We didn’t sleep as long as we expected to, so we got organized and decided to talk a little walk around the area to look around before breakfast.

We had central Oslo to ourselves – the sun was coming up and the temperature was just on the border between cold and cool. We chose streets at random, enjoying the architecture and empty streets, and found ourselves near the cathedral. It was a simpler structure compared to the others we’d seen on this trip, and of course this early it was all locked up so we would have to wait for later to go inside. 

Oslo station was a very modern station that did have a couple of people walking around, and some shops were open so that people could stock their backpacks before catching a long distance train ride. We knew that we’d be back here tomorrow morning to do just that.

It was about time for our hotel breakfast, and we went next door as they had some sort of agreement with a restaurant called Egon. It was a pretty big restaurant, designed to resemble the interior of a train which was fitting as it was right next to the station. They had prepared a breakfast buffet that was quite good – I liked the melon/passionfruit yogurt, and plenty of eggs, cold cuts, cheeses and mushrooms. The coffee was only so-so. 

After breakfast it was time to explore the city, and the size of it made it easy to do on foot. We started out heading towards the waterfront, and walked past buildings right on the water that seemed like they were either rental cabins or small restaurants – it wasn’t very clear. At the end of the waterfront was a giant cruise ship docked, and we could hear announcements inside rallying the troops for a shore excursion.

From there we passed through the fortress grounds, along the back way to get to the city hall, which was unfortunately under renovation at the time. Mostly there was no people – a few bikers or joggers but all the sightseeing spots were available for us to enjoy on our own.

Eventually we stumbled on the main thoroughfare called Karl Johan Gate, which connected the downtown with the royal palace on the hill. The palace was also undergoing renovations on one side, but it was disguised well enough that I didn’t notice at first. There were royal guards here and there, moving their heads back and forth to watch for attackers and to stave off boredom, I guess. We walked to the back of the palace which is located inside a large, well-cared for park, and took a break on a bench. Kuniko was impressed that all the benches were perfectly clean – something hard to find in the last three countries that we had visited.

As we walked back along Karl Johan Gate we started to see a few more people out and about, and the stylish cafes and restaurants were opening up for breakfast business.

By the time we reached the Oslo Opera House there were buses of tourists and one more super-size cruise ship was moving in to dock.  The design of the opera house is unique in that anyone can just walk up the sloping roof and climb to the top of the building, and continue over to the other side. The steps were a little scary for Kuniko and she was worried about falling, kind of like when we visited the Batu Caves back in Malaysia. Next to the opera house was a giant temporary structure that was used for a Red Bull cliff diving event that was coming up. 

We squeezed through lots of Chinese tourist groups and then found our way to the Edvard Munch museum, the artist famous for “The Scream” paintings. I had been able to buy tickets online, so we just had to wait for a bit outside before they let us in, and everyone was eager to rush to see The Scream. 

Since The Scream is a series of paintings, they have the most famous three of them for viewing, and to limit their exposure each one is displayed for only 90 minutes at a time. Then it is covered and the next one is revealed. While we were there we saw two of the three, a black and white version that I liked quite a bit, and one of the colored versions. This system took visitors by surprise and I think the staff members who worked in that area must have had to answer lots of questions all day long. 

But there was much more to Munch than just The Scream. There were some dramatic works – some huge in scale – that I had never seen before and the design and layout of the museum was exceptional. Kuniko and I took our time here and really enjoyed the museum. We even got a Scream keychain for our Christmas tree.

By this time we were getting our appetite back, so we walked across town to our lunch restaurant pick. The sun was really shining now, and despite the cool temperature Kuniko was worried about the sun on her scalp. She pulled her cardigan over her head and was looking like a babushka. Earlier in the trip we had seen a shop called “How to Babushka” and we loved the name – Kuniko was doing it in real life.

The restaurant we targeted, Kaffistova, was closed when we arrived. Once again the Google maps application had opening hours that were not correct – this was a recurring theme on this trip. We had to kill 20 minutes so we went to a nearby park and relaxed on a (clean) bench in the shade of the trees. 

Once it was time we went back to the restaurant, and we were the first customers. The staff sat us down and gave us menus, but after we translated them using our phones and made our decisions, the staff apologized and said that they were the incorrect menus. She gave us some lunch menus that were in English, so much easier.

Our first choice, the moose patties, was apparently going to take a long time, so we just ordered fish soup to share, with a glass of Prosecco and a local beer. As we waited a huge group of Korean tourists came in, part of a bus tour apparently. They all settled in and suddenly we were in a crowded restaurant. We were lucky to get our fish soup before the group ordered – and the soup was really good! 

The restaurant staff were clearly overwhelmed by the tour group so we decided to leave and get some more food somewhere else. Next we went to Dovrehallen, and on the 2nd floor of this historic building we found a guy looking exactly like Rasputin waiting around with no customers at all.

It was a really cool restaurant and interior, and the background music was an eclectic selection of American soul music from the 60s. We had fried halibut and local beer, and a great pickle salad that I want to try to make sometime. Rasputin was a friendly guy, maybe because he was so lonely, and we talked about weather. It almost sounded like he was complaining about the heat – this is the coolest we’ve felt in six months, dude!

Later we walked around some more, there was a big demonstration supporting Ukraine, complete with some people stepping on the Russian flag and making angry speeches (in Norwegian?) Around the city we saw a lot of Palestine flags as well, so the city seemed pretty active in political issues. Also in the city we found a chain coffee place called Hakone Coffee. Hakone is a city in Japan, and I remember finding Oslo Coffee in Tokyo and Kobe, so it was an odd mirror moment. And Hakone Coffee had a pretty long line, too.

All this walking around, eating and drinking had us a little tired, so we headed back to the hotel to rest, take a nap, and do some journaling. But soon enough we were thinking about getting some more food. This time we went to a restaurant that was a tiny bit unconventional, a local place focused exclusively on pork. 

Kuniko had a giant pork knuckle with garlic veggies and mustard potatoes. I had a pulled pork dish that had tasty mashed potatoes, and we washed it down with Voss Pale Ale and some house red wine. We got a nice table outside without reservations – yes! – and we saw an Asian lady sit nearby all alone and power down a plate of pork. It must be tough to travel and eat alone – it is harder to try many dishes. At another table we heard lots of Americans talking… we saw a lot of Americans and Chinese in Oslo.

Afterwards we walked back towards the central station, now the streets were packed with tourists. It was hard to reconcile this situation with the empty streets we had enjoyed earlier that morning. We decided to have one more cocktail at an outdoor cafe before heading back to bed, and so we sat in the main square not far from the giant tiger statue. Kuniko had a Bellini and I had a gin and tonic – but they weren’t all that special. It seemed like the bartender was new and so I guess he was a little nervous.

We turned in to bed a little early this time because we knew we had a very early train ride the next day. Oslo was a lot of fun, and we felt like we had seen all we wanted to see. 

It seemed like Kuniko was able to master the air conditioner settings, and we slept in a surprisingly long time. For breakfast today we went to Izzy’s Cafe, close to our hotel located in part of an empty lot with walls covered in artistic graffiti – the art was created there as part of a contest.

Izzy’s had outdoor seating, and we moved from table to table until we found a spot that was out of the rising sun. We started with some mimosas, and then had monster coffees to go with our breakfast. Kuniko had avocado and poached eggs in a hollandaise sauce, and I had the more traditional eggs panagurski – poached eggs in chili oil, yogurt, and cheese. My dish was really good – sopping up all that flavor with the bread that came with it was a pretty decadent start to the day.

On our way back we passed through the ruins that are preserved underground in the city center. It was interesting to see how they integrated the historic ruins into the design rather than remove them, and although it was quite hot under there with the glass windows above, it was worth checking out.

After buying a strange but interesting ornament from a tourist shop underground we went back to check out and store our suitcase with the hotel. Once we were free we headed to the National Gallery to get some culture and use their air conditioning. The main exhibition was on the work of Vasil Chakarov, a Bulgarian artist that was sort of discovered late in his life. 

In addition, there was a collection of national works of art, and the whole museum was housed in a beautiful building that was once a palace of its own. Our tickets didn’t get us into the national ethnography museum, but we decided to skip that and just focus on the art work. 

After our museum visit we went back to the quiet neighborhood that I had enjoyed so much the previous day, and went to the restaurant/cafe called “Made in Home”. It was a nice vibe in there, with younger patrons and simple, delicious food. We had a light meal of potatoes with yogurt, garlic, fried dill and jalapeños. I had local beer and Kuniko had a glass of white wine. We were enjoying the vibe and taking our time, I made faces at a cute kid at the next table, and we were about to order a little more when we saw that the menu said “Cash only” at the bottom. Since it was our last day in the country we didn’t have much cash, but luckily it was enough. But then oddly when we left the staff asked “cash or credit?” Confusing!

With plenty of more time to kill we made our way back to the Imperial Gastropub where the owner remembered us and was happy to pour some more wines for us. We sipped these outside under a black awning, with some stuffed peppers as a side dish. Spending an hour or more just chilling out in cafes is one of my favorite ways to relax – too bad we can only do this for a couple of months back in Japan. 

Our seats were right in front of the streetcar line, and we were interested to note that almost all the streetcar drivers were middle-aged women, wearing regular clothes rather than uniforms. The drivers looked a little stressed as they passed – I don’t think it is a relaxing job.

Finally we decided to head back to the hotel and pick up our suitcase. We used the very luxurious restroom there before leaving, and passed by a bunch of people taking pictures for an upcoming wedding. It seemed like our hotel was a historical landmark, and so it attracted some stylish weddings.

We rode the train back to the airport, sharing our train car with a big family. The dad was asleep and the mom looked a little stressed managing her three kids, but we shared a smile while watching some of their goofy antics. 

It was a breeze checking into our flight at the airport so we killed more time eating a cheap sandwich and some red Bulgarian at a cafe restaurant near the gate. The staff was really bored, reading a book with nothing else to do. He was playing some loud and annoying (to me) music, and so I started hinting to Kuniko that it was time to move on. But my hints weren’t strong enough, so eventually I said that we have to go now – something about the music was really bugging me. 

We boarded our 3 hour flight to Oslo on time, but for some reason Kuniko’s boarding pass set off some extra security check. Japanese passports are some of the strongest in the world, but they wanted to know how long she’d be staying in Norway. They didn’t care about me or anyone else, so it was strange.

We got lucky with an empty seat next to us, so we could spread out and relax on the flight. The two guys in front of me promptly reclined their seat (way back) so it was nice to have the room to slide over.

This flight was our first time to use Norwegian Air “Shuttle” – the third word in the name makes a big difference. It was sort of a low-cost carrier, and so pretty no-frills. I will always remember the expression on one of the flight attendants – she had eyes and an expression that said that she was completely dead inside.

Landing in Oslo marked a significant change in our trip. We really wanted to escape the heat of summer in Japan, and while it was much more comfortable in the European cities we had visited so far, it was still hot. Once we landed in Oslo there was no more of that, and we a week of the best weather we’ve ever had for a summer trip. The bad news was that costs for just about everything would be higher, along with the standard of living. 

But this flight was the end of one part of the trip and the beginning of another, and it was memorable because of it.

Oslo airport – wow! It was beautifully designed, clean and modern, and easy to navigate. As we went through we were sad to know that we wouldn’t be back here as we’ll be leaving Oslo by train. But from the airport, there is a high speed train that takes you directly into the city center. The ticket machine was electronic and designed in a clean, user-friendly way, and we easily got our tickets and got on board the next train. It was nearly midnight, but everything was still running normally.

Our train car was marked as a quiet car, but a group of five or six family members didn’t seem to realize it, talking in loud voices as they boarded. One of them was trying to lift their taped suitcase up onto a rack, but their foot was on the tape that had come undone, and so they were straining against their own weight without realizing. It was quite a family to watch, and eventually a train attendant came by and reminded them of the quiet zone very politely. They finally figured it out.

The train was so clean and fast, with a vertical digital display showing news and information – it was nicely integrated into the design of the train and I couldn’t help thinking about the contrast with our trains back in Bucharest. We got off at the central station – other passengers ran like hell to make some connecting train, but we had a room nearby so could go slowly.

Our hotel was adjacent to the station – we walked out the door and there it was. When checking in they had some trouble with Kuniko’s credit card, but rather than futz with it he let us go ahead and get our room. The room had a nice view of the city (and the northern tip of Oslofjord. The pipes had some trouble – a little air and brown water came out at first – but then they acted OK for the rest of our stay. 

So it was off the bed at nearly 1 am. No air conditioning needed – the temperature was much cooler here.

We got up pretty early, shivering from the cold air put out by the air conditioner. We couldn’t figure out how to adjust the temperature, or even turn it off. But we jumped into the hot shower to warm up a bit. When Kuniko stepped out of the shower, there was a pretty good river of water traveling across the wood floors to the other side of the room – uh oh. We sacrificed some towels to solve the problem, but the design of the shower wasn’t well thought out.

So, out the door early for sightseeing, and we headed straight to St. Alexander Nevsky cathedral to take a closer look. On the way there were plenty of beautiful buildings to see, and despite being a relatively small city the boulevards were sometimes quite wide. 

The cathedral itself was quite impressive, similar in style to the more modern St. Sava that we had visited in Belgrade. Inside no photos were allowed, but the interior was styled in a dark and traditional way, in contrast to the bright modern gold interior of St. Sava. We spent some time walking around and then started to backtrack towards the center of the city to get some breakfast. We had decided to forgo the hotel breakfast and see what kinds of local delicacies we could scare up. 

We enjoyed a nice meal at Rainbow Factory, a little stylish cafe in a busy neighborhood near downtown. I had a beef sandwich with melted cheese and pickled onions, and Kuniko had an omelette. Everything was good – and we liked the vibe of the place. Around the corner we checked out a Billa supermarket and got some rose candies to try out, more yogurt, and everything was really cheap. 

We went back to the hotel to do some laundry in our room – we were kicking ourselves for not doing it the night before and having our air conditioner dry everything out. After laundry we were ready to do some wine tasting, so we went back out on the town. I had a pretty good list of places that offered tastings, so we went to the closest one, Tempus Vini, but got bad news.

Apparently they do tastings only through “guided experiences”, like Viator and Trip.com. I’m sure this is more profitable for them, but for us it meant that we’d have to wait until 2 pm for their next reservation. No thanks, plenty of other wine places to check out. The guy didn’t seem that friendly or interested in more business, so I’m glad we skipped tasting here. The second place said they were open for sales at the moment but tasting wouldn’t be until 2 or 3 pm, so we decided to go get a couple of glasses of wine at a nearby square. After a little searching we found the Imperial Gastropub, with an owner who was happy to open a few bottles and let us taste. 

We tried a Bulgarian white wine, that in all honesty was a little simple for my taste, but we could sit and sip and plan the rest of our day. The atmosphere of the place was pretty stylish, with seats out front overlooking the streetcar rails and square. 

After a bit we headed out to have lunch at Izbata Tavern, the first actually traditional restaurant since our aborted attempt on the touristy thoroughfare last evening. As we entered we were apparently a little early, but they seated us in a corner and gave us drinks while we waited 15 minutes or so for the kitchen to open. I enjoyed a cold local beer – it hit the spot.

For lunch we were served some grilled bread with garlic and cheese, and I had sausage and porcini mushrooms served in a hard bread bowl. The mushrooms were a little mushy, but the sausage was nicely flavored. Kuniko had pork in wine sauce with rice, and that was excellent. It tasted like comfort food, and both enjoyed finishing that off.

As we finished our lunch people started drifting in to eat, and a group of local workers were sitting near us. I tried to see what they ordered to see what dishes were popular with the locals, but I couldn’t see clearly without looking like a stalker. It was good to see that the restaurant was doing well, though.

Walking back through the neighborhood around the restaurant I was struck by how comfortable it was. The streets were lined with trees, there were many small shops and interesting looking restaurants, and it was quiet with a comfortable breeze flowing through even in the heart of summer. I wished I could stay longer and explore more.

We took a break back in our hotel room to cool down. We hadn’t forgotten our original plan to do some wine tasting – so we next headed off to try wines at Wine Generator. This time, they let us inside and we walked down some steps. The lady who helped us (and who seemed to be the owner) seated us and asked us what we were looking to do. She had a tasting with some cheese for a very reasonable price, so we promptly agreed. After some trouble with some wine glasses we got sorted out and were able to choose from six different wines. We each chose three to taste (making sure that Kuniko and I had different wines) and that helped us taste the lot.

Kuniko’s three were: Sandanski misket, Vrachanski misket, and Gamza. I had Nikolaevo Chardonnay, Mavrud, and Syrah. All the wines were tasty, I especially liked the reds as they tended to be hearty and flavorful without hitting you over the head like some big reds do. 

As we sipped the wines another group nearby were talking and tasting, switching between English and another language we didn’t recognize. It was strange how they switched languages for no apparent reason.

The owner came by now and then to get our opinions and see what she could do to help us. As we left she brought out some cherry liquor as an apology for the glasses mixup, and it turned out that she had been to Napa recently for a wine industry event. She was super nice – Kuniko said she reminded her of Lady Gaga – and I was so glad we chose this place to taste wine rather than the first one with the tour requirement.

As we walked around we stopped in Lidl, a market that we had often visited on our last trip to Europe. It was a little junkier than I remembered, with lots of boxes unpacked on the shelves. Different countries, different vibes, I guess. 

Later we were able to develop our appetite and decided to try another traditional restaurant for dinner. This time we went to the very touristy Hadjidragonov’s Houses Restaurant. It was a pleasant walk in a different direction for us, in pretty hot weather. Even though it was cooler than Japan, it still was tough going when walking in the sun. 

Since we were eating earlier we didn’t need a reservation, and we were seated upstairs in a big room all by ourselves. I’m not sure if it was meant as a snub, but we were happy to have the quiet place, and avoid any traditional live music or dancing that might break out. We didn’t have the friendliest server, but she was speaking English for us so I can understand. For dinner Kuniko had kavarma po radomirski – baked pork in a tomato sauce, with a chili pepper on top for fire. I had a similar dish but cheese rather than pork. Both dishes nicely fit into the comfort food category, and we enjoyed them with glasses of local red wine. 

After we ate I think the server kind of forgot about us – we waited for quite a while but nobody came up the stairs. So in the end we had to leave on our own, and when paying the bill our server looked visibly unhappy. Often on this trip servers would say something like, “this price does not include service” or something to that effect. They are hoping that you’ll add a tip or leave some cash. This tipping in Europe feels weird to me – I hope they are not trending towards the American style of tipping. But we certainly weren’t planning on tipping after being sort of forgotten upstairs, and so  I think our server was caught in a cycle of bad attitude -> no tip -> bad attitude -> endless loop.

On our way home we stopped once more at Billa to stock up on the rose candy (that was quite good – jelly candies dusted in white powdered sugar – and came across a little drama. As our cashier was ringing up our items some big voices erupted (in Bulgarian I guess) behind us, and we turned to find a huge (and I mean huge) supermarket worker in the process of apprehending a shoplifter who was trying (I guess) to steal a can of beer. Shouts were exchanged between the two of them, and then the staff physically pushed the guy towards the exit door. Unfortunately between the shoplifter and the exit door was a line of customers checking out. The two of us, for example. So as this shoplifter is bouncing against walls on his way out the door we had to do some quick side stepping to avoid being hit.

The big staff guy followed the shoplifter out the door to get in a few licks, and even our cashier stepped away from the register (leaving our items still on the counter being scanned) and went outside to get in on the event. She wasn’t a big cashier but I guess she had confidence with her big coworker by her side. Once they left the door automatically closed on them, and suddenly all the customers were left standing there going, WTF? 

Our cashier wanted to come back in and was locked out by the automatic door, so I went over to activate the motion sensor, and she came in to finish our transaction, practically throwing our items against the wall after scanning them. Whoah lady – we are the good guys here!

After that excitement we walked down the long touristy street to check out the National Palace of Culture. The palace is located in the center of a huge park area, designed as a place for the people of the city to gather and relax. There were a lot of people out that night, amateur singers and dancers, magicians, and just families enjoying the outdoors.

I liked the vibe out here – with the sun down it was cooler, and it felt like the city was sort of coming together to celebrate. The palace itself was dramatically placed at the center of some fountains (although nowhere near the scale of Bucharest) with trees and flags lining the square. 

Eventually we wandered back down the touristy street, checking shops and buying water and drinkable yogurt on our way. There were two types of water bottles from the same maker, one pink and one blue. I asked the staff what the difference was, and she looked at me like I might have asked the stupidest question in the world. She just shook her head, and said that it was water. And she was right – I picked one at random and that was exactly what it was.

We retired for the day, hopefully the air conditioner would treat us more nicely this evening. 

We got plenty of sleep, then got up at 7:30 and went downstairs to avail ourselves of the hotel breakfast. The cat that was there the other day was waiting around, but he clearly knew that we were not givers – he ignored us and slept on a chair instead. He was missing out – the breakfast was once again very delicious. The presence of a big jug of fresh squeezed OJ was enough to make it memorable, but I was blissed out on the eggs, mushrooms, cherry jam in yogurt, and a cappuccino. Sitting outside enjoying a slow paced breakfast after sleeping so well is one of the best parts of our trips.

Later we walked around the neighborhood looking for touristy shops that sell keychains. We walked past the wild area from last night – the clubs were closed, the dancers at home sleeping – and it was empty and peaceful.

As the weather started to turn hot we went back to our room, organized and then checked out of the hotel. There was not a farewell glass of Prosecco so we left with only our suitcase and headed to the airport.

To get there, we retraced our steps upon arrival, and headed to the fountains once again. On our way we noticed some Asian people interviewing people as they passed by. We had seen this now and then and it had us curious. Unfortunately we were not in their target profile and nobody approached us. A couple of homeless guys near the fountains called out to us, “(something something) English!”and I responded, “lo siento” for some reason, and then we were both confused.

We took a break in the shade and spent a few last minutes enjoying the fountains, and then went down the elevator that we had emerged from just two days ago. We felt that we knew Bucharest much better. 

But apparently not well enough to catch the correct train. We got on the wrong one and had to backtrack after discovering our mistake. Even train veterans like us make wrong turns now and then. Once we arrived at Gara de Nord we had some time to check it out more. It was seriously old fashioned, and there were lots of people waiting around for their trains. Cats lounged on the platforms looking very comfortable in the shade.

We found an electronic ticket machine and bought our (very cheap) tickets, and then boarded the airport express train. This time we were ready for the hot and sweaty ride. The ride was quicker this time, and then we got off to head for the departures area of Bucharest airport. Once again we had to traverse a lot of steps with a suitcase, and we wondered at the poor design decisions here. There were elevators available, but not many escalators or ramps.

Since I had checked in online we simply had to drop off our luggage, but after finishing that we walked away and then realized that we weren’t issued boarding passes. Even when I’ve checked in online before we get them usually to make things simpler for security, so we went back. The same lady helped us but she was pretty pissed to have to go back in and issue the tickets. “Use your phone, use your phone!” she exclaimed.

Once through security we went to a burger restaurant to chill and have a light snack, but the staff was overwhelmed. There was some construction going on at the adjacent gate (jackhammers and everything!) so it was pretty loud and stressful. At first the staff were not friendly at all but eventually they warmed up to us and started being friendly. The burger wasn’t bad, the “standard fries” that we ordered were covered with Parmesan and garlic so I wonder what the premium fries looked like.

After that we went to the gate and just waited for boarding the short flight to Bulgaria. As we waited we talked about our visit to Romania, and our impressions. One impression I had was that the places we visited were sort of underdeveloped (like the train system), and in the process of improving infrastructure. Great architecture all over, and the people were almost always nice despite smiles being a rarity. We both commented on all the smoking – even more than Japan. Good food, good wine, and pretty delicious meat-based food. All the ingredients are there to make this a great stop – but there is still some room for improvement.

We took a bus out to our ride out of the country, a propeller driven ancient Tarom airline plane. It might have been the oldest plane I’ve ever flown in (commercially). The handful of passengers were remarkably quiet for the one hour flight, and they seemed more patient than the Romanians we’d met so far. Maybe they were all Bulgarian.

The plane circled over the city of Sofia, and as we drifted on a pattern towards the runway the course brought us right over the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky – the golden domed church that was on the top of our must-see list. Thanks to the time of day the sun lit up the domes and the city around it was lined with plenty of trees between the buildings, showing a lot more green than we are used to in a city.

It was easy entry into the country, we got our bag and then tried the ATM to get some cash – my card didn’t work but Kuniko’s did – so it was nice to have a rich independent wife to bail me out.

Luckily we had the cash because the ticket machines at the train platform didn’t take credit cards, despite the internet saying that they did. It was a bit disorganized getting through the gate and we missed the first train, but it was only 7 minutes until the next one. The train was a little more modern than the one in Romania, and ran inside a covered track, so it was hard to take in the scenery, and then it went underground and continued into the city in the dark. 

Our stop was fairly close to the hotel so it was easy enough to roll our suitcase and check in. The hotel had an old leftover-Soviet feel that reminded me of our hotel in Minsk. The bell captain had a spooky scar in a large circle around his face and head, and the corners will a little dark and historic. But the real trick was finding our room. The number of the key didn’t match any of the rooms on our floor, and after we asked a nearby staff he led us behind an unmarked door in the corner, which had two numbered room doors behind it. Huh.

Our room was very nice, but the controls of the lights and air conditioner used a touchscreen device that had no text – the icons were not so clear and it took a while to figure it out. Also, the room did contain a baby crib taking up one large area, so some wires had apparently crossed. On our way out for dinner we asked the staff and they later took it out and put it in the hallway. 

We were pretty hungry and it was getting late so we went to the nearby tourist area to find a bustling street with lots of cafes and restaurants. It was a little past the dinner hour so many cafes had switched to just drinks, and we also were hoping to try some local food rather than pizza or burgers. Unfortunately our requirements were a little strict so we started getting grumpy with each other. Finally in desperation we sat down at a restaurant that specialized in kebabs, pizza and sandwiches. The drinks took a long time to show up, so our mood wasn’t good. We finally got in an order and we had some club sandwiches. At least my sandwich had some Bulgarian sausage for the meat portion, and once we had a little food and some drinks we were feeling better.

After dinner we found a little market that was selling many kinds of Bulgarian yogurt – I scored some really good strawberry flavored drinkable yogurt, I love this stuff. Finally we headed on back to our hotel, and went to bed around 11 pm, with the air conditioner running – we couldn’t figure out how to adjust it!

This was a long day, and as a result this is a long post.

Since we were in Romania I was interested in seeing Transylvania and Bran castle, the historical castle once owned by Dracula. Unlike the character from the story, Dracula was an actual historical figure in Romanian history, but I thanks to the vampire story his old castle brings in a lot of tourism. And since we were kind of nearby, why not check it out?

I knew that it would be a serious tourist draw, and I wanted as much as possible to avoid contributing to huge crowds and buses and long lines. We usually do this by getting up really early and organizing things ourselves. However, the area we wanted to see was quite a bit north of Bucharest in the mountains with the Transylvania area just beyond, around the city of Brasov. My first thought was to go by ourselves by train, but having seen the condition of regional trains in Bucharest I’m relieved we didn’t take that option. 

Next I looked into small group tours, but there were none available on the day that we wanted to go. So the last resort was a big group tour – a busload of people on a day trip from Bucharest. There are good and bad points for a group tour – we’ve had some really funny moments on tours like these, but the trade off for the convenience and low price is the loss of independence, which we tend to value greatly.

Having no other real option we went with the tour, and so early in the morning we headed over to the meeting place with our cash in hand for admission to Peleş castle (Dracula’s castle had online tickets – nice!). There was more than one bus lined up waiting, and we checked the license plate to find ours. When the time came to board, a line sort of naturally formed and our guide, a lady named Otilia asked for our name and then checked off a list as we boarded.

Once we boarded we could watch all the chaos around us as each bus tour guide had to try to get the correct people on the correct bus. One lady didn’t have cash for the castle ticket – our guide sent her off in the direction of the closest ATM. Apparently she had trouble and went searching for another one, but she still hadn’t made it back by the departure time so the guide called her and said sorry, but we’re going.

An old sort of confused lady kept trying to get on our bus but she wasn’t in our group, and Otilia patiently told her to check elsewhere. The old lady wouldn’t give up, and our guide lost her patience quickly. “I told you that you are not in our group. Go away!” 

I’d hate to be a tour guide on one of these expeditions.

One more dramatic event occurred before departure when our guide made an announcement, asking for David to raise his hand. Nobody raised their hand, and the guide said that actually, the real David just checked in outside, and having shown his ID to prove his identity revealed that there was a fake David on board. The passengers listened in silence while this interesting new development played out. A liar among us? “Come on guys, this is illegal,” complained our tour guide. In the end the real David was allowed on board as there was an empty seat available (since the poor lady couldn’t find an ATM) and finally we were off with an imposter in our midst.

As we left town the tour guide went through the basics of the trip, “Guys, we are going to have a long day so please listen carefully.” She explained the plan for the trip, and also mentioned that as we were insured by the company during the trip we would need to write down our full names on a sheet, which she started passing around. Was this a ploy to flush out the false David? That seemed quite a clever ruse. In the meantime the guide went person to person to collect the cash for the castle entry.

I was on the edge of my seat. The suspense was better than a mystery movie – happening in real life! 

Meanwhile, Kuniko dozed off asleep next to me.

The end of the mystery turned out to be pretty anticlimactic. Turns out that the guide asking names at the beginning of the tour had checked in someone named “Devin” as “David”, not looking at last names and apparently not noticing that “Devin” had never been checked off. The whole thing was due to poor organization, and I was thinking that this was going to be quite a tour.

On our way out of town we passed the Romanian Arc d’ Triomphe, which seems to be a popular architectural landmark around Europe. The bus made its way through many roundabouts, which helps speed us along towards the mountains north of Bucharest. During this long stage of driving through the farmlands the guide gave us a history lesson on the Romanian people, and some of the customs and culture that they hold dear. Especially interesting was their feelings about money, funerals and generosity – nobody wants to be invited to a funeral because they’ll have to pay big money. It was an interesting contrast to Japan where the same sort of idea happens but at a wedding, instead.

Kuniko continued to sleep as the bus rocked back and forth through the heart of Romania.

After a nearly two hour drive the bus started to climb through some beautiful mountains and past smaller and smaller towns. This area was home to the royal family retreats over the years, and once the royal family set up that meant that other nobles wanted to live nearby, leaving some beautiful homes and palaces behind for history. The guide explained about the history of the royal family in Romania and the good ones, the bad ones, the horny ones, etc. She insisted that Wikipedia information wasn’t really true and every true Romanian knows this stuff. My bullshit alarm started to go off.

Because Kuniko was asleep she didn’t get the history lesson. Maybe she had the right plan all along.

But once we approach Peleş castle, Kuniko was awake and ready to check things out. The bus dropped us off in a tiny little mountain town, in a turnout designed to drop off big groups. 

“Guys, we need to meet back here no matter what at 11:30, OK guys?”

Despite what it sounded like we were still going to all go through the castle together, but it was smart of the guide to give a meeting time just in case. From the bus we all walked with the guide down the hill and through a beautiful forest. Along the way some babushkas were selling berries by the road to tourists, and I suppose making a pretty good buck doing it.

We passed through a sort of gate that now was also a shop and some restaurants, with some construction going on nearby. The construction was quite loud and some of the construction workers looked more like somebody’s really big uncle than trained professionals. 

After the gate we could finally approach Peleş castle, which was undergoing some renovations to the exterior at the time. That’s always a bummer because it makes it tough to appreciate the architecture and take nice photos, but what can you do? We lined up with our group in the courtyard, along with a whole bunch of other people and at least three other bus groups. 

Ahead our tour guide was holding up her flag and she had our cash so we all just sort of waited for something to happen. 

Nothing happened.

People around us sort of jockeyed for position, some wasps flew around causing people to react dramatically – maybe wasps in Romania are much more dangerous than other wasps. We stood and waited – but the castle wasn’t really letting anyone in. The guides were consulting with each other and no information was forthcoming. 

After about 30 minutes of this I was starting to wonder if all of this was worth it. I was really interested in Dracula’s castle more than anything, the exterior of this castle was more dramatic but it was covered by tarps and equipment, and how long would it be before we got in?

So after consulting with Kuniko we decided to just head out on our own and meet back at the bus at 11:30. We squeezed ahead to our tour guide and told her our plan, and she looked like she never considered that something like this might occur. After some half-hearted attempts to get us to wait she finally said that she understood, and she gave us back our cash for the entry tickets that we’d no longer need.

Hooray – we were on our own! We did some walking around the castle, taking some pictures of the grounds and enjoying views of the mountains and heavily forested valley between them. The line for the castle was getting even longer (as nobody was going in), but we meandered back towards the buildings by the gate to look around. We stopped in the little shop but there were really only history books, so we thought to kill time at the restaurant with a light breakfast.

We sat outside overlooking the square that was under construction, and ordered a couple of lemonades and an omelette to share – we didn’t want to over order and get caught waiting for the bill if our tour group suddenly finished and walked past us. 

The construction guys were making a lot of noise and using heavy tractors for little jobs that seemed like overkill to me – but it was nice watching them work while we sipped our homemade lemonades. Mine was mint, Kuniko’s was standard, and they came with packets of honey to adjust the sweetness to your taste. 

At the table behind us four large ladies sat down and one accidentally sat on a wasp, all of which I understood through the gestures and reactions around us – I couldn’t recognize the language spoken. 

And despite all this I really had a great time sitting out there with my wife in the fresh outdoors eating an omelette. It seems like having the freedom and the choice of what we want to do makes all the difference.

About this time our guide texted me and said that they’d be entering the castle in 5 minutes if I wanted to change my mind, but we thanked her and said no, thanks.

We finished our meal, used the clean restrooms and headed back up the hill. The way the area was set up was convenient – our group would have to leave the castle using one road, and so we just needed to keep an eye on one road to know when they were coming back. 

We waited patiently at the bus stop at 11:30, but no bus came. After 10-15 minutes I texted our guide, but her response was, “12:30 guys”. I guess due to the late entry they had shifted the bus pickup time. 

So we had more time to kill – we went over to a nearby cafe and had some gelatos while sitting outside on a wooden patio with a view of the exit road. 

Finally, we saw our guide and the members of our group coming out, and we were able to get back together with them and head to our bus. A pair of women were 15 minutes late to the bus – they had been waiting somewhere else, apparently. As they came running up the hill the bus driver gave them some loud blasts from his horn to motivate them to hurry up. We were running pretty far behind schedule as we left the mountains.

Our guide scolded the group as a whole for putting us behind schedule, and then told us that she had been saving bad news for later – there was a road closure on the other side of the mountain and that all traffic would be routed to the road we were on. It looked like we’d have a long day ahead of us. The driver apparently knew a shortcut, and so we traveled on some back roads and over some train tracks to try to get to Brasov, our next stop.

Brasov is situated in Transylvania, and it was a pretty town. We were released in Old Town with the idea that we’d be able to get lunch and look around for a couple of hours. I was glad to visit – we both enjoyed the vibe of the town and its picturesque location near the mountains. We chose a recommended restaurant on the square, went inside and had a really nice meal. The manager brought over some tomatoes from their restaurant’s farm, and cut them up for us at our table with a little bit of salt – they were really good. As for lunch, I had mutton pastrami (a little different from what I expected but still great) with a pickled mushroom side, and Kuniko had braised veal with risotto that was excellent.

Despite the fresh tomatoes the service was kind of spotty here, and when the manager finished our credit card payment and started hinting at us leaving some cash as a tip, the whole free tomato service thing became more of a gimmick than a true organic experience. We had only the 100 lei bill and 3 1 lei bills, one was way too much and the other too little. It was an awkward spot to be sure.

After lunch we walked around Brasov, taking pictures and enjoying the town vibe. The town reminded me a little of downtown Dijon when we visited years ago during our honeymoon. We tried to buy some small snacks in case it we were still stuck on a bus late at night, but the convenience store couldn’t (or wouldn’t) break our 100 lei note and so we had to give up. 

We caught our bus on time and left Brasov at around 4 pm, and we still hadn’t been to Bran castle, the main event. It was about an hour drive to get there, and we noticed that occasionally on the side of the road were some clutches of wooden shacks, selling crafts and knickknacks. I don’t think the targets here were tourists but regular Romanian people – but some of the shacks were in disrepair or abandoned, and it gave us a creepy vibe.

Bran Castle was next, and it was just as touristy as you’d expect. This is the same everywhere we’ve been – and at least we expected it coming in. There were tons of tourists and buses, and we walked through a lot of tourist trap shops before we got to the entrance to the castle. Our pre-purchased tickets went through just fine and then we climbed up the hill and joined the queue to enter. 

The weather that day was clear and a little warm, but not hot. We could wait in the shade with the rest of our group, and after about 30 minutes or so we reached the entrance and could go inside. 

The castle itself reminded me in many ways of Himeji castle back in Japan, with lots of creaky wood and low ceilings, historic doorways and expositions of what life might have been like living there. I really enjoyed the interior and because things were so narrow the crowds were forced to spread out. In a nod to the vampire legends a couple of rooms were set up to look a little scary which was the perfect amount of cheese for me – right on! 

Having gotten our fill we went outside and then back down to the check out the tourist trap shops for a keychain. It says a lot about these kinds of shops that the keychains available here were too cheesy for even our taste. There was a lot of junk for sale, and the overall vibe was like a gypsy caravan or something. 

We went back to the bus, the first people back from our group, and the driver left us in charge while he ran out for a coffee. Talking with him we learned that he gets paid a flat rate, no matter how long the tour takes. He wasn’t really happy with the schedule we were keeping either.

Slowly people trickled back on board, and then we were off, precisely as the doors closed at Dracula’s castle. We had to sit through quite a bit of traffic, nodding off now and then, and there was a pit stop for a restroom (where we saw a beautiful sunset). From the pit stop back to Bucharest was about an hour, and then we were let off at the starting point.

“Guys, I know we were late but thanks for everything and don’t forget to leave a review for me and for our driver.”

I was expecting to be braced for a tip at the end, but in this digital age a positive review is more important. We thanked the guide and driver and then walked back towards our hotel, not too far away.

Even though writing this I tended to point out the negatives, the mission was ultimately accomplished and we saw what we wanted to see. If you know going in that things will probably go a little off course then it should be easier to deal with the trip. It was a good experience and I think both of us left satisfied.

On our way back to our hotel we walked through the adjacent street, the one that had the Nomad Sky Bar, and we almost didn’t recognize it. There were crowds of people at the restaurants, pounding bass and DJ music filled the street from clubs, with masked dancers in the windows, a group of giggling teenage boys ducked into a strip club with video displays of girls licking each other’s butts. Nomad Sky Bar was jammed with people above us – it was a completely different scene at 10 pm!

We turned the corner onto our usual street and again walked by the Irish bar. The lady said hello with a big smile – she had stopped trying to get us to go in since she we were practically locals by now – but this time we went inside and sat down for a very late dinner. She looked surprised and happy, and while we ate a dinner of chicken wraps she went back to work trying to wrangle customers. 

It was at this Irish bar that I tried the plum brandy that is a distinctive product of Romania. I had the strong version at 50% (!) alcohol, but despite the strength there was a lot of plum flavor to it. The waiter reminded me of the owner of Bridges Beer Brewing back in Nishi Akashi, on the other side of the world. 

It was a light dinner and drinks and then we headed back to the hotel – what a long but interesting day!

We got up early to beat the tourist rush and do some sightseeing nearby. We headed northwest of our hotel as the sun was rising, seeing many cats, a few homeless people, but no other tourists. Some beautiful buildings and architecture – especially the government buildings and museums. There were some interesting statues and monuments, too. One odd one looked like olives on giant toothpicks.

We had our first hotel breakfast, and it was a pretty nice one. There was freshly squeezed orange juice (the real deal), omelettes, marinated mushrooms, homemade brownies, and a cat that had come in to look for some scraps. They seem to let the cats have the run of the place. After we didn’t feed it the cat went over and sat on a chair to wait for more generous hotel guests.

When we sat down for breakfast the staff forgot to ask us about coffee but once we checked in with them they brought out two well-made cappuccinos. Yet that wasn’t enough and so afterwards we walked a few blocks to a little cafe and got two more coffees to go. On our walk back we passed a truck leaving after dropping off his cargo, and it scraped up against a sign on his way out making a huge squeal. Then the driver managed to drive over a stone roadblock preventing traffic from entering, and that caught everyone’s attention. Two old ladies appeared from out of nowhere and were shaking their fists at the driver, who had gotten out of the truck and was looking puzzled about the incident. Two police officers who happened to be right there leaning against their police car ambled over and you could tell it really wasn’t going to be a good day for the truck driver.

After a while we went back out to do some more sightseeing and get lunch. We started from the fountains and then followed the fountains that led to the Palace of Parliament, a huge Soviet era monster that really filled the horizon. From there we walked past it and behind, heading towards the dramatic Catedrala Mantuirii Neamului – a gold topped cathedral that stood tall while still under construction. It was a long walk but good exercise, and our goal was to visit the cathedral. Unfortunately it seemed like there was no access to the cathedral (because of the construction?) and so we ended up walking into another church thinking it was the correct entrance to the cathedral – but we stumbled into a funeral and it was a bit awkward. Nobody seemed to care, though, and we tried to leave as unobtrusively as possible. 

It was a long walk back to Old Town, so by the time we arrived we were ready to eat. We stopped at Caru’ cu Bere, an old traditional Romanian restaurant that makes their own beer. It seemed like their focus was on huge roasts of meat but we were thinking something smaller and got a traditional noodle soup, and a bean “casserole”. What arrived seemed a little different – a bean dip with some flatbread and a small bowl of chicken noodle soup. Even though they were not what we expected they were delicious, and we spent quite a long time relaxing outside sipping their homemade beer and drinking local wines. While sitting outside under the umbrellas some light rain started, and we were glad to be comfortable and protected – if it had started raining during our long journey to the cathedral we would have been miserable.

Thanks to a pretty cool system that connected the gaps between umbrellas we didn’t have to worry about the rain, and just ordered more drinks until it stopped. Once it stopped we went back to the hotel to take a rest. Rather than run the air conditioner it was nice to use the two big windows that  opened out over the cafe street. I was relaxing, enjoying the breeze through the room, and then it started to rain – hard. The rain came down like sheets – and the way the windows were set up we could leave the windows open and listen. It was really peaceful until suddenly our phones started beeping with alert messages from the local government – flood warnings were issued. It continued to rain hard for another hour before it finally let up.

In the afternoon we went back out to try do some more wine tastings, similar to the great experience we had in Belgrade. Thanks to the internet we found Abel’s Wine Bar near our hotel, and it turned out to be a great experience. We took a table inside (in case the rain came back), and settled in. The owner had a plan all ready to go, and we were able to try five different wines – 2 whites, a rosé, and 2 reds. The owner clearly loved wine, and helpfully explained each wine, the region and the grape it was made from. He had a slight speech impediment but he was nice enough to do all the explanations in English for us, complete with maps and charts showing us information about the Romanian wine industry.

The wines themselves were all impressive. I thought only the rosé was merely OK – the others were much better than I was expecting. We especially liked the second white wine we tasted: TĂMIOASÃ ROMNEASCÃ. It was so floral and fruity without being sweet or cloying. We noticed that after our raves about that wine that the owner sold a bottle to another couple sitting outside. It wasn’t just wine – we had a big plate of cheese and meats to munch on while we tasted. 

The couple outside enjoyed their wine while playing with their phones, two kittens played around them and it seemed like the rain was finished for the day. Inside we were treated to some background music straight out of the 90’s and 2000’s – even the Macarena made an appearance.

After the tasting we went back to our hotel for a quick break and then headed out for some more traditional Romanian food. Kuniko has a student who was working in a ballet in Romania and he had provided some recommendations for restaurants. We tried his recommended place, down an alley and under a covered area. The cement was still wet from the rain, and two cats played underfoot – not really begging but optimistic. We had three great dishes here, cabbage rolls, some meatballs, and meat pie in phyllo dough. The house wine was cheap and delicious, and it was a great experience. 

Unfortunately when the bill came the staff said “cash only”, so I had to sacrifice my 50 lei bill that I was reserving for our tour to Transylvania tomorrow. So the order of business after dinner was searching for an ATM, and after a bit of wandering around we found one that looked trustworthy. Just as the transaction was about the complete the ATM suddenly shut down, and simultaneously the ATM next to us shut down, too. The guy doing that transaction was as bummed out as we were. It took a while but we finally found one that worked. Since we were walking around we hit Carrefour Express to do a little shopping – love those little Carrefour shops.

While walking around we did some exploring, too. At one point we were trying to cut through a shopping center, going up steps and trying to find our way out. There wasn’t anyone else taking this path, and some of the hallways were empty and spooky. One hallway was lined with colored glass panels on both sides, and turning the corner we were starting to fear a psycho killer, but finally we made our way through.

Eventually we got back to the hotel, taking lots of pictures of the buildings at night on our way. Once again the lady in front of the Irish bar called out to us to come in – but this time she stopped and said, “Oh, I remember you guys…!” We all laughed and then we went on up to our room. That night we slept with the windows open to enjoy the sound of the cafes below.

All this extra sleep eventually caught up with us and we found ourselves wide awake at 3 am. Why not break into the cheese and crackers for a breakfast in bed? We killed time relaxing until the breakfast opened at 7:30 am, and then had some avocado toast and a tasty veggie wrap along with the other buffet stuff – yogurt, cold cuts, etc. We were the only ones at breakfast this morning and there was no collapsing lady drama today.

Since we were leaving Belgrade today we did a final walk around town to enjoy the cool weather and the vibes of the city. We did a loop taking in Republic Square, and some of the backstreets lined with cafes that were opening up. 

We packed up our stuff at the hotel and caught a ride back to the airport, again arranged by the hotel and probably the least stressful option. We’d heard that there are some pretty shady taxis in Belgrade, and rather than deal with that we spent some money and took the easy way out. It was an easy drive to Nikolas Tesla International Airport, and our driver this time was much quieter this time, although when he did talk he had a cool accent that reminded me of the bad guys in Bond movies. 

As we waited in line to check in at the Air Serbia desk the systems suddenly went down, and so we stood in front of our check in counter with nothing to do but wait. It took about 20 minutes, and then we were able to check our bag and get boarding passes. We were there early for our flight, but the systems going down looked like it caused some stress for people leaving soon on a flight to Malta. 

After security we walked around quite a bit to stretch our legs, had two sparkling wines at a bistro restaurant that was playing Eurobeat songs (including Rasputin). It was a lot cheaper than the Proseccos in Istanbul.

Our plane was delayed by 30 minutes, and we ended up sitting separately but since it was an easy one hour flight to Bucharest it wasn’t a big deal. Air Serbia had leased an Air Bulgaria plane for the trip, and I think it was the oldest jet I’ve ever flown in. Luckily it flew well enough to get us there safely.

So leaving Belgrade, Serbia we had a very good impression of the city. The people that we had met and talked to were all very nice and welcoming, using English was no problem and we really liked the size and quietness of the city. It is hard to take a measure of a place after only a couple of days, but we were more than satisfied with our visit.

Our plane descended smoothly into Bucharest airport, and immigration was a breeze since we were still within the Euro zone. As soon as we arrived at the luggage carousel we saw our bag so that was the quickest luggage pickup ever. We walked through the airport and found the platform for the train station, with a line of people already formed to buy tickets from a single ticket office window. Buying train tickets was not so automated here at the airport, but later we found that it is possible to buy tickets from the conductor on board – although we didn’t have any cash at that time. As the departure time was getting closer it was a little pressure to get the tickets, but in the end it was not a problem and we got on board with time to spare. As for the tickets themselves they were super cheap – just about $1 per person for the 20 minute ride into the city.

We sat across from a teenage boy who was caught up in playing music/videos from his phone at super loud volume – no headphones. He was trying to hold the empty seat next to him for more space, but a large woman pushed in and took the seat, and then started to speak loudly on her phone for most of the train ride. There was no air conditioning on board, so the sun shining through the windows made for a sweaty ride. You could tell the locals because they had brought fans to cool themselves down. I guess that’s what you get for a dollar a ticket.

As we traveled the scenery outside was pretty rural. We stopped at a few stations that seemed mostly empty, and occasionally we’d see other trains raining. We were on the newest train in Romania for sure – others seemed like they should have been retired from service a long time ago. The train staff didn’t really have uniforms – some men were bare-chested and the whole thing felt a lot different from train systems that we’d experienced in other countries. The train was running about 10 minutes longer than the schedule had said, and as we pulled into northern Bucharest the neighborhood looked old and run down like the trains passing through it. We got off at Gara de Nord station, where we could transfer to the city subway to take us the rest of the way.

But Gara de Nord station was quite different from other European train stations that we have passed through. It felt like a train station in South America or Mexico with cheesy advertisements hanging from the rafters and big analog train schedules on the walls. This was like traveling back in time, and made me wonder what the rest of Bucharest was going to be like.

At the subway station there were automated ticket machines that were a little strange – you could only buy 1 ticket at a time, but at least they accepted credit cards. There were no escalators in the station either, which seemed odd in a station that handles a lot of people passing through to/from the airport. But I carried the suitcase up and down some steps and it wasn’t really a big deal. 

Inside the subway train again there was no air conditioning but when the train ran somewhere there were some windows open and they provided air circulation, not unlike the Moscow subway. I remember that the lighting inside the train was an odd color of orange/pink, but the cars weren’t too crowded and it was easy to get a seat.

It was seven stops to our station, Piatta Unirii, and since it was a more central station we were able to find an elevator. We came out of the elevator into a park and turned to see the spectacular, beautiful Bucharest Fountains. Not just a simple fountain, it is a network of fountains in the city center that stretches across the distance. The fountains are automated and timed to be pretty dramatic – we were mesmerized. We went from feeling like we were visiting a dumpy city to feeling like we entered a sophisticated one. The scale of the fountains is hard to imagine – they were an impressive introduction to Bucharest.

From there we crossed a few streets, dragged the suitcase down a few historic cobblestone avenues, past old buildings and some beautiful churches. We found our hotel (called The Mansion) in Old Town, among rows of restaurants and cafes. We saw many cats walking around on the street – in contrast to all the dogs in Belgrade – and it looked like a pretty chill neighborhood.

We checked in at the hotel, got a welcome glass of Prosecco, and I made small talk with the staff while Kuniko tried to remember her credit card number for the security deposit. Usually she’s got it memorized, but while we were jetting between countries and finding our way it slipped through the cracks. But she had a backup credit card ready to go.

Because the hotel was housed inside an historic building, there was no elevator so I had to carry the suitcase up two flights of twisting stairs – lucky we pack light. We stayed in the “Ottoman” room – each of their rooms had themes – and ours was sort of Turkish. There were also two ottomans in the room so that covered the literal side. It was a big, comfortable room.

After dropping off our stuff we walked around the corner and in the middle of the next street was a restaurant that we had seen on YouTube called Nomad Sky Cafe. It was on the third floor – not exactly in the clouds – but it was open and we wanted to get some simple food and drinks. 

It turned out to be a slightly snobby place – sort of Instagram-focused and the prices reflected that strategy. The staff seemed like they were trying hard to look cool. But the food was good – we had a turkey schnitzel (we saw a lot of schnitzel in our first three countries) that had seeds fried into the batter – yum. We also had a smoked trout salad that hit the spot and some glass wine and a local beer for me. I was really impressed with both the wine and the beer, and was looking forward to tasting more over the next few days.

After we walked around the Old Town a bit, had some ice cream, saw lots of restaurants, and lots of cats. There were some gentleman’s clubs (which is typically a bad sign for an economy in my book) but there were so many beautiful old buildings and I was eager to take photos. The scale of the architecture here was bigger than Belgrade.

In the evening we went back out to the fountains to watch them while the sun went down. Once they lit up it was a different vibe – more Vegas than Europe – but still beautiful. With the cooler evening weather a lot of people came out – taking photos in front of the fountains and the city behind. While we sat on a bench and did some people watching a group of homeless (?) guys walked buy and tried to tell us something in another language – but they looked pretty drunk and moved right on to the next group of people so no big deal. There were security guards walking around too – they had whistles to blow if people sat on the edge of the fountains or tried to get in. 

The fountains are so big that the streets actually pass between them so you could theoretically just drive around watching the fountains and enjoy them that way. It was a nice moment to sit out there, watch birds flying overhead against the setting sun, and just chill out. Finally we started to get a little sleepy and so went back to the hotel at around 9:30. Our street of cafes had more activity in the evening, and a lady standing in front of the Irish bar tried to get us to come in for dinner – we smiled and said no thanks, but that wasn’t the last time we saw her.

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!