Despite our full stomachs from last night we were up early and heading upstairs for the rooftop breakfast. Something about the hot eggs, coffee and fresh orange juice – there’s always room for those. I chose a honey yogurt, with an ingenious design where you could tip a connected honey container into the yogurt container – and just let it drip in. Once again the views were great at breakfast, and the rising sun’s rays were shining across the table making breakfast a bit more poignant.

Today’s mission was to get out of Valletta a little and see some other parts of Malta. First, we used Google to find a walking course to the ferry terminal on the northwest side of Valletta that had eluded us the previous day. As we approached on the road we were passed by a delivery truck that made some familiar sounds – it was a truck imported from Japan with a Japanese voice warning about turns and kanji saying that it specialized in shrimp. Kuniko said the phone number on the side was an Osaka area code – how did it end up on Malta?

We stood under a tented area and waited for the next ferry – there were just a few people in front of us. As we waited more people started to show up, but since the sun was shining and the tented area was small people kind of spread out helter skelter instead of lining up officially. When the ferry started to come in we could see that it was a pretty big one.

A couple that had arrived after us gestured that we could board first, but I said that it looked like we’re all going to be OK so please go ahead. By weird coincidence when we were getting off the ferry on the other side we ended up near the couple again, and the woman gestured to us that we could go first – she said “we’ll all get there in the end” – kind of repeating back what I said in a more profound way.

As we approached the Sliema area of Malta by ferry we had great views. The water was deep and blue and fish were darting here and there. The area of Sliema was more modern than the historical area where we came from, and facing it was Manuel Island, with a fortress commanding a view of the bay. Despite the breeze it was getting hot – serious sunburn risk! We went through a lot of sunscreen on this trip.

After getting off the ferry we did a little shopping in the area at some of our old favorite European stores: Spar and Flying Tiger. We walked along the streets in the shade until we reached Tigne Point, went to an air conditioned shopping mall for the clean restrooms, and then walked around the point snapping photos of Valletta from this side. Already there were swimmers in the ocean – they had steps in stone going down to the water and it looked like a good day for a dip.

After getting our fill of the area we caught a 20 minute ride using the Bolt application to the southeast area of the island, a fishing village called Marsaxlokk. The village has a picturesque harbor with lots of fishing boats painted with blue and rainbow colors. Out here the sun was beating down, so as we walked around enjoying the scenery it was essential to look for shade.

The restaurant that I had hoped to visit for lunch was closed that day for some reason – you can’t trust Google for restaurant opening times – but there were plenty of other places to choose from. Besides restaurants there were some open air shops selling liqueurs, breads and other little knickknacks.

Eventually we chose a restaurant with outdoor shaded dining, right next to the water. While we waited there was a family working on their boat – they all were wearing tight and minimal swimsuits, and looking forward to a day out on the water.

Lunch was a shrimp cocktail (with raw shrimp, yum!), fried fish (not really tempura but quite good), and arancini with squid ink. I had a local craft beer, and Kuniko had a coconut/mango mojito that turned out to be a little too sweet. While we ate and drank there was a constant battle to bat away the flies and wasps that showed up. This was a recurring theme throughout our visit – but it kept Kuniko busy and at least there weren’t mosquitos like we have back in Japan.

After paying the bill the manager offered us free coffee or drinks on the house if we wanted to stay a while – we didn’t take him up on the offer but it was a very nice gesture. All the staff of the restaurants were fluent in not only English, but also the local Maltese language and it seemed like they spoke Italian as well. It was impressive to watch the staff switch languages effortless between customers and somehow knowing the right language to use at the right time.

On our car ride back to our hotel area we could again check out the landscape. We passed a pretty dramatic cemetery with large gravestones, and most of the buildings were built with the same materials and so had a similar color pattern – a sandy beige that blended in with the terrain. There were vineyards here and there to provide the wine that we had tasted, but other than that not a lot of green.

Back at the hotel we found that our room had been cleaned, so we celebrated with a little wine from the hotel fridge, writing in this journal, and I ended up taking a nap. I was surprised when Kuniko woke me up – she had been awake the whole time and I had slept for several hours. Now we had about 20 minutes to get to our dinner reservations down the street. I certainly slept a lot during this trip – but I guess that is all part of being on vacation.

Our restaurant tonight was called Nenu the Artisan Baker – a sort of touristy traditional place that had come recommended online. After wiping the sleep from my eyes it was just a short walk from our hotel, and we stepped inside and walked down some transparent(!) steps over a diorama of early island life to arrive at the restaurant. We were the first customers, and I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to enter or not.

Despite the touristy feel it seemed like a good place. The staff were mainly south Asian (we saw a lot of immigrants working service jobs on this trip). We figured out the menu and the wine selections – we even had a photo of the in-flight magazine ad that promised a free glass of wine.

Dinner was quite good! We ate fried fish over pickled vegetables, rabbit ravioli that had excellent flavor and made me want to use rabbit meat in future dumpling making sessions. The gravy for the dumplings was really tasty as well – rich and savory. The main course was roasted rabbit – we picked up the pieces and ate them by hand like a roasted chicken. There was a lot of meat here – maybe one and a half rabbits, and it was tough to finish it all while nibbling around all the bones.

The restaurant felt a little like an Italian restaurant based on the decoration and music, but from what I heard there is still a lot of Italian influence on the island. We weren’t that far from Sicily actually – it made sense from a geographical point of view.

As we ate Kuniko kept up the battle against flying insects, and gradually the restaurant started to fill up with customers. Each time a new couple arrived the woman (and only the woman) would go first to the restroom – hmm… Our waiter seemed to be new, so he was getting advice from the manager, also south Asian.

It was a lot of food so we skipped dessert, and headed out to walk off the meal and watch the sunset back near the ferry dock. Walking around town after evening was nice – the sun was down so the streets were cooler, and filled with people enjoying the city and its nightlife. Near the center of the city there was a theater with an instrumental group practicing (the theater itself was empty of spectators) but the music spread through the town and had a sort of dramatic theme to it. There was plenty of live music coming from various restaurants, and nobody was wearing masks or thinking about COVID, which was nice to see.

It was a good time for photos, too. My new(er) iPhone took some pretty good pics with low light, and throughout the trip I was wondering whether to use my phone or my camera, probably frustrating Kuniko who had to wait for me to decide before moving on.

Finally we headed back to the hotel with cannon fire in the background. I guess that you can get used to just about anything – now we don’t really worry with heavy gunfire going on around us. Despite all the sleep I had earlier it was no problem to drift off once again.

After a solid 12 hours of sleep we decided that we should probably get up and take advantage of the cooler morning to do a little more sightseeing. We started off by going to the rooftop of the hotel, which had a lot of tables and a nice view of the eastern harbor of the city. The sun was rising and we were surprised to find someone else up there, recording a time-lapse video. It turned out she was another guest at the hotel, she was from New Zealand and was really nice – we bumped into her quite often during our stay at the hotel.

With her permission I ducked under the camera and took some pictures from the rooftop – taking in the harbor and a huge cruise shop docked there with sleeping tourists not yet ready to debark and explore.

We got our act together and went out ourselves to beat some of the other tourists. This time we wore proper footwear and walked down the street towards the northern coastline. We passed a church that had their door open, and we peeked in. They were preparing a church service on a Monday – interesting. We walked in an unsteady line to the coast and then followed it along towards the harbor that we had seen from the rooftop.

I took lots of photos of the ocean views and the historical buildings. We found ourselves near the lower gardens, and found a large bell structure as a memorial to past soldiers stationed there. Eventually we found our way back to the hotel, and headed up to the rooftop for breakfast.

The hotel breakfast was quite good – the staff prepared what you liked as far as eggs and coffee went, and you could take cold cuts and local cheese, yogurts (I liked the coffee flavored ones), and some fresh squeezed orange juice. We sat on the rooftop dining al fresco, enjoying the food with the view.

Our first stop after breakfast was St. John’s Co-Cathedral. We lined up outside with a few minutes to go before they opened. There weren’t too many people there yet, and when they opened up at 9 am we were one of first few through the doors. From the outside the cathedral is remarkably normal – nothing flashy and it just looked like a big rectangular stone building. Once we got inside it was completely different.

The interior was dramatically decorated – every surface was engraved with messages for and from the dead. We walked on floors made up of stone slabs colorfully decorated with messages, skulls and angels. It was one of the best cathedrals I have ever visited – just so beautiful. We covered most of the rooms, the crypt, the balcony, and again I went nuts with the photos.

Elsewhere we visited the Triton fountain, where several greenish “fish people” frolicked in a large pool that sprayed water in various directions. It must evaporate a lot of water in this heat.

By now the buses had started discharging tour groups near the southwest gate of the city center, and it was amazing how many people were coming in. Before it got out of hand we snuck in a visit to the Upper Barrakka Gardens, a scenic (but quite dry) garden of trees and fountains that looked like it would be much nicer with a bit more water.

We decided to take a break back at a cafe across from the cathedral, and engage in some relaxing in the shade and watching the world pass by. We ordered a local soft drink called Kinnie – a sort of sweet and bitter soda that I liked but was a bit too sweet for Kuniko so she switched to prosecco. I had a Cisk Excel beer – which turned out to be the low carb version of regular Cisk beer. It was a typical hot weather lager, refreshing but not very special. Since we were drinking we shared a Maltese platter – a sandwich of tuna with olives and onions, some beans and bean paste, and some French fries on the side. It was just the right amount to share.

Before falling asleep last night I had heard big noises that I had thought was furniture falling – turns out it was cannon fire. One of the island traditions is to fire off cannons periodically. I never did discover when they would go off but it seemed like it was usually when we were sleeping. Our hotel was near the cannon battery, so it was a recurring theme to hear them in the night. We tried to hear them at the stroke of noon, but for some reason we didn’t. The cannons were pretty mysterious.

After chilling out for a while we decided to do recon on a ferry ride to another part of Malta the next day, but for some reason although we could see the ferry terminal we couldn’t find the walkway to get there. We finally gave up and walked around some of the other parts of the city, and went back to our room to siesta through the peak of the hot afternoon.

We had reservations for later at a nice restaurant but found ourselves with some time to kill so we went to the MUZA art museum in the city center. The museum was focused on a theme of Malta and its residents, and it was quite interesting to walk through (and take advantage of their air conditioning). One area had works by a sculptor obsessed with motion, another area was full of violent religious scenes – some of which were fairly graphic. I enjoyed looking at the old maps of Malta, and it was interesting to find the very same street that we were staying on represented on the map hundreds of years old.

After the museum we did a bit more shopping for a cheesy keychain to hang from our Christmas tree, checked out Marks & Spensers, and received a phone call from the restaurant confirming our reservation. Eventually we made our way to the restaurant and arrived on time at Legligin for a traditional meal.

The format of the meal was a tasting course consisting of 7 courses, and we splurged for the wine pairing, ending up with quite a bit to eat and drink. The atmosphere of the restaurant was comfortable, and the staff all spoke English fairly well so we could understand what we were eating.

For posterity, here are the courses:

First, a tomato soup with basil and pine nuts (very good).

Second, we had a selection of tapas – caponata, local sausages, olives, fried eggplants, rabbit pate, and baked ricotta. (Excellent).

Third we had a seafood dish of snapper with couscous, and roasted octopus. These came with a bucket of mussels steamed in milk and white wine. (Not bad)

Fourth was a pasta – quite firm tube pasta with a tomato and cream sauce. We were starting to get full by this point, and the pasta was undercooked for our liking. (Not great)

Fifth was cute little roasted quail breasts with meal and a sour strawberry sauce. These were tasty and I think the first time I’ve had quail breast. (Yum!)

Sixth was beef simmered in mustard sauce with a side of boiled potatoes in fennel. The potatoes were a revelation for me and I really want to work this out to make at home. (Wow!)

Last was dessert – I had crème brûlée and Kuniko had tiramisu. We thought the brûlée was nice but Kuniko makes a better tiramisu on her own. (So-so…)

Each one of these courses came with a medium glass of wine – all local stuff – so we were feeling pretty good by the time we finally left. It was a lot of food and we were totally satisfied with the experience.

We needed to walk around a burn some calories so we went the the southeast side of the city to watch the cannons fire now and then. More and more people were out enjoying the nightlife, and we walked by parties just getting started while we walked through a food coma back to our hotel.

When we arrived at our hotel the room hadn’t been cleaned – maybe our timing wasn’t great since we had our siesta – so we called the hotel staff and they guided us to a special hidden cache of clean towels. Score!

The artwork in the halls of the hotel was pretty unique – lots of Japanese kanji and phrases mixed in with skulls and strange images. Kuniko was surprised to see the word アヘン – meaning “opium” in one of the paintings near the breakfast area. Pretty wild stuff.

So with that image and full bellies we went to sleep fairly early, with cannon fire for background music.

We were up at 4:30 am to get showered and ready for our big trip. We went through the usual summer routine of unplugging servers, turning off timers for the air conditioners and shrink-wrapping the top of the toilet closed to avoid evaporation and stinky pipes. We’ve got a big checklist and it helps when we’ve got foggy early-morning brains in our heads. This travel day was full of foggy brain moments – it was going to be a long journey.

We rolled our suitcase to the station and took a quick “before” selfie on the platform, and then transferred from the train to a bus at Sannomiya – the bus took us to Kansai Airport in record time. I slept through a bit of it but we still had no traffic and it felt like a blur.

Kansai Airport Terminal 1 was pretty busy. Travel is back – in a big way – and as we approached our airline check-in counter Vietnam Airlines had a very full flight. Not only full of people, but most passengers were Vietnamese families each bringing boxes and boxes of… what? Everyone had so many taped up cardboard boxes and it made getting through the check-in line a little more tricky. Along with the boxes were some misbehaving kids, and somehow the parents had to get them all through the long line of tired passengers waiting.

We finally got to the check-in counter, and I was a little worried because the flights of this trip were all purchased through a third party – using my credit from cancelled trips years earlier. I wasn’t sure I trusted the travel company – but we were in the system and everything was fine as the check-in staff input our information from the passports.

Suddenly, the staff asked me out of the blue if I have a visa for Vietnam. What!?! We are transferring through Ho Chi Minh City, not entering the country so I don’t need one, right? But now I’m second-guessing myself – did they change the rules? The staff wouldn’t ask me about it if I didn’t need it, right? Kuniko has a Japanese passport so she is fine but I needed a visa on arrival when we traveled to Vietnam last winter… did I screw up our trip right here at the beginning?

It was “Oh, shit” moment #1.

I told the staff that we were transiting, not entering the country so I didn’t think we needed a visa. And she looked back down at her computer and said, “Oh, right. You’re OK.”

It took a while for my pulse to calm down but it was a hell of a way to wake up in the morning.

After clearing security we bought a couple of small sandwiches, some snacks, and we toasted the start of our trip with a canned highball and a beer near our departure gate. That’s right – a highball at 9 am in the morning because we’re in an airport on vacation!

As we waited by the gate, Kuniko was startled to hear our names get called over the PA system – we are to report to the airline staff immediately.

Oh shit moment #2!

In a really weird moment the staff said that the two seats we were assigned do not recline so they want to change our seats to more comfortable ones elsewhere. I figured they were rearranging family members and it just worked out in our favor, I guess. What a relief!

It was a five and half hour flight to Ho Chi Minh, and we spent it watching movies, eating the not-so-bad inflight yakitori-don, and trying to stay warm under some pretty oppressive air conditioning. I was just sweating on the journey to the airport and now I’m struggling to stay under my tiny airline blanket for warmth. For the first time I saw full size sparkling wine bottles on the economy drink cart, and to my astonishment they opened one up for us to have with our lunch. On the second round I asked again and they opened up yet another bottle. Not bad, not bad!

We had spent time in Ho Chi Minh International Airport last winter and found it a pretty good place – there is a choice of restaurants, a place with a bar, and so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad spending a longer layover. The layover was for eight hours, extended to nine with a flight delay from the airline. I imagined sipping cocktails and eating noodles and relaxing – but there is a limit to how many cocktails you should consume in a nine hour period.

We got started with a couple of drinks and a plate of Char Kway Teow (I know it is Malaysian but it sounded great). The seats at the bar were the exact same ones we used in winter, and it was kind of fun to recreate the moment. We were determined to get our fill of noodles so we walked around and built up our appetite and then sat down for more noodles (braised beef pho). There was a black bean sweet miso sauce on the table that really went well with the noodles – it is my mission to find a source in Japan once I get back.

As we sat at our table in front of the big airport observation windows a huge thunderstorm rolled in, and through the rain we watched the planes come and go. Bamboo Airlines – that was a new one for us to see.

We eventually found our way back to the bar, passion fruit margaritas, fresh and fried spring rolls, and just watching people and killing time. The bar staff were walking around talking with customers, and I noticed that while they talked their coworkers were secretly taking a picture of them talking to foreigners – what was that about?

More walking around, more people watching from various benches. A young woman sat next to Kuniko and promptly fired off a smelly fart. Apparently the rules are different in the airport. Slowly getting tired – but still eating well.

Our last meal in the airport was a delicious bowl of dry noodles that were the best of the day – I’ll go straight to this shop next time we’re there. The staff at the shop were super-friendly, and everyone was smiling. How do they keep that up?

Now we were getting close to boarding time, and it was tempting to lay down on the bench seats and get a little nap – the fear was that we’d sleep through boarding and blow the whole trip for a little bit of sleep. So I stayed vertical, and we eventually got on the plane at 11 pm local time. As soon as we sat down in our seats (window and middle seats) we pretty much just crashed. I don’t remember the take off, I do remember the flight attendant trying to wake me for dinner and I sort of waved her off like she was a bothersome mosquito.

We ended up sleeping for about six hours of the twelve hour flight. Since we were blocked in by aisle seat guy who was totally asleep, I had to wake him to get by and use the toilet in the middle of his night. Sorry dude – I’ve been there and it sucks.

Kuniko got hooked on playing Bejeweled on the in-flight system, I was listening to music, and eventually breakfast was served. Me and the aisle seat guy both chose the omelet, but it was the last one so I let him have it as a sort of apology for waking him up. The noodles I got instead were cold and flavorless – I considered it my penance.

It may seem here like this is a negative experience, but actually I enjoy all this stuff. Travel by plane is not comfortable but there is a sort of comfort in the routine knowing that when you get there you will be in someplace completely new.

We deplaned onto a bus in the cold Paris morning – my clothes were more for Mediterranean summers. Despite being an hour late on departure our plane arrived on time at Charles de Gaulle Paris, which meant that we’d easily make our connecting flight to Malta. We had sort of half-fantasized about missing the Malta flight and spending the night in Paris eating well and then going on to Malta the next day, but it remained an unused back-up plan.

The airport proved to be a little tricky, however. We had to pick up our suitcase and enter the EU there, then find our terminal for the Malta flight. I asked an information staff which terminal and he told me “2G” – but after quite a bit of trouble and a bus ride to the terminal it turned out that he had said “2D”. I guess with the French accent “D” and “G” are pretty hard to distinguish, and my big mistake was not having him write it down. But in the end it was just a hiccup and we made it to the right terminal for check-in with plenty of time.

The Air Malta check-in counter was right next to Air Serbia, and both had long lines of passengers waiting. It was absolutely fascinating to see the differences in the two airlines’ passengers. Air Malta had excited people looking forward to a beach holiday on a Mediterranean island and everyone was chatting excitedly. Air Serbia’s passengers looked like they were being sent into exile. Their faces were uniformly serious and frowning, their body language looked like they were expecting the police to show up at any time.

Once we got through check-in and security we hoped for a little champagne and the God of Wine delivered – a little bistro in the center of our terminal that had champagne by the glass. Two please! We also had a salmon sandwich (meh) and some melted cheese bread (excellent) and we toasted the success of our trip so far. We were surrounded by gourmet shops – macaroons, a cheese(!) shop, meats and wines – French people take their food seriously. As we enjoyed our second round of champagne the guy next to us suddenly left, and we didn’t notice until the staff reacted later that he failed to pay for his food/drink. Wow!

Pleasantly buzzing from our champagne we found our way to the boarding gate and got on the small jet to Malta for a two and half hour flight. After the long haul, a simple two and a half hours was a piece of cake. To live just two and a half hours from Paris – ahh…

Malta had a very small airport and since we were in the Schengen zone there was no immigration so we got our suitcase and walked right out into the hot sun. It was warm here, similar to the heat of Japan but without the humidity. I used our eSIM and the Bolt application to hire a ride to our hotel – it was convenient and cheap.

Less that ten minutes later the driver dropped us off on our street, and it took a little bit before we found the entrance to our hotel. It was a little boutique hotel called Ursulino Valletta. The owner checked us in, and we took an elevator ride up one floor to our room for the next three nights. It was clean and comfortable, with air conditioning (good) and even a welcome bottle of Maltese Chardonnay in the fridge (great).

It was the afternoon here, and so we thought we’d do a little walk around before we finally collapsed into bed. We put on our flip-flops and headed out to explore a tiny bit.

Our hotel was in the center of the historic (world heritage site) city of Valletta. The buildings were unique in architecture, with wooden windowed boxes covering the balconies and slick stone streets that made stepping around in our footwear a little dangerous. Surrounded on three sides by the beautiful blue ocean it made a wonderful contrast with the color of the old buildings, and the long streets tended to slope upward and downward in the distance.

It was hot in the sun, tolerable in the shade, and fairly windy. Since the streets were so narrow you had a chance to escape the sun by staying in the shadow, depending on where the sun was in the sky. Later we’d stay inside until the sun went down a bit to make it cooler to travel. There were quite a few tourists on the street even during the hot afternoon – but I suppose if you stay in the historic city center you should be ready for tourists (like ourselves).

Nearby there was a big food hall – full of different international restaurants. We found a little place in front of the food hall that had more traditional food – and settled down at a table to catch our breath and do a little eating.

We had fried goat cheese balls, served on top of a fig paste, with a sweet cranberry sauce on the side. It was OK, but lacked something – maybe the cheese wasn’t salted? Interesting taste. Kuniko ordered a cosmopolitan, but she wasn’t too impressed. The place was OK for a start, but we’d have to seek out some better dishes in the future.

We stopped in at a gelato place that was doing good business – I had a blood orange and ginger combo with lime and basil, and Kuniko had tiramisu with hazelnuts. It was so hot the gelato started melting right away – you had to eat it fast to protect your hand and clothing.

Pretty drained we finally headed back to the hotel, appreciating the air conditioning and struggling to stay awake. Finally gave up at around 4:30 pm and went to bed. What time was it in Osaka? Who knows? The last thing I remembered before drifting off was the crashing sound of furniture tumbling down the stairwell of our hotel – I hope everyone was OK!