We rolled out of bed around 4 am, which is a normal time for us at home but a little early for vacation. Still not sure why we got so much sleep, but as usual we should probably listen to our bodies. The first shower in 50+ hours felt very nice that morning, and then we decided to hit the road early and beat the crowds to the sightseeing spots. 

The streets were pretty empty, but we did find a bakery open and stopped there to try the burek – a flaky pastry that contains rolled up cheese and other fillings. Ours was excellent – filling and a little salty but it hit the spot. That coupled with a drinkable yogurt and we were set. Luckily we had the cash available to pay, but the staff spoke excellent English.

From there we walked to see St. Mark’s cathedral, which was just catching the morning light. The park surrounding had some nice views, and having the place to ourselves was great. Nearby we saw a government building that was being renovated, with big signs (in Chinese characters) saying that the improvements were being done in partnership with the Chinese government and Chinese companies. Interesting!

We walked through cross streets and eventually made our way to St. Sava, a beautiful Serbian orthodox cathedral that has a dramatic design. We needed to kill some time so we walked around the park, filled with owners walking their dogs (unleashed). The dogs would play with each other and beg for treats from other owners, and it seemed like there would be more fights or trouble but I guess they are peaceful dogs. 

While we walked around I ended getting another allergic reaction – itchy hives around my scalp, back and some on my legs. This is a mysterious condition that seems to happen to me every 2-3 years – still unsure of the trigger. We thought it might be food related – but there is no reproducible effect that we can figure out. The only common thing is I always get it while walking around outside. After about an hour the hives faded away, and I was fine.

We had arrived to see inside when the cathedral opened at 7, but at 7 we discovered a sign outside that said they would open at 8. Oops! Instead of waiting for another hour we decided to come back later and so we headed back towards the center of town and our hotel.

On the way some government buildings caught our eye so we took a side trip to check them out. There was a surprising monument to the bombings of Belgrade by NATO forces – they left the remains of the government buildings that had bombed as a reminder of how they were treated. Lots of signs claiming Kosovo around here, and it was an odd feeling to be there in a place that is not so friendly to the USA and NATO.

We did a little supermarket shopping on the way back, picking up some wine, yogurt, cheese and crackers. The self checkout had an English menu setting, but the credit card machine was only in Serbian so it was a bit tricky to use. Because we were buying wine the staff had to come approve, and they were all busy. Finally we got it figured out.

We had our (official) breakfast at the hotel, with a simple buffet in a large dining area making up the corner of the old building. Because it was Sunday they had a special menu and besides the buffet stuff we had some eggs (that needed a little salt) and these came with a large uncut hamburger bun. WTF? While we dined another group staying at the small hotel came in – an older woman sort of collapsed while waiting for her coffee from the machine, her partner sorted her out but it was a bit of morning drama at the hotel breakfast.

After a bathroom break in our room we decided to go out and try to find a place to do some Serbian wine tasting. We settled on Wine Passage, a small wine bar and shop that was situated in an open passageway between two large historic buildings. We talked with the guy working there and explained that we wanted to try some different local wines, and he improvised a wine tasting for us, complete with English explanations. We tried five wines, along with a big plate of cheese – there was a hair discovered in our cheese cubes but we ate around it. The best wine of the bunch for me was a Chardonnay called Babaroga – really well made.

While we sipped wine the staff was outside hanging out with his friend, we enjoyed people watching as more and more people came out to enjoy the day, and I was struck by how few bras were being worn by women walking by. The price of the tasting was very reasonable, and it was good to try a variety of wines instead of one or two glass wines in a restaurant. 

We strolled through town, bought a suitably cheesy keychain, and because of the warming weather a scoop of ice cream. They had a cookie called Plazma there, and the ice cream that contained that kind of cookie was really good! Later we tried the cookies but the ice cream was much better than the namesake cookie.

Back at the hotel I managed a short nap, we opened up the windows in our room that looked out over the main street below, and watched people walking by while we sipped more Serbian wine. The way the room was designed was like a tachinomi in Japan, you could set your glass on the counter and enjoy the view. I had expected the wine we bought at the supermarket was a sparkling wine but alas it was still – that’s how it goes when the label is in a different language. 

Later for dinner we went to the historic neighborhood called Skadorlija, full of quaint little restaurants and outdoor cafes along the cobblestone streets. We ate at a Serbian restaurant called Boem, that had an old Serbian-made tiny car parked in front. We sat near the car and I think we were included in most of the pictures that people took while passing by. The table was a little wobbly but I found a shim nearby and made the adjustments. Kuniko had veal sausages, I had a veal meat patty (quite a large one, too), and a shopska salad on the side that was really good – topped with a really mild but delicious soft white cheese. 

After dinner we walked back towards St. Sava to go inside, and were surprised by lots of people driving around waving Serbian flags, honking their horns, and celebrating something. Later the hotel staff said that Novak Djokovich had just won the gold medal, and so the celebrations and noise from that went on pretty much all night. 

St. Sava was open when we arrived, and it wasn’t packed with people, either. Despite a sign banning short sleeves and shorts they let everyone in – most of the locals were wearing shorts inside. The interior was mainly accented with gold, with quite modern images of saints and the holy trinity. It looked like they spent a lot of time and money recently to modernize the interior – it was beautiful. I had heard the basement contained some unique murals, but when we went down there it was not so different from the upstairs so I’m not sure it was worth a special visit. Throughout the cathedral were some religious “stations” where people could make a prayer – and to see people kissing each station just after the pandemic was pretty surprising. 

After enjoying the interior we walked across town back towards our hotel, with zooming cars full of celebrating Serbs and more and more waving flags. There was a lot of pride in the tennis gold medal win for the city. We took the rest of the evening in our hotel to sip some wine, write in this journal, and relax a bit. About 25,000 steps today!

Finally we were closing in on our big two week European trip, and we were both looking forward to some cooler weather. As usual, we had been working pretty hard in the run up to the trip. Friday Kuniko was working from home, and I went into the office for a half day of work. 

I walked home all sweaty and in the brutal heat of summer, and already Kuniko had cleaned the house and gotten most of the things ready for a long term absence. We did the last bit of organizing and then took our suitcase and hit the road. Just the walk to the station in the blazing summer heat was intense. Lucky I brought two hand towels to mop up the sweat.

Our timing was good getting to the airport – we caught a special rapid from Nishi Akashi, and then just got on the airport bus from Sannomiya. Once we get on the airport bus it starts to feel like we are on vacation.

We had plenty of time to kill before our 10 pm flight to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, so we had some food at Horai 551 – lots of shumai, pork buns, and some sweet/sour pork. We walked around trying to get in some steps, visited Hotel Nikko hoping that they had a bar open but they said they don’t have a bar anymore. We went to Cafe Le Pan, which is sort of a Japanese/French hybrid place. We had a so-so egg sandwich, served with a glass of Japanese white wine. Once again I was pretty underwhelmed with Japanese wine. For the prices we were paying it was pretty insipid stuff.  

Eventually we made our way to the gate, and caught the 13 hour flight to Istanbul. Surprisingly we got a lot of sleep (in economy seats!) – we both slept about 8 hours which is more than we usually get at home. It made the flight go by so much more quickly. Around us on the plane were a lot of flying rookies – being cautioned by the cabin attendants and bouncing around and misunderstanding the purpose of the fasten seatbelt sign. In front of Kuniko a Japanese mafia member was eager to roll up his sleeves once we left Japan and show off his tattoos. He kept shifting around in his seat, causing Kuniko to mess up on her seat back flight entertainment game popping bubbles.

Next to me was a lady who put a significant amount of chemicals on her face before going to sleep – a process that took nearly an hour. But like us she slept well, and soon we were landing in Istanbul.

As we transferred from our flight to the international terminal departures we had to wait in a short line for another security check. Some people were panicking about missing their connections, and there was some pushing and cutting in line – it wasn’t organized very well. Luckily we had plenty of time.

It had been a long time since we had been back, and the airport had undergone a significant upgrade during the pandemic. They were going for a luxury vibe, and we found out the hard way after paying almost 80 euros for two glasses of Bottego Gold Prosecco. There might have been cheaper bubbles in the building but we couldn’t find them. 

At our departure gate they had some reclining chairs, mostly full of people sleeping. Kuniko got a little more sleep on one of those, while I stuck with a hard bench to try to stay awake. The sun was rising here at about 6 am.

Our flight to Belgrade was delayed about 20 minutes, and once we boarded the girl sitting at the window next to Kuniko was fidgeting quite a bit. She couldn’t stop taking pictures with her phone, making/posting videos, and moving and shifting her body. She was the opposite of a zen traveler – what was going on?

It was a short hour-long flight to Belgrade, and after deboarding we were met just after the tunnel by a group of immigration officers who requested each person’s passport. It was unusual, they just leafed through looking for something, and then let us pass. Later I theorized that they were looking for Kosovo stamps, but who knows?

After a bit of walking then we lined up at immigration, received stamps and entered the country officially. The immigration staff here seemed really arbitrary on checking some people strictly and not caring about others. Luckily we were in the group that they didn’t really care about so we got through quite soon.

On our way out we tried to change some money, but there was nobody in the money changer office, so we went out and met our driver. Since we had heard the public transport between the airport and the city center was not very reliable, Kuniko had booked a driver through the hotel to wait for us and take us into town. He was a very nice guy who advised me not to change money in the airport but instead do it in the city center. Later I found out this was bad advice – I was trying to change Japanese yen into Serbian dinar, and city money changers didn’t deal in yen. 

We got in a luxury sedan and were soon whisked out of the airport and down the highway at nearly 140 kph. We passed an overpass that had “Kosovo is Serbia” written in huge letters, a sign of the tensions that still exist between them. I didn’t really have any expectations of the countryside of Serbia but it was very clean, a lot of green fields and beautiful forests, and clean well-maintained buildings. 

The driver chatted with us a bit and eventually dropped us off at a turnout right near our hotel. We took our suitcase into a very narrow (and slightly scary) elevator that jerked upwards unsteadily. The signs outside the elevator were seriously retro – like you’d find in a 1980’s American arcade.

At our hotel the staff took our suitcase and told us we had some time before check-in, so we decided to head back out and do a little exploring of Belgrade. 

Near our hotel was the main shopping street, leading away to the north towards the historic fortress of the city. The architecture here was old European style, and it was nice to be back in Europe where these kinds of beautiful buildings are simply standard.

It was here that I learned that money changers didn’t deal in Japanese yen, and so I instead changed some leftover Euros from a previous trip into the local currency. 

We walked all the way to the big park surrounded the fortress, and since we were there walked through the fortress itself. There was an odd dinosaur park (closed) for kids in the park, a lot of military hardware on display as part of the military museum on the grounds, and plenty of dogs with their owners but without leashes. Apparently it is OK to go unleashed in parks – we saw this a lot and were a little surprised.

At the top of the fortress walls we had a nice view of the convergence of the Sava and Danube rivers, and the city beyond. From here it looked like quite a small city, and our first impression of Belgrade was that it was a quiet place. After all our busy run up to the  trip it seemed like a nice change of pace.

We looped out through the park, passing some public art on display inside, and then went to check out an interesting shopping center with unusual architecture, a sort of stacked style with an open top restaurant area on the roof. After using the facilities and checking out the market and drug store there we walked back near the center of town (next to our hotel) to have some lunch and drinks. We chose a place more on the basis of shady seats than cuisine, and had a light lunch of a pesto sandwich and grilled veggies, along with local beer and wine. We spent a leisurely time there – almost two hours – enjoying the outdoor cafe atmosphere and watching the people of the city walk by. The weather was cool and comfortable – a big difference from Kansai – and except a light sprinkle now and then it was mostly sunny.

We wandered back to the hotel and the staff was nice enough to let us check in a couple hours early. She was super-friendly and really helpful – the staff was probably the highlight of that hotel for me. 

We had big plans for the evening – visiting a restaurant that serves traditional Serbian cuisine along the Danube river, but once we settled on the bed it was all over. I set my alarm to wake us up after three hours to get ready for dinner, but when it went off we both made the same decision to say fuck it and go back to sleep. And then we slept like the dead for the next twelve hours. We had no idea we were so sleep deprived!

We had an action-packed homecoming trip to Glen Ellen this past week. We try to get to California every July, and this time things worked out so that we could also meet up with a lot of other family members together in Glen Ellen.

The full list of attendees was Mark and Susan, Charlie, Maya, Susan and Dave Underwood, Joey and Alex, Drew, Griff and Gage, Neil, and of course Kuniko and me along with our hosts Bonnie and Ray.

We took a half day off in Japan and caught a flight on Asiana airlines, through Incheon airport to get to San Francisco in the afternoon. As usual we had to wait nearly an hour for Asiana to get our bags to the carousel. And then, unfortunately we found out that one potential attendee couldn’t make it – Kinsey had some things going and couldn’t be there.

But Mom and Dad picked us up and drove us back to Glen Ellen. The first night we were pretty tired out – thankfully Mark and Susan stepped up and cooked some carnitas and beans for a Mexican food night. We spent most of the time meeting everyone and catching up, and then fighting jet lag overnight trying to get to sleep.

The next day was a lot more meeting and greeting, talking with family we hadn’t seen in a long time, and just chilling out around the house. Some people were staying at George’s place, another couple in a rental room next to George’s – full capacity!

For dinner we all went down to the London Lodge and ate (mainly) prime rib out back on their patio. It had been years since I’d eaten prime rib – it was Kuniko’s first time – and my Dad was nice enough to pick up the tab (and the Underwoods picked up the tip). There was even some live music playing in the background.

Afterwards we went back home and attended an exclusive screening of Drew’s latest film, Bloody Mary. He stretched a sheet outside and set up a projector and we could watch it on the big screen. We really enjoyed the show – it was fun to see what he has been putting his energy into.

The next day, Sunday, we were kicking around the house, doing some chores to try to fix the Chan’s sprinkler system, we headed to Benziger winery for a wine tasting with some of the group. It was the first wine tasting for Gage and Griffin – maybe for Joey as well. MJ was getting over Covid but she was wearing a mask while she poured our wines.

That night we put together a mixed grill and some salad, inspired but a quick game plan Mark came up with in the garage that morning. It worked out really well, and we cleared out a lot of space in the refrigerator(s), especially the mushrooms.

One weird thing was the discovery of a 3 liter bottle of red wine under the bed in Mark’s old bedroom. My folks thought it was mine but it must have been someone else’s. So we drank the whole thing over the next five days. Yum!

We capped off the night with a monstrous Chicken game featuring most of the members in a gigantic circle. Maya provided the in-game scores and enjoyed all the attention. She also was seriously into playing gin rummy, which was good to see. Meanwhile Charlie was enjoying the free use of her new iPhone, so everyone was keeping entertained.

The next day we went into Sonoma – Mark and family went around to some stores on the plaza (Griffin, Gage, Kuniko and myself joined them at Tiddlywinks). Gage and Griffin were puffing on candy cigarettes, and eventually we split up into a Traintown group and just walking around group.

That evening some members of the group headed back, and just Mark and family and Bonnie and Ray and Kuniko and I went to Coddingtown to do some Bath and Bodyworks shopping.

Afterwards, we drove to a Mexican food truck area where we could try some good stuff. I got excited when I thought I saw huitlacoche (a Mexican corn fungus) on the menu, but it was actually huarache (a fried masa dough in a sandal shape with meat and beans on top). But the sandal was delicious anyway. Kuniko had a birria gordita, and everyone (except us) ordered lots of sweet crepes, and dessert was a big event.

The next day (Tuesday the 16th) Mark and family packed up and flew out from Santa Rosa airport. We heard later that they had trouble with checking their bags and ended up losing most of their Bath and Bodyworks products to the TSA inspectors. Bummer!

As for Kuniko and I, we drove Dad’s pickup to meet Brian Haven at the Sonoma Plaza. We met a little too early for wine tasting so we moved to the Gourmet Taco shop for bean burritos, and then back to the plaza to visit Kamen winery and taste some of their excellent (expensive) wines. I was really impressed with their Syrah and Cabernet Franc wines, and also Kuniko really enjoyed their Sauvignon Blanc, so we brought a bottle back to share with Banzai. It was great to chat and catch up with Haven, who looked like he was doing well and enjoying life in California.

Next we continued on into Napa in Dad’s pickup to shop at Trader Joe’s, and then Whole Foods (for dinner stuff). On the drive back to Glen Ellen near 8th street in Sonoma a car behind us pulled us over and warned us that gasoline was leaking from the truck. I checked and it was a whole lot of gas leaking out. There was a risk of fire/explosions/death so we rushed to the nearest gas station which in fact didn’t do repairs – but at least they had a burger food truck to keep us busy while we waited for my Dad to come bail us out.

Once he arrived he called AAA and after dealing with their frustrating automated system we waited a bit longer for the tow truck. Luckily there were some shady tables and we ate a grilled cheese sandwich with pickles and drank sparkling water to keep cool.

Finally the tow truck came, and we drove back to Glen Ellen to meet at the service station there and leave the truck for repair later on. Afterwards the repair guy said that the seal on the gas line had just disintegrated due to old age – it was a matter of timing and bad luck for us.

Kuniko and I cooked up some Chinese food for dinner, soup, a stir fry, some fried rice, and then we watched a movie – Perfect Days – with my parents. It was a pretty good movie, and it had some famous Japanese actors who did a good job with a mysterious story.

But then on Wednesday morning Dad wasn’t feeling great and tested positive for Covid. During the day other members of our family reunion checked in with positive tests, and so that was how our big family gathering turned into a superspreader event. Oh, no!

Our top priority was to get dad on some meds fast, so Kuniko and I drove to Kaiser in Santa Rosa and brought back his medicine. Once that was set, we basically were trying to do what we could to make sure that my dad could recover and we made things accessible for Banzai around the house.

The next day was more running around – getting stuff to stock the groceries and fridges in Glen Ellen, but we did manage to get lunch at In-N-Out, and do a short wine tasting at Landmark vineyards in Kenwood. We also went to a Mexican market for tortillas and sauces, and wrapped up our shopping lists for things to bring back to Japan.

Kuniko spent lots of time in the kitchen making some soups to keep things easy for my folks, and we divided what she cooked into containers for the freezer and the fridge. By then my dad was getting lots of sleep and starting to feel a little better, so we felt like things were going to be OK after we left.

Friday was our last day in the USA – we gathered linens from George’s place, organized around the house and tried to set up things to be easier once we had left. We said our goodbyes to my folks, and then Matt Atkinson was nice enough to give us a ride to the Airporter bus stop (in front of the Santa Rosa fairgrounds).

The Airporter is now called GROOME Airport Buses, but they were having lots of problems that day. They made us switch from a cool air conditioned bus to an old spare with broken air conditioning, so it was a hot ride down to the city. But once we arrived we could sit at a bar and drink/eat while we waited for our check-in and boarding to open up.

Turns out we were lucky – there was a computer glitch running through many transportation systems, and we met a lady who had been stuck in the airport for two days. Our flights were unaffected, and once we boarded we were able to get going and go right to sleep after dinner. We slept for about 8 of the 11 hours in the flight – no problem.

Back in Japan we did a little shopping and unpacking, and then we were cooking some more to get ready for the work week. We’ve only got two weeks here before our next adventure, this time to Europe. More on that later on!

We woke up to a much lighter rainfall, and with some relief we checked out and walked back outside to head to The Graces Restaurant. Thanks to our failed attempt last night it was a much easier trip. The subway wasn’t nearly as crowded as the night before, and the day was a national holiday, so there wasn’t much in the way of a commute rush.

Thankfully the restaurant was open – I had visions of it being closed on the holiday, or being so packed with people that we’d have to go somewhere else. But we got a table in a very stylish dining room, and we ordered from the dim sum menu. I was happy to see the thousand layer cake listed (listed as ‘nostalgic’ in Chinese) so we ordered two baskets.

Eventually the food started showing up, and we had some great dim sum here. The quality level was higher, and each dim sum was beautifully presented. When the staff revealed not one but two baskets of thousand layer cake he did a double take – did he deliver a mistaken double order? No, no, we just really want to eat a lot of it!

And it was really good. I don’t remember where I ate it the first time years ago, but the light texture, the perfectly balanced sweet and salty taste – yum! I’m not sure why it isn’t popular anymore, but I was glad to finally get to eat it again.

After eating our fill of dim sum we walked around and ended up finding a rooftop bar that served late morning bubbles. It was quite hard to find despite the GPS, and in the end it turned out to be an elite sort of place at the top of a ritzy shopping center. We first had to go to the upper floor of the building and then check with a receptionist who screened us before letting us onto a separate elevator that took us to the roof.

The bar had only a few other people there for some kind of brunch special, but they allowed us to sit for two glasses of champagne and some chips and guacamole. The staff seemed a bit snooty and they had their own DJ spinning tunes nearby, but it worked as a place to stay out of the rain and as a wrap up for the trip. When we left later on the manager saw us off and was super-friendly, so we left on a good note.

From there it was on to the airport on the high speed train, and we killed time at a bar there watching people walk by. The bar was across from a restaurant, and the bar staff sent drinks across the walkway to the restaurant using a robot that managed to weave between fast-moving passengers. We had some beer and cocktails, some fried tofu as an appetizer, and then decided to get a bigger meal when we heard our plane would be delayed.

One more plate of noodles for each of us – I waited for the food at the counter while Kuniko managed to stake out a table. She had to fight off a family who insistently tried to steal our chairs, and thanks to her persistence we could sit while eating our last meal in Hong Kong. For airport food it was pretty good!

Our flight finally began boarding nearly an hour late, which meant that we’d be stuck at Kansai airport overnight – the buses running from the airport to Kobe stopped before we could get there. Next to me on the flight was a very unusual white guy who seemed to be moving and reacting in a very slow way to everything. I thought maybe he was on drugs, and he spent a long time filling in the cover of his journal in pencil as we flew back. Eventually he folded up in half in his seat and it sure didn’t look very comfortable. Thanks to our emergency exit row seats we had more space going back.

So back in Kansai we easily cleared immigration and then took a bus to terminal 1. Here there were more things open, but rather than pay for a hotel room for just four hours we decided to sleep on the bench until the first bus left for Kobe. We killed more time eating a meal at Sukiya (surprisingly good!) and later a breakfast at McDonald’s (as good as you’d expect).

From there it was easy to catch the bus and head on home. Even though the trip was over we still had five days off before going back to work, so there was plenty of time to acclimatize to life in Japan again. And thankfully the weather was absolutely beautiful the rest of Golden Week.

Kuniko and I agreed that it was a really good trip – it had been a while since we had traveled and it felt good to be back out there. As usual Hong Kong’s restaurants did not disappoint, and Macau turned out to be a pleasant surprise, even for non-gamblers like us.

Our next trip is back to California in July so it’ll be a while.

After sleeping well in our hotel room we decided to go find some good egg custard tarts (pasteis de nata) and Kuniko guided us to a nearby place that was pretty renowned. We arrived about ten minutes before they opened and already someone had lined up. We got in line behind them, while sort of sitting on the seats outside the shop. An old guy was smoking nearby and we had to jump in line before he cut ahead – he was a typical rude old guy. But the tarts were delicious – I had mine with coffee and Kuniko had homemade yogurt. The tarts were super hot and it took almost ten minutes for them to cool enough to eat, but we really enjoyed them.

From there we checked out of our hotel and walked across town down narrow streets, taking in the architecture of the locals and enjoying (slightly) cooler weather. Our destination was a train station on a newly built train line with connections to the airport and ferry terminal. We got off at Pai Kok, a historic area that had a different vibe from all the casinos. We arrived a little too early to have lunch at our chosen restaurant, so we walked through the village (more shops selling beef sheets), and then through the Galaxy Casino to take advantage of the free air conditioning. The casinos in this area were newer and more like the ones I was used to from Las Vegas.

While walking through we took a break sitting on the marble walkway next to some other tourists, and watched people taking pictures of the grand fountain. Soon a security guy came by and rousted us all off the way with a great expression on his face – like “sorry, but I gotta do this…”

We talked our way into getting drinks at a “Paris-style” bar – the staff all wore French maid outfits – and enjoyed a drink there while waiting for the restaurant to open. Once it did, we went to the Restaurante Litoral Taipa, which specialized in Macanese dishes. There we had potato cakes as appetizers, saffron-stewed pork, and minchee – a surprisingly tasty dish of richly flavored minced beef, fried potato cubes, and egg served with rice. We really liked this dish, and it was the dish that I had the lowest expectations for.

After lunch we had time to kill before our ferry back, so we walked through some of the big casinos in the area – the Venetian, the Parisian, and past the Londoner and Studio City Macau. It was Kuniko’s first look at the gaudy cheesiness of these kinds of casinos – a good life experience, I think.

From there we caught the train again, and moved on to the ferry terminal. As we walked again through immigration and to our boarding gate we dodged drips of condensation from the ceiling – apparently the temperature differential showed off an inconvenient design flaw. It was like walking through light rain.

The ferry trip back was smoother than the coming (less barfing) and soon enough we were back in Hong Kong and catching a train to the Sheung Wan area west of Central. We walked about ten minutes from the station to our hotel (the Ibis) and checked into our smaller room – after our last beautiful hotel room the change was dramatic.

My target for dinner was to go to the Graces Restaurant in Causeway Bay, to try to finally eat the holy grail of dim sum (for me, anyway). I had confirmed they had it on the menu, so we took a busy train to the area to have dinner there.

Once we arrived at the station it was super crowded. It turned out that the day was a big celebrity’s birthday, and all his fans had come out to show their support. It was a bit nuts as we tried to maneuver our way through to find the restaurant. Eventually we figured it out, and found the right place. Unfortunately they weren’t open yet, and a quick consult with the manager revealed that they don’t serve dim sum for dinner anyway. This is a traditional kind of place, so we’d have to come back tomorrow morning.

So as an emergency backup Kuniko found a dumpling place nearby and we had some great soup dumplings (they had so many choices of fillings) and also some dumplings stuffed with crab and seafood that really hit the spot.

After that we took the train back to near our hotel, where there was a huge traffic jam and people all over the place – it was a busy night in Hong Kong. As we walked back to our hotel we noticed that the area was filled with shops specializing in dried sea life – for medicinal and culinary use. There was shop after shop – apparently competing with each other. One shop we saw had a cat sitting atop some of the displays, who must have really hit the kitty-cat lottery to get to hang out in there.

We considered hitting one more restaurant for the night but in the end the weather was turning bad so we decided to stay in and eat/drink snacks from the local convenience store in our room. As it turned out a huge storm hit that night, pounded the side of our building and window and flashing lightning for much of the night. Glad we weren’t out on the street!

We got up early to try to squeeze in one more dim sum meal before our trip to Macau. The previous morning we had walked by a small diner that served dim sum, so we killed a little time walking around the neighborhood before they opened. We bought two pastries from a corner bakery for later – a “sweetheart cake” and an egg yolk bun. Once the dim sum cafe opened we got in there and did some ordering.

They had a new dim sum for me – a steamed ginger cake that had an unusual texture. It looked like Japanese yokan, but not so sweet. I liked it, Kuniko didn’t. The other dim sum was good but not excellent like we had at the London.

After checking out of the hotel Kuniko guided us to the ferry terminal, and while waiting to board an Indian lady struck up a conversation. She was traveling alone through the area and asked me about the boarding procedures. She seemed really nice – I was impressed that she was doing the trip solo. We ate our pastries from the bakery shop, capturing our reactions with the camera. We both thought the sweetheart cake was a little too much like rice cake – not so flavorful but very filling. The egg yolk bun was better but hard to eat.

To travel by ferry to Macau we needed to go through immigration despite both areas being controlled by China. The immigration procedures were quite simple and they didn’t even check our bags for security. The ferry was quite modern and very high speed. At some points the movement of the ferry really rocked up and down with the waves, and we could hear people retching in seats not far from us. The sound of them almost caused a similar situation for Kuniko, but she somehow held on and made it to Macau without incident.

At the ferry terminal we had a long walk to the other end and went through immigration again there, and then struck out to find a casino bus to take us to the area near our hotel. The casino buses are all free, as they hope you’ll gamble at the destination, so it made sense to take advantage of them. We took one to the Lisboa palace in Taipa and there changed to another bus that took us to the main district of Macau where our hotel was located.

Macau was covered with casinos, many of which are exact copies of the ones in Las Vegas. The Wynn casino group does a lot of business there, and part of the fun of the trip was seeing the unusual architecture of the buildings – some of which were pretty outlandish. Our hotel was close to the Grand Lisboa, which has a very distinctive shape of a giant fan leaf over a large bulb shaped casino. Our bus dropped us off here, and we walked a few minutes to get to our hotel (YOHO Treasure Island) on the shore of the lake.

We dropped off our bags there, and then decided to go explore Macau. Right away we realized that although I had bought eSIMs for Hong Kong, they didn’t work here, so I used the hotel WiFi to buy one for Kuniko’s phone. Modern technology makes everything easy. Unfortunately Kuniko’s version of Google Maps wasn’t working very well, and we sort of got lost in the beginning of our journey. We had to rely on street signs instead of satellites. In the end she switched to Apple Maps and it was fine. Weird…

As we visited some of the old traditional Portuguese buildings of Macau we were surrounded by hordes of Chinese tourists. I very rarely saw any European people around, and it was an odd contrast between the architecture and the people. The weather in Macau was hot and humid, and climbing up and down the hills had us both sweaty.

As we approached the walls of St. Paul’s church, one of the main attractions for tourists, the street funneled into lots of Chinese shops selling goods to tourists. Oddly the main draw was “bakkwa” – meat jerky made in the Chinese style out of either beef, pork or lamb. I ended calling them “beef sheets”, and we saw them everywhere we went. I got a taste of them and they were quite good, but it seemed like an odd thing to be popular here.

We spent some time at the St. Paul’s church, and then climbed the battlements in the nearby park to see the cannons and the view of the city. It was seriously hot up there though – it was a good place to take a break in the shade. Many Chinese tourists were taking photos in dramatic poses – it was interesting to watch and see how much effort went into it.

We went back into town and stopped at the Grand Lisboa to look around, get some money changed into patacas, and use the restroom. In the glitzy casino restroom the urinal had a unique design. You stepped into a basin with raised stainless steel bolts – the idea was that any urine that missed the urinal wood pool here, but the raised bolts kept your feet (reasonably) dry. It looked like missing the urinal was a serious issue at the Grand Lisboa.

This was Kuniko’s first experience entering a casino, so we walked around to check it out. We eventually ended up at the casino bar for cocktails and a pork chop bun – apparently a traditional Macau dish. At the bar they were accepting vouchers for free snacks and sweets – younger Chinese girls kept coming to eat there. We were the only ones drinking alcohol – I had a Macau beer and Kuniko was drinking a dirty martini (!).

Back at our hotel we did some shopping in the lower levels. The hotel itself was quite new and they had added a bunch of luxury shops in the lower part of the hotel. These were staffed but empty of shoppers, so it was a little strange vibe to walk through. We found a grocery store, however, and bought some bubbles and snacks for later on.

For dinner we went to Albergue 1601, a restaurant that specialized in more traditional Portuguese food. We liked the area and all the tile work – the tiles were similar to what we had seen all over Porto during our visit. We sat upstairs with young Chinese couples on either side of us. It was interesting to listen in to their conversations while we enjoyed our food and wine.

The food was quite good there – we ordered duck rice which was really tasty (and filling) with big chunks of duck meat baked into the rice. We also had salt cod with cornbread crumbs, and this was good but not quite at the same level as the duck rice. The caldo soup was a little underseasoned, but we did enjoy the wine very much – both the white and the red were excellent. It was interesting that none of the Chinese people were drinking wine – just us and the Japanese couple behind us.

Our server was also super-nice, and she really took care of us. She let us try the wines before committing to a glass, and she poured pretty heavy. I wished we could tip her, but we gave her a good review on the survey instead.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel areas, this time all the colorful signs were lit up and we took some pictures along the way back. The view from our room was truly impressive, overlooking all the casinos. We had a wide cushioned bench in front of the windows and so we could sit and take it all in while sipping the bubbles. The bathtub in the hotel room was really cool – we could sit in the tub and soak while still getting a nice view outside.

Kuniko really outdid herself with this hotel room – it was one of the nicest we’ve ever had. We finally went to bed with full bellies in a very luxurious setting.

Normally during Golden Week in Japan we spend the time at home taking it easy, cooking various foods and sitting outside enjoying the pre-summer cooler weather. Last year we were lucky to have Brian Haven visit – it was good to have the free time available to hang out.

But this year, out of curiosity I did a little research and found some cheaper tickets to Hong Kong. We’ve been before but we also wanted to combo a trip to Macau, so we decided to pull the trigger and go for a few days.

Going in we had a couple of goals – check out Macau and see how much of the Portuguese influence remained, to eat lots of dim sum in Hong Kong, and to spend some leisure time as we’d done lots of sightseeing in HK already.

The trip started like many others – a bus ride from Sannomiya to Kansai Airport. This time we were going to terminal 2, where the Peach airline was based. There was a surprising amount of people waiting for the bus – mostly foreigners going home – and we were a little worried if we had allotted enough time. However the bus arrived on schedule, and we checked into our flight and had to kill a little time at the terminal air side. We had some yakisoba and katsu curry while we waited, and stocked up on beer and snacks to take onto the four hour flight.

Unfortunately our flight was delayed an hour or so due to congestion at Hong Kong airport – but I guess anytime you fly with a low-cost carrier (like Peach) you run this risk. It resulted in us drinking at the gate while we waited even longer.

Eventually we got underway, and the tight seating onboard had me mostly awake for the flight.

Hong Kong airport wasn’t too congested when we arrived, and the line for immigration was only 15 minutes or so. We were traveling light with just a backpack so no need to wait around for a suitcase. We caught the high speed train from the airport to the city pretty easily after buying an Octopus card for Kuniko to use. I was using an Octopus app on my phone that was pretty convenient.

On our way to the hotel on our train we realized that it might be more direct to get off at Kowloon instead of the end of the line in Hong Kong, so we jumped off (just in time, too) and navigated the hot humid streets towards our hotel. On the way we walked through construction zones (accidentally on the construction side) but eventually found our way to the area of our hotel on Nathan Road in the Jordan area.

The lobby of the Madera Hotel smelled strongly of some kind of perfume, but our room on the 22nd floor was really nice – a great size for us and a nice view of the city to the north of us.

We dropped off our stuff and then hustled outside to go look for some dinner. We ended up at Dim Sum Here, a chain dim sum place that was supposed to be cheap and pretty good quality for the price. Most importantly, they served dim sum all day rather than just in the morning like the nicer restaurants.

We picked out an assortment, sharing a table with a strange pair of ladies who struck up a conversation asking about what province of America I am from, and then giving me a leaflet for their Christian church. The dim sum here was good although it benefited from being the first dim sum of the trip and we were pretty hungry.

We walked around the neighborhood afterwards, also stopping for some won ton noodles at a bright noodle shop with slippery floors. There streets were filled with appetizing restaurants and it seemed like we were going to have plenty of options during our stay. Nearby was also a night market that seemed well attended and a few streets that looked a little dodgy. But those just added to the charm of the area, and we were happy with the hotel location.

The next day was a full day in Hong Kong, and I wanted to really get the full dim sum experience. We got up early and walked north through some light rain to a classic morning dim sum place, the London Restaurant. Along the way we walked past so many interesting restaurants, a couple of which were open early. So many food options!

We’d gone to the London Restaurant before – it has a huge dining room with old ladies pushing carts around. You had to go to the carts, and they removed the lids to show you what they had. Nobody spoke English, so mainly it is done with gestures. We had some classics here – shrimp shumai, shorompo, and a new one for us: “chu chow fun gor”, which was a vegetable dumpling with water chestnuts, peanuts, and garlic. To pay we escorted our server to a stern lady in a both who accepted payment – it felt like a mafia-style interaction. This is as authentic a dim sum experience as I think you can get in Hong Kong.

We spent most of the day walking around, and eating as we went. The rain came and went, and so we often ducked into a place for some food to escape bad weather. Once again we came across the phenomenon of all the immigrant maids enjoying picnics on the street on their day off. Some of the other places we visited were a Shandong dumpling place, a Sichuan restaurant, a Michelin star noodle place, and a Chinese cafe/dessert place.

One of the things I wanted to do on this trip was try Chinese food from some other areas, and so that was why we visited the Shandong restaurant. No English menus here, so we depended on our phone translator. It had food from northern China, and many kinds of dumplings (mainly soup style) that contained different meats and crunchy celery to vary the mouthfeel a little. We really enjoyed the black dumplings there, and also a big soupy hockey puck-shaped dumpling that was crispy on the outside and a little hard to eat but great flavor.

The Sichuan place was kind of a bust – the one we wanted to visit originally was closed when we visited, so this was an emergency backup. Nobody spoke English here, and we needed to gesture and point, but we could order via a website on our phone and that helped with translation. The foods were overly greasy – and not so spicy, but of course we chose the mild level on the menu out of caution. There was a strange miscommunication when I was halfway through my Blue Girl beer – the staff seemed to want to explain that they had a special price for two beers. Since I was planning on ordering another one (Kuniko’s drink was bigger than her head) I gestured that I would indeed like a second beer by showing two fingers, but that just got me two additional beers. Then they took them to the fridge to keep them cold, and I didn’t have a way to request the beers that I already had ordered (rather than a completely new beer). This kind of confusion is fun if you don’t mind the risk of paying more – and in the end I drank three beers and paid for three.

We also visited a recommended noodle shop, awarded a Michelin star, and walking by previously had shown us that there would be quite a wait. We got lucky once and walked by after dinner, and the line was almost gone. We got to share a table with a couple other foreigners, and we ordered dry noodles with shrimp eggs and also a plate of dry noodles with won tons. The crowded environment had people rushing around and pushing by us and the staff were a little rude and maybe overwhelmed by all the business they were doing. Sometimes the Michelin star can be a curse I suppose. The food itself wasn’t so special (to us) and so we left a little underwhelmed by the experience.

It wasn’t only restaurants on the first day – we also walked around to burn calories. We averaged about 25,000 steps per day, which is not bad at all. We walked to the waterfront to take in the other side of Hong Kong across the water, walked through the glitzy brand name district (where we did some recon of the ferry terminal that we would use the next day), and walked through a big shopping area entirely taken over by middle eastern and south Asian shops and restaurants. It was a completely different atmosphere there – full of great exotic aromas of curries and spice, with suspicious-looking money changers and long lines to take the elevators upstairs (were there cheap rooms up there?) I liked the vibe but Kuniko was less impressed – it felt a lot like a little slice of a developing country.

The next day we’d be heading by high speed ferry to Macau, so we headed to bed on the early side to get our rest.

Pictures from this trip are here!

It is a very short flight from Kuala Lumpur to Ho Chi Minh City – just over an hour, and so we arrived in the airport a little after lunchtime. I had prepared and paid for my online visa for Vietnam (not required for Japanese but definitely for Americans) and despite printing out the form the immigration officer ignored it and stamped my passport without comment.

I changed some of my Japanese yen into Vietnamese dong and became an instant millionaire. There are a lot more zeroes in Vietnamese money, and pretty much no coins. Since we usually eat street food cash is handy, though.

After getting our suitcases we once again used Grab and caught a ride into town with a very friendly Japanese-speaking driver. He seemed eager to practice his Japanese so that let me have a chance to relax and let Kuniko handle the conversation. One thing we did hear about from the driver was that there were no fireworks for the New Year’s countdown, so that was a minor bummer.

It had been a long time since I had been in Vietnam but it seemed similar – especially all the scooters. We drove along the streets surrounded by scooters weaving around us, with everyone honking their horns almost constantly. Eventually we arrived at the shopping center that housed our hotel – it was strange that a hotel was inside a shopping mall, but the hotel was quite upscale and once we figured out the location we could check right in.

As we were checking in some other residents, a group of young Australian (?) men and women were trying to organize gym passes, supermarket locations and most importantly a source of hard liquor together with a slightly overwhelmed desk clerk. Part of the fun of travel for us is trying to figure all that out ourselves, but these guys wanted to have the hotel staff do the legwork for them – it shows you that there are all kinds of different ways to travel.

Our room in the hotel was really nice – a big room with windows looking over the city on the 23rd floor. The minibar was completely free (including beer!) and the big king-size bed was nice to spread out on. They even had a cool Bluetooth speaker we could use to play music from our devices – a very stylish touch. Once we settled in we went out to look for some food.

The hotel’s location was prime – we just had to cross the street to get to a big indoor market with plenty of food stalls. The staff were sometimes physically pulling us to their stands, and although the prices were a little higher than elsewhere, it was still much cheaper than anywhere we had been so far on this trip.

After eating some fried spring rolls and noodle soup we walked around town to see what it was like – it had been a few years since Kuniko had been here with a school trip. She said that there were quite a few changes, so COVID must have had some serious effects. Here in Vietnam masking was much less common, except for the scooter riders who wore them to keep their mouth and throat clean from pollution. We spent most of our time in Vietnam maskless.

One thing we had to re-learn was how to cross the streets in Vietnam with confidence. Signals were sometimes available on big streets but they are really just suggestions and it is much better to keep your eyes open and slowly and consistently walk across while making eye contact with oncoming scooters. It took a few hours but soon we were crossing like locals.

We spent the next few days enjoying food all over the city – bahn mi, grilled meat bun cha, and some dishes we’d never seen before like “com tam” meat and rice dish, but the rice is only made up of the broken grains that aren’t suitable for regular rice packaging. Noodles were great – we had pho bo hue once but we concentrated on other noodle dishes (mainly dry noodles) and also we particularly liked bahn bot loc la – a banana leaf wrapped around clear tapioca wrapped around grilled salty shrimp. Wow! At that shop the staff introduced her Japanese friend who was trying to start a business selling coffee. He wanted to give us free samples but we turned him down because we were so full of hot food. Strangely his coffee beans were from Africa and South America – we came to Vietnam to drink Vietnamese coffee!

We certainly drank our fill of coffee – it is quite intense in Vietnam and sometimes dripped over condensed milk to balance the flavor. It was great to have access to so much good coffee both hot and iced. Alcohol was cheap and plentiful here, too.

Soon enough it was New Year’s Eve, and since there were no fireworks we decided to avoid the crowds and have a mini-party in our room. The day before there were big music events down on the streets on temporary stages, and it seemed like it was going to be a crowded, rowdy night. The hotel room party idea was particularly fitting since we were already inside a shopping center, and in the basement there was a big gourmet grocery store that accepted credit cards. We stocked up on cheese, wine, bubbles, cut fruits, and enjoyed some music in our room as we awaited midnight.

At midnight we toasted the new year while looking out over the city and were surprised to see fireworks off in the distance. Then we heard some even closer, and it turned out that they were firing them off after all. So much for our taxi driver’s local information! We watched them from a distance, and then called it a night soon after.

The next day it was back to the airport, and after bowls of pho and some fruit juices outside on plastic tables we had another brief meal and some cocktails at the airport bar (which was much nicer than we expected). The flight back to Kuala Lumpur was just an hour. The immigration line was a bit longer this time. Some guys in front of us were having trouble with their passports – they seemed nervous and let us go ahead of them. Hopefully everything worked out for them.

Our Grab driver needed to refuel on the way back to the city and we caught a little traffic so by the time we arrived at our last hotel of the trip it was late. We had cocktails at a sweets bar near the lobby, but the restaurants were closed. We gave up and went up the elevator but pushed the wrong button for our floor, causing a delay for the (thankfully) understanding couple sharing the ride. In the end we ordered room service – noodles and satay – in our very comfortable room. The hotel was older but very nice and again we had a big room with a nice view of Central KL.

The last day or two was just crossing off the last things we wanted to eat, and do shopping for souvenirs for students and coworkers. We made the journey to Mansion Tea Stall to eat roti canai (worth the wait!), we tried to get mango susu from a place we tried last time but the day seemed to be some kind of holiday and the restaurants were re-set to a sort of family-style buffet system. We walked all over the Central KL area, burning calories in preparation for our next meal and using the subway system when the distance seemed too far.

We spent time in a shopping center that brought back memories from our previous trip – this time we tried new things. One was a spicy noodle dish with lamb and cumin that was tasty – a guy sitting next to us introduced us to the shop and seemed like he was a big fan. Another new thing was an ornate shaved ice with coconut milk, black jelly, peanuts and corn(!). Kuniko rejected corn as a topping for iced confections, and I’ll admit it was a little weird. The supermarket there was called “Cold Storage” and they had lots of interesting stuff. As we checked out a strange old lady put her stuff next to ours on the checkout counter – we had to explain that we didn’t know who she was. A lonely bunch of broccoli even made an appearance next to the waiting line in a cooler – what was the story there?

It was nice to revisit some of the places we liked last time, and the hotel location was perfect for shopping for our return home. Each morning we had breakfast at the impressive hotel buffet, full of western and local foods. Once we figured out the coffee system we were set. We spent time at the hotel pool swimming and sipping cocktails that took more than 30 minutes to arrive – but it was nice to just relax poolside in the warm weather.

On our final day we walked around the park under the Petronas Towers. We ate and drank at a cafe nearby – salted egg yolk fried chicken, cocktails and some decadent desserts really filled out the calorie load for the day.

We left early for the airport and it was a lucky thing as there were sudden thunderstorms and huge traffic jams due to a football match later that evening. It was good we weren’t cutting it too close for our flight. After one last round of salted egg lava buns at Din Tai Fung we took our overnight flight back to Osaka, and we both managed to sleep a bit on the way back.

There was a new system in place at Kansai Airport for entering Japan. The old MySOS system was eliminated soon after the PCR testing requirement was abolished, but now they had some strange new system that wasn’t explained very well. At 5 am the hallway was lined with staff who tried to explain how to register our emails on the new system and it seemed like a colossal waste of time and money. Plus we were tired and grouchy from just waking up – I hope this system is also eliminated soon.

It was great to get out there and travel some more, and we’re looking forward to visiting some new places in the future. This year will have us going to the USA to visit my parents in July, and hopefully some other travels in summer, autumn and/or winter. For now we’re getting back into the swing of things at work… back to the salt mines!

Photos from this trip are here!

Except for a trip in August to see my folks in the USA we’ve been largely cooped up in Japan thanks to COVID restrictions. While Asia is still (even today) straining against those restrictions we felt like the time was right to get back on the road for some much needed R&R.

At first we hadn’t planned on going anywhere – just lock ourselves in our house with a lot of wine and gourmet foods and come out in January weighing a few more kilograms – but eventually the call of warm Southeast Asia was too much. We booked some cheap flights on Malaysian Airlines and left Japan on Christmas Eve.

We booked an early flight out from Kansai Airport and so that meant the first train on Saturday morning from Okubo. It was tricky to dress warmly for the morning but also to be ready for a couple of weeks of warm days near the equator. When we got to Sannomiya and had to wait for 10-15 minutes for the bus to the airport we were shivering in line. We splurged for two hot drinks from the vending machine to use as hand warmers until the bus came.

It was great to be back at Kansai Airport! It is always the departure point for our travel adventures and despite mostly being under construction (they tried to squeeze in a lot of renovation during the pandemic lull) it felt good to walk around and see how things were looking.

Check-in and security were a little busy but we made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare as usual, and then we were off just as the sun was rising. We booked two seats in the exit row, and so there was plenty of leg room for the 7 hour flight. Our meals were OK but nothing special – Kuniko ordered fish and got miso saba – which felt weird since we were leaving Japan.

During take off and landing we sat across from a flight attendant who was Japanese – she talked to us as we arrived and warned us of huge lines at immigration in Kuala Lumpur Airport. She was curious about us and asked about our lives in Japan. She made lots of smiley faces and nice comments and it was only later that we discovered that I had some spilled food on the front of my shirt. Such a cool guy!

Once we got into the airport it was a long trip to immigration. They had shut down some trams and so we had to ride a bus part of the way, and we certainly got some steps in that day. Despite what the flight attendant had said immigration was a ghost town and we flew right through.

After leaving immigration and customs the first thing we did was turn around and go back into the airport arrivals area to hit Din Tai Fung – a Taiwanese restaurant that serves consistently delicious salted egg lava buns. For some reason they are hard to find in Japan – even Din Tai Fung in Osaka doesn’t carry them – but I imagine they would go over really well. We can’t get enough and during this trip we stopped at this airport restaurant three times for salted egg lava buns and some noodles/wontons on the side.

We used the e-hailing app Grab and got a quick ride into the city. Using e-hailing apps has really changed how we feel about traveling (especially in SE Asia). Some of our best travel stories have been about crazy taxi rides or drivers ripping us off, and while they make good memories they are always stressful at the time. Now all that worry is gone. The apps we use set the price at the beginning, no cash changes hands, and we don’t need to try to explain the destination in another language. It’s almost too easy!

There were a few reasons why we chose Kuala Lumpur for our main destination this time: it was the last foreign city we had visited before COVID so it made a fitting bookend to the (hopefully) end of the pandemic. Also we had pretty much done all the sightseeing a few years ago so it was a place to relax and focus on food, and finally the familiarity of the city would make it that much more stress-free.

That sense of familiarity was a surprisingly positive emotion. I know that I felt a similar feeling in Cairo when we went back to the Al Doqi area of the city after staying somewhere else on our return from Luxor. Some places that should look foreign and unfamiliar are instead welcoming – you know how things work and where you can go to find what you need, in an otherwise unknown country. We got that same feeling this trip.

So we were eagerly looking around the center of Kuala Lumpur when we arrived. We wanted to see what things had changed in the three years since we (and COVID) had been there.

We stayed at one of the hotels that we used last time – it was in a great spot near a very popular street food destination, a huge shopping district, and an underground food court right next door that was our hangout for most mornings.

After dropping off our bags we went right outside and walked across the busy Bukit Bintang area, crossing the busy streets filled with tourists. It seemed like about 60% of people were masked, compared to Japan which still is about 99.5% masked.

We found Jalan Alor – a street food hotspot just five minutes walk from our hotel, and it looked almost exactly the way we left it in 2020. We even went to the end of the street and found the same satay cook, grilling up satay skewers of lamb, beef and chicken amid clouds of billowing smoke. We managed to find half a table and pushed aside some dirty dishes to eke out a space to enjoy. Drinking cold beer and satay with peanut sauce on a hot tropical night in Southeast Asia is a pretty good feeling.

While many things were familiar there were some things we noticed for the first time. I know that Malaysia is an Islamic country, but I didn’t really notice until this trip that the price of alcohol is quite high. Since there is little domestic demand the tourists are expected to pay more for the privilege of drinking, and so when we had drinks they were similar in price to back home in Japan or sometimes a little higher. We didn’t stop drinking while there, but it did cost more than I had expected. Kuniko discovered lychee martinis (and we bought the ingredients for them as soon as we got home), and I drank various beers, mostly Tiger. But it did give us the opportunity to drink the fruit juices that are available everywhere, blended and served in old-fashioned glasses.

Kuniko made sure that every hotel during this trip had a swimming pool, and I appreciated taking a dip almost every day. The poolside bar at the hotel had a “pool guy” who tried to get us to refill our drinks as much as possible – he was ripe with cologne and spent time with his smartphone until our drinks started getting low and then he was, “Hey boss, need another beer?” I can still smell the guy!

We spent almost every morning in the next door food court – a place we discovered on our previous trip. The main attraction (for me) was the Penang Secret Cafe, which served Penang’s (and Malaysia’s?) signature dish, char kway teow. It is made of rice noodles, shrimp, oysters, duck egg, shaved sweet Chinese sausages, and some mysterious (but mild) spices that make this dish magical. I went nuts for this dish last trip and it was just as good this time.

At the Penang Secret Cafe they fend off customers (even after opening time) until everything is just how they like it, and then they accept the first customer and a line forms. You pay, get a paper with a number, and then you need to stand back while the next person orders. The cooks throw the ingredients into a huge wok, and make the char kway teow two portions at a time. They put the completed dishes on a shelf with a matching number tag, and if your number matches you can take the dish back to your seat and dig in.

As it was a popular restaurant there were 5-6 people waiting around for their order, and I soon discovered that some guys (usually Chinese) would just take the first dish that matched their order and run off, whether the number was correct or not. That meant that I (and other rule-following people) would be standing around waiting for a number that already came up. You had to show your paper to the busy cook who would stop what he was doing, look around, shake his head, and then give you the next dish out of the wok. A very disorganized system.

We didn’t just eat char kway teow – there were so many dishes to try at the food court and each restaurant was in reality a special branch of another actual restaurant somewhere in Malaysia – so this place gathered some of the best food in the country in one place. We went heavily for noodles but there were plenty of other options, sweet and savory.

So we settled into a nice routine – wake up when we wake up, have some coffee, head over to the food court to try some new dishes around 10 am, come back to relax by the pool or read books, get out there for some lunch somewhere else, maybe another lunch, an early dinner, maybe another dinner… and so on. We were always keeping our eyes open for good food and coming back later when we were hungrier.

There were lots of good memories from this trip to KL: getting caught in the rain while eating dinner on Jalan Alor… every shop had table umbrellas ready to go up and even a unique system to prevent leaking between adjacent umbrellas. Enterprising locals showed up soon after selling plastic umbrellas – we bought one and managed to stop the rain moments later. I had a boba tea from Oja Tea, a newly opened shop that had exceptionally friendly staff. Just as we left the chubby owner and his family (all in regular clothes) came and conducted a surprise inspection while the poor staff tried to keep serving customers.

Our return to Chinatown was interesting – the shortcut that we used so many times when we were there last was gated up and I was glad we didn’t stay at the previous hotel – it would have made the walk to Chinatown much farther. The roti jalla was even better than I remembered the first time – with a rich soup and big chunks of meat. Most shops started to use QR code menus, which while somewhat annoying when you are in your own country, are quite useful when dealing with language barriers in another country.

After almost a week of eating well we were ready to move on to Ho Chi Minh City, so once again we went to the airport and ate some more salted egg lava buns at Din Tai Fung. While walking through the check-in area of Kuala Lumpur International Airport we came across a large group (200+?) of prisoners, being led in chains and handcuffs across the terminal area. It was a shock to see – I’ve never seen anything like it in a public place. The prisoners were dressed in regular clothes, and it was about 70% men and 30% women. My best guess was that they were being deported as illegal immigrants. We walked past one of the groups and they watched us just as much as we were watching them. It was a strange reminder that there are always people willing to take risks to find a better place no matter where you are.

While waiting to board the flight to Vietnam there were other groups walking around, and these people were not chained up. It seemed like they were going somewhere in China for work, and I wondered what kind of work it was that China was bringing in more people from developing countries to help with it.

Then we caught our afternoon flight out, and I’ll write more about our short visit to Ho Chi Minh City and the rest of our trip in the next entry.