Five Oh

At some point for some Americans, visiting all 50 of the states that make up our nation becomes a thing. I'm one of those Americans. I guess it became a thing for me in about the mid-1990s when a trip to the upper Midwest had me traveling to and through Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois in a single week. Now, I realize four of 50 in seven days or so might not seem like a lot of progress, but at that point, I thought the end goal of the whole half century was probably achievable if I set my mind to it. 

So I did. Not every year, necessarily. It came in fits and starts. I made a push in 2001 when I knocked off Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nevada in two jaunts out west and really put the pedal to the metal on a cross-country drive in 2011 when I picked up Missouri, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Oregon. That gave me 40. Within spitting distance, as you might say.

It's been super tough since then. It took me 32 years to get to the first 40. 12 years after that east coast to west coast drive, I had only picked up eight more to get me to 48. Louisiana. Utah. Alabama. Hawaii. Alaska. North Dakota. Arkansas. Nebraska. All in the books. And if the age math doesn't make sense (since I'm 56 now), I didn't start this thing until I got to the United States in 1979 when I was 11.

And so at the beginning of this year, it was down to the last two: Kansas and Oklahoma. If there was a silver lining to those two being the last two, it was that they are next to one another.

The Outsiders House Museum, used in the filming of the movie of the same name, Tulsa.

With just two left, it was kind of time to end this thing. 

So last month, we hopped on a plane at National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, and landed in Kansas City, Missouri. The next day, we drove west to Lawrence and then Topeka in Kansas and then headed south for Tulsa. At 6 p.m. on Friday, May 24, we hit the border of Oklahoma. 50 states. Done!

I feel like I really accomplished something here. I mean, how many people really do this in their lives? I know maybe two or three people who have done this. It's definitely a club that not a lot of people will join. Most Americans will never get there. I made it at 55 years old (OK...almost 56), although (again) I didn't even get to this country until I was 11. There's no doubt that this is a marathon-type of task. I'm glad I did it because I've been chasing it for so, so long.

But honestly, this didn't feel like I thought it would feel. I wasn't super elated and I didn't really feel an amazing sense of completing something epic when I crossed into Oklahoma, although one could argue that's exactly what I have done. Maybe it's the fact that that 50th trigger was literally driving over an imaginary line and stopping at a pretty graphically uninspired-looking sign (see above). Maybe it's because it's been so long coming and had started to feel a little like a bit of a chore. Or maybe, it's because it was Oklahoma, and Kansas before it, and these two were clearly last for one reason and one reason alone: we really couldn't think what we'd be doing there if we ever visited.

I know that's unfair. And I now know it's a total misjudgment. At least of Oklahoma (sorry, Kansas) where we spent three days exploring after crossing the threshold.

Buck Atom, Route 66, Tulsa. One of the many repurposes muffler men out there in the West.

Let me say three things before I move on and/or forget to write these three things.

First, I tried to do this the right way. I didn't count fly throughs and I wouldn't count a state as visited unless I did something tangible and memorable when visiting. No just driving over the border for some lunch or driving through a state. Stopping and visiting something related to tourism or real life in the state was required. 

Second, all the "we" words in the narrative about getting to the border of Oklahoma is important because it wasn't me getting to 50 states. We've spent a lot of effort over the last couple of years getting my wife caught up to me so we could do this together. At the beginning of this year she had one more state than me left: the two I was missing and Missouri. Which is why we went to Kansas City first.

Third, this quest has been very much an immigrant's quest. I remember very distinctly our arrival to this country in Boston on July 25, 1979. Or maybe that's not quite right. Maybe it's that I remember three things very distinctly about our first moments in Massachusetts. These are (1) I'd never been anywhere so hot; I think the temperature and humidity were both north of 90 that day; (2) I'd never been in a car with air conditioning, which, you know, was appreciated that day; and (3) I'd never been anywhere so green. England is often referred to as green but I'd never seen forests like I saw alongside of I-90 that day. 

I love this country and I'm glad I've seen a bit of all of its 50 states.

The scissor-tailed flycatcher, Oklahoma's state bird. Somewhere near Pawhuska.

So about Oklahoma being awesome...I think I would have been way more excited to enter my state number 50 if I knew how much I'd get out of my time there. I mean it ended up being one of those places that astonished me. I connected so well with a lot of what we found and did there. 

It happens. Every so often we find someplace that we end up loving way more than we possibly could have imagined. I think the last place we felt this way about was Rapid City, South Dakota. If I had known everything we'd find in Oklahoma, I would have been elated to cross that border. Like most places we travel that we haven't visited before, we usually end up finding something that changes our perspective. That too was true of Oklahoma.

So why was Oklahoma amazing? How about music? How about birds? How about pop culture? 

We actually had a bird quest in Oklahoma. We were on a mission to find the state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher somewhere in the state. And we found one. Or more than one. Several actually, along with some eastern meadowlarks, a nighthawk, our first indigo buntings of the season and what is likely to be our new species obsession: the painted bunting. We've already earmarked a swamp in the Everglades where these birds, which look like they've been hit by a rainbow that stuck, spend the winter months. These trips keep popping up.

We found music in the Woody Guthrie Center. We skipped the Bob Dylan Center, but swung by the Church Studio where Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, J.J. Cale (of course!) and others have recorded without going in (closed on Memorial Day). We also found a cool place to hear live music in the Mercury Lounge where we also appreciated their very loud and clear message of inclusiveness and not being a jerk. OK, so the Lounge used a different word.

And for pop culture fans (and for very different sorts of pop culture fans actually) we toured The Outsiders house in North Tulsa and spent a half day or so out in Pawhuska, which is the center of The Food Network's Pioneer Woman (a.k.a. Ree Drummond) empire. Both are very different kinds of pilgrimages. The Outsiders House is just a labor of love that's been embraced by about everyone who had about anything to do with the movie adaptation of Tulsa's own S.E. Hinton's novel which she started writing when she was 15. The staying power of that work and the movie Francis Ford Coppola made out of it is impressive.

The interior of Greenwood Rising, preserving the memory of Tulsa's Black Wall Street.

And if all that weren't enough, Route 66 goes right the way through the state, entering Oklahoma at the very northeast corner and extending all the way to the western border before passing into the Texas panhandle. And the eastern end of that road has what have to be some of the Mother Road's kitschiest and most classic attractions. 

Blue Whale of Catoosa? Visited! And let me say that attraction is the most amazing and most useless thing all at the same time. Why someone would build this thing in the first place is way beyond my ability to comprehend but I'm glad it's there. And I'm glad we visited to see beyond the one classic view of this place (which I have duplicated by my own hand below). Yes, it's silly and nonsensical and yes, it's totally worth visiting.

A little bit west of Catoosa in Tulsa (and a little bit off Route 66 to be honest) is the Golden Driller, a monument to Tulsa's original source of wealth. This one built in 1966 is actually the third golden driller and it's the largest free-standing statue in the world at 76 feet high. Yes, that's a real oil derrick his elbow is resting upon.

Then right in the middle of Tulsa on Route 66 there's a former muffler man turned space voyager outside Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios. One day, there's going to be a blog post from me about muffler men. These things are icons of the American west road trip. I just need to see enough to write something meaningful (right now I'm at two).

Look, I get that there's nothing to do with these things except just look at them or walk into them a little bit (Blue Whale) and then turn around and walk out again. But this stuff is part of American roadtripping history. Before videogames or iPads or GPSes and whatever else occupies our time when on the open road or tells us where to go, these side of the road attractions were landmarks when traveling between Point A and sometimes very distant Point B. They matter.

So admittedly not everything that we encountered in Oklahoma was wonderful. It never is when we travel. There's always something, it seems. Our something in Oklahoma had nothing to do with the people that we met or what happened to us while we were there. It had to do with the place's history. Tulsa is the site of one of the worst race riots in the history of the United States. And considering our country's history with race riots, that's saying a lot.

Oklahoma was settled effectively by sanctioned land grabbing. I'm dumbing this down a lot but the state was opened up to settlement on a first come, first served basis for anyone who wanted to plant a flag in a plot of land and farm it. There was literally a single start time where settlers lined up at a sort of starting line and rushed to get their land once the gun went off. Sure, some jumped the event by a day or so (the "Sooners") but the starting line thing is basically how it worked. Or at least that's how I understand it. I am sure I am way, way off.

Not all the land in what would become the State of Oklahoma (state number 46, in case you were wondering...) was desirable. So when it came time to welcome resettled native Americans and freed former slaves into the state, the leftover, less desirable land got given to those groups. Only it turned out to be not so undesirable because the powers that be had actually conveyed oil rich lands into the hands of those they meant to really not give anything valuable to. 

Oil led to wealth, and failing to find white businesses to take their money (every time we find out about segregation in this country, it's so disappointing, stupid and shortsighted), the black oil-rich landowners built their own business community which thrived better than most other places in the State of Oklahoma and really likely most places in the United States.

Then in 1921, a misunderstanding, a few lies and rumors and a whole lot of white jealousy and hate exploded into the wholesale destruction of the neighborhood that had been built in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, along with some out and out murders and really no consequences faced for those that started or participated in all the crimes committed against the city's black residents that day and night. It continues to amaze me how people can unleash this kind of violence on fellow people because their skin is a different color. 

The whole ordeal, including the events and conditions leading up to the riot and the completely unsatisfying aftermath, is documented in the pretty new Greenwood Rising Museum. Stroll around outside before or after your visit and read the plaques in the sidewalk detailing all of what used to be there and was never rebuilt. It's important we not forget these things.

And I thought there was nothing to do in Oklahoma. No reason to visit. Wrong! Wrong! And wrong! Oklahoma gave a good accounting for itself. It was worth saving until last, even if that wasn't my intention in any way.

The Blue Whale of Catoosa. A Route 66 classic since 1972.

But my most vivid memory of Oklahoma is also my worst memory of Oklahoma. 

On our first full day in the state, we took a drive from Tulsa to Pawhuska to do all things Pioneer Woman and maybe a couple of other things prairie-like for the day. Our route out there took us from Oklahoma State Routes 75 and 11, passing small town after small town on the way to a town about the same size as all those we passed. At one point on our drive, we encountered a detour that wasn't on Google Maps. No issue, it was simple enough to drive around. As we detoured, we rubbernecked a bit and tried to see what was going on. We ultimately passed by supposing that the center of town was off limits for some Memorial Day weekend event and we kept going to Pawhuska.

While in Pawhuska, we learned that a town named Barnsdall nearby had been hit by a tornado just the previous week. The stories sounded heartbreaking. An octogenarian who refused to leave town found 2-1/2 miles from the town courtesy of the tornado. A four year old who walked away without a scratch while both his parents were in the ICU and not yet conscious. Homes wiped out leaving survivors with nothing. We wondered if Barnsdall was the town with the detour and that it was not some celebration that was causing the re-routing of traffic, but the scene of a natural disaster. 

Sure enough, on our way back down Route 11, we passed by Barnsdall with an unexpected detour. From the west side of town you wouldn't have known anything was amiss and when we passed along the south perimeter, we could see a tree or two downed.

But when we came around the east side of town, we saw what had happened. We came across downed trees at first and seconds later noticed an entire swath of wooded area with trees that were stripped bare. There was not a single leaf or any small branch of these things, just trunks and substantial limbs completely denuded. Behind the trees, clearly visible, was a hill of shattered and shredded building materials. Anything and everything that can be used to make a house just in an untidy pile and not suitable for any sort of reuse. We had driven right by all this on the way to Pawhuska and hadn't noticed any of this.

The worst was beyond the naked trees: an entire section of town gone. That mountain of building materials? What used to be people's homes on what now were just empty lots. There was nothing except a masonry church. Everything else was gone. The devastation and precision with which this funnelcloud took from the families who used to live there was shocking and jarring. I've seen news footage of the type of destruction that can be caused by a tornado. It's way worse in real life. What are these survivors supposed to do? Mother Nature is still the boss, no matter how much we think we own this planet. It's a heck of a memory to leave Oklahoma with but at least I got to go home. My heart goes out to that town. Chilling.

No pictures of this one. Didn't think it was appropriate. But there is plenty of footage of the aftermath on the internet. I'll leave it to you to search for it. Tulsa and every part of Oklahoma we visited was amazing. Barnsdall is my most lasting memory. Sometimes when we travel we find things that we don't expect. It's all worth it, even if it's sometimes heartbreaking.

Foreshadowing. Not Oklahoma. Seen at the Kansas City airport.

56

 

Today is my 56th birthday. Another year of exploring our planet and year 11 of blogging about it is complete. So much for stopping at five years. I'm glad I didn't. This blog makes me keep pushing myself further and further to do more and more. And yes, I'm still up for writing down a lot of what I've experienced so I can keep re-living what I've done and seen and heard and smelled and eaten over and over again if I want to.

This year has been a different year of travel for me. Now, I realize I've already written about how it's been different in a couple of posts but indulge me again, if you even remember those posts (I know...you don't). So sure, we've expanded our horizons a lot this year. No new news there. Standard amazing stuff. Five new countries. Two new states (that's significant and we'll get to that soon). Tons of new birds. A second trip ever to Asia (for me, at least). Expensive wine in the Napa Valley and cheap (but still really, really good) wine in Croatia and Greece. Boston. All sorts of new music and food and other things. Awesome stuff! Read all about it in the posts from the last year. Please.

But I've also spent time traveling for work. Like way more than I've ever done. Like eight trips to New York and two to Chicago (albeit one was not MY work trip). I don't think that's affected my travel planning yet because everywhere I've been since my last birthday was planned before I got this new assignment. But the back end of this year might be a bit muted because of it. I did say MIGHT. It's definitely packed full of time in New York.

I love Chicago and I really love New York a lot. So I've tried to sneak in some stuff that I would normally do if I were going to those cities for fun. My first Chicago dog. Public transportation as an experience. Incredible (non-Chicago dog) food. Memorials. World class architecture. World class opera. Birdwatching. Movies. These trips haven't been as much fun as the rest of my trips (you know...because of the work) but I've tried to do more than just go work, eat and sleep. They have been fun and they have been tiring. The fun part is more important. And yes, I have sneaked a couple of posts in here and there. And I might not be done.

Charlie Parker Memorial, Kansas City MO. One of a few jazz pilgrimages I've made this year (for my dad).

So let's check up on goals, because that's what I do in these birthday posts after all. When I started this thing at 45, I made myself a series of goals to keep me focused and set some themes for my first five years of travel. I aced them all. Finished not just on time, but early. 

So at 50, I did it again. And I wasn't so successful. I got some of what I wanted to accomplish but I missed two things: (1) a trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and (2) completing my quest to visit every state in the United States. On this last one, as of a year ago, I was missing two states: Kansas and Oklahoma.

I blamed COVID for me missing my goals. I know...it's a bit flimsy but legit traveling outside of the United States was somewhat challenging for a bit there. So last year, considering I failed at my 50th birthday promise, I set no new goals until I finished what I pledged to get done a year ago.

The good news is I'm done. I set foot in Angkor Wat very early one February morning and followed that up in May with a flight to Kansas City, Missouri, picking up a car at the airport and then proceeding to drive to both Kansas and Oklahoma. Angkor Wat done! All 50 states done! Time for some new goals. And no, I haven't blogged and posted about the 50 states, but I will.

Only on the goals thing...no. I'm not making any more goals. I'm just going to go where I want to from now on. No checklists, no milestones, no goalposts, no nothing. Just going with the flow. Why? Well because I realized this year it's been seven years since I've really spent time in Japan (my layover this year doesn't count officially) and it's been even longer since I spent time in Paris. I love Paris. I love it so much I would live there in a heartbeat if I really thought I could. The lack of goals isn't going to stop me from pushing. I feel confident enough that I'm going to want to add new places to my list without a goals list. If I get complacent, I'll start making goals again.

So what does the next year look like? I have some ideas. I feel pretty good about some time in England and a return trip to Japan. I also would love to explore Central America a bit more and hopefully (God, please) some serious toucan and Mayan encounters. Other than that? I don't know...is there time for anything else? I'm hoping for some travel with friends. We did too little of that these past 12 months although we managed a couple of long weekends. I always think our travels are enriched by the presence of people we really love spending time with. I need to start exerting some serious peer pressure soon for Japan next year.

With or without friends, we are going to continue to keep going. Can't wait to see what happens before 57. Onward. And happy birthday to me. I'm in New York. How can it get any better, really?

Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers at night.

The Layover

I will admit that I have a travel fantasy. It's nothing outrageous or risqué or complicated or anything like that. It's actually pretty simple: that one day, some way, somehow I'll have a connection between very long flights to distant points on the globe that will be long enough for me to actually leave the airport and do something in my connection city. Yes, it's a layover fantasy. It's like adding a little bonus trip for free! Who wouldn't want that?

Told you it wasn't very complicated. And I should point out that this is not a one time fantasy thing. I hope for this frequently when I travel and I'll keep wishing for them no matter how many I actually get. I just want one every so often. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently it is, because it rarely happens. More often than not I'm making a tight connection rather than being blessed with a layover so long that I can get through customs and immigration and make my way from the airport to something and then do the whole thing in reverse and get to the gate in time to go to the next stop. That's a lot to do, and you better be pretty darned confident all that can fit in your layover window. It's not an easy thing, for sure. 

And OK, OK, it's happened once. In all my years of flying all over the planet, I've gotten one layover where I could go explore somewhere. On our return journey from Africa in 2018, we managed to get an eight hour or so connection in Amsterdam that allowed us to stuff our backpacks in an airport locker and go visit the Van Gogh Museum and maybe a souvenir stand or two. But that's it. Just once.

Until this year. Our flight home from southeast Asia this year had a layover that was a sure thing for the bonus excursion in a country that wasn't even on our itinerary. Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo's Haneda Airport then 18 hours before heading back to Dulles and home. 

Bonus trip time!

Family Mart egg sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off. Breakfast can't get better.

So...what to do? Well, first of all, the 18 hours we had were from about 9:30 on a Saturday night to 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon. That meant we needed to get some sleep in that window and that meant a hotel. So 18 hours isn't 18 hours of doing stuff. There's traveling to the hotel, checking in and getting some sleep. So realistically speaking, we had the morning to about noon or maybe a bit later because we'd need to stop back at the hotel to pick up our carry on baggage on the way home. That meant our options were really pretty limited.

Now, we've been to Tokyo before. We know a thing or two about the place and what our options might be. We figured two meals (breakfast and lunch) and maybe one or two quick attractions, and they would have to be open pretty early if we wanted to squeeze two things in. Things like karaoke, museums and samurai lessons would just be totally out of bounds. Not enough time or not the right time. We'd also need to pick something that was fairly close to public transportation lines and not too far from the airport. We'd have very little choice of location. We'd have to pick something that would be in a spot we could get to and then get back and catch our flight. 

We settled on a couple of Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine visits. These things are everywhere in Japan so there was bound to be one or two or five or forty close to our hotel and a train line and they are open early so we could definitely squeeze two in and still get breakfast and lunch. Our itinerary was set!

There was one more motivation behind visiting a couple of temples and/or shrines: we could add a couple of new temple seals (or goshuin) to the goshuin-cho that we picked up in 2017 on our first visit. These miniature works of art are perfect mementos of our trips to Japan and record of all the temples and shrines we have visited in our life.

Giant lanterns hanging at Sensō-ji.

Before we go on, can I just say how amazing Tokyo is? I mean, it's the absolute best. 

It's about 10:30 p.m. or so and we are checked in to our hotel and on the streets of Tokyo in search of a bedtime snack and maybe a birhu or two. The hotel is cheap and close to the airport. It's actually a JAL (Japan Airlines) hotel. It's nothing fancy and the room is small. But it's absolutely immaculate in how it presents itself to us. The room is perfectly made up. There are pajamas and slippers available for us, there's a super efficient spot for everything in the room and, of course, there's a bidet built into the toilet seat and there's a long shoehorn. This has nothing to do with the hotel or the hotel staff. It's Japan. It's Tokyo.

Out on the streets, there's a 24 hour ramen shop across the street from the hotel and there is a 7-11, a FamilyMart AND a Lawson Station within very, very close walking distance of the hotel. Moreover, the place is just perfect. Everything is in the exact spot it should be. Everything is clean. Everything is safe. Everything works. There's whatever you need when you need it and it's all there for everyone. This has nothing to do with the neighborhood we are in and it absolutely has nothing to do with chance. It's Japan. It's Tokyo. 

I'm telling you...this place is the best. Better even (and I hesitate to say this because it's apples and oranges for sure) than New York City. I have no idea how we haven't been back to Japan for seven years. Crazy!

Spoiler alert: we already have our next Japan trip booked.

The torii at Tomioka Hachiman, marking the threshold between the sacred and the secular.

So a quick and quiet night's sleep and we are ready for some breakfast, a couple of temple or shrine visits and some lunch before back to the airport and home.

Breakfast was easy. It's convenience store time. Given the choice between 7-11, FamilyMart and Lawson Station, there's only one real choice: it's FamilyMart. Egg salad sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off. Maybe I go to 7-11 or Lawson Station or try something else at FamilyMart if I have more than one day...but honestly, one day in Japan for breakfast and FamilyMart egg salad sandwich is a no brainer. I'm a FamilyMart guy all the way.

Next up: temples. The question here is...which two?

So, I've actually been keeping a list of temples and shrines which seem cool so I can plan around them on a future trip to Japan. The only one on my list that was close enough to public transportation close enough to Haneda Airport was the Tomioka Hachiman shrine. That was the first to make the list.

Why this shrine? Well quite simply because once upon a time (340 years ago), the first ever sumo tournament that became the current sport was held at the Tomioka Hachiman shrine and the first thing we did on the first day of our first trip to Japan was to head to a Grand Sumo Tournament for a day. This place was sure to be a great addition to that experience. 

The second? Well, it had to be close to Tomioka Hachiman so we had some choice but not a ton of choice. We decided to go big and choose Sensō-ji, which is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo (dating back to 645). List done. Egg sandwich eaten. Time to tourist.

Many, many people at Sensō-ji.

Did you know that Sensō-ji is one of the most visited religious sites in the world? That's WORLD, not just Japan. According to the temple's Wikipedia page, as many as 30 million people have visited the shrine in a year. 30 MILLION! No? Didn't know that? Neither did we.

Needless to say, the place was packed when we arrived there in late morning. Maybe I'm getting too old or something but crowds...not for me. Not everywhere. I love visiting popular tourist destinations and there is for sure a time and a place to have an engaged and large crowd (Chinese New Year's Eve this year in Singapore is a perfect example of when you need a lot of people at an event or attraction). But a temple in late morning where jostling is required to get to what there is to see? I'd rather go somewhere a little less populated where silence and contemplation that seem appropriate in a temple or shrine can occur.

Don't get me wrong here, the place is gorgeously designed and maintained and the campus is huge, meaning there are a lot of different spaces to experience both inside and outside. I'm glad we went to Sensō-ji and got it on our books (literally...but we'll get to that). The oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo is definitely worth a visit. Just not if you want to spend time in a spiritual place where you can contemplate.

One of the two Yokozuna stones, Tomioka Hachiman Shrine.

Tomioka Hachiman is what we were looking for. 

The Tomioka Hachiman shrine was established in 1627. What is standing today is not the original shrine. I'm not sure how many times it has been rebuilt (Japanese temples and shrines have a history of being burned to the ground) but I do know that the building was destroyed during allied bombing during World War II and it was rebuilt for the last time (for now) after that. 

So about that sumo thing. Sumo was not invented at Tomioka Hachiman. The origin of sumo as a sport is so old that it cannot be reasonably traced back to a particular date or site. It may have evolved from Shinto rituals or superstitions but the actual facts have morphed to folklore or myth or legend or something less reliable. However, it does seem that there is some connection to Shintoism. In case the notion of a religious shrine decided to host a wrestling tournament sounded odd.

Another thing to note: Tomioka Hachiman was also not the first place where a formal sumo tournament was held. There is evidence of emperors hosting such tournaments at the royal court as far back as the 700s. But the notion of a regularly occurring event held multiple times a year (twice) every year was established at Tomioka Hachiman in 1684. Over time, other cities held similar tournaments and eventually all these events merged or morphed or whatever you want to call it into the current sumo grand tournament format: six tournaments held in the odd numbered months. Three of the six are held in Tokyo. The other three are held elsewhere in Japan. 

All of this began with a shogun-sanctioned tournament at Tomioka Hachiman in 1684. Cool stuff. I think it's awesome to find the spot where things that we have traveled a great distance in the past to see began.

The main shrine at Tomioka Hachiman.

Tomioka Hachiman is not vastly different than most other temples or shrines we have visited in Japan. There are two torii marking the entrances to the property and the threshold between sacred and secular space. There is a main shrine; a fountain; a couple of statues; vending machines here and there; and a small garden area or two for reflection. In fact, other than the scale and the massive crowd, it's not a whole lot different than what we experienced at Sensō-ji. 

Except for the peace and quiet that is. Whereas Sensō-ji was mobbed with pilgrims and tourists, Tomioka Hachiman was absolutely deserted. Sure, we went there first and likely got there at 8:30ish or so in the morning but if there were 10 people on site when we were there at any one time, I'd have been shocked. You get to feel the spirituality through the peace and silence and experience a little bit of what places like these mean to the country of Japan and its people.

In addition to the overall vibe, there was one thing we had to stop by and visit tucked away in the back of the property to the right side of the main shrine: the Yokozuna stone.

Tomioka Hachiman. The circle with the three symbols inside is everywhere. 

The Yokozuna stone is there to honor those sumo rikishi (basically a term equated with any professional sumo wrestler) who have achieved the highest rank in the sport. Elevation to this rank is not easy. Typically it takes a successful career and an achievement like winning two grand tournaments in a row, although there is no set criteria for being named a Yokozuna. In the history of sumo, only 73 rikishi have achieved this rank and only six have earned the distinction in the 21st century. It's not something that happens every year. We were fortunate to see one of those 73 when we attended our first (and to date only) sumo tournament in 2017.

The stone was placed at the shrine by Jinmaku Kyügorō, the 12th Yokozuna, in the year 1900. Since that time, the name of each subsequent Yokozuna has been added to the stone when each new member is added to the club. There's a special ceremony held at the shrine for each of these additions. Definitely worth a visit.

There's a reason why sumo is so special to us. One of the most notable (if not THE most notable) interactions we have ever had with a stranger while traveling happened in May of 2017 at our first tournament. At that tournament, we sat next to a younger man who was a huge sumo fan, and during a break in the tournament he left his seat, went to the souvenir stand and came back with a poster showing all the Yokozuna in history that he presented to us to as a souvenir of our visit. It was an amazing gesture and we now have that poster framed and hanging in our house.

Based on that interaction with someone we will likely never ever see again, sumo, sumo tournaments, Japan and the Yokozuna will always occupy a special place in our travel history. Visiting Tomioka Hachiman added another piece to that already remarkable history in our lives. The point for us to go to Tomioka Hachiman was really to lay eyes on that stone and remember that connection back to 2017.

Our goshuin-cho with newly acquired stamps from Tomioka Hachiman (right) and Sensō-ji (left).

A few last things about this layover. First, I wish these things could happen more often. There's not a lot you can do on a hours-long layover but there is a real opportunity to add a special unexpected memory to a trip. I know that happened here in Tokyo. It also made us long for Japan and book our next trip there.

Second, we did get two new goshuin added to our goshuin-cho that we picked up years ago at the Komitake Shrine on the slope of Mount Fuji. They are displayed above. Each time we do this, our temple and shrine visitation path diverges from all others that are similar. It is truly a unique memento tied directly to us as two people. This book is likely like no other in the world. I think that's cool. I also love the green ink on the Tomioka Hachiman seal. First time I've seen multiple colors. 

Third, we did eat two meals in our half day plus in Tokyo. And like our choice of breakfast spots, there was really no debate on where we were going for lunch. One of our last meals in 2017 in Japan was eaten at a spot called CoCo Curry House. I have no idea if this chain restaurant is like Denny's to the average Japanese citizen but we love this stuff and we couldn't set foot in Japan without dipping a spoon into a bowl of brown Japanese curry next to some rice on a plate. This is really like the most visually unappealing meal we have ever eaten (twice) but it's so, so good. Had to stop here. I expect that a trip to CoCo Curry will be on our 2025 Tokyo itinerary. 

Lastly, let's talk about the cover picture of this post. There are many enduring images and memories from our first trip to Japan seven years ago. One of those is (believe it or not...) vending machines. I'm serious. These things were everywhere in 2017 and so we were not surprised in any way to find a few at the Tomioka Hachiman shrine. One of the great joys about Japanese vending machines on our first visit was that most stocked beer. That's right, you could walk up to a vending machine, drop some yen in and come away with a cold birhu. 

Now, we didn't really expect to find beer in the vending machine at a Shinto shrine. But the surprise was that we didn't find beer in vending machines anywhere, not even in the hotel. That's because in late 2017, Japan banned beer in vending machines. Not because kids were buying them and drinking them (come on...it's Japan) but because local businesses were complaining about the loss of money due to vending machine beer sales. 

Things change. Japan is still awesome. This was a such a treat at the end of our epic Southeast Asia journey. Can't wait to go back here next spring.

Tea For The Tillerman

To answer what might be an inevitable question, there's no tillerman in this post.

Our trip to Southeast Asia earlier this year had us in Singapore for a night, on to Cambodia for three nights, back to Singapore for another seven nights and then finishing in Malaysia for four nights. Cambodia was amazing. Singapore was amazing. Malaysia was...not amazing. There was nothing necessarily regrettable about our time in Malaysia. It just wasn't amazing. 

I don't know what we did wrong in Malaysia but the place didn't capture our imagination the way the other two countries did. Maybe it was our questionable choices to visit the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park and take a trip out to the coast to see (very, very few) fireflies at night. Maybe it was the fact that we found one of KL's marquee tourists attractions, the Batu Caves, to be mostly just smelly and hot. Or maybe we just didn't get anything out of taking the elevator up to the top of the Petronas Towers (once the tallest building in the world) because there's nothing else up there to look at. Whatever it was, we didn't love Malaysia. Maybe it was just Kuala Lumpur. Maybe we should have gone to Penang.

If there's any other evidence needed of how much we didn't love Malaysia, consider this: Cambodia got five blog posts; Singapore got five blog posts; Malaysia's getting one. Yes, there's one post shared between all three countries about food but as far as Malaysia-only posts, this is it. It's about tea. And it was the best thing we did by far in Malaysia. 

To be clear, this isn't like a token post to make me or the country of Malaysia feel good about the fact that we visited. Our time with tea in Malaysia was worth writing about. So here goes.

Boh tea plantation. Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.

I grew up on tea. I spent the first 11 years of my life in England and drank tea every day pretty much for as long as I can remember. Now, I'm sure there was a time when I was really young that my mom fed me something other than tea, but as far as I can remember in my childhood, there was tea on the breakfast table and for afternoon tea on weekends every time we had breakfast or tea. It's an essential part of growing up in England and likely always will be. I don't drink tea really today like ever but when I go back to England to visit I do. Every time I have any sort of sit down meal to start off the day. It must be some kind of innate behavior kicking in.

Of course, tea doesn't grow in England. The reason why English people drink tea is that they took over about half the world centuries ago and produced goods in all their territories to make life back at home in Britain that much better. That included tea, which was produced in massive quantities in places like India and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and Kenya and Uganda and yes, even Malaysia.

As of the beginning of this year, I had never visited a tea plantation anywhere in the world. Some of that has to do with the fact that I haven't really been that many places where tea is grown. Yes, I've been to Kenya and Uganda but I was a bit more focused on something other than tea in the week long safari we spent in each of hose two countries (although we did see tea plantations in Uganda). I've visited a coffee plantation (in Hawaii), but never tea. Time to change that. In Malaysia.

Some of the seemingly endless greenhouses that coat the Cameron Highlands.

There are no tea plantations in Kuala Lumpur. Or anywhere near there really. Apparently, something about the climate or the soil or the elevation or something isn't right there. KL is barely above sea level and it's hot pretty much all the time. Particularly in February. So we had to get out of town a bit to the north.

There's a spot in Malaysia called the Cameron Highlands which is perfect for growing almost anything that needs soil and water to grow. Tomatoes, long beans, greens, lettuce, spinach, eggplant, cucumbers, you name it. The elevation and climate are ideal. It's also (as the name suggests) high enough above sea level (say 5,000 feet or so) that the nights are cooler and misty and the land doesn't get baked by the mid-day (or late day or early morning) sun. It's also a pretty good spot to grow tea. There are at least two very large tea plantations there. 

The problem? It's nowhere near Kuala Lumpur. Want to drive out there? Google Maps says three hours to get there. Train? Five hours. If we wanted to go there (and we did), we'd need a ride. 

We found one on Viator. We picked what sounded like a jam packed 12 hour (!!!) day traveling to the Cameron Highlands, exploring various things up there (including a tea plantation) and then back again to KL. We paid to make the tour private and then hoped we'd be able to talk our guide into skipping most of the stuff and just focusing on the tea plantation part of the whole thing. It sort of mostly worked. Kind of. His wife tripped us up a bit.

So what was on the tour? Ready for this? A basket weaving demonstration. A waterfall. An aborigine village. A vegetable market. A strawberry farm. A butterfly farm. A honey bee farm. A cactus shop. Lunch. A visit to a tea plantation (Boh Tea, as it turned out) and a photo stop at a second tea plantation. We didn't figure we needed all that. I mean, why do we need to go to a vegetable farm? It's not like we are picking up some garlic and some long beans or something like that. Pass on the vegetable farm. Pass on the strawberry farm. Pass on the basket weaving.

We figured we'd just stick to the things we were really interested in and if we were able to squeeze a bit more time at the tea plantations, that was good for us. Plus maybe then we'd have a day that lasted less than 12 hours and could make it back to the hotel in time for afternoon happy hour in the executive lounge at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton. Free food and booze. Always with the mooching with these two.

Three hours to Cameron Highlands is no joke by the way. It was two hours on Malaysia's super-modern North-South Expressway followed by an hour's drive up and around twisty-turny roads to the beginning of Cameron Highlands. And our driver was no slouch. He was definitely driving at a good clip. There were times that the roads definitely tested his ability to keep his Toyota Innova on the road or at the very least between the lines. It would be at least 30 minutes after the three hour mark before we got to anywhere we could stop.

It is truly a different world in the Highlands, by the way. When you get out of the hot and sticky lowlands of tropical Malaysia and up a bit in the clouds, it's a totally different world, one which man has figured the best thing to do is cover it with greenhouses as far as the eye can see. I'm not convinced there was a single right angle used in the construction of a single one of these things. Those stick and plastic-built plant incubators covered the contours of the land and mimicked the surface of the Earth. A dip in the land meant a dip in the roof structure. 

And it is COLD. Not like freezing cold but I definitely regretted not bringing something with long sleeves with me. A 20 to 30 degree drop in temperature will do that to you.

The approach to Boh Tea's visitor center.

Somewhere between the butterfly farm and the cactus shop, we stopped at Boh Tea.

Malaysia is not a huge tea producer. China leads the world in tea production at 2.47 million metric tons per year. That number represents 40% of the world's total tea production. India is next. Then Kenya. Then Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka manages just a bit more than 10% of China's output at 349,000 metric tons per year. Malaysia isn't anywhere close in terms of volume produced. It isn't even in the top ten. How much in Malaysia? 10,000 metric tons per year. That's nothing. It doesn't look that way when you visit one of these plantations, though. I can't imagine these things in China.

A metric ton by the way is 1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds. 2.47 million metric tons is a lot.

My first impression of our drive to the Boh Plantation was how incredibly beautiful these tea plant covered fields were. They are a gorgeous mix of dark and light green colors and the plants coat the Earth just the same way those greenhouses we passed on our way to the plantation do. Although instead of ugly white-ish plastic, it's verdant green. The plants create a cover for the ground, with tiny paths separating the plants for the pluckers to walk through. This is a strange analogy but the only thing I can liken the appearance to is a craquelin topping on top of a chou pastry bun. I know that's ultra obscure (yes, I do watch the British Baking Show religiously) but for me, that's exactly the look.

Every surface that can be covered with tea plants is covered with tea plants. There's no need to mess about with anything else. The walkway to the plantation visitor center is as narrow as it can reasonably be to accommodate the volume of incoming tourists. Either side of the path? Tea.

Tea plant. Up close and personal. 

It's funny what you don't know about how things that you consume are produced. We came face to face with that last year in Zanzibar when we stopped by a spice farm. We got the same kind of experience here in Malaysia. I mean, I had no idea how tea was produced. I could have guessed at the picking but after that...I don't know. Ignorant.

There are five basic steps after picking: withering, rolling, fermentation, drying and sorting. Do these five things in that order, and you end up with some tea. Withering takes about 20 hours to complete. Drying takes just 20 minutes. The object of the entire process is to get the moisture content of the tea down, down, down and concentrate the flavor so it's useful to make drinks for British people and whomever else out there loves a good cuppa. There's a display outside the 1934 factory on property that shows the various stages of leaf condition during the entire production process.

The factory, which was built about five years after the plantation was established, is still in use today. A tea plant, by the way, takes about that length of time to go from seedling to tea-producing vine.

The entire process of tea production, along with the history of Boh Tea and some ancient tea-rolling and drying equipment that replaced hand labor and time respectively, are on display for all to see in the visitor center. If you are a tea geek (and I'm not quite sure I'm completely in that category) this must be a dream come true. For someone like me just generally interested in food production, it was still pretty fascinating. I mean the lengths people used to go to just to dry some plant leaves so they could be shipped halfway around the world and steeped in hot water so people who couldn't have imagined the sight of the place where these little leaves came from could have a drink is just amazing to me.

And of course they had samples. They had to have samples, right? And I have to say...my eyes are opened.

After you get through all the history of Boh and the stats about worldwide production of tea and the process of the whole thing, there are four urns of tea (I was honestly going to use the term coffee urns but, well, you know...) each of which has a different flavor of sweetened tea. And get this...the tea is powdered. 

Now, look, I know that we can buy powdered iced tea drink here in the United States but I figured that was some kind of synthetic drink that wasn't really tea. Some sort of chemical concoction to approximate real iced tea drink. Apparently I was wrong.

Iced tea is disgusting by the way. It just is. It's one of those American things I can't get my head wrapped around.

This powdered tea stuff...incredible! They were serving this stuff in tiny cups and I must have had 12 of these things. I kept going back. I don't know what they made this stuff with, whether it was milk or water or some magic elixir but the taste was just mindblowingly good. And I'm not particularly a tea guy (except in Britain...) and no way am I a powdered tea guy. But this stuff. Just wow! The caramel and matcha flavors were just indescribably good.

I will say that we have purchased some U.S.-based version of what we had at Boh and I just can't make it the way they made it at the headquarters there in Malaysia. It was just transcendent. Maybe it was the being there. Being there often makes the difference, although if that's what this was, it was a pretty extreme example of being there making a difference.

Antique tea-rolling machine (top) and the good stuff (bottom). The matcha and caramel...I'm telling you.

This travel stuff is eye-opening sometimes. But ain't that most of the point of doing this?

So about that plan to spend more time at the tea plantation and get back early. I think it worked. We milked maybe an extra 15 to 20 minutes out of our time at Boh. We probably could have got a little bit longer stay but honestly, we were pretty much finished anyway. And yes, we did make it back for free happy hour at the hotel.

We also visited the vegetable farm. Or at least a market. I said we were skipping it. We didn't. 

Apparently, vegetables in the Cameron Highlands are significantly cheaper and presumeably better than veg available in the local supermarkets around Kuala Lumpur. And our driver had a list from his wife and (I think) an appointment at a specific stall. So we stopped. 

Far be it from me to get in the way of a hardworking Malaysian couple and a some groceries that can save them a ringgit or two. I'm not being facetious here. I am sure both of them work harder to make ends meet than we do or ever have and I don't want to stand in the way of any of that and I'm not stuck up enough to be so self centered to be upset about this. We try to tip well on these excursions for just that reason. We had two priorities for this day: (1) spend as much time as possible at a tea plantation and (2) get back for free happy hour. We got both. I appreciate our driver pushing the schedule and his car's ability to climb those hills. I think we ended up with a 10 hour day instead of a 12 hour day. That's a heck of a long time to spend driving two tourists around. I'm happy to stop for some veg. 

We did stop at a second tea plantation (Cameron Valley Tea) for a photo opportunity. More of that gorgeous tea-coated Malaysia landscape. That's what this whole day was about and it was completely worth it. I won't forget those landscapes. It's the craquelin. I don't know how else to convey the appearance.

Top to bottom: Boh's factory; the view from Boh's visitor center; Cameron Valley Tea plantation.

Dangerously Addictive

OK, so I'm going to do something here that's probably a little short-sighted, maybe a bit ignorant and possibly just altogether wrong. It's food post time and I'm going to just smush all the food we ate in Southeast Asia together into one post. That means just one post for Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia combined. Is food in those countries all really the same? Honestly...no it is not. There is a great diversity and variety in what is eaten between those three nations. They are in no way the same. There's no excuse for me doing this post this way. 

Having said that (so here comes the excuse...), I do feel based on my whole two weeks over in that area of the planet, that there is enough overlap in some areas and I'm also not going to highlight much about Cambodia. So given the lack of focus on Cambodia, I feel (again...based on my whole all of two weeks there) that Singapore and Malaysia are close enough to one another to get away with this concept. Plus, I'm not writing three posts about food from one trip. Or two, even, because Cambodia certainly has an important, albeit small, part to play here. So here goes...my food post from the entirety of Southeast Asia that we visited in 2024.

And, yes, I'm drinking my beer with a straw in the photograph above. I'm wearing gloves and my hands are slippery. Not risking dropping beer.

So first of all, before I get to specific dishes or plates or whatever, let me say that my two favorite meals on this trip were in Malaysia and it's not even close. Overall (meaning not just for the food), I'd rank the three countries from top to bottom as Cambodia first, Singapore second and Malaysia a distant (and I do mean distant) third. But food-wise, the dishes I long for from this trip are two that I ate in Kuala Lumpur.

One of the two was a dish called nyonya laksa, a shrimp and tofu, spicy coconut milk noodle dish that just hit all the notes I want in a lunch dish (or any other sort of meal for that matter). We got it at the Old China Cafe in Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur and it was just awesome. I tried very hard on this trip to eat dishes that I really wasn't familiar with and nyonya laksa definitely checked that box. I really had very little idea what I was actually ordering. Maybe I got super lucky. If I did, it wasn't the only time I got that sort of lucky in Malaysia. 

I'll save the other dish that I loved for last. Let's get to what else I found on the other side of the planet.

Nasi Lemak

Let's start this post off in earnest with the greatest hits. If there were one or two classic, can't miss dishes that we HAD to have in Singapore and Malaysia, one was definitely something called nasi lemak (and the other is the next dish in this post). And if you didn't know it, nasi lemak is the national dish of Malaysia, not that labeling it as that explains the dish in any way.

Sometimes the best sorts of food are simple, simple, simple. Nasi lemak for sure is one of those. Rice cooked in coconut milk; cucumbers (or you might skip those things if you are not pro-cucumber); a dried anchovies and peanuts concoction called ikan bilis; and an egg of some sort (we ate this dish with both fried and halved hard-boiled eggs, although not at the same time) along with some sambal on the side pretty much forms the base of a typical nasi lemak plate.

Much like the ubiquitous rice and beans in Costa Rica, nasi lemak can make up any sort of meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. Maybe it's eaten just plain for breakfast and maybe you add some chicken or a banana-leaf-wrapped otah (or spiced fish cake) for the later meals but nasi lemak is eligible for a place on the table at any Malaysian or Singaporean mealtime.

Best nasi lemak on our trip? In Singapore, but that's probably because we didn't eat it in Malaysia except at our hotel. There's something about this coconut rice. The toppings can for sure affect the quality of the dish, especially if you get a perfectly fried and juicy chicken wing on the side, but that coconut rice...whoever invented that stuff was onto something for sure. 

The picture above is from The Coconut Club in Singapore. It was definitely the best nasi lemak of the trip, although it would have been better with the chicken wing from Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak at the Adam Road Food Centre. Coconut Club's chicken was a touch dry.

Chili Crab

This was my food splurge in Southeast Asia. I knew a meal of chili crab was going to cost me a lot and I ignored it anyway. I also knew it was going to be super messy. Whatever. 

Chili crab is basically a cooked Singaporean mud crab doused in some kind of spicy tomato sauce. You get the entire animal chopped up into pieces, shell and all, and just pound away at this thing until it's all gone. It's some tough going at some points. Despite providing you with a hefty set of crab crackers to open that shell, there's some work here involved. I've eaten other meals of crabs in shells but I've never seen any shell as thick as these mud crabs. I'm estimating the thickness of the claws approached 1/16 of an inch. It's basically like cracking a thick piece of strong plastic. No easy task.

A whole lot of research about where to get some really excellent chili crab led me to Keng Eng Kee (or K.E.K. for short) Seafood. It's one of their specialties; they have been around since the 1970s; they are on their third generation of ownership; they are Anthony Bourdain-endorsed; and they are not in a super accessible area with tons of tourist foot traffic. Seemed like a good combination.

There's no doubt in my mind that this was a good choice. It was open-air. It was packed. There were plastic chairs. There was a time limit to the table. And we were looked at with some skepticism when we showed up and asked if we had a reservation. We did. Of course we did. And I swear someone somewhere started the clock as soon as we sat down.

We didn't use all our time. We can eat quickly. Even if it's a whole crab that requires cracking.

I think as a dining splurge, this was worth doing once. I've said it before and I'll say it again...I don't understand why crab costs so much (with the possible exception of Dungeness crab). This was a good meal and it was tasty (although sweet more than spicy) and it was completely authentically Singaporean. But at a $95 SG per kilo price (that's about $70 or so US), I feel I can get something better for less. 

My crab weighed about 0.9 kilograms. Do the math on the cost, if you are so inclined.

Hawker Markets

Some of our food experience on this trip required a lot of research and a lot of looking to find the best, the most traditional, the most Southeast Asian food we could find. Some...but not all. One thing that was obvious to us before we even booked our flights to Singapore and Malaysia and everywhere else we stopped was that our culinary experience in Singapore had to include a lot of eating at the country's various hawker markets.

Why hawker markets? Well, because it seems like every TV show we watched, every blog post we clicked on and every travel guide we read said we had to get to these places at mealtimes. Heck, Newton Food Centre is the first place that Nick Young and Rachel Chu go to get some food in Crazy Rich Asians after they get picked up at Changi Airport. Hawker markets are in vogue. Hawker markets are hip. We had to get to multiple, multiple hawker markets in Singapore. There was no question or no option really about this. This was going to be a project in and of itself.

Maybe I ought to take a step backwards here and explain what a hawker market is. Quite simply, it's an open air market with multiple stalls which usually feature one or two signature dishes and each stall only serves those particular dishes. Sounds simple, right? It's not. It's way, way deeper than that. I am sure there are people out there who would hail hawker markets as the keepers of traditional Singaporean (with all its Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, etc. influences) dishes. And those people wouldn't be wrong. Hawker markets are for sure preserving the area's culinary traditions. And they are doing it at insanely low prices, and that includes the stalls which have been Michelin listed or Michelin starred. Not kidding. Looking for cheap and amazing food in Singapore? Put some hawker markets on your list.

We did. Our itinerary for this trip had four hawker markets on it and we made it to all four. There are more. We just picked four that were closest to the other things we were looking to do while in Singapore.

Chicken rice from Maxwell Food Centre (top); Paneer Tikka from Tekka Centre (bottom).

We tried to mix it up at the hawker markets. 

We went with the internet's advice at the Maxwell Food Centre and Adam Road Food Centre and got the chicken rice and nasi lemak, respectively, which is supposed to be the top of the top dishes (although admittedly the internet seemed to be split on the best stall at Adam Road). We stood in a very long line at Maxwell that went very quickly on our first day in Singapore and we stood in a fairly short line at Adam Road that took about 45 minutes between the time we started queuing and when we got our food.

At the other two spots, we winged it and just picked what looked or sounded good. No advance research, just pick a spot and go with it. Usually the conventional wisdom was to go with the longest line on the supposition that people know where the good stuff is. We didn't do any of that. Standing in two lines was enough. 

In two of the four places, I picked something that I really was completely unfamiliar with. There were two things on my nasi lemak plate at Adam Road that I just ate without understanding what I was eating and I ordered a carrot cake at Newton Food Centre with really no clue what I'd be handed, although I was pretty sure it wasn't some brown cake with carrot shreds, walnut and cream cheese frosting. It wasn't. It was basically a white radish omelet with a side of spicy red sauce (picture below).

And I did figure out what one of the two mystery items on my nasi lemak plate was. It was the aforementioned spiced fish cake or otah. I still don't know what the other thing was. 

So was it good? Absolutely. Everything we ate at all four hawker markets was really good, quick and fresh and totally unlike anything we can get quickly at a restaurant or stall here at home. And it was all super, super cheap. The paneer tikka in the picture above cost me $4 SG, and that included the made to order garlic naan. I was lamenting that we didn't have enough cash in the nasi lemak line because I couldn't believe the thing that I was about to ordered cost $4. I thought the sign said $14.

Was food from a hawker market the best thing I ate on this trip? No it was not. But for the cost, it blew almost every other dish that we ate out of the water and it wasn't even close. I could easily eat three solid meals a day from hawker markets and expect to spend less than $15 US total for the whole day. And that's not, by the way, a bad strategy for staying well fed in Singapore I'm sure.

Sugar Cane Juice

One of the peculiar things about eating at the hawker markets is you can't get both your food and drinks at the same stalls. We found food at about 90% of the stalls and the other 10% were drinks only. And here's where I found one of my food quests for this vacation: sugar cane juice.

Order a cup of sugar cane juice and the stall owner will whip out a few stalks of bamboo-looking things (spoiler alert: it's sugar cane), split them in half and then feed them through a machine that squeezes all the juice from the sticks. The juice goes into a metal container just below the machine; the rest of the woody cane goes into the trash, although a little of the pulp ends up with the juice. The juice then gets run through a very fine mesh sieve (don't want to drink the pulp) and then poured over ice. Voila: sugar cane juice.

This was actually refreshing and not too sweet (I imagined it would be super sweet). I'd have this stuff on its own or as a dessert drink. I'm not sure it was the best accompaniment to my carrot cake but this was a successful quest. When else am I going to drink freshly pulped sugar cane?

Salted Egg Fish Skins

There are foods out there that are just so unusual and tantalizing (and not always in a "wow that sounds incredible!" way) that I just have to sample them when I travel. I don't mean like monkey's brains or some other sort of offal or something really disgusting like the chicken with cream clam sauce burger that we found in a 7-11 in Singapore. I mean something simpler. Something that just makes you wonder why would anyone ever make this and stick it in a bag on a food shelf somewhere. On this trip, that food was salted egg fish skins.

And yes, the chicken with cream clam sauce burger was real. Why? It's like someone just picked a bunch of ingredients and just put them together with no thought whatsoever as to whether it would be good.

So there's nothing mysterious about salted egg fish skins. They are what they sound like. They are pieces of fish skin dipped in salted duck egg yolks and cooked before being sealed into a bag and placed on a grocery store shelf. They are like potato chips. Only made with fish skins instead of potatoes.

Singaporeans apparently love these things. I do not, although I did eat the whole bag. They weren't objectionable or anything. Maybe it's a cultural thing or a practice makes perfect thing but I'm just not conditioned to crave fish skins as a snack. Glad I did this once. Probably not a repeat customer. It's not like the sugar cane juice.

Durian

OK...so it had to happen sooner or later that I'd finally sample durian while traveling. I wasn't going to. I swear. They have pieces of fresh durian very visible and very, very securely wrapped on market stalls in Singapore's Chinatown and I had no inclination to pick up a packet and try it. The airport got me here.

If you don't know what durian is, it's a fruit that grows in the tropics that some people describe as custardy and others (to be clear here...most others) describe as having the smell and flavor of rotting meat. Durians are banned on the Singapore MRT system because of the risk of their smell. Singapore's not alone in this kind of prohibition. We found the same sort of ban on the buses in Zanzibar last winter. I have really no desire to try a fruit that smells like rotting meat, but clearly people must like this stuff. I mean, they do seem to have a lot for sale in some spots.

Which brings us to the Kuala Lumpur airport with a little time to kill.

I'm sure if you've traveled to anywhere international you are familiar with the stores at the airport that sell chocolates or whatever it is that has some sort of connection to the country you are leaving. They had a couple of these stalls at the KL airport and among the various boxes of goodies, there was a display of durian filled dark chocolates. And there were samples.

Of all the durian experiences I could imagine, eating a tiny candy that is pretty much equal parts dark chocolate and durian was about the best-case scenario I could ever cook up. Plus it's free. There was something about this situation that I couldn't say no to. I picked up one of the individually-wrapped chocolates, opened the tiny little packet, smelled it and then popped it into my mouth and bit down.

I'll say this: it's a good thing they had a lot of other individually-wrapped candies hanging around the airport because I needed about five or six other types of chocolate samples to erase that memory. And quick. Rotting meat? I'm not sure about that but something not good was in my mouth. If this my reaction to about as little durian as you could ever have, I'm passing in the future. Including in airports.

Pandan

Believe it or not, most of what I've described that sat before us on tables or counters before it made its way to my mouth was familiar in some form. I knew about sugar cane juice and durian and even salted egg fish skins before leaving home. I had no idea that something called pandan even existed. We found out about it on our first day in Cambodia when we ordered some pandan sticky rice with mango. We love sticky rice with mango. Had to have this.

When our sticky rice arrived, it looked like the picture above. Rice? Check! Mango? Check!! Sauce made from something coconut-y? Check!!! What's the green stuff. Must be the pandan, right? Right!!!!

Pandan is basically Southeast Asia's version of vanilla. It's a bright green leaf used to flavor food. We found some when we were on a hike on Singapore's Pulau Ubin island looking for hornbills and other winged creatures. And it's just awesome. We stayed three nights in Cambodia. We ate pandan sticky rice four times in our stay at our hotel. We also found plenty of pandan treats in Malaysia and ate it pretty much every time we saw it. This was a revelation. And it's not strictly like vanilla. I'd describe it as a more herbaceous version of vanilla, for what that's worth.

More pandan treats? Yes, please!!!

So after all that eating, there's one more thing to talk about: the best meal of our trip (for me, at least). And this is going to sound a bit crazy.

When we got to Kuala Lumpur, it was before check-in time at the Hilton so we dropped our bags and asked the hotel staff if there was someplace close we could get something to eat. They gave us a couple of options, one of which was something called NU Sentral, which sounded like it was some sort of hawker market-type thing that had a number of options. The directions were easy enough and it didn't involve walking outside in the heat so we picked that.

It turned out that we were sent to a shopping mall food court and it appeared that the air conditioning in the building stopped at the perimeter of the food court. Oh well. We were there and hungry, let's just pick something and this will be a throwaway meal. After looking at all the stalls, I picked a place labeled Chili Pan Mee. I just wanted to try something I'd never heard of. After trying to order just simple chili pan mee (whatever that was...) and not being able to convince the dude at the register that I didn't also want the side of dumplings, I acquiesced and just paid for what he wanted me to get (it was less than $3.50 US).

Usually when I get a meal that might be notable while traveling, I take a picture before eating. I didn't here. I took a picture of the stall (below) just so I could remember the name of the dish.

I don't know what they put in that bowl but it was phenomenal. I know there was pork and anchovies and probably some fish sauce and spices but this meal was just amazing. It was so rich with flavor and had the best sort of spicy heat to it. The broth was fantastic. The side of dumplings was good too but that chili pan mee...I mean just wow! At a mall food court for less than $3.50!!!! What are we doing wrong in this world over here that I can't get this stuff at our local mall? I feel embarrassed a bit here. We went to world-renowned hawker markets in Singapore and at least one Michelin-starred restaurant on this trip and I love something from the mall food court. It was that good.

So that's it. That's my Southeast Asia food rundown. I will say that I've tried to find a reasonably good chili pan mee in New York since I got back and I do very much like the version that Pig and Khao makes (they also have amazing coconut rice) but it's not the mall food court in KL. It's just not.