese language confusion at the ticket counter, got excellent orchestra seats close to stage for the show. We also paid for a tea ceremony which was a rather touristy experience I must say. There was one pretty geisha stirring tea with an expressionless face and another (with an equally expressionless and pretty face) who came over to the audience serve tea to a handful of (I assume special) guests. Anu and I clamored to take pictures as the geisha (actually I think she was maiko) walked back and forth from her seat like automaton. The show itself was spectacular, I was struck by the explicit lack of emotion on their faces and yet if you pay attention you can probably tell what feeling they are communicating. That lift of the brow or something changing in the eyes, so subtle you might miss it if you were not 100% in the moment. There were 8 scenes, with a different cast in each and at the end all 60 performers came on stage for a grand finale. Being close to the stage made all the difference! We happened to be sitting next to a Geisha accompanying an older man and ofcourse we simply had to request her to take pictures with us.
Anu and I we ended the day back in Gion looking for a place to dress up as geishas but got there after studios had closed, which was a bummer! We found solace in a yummy green tea parfait and called it a night. It had been quite a day! Eugene had skipped Gion in the evening and had gone to check out Noji shrine after dark.
Food pattern and experience:
Our eating pattern had basically become this: grab boxes of food and drinks from grocery stores and eat in the train to somewhere in the mornings (except when breakfast was covered by hotel/ryokan). Breakfast in Japan is essentially the same as lunch or dinner, rice, meat/fish, pickled something etc.. Lunch would be on the go or also on the train. Once in a while we would buy something from the train purser who would come by with their food cart. The store food in Japan is quite fresh (even sushi) and the packaging is very attractive. Their vending machines have mostly cold drinks of a gazillion kinds though they also serve (luke)warm coffee and tea in thick plastic bottles that can stay at the same temperature as you buy them for hours. I didn’t like the luke warm state, let my drink either be steaming hot or cold, anything in between confuses me.
Several train stations also have soba stands where you buy your meal in a machine outside the stand, go in with the ticket, hand over to the cook and he serves you piping hot soba or udon that you can have sitting on a bar stool or standing up. Very efficient, no mess no fuss method. As the mornings were cool to cold, the hot interiors of the soba stand were very welcoming. Dinners were either in the ryokan, a restaurant or street food on the go (once dinner was the Green tea parfait desert in Gion). Food (everything in fact) is rather expensive, even a grocery store purchase would come to about 1000yen (over $10 at 90 yen per dollar). Ordering in restaurants was simple enough, just point at pictures, everything was written in Japanese anyway and the few pictures they showed were good enough.
The morning to Osaka, I had noticed a small 8 oz sake bottle (for 100yen) in one of the stores and was curious, I bought it just for the hec of it. Later in the train to Osaka, Anu and I started the Indian song game of Antakshari, we had the sake with jalapeno almonds and had the time of our lives. Eugene was sitting a couple of rows away and a good thing that, he would have been too embarrassed sitting with us (as he perhaps was later, we restarted the game in most train/bus rides, we continued for several days till the end of the trip. Its now Anu’s turn to sing with ‘aa’)
My wow moments with food came with the tofu of various kinds and Hida beef in Takayama (more on both later). While the sushi and sake were great, I did not think they are earth shattering. I think you get pretty fresh sushi and good sake in the north east. I was rather bored of the Takoyaki by end of trip, but no so much of the mochi.
Nara and Mt Koya
Pictures are here.
The next day we took the train to Osaka, left our luggage at the hotel we were going to stay at the next day and took a train to Nara with a day’s change of clothes since we were going to Mt Koya that night.
We didn’t have much time for Nara so we picked the prime attraction, the Todaiji temple with its Budhha , the largest bronze Buddha in the world. There are tame deer all over Nara, though some were quite aggressive and I saw one snatch food away from a tourist outside Todaiji, The vendor who had just sold the man his stuff, wrestled it out of the mouth of the deer and gave the deer a smack on the head. The deer appeared to have tufts of hair removed from their bodies giving them a shabby appearance. The deer in Miyajima were far more good looking. We stopped by Kofukuji and saw the 5-storey pagoda (second tallest in Japan). We didn’t bother to go inside, we felt we were done with Nara. We then embarked upon a 2 hour long ride, it was made up of a 1 and half hour Nankai rail line train ride from Osaka’s Namba station, followed by 5 minute cable car and then a 20 min bus ride to our Buddhist temple (Shojoshin-in) stay in Mt Koya.
The cable car was interesting, it was so steep that it had steps inside. It climbed 857meters in 5 minutes! It got quite cold as we ascended. A short bus ride on curving roads brought us to the utterly charming town of Mt Koya. It has 115 Shingon temples several of which allow visitors to stay. Something amazing happened to us when we got there. We just automatically slowed down. Nothing was said to us, there were no signs to do so, but there was a physical impact of the place that caused us to just talk slowly, eat slowly, even walk slowly! For the first time I heard Anu and Eugene talk about leaving later and not earlier (we had followed a strict regimen of waking at 6am and out the door by 7ish until then). We were now talking of taking the 11:50pm out of Koya. Dinner (shojin ryori cuisine) was a pure vegetarian affair and simply delicious. The silky tofu was unbelievable, couldn’t lift it with chopsticks, I had to scoop it from bowl to mouth. They had another spongy kind with a ton of water content. Grape tomatoes that were amazingly sweet. In fact every single thing in the various small plates was beautiful on the palate (or perhaps our senses were heightened to the point everything was beautiful, not sure which was the case!). I was to buy some grape tomatoes from a grocery store the next morning and was once again in bliss on the train! The various plates that every thing was served in did not match in color and pattern, but they all looked pretty and petite.
After dinner, I suggested we all go into silence till breakfast and simply take in the place with all our senses. I walked around in the temple, it was too cold to walk outside. The temple was beautiful, the gardens were beautiful. I have no words, it was to be the most peaceful and beautiful part of the whole trip. We woke up for the 6am prayers and it was an hour of listening to the chanting of 3 monks who were also part of the admin staff (one of them had checked us in). We then walked around in the lightly sprinkling mist laden morning with the most perfectly managed Japanese gardens I ever saw. I felt like I was walking in a 4d painting, all this couldn’t possibly be for real! We stopped by several temples, took pictures and all mochi
The next day we took the train to Osaka, left our luggage at the hotel we were going to stay at the next day and took a train to Nara with a day’s change of clothes since we were going to Mt Koya that night.
We didn’t have much time for Nara so we picked the prime attraction, the Todaiji temple with its Budhha , the largest bronze Buddha in the world. There are tame deer all over Nara, though some were quite aggressive and I saw one snatch food away from a tourist outside Todaiji, The vendor who had just sold the man his stuff, wrestled it out of the mouth of the deer and gave the deer a smack on the head. The deer appeared to have tufts of hair removed from their bodies giving them a shabby appearance. The deer in Miyajima were far more good looking. We stopped by Kofukuji and saw the 5-storey pagoda (second tallest in Japan). We didn’t bother to go inside, we felt we were done with Nara. We then embarked upon a 2 hour long ride, it was made up of a 1 and half hour Nankai rail line train ride from Osaka’s Namba station, followed by 5 minute cable car and then a 20 min bus ride to our Buddhist temple (Shojoshin-in) stay in Mt Koya.
The cable car was interesting, it was so steep that it had steps inside. It climbed 857meters in 5 minutes! It got quite cold as we ascended. A short bus ride on curving roads brought us to the utterly charming town of Mt Koya. It has 115 Shingon temples several of which allow visitors to stay. Something amazing happened to us when we got there. We just automatically slowed down. Nothing was said to us, there were no signs to do so, but there was a physical impact of the place that caused us to just talk slowly, eat slowly, even walk slowly! For the first time I heard Anu and Eugene talk about leaving later and not earlier (we had followed a strict regimen of waking at 6am and out the door by 7ish until then). We were now talking of taking the 11:50pm out of Koya. Dinner (shojin ryori cuisine) was a pure vegetarian affair and simply delicious. The silky tofu was unbelievable, couldn’t lift it with chopsticks, I had to scoop it from bowl to mouth. They had another spongy kind with a ton of water content. Grape tomatoes that were amazingly sweet. In fact every single thing in the various small plates was beautiful on the palate (or perhaps our senses were heightened to the point everything was beautiful, not sure which was the case!). I was to buy some grape tomatoes from a grocery store the next morning and was once again in bliss on the train! The various plates that every thing was served in did not match in color and pattern, but they all looked pretty and petite.
After dinner, I suggested we all go into silence till breakfast and simply take in the place with all our senses. I walked around in the temple, it was too cold to walk outside. The temple was beautiful, the gardens were beautiful. I have no words, it was to be the most peaceful and beautiful part of the whole trip. We woke up for the 6am prayers and it was an hour of listening to the chanting of 3 monks who were also part of the admin staff (one of them had checked us in). We then walked around in the lightly sprinkling mist laden morning with the most perfectly managed Japanese gardens I ever saw. I felt like I was walking in a 4d painting, all this couldn’t possibly be for real! We stopped by several temples, took pictures and all mochi
Osaka
Pictures are here.
On the train ride back to Osaka, we met Alma, a girl from California who was traveling the world for about 8 mths. She asked if she could hang out with us for the day, we were all going to Himeji Castle in Osaka. I had been told Himeji Castle was an absolute must-see and while it was grand with lovely sakura all around it, I didn’t have a wow moment like I did with Kyoto shrines and Koya temples. Long lines and soon we were walking around inside the castle (Anu and I continued our antakshari when the line wasn’t moving). Here I learned of how many uses for rice the Japanese have found, rice water had been used in the castle walls!! Is there anything on earth that rice has not been used for ? (its also used in the white geisha makeup)
On our way back, Alma told us of a street for awesome food and sights called Dotonbori in Osaka. Turned out it was 10 minutes away from where we were staying. She also introduced us to Curry Pan, a curry stuffed bun. She assured Anu there was no meat which was music to Anu’s ears as she helped herself to some of it. Anu later found out it did have some meat in it, oh well! I liked it, it was quite tasty and had a strong curry flavor.
Dotonbori, it was then. Glitzy, shiny, lots of lights, tons of eateries. We took pictures with the famous clown, mechanized giant crab etc. We got some Osaka style Okonomiyako (pancakes with a ton of shredded cabbage ) for Anu and the rest of us went to a sushi restaurant with sushi on boats streaming on a tiny canal around an island where the chefs made the sushi. I cant remember all that I ate, Alma, Eugene and I we picked up a few things to experiment and shared some plates. The squid with very many legs was not a good idea. There was powdered green tea that you mix with hot water out of faucets sticking out of the table. Its one long bar and you sit on barstools facing the sushi boats. We ended the night with desert in a cool café like place with a ton of black graffiti on white walls. The pictures look nice! It was quite cold, almost as cold as Koya.
That was it for the day, the next day was Miyajima and Hiroshima. Alma also planned to visit those two places, but wasn’t going to start early like us. We said good byes hoping we would run into each other (we never did).
A little about trains now…
There are LOTs of rail companies in Japan. With JR pass, we could travel on Kodama, Rail Star and couple of other lines. Tokyo itself has several metro companies, though Tokyo metro alone goes to lots of places. We had to know which train we could or could not take for free with the JR Pass. Fortunately Eugene had done a lot of research on this so we were quite fine. There are limited trains, express trains, super express, normal trains and I cant remember how many others. The difference is in the speed and number of stops it makes. The one thing that the JR pass didn’t allow us was a ride on the Nozomi, the fastest train at 300kmph. Hikari Railpass super express was perhaps the fastest train we took (Osaka to Kyoto, 42 km in 15 min). Trains of different speeds share platforms, so you have to know which exact train you are traveling to know when it will arrive and where your car is going to stop. The platforms have car numbers painted on for each train type, each rail line is color coded. The electronic signs in the train stations alternated between Kanji and English. The signs posted on stations and platforms were also written in 2 or 3 Japanese characters and English. Getting around wasn’t as bad as I thought. The language problem comes in when you speak to people, not once you get the hang of reading signs.
On the train ride back to Osaka, we met Alma, a girl from California who was traveling the world for about 8 mths. She asked if she could hang out with us for the day, we were all going to Himeji Castle in Osaka. I had been told Himeji Castle was an absolute must-see and while it was grand with lovely sakura all around it, I didn’t have a wow moment like I did with Kyoto shrines and Koya temples. Long lines and soon we were walking around inside the castle (Anu and I continued our antakshari when the line wasn’t moving). Here I learned of how many uses for rice the Japanese have found, rice water had been used in the castle walls!! Is there anything on earth that rice has not been used for ? (its also used in the white geisha makeup)
On our way back, Alma told us of a street for awesome food and sights called Dotonbori in Osaka. Turned out it was 10 minutes away from where we were staying. She also introduced us to Curry Pan, a curry stuffed bun. She assured Anu there was no meat which was music to Anu’s ears as she helped herself to some of it. Anu later found out it did have some meat in it, oh well! I liked it, it was quite tasty and had a strong curry flavor.
Dotonbori, it was then. Glitzy, shiny, lots of lights, tons of eateries. We took pictures with the famous clown, mechanized giant crab etc. We got some Osaka style Okonomiyako (pancakes with a ton of shredded cabbage ) for Anu and the rest of us went to a sushi restaurant with sushi on boats streaming on a tiny canal around an island where the chefs made the sushi. I cant remember all that I ate, Alma, Eugene and I we picked up a few things to experiment and shared some plates. The squid with very many legs was not a good idea. There was powdered green tea that you mix with hot water out of faucets sticking out of the table. Its one long bar and you sit on barstools facing the sushi boats. We ended the night with desert in a cool café like place with a ton of black graffiti on white walls. The pictures look nice! It was quite cold, almost as cold as Koya.
That was it for the day, the next day was Miyajima and Hiroshima. Alma also planned to visit those two places, but wasn’t going to start early like us. We said good byes hoping we would run into each other (we never did).
A little about trains now…
There are LOTs of rail companies in Japan. With JR pass, we could travel on Kodama, Rail Star and couple of other lines. Tokyo itself has several metro companies, though Tokyo metro alone goes to lots of places. We had to know which train we could or could not take for free with the JR Pass. Fortunately Eugene had done a lot of research on this so we were quite fine. There are limited trains, express trains, super express, normal trains and I cant remember how many others. The difference is in the speed and number of stops it makes. The one thing that the JR pass didn’t allow us was a ride on the Nozomi, the fastest train at 300kmph. Hikari Railpass super express was perhaps the fastest train we took (Osaka to Kyoto, 42 km in 15 min). Trains of different speeds share platforms, so you have to know which exact train you are traveling to know when it will arrive and where your car is going to stop. The platforms have car numbers painted on for each train type, each rail line is color coded. The electronic signs in the train stations alternated between Kanji and English. The signs posted on stations and platforms were also written in 2 or 3 Japanese characters and English. Getting around wasn’t as bad as I thought. The language problem comes in when you speak to people, not once you get the hang of reading signs.
Miyajima, Hiroshima and Oakayama
Pictures are here and here.
The subway underground crossings in Miyajama had some amazing bright colored painted art on the walls, it was worth strolling slowly just to admire it A short ferry ride from Miyajima train station took us to this island and we headed straight for the Itsukushima Shrine with the famous water submerged Tori gate close to it. There was another wedding here with the couple walking around the shrine, taking in the sights and stopping every now and then to take pictures. Eugene and I wanted to take the hiking trail around the shrine and Anu did not. So we parted ways for a bit while Eugene and I went to find the trail. We eventually did, but could not finish the 2-3km hike since we had agreed to meet Anu back at the pier at 12:30pm. That was a shame because the trail looked very promising. Anyway, we hiked a good 45 minutes or so before we headed back, picked up some fried oysters on the way and more rice cake with oysters closer to the pier. There were more tame deer here and far healthier looking than in Nara.
On to Hiroshima (or rather back to Hiroshima, since it was between Osaka and Miyajima). Hiroshima made me sad, I didn’t enjoy the stay, all the writings just reminds you of how careless humans are with other human lives. Anyway, we walked around the memorial park and saw some sights. Sakura everywhere. I sat in a café and had a looong cup of coffee while Anu and Eugene checked the museum with videos of the war and bombing, none of which I wanted to see.
Because we didn’t spend a lot of time in Horoshima, we had extra time to stop by at Okayama and visit the Korakuen Gardens. This was the only garden site we visited (though the temples all had lovely gardens). Very picturesque. There was a small square where the sakura had begun to fall on ground. I just lay down and admired the sakura covering the blue sky above me. It was an amazing sight to see the sun starting to go down behind one of the trees in front of me. You can see Okayama’s black castle as backdrop, it looks teasingly close by but I am sure its not. Smalls canals and ponds, an enclosure of cranes, it was all worth making the stop there. We were chased out by the caretakers when it was closing time. Good thing too because it was almost as if sharp @6pm the flies woke up and started circling us.
That evening we took a train to Nagoya where we were going to spend 2 nights. The primary purpose of Nagoya was to be the middle ground between Tokyo and Takayama/Shirakawa, so we would save some train time on the day we were to head back to Tokyo. Staying in Nagoya was also cheaper than in Tokyo. The Nagoya Kyoya ryokan turned out to be a pleasant surprise, it was pretty with a charming garden near the baths.
The subway underground crossings in Miyajama had some amazing bright colored painted art on the walls, it was worth strolling slowly just to admire it A short ferry ride from Miyajima train station took us to this island and we headed straight for the Itsukushima Shrine with the famous water submerged Tori gate close to it. There was another wedding here with the couple walking around the shrine, taking in the sights and stopping every now and then to take pictures. Eugene and I wanted to take the hiking trail around the shrine and Anu did not. So we parted ways for a bit while Eugene and I went to find the trail. We eventually did, but could not finish the 2-3km hike since we had agreed to meet Anu back at the pier at 12:30pm. That was a shame because the trail looked very promising. Anyway, we hiked a good 45 minutes or so before we headed back, picked up some fried oysters on the way and more rice cake with oysters closer to the pier. There were more tame deer here and far healthier looking than in Nara.
On to Hiroshima (or rather back to Hiroshima, since it was between Osaka and Miyajima). Hiroshima made me sad, I didn’t enjoy the stay, all the writings just reminds you of how careless humans are with other human lives. Anyway, we walked around the memorial park and saw some sights. Sakura everywhere. I sat in a café and had a looong cup of coffee while Anu and Eugene checked the museum with videos of the war and bombing, none of which I wanted to see.
Because we didn’t spend a lot of time in Horoshima, we had extra time to stop by at Okayama and visit the Korakuen Gardens. This was the only garden site we visited (though the temples all had lovely gardens). Very picturesque. There was a small square where the sakura had begun to fall on ground. I just lay down and admired the sakura covering the blue sky above me. It was an amazing sight to see the sun starting to go down behind one of the trees in front of me. You can see Okayama’s black castle as backdrop, it looks teasingly close by but I am sure its not. Smalls canals and ponds, an enclosure of cranes, it was all worth making the stop there. We were chased out by the caretakers when it was closing time. Good thing too because it was almost as if sharp @6pm the flies woke up and started circling us.
That evening we took a train to Nagoya where we were going to spend 2 nights. The primary purpose of Nagoya was to be the middle ground between Tokyo and Takayama/Shirakawa, so we would save some train time on the day we were to head back to Tokyo. Staying in Nagoya was also cheaper than in Tokyo. The Nagoya Kyoya ryokan turned out to be a pleasant surprise, it was pretty with a charming garden near the baths.
Takayama Shirakawa-Go
Pictures are here
The plan was to spend some time in Takayama and then take the 60 min bus ride to Shirakawa-go before taking the last train at 6:45pm from Takayama back to Nagoya. One look at the bustling markets of Takayama convinced us we needed much more time in Takayama. We visited the Miyagawa morning market and I bought some hot red peppers (which I later discovered to be seriously hot, who would have thunk the Japanese would dabble with such hot stuff!). We all also bought an apple each, the samples we tasted were very sweet. The major shopping and eating market is spread across 3 or so blocks. Tons of shops, Takayama is known for its sake breweries and Hida beef. I did know about either until I got there. The hida beef displays in the restaurants were teasing, beautifully marbled beef, I wondered why I hadnt heard of this beef before? I think because all advertising is reserved for neighboring Kobe beef. They don’t make enough Hida to export. We stopped by a store that had sake tasting. I promised I would come back later to buy some, didn’t want to lug sake all the way to Shirakawa-go.
We then took the bus to Shirakawa-go and had lovely views of the snow capped Japanese Alps in the distance, unfortunately the camera did not quite capture the alps. Shirakawa-go is a UNESCO World Heritage sight and is a remote set of villages with thatched roof farmhouses. Due to heavy snow, the roof is at a really steep angle, the style is called gassho-zukuri (folded hands like in a prayer), the roof is almost 2/3rd s of the height of a 2 or 3 storey house. No nails are used in construction of these houses, its wood, straw and strong rope to tie it all together. The roofs need to be replaced every year. The Upper floors are used to raise silk worms. There are less than 2000 residents in about 356 square km land. The river with the mountain backdrop was gushing and green. We took a tour of one the houses (Kando I think), quite dark and claustrophobic though every floor has windows. We had considered staying in one of these houses for the gassho-zukuri ryokan experience, but my readings told me it would be very cold in April and there is usually only one open hearth fireplace (irori) in the central communal room and maybe a small heather in the room where you sleep and shared bathrooms outside the house. I am glad we dropped the idea, there was snow all over the place (though that day itself was sunny and quite pleasant).
Shirakawa-go didn’t not take much time, after a while the homes all looked identically charming. We were rather keen on experiencing more of Takayama so we headed back.
Eugene wanted to walk a trail passing by several shrines and I felt a little shrined out by then. Anu had been told about a place that served shojin-ryori, she wanted vegetarian food: desperately. So we split with Anu and I headed out to find the vegetarian food intending to then continue shopping. The place she had been told about was a false start and then she wanted to head out to a shrine that may or may not have veg food. So then we split and I headed back to the shopping streets (everything was going to close up by 5 or 6). An hour later, I had bought my sake and a lot of gifts for back home (chocolate covered tofu and soy candy among other things), Anu still had not found any food (shrine was closed) and Eugene had abandoned his walk since it was deserted (all shrines were closed). He had, however, run into a traveler from California called Diana. Though we had agreed to meet at a particular intersection @5, we all ran into each other in the shopping streets earlier than that.
Eugene and I had earlier agreed to have a Hida dinner before taking the last train back to Nagoya. Diana helped us pick a place called Takyumi (spelling?) from her guide book. This place was a butcher’s shop with restaurant on top. The food was as delicious as I had anticipated. Succulent, melt on the grill; it hardly needed any seasoning and very little cooking time. Delish!! After the ryokans this was the best meal and other than tofu, the tastiest thing I ate in Japan.
The plan was to spend some time in Takayama and then take the 60 min bus ride to Shirakawa-go before taking the last train at 6:45pm from Takayama back to Nagoya. One look at the bustling markets of Takayama convinced us we needed much more time in Takayama. We visited the Miyagawa morning market and I bought some hot red peppers (which I later discovered to be seriously hot, who would have thunk the Japanese would dabble with such hot stuff!). We all also bought an apple each, the samples we tasted were very sweet. The major shopping and eating market is spread across 3 or so blocks. Tons of shops, Takayama is known for its sake breweries and Hida beef. I did know about either until I got there. The hida beef displays in the restaurants were teasing, beautifully marbled beef, I wondered why I hadnt heard of this beef before? I think because all advertising is reserved for neighboring Kobe beef. They don’t make enough Hida to export. We stopped by a store that had sake tasting. I promised I would come back later to buy some, didn’t want to lug sake all the way to Shirakawa-go.
We then took the bus to Shirakawa-go and had lovely views of the snow capped Japanese Alps in the distance, unfortunately the camera did not quite capture the alps. Shirakawa-go is a UNESCO World Heritage sight and is a remote set of villages with thatched roof farmhouses. Due to heavy snow, the roof is at a really steep angle, the style is called gassho-zukuri (folded hands like in a prayer), the roof is almost 2/3rd s of the height of a 2 or 3 storey house. No nails are used in construction of these houses, its wood, straw and strong rope to tie it all together. The roofs need to be replaced every year. The Upper floors are used to raise silk worms. There are less than 2000 residents in about 356 square km land. The river with the mountain backdrop was gushing and green. We took a tour of one the houses (Kando I think), quite dark and claustrophobic though every floor has windows. We had considered staying in one of these houses for the gassho-zukuri ryokan experience, but my readings told me it would be very cold in April and there is usually only one open hearth fireplace (irori) in the central communal room and maybe a small heather in the room where you sleep and shared bathrooms outside the house. I am glad we dropped the idea, there was snow all over the place (though that day itself was sunny and quite pleasant).
Shirakawa-go didn’t not take much time, after a while the homes all looked identically charming. We were rather keen on experiencing more of Takayama so we headed back.
Eugene wanted to walk a trail passing by several shrines and I felt a little shrined out by then. Anu had been told about a place that served shojin-ryori, she wanted vegetarian food: desperately. So we split with Anu and I headed out to find the vegetarian food intending to then continue shopping. The place she had been told about was a false start and then she wanted to head out to a shrine that may or may not have veg food. So then we split and I headed back to the shopping streets (everything was going to close up by 5 or 6). An hour later, I had bought my sake and a lot of gifts for back home (chocolate covered tofu and soy candy among other things), Anu still had not found any food (shrine was closed) and Eugene had abandoned his walk since it was deserted (all shrines were closed). He had, however, run into a traveler from California called Diana. Though we had agreed to meet at a particular intersection @5, we all ran into each other in the shopping streets earlier than that.
Eugene and I had earlier agreed to have a Hida dinner before taking the last train back to Nagoya. Diana helped us pick a place called Takyumi (spelling?) from her guide book. This place was a butcher’s shop with restaurant on top. The food was as delicious as I had anticipated. Succulent, melt on the grill; it hardly needed any seasoning and very little cooking time. Delish!! After the ryokans this was the best meal and other than tofu, the tastiest thing I ate in Japan.
Back to Tokyo
Pictures are here
Day 10, was back in Tokyo. After a short conference and discussion in the train, we decided to leave our luggage in Tokyo train station and pick up the next morning since we had to come back to Tokyo station to take the hour long Narita Express to airport anyway. We had another action packed day in Tokyo and going to capsule hotel to drop off luggage would take too much time. Our original plan was to go see Kamakura, but with so much left to do in Tokyo, we decided to drop it. We were going to check out imperial palace that was closed the first day, then goto Asakusa (old city, market and shrine), try our luck at Kabuki-za again, visit the Sony building in Ginza that was also closed by the time we got to it the first day , visit Akihabara (electronics district) and then cap it all off with a night in town by visiting clubs in Roppongi. Like I said, action packed.
At the Imperial palace, the palace itself was closed to the public and we were only allowed to walk the gardens. After having seen all the lovely shrines and Oakayama gardens, we were not impressed. The city skyline in the background did have a nice effect. We went onto Asakusa, which was another crazy crowded market place with a long path leading up to a shrine. Huge Asahi building is a landmark and meant to capture the essence of a glass of the beer, with frothing on top and all. A neighboring building has a giant gold flaming ornament (as quoted on Asahi website, although internet articles imply that locals think it looks like something I cannot repeat here!)
As we headed to the shrine, I was reminded of India with merchants selling wares on both sides of the street leading up to a big temple. The only difference was there were no beggars here! More street food, (fish shaped waffles with chocolate stuffing etc..) and more souvenirs and pictures later, we were at the shrine. The shrine itself had giant statues behind really dirty netting, the pictures of the red lamp was great but you can hardly see the, otherwise grandiose, statues flanking the lantern.
Then it was time to go stand in line at Kabuki-za in Ginza and try our luck a second time. On our way we stopped by the Sony building to check out the new products (many not yet released in market). The line at Kabuki-za was even longer than the previous week! We spoke to a couple of the men in uniform and they assured us we would get to see the next act, only we would have to do it standing. We had an hour and half before the box office opened, we decided to take turns eating lunch so we didn’t not loose our turn in the line. Eugene and I went first and had sushi in a nearby restaurant (on the same street as the theatre, I forget the name). It was simply delicious! Anu went next to a neighboring pasta place. And then the theatre gods smiled on us. We got in, Anu took the one seat left, Eugene and I stood.
The act we were about to see was drama, the story something like this: a retainer loyal to one shogun had hidden his child in a school as he ran to save his life while the lord loyal to the enemy shogun came to the school looking for the child. I am sure I got some details wrong, but I have to say though I did not understand a word of what was said and the actors were too far away for me to see closely, I thought that hour and half was quite gripping. I felt the tension and drama all the way in the back. Moreover, there was a gentleman standing close by who kept yelling “Matsumiya”, “Komaiya” and so on. My Japanese classmate from HBS later told me those are names of families that the actors belong to and the audience often yells out cheering words of praise and encouragement. The kimonos were simply breathtaking, the colors and patterns were high impact even way back where I was! If I could, I would have stayed on till 9pm and cancelled everything else for the night, but alas I didn’t have the tickets! Eugene and Anu were less impressed. All actors are men (they dress as women) and the various acts are a combination of songs, dance, drama.
Then we went to check in the capsule hotel that Minako had booked for us. Capsule is a Japanese invention and the idea has not picked up in popularity outside Japan. The primary purpose is for Japanese men and women who miss their last train home (subways stop around midnight) to find a cheap place to sleep the night. Also for drunk men who cant go home and face their wives. For us it was a novelty that had to be experienced. Well I have experienced it and while I am glad I did, I am not likely to repeat it! Capsules are like sarcophagus, one stacked on top of the other. Somehow they manage to squeeze in an old fashioned radio and tiny tv inside it (both fully functional!). Men and women capsules are on different floors, (thank goodness!) and there is a hot bath (also separated by gender as all baths in Japan are).
I was too tired with all the walking so I took a nap as Anu and Eugene went to Akihabara. The plan was for us to goto Roppongi that night, and stay out as late as we wanted. Anu was not happy about the capsule and wanted to stay out all night (which is commonplace in Roppongi). Anyway, we headed out later and Eugene begged out at the train station. He had suffered all the time being made to wake up at 6am. Anu was the only one who didn’t mind waking up at 6am. Anu and I went out and walked around a bit. Hip hop could be heard in couple of bars and it was fairly crowded (though it was early at 10pm). We immediately realized how out of place we were in our cargos etc… I always tell myself after this sort of experience to pack one nice dress for going out and it always gets forgotten. Anyway we went into what looked like an expat filled bar called A970; it was all expats indeed. Struck up a conversation with a girl who, along with several others she introduced me to, were in Tokyo for 6 mths studying law. They recommended a couple of clubs we could goto. But then neither Anu nor I are really the party types, we were not dressed appropriately and were tired after all. We called it a night and decided to catch the last train home. The last train ride was in itself fun. People were packed like sardines at 12:30 am, the conductors were walking the stairways hurrying people up to the platform so they wouldn’t miss the last train. We did make it back to the capsule by 1am and I slept like a baby!
The next day, Anu and Eugene were on the same flight at 11am whereas I was having a little reunion with my HBS classmates in Tokyo before a 4:35pm flight back home. Tetsuya had arranged a lunch for about 4-5 of us in the Shin-Marunouchi building near Tokyo station, he picked me up in his car along with his wife Megumi. We went to Akihabara where I wanted to buy a digital Kanji dictionary for my niece. We went to a couple of stores, Tetsuya said that Akihabara was more popular with tourists than locals (who buy online a lot these days) especially the Chinese visiting by the bus loads. Apparently a particular brand of rice cooker is super popular with visiting Chinese and so are milk formulae. Who would have thunk? We drove where the sumo hangout but didn’t see any. We had intended to go see the sumos during their morning practices at the stables, but had arrived in Japan just after the March tournament ended and the sumo were not practicing yet.
We met up with everybody else to have soba. Inspite of my classmates assuring me it was ok to make slurping noises when sucking up the noodles, I coudnt really do it. I am not crazy about noodles and I was not terribly hungry so I left most of my lunch uneaten (but ate all the tofu and everything else). I am not sure whether that was impolite or not, oh well! We went onto a cute neighborhood near a museum that could have been downtown NY with cafes in a little park with tall buildings around. We had some coffee there. After that it was good bye to some of the gang. Tetsuya, Megumi and Norihiro came to the station and all the way to the platform to see me off on Narita Express, I cant remember the last time I enjoyed this hospitality (India maybe), it was very flattering!
At the airport, I spent my last 1050 yen buying more food gifts and came home with 1 yen. All too soon my time in Japan was over. I left feeling good and able to recommend several experiences in Japan to others.
Last thoughts
The best experiences? Mt Koya, Onsen, Ryokan experience, Kabuki, Tofu, all deserts and sweets, Tokyo fish market, Hida dinner at Takayama , Gion district, Miyako-odori, sakura, Kyoto shrines.
Getting around was quite easy, trains and buses super efficient, the people very polite although a bit inscrutable I think. Food is plentiful and tasty (though you really should not be a veggie if you want to travel the country).
Some of the amusing and interesting sights I have not mentioned were the army of black suited men and women near metro and busy places (sometimes on weekends too!). The purser and conductor always bowed when they entered or left the compartment, whether anybody was looking at them or not. I remember this cute petite uniformed woman at the entrance to a train car where I was standing waiting for passengers to alight before we got on. She would say something, bow at a perfect angle, raise up and say something again (arigato gozaimas I think) and then repeat. She did this with perfect repetition around 10 times that I was standing waiting for everyone to get off. Very few people returned her greeting, but she repeated it with the same perfect pleasant smile and expression on her face the whole time! Another thing to note is that people with jobs routinely work 12+ hours and most importantly don’t complain.
At first the bowing was odd, even excessive. But by the end of the trip I was doing the same and thought it added such a polite and humble air to all conversations. Why cant we all be like that? Maybe I will start bowing to the merchants and planners I work with. Or maybe not, you say?!!? Ok maybe I will take your advice.
Day 10, was back in Tokyo. After a short conference and discussion in the train, we decided to leave our luggage in Tokyo train station and pick up the next morning since we had to come back to Tokyo station to take the hour long Narita Express to airport anyway. We had another action packed day in Tokyo and going to capsule hotel to drop off luggage would take too much time. Our original plan was to go see Kamakura, but with so much left to do in Tokyo, we decided to drop it. We were going to check out imperial palace that was closed the first day, then goto Asakusa (old city, market and shrine), try our luck at Kabuki-za again, visit the Sony building in Ginza that was also closed by the time we got to it the first day , visit Akihabara (electronics district) and then cap it all off with a night in town by visiting clubs in Roppongi. Like I said, action packed.
At the Imperial palace, the palace itself was closed to the public and we were only allowed to walk the gardens. After having seen all the lovely shrines and Oakayama gardens, we were not impressed. The city skyline in the background did have a nice effect. We went onto Asakusa, which was another crazy crowded market place with a long path leading up to a shrine. Huge Asahi building is a landmark and meant to capture the essence of a glass of the beer, with frothing on top and all. A neighboring building has a giant gold flaming ornament (as quoted on Asahi website, although internet articles imply that locals think it looks like something I cannot repeat here!)
As we headed to the shrine, I was reminded of India with merchants selling wares on both sides of the street leading up to a big temple. The only difference was there were no beggars here! More street food, (fish shaped waffles with chocolate stuffing etc..) and more souvenirs and pictures later, we were at the shrine. The shrine itself had giant statues behind really dirty netting, the pictures of the red lamp was great but you can hardly see the, otherwise grandiose, statues flanking the lantern.
Then it was time to go stand in line at Kabuki-za in Ginza and try our luck a second time. On our way we stopped by the Sony building to check out the new products (many not yet released in market). The line at Kabuki-za was even longer than the previous week! We spoke to a couple of the men in uniform and they assured us we would get to see the next act, only we would have to do it standing. We had an hour and half before the box office opened, we decided to take turns eating lunch so we didn’t not loose our turn in the line. Eugene and I went first and had sushi in a nearby restaurant (on the same street as the theatre, I forget the name). It was simply delicious! Anu went next to a neighboring pasta place. And then the theatre gods smiled on us. We got in, Anu took the one seat left, Eugene and I stood.
The act we were about to see was drama, the story something like this: a retainer loyal to one shogun had hidden his child in a school as he ran to save his life while the lord loyal to the enemy shogun came to the school looking for the child. I am sure I got some details wrong, but I have to say though I did not understand a word of what was said and the actors were too far away for me to see closely, I thought that hour and half was quite gripping. I felt the tension and drama all the way in the back. Moreover, there was a gentleman standing close by who kept yelling “Matsumiya”, “Komaiya” and so on. My Japanese classmate from HBS later told me those are names of families that the actors belong to and the audience often yells out cheering words of praise and encouragement. The kimonos were simply breathtaking, the colors and patterns were high impact even way back where I was! If I could, I would have stayed on till 9pm and cancelled everything else for the night, but alas I didn’t have the tickets! Eugene and Anu were less impressed. All actors are men (they dress as women) and the various acts are a combination of songs, dance, drama.
Then we went to check in the capsule hotel that Minako had booked for us. Capsule is a Japanese invention and the idea has not picked up in popularity outside Japan. The primary purpose is for Japanese men and women who miss their last train home (subways stop around midnight) to find a cheap place to sleep the night. Also for drunk men who cant go home and face their wives. For us it was a novelty that had to be experienced. Well I have experienced it and while I am glad I did, I am not likely to repeat it! Capsules are like sarcophagus, one stacked on top of the other. Somehow they manage to squeeze in an old fashioned radio and tiny tv inside it (both fully functional!). Men and women capsules are on different floors, (thank goodness!) and there is a hot bath (also separated by gender as all baths in Japan are).
I was too tired with all the walking so I took a nap as Anu and Eugene went to Akihabara. The plan was for us to goto Roppongi that night, and stay out as late as we wanted. Anu was not happy about the capsule and wanted to stay out all night (which is commonplace in Roppongi). Anyway, we headed out later and Eugene begged out at the train station. He had suffered all the time being made to wake up at 6am. Anu was the only one who didn’t mind waking up at 6am. Anu and I went out and walked around a bit. Hip hop could be heard in couple of bars and it was fairly crowded (though it was early at 10pm). We immediately realized how out of place we were in our cargos etc… I always tell myself after this sort of experience to pack one nice dress for going out and it always gets forgotten. Anyway we went into what looked like an expat filled bar called A970; it was all expats indeed. Struck up a conversation with a girl who, along with several others she introduced me to, were in Tokyo for 6 mths studying law. They recommended a couple of clubs we could goto. But then neither Anu nor I are really the party types, we were not dressed appropriately and were tired after all. We called it a night and decided to catch the last train home. The last train ride was in itself fun. People were packed like sardines at 12:30 am, the conductors were walking the stairways hurrying people up to the platform so they wouldn’t miss the last train. We did make it back to the capsule by 1am and I slept like a baby!
The next day, Anu and Eugene were on the same flight at 11am whereas I was having a little reunion with my HBS classmates in Tokyo before a 4:35pm flight back home. Tetsuya had arranged a lunch for about 4-5 of us in the Shin-Marunouchi building near Tokyo station, he picked me up in his car along with his wife Megumi. We went to Akihabara where I wanted to buy a digital Kanji dictionary for my niece. We went to a couple of stores, Tetsuya said that Akihabara was more popular with tourists than locals (who buy online a lot these days) especially the Chinese visiting by the bus loads. Apparently a particular brand of rice cooker is super popular with visiting Chinese and so are milk formulae. Who would have thunk? We drove where the sumo hangout but didn’t see any. We had intended to go see the sumos during their morning practices at the stables, but had arrived in Japan just after the March tournament ended and the sumo were not practicing yet.
We met up with everybody else to have soba. Inspite of my classmates assuring me it was ok to make slurping noises when sucking up the noodles, I coudnt really do it. I am not crazy about noodles and I was not terribly hungry so I left most of my lunch uneaten (but ate all the tofu and everything else). I am not sure whether that was impolite or not, oh well! We went onto a cute neighborhood near a museum that could have been downtown NY with cafes in a little park with tall buildings around. We had some coffee there. After that it was good bye to some of the gang. Tetsuya, Megumi and Norihiro came to the station and all the way to the platform to see me off on Narita Express, I cant remember the last time I enjoyed this hospitality (India maybe), it was very flattering!
At the airport, I spent my last 1050 yen buying more food gifts and came home with 1 yen. All too soon my time in Japan was over. I left feeling good and able to recommend several experiences in Japan to others.
Last thoughts
The best experiences? Mt Koya, Onsen, Ryokan experience, Kabuki, Tofu, all deserts and sweets, Tokyo fish market, Hida dinner at Takayama , Gion district, Miyako-odori, sakura, Kyoto shrines.
Getting around was quite easy, trains and buses super efficient, the people very polite although a bit inscrutable I think. Food is plentiful and tasty (though you really should not be a veggie if you want to travel the country).
Some of the amusing and interesting sights I have not mentioned were the army of black suited men and women near metro and busy places (sometimes on weekends too!). The purser and conductor always bowed when they entered or left the compartment, whether anybody was looking at them or not. I remember this cute petite uniformed woman at the entrance to a train car where I was standing waiting for passengers to alight before we got on. She would say something, bow at a perfect angle, raise up and say something again (arigato gozaimas I think) and then repeat. She did this with perfect repetition around 10 times that I was standing waiting for everyone to get off. Very few people returned her greeting, but she repeated it with the same perfect pleasant smile and expression on her face the whole time! Another thing to note is that people with jobs routinely work 12+ hours and most importantly don’t complain.
At first the bowing was odd, even excessive. But by the end of the trip I was doing the same and thought it added such a polite and humble air to all conversations. Why cant we all be like that? Maybe I will start bowing to the merchants and planners I work with. Or maybe not, you say?!!? Ok maybe I will take your advice.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Seoul
Seoul Pictures
Seoul airport was very well organized with buses that get you into town. Hyundai was ofcourse everywhere. I was staying at a traditional korean hanok guesthouse. When I asked for help with directions (most of the signs are Korean with a splattering of English ones), a woman walked with me till I found the place. I was quite grateful since she was clearly on her way back home late in the evening (it was 9ish) and I am sure would have preferred to get home ASAP instead of looking for my guesthouse. My room was small but charming. They have a floor heating system that goes back to the royal times called Ondol. They had air conditioning in addition to the heated floor. They laid out a mattress and sleeping on the warm floor felt like I was laying in hot springs except it was dry! It was quite nice and if you can control the temperature then I prefer that style of sleeping over beds anyday. The shower was interesting, you could control exactly what temperature you wanted your water to be. The toilet seat had half a dozen buttons which I did not dare push since I didn’t know what would happen! My room had a computer and a flat screen TV, they are clearly tech heavy people!
I walked out to looking for a meal and asked a woman in a store for recommendations, she spent a considerable amount of time discussing options with her friend and giving me directions. Most of the restaurants were closed, but I did find a hole in the wall kind of place. I ordered some bulgogi which came to me piping hot. Sides (banchan) of various kimchi dishes accompanied it (as it does all Korean meals). It was nice to eat a hot steaming meal since it was quite cold (30s F I would say) and I had not carried my jacket, just a couple of layers and my new Icebreaker sweater. I had already eaten 3 bibimbap meals on all three Korean air flight segments, so I knew that was one thing I would not try in Korea. A good night’s sleep later I was ready to hit the city to get the most of my one day there. I headed to Gyeongbokgung and was there by 8:30, I had some time before it opened so I headed out looking for food. Korean’s don’t really have a concept of breakfast, its another meal time. So I did as Koreans do, I ordered jjigae, which was a heavy kimchi infused curry with seafood in it. It was also steaming hot and I had to wait till it cooled down a bit. I was glad to have added two new things I can order at a Korean restaurant (in fact I now think Korean BBQ ok compared to their curries). The palace was pretty and is spread out over a large area with mountains serving as a backdrop. The one thing I noticed was that most of the rooms had windows that doubled as doors, either the Joseon people were short or they didn’t mind bending every time they entered or exited the room. This was the main palace they built and was destroyed twice, both during Japanese invasion. In fact the Japanese even messed with the feng shui to insult the Koreans. Even today there is a regular protest by Korean women in front of the Japanese embassy, they cant get over the atrocities committed by the Japs.
I went to the National Folk Museum and they had a whole section devoted to the lives of the royals. There was a culture of celebrating the first 100 days after the birth of a child and they would predict the future based on what the child picked when several objects were placed in front of it (book, money, clothes etc..). So if the child picked the money, he would be a merchant. I listened to the sounds of several classical Korean instruments and would love to get my hands on some CDs so I can continue to enjoy the sounds. Later I waited to watch the change of guard ceremony, it was not as grand as the ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace in UK, but nevertheless interesting.
I then went to Insadong neighborhood which was practically around the corner. The main street is known for its art galleries, restaurants and shops selling knick-knacks. I bought little nothings. I had earlier stopped by a street vendor and bought some hoddeok, small pancakes stuffed with sweet bean or pumpkin paste. This vendor was making them in the shape of fish, how cute! It cost me 500won (at that time a USD was almost 1500 won). I also stopped by carts manned by men who seemed to be entertaining the visitors. I stopped to see what it was all about. They were making kkul tarae a traditional dessert made for royalty, they put on quite a show with a well choreographed schpeal in a chorus. There are several you tube videos. They take a blob of honey, get a generous helping of corn starch and trick the honey into tearing up into thinner and thinner strands until they have 16000 strands. Then they wrap up crushed walnuts or almonds into a few strands at a time and prepare a nice box for you to buy for 5000won. It was quite delicious once you let the honey, flour and walnuts blend for a few hours. I found a youtube video which was exactly how they did it in insadong.
Lunch was at a restaurant where I ordered DDeokbokki , the main ingredient is cylindrical shaped rice sticks, this is mixed along with seafood (clams, mussels, shrimp etc..) and cooked on a stove that was brought to my table. The curry was the spiciest I have ever had and I couldn’t bring myself to finish it, I didn’t care for the rice sticks either. I had also ordered oyster pancakes. I ate all the seafood from the ddeokbokki and a couple of pancakes. I had also order soju, a potato liquor. I had felt odd ordering liquor for lunch, but I wasn’t going to eat another dinner in the city and I wanted to taste this drink that I had read about. It was smooth, rather sweet and quite delicious. I understood why they warn about drinking too much of it, its strong stuff but so tasty you could keep drinking your way to a serious hangover.
After lunch I was a little torn about going to a largest shopping market (dongdeamun) and Chyandoekgung. After dawdling for half hour I figured I had already seen one palace and might like a traditional Korean market (I was thinking of the Egyptian souks and the Peruvian market which were both so rich in ethnic character). So I took the subway from Anguk station to the dongdeamun. It was a very easy system to follow and the subway cars were very wide, there was plenty of standing room. One look at the market was enough to disappoint, rows and rows of busy shops selling everything under the sun, it was like a ginormous Chinatown. I turned around and went right back to Chyandoekgung. Rachel had suggested seeing Biwon (secret garden) in this palace so I was rather keen to see it. You can only tour the grounds with a guide and the only tour I could have done was at 3:30 (the next one was too late since I had to fly back). I made it just in time. The guide was a Korean student with not so great english. She was a rather hard to understand but very enthusiastic about her job. She was hoping we would ask questions and for some reason nobody had any! She asked if the tour was boring, my heart went out to her. So I chatted a little about my trip to the previous palace.
The palace was very much like Gyeongbokgung, in fact it was built as backup to the main one. Biwon (the secret garden) was beautiful and has a pond. There was nothing secret about it, its just that not everybody was allowed to go there, it was exclusively for the royal family and their special guests. The pond had a film of ice on it, I am sure it has a different beauty in summers. The weather has so far been very cold and my two layers were not quite enough, I wished I had carried the gloves I bought in NZ. I thought the young Korean women were generally very petite. The men and women were generally very smartly dressed (the women more so, though I was surprised how many of them wore short skirts in this cold weather). The hostesses in Korean air were also all petite and like dolls.
That was it, back to the airport where I bought some soju and ginseng brandy. After returning home, I realized I keep buying alcohol from the countries I visit, but I never drink it (other than wine). So now I think I ought to have an international liquor party so I can go though some of it! While all countries I visited have a lovely landscape and/or some grand structures to see, the people and food are so exotic in non-western countries and add so much color and flavor that I keep wanting more!
Seoul airport was very well organized with buses that get you into town. Hyundai was ofcourse everywhere. I was staying at a traditional korean hanok guesthouse. When I asked for help with directions (most of the signs are Korean with a splattering of English ones), a woman walked with me till I found the place. I was quite grateful since she was clearly on her way back home late in the evening (it was 9ish) and I am sure would have preferred to get home ASAP instead of looking for my guesthouse. My room was small but charming. They have a floor heating system that goes back to the royal times called Ondol. They had air conditioning in addition to the heated floor. They laid out a mattress and sleeping on the warm floor felt like I was laying in hot springs except it was dry! It was quite nice and if you can control the temperature then I prefer that style of sleeping over beds anyday. The shower was interesting, you could control exactly what temperature you wanted your water to be. The toilet seat had half a dozen buttons which I did not dare push since I didn’t know what would happen! My room had a computer and a flat screen TV, they are clearly tech heavy people!
I walked out to looking for a meal and asked a woman in a store for recommendations, she spent a considerable amount of time discussing options with her friend and giving me directions. Most of the restaurants were closed, but I did find a hole in the wall kind of place. I ordered some bulgogi which came to me piping hot. Sides (banchan) of various kimchi dishes accompanied it (as it does all Korean meals). It was nice to eat a hot steaming meal since it was quite cold (30s F I would say) and I had not carried my jacket, just a couple of layers and my new Icebreaker sweater. I had already eaten 3 bibimbap meals on all three Korean air flight segments, so I knew that was one thing I would not try in Korea. A good night’s sleep later I was ready to hit the city to get the most of my one day there. I headed to Gyeongbokgung and was there by 8:30, I had some time before it opened so I headed out looking for food. Korean’s don’t really have a concept of breakfast, its another meal time. So I did as Koreans do, I ordered jjigae, which was a heavy kimchi infused curry with seafood in it. It was also steaming hot and I had to wait till it cooled down a bit. I was glad to have added two new things I can order at a Korean restaurant (in fact I now think Korean BBQ ok compared to their curries). The palace was pretty and is spread out over a large area with mountains serving as a backdrop. The one thing I noticed was that most of the rooms had windows that doubled as doors, either the Joseon people were short or they didn’t mind bending every time they entered or exited the room. This was the main palace they built and was destroyed twice, both during Japanese invasion. In fact the Japanese even messed with the feng shui to insult the Koreans. Even today there is a regular protest by Korean women in front of the Japanese embassy, they cant get over the atrocities committed by the Japs.
I went to the National Folk Museum and they had a whole section devoted to the lives of the royals. There was a culture of celebrating the first 100 days after the birth of a child and they would predict the future based on what the child picked when several objects were placed in front of it (book, money, clothes etc..). So if the child picked the money, he would be a merchant. I listened to the sounds of several classical Korean instruments and would love to get my hands on some CDs so I can continue to enjoy the sounds. Later I waited to watch the change of guard ceremony, it was not as grand as the ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace in UK, but nevertheless interesting.
I then went to Insadong neighborhood which was practically around the corner. The main street is known for its art galleries, restaurants and shops selling knick-knacks. I bought little nothings. I had earlier stopped by a street vendor and bought some hoddeok, small pancakes stuffed with sweet bean or pumpkin paste. This vendor was making them in the shape of fish, how cute! It cost me 500won (at that time a USD was almost 1500 won). I also stopped by carts manned by men who seemed to be entertaining the visitors. I stopped to see what it was all about. They were making kkul tarae a traditional dessert made for royalty, they put on quite a show with a well choreographed schpeal in a chorus. There are several you tube videos. They take a blob of honey, get a generous helping of corn starch and trick the honey into tearing up into thinner and thinner strands until they have 16000 strands. Then they wrap up crushed walnuts or almonds into a few strands at a time and prepare a nice box for you to buy for 5000won. It was quite delicious once you let the honey, flour and walnuts blend for a few hours. I found a youtube video which was exactly how they did it in insadong.
Lunch was at a restaurant where I ordered DDeokbokki , the main ingredient is cylindrical shaped rice sticks, this is mixed along with seafood (clams, mussels, shrimp etc..) and cooked on a stove that was brought to my table. The curry was the spiciest I have ever had and I couldn’t bring myself to finish it, I didn’t care for the rice sticks either. I had also ordered oyster pancakes. I ate all the seafood from the ddeokbokki and a couple of pancakes. I had also order soju, a potato liquor. I had felt odd ordering liquor for lunch, but I wasn’t going to eat another dinner in the city and I wanted to taste this drink that I had read about. It was smooth, rather sweet and quite delicious. I understood why they warn about drinking too much of it, its strong stuff but so tasty you could keep drinking your way to a serious hangover.
After lunch I was a little torn about going to a largest shopping market (dongdeamun) and Chyandoekgung. After dawdling for half hour I figured I had already seen one palace and might like a traditional Korean market (I was thinking of the Egyptian souks and the Peruvian market which were both so rich in ethnic character). So I took the subway from Anguk station to the dongdeamun. It was a very easy system to follow and the subway cars were very wide, there was plenty of standing room. One look at the market was enough to disappoint, rows and rows of busy shops selling everything under the sun, it was like a ginormous Chinatown. I turned around and went right back to Chyandoekgung. Rachel had suggested seeing Biwon (secret garden) in this palace so I was rather keen to see it. You can only tour the grounds with a guide and the only tour I could have done was at 3:30 (the next one was too late since I had to fly back). I made it just in time. The guide was a Korean student with not so great english. She was a rather hard to understand but very enthusiastic about her job. She was hoping we would ask questions and for some reason nobody had any! She asked if the tour was boring, my heart went out to her. So I chatted a little about my trip to the previous palace.
The palace was very much like Gyeongbokgung, in fact it was built as backup to the main one. Biwon (the secret garden) was beautiful and has a pond. There was nothing secret about it, its just that not everybody was allowed to go there, it was exclusively for the royal family and their special guests. The pond had a film of ice on it, I am sure it has a different beauty in summers. The weather has so far been very cold and my two layers were not quite enough, I wished I had carried the gloves I bought in NZ. I thought the young Korean women were generally very petite. The men and women were generally very smartly dressed (the women more so, though I was surprised how many of them wore short skirts in this cold weather). The hostesses in Korean air were also all petite and like dolls.
That was it, back to the airport where I bought some soju and ginseng brandy. After returning home, I realized I keep buying alcohol from the countries I visit, but I never drink it (other than wine). So now I think I ought to have an international liquor party so I can go though some of it! While all countries I visited have a lovely landscape and/or some grand structures to see, the people and food are so exotic in non-western countries and add so much color and flavor that I keep wanting more!
Auckland and Rotorua
Auckland and Rotorua Pics
New Zealand is very far away. It took me 24 hours of flying time to get there. Folks in my travel group who flew via California saved a couple of hours, but not much. And its 18 hours ahead of me. By the time I arrived into Auckland, two days of my life had passed (well not quite, but you know what I mean). I also realized that its so isolated on the map on earth. If it wasn’t for Australia, those poor things might very well have been lost to humanity! Perhaps that’s one reason why it’s so darned beautiful! So the plan was that I would spend a few days in North Island and then meet up with the NY hiking group I was traveling with in South Island. They were doing the Kepler track while I was in the north.
Auckland was humid and warm. Someone had warned me Auckland was just a city and not that exciting, well they were right. I am glad I only spent half a day. I was staying at Parnell Village, a rather upscale neighborhood. It had a main street with shops, boutiques and restaurants. I had lunch box at a sushi restaurant, much like; no, exactly like sushi back home. I jumped on a hop on hop off tour bus. Went to Victoria Park Market, bought a business card holder. Then got off at civic center and ate a cookie from Mrs Higgins. The bus normally goes to Mt Eden, a volcanic crater. But I missed the last service. So I walked upto Mission from Parnell and took bus 006 to Mt Eden shops and then walked up to the top of the crater. Its quite large and you can walk down to the center. But I was rather tired by then and chose to call it an early night. The one thing I noticed in Auckland was a lot of hearing centers. I wondered what was wrong with the kiwis.
The next morning I was to take a plane to Rotorua. The first thing I noticed was the lack of security, they didn’t scan my luggage and didn’t ask for my picture ID. I just checked in at a kiosk and boarded. How strange it is to be trusted like that, almost awkward. I felt like insisting they see my ID to be sure I was indeed me. The flight was interesting. The plane sat about 20 people, there were two pilots and no stewards. No overhead cabin space (I trust there were life jackets under the seat). A pilot boarded us, gave us instructions and got into the cabin with a wide open door. Every now and then he looked back to be sure we had not fallen out!
Rotorua
When I landed at Rotorua, there was this slight smell of sulphur. It is an active geothermal area and the sulphur is why people come here. NZ was meant to be an adventure trip and I was going to try things I had never done before. Staying at a hostel was one of them. So there I was chatting with the owner of the Backpackers lodge about what to do and things to see. Dinner that night was at a Maori village. Maori are the Polynesian immigrants who are the natives of NZ, the whites are called Pakeha. The Maori are very well blended in mainstream life and you see them as much as locals in cities (except Wellington, I didn’t see that many there). Ofcourse now there are tons of Asian (locals and tourists) and Indians (locals). Indian and Asian cuisine was as common as it is here in metro areas.
Gerry (the lodge owner) shared his life story (was married before, had lived in the US, wife ran off, met second wife in NZ, started business and recently had a second baby) and his opinions of the Maori with me. He was sorry I had already bought the dinner reservation, he could have saved me 20bucks, he said. He sponsors a kiwi (or maybe two) and one day they will be release into the wild with a Maori prayer. He seemed passionate about kiwi (near extinct bird, now being revived through careful planning and sponsorship programs). He has a hearing problem and when I told him about all the hearing centers I saw in Auckland, he explained his generation went to too many rock concerts and were paying the price. How strange!
At dinner, we were introduced to the Maori culture by a Maori hostess. They wear a lot of tattoos; not only on their bodies but interestingly on their faces and even lips. I believe at this village the face tattoos were paint but the body tattoos were real. They are known for the hangi (earth) oven cooking style. Dinner was chicken and beef and some sides (cauliflower in sesame paste, regular and sweet potatoes, stuffing, mint jelly chutney). It looked and tasted like a thanksgiving meal with chicken instead. Dessert was trifle and chocolate log. I wasn’t really impressed with the meal, I tried an NZ beer. I forget the name, but it was ok.
The cultural show started with a volunteer representing our group of about 50 people as chief who would then go and meet the Maori chief in a formal ceremony before the evening could proceed. The Maori seemed to be a very aggressive bunch, either that or they just choose to show that aspect of their culture to visitors (Gerry thought the westerners/tourists encourage that display and that the Maori use too much intimidation even in regular life). Facial and body expressions displayed anger and mistrust, wide open eyes, tongues rolling out. They used (fake) weapons in greeting. Their singing was a chorus and sounded like a war cry. Anyway, the two chiefs finally met and then the so far stern looking chief turned into an MC with smart ass comments and entertaining one liners. It was so commercial, really! He explained the use of their weapons and taught us some greetings and gestures (often used in rugby).
After dinner we were to go for a walk in Rainbow Springs and see some native fauna. We saw Tuatara and rainbow trout. Tautare are called living fossils because they’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs! We walked upto the Rainbow springs, the water at dinner table was from this spring. There were glowworms, trout and then finally the highlight of the evening: the kiwi. Kiwis are nocturnal and don’t fly. We were asked to stay very quite, not use our camera flash and wait until the kiwis decided to show themselves. I did see a couple rummaging for food. They look cute, it was impossible to take a picture without a flash. It was raining hard by then so by consensus we cut the tour short and all went home.
The next day I left early morning to Wai-O-Tapu, they have a lot of color in the pools and craters. The claim to be NZ’s most colorful volcanic are and very well might be. The colors were indeed stunning. I forget the minerals that made the greens and reds and various other shades. There is a walk around the area that takes about 80 minutes and it was beautiful. They have mud pools that just look awesome, I think our guide said something about them being 170 deg C. No dipping here please! The smells would get intense near the pools. They have a Lady Knox geyser that erupts every morning @10:15am and goes upto 20 meters. In case you are wondering how it knows the time, a park employee triggers an eruption by putting soap detergent into the mouth which causes the normally separate chambers of very hot and cool water to come together releasing all that pressure. I guess if they left it alone it would erupt less frequently but go much higher. But then that would be an imposition on the tourists to wait around, wouldn’t it?
Back in town, I went to the Rotorua museum and learned that Dr.Wohlmann (whose brainchild the bath house was) meant for it to be a world famous thermal bath house. It was too for a while with Europeans visiting regularly for treatments, with stories of people who were cured of the arthritis, asthma and may other ailments. But tragically enough the building and materials kept collapsing due to the acidic air and they rebuilding. It was quite tragic really to read of his dreams come to nothing eventually (or not much). I went to Kuirua, a free thermal park with thermal spring that you can dip in. I debated visiting the Polynesian spa but just wasn’t interested and thought the spa treatments too expensive. I also saw a video on the story of the eruption of Mount Tarawera, it must have been scary to see a mountain just erupt (the seats of the theater shook to give you some real effects). I liked the museum very much.
It was chilly at nights and the morning though the days were sunny (temp range was 8-21 deg C). The next day I was torn between activities like Luge, Zorb or just lazing around. I knew my south island itinerary was packed and that would be tiring enough. I am not used to lazy vacations and it was hard to convince myself to do just that in Rotorua. Eventually I did, I went to redwood forest (yes the redwoods came from California long ago) with the intention of hiking. Instead I went to sleep on the grass in the sun (it was still chilly). Oh how wonderful that was! I went to Rotorua Lake and did the same, lay down and slept on the grass listening to songs of Lekin. Isn’t this what you are supposed to do on vacation? The answer is YES.
New Zealand is very far away. It took me 24 hours of flying time to get there. Folks in my travel group who flew via California saved a couple of hours, but not much. And its 18 hours ahead of me. By the time I arrived into Auckland, two days of my life had passed (well not quite, but you know what I mean). I also realized that its so isolated on the map on earth. If it wasn’t for Australia, those poor things might very well have been lost to humanity! Perhaps that’s one reason why it’s so darned beautiful! So the plan was that I would spend a few days in North Island and then meet up with the NY hiking group I was traveling with in South Island. They were doing the Kepler track while I was in the north.
Auckland was humid and warm. Someone had warned me Auckland was just a city and not that exciting, well they were right. I am glad I only spent half a day. I was staying at Parnell Village, a rather upscale neighborhood. It had a main street with shops, boutiques and restaurants. I had lunch box at a sushi restaurant, much like; no, exactly like sushi back home. I jumped on a hop on hop off tour bus. Went to Victoria Park Market, bought a business card holder. Then got off at civic center and ate a cookie from Mrs Higgins. The bus normally goes to Mt Eden, a volcanic crater. But I missed the last service. So I walked upto Mission from Parnell and took bus 006 to Mt Eden shops and then walked up to the top of the crater. Its quite large and you can walk down to the center. But I was rather tired by then and chose to call it an early night. The one thing I noticed in Auckland was a lot of hearing centers. I wondered what was wrong with the kiwis.
The next morning I was to take a plane to Rotorua. The first thing I noticed was the lack of security, they didn’t scan my luggage and didn’t ask for my picture ID. I just checked in at a kiosk and boarded. How strange it is to be trusted like that, almost awkward. I felt like insisting they see my ID to be sure I was indeed me. The flight was interesting. The plane sat about 20 people, there were two pilots and no stewards. No overhead cabin space (I trust there were life jackets under the seat). A pilot boarded us, gave us instructions and got into the cabin with a wide open door. Every now and then he looked back to be sure we had not fallen out!
Rotorua
When I landed at Rotorua, there was this slight smell of sulphur. It is an active geothermal area and the sulphur is why people come here. NZ was meant to be an adventure trip and I was going to try things I had never done before. Staying at a hostel was one of them. So there I was chatting with the owner of the Backpackers lodge about what to do and things to see. Dinner that night was at a Maori village. Maori are the Polynesian immigrants who are the natives of NZ, the whites are called Pakeha. The Maori are very well blended in mainstream life and you see them as much as locals in cities (except Wellington, I didn’t see that many there). Ofcourse now there are tons of Asian (locals and tourists) and Indians (locals). Indian and Asian cuisine was as common as it is here in metro areas.
Gerry (the lodge owner) shared his life story (was married before, had lived in the US, wife ran off, met second wife in NZ, started business and recently had a second baby) and his opinions of the Maori with me. He was sorry I had already bought the dinner reservation, he could have saved me 20bucks, he said. He sponsors a kiwi (or maybe two) and one day they will be release into the wild with a Maori prayer. He seemed passionate about kiwi (near extinct bird, now being revived through careful planning and sponsorship programs). He has a hearing problem and when I told him about all the hearing centers I saw in Auckland, he explained his generation went to too many rock concerts and were paying the price. How strange!
At dinner, we were introduced to the Maori culture by a Maori hostess. They wear a lot of tattoos; not only on their bodies but interestingly on their faces and even lips. I believe at this village the face tattoos were paint but the body tattoos were real. They are known for the hangi (earth) oven cooking style. Dinner was chicken and beef and some sides (cauliflower in sesame paste, regular and sweet potatoes, stuffing, mint jelly chutney). It looked and tasted like a thanksgiving meal with chicken instead. Dessert was trifle and chocolate log. I wasn’t really impressed with the meal, I tried an NZ beer. I forget the name, but it was ok.
The cultural show started with a volunteer representing our group of about 50 people as chief who would then go and meet the Maori chief in a formal ceremony before the evening could proceed. The Maori seemed to be a very aggressive bunch, either that or they just choose to show that aspect of their culture to visitors (Gerry thought the westerners/tourists encourage that display and that the Maori use too much intimidation even in regular life). Facial and body expressions displayed anger and mistrust, wide open eyes, tongues rolling out. They used (fake) weapons in greeting. Their singing was a chorus and sounded like a war cry. Anyway, the two chiefs finally met and then the so far stern looking chief turned into an MC with smart ass comments and entertaining one liners. It was so commercial, really! He explained the use of their weapons and taught us some greetings and gestures (often used in rugby).
After dinner we were to go for a walk in Rainbow Springs and see some native fauna. We saw Tuatara and rainbow trout. Tautare are called living fossils because they’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs! We walked upto the Rainbow springs, the water at dinner table was from this spring. There were glowworms, trout and then finally the highlight of the evening: the kiwi. Kiwis are nocturnal and don’t fly. We were asked to stay very quite, not use our camera flash and wait until the kiwis decided to show themselves. I did see a couple rummaging for food. They look cute, it was impossible to take a picture without a flash. It was raining hard by then so by consensus we cut the tour short and all went home.
The next day I left early morning to Wai-O-Tapu, they have a lot of color in the pools and craters. The claim to be NZ’s most colorful volcanic are and very well might be. The colors were indeed stunning. I forget the minerals that made the greens and reds and various other shades. There is a walk around the area that takes about 80 minutes and it was beautiful. They have mud pools that just look awesome, I think our guide said something about them being 170 deg C. No dipping here please! The smells would get intense near the pools. They have a Lady Knox geyser that erupts every morning @10:15am and goes upto 20 meters. In case you are wondering how it knows the time, a park employee triggers an eruption by putting soap detergent into the mouth which causes the normally separate chambers of very hot and cool water to come together releasing all that pressure. I guess if they left it alone it would erupt less frequently but go much higher. But then that would be an imposition on the tourists to wait around, wouldn’t it?
Back in town, I went to the Rotorua museum and learned that Dr.Wohlmann (whose brainchild the bath house was) meant for it to be a world famous thermal bath house. It was too for a while with Europeans visiting regularly for treatments, with stories of people who were cured of the arthritis, asthma and may other ailments. But tragically enough the building and materials kept collapsing due to the acidic air and they rebuilding. It was quite tragic really to read of his dreams come to nothing eventually (or not much). I went to Kuirua, a free thermal park with thermal spring that you can dip in. I debated visiting the Polynesian spa but just wasn’t interested and thought the spa treatments too expensive. I also saw a video on the story of the eruption of Mount Tarawera, it must have been scary to see a mountain just erupt (the seats of the theater shook to give you some real effects). I liked the museum very much.
It was chilly at nights and the morning though the days were sunny (temp range was 8-21 deg C). The next day I was torn between activities like Luge, Zorb or just lazing around. I knew my south island itinerary was packed and that would be tiring enough. I am not used to lazy vacations and it was hard to convince myself to do just that in Rotorua. Eventually I did, I went to redwood forest (yes the redwoods came from California long ago) with the intention of hiking. Instead I went to sleep on the grass in the sun (it was still chilly). Oh how wonderful that was! I went to Rotorua Lake and did the same, lay down and slept on the grass listening to songs of Lekin. Isn’t this what you are supposed to do on vacation? The answer is YES.
South Island Part 1
Milford other pics
Glacier and other pics
Sky swing and sky dive pics
The next day I was to fly to Queenstown and then take a bus to Te Anau to meet with my group. So far while Rotorua had been fun, I didn’t think anything was particularly beautiful. As I sat in the bus which took a winding road towards Te Anau alongside rivers and mountains, it came to me “This is why I came to NZ, to see this beauty. This is it!” It just went on and on, unbroken chain of mountains with clear water, just stunning!
I met with the group (Armando, Eugene, Hans, Rachel, Gagan, Elena) and the first thing on the agenda that evening was glowworm caves. We had rented three campervans with mattresses and kitchen stuff in the back, the vans were practically be our home the for next several days (we occasionally slept in backpacker lodges)
It was a chilly on the alpine lake and the caves were damp and dark. A canoe ride took us to the large colony, there were thousands maybe tens of! I could have just reached out and grabbed a few and slipped into my pocket, which is precisely what the guide warned us not to do! The cave has tiny stalagmite since its only 12k years old. The water was crisp and cool to drink.
The next day was Milford Sound. I am (slightly) embarrassed to admit that until then I didn’t know what a sound was nor for that matter a fjord. I knew there is a Long Island sound in NY and that it’s a water body but didn’t know anything else. So I asked the guide to explain. Turns out Milford sound is technically not a sound but a fjord, but it got labeled and nobody changed. Though that whole area is called Fjordland National Park. The guide also told us the story of Tasman, an explorer that the sea and national park are named after. Though he got credit for “discovering” NZ at Milford sound, he apparently never set foot on land when he got here. The Maori ate 3 of his people and he turned right around and went to Indonesia.
There is a waterfall on the sound the boat went right upto it so everybody on the deck got a nice shower. It was quite exciting (I wore a poncho so I wouldn’t be completely wet). Cruising through the sound made me realize, once again, how insignificant we, the humans, are compared to these majestic mountains and waters. And for such tiny creatures, we make so much trouble!!
On the boat I tried teaching Armando (Cuban origin) to pronounce “Fjordland”. The best he could come up with was “freeland”. Try as I might, I could not get his “r” in the right place and the “d” was just not happening. At some point we would make some progress (I think we got to “freedland”) and then within a few minutes all would be lost and I had to start over again. Armando was to become funniest in the group and loved imitating others. He had marked me as too “fu-fu” since I had expressed some surprise that we weren’t showering everyday, he was also amused by what he thought was my british accent (he particularly picked on my usage of ‘delicious’, ‘rubbish’ and other such words). Gagan (traveling from India) was the “please take my picture in an action shot” guy, he had already taken 1300 pics less than halfway into the trip.
After the boat ride we went to an underwater observatory to see coral and sealife that we would apparently never see anywhere. We got to what looked like an introductory area with windows that you could look out of. Turned out this was it! It was small and while there were some beautiful creatures outside, I was expecting something large and impressive. Something like the underwater museum walks in US (Georgia aquarium). Rachel (Korean origin) was disappointed too, we had seen better coral in the US!
Queenstown
This was the adrenaline D day, the day of bungy jumping and sky diving and all that crazy stuff people do in NZ. I had previously booked sky diving and now felt another adventure was in order. Gagan and I decided to go sky swinging in tandem and in retrospect, I am glad I had someone to go with. I would have definitely chickened out otherwise. Armando was booked for bungy jumping and he couldn’t stop talking about it. I think he was a nervous wreck thinking of what he had to do. After all that talking, turned out Elena had booked him for the wrong day and he couldn’t do it after all!
As we drove up the step slope of the canyon for sky swing, the driver turned up the music, he was playing Chemical Brothers “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” and that song will always remain associated with the anticipation and excitement I felt in what I was about to do. As I walked the ramp to the pod out over the canyon I tried not to look down into the canyon. I was in a bit of a daze when he was giving instructions, because I couldn’t help look down and get more and more nervous. Finally, when he let us go, I closed my eyes. The whoosh, the air and the feeling was adrenaline pumping enough, I opened my eyes when the wild ride had slowed down (it was a 120m drop). I looked down and around me. Hmm… not bad, not that scary! Later when I saw another two guys swing, I freaked out! I am so glad we were the first ones to go so I didn’t know how it would actually be. When we came back, I was shaking, muscles I didn’t know I had were moving somewhere. Inspite of all this, for a crazy moment I wanted to do it again. But Gagan didn’t, and there was no way I was going alone. The whole thing lasts less than 5 minutes, but the drive and back was a total of 2-3 hours.
After lunch, I rushed into an Icebreaker store and bought some woolens at a discount. Icebreakers are made in NZ and hence a bit cheaper (also due to currency rate). And then it was off to sky diving. The staff took great pains to make us feel good about hurling ourselves out of a place. It was 15000feet drop and we would be falling at 200kph at one point. The nice lady assured us its not as scary as bungy jumping or canyon swinging and here’s why: for bungy and sky swing, you are jumping relatively close to earth and you see the other land mass rushing towards you. You know what you wont hit it, but the visual is scary. Sky diving is very high up and you don’t even know what’s happening. And then you are gliding safely in a parachute before long. I believed her and resolved to not close my eyes this time.
As we waited for my turn, I wrote “I AM MAD” on my hands upon a suggestion from another woman in my group. I decided to forgo the gloves so I could take a picture with my hands open in the air. They warned us many times to look at the camera and make funny gestures since it looks good in pics and all that. Inspite of all this I didn’t even open my hand wide! I kept my eyes open but I think is a great improvement. It was indeed surreal, it felt very safe. And the fact that this time I did not look down too much made it a much better experience. I asked my tandem master to spin a few times as we were gliding. It was all over too fast. After this and quad biking in Peru and this I think I can safely say I have retired from adventure activities (oh wait, I haven’t done rafting and I have not driven 4WD in the desert. Okay, maybe semi-retired)
That evening, Rachel, Gagan and I were driving together and were supposed to meet up with the group a little after Wanaka to camp at boulder creek (beautiful site). We made an unscheduled stop at an orchard and I bought some honey and we helped ourselves to candy and other free munchies. I had heard Wanaka Cinema was a must see so we made another unscheduled stop to see what it was all about. It’s a big living room with couches and small tables, you can get food and drink at the café next door and sit comfortably while watching a flick. It was rather cute. They had a pattern made of international coins on their door. Rachel and I grabbed some dinner at the café and then we made our way to the campsite. It was isolated and abandoned countryside, not many people choose to drive at night and the road signs are ok, not great. We went the wrong way for a few minutes, but by then getting lost, making u-turns was “du jour” for us all (it was particularly funny the number of times all three vans made a u-turn in the middle of the road when the leading van realized it had made a mistake). Besides our vans stood out, since every inch was painted in a theme (good thing so you cant see scratches and dents people make).
Somewhere along the way we picked up a hitchhiker called Nadav from Israel. He is 23 and has been traveling Australia and NZ for 7 months with no plans to stop (more precisely plans to stop when the money runs out). The next day, we stopped at Fantail café for brunch. I charged my camera since it was nearly dead. We stopped for pics at several places and kept driving along highway 6 along the Tasman sea (did I mention it looks green and not blue?)
Glacier!
We had a glacier hike that day on the agenda. I once again became aware of my lack of general knowledge, I never quire knew what a glacier was. And if I did, I had completely forgotten. Now I think of it as a giant river flowing between mountains, except its frozen and can reach the height of the mountains itself. It grows and recedes. Most glaciers have been receding (global warming?) but Fox and Franz glaciers have been growing the last few years. The guide explained how they were formed (as fresh snow falls on top, it push down and then its way into valleys, pushing the gravel up against the mountain wall and subsequently the mountain a bit higher), as they recede the valley cant hold on its own (without support from the ice) so there are routine rock slides and that whole area is generally unstable. On the way to the glacier, we had crossed the Indo Australian and Pacific earth plates. They have about 15 earthquakes a day. Unstable for sure! We had to hike up 800 steps through rainforest to get to the glacier. It was sunny and the hike in this section was quite humid.
When we got close, we put on crampons we were given and started the hike on the glacier. It was about 11deg C on the glacier. It was amazing to think I was walking on this giant chunk of ice, and to think I was seeing only a fraction of the whole thing. We were very close to the mouth of the glacier and our guide told us of two visitors who had gone upto the cave at the mouth unescorted and got caught when the ice shifted. Took them days to find the bodies (one just washed up somewhere miles away). We could hear what must have been giant blobs of ice moving under us. Since it was sunny, it was slippery in parts and the guides constantly made new steps on the ice so people could climb up and down. Indeed, the glacier is never the same from one moment to the next. Just like a river. The ice is packed so dense it was bluish in color, though dirty in parts due to gravel and dust of the valley.
The guide offered us the chance to climb down a crevasse, it was very slippery and a hard climb and Armando turned around after he fell (though he wasn’t hurt). My hands were frozen by now (I didn’t bring gloves, someone told me it was summer in NZ) but I did get down and took some pictures and then wondered how on earth I was going to get back up. Anyway, the whole thing was a fabulous adventure. I now want to goto an iceberg. I wonder if I can climb one?
One our way onwards we stopped at Franz Joseph and by it held no particular charm since it looked the same as Fox. So we moved on.
That night, most folks dined out and Rachel, Eugene and I decided we would cook and eat in. We are staying at a place with a real kitchen! We had a multi course meal with salad, mushroom soup, beef barley soup, fabulous biryani rice (rice packet with masala paste), beans, sausage and then orange for desert. Did I mention that I didn’t like the sausage in NZ at all? I tried it in a couple of places, no good. Their banana nut bread on the other hand is delish.
Glacier and other pics
Sky swing and sky dive pics
The next day I was to fly to Queenstown and then take a bus to Te Anau to meet with my group. So far while Rotorua had been fun, I didn’t think anything was particularly beautiful. As I sat in the bus which took a winding road towards Te Anau alongside rivers and mountains, it came to me “This is why I came to NZ, to see this beauty. This is it!” It just went on and on, unbroken chain of mountains with clear water, just stunning!
I met with the group (Armando, Eugene, Hans, Rachel, Gagan, Elena) and the first thing on the agenda that evening was glowworm caves. We had rented three campervans with mattresses and kitchen stuff in the back, the vans were practically be our home the for next several days (we occasionally slept in backpacker lodges)
It was a chilly on the alpine lake and the caves were damp and dark. A canoe ride took us to the large colony, there were thousands maybe tens of! I could have just reached out and grabbed a few and slipped into my pocket, which is precisely what the guide warned us not to do! The cave has tiny stalagmite since its only 12k years old. The water was crisp and cool to drink.
The next day was Milford Sound. I am (slightly) embarrassed to admit that until then I didn’t know what a sound was nor for that matter a fjord. I knew there is a Long Island sound in NY and that it’s a water body but didn’t know anything else. So I asked the guide to explain. Turns out Milford sound is technically not a sound but a fjord, but it got labeled and nobody changed. Though that whole area is called Fjordland National Park. The guide also told us the story of Tasman, an explorer that the sea and national park are named after. Though he got credit for “discovering” NZ at Milford sound, he apparently never set foot on land when he got here. The Maori ate 3 of his people and he turned right around and went to Indonesia.
There is a waterfall on the sound the boat went right upto it so everybody on the deck got a nice shower. It was quite exciting (I wore a poncho so I wouldn’t be completely wet). Cruising through the sound made me realize, once again, how insignificant we, the humans, are compared to these majestic mountains and waters. And for such tiny creatures, we make so much trouble!!
On the boat I tried teaching Armando (Cuban origin) to pronounce “Fjordland”. The best he could come up with was “freeland”. Try as I might, I could not get his “r” in the right place and the “d” was just not happening. At some point we would make some progress (I think we got to “freedland”) and then within a few minutes all would be lost and I had to start over again. Armando was to become funniest in the group and loved imitating others. He had marked me as too “fu-fu” since I had expressed some surprise that we weren’t showering everyday, he was also amused by what he thought was my british accent (he particularly picked on my usage of ‘delicious’, ‘rubbish’ and other such words). Gagan (traveling from India) was the “please take my picture in an action shot” guy, he had already taken 1300 pics less than halfway into the trip.
After the boat ride we went to an underwater observatory to see coral and sealife that we would apparently never see anywhere. We got to what looked like an introductory area with windows that you could look out of. Turned out this was it! It was small and while there were some beautiful creatures outside, I was expecting something large and impressive. Something like the underwater museum walks in US (Georgia aquarium). Rachel (Korean origin) was disappointed too, we had seen better coral in the US!
Queenstown
This was the adrenaline D day, the day of bungy jumping and sky diving and all that crazy stuff people do in NZ. I had previously booked sky diving and now felt another adventure was in order. Gagan and I decided to go sky swinging in tandem and in retrospect, I am glad I had someone to go with. I would have definitely chickened out otherwise. Armando was booked for bungy jumping and he couldn’t stop talking about it. I think he was a nervous wreck thinking of what he had to do. After all that talking, turned out Elena had booked him for the wrong day and he couldn’t do it after all!
As we drove up the step slope of the canyon for sky swing, the driver turned up the music, he was playing Chemical Brothers “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” and that song will always remain associated with the anticipation and excitement I felt in what I was about to do. As I walked the ramp to the pod out over the canyon I tried not to look down into the canyon. I was in a bit of a daze when he was giving instructions, because I couldn’t help look down and get more and more nervous. Finally, when he let us go, I closed my eyes. The whoosh, the air and the feeling was adrenaline pumping enough, I opened my eyes when the wild ride had slowed down (it was a 120m drop). I looked down and around me. Hmm… not bad, not that scary! Later when I saw another two guys swing, I freaked out! I am so glad we were the first ones to go so I didn’t know how it would actually be. When we came back, I was shaking, muscles I didn’t know I had were moving somewhere. Inspite of all this, for a crazy moment I wanted to do it again. But Gagan didn’t, and there was no way I was going alone. The whole thing lasts less than 5 minutes, but the drive and back was a total of 2-3 hours.
After lunch, I rushed into an Icebreaker store and bought some woolens at a discount. Icebreakers are made in NZ and hence a bit cheaper (also due to currency rate). And then it was off to sky diving. The staff took great pains to make us feel good about hurling ourselves out of a place. It was 15000feet drop and we would be falling at 200kph at one point. The nice lady assured us its not as scary as bungy jumping or canyon swinging and here’s why: for bungy and sky swing, you are jumping relatively close to earth and you see the other land mass rushing towards you. You know what you wont hit it, but the visual is scary. Sky diving is very high up and you don’t even know what’s happening. And then you are gliding safely in a parachute before long. I believed her and resolved to not close my eyes this time.
As we waited for my turn, I wrote “I AM MAD” on my hands upon a suggestion from another woman in my group. I decided to forgo the gloves so I could take a picture with my hands open in the air. They warned us many times to look at the camera and make funny gestures since it looks good in pics and all that. Inspite of all this I didn’t even open my hand wide! I kept my eyes open but I think is a great improvement. It was indeed surreal, it felt very safe. And the fact that this time I did not look down too much made it a much better experience. I asked my tandem master to spin a few times as we were gliding. It was all over too fast. After this and quad biking in Peru and this I think I can safely say I have retired from adventure activities (oh wait, I haven’t done rafting and I have not driven 4WD in the desert. Okay, maybe semi-retired)
That evening, Rachel, Gagan and I were driving together and were supposed to meet up with the group a little after Wanaka to camp at boulder creek (beautiful site). We made an unscheduled stop at an orchard and I bought some honey and we helped ourselves to candy and other free munchies. I had heard Wanaka Cinema was a must see so we made another unscheduled stop to see what it was all about. It’s a big living room with couches and small tables, you can get food and drink at the café next door and sit comfortably while watching a flick. It was rather cute. They had a pattern made of international coins on their door. Rachel and I grabbed some dinner at the café and then we made our way to the campsite. It was isolated and abandoned countryside, not many people choose to drive at night and the road signs are ok, not great. We went the wrong way for a few minutes, but by then getting lost, making u-turns was “du jour” for us all (it was particularly funny the number of times all three vans made a u-turn in the middle of the road when the leading van realized it had made a mistake). Besides our vans stood out, since every inch was painted in a theme (good thing so you cant see scratches and dents people make).
Somewhere along the way we picked up a hitchhiker called Nadav from Israel. He is 23 and has been traveling Australia and NZ for 7 months with no plans to stop (more precisely plans to stop when the money runs out). The next day, we stopped at Fantail café for brunch. I charged my camera since it was nearly dead. We stopped for pics at several places and kept driving along highway 6 along the Tasman sea (did I mention it looks green and not blue?)
Glacier!
We had a glacier hike that day on the agenda. I once again became aware of my lack of general knowledge, I never quire knew what a glacier was. And if I did, I had completely forgotten. Now I think of it as a giant river flowing between mountains, except its frozen and can reach the height of the mountains itself. It grows and recedes. Most glaciers have been receding (global warming?) but Fox and Franz glaciers have been growing the last few years. The guide explained how they were formed (as fresh snow falls on top, it push down and then its way into valleys, pushing the gravel up against the mountain wall and subsequently the mountain a bit higher), as they recede the valley cant hold on its own (without support from the ice) so there are routine rock slides and that whole area is generally unstable. On the way to the glacier, we had crossed the Indo Australian and Pacific earth plates. They have about 15 earthquakes a day. Unstable for sure! We had to hike up 800 steps through rainforest to get to the glacier. It was sunny and the hike in this section was quite humid.
When we got close, we put on crampons we were given and started the hike on the glacier. It was about 11deg C on the glacier. It was amazing to think I was walking on this giant chunk of ice, and to think I was seeing only a fraction of the whole thing. We were very close to the mouth of the glacier and our guide told us of two visitors who had gone upto the cave at the mouth unescorted and got caught when the ice shifted. Took them days to find the bodies (one just washed up somewhere miles away). We could hear what must have been giant blobs of ice moving under us. Since it was sunny, it was slippery in parts and the guides constantly made new steps on the ice so people could climb up and down. Indeed, the glacier is never the same from one moment to the next. Just like a river. The ice is packed so dense it was bluish in color, though dirty in parts due to gravel and dust of the valley.
The guide offered us the chance to climb down a crevasse, it was very slippery and a hard climb and Armando turned around after he fell (though he wasn’t hurt). My hands were frozen by now (I didn’t bring gloves, someone told me it was summer in NZ) but I did get down and took some pictures and then wondered how on earth I was going to get back up. Anyway, the whole thing was a fabulous adventure. I now want to goto an iceberg. I wonder if I can climb one?
One our way onwards we stopped at Franz Joseph and by it held no particular charm since it looked the same as Fox. So we moved on.
That night, most folks dined out and Rachel, Eugene and I decided we would cook and eat in. We are staying at a place with a real kitchen! We had a multi course meal with salad, mushroom soup, beef barley soup, fabulous biryani rice (rice packet with masala paste), beans, sausage and then orange for desert. Did I mention that I didn’t like the sausage in NZ at all? I tried it in a couple of places, no good. Their banana nut bread on the other hand is delish.
South Island Part 2
Lake Mathison is a wonderful picture spot with reflection of Mt Cook in it. Alas we were not meant to see it since it was cloudy that morning. We moved on and meant to Hokitaki to see the eels but got distracted by mention of hot spring along Wananganui river. It was supposedly a kilometer walk to the springs and it became a 2-3 hour long adventure to find it! We parked on the road and walked along rocks lining the river for what seemed like ever. Half of us wanted to give up the other half didn’t, so we moved on. We ran into some DOC (dept of conservation) folks who had just been airdropped, they pointed out where the spring were. At some point we had to cross a narrow strip of water and I tell you it was the coldest water I have ever set foot in. I was afraid I would get a cramp right there and fall into it. Anyway, we did cross over, Hans and I were trailing. We met up with Eugene, Rachel and Nadaf and discovered we had been left behind by the rest of the group. We wandered in a very abandoned area, there were warning signs to keep out and I was at some point in time worried since we had come very far and there was no sign of humanity. Anyway, Nadaf played his harmonica and entertained us (he knew this hindi song “ichak daana”, I was pleasantly surprised!). Rachel had talked about Rahul Khanna the Indian movie actor in the film Earth. She thinks he is hot! We eventually caught up and discovered the springs. It was utterly relaxing and I lay on the hottest spot of all.
While I had managed to stay covered and protected from the sand flies, it was here that I finally got taken. A few bites on my hands and ankles. Rachel assured me it would itch very badly in a couple of days and especially at night. She was so generous with the detail, that Rachel! She ofcourse was the worst bitten of all with angry red blotches all over.
On our way back from the springs, Rachel commented that this was it, this was the landscape they showed in the movies shot in NZ. I agreed, it was indeed beautiful. So far the landscape was stunning, we had been driving along Tasman sea which is green in color. It was never ending stretches of large mountains looking over water. I was convinced that my camera could never do justice to what my eyes beheld.
When I joined the group, Rachel was the de facto cook, by this time I had become her de facto assistant chef. That night we made pasta, beef sauce and had it with champagne and wine. It was raining hard the next morning and we made our way into dp:one a restaurant with lots of abstract and modern art on the wall (for sale) at Greymouth. The name stands for “development one”, the restaurant is in the first commercial building in Greymouth. We passed train tracks, this was the first I saw train tracks. There is a train from Greymouth to Christchurch, apparently a very scenic route. We also stopped at a Jade store and gallery, I bought some Paua (abalone) shells and jewelry for myself and gift giving.
The next day was pancake rocks, it was in a plantation setting and the rocks themselves were amazing, they got pressed into themselves over time so they look like a stack of pancakes. Once again a reminder of what water and nature can do given time (lots of it). By now we were driving along country side and farmland. I could not stop taking pictures, the sight of slivers of clouds sitting across mountains was just gorgeous! Pancake Rock Pictures
Click here for Nelson and other pictures.
The plan that night was to eat seafood at Nelson. Except when we got there all restaurants were closed by 9:30pm (and this is supposedly a big town). Not only that, the holiday park where we were camping was also closed. So we slept in our vans, cooked on our stoves on the sidewalk washed up in public restrooms. I wondered if this is how the homeless live!
The next morning was the warmest I woke up to so far. We walked up to the beach which was nearby (Tasman Bay) and as I look at my pictures, I think those are the best I have of NZ. The water was very calming, the clouds were like in an impressionist painting. I also noticed the way the city was laid out. Much like Queenstown and parts of Auckland and later Wellington, it is hilly with homes layered up the hills. Very reminiscent of San Francisco, the streets are often sloping.
Anyway, we went to Boat Shed café on the waterfront for brunch. They did not have mimosa (they didn’t know what that was), so we bought OJ and champagne and made our own. We had oysters with roe, bread with some great olive oil. I also had baby abalone, its more or less as expensive as it is here, but in NZ dollars. This was my first time eating abalone and while I didn’t fall in love with it (like I did with escargots), it was fine. (Chewiness was between scallops and squid). As I sat at the table, I felt supremely civilized eating with cutlery that had been definitely washed (I think) and a real cloth napkin! Restaurants expect no tip though they charge 20% surcharge on public holidays (maybe kiwis go out in loads on public holidays and make a lot of noise).
So far I had not driven much since I was the slowest of all (rather they had all become accustomed to speeding in the 2-3 days they had been driving before I joined them, so I just didn’t drive all this time). But this day I drove and it was an absolute delight. The right hand sitting, left hand driving and left side gear box was ok, the only part that took me some time was the turn indicator. The windshield wiper started every time I meant to turn!
After only a couple of hours we stopped at Mussel Pot in Haverlock to enjoy some greenlip mussels, a specialty of the area. We had them steamed, marinated and boiled along with Sauvignon Blanc from nearby Forrest winery. Dining was definitely getting fancy. Food so far in NZ had been uneventful, when we did eat out it was nothing you couldn’t get back home.
We drove on taking more pictures along the way. We had planned to visit wineries since we were in the famous Marlborough country. Except they all closed by the time we got there (5ish). That was rather disappointing since I had really wanted to taste and buy some good NZ wine. Anyway we headed for our campsite for the night which turned out to be a lovely place and we paid extra to camp by the lakeside. I ordered some fried fish at the café and ate with left-over something. By now Rachel and I had made good friends and we decided that instead of sleeping inside we would lay out under the stars. It was unbelievably beautiful and it’s a shame we didn’t do it more often. I struggled to stay awake so I could keep looking at the clear star studded sky. We awoke to a wake up call from Mama duck with 7 of her baby ducks walking right by my head. Later as I went to the washroom, the sink was full of cicadas. Absolutely disgusting, I didn’t know if they were dead or just sleeping. At some point, I was wondering if they would ever clear out and a woman came by and scooped them out of the sink and threw them out!!
We went to Picton, which is another picturesque town. Here Eugene, Rachel and I said our goodbyes to the group and took the ferry to Wellington. The ferry ride is famous since it meanders through the sound with lovely sights all around you.
While I had managed to stay covered and protected from the sand flies, it was here that I finally got taken. A few bites on my hands and ankles. Rachel assured me it would itch very badly in a couple of days and especially at night. She was so generous with the detail, that Rachel! She ofcourse was the worst bitten of all with angry red blotches all over.
On our way back from the springs, Rachel commented that this was it, this was the landscape they showed in the movies shot in NZ. I agreed, it was indeed beautiful. So far the landscape was stunning, we had been driving along Tasman sea which is green in color. It was never ending stretches of large mountains looking over water. I was convinced that my camera could never do justice to what my eyes beheld.
When I joined the group, Rachel was the de facto cook, by this time I had become her de facto assistant chef. That night we made pasta, beef sauce and had it with champagne and wine. It was raining hard the next morning and we made our way into dp:one a restaurant with lots of abstract and modern art on the wall (for sale) at Greymouth. The name stands for “development one”, the restaurant is in the first commercial building in Greymouth. We passed train tracks, this was the first I saw train tracks. There is a train from Greymouth to Christchurch, apparently a very scenic route. We also stopped at a Jade store and gallery, I bought some Paua (abalone) shells and jewelry for myself and gift giving.
The next day was pancake rocks, it was in a plantation setting and the rocks themselves were amazing, they got pressed into themselves over time so they look like a stack of pancakes. Once again a reminder of what water and nature can do given time (lots of it). By now we were driving along country side and farmland. I could not stop taking pictures, the sight of slivers of clouds sitting across mountains was just gorgeous! Pancake Rock Pictures
Click here for Nelson and other pictures.
The plan that night was to eat seafood at Nelson. Except when we got there all restaurants were closed by 9:30pm (and this is supposedly a big town). Not only that, the holiday park where we were camping was also closed. So we slept in our vans, cooked on our stoves on the sidewalk washed up in public restrooms. I wondered if this is how the homeless live!
The next morning was the warmest I woke up to so far. We walked up to the beach which was nearby (Tasman Bay) and as I look at my pictures, I think those are the best I have of NZ. The water was very calming, the clouds were like in an impressionist painting. I also noticed the way the city was laid out. Much like Queenstown and parts of Auckland and later Wellington, it is hilly with homes layered up the hills. Very reminiscent of San Francisco, the streets are often sloping.
Anyway, we went to Boat Shed café on the waterfront for brunch. They did not have mimosa (they didn’t know what that was), so we bought OJ and champagne and made our own. We had oysters with roe, bread with some great olive oil. I also had baby abalone, its more or less as expensive as it is here, but in NZ dollars. This was my first time eating abalone and while I didn’t fall in love with it (like I did with escargots), it was fine. (Chewiness was between scallops and squid). As I sat at the table, I felt supremely civilized eating with cutlery that had been definitely washed (I think) and a real cloth napkin! Restaurants expect no tip though they charge 20% surcharge on public holidays (maybe kiwis go out in loads on public holidays and make a lot of noise).
So far I had not driven much since I was the slowest of all (rather they had all become accustomed to speeding in the 2-3 days they had been driving before I joined them, so I just didn’t drive all this time). But this day I drove and it was an absolute delight. The right hand sitting, left hand driving and left side gear box was ok, the only part that took me some time was the turn indicator. The windshield wiper started every time I meant to turn!
After only a couple of hours we stopped at Mussel Pot in Haverlock to enjoy some greenlip mussels, a specialty of the area. We had them steamed, marinated and boiled along with Sauvignon Blanc from nearby Forrest winery. Dining was definitely getting fancy. Food so far in NZ had been uneventful, when we did eat out it was nothing you couldn’t get back home.
We drove on taking more pictures along the way. We had planned to visit wineries since we were in the famous Marlborough country. Except they all closed by the time we got there (5ish). That was rather disappointing since I had really wanted to taste and buy some good NZ wine. Anyway we headed for our campsite for the night which turned out to be a lovely place and we paid extra to camp by the lakeside. I ordered some fried fish at the café and ate with left-over something. By now Rachel and I had made good friends and we decided that instead of sleeping inside we would lay out under the stars. It was unbelievably beautiful and it’s a shame we didn’t do it more often. I struggled to stay awake so I could keep looking at the clear star studded sky. We awoke to a wake up call from Mama duck with 7 of her baby ducks walking right by my head. Later as I went to the washroom, the sink was full of cicadas. Absolutely disgusting, I didn’t know if they were dead or just sleeping. At some point, I was wondering if they would ever clear out and a woman came by and scooped them out of the sink and threw them out!!
We went to Picton, which is another picturesque town. Here Eugene, Rachel and I said our goodbyes to the group and took the ferry to Wellington. The ferry ride is famous since it meanders through the sound with lovely sights all around you.
Wellington
Wellington Pictures
Once in Wellington, Eugene, Rachel and I took a bus to the YHA where we were all staying. I was once again reminded of how helpful and friendly the kiwis are. We asked the bus driver to tell us where to get off and when we got to our stop, not only did he tell us where to get off, he got off the bus to point out the building while the rest of the passengers waited. Can you imagine an NYC transit driver doing that?? The kiwis were in general very helpful, if they could give you a room, they made phone calls on your behalf to find one for you. The desk staff at YHA spent a considerable amount of time with Rachel and me when we were looking to rent a car (we couldn’t get one, they were all sold out). They are in no hurry and genuinely seem to want to get you what you are looking for. That was quite a departure from the other cities I have visited so far!
After we dropped off our bags, we went off immediately for a hike up Mt Victoria from where you get a 360 view of the city. I was tired but the hike was not hard at all the sights were rewarding. We dined on Mongolian BBQ at Ghenghis Khan. It was a nice, quite relaxing 2 hour (maybe longer) meal where we discussed all our travels and experiences. Eugene (Russian origin) has traveled quite a lot and takes a great interest in the history and facts of the places he visits (or wants to visit). Definitely a treasure trove of information on places he has visited or is interested in.
When we got back to our rooms, I was so tired I just crashed into bed. The next morning the three of us did a walk from my book, we walked upto and across the City to Bridge sea with its funky architecture. We made our way to the beehive stopping on the way to shop, I bought some sheepskin Ugg and another pair of leather high boots and some more souvenirs. We went into the beehive and checked out a neighboring cathedral. Then it was time to drop Rachel off at the bus station, she was off to the north island before heading home.
Eugene went onto the botanical gardens and I headed back towards the hotel. I stopped at the civic center on the way back to watch a musical competition between groups of kids from school (I assume). Onto Cuba street, its several blocks of cobblestone path with no vehicular traffic, just shops, restaurants etc.. Lunch was at Phoenician falafel. I stopped at a wine store and bought some sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, gwertzraminer and a dry reisling. I wasn’t sure if I would be allowed to carry more than two bottles back to the US, but I decided to risk it. Turned out it was no problem at all. I also bought a rain jacket at one of the sporting goods store. That was my biggest shopping day other than Queenstown.
After dropping all my shopping at the hotel, I went to Te Papa, the must-see museum in town. It is huge and you can easily spend the whole day there. The big moment was seeing the colossal squid, it had eyes of a soccer ball and tentacles at 2.1 meters. Yes, it’s huge! Good thing I went when I did, I read upon my return they had removed the squid for cleaning. I walked through several exhibits and learned an interesting fact: Christchurch (city on east coast of south island) is ever so slowly moving away from Greymouth (city on west coast) due to the movement of the earth’s plates. All that walking in the museum made me hungry and I stopped at Pandora Panettera for some hot chocolate. I also bought some panforte, loved the spicy aftertaste! I ran into Eugene when I was preparing to leave that evening and said my goodbyes again. I took a bus to Auckland and arrived around 7 the next morning. I had breakfast at the casino in Sky Towers, I was impressed neither by the casino nor the restaurant. I thought Atlantic City casinos far fancier. And that was it, an afternoon flight was to bring me into Seoul where I would spend a day before heading back home. I had made some notes with Rachel on the must do/see things in Seoul and had plenty of time to read my guide book on the plane.
Once in Wellington, Eugene, Rachel and I took a bus to the YHA where we were all staying. I was once again reminded of how helpful and friendly the kiwis are. We asked the bus driver to tell us where to get off and when we got to our stop, not only did he tell us where to get off, he got off the bus to point out the building while the rest of the passengers waited. Can you imagine an NYC transit driver doing that?? The kiwis were in general very helpful, if they could give you a room, they made phone calls on your behalf to find one for you. The desk staff at YHA spent a considerable amount of time with Rachel and me when we were looking to rent a car (we couldn’t get one, they were all sold out). They are in no hurry and genuinely seem to want to get you what you are looking for. That was quite a departure from the other cities I have visited so far!
After we dropped off our bags, we went off immediately for a hike up Mt Victoria from where you get a 360 view of the city. I was tired but the hike was not hard at all the sights were rewarding. We dined on Mongolian BBQ at Ghenghis Khan. It was a nice, quite relaxing 2 hour (maybe longer) meal where we discussed all our travels and experiences. Eugene (Russian origin) has traveled quite a lot and takes a great interest in the history and facts of the places he visits (or wants to visit). Definitely a treasure trove of information on places he has visited or is interested in.
When we got back to our rooms, I was so tired I just crashed into bed. The next morning the three of us did a walk from my book, we walked upto and across the City to Bridge sea with its funky architecture. We made our way to the beehive stopping on the way to shop, I bought some sheepskin Ugg and another pair of leather high boots and some more souvenirs. We went into the beehive and checked out a neighboring cathedral. Then it was time to drop Rachel off at the bus station, she was off to the north island before heading home.
Eugene went onto the botanical gardens and I headed back towards the hotel. I stopped at the civic center on the way back to watch a musical competition between groups of kids from school (I assume). Onto Cuba street, its several blocks of cobblestone path with no vehicular traffic, just shops, restaurants etc.. Lunch was at Phoenician falafel. I stopped at a wine store and bought some sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, gwertzraminer and a dry reisling. I wasn’t sure if I would be allowed to carry more than two bottles back to the US, but I decided to risk it. Turned out it was no problem at all. I also bought a rain jacket at one of the sporting goods store. That was my biggest shopping day other than Queenstown.
After dropping all my shopping at the hotel, I went to Te Papa, the must-see museum in town. It is huge and you can easily spend the whole day there. The big moment was seeing the colossal squid, it had eyes of a soccer ball and tentacles at 2.1 meters. Yes, it’s huge! Good thing I went when I did, I read upon my return they had removed the squid for cleaning. I walked through several exhibits and learned an interesting fact: Christchurch (city on east coast of south island) is ever so slowly moving away from Greymouth (city on west coast) due to the movement of the earth’s plates. All that walking in the museum made me hungry and I stopped at Pandora Panettera for some hot chocolate. I also bought some panforte, loved the spicy aftertaste! I ran into Eugene when I was preparing to leave that evening and said my goodbyes again. I took a bus to Auckland and arrived around 7 the next morning. I had breakfast at the casino in Sky Towers, I was impressed neither by the casino nor the restaurant. I thought Atlantic City casinos far fancier. And that was it, an afternoon flight was to bring me into Seoul where I would spend a day before heading back home. I had made some notes with Rachel on the must do/see things in Seoul and had plenty of time to read my guide book on the plane.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
