Month: August 2018

August 17-18

We didn’t get back to our hotel from our late night festivities until about 5 in the morning. Definitely not our style, but who am I to argue with good company and great hospitality? We slept late and got up just in time to meet back up with Bianca, Victor and the Aussie Steve for noon lunch at a wood fired pizza joint. Yes!!

This is my four cheese pizza – one of those cheeses is yak cheese! It was delicious! Bianca mentioned this pizza place days earlier and all of us had been counting the days until we could get our hands on this pizza.

Afterwards, Bianca walked us through Thamel to check out a Tibetan bookstore. They sell all of the books that are banned in Tibet by the Chinese government. Perfect opportunity to pick up a few new books!

Michael even found this book that clearly describes me lately:

Afterwards I would love to say that Michael and I went out to see all that we could see in this city. We only had about 36 hours in town. But we were exhausted. The late night and the tough drive completely wiped us out. So instead we went back to our hotel room, watched movies and slept. We didn’t even leave for a second meal of the day.

The next morning, fully rested, we made it to breakfast in the hotel and went out for a few hours before heading to the airport. We walked to Durbar Square – about a mile from our hotel – which is another UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This square is in front of the old royal palace. Several buildings in the square collapsed due to the April 2015 earthquake. The damage is still being repaired… apparently by the Chinese.

We were going to check out the museum in the square as well, but things got a bit strange. While walking towards it, a soldier wanted to see our tickets, which we had. While I was getting them out of my purse, he pulled his gun out of the holster and pointed it at us. It was only for a few seconds, but it freaked Michael out big time. He let us enter but we were then told by a group of Spaniards that it was opening in ten minutes. We waited for a few minutes but then just left. Not the right vibe for us.

Off to the market instead.

Our feelings about Kathmandu? The city of Kathmandu has infrastructure issues that are pretty similar to the problems outside of the city.

In general, we just didn’t enjoy the city that much. That said, we also didn’t give it much of a chance. It was muddy and hard to get around and hot.

Things didn’t get much better when we got to the airport. We arrived nearly 3 hours before our flight at the suggestion of our hotel. Thank goodness for that. The line to check our luggage took an hour or so even though there were only a few people ahead of us and when we got in line for customs their computers went out right as we were two away from the front. So we just stood there for another 40-60 minutes. We were losing our cool both literally and figuratively.

When they finally got the computers running again, the group in front of us stepped up to be processed. Then a porter pushed a person in a wheelchair up to the front of the line. In front of us. Michael nearly lost it. Then a second person in a wheelchair started coming up to the front of the line. Time to take action. I just put myself in customs’ no man land to ensure that they didn’t cut us off. You know – that area that you get yelled at for standing in? Past the red line on the ground that says please wait here? Yeah – I know, I’m a huge rebel. But it had to be done.

So that was it for Nepal. Not our finest couple of days. For all of the patience that we had on the crazy long drive and standing in long lines during Buddhist festivals with Tibets pushing us, we had zero patience for the following 36 hours in Nepal. Time to get to Bangkok and relax for a few days.

August 16

HBD to Alejandro and Javier!

If you would have told me that possibly the toughest day in nearly 10 months of travel was going to be a four hour drive from the Tibetan border town of Kodari to Kathmandu, I would not have believed you. The drive is 115 kilometers and it is the only overland route between China and Nepal. It’s so beautiful! What could go wrong?

We had to go through several checkpoints to get out of Tibet and China (apparently that is two separate border situations here) before crossing into Nepal at 10:30am.

We said good bye to our guide from Tibet and were told that because of a landslide we would have to walk 2 kilometers to get to the trucks that were going to take us the rest of the journey.

So we walked 2k.

Not a big deal when you see what the locals were carrying:

Those are boxes filled with apples – I saw an opened box. They’re filled with apples and she’s carrying them by a rope tied to her head.

Plus the valley is beautiful. Michael and I spent a good deal of time checking out the rapids and talking about when we’ll be able to go rafting again.

We finally made it to our 4x4s and after an hour or so of sorting through visas we were on our way. There are 13 people that we’ve been with over the past five days and it’s a pretty good group. We have an older German couple, a guy from Australia, a young couple from Uruguay, the couple from the Netherlands, a woman from Germany who lived in Kathmandu for five years, a young US marine who is stationed in Okinawa, and a couple from Genoa, Italy. A side note on that – on our last day in Tibet we woke up to the news that there was a major bridge collapse in Genoa. It was really sad news and a tough situation, especially when traveling with limited communications.

The thirteen of us broke into two groups for the next leg of the journey. Michael and I were with Ralf and Tess from the Netherlands, our marine, Victor, and German Bianca. I don’t know the name of our driver, but he proved to be completely top notch.

We got on the road and drove about 10 kilometers before our second landslide.

You can see how helpful we’re all being. Ultimately after moving some rocks by hand they tried tying a rope to a semi and a huge rock to try to move it. The Aussie, Steve, got in to help move some rocks by hand. We were watching from some distance while he was helping the locals. At one point, some small rocks started falling down the mountain onto the area where the men were standing. Every local broke out into a full sprint. We were 50 meters away and broke out into a sprint to get away. Steve stood still and looked up in the direction from where the rocks were coming. I think we can agree that if all of the locals take off in a sprint, you should be running too.

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Well, that didn’t get the job done, so they had to bring in the bulldozer. We weren’t totally sure why they waited so long to bring in the big guns, but we sat there for about three hours before we were able to proceed.

But from then it was smooth sailing!

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Ok – not smooth sailing. It was a really really bumpy ride that involved a lot of bumped heads on the roof of the car. I am an avid seat belt wearer on well paved, safe city roads. This was not safe. This was not well paved. I really wanted a seat belt, but that was not an option.

We drove about 30 minutes or so before we hit a check point.

An hour long wait gave Michael the chance to grab some “American Style” cream and onion flavored Lays. I’d like to say they were just like home, but that would be a lie.

And then we were on the road again! Driving about 10km per hour for another 30 minutes before the next check point. This time they were checking luggage. This was not a luggage scanner like at the airport. This was bags being pulled completely open to see what’s going on in there. Michael was the unlucky person to be at the head of the line and his entire backpack got emptied out on the table before she was satisfied. I was next and my packing saved me quite a bit of hassle. All you need is a bra right on top. It makes the soldiers really uncomfortable and they want nothing to do with you.

After another hour or so we were back on the road. Smooth sailing from here!

Except… our battery died.

Just a little messing around under the hood and we were back on our way. Smooth sailing from here!

We saw the next landslide while we were still a ways out and it looked bad. Basically a part of the road had just washed away. None of the big trucks were passing, but when we got up there we saw that the 4x4s were crossing. So we crossed on a very narrow road.

I tried to get a picture, but it doesn’t do it justice. I was terrified. It was around this time that my concern for our safety reached a panicked level. It didn’t help that my geotech husband was concerned about the roads as well. He just kept talking about how the roads weren’t going to hold up and how with just a bit of rain everything would be washed away. This is not what you want to hear just before it starts pouring down rain.

Grin and bear it?

We got another 15 or so kilometers under our belts before the next landslide. Right before we stopped, we hit a hard bump and I hit my head and my funny bone really hard (hurt for 24 hours hard). I started whining to Michael about how hard I hit my crazy bone (really really hard)! To which he started making fun of me for calling it by the wrong name. Everyone knows it’s called a funny bone. At which point Ralf let us know that it’s actually called the telephone bone in the Netherlands. Maybe because hitting your elbow sends a message down to your fingers?? We’re not really sure after having a full conversation about it. Please note that the internet has told me that the true name is the ulnar nerve. We had a lot of time on our hands to talk about random stuff.

For our next landslide, a portion of a bridge had washed out.

We were still at least an hour and a half or two hours from Kathmandu assuming no further issues and we had at least an hour wait here. They were putting rocks in a large cage to replace sections of the bridge before filling them with dirt. We were given a 1-3 hour time window for this to get fixed, but I was pretty concerned that even if it did get fixed the first truck to pass would cause the bridge to completely collapse. Bianca called in to one of her friends to see about having a car come in from Kathmandu to pick us up on the other side of the bridge… just in case this fix didn’t do the trick. For just 20 bucks a person we could have someone there in 1.5 hours to get us on the other side of the bridge… assuming no other problems. We put that idea on hold and waited to see how the bridge got sorted out.

They moved quite quickly and had some lights set up to help in the dark.

Also there was a snack shop that sold chips, water, and beer. Having not had lunch or dinner, we settled on the next best thing – beers. Did I mention that it was Tess’s birthday. Ralf had dinner in Kathmandu and a handful of other birthday surprises planned, but we were having too much fun on this road trip to make it in time to celebrate her birthday properly. So birthday beers it is!

The “fixed” bridge held up with the first few trucks… and ours, thank God… and we were on our way again. Smooth sailing from here!

Here’s Victor with a snickers. You’re not you when you’re hungry.

At some point, snickers became the snack of choice for our crew. We had been eating them for days and had a few to get us through the long day. You can see a bag of them in the beer picture up above.

Back on the road, with just 50 or so kilometers to drive we finally hit some real roads – mostly paved and everything!

That’s when we got a flat tire. True story.

So everyone jumped out of the truck and pitched in. We were holding lights, cranking the jack, unscrewing bolts, signaling to oncoming cars because it was pretty dark and rainy and we didn’t want to get hit.

I’m pretty sure it was this bathroom break in the tall grass when I got completely eaten alive:

Since we weren’t on malaria meds, I’d like to confidently say #nomaleriainnepal, but I’d be more accurate to say #googleismostlysurethatthereisnomaleriainthisareaofnepal.

We had that tire changed in under 10 minutes. Keep in mind that our only stops have been checkpoints, landslides, and car problems. We haven’t had any meals or formalized bathroom breaks. But despite all this, everyone was still in really good spirits. Ralf convinced the driver to let him play music off his iPhone and he had a legit playlist of 90s music and some more current stuff – both from Europe and the US. So we were all rocking out.

We arrived in Kathmandu around 11pm local time which is 1:15am Tibetan time. So it took us nearly 15 hours to drive the 115 kilometers from the border to Kathmandu. The next day we spoke with Steve, the Aussie from the other car. They got in another two hours after us. I told you our driver was amazing. These guys risk their lives doing this drive. It’s incredible. I would never drive on this road again and I would urge anyone who inquires not to either. It was a terrible ride and it was pretty scary. I am incredibly grateful that we survived it. It sounds dramatic, but I stand by the statement.

Once we arrived, we dropped our bags at the hotel and met back up with Bianca. I mentioned she use to live in Kathmandu, so she had an inside scoop on where we could get some late night food. Yes, 11pm is late night in Kathmandu. The police have everything shut down tight by midnight. When we left our hotel the guy at the front desk actually was nervous about us trying to find food until he found out we had a local taking care of us.

Most of the group was invited to dinner, but a lot of people bailed. It was late and everyone was exhausted. But Michael and I were pretty hungry and we knew that they were keeping a kitchen open late for us, so we met back up with Bianca and went to dinner. Apparently her closest friend, Rabin, owns the place, and since Bianca hadn’t been back to Nepal in two years, we had quite the welcome.

Fireworks, confetti bombs, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Jack Daniels and most importantly, FOOD!

Momos (Nepali dumplings) and a handful of other Nepali dishes were waiting for us. Mmmmmmmmm.

We had lost Victor for awhile, but he finally made it out as well and we had a blast.

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We were absolutely exhausted, but it was the type of trip that deserved celebrating. We arrived late on the 16th. Early morning on the 18th the road was washed out leaving a lot of people stranded for a few days. I made the mistake of googling the road – don’t do it. It’s dangerous and a lot of people die regularly on it. You can fly in and out of Kathmandu. If you feel the need to go to Nepal, try that instead.

August 13-15

HBD to Maggie and Evie!!

We left Lhasa and headed out into the Tibetan countryside. We were looking at 8-10 hours of driving for each of the next three days. Tibet is huge and driving up and down mountains takes a long time. Before we saw any “true sites” we had the chance to hang out with some yaks and these Tibetan Mastiffs at a rest stop.

I love yaks. So much. I also love this random painting.

Apparently we didn’t get the memo that we were suppose to be reading the maps that were just handed out.

Our first real stop was Yamtso Tso Lake which is also called Yamdrok Yumtso or Yamzho Yumco. It is one of the three largest sacred lakes in Tibet. It is over 45 miles long and the elevation is 4441 meters. The names translate to turquoise in English. According to local mythology, this lake is the transformation of a goddess.

Like mountains, lakes are considered sacred by Tibetan people, with the thought that they are the dwelling places of protective deities and therefore have special spiritual powers. Everyone from the Dalai Lama to local villagers make pilgrimages to this lake. It is revered and is said to be the life-spirit of Tibet. This lake is closely associated with the Second Buddha and is home to the famous Samding Monastery which is the only Tibetan monastery to be headed by a female re-incarnation.

Yak.

We also got a higher view of the same lake as we were climbing the mountains.

This is the stop where we made friends with the goats.

Well… some of us became a bit closer with the goats than I did. This is our Italian friend, Simone. He had no issue with the goats getting right up in his business.

Karola Glacier is only 9.4 square kilometers but it sits at 5560 meters. This isn’t our finest picture below, but it was sleeting at this moment and I just stepped out of the van, snapped the picture and jumped right back in.

Our next stop was Gyantse Kumbum. The word kumbum means one hundred thousand holy images. This has nine levels that contain 77 chapels. As you climb each level, and view the chapels, you are suppose to be on a path to the Buddha’s enlightenment.

Here are some views of the chapels below. A lot of the art was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. So some of this art was replaced or replicated.

Some more views outside the Kumbum:

Another day, another monastery. Tashi Lhunpo Monastery was founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama. This is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama who are the second highest ranking in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama.

Although two-thirds of the buildings were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, it was mostly residences so the damage was not as extensive as other monasteries and temples in Tibet. However, you can still see the remains of damage. Our guide pointed out the below where graffiti has been meticulously scrubbed but still shows.

The 10th Panchen Lama did not flee Tibet when the 14th Dalai Lama fled. The life of the 10th Panchen Lama is a bit confusing. He supported China’s claim over Tibet and is called the “fat businessman” by a lot of Tibetans. Instead of fleeing to India with the Dalai Lama, he stayed and started monetizing Buddhism in Tibet. However, he also wrote a 70,000 character petition in 1962 outlining the abusive policies and actions of China’s government in Tibet. After this he was publicly humiliated and imprisoned for 13 years.

After his release, he was considered by authorities to be “politically rehabilitated” and rose to power in the Chinese government. He also got married and had a daughter who is the only known offspring in the history of either the Panchen Lama or Dalai Lama reincarnation lineages. She was schooled in the US for ten years where her legal guardian was Steven Seagal. I seriously cannot make this up. She is popularly known as the Princess of Tibet and is considered important in Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan-Chinese politics.

The 10th Panchen Lama died just five days after giving a speech where he said, “Since liberation, there has certainly been development, but the price paid for this development has been greater than the gains.” The official cause of death was a heart attack, but some Tibetans suspect foul play. He died with a net worth of $20 million.

Our guide had an interesting take on the Panchen Lama. It seems like he was a polarizing figure and although our guide had no problems letting us know some of the bad things he had done, he did argue that by staying and cooperating with the Chinese government, he could be the main reason why much of the monasteries, art, and scriptures were saved in various areas of the country. Without his business savvy and his willingness to play along there would have been much more devastation in Tibet.

The 11th Panchen Lama is controversial. I know that’s hard to believe. There is an acting Panchen Lama in Tibet that is supported by the Chinese, however, there is also an 11th Panchen Lama that is supported by the Tibetan government in exile, but he was taken into “protective custody” by China when he was named the Panchen Lama and hasn’t been seen since May of 1995.

Our next stop was Everest basecamp!! We arrived just before sunset, so we dropped our bags and did a short walk out of camp to see what we could see. What did we see? Not a ton…

You can kind of see a bit of Everest out back – the small darkish mountain. Our guide told us that we should have a clear view the next morning since there was no pending rain during the evening. So, we enjoyed our quasi view along with a few beers.

First you obviously have to chill the beer.

That’s Mike with our new friend, Ralf, from the Netherlands.

Also, a crew of Chinese who live in Australia wanted us to jump in their picture with them. So we did. Chick with the green shoes needs to work on her ups.

So feeling content with the high probability of seeing Everest the next morning, we headed back to our tents for dinner.

This is what the tents look like on the inside. People are sitting on the end of the beds. They are really just benches with some cushioning on them so you are sleeping directly next to all of the friends you just made on the bus. Fifteen or eighteen people can sleep in one tent. Michael and I, however, got some “good luck” and got invited to sleep in an empty tent next door. So the two of us along with the two solo men on our trip went to the next tent which was completely empty. Great! We got into bed, and our guide came over and layered us up with extra blankets and we settled in for a great night’s sleep.

Hahaha. Just kidding. It was a terrible night’s sleep for several reasons.

1. This really great empty tent became the guide party tent. True story. For 1.5-2 hours after we got into bed all of the guides came into our tent to hang out, tell stories and watch videos on their phones. They were super loud and kept the lights on. Horrible.

2. Our guide slept in the tent with us and as we already knew from driving in the bus with him for hours on end is that he snores. He snores really loud.

3. Since the altitude is so bad, 8844.43 meters to be exact, I was drinking a ton of water to try to get my hands and feet to stop tingling. As such, around 2am I needed a bathroom in a bad way. So after spending twenty or so minutes talking myself into it, I got out of the warm bed, threw on shoes and headed out. Half of the difficulty was getting across the pitch black tent to my phone that was plugged in to the wall. Once I was out of the tent, with my phone light, I was in better shape (mostly). I had heard horror stories about the designated bathrooms. After dark, before bed, Michael and I went out and used the Inca bathroom, so this was my first experience with official bathrooms. I made my way across camp, got to the location and the smell was so bad that I just couldn’t do it. So instead, it was round two of that Everest basecamp bathroom under the sky!

After my bathroom break I was in much better shape and slept fairly well for another few hours. We woke up early, excited to see our mountain!

Ok… so we’re definitely not seeing Everest.

It was still a cool experience, even though the views were not spectacular.

Something to note: the tents are all warmed with dried yak dung. Here’s a box of it. It kept everything super warm and it was odorless, believe it or not.

Something else to note: the only people who obeyed these signs were foreigners. The Chinese just walked right past it without a care in the world. There was no reason to ignore the sign. There was absolutely nothing to see with this cloud coverage. But they kept walking anyway.

Look at all those stupid foreigners lined up at the boundary.

Rongbuk Monastery is a hermitage right by Everest. We went to visit after leaving basecamp.

While we were at basecamp earlier that morning, Michael and I hiked up to one of the monastery’s meditation huts that run up and down the valley.

This monastery was completely destroyed by the Cultural Revolution, but their books, scriptures, and costumes were taken for safekeeping to another site. However, all of those were then lost in a 1989 fire.

In the below picture, on a clear day you can see Everest.

This woman was tickled when I asked to take her photo.

She is holding a Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheel. On the outside of the cylinder is the Avalokitesvara mantra which translates to ‘Om the Jewel in the Lotus Hum’. On the inside of the cylinder, written on paper, are mantras or scripture. It is believed that spinning a prayer wheel is as effective as reciting the sacred texts aloud. Prayer wheels are also used by illiterate members of the Buddhist community who equate turning the wheel to reading the prayers. The concept is the same for large wheels that Buddhists turn by hand when walking by.

So that was it for Everest and Tibet. The landscapes were beautiful and diverse and the colors of the Buddhist prayer flags were incredible against the bright greens, browns and blues of the views.

We had several great views of the Himalayas even though we missed out on the main event.

Plus we got these super cool certificates that said we visited… even if we don’t have an Everest shot to prove it. Also it’s not clear to me that being driven to basecamp and walking the half mile for the view is that much of an “accomplishment”. But cool experience. Maybe we’ll be back to do some real hiking in a few years.

August 11-12

Tibet is a strange place to visit. The history and the current political environment make it a country inside a country where people seem to have opinions but speak none of them. I for one, kept my mouth shut on almost everything and didn’t start writing this blog until I was well out of the country. I’ll throw out a few things about Tibet so we can all be on the same page about the situation:

-Tibet is the highest region on Earth with an average elevation fo 4900 meters (16k feet). The highest elevation in Tibet (and the world) is Mount Everest. We’ll talk more about that later.

-Tibetans who are in exile call the area “Greater Tibet” while China calls it “Tibet Autonomous Region”.

-The Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but the region was divided into territories with some portions of the region being under control by Mongol and Chinese overlords throughout the centuries. But even during these times Tibet had reasonable autonomy.

-In 1912 there was a revolution in China, at which point the soldiers were escorted out of Tibet and the region declared its independence in 1913. It maintained true autonomy until 1951 when Tibet was incorporated into the People’s Republic of China. During the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India and established a rival government-in-exile.

-“The Great Leap Forward”, from 1958 to 1962, was a campaign by Mao Zedong that was aimed to transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. This created major restrictions on rural people and resulted in tens of millions (possibly 55 million) of deaths by famine, forced labor, and violence. About one of those 55 million deaths were Tibetan. It doesn’t sound like that much (relatively speaking) until you know that the 2014 census had Tibetan population at just 3 million. So maybe that million was 20% of the population? Maybe more? Maybe less?

-The “Cultural Revolution”, from 1966 to 1976, was a sociopolitical movement by Mao Zedong launched to preserve communist ideology of the country by purging capitalist and traditional elements from the Chinese society. This took the form of persecution, public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, property seizure, and execution of a large portion of the population. In Tibet, the vast majority of historic Tibetan architecture was destroyed during this time.

-In 1980, Tibet entered a period of social, political, and economic liberalization. However, at the end of the 80’s, monks from the Drepung and Sera monasteries in Lhasa began protesting for independence, so the Chinese government halted reforms and started an anti-separatist campaign that used human rights violations to crack down on the protestors.

-In 2008 there was a series of riots, protests, and demonstrations that started in Lhasa, with about 150 protest “incidents” across Tibet in the span of two weeks. Chinese government claims 23 people were killed, but the Tibet government-in-exile claim 203 were killed. This led to protests in cities around the world with many targeting Chinese embassies. Foreign and Hong Kong media were banned from Tibet during this time and any remaining media personnel were required to leave the area. There were calls for people to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but nothing came of it. According to Amnesty International, over 1000 Tibetan protestors that were detained by Chinese authorities at this time were unaccounted for. It’s not clear to me from the internet what ever happened to these people.

So that’s a bit of info to help set the stage. Since arriving in Shanghai a few days earlier, we were already a bit paranoid about the Chinese government. It’s just not the kind of country that I feel very safe in. We had no real safety threats, but we were thoughtful about what we said in public and we were careful about what we said in private as well. On several occasions one of us said to the other, “look at that – I have something to say about that later”, or “when we’re out fo China I have a thought about this”.

Our guide said very few candid things about the Chinese government and he said nothing while on the bus. Outside of the bus, he was willing to say a few things in hushed tones. He told us that all of the tour buses have gps on them. The party line is that the Chinese government installs it as a way to track speed of the buses to ensure that they are being safe with tourists. However, our guide believes that they also installed microphones in the tour buses. Big brother is listening.

He told a story about a friend of a friend who is a tour guide in Tibet. He saw a government sign that was written in both Chinese and English. The English was poorly worded, so the guide made fun of the government while in the tour bus. Apparently, by the time he arrived at his destination there were two police officers waiting take him in for questioning. Now, the story sounded a bit like an old wives tale. However, even if it is not true, our guide seemed to believe it and I think that speaks to the paranoia in the country.

So now that the stage is set, I’ll tell you about our trip. Our first stop was at a park that overlooked the city and Potala Palace.

After being in super hot cities the past few weeks, it was great to be in some fresh, cool air. There were a few hiking paths that we got to explore. The altitude made it a bit tough to do some of the climbing, but the gasping for air was well worth it.

Here’s our tour group:

Also, look at these flowers!!! They are wildflowers, but growing in the wildflowers are wild roses! How great is that? They grew low to the ground and were beautiful.

Also, we saw pandas!!! Would you look at that!?! Look at them, just hiding out in the tall grass. Silly pandas!

When we had arrived in Lhasa, we found out that our first full day in Lhasa actually is the first day of the Shoton Festival, or Yogurt Festival. It dates back to the 11th century and is called the Yogurt Festival because the local residents offer yogurt to monks finishing their month long meditation retreats. The main event is the “sunning of the Buddha” ceremonies, where huge Thangka silk embroideries are displayed on the hillsides near the Drepung and Sera monasteries. For the festival, the police had many of the roads near these monasteries shut down, which meant that people walked for hours, many before sunrise to see the Thangkas hung around 8am. Also, the city was filled with Chinese from around the country who had poured in to see the Thangkas which is open for only a few hours before it is rolled up again and not seen until the next year.

Our tour guide told us that if you are able to see the Thangkas hanging at the monetary, it means that you will have good luck, good marriage and good fortune for the next year. Sign me up.

In order to get to the monastery, we had to walk in line for about two hours. It was pretty awful. It was crazy crowded and everyone was pushing the entire time. Seriously. People refused to walk in an orderly fashion. Nothing like strangers pushing up against you and trying to cut you off for hours. This picture does not properly depict the situation. Anytime the crowds were really bad I had my camera safely put away. Our tour guide was incessant on the dangers of pickpockets during this time. Usually we exhibit caution whenever we’re in crowds. This was next level.

By by the time we made it to the Thangka, it felt worth the effort.

One of the traditions of the Thangkas is to throw “hada” at the Thangka. A hada or khama is a traditional ceremonial scarf that symbolizes purity and compassion. They are usually made of silk and are white, symbolizing the pure heart of the giver.

We didn’t realize that many people aggressively throw them and try to get them to hit as high as possible on the Thangka as they can, so we followed most people and just politely handed them off to the monks standing there. Huge mistake. Michael was completely bummed that he did not understand the process well enough to toss his hada.

In addition to the Thangka, there were also beautiful paintings on the surrounding rocks.

This little girl was so sweet.

The monastery that we visited was the Sera Monastery on this first day so we could see the Thangka. Sera is one of the great three Gelug university monasteries in Tibet. Sera means “wild roses monastery” because the monetary was built on a site where wild roses bloomed. See!! Roses growing like wildflowers! I love it.

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The original Sera Monastery was a complex with 19 hermitages, which included 4 nunneries, a great assembly hall and three colleges. At its height, there were about 6000 monks and Sera Monastery was considered one of the finest locations in Tibet to witness debates. During the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, Sera suffered severe damage with the colleges destroyed and hundreds of monks killed. During this time, there was also major destruction of ancient texts and works of art in the monastery. After the Dalai Lama took asylum in India, many of the monks of Sera who survived fled to India, under severe winter weather conditions across the Himalayas. Once in India, they established a parallel Sera Monastery similar to the original monastery with help from the Indian government. There are now 3000 monks or more living in Sera, India.

Wikipedia said that there were only about 300 monks living at Sera Monastery in Lhasa in 2011. Our guide told us that the Chinese government makes it very hard to become a monk. You have to do a lot of schooling. He also used the words brain and washing in a strange way in a sentence explaining how hard it is to become a monk. He said something like: before you can study to become a monk, the government wash the brain. He told us that the government doesn’t like monks since they are not married and have no children, so they have no fear when it comes to revolts and protests.

After leaving the monastery, Mike got some potato chips from this woman who was really excited to sell them to him.

We’re definitely still in a place where there are few white people and locals still get excited to see us. That said, we’re now on a tour with a few very blond women, so I get much less attention and we’re on tour with a man from the Netherlands who is about 6’8″ and has red hair, so Michael gets much less attention as well. Relatively speaking at least.

That night, the group went to dinner at a place called Dunya Restaurant and Bar. It was right next to our hotel (the yak hotel). Bizarre coincidence about Dunya: I have a T-shirt from this bar. I found it in my apartment in NYC a very long time ago when I still had roommates and have been wearing it as my own for years.

The next morning we started our day with a visit to a Buddhist temple in town called the Jokhang Temple.

One thing you see EVERYWHERE around this and other temples in Tibet is prostration. People were both walking around the temple and/or standing in front of it. They placed hands together in front of their body as if praying (with palms and fingertips together) and then placed them on the crown of their head, then to their throat, then to their heart. The idea is to purify defilements through your body, enlighten speech, and purify your mind. Then the person drops their body forward and stretches it out full length on the floor, the arms outstretched in front, then touch hands to the top of their head before stretching arms out again and pushing themselves up and starting over again. Most often, when walking around the temple, people would take two or three steps between each prostration. Apparently, some people do this all the way around the temples on a regular basis, which I would expect would take a few hours. But also some people do pilgrimages from their homes to temples, prostrating the entire time for thousands of miles. Our guide told us that some will spend years at a time prostrating from their home town to temple, often to purify themselves of some major event or indiscretion. They bring nothing with them and people give them money and food along their trip to help support.

The Jokhang Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered the most sacred and important temple in Tibet. The temple was built in the 7th century by King Songtsen Gampo for his two brides. One was Chinese and one was Nepalese. Both wives brought important Buddhist statues and images from their homes which were housed here, as part of their dowries.

During the cultural revolution, the temple was attacked by Chinese soldiers and no one was allowed to worship there for about a decade. During this time the Chinese used the temple to house and slaughter pigs. Much of the art and scriptures were burned or destroyed. But apparently, the monks built a fake wall to hide some of the important art and statues until it was safe to bring them out again.

As with many of the places we will visit in Tibet, there are no pictures allowed inside the Jokhang Temple, so I nabbed these off the internet.

Then it was off to the Potala Palace which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The palace was built by the 5th Dalai Lama with construction starting in 1645 and was the home to the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. It is now a museum. Our guide told us that there are actually two parts of the palace, the original part that was built in the 7th century and the portion that was built in the 17th century. As we walked around, he was quick to point out where the old building and the new building met.

Here’s the view as we climbed up to the palace.

The palace houses three distinct sections: the area for the government, the area for religion, and the Dalai Lama’s residence in between the two. Since the Dalai Lama was in charge of both religion and government.

The Dalai Lama is the title given to the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. They are part of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama represents unification of the state of Tibet.

When the Dalai Lama dies, it is believed that he is reincarnated. Traditionally, it has been the responsibility of the high lamas to find this person and they often wait for a sign from a lake in central Tibet for guidance. It can take two or three years for it to happen. This person had usually been found in Tibet, but the fourth Dalai Lama was born in Mongolia. The current Dalai Lama, however, has stated that he will not be reborn in China and he may not be reborn at all. The government of China has stated that it will be the ultimate authority on the selection of the next Dalai Lama. This does not bode well for the government in exile.

Mike asked our guide about this process… what will happen when the 14th Dalai Lama dies. Our guide got upset and said that they do not talk about it. It is not good to talk about his death – only to hope for continued life.

This is a view of the Dalai Lama’s residence. The gold at the top is where he use to live. The stairs into the building have the center partitioned off – the gold carpet means that only the Dalai Lama can walk on that portion of the steps.

Once again, we were not allowed to take pictures inside. We walked through twenty or so rooms that served a variety of functions. Some had statues and scriptures in them. Some were sitting rooms or meeting rooms for the Dalai Lama. Some were rooms that held tombs of former Dalai Lamas. The first rooms that you enter when visiting are those of the 14th Dalai Lama. Both Michael and I were hit with an intense feeling of sadness when we entered. Sadness for the people of Tibet and for their leader who is in exile.

One thing I want to mention is that most of the visitors are not foreigners. They are Tibetan and Chinese. And most of them as they walk through the rooms, both in the palace and at the temples, leave money as offerings. I asked our guide what happens to this cash, assuming it went to the monasteries or the monks. It does not. It goes straight to the Chinese government. All of the cash goes to the government. Per our guide, it doesn’t even go to maintaining the buildings, as devout Tibetans pay for any necessary upkeep and do the work themselves. I have a hard time understanding this. I don’t understand how or why these people would pay money directly to the government that is oppressing them. Perhaps they don’t feel oppressed. Perhaps that is my opinion as an outsider. Or perhaps they don’t know where the funds are going. Or perhaps they are less concerned with where the funds are going and more concerned with ensuring the safety of their spiritual health. I don’t know, but I struggle with this big time.

After the palace we had a free evening, so Michael and I went back to the Jokhang Temple before dinner.

Then we sat down to this ridiculously sized meal – this is what happens when there is an extreme language barrier.

While waiting for our food, we saw this guy across the street pulling noodles. We had seen this on YouTube a long time ago and we were pumped to see someone doing it live.

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Try to get past the dirty screen and see how incredible this guy is. He was also excited that Michael wanted to take video of him.

After dinner we went to the plaza in front of the Potala Palace where people gather at night for views of the palace.

Some female monks above… below? No way of knowing what this said or what it was celebrating.

The next morning we started the road trip portion of the tour. It was time to get out of the city and see some yaks up close.

August 9-10

We picked up luggage and made our way over to the Shanghai Railway Station. With questionable instructions from our Tibet tour guide, we weren’t completely convinced that there would really be tickets waiting for us at the station. Plus we were once again in a situation where everything was written in Chinese, so we were on the struggle bus. Travel days that include uncertainty make me pretty anxious and it doesn’t add any value to the process. But anxious I am, none the less. We finally found out where the ticket station was and took the surprisingly long hike over there. With no understanding of what was going on, we just picked a line and hoped for the best.

We sat in line for about 20 or 30 minutes before it was our turn. It seemed like every person that was going up to the ticket window was having problems or was being turned away. Thank goodness we gave ourselves three hours to make this happen. When it was finally our turn, we gave the woman behind the glass everything that could possibly be helpful: passports, ticket reference number, Tibet permit, China visas. She handed over tickets to us in under two minutes. It was surprisingly easy and it was all done without any ability to verbally communicate.

Next we had to go through security as you would at an airport and then off to seating area 2 to wait the next two hours for our train. Now, Michael and I are fairly confident travelers, but nothing unnerves me like officials yelling things in a foreign language and people acting on those commands. What are they saying?! Should we be moving?! Are we in the wrong place?! This was actually a similar problem we had at the Vietnam embassy in Tokyo.

So much travel anxiety! So I did the same thing in Shanghai as I did in Tokyo. I looked like a moron and walked up to the official and shoved my ticket in his face to see if he was talking about us. No words. Just a ticket shoved in random person’s face. Not my finest moment, but he shook his head, pointed at the waiting area we were already sitting in and said a bunch of stuff in Mandarin. Got the job done and gave us a little calm before the storm of a few hundred Chinese racing and pushing to get onto the train.

We usually just hang back in these situations until the boarding panic is over, but in this situation I wanted to get into our cabin quickly to make sure that whoever we were sharing space with didn’t touch our area. It felt important to claim our space early on and Michael was completely in agreement.

We boarded the train a bit before 8pm. It is a 47 hour train ride, and Michael and I reserved soft berths for the trip. Soft berths are cabins with four beds that have mattresses, pillows and sheets, with a tiny table. The other options were hard berths (rows of cubbies you can sleep in with no privacy and no sheets/mattress) or seats similar to an airplane. This was not a hard choice.

We ended up getting super super lucky. We didn’t have any roommates… for the entire trip! Throughout the two days, people got on and off the train, but our room was left alone! It was great. Especially since we were in a world with no English, it was really nice for us to have a place to retreat and hideout a bit. We later found out that the train was totally booked. A couple from the Netherlands that were in our Tibet tour group had to sleep on the hard berths because there were no soft available when they booked their tickets. So whoever was suppose to be in our cabin must have just missed the train or something. Apparently the hard berths were completely miserable, with people crammed into small spaces, sleeping and eating and sharing air for two straight days. So we were super lucky.

We slept a lot, played cards, read a couple of books, and started acclimating to the altitude. And we tried the food in the food car, but mostly we ate the provisions we found the day before in Shanghai: cool ranch doritos, peanuts, frito scoops, granola bars and two huge jugs of water. Yes, it was a bit like college.

Eh… it tasted ok. A bit better than airplane food, but not good enough to warrant a second hot meal in the 47 hours.

We did have some beautiful views and we saw yaks for the first time!

Don’t worry. I have some better yak pictures coming in the next post. It is an animal that I didn’t know I loved until I got to Tibet. I love them.

We liked the romantic idea behind a cross country train trip, but there wasn’t a ton to see and with no shower facilities, it was a bit less romantic than expected. And the bathroom situation was beyond gross.

But now we made it to Tibet! We have a set tour for the next six days before heading across the border to Nepal.

August 6-8

With only two days in Shanghai, we were going to try to make the most of it. We got in late, but had enough time to have a Peking duck dinner.

Now, I’m not a fan of eating duck. I think it tastes icky pants. But this duck was delicious.

Michael ordered too much food, including these duck hearts which they had us set on fire before eating.

They were not the best, but a cool party trick!

The eggplant was my favorite – less sweet than the rest of the dishes and had a bit of spice to it.

The next morning we started our day in Old Town. We began by tackling some ice cream. It really is super hot over here.

Then we went to check out the Temple of the Town God. This Taoist temple is dedicated to Cenghuang who is the guardian God of Shanghai. The temple became the city God temple in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty and a large market grew around the temple.

The temple is still an active place of worship.

Then we wandered over to the Yuyuan Gardens which were built 400 years ago, also during the Ming Dynasty by a high ranking official who wanted a place for his aging parents to relax. The word Yuyuan means happy and the garden covers five acres.

The gardens fell into disrepair but then were purchased by rich merchants in 1760. It was opened to the public in 1961. The gardens have a few pavilions that house beautiful Ming dynasty style rosewood furniture plus a lot of jade rocks.

My favorite part of the gardens were these jade window panes.

After leaving the gardens and entering the old town bazaar, we were tempted to just find a place right there to grab dumplings.

We were so hungry and so hot!!! But we held it together and trucked it over to a dumpling place that Michael had read about. For under 20 bucks we got all of this:

We ordered in a super successful manner – we saw what all the locals were eating, pointed, and asked for the same. Not 100% error free ordering, but better than working off the mandarin menus.

That night we wandered down to the Bund which was one of the most important ports in China. It now houses historical buildings and faces the modern Shanghai skyline, across the river.

Some of the cool buildings we saw were:

The Great Northern Telegraph Company Building where the first telephone switch in Shanghai was installed. But no picture to prove we saw it.

The HSBC Building (on the left below) which at time of completion in 1923 was the second largest building in the world after the Bank of Scotland building in Edinburgh. Did you know that HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation? For having been in financial services for 12 years, I was blown away that I didn’t know that. I assumed it stood for the last names of some dead white guys.

The Customs House (on the right above) which has a clock tower that to this day is the largest clock in Asia. (It doesn’t look that big to me, though.)

Then we were off to dinner at Mr. & Mrs. Bund which has a great view of the skyline and even better food.

These two dishes – citrus prawn and a truffle toasted something or another with foam on top – they were incredible. Some of the most flavorful dishes that we’ve ever had.

And steak. Mmmm.

Plus here’s Michael with a lion:

The next day was our last day in Shanghai, but we had a pretty full day to hang out. We decided to take the metro to check out a pizza place called Homeslice Pizza which claims to serve New York slices.

On our way to the metro we happened upon two great finds. The first was this dumpling shop that served xiao long bao which are pork soup dumplings.

Then we found a book store. With a long train ride later tonight and an eight day boat ride in a few weeks, we were hoping to pick up some books.

We found nothing in English. BUT… we walked just another half block and happened upon Shanghai Book Traders! A book store with tons of books in English! We spent the next 30 or 40 minutes browsing and picking up a few items.

We’re not sure what is going on here, but apparently there are new Harry Potter books that are the original stories with added material, possibly related to each of the houses.

What!!! We didn’t buy, but I am definitely interested.

Finally we made it to the train station. Yup – that temple looking thing is the metro station.

We followed google maps to the pizza place and found nothing. We took the long route getting there and by that time we were super sweaty, cranking and ready for food. Not a good position to be in. We spent some time reviewing google maps and determined that it just sent us to the wrong place. But we were on the right street. So we popped into a bakery, ordered coffees and two slices of chocolate cake and regrouped.

After relaxing and cooling off a bit, we decided we were going to follow the street until we found the pizza place, about a mile down.

It ended up being a wonderful walk down a tree lined street with boutiques and small restaurants.

And finally… we made it!

Was it a New York slice? I’d say no – but it had a lot of similarities and it was still delicious pizza.

We had a very short but great stop in to Shanghai. There is still much to see, but at least we ate well! Now off to Tibet.

July 29-August 5

After a few quick trips, we were looking forward to having a week in Tokyo. Originally we allocated this much time to Tokyo just in case we were having issues obtaining our China visas. However, I found a way to expedite the visa process, so we had a lighter “to-do” list than expected. The list included just a few items: obtain Vietnam visas, explore the city, and eat all of the food.

We started with a Michelin starred ramen restaurant. Boom! More super cheap Michelin food! We ate at Tsuta – Japanese Soba Noodles.

Now despite all the rage that ramen has become in the states, neither Michael nor I had ever had ramen before. There is definitely a chance that we were ruined by this place. We were really lucky to get tickets same day. Apparently some people show up at five or six in the morning to line up and get tickets. We just wandered up at 11am and got lucky. We came back around 2 for our time slot and had to wait in line for about 20 or 30 more minutes. Then they took us to a vending machine that had a button for each dish that we could order. Knowing almost zero Japanese, we went with what was recommended to us. “The favorites”. We think there was pork in both and maybe some chicken or tofu… no way of knowing really. What we know, though, is that they were delicious.

After this it was off to check out the Asakusa district which is famous for the Senso-ji temple.

As we approached, we saw a bunch of stores that rented traditional Japanese clothing. Asakusa is Tokyo’s oldest geisha district. Apparently, it is common practice for Japanese to come and rent clothing before going to the temple. I snuck a few pictures, obviously.

This is Kaminarimon. It is the first of the ornate gates that lead to the Senso-Ji temple.

The word Kaminarimon means “thunder gate” and was constructed during the Samurai period in 942. It was relocated to the current location in 1635 but then almost immediately burned down in 1639. It was reconstructed. There are four statues in the gate (you can see two in our picture). I’m pretty sure the two you’re seeing here are Fujian, the Shinto God of the wind, on the left and Riajin, the God of thunder, on the right. But… not really sure on that. The giant red paper lantern, called a Chochin, in the center was donated by the founder of Panasonic.

Nakamise-dori is the shopping street that leads to the Kaminarimon Gate. Here you can buy your samurai swords, fans, kimonos, masks, and dolls.

This is Hozomon. It is the inner gate that houses the treasures of the Senso-Ji.

Built in 942, but destroyed by fire in 1631, it was rebuilt and stood for 300 years before it was destroyed in WWII bombings. It has now been rebuilt as a steel reinforced structure with fire resistant materials.

The below is the Gojunoto which is a five storied pagoda.

It is the second highest pagoda in Japan. It has a central pillar made of Japanese cypress wood which is the standard form of architecture in almost all Japanese pagodas. The five floors are loosely packed around the central pillar in an architectural style called the new Toinzukuri style which makes the structure resistant to earthquakes. The relics of the Buddha are stored in the top floor.

Senso-Ji – the main event – is also known as the the Asakusa Kannon Temple.

It is the oldest and most popular Buddhist temple in Tokyo. According to legend, two fishermen found a golden statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon, the Goddess of mercy, in the River Sumida. They tried putting it back in the river but it kept resurfacing. The leader of the village of Asakusa heard their story and understood the significance of the idol. He became a Buddhist monk and converted his home into a temple which is now known as the Senso-Ji temple. This building missed the 1600’s fires, but was burned down during WWII and has been rebuilt since. That original statue of Bodhisattva Kannon is still housed in the temple but is never shown to the public.

One of the traditions in a Buddhist temple is to pay a small amount to receive your fortune. You shake this metal tube and out comes a piece of wood with a Japanese character on it. You match your character to the corresponding character on the hutch and open that drawer. There lies your fortune.

Super fun, right? It is… if you get a good fortune or a regular fortune. Neither Michael nor I got a good fortune. I got a “regular” fortune:

Great!! Perfectly pleased with my fortune, I check in on Michael. He got a bad fortune. The gist? Death, suffering, bad marriage, bad employment, and coming up with bad ideas while drinking. Not looking so good for Michael.

Apparently when you get a bad fortune, you are to tie it on this rack. So he did.

And then he got another fortune – a regular one this time like me. Sometimes you have to take your future into your own hands.

That night we went to piss alley for dinner. The name comes from a long time ago when there were no bathrooms available, so people would just go on the street. That is no longer the case, but the name has stuck.

We started by eating the biggest oysters we’ve ever seen along with a seaweed side dish that we were offered. It was good… but gooey.

Then we got a couple of broiled oysters with miso butter sauce. mmmmmm

Next up we had yakitori which is what the area is known for. It’s basically meats and veggies on skewers cooked over charcoal. Very delicious.

Walking back we saw these two women and just had to take their pictures. Women in kimonos holding Smirnoff ice and Zima? Amazing.

The next day, we woke up and wanted to find another style of cooking for lunch: tempura! Michael popped it into google maps and found a place just a few blocks from our hotel room. The beautiful thing about Tokyo? You can “happen upon” a two Michelin starred restaurant by accident. We ate at Tempura Kondo. Tell me, which floor is Kondo on?

Ninth floor, obviously. Thankfully google translate is magic.

The woman in charge sent us away and told us to come back in two hours for the next seating. No problem! The place looked amazing, but also a bit fancier than we were expecting, so we were off for coffee and to find a nicer shirt for Michael.

Then tempura!! We for the most part, once again, had no clue what we were doing. But since they sat us at the same time as everyone else, we faked it for the most part. The set menu was clutch. The only thing we missed? The jar on the far right of my tray had Japanese radish in it. You’re supposed to mix it with the sauce. But someone came up and told us.

Like most of the places we’ve eaten in Japan, we sat at a bar overlooking the chefs. Definitely makes the experience more fun.

We had fish and peppers and lotus root and onions.

Everything was delicious. Plus I had this shrimp and rice and tea dish.Then it ended with really the best mango I’ve ever had.

Might not look like much but it was incredible.

Afterwards we wandered around a bit and checked out some gardens.

That night we were still pretty full from our lunch, so we just popped into a place that promised New Zealand wines for a small bite and a glass of wine. The wine list was incredible. We ended up having a bottle Achival Ferrer, which is the winery that we loved in Mendoza! We also tried some kangaroo because when in Rome…

Plus we had some Japanese cheeses and dessert. Because if you’re not going to eat a full meal, you need to at least pick up a proper dessert.

Another day, another style of Japanese cuisine. We started our day with a visit to a Japanese steak house. Delicious Kobe beef plus the stews were really good too!

Everything went smoothly despite language barriers until the end of the meal when we tried to leave before tea was served. Rookie mistake.

Have you ever seen such “green” green tea?

After lunch, we popped over to the hello kitty shop to knock out some purchases. At first we thought this was the line to get into the store:

It wasn’t. It turns out that adults stand in line for hours to get hello kitty lottery tickets, whatever those are.

The store, once we entered, was something else.

The main point I’d like to communicate here is that hello kitty in Japan is not for children. It is for adults. As such, all of the items had adult prices associated. Clothing, luggage, designer purses, jewelry, etc.

Here is a Swarovski crystal hello kitty tiny piano, because of course there is.

This hello kitty barbi doll which cost about $160. Crazy!

Then we took a walk to the gardens of the Imperial Palace. They were really beautiful, but there was almost no shade which made it a bit tough to enjoy since it was boiling hot outside.

That night it was early to bed because we had a 4am wake up to head over to the fish market for BREAKFAST SUSHI!

Every morning, there is a auction at the fish market for the best fish. Right outside the market, sushi stalls open to sell super fresh fish to anyone willing to get up at the crack of dawn to consume it. We had heard about a place called Sushi Dai, which is supposedly “the best”, so we got in line.

Once you turn the corner, there is the second part of the line right out front with people sitting down. We were lucky that it was still dark when we got in line because by the time we left, it was crazy hot to be standing in line. We got in line around 4:45 and we sat down to sushi at 6:30am. We actually got lucky because the people ahead of us were a party of four and they didn’t fit at the counter. If we would have had to wait for the next round, we would have had another 45 minutes in line because they sit the entire counter at one time. I read online that some people wait in excess of four hours.

In case you were wondering, yes, we are continuing our goal of eating at all of the super cheap Michelin restaurants in Asia.

Here’s what we ate: semi fatty tuna, flounder with lime, snapper, horse mackerel with lemongrass, sea urchin, lean tuna, scallop, cutlassfish from Tokyo bay, sea eel, and then at the end, Michael had fatty tuna and I had makeral as our last piece.

We also got some miso soup in there, a piece of egg casserole (it is breakfast after all), and a sushi roll, although we don’t know what was in the roll. The fish was out of this world fresh and delicious. Plus how cute is this chef? He was just so happy to be doing what he was doing.

4am wake up for breakfast sushi really ruins the middle of your day. We grabbed naps and relaxed before heading out to the Shibuya district. Right when you get off the metro, you are facing what is considered the busiest street in the world.

We also grabbed a photo of the Hachiko statue.

Hachiko was an Akita dog that lived in the area. During his owner’s life, Hachiko would great him at the end of each day at the Shibuya metro station. Shortly after, Hachiko’s owner died, but Hachiko continued to go to the station at exactly the same time every day for another 9 years, 9 months and 15 days. His faithfulness to his master’s memory impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty all should strive to achieve.

The next day, we had a day of shopping and dumplings. But first… coffee! Since we move around a lot, it has been a long time since we’ve considered something “our place”, but we hit the same corner coffee shops every days in a row, so I figured that was worth the picture.

Then we did some major shopping at Uniqlo. We were staying in Ginza, the super ritzy shopping district, but I knew we could trust Uniqlo to have a few reasonably priced pieces. We are traveling a little heavier for the next week or two, but it’s worth it to have a few fresh items to wear.

Then, dumplings! Not much to say. They were delicious and we ate a ton of them.

That night we grabbed some more yakitori. How awesome is this chick? All of the other yakitori chefs we saw were men.

We also saw a billiken on our walk. Here was the conversation:

Jane: take a picture of that billiken for me, please

Mike: that’s a Buddha

Jane: no, it’s a billiken

Mike: it’s a Budd… it says it’s a billiken. What’s a billiken?

I still don’t know what on earth a billiken is, but I know it when I see it. Then we went to the rooftop bar for an expensive cocktail but a great view.

So during our time in Tokyo, we’ve had yakitori, ramen, tempura, steak, sushi, and dumplings. On our last day in the city, it seemed only natural that we head in a new direction.

Pancakes. I don’t know the last time we’ve had pancakes. Since Michael’s not a big breakfast guy, we rarely even have breakfast. But I wanted them, big time. I have been fighting a cold for a long time and just haven’t been able to shake it. So this seemed like just the ticket.

They were not that good and the bananas weren’t cooked into the pancakes like the picture showed (and like every normal human being knows they should be prepared). But they were glorious. It was really just what I needed after so much Asian food lately and only more to come! We took the rest of the day to work on some travel plans for the next few months. And of course hit up one last cooking style before getting out of town: Shabu-shabu at a place called Tajimaya Ginza.

Shabu-shabu is a Japanese hot pot dish of thinly sliced meat and vegetables boiled in water.

It’s a social meal where you cook together on your table. That pot was boiling water and in the above picture we were cooking our veggies.

Yes, that is a new skirt! Thank you for noticing! I picked it up at Uniqlo during our shopping escapade. We had a lot of fun during this meal. And per our super cute waitress, the important thing about cooking in this style is saying shabu-shabu as you cook the Kobe beef.

The next day we were off to Manila. But not before having a few more Japanese moments. Like these older women dancing in the airport with some stick things:

And a woman forcing Michael to take a survey about his experience with the bathrooms in Japan. They are high tech. Let me know offline if you want more info. But she did give Michael this bag of candy as a thank you gift.

This candy was just how I picture Japanese candy to be. I tried a bit of each, just for good measure, but most were icky and got thrown away.

Not this though. I don’t know what umai jelly is and there was no way I was drinking it.

So that was it! Japan was a really neat city, with amazing food, but much more foreign than I was expecting. Not many people spoke English which made it more of a challenge. But we had a wonderful time.

We were planning on spending our long layover in Manila similar to Kuala Lumpur. We wanted to get out, have some food in the city and maybe see a sight during our 14 hours there, but we were tired and I was feeling crappy still, so instead we ate in the hotel and called it a night. Off to China tomorrow!

July 28-29

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and the site of a very short layover for us. We have a little less than 24 hours in the city. So we nabbed a hotel by the airport, dropped our bags, and took a train into the city. With so little time, we knew we wanted to see the Petronas Twin Towers and eat some good food. So that’s what we did.

Expecto Petronum!!!

The Petronas Twin Towers is what surpassed the Sears Tower as the tallest building in the world in 1998. It remained the tallest building until 2004 when it was surpassed by Taipei 101. Taipei 101 was the tallest until 2010 when the Burj Khalifa surpassed it. A cool thing that I learned about the Petronas Twin Towers is that the walkway that connects the two buildings is only connected on one side. The other side is free to move so there is no issue when the wind blows the two towers in slightly different directions. Michael found this out because he knows one of the main engineers, Clyde Baker, who worked on the building.

After getting a close view, we wanted to see the towers from a different view, so we went across the park to grab a drink and see the view from the Skybar.

Good news – we had less than a full day in Kuala Lumpur, but this advertisement is confirming that our visit was legit because we spent thirty minutes in this bar. Boom!

Our next stop was Chinatown to grab some food.

After so many amazing food stalls in Singapore, the street food just didn’t look that good until we turned a corner and found exactly what we were looking for.

You pick your skewer and they grill it for you. Yes! We had a great selection of meats, seafood and veggies.

The food was delicious and just the ticket for a short trip to Kuala Lumpur.

The next morning we had a little free time before our flight, but not enough time to head back into the city. Michael grabbed a run and then we hung out at the pool for a bit. This should have been our easiest travel day, but with so much time on our hands before our flight, we cut it too close and ended up having to sprint through the airport for the first time in almost nine months. Ugh. Figures. But we made it. Now just a 9 hour flight to Tokyo!

July 24-27

Singapore falls into the list of countries that I should know more about but I don’t. So in case you don’t know much about it either, here’s just a few things to get you through. Singapore is an island city-state south of Malaysia. It is just one degree north of the equator. Singapore is made up of one main island and 62 islets.

Colonial Singapore was founded in 1819 as a trading post for the British East India Company and then became a British colony in 1858. Singapore was occupied by Japan during WWII and then gained its independence from the UK in 1963 by federating with other British territories to become Malaysia. However, Singapore separated from Malaysia just two years later over ideological differences and became a sovereign nation.

Singapore is a global commerce, finance, and transportation hub. It has been called the world’s smartest city, the world’s safest country, the third most competitive country, third-largest foreign exchange market, third-largest financial center, third-largest oil refining and trading center, and the second-busiest container port. They’re very good at being number three at things. Singapore ranks 5th on the Human Development Index which is determined by the United Nations. Norway is number one and the US is number ten.

After spending time in India, it was really easy hanging out in Singapore for four days. Singapore is beautiful. It has a lot of great architecture, clean streets, friendly people, a beautiful waterfront area in the city, and user friendly public transportation.

Down at the waterfront at night they had water shows set to music, street performers, and even a group of people dancing to swing music.

The architecture in the city is intense as well. Look at these three towers that have a huge ship on top, connecting them.

But there are two things about Singapore that I really loved: the food and the gardens.

First, the gardens. Singapore is called the city in a garden. There are beautiful, manicured landscaping everywhere you walk.

Even this hotel is covered with plants.

We walked down to the Gardens by the Bay on our first full day in town and were pumped when we found out that we were visiting during the Singapore Garden Festival.

Yes!! I love this kind of stuff!! There were a few different themes throughout the festival. The first was oversized birds, amphibians and insects?!?

There was an imagination tent that had exhibits that were meant to take you to different places around the world, including South Africa with its Baobab trees, Japan with a time and water exhibit, the tropics, and an orchid fairyland. You know that the orchid fairyland was my favorite.

Next we hit up a few of the tents that housed the actual competitions. One area of competition was floral displays that you might see at a super expensive, fancy wedding.

The below won the chair back design competition… because that’s a thing.

Another area of competition was these huge boxes that the artists could fill as they saw fit.

Then it was off to see the permanent exhibits. The flower house was filled with orchids, one of my absolute favorite flower.

My grandmother use to keep orchids and anyone who has tried to keep one alive knows that it takes a ton of work and attention.

Look at this brown orchid. How incredible is that color? I’ve never seen anything like it.

We also stopped by the Supertree Grove.

These might just look like strange metal structures, but just wait until you see them lit up.

Pretty incredible, right?

On to food. Singapore is famous for its hawker stalls. There are numerous food halls dedicated to hundreds of food stalls that sell mostly Asian cuisine. Walking through, trying to decide which one to try is a bit overwhelming, but challenge accepted.

Not all of the food was from hawker stalls, but all of it was delicious!

We also finally ate at our first Michelin starred restaurant of the trip… spoiler, we only paid about five dollars for the entire meal.

This is it – Hawker Chan has a Michelin star. How crazy is that? We waited in line for about 40 or so minutes for lunch. Totally worth it.

That’s the line… and this is Michael ordering. Yes, we were pumped. How good do those chickens look!!!

As good as this food has been after so much heavy Indian food, I will say that one of our lunch stops was especially welcomed.

That’s right. Cold brew, a cubano, and a cheesesteak. Sometimes you just need something that tastes more like home!

I know I was going to only tell you about two things that I love about Singapore, but here is a bonus item for you: the airport! When we arrived at the airport to fly out, I noticed that there is a huge airport mascot. I thought it was cute and clever, but didn’t bother taking a picture, because who needs a picture of an airport mascot. Apparently I need it to support my theory that this airport is amazing. We checked into our flight and went towards customs. To get through customs, they had us scan our passport and then put our fingers on a scanner. Upon arriving in the country a few days ago, customs took our fingerprints, like so many countries do. Here in Singapore, however, they actually use that information to expedite the departure process. Once the machine confirmed our identities, an agent confirmed our boarding pass matched our passport and it was all over. Singapore actually used our fingerprints to improve the process (instead of just keeping the information for the sole purpose of making me feel like big brother is watching).

They have this meat store at the airport, which Michael just couldn’t pass it up.

Plus they have gardens in the airport. Gotta love a city that stays true to its theme.