Kuidaore!

Oh Nepal. You will be missed!  It was a very long journey to leave you, about 27 hours from hotel to hotel, and it included a five hour layover in the airport in Bangkok, Thailand, and then waiting for Joan and Steve for another ten hours or so at Osaka's airport.  Luckily, both airports were nice and had things to walk around and look at.  

 Like I said, we waited for Joan and Steve at Osaka Airport for quite some time.  Our flight landed at 6 am and Joan and Steve didn't emerge from the arrivals door until about 4 pm.  Seth and I spent the day wandering through the airport, marveling at all the amazing food choices, and noting the different cultural mannerisms of the Japanese people.  So far, I like Japanese culture.  

After settling some business at the airport, like JRail passes and money exchange, we grabbed a taxi to our hotel.  Joan found us a beautiful hotel in a very convenient location.  The Hotel Monterey Grasmere is a great choice if staying in Osaka.  It has nice clean rooms near a major train station, near great areas to explore, and the rooms are quite luxurious compared to what we've stayed in on our trip so far.  Something instantly noted in our room, and in other public restrooms at the airport, have been the bathrooms.  The rumors are true.  Japan has some high tech toilets with sprays, a heat seat, courtesy noises while you sit, and buttons galore.  If you're not careful, you could push a button and you'll be sprayed with water.  At first, flushing the toilet took some time to find the flusher.

We spent 5 days in Osaka and I loved every minute of it.  There are tons of little streets lined with interesting restaurants and shops with cute little toys and nick nacks to look at.  The Japanese really do have an infatuation with anything small and that has a large cuteness factor.  If it's cute when it's life sized, make it smaller and the adorable factor multiplies exponentially.  One of our days in Osaka was spent on a tour with All Star Osaka Tours.  Our guide, Minako, was amazing.  She showed us around Osaka pointing out bits and pieces of Osaka history and culture.  She had tons of great little stories to match up with every place we went.  And she's been quite a help.  Espeically if you don't speak Japanese, I highly recommend taking a tour or finding someone to translate, because Minako's assistance was invaluable.

Another landmark we visited was the Osaka Castle.  Perched upon a bit of a hill is a fortress which looks like an elegant mansion from the times of the orient.  Obviously an important castle, continuous groups of children of all ages streamed in and out of the castle doors.  Groups of elderly persons were wheeled and were ushered about, and we were right in the midst of it.  It really is amazing how few non asian people we've seen in Japan so far.  The castle was more interesting on the outside than the inside.  The inside had been converted into a museum, but there was a viewing deck up top that proved for spectacular panoramic views of the city.

My favorite areas in Osaka happened to be clustered around our hotel.  First of all, there are subway stations in Osaka, and some of them have massive underground mall-like areas.  Namba Walk began just outside of our hotel's doors.  We'd descend the flights of stairs into an underground world filled with seemingly endless shops and restaurants.  So many of them fulfilling the stereotype of needing to have an adorably cute mascot of some kind.  

The most vibrant scene in Osaka occurred at Dotonburi Bridge area.  This area is the Times Square of Osaka, packed with huge billboards, three dimensional caricatures of people and animals and store mascots, and signs with neon lights abound.  We took the necessary photos with the Glico running man, the Kuidaore Clown, and stuck our heads in any cardboard cut out we could find.  Well, at least I did.  We walked over the 'pick up girls' bridge where guys hang around in the evenings to pick up on the ladies, and learned why the Honshu Tigers have had bad luck since the early 80's.  Apparently they won the series and fans would jump off the bridge into the water screaming their favorite player's name.  There was an American on the team so they went searching for an American to jump off the bridge.  They found an American guy and they picked him up and threw him off the bridge.  The reason the Tigers still have bad luck is because the American has not been recovered, until recently.  He was found, but his left hand and spectacles are still missing.  Minako took out a picture of the American man and we saw that they had thrown in a statue of Kernel Sanders from outside the close by KFC.  Awesome story.  It is said that when they find the hand and specs the Honshu Tigers will break the curse!  

 

I mentioned the Kuidaore Clown but I don't think I explained the word kuidaore.  Kuidaore is something commonly practiced among the people of Osaka.  Osakans are foodies and kuidaore means eat until you fall over.  I love this idea.  And when you are practicing kuidaore you need to take a picture with the Kuidaore Clown.  So, we did.  How did we practice kuidaore that day? We began the day with pork bao from 551 (go go ichi in Japanese) because they are renowned for their bao.  Yum it was delicious.  Eventually we made our way to another delicious restaurant where we tried okonomiyaki.  This is a wonderful mix of tons of ingredients like eggs, onions, cheese perhaps, maybe some seafood, some rice cakes, you could really put just about anything in there, but it always tastes delicious, and you douse it heavily with mayo, okonomiyaki sauce (which is dark, sweet and savory at the same time) and sometimes hot mustard.  It is so, so good!  While we were there we, also, tried their yakisoba (noodles), and their taki yaki.  Taki yaki is a wonderful dish native to Osaka.  They are little octopus balls served molten hot and doused in mayo, some kind of dark sauce, bonito flakes, and whatever else they put on it.  This is a type of street food and it is amazing.  Though delicious, they are fiery hot inside and my mouth is paying for it.  But the taki yaki we had in the restaurant was a bit different, as it was Tokyo style.  It was milder in flavor and you dipped it in a clear broth type liquid with green onions and kind of salty water.  Not as amazing as the Osakan street version, but still pretty good.  We, also, tried something that I could compare to an omlette, but a little different.  That was delicious too.  The food was amazing and plentiful.  Surely kuidaore was achieved.  

Later, we tried some freshly made soy milk.  It tasted different than any I have ever tasted.  It was fresh like the beans themselves, and had no artificial sweetness like the ones you buy in the stores.  And the couple who ran the shop were great to talk with (with Minako's help, of course).  They were just as curious about us as we were of them.  We learned that they were closing the shop in about a month to retire while they could still enjoy their time together.  One goal for them was to visit Honolulu for the woman to run in the Honolulu Marathon.  That's awesome.

There are so many things I want to share! Osaka was amazing, so I'm trying to do it justice.  

We decided that we were going to put our lives in peril while dining in Osaka.  Fugu is a potentially lethal meal of puffer fish.  You have to be trained and certified to handle fugu, and you can, literally, die within hours of eating if improperly prepared.  Stories have been told of people who regularly eat fugu, but suffer symptoms of tingling in extremities and facial numbness. Minako had showed us a famous fugu restaurant, so we decided to live on the edge.  It was a very delicate fish, so delicate in fact that it hardly had any flavor.  Yes, we dined on fugu, but will we order it again? Probably not.

If you don't know already, sushi is my absolute, hands down, favorite food.  So, having a meal of sushi in Japan was a pretty big deal for me, and has definitely been on my bucket list.  Anthony Bourdain visited Osaka and dined at a tiny tiny sushi bar run by an old couple.  It took some effort, but after wandering around asking numerous people, we finally found this exact restaurant.  We told the couple that we were interested in omakase, chef's choice.  I was in heaven.  We were in Japan, at a tinsy tiny sushi bar, eating amazingly fresh toro, blue mackerel, abalone and so much more.  Something interesting we tried was bamboo shoot sushi.  I've definitely never seen that on any sushi menu before.  I'd say it was all amazingly delicious, but that would be a lie.  I wasn't a fan of the abalone.  It had the consistency of chewing on a rubber band, and the raw calamari sushi was like chewing on the sole of a shoe. I chewed it for a really long time before giving up and swallowing.  But, the experience was enough for me.  I even tried uni (sea urchin) and it wasn't that bad.  I really hope I get more sushi experiences before we leave.

Solu Khombu Trek - Day 8 (Berkley)

I woke up feeling much better, but still quite weak.  I was really excited because, if all went according to plan, I would see seth in the late afternoon!  So, I head downstairs with my Kindle to have some breakfast.  I was absentminded and made a breakfast mistake.  Nepal doesn't really do dairy products.  And, I"m going to go out there on a limb and say that they don't eat yogurt.  So, when they try to serve it, it's just not right.  Their yogurt may even be dry from a packet.  It kinda fizzes like soda and almost melts any other food item it touches.  Anyhow, I was debating between muesli and yogurt  and porridge.  I figured that the muesli and yogurt would be lighter than the porridge, and my stomach still wasn't all the way better, so I went with that.  I should have gone with the porridge.  

As I was sitting outside at my little picnic table reading, listening to donkeys with their bells tinkle past on the mountain side, when people started coming in from the front street. About twenty Australians ascended upon me in my quiet solitude.  A nice woman named Ana sat down with me and chatted me up for the next hour.  It was nice.  Eventually they left, but soon thereafter another plane landed and another large group of people ascended upon me again.

I decided that I should try to go on a walk and check out a bit more of Phalpu.  I was still so weak that all I could muster was between five and ten minutes and I was exhausted.  Still not 100%.  At about ten o'clock I decided to head up to my room to make myself presentable for Seth when he arrived.  Though he was supposed to show up between 12 and 1pm, I got a knock at my door from Cook at about 10:30am.  Apparently Seth must have been running to get to Phalpu.  I trotted down the stairs to meet him.  It was so nice to see my sweaty, dirty husband.  Though I was happy to see him early and in one piece, I was dismayed to find that he'd slipped in yak poo and scraped his arm really good, and he was walking with a bit of a limp.  No good.  We scarfed down some noodle soup and caught up a little bit.

Pretty soon Purba came to tell us that we could get on the flight at noon to Kathmandu.  We ended up running onto the plane and were two of four passengers.  It was a bit scary getting on the plane.  I think I failed to mention in an earlier post, but during our trek there was a plane crash of a plane that followed the same flight path as ours.  So, we were nervous to fly.  But, we ended up receiving an unexpected treat on the flight.  Other than the little coconut caramel candies, we were able to catch an above the clouds view of Everest and the surrounding major peaks.  Pretty astounding.  

We picked up our extra bag from Hotel Manaslu and made our way to Hotel Courtyard, where we will be staying for the rest of our time in Kathmandu.  It's a really comfy, reasonably priced hotel.  It's clean, has great internet, comfortable rooms, decent breakfast, and each room has a DVD player for the giant DVD library downstairs.  We both took nice, long, hot showers that were much appreciated, before resting and eating. Aahhh, Kathmandu!

I've Found the Magic

Like Seth mentioned, India was easier for me to handle than for him.  But, that doesn't mean that I wasn't confounded or appalled at times.  As a matter of fact, upon leaving India I ended up becoming so infuriated that I was barely holding myself together.  If I were a different person I would have started punching people, but luckily I have a thread more of patience, but really it was only a thread.

We began to see enormous mountains peeking through the clouds from the airplane.  It was really exciting.  But the real excitement came when we began to walk around the area surrounding our hotel.  We, luckily, booked a crap hotel in a good area.  Thamel is the super touristy area, but that means that food is basically safe wherever you go.  There are tons of shops, overpriced of course, but many things to look at.  Bustling streets, live music, and the best part… no cows!  And when there are no cows, there are no cow patties.  And, on top of that, the streets are clean!  I can walk without looking down.  I can look at shops as I walk past.  It's amazing.  But, what I really found here in Kathmandu on our first night, was the magic that was missing in India.  It was clean, safe, and smiling.  I felt as if a huge weight, that I didn't even realize was there, was lifted from my shoulders.  I'm not going to say that I completely disliked India, because there were parts that I enjoyed.  But, I don't think I felt as relaxed, comfortable, or happy one single day while in India, as I felt this first night in Nepal.  

See ya later stink town!

So, Berkley has been a bit more kind about her description of India than I would have. The last month in India has been above and beyond the most frustrating, and at times perplexing, portion of our trip so far. I don't even have the energy to write about India. Lets say it took quite a few of these to make me someone Berkley wanted to travel with.

We left Delhi (after an infuriating situation at the airport) and took a short 1:45 minuet flight to Kathmandu, as soon as the plane touched down it was like the monkey on my back had jumped off. (pun intended)

It feels great to be out of India, Kathmandu has been a wonderful change.

Kwa Heri Africa, Namaste India

Good bye Africa, hello India! 

It took us 24 hours of travel to get here, but we're in New Delhi, India.  We left our beach bungalow at 10am to get to the Zanzibar airport.  We took a short flight, about a half hour or less, to Dar es Salaam, then we had to wait for our next flight, which was 5 hours away.  This might be ok if we were in an airport like DIA (Denver Airport) where we could wander through the stores aimlessly, have a decent bite to eat, or even post up at the New Belgium Brewery in the airport.  But, Dar es Salaam is a tiny airport. There's 3 to 4 tiny shops that have the exact same items, and a restaurant that looked questionable and was severely overpriced, like the stores.  It was actually kinda funny.  We found little Kirkland packets of nuts for sale, but they were like $5, and not worth it.  A small pack of gum was $3.  So we sat and listened to our audio book.

Finally we took the 3 hour flight to Ethiopia.  We had another 5 hours to kill in that airport.  We had originally thought we were going to be there during the day, and that we would check in, leave our bags, and venture out into Ethiopia for lunch or dinner.  But, it was from 7pm to midnight, so we skipped that idea.  This airport was weird.  The shops were filled with random designer labels, but it all seemed fishy, like they were counterfeit, or they had "fallen off a truck".  Also, the shelves were fairly empty, there'd be a huge shelf with two or three items on it.  And there were TONS of cigarettes.  Apparently cigarettes from China are a hot commodity, because they were expensive, $50 a carton, while Marlboro were $16.

It was finally time to head to our gate.  When the man called for passengers with children, needing special assistance, and business class members, the entire group of people in the waiting area bum rushed the entrance.  And they began to enter without being let in.  Eventually we made our way up, but the people were so pushy and then so close behind us that I kind of wish we had waited for everyone else to board first.  But we needed to assure that we had overhead luggage space. They would push up against you, and when you turned your head they would apologize, but do it again and again.  Just before the plane there was a guy trying to check everyone's ticket, and we watched him turn away a passenger and realize that he might have been letting people on the plane who shouldn't have been let on.  Hmm.  I'm pretty sure there were some stow aways on that flight.

The flight was about 6 hours, after the delay, but it was not a bad flight.  We dosed ourselves with our respective knock out drugs and were able to sleep a bit.  Aside from the fact that I was awoken by people walking by and bumping into me with elbows and carts, we were awoken in the middle of the night for a meal.  I think we were in a daze because we sleepily ate a meal at about 2:30 in the morning.  Totally unnecessary, but we were zoned out.  Seth barely remembered anything the next day.

The plane landed and the airport in India was much more vigilant about the passengers on the plane.  They cattle blocked the exit and checked everyone's ticket stub, and if they couldn't find it, they had to wait.  I thought that was awesome.

We were picked up by someone from our hotel and we made our way into Delhi.  We landed on a Sunday morning, so traffic wasn't like it normally is.  We've heard a lot about Delhi traffic.  And, maybe it's because we just spent a few weeks in Africa, but so far New Delhi is not like we expected.  It is much 'nicer' than we expected.  But, I'm also going to assume that we are in the nicer part of the city.  When I looked up our area it seems to be the Silverlake of New Delhi.  But, when I say this, don't picture a street lined with pretty store fronts and welcoming restaurants.  I said it is the Silverlake of New Delhi.  We've already encountered areas that require ten gallon lungs to hold your breath.

Our hotel, aside from our romantic anniversary night, is the nicest hotel we've been in.  Amarya Haveli is a cute boutique B&B where we were offered their delicious homemade iced tea upon arrival.  Our room is the Jaipur room, so it is themed pink, with a pink temple painted on the wall.  And the bathroom is glorious.  Aside from the fact that you have to keep your mouth glued shut in the shower (we're in India) it is amazing, with water pressure and extremely hot water.  And we had the best night sleep, probably since we moved out of our apartment in May.  AC, hot water, clean, and a comfy bed.  Awesome.

We ventured out for a walk to a park nearby.  We ended up finding Deer Park, where they actually have deer in an enclosure.  There was a lady there who was feeding them yellow rice and naan.  I have a feeling that she wasn't supposed to be doing that.

Eventually we made our way to a recommended restaurant called Park Baluchi (which I bet means deer park), where we would have our first Indian meal.  We ordered two beers, two vegetarian dishes, and two types of bread. The beer was Kingfisher and the waiter presented them to each of us like one would a bottle of wine.  It was interesting.  Then there was a well packed ball of ricotta like cheese in something similar to a vodka sauce (i.e. tomato and cream).  That was really good.  It had lots of spices and a bit of a kick. Yum! Then there was a spinach based dish with string beans, corn and potatoes.  That was, also, very good.  We accompanied those with regular naan and kolcha, which is what I believe to be India's version of pizza.  It was a flat bread with some chopped tomatoes, spices and cheese.  All very good.

We made our way back to our hotel and ordered some masala chai tea to keep ourselves awake so that we wouldn't fall asleep too early.  The tea was delicious. And so was our night's sleep. Aahhh...

Cappadocia

We figured that we'd pop a Lunesta and sleep for the 10-11 hour trip on our night bus, and save a bunch of money in lieu of taking a plane.  That was optimistic.  The night bus was extremely uncomfortable and not well suited for sleeping.  Aside from the discomfort, there were strong odors surrounding us, threatening our nostrils.  One seat behind us was a woman with two young children, and a loud cell phone that she would allow to ring till it hit voicemail.  She'd stuff her children with sugary treats at every stop we made which resulted in the children becoming amped up then cranky, fall asleep, get woken up by the cell phone and cry, then start the cycle all over again.  Seth was able to feel some of the effects of the pill and was able to sleep a bit.  I did not sleep more than 20 minutes the entire trip.  And it was not 10 hours.  We began our journey at 6:30pm and didn't hit the final bus station until about 9am. 

Needless to say, we were absolutely exhausted.  But, we arrived at our cave hotel with 10 minutes to 'freshen up' in the communal bathroom in reception before heading out for our all day tour.  Luckily, our tour began with a hike.  Oh man.  That was rough.  And I think our mood detracted from the beauty of the area.  Sandstone formations shot up into the air to make for an interesting landscape.  The formations originated from volcanoes so the colors of the rock varied from whites, to rose, to blacks.

Our day passed us in a haze, stopping at one destination here and a panoramic viewpoint there.  The highlight for us was an elaborate underground city comprised of tunnels and rooms that even connect across different towns throughout the vast region of Anatolia.  The Christians used this underground city to hide when under attack from the Romans.  They could live underground for a couple of months at a time.  The cave system was elaborate, going down 8 floors, with ventilation systems and everything.  

We ended up making friends and going out to dinner in town at Sofra Restaurant.  Though I'm not sure of it's name, both Seth and I ordered a regional special.  Mine was with lamb and his was with chicken with peppers and tomatoes.  It went great with Efes, the Turkish beer.  We ended off the night with a game of Farkle.  Yes!  Somehow Neil won, after Farkling a million times.  Beginner's luck!

Our second day of tour was a bit better because we were well rested, but we were still dealing with our bad choices from the Istanbul market. Remember the ice cream, yogurt, and pickle combo? Our stomachs were still not 100% better.

The Open Air Museum was pretty cool.  It is a series of churches built into the stone formations.  After a few descriptions from our tour guide, we decided to explore on our own, and it turned out that we made a good choice.  The people who stayed with the group only saw like 4 churches, while Seth and I saw a ton.  

We eventually made our way to another place where we were free to explore all the cave like structures on our own.  Seth and I went clambering up to the tops of as many structures as we could.  These were like homes carved out in the middle of large rock formations.  Kind of hard to explain, so I hope the pictures do them justice.

By the evening our stomachs were finally better, so we got a recommendation from a local in town and had a really good dinner at Micro Restaurant, once again.  Seth got the Ottoman Special, and I can't remember what mine was called.  His was chicken with gravy and a garlic yogurt sauce atop a bed of shoe string french fries.  Mine was eggplant topped with a yogurt garlic sauce and lamb.  

We went back to our cave to sleep.  I mention this, because the area is known for its caves.  The history of the area is as a cave culture.  The people still build their homes into the mountain side.  The temperatures in a cave are such that they are fairly stable, making it cool in the summer, and warm in the winter.  So our hotel was a cave hotel.  Our room was pretty cool.

Since our experience on the night bus was so unpleasant, we decided to book a flight back to Istanbul.  We had already had a miserable day due to lack of sleep and we didn't want to mess up a day in Istanbul too.  Plus, we didn't want to get sick.  Since we were trying to book our flight so late the availability was pretty slim.  Only two seats left on the plane, and one of them was business class.  When we got off the plane I asked Seth how his in flight snack was. "Snack?" Seth had gotten a meal.  Which brings me to something I've been meaning to mention.  Some of you may remember a time when you received a meal for free while flying.  If it was a short flight you received a snack.  Well, they still do that outside the United States.  On every flight we've been on since we left the US we've received a meal, and they've been decent and quite interesting, and they don't charge you a cent.  They are usually representative of where we are flying in some sort of way.  For example, Turkey is big on yogurts, and my snack included a yogurt with mint.  That was pretty good.