Yesterday, within the space of ten minutes, I checked my Delta balance, found my 50,000 miles had been deposited, and booked a 10-day trip to Paris. While I was going through those motions, the rational part of me kept saying to myself, “Maybe this is worth thinking through a little more?” But the part of me that knows how often I paralyze myself by overthinking made a “talk to the hand” gesture and continued on its way.
So now I’m heading to France in mid-January, rather inexplicably. Originally I was going to jet off for the weekend but then I realized that if I’m going somewhere I may never return to, and using valuable miles to get there, I should make the most of it. I decided to tack on an additional weekend to go anywhere in France that my heart desired. I thought about heading south to try to get some sun but that seemed like a fool’s errand. Even the Riviera won’t be able to deliver in January. So I decided to choose my destination based on whichever place has the best food, because really all I want to do is eat as many fatty dishes and patisserie treats as humanly possible, wander beautiful streets aimlessly, and speak a ton of French.
This is probably because Alsace also appears to be the coldest region of the country. They have to eat all that fat to prevent frostbite. It’s rather counterintuitive of me to have misgivings about heading to a cold city for vacation only to beeline from there to the very coldest part of the country it belongs to, but I have decided that if you’re going to do winter, you may as well do winter. And look how beautiful winter in Alsace looks!
On the way back from the Philippines my colleague, Tyler, and I had a 21-hour layover in Tokyo, which really amounted to 12 hours excluding all the time spent on the way to or from or in the airport. Even though I had a horrible head cold, sore throat and laryngitis and felt I could barely make it another 12 minutes without falling over, I knew there was no question I would stay up all night to take full advantage of those 12 hours.
So here you have it, my one amazing night in Tokyo, hour by hour:
2pm flying into Narita
3pm Narita Airport
First observation in Tokyo: their toiletry is awesome; their toiletry signage is even more awesome.
4pm Narita Express into Tokyo
5pm freebies at Shibuya hotel check-in I took five face towels – their exfoliating powers were ridiculous. This after rather blindly wandering the streets, trying to match up the Japanese lettering on the map with the Japanese lettering on street signs (and finding not one person who spoke a lick of English).
6pm mad dash to Harajuku…
…where, as expected, everyone looked over the top amazing. The photo above is by far not the best outfit we saw (though I would like to point out that this person’s hair, hat, bag, bag charms, and sneakers all matched). But it’s the only photo I managed to take that is not completely out of focus because I’m trying so hard to not get caught taking photos.
7pm mad dash back to Shibuya in time to meet the in-laws for dinner
My brother’s wife’s parents were coincidentally in Tokyo at the same time as me for a conference, so we met up for dinner. The hotel recommended a place that seemed boring but on the way we passed a narrow, packed izakaya (sort of like a pub) that looked fairly amazing from the outside and was ridiculously incredible on the inside. The employees were all women who were utterly wacky and found every possible excuse to jump up and down, clap wildly, and put on googly eye glasses. The food was fantastic, our sign-language communication was hilarious, the atmosphere was giddyness-inducing, and I began to become unhinged with joie de vivre.
8pm We are presented with a specially decorated dessert plate
The extra m in “comming” took me right over the edge and made my heart do flip flops.
9pm walking through Shibuya Crossing
Supposedly the busiest intersection in the world. On the green light, everyone crosses every which way at the same time.
10pm caffeine break near Shibuya Crossing
Note the masked woman in the upper right. About 1 out of every 20 people in Tokyo was wearing a face mask. Though hacking up a lung, I was not. This made me slightly self-conscious. (Although I couldn’t figure out if the masks were to keep sickness in or to keep sickness out.)
11pm pachinko in Shibuya Tyler and I said goodbye to Jim and Judy and headed back out to wander among the Saturday night crowds. We passed a pachinko place and thought we’d have a go, but we came in about five minutes before they closed and they would not let us play. 😦
12am back in Harajuku en route to Shinjuku
With all night to kill, we decided to head back to Harajuku to properly check it out. In any case it was on the way to Shinjuku, our destination for karaoke. We asked a group of 20-somethings how to walk to Shinjuku and the only one who spoke a few words of English answered, “Walk?! No! No!” and mimed driving. We insisted, “Yes, we want to walk, we have all night.” He then bugged his eyes out of his head and shouted, “Walk??! AMAZING!” as he leapt into the air like Gene Kelly. Then they all started dancing and jumping around. I was starting to notice a very appealing trend…
12:30am pit-stop in Yoyogi
We stopped in to a 24-hour pharmacy so I could buy tissues (my nose was running like a faucet and my laryngitis had gotten so bad that I could barely whisper.) We ended up talking/whispering abut baseball and universities with the cashier, Kazu, who had been a high school exchange student in the Twin Cities and was now studying to be a CPA while working nights. He was the only person we met in Tokyo outside of the airport who spoke more than six words of English. (Which is not to complain – I speak about eight words of Japanese, four of which I learned while there.) We had a lovely conversation that catapulted me to very dangerous levels of heart-swell.
1am Karaoke Kan / the best four minutes of my life
Crashed a karaoke session with the plea, “We’re here from New York for one night, can we sing with you?” To which they all started jumping wildly up and down and clapping. (To which I started jumping wildly up and down and clapping.) They told me to pick the song so of course I chose my karaoke standard. And then a miracle happened. Much like the Hanukkah lamp burned for eight days even though there was only enough oil for one, my singing voice came out for four minutes even though my speaking voice had been MIA for two days. We sang as though we had known each other forever, and I was transported with joy.
There’s video. I love it so, so much.
2am Halloween in Shinjuku
It was only October 19 so it was strange to see so many people in Halloween costumes. An ex-pat from England explained to us, “They love Halloween but they don’t really know what day it’s on so they just celebrate for the whole month.” I LOVE THIS PLACE.
3am admiring the view from the top of the Shinjuku Park Hyatt
We walked in like we owned the place, took the elevator to the penthouse, and entered a cavernous, completely dark, completely silent, completely empty lounge with floor to ceiling windows commanding 270 degree views of Tokyo. Having the place all to ourselves to just stare out at the vast city was pretty great.
4am all-night automat in Yoyogi
We started back to Shibuya. Halfway there, we stopped at a 24-hour ramen place with a Nighthawks feel. It was empty except for 3 middle-aged besuited men who at first glance I took to be businessmen but then realized were security guards on lunch break. Tyler chose something at random from the automat machine because there were no pictures or English translations on the buttons. He handed the receipt to the cook, who made what turned out to be a bowl of ramen with a big piece of tempura in it. I didn’t bother trying my luck because about 99.99999% of the food in Japan has soy sauce in it, which contains gluten, which makes it off limits for me. 😦
5am sushi and hibachi in Shibuya
Back in Shibuya we tried to find a place where I could eat something, anything, but I got turned away at three places where they had literally no food that didn’t have soy sauce in it. Even the side order of egg was boiled in soy sauce at one place. Even the corn somehow had soy sauce in it! I was about to give up when we saw a restaurant on the corner that looked so hopping I wouldn’t have minded just sitting in there sipping green tea. But lo and behold they had sushi and Japanese barbeque, so I went nuts. I think I ordered three entrees. And it was so good. So good. I managed to eat incredibly well in Tokyo despite not being able to consume their most common ingredient.
The restaurant was packed with people who had also stayed out all night. A guy in the group next to us asked in very broken English where we were from. Tyler said, “New York.” He grinned from ear to ear and shouted, “New York! Cool! Cool!”
6am selfie as the sun comes up
I was very proud of myself for staying out all night. And very, very, very intoxicated with living.
7am back to Narita
I half-jokingly decided to buy a Japanese mask for myself because my hacking had gotten out of control since I used lung capacity I did not have for karaoke. I bought a pink one that looked and felt like a maxi-pad. It was surprisingly comforting except that every time I breathed or laughed, my glasses fogged up.
And then we were back in Narita, and then back on a plane, and then back in New York.
It’s so surreal to spend one brief night somewhere halfway around the world but have that night be so intense and many-splendored that it leaves a lifetime’s impression.
I hope to get back to Japan one day. It rocked my world.
So much to say about the Philippines but I will start with this thought: I love staying in a place long enough not only to observe the little things that are culturally different but also to discern which of those things are ubiquitous and truly significant. When you spend enough time to notice something over and over again, it makes you feel you are getting to know the culture on more than just a surface level.
For example, one day we drove past kids playing basketball on a roadside court surrounded by wilderness. I wasn’t sure if it was an anomaly or a thing. Within a few days I realized the courts are everywhere (everywhere in the middle of nowhere). Apparently Filipinos love basketball and they also love putting their courts in the most random places (including on an actual road, so that we had to drive through the court to get where we were going).
In no particular order, here are 11 things I saw everywhere during my 11 days in the Philippines:
AFFECTIONATE SCHOOLKIDS
The boys all walk home with their arms around each other’s shoulders and the girls hold hands or link elbows.
TUK TUKS (WHICH THEY CALL TRICYCLES)
There are so many scooters in the Philippines, and most seem like they are being used as taxis. They load them up with a death-defying number of people til they look like clown cars, with multiple people riding on the seat behind the driver, multiple people in the sidecar, and multiple people on the roof of the sidecar holding on to one measly handlebar.
VULCANIZING SHOPS
I kept seeing tires on the roadside advertising these shops. I realized I have no idea what vulcanizing means. Apparently it is what you do to patch holes in tires.
SODA BOTTLES FILLED WITH FUEL
I first assumed they filled Coke bottles with a homemade punch-like brew but later learned it is actually gas for all the scooters.
STORES WITH THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD NAMING CONVENTION EVER
I found it hilarious that most stores took a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach to their names: the first word was the person’s given name, the second word was the type of store. Everywhere I looked it was Louisa’s Bakeshop or Fernanda’s Store or even just Mary Store, no apostrophe needed.
EYE CANDY JEEPNIES
These mini-busses are franchises, so the driver can decorate the vehicle to his liking. The results are amazing. (Also amazing: riders climb in the back wherever they happen to be when the bus passes by.)
KTV BARS
KTV = karaoke
MILLIONS OF DOGS ROAMING FREELY
(Not to mention freely roaming water buffalo, and hogs, and goats, and ducks, and chickens…)
CHICKEN ARROZ CALDO
Traditional breakfast porridge that was a gluten-free god-send. Not pictured because I liked mine no frills: the tiny limes (called calamansi), fried garlic, and green onions usually sprinkled on top.
THE AFOREMENTIONED BASKETBALL COURTS
PINT-SIZED BANANAS
And one more for good measure:
REMNANTS OF SPANISH COLONIZATION
I noticed just a few Spanish words and culinary influences, but the most visible evidence of the former Spanish presence were the grand old cathedrals cutting a strange and imposing figure in the midst of hut villages.
A few other things I didn’t get photos of:
A million Jollibees, the McDonalds of the Philippines (and to my chagrin, the welcome signs to villages were often printed on signs featuring the bee)
Garlic rice – i.e. rice with fried garlic chips in it – served with everything
Freestanding shrines with statues of Mary in them
Frogs hopping along the roads at night
Laundry drying on lines and over fences
Rice paddies
Rain, rain and more rain (it was rainy season)
And the more abstract things you can’t really capture on camera:
A predilection for sweet-tasting everything
Lots of religious faith
Air fresheners that smelled like chemical lemongrass and made me nauseous
Today is my last day of a week in the suburbs hanging out with my parents, siblings/siblings-in-law and niece. On Friday I bought buckwheat flour and thought I’d attempt these galettes. I’m not going to link to the recipe I used because the results were horrifying.
The batter was way too thin and looked liked runny sand. The crepes I poured out would neither stick together nor cook through. When I tried to flip them they fell apart and started to resemble roast beef. I gave up and my mother took over with little more success. They came out in circles when she made them but they still tasted the same – like a buttered salt sandcastle. I had wanted to fill the galettes with savory stuff like a fried egg, sauteed spinach and tomatoes, but we spent so much time and effort agonizing over the galettes themselves that there was no energy left for fillings, which I assume would have helped balance out the strong gritty buckwheat flavor.
After that fiasco my mom wanted to throw out the batter but I couldn’t bear to so I added a cup more buckwheat flour to it the next day and tried again.
With the batter a little thicker, the resulting forms were a little more recognizable as crepes. They still tasted like licking a beach but, bathed in marmalade, a sweet beach. For people who can eat anything, a sweet beach is not really appetizing, but for the gluten-free it’s often as good as it gets, and I soon learned to appreciate the earthy flavor.
The batter lasted four days at which point I was finally ready to throw in the towel and just pour the rest down the drain.
Upshot of failed galettes experiment: now I need to go to Brittany to see what they’re really supposed to taste like.
In addition to my French slump, I am finding it impossible to work at my actual place of work this week. The weekend cannot come soon enough.
In the meantime, I just read this mouth-watering article (yes, I am slacking off) and my stomach literally grumbled aloud. An extremely good reason to learn French: so I can take a food tour of France and gorge myself on galettes (gluten-free!!) and choucroute garnie, which sounds like just about the best thing on earth.
Because food is culture, and culture is its own important language.
First up, pan de queso aka chipás! Or: cheese bread for the gluten-free (a group of which I am, sadly, a member).
These little buns are more commonly known as pão de queijo and most people think of them as Brazilian but I first encountered them on the Argentinian side of the Argentina/Brazil border when I was visiting Iguazu Falls (the most jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring place I’ve ever been, by the way – you won’t be convinced from the pictures – you just have to see it to believe it).
Sadly, I didn’t try chipás at the time even though they were touted as “traditional Misiones food: tapioca flour cheese bread” on the little English sign in the hotel’s breakfast buffet. I couldn’t be sure they were 100% gluten-free without asking someone to tell me exactly what was in them, and in order to do that and to understand the response I would have had to speak way more Spanish. Yet another reason why it is useful to learn other languages – to avoid accidental ingestion of substances toxic to your body.
When I got home I did a bunch of googling and confirmed they were indeed gluten free and felt really sad. I had tragically foregone alfajores because of my condition but I hadn’t needed to miss out on cheese bread.
So I decided to make them at home, using this recipe from the Kitchn. If you have given up gluten consumption I think you’ll find, as I did, that these little cheese buns are a delicious consolation prize. If you’re used to eating whatever kind of bread you want, you may not see what the big deal is. As for me, I’ve now made them three times, dumping in more and more cheese with every batch. (I wouldn’t recommend this – last time got a little out of hand and now I’m going back to the original recipe.)
talk foreign to me 