During late spring in Japan, the weather is in the sweet spot for bringing a bounty of blossoms out for viewing. It’s hard not to have a little extra joy in your heart. A couple weeks ago, we visited Chichibu for the phlox blossoms and last weekend we headed back for the “heavenly poppies” at Sainokuni Friendship Farm.
Enjoy the photos (click any of them to view at a larger size) and watch the video at full size for a couple of special treats.
After two weeks of adventuring through India and Nepal, we were ready for a little rest and relaxation. We spent the next two weeks meandering about Thailand, including a week of hanging out on the amazing beaches on the island of Koh Samui. The story of our travels through Thailand are best told through photos, so please enjoy a snapshot of the beautiful Kingdom of Thailand.
I’m self-diagnosing a case of selective attention deficit disorder. It’s brought on my projects that aren’t particularly interesting to me. Treatments include watching baseball, going for a run or doing just about anything else.
I have a couple of those projects on my plate this week, so I decided to remove the distractions. I loaded up my computer and headed to Starbucks to work for a bit. There’s plenty of good workspaces around town, but the coffee giant is the only one that offers free WiFi.
The closest Starbucks in Kawagoe Station is usually crowded with commuters and since the station is our transportation hub, I wanted some new scenery. I pulled up Google Maps and plotted out some of the other shops in the area. That landed me in nearby Fujimino City.
Fujimino is the first stop on the express line toward Tokyo from Kawagoe Station, but we’ve never had reason to go there, so this was a good chance to explore the area a bit. I arrived around lunchtime and had plotted out a couple potential lunch spots.
I chose Arcturus Cafe, which I’m told by Wikipedia may be named for the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere. Macrobiotic cafes like this are one of the few safe bets for a vegetarian meal in Japan.
I chose one of the two tables in the solarium at the back of the restaurant. Outside, rose bushes and other greenery pushed against the glass. I ordered the curry set. Japanese curry is available nearly everywhere, but it’s made with chicken, so it’s usually on the no-fly list. Potatoes and mushrooms took the place of the chicken. It was fantastic!
Arcturus also bakes its own bread using a naturally fermented yeast. The soup and salad set is served with fresh bread and coffee. I can’t wait to go back to try it.
After lunch, I headed to Starbucks to actually get some work done. The Starbucks is about 10 minutes from the station, so the crowd was pretty thin in the early afternoon with most of the customers coming through the drive-through.
After I finished my work, I popped into the Aeon department store down the street. I remembered from a trip to the Aeon near Costco that they have a large liquor section with a decent selection of craft beers. Sure enough, they had three different choices from Oregon’s Rogue Ales & Spirits. I took one of each: Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Dead Guy and Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout.
I tried to make a joke with the cashier that both the beer and I were from the same place. She laughed and said a whole bunch of other stuff that I didn’t really catch. Can’t win ’em all…
My projects will keep me busy for a few more weeks and I plan to use my new method of navigating the area by Starbucks locations to find a few more new gems.
The great thing about a city like Tokyo is that you never run out of things to see. After a brief Tokyo rut, we’ve recommitted ourselves to crossing things off the “to-see” list.
First item off the list was the historic Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo’s Chūō Ward. Tsukiji is a popular tourist spot, but it’s also a working wholesale fish market. Visitors rub elbows with local chefs picking through the freshest (in many cases, still alive) seafood in Tokyo.
Inside, hundreds of vendors crowd into a warehouse. The smell of the sea greets you from a block away. The aisles are narrow with just enough room for one-and-a-half people to pass through. Tourists alternate between snapping photos, sidestepping fish-water puddles and dodging the turret trucks that zip down the aisles. Old-school wooden carts roll through more slowly, loaded with some of the larger ocean fish and offering a hint at the origins of the market.
Fish markets in Tokyo date back to the 1600s, but the current incarnation was built in 1935 after its Nihonbashi district predecessor was destroyed in the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. In November 2016, the market will be moved to nearby Toyosu to free up the current location for development prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The butchers worked with surgical precision, carving the large fish into perfectly-weighted fillets and making paper-thin slices for sashimi (raw fish). Many used “knives” that more closely resemble a samurai sword than anything you or I have in our kitchens. The four-foot long blades made short work of the even the largest tuna.
After awhile, the aromas inherent in such a place started to take their toll on our stomachs. Occasionally I’ll come across Japanese food that makes me second-guess my vegetarian choices, but the fish market was not one of those places.
We headed outside for some fresh air and a short walk over the Kachidoki Bridge to our very favorite farmers market in Japan. Market of the Sun is Japan’s largest regular farmers market and has the most unique selection of local produce, goods and snacks in Tokyo. We left with a couple varieties of honest-to-goodness rye bread and a hearty beet, both nearly impossible to find in our local area.
A couple blocks away from the market, we checked off another of our Tokyo to-dos with a visit to Monja Street. We’d first tried monjayaki during my birthday weekend in Asakusa. This two-block stretch of restaurants in the Tsukishima district features almost exclusively monjayaki and okonomiyaki shops.
Although it was proper lunchtime, most of the shops were still closed when we arrived. We found one with several people inside and ordered a monjayaki and an okonomiyaki—best described as savory Japanese-style pancakes. The waiter started our monja on the table-top grill, but we took care of the okonomiyaki ourselves. Check out the video below to see us in action!
There’s only one thing anybody wants to know right now…
Did you do anything for Golden Week?
I’ll concede there’s a small chance this topic is only relevant among people living in Japan and, if it’s coming up in English, it’s only a hot topic among 0.01 percent of the population. But hey, that’s my demographic!
We started our Golden Week with a weekend trip into Tokyo to visit one of our favorite farmers markets and hit up the Cinco de Mayo Festival at Yoyogi Park.
Chichibu is our favorite place for outdoor adventures in Japan. It’s about an hour away by train and is usually pretty quiet. However, during Golden Week, thousands of people descend on the otherwise sleepy town to see the shibazakura or mountain phlox at Hitsujiyama Park.
We milked every last second out of Golden Week, heading out on the last day of the holidays to nearby Hanno for some hiking. We found a very non-touristy spot called Koburi Pass. We befriended a couple of older Japanese ladies at the train station, one of whom nearly missed the train when she went upstairs to get us some local sightseeing pamphlets.
How did you spend Golden Week? Leave a comment below!
For two magical weeks, spring boldly announces its presence all over Japan in the form of sakura—the blossoms of the Japanese cherry tree. Families and friends come together for viewing parties and everyone has a bit more pep in their step. Then, as quickly as they arrived, they begin to fall like snow, replaced by green buds and the promise of warmer days. Enjoy the view!
Need more sakura? Check out last year’s last year’s pics too!
It was a clear, cold and quiet morning in the Tokyo area. As we rode the train to Narita International Airport, we could see Mt. Fuji in the distance. Our flight to Delhi was 10 hours, but the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was like flying in a hotel… a couple meals, a couple movies (including a charming Bollywood flick) and wide, comfy seats. Easy.
Those would be the last moments of calm for awhile.
We arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport after sunset on a warm February evening, the modern Terminal 3 offered no clues to what was waiting outside. When we stepped through the doors, we were met by chaos. Dozens of taxi drivers hovered outside the terminal approaching aggressively while repeating “Where you going? Where are you staying? You need a hotel? You need a tour?” Fortunately we’d read that there’s one government-run taxi stand where you pre-purchase your fare so as to not be cheated by the driver en route to your destination.
We drove toward our hotel, the lanes painted on the highways serving no purpose other than decoration. Vehicles weaved in and out, announcing their presence with a series of honks. Pedestrians waited for an opportunity to cross the eight-lane highway, edging through traffic like a real-life game of Frogger. A man led his two camels alongside the busy road, likely to the nearest river to graze.
Our hotel was in central Delhi. The hotel porter immediately wanted to set us up with a tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) tour of the surrounding area, but we opted for sleep instead.
In the morning, we walked for a bit, trying to find one of Delhi’s many outdoor markets. Shopkeepers do their best to keep the sidewalks and gutters clean, but trash still piles up in the streets. Cows, considered sacred in Hindu culture, wander the streets as freely as people and do their business wherever they see fit.
Soon, Delhi began to wake. A marching band walked by—young musicians on their way to school. The temples began to buzz as people headed to morning worship sessions. One by one, the doors on the shops opened up.
Lacking a good breakfast option, we bought a box of Indian sweets called barfi from a vendor near our hotel—the beginnings of “a banner day for nutrition” says my wonderfully witty wife.
While we waited for our barfi, a group of boys headed to school stopped to say hello. “Will you take our picture?” one of them asked. This was the first of many such requests. Not “Will you take a picture with us?” or “Can we take your picture?” but to specifically photograph them and show them the picture.
Experience the tuk-tuk ride for yourself!
We returned to our hotel and, in short order, we were approached by the local tuk-tuk magnate. His fleet of auto rickshaws were waiting around the corner and for just 200 rupees (about $3.20), he’d take us on a tour of the local markets. We jumped in the back and began weaving through the streets of Delhi.
Along the way, he stopped in a park where rhesus monkeys sat along the wall. A nearby vendor sold bananas you could feed to the monkeys, but our driver pulled out some day-old chapati instead. The monkeys were clearly accustomed to being fed by humans as they reached down from the wall and took the pieces of bread from our hands.
Those 200 rupees were really a down payment for a lesson in Indian economics. The “tour” took us to three shops where, if I had to guess, the driver had a deal with the shopkeepers—”I’ll bring you tourists, you give me a cut of the sales.” But, he also gave us a nickel tour of Central Delhi and took our picture “driving” his tuk-tuk (see top photo).
The shops are elaborate labyrinths with only one way in and one way out. To reach the exit, you must navigate through scarves, clothing, knickknacks and carpets.
Each shop offers a riff on a theme. The scarf salesmen pull threads from the weave and burn them at the edges to prove they’re really cashmere/pashmina/silk (because they’re animal hair, the fabric singes where artificial fabrics burn like plastic). The carpet salesmen explain thread counts and show how the colors change depending on which direction you look at them. Elephants tchotchkes are carved from teak wood or camel bone and the symbolism is described by the shopkeeper in depth.
The driver took us from one shop to another before we finally cried “Uncle.” We sheepishly asked him to take us to the McDonald’s restaurant we’d see on Google Maps nearish our hotel. He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the Americans traveling all the way to India to eat fast food, so I felt the need to explain. McDonald’s doesn’t typically offer vegetarian options (even the fries contain beef tallow), but since 40 percent of India’s population is vegetarian, the global chain offers up alternatives to meet the demand.
After lunch, we returned to our hotel to rest up before meeting our tour group for the first time. Our tour company’s promise of small groups was a big draw for us. We started as a group of six—joined by two teachers working in China, an American from the NYC area and an Australian from the Melbourne area. Four others would join us later, having toured Delhi as part of another tour.
Our tour guide was fantastic. A native Indian from nearby Jaipur (about 170 miles southwest of Delhi), he knew the history of the areas we visited and was willing to answer all of the questions we threw his way. After taking care of a couple paperwork things, we loaded into tuk-tuks and headed for Old Delhi.
Established in the 1600s, the area is considered the heart of Delhi. We wandered through the narrow alleys, past food stalls and more scarf shops, eventually exiting near the steps of Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India.
Note: Generic photos ahead. We tried our best to photograph the religious locations without capturing the people in the middle of their worship.
Although nearly 80 percent of the population identifies as Hindu, Islam is still a prominent religion in India. When India gained independence from Britain in 1947, it also lost a large portion of its land and Islamic population as Muslims moved west, creating Pakistan. The mosque still makes daily calls for prayer and closes to tourists during prayer hours.
From the mosque, we made the short walk to Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, Delhi’s primary house of worship for the Sikh religion. When you see the stereotypical depiction of an Indian man, he’s usually wearing a turban, one of the Five Ks of Sikhism.
Sikhism is unique among Indian religions for many reasons, but its treatment of women stood out to me. While women are treated as subordinates in Hindu and Islam, the scriptures of Sikhism demand that women and men are treated as equals.
We were given scarves to put on our heads prior to entering the worship area. The ornate, gold-laden prayer room had a scattering of midday worshippers with traditional music played live in the background. Sikhs don’t have ordained priests, so nearly any Sikh can lead the congregation as long as they meet some minimum qualifications.
The charity of the temple is on display in a large dining room alongside the main prayer hall. Anyone can join in the preparation and consumption of the meal. While men typically don’t participate in meal preparations in India, they were working alongside the women to prepare the large quantities of food for the congregation.
After a long afternoon of sightseeing, we had a group dinner back at the hotel and headed to bed. We’d be on an early morning train to Agra the next day to see what we all came to see: Taj Mahal.
Sampling local food, the cooking classes, street food and fresh fruit and vegetable markets were probably the highlight of our trip to India and Nepal. Check out Indian food part 1 here.
In India, our travel group attended a cooking class in a small town called Orchha. Our host spent an evening teaching us how to make some of her favorite dishes. These included masala chai, roasted eggplant, potatoes and spinach, yogurt sauce, rice pilaf, and chapati bread.
In Kathmandu, Nepal, we spent an afternoon with a Nepalese couple that runs a cooking class in a home setting. We were the only two people in the group so it was nice to be able to ask a lot of questions and do every part of the cooking—from prepping to eating! We made tea, momo dumplings, lentil soup, vegetable curry, rice, mustard greens, fry bread and rice pudding.
In both of these settings, women finally took center stage as leaders—in the kitchen. Neither of the women finished their schooling. Each had incredible stories of arranged marriage, financial hardships, raising children and becoming ‘discovered’ by tour leaders who encouraged them to make a living by showcasing their country’s food to tourists.
The meal today comes with a side of social commentary. Skip ahead to the recipes if you’re not interested. While these women make money with little to no education, most women do not. They depend on their husbands. The scales are so unbalanced in favor toward men in this society and its economy, that it’s hard to stomach.
The message I heard was, “All women can do is cook and have kids so if they can make money at the same time, why not?” Yes, women should have the ability to choose. If a woman has culinary talent and she has a desire have kids, that’s great. But if that’s her ONLY choice and she was robbed of an opportunity to further her education, which may provide her some other options, that’s nothing to be proud of.
I will also add that women do ALL of the cooking in this society. Men, when questioned, expressed no interest. Why bother when my woman does it? The women cook. Men eat first. Then, whatever is left over, the women and children eat. In Nepal, the man came to sit and eat with us while his wife cleaned the kitchen.
In most of the urban city centers, there was a noticeable lack of women. I felt eerily outnumbered at times. Where are all of the women? At home, where they belong? In the Delhi Metro, women are assigned to ride in a separate car. This is similar to Japan and I understand the reason—to avoid sexual harassment. (Side note: I’ve never had a problem in Japan, or India for that matter. Maybe because I’m white and traveling with a big ol’ man to protect me.) Anyway, the separate car is not my issue. The issue is out of the whole entire train, just one car is for women and it was barely full at rush hour while the men in our group were packed shoulder to shoulder in their car. Where are all of the women in the middle of the workday?
India, instead of viewing women (half of your population) as a deficit, find a way to see them as an asset. Both genders working=everyone wins. The International Monetary Fund is working on an initiative to equalize pay for men and women. It states India needs, “… to boost presently low female labor force participation.” Source.
I understand that’s my privilege as a white, educated, Western woman to have these ideas and that not everyone agrees. I don’t pretend to know everything and I don’t want to make light of these women’s accomplishments. Changes are made slowly within the norms of each society. At least the men in both of these situations have some realization that their wife has earning power. Small steps for womankind.
I’ll get back to the food. Below is my adaptation of Vandana Dubey’s recipes of Aloo Palak and chapati.
Aloo Palak (Potatoes and Spinach)
Serves 2-4 people
Directions
Step 1: Steam or boil the diced potatoes for about 5-7 minutes. You want them pretty done—firm, but not falling apart. Like you’re making potato salad. Set these aside.
Step 2: Heat oil in a large sauté pan and then add cumin seeds, garlic and chilies. (We don’t have fresh chiles in Japan so I used dry ones that I let hang out in some boiling water for a few minutes.) Fry for 1-2 minutes on medium high heat. Don’t let your garlic burn…you are infusing the oil with flavor here.
Step 3: Add your potatoes and the salt, turmeric, chili powder and coriander/cumin. Stir and incorporate all of the spices.
Step 4: Add the chopped spinach and toss about. You just want to wilt the spinach here for a couple of minutes. Don’t overcook.
Step 5: Turn off the stove. Enjoy! Serve with rice or chapati. We also had some raita, or yogurt, to take the edge off the spice.
Note: You can adjust the chiles and chili powder to your liking. Same with the salt.
Chapati
Makes 8 chapati
Directions:
Sift flour onto a flat plate and add salt.
Sprinkle water onto flour and knead into a smooth dough.
Make golf ball sized balls, flatten by hand then roll into thin pancake, coating in extra flour to keep from sticking.
Fry chapati on a flat, unoiled frying pan for about a minute on each side, then place bread directly on gas flame until it begins to puff up. Repeat on other side.
Below is a video of Viktoria making chapati with Vandana.
The world is a big place. We’ve tried our best to take advantage of our current locale to visit parts of the world that previously seemed unreachable. In August 2014, we spent two weeks traversing Australia. Japan on its own could fill years of travels, but we’ve started chipping away with trips to Kyoto and Osaka, Fukuoka and Mt. Fuji among others. However, our latest adventure has been the most epic yet. Spanning 33 days, three countries and every transportation method imaginable, we’ve had a taste of southern Asia that’s left us hungry for more.
Beginning in Delhi, India, we toured the northern part of the world’s seventh largest country before crossing into Nepal. From Kathmandu, we flew to Thailand, where we lounged on amazing white sand beaches, explored national parks, lived with the locals and wandered through one of the world’s greatest cities.
Along the way, we met amazing people with both heartbreaking and heartwarming stories. We experienced the “real” India, Nepal and Thailand, but could also see the impact that tourism is having on the identity of these cultures. We ate what the locals ate and what the tourists ate—spoiler alert: they’re not the same.
This trip was not only a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but also a perspective-altering one. The reality of seeing developing countries in different states of progress trumped anything I’ve ever read in Time or Newsweek. Our eyes and minds opened as we struggled to understand a way of life that flew in the face of what we know to be “right”—arranged marriages, extreme poverty, access to education and gender inequality.
It also brought new opportunities. I can now say that I’ve played cricket (on the banks of the Ganges River, no less) and I generally understand this sport that mostly remains a mystery to Americans (despite being the second-most popular sport in the world). We slept in overnight trains, mud huts and bungalows—the latter included a 5 a.m. wake-up call from both a crowing rooster and a flying chicken landing on our roof with a thud. We gained a better understanding of Hinduism as well as the role it played in shaping Indian society and many of the world’s religions. And we learned a thing or two about toilets around the world (“squatty potty” anybody?).
Enough with the teasers. Let’s dive right in with a look at some of the best food we’ve ever eaten… anywhere! Meet northern Indian cuisine!
As we planned our trip to India, we had a vague semblance that we were going home to our (vegetarian, spice-loving) people. We knew that the cow was sacred in Hinduism and that McDonald’s in India didn’t have hamburgers. We liked the Indian food we had in the states and in Japan well enough (Japan has a surprising number of Indian and Nepalese restaurants).
But I would have never guessed how incredibly amazing and flavorful actual Indian food is. We never got sick of it, even after three meals a day for 10 days. Nepal (seven days) had similar food to India, but with a little less spice and pizzazz, in our opinion. Quick note on spice: even though we asked for it, we never had really spicy (as in, ‘this is so spicy, I am going to die!’) food in India (or Nepal or Thailand). I think it’s because the locals thought we couldn’t handle it. Shame!
As we were traveling, I was reading books about India. One of which is called “Climbing the Mango Trees” by Madhur Jaffrey. This book hit me at the right time in our travels. The author describes her childhood in India through the lens of the food her family ate. She intertwines food with history, describing the influences of Persian or Muslim dishes on the traditional Indian or Hindu ones. She also accounts a home economics test of cooking bland English (British) porridge.
Every time she mentioned a dish, I thought, “Hey, I just ate that!” She gave a historical, firsthand account of her memory of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the tensions in India about British interference (my word, not her’s), whether the country should split into Hindu and Muslim nations (which, unfortunately, it later did in the Partition, creating Pakistan in 1947) and Gandhi’s funeral. When we visited Nehru’s home in Allahabad, we got to see where many of these historical deliberations were made, including Gandhi’s office.
Now, back to the food! While reading the book and menus in restaurants, I started making notes about what the names of the dishes meant. I was familiar with a few of the Hindi words, but I decided to make a handy guide for the next time we’re in an Indian restaurant and I blank on what “aloo mattar” is. 🙂
I’ll explain more about our cooking classes and share a few recipes in part 2 of this post.
Vegetables—There were many fresh vegetable stands on the street. Potatoes are used a lot, along with garlic, onions and chili peppers. Our cooking host said that if her children wanted a dish with peas, they had to shuck them the night before (no frozen peas here!). We also saw mustard greens with their yellow flowers growing in Nepali fields; we later ate this seasonal green in a Nepali cooking class.
Legumes—Cheap and filling! We had a great variety of dal dishes, spiced in many ways.
Dairy—We saw a lot of dairy used in Indian cooking. Milk was boiled in a huge pot and sold on the street. Yogurt, cream, butter and paneer is made fresh daily.
Meat—Most of the castes in India are vegetarian, but a few are not. They eat chicken, fish, wild boar and mutton. The Nepalese eat buffalo (which bears relation to the cow), but the Indians do not.
Grains—The base for every meal. The rice was flavorful (I’m not a rice fan), but we especially liked trying the different types of bread. The only kind we had tried previously was naan. Now, roti is our favorite! And stuffed paratha. And masala dosa. And pakori. Yum!
We ordered some basic Indian dishes for breakfast. Breakfast is not a big meal. Top is poori bhaji, fry bread and curry. On the bottom is stuffed paratha with spicy pickled vegetables.
Sweets—Many of the sweets were dairy based—condensed milk, milk, ghee. Usually not too sweet. Barfi sounds terrible, but it’s so heavenly. Heaven must be made of milk, don’t you think?
Writing this post made me hungry! What’s your favorite Indian dish?