My Travel Record is Humiliating.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about a running competition she has with her husband to see who can visit the most countries beyond the USA, their country of residence. They both travel a lot for work so they’re both in the thirties (he just surpassed her with a trip to Lichtenstein). Then she laughed and said “but you’ve obviously got us both beat, you travel hobag” and pushed me out her 4th floor living room window. Miraculously, I suffered nary a scratch or scrape…only a fractured ego.

Just wanted to see if you were ever going to put down that pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk and pay attention. 

All of the above story is true except the violence part. I pride myself on my wanderlustic (made it up) tendencies, but when my friend said she’d been to thirty-something countries, that number sounded pretty high. So I thought I’d list all the countries, beyond the great US of A, that I’ve been to in my life. And I decided to do it in the form of a blog post because I have no idea how to not live in public. I’m also listing them in order of visit. I’m also obviously excluding multiple visits to the same country, even if the destinations within that country varied wildly in distance or type of visit, which sort of sucks, but those are the rules. I’ve also excluded my 1998 visit to Puerto Rico, because of the whole “self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States” thing. 

1. Mexico
2. Switzerland
3. Italy
4. Germany
5. Austria
6. Canada
7. The Netherlands
8. France
9. Australia
10. England
11. Scotland
12. Wales
13. Ireland
14. Greece
15. Turkey
16. Russia
17. Mongolia
18. China
19. Vietnam
20. Laos
21. Cambodia
22. Indonesia
23. India
24. Brazil
25. Argentina
26. Japan

Twenty six. TWENTY MOTHERFREAKING SIX?! I cannot believe I’m getting my ass handed to me by a couple of working stiffs. I mean, they’re totally awesome people and deserve all the happiness in the world, but you get my point. I’m going to go cry into a bottle of wine from New Zealand, a country I haven’t been to yet, now. And convince myself that both my friend and her husband are liars. And reconsider hanging out with them. And maybe start planning a whirlwind tour of every corner of Africa. 

Enjoy your ice cream.

I'm back in baby's arms. How I missed those lovin' arms. I'm back where I belong, back in baby's arms.

Japan Part San: The Nara Period

There are sort of two ways of approaching the main draws of Honshu (Japan’s “Big Island”): go full urban and experience the modern city life, or try to capture the Japanese ancient history side of things. Luckily, MG and I allowed ourselves time for both, and I’m glad, because the two experiences could not possibly be more different.

Having already survived the neon/cherry blossom jungle of Tokyo and then escaping into the snowy wilderness north of Nagano for a few days, we’d gotten a sense of how Japanese country life is alive and well, but not in that quintessential, “former capital of Japan from 710 to 784” kind of way. So we headed south to Nara.

As I explained in my previous post, I knew before we arrived that there was some sort of wonderful park in Nara where friendly deer roamed freely and ate out of people’s hands. And since I’m a sucker, that’s one place I simply had to see. Turns out that Nara, while indeed very ancient, is a pretty big city these days, well-traveled, and by no means undiscovered. The hotel I had booked was a little hard to find, and once we were settled, a lot overpriced. It was already dark after a long day of train travel, and we were only in town for one night. Why did I make us come here again? I felt bad.

All was not lost, for Nara marked the first OKONOMIYAKI!!!! (emphasis mine, emphasis necessary) dinner that MG and I had. Okonomiyaki is often described as a Japanese pizza or pancake, but it’s more like a savory omelette stuffed with meat/fish/cabbage, and covered in Worcestershire-type sauce/mayonnaise, which sounds disgusting but is just the opposite. Okonomiyaki is a fatty fatty culinary delight, and also a fun word to yell at high volume over and over, preferably in a residential area.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel, stored our luggage at the front desk, and went off in search of the deer park.

The deer are not hard to find. They’re adorable. They have little mouths and tiny teeth and eat very delicately out of your hand (vendors are scattered everywhere selling rice crackers to feed the deer, which they love, though I suspect they’d eat just about anything).

They’re also really used to humans and tend to swarm you once they’ve spotted rice crackers in your hand. A couple of the dudes kept head-butting me, which might have been similar to murdering me with a trident had their antlers not been cut within the last year - apparently this happens as part of an annual festival so that the male deer don’t stab people to death over rice crackers. Instead, little furry antler stumps. Adorable.

Nara’s park is full of more than just deer; its temples are the main attraction. We picked a few to focus on, and as we made our way through hoards of tourists (it was conveniently a Saturday) I had to remind myself that that’s how these things go, we aren’t going to get Japan’s biggest Buddha statue all to ourselves, roll with it, embrace our touring peers, because here we all are, in an awesome place. And we did and it was great.

Next, MG and I hunted down the Harushika brewery for some sake tasting in a old, beautiful part of Nara. It was supposed to be 400 yen for 6 tastings, but we didn’t realize that until after we’d already tasted everything, and because of the language barrier we couldn’t seem to explain to anyone that we owed them money. So we bought a big bottle of the sake we liked the best and drank the whole thing in 24 hours. I’m calling it even.

In hindsight, Nara really needs more than a day if you truly want to get a feel for the city and not rush through history. But that’s all the time we had before hopping on a local train into Osaka, and I think we did ok for our first stab (haha, get it? DEER ANTLER JOKE!) at taking in a Japan of yesteryear.

Sorry these updates are trickling in so slowly, btw. I’m drawing the whole thing out specifically to torture you. Hope that’s cool.

Japan Part Ni: The Hills

My friends, I’ve accumulated quite the story since my initial Japan post. Like to hear it? Here it goes!

LAKE NOJIRI

Look it up on a map and the location seems a bit random - it’s the second largest glacial lake in Japan, north of Nagano in the mountains, not on the way to anywhere in particular - why Lake Nojiri? Well, as a matter of fact there’s kind of a funny story behind that. Back in February, MG got shafted by Expedia after booking a Valentine’s weekend getaway, and consequently wrote a… well, let’s just call it a bitter account of what went wrong (for the record, we still had a lovely time). Anyway, because of that post someone from Tablet Hotels reached out to him, kind of just to say “hey, not all online hotel booking sucks, give us a look”. We ended up liking Tablet’s website and using it to research their featured hotels in Japan, one of which just happened to be on Lake Nojiri. And it seemed weird and off the beaten path enough to sound like a good idea. So we booked it for two nights, figuring that after four days in Tokyo we’d welcome the change of atmosphere.

Our first Shinkansen (bullet train) experience took us from Tokyo to Nagano, and we barely made that mofo because Japan’s trains leave exactly when they’re scheduled to, absolutely no exceptions. If you’re not in your seat by 11:34, too bad, because your train’s pulling away without you. Great for dependability in keeping to schedule, stressful if you can’t find your platform in one of the biggest train stations in the world. We ended up boarding within a couple minutes of departure in a sweaty frenzy. Good times.

Shinkansen trains aren’t just fast (really really fast), but also efficient and classy. I spent three months traveling via India’s railway system so believe me, I know a pristine train toilet when I see one. It’s like what airplanes should feel like, but never do.

We had to switch to a local train line once we reached Nagano, which was totally ok with me as I love trains and, truth be told, have a particular affinity for the less-glossy variety. This particular route got rural, quickly. You may recall that Nagano hosted the Winter Olympics back in 1998, but getting out of the city it’s obvious that much of the greater region remains undeveloped, especially to tourism. As we trudged up a grade through little town after little town, we passed through apple orchards adjacent to the train tracks! Now, this probably isn’t that exciting a view for most people, but I grew up among apple orchards in Northern California, so to see the Japanese version was a real treat in a bizarro-world sort of way. I learned later that they were mostly fujis (duh). At our train stop, a representative from our hotel picked us up in a shuttle van, which was not only appreciated but probably necessary. It was a windy drive up a small mountain road to reach our hotel, we really had no idea where we were, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t a whole lot of local taxis doing business in April, because up there it’s still snowing.

We were upgraded to a suite upon check-in at our hotel, which we absolutely did not pay for. However, we were also the very first guests of the entire season (they close down for the winter and we arrived on opening day) and the hotel staff made a huge fuss over us and took pictures and put us in a suite they obviously weren’t using anyway. Kanpai to that!

A couple hours later, we were back in the shuttle van on our way to a local ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) to enjoy our very first onsen (Japanese hot spring) experience. Except that now there was an old couple in the van with us. No idea where they came from. Maybe they were locals? Or checked into the hotel after us? Anyway, their presence turned out to be a blessing because not only is the onsen experience very specific ritual-wise, but also gender separated. MG and I would have been totally clueless without that old couple to guide us through the various steps of the process on our respective sides of the wall.

The old woman and I got to be fast friends, as you tend to do when you’re squatting naked next to someone dousing you in hot water out of a wooden bucket. She spoke no English, and I spoke no Japanese, but she was really nice and I followed her lead pretty well. We managed to communicate to each other our ages, our names (June-ko and Sarah-san), agree that we both liked skiiing, and that she lives somewhere in western Japan and is familiar with San Francisco. The actual onsen was an indoor-outdoor soaking bath/shower/scrub ensemble and totally relaxing. Apparently MG and the old man got along fine as well, because he enjoyed his onsen, and while comparing notes afterward it was obvious we’d gone through the same rituals.

For the next couple of days, we stayed at our hotel in the middle of nowhere on a lake eating, drinking, and being merrily slovenly. The hotel meals were over the top. We took a footpath partially covered in snow down to the water one afternoon, but that’s about it as far as physical activity goes, unless you count eyeball lifts watching snowflakes fall through the window. In a word, fantastic. Oh, and after the restaurant and lounge closed, we had access to a vending machine on our empty floor stocked with beer. So.

Our next destination was Nara in the Kansai region (way south), so it was a long day of travel back down to Nagano, then south to Nagoya via the Shinano Express - if you’re a lover of trains, please take this route someday if you find yourself in Japan, you’ll thank me, I pinky promise. From Nagoya we took a Nozomi train (the fastest type of Shinkansen) to Kyoto, which was so fast it made me slightly sick in the way a wobbly plane might, and then transferred to a local line for our last leg from Kyoto to Nara, filled with schoolkids on their way home who stole glances at us and giggled amongst themselves. So cute.

A word before I sign off on this post, because this seems like a great time to stop blabbering on about nothing - I blame Veronica Belmont for making me go to Nara, because she’s the one who told me about some deer park where the deer come right up to you and you can feed them little crackers, and I freaking love deer and deer have never come up to me, ever, and so because of her story I was forced to go to Nara to feed the deer BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. And I fell in love with every single one of them and am now extremely upset that I can’t bring them all back with me through customs. But that’s a whole nother post.

Write soon.

Japan Part Ichi: Tokyo Drift

I’m several days into a 16-day Japan trip, and thought you might like to hear about what I’ve been up to. If so, you’re in luck!

MG and I got off the plane at what would have been about 10 pm in San Francisco, except that in Tokyo it was 2 pm the following day. I was already hitting the wall as we waited in world’s longest customs line. After grabbing our luggage and wandering in circles at the airport for several minutes, we figured out how to get where we needed to go and boarded a rapid train from Narita airport into Tokyo.

Narita airport is a lot farther away from the city than you’d think… the train ride was a good 90 minutes to Tokyo station, and the first 45 minutes were mostly spent zipping through farmlands and making stops at smallish suburban outposts. MG and I mostly stayed silent, looking out our respective windows and taking it all in. I’m all too familiar with this time zone fatigue, knowing that it’s only going to get weirder for a while as my body fights to get on schedule as I slowly go insane and that pretty soon I’ll need to start figuring some things out - important things, like I NEED A SHOWER SO BAD WHERE THE EFF IS THIS HOTEL - by gesturing wildly to someone of whose native tongue I only speak several words (because I listened to Devo as a kid and also went through a phase where I taught myself to count to ten in as many languages as possible and Japanese was one of them…this is the type of activity that ‘only children’ like me come up with when they’re out of ideas, btw).

Thankfully, our hotel was a simple metro transfer and a couple shorts blocks down a narrow street in Akasaka, a neighborhood alive with both Japanese restaurants and international cuisine. I say simple because as soon as we arrived at Tokyo station and started studying a subway map on the wall, our expressions gruesomely contorted by confusion and exhaustion, an old man appeared out of nowhere and pointed us in the right direction (this was just the first of several instances now that folks have offered us unsolicited help or advice, simply because they’re being friendly. Japanese people have a reputation for being overly nice and polite… very true. Someone will notice I’m holding a camera and offer to take our picture. I won’t even have made eye contact. Amazing).

The hotel was nice… corner room with huge windows, great shower, and a heated toilet seat (which I now understand is commonplace in Japan, but you can imagine my oohing and ahhing upon first sit). The bed was wider than it was long, and the room came complete with a foot massager that I enjoyed immensely but ended up bruising MG’s huge American feet to the point that he’s been hobbling around for days since. Japan is built for small people. My people.

We ended up eating our first meal at a small noodle soup house down our street, which was simple and delicious and way too much food. The place was packed and nobody else seemed to have a problem finishing their portions. How are people eating this much pasta and sodium in one sitting on a regular basis and not obese, we mused.

Speaking of genetics, Japan is an incredibly homogenous country, which I assume has to at least partially factor into Tokyo’s crazy fashion sense. I’ve never seen so much color and offbeat outfits and crazy hair in seeming attempts to stand out from the crowd, on the subway as much as in and around Harajuku, Tokyo’s “cosplay” (costume play) scene and overall tragically hip shopping area. Which definitely exists, by the way… Gwen Stefani was telling the truth.

Adjacent to Harajuku’s fashion hub lies Yoyogi Park, where we headed to check out the cherry blossoms on our first “full” day in Tokyo, which just so happened to fall on a Sunday, which just so happens to be the day of the week that thousands of people swarm into the park with bottles of champagne, kegs of beer, food, wine, and boom boxes, throw down plastic tarps, and start partying under said blossoms. Young and old, babies, grandmothers…I’ve never seen so many enthusiastic/drunk picnickers. Kind of an exaggerated dichotomy between the serenity of nature and long bathroom lines. And lots of garbage.

Let’s talk about garbage while we’re on the subject. In general, Japan is very clean and there’s a lot of emphasis on better-than-average sanitation and sterilization, which I’m a big fan of in theory. Except that this translates into disposable items being disposed of REALLY OFTEN. For example, every single day when making up our room, the hotel staff supplied both of us with new toothbrushes, sealed in plastic. Every day for four days! That’s ridiculous. Or let’s say it’s raining outside and you walk into a department store - there are tube-shaped plastic sheaths provided at the entrance to stuff your wet umbrella into while you shop, then trash on your way out. You get the idea. Anyone for whom recycling is a way of life will find Japanese rituals like these a bit unnerving.

Tokyo’s metro system is faaaantastic. The trains run often and on time. They’re clean. They cover every inch of the city and are easy to navigate. I’m not sure if the rumors about people being stuffed into cars and women getting groped during rush hour are true, but I never rode in an uncomfortably crowded car… in fact, most of the time I could snag a seat. Although I did notice that during morning commute times, cars on either end are designated “women only”, so maybe I’ve just been lucky.

Before our trip started, MG and I had been joking about doing the Tokyo “Lost in Translation” tour - getting a drink at the New York bar in the Park Hyatt, getting lost at Shibuya crossing, singing at a karaoke bar, etc. - but we actually ran right into a traditional wedding procession at the Meiji Temple on our second day, which was magical.

As for eating, besides one misstep after a long day of walking where we ended up at an Italian-themed joint slurping up seafood pasta in cream sauce with chopsticks (it was actually really good, just not what we were looking for), the food in Tokyo has been outstanding. Freshest sushi ever. Excellent ramen. Lots of soups with rice and fish and tofu and a shitload of salt. I keep overdoing it and going into post-meal food comas. One night we took the metro to Roppongi and ate dinner at the restaurant where they shot the O Ren Ishi fight/bloodbath scenes from Kill Bill Part 1. Well, actually they shot it in a replica of the restaurant because, according to MG’s research, the owner didn’t want Tarantino making a mess in there. Regardless, the restaurant looks exactly like it does in the movie and as Kill Bill fans we thought it was kind of the coolest thing ever.

We spent our final day in Tokyo (for now anyway, we’ll be back there for three more days at the end of our trip) doing some touristy things: taking in the cityscapes from Tokyo Tower, getting a drink in the observatory of the Metropolitan Government building, and marveling at the cherry blossoms in Shinjuku Gyoen, which made Yoyogi Park look like amateur hour. I took roughly 5 million photos of cherry blossoms within an hour, though it’s impossible to really get a sense of how beautiful they are in photographs. Blossoms everywhere, in whites and pinks, falling everywhere like snow.

Yesterday we took a Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Nagano, where we transferred to a local train that took us up into the mountains along Lake Nojiri, where we’ve been chilling far away from civilization the last couple days. Well, except for the wifi part. Whatever, it’s 2010.