Oh, what a day! Today didn’t start till it nearly ended – I spent most of the day just relaxing at the guesthouse (which was somewhat forced – my wallet had been misplaced the day before, and it wasn’t found until it was a little late to head to the flea market I had originally planned to go to.)
So instead, I blogged, chatted with folks at the hostel, and relaxed.
But!
In the evening, a large group of us (18 people) left the hostel to go to a Korean Barbecue place with all-you-can drink lemon sours.
The Korean barbecue placeKorean barbecue is mostly meat – brought raw to the table, and cooked over a small gas grill to your preferred level.One of the meats I had was a beef tongue with lemon slices, and then some seasoned guts.This was vanilla ice cream with a pomegranate syrup? It was almost a vinaigrette. One of the other people from the guesthouse wanted to try my camera!
After the barbecue, we ran across someone with a guitar jamming out next to the train station. Several people ended up dancing while the rest of us watched in a circle, and at the end we clapped and left him a few tips. (Sadly, I did not get a photo of this!)
Then, we navigated all 18 of us back to the guesthouse through two train stops. For some reason, the Korean Barbecue place only gave us one check, not split by tables (for about $400 USD) – so we spent the next hour and a half trying to decipher the Japanese receipt and figuring out who needed to pay how much. After much ado, we ended up just splitting everything evenly (except for the people who didn’t have a lot). The guy who paid was also american, so I acted as a bank and took some of the cash and sent him money via Venmo. Now I have spending cash for the rest of the trip!
On the way back we had ran across a couple of Japanese locals who’d just left a bar, and they convinced a number of our group to join them for karaoke after the payment sorting out had happened.
I did not go back out, but instead stayed back and kept chatting with one of the other guests. We lost track of time as we chatted, until the other group came back from Karaoke . . . At 4:30 AM 😅
Then of course, we had to chat with the folks who’d come back for a while, and then by the end of that, the sun had begun to rise. At that point, it looked nice outside, and we were already not going to get good sleep – so we just headed out to the quiet morning streets, grabbed a coffee at 7-11, and meandered around the quiet neighborhood as the sun rose.
Olympus C4100We watched this cat for a while, it watched us.The weathered paint here looked cool. This photo somehow almost looks like a miniature scene to me. I was told that the common use of tiles has to do with earthquake resistance? Olympus C4100
Finally at around 10AM, I ended up heading to bed – and now after 8 hours of sleeping (I woke up at 6PM), I’m here chilling and writing this post. I’ll (in theory) go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour! I have to, because I check out of this guesthouse tomorrow at 10 AM. I’ll be back to this same guesthouse in a few days – I wanted to extend my stay for the rest of the trip, but the next two days are booked out – so I’ll be staying in another guesthouse for two nights before coming back for the rest of my trip.
Most days in Japan so far I’ve started the day with nothing planned, and then ended up busy anyway. Usually someone else in the hostel is going out to do something in the city and I tag along. Today, Matt wanted to go get curry at a Japanese curry place he’d heard about, and I wanted to go check out a flea market some of the other guests had told me about. So we headed out via the trains!
Almost all the train stations here have these barriers that automatically open when the train doors open, rather than an open gap next to the tracks.
The neighborhood where the curry place was is really cute – it’s only a small distance from the tourist center of Tokyo, but was surprisingly uncrowded.
Matt told me that many old houses here the signs are the name of the house – usually named after the family name of the people who live there.These are the largest pitcher plants I’ve seen!Elliot, I know you’ll like this one 🙂I love the colors here.
As it turns out, the curry place had a long line, and unless we’d had a reservation, we would have had to wait for almost two hours. We gave up and decided to get tacos at a shop we’d passed earlier.
The tacos were pretty good! I always think it’s funny seeing food from a cuisine more local to where I live in foreign countries – it’s interesting to see what’s authentic, and what has been influenced by the country it’s being prepared in.
In this case, the tacos were relatively accurate! I like the tacos back home much more, but that’s not a big surprise. I imagine it’s hard to get ingredients as authentic here.
A classic bike from the 80’s. I think it is a Honda Trail 110.
After the tacos, we decided we were too late for the flea market (it closed at 2:30 PM), so we instead headed into the tourist center to do some vintage clothes shopping. I found a couple of cute shirts (I regretted not bringing more comfortable t-shirts), and some other neat trinkets I was wanted (but resisted the urge) to purchase.
I particularly liked the watch in the middle with the black face, but it was about $31 USD, a little more than I’ve paid for most of my watches.
We did run across a souvenir store, outside of which there were dozens of Gashapon vending machines (for a few hundred yen, they dispense little toys). I saw one for miniature camera models, so of course I got one.
The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. I came back the hostel and did laundry (and in the process, lost my wallet, which I didn’t find until this morning! It had somehow ended up in someone else’s pocket when I was exchanging coins with him for the laundry machine).
We again stayed up quite late chatting about various things (this time, about whether or not everything has a taste (does a ceramic mug have a taste?) and what even makes up taste in the first place.
The lady who plays an Erhu came back in, and a few people hadn’t seen one before, so she gave us another concert, which I this time managed to record a moment of:
Finally a breakfast picture! I had the presence of mind to take a photo before I started eating.
After breakfast and some blogging, I headed out with Matt, one of the other people at the hostel – we were heading in the same direction towards Toyko, he to get a haircut and I to visit Akihabara, Toyko’s “Electric City” – known for (among other things), a lot of electronics shops. Perfect for me!
First though, I needed a Suica card – the trains in Toyko (and I believe, much of Japan) are paid for via “IC Cards”. You can technically buy individual tickets, but the system isn’t well set up for them. I know this because on my way from the camera shops to the hostel, after about 25 minutes of careful studying of multiple guides on her PDF and consulting another coworker, the lady at the ticket counter finally printed one out, and then hand wrote kanji on it, added an official stamp, and sent me on my way.
None of the ticket machines would take the modified ticket, so each station I had to go to the information booth to ask to be let through.
Anyway, the first thing we did was stop by an ATM (I withdrew 10,000 Yen, about USD $70 – cash is very commonly used here, and card isn’t universally accepted), then went to a ticket machine to get my very own Suica IC card, preloaded with 1,500 Yen.
I like the little penguin. Other cards have other designs.
After 30 or so minutes on the subway into the heart of Tokyo, I hopped off at Akihabara station and started exploring.
It’s amazing how much they have for sale here! You can buy new and used phones, ranging from $15 for very old phones in untested condition like the ones in the bins below, to new or refurbished iPhones and other high end brands.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
If you wanted to buy a computer, it would be easy – dozens of shops with new and used laptops and desktops, plus any accessory you could need.
This TINY laptop was 14,000 Yen, about $90. Despite its size, it would work fine for light computing, and the fact that it would fit in my side bag is tempting…
Better yet, if you wanted to build a computer, everything you need, new and used, is available with in a few minutes’ walk. From low-end web browsing PCs to high end gaming machines, everything is here.
I found this vintage macbook too! After I finished looking at it, I realized the bin it had been in had a “do not touch” sticker on it (that, to be fair, had fallen off). Oops.
There are also tons of little stands with a wide variety of little electronic components. Some of these take up only a hundred or so square feet, and are run by an older Japanese man. It surprises me (pleasantly) that it’s possible for these people to have their own little business – in a world where most electronics are now bought online, it’s really cool to see these little shops still around. I have heard that they are becoming less and less common.
I also checked out a couple of thrift stores – the ones I went to mostly focused on electronics and musical instruments. Both stores were split across multiple levels – the nicer things on the upper levels, but in the basement, the “Junk” – less valuable, possibly non-working things for lower prices. I very much enjoyed digging through these bins.
There were also a ton of vintage game consoles, especially Nintendo. It makes sense – Nintendo is a Japanese company, and their first consoles were originally released in Japan. The yellow/red consoles are the original Japanese version of the NES.
Some of these are only $15-20 USD! I’m tempted to get one, but the cartridges between the Family Computer and NES aren’t compatible – though maybe a minor case modification would solve this… You can’t see it behind the price tag, but this camera is a pretty unique digital camera from 1998 – very early for digital cameras! However, the price ($115 USD!) is ridiculous.
In my quest to find vintage computer gear, I visited a bunch of retro gaming shops, and found even more consoles, and thousands of games.
There were games in bins like these, but most of the more popular games were in individual plastic packaging and hanging on pegs. The Super Famicon was the next generation of console after the Nintendo Family Computer, but was still pretty similar. Anime / Manga is a big part of the culture here too – lots of the game shops also had that sort of thing yet. The original “Pocket Monsters” Pokemon games.Two pieces of very cool tech – the robot companion for the Nintendo Family Computer, and a very old retro gaming computer with a vertical aspect ratio. There were also a lot of consoles I’d never heard of before, like this one, the “PC Engine”. Apparently there is a floppy disk drive add-on for the original Family Computer – it was used for saving games, even as an alternative for game cartridges, and apparently for additional higher quality soundtracks on games.
Many larger stores here are broken across several floors in a narrow 5-7 story building. In the top floor of one of the vintage game stores was an arcade with a bunch of old arcade machines and a bunch of snacks for sale.
One of these had english voice acting. This supersized gameboy didn’t seem to be playable. I wonder what it was supposed to do?
After several hours of walking around I needed some food – and Matt, another person at my hostel, had joined me to explore. We found a local dry ramen shop (no broth, just oil on the noodles) and got some food there.
It was great! Apparently it’s often had with mayonnaise, which I tried on about 1/8th of the remaining noodles – it was delicious!
After the noodles, we did a little more looking around, but we were both kind of tired from walking around at that point, so we headed back to the hostel.
Later in the evening, a group of several of us decided to check out a local karaoke place (apparently karaoke is HUGE in Japan) – the place just opened today, and was giving out 30% off coupons.
I guess I forgot to smile, oops!
After this and a few more hours of late-night chatting, I finally got to bed at 2:30 AM… 😛
A blog post written on the same day as the post is about? Wild!
I continue to forget to take pictures of my breakfasts – generally by the time I get breakfast I’m too focused on eating to remember! But, this morning I walked to a nearby grocery store to grab bananas, yogurt, granola, and orange juice. I also grabbed a few mini oranges for snacks throughout the next few days. The hostel I’m in has a kitchen, which means I can actually cook if I want! I will be taking advantage of it – being able to make my own food will be nice.
After breakfast (and writing the past two blog posts), I decided to head out to a nearby park. I wanted to spend the day very relaxed, so walking around the park seemed like a good idea (and a good way to learn my new camera)!
This flowerbed is right outside the hostel.OLYMPUS C4100
Honestly, not a lot to say here – most of these pictures are from the park!
These tiles were cute!
One thing I did notice walking around (that I had heard before) was that there are a lot of vending machines – on the corners of streets, tucked among residential houses. Mostly they have drinks, and one even had alcohol? This is how I know the legal drinking age in Japan is apparently 20 years.
Of course, I also took pictures of vehicles. There are a ton of kei vehicles here (Kei vehicles are a specific class of car in Japan, limited to a certain size and engine displacement. In return for the limits, they are cheaper and get tax benefits compared to normal cars)
This moped had a “The North Face” and Prius Hybrid Energy badge on it. Somehow I doubt this scooter is a hybrid…
There are still more mopeds here, and more bikes even. I’d say there are more cars than mopeds, but about the same number of bikes as cars.
…
More pillars for Felix!There were a lot of gardens as part of the park. I sat here for a while, reading.If you look really close, this is a selfie!I thought this light looked really cool.These lanterns were just hanging above this pathway.I liked the light sort of filtering into this small courtyard.This clock looked really cool among the trees!I really liked this poppy against the tile.This light tower looked cool framed through this wire fence.Another light tower, framed through tree branches.
As I was sitting here writing this post, another guest checked in – she is here from China, and brought her Erhu (a two-stringed traditional Chinese instrument) and she played a bit for us! She played Master Oogway’s theme from Kung Fu Panda – and it was beautiful. She’s been practicing for 20 years!
This, obviously, is not her – this is just the first good public domain image I could find for an Erhu.
After the park, I walked back to the hostel, stopping at a local grocery store for a couple of snacks.
After sitting and writing this blog post for a while, I left again, this time with several other folks from the Hostel, to get sushi at a nearby sushi conveyor belt place.
I think I got about 7 plates, which cost only about $13.75!
At this place, you order on a tablet, and then (sometimes as little as 60 seconds later!) your food zooms up on the belt next to the table.
The squid, close upCoffee jelly for desert!
After the dinner, we walked back to the hostel with a quick stop at a convenience store for drinks and snacks, and then we came back to the hostel to sit around the main area and talk and laugh.
Both of these days were sort of travel days so I have less content, and I decided to combine them into one post.
4/21: Last day in Malaysia
My flight out of Malaysia was at 12:10 AM, so I needed to leave for the airport around 8PM (an hour of travel to the airport + 3 hours to get through it). I also needed a solid nap before since I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the last few days, and it would be a 7-hour flight. So my plan for the day:
Get breakfast
Spend my remaining Malaysian cash at a local street market and take more photos
Nap
Go to the airport
After breakfast (which I forgot to take a photo of, but it was the same thing I got for dinner my first night in Malaysia), I started heading to the markets. However, when I pulled my camera out to take a photo, I realized it was dead. I’d forgotten to charge my spare batteries, so I instead walked to a nearby shop for some batteries. When I put them in, the camera . . . wouldn’t extend the lens!
The Olympus is dead, long live the Olympus!
I paid $5 for this camera at Goodwill in July last year, and despite it being grimy, after some cleanup it worked great. It’s since become one of my favorite cameras, being covered in manual controls, with a flip-out screen, and enough resolution to take pretty decent photos for web use (5MP). Later in the summer, I was using it on the beach and it got splashed in a sandy wave as I was trying to take a closeup photo of waves (my fault). It stopped working for a bit after that, but then started working again! The lens made a grinding noise each time I would open it, but it kept working! So I brought it on this trip, having used it for hundreds of photos since then.
Sadly, it finally seems to have given up the ghost 😦
Oh well, for $5 and probably over a thousand photos, I can’t complain! A replacement of the same model will cost around $30 if I find a nice example on eBay.
Of course, I have my phone for photos – but I really prefer a camera with a proper lens, even if it’s from 2003. So now my plan was:
Get breakfast
Spend my remaining Malaysian cash at a local street market and take more photosGo find a used camera for less than $50
Nap
Go to the airport
So, I spent the next hour and a half walking sweatily from camera store to camera store, hoping to find something of around the same era for about $50…
This store clearly used to be a photo store, but isn’t anymore. There were a surprising number of camera/film stores, though!
And didn’t find anything! The camera stores either only sold new cameras, only had film cameras, or had a small selection of too-new, too-expensive cameras.
Luckily, the next place I was headed was Tokyo – the perfect place to find a deal on an older digital camera, so I held out for a day and just used my phone.
Of course, I found more interesting vehicles – a nice example of one of the more popular moped models, a neat van, and a small (for the US) delivery truck painted to look like The Incredible Hulk.
As I walked, I also took more photos of the streets – in this area, bustling with shops and market activity.
Then, I went back for my nap. Malaysia was really cool, and I knew Japan would be too, but being sleep deprived (and less excited about how expensive Japan would be), I was having a hard time looking forward to the next leg of my trip – I would really have rather gone home.
Traveling has been really fun, and I’m glad I’m here, but it’s been hard, too. I really like having a place I’m completely comfortable in to retreat to when I need a break, and obviously when you’re traveling (and mostly in shared dorm rooms), that’s not very possible. Add that to changing cities and countries every few days, a new language that you don’t know, new cultures you have to think about, and having to figure out where to eat for every single meal every single day, and it gets pretty exhausting.
(As I’m writing this, I feel better – I still wish I could go home sooner, but that would be prohibitively expensive, and I recognize a lot of my feeling like this comes from having been behind on sleep. I’ll be at this hostel for 6 days, I just slept for 16 hours, and there are grocery stores nearby at which to get food for breakfast and any other meal I don’t want to go to a restaurant for – I’ll probably take the next few days a little easier, then feel more ready to explore Japan.)
Anyway! Post nap, I packed and headed back to the airport.
The tower near my hostel had lights along the sides that I hadn’t realized were there during the day! The street market was busier than ever, and I think I didn’t really see as much as Malaysia had to offer – I will have to come back sometime for a more dedicated trip.
On my way out, I grabbed a couple of “thousand layer patties” (little warm pastries which have chicken or beef stuffed in them) from a street shop for dinner. At the airport, I ate these alongside a Dunkin Donuts iced latte before boarding.
This plane was much more like a normal American flight, without screens, free food, or fancy seats. It did have more legroom than normal, though! I slept for most of the flight.
4/22: Camera hunting in Toyko!
The next morning around 8:30AM local time, I landed at Narita International Airport, about 65km from Toyko. Here, I charged my phone, got some cash (cards are less commonly accepted in Japan, apparently), and ate some breakfast at the airport before buying a train ticket into Toyko.
Check-in time at the hostel wasn’t till 5PM, so I headed first to Shinjuku Station, around which there are a lot of camera stores with both new and used gear.
The first few stores I stopped at I felt too poor to walk into – lots of expensive cameras (the cheapest were around $500 USD), pretty but far outside my budget (and not what I wanted, anyway). However, the third one I walked into had an “as-is” shelf, and on that shelf, an Olympus C4100! After testing it, I paid 3500 Yen ($24.50 USD) for the camera and two memory cards (it takes a different kind than my current one does).
This one is slightly older (2002 vs 2003) and a little lower quality, with 4MP instead of 5, no flip-out screen, and a slightly less nice lens. Fundamentally though, it is a very similar camera.
Glad to have found a replacement camera, I headed back out and took a few photos. It was a rainy grey day (much like Oregon!) and it made the streets wet and the bright signs pop against the grey buildings and skies.
Olympus C4100
I’m pretty happy with this camera! Straight out of the camera the images have a lot of color, though I can tell the dynamic range is worse (I had to do more minor adjustments to these images in order to bring the bright areas down and the dark areas up than I normally would do for the other camera).
I’ve seen a few of these not-quite-motorcycle, not-quite-car things around.
There were a few more camera shops to stop by, so of course I did. What, just because I found a camera doesn’t mean I won’t look at more!
I forgot to take pictures of the last camera store I went to, but it would have been a perfect place if I hadn’t already found a good camera. It was a small shop, crammed floor to ceiling with antique to (somewhat) modern cameras, mostly film, but with a good mix of digital in there too. There were a lot of cameras sold non-working, most for only a couple thousand yen ($10-30 USD). Of course they had working cameras too, also for what seemed to be good prices (under 20,000 yen in a lot of cases, or USD $140). I may have bought two parts cameras of the same model, in the hopes of combining them into one working camera… They were only $30 together!
I love how small these are! With digital cameras it’s not so surprising, but there’s only so small you can get with 35MM film. The cute factor was part of why these were so irresistible.
These are half-frame cameras, meaning they shoot two photos per one film frame (by using only half of the frame each time). This effectively halves the resolution of the photo which does decrease the quality, but means you can get either 48 or 74 shots depending on what type of film you use! With the cost of film, this is definitely a benefit.
They’re from around 1963 (62 years old!) and neither one works – the shutter doesn’t seem to properly close. I suspect (after watching a video on YouTube) that the shutter blades just need to be cleaned, but I’m not completely sure yet.
(To Felix and Katerina: I don’t think I’ll get the chance to rent a moped 😦 I believe the laws are a lot more restrictive in Japan, and in Italy and Malaysia it didn’t seem safe to do so. Someday I will go back to Barcelona, and I’ll be sure to rent one there! Instead, your moped money will go towards some nice sushi!)
All for now! Let’s hope my spare luggage space survives the next few days – no more camera shops!
Elliot (one of my friends) wanted to write a blog post. He’s getting a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing – who am I to say no to an almost-degreed writer? Here it is!
Almost 27 years ago, I was born in Missouri, and then I lived there for around 98% of that time before moving to Corvallis nearly two years ago. I visited back this past weekend to see family and I’m gonna tell you about it. It’s not the first time I’ve been there and I’ll be there again, and yet, I’m writing this and you’re reading this. So here we go.
The cheapest Southwest plane option from Eugene, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri always lands at 11:30pm and nearly always has a layover in Las Vegas. I’ve been to Las Vegas before and it wasn’t quite my cup of tea. The idea of a money-eating city in the middle of an inhospitable desert has always given me Twilight Zone vibes. Also, the Vegas airport is chock full of slot machines, in case you need some layover entertainment.
I don’t understand how these work. I once put 20 dollars in a slot machine and immediately lost it all.
My mom’s house is in St. Charles, Missouri, about 30 minutes away from the big city of STL itself. One thing I will always miss about this area is the historical buildings, built back when people cared to put love in the architecture. My mom lives only a few minutes from Main Street, St. Charles. It’s a lovely little street with local businesses, right next to the Missouri River. Main Street was a place we visited on school field trips because it’s also famously where Lewis and Clark took off on their expedition in 1804! There are a lot of buildings from that time, which the city does a great job of maintaining and restoring them.
Both St. Charles and St. Louis has very neat old houses, townhouses, and apartments. When they’re taken care of—they’re astounding! Unfortunately, they aren’t always owned by people who care about the building (or the tenants) but, on a happy note, here are some lovely homes I saw on walks.
iPhone 12iPhone 12This pretty tree is a Dogwood, Missouri’s state tree!
I traveled further into the city to see my bestie, Charlie. As I am, Charlie is in his last term of graduate school. Unfortunately, Charlie’s final essay was due the NEXT DAY so we spent a lot the evening of Easter at his school. Charlie attends Washington University of St. Louis (the ‘of St. Louis’ is doing a lot of work) and will be getting his MFA in Illustration. (Jacob’s editor note: MFA is short for Masters of Fine Arts)
There was an exhibition going on about Missouri’s natural environment.iPhone 12Grad student humorGrad student humor
Charlie lives in Central West End, a part of St. Louis nearby Forest Park, a huge park with several parts, including the history and art museum, the zoo, and the science center. The best part of these is that they’re all free! Charlie has a groovy apartment that is constantly haunted by his insane cat, Agnes, who mewls like a whale and looks like a human man.
That Charlie CharmI don’t know why she is the way she isIt began pouring down on the way to Charlie’s. Corvallis gets a lot of rain but not a lot of storms. At this time, Jacob was experiencing a Malaysian rainstorm. 15 hour difference, same rain.
The morning gave way to a nice, Springtime day! I had a lot of work to do for school (My thesis for my own MFA is due in two weeks, the grind never stops) so I stopped by a coffee shop, passing by some pretty home and the Cathedral Basilica. I had myself a Lavender Matcha Lemonade—I typically don’t drink Matchas, but I was pleasantly surprised.
iPhone 12iPhone 12It does look like an alien drink thougha classic lookHere’s a shot from Google that shows it better.
Anyway, then we flew back home on Tuesday at 6am. We were in St. Louis for less than 36 hours, and I’m glad to be back in the good ‘ol PNW.
4/20: This was mostly a travel day, lost to the 10 hour flight from Istanbul to Malaysia. I got to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport around 5PM local time, and then spent about an hour more figuring out how to get from the airport into Kuala Lumpur itself, which is about 60km from the city’s center. Google thought it would take 6 hours, but it didn’t seem to know about the express train between the airport and city center, which only took 30 minutes!
I didn’t realize when I took this photo, but my hostel is right near the base of the tallest tower in the middle!
As I drew closer to my hostel, I realized it’s right in Chinatown in Malaysia – and right next to Jalan Petaling, a well known street market. Lots of stuff to see nearby!
My hostel is the grey building on the corner.
I didn’t have a lot of energy, but for dinner I went downstairs to a restaurant owned (I think) by the hostel called Mingle Cafe and got Nasi Ulam Ayam Percik, a chicken dish:
The sauce on the chicken was so delicious. I actually am eating the same dish again for breakfast as I write this!
I also got some kombucha, and in total the whole meal cost just under $9 USD! The prices here are a big shock to me – food and lodging are both extremely cheap, with most dishes at restaraunts I’ve seen costing $4-6 USD, and my hostel costing (for a private room!) $22/night. If I had chosen to share a dorm with others, I could have paid only $6-9/night depending on the hostel.
Mingle Cafe, where I’ve been getting a lot of my food.
4/21: Today I actually got to explore a little bit! Supper had been so good at Mingle Cafe that I went back for breakfast. This time, knowing how cheap the prices are, I splurged a bit.
Mango Lassi, Iced Mocha, and the “Mingle Big Breakfast” – big was right, I couldn’t finish it all!
This was of course also delicious, and my splurging on two drinks cost me a whopping USD $15.77… I could get used to this!
Next, I began walking to the Perdana Botanical Garden a few km away. As I walked, I realized why many people don’t come to Malaysia during Monsoon season – it was in the upper 80’s outside, and the humidity was high – I was dripping sweat just from walking! However, it was beautiful, and you can tell you’re in a tropical country!
On my way, I walked through a section of Petaling Street, the nearby street market, but apparently only took a few pictures.
I’m tempted to buy fruits like this, but that’s exactly what the travel nurse I had an appointment with told me NOT to do . . . I might anyway 😛Some of the market is in temporary stalls on the street, but some of it is more inside buildings with hallways adjacent to the road, like this.The streets here are green and bustling. This street was one of the less busy ones I crossed.There are plenty of mopeds here too, but unlike the ones in Spain and Europe, these ones seem lighter. A lot of them look like they might be based on or inspired by the 70’s Honda Trail mopeds. I kind of like the look of these ones better!I like the purple-white color scheme on this one. It’s also quite old! The area where the speedometer would be was just a mass of wrapped duck tape…Still not as common as in Barcelona, but still far more so than in the US!I suspect many of these small ones are only 50-100CC, likely with a top speed of 35-50 MPH.
Malaysia isn’t known for its architecture that I know of, but I did see a number of cool buildings along the way. There’s a large tower close to my hostel that’s an easy photo subject (you’ll see it a few times throughout this post) and I found a number of other buildings that looked good too.
Another tower in Malaysia. I walked right by it on my way home later.I’m not sure this is a Muslim temple or not, but the influence is strong here – lots of Halal food, plenty of references around. In fact, I’ve seen multiple signs prohibiting “indecent behavior” in public spaces, usually indicated by a figure of two people kissing. Is kissing in public actually considered indecent?See?OLYMPUS C5050OLYMPUS C5050
Once at the botanical gardens, I was ready for something cold and sweet, so I fell prey to the snack stands just waiting for hapless tourists like myself to stumble upon them. I got a durian popsicle (not recommended, durian is an . . . odd flavor) and a lychee drink (I do recommend this one!)
The durian taste lingered longer in my mouth than I desired, and kept reminding me I’d eaten it every time I burped for the rest of the day. Oh well, new experiences, right?
Mildly refreshed, I continued my explorations of the gardens, stopping at some type of war monument.
Something about the silver lotus flowers on the deep blue of the water in the last picture above is really satisfying to me.
After the war monument (whose plaque said it represented the triumph “over the forces of evil” – funny how the forces of good always win), I found my way to the actual botanical garden.
Around this time, the sky (which had sneakily been growing darker and cloudier) began to rain. It was a relatively light rain at first, so I continued to enjoy my walk, shielding my camera from the rain with my hands while I wasn’t using it.
Then, it started to POUR – so like several other people who’d been roaming the park, I scrambled to a large shelter nearby.
Unfortunately, this shelter wasn’t perfect – the wind blew water in from the sides (so you had to stand more inwards) and many of the seams leaked. There were some dry spots, though!
I read my book for a while (Brandon Sanderson’s 5th book in the Stormlight Archives series – great so far, of course!)
Eventually, the rain was joined by lightening and thunder – a proper monsoon storm! It didn’t let up for close to an hour, and most of us just sat around, waiting. At one point, a golf cart with a few covered seats rolled up and took some of the others away (where to? hopefully somewhere dry!) and promised they’d be back for the rest of us – but 20 minutes passed without their return, so eventually, as the rain began to let up, I figured I’d venture out. I was already pretty damp, and the only electronics I had was my camera, so I took its batteries out (electronics getting wet usually won’t hurt them by themselves, if they don’t have any power source when they’re wet – as long as you dry them out completely before restoring power, they’re generally ok!)
Just before I left, one of the women waiting let the kid inside come out, and ran through the proper waterfall and pond now present in the little area with the tree pictured above, while the rest of us laughed as she shouted with joy.
Luckily, the rain finally begin to stop (and not get worse) as I continued to walk. The paving stones were slippery and I almost fell a few times, but I managed to get back in one piece!
The same tower!A moped graveyard…OLYMPUS C5050The river flowing through this part of town, now much higher than it had been a few hours before.
On my way home, I ran into an indoor market, with lots of street food, textiles, some antiques, a camera store, and lots of souvenir stores. There was also an art section selling a lot of really cute paintings for quite reasonable prices! I wish I had more space in my bag, but it’s probably a good thing I don’t!
I only got a few photos inside, but a lot of it looked like this – hallways with shops on all sides.Seagull? This is not a brand I’ve heard of before! The equivalent USD cost is $317, a bit pricey especially for an off-brand SLR.
After the market, I went back to the hostel, changed into clean clothes, and wrote the blog posts from yesterday. At the market I also picked up a few snacky items for dinner:
Tasty!
It’s funny – the food here is so cheap, that sometimes the prices in Malaysian Ringgits lines up with what I would expect to pay in USD – except that the Ringgit is worth only about 23 cents! The two meat pasteries, for example, were 4.50 each – a little pricey for USD, but converted to Ringgets, only $1.03 each! The drink was 9.90, pricey for even a specialty boba drink in the US, but not outside of the realm of possibility – but of course, actually only cost $2.26.
I really could get used to this… Maybe I should have spent 2 weeks here instead of in Japan!
The last thing I did was a recruiter interview (at 2:30AM local time!), this time for an actual electrical engineering role in Washington. I’m quite excited about this one – if working at Rivian doesn’t work out, I’m hoping this will. It’s a neat sounding job at a company that seems to have good culture, and should pay pretty competitively. It’s also a hybrid position – so working from home would be common, but not mandatory. The interview went well, so here’s to hoping I get a followup interview!
All for today! You probably won’t hear from me again for a few days, since this evening I fly to Japan. After a day or two to settle in, I should be back on track with more updates.
Yes, I know I skipped the 18th. All I did was travel – and once I got to my AirBNB in Milan, I just wanted to watch youtube videos, catch up on the latest releases from Dropout, and eat snacks. So I did! This was my view:
Ok, now for the 19th:
Breakfast was a little expensive (16 euro) but included the coffee and orange juice as part of it, and was tasty.
I had a few hours between when I woke up and when my plane left for Malaysia (but first, Istanbul for a 1-hour layover). So I left the AirBNB with my luggage and went out to explore.
I really like how these leaves frame the tower in the foreground. I used the flash turned down a bit to brighten them up while keeping the exposure on the tower correct.Rarely does a photo make me want to use it as a phone background, but I think this one passes the test.
Public transit is getting easier and easier to navigate (it turns out most of it works about the same, and Google Maps is really quite good at telling you how to get to the right place as long as you pay attention to signs). I’ve now started defaulting to it instead of trying to download a ride-sharing app when I first get somewhere like I did for Barcelona and Boston. Since Lyon though, I’ve taken public transit!
There was this ancient ruin in the middle of the intersection. It would have made an excellent frame for a portrait!
A lot of Milan is very 80’s stark, flat, mostly boring architecture (brutalist), but there are ancient buildings and beautiful architecture scattered among the newer stuff.
Sometimes, newer buildings offer good chances to take ‘liminal space’ type pictures. I don’t know if this fully qualifies, but I like the effect. When I took this photo I wished the camera had focused on the building – but in hindsight I like the focus on the fence and leaves better.I liked the potted cactus in the window here.FISH!
After a quick bus trip and some walking, I arrived at the Basilica de Santa Maria delle Grazie – an ancient catholic church, which has Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous last supper painting inside. I did not realize until stepping in that it is also still a practicing catholic church, and there was a service going on in a side room (the one that I think had the painting in it – so I didn’t get to see it). There were tourists like myself roaming around quietly in the large stone halls, but also priests (I passed on writing in something that looked like a confessional). Feeling a little odd taking photos, I looked around and then left.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Outside the basilica were the remnants of an ancient wall and set of marble pillars, which I took a few photos of.
I did love the streets of the older part of Milan. Primarily narrow cobblestone and with a lot of of old buildings, there were a lot of tourists and locals alike roaming the streets.
I also saw another Fiat 500 Topolino! After reading a bit more about them, I learned that they’re a Fiat-branded version of the Citroen Ami. With 47 miles of electric range and a top speed of 28MPH, they don’t technically count as cars – which means they can be driven without a license (or with an easier to get license in some places), and can go and fit places proper cars can’t.
Another ‘liminal space’ photo.A cute little flower shop.
After the basilica, I decided to head to the central park in Milan, Parco Sempione, which also has the “Castello Sforzesco” (a proper castle!)
This tiny shop was crammed with books!They didn’t seem worried about book thieves…
As I got closer to the castle, the streets became thicker and thicker with tourists, and I realized that Milan does have tourism – just not so much where my AirBNB was.
The main front tower of the castle. This one is directly above the main entrance. Judging by the stonework and the style of the rest of the castle I suspect a lot of this tower is newer than the rest of the castle.The four main corners of the castle had these round towers. I wonder how thick the walls are? They look quite sturdy, and walking around the castle, I could see both why a moat was effective and how difficult it would have been for invading soldiers to capture or invade, pre modern warfare.Contrary to childhood belief, this moat (like most moats) was not filled with water and crocodiles 😦More pillars…Some of the windows on the sides of the castles were quite large – I wonder if these are more modern additions, since they seem less logical for a solid defense (and was glass actually that good back then? I don’t think so…)A drawbridge!The real king of the castle!
After exploring the garden behind the castle a bit more, I headed back to my AirBNB to grab my luggage, and took public transit to the closest international airport (which took an hour – MXP is actually not in Milan!).
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI really wanted to go into the hole-in-the-wall computer store that had this vintage IBM PS/1 computer, but I only had a few minutes before my bus arrived.
My flight to Malaysia was in two parts – first, a 3 hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where I had a 1.5 hour layover. The first plane I took served dinner and had screens built into the back of each seat, with a bunch of movies included.
The remote for the screen popped out and had not only a keyboard, but a gamepad on it – unfortunately, none of the built-in games really took advantage of it.
Dinner looks not so appetizing in this photo, but it was good, and a pleasant surprise on a flight this short.
As we flew into Turkey, we flew over a city harbor with a bunch of ships floating in it. This is a terrible photo, but it gives you an idea of the beautiful sight I saw!
The second plane (from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur) took about 10 hours – this one also had a screen, and they served both dinner and breakfast.
I managed (with the help of ocean sounds in my headphones, a sleep mask, and a melatonin) to get some sleep on the plane in between meals.
Second to last day in Amsterdam! Really, my last full day.
Breakfast today was at a cute little bakery/cafe that Vince recommended. Our mode of transit was (again) ebike, which led to some less blurry (but arguably more embarrassing) photos where the wind made our hair look crazy.
De Laatste Kruimel, the place we got breakfast.
Our breakfast spot was the little balcony above the water in the middle of the photo. As we ate, multiple tour boats passed below us, and more people stopped to take a photo from the bridge I took this one at. I felt like a zoo animal a little bit – it was funny to realize I had become part of the tourist attraction.
OLYMPUS C5050
Breakfast this day was really more of a late brunch – I had slept in quite a bit, so I headed back to the hostel and did the boring, not-blog-worthy parts of traveling (checking in to my plane, booking a hostel for Malaysia and and AirBNB for Milan, planning the next few days).
OLYMPUS C5050
Before another interview I had at 7PM, I wanted to get out of the hostel for a bit – so I took my bike along a river path behind the hostel in Noord (an area of Amsterdam). It was here I saw my first up-close windmill!
As I biked, I listened to an album of piano music by Philip Glass (titled “Piano Works”), which I happen to have downloaded on my phone – it makes great relaxing travel or biking music, especially when there are pretty things to be seen.
OLYMPUS C5050OLYMPUS C5050OLYMPUS C5050A neat bridge. There are a lot of drawbridges across the canals here to let riverboats through – something I also saw a lot of!The same windmill, from across the river.
While there, I noticed this bird helping its mate build a nest, and took a short video of it collecting sticks and bringing them back to the nest.
After returning to the hostel, I prepared for my second interview of the week. This was also for a technician position, which is technically below what I studied for (I should be applying to work as an engineer too, which I am! But so far am only getting interviews for technician positions… Oh well!)
This interview went really well and I already have a request for a second interview! The company seems interesting too – they’re a spinoff from Rivian working on smaller EVs (like electric bikes).
OLYMPUS C5050
After this I was pretty tired, but wanted to treat myself before heading to bed, so I returned to the streets on my bike and headed to Secret Garden, a fancy restaurant that had been recommended to me.
Chunks of watermelon with finely creamed avocado, grated feta cheese, and a slice of red onion on top, to be eaten in one bite. You wouldn’t think to combine these ingredients, but the sweet crunchy juice from the watermelon mixed well with the mild creaminess of the avocado, and the feta and small bit of onion added a nice little kick of flavor.Grilled duck breast with some type of cabbage and a sweet pumpkin puree. Absolutely delicous. I want to try roasting or sauteing chicken with pumpkin chunks and some type of green vegetable in a honey or maple syrup based glaze, I think it would taste similar.Earl Grey ice cream with coconut based (thick!) whipped cream and pineapple chunks. The ice cream was pretty mild but distinctly earl grey, and I really liked the coconut whip.
The only unfortunate part of the meal was the price – I left just barely satisfied knowing I would be hungry in the morning, and the total cost was $99… Would I do this again? Probably not, but it was worth the experience once!
The ceiling of the restaurant had these leaf-shaped lights with (fake?) vines dangling down between them.Neat vibe!
After this, I stopped by the hotel Vince manages to say hi (since he was nearby and on a night shift), before biking back to the hostel across the ferry.
Hi again! Finally gonna catch up on blog posts after almost a week MIA. Travels have been going well, but I haven’t had a chance to relax and write for a bit. I’m now in Malaysia and really enjoying it – post to come, of course.
This (4/16) was my second day in Amsterdam. Amsterdam intimidated me at first, with all the bikes zooming everywhere and just how packed the city was with tourists (despite not being the nicest season, there were a TON of people there). But after a few days (and renting my own bike) I felt much more at home. I’ll want to come back!
The bike I rented. It cost me only 21 euros for three days! It was really nice to ride, too.
After picking the bike up, I went to a bakery recommended by Sam (who I met earlier on my way to Lyon), called Bakhuys Amsterdam. Here I got a late breakfast/lunch of a couple of pastries (plus some bread for later), and did the last batch of blog posts.
A rhubarb soda! It was tasty, and did taste like rhubarb!
After the bakery, I went to the Rijksmuseum, which is what I’d intended to go to the day before – a museum with ancient to old art and works by masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt.
On my way, I noticed the hooks / pulleys mounted above most of the old townhouses. I actually saw one being used to raise furniture up to a higher level! It’s neat that these are still in use.
The Rijksmuseum was sold out – but luckily Vince, a friend I’d met the day before, was able to get me a ticket through the hotel he works for! I guess they get extra spots for guests or something 🙂
A very regal duck-thing.
I did accidentally get to the museum only an hour and a half before they closed, so I saw a lot less than I wanted to. But I did manage to see some of the Vermeers!
Johannes Vermeer’s works hold a special place to me because I read a book called Chasing Vermeer as a younger teen that I really liked. In the book, one of the main characters was the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (by Vermeer) – which had been stolen. The three actual main characters, kids who became unlikely friends, solved the mystery of where the painting was. It also involved the Robie house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright – so in part, this is where my love of Wright’s designs comes from too. The book had such a way of describing the art (both the house and the painting) that made them seem alive (in fact, in the story, they kind of were). Anyway, it was cool to see some of Vermeer’s work in person.
Vermeer is known to have had a mastery of light – his paintings often play with it to highlight and contrast their subjects in a very realistic and striking way He’s more well-known for his paintings of people, but this one (especially from this distance) looks like a photo, and is of a real place in Amsterdam.A sad dog lying at the foot of his deceased friend. This was (of course) made to commemorate the man who died, who was some important person. However, it was the dog who stood out to me.An ancient chess set!Sometimes I see people like this in paintings and think “Did they really look like that?” This guy looks comically evil, but in a lazy way…A scene from (1500s?) Europe. It’s neat to think things used to look like this!The windmill is how you know it’s Dutch.This one is a scene of Brazil!A self portrait by Rembrandt.A landscape by Rembrandt. I think the plaque said he didn’t do a lot of these.Apparently even the great artists did sketching sheets to practice. There was one of nothing but hands, too.I really liked this nighttime scene. Not by Rembrandt or Vermeer, I forgot to note the artist.A (very small!) harpsichord! They didn’t seem likely to let me play it 😦
After the museum, I headed to a nearby Ramen place that had been recommended to me.
I tried the chicken ramen, but it didn’t seem quite as flavorful as pork based ramen. But it was still delicious!
After this, I had to go back to the hostel and do an interview, for an Engineering Manufacturing Technician position. The interview went well and it seems likely to progress forward, but afterwards I was a bit frazzled!
Once I’d calmed down a bit, I took my bike back out via a ferry to get a drink with Vince (and pizza, which we picked up on his ebike). I know this isn’t quite a moped picture, but it might be the closest you get for now, Katerina & Felix!
0.6x lens at 20km/h on the back of an ebike on cobbled roads while holding two pizza boxes in my other hand in low light lends to an . . . interesting photo!
jacobblogs 