Food

Tasting Touraine

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Welcome to the 4th and final post about my 5 week sojourn in Tours, France. Saving the best for last, it’s all about the wonderful food and drink I managed to sample. It’s hard to go wrong with any French cuisine, but there are a nearly infinite number of local and regional specialties to try. Food production in France is heavily protected and you will often see products labeled either AOC or AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée, and Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée). The labelling applies to food like cheese, wine, and certain cured meats, as well as any other regional specialty. AOP is more broadly European, while AOC is explicitly French (I think?). My understanding is that the regulations for AOC are a little more strict, but both guarantee that the product is made with the standards set by the region to preserve the integrity of the product and taste. This includes everything from where the animals can be raised, what they can be fed, how they can be milked (or slaughtered), where the fruit can be grown, the genetic strain of the produce, the time and method of harvesting, and all of that before you even get to how the food is then processed, packaged and stored! They take their regional specialties very seriously here.

My school was just off the main square in Old Tours and so I got to walk through it every day. I would go to local boulangerie for breakfast and/or lunch, sampling a wide array of pastries and sandwiches. My favorite sandwich in France remains the butter, salami, and cornichon on baguette, but I have enjoyed an array of sandwiches with versions of butter, pork products, cheeses, and even smoked salmon. There are also a lot of restaurants on the square, everything from traditional French to dumplings, sushi, tacos, burgers, and even an Afghani restaurant! Tours is both a tourist town and a university town, so it’s full of variety. 

Bakeries

A simple bakery (boulangerie) may have 10+ different types of bread which are baked fresh every day and must follow the strict laws for quality and freshness. Bread must be baked on the premises where it is sold, and may only contain 4 main ingredients (flour, water, salt & yeast) with the exceptional addition of seeds, nuts, dried fruits, or chocolate. Because it is made without preservatives, the bread must be eaten with a day or two at most.

Boulangerie also sell pastries (patisserie), which includes everything from simple croissant and pain au chocolate to various types of tarts and cakes, all of which must also be fresh and preservative free. The best part about boulangerie is the freshness and quality of the food, but following that, the prices are very reasonable. A baguette is often less than 1€, and other types of bread are weighed out by the kilo. Treats like a pain au chocolate (often called a chocolate croissant in English) are usually a between 1-1.50€, and more complex desserts like tarts and cakes between 3-4€ per serving. Thirdly, the boulangerie do not restrict food sales to lunch and dinner hours like restaurants. They sell food from open to close. In addition to bread and sweets, they offer sandwiches and savory pastries like quiche at any time (before 7pm). This is especially useful for tourists who may not be accustomed to restaurant hours in France where no food is served between 3-7pm.

I visited a boulangerie pretty much every day for a sandwich and pastry. It can be a lot of fun to try all the different options, and see the interpretations of the same dishes from one bakery to the next. Many even offer a fixed menu of a sandwich, drink, and less expensive pastry (like an eclair) for 6-7€.

In addition to all the pastries I got at various bakeries around town, my school is also partnered with a pastry school, so sometimes we got extra treats from the pastry students. One week, a German couple were attending classes with us in town to visit their daughter who owns a patisserie and they brought boxes of her fine pastries to share with us. Another night, the sister pastry school hosted a party with tables laden with canapes and tiny bite size pastries. Heaven!

The one local pastry specialty is called Nougat of Tours. It’s not a nougat at all, it’s a cake. Specifically a “travel cake” made for easy transport and meant to stay fresh for several days (unlike bread and most other pastry which really needs to be eaten the same day).

In my quest for culinary experiences, I bought one to try, but I was a bit underwhelmed. It’s a cake with almond flour, dried fruits and apricot preserves, which should be lovely, and it’s definitely as good or better than most things you’d find in a US bakery, but after the beautiful apricot tarts and apple turnovers ate which were buttery and bursting with fruit and just the perfect amount of sweet with a hint of salt… This cake landed on the candy side of too sweet, and because the fruit used is dried and or in jam form, it lacks the pop of acidity and brightness in other fruit desserts. The cake itself was a bit dry (maybe that’s the “travel” quality?) but otherwise a nice texture.

After a couple of initial assessment bites, I ended up finishing it with some Comté cheese (a hard aged cheese that is rather sharp) which may or may not be blasphemous but it took the edge off the sweetness.

On my very last day of classes, the school’s field trip included a final trip to the pastry school where the students were sharing the results of their final exams. The five desserts we were privileged to taste included an excellent cheesecake with a grapefruit coulis, a chocolate cake, a chocolate flan (very new experience for me!), a strawberry cream tart with fresh mint, truly an inspired combination, and very most specially, an award winning 5 texture vanilla gâteau. This last creation is the brainchild of Chef Angelo Musa, who had come to the school as a guest instructor. It’s called the 100% Vanille and is served at high tea at the restaurant La Galerie inside the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris where it sells for 21€ a pop!

Restaurants

I don’t go to restaurants that often when travelling because they are more expensive, but they are fantastic and invariably both better and cheaper than any in the US. Years ago, I discovered the joy of the set menu (formule or prix fixe) where you can get an appetizer, main dish, and dessert for a fixed price by choosing from a more limited menu. In fact, you can usually find this combination for 25-30€ depending on where you are, and unless you have your heart set on a particular dish, the set menu that is chosen by the restaurant each day represents the food they most recommend and may even be based on fresh products they found in the market that morning. Ordering from the menu a la carte can set you back 50-60€ for the same amount of food! And don’t forget, in France, taxes and services are included in the price of the meal, so you don’t need to worry about tacking on an additional 20-30%.

I found a restaurant close to my school here in Tours that offers a lunch menu of main dish plus dessert for just 13.90€! I had steak lunches a few times as a break from my boulangerie sandwiches. It’s not a Michelin experience or anything, but it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to get good quality, well prepared food at extremely reasonable prices in this country. I enjoyed the desserts outside the patisserie, too. My long time favorite is the cafe gourmand, which features a selection of small bites of the restaurant’s daily dessert alongside a cup of espresso. There were also a number of ice cream and gelato shops with interesting flavors like raspberry-bergamot and rose.

Cheese

One of the best ways to explore local food specialties is to find ‘the Hall” (les Halles). It’s an indoor market space, like a mall but for high quality food vendors. In my second week, I discovered Les Halles. There I began my education in the food products local to the area, especially the cheese. The prices tend to be higher than the Carrefour (a grocery store), but the products are amazing and less expensive than eating at restaurants every day. It’s a good compromise that enables me to indulge in fantastic local products without breaking the bank.

The region around Tours is called Touraine, so you can see certain products labelled this way if they are local specialties. I started my cheese journey with Sainte-Maure de Touraine. It’s a light and creamy cheese made from goat’s milk (don’t knock it because you had bad chevre in another country). I fell head over heels in love with it and went back for more three times. Interestingly, the second time I bought it from a different shop and it was different! I had thought that the AOC/AOP labelling would mean that the products were all the same, but then I learned a whole new set of information about cheese.

Soft cheese made from raw milk (not pasteurized) does a wild thing as it ages… it liquifies. The French people I talked to about this did not approve of my use of the description of liquid, apparently it’s called creameaux (which I thought meant “creamy”?) In any case, you can see the clear differences in the textures of the younger Sainte-Maure and the slightly older one. I had to do some Googling to make sure my cheese hadn’t gone off (it hadn’t), but when I ate it, I was surprised to find that the flavor had also changed. The younger cheese with a single texture was light and slightly woodsy. The more aged version was significantly stronger with a more pungent flavor. I felt that I could eat the young cheese on its own, but I wanted some bread to support the older and stronger version. During the few days it took me to devour my log of cheese, I noticed it got runnier each day. Online reviews of the aged soft cheese (correctly called “ripe”) said that the more ripe (runnier) the better, but acknowledged that it was still a matter of personal taste. When I went back for my third purchase, I was able to ask the vendor about it, and he told me there are actually 3 ages for the Sainte Maure. I never even tried the oldest version! I guess that means I have to go back some day.

Since it’s not legal in the US to make soft cheeses from raw milk, I had never in my life encountered such a thing as “ripe” cheese. I’ve had aged hard cheeses aplenty and even taken a workshop in Amsterdam about the process, but it took some effort to learn to dive in to the runny soft cheese and enjoy it.

In addition to the Sainte-Maure, I also tried Brossauthym, a local sheep cheese made with thyme. It’s very very soft and has a wild toasted grain flavor alongside it’s rich and complex creaminess. It’s also a local specialty with strict rules. The sheep kept in special pastures with local grasses and wildflowers to graze on, and they aren’t even milked during lambing, limiting the supply to half the year. My piece was largely one texture when I cut the rind, but within a few days, it too was ripening and the flavor changed little by little. By the last day, at least half of the remaining cheese had oozed out of the rind and pooled at the bottom of the waxy cheese paper I stored it in.

Pouligny St Pierre is another goat cheese, but it’s pyramid shaped. The exterior of the one I purchased was very soft to the touch, not soft as in the opposite of firm, but soft like you want to pet it. It was a bit unnerving because “velvety” is supposed to be about mouthfeel, not touch when it comes to food, but peaches are kind of fuzzy and they taste good, so I went for it. It has a similar creamy nutty flavor to the Sainte-Maure but a bigger punch than the unripened version, enough so that after my initial taste, I decided it also needed to be eaten with bread.

The last local cheese I tried was Couronne Lochoise. Although it has a distinctive ‘crown’ shape, it is otherwise very similar in texture and flavor to the young Saint Maure. I enjoyed it immensely on its own, with fruit, and with bread.

I did eat some non-regional cheeses as well such as Comté and Tomme, but these are cheese which can have a lot of variety depending on how they are made and aged. They are not soft cheeses, so the aging process results in saltier more intense flavors getting drier the longer they age. Also, since they are hard cheeses, it is likely to be easier to find them outside of France because import requirements for hard cheese are generally easier than for soft. If you happen to be able to find either in your local cheese section, I highly recommend trying them out.

This cheese is a 3 year aged Comté. I found it hard to describe the flavor, but apparently so does everyone else. It’s a little creamy, a little nutty, a little salty, and goes with anything. Check out a professional description here: Link

Other non-Touraine cheeses I tried while in Tours include Grand Causses, which is variety of Tomme made from sheep’s milk, 3 months aged, fruity, nutty, woodsy, and firm; and St Nectaire Fermier Du Marechal, a cow cheese, pressed, and cellar aged, with mushroom, cream, straw flavors.

I also had a couple of cheese failures. My first grocery trip in Tours I bought some Pont-l’Évêque. I got this thinking it was in the same family as brie or camembert, but it was far too “stinky cheese” even for me. The online flavor profile is described as “pronounced, rustic farmyard”. Farmyard is right! The other cheese I tried but didn’t like was Fumaison, a smoked sheep cheese, which should have been great because I love both those things, but I couldn’t enjoy it. At first I thought it was just the crust/rind that had a flavor I disliked. It tasted almost like melted plastic, so much so I thought I accidentally ate part of the plastic wrap on my first bite. I tried it without the rind, and it was less immediately “nope”, but not actually a flavor I enjoyed.

I also learned some interesting things about cheese vocabulary and etiquette on this trip. French has a LOT more words to describe cheese than English does. My teacher gave me a vocabulary worksheet on my last day as a little souvenir. There’s also some pretty strict rules about eating a shared cheese at any kind of event. Different shapes of cheese must be cut in different ways and with different tools, partly in deference to the texture, but mostly to make sure that everyone gets a fair share of the best part of any cheese: the middle.

Wine

France is obviously famous for wine, but this is an expensive hobby. I looked into trying a wine tour, but most are over 100$ and require you to get yourself out to the countryside and back. I’ll keep looking, but until then, I’m mostly just sampling things by getting a glass at a restaurant, or other random encounters.

I am not a sommelier. I do not speak the language of wine flavors, so when people go on about notes of cherry or whatnot, I get a bit glassy-eyed. I love learning about the techniques of wine-making and I appreciate that there are complex flavors across different varieties, regions, and ages which people train for years to be able to distinguish and discuss, and I think that’s an amazing part of the human experience, but… I also sometimes just want to drink delicious wine.

I’m not a fan of wines which are very sweet or very dry, I prefer a middle range. I also do not like wines which may be described as “citrusy” (I do not like “citrus notes” in my beer, chocolate, or coffee either, so this comes as no surprise). I often find that wines from California (for one example) are too acidic for my tastes. On of the reasons I fell in love with the Argentinian Malbec was its buttery, velvety taste. So, while I can’t discuss my wine tastes in sommelier terms, I know in general that I’m looking for things which are neither sweet nor dry, that do not have too many tannins, and that never would be described by any citrus fruit. When I say a wine is delicious to me, this is usually what I mean.

I did have a look at the grocery store collection, and some small wine shops, but since I’m tragically under-educated when it comes to French wines, I was rather at a loss. I discovered what I like to think of as my “favorite” French wine several visits ago when I bought a glass with a dinner and was simply blown away. It’s called Viongier, and is a delightful white wine from the Rhone Valley. It’s recently become more popular outside of France, so I’ve seen it in shops in other countries from time to time. 

During my time in Tours, I got to try a Vouvray and two types of Chinon. Vouvray is a range of white wines grown in (surprise!) Vouvray, an area just outside of Tours in the Loire Valley. They make several different types of wines including, sweet, semi-dry, dry, and sparkling. What I had was called the Vouvray Cuveé Silex. Cuveé means vintage, and Silex refers to the stone and clay content of the soil where the grapes are grown, which impacts the final flavor. I was treated to a glass at the party hosted by the pastry school and managed to snap a photo of the bottle for later reference because I liked it so much.

Chinon is another nearby region in the Loire Valley, but it produces mostly red wines. The grape used for the reds is a Cabernet grape grown on clay-limestone or sandy-clay soil (again, affecting the end flavor compared with cabernet grapes grown elsewhere) and the wines are aged in large clay pots inside of local caves. Apparently, the clay jars increase the micro-oxygenation of the wine as it ages which results in a grape-forward flavor. The caves are at a constant temperature which is also necessary for properly aging the wine. I’m told that Chinon wines are popular abroad, so I’ll have to keep an eye out now that I know about it. I had a glass with a steak lunch and felt that it held up well to the rich red meat without being in any way acidic or tannin forward – bold, but mellow.

The other Chinon wine I got to try was a gift of Philippe Brocourt Chinon Chenin, one of the rare white wines from the Chinon region. One of my teachers introduced me to this wine since the vintner is a friend of his. I enjoyed the wine very much, and was surprised to see it listed as both very dry and very acidic when I researched it online. I didn’t feel like it came close to my limit for wine in terms of tannins or acidity, yet the French seemed to think that this was the top level. I tried to find the answer, but the internet tells me American wine is actually sweeter than EU wines. It’s also possible that the wines I buy in US shops have been stored improperly and oxidized, but it seems strange that such a thing would be so pervasive. Or it could be the balance of the tannins and acidity in CA wines is just not to my liking. One day, I may learn how to pick out a bottle of wine based on the description, but I’m afraid today is not that day.

Tasting My Way Around France

When I first started international tourism (about 10 years ago now), I was often too distracted by activities and sightseeing to think of stopping for food. Although my very first trip to France in 2015 was a culinary revelation, it’s taken me a long time to learn how to prioritize food tourism, and not just view eating as something I squeeze in between museums and waterfalls. Being able to stay in Tours for so long gave me a great opportunity to ease my way into understanding local and regional specialties. As my France trip continues to unfold, I look forward to reading about and eating more such delights along the way.

Paris in the Spring

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Despite the detour, this is still mainly a travel blog, so without further ado, I bring you a sunny day in April exploring Paris. The romantic ideal of Paris in the spring is perhaps more marketed to lovers, but having been to Paris both in spring and in summer, I can say I have a definite preference. The weather is better, the crowds are fewer, and if you go early enough in the spring, you get cherry blossoms! (For those looking for tips and advice, specific details about transportation and accommodation are at the end).

When I decided that I would spend a couple months in France, I knew I didn’t want to have Paris as my home base for a few reasons. The top being “oh my god it’s expensive”. The next being “it’s full of tourists”, and the last and perhaps most important: I wanted to see other parts of France. Nonetheless, every international flight into France lands in Paris, so although I would start classes in Tours on April 15th, the best price to fly was April 11th (several hundred dollars cheaper than the 12-14th). I decided that I’d rather spend the money in Paris, so I booked a dorm and planned a laid back day of viewing the gardens and eating delicious food.

Breakfast

Refreshed from my flight by a good night’s sleep, I headed into the city center to my favorite breakfast place in Paris: Angelina’s. I have gone to Angelina’s every time I’ve visited Paris for their amazing hot chocolate, even in the worst summer heat wave. For people who have only had packet hot chocolate, I can’t express my sympathies deeply enough. Some of you have been lucky enough to have real hot chocolate made from milk and chocolate (not a powder) and you begin to know the heights to which this beverage can soar. Those of us who have been graced by the chocolat chaud at Angelina’s know the celestial chocolate experience.

The last time I was in Paris in 2019, I made breakfast reservations because we had tickets to the museum and I wanted to make sure we were not rushed to finish eating. It turned out we didn’t need the reservations since most tables were still empty when we arrived. This year, Angelina’s website says they are no longer accepting reservations, and when I arrived, I discovered the otherwise totally empty sidewalk to be teeming with a crowd in line at my favorite breakfast spot. I queued up while I looked on my phone to see if there was some explanation. I was informed by my neighbors in line that the restaurant had recently become TikTok famous, which is why they themselves where there.

I’m never sure how to feel when a restaurant gets influencer famous. Many restaurants have actually been destroyed by fame induced crowds flocking in numbers that their small scale production process simply could not handle. Others have had to reduce the quality of their once famous dishes in order to keep up with the demand. I stood in line thinking that there must be another restaurant in Paris that had really good hot chocolate, and maybe it was time for me to try a new thing, when the line started moving. It only took perhaps 15-20 minutes before I was at my own table. The wait was considerably shorter than I would have expected at a restaurant in Paris. It may be that foreigners are accustomed to eating quickly, and tourists who had made Angelina’s a stop on an otherwise full day of activities were eager to get on.

I was fully prepared to order my breakfast in French (knowing I didn’t need to), and the server was very kind about it. Then I realized that about half the patrons in the dining room were Asian, and were all using English to communicate with the staff. I told my Korean students over and over again that English was the key to world travel, but it strange to see it in action here in Paris after struggling though my bad French on previous visits. Stereotypes about the Parisians persist, yet I have never known them to be anything but kind. It’s possible they appreciate the attempt to speak French more from native English speakers because of the stereotypes about English speakers being monolingual, but they seemed quite content to speak English with me and with every other tourist around.

When my order arrived, I was delighted to discover that despite the newfound TikTok fame, the quality of Angelina’s hot chocolate had not diminished in any way, and that the French cultural value of never rushing a diner at the end of a meal was still going strong. Regardless of the line at the door, everyone seated was fully welcome to spend as long as they liked savoring the thick chocolatey goodness and rich pastries. Bliss!

Jardin des Tuileries

An online search for cherry blossoms in Paris revealed that the largest grove of cherry trees was about 90 minutes on transit from my hostel, and after viewing the blossoms at some of Asia’s biggest collections, I doubted at the mere volume of trees would be a top draw for me in France. Instead, I opted for closer gardens with fewer trees where I could have a lovely stroll with less time in the Metro. My first stop was Jardin des Tuileries, right across the street from Angelina’s.

I like to come to this garden when I’m in Paris no matter what else I’m doing. My first time in Paris (2015), I ended up in Tuileries purely by accident, and ate a glorious sandwich next to a fountain with a view of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a memory that sticks in my mind because I felt in that moment that I had “made it”, that all my repeated struggles towards my dream of global travel and daydream freedom had landed me in this garden, with the best sandwich I’d ever eaten, basking in the sun and watching the Eiffel tower in the distance. I like to come and visit the park and relieve that memory whenever possible.

There were plenty of people, both locals and tourists, enjoying the unseasonably warm sunny spring day in the park. I ambled around and taking photos of the pink blossomed trees, stopping occasionally to take photos for groups who were struggling to use the timer on their phones or get everyone into one selfie. My feet were still swollen from the flight and my back hurt, but none of that could impact the growing sense of ease and contentment I experienced just discovering that I had once again “made it”. I survived the COVID induced lockdowns, I took my years of isolation and I packed them up in a box in the closet and I once again embraced travel for joy.

Jardin des Plantes

The next garden I visited was the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden that I had not been to before. It also houses a small zoo, and some indoor exhibits, but I was there for cherry blossoms! Priorities.

When I found the area where the park’s cherry trees grow, I was initially disappointed. It seemed that all the “white” (very pale pink) trees had finished blooming the week before I arrived. There were four darker pink blossomed trees of prodigious size, but they too seemed to be at season’s end. Thankfully, that was an illusion. These enormous trees look full of fading blossoms from a distance, but once you step under the sprawling canopy, you have entered the bower of a magical fairy land. Queen Titania herself might set up a divan there and feel entirely appropriately decorated. 

It was like stepping into a snow globe of pink petals. The branches swept from high above all the way down to the ground, cutting off the view of the outside world. Fallen petals covered the ground as well, resulting in a 360° sphere of pink. I lost track of how much time I spent under just one tree, discovering new delights at every angle I looked or aimed my camera. When the spring breeze came by and the petals fluttered around us like pink snow, everyone stopped their photo posing and gasped in awe.

I visited the other three cherry trees and then branched (haha) outward to look at other plants and flowers. In early spring, there aren’t as many blooming, but I found some other pink trees, some purple irises and a garden with enormous blooms I do not know the name of.

Un Pause

Still jetlagged and walking for hours, I decided to stop at a sidewalk cafe. I couldn’t find any coffee places with seating near the gardens, but I did find a little bistro from which I ordered a delightful craft cocktail. As I sat in the shade of the awning with my drink and watched the daily life of Paris around me, a quote from Anthony Bourdain came to my mind:

“Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap…Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. See? It’s easy.”

― Anthony Bourdain, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

However much I wish it had not taken me 4 visits to Paris to learn this, I don’t think anyone could have convinced me on my first trip that I shouldn’t be running around trying to see the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the art museums, the catacombs, the cemeteries, Montmartre, and every other cool thing in Paris. The tourists I talked to in line at Angelina’s and whose photos I helped take in the garden were just as eager to squeeze in as many sights as possible. I can’t blame them, but I’m very grateful that I finally reached a point where I can just enjoy sitting at a sidewalk table with a drink.

Jardin du Luxembourg

My last stop on the way back to my hotel, Jardin du Luxembourg, was also a garden that I had not previously visited. I found it to be much more like a park than a garden with plenty of places to walk and sit and play sports, but fewer flowerbeds or decorative trees. Most of the gardens in Paris have lawns (tapis vert, or green carpets) that are cultivated to within an inch of their lives that no one is permitted to walk or sit on (thank you, Louis XIV). It creates a beautiful landscape, but leaves one yearning to run barefoot in the grass. Luxembourg had many sweeping no-touch lawns, but added a sitting lawn! (There is another good sitting lawn just in front of the Eiffel Tower). Large blocks of soft dark green grass just for lounging around or having picnics on.

Given the beautiful weather that day, all the parks were full, but it was not hard to find a spot to plop down and enjoy the cool green lawn. I watched the people and the pigeons. Every pigeon I had seen all day seemed to be unusually plump and healthy. I’ve seen pictures and videos of show pigeons, but street pigeons are so often sickly and deformed that it’s become a trope, people calling them “rats with wings” or “cooing plague pits”. And yet an animal is only as healthy as it’s ecosystem. If pigeons in New York are malnourished, diseased, and deformed, it is not a result of the natural state of pigeons, but rather a reflection of the life they are forced to live. It really made me think about how much healthier Paris must be as an ecosystem than the vast majority of other dense urban cities I’ve visited. It also gave me a new appreciation for the presence of squab in French cuisine.

La Fin

As the day drew to a close, I realized I had made no plans for dinner, and that the combination of Saturday plus glorious weather meant more people than usual would be going out to eat. From my seat in the grass, I searched online for nearby options and snagged a last minute reservation at a restaurant across the street. Once more, the staff were very friendly and happy to speak in English (where does the stereotype of rude Parisians come from?) I ordered the daily special of duck confit, with a bière picon (a beer mixed with picon, a sweet orange liquor, not available in the US, I’m afraid), and for dessert, a chocolate cake and coffee with bailey’s and Chantilly. I may have gone a little overboard, but it was delightful to sit on the indoor balcony and look out the restaurant’s giant picture window at the garden across the road while dining on top notch food and drink. Not an everyday occurrence, and I think a worthwhile treat to end my day in Paris.

The next day, I repacked my bags and caught the bus to Tours, the small city in the Loire Valley that was to become my home and my school for the next 5 weeks. Stay tuned for more on life in the Loire!

Planes, Trains, & Hotels

If you are interested in the practical side of this trip, this Post Script is for you. Here I have attempted to include some useful information and links about airfare, public transit, and accomodation.

When searching for airfare, I was lucky enough to find an off brand company that didn’t suck called French Bee. Their cheapest package is very similar to Spirit or Ryan (no luggage, no meals, etc.), but the price difference for the upgrade to a more inclusive fare was only about 40$. I ended up with a normal international luggage allowance, an inflight meal, the ability to choose my seats, and the no-fee change policy.

The Paris public transit system is good, but confusing to outsiders. I have an old Navigo card which was still valid and could be topped up, but my research revealed there is now an app which allows you to buy tickets online and scan your phone via RF/NFC rather than having to carry a card and top it up at ticket kiosks. The app for local Paris transit is My Navigo Tickets, and the intercity train system is Bonjour RATP. It is a big improvement since my previous visit. The Navigo app also offers a good trip planner, showing the best transit routes to get from where you are to where you want to be. Sadly, after you find your route, and press the “buy ticket” button, it just takes you to the general ticket page with no indication of what you need for the journey you have planned.

Why does this matter? Paris has 5 zones, and transit tickets are sold in groups of zones. The more zones, the higher the price. I want there to be a way to easily see what zone you and your destination are in, but I haven’t found it. The last time I was in Paris, I just talked to the ticket seller about the places we wanted to go, and she knew what zones I needed. In general, if you’re sticking to the city center, 1-2 is enough, but there are some high demand tourist spots in zone 3. And if you’re staying further out to save on hotels, you may even be in 4-5. Transit to and from the airports and Disney Paris have their own special rates.

Additionally, passes are available by day, week, or month, but the week is Saturday to Sunday, no matter when you purchase it (not 7 days from the day of purchase). Is your head spinning yet? Do you suddenly want a taxi? Well, just remember the taxi rates from the airport are 50$+, but the bus rate is about 12$. Taxis in the city traffic can be difficult to catch, drivers may not speak English, and they may rely on your poor knowledge of fees and laws to overcharge you (this happens everywhere, it’s not unique to Paris). Transit trips cost about 2€ each or a day pass of unlimited rides for about 8€. I like the unlimited rides because I never have to worry about transfers or having to take extra transit if I get lost (which happens at least once a trip).

On to hotels! Paris is definitely one of the top most expensive places to spend a night. Before COVID, my usual travel budget was 100$ a day split 30/30/30 (hotel/food/entertainment) with a small extra cushion. Even then, I couldn’t find a room in Paris for 30$, I couldn’t find a bed in a dorm for 30$! There are a few youth hostels where, if you happen to be a young man, you can bunk down in a 12-16 bed dorm with other young men for around 35$ a night. If you would like a female-only dorm, be prepared for the pink-tax. All-girls dorms cost on average 10$ more than the male or mixed dorms. I stayed in a mixed dorm in Paris once, and it was fine. I was safe. No one was skeezy or anything. But, the older I get the harder it is for me to spend time in dorms. I find I need a private space to decompress at the end of a long day.

In post-COVID inflation-land, room prices in Paris seem to have risen (although to their credit, not as much as US based inflation). The best deal I found was a bed in an all-girls dorm for 50$ a night. (are there cheaper? Yes, but then you start getting issues with cleanliness, quality, safety, and distance from the transit stations). Hotels and hostels are getting better at tricking the algorithms to promote their place in search engines and reservation websites. It’s important to read real reviews (good and bad), see what people liked and didn’t (it might be things that don’t matter to you), and look at a good map to see not just how far the hotel is from a landmark or transit station, but also, how you can get there. 

It can take hours of searching to find a good price, a good location, and a good quality, but the time you spend in advance is worth it not to have unexpected unpleasant surprises after you arrive. My decision to take a dorm bed at the Eklo also related to factors like the photos of the dorm rooms, the reviews by other guests, and the closeness of the bus stop. I knew it would be hard to be really comfortable in a dorm, but I was willing to take it for just two nights.

I ended up eating at the rooftop restaurant for dinner the night I arrived. I am always skeptical of eating in a place so clearly designed to cater to tourists. High end hotels have amazing restaurants, but hostels tend to focus on alcohol and cheap food. The Eklo partners with a small chain restaurant called French Kiss which had a good looking website, and I was too worn out from the flight to go anywhere else. The view was stunning, and the food surpassed my expectations for hostel restaurant fare, and the staff were all friendly and quite fluent in English.

They Say You Can Never Go Home

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

“When I’m talking and someone else is listening, I am invariably left with the uneasy suspicion that I’ve made myself quite tiresome. If one is really bursting with things to say and has no one to say them to, perhaps the only recourse is to go forth and accomplish earth-shattering deeds, so that when the time comes for an autobiography, one need no longer be concerned that no one will take any notice. This is a childish fantasy, of course, of which I have been disabused as I have slowly come to realize that I have scant hope of becoming a celebrated public figure worthy of a best-selling autobiography. Better, then, to write a little about myself and let off some steam, so that I don’t become an insufferable chatterbox when I get old.”

Written on Water by Eileen Chang,  Chinese-born American essayist, novelist, and screenwriter
— written in Japanese occupied Shanghai and first published in 1944.

My last post was more than 8 months ago as I left Senegal to return to the US. I always seem to have a hard time writing when I’m in the US because it doesn’t feel like “travel” or “adventure” to me the way being in other countries does. When I return to Seattle, I focus on enjoying my time with friends and family, having quiet daily experiences of shared meals or parallel play, and even when blog-worthy things do happen, the stories feature people who trust me not to share their private lives online. So, I end up not writing at all.

When I made my plans to return to America in 2023 I told myself and others that I would stay for at least 6 months and not more than 12. I looked forward to it. I felt that I had been away for so long that a quick pass wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to “water my roots”. I wanted to bask in the everyday mundanities of my friends’ lives, to see the seasons change, to celebrate the holidays of my childhood. Being a long term expat means never giving up on the idea that our country of birth is our true home, while also never quite being as comfortable there as once were.

I wanted to work in the US, not only for income, but also to give my days structure. COVID era Korea and the schedule nightmare of Senegal left me for years in a state of temporal blur where days ran together and there never seemed to be a good enough reason to do anything. During my sojourn in the US, I neither wanted nor needed to work full time. My goal was to soak up my community, not to sink into a daily grind. A part time job would keep me from decimating my savings, and give me a regular routine, but leave me with plenty of free time to enjoy being home.

In reality, I accepted a full-time position teaching an English immersion course for immigrants and refugees. The position came with a lot of challenges, but possibly more rewards. Being back in a physical classroom with a regular schedule and the ability to form a relationship with my students was so good. Learning the bureaucracy of the WA state college system… less so. (drawing of me teaching courtesy of a student’s daughter. I was wearing a floral patterned mask, not speaking with a mouthful of marbles, lol)

Meanwhile, when it came to housing, I knew I didn’t want to rent my own apartment since that would mean committing to a full year lease, and likely cost 1500$+ a month. Therefore, I arranged to move into the spare bedroom of a former roommate. After just 3 months of living together, it became clear that whatever had changed for us since our last cohabitation made a reprise totally impossible. I moved in with some other friends of mine who agreed to let me stay at least through my current work commitments. (pic of the backyard below) That beautiful home with a healthy family and 2 bright and loving kids was an absolute balm to my soul after the back to back combo of the pandemic isolation and the Senegal experience.

Nonetheless, it was always destined to be a short term solution, and I had to start seriously considering my options: renew my contract at this reasonably good job and work on finding a place of my own in the USA or bounce?

Reverse Culture Shock

Coming back to a life in the USA isn’t as simple as it sounds, and however much I may love my home and my community, there is no going backward when it comes to the march of time which wreaks changes in both society and personal growth. When you travel, you leave your familiar surroundings and go to a place where you are shaped by different forces and grow into a new version of yourself. While you are gone, the place you left behind also continues to evolve, shaped by local and world events, so when you return, you no longer fit. It is uncomfortable, and often more unnerving than the experience of not fitting in with a foreign culture. Abroad, you know you are the alien, but at home a part of your brain is constantly telling you that you are SUPPPOSED to fit here. It’s a dysmorphia of the whole sense of self.

But Kaine, you’ve been back to America since you left in 2014, you saw the changes as they happened! Yes and no. I saw America during my vacations the same way any tourist might see a country they visit for only a few weeks. I focused on excursions and experiences, the only real difference was that I made excursions of visiting friends and family rather than visiting tourist attractions. I planned sailing days and camping trips and cookouts. I went to house parties and dragged people out to karaoke nights. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the cost of groceries or what was happening in politics. For those few weeks at a time, America wasn’t my “home” it was my holiday, and it wasn’t until I was back in my home abroad that I returned to viewing the US economy and politics through the lens of the internet.

This is an excellent article about the experiences of long term expats returning home, and honestly reading it made me feel both seen and called out.

“Americans often develop new attitudes, values and perceptions as a result of their travels. These can often cause stress on reentry.

  • I see America through a sharper lens, both its strengths and weaknesses. I no longer take this country for granted and I really resent unbalanced criticism by Americans who haven’t experienced the rest of the world.
  • I see the validity of at least one other culture. That makes me realize that the American way is not always “right” or “best.” I am impatient with people who criticize other countries and blindly accept everything American causing them to never question anything.
  • I have an unclear concept of home now.
  • I place more value on relationships than other Americans seem to. People here are too busy for one another.
  • Everyone in America is always so stressed and frantic. They never relax. I feel like I can’t relate to others

The Economy

It’s normal to become critical during the second phase of culture shock. I’ve published about these effects before, and the article above is great for explaining how it manifests in reverse culture shock. Nonetheless, even while I was still in the first (honeymoon) phase during August & September, I started feeling the negative impact of some big changes in the US.

I needed a car because it’s almost impossible to navigate American cities via public transit, but I was absolutely shocked at the prices, even on used cars! In 2015 when I was in the US for a few months doing the paperwork for my Korean work visa, I bought a car for $1,750, drove it while I was in country, then sold it for the purchase price when I left. In late 2023, I couldn’t find a used car for less than about 7k$, and those were very sketchy.

My plan to buy a clunker for under 3k and sell it on to a poor college student went up in smoke. I ended up buying a used car from a dealership and hoping that the good gas mileage makes up for the loss in sticker price when I sell it back.

Then there are the grocery stores. I can’t say exactly why, but sometime after I moved to Korea in 2016, American grocery stores became increasingly overwhelming. I can’t even say it’s the size, because I have successfully gone to large box stores like Home Plus and Carrefour in other countries and not felt the pressure that American stores give me. I remember walking into a Safeway in 2019 and just staring at the wall of ice cream for a full 5 minutes, totally flummoxed by the array of nearly identical products. 

When WA grocery stores became liquor sellers (2012), they had to figure out how to add new products without removing existing ones. The eventual solution was that many stores made the aisles smaller so they could incorporate more shelf space in the same square footage. The aisles got narrower, but stores didn’t replace their shopping carts with smaller versions. By 2023, the sensory overwhelm had gone from merely being too many choices and no way to choose, to a feeling of being totally lost and crowded in by impatient and frustrated shoppers in narrow aisles with giant carts which made passing an Olympic sport.

The products and packaging were unfamiliar, I struggled to assess healthy and frugal choices. Products that I did know had somehow doubled in price, overtaking average inflation at light-speed. In 2008, a person could buy a whole roasted chicken for $5, eat it for several meals AND make soup. An organic bird would be $7-9. Now the conventional chickens are $10+ and the organic/farm raised $12-18. In the end, I found that the only store which didn’t make me want to run away screaming was Trader Joe’s, and I did 99% of my shopping there.

Not only grocery stores, but the nature of in-person shopping had changed across the board. In-store service and options had become extremely limited. Once 24 hour shops had become practically European in their hours, and stores were chronically understocked and underserviced. Several times when I popped into a shop to pick up a small item or to look for something I could touch, measure, handle, or try on before buying, I was told plainly by the clerk that it was out of stock and I should look on Amazon.

Eating out was another huge sticker shock. My favorite Seattle staple food is pho (the Vietnamese noodle soup). At my graduation lunch in 2007, we could get a big filling bowl of rich meaty pho for about $5. Now a bowl of pho is $12-15. I went to a couple of what I would call mid-range independent (not chain) restaurants and dropped $80-100 on a single meal (after taxes and tip). Many places I lived and visited abroad, you could get a high-end meal out for between $25-40 (inclusive of taxes and service).

mahalie from International District, Seattle, Washington, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Food

Food remained a contentious issue for me the whole time I was in the US. In the past, I have had food intolerances which contributed to chronic inflammation, pain and fatigue. I stopped eating dairy and wheat back in the early 2000s and it made a huge difference. Starting in 2008, I experimented with eating wheat and dairy in other countries as compared to in the US. Country after country, as long as I avoided imported US foods, I could eat what I liked and feel fine. However, in the US, it seemed my body only tolerated organic wheat & dairy products, and conventional ones still resulted in inflammation (a general flu-like bleh feeling all over). I thought as long as I managed my bread and milk, food in the US would be easy enough. My body laughs at me when I think like this.

It has been widely discussed that the quality of food in the US is very different from that of other countries. There are hundreds of articles about pesticides, hormones, preservatives, and processing chemicals out there you can read, and I’m not going to recap that here other than to say it is a well documented issue that food in the USA is problematic and contributing to many health problems for her citizens. (pic below, my first and only experience with Chicago deep-dish pizza)

After a couple of weeks of eating novelty junk treats and processed frozen meals, my body protested loud and clear. I had to be pickier and pickier about what I would eat and eventually, food that was too sugary or over-processed simply stopped tasting like food. I remember taking a slice of a cake that looked so delightful, then on my first mouthful wondering how it tasted so awful. The cake was sugary and vaguely spongy, while the frosting tasted like it was actually made of melted plastic. The people around me seemed to enjoy it. I visited a friend’s house where they made a meal I would have made myself 10 years ago and been happy with. I took a small amount to be polite, but again, my body made sure I knew that what I was eating had only a passing resemblance to food. 

Not only did I feel constantly disgusted by the majority of US food, I felt bad about complaining or even abstaining when others around me were eating, enjoying, and offering to share. Sharing food is one of the most fundamental social bonding activities humans can engage in, and my friends, many of whom are still in financial struggles, wanted to share their food with me. How could I tell them that my body didn’t think what they were eating was food? (pic below, a Thanksgiving “turkey” made of Baskin Robbins ice cream and frosting, just one example of the absurd food-options that abound in the USA)

And, despite my caution around eating, and reintroducing an exercise regimen, I GAINED weight in the US. It is my belief that the food itself was the bigger part of the problem, but I also tend to overindulge in sugar when I am stressed, a condition that pervades the life of any American trying to achieve work-life balance. I don’t know what it would really take for me to be food-healthy in the US long term, but I expect it would require a LOT more work and money than would be required to eat a basically healthy diet almost anywhere else.

The People

I had to confront the feeling of failing to fit not just in the larger cultural sense, but also among my own friend/chosen family community. I changed and grew, and so did they. Most of them for the better, thankfully, but in all cases they weren’t quite sure where to put me in their lives when I was in town for months rather than weeks. When I was only available for 12 days, it made sense for people to rearrange their schedules for a unique event, so vacations were filled with revelry and reunion. However, I feared that living there would make my presence mundane, banal, and that my friends would think there would be time later, so they wouldn’t make time now. Thankfully, that fear did not come to pass. Although some people I saw only once or not at all during the 8 month stay, many others made time for me or invited me to planned events at least once a week. I treasure my community.

“General Challenges

  • People at home aren’t as interested in hearing about your foreign experience as you are in telling them about it . 
  • You aren’t as interested in hearing about what has happened at home as they are in telling you about it. 
  • You miss the tight-knit foreign affairs community you were a part of.

I have learned over the years that people stuck in one country (especially Americans) have strong feelings about listening to my adventures. Some of them love it, they see me as their own personal documentary, and it’s delightful. Others are busy comparing their lives to mine and dislike hearing about what I’m doing abroad. I try to respect everyone’s wishes in this, but it can be hard since 95% of the last 10 years of my life has been abroad and I can’t tell stories about my life experiences without involving travel.

Whichever way it goes, it’s massively different from talking to other expats. I had almost forgotten how much I loved swapping stories among the expat community when I ran into another long-term expat at a party in early April. I realized that it was the first time since coming back to the US that I felt comfortable talking about my life abroad for more than a few minutes or in any detail.

It felt like I was holding my breath around my friends and family. I talked about my American experiences with them all the time, shopping, work, things happening at the home I lived in or with other friends’ lives, but I minimized my expat-self, trying to fit into the shape that was left for me. I don’t think my friends consciously asked me to do this, and many would be shocked or saddened to learn that I had been suppressing a part of myself for their comfort. I know they love me and I chose to change the way I interacted with them to make them comfortable because I love them. Call it masking, call it code switching — choosing to focus on a different part of my life and activities when I’m with different people is normal. However, it has made me realize that I can’t live with ONLY this kind of interaction. I need the expat community too, which makes long term residence in the US challenging.

The other difference I noticed in people was more general, society at large. I don’t mean the blatantly obvious “us vs them” divide in America that you cannot help but see if you follow any news at all, but a quieter and less politically motivated change. The shared trauma of COVID changed everyone in some way. I cannot speak for the whole country, but in and around Seattle, people were more closed off, less trusting, less willing to be open.

It’s part of my mental health journey to notice nice things and to make the world around me better than I found it, so I trained myself in the habit of talking to strangers, offering compliments and help whenever I can. I made a game of my daily commute to see how many drivers I could be nice to each day as a way of fending off road rage. (strangely, the commute was one aspect of American life that didn’t bother me) Yet I found that often my overtures of friendliness toward strangers elicited a mixture of confusion and even suspicion before giving way to acceptance and relief.

I am far from the first or only person to notice this trend. A simple Google search will reveal many think pieces searching for reasons why Americans are becoming less social and more isolated, most stressing the dangers for our collective mental and physical health.

My friends who had regularly exchanged hosting dinner and game nights had stopped during lock-down and never re-started. The feeling I got was that the inertia of staying home was so strong that going out required a more special occasion than “dinner and board games”. I also tried for a little while to make some new friends or even (gasp) date. I met people who seemed nice, who I was happy to spend time with and get to know, but they had no ambition to do anything different in their lives. They wanted a new friend or a partner who would fit seamlessly into their existing lifestyles without necessitating a change of habits or hobbies.

People know they crave connections, but seem unwilling or unable to sacrifice even the tiniest bit of safety and comfort for the privilege. People who have been isolated for long periods of time can absolutely suffer increased social anxiety. When I floated this theory past an expat friend of mine who has been back in the US about 18 months longer than me, she said it wasn’t exactly social anxiety, but that everyone felt “tight”, and I understood exactly what she meant. I sympathize with how difficult and uncomfortable they must feel, but it’s both sad and horrible to see.

The American Dream?

Americans are also feeling a lot of financial anxiety. Almost all my coworkers were working overtime, some as much as double time (two full time class loads!) and felt completely unable to stop, either from the weight of their financial obligations (high cost of living) or from a fear that setting any boundaries for work-life balance would cost their job. I had coworkers who were astonished (and envious) that I simply didn’t read work emails outside the office. Others who fretted and stressed that their quarterly contracts might not be renewed despite the massive teacher shortage and high demand. The insecurity was so strong that even though everyone I talked to had noticed certain problems, no one wanted to speak up about them. (Did I? Yes, but it was neither easy nor consequence free. Still glad I did it.)

It was also hard for me to reconcile the gulf between online calls for social justice with the fear people experienced of getting personally involved. Having watched the struggle for civil rights and equity in the US take place almost entirely online for years, it had seemed to me like more people were getting involved, but after living in the US for a few months, I am concerned that the involvement is performative. People can safely speak out online and issue company memos to make themselves feel involved (or if you’re more pessimistic, to make themselves look better to others), yet when it comes to real practical solutions for enacting these policies, no one seems to want to take action. The college that claimed the top ranking for social justice, equity, and accommodation in the region had completely failed its non-English speaking students in this regard and when it was pointed out, they simply changed the subject. Only one person in the whole administration ever actually admitted to me they were failing in that area, and they still didn’t know what can be done about it.

To me, the fear of getting involved in social issues seems like an extension of the same fear that is preventing people from forming deeper social connections, and that fear feels to me like the fear of a child who has skinned a knee falling off their bicycle and doesn’t want to ever ride again. “No, no, walking or being driven is safe and comfortable, the bike is too risky, too painful, I don’t really need it anyway.” Yet, we tell our children to get back on the bike because we know that the better part of life isn’t about falling, it’s about getting back up, and that while it may not be strictly necessary for a safe and comfortable life, the joy of riding a bike with the wind in your hair, and the feeling of freedom it brings is worth the risk of a skinned knee.

Get Back on the Bike

The decision for to strike out again was unexpectedly difficult. My emotional and mental state had become a mélange of post-Covid insecurity, second-hand PTSD, and of course – reverse culture shock induced depression.

My “secondary trauma” (also called second-hand trauma and compassion fatigue) came close on the heels of all the work I did to process my own primary trauma. Secondary trauma is what happens when you are repeatedly exposed to other people’s primary trauma. It’s usually care providers like doctors and psychiatrists who treat trauma sufferers that get this, but it turns out aid workers in developing countries and teachers of students fleeing violence are 100% exposed to secondary trauma. Oh look, it’s me.

This combo meant that my overall resilience was lower, my anxiety was higher, I was less able to focus on new ideas, got tired more easily, had brain fog, and difficulty generating enthusiasm. Even after I decided that what I needed was to travel for joy (rather than work), I had trouble feeling excited or engaging in research and planning. This was especially devastating since prior to COVID, one of my favorite activities was researching and planning my global vacations. (the color coded spreadsheets brought me joy!)

One of my friends also pointed out that I was likely reluctant to make plans to leave because I was in a safe and comfortable place. There simply wasn’t anything uncomfortable (enough) for me to run away from anymore. What a wild notion. I’ve known for several years (thanks therapy) that when I started this journey I was running away from who I was in the US at least as much as I was running toward adventures and experiences in other countries. On this visit, armed with the new tools of my COVID-isolation induced therapy work, I was better able to be a person that I liked while in America. And due to quirks of fate, I found myself living in a home that had the kind of “good enough” parenting and comfortable easy love that I dreamed of having in my own childhood home. Who would want to give that up?

Yet as I cast my gaze across the sea once more, the idea of going to France for the spring took root in my brain. The lack of enthusiasm and general feelings of ennui made implementing any sort of plan quite challenging. I dragged my feet on making any decisions or booking anything for so long. People would ask me if I was excited to go to France, and I would lie and say “yes”, while inside I had a nightmare vision that I would do all this work and spend all this money and somehow arrive in France but be just as unenthusiastic as I was in Seattle. It was an act of faith on my part that I would do the minimum needed to embark, and that my sense of adventure would catch up to me at some point. And now, here I am in Tours, in the Loire Valley, taking French lessons and eating at a boulangerie every day. 

Although it took weeks (maybe months?) for me to imagine and enact my plan, it only took a few days after my arrival for the fog to lift and my enthusiasm to come rushing back, but I don’t think it was the change of scenery (or quality of food) alone that performed this seeming miracle. Every single person I have met and interacted with in this historical French city has been open, kind, generous, and trusting with me. At first, I too was surprised, suspicious and even resistant, but when I let myself relax into it, I found that I could take joy even in the simple act of ordering lunch.

I may not be able to change the economy or the political landscape of my country, but I do have the power to change myself. I can decide to take risks and to be open to new experiences, even when I don’t feel like it. My favorite part of all my adventures has always been the people, and yet the people I love most are suffering in isolation. Perhaps the way forward is to put in some work towards rebuilding openness, connection, and wonder, and trust that the absence of an instant reward is not indicative of failure. Thanks to a combination of the support of my chosen family, my willingness to work toward a goal in the absence of enthusiasm, and the relentless kindness of a whole bunch of strangers, I’m finally feeling less “tight” and more excited for the future. I hope you can, too.

Aventure en France, me voici!

9 Days in Taiwan 2/2: City Scenes & Foodie Dreams

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Taiwan part 2: In addition to beautiful natural scenery and a wide variety of temples, I meandered around some of the more famous urban settings such as the “old streets”, night markets, subway stations, urban parks, and street art. Winding through every Taiwanese experience is the food, unique and delicious. I often forget to eat while out doing tourist activities, but here the food IS the tourist activity, so come hungry!

City Scenes

Taipei

Shifen Old Street 十分老街
I went here as part of a day tour which also included the Geo-park, the waterfall, and the other famous old street, Jiufen. Old streets are very heavily curated quaint “old timey” feeling places that are actually tourist traps, but they’re fun tourist traps, with good food and excellent instagram photo-ops, so very worth going to. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying inauthentic-yet-fun attractions.

Shifen is famous for it’s train-tracks and the lanterns. It’s one of the only places you can send off a flying lantern, and probably the only place you can do it while standing on working railroad tracks. It’s a very small place, you won’t spend a day there, but it’s fun to walk around and see the small shops, specialty local foods, and of course, the lanterns.

Jiufen Old Street 九份老街
My views this day were severely inhibited by a very dense fog. This is advertised as the place that inspired the art of Spirited Away, but my guide told me that Miyazaki said he’s never been here. When I followed up later, what I found was this interview he gave (sorry, it is NOT in English) where he says he bases the scenes of his movies on his own surroundings in Japan, not in Taiwan.

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Jiufen does bear a striking resemblance to the city scenes in Spirited Away, but it is purely coincidence. I actually find it very sad that the Taiwanese tourism industry is promoting this untruth to attract visitors because Jiufen is amazing in it’s own right both because it is beautiful, and because of all the amazing food. People who go only because of it’s nonexistent connection to the movie come away disappointed instead of just enjoying Jiufen for what it is.

If you’re in Taipei, it’s certainly worth the visit. We took a city bus to the top of the road and walked back down to the tour bus parking lot. It’s about 200 stairs and only one way, so you won’t see different sites walking both up and down. I have a lot more to say about Jiufen in the “Foodie Dreams” section of this post below.

Taichung

Xinshe Castle 新社莊園古堡
This is a fantasy resort designed to look like a European fairy tale. It’s a little piece of Europe for those who can’t visit. When you think about it, it’s not that different from a Western country having an Oriental garden with little Tang Dynasty style buildings and pagoda gazebos. Sometimes you forget that other people are watching us while we’re watching them. I probably wouldn’t have gone on my own, but I was invited along with an ESL teacher who was also on holiday from Korea that I met in my hostel. She used to live in Taiwan and spoke quite highly of the garden and grounds. She was most excited about the swarms of fish in the pond that practically shove one another out of the water to get at the fish pellets tourists drop for them.

Most tourists go there to take pictures. Asian cultures really enjoy posing in photos, so much that there are often lines to stand next to famous landmarks or views. People will respect the line, but if you only want a photo of the view with no people it can be a real challenge. Since it was winter, there weren’t too many people in the park and I got a lot of photos, but I still had to wait strategically to get the best views free from posers.

Houli Forest Park 后里森林園區-天上掉下了一顆種子
After Xinshe we went to a flower garden which was less flowers and more interesting visuals including a really immersive video of pollen and a giant globe light show. I’m still not sure we went to the “right” place, because while everything on the internet says “go to the Houli Flower Farm”, what they actually mean (and show pictures of) is the Zhongshe Flower Market, which is in Houli, and probably very pretty, but reported as very small.

I on the other hand ended up in the Houli Forest Park which doesn’t turn up if you search in English (you can copy paste my Chinese above, or use the link). We had to park a ways out and there were shuttle buses into the park. If you take transit to the Houli Station, it’s less than 1km to walk from the station to the park.

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The Houli Forest Park is gigantic with displays of flowers and garden styles from around the world. It’s got a bit of United Nations through plants thing going on. There weren’t too many flowers because it was winter, but the garden displays were still fun and interesting. After dark, the large sphere puts on a lights and music show that is visually hypnotizing.

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Kaohsiung

Dome of Light 光之穹頂 at Formosa Boulevard Station 美麗島站
This is the world’s largest public art installation made from individual pieces of colored glass. It also just happens to be in a subway station in Kaohsiung. There’s no reason not to see this stunning work of art if you are in the city.

Pier2 Art Center 駁二藝術特區
I heard about the amazing street art of Pier2 and set aside a full afternoon to visit. I was pretty disappointed at first because, although I found what was clearly a very artsy area, it was much more artist work space than art on display. I enjoyed everything I saw, but I couldn’t understand where all the photos on Google Image search of Pier2 were hiding.

Only after a bubble tea break did I finally figure it out! All the signs point you to the right (if you’re facing the water). However, if you go left, away from all the “pier 2” signs and across the street and around the corner– there are all the warehouses filled with cute artist shops and restaurants!! Along with more murals, crazy street art, and giant art installations. The local street signs and maps of the area were very confusing, but it was worth it in the end.

Food

Before going to Taiwan, I asked people what they recommended I eat. I scoured the internet for recommendations of “must try” foods, and while I did find things that people ate, there wasn’t any kind of definitive “Taiwanese Food” list. Now that I’ve been, I realize that this is because you can go anywhere and eat anything and it’s going to be awesome. There are just too many wonderful variations and local/seasonal limited editions that it’s impossible to compose a full list, but if you are looking for some definitive items: bubble tea (boba), pineapple cake, beef noodles, pork rice, and dumplings. Here’s what I ate, and I can recommend all of it, but if you can’t find it, don’t worry because you can’t miss out on delicious dishes as long as you eat at any non-franchise place.

Taipei

Theif Chen Tea House 大盜陳茶飲 (the name is only in Chinese on Google Maps)
On the day I got my SIM card, I was just wandering around the neighborhood, and happened to spot a sign in the window for smoked oolong rose milk tea. Milk tea and boba (bubble tea) are absolute must haves in Taiwan, and there are lots of chances. The flavors are the fun part. This was made with smoked oolong and rose syrup and it was entirely dreamy! Smoky and dark, floral and sweet, creamy and cold.

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Lin’s Wagashi Confectionery 滋養製菓
Just down the street I spotted a confectionery shop with  fresh strawberry red bean rice cake. A traditional mochi style rice cake with sweet red bean paste, a combination I already love, with the added bonus of a fresh ripe strawberry. Heaven!

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Food Stalls near Taipei Station: not on a map
There are things like semi-permanent food trucks, but not all the way to “night market” status. Walk up, buy some food, walk away, zero seating. My Google Maps history says I got out at exit M5 and headed toward my hostel (We Come Hostel), so somewhere in that area there are amazing dumplings. I got pork and cabbage, good alone but awesome with the spicy sauce ($1.25), and the winner of savory food that day was the pork bun. I thought it was a little plain at first because my first bite was bun and juices, but the meat filling was amazing, tender, and a little lemongrass flavored (.50¢).

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Literally any convenience store:
It’s not only local food stands and tea houses that have food adventures. I got a ginger Twix at the corner store. It’s basically a Twix with a gingersnap core. I do enjoy trying local variants of global brands. If you pop in for a bottle of water, take a look around and see if there’s something unique on the shelves.

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Shifen Old Street
While reading about the Shifen Old Street, I discovered a recommended local delicacy of chicken wings stuffed with fried rice. There is one small shop which takes the bones out of chicken wings and stuffs them with fried rice. It’s absurd and delicious. Walk all the way up (it’s not far) and look for this cart.

Jiufen Old Street
This is a foodie bonanza. Other than the night markets, this was the greatest concentration of interesting foods in one place. I didn’t even have time to sample most of it because I couldn’t eat enough! Of what I did get to try, the winners were pineapple cake and peanut ice cream. Pineapple cake is another super famous Taiwan treat. I did not understand what the big deal about the pineapple cake was until I ate some. I had an idea of western style pineapple upside-down cake, which is a bit like a fruitcake and not a thing I’m very into. The Taiwanese pineapple cake is nothing like this. It looks like a very plain beige square, but holds a taste explosion. The middle is a perfect pineapple compote and the outside is a crumbly rich butter cookie.

The peanut ice cream (above) is actually pineapple and taro ice cream with shavings from a huge block of candied peanut wrapped burrito style. It’s a wonderful mix of sweet, salty, fruit, and creamy. I also tried an award winning nougat cookie. The coffee flavor was rich and well balanced with sweet, salty, and bitter. I understand why it won awards. The most interesting was a kind of thin pork jerky (paper thin) spiced with cinnamon and wrapped in seaweed. I would have never thought, but nori and cinnamon go well together. I mostly ate samples because a lot of the goodies were only sold in large gift boxes, but I’m glad I got to try so many things! Taiwan food is epic!

At the Underground Mall at Taipei Station
Somehow I was still hungry after all that food in Jiufen, so I got some beef noodles and onion pancake for dinner when we got back. The beef noodles are another famous item, and you can find them just about anywhere. It’s nothing different from what you’d expect, beef broth, noodles, beef and spices… it’s just… yummy.

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Taichung

Yizhong Street Night Market 一中街夜市
I chose a less famous and more local night market at the advice of my hostel, and ate so much food! I had fried squid for dinner and candied fruit for dessert. This type of candied fruit was something I first had in China and love love love. I was only sad they didn’t have the tart haw fruit version, but strawberries are a good substitute. While exploring, I kept seeing signs for black sugar bubble tea, turns out “black sugar” is basically molasses. The tapioca pearls are cooked in the molasses mixture and then mixed into the milk tea. SO GOOD!

Across the street from No. 65, Zhongxing Street, Dongshi District Taichung City
While I was hanging out with another ESL teacher and her local buddy, he drove us to a small hole in the wall restaurant. Google Maps doesn’t have the place I went, but in street view, I can see it’s across from No.65. Look for the teal awning, not the red sign. It’s a Kejia restaurant (Kejia are a local minority people) and I ate so many delicious vegetables.

The Uptowner  雙城美式餐廳
The ESL teacher I met on my trip invited me out to brunch at a local American influenced place. I got these beautiful Florentine Bennys, perfectly poached eggs, and delicious sauces with spinach and tomato added. I know it seems strange to go to Taiwan to eat American, but remember I don’t get this kind of food in Korea.

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Miyahara Ice Cream  宮原眼科
While I was looking online for famous food spots in Taichung, the Miyahara Ice Cream factory came up. It’s a top of the line gourmet ice cream and chocolate place that is in the old remains of a Japanese ophthalmologist’s building. Today it has a magical atmosphere that reminds visitors of Hogwarts. The building alone is worth a visit, but since you’re there, be sure to eat the ice cream too. They do sell single cones and cups out front (no seating), but if you come in, you can get one of the amazing 4 scoop sundaes as I decided to do in place of a normal dinner that night.

The 4 flavors I chose were 44% chocolate (light and creamy), 80% chocolate (dark and smokey), black tea and green tea. When they bring your ice cream to the table, they wheel out a toppings cart and you can choose 5. I went for cheesecake, pineapple cake, fruit candy, butterfly and bear cookies. While I was eating, the staff brought by a bonus raspberry flavor fluffy cheesecake dream to taste, so I ended up with 6 toppings. The ice cream was a bit gelato-like, very smooth, and dense, creamy not icy. The flavors were strong but balanced, and there was so much variety in my sundae I never got tired of combining different ice creams and toppings together. Taiwan really is foodie heaven!

Kaohsiung

Liuhe Night Market/Liuhe Tourist Night Market 六合夜市/六合觀光夜市
The night markets are the best place to get dinner if you’re willing to forgo seating (and it’s worth it to eat standing) At this one, I got baked scallop for an appetizer, Aboriginal style wild boar ribs for the main dish, and Chinese style candied sweet potato for dessert (also one of my favorites from China). It was so much fun to see all the foods on offer and to talk with the vendors. There’s less tourism in Kaohsiung, so they were more excited to have a visitor try their food.

Bonnie Sugar 駁二店 (at Pier2)
Another great example of serendipity. I was just feeling a little hungry after hours of walking and taking photos, so I popped into a cafe in the art area. I was rewarded with an amazing fresh fruit tart that the Parisians would be proud of and a carafe of fancy tea with fruit ice cubes. Too posh!

Near the FlyInn Hostel
Kaohsiung is much more industrial than either of the other two cities and there was very little to eat near my hostel, so I ended up with some strange food choices including whatever this chicken thing is and a random place where the old lady called her son out to help me because my dictionary won’t work on the menu. I really don’t know what it was… mystery dinner!

Just goes to show that no matter where you choose – the 5 star Yelp reviewed restaurant or the soup shop down the alley, you’re going to find Taiwan a gastronomic delight.

If you want to end your view of my Taiwan travel here on a high note, I certainly don’t blame you, but I continue to post stories of my physical/mental/emotional limitations during my travels because I want people with invisible limitations or chronic illnesses to know they aren’t alone and that your limits don’t have to stop you from seeing the world. 

Invisible Illness & Love of Travel

In Taipei, a day of temples and a full day tour wiped me out in the warm weather. Far from being “warm winter”, the unusually hot weather and high humidity (25c + 85% humidity is unseasonable) combined with hours of walking and hiking. By the third day I had to cancel additional sightseeing because the body said no. 

In Taichung, I met some fun people to spend the day with, another teacher who in lives Korea and her local friend. The local friend had a car and offered to drive us around and we had a lot of fun taking photos and being silly tourists together, but at some point I ran out of spoons and had no idea how to explain or adapt with these friendly strangers.

Trying to explain a few of my limitations and the accommodations I’ve made for myself (not expecting anyone to do for me, just the way I’ve come to manage my issues) I got a lot of push back from the girl who invited me along. Don’t get me wrong, it was 90% a good day but it was so hard to get her to understand why I was in pain and tired at the end and why I wasn’t going to be up for more the following day. She’s 13 years younger than me and basically said everything in the “you don’t look sick” playbook. I love meeting people and making new friends, I know I had more fun and more experiences with them than I would have alone, I just hate that I have to push myself beyond my limits just to be the slowest one in a group.

In Kaohsiung, going to Maolin and Foguang Shan on the same day was a lot. I got on the road at 7am, hiked all over a mountain for several hours, navigated the bus system on my own when Google turned out be a liar, hiked more at a mountain monastery (so. many. stairs.) and navigated back to town without relying on Google which is frankly crap about Taiwan public transit info. It was a 13+ hr day, and about 5-6 hrs spent hiking the hills and stairs.

By the end, I was tired, and my feet hurt like hell, but my legs were fine. It’s not a matter of being weak or out of shape because the parts of my body complaining (feet, ankles, lower back, hands) aren’t the muscles used to climb. I slept hard and long, and while not fully recovered the next day, I mentally/emotionally felt better than I did after the tour group day in Taipei or the day in Taichung with the other teacher and her friend.

It seems I just handle the challenges better when I’m on my own time table rather than trying to keep up with others. Being on my own still isn’t 100% guaranteed to be “at my pace” because sometimes I still have to hurry to catch a bus or something, but it definitely has less negative impact on my well-being. It makes me a little sad to think I’m just going to have to turn down invitations hang out with fellow travelers on the move, I love meeting people, and I get lonely quite often, but knowing I can achieve my travel goals if I’m patient with myself is something that can help me out while I’m on the road. 

That was my reflection at the end of the Taiwan trip a year ago. I still think it’s very much true. Even just walking to dinner with friends from the office, I struggle to keep up. In Ireland, I could see that some terrains I pulled ahead and in others my travel companion did. I had one good “hiking” day in Korea last fall, but mostly because we all agreed to go super slow and stop often for photos and the weather was awesome. Here in Spain as I write this I can tell that some days I have more or less brain fog, or that my ankles or knees are more or less able to handle the stairs. It’s not fun, but I can handle my body and brain most of the time, even the bad times. The hardest part is the isolation I feel when I get left behind because other people can’t. I ask if you have a friend or relative who is fine one day, but can’t do anything the next, don’t make a fuss. If they are a little bit slow, just slow down, too, but don’t say anything about it. It means more than you can imagine to be included without being made to feel like a burden.

Art, Food, and Parks in Paris

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

The majority of the August 2019 was spent in the Irelands, but I decided that I wanted to spend a few days in Paris on the way. You can’t really fly direct from the US to Dublin (without forking over a fortune). Connecting flights go through Heathrow or CDG. Any excuse to visit Paris. I know it’s very stereo-typical, but apparently I’m more basic than I want to admit: I love Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Paris is one of my favorite cities on Earth.

Where All Good Food Goes When It Dies

Pardon my mangling of Oscar Wilde’s famous quote, but this was the thought I had the first time I had a meal in France (not actually Paris yet, since I was on a road trip from Prague and my first stop was in Metz: photo album). I have not had any disappointing food experiences in France at all. I have been trying to figure out how to afford to live and work in France doing nearly anything just so I could have daily access to the food. Since I haven’t yet figured that out, I am having to make do with an annual pilgrimage to see my favorite art and food stops.

I was only able to spend a few days in Paris this time around, so it was mostly a food oriented excursion. I wanted to get a full range of food experiences from fine dining to street food. The first dinner was at a beautiful souffle-centric restaurant called Le Souffle which serves a three course menu of entirely souffles. I was a bit apprehensive that it might be textually monotonous, but they serve each course with some sides like salad or croquette, and the main course was a mild cheese souffle with the beef bourguignon in a side dish so you could pour the meat and sauce into the souffle, breaking up the taste and texture. For dessert, I was torn between chocolate and creme brulee… I love both, but the idea of a creme brulee souffle was too intriguing to pass up. My only regret was an inability to finish everything.

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I got to have just “regular” (amazing) French food in a nice neighborhood bistro. I got to have breakfast at my favorite chocolaterie: Angelina’s. This place has arguably the best hot chocolate, and the breakfast pastries were exquisite. I got some “fast food” at Paul’s, and a picnic lunch from the Marche d’Aligre which included this fantastic “blue” cheese. It’s actually a Tomme duBerry a la lavande. It’s a mild, uncooked, pressed cow’s milk cheese that’s colored blue and flavored with lavender and rosemary. With some lemon olives, fresh bread, ripe apricots, and a lemon tart for dessert it was a magical meal in the park.

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I could go on and on about the food in Paris. Many people have. I was going to say I have, but it turns out that for some reason I never actually wrote about my first time in Paris, and when I wrote about the second trip, I wasn’t very food focused because of the extreme heat wave going on at the time ruining my appetite. Perhaps the next time I go, I’ll actually dedicate myself to taking good food photos and notes so I can do a proper foodie write up of all my favorite places.

Let’s Go For a Walk

Since I never actually wrote about my trip in 2015, all the main Paris attractions that I did on the first trip never actually made it into the blog: Eiffel Tower, Père Lachaise cemetery, Sacré-Cœur, the Champs-Élysées with Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde and the beautiful Tuileries Garden.

If you happen to be in Paris when the weather is nice, these are all wonderful places to go. In 2018, I went on a cycling tour and I have almost no photos and less memory about what we saw because it was 37°C and I didn’t bring enough water. The moral here is, don’t force yourself to see the beautiful outdoor attractions if you aren’t going to be able to enjoy them. There’s plenty of museums and indoor / covered activities like street markets. I made it to the March d’Aligre on this last visit which not only had plenty of wonderful fresh food on offer, but also had a rambling rummage sale of old and lost things.

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I personally think that places like the Eiffel Tower (photo album), the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe (photo album), and the Place de la Concorde are all things you could go and see one time for a few minutes and check that off the Paris bucket list. They just aren’t that exciting… Although, it was fun to realize that I’ve now seen the matched set of obelisks that reside in Paris and Luxor respectively. The one in Paris was given to France by Muhammad Ali Pasha, Ruler of Ottoman Egypt in exchange for a French mechanical clock in 1832. It’s twin still stands outside the temple of Luxor.

Notre Dame (photo album) is a place that I would have recommended as a one and done, however, since the fire, I’m not sure this stands true any more. I personally will be interested to see how it looks in a few years. Regardless, unless gothic architecture is your jam, it’s not worth more than a couple hours one time. It is totally worth that, because it’s a very beautiful structure, but it can be very crowded and I think it’s a little overhyped since there are a few hundred (thousand?) churches around Europe that are very very similar. But you’re in Paris, so you might as well.

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The Père Lachaise (photo album) could easily be several days of wandering through a stunning gothic mausoleum laden park taking endless photos of the natural and the macabre. Plus, lots of famous graves like Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. If you’re really into the dead, I think the Catacombs are a great indoor option, although I highly recommend a skip the line ticket because when we went, people were waiting 3+ hours for a tour. Also, while the above ground cemetery is definitely good for repeat meandering visits, I think that the catacombs are a single visit attraction unless you REALLY love bones.

The Sacré-Cœur (photo album) as a church is on my “one and done” list, but as a beautiful part of Paris is on the repeat visit list. The views from the top of the hill are absolutely stunning, and the culture around Sacré-Cœur is fascinating: from the roving “vendors” selling anything and everything on the steps to the famous Place du Tertre where local artist are painting and selling beautiful original works of art direct to the public.

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Last but not least, the Tuileries Garden is a large green space between the Louvre and the Musée de l’Orangerie. It’s a beautiful place to have a stroll any time of year. There’s wide open green spaces, chairs placed freely around the fountains, shady tree lined pathways, little bistros and of course a bit of a fun park at one end with a giant ferris wheel. I love to come here when I need a break between sights to enjoy the day and people watch.

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Paris Art & Feminism

I wrote a broader piece about my experiences in these two museums (d’Orsay & l’Orangerie) from my visit in 2017. In this essay, I’m going to focus on a temporary exhibition in the l’Orangerie about cubism and the unexpected feminist moment I found there.

In case it was never obvious before, I do consider myself a feminist (no I don’t hate men, no I won’t use the term “equalist”, yes I have lots of reasons. This Bustle article sums them up nicely if you want to read more). I’m constantly frustrated by the way in which all the historical artists, musicians, scientists, writers, politicians, philosophers… everything … of any note or record are almost always men. White men. Old. White. Men.

It’s not because old white men are better at these things. It is because the women who did them were suppressed. They were put down in their own lifetimes. Their work was stolen by men who took the credit. Their work was copied by men who took the credit. They were just written out of history. By the men who write history books.

Women are supposed to cook for the family, but only men can be great chefs? Women have historically been expected to spin, weave and sew yet fashion is a man’s business? Art forms that men can’t steal are just demeaned, like embroidery or textile crafting. It’s nice this is finally starting to break down in the 21st century, but we still don’t have enough of a balance in the way we teach and promote artists in mainstream culture. Adding women artists to the public consciousness doesn’t mean removing male artists, and it’s high time we start.

Many of the artists and composers and even authors on my “love it” list are dudes. I’m not going to stop enjoying their work just because I’m adding female artists to my worldview. I don’t know if I would have identified with any female artist growing up simply because I wasn’t ever exposed to any. I don’t think we have room for a limited number of artists in our lives. I think the more art the better. While we’re at it, maybe start adding non-eurocentric art and POC artists too, like Robert S. Duncanson (1821–1872) who was an African-American man who escaped to Canada during the Civil War and taught himself to paint.

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The museums in Paris, in particular the l’Orangerie, have been trying to have more women artists on display. Last time I was there in 2018 it was Helen Frankenthaler. I wasn’t that into her art because I am not a fan of abstract impressionism, but I was really happy to see her in an installation that included Rothko and Pollock. The museum talked a lot about her life and the challenges she faced being a woman in the highly sexist art scene. She was talented, dedicated and prolific yet she’s not discussed when most people talk about this period of art history.

This time, the featured woman artist was much more personally to my liking and I became much more invested in her art and identity. I am only human, and tend to spend more time and energy on the things that personally interest / impact me. If you’ve never seen her work before, then it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to the art of Marie Laurencin.

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“Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) initially studied porcelain painting, before going on to study drawing at a school in Paris and at the Academie Humbert. She was part of the circle of friends at the Bateau-Lavoir known as the “Picasso gang”, and it was here that she met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire with whom she had a passionate and stormy affair.

Attracted to Fauvism for a time, Marie Laurencin, the “Cubist Muse”, simplified and idealized her forms under their influence. From 1910, she preferred a palette of pastel tones, particularly grays and pinks. She went on to discover the painting of Goya in Spain.

In 1920, she began to paint the willowy, ethereal female figures that she would return to later in paintings with pastel tones, evoking a magical world. She painted portraits of famous Parisian figures, and designed stage sets, for the Ballet Russes in particular. Through this, she became interested in metamorphosis, bringing together two of her favorite themes: young women and animals.”

— Informative sign at l’Orangerie

It’s not that Laurencin or  Frankenthaler have been erased. They have (short) Wikipedia pages and it’s not hard to find their paintings online. Before the internet, however, they were virtually invisible to anyone who was not an art history student. Artists like Pollok and Picasso have had hundreds of books, movies, and t-shirts made about their lives and art. They’re referenced frequently in pop culture and have been made to stand as the premier examples of their art eras.

Picasso was a womanizer, an abuser, a narcissist and highly misogynistic. This isn’t just my opinion. It’s well documented. Yet we treat him and his work as sacrosanct as though it is the ONLY example of cubism in all of history. I’m not suggesting we bury the male artists just because they’re jerks, however I think it’s time we start taking a look around and who else might be worthy of historical preservation and artistic praise.

Honestly looking around the museum that day, there was plenty of Picasso on display. It isn’t that impressive.. OK cubism did all this great stuff for “art” and the advancement of creativity, but he wasn’t the only one. I found his works that day to be coarse and overly focused on women as sexual objects. I’ve had a chance to go back through a photo collection of his body of work and I think that whoever curated that particular display may have been selecting for contrast, and I acknowledge that wasn’t a universal trait. However, that day, it was jumping out at me that he was painting women as breasts with a body and maybe a face attached.

Even though Picasso insisted on referring to her as a Cubist Muse or “Our Lady of Cubism” Laurencin didn’t think of her art as cubist, but rather more impressionist. She’s still classed as a cubist artist to this day because art historians would rather listen to how the men defined her rather than how she defined herself.

Despite all this feminism, Laurencin didn’t paint women for empowerment. She also thought they were beautiful. “Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier,” she once said.

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To me it seemed that she focused on their beauty rather than their ability to please a male gaze/touch. Her paintings reached out and grabbed me despite their pastel colors and watery images. The idea that a women could paint women because they are pretty the way flowers or rainbows are pretty rather than because they stir the passions of men. There have been a few queer male artists in the well documented side of history that painted beautiful women in an absence of sexual desire, but mostly you get people like Raphael who literally made up non-existent sex goddesses to paint out of the most attractive parts of the hundreds of ladies he seduced. Really early photo-shopping of models, I guess?

It isn’t to say that Laurencin didn’t sexualize women at all. Apparently she was known for attending sapphic parties “comprised of lesbian and bisexual women socialized and discussed links between female desire and creative production”. If anything she was likely bi- or asexual since her long term relationship with Guillaume Apollinaire is well documented. However, if she did sexualize women in her paintings, it serves to highlight the extreme difference in what a male and female sexual gaze focuses on.

Regardless of Laurencin’s sexual orientation, the sapphic parties weren’t lesbian orgies. The hostess and participants of those parties were early first wave feminists seeking to own their desire and creative power at a time that most women were expected to stay home and raise a family. For context, the suffragette movement in France was happening at the same time (1909-1945).

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It doesn’t surprise me to learn in retrospect that she was a feminist and (probably) queer. I didn’t really know any of this while I was standing agape in the museum wondering how it was that Picasso had been shoved down my throat my whole life while I had never once seen these ethereal and graceful monuments of feminine self-celebration. All I knew was that they were beautiful and yet strong. They were made by a woman for women (Coco Channel, above, was one of her more famous clients) and that they showed beauty within a wholly feminine framework.

For a longer and more comprehensive story of her life, I recommend this website:

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/laurencin-marie/life-and-legacy/

Viking Country 3: Road Trip Treasures

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

One of the more endearing things about the road trip in Sweden was the sheer volume of cool stuff to see that is really close to the main highway. I feel a deep cultural attraction to “the road trip” which I’ve always sort of assumed was part of my American heritage. After all, as a child, my father took me on summer road trips in the RV to all the beautiful national parks of the West. My mom took us on weekend road trips up and down the coast or the town next door. When I got a car, I took repeated road trips with my friends. Loading up on road snacks, blasting your road music and pulling over when some random sign says “world’s largest ketchup bottle” is a basic part of Americana that thrives in my soul no matter how long I’m away.

Sweden is the only other country I’ve been to that I feel really gets it as far as road trip culture goes. Don’t get me wrong, I loved driving across Germany. Those people have amazing gas stations. The New Zealand drive was great and I loved having my own wheels in Bohol. The main difference is that, however beautiful the roadside scenery was in all those places, the road was just a way to get to places that public transit didn’t go. In Sweden, they not only have great gas stations, but also STUNNING rest stops that are basically parks and attractions on their own, AND they have the most wonderful series of roadside attractions.

On the day I fled the not-a-murder-house-we-promise, I found a cool viking church, another old-timey village replica, the most beautiful rest stop I’ve ever seen, and a giant statue by Pablo Picasso.

Viking Church

The Swedish people were late to the Christianity conversion party. After all, the religion’s spread originated in Rome, and the Roman Empire never quite managed to get a foothold in the land of the ice and snow. Vikings were worshiping Odin and co. right up to the 12th century, and even when they finally did “convert” it was… very halfhearted. A lot of the viking cultural and artistic trappings stayed almost entirely the same but with a little “for Jesus” footnote.

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I stopped in at Glanshammar Church in Örebro to see a little bit of how the Viking and the Christian met in the middle. I have to say, I wasn’t much impressed by the exterior of the building. There was an interesting watchtower construction, but the church was remarkably plain for something supposedly Catholic. I mean, think of all those Romanesque arches and Gothic cathedrals in Europe. What was this little white nub of a building?

Fortunately, I stuck it out and found the door. The interior of the very plain white building is filled end to end and top to bottom with highly intricate artwork that uniquely combines the traditional Christian art and architecture from the continent with the Swedish styles seen in earlier Viking tradition.

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Outdoor Museum of Provincial Life

Next, still in Örebro, I stopped by the 18th century village reproduction called Wadköping. According to the sign, many of the buildings were actually transplanted from their original home to create the open air museum. I began to wander the town, noticing once more the extreme prevalence of red buildings. I saw some ladies doing needlework with laundry drying, and I went into buildings for kids that had plaster animals and pretend food.

I found the home of Hjalmar Bergman (Ingred Bergman’s father), a famous if often misunderstood writer who wrote about a mythical town of  Wadköping as a kind of Anytown, Sweden representing a middle class provincial life. The recreational is named after his literary invention as there was no such village in reality.

There was a replica school house which showed a typical education plan for students including Christianity, native language, arithmetic, “knowledge of nature” (the natural sciences), gymnastics, gender segregated crafts, and drawing.

There were a startling number of little artisan shops inside the buildings. Some were simply souvenir and ice cream shops, but others included traditional arts like woodcarving and a silversmith. The Historiska Butiken was particularly filled with the kind of beautiful Norse styled witchcrafty goodies that I know at least 30 people in my immediate friend group would have loved to fill their homes with. Even I had a hard time resisting. Tiny luggage space saves me money again!

A Fully Functioning Castle?

My last stop in Örebro was the Örebro Castle. This was the only place I ever really had trouble finding parking since the castle is quite central and Örebro is not a tiny village. After a few drives around the block, I found some street parking and headed over. It was mainly an exterior photo-op because the castle is not decorated in antique royal furniture the way so many of the castles on the continent were. A small part of the castle was set up as a kind of tiny museum, and much larger parts of the castle are actually used as government and business offices. The governor even lives there. Functional castle!

While exploring, I also found a hiking trail sign that indicated a “walking with death” level of trail difficulty, and a dramatically oversized park bench, just for fun.

Roadside Picasso

Waving good by to Örebro, I hit the highway for another longer stretch in search of the Picasso. That’s right, there’s an original Picasso standing out in the Swedish countryside… or… lakeside anyway. I’m not actually a big Picasso fan, for complicated reasons involving art history and feminism, but this seemed like the Swedish equivalent of “the world’s largest bottle of ketchup” and I could not drive so near it without stopping by. It was a long slow drive down a thin, low speed limit road, but it was such a beautiful day, and the road ran along the waterfront. A worthy side-trip.

On my way, I paused at one of Sweden’s many beautiful and amazing roadside rest stops. This one was a small lake surrounded by beautiful evergreen trees. The water was so still that the perfect blue and fluffy white of the sky were reflected like a mirror. I ate my sandwich and watched the beauty, just feeling overwhelmed by Sweden.20180815_160148.jpg

When I finally arrived at the Picasso, I was not disappointed. It’s clearly his work, and it’s GIANT. I wandered all around taking photos from various angles before I realized that the absolute best angle for the late afternoon sun also contained a couple having a nice fika (cup of coffee & snack) on a bench below the statue. I tried my best to shoot around them, hoping they might finish and move, but in the end I had to go in for politely asking if they would mind stepping away from the bench for just a moment so I could get the best picture. I do hate asking people to move their picnic, but it’s not like I’m going to be back again any time soon. They were quite gracious about the request, and I got my “shot”.20180815_172959.jpg

Fine Dining

I had reserved a cabin in a campground for the night, but was slowly learning to plan dinner before checking into the more remote accommodations. With no desire for another grocery store dinner, I decided to stop in Karlstad for a nice restaurant meal. Thanks to Google, I found a place called Elektriska. It’s built in the remains of an old electro-technical plant and focuses on high quality, sustainable, local, ethically sourced food cooked with an eye for haute cuisine. It is not cheap, but it was just inside my price range, and sounded right up my alley. Not to mention, it was in an adorable neighborhood.

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Their cocktail menu alone could have kept me happy. In the end I chose a lingonberry Gin and Tonic made with Stockholms Branneri Pink Gin, lingonberry, grapefruit, and Mediterranean Tonic. ($15)

The appetizer menu also looked like something I could just happily graze my way through, but the waitress advised that even the larger sampler was unlikely to be quite enough for a dinner. I settled on the “16 Ampere” appetizer platter which included rainbow trout with dill and vinegar, truffle salami with ricotta and sunflower, and wild boar with plum and tellicherry. ($17) The menu is seasonal and based on what’s available, so don’t go expecting to get exactly the same.

The wild boar sausage and the wild trout sashimi were entirely delicious, but the star of this dish was absolutely the salami. I would never in 10 million years have thought to combine salami, ricotta cheese, AND sunflower butter. I love all three of these, and I have probably had salami and ricotta together, and might have tried ricotta with sunflower seeds in a salad or something, but… wow. I can’t even explain how amazing this flavor combo is. Get u sum.

My main course was more rainbow trout, and if you like fish you know you just can’t go wrong with fresh caught local rainbow trout in season. This was skin fried rainbow trout with root vegetables, sundried tomatoes, and crayfish tails in a buttered crayfish broth. (28$)20180815_202844.jpg

I included the prices because this was the MOST expensive meal I ate on holiday, and I kind of wanted to put in perspective what that means for me. A high quality meal and cocktail at a fancy restaurant is not something I do often, but I’d been saving by eating in grocery stores and local delis, and this was a splurge that was 100% worth it. Amazing food isn’t cheap, but it sure does make the pleasure centers in my brain light up like Christmas and New Year’s all at once.

Cabin In the Woods

I got to my “campsite” in Värmland after dark and had a little trouble finding the bathrooms, but fortunately I was the only one there, and I’m not afraid to pretend to be a bear. The cabin itself was very plush with wall to wall carpet and a sort of beach house all white linen decor, as well as excellent WiFi. Despite being an actual cabin in the woods, the whole vibe of the campsite was homey and friendly which was a nice change after the farmhouse fright night.20180815_220708.jpg

The next morning I was able to easily find the bathroom and kitchen, make myself a cup of coffee and prepare a bit of breakfast from my grocery supplies. Traveling in a car means I can stock up on food for most meals and snacks more easily than when I’m traveling by bus and train. I was in no particular hurry to hit the road, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the little table and chairs out front of my cabin while watching the sheep across the road.

Once I felt full and rested, and put all my bedding in the laundry room, I hit the road once more. The cabin rules had included a rather extensive list of guests cleaning responsibilities and it wasn’t the first time I encountered such. The Langholm hostel had similar rules instructing guests not only to strip the sheets for the laundry staff, but also to take out the trash and sweep the floor before checking out! I try to be a good guest and never leave a big mess behind, but for me that usually means putting all my waste IN the garbage and cleaning up any big spills. I know pretty much all US hotels/hostels have housekeeping that have to clean the rooms between guests, but I’ve never seen the need to make extra work for them. Still it was a stretch even for me to be told that I had to go to the main building and get the vacuum cleaner, haul it over to the cabin and vacuum, then take it back, and also fold all the bedding after removing the duvet covers. I guess I’m just saying if you go to Sweden, expect to be your own housekeeping.

Winging It and Winning

I was getting used to following the roadsigns to roadside attractions by this point in my road trip and I happily turned off to explore Borgvik and Hyttruin without really knowing what I’d find. Hytta means “foundry”. Hyttruin is therefore the ruins of a foundry. I’m not a person who is typically interested in ironwork, and I think if the sign had said “iron foundry” I might have kept driving, but then I would have missed these wonderful ruins, and you know how much I love ruins.

Looking at the size of the defunct forge, I could imagine mythical dwarves making Thor’s hammer there. It was enormous, but it’s not from the days of antiquity, it’s just from the 1800s. Alongside the ruins ran the waterfall that was created to supply the foundry with hyrdropower. There were signs around the place explaining the history of pig iron, and the ins and outs of manufacture, but it turns out I’m still not interested in iron production. Very cool ruins, though.

Art & Lunch

Next I popped into a little art gallery nearby (still in Borgvik) called Sliperiet. It turned out to be a restaurant/art gallery and I opted to do both. Being hungry, I started with the restaurant and once again indulged my salmon habit. It was another highly artisan place with only a few chef chosen dishes on the menu each day. The salmon and veg were perfectly lovely, but what made the dish sing was the lemon cream. I don’t know how he made this stuff, but it was absolutely lemon and cream in the best possible way. Both are great with salmon but together it was heaven. I could eat that lemon cream every day on everything.20180816_130950.jpg

While I was eating, the staff brought me a booklet with little biographies of all the artists on display in the gallery which gave me a chance to think about what I was going to see. I decided to do the museum as a break between lunch and dessert, and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety and quality of art on display in what was really the “middle of nowhere”. I took photos of absolutely everything, but I’m only going to share some of my favorites here.

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In case you want to follow up on any of these fine creators, I’ve tried to include relevant links: Albin Liljestrand, Kjell Engman, Stephan Westling, Ann Lillqvist, Rodney Smith, Christian Coigny, Nino Ramsby, Ylva Ceder, Tim Flach, Sara Nilsson, Jonas Rooth, Eka Acosta

After a lovely dessert of crème brûlée, I asked the very kind and helpful staff people where to go next. I had planned a day “in Varmland” but had no idea what was there, and had been going off of roadside stands and Google Maps markers with some success so far, but it never hurts to ask a local. They told me about an artist commune called NotQuite and I resolved to include it as my last stop in Varmland for the day.

An Artist Commune

20180816_161751NotQuite is an artist community built in an old paper factory in the middle of nothing. The art on display is far more experimental and boundary pushing than anything else I’d seen that summer, and not all of it was good, but all of it was sure trying to BE something. I wandered into the abandoned factory floor where art installations were scattered around almost as though they had been abandoned along with the paper. Small bright displays stood alone in large concrete rooms, and almost all of the signage was only in Swedish.

I found a mattress with some cobbled together VR goggles and a vague sort of “play me” note. It was an odd distorted and block color reality with a voice over in English of a person of indeterminate gender exploring the concept of sexuality. Very much everything you might stereo-typically think of when you think of experimental art commune.

It was mostly empty, but I’m not sure if that was because of the time of day or time of year. After spending a while wandering through the factory buildings and trying out the art, I headed back to the main gates. I stopped in at the gift shop on the way out where some of the more polished and “ready for home consumption” kind of art was on sale. I had a chance to ask a few questions about the place to the lady behind the counter. She explained that while a few people did choose to live on site, that most simply came there to work, and that they were funded by a grant from the government to support the arts. You can learn more on their website.

Sweden still makes me sigh with longing when I think of these days. Staring now down the barrel of planning another summer holiday, I’m deeply tempted to return and explore a new part of the country. While I’ve enjoyed my time in Korea these past few years, it lacks the freedom, the nature, and the stunning variety of culture and food that I yearn for. Still, until I have a stable landing pad for my next “home base” I guess I’ll take what I can get in the holidays. 

Viking Country 2: Strange Sleeps

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I try to save money when traveling by booking affordable accommodation, but I’ve also been burned more than once looking for the best price. These days, I’m a bit more discriminating about things like online reviews and photos, but it still happens that sometimes I get more than I bargained for. Sweden had one of the best and worst surprises for me with my accommodation back to back. And because I’m telling leg of the trip in more or less chronological order within Sweden, you also get to see the roadside attractions I visited between them.

Bed Behind Bars?

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I drove the rest of the way to Stockholm and found my hostel a bit after dark. I chose my Stockholm accommodations based almost exclusively on the fact they had free parking. Taking a car is absolutely necessary if you want to see the small towns and wilderness of Sweden, but inside the big cities, cars are not so welcome. Parking in Stockholm can be upwards of 20$ a day! I found so many cool hostels at good prices that were either “street parking only” or charged an arm and a leg more for a parking spot. When I found a place that had a good rating and free parking, I didn’t look too much harder. That’s how I ended up in Långholmen Prison.

It was dark when I arrived, and I was tired from a full day of being a tourist, so I didn’t quite absorb what I’d gotten myself into. My 2 person dorm room was inside an old prison cell and although the beds were comfy, it was a very unexpected experience. While I was checking in at the front desk, I met a little old lady who’s father had been a prisoner at the Lanholmen back when it was operational and she and her cousins had come to stay at the now-hotel to celebrate his memory. She spoke unashamedly about his crimes, and of her own escape from a girls reform school in Soderskopping where I had just loaded up on ice cream. I stood at the check in counter agape listening to the wonderful and terrible adventures of this lady’s life and looking at photos of her art. She had been through so much and was still thirsty for life and adventures. I want to be like her when I grow up.

A Lazy Day & An Accidental Tour in my Pajamas 

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I woke up much earlier than I would have liked because of some nearby construction, but I headed down to the hotel’s breakfast buffet and was bowled over by the abundance and variety of food laid out. I had thought that I was staying in a hostel, but it turned out that the dormitory style rooms were only one small part, and that it was actually quite a luxurious hotel, museum, and beach resort. Surprise!

Stuffed full of amazing smoked meats, breads, fishes, jams, and cheeses, nothing on my list of things to do seemed half so enticing as the comfortable sofas on the patio. I wrapped up in one of the blankets provided and used the hotel WiFi to watch Netflix while basking in the sunshine and cool morning air. Although I’d had plenty of down days during July, I felt like most of those were forced on me for health reasons. It was so nice to choose to relax in total wellness.

I had not even gotten dressed to go to breakfast. Not realizing it was a fancy restaurant, I’d gone in my PJs, and was still in my PJs when I intercepted a tour group. My bedroom was in the museum wing of the hotel and now that it was operating hours, there was a guide and a group gathered in the hallway examining the items on display and listening to the history of the prison. I thought to myself “free tour” and tagged along. The museum part is not big, but it’s so full of stuff so it actually took a while to get through all of it. When we got to the end of the hall where my room was, some of the tourists had started to realize that the people walking around in pajamas and slippers going to and from the bathrooms were guests. I heard one wonder aloud what the rooms were like, so I opened up my room to show them.

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The Museum included a nice history of crime and punishment in Sweden, focusing mainly of course on the role of Langholmen. Some pretty vivid descriptions of historic punishments were presented in order to provide a context and contrast to the more modern styles of criminal justice. In most of human history, criminal punishments were basically torture such as cutting off body parts, breaking bones, permanent mutilation and disabling, or burning at the stake. The last part of the history reads:

The death penalty was eventually replaced by incarceration as a punishment for many different types of crimes. The justice system began to be based on fines or prison sentences and it was no longer regarded as the state’s job to realize the wrath of God. Fifteen prisoners were executed from 1865 to 1921… The death penalty was officially abolished in 1973.

Now, the goal of the criminal justice system in Sweden is considered to be reform and reintegration into society. The prison population in Sweden is only 66 per 100,000 (compared to 737 in the US, 615 in Russia, 118 in China, and 148 in the UK). Clearly they’re doing something right.

The prison on Langholmen started out in 1724 as a work house known as “the Spin House” where “degenerate men and fallen women” were sentenced to work. The Spin House produced and dyed yarn and cloth for use in the clothing factories. As the industry grew, the demand for more cloth grew and the demand for more free labor grew with it. Guards were paid 6 copper coins for each new prisoner they brought in. There was no such thing as due process, so either you were rich enough to stay out of trouble or you were nabbed. It may have started by sentencing thieves and prostitutes, but it soon expanded to anyone poor and in the wrong place.

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Workers worked from 5am until 9pm in harsh conditions doing back breaking labor with minimal nutrition and no concern for their health or comfort. Only Sundays did they get a slight break from labor when it was time to attend services.

In the early 1800s, the Spin House was closed, and the structure became The Southern Correctional Institution, officially a prison. In 1840, Crown Prince Oscar got very interested in criminal justice reform, particularly by studying the systems used in the United States known as the Philadelphia System and the Auburn System. The Philadelphia system advocated for prisoners to stay inside their cells at all times (or at least as much as possible) while the Auburn System advocated that prisoners only sleep in the cells and spend the rest of the time in groups performing useful work… work which was of course to be carried out in strictest discipline and silence. No one had heard of basic human rights yet.

By 1880, the prison now called Central Prison was a mixture of the two with 208 Philadelphia and 300 Auburn cells in different buildings around the island. One of the rooms in the museum hallway was a recreated cell rather than a modern dorm room. Inside, visitors could see the entire set up including some very early folding / multi purpose furniture like the desk that turned into a bed, a washstand, a small stool, and a cupboard.

In 1945, a new law was passed to change Sweden’s prison system forever.

“Punishment would no longer be carried out as a warning to society in general. Rather than being ‘made an example of’, the prisoner should be treated firmly and seriously and with concern for his dignity as a human being.”

The material upshot of this was a relaxing of the draconian treatments and the addition of cupboards in the cells where prisoners could store a few personal items.

Prisoners still had to be productive, but it became a part of the reform process. In the 1960s the prison had a machine shop, a print shop, and areas for book binding, carpentry, tailoring, mattress fabrication, and envelope production. When prisons finally did away with mandatory work requirements, prisoners were able to spend their time studying or receiving therapy. The prison closed in 1975 and lay in a state of deterioration for many years before the hotel opened in 1989. (photos: then and now)

When the tour group and I parted ways at last, I donned my bathing suit and headed to the nearby beach for some sun and sand. The weather was still a bit cool, but pleasantly so. There were plenty of locals enjoying a swim, so I decided to try it too. The water was brisk, but fun. I also noticed that people didn’t seem in any way fussed about body shape or modesty the way I’m used to in America or Asia (outside a gender segregated spa, anyway). No one was sunbathing nude, but people changed out of wet swimming gear with only a draping towel for minimum modesty and small children often didn’t bother with swimwear at all. It’s really nice to be in a place where people are comfortable with non-sexualized bodies.

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When the sun got low enough to be just a little too chilly for swimming, I headed back up to the hotel and changed for dinner. Despite my attempts to keep to a budget on this trip, I decided to spoil myself with a meal in the fancy restaurant. After all, I hadn’t spent any money all day on my museum tour and beach visit, so why not? I’m so glad I did. I ordered a simple (hah!) seafood chowder that was such a rich creamy blend of so many delicious ocean treats with wonderfully cooked tender potatoes, and for dessert a dense chocolate torte with … well, I can say “cream and cherries” and it simply cannot conjure the flavor of these dark red cherries soaked in liquor and partially candied, and the rich buttery drizzles of cream that tied it all together. Heaven!

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I never expected to be staying at a fancy resort OR a former prison, and I got both! I can’t recommend this place enough.

Stockholm & Gripsholm

On my way out of town the next day I got to find my friends one last time. We’d spent about a week together in Paris and Copenhagen, but I thought I’d seen the last of them when they headed off to their cruise ship in Denmark. It turned out, their cruise stopped off in Stockholm for my last day there. Originally, I’d planned to leave the hostel fairly early and get on the road, but instead, I took advantage of the free parking and took a bus into the city to meet them at a local street festival we thought would be good fun for the kids.

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I tried to go see the Vasa Museum because everyplace online was like “so cool! must go!”, but it turned out that every other tourist had the same idea and the line wrapped around the whole park. Instead, I took the chance to check out some of the metro stations which are quite rightly described as being another must see for the city of Stockholm. I also wandered through some random gardens and the very beginning of what looked like an interesting festival before finally finding the festival I was actually looking for. Summer fun!

I had a good conversation with a man I bought a latte from because he was friendly. He was an immigrant to Sweden and we talked about what that was like and why he’d chosen to come, comparing our home country economic situations and the shared desire to live in a place with less corruption and more opportunity. I wished him luck and joined my friends when they arrived. We had a food truck picnic on the bridge and then set off to play with the festivals various creative stands. The young boy became instantly entranced by an interactive art piece made of kids playing with yarn, and I joined a 10 minute painting workshop where we all made a fast and furious painting of a Swedish fjord.

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When it was time for them to catch the tour bus back to the cruise ship, I headed back to my rental car and hit the road. I have to say that I left Stockholm rather later than my original itinerary called for, so most of the things on my “to do” for that stretch of road were all closed up by the time I arrived and I got an interesting, somewhat confusing, exterior only experience.

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My first stop was Gripsholm Castle where I found an actual runestone. This one was from the 11th century, and the poem was translated on a sign nearby.

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They fared like men, far after gold
and in the East, gave the eagle food
They died soutward [sic], in Serkland

I also stopped at a place called Rademachersmedjorna in Eskilstuna (yeah, Swedish words are fun). It was billed as an interactive historical village? When I was a kid living in Maryland, we sometimes went to these kinds of places that imitated life in colonial America, and I visited some in California as well meant to re-create the Wild West. I was interested to see what a Swedish one might be, however all the people were gone and the buildings closed up when I arrived.

Nonetheless, I wandered around for a little bit looking in windows and reading signs. The town was filled with signs showing people in period dress and very vivid descriptions of the people and their lives. At first I thought it was just “flavor” but I began to realize the stories were connected and finally that there was some kind of crime to be solved by connecting all the clues from the various characters. I wondered if there are actors who play them during regular operating hours, but there was no time for me to back track the next day.

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According to yet more signs, the town was founded as a place to make cutlery by a Latvian businessman and a bunch of German blacksmiths.

Not A Murder House At All

Around 8:30pm that night,  I pulled up to where my GPS said my “bed and breakfast” was only to find myself driving around a farm. Although it was before sunset, it was still darkish because of the rain clouds. The pictures were taken the next day on my way out. After a couple times circling the farm, I finally found a little house that looked like the picture on Booking.com and pulled up next to a blue parking sign under an apple tree, running over dozens of fallen apples. Some friendly Swedes said Hej  (pronounced “hey”, it means “hello”) as they got in their car and drove away.

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I tried my code on the door but it wasn’t working. I was tried and hungry and not feeling especially comfortable about this building being in the middle of nowhere with no staff persons or anything around. Then a random middle aged, very large man opened the door. He turned out to be another guest, and didn’t know why my code didn’t work or where my room was. I messaged the property through Booking.com and tried to fight down my panic when another man arrived at the front door.

There’s me, alone, at a farm house, close to dark, in the middle of nowhere, with two strange men… freaking out. I went outside, thinking of just getting back in the car and driving away when the owner (a woman) showed up. I had to remind myself that this place was on Booking.com, with lots of previous customers who were definitely still alive and not murdered at all and had even given it high reviews. It had to be safe. My amygdala was not having it, and even though I followed her back inside to find my room, the bathroom and the WiFi password, I was barely under control.

When the owner left, I had to drive 8 miles back up the highway to find the nearest grocery store in order to get food for dinner and breakfast. I had a good solid breakdown in the car. I managed to calm down enough to convince myself to sleep there, but was not reassured when I got up to use the bathroom and saw padlocks on the outside of every bedroom door. Not locked at that time but there.

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If you are reading this and think I’m over-reacting, I envy your safe safe life. Please believe me when I say that women raised in American cities are taught NEVER to be in this kind of situation because we’re most likely going to be murdered, raped, and maybe eaten… in no certain order.

Nothing happened. It was not a murder house. But it really made me think about my life and culture that a situation like this made me freak out on a lizard brain level and yet was so normal to other people that no one even thought to mention these details in the reviews online.

Stockholm is about the halfway point of my driving tour of Sweden. I hope you’re enjoying the beautiful and friendly country as much as I did. Thanks for reading!

 

Food of Nagoya: Tebasaki, Hitsumabushi & Kishimen oh my!

/ Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

I don’t think that I ever truly appreciated food tourism for most of my life. Of course I like to eat locally, to try new foods, to sample the regional cuisine, but I’ve never made it a goal. It was always more of a side quest, a “since I’m here anyway, I might as well”. I thought I was doing quite well given the (not inaccurate) stereotype about American (and British) tourists who like to go to exotic places and then eat familiar foods. I thought my willingness to try was good enough. What did I know?

I have noticed since living in Korea that there is a strong feeling bordering on obsession with the famous foods of any given tourist destination. Not only outside of Korea, but regionally within the country as well. If you go to a certain place, it was taken as given that you MUST get some of the locally famous food. To do otherwise was simply unthinkable.

As my friend and I sat waiting for our food, I shared this observation with her and she made a politely stiffled “wtf whypipo” sound and tried not to look completely aghast. Her family is from Mexico (yes, she’s American) and she explained to me that as a Latina, for her and her family (and her culture as far as she is aware) it’s always about the food. I have to admit, I did feel a little abashed, but I have no reason to cling to my old ideas. I usually enjoy the hell out of eating locally, so why NOT make it part of my to-do list rather than merely adjacent to it?

Tebasaki

20180505_175507Our first famous food sight was Yamachan, a chicken joint that is usually so popular that wait times can be over an hour. Yamachan is famous for chicken wings. Initially, I was very skeptical since I get plenty of chicken in Korea, but when we arrived we were sufficiently early as to be able to get a table. We had to take the smoking section, but it was still clear air when we were seated.

Smoking sections? Yeah, Japan has relegated smoking to a few small designated areas. You can’t just smoke anywhere, even outdoors. There are designated smoking spots with ashtrays. Some are open air, while others are actually a glass booth to protect passersby from the second hand fumes. Since people can’t just step onto the sidewalk for a smoke, restaurants have smoking sections. These are also cordoned off with floor to ceiling walls and sometimes even a double door airlock system to keep the smell from entering the non-smoking section.

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photo credit: Yusuke Kawasaki

Back to the chicken wings. Nagoya is famous for tebasaki, a crispy fried pepper spiced chicken wing. There’s no batter, so the wings are just fried nice and crispy on the outside, but moist on the inside. They are coated with a lightly spicy salt and pepper flavor that was zingy and enjoyable. Plus, each order comes with instructions on how to eat the wings Nagoya style (and get all the meat off in one swipe!). I found later that a lot of people consider these wings to be “quite spicy” so Korean cuisine might have impacted my spice meter, as I only found it pleasantly zingy.

Conveyor Belt Sushi

As we finished our plate of wings, the restaurant was filling up and the smoke was getting thicker so it was time to move on. After the tebasaki appetizer, our main course was to be conveyor belt sushi.

We arrived at Sushiro, the famous 100yen restaurant, only to discover that going to a popular restaurant on a Saturday night that is also a holiday means a long wait. Quelle suprise! The good news was that we’d already had some chicken wings, and it was our first time to catch up since parting ways in February, so the waiting area was just a place to sit down and chat by then.

photo credit: アジロウ

This was a true dollar menu style conveyor belt place. Any dish that came by on a plain yellow plate was up for grabs and only 100 yen. If you wanted something specific, you could use the little computer at each table to place an order. I got some of my favorites (unagi, fatty tuna, salmon roe and more) and proceeded to stuff my face with sushi. It’s amazing to me that even though Korea and Japan are separated by only a narrow strip of ocean and both are heavy seafood consumers, the difference in ingredients and flavors is mind-blowing. Even in Japanese sushi restaurants in Korea, I have trouble finding things like tuna and eel. Salmon roe? Forget about it. I was in sushi heaven until I thought my tummy would explode and then the waitress came by to calculate our bill. She did this by measuring our stack of plates! They don’t even have to count, since each plate is the same height, they just hold up a special ruler and then type up the bill.

Two of us stuffing ourselves was still less than 12$. Japan doesn’t have to be expensive.

Morning Service

20180507_100913Amid the many things that I found to try while in Nagoya is the “morning service”. Many of the cafes around town have begun to offer a light breakfast (egg and toast or ogura toast) for free (“service” in Japanese) with any order of coffee. Sunday morning my friend and I headed over to Komeda Coffee. This cute little coffee shop is a chain restaurant famous for it’s special morning service of thick, fluffy, buttery toast and red bean paste, also known locally as “ogura toast”. While lots of places in east Asia love sweet red bean paste in pastry (I eat it in Korea all the time), Nagoya got famous for ogura toast by adding… wait for it… margarine! The sweet thick red bean spread with creamy salty margarine creates a unique Nagoya flavor that should definitely be on your “to eat” list. Plus, their coffee is pretty good.

In the spirit of being on vacation, and fondly remembering my childhood year in Japan I ordered a “cream coffee”, the picture of which looked like iced coffee with a generous twist of whipped cream on top. Vacation calories don’t count right? When I received my mega sized coffee drink, it turned out not to be whipped cream, but ice cream! Smooth, rich, vanilla soft serve floating on a small iceberg inside the cup. I am especially fond of red bean and cream, so I dolloped some ice cream on my toast for extra decadence. So good. And all for less than a Starbucks’s latte!

I went back to Komeda every morning of my holiday because it was a) close to my friend’s house and the subway, b) very reasonably priced breakfast, and c) SO DELICIOUS! Free WiFi and friendly, patient staff helped a lot, too.

Hitsumabushi

The evening highlight of Sunday was a visit to one of Nagoya’s most famous restaurants, Atsuta Horaiken, to enjoy this local specialty. I know eel isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve been in love with Japanese grilled eel since the first time I tried it. It’s flaky, smokey, sweet and savory. It’s everything a grilled fish should be plus some undefinable extra flavor that comes from the eel and it’s special sauce. Unagi sauce is actually sold in stores because it’s such a unique blend. I bought some once to make eel at home and had so much leftover sauce I started eating it with eggs, which turns out to also be good. Anyway, when I found out that one of my favorite Japanese foods was ALSO one of the most famous local dishes of Nagoya, I immediately put it on my to do list.

Bear in mind that Japan was just finishing a holiday weekend on Sunday, so for many folks it was the last fling before going back to work on Monday. To make matters worse, this famous and delicious restaurant doesn’t take reservations on holidays or weekends, it’s first come first serve. We tried to make a reservation for one of the weekdays I was in town, but they were booked solid. Instead we planned to head over about 30 minutes before opening and get a good place in line. When we showed up, the restaurant had workers stationed all the way down to the elevator to show visitors where to go, and very polite hostesses were arranging guests on a looooooong line of chairs in the open space in front of the restaurant.

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photo credit: hattrick0129 via TripAdvisor

We were only about 20 people down the line and were honestly quite excited about it, since we were originally prepared to wait an hour or more for a table. Even better, the restaurant started seating people well before the posted opening hours. I’m not sure if it was because of the holiday or because it was the last weekend this particular location would be open before prolonged remodeling. Whatever the reason, we found ourselves playing musical chairs for a remarkably short time. I love the fact that the restaurant had seating in the waiting area. While I think pagers might have been a better way of alerting guests that a table was ready, it was a little exciting to be in line and to shuffle seats every time someone ahead of us went inside.

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photo credit Ray C via TripAdvisor

They also brought us an English language menu while we were waiting so that we could peruse the options, and the hostess did her best to make recommendations and give explanations in English for us as well. I really appreciate this because although my Japanese isn’t half bad, I am terrible at the super polite version of Japanese. Especially fancy shops and restaurants will often use a version of Japanese that is so formal I can’t understand it anymore, and then I just end up feeling embarrassed.

Hitsumabushi is NOT cheap. A single order is almost 40$. Both of us wanted to have some, but we were also eyeing an appetizer on the menu that was tamago (egg) with eel filling. In the end we decided to order the 1 ½ size hitsumabushi and one of the egg eel omelettes to share. The omelette arrived first and was quite delicious. The egg was light and fluffy and the eel inside was rich and savory. I think if it had been my dinner choice I would have been a little sad, but it was a perfect appetizer experience.

Finally, the star of the show arrived. Hitsumabushi is served in a huge wooden bowl with a tray full of fixings. We were issued careful instructions on the proper way to eat this delightful dish. On the surface, it looks like unagi-don, a bowl of rice with eel on top. However, the Nagoya style eel is thinner sliced and has a crispier exterior than regular unagi. Also, it’s not drenched in eel sauce.

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We ate according to the instructions, spooning ¼ of the large bowl’s contents into our smaller personal bowls and eating it plain at first. I was impressed straight away.

20180506_155253Even in normal restaurants, eel is one of the more expensive dishes. I tend to avoid buying it here in Korea because it’s often not prepared well. Nonetheless, it is one of my all time favorite Japanese foods. The “plain” hitsumabushi still had plenty of flavor. Of course the smokey, fishy unique flavor of the eel itself, but also a lighter version of the sauce it’s cooked with, as well as the vinegar in the rice. It had so much of what I look for in a good meal, I instantly knew the price was well worth it.

20180506_160202The second ¼ of the dish is meant to be served with the dry fixings provided in the little side box. In our case, we were given small slices of spring onions, thinly shredded nori (seaweed), and what very well may have been fresh wasabi. Most wasabi in the world is fake, sadly, it’s just green horseradish. Now, I love horseradish too, so that doesn’t usually bother me. I’ve learned a little about fresh wasabi from watching cooking shows and documentaries, but I’ve never had any. When I looked at this wasabi, I noticed the texture was very different from what I’m used to. Instead of a smooth paste, it had little shredded bits of plant matter.

Real wasabi is a root that is grated to get wasabi paste. I thought that the texture could be an indication of fresh grated wasabi. I tasted it on it’s own as well before adding it to my bowl and found that it was lighter, fresher and less “bitey” than what I’m used to in wasabi paste. It didn’t even try to get up my nose. Again, it lines up with everything I’ve read about the flavor of real/fresh wasabi. Excited by this prospect, I added some of each ingredient to my bowl and lightly mixed them together.

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Whatever I thought of the wonderful flavor and texture qualities of the first unaltered bowl were blown straight out of my mind. Everything wonderful about the plain hitsumabushi was suddenly illuminated by fireworks-like bursts of green umami jumping out of the simple yet high quality spices I had added in round two. Sometimes, I go too long between truly spectacular life changing meals. I lose sight of the artistic heights of food that were so poetically expressed by a cartoon rat. Worse, I may even come to look at food as a burden, simply fuel for my body with no other reward, if I am kept in sub-par food land for too long. But then a restaurant like this comes up and gives my taste receptors and limbic system something to scream about and I remember what is possible. This isn’t just food tourism, it’s heaven in a bowl.

20180506_161416Round 3 we were instructed to replicate round 2 and then add broth. I don’t really know how to describe the flavor of the broth. It was also a little smoky, a little umami. I suspected there were some dried shitake involved in the flavor as well as some konbu dashi. It was nice, but for my taste it didn’t really add to the flavors the way that the spices alone had. Additionally, it drastically changed the texture of the dish, turning crispy eel and rice into a wetter soup. It was still delicious, and I’m glad that I was able to try all the different styles of eating hitsumabushi, but I was grateful for that final ¼ serving where we were instructed to return to whichever of the first three we had liked best and do it again!

By the time we finished, I was on an insane food flavor high and I thought my stomach might explode. If this experience sounds like something you want to try, don’t worry, although the Sakae location is closing, there are other branches of Atsuta Horaiken around Nagoya you can visit.

What flavor is that?

Our last stop before going back to the apartment was a kind of bargain grocery store. Advantage of shopping with someone who lives there is that they’ve found and vetted all the cheap places before you got there. My friend was actually just stopping in for some toilet paper, but I decided to wander the candy section to see if I could find some unique chocolates to bring back to friends in Korea. This is more challenging than it sounds since most Japanese brands of candy are sold here in regular shops. What I found was a wall of every flavor of kit-kat imaginable.

I don’t even really like KitKat as a candy bar. It’s always tasted a little like sweet cardboard to me. But the Japanese are obsessed with it. I love finding new flavors of standard “American” candy in other countries. I found the all-caramel milky way in Saudi, I found an infinity of Dove flavors in China, I found the hazelnut Snickers here in Korea (omg like nutella and snickers had a baby, whaaaat?), but Japan has outdone everyone on variations of KitKat.

I have seen several in the past, most notably green tea, and white chocolate raspberry. This wall… had…. everything…. I took photos only of the most bizarre flavors, but there were local apple flavors, Hokkaido creme flavors, 2-3 different versions of redbean including regular and ogura toast at least, but the winners of the unique flavor awards go to: sweet potato, rum raisin, sake (yes the rice wine), and (drumroll please)…. Wasabi.

I have no idea what any of them taste like because they were only sold in huge boxes and I could not really justify spending 8-10$ on a giant box of candy just to know what it tasted like. I promise if I ever see them on sale individually packaged, I’ll report back on the flavor.

What I did buy that evening was no less a flavor twist than green tea flavored Khalua liquor. I found a tiny bottle for 6$ and decided that was a very reasonable price to sample this experimental flavor and get an evening cocktail, too! My first time to have green tea and coffee together was a green tea ice cream affogato at the Boseong tea fields last year. Basically green tea ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it. It was insanely delicious so I had high hopes for the Khalua. We grabbed some milk at the convenience store and settled in to experiment.

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The actual liquor is not a color/texture that you really think of for drinking. It’s thick and a mixture of dark green and dark brown… yeah… appetizing. I tasted a little straight for science and it was, unsurprisingly, very sweet and very strong. Once we added ice and milk, the liquid became the appealing green color of a green tea latte and the flavors had more room to play. I think a little vodka would have rounded the whole thing off nicely, as it was still very sweet for my tastes even with the milk, but I liked the play of green tea and coffee together.

Kishimen

One of Nagoya’s other famous foods is kishimen. I had heard there was some near Atsuta Jingu but I didn’t realize that it was inside. Following the signs and my nose I discovered a small kitchen and covered picnic table area where the famous soup could be ordered in several styles.

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Side note: It is so important to carry cash in Japan. I don’t even understand how one of the most high tech countries in the world that invented paying for things by tapping your mobile phone on them still has so many places that are cash only, but it does. Temples especially and tourist facilities in general, just about any smaller shop or restaurant (not convenience stores of course, they take cards), and all the machines you use to charge the transit cards also only take cash. It is one of the great mysteries of our age.

I was running low on cash because I’d spend some to make donations earlier in the day, so I was just able to get the basic Miya Kishimen, also the name of the shop, for 650Yen.

Kishimen is similar to udon, but the noodles are wider and flatter than a typical udon noodle. I also found the flavor of the broth to be quite distinct with a very smokey aspect as well as undertones of salty and sour for a very piquant profile. Maybe it was the experience of eating in the picnic pavilion in the middle of the beautiful forest, but I thought the noodles were definitely worth it, far above the average udon eatery. There was a self service tea station with lovely tea, and several signs warning patrons to beware the crows. I assume the greedy little scavengers… I mean clever sacred corvids… will hop over and steal any unattended food. The sign and the crows did little to dispel the vague aura of haunting I was experiencing that day, but I think that just added to the fun.

Miso Katsu

Dinner Monday night was one more Nagoya specialty, Miso Katsu. Katsu is a panko fried pork cutlet that is pervasive throughout Japan. It is also one of 3 Japanese foods that can reliably found at “Japanese” restaurants in Korea, so while I like it fine, I was not initially excited about going out for katsu. But, all of my local food finds so far had been better than expected so I agreed to give it a whirl. My friend got off work and met me down at one of the famous chains, Yabaton.

photo credit: Yabaton via Tabelog

Regular katsu is delicious when cooked well. It’s essentially fried pork, so it is hard to go wrong, but the best versions are very tender cuts of meat and crisp flaky fried exteriors. Bad versions are tough and greasy, obviously. What makes Nagoya’s miso katsu so special is that they pour a red miso sauce over the katsu just before you eat it (so as not to make things soggy). Miso is a common ingredient in Japanese cooking, and most foreigners are at least familiar with Miso soup, which is typically made from white miso. White miso is soy beans fermented with mainly rice. The flavor is fairly light and mild. It’s pleasantly tart and goes well with seaweed and green onions. Red miso on the other hand is made of soy beans fermented with barley or other dark grains. The flavor is quite pungent and may be an acquired taste. It’s not like “stinky cheese” pungent or anything, so don’t be scared to try it, but it is a good deal stronger and darker than what you may have experienced in the past with miso soup.

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The pork at Yabaton is excellent all by itself. Tender and juicy cuts of pork, fried in fluffy panko breadcrumbs with little to no extra grease. When the waiter brought our bowls to the table, he also brought a container of thick, dark red miso sauce which he poured over the katsu with a flourish. I was impressed at how well the flavors went together and how much I enjoyed the red miso. It may be the most unique katsu experience I’ve ever had and I’m so glad I didn’t skip it just because katsu is “common”.

Conbini Food!

Japanese convenience stores are called colloquially by the Japanglish word “conbini” short for “convenience” in a language without “v”s. By my friend’s request I popped into the local convenience store on my last night as her guest to get dinner. When I lived in Yokohama for a summer, I often made meals from the conbini. There’s bento (lunch boxes), onigiri (amazing rice triangles stuffed with yum and wrapped in seaweed), and a plethora of random foods to pick and choose from.

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photo credit: via kamonavi

Conbini food is almost always fresh. It’s a stark contrast to gas station foods in America that are filled with preservatives and have a shelf life sometime past the nuclear apocalypse. You can actually eat healthy from a Japanese convenience store. After days of dining out, my friend was craving a simple salad, a bag of greens costing about a dollar. I had been grabbing onigiri (one of my fav snacks) for lunches and afternoon pick me ups all through the vacation so far, so I looked to see what else was available for eats and I found a conbini food I had entirely forgotten the existence of!

Japanese convenience store food

photo credit: intrepidtravel.com

During my summer stay, I ate these cold noodle bowls ALL THE TIME. It’s in the refrigerated section, and has a plastic bowl with fresh udon noodles and packets of sauces and toppings. Back in 2015 the ones I got had a fresh egg, but the one I found this time had what I think was dehydrated egg? Maybe a new health law? Anyway, I found the flavor that was my favorite and was very excited to get to have it again after almost 3 years. I also got myself a “long day” reward: juice box sake! That’s right, you can buy sake in a cardboard box with a straw. Your inner kindergartner and your outer adult can both be happy as you sip booze from a tiny box.

Travel and food are such a huge part of my life. Although I had previously taken my responsibilities as a food tourist lightly, I’m vowing not to do so in future and thus my summer plans involve ever growing lists of “famous foods” I have to seek out in each place. I’m not turning this into a food blog full time, but I think I’m going to take a cue from Mr. Bourdain and let my belly lead the way in a few more adventures.

In fond memory of Anthony Bourdain, who’s shows about exploration and food contributed to the desire I have to travel and share what I find. Thank you.
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The Foods of Cherry Blossom Season

/ Gallivantrix / 3 Comments

20160401_141325The last two years of living in Korea has been cherry blossom heaven. I had amazing experiences at the nation’s biggest cherry blossom festival in Jinhae both years (2016, 2017) and didn’t see the same thing twice. When I announced my move to Gyeongju, the museum without walls, everyone said “oh what a beautiful place! you’re going to love the spring”. And I was. I was excited to love spring until it turned out to be the bipolar spring from hell. It’s late April still vacillating back and forth from  10C with rain 30C with sun. Neither the flowers nor I know what to do.

I was so ready for a couple weeks of stunning cherry blossoms and sunny afternoons by the lake and river, but instead I got about two days (both of which I was working during) and then the rain drove all the blossoms away.

Since I couldn’t attend a cherry blossom festival this spring, I’ve decided to focus on the other bounty of cherry blossom season: the themed food and drink. Bearing in mind I’m not in Seoul where the trendy boutique cafes all live, I decided to try and find as many cherry blossom themed consumables as possible in my small town of Gyeongju.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. Every town has a few local variants, and who knows how many tiny cafes and bakeries were selling their own seasonal specials that I never even encountered. Nonetheless, it should be obvious that cherry blossom season isn’t only a feast for the eyes.

Coffee:

2016-04-15 15.45.30Starbucks Cherry Blossom Frappuccino: This one is available in several countries. It’s a seasonal milkshake style beverage. I like that it wasn’t too sweet. I don’t feel like it tastes especially floral, but it’s pink and festive and fun, so why not?
3 stars

Ediya Cherry Blossom Latte: As a result of the Starbucks trend, every other cafe here offers some variation on the cherry blossom latte/frappe. Ediya is probably the most famous, but I found it to taste like strawberry milk. The iced latte version was thicker than flavored milk, but not all the way to frappe/milkshake status.
1 star

Bliss Blooming Latte: The one coffee shop I really wanted to visit this year and didn’t get to try was the cafe Bliss out by Bomun Lake. They have a latte with a “blooming” blossom. A confectionery of some sort that expands in the coffee. No other branch offers this cherry blossom special. I saw the video online and was instantly captivated. However the lake is rather far away and I never made it out there a second time after learning about it. I’ll put it on the list for next year.
(not rated)

Kanu Spring Blend: This is my go to instant coffee brand, a phrase I never would have believed I could have uttered 5 years ago. I admit, I did try it at first because of the ads, but it’s so much better than most of the other packet coffees in Korea that it soon became a staple at my office desk for emergency pick me ups. I was so excited to see it show up in the seasonal line up, but I haven’t seen it in any of Gyeongju’s shops.
(not rated)

Drinks:

20180325_135358Cherry Blossom Soda: GS25 is a major convenience store brand here in Korea and they also have their own line of drinks and snacks. In the spring, they offer a couple of cans decked out in cherry blossom art. The pink can is a bright pink bubbly soda pop that wins hands down for the most floral flavor. It reminded me of drinking sweetened rose or orange blossom drinks in the middle east. I don’t know if it’s made from real cherry blossoms or if they use a more common flower to get the flavor, but it’s legit. My only complaint was that it was so insanely sweet I had to dilute it. I wanted to mix it with gin, but I haven’t found a local supply since moving here. I tried it with water, but that didn’t work well. Finally, I mixed it with milk, Italian soda style, and that was delicious.
4 stars

20180423_200958.jpgCherry Blossom Grape Juice: The green can was actually my favorite drink of the season. Instead of a soda, it’s green grape juice with the same intensely floral flavor as the soda. It doesn’t have the crazy pink dye, or the bubbles. It’s a bit less sweet, and it has some tasty fruit jelly bits in the bottom. It was still strong, but I diluted it with just water and it was perfect. I’m thinking of buying a bunch to stash for the summer.
5 stars

Cherry Blossom Milk: Koreans love flavored milk. Banana is the most popular flavor here, but I’ve seen several others including green grape and apple. While perusing at a local 7-11 I noticed a single serving milk container with pink blossoms on it. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed cherry blossom milk. It wasn’t bad, only mildly too sweet and somewhere between floral and fruity. Worth drinking once, more than once if you love sweet milk.
2 stars

Alcohol:

Hoegaarden Cherry Beer: It’s technically cherry flavored and cherry blossom scented, but it was released seasonally and decorated with pink blossoms. I was expecting it to be similar to a lambic, but it ended up tasting more like a shandy made with cherry-ade. Not too sweet, and certainly not bad.
3 stars

Kirin Sakura Viewing Can: This beer is decorated with the signature unicorn dancing amid the sakura. Kirin is a Japanese beer company and sakura viewing is an important part of spring. The seasonal can is decorated to put you in the mood for spring, but the inside is the same classic Kirin taste. I happen to like Kirin beer, so this wasn’t a big disappointment.
3 stars

Soju: I saw posters around town for soju (the Korean distilled rice wine) that had cherry blossoms on the label, and usually when there’s something on the soju label other than bamboo it signifies flavor, so I was very hopeful when I finally found some. Sadly, it turned out to be regular soju, which I don’t care for as much as the cheongju (like soju, but smoother with less of that nail-polish-remover aftertaste).
1 star

Foods:

20180311_163719.jpgCherry blossom popcorn: GS25 is a chain of local 24 hour convenience stores. The same brand that created my favorite floral soda and juice, as a matter of fact, and they didn’t stop at drinks. Amid the food offerings was a light pink bag of cherry blossom popcorn. This was my first find of the season this year and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. When I opened the bag, I was hit by a powerful and pleasant perfume making it clear that this was not merely pink popcorn, but genuinely floral. It was sweet and tart, with a base coat of kettle corn and a top note of something like Smarties. I didn’t realize at the time, but I suspect it was made with actual cherry blossoms. More later.
4 stars

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Cherry blossom Pepero sticks: By now the world knows Japan’s famous Pocky sticks: crisp shortbread sticks dipped in chocolate and other flavors. When my family lived in Japan in the 80s (yeah… old) the iconic treats weren’t available in the US and I spent years pining for them after we moved back to America. Although Korea has gotten past it’s hatred of all things Japanese enough to import Pocky, they also have their own national brand of the delicious snacks called “Pepero”. There’s even a national holiday for Pepero where all the stores sell huge boxes and decorated gift sets and we all buy and exchange boxes of Pepero. Not Pocky. The Lotte brand of short, double dipped pepero are delicious anyway, but then I spotted this special pink package and had to try it. The first dip was white chocolate and the top coat had the same sweet/tart taste that I’m coming to realize is the ‘authentic’ cherry powder flavor. It was more creamy than sweet, which was refreshing. It’s not going to replace chocolate as my favorite Pepero flavor, but still enjoyable.
3 stars

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Cherry blossom frozen yogurt: Since many coffee shops here are also dessert cafes, it wasn’t only coffee drinks that came in exciting cherry blossom themes. Yogurpresso is a dessert cafe that specializes in, as you can imagine by the name, frozen yogurt and espresso drinks! Unlike American fro-yo, this is quite tart, like actual yogurt instead of ice cream with an identity crisis. The large “blossoms” are crisp meringue and the sprinkles are some kind of candy. It might be one of the preserved cherry blossom additives. I’ve seen them mostly advertised out of Japan. More likely they are random berry flavored sugar bits. However, the little carafe of pink milk down there is the cherry blossom flavor. A tiny pour over to add floral goodness to the sundae. It was tart and refreshing with a variety of flavors and textures to keep it interesting.
4 stars

Cherry blossom pastries & snack cakes:

Once again in a convenience store (they are truly ubiquitous) I found a rack of blossom themed snack cakes. I’m not a huge fan of the packaged pastries here in Korea. Although they are super cheap, they are far inferior to the fresh pastries offered on every other street at the cafe/bakery combos like Tous le Jous and Paris Baguette. I got one bun to try, but it turned out to be strawberry creme. The darker red is red bean (a common bun filling and one I actually quite like), but I prefer my red bean filling with fresh cream. The strawberry was too sweet and there wasn’t anything cherry blossom about it other than the pinkness. The other snack you see here is a variant on the ever present snack cakes. I read this one before grabbing it and it’s also just strawberry and cream cheese. I didn’t bother to buy it after all.
1 star

Festival food:

I didn’t go to any festivals this year, but I decided to throw in my festival food observations from previous years. Every festival in Korea has shaped and colored cotton candy. I’ve seen cartoon charaters, animals, and abstract art created in spun sugar. Cherry blossom festivals of course bring out cherry blossom shaped cotton candy. I didn’t eat any because I figure it’s all cotton candy flavored when we’re talking about festival street carts.
(not rated)

I did eat the cherry blossom fried ice cream at last year’s festival, however. It’s not very pretty, and it’s hard to tell in the paper cup that it is blossom shaped, but you can sort of make out the petals at the top? The best part of this treat is watching them make it. The vendor removes a super frozen blossom of ice cream and dips it in batter before dropping it in boiling oil right before your eyes! When it’s done, the outside is warm and crispy and the inside is cold and creamy. It was vanilla, and I loved it anyway.
4 stars

Honey Butter Cherry Blossom Potato Chips: I was not going to eat this. I saw it early in the season and turned away. This is because when I first arrived in Korea I tried the Honey Butter Chip. I do not know what the obsession with honey butter flavor here is, but you can get WAY too much stuff in honey butter. The problem was it was awful. It was cloyingly sweet and the butter was really potent (maybe because they use French fermented butter?) I was glad to have the experience once, but had no desire to repeat it.

Then I read another blog about Korean snacks and discovered that the limited edition seasonal flavor is actually made with domestic cherry blossoms, harvested from Chilgok County in north Gyeongsang. That’s really close to where I live!Untitled.png

Only 1.4 million bags were released, by the way. That sounds like a lot, but there are more than 51 million people in Korea, soooo I guess we’re sharing. As you can see, the chips are not pink. I’m fine with that since it means no dyes. The smell of cherry blossoms is the first thing that hits you when you open the bag, which is saying something, since potato chips have a fairly strong smell of their own. I tasted a crisp and was pleased to find that the cloying sweetness I’d disliked in my first honey butter experience was dampened significantly by a gentle floral tartness. I became extremely curious at this point. So many of the things I’d tasted had been more tart than floral, and I’d just been assuming it was a matter of artificial flavors, but this was made with real flowers!
4.5 stars

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The Last Word on Cherry Blossom Flavor:

I looked it up, because that’s me. I found that in Japan, there’s an ages old culinary tradition of salt pickling cherry blossoms in plum vinegar. But, Haitai Corp. was very clear about the Korean origin of the flowers they used (equally proud of the French origin of the butter they use, by the way). I broke down and worked on translating the package and ingredients list to try and get more information, but all I could gather was that it’s domestic Korean flowers and not artificial flavors.

My only conclusion is that cherry blossoms are actually tart in taste. This explains why every cherry blossom treat I tried was either a little sour or way too sweet. The flavor has to be treated more like lemon or green plum in contrast to sweeter flowers like jasmine or lavender. Considering how many times I was surprised by sourness, maybe I ate a lot more real cherry blossoms this year than I realized.

Happy spring and happy snacking!

Winter Wonderland 2018

/ Gallivantrix / 4 Comments

This winter was full of cold and confusion. My hunt for a new job has been incredibly time consuming, and the uncertainty about my future led me to forgo an out of country winter holiday. Instead I decided to head north (not across the border or anything) to visit the Hwacheon Ice Festival and other snow filled winter activities in case it was my last chance to play in the snow in Korea. It looks like things are working out, and I will be staying in Korea next year after all, but I’ll tell that story after all the details are wrapped up. For now, walk with me into a winter wonderland weekend.

I like going on tour trips with the group Enjoy Korea. They’re by far my favorite organized tour group in Korea: polite, well-organized, helpful, responsive, and fun (without being a total party bus). I highly recommend traveling with them if you’re looking for more things to see in Korea while you’re here. No, they aren’t paying me to say that, or even giving me a discount, I just think they’re cool and deserve more business.

When I realized I wasn’t leaving Korea for the winter holidays, I turned to the upcoming events page of their website and looked for something fun that didn’t involve skiing. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to learn how to ski, but stress and health concerns over the fall just made it seem like this winter was not going to be the one. Instead, I found the Winter Wonderland Weekender.

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Naminara Republic

While we were on the multi-hour drive up from Busan, our guide handed out pamphlets about our 3 weekend destinations, and being me, I actually read them. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the tiny river island of Nami was it’s own country! Nami is a small island within the North Han River. Not that long ago, it was only an island for part of the year when the waters ran high. However, when the Cheongpyeong Dam was built in the 1940s, the river level became higher permanently, and Nami was cut off from the mainland year round.

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It was said to be the grave-site of General Nami, and the grave was gradually built up and around, turning the island into a nature reserve and kind of amusement park/garden. In 2006 they declared their independence from Korea to become a “fairy-tale nation”. I’m not making that up, it’s in their declaration of independence. They have an immigration office. I didn’t bring my passport because I didn’t know this ahead of time, but apparently they will stamp your passport if you like. Because of their friendly relations with Korea, it’s not required for visitors to do so.

I cannot help but look at this and think of Nami as a precocious 5 year old who really wants to be a grown up. Nami: “We’re independent and we’re gonna have our own country made of fairy tales!” Korea: “Ok, honey, you have fun and make sure to be home in time for dinner.”

It’s cute.

There are 2 ways onto the island of Nami: the ferry and the zipline. I wanted to try the zipline since our guide said it was actually rather slow and more of a scenic experience than an adrenaline rush, but the wait time was over an hour and we only had a few hours to explore that afternoon.

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The ferry is not disappointing. It’s small, and mostly standing room, but it’s only about 6 minutes from shore to shore and gives beautiful views of the river on the way over. The water wasn’t frozen solid, but there were floating chunks of ice like green glass floating along the shore where the water was shallower. As we approached the island, we were first greeted with a giant ice formation overshadowing the maid of Nami.

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The maid of Nami is a famous statue of a woman standing in the water, but she was nearly obscured and entirely overshadowed by the mountain of ice that had formed from the freezing spray of the nearby fountain. Instead of turning the fountains off for the winter, the Naminarians decided to let their fountains run and turn into fairy-tale castles of long white and blue ice stalactites. Although at first the beautiful structure was overrun with ferry passengers queuing up to take photos, it didn’t take long before they all moved on and I had a chance to get a few of my own.

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The island has a multitude of walking trails as well as a “train” (think kiddie ride). I spotted the post office on my way in where a telephone allowed visitors to make international calls or send post cards from the micronation.

At first, I was feeling a little disappointed by the lack of snow. After all, it had snowed in Busan just a few days before, a place that sees snow every 2-3 years, surely Nami which is famous for it’s snow clad beauty would be white from edge to edge. The main entrance and pathways were simply brown, perhaps from lack of snowfall but more likely from an excess of foot traffic. I determined to seek out more frozen fountains and whatever patches of snow I could nonetheless, and soon found a frozen pond which remained snowcovered and I began to feel more in the mood.20180113_140124.jpg

My spirits were lifted completely when I encountered the sledding hill. Snow from all over had been piled together in a large hill that was decorated with ice-men (like snowmen, but made of ice). There was a line to borrow a sled but it wasn’t long and within a few moments I was lugging my luge up the snowy slope. I think it hadn’t snowed in a few days at least because the snow was quite packed and hard. Many sledders fell over sideways the first time their sled hit a bump. I watched as the line grew shorter, determining my best strategy for not suffering a wipe out and when it was my turn, I tried to center myself as much as possible and took a firm hold of the rope that formed the handle at the front of the sled.

When the countdown ended and the whistle blew, 3 of us took off at once. The slope wasn’t too high, but I soon picked up speed and when I hit the first bump my sled and I were launched into the air. I managed to land without falling over and kept my seat all the way down, whooping in a very American way at the thrill of speed and snow and winter wind whipping my skin.

Next to the snow hill was an ice village. There were sculptures of animals and fish, but also houses and castles built from carved ice blocks where visitors could climb around and take silly photos. I was impressed by the size and scope of these ice constructions, but oh wait until tomorrow.

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While I was finishing up my photos of the ice sculptures at a particularly large ice shark, I looked up and noticed there were ostriches running around in a field across the road. Nami island is very proud of it’s animal population, but apparently the ostriches are the stars of the show. It was a bit surprising to me how curious of visitors the birds were, spending most of their time right up at the fences despite having plenty of roaming room. I bet there’s food involved somewhere. Still it was odd to see these African savanna birds in the snow.

After the arctic ostrich experience, I meandered to the far bank of the island where the river was completely frozen over and dusted white with snow. It was quiet and serene. The emptiness was a stark contrast to the crowds I had left behind only 5 minutes before. It is a function of Korea that will never cease to amaze me, but no matter how crowded it is at an event, all you have to do is walk away for 5-10 minutes to be totally alone.

20180113_144230.jpgNext I headed back towards the center of the island to the arts and crafts village where handmade goods can be viewed, created, and purchased. My favorite was a metal tree dripping glass globes that caught the winter afternoon sunlight. There were also plenty of places to grab a hot drink, a snack or a meal.

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I went on a search for the glass blowing studio because I’d read in the pamphlet that there was an activity where visitors could make a small ornament, but alas it was only for groups of 8 or more who had booked in advance. My foray into molten glass will have to wait for another time.

While I was meandering around the statues and shops, I found a pottery shop with two peacocks perched on the rooftop, and I found a lone snow bunny hopping around on one of the frozen ponds. Great place for him since humans were kept back by the fear of falling in the ice. Great spot for me since I got to take photos of him against the snow. He was pretty fearless though and didn’t seem to mind when even more visitors noticed him and rushed over to take photos.

The weather was so cold that my phone battery was struggling more than normal and my phone actually shut down right in the middle of this bunny photo shoot, but it was still special. I suppose I’ll always have a soft spot for bunnies after having one of my own as a furbaby.

I found that while many of the restaurants were quite expensive (surprise, we’re on an island) there was a place called the Asian Family Restaurant that had decent prices and a wide range of foods. I ended up with a giant bowl of hot and spicy soup in a Chinese style, and by the time I was full, I was warm enough to head back into the snow.

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I decided to walk around the other side of the island on my way back toward the ferries to see what I hadn’t seen, I found more frozen ponds, sculptures, trees covered in a light snow, and the further I went, the fewer people I had to share it with. Coming out of a small birch grove, I spotted the oddest piece of art adorning an unused picnic area. Alone with this, the sounds of distant tourists muffled to silence by the blanket of snow around me, it felt more than a little creepy.

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Heading back to the riverside path, I found some other members of the Enjoy Korea group who were skipping stones on the frozen water to hear the odd laser blaster sound that it makes. I tried it myself, there’s literally no technique involved, just toss a rock on a frozen body of water and pew pew pew! Lot’s of people saw that guy on YouTube be very dude-bro about it, but here’s another guy who actually explains it.

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Finally, the short winter day began to wind down and my last bit of trail gave the ice, river and sky some beautiful twilight colors. I got back to the bus just a few minutes early and discovered that someone had participated in the ice carving craft. She made a hefty stein from ice, and since it couldn’t possibly last in the heat of the bus, she was offering to let anyone who liked have a shot of Korean soju from the frozen chalice. I think it was probably the best soju I’ve ever had, even though it was the same stuff that’s in every convenience store. Bonus, I can safely say in retrospect that either I got in on it early enough or the combo of ice and alcohol did the trick, but I didn’t get anyone else’s cold!

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Go check out the rest of the photos on Facebook.

Garden of the Morning Calm

After dark, we headed over to view a special winter lights show at a nearby botanical garden. The Koreans are, as always, just spectacular at light displays. This large garden usually makes it’s living showing off plants and flowers, but in the dead of winter when everything is brown and brittle, it opens up at night for a whole other color spectacle.

My first few months in Korea, I saw the biggest and most amazing light show when I went to the Taean Tulip Festival, and while I enjoyed every other light show I’ve been to since then, none have been able to take the title from Tulips until now. I did not realize what I was getting myself into. The entry way had trees and bushes wrapped in lights and the almost obligatory tunnel of lights (still not tired of those). I expected it to be similar to the one at Boseong, and I was happy with that idea.

I especially liked the lights glowing on the snow and ice, creating fun reflections and pastel color splashes. I dawdled far more than I should have, but the maps in Korean parks are notoriously bad for scale, and I just did not understand how BIG this place really is. I got to the (also obligatory) suspension bridge and noticed it led back to the entrance, so I turned to head down another path, even though it appeared to lead into darkness. Just to check.

I found another tunnel of light. I found a frozen pond that had been covered entirely in blue lights with a glowing sailboat and dolphins frolicking in the blue. I found a path covered in umbrellas made of tiny lights. I found giant vines and leaves of light that made me feel like Alice when she shrank small and talked to the flowers.

Then I turned a corner and saw the stars.

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Not really the stars, but huge balls made from clusters of tiny lights high in the tall trees looking like the night stars in the blackness. Fiber-optic cables flowed down from the branches like willow trees and waterfalls. Giant leaves wrapped around the trunks of trees climbing to meet the falling fronds of light above. Silhouettes of animals were picked out in life size golden glowing sculptures: reindeer which made sense, and a giraffe I suppose because why not? At the far end of this wonderland was a neon pink church that the King would have been pleased to see in his Vegas days, fronted by two pure white glowing angels. I could have probably done without the extra religion, but as I headed down the hill toward the next display, the church shrank into the background and I was left with a final stunning view of the immersive forest of light.

The theme of over sized plants continued a bit with giant mushrooms and trees wrapped in lights to an almost fractal level of detail. Faced with another fork in the road to go on into darkness or return to the glow of lights at the entrance, I checked the time and decided to forge ahead. I pondered what could be left after that wonderful wood. I took some photos of creative path lanterns and more trees draped in shifting colors, casting a glow on the snow beneath them, content and not expecting very much more when…

A viewing platform is always a good sign. Korean tourism departments everywhere have thoughtfully created a viewing platform at the optimum viewing place. They are hardly ever wrong, and everyone knows the etiquette, so you might have to wait a few moments, but you will get your turn. And when I did…

Usually, I like to describe things I see and experience, but in this instance, it might just be better to shut up and show you. You can see the whole roll on the Facebook album.

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Stay tuned for part 2 when I get to spend Sunday at the Hwacheon Seoncheoneo Ice Fishing Festival… I know, a festival for ice fishing? but it turns out the city of Hwacheon, and really Korea in general, knows how to turn anything into a great time. They can even do up an anchovy festival right, so something as exotic as ice fishing should be no problem! And if for some reason the prospect of catching trout through a hole in the ice isn’t your cup of soju, it’s also the home to the world’s largest indoor ice sculpture, so there’s more photos of beautiful lights to come as well. Thanks for reading!