Since last we spoke...

Before we dive right into our next adventure, we suppose it’s only fair to our loyal readers to let you know what we’ve been up to for the last three years. Since last we blogged, travelers EB and Josh finally bit the bullet and got married. They enjoyed three lovely years in Cambridge, MA (and even found good Vietnamese food in Dorchester!) and have just moved back to New York City. EB graduated from law school and is once again adventuring to Asia in between school and work. Josh left consulting to join the much more exciting and sugar-filled world of marketing for the Mars Corporation, where he reminds us all how important it is to have “small moments of joy” (namely candy bars) in our daily lives. We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for any sign of Snickers in rural Laos.


We’ll also take the liberty of giving an update on our fellow travelers, who may edit as they see fit. While working as a high powered legal mastermind in San Francisco for a very fancy law firm, Amy met (or really re-met) fellow PHSer and generally all-around fabulous Matt Bell, who wisely snatched her up and they were married last fall. Amy and Matt have just relocated to Los Angeles, where their family of Bells has grown with the addition of Harry, the newest four-legged family member. All signs of him on facebook suggest he is one cute dog.

After astounding readers with all that he could accomplish in 24 hours traveling by himself (let’s be honest – we all thought Jon would still be lost in Hanoi asking if someone could pouch him his passport), Jon graduated from NYU law school and swiftly went on to win the 2008 election for President Obama. Now he is a big deal lawyer in Washington DC where in addition to fighting for justice he also was most recently responsible for the summer associate lunch program. Pretty high powered stuff.

Will there ever be a reunion of this fearsome foursome of travelers? Rest assured, dear readers, of course. Once we find Jon that someone special, perhaps a three couple belated honeymoon could be in order. But until then, it will just be the Kelly-Olken pair – heading off to California, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, and Greece. We hope you enjoy the ride!

The return of the blog?

Josh and I head off on our second great asian adventure in about a week and we are considering resurrecting the blog, though likely much less humorously for the lack of Jon and Amy. But first we wanted to see, does this thing even still work?

There's not a chance this can top Jon's last day in Hanoi

But it has been obscenely long since we've updated you, and for that we are sorry. Hello public, please forgive us. Also I (Amy) am technologically challenged and can't upload my photos, so you will have to imagine two extremely attractive, evenly tanned, experienced travelers. And then look for two confused awkwardly burnt giggling Americans dodging motorbikes. That would be us. I'll be the one with the hot sauce never more than an arm's length away.

While Jon was sweating (typical) and riding motorbikes (yikes), Halliday and I were making our way to Hoi An. We flew from Hanoi to Danang airport, notable as the landing place of the US military when they entered Vietnam, and also notable because if you say it several times fast it sounds like a twanging rubber band. danaaaaaang. We took a short ride from Danang to Hoi An (not to be confused with Hanoi, or An Hoi, directly across the river from Hoi An), and found ourselves at a cute little guest house we would call home for 3 nights. Our room had a balcony that overlooked the deck below and rice paddies beyond that. We ate breakfast on the deck each morning, including vietnamese heaven coffee...think hot equivalent of coffee ice cream socially acceptable to consume at 7am.

Hoi An was a delightful little town, full of charm and thankfully not quite so full of motorbikes. In fact, there are signs all over the historic district downtown (probably a total of 4 blocks) noting that the area was open only to "pedestrians and primitive vehicles." We took the pedestrian route the first day to wander around and explore, but decided to step it up a notch on the second day. We rented some primitive bicycles for the day (10,000 dong and we were off), think huffy circa 1980 complete with flourescent spray paint job. Best 70 cents ever spent. We spent much of the next two days pedaling back and forth to the beach, about a 20 minute ride away. The ride was well worth it for the near empty stretch of perfect beach with warm water and street food to be had right in the vicinity. An exceptionally nice trip was the one we made at 6am on our final morning for one last dip in the sea. Many of you know how I feel about early mornings (um, they're sacred I love them), and that ranks near if not at the top of my list for best ways to kick off a day. Anyway, enough gloating. Point being once we had bicycles, we were basically locals. Except for the being white and the inability to stop and start without nearly toppling.

What am I forgetting? oh the food. Hoi An has two specialties we particularly enjoyed. The first is Cao Lau, a dish of noodles, roast pork, leafy greens, and often shrimp and/or little hard-boiled eggs of unknown origin. We sampled this on 6 inch stools at several different spots, and found each slightly different but all delicious. The second Hoi An dish is the white rose (I'm sure it has a vietnamese name, but after 10 days here I'm still not quite sure how to say "thank you," so we'll just stick with the english), a shrimp sort of dumpling surrounded by rice noodley dough in the shape of a rose. Cover with roasted garlic chips, dunk in hot sauce, and you've got yourself quite the snack.

After two days of beach-going, town exploring, and yes, occasional tailoring (naturally I selected black and brown items, take that beach), we decided to spend our final day getting some culture. We took a bus to see My Son, a nearby site of relics from the Champa Kingdom. This was billed as a sort of mini Angor Wat, and since we don't have time to make it to Cambodia, we thought this was a great substitute. As it turned out, the relics had been mostly destroyed by American bombing, and those that remained were a mini mini mini Angor Wat. Nonetheless, it was an interesting trip, both for the quick history lesson and for the pleasure of seeing a couple in matching tie-dyed blue ankle length skirts and white tank tops conducting some sort of amateur photo shoot.

We sadly said goodbye to our beach town and flew, after a short delay in Danaaaaaang, to Ho Chi Minh City on friday. We weren't quite sure what to expect here other than a large city no one seems to love, but figured if nothing else there would be some good food. Correct. We got in around 9:30pm and quickly headed out to a do-it-yourself beef barbeque place highly recommended by our guide books. It did not disappoint. They brought out a plate of raw beef marinating in garlic and garlic and also garlic, as well as an open barbeque. We have decided that interactive eating makes everything more fun (see, e.g., dipping, rolling, grilling on open flames), and this was no exception. Delicious.

We declared yesterday consumerism day and hit up the shopping near our hotel, and when the daily monsoon struck around 5pm, opted for a cocktail at the 23rd floor of the nearby sheraton. Though the day was a pleasure (of course, is there another kind here?), it didn't seem all that Vietnamese. Yes, I just accused Vietnam's largest city of not being Vietnamese enough. Luckily we remedied that assessment at dinner. After rejecting two perfectly clean and nice restaurants (snooze), we wandered past a place full of Vietnamese people, not a whitey in sight. Perfect, we thought.

We were then presented with menus. Curiously, these menus had english translations. Also curiously, the first page included various preparations of turtle blood. Hmm, no gracias. Next page? Snake heads. Boiled, grilled, in hot pots, with tamarind sauce, etc. Holy yikes. Other options included goat and god knows what else. We selected some seemingly benign options: fried rice (pretty good, prefer not to think about what might have been mixed in), chicken (sounds better than it looked), and soft shell crab (eek). What the meal lacked in style and taste it made up for in comedy. By the time our check arrived we both had our feet off the ground for fear some of the still-living snakes might slither out. Asia. First the yak, now this.

We're off to the airport shortly to fly to Bangkok, so today's recap will be a quick one. We got up early and went to the War Remnants Museum. This museum is one of the city's main tourist attractions, and is difficult to summarize in just a couple of sentences. However one-sided it may be (used to be called the museum of american war crimes, or something along those lines), it was sobering to say the least, and left us both a bit shell-shocked. And maybe it was our imagination, but it felt like many of the other visitors to the museum, particularly the children, were eyeing us with particular attention as Americans. Not quite sure how to feel about that yet. Anyway, we're glad we went, and won't soon forget the horrific images that fill up the exhibits.

For fear of leaving on a debbie downer note, I'll continue...We've loved our time in Vietnam, and can't wait to move on to Thailand. More from there as we round out the adventure. Sorry for the lack of pictures. And to Josh, EBs, and Jon, come back.

Hello, My Name is "Table for One"

Fresh from our celebration of Halliday's birthday last night (including shrimp and sweet potato pancakes, grilled shrimp with lemongrass, pork and mushroom rice pancake, pork with noodles, snail soup, and a little tofu thrown in -- all with matching Halida t-shirts), Team Asia called it splitsville again. I (Jon), sent Halliday and Amy on their way to Hoi An, HCM City, and the beaches of Thailand. Meanwhile began my 72 hour solo journey back to the U States with a full, and final, day in Hanoi.

Finally free from the restraint of co-travellers, I let loose and broke all the rules. Here's a photo essay of my free-wheeling ways:

Off to an early start, I began the day as usual with a stroll around Ho Hoan Kiem Lake. No sign of tortoises . . . or scammers.

Onward to St. Joseph's church for morning Mass.

Craving a salad for lunch . . . lucky for me leafy vegetables are the treat of choice at Bun Bo Nam Bo.

Who says Americans can't pull off the half-shirt bellyroll?

Missing DC, Potomac Restaurant on the shores of Ho Tay Lake makes me feel at home.

At the seat of power -- the Presidential Palace -- but namedropping Bob Shrum and John Kerry doesn't get me in the door.

Feeling like Tom Cruise, they pulled out all the stops for me and cleared out the plaza in front of Ho Chi Minh's masoleum ala Times Square in Vanilla Sky.

Ngac Ho Market for Slunch (second lunch).

To tired to walk on my little legs all the way to Nha Tho? No problem. I'll just motorscooter across town for only 10,000 dong. That's me in the rearview mirror wondering if I could have put that US$00.75 to better use.

Look mom, no hands!

Holy hell I'm sweaty. Cool down with some iced Vietnamese coffee.

Sleepy after my busy afternoon, I'll take a short nap under my fancy 'ella.

What better way to wrap up my stay in Hanoi than with a Bia Hoi (or three).

A little tipsy from my beer break and eager to extend my stay in Vietnam, I inquire about a position as a Summer Associate.

Learning from the best, the Socialists sure know how to stage an election!

Dinner time. I could really get into a yakburger about now . . . but I suppose I can make do with pork patties in broth.

Night falls the same way morning begins at Ho Hoan Kiem Lake . . . still no tortoises or offers to sing karoake for US$100.

Just Another Day at the Cloud Yard

The first of two back-to-back overnight train rides under our belt, the three of us hopped in a bus (at around 5am) for the short trip from the Lao Cai train station to the village of Sapa. We arrived in town before most shops, restaurants, etc., opened (especially because it was Sunday), but tenacious travellers that we are, we camped in front of the famous Baguette et Chocolate. Homegrown in Hanoi, B&C is one of the capital's most famous patisseries. We were sad to discover that the Hanoi location was under construction. Thank heaven we travelled to Sapa to try out the second branch! It was worth the wait (and 10 hour trek) for yummy coffee, bonbons, and fresh fruit.

Our morning was off to a great start. In the distance, we spotted a high peak with a radio tower on top. And what else does Team OurGreatAsianAdventure do when there's a mountain/hill/precipice with evidence of human activity at its peak? Climb it, naturally. So we did.

And then we fell for one of the two greatest blunders. The first of which is never start a land war in Asia (learned); the second is never hike to the top of a mountain expecting to see only a radio tower. Instead, the Sapa mountains treated us to all sorts of high-flying excitement: mountain ostriches (no kidding), a mile-high city blasting the lastest in Northwest Vietnamese techno, and a "Cloud Yard" (which is exactly what its name suggests . . . totally incomprehensible).

Ready for second-breakfast, we left Cloud Yard for a bowl of pho bo (beef noodle soup). As we saw no cows and many water buffalo, we're thinking it was "bo" in name only. Stomachs warmed, we left for our second adventure of the day -- a 3km hike to the nearby village of Cat Cat. Unlike most of our hikes, this one was entirely downhill, at an approximate grade of 59321043 degrees. Other than a small run in with a flock(?) of goats, the trip down was uneventful. The trip back to Sapa (think 59321043 degree grade, only this time straight up) was roughly the same, but a bit slower (and interrupted by a short break for red bean/green pea/coconut ice cream). That said, we've had to adapt our motto "No Shame in China" to account for the buckets of sweat Vietnam has squeezed out of us.

To replenish our fluids, we spent our last hour in Sapa sipping Bia Hoi. Our whirlwind tour of Sapa drained us a bit, but we're glad we went. The city and mountains were beautiful, our hikes fun, and Amy was only hoodwinked into purchasing "local" goods once.

A final note: For some reason we can post on the blog but not read it. To that end, we were able to see that Josh and EB posted a last entry before heading back to the U States, but couldn't read what they wrote -- we're glad that had such a great trip and were sorely missed here. Miss you guys -- see you in Beantown!

We're off to board our train back to Hanoi. Our usual hotel had no available rooms for tomorrow night, so we treated ourselves to a small taste of luxury by booking a room at the Hilton. And before Ron gets any wild ideas, it's name is simply: Hilton Hanoi Opera. Tintin, not Jane Fonda, appears to be the main celebrity.

Sayonara from Team Tokyo

As we (EB & Josh) write this, we are sitting on the first leg of our journey home, the flight from Tokyo to Dallas where we will hopefully go through customs, be permitted back into the country and then wing our way the rest of the journey home to NYC. Before we say our goodbyes and hand Our Great Asian Adventure over to the remaining explorers, we must wrap-up our last day and a half in Tokyo for you, our ever-curious public.

Friday morning we opted out of our usual mysterious ticket machine bowl of ramen at the subway station and instead immediate headed over to Roppongi to see the newest mixed-use mega-development to hit the scene. Following on the footsteps of Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown is a giant complex of towers with office space, hotel, shmancy residences, a cultural facility, a concert hall and an enormous galleria with the nicest shops and restaurants. Though everything appeared to be New York-themed or inspired (bagels, Madison Park hot dogs—though in Japan they are a breakfast food, Gramercy bar), the complex was well bigger and put the Time Warner Center, probably New York’s closest comparison, to shame. We meandered through levels B2 (two underground) to 2F and crossed some skybridges—highly connected as are all things in Tokyo—before grabbing a breakfast of a French pastry, an onigiri and a green tea latte. Very New York meets Tokyo.

The choice then was to take the subway or the lengthy walk to our next stop and, though we weighed the options, we opted for walking in the hopes that our last full day could put us over the 300 miles walked this trip. We’re marginally crazy about the walking thing, but it’s the only way we justify the massive consumption we also fill our days with. Heading through Roppongi to Shibuya, we saw a couple residential areas we had never seen before and, of course, some luxury boutiques along the way. We stopped at a sweet housewares shop in the hopes of picking up something for our new digs in Cambridge, but when the tiny box for cufflinks was $150 (Vietnam crew—that’s 90 million dong for you) we opted against it.

Once in Shibuya we realized we were right smack in the middle of lunch hour and though we had a spot picked out in Shinjuku, we passed a bustling ramen spot that looked too good to be true. And indeed it was. Opting for the tried and true technique of this vacation—we’ll have what they’re having—we selected the same ticket from the vending machine from the man just before us and sat at waited for whatever it was that would appear. Scary fish? Animal innards? Luckily not. Instead what came was an enormous bowl of noodles with tender roast pork and bean sprouts. It was fabulous. Second only perhaps to the world renowned roast pork of my grandmother Babi, this may have been the most delicious roasted pig I have ever had the pleasure to consume.'=

Full of pork and soup, we quickly rushed to the subway to get to Takashimaya Times Square, the enormous department store in Shinjuku with the massive food court in the basement. But I thought you just ate delicious pork soup?, you say. Well this was our last full day in Tokyo and we had no time for pansy-ing out on our meals. We were headed for tonkatsu, fried pork served over rice. Since the last time we had been to Takashimaya things had changed a bit at the tonkatsu counter and though there was no longer any formal seating, we took our lunch boxes to go and sat on some stools near shoppers waiting for seating at another basement luncheon spot. You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that heavily breaded fried pork is tasty.

Nearly defeated by our two rapid-fire pork deliciousnesses, we headed upstairs to the Tokyu Hands department store portion of Takashimaya. Tokyu Hands is a “creative life store” where you can get everything from plates to exercise equipment to construction wear, and we checked out every level. Though we aspired mostly to look, some hilarious misuse of English or otherwise wacky Japanese-ism got us on most every floor.

Our shopping done, we headed back to Shibuya to get thoroughly lost walking the curving, flashing light-filled, retail-overloaded streets along with all the highly made up hipsters teens and twenty-somethings of Tokyo. We did the requisite scramble as we crossed the street and wished that we had something that fun at the corner of Union Square and 14^th Street.

Having asked at least 5 people for directions help (love those Tokyo addresses), we eventually found a recommended izakaya famous for its use of the leek. Yes, the weak onion. This restaurant prides itself on using leek in every dish, and several dishes on the menu were exclusively leek. The premise was odd, but the charcoal-grilled leek with miso sauce and the agedashi tofu were not. We also tried a couple of sakes and pretended to read the bottles but we don’t read Japanese so that was a foolish exercise. Josh took such a liking to the place that we engaged in a serious negotiation with the host to see if he could buy the t-shirt worn by the waiters, but it was to no avail. I guess, as with most things, we’ll just have to wait for that Japanese fashion trend to make its way to the US in a couple of years.

Having had an appetizer nosh, we headed back to the hotel. Before we had left for the day, we gave the concierge two restaurants we were interested in and asked that she make a reservation at either. We were amused, though not totally unsurprised, to return to a message waiting for us that they were unable to make a reservation at either because, naturally, both were closed for the holiday. How foolish of us. We selected yet a third choice, open for some reason (perhaps they have no house at the beach and had alienated all their fancier friends), changed and went back to Roppongi.

The restaurant, called Shinju, turned out to be a huge hit. It was an upmarket izakaya serving beautiful dishes ranging from grilled meats to sashimi to rice and udon noodles. We sat at the bar and Josh got to use his favorite Japanese expression (spelled phonetically): “O sosume wa non deska?” which means “what do you recommend?" Their recommendations served us well and in addition to the treats listed above we had a fried tofu dish, not so dissimilar from agedashi tofu, that may have taken the tofu cake for the vacation. It was a lovely place and an excellent meal to cap off a great trip. Though it was a Friday night, we opted against serious clubbing in Roppongi and instead headed home around 11ish to pack and prepare for our next morning’s big adventure (slash who am I kidding? We don’t go clubbing and the types we saw out in Roppongi were totally the Tokyo B+T crowd. We were far too New York snooty/sleepy for that).

So that brings us to this morning. 4:30 this morning, to be precise, when our alarm went off to rouse us for our second attempt at the Tsujiki fish market. And to keep you in suspense no longer, as I know many of you have been watching closely since our failed attempt two years ago….Yes—the market was open and we finally got to see it in action. This market must be seen to be believed. It is a giant series of open-air warehouses filled with stalls selling some fish you recognize and some that appears to have only been seen by human eyes on Planet Earth, the BBC documentary series. These things were amazing and bizarre. The fish sellers speed around the market at breakneck speeds in these bizarre motorized wagons, carting boxes of fish, shrimp, clams, lobters, crabs, eels—you name it, they sell it. Though it was great to see all the fish on offer, the highlight of the morning had to be the tuna auction when hundreds of merchants gather together to bid on the day’s tuna catch. If you are born and raised in New York City, you may believe that tuna is a round fish that has a metal can exterior and that pops when you open it. Interestingly enough, that’s not totally accurate. Tuna is actually an enormous fish and at the auction today roughly 200 such animals, weighing between 80 and 700 pounds, were bought and sold. The 700 pound fish were easily the largest thing I have ever seen, except perhaps for the fake blue whale at the Museum of Natural History, and these were cooler because they were lying on the ground next to me and about to become my breakfast. That’s because, other than the sight of exotic fish and the thrill of the fish auction, the other highlight of Tsujiki is the unbelievably fresh sushi that is available for breakfast. The queues start forming around 5:00, so we picked a spot with a reasonable line and waited for our bowl of breakfast goodness. We opted for chirashi (raw fish over a bowl of rice), mine coming with meguro and toro and Josh’s coming with six or seven different fish. It was extremely fresh – not surprising, since the fish are basically flopping around next door in the market, and it was by far the best breakfast chirashi we’d ever had. OK, also only.

Raw fish consumed before 7:00 am, we headed back to the hotel and off to the train bound for Narita airport. Which is roughly how we got to where we are now, somewhere over the Pacific without any land in sight. (I’m not that worried though because I feel pretty confident if we need to make an emergency landing that the island from Lost will appear and Matthew Fox will be there to greet us).

And so with this, our final blog posting, Team Tokyo sends our goodbye and thanks to you our great readers. We had an amazing trip and loved reporting on it to you in real time. Special thanks also to our many commenters and especially our grandmothers, who we understand have been following our exploits closely by receiving the print edition of the blog. We also have to send special love and wishes for continued fun to our former travel mates as they continue their Asian adventures through Vietnam, Thailand or (if you’re Jon) the airport of every major Asian capital city. We had a fabulous time with you all and look forward to reading about (and commenting on) your adventures through the blog. And now…on to our next great adventure!

wheeeeee!

Now that our technical difficulties have been resolved and our competition relocated stateside (safe travels ebs and josh, asia misses you), it seems the responsibility to blog is squarely ours. And blog we shall.

I (amy) am currently horizontal in a 6x5 cube with halliday and jon. Elaborate? Ok. We're in an overnight sleeper train on our way to Sapa, a town in northwestern vietnam we plan to learn about sometime before we arrive. It's supposed to be beautiful and we're hoping the time there warrants the back-to-back overnight sleeper plan. I take that back, we're finding this plan hilarious and it's already worth the trip. For example, when we arrived at the assigned platform, our train had cars 1-7 and 9-11. Which car are we on? 8, obviously. The solution? Wait for an incoming train with a car 8 to arrive, split our train, and add the substitute car 8 to the middle. Inform as few people as possible, insert soundtrack (vietnamese opera, we think, being played from somewhere), and throw in backpackers. Allow to boil.

Actually it was less dramatic, and resolved fairly quickly given the number of moving parts (literally. And pun embarrassingly intended.).

This morning we visited Ho Chi Minh. Having missed Mao in Beijing, this was our last chance to catch an embalmed communist leader, and it was, well, a trip to a masoleum. I'm not sure what adjective to go with. It was interesting to see the number of vietnamese who turned out early on a saturday morning (lots), and also to note the amount of respect and attention he draws even today. And then it was 9:45am and we had a full day ahead of us.

We headed to the temple of literature, followed by some delicious rice pancake snacky things near our hotel (sub 2 dollars for the 3 of us), and lots of other fun. What fun, amy? Well I would love to tell you but I'm afraid I will lose service if I don't post soon, so an update will have to follow.