It’s been a while! I moved from Oregon to Southern California recently, so I’ve been busy with that and a new full-time job. But today, the weather was cool and cloudy, and I knew I wanted to get outside. I headed out, bringing along the Olympus C4100 I picked up in Tokyo earlier this year.
OLYMPUS C4100
This flower, right outside my front door, is not jasmine as best my research can tell. I think we do get jasmine around here, mostly planted. When you walk by a blooming jasmine plant, it smells amazing.
The trailhead I found was next to a rather dilapidated nature center – it looked pretty closed, but they did have signs for guided hikes and other community events. I wonder if that would be a good way to meet people?
OLYMPUS C4100
A sign on the trail had this beautifully hand-drawn map of the trail. It follows a canyon for a ways, then climbs steeply up one side to reach an end.
OLYMPUS C4100
If you follow this Narnia-like portal through the dense bushes, you can walk all the way up to a dead-end road at the top of the canyon. There are a few unofficial but well-loved trails carved through the hardy green shrubs, including a small overlook of the canyon, perfect for a picnic.
OLYMPUS C4100OLYMPUS C4100
Along the way, I encountered a good number of Tropaeolum majus (Garden Nasturtiums), which originated in the Andes mountains in south America, but have become naturalized in California. (Wikipedia) I included the scientific name because apparently actual nasturtiums are something else!
These plants are also entirely edible – but the flower is the most interesting part. It’s spicy!
I also encountered a number of other interesting plants whose names I do not know 😛
Near the top of the trail, I found an old cactus with some new growth…
One of the most interesting plants (to me) that I learned about on this hike was Schinus molle, commonly known as California Pepper Tree. It produces these clusters of small red berries, which are often sold dried as “Pink peppercorns”. They don’t actually have any relation to black pepper, but I can confirm that when tasted, the seeds are quite pleasantly peppery. This tree is also native to the Andes, but was widely in favor in the early 20th century as a shade tree and was planted widely over Southern California. (Wikipedia)
OLYMPUS C4100
After confirming that they were edible, I tasted a few. The outer flesh surrounding the seeds had mostly dried on these ones, but what remained was sweet with an herbal aromatic berry flavor. These are evergeens, so there was a tinge of that in the flavor. The seeds, of course, taste a lot like pepper. Not too spicy, but they leave a nice burning sensation in the back of your throat. I’d love to see these in a spicy fruit jam, as part of a drink, or spicing a sausage.
So much so, that I may have gathered a few bundles from a nearby tree to bring home and experiment with!
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
On my way back down, I found another pepper tree – but this one was flowering! These flowers are much smaller than the resulting berries – only about 5mm wide!
OLYMPUS C4100
I enjoyed seeing all the edible plants along this hike. It was interesting to think about how many native plants exist that can be used as seasoning. Sometime it would be fun to make a dish seasoned entirely with foraged spices, but that will be for another weekend 🙂
The day before, I and a couple of others decided we wanted to get up early to head to a flea market. It was an hour away, and started at 9AM – so we planned to leave by 8AM, and I woke up at 7AM (which in retrospect isn’t that early, but for my sleep schedule here, it was).
We managed to stick together on the train, but once we got to the flea market we mostly split up. Inspired by my Gameboy find the day before, a couple of guys went off to look for Gameboys. Micro (a German guy staying in the guest house) wanted to find a Gameboy Advance SP (the kind that looks like a little square and flips up) – and managed to find a Gameboy Advance (not SP) with Pokemon Ruby inside, all for 5000 yen (about $35 USD). After some fiddling with the power switch it worked! And now I want a Gameboy Advance . . . 😅
We spent about 5 hours at the flea market, and I got a few things:
A vintage mechanical watch with an auto-winding feature, which cost 5000 yen ($35 USD), but (as it ends up) runs about 2x faster than it should – something I think can be adjusted?
Four Gameboy games:
Super Mario Land, 900 yen (in English!)
Dr. Mario, 500 yen (Also in English!)
“Hamster Club” (translated from Japanese) – as best I can tell this is a game about taking care of hamsters? I got it because it looked cute and was only 500 yen.
Pokemon Green (Only available in Japanese, no English version was produced) for 1700 yen.
A US Eisenhower $1 coin (for $2.10, which I thought was funny)
A couple of old Japanese coins
One other item that is a gift for a friend who might read this blog 😛
After five hours of the flea market, I and another guest-house friend headed to an all-you-can-eat okonomiyaki place.
OLYMPUS C4100On the way I finally stopped at a vending machine to try it out. I don’t know why I was expecting something more dramatic than what happened – I put two 100 yen coins in, pressed the button for the tea I wanted, and it clunked out of the machine into the tray with my change. Japanese architecture is not made for people my height… I occasionally need to duck to get through doorways. I always need to duck on the metro exiting or entering the train, and a few days back, I was in a shop where I needed to hunch over most of the time!Okonomiyaki is done a few different ways, but here it comes in a bowl, a mix of greens, meat (optionally), an egg and some other ingredients. Once mixed together, you pour it out onto a hot griddle and shape it into a pancake of sorts before letting it cook for about 10 minutes on each side. Once finished, you drizzle them with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise, then cut them up and eat them in little bites.
I first had okonomiyaki with the Petersons, since they loved it when they went to Japan. I’ve never had it otherwise, so I was glad for the chance to try it in Japan!
After this, I was very sleepy – so I went back to the guesthouse (arrived around 7:30) and slept for two hours (till around 9:30) before getting up, grabbing a few snacks at the closest convenience store (convenience stores here are actually quite convenient! They have the normal junk food seen in the US, but also a number of decently inexpensive premade food that’s pretty similar to what you’d find in a grocery store deli in the US). After spending a little time downstairs socializing, I headed to bed.
All for today! More to come, of course. My time in Japan (and thus my time abroad) is coming to an end.
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:
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.
I was tired this morning! I didn’t manage to roll out of bed (and shower and everything) until about 1:30 PM local time. Oh well – again, I’d rather explore well rested than try to cram every last second full of activities and not be able to enjoy it.
Breakfast was at a little cafe inside an art school that is in the same building as my Hostel. It was a simple chicken panini and a plain latte sweetened with honey – but the panini was delicious, especially the sauce to dip it in.
There are the WEIRDEST little cars here! Bikes here are what Mopeds were in Spain – everywhere, parked on the sidewalks and anywhere else they fit, and by FAR the most common mode of transport. On the roads, bikes always have the right away – even above pedestrians! You need to watch out when crossing bike paths, because they will not stop for you 😛
But! In addition to bikes, they have a multitude of 1-2 person electric and gas ‘cars’ that are likely limited to about 45km/hr top speed (close to 30 MPH). These require a different license than normal cars if I remember right, and can be driven on most bike paths too.
This one is electricCitroen Ami, I think. Electric!A fiat one designed to look like the original 500! But this is larger!This one is gas, and looks like it is from the late 90s or early 2000s.
These little cars existed in Spain and France too, but were far less common. Here, I see one every few minutes. The gas ones make the cutest little put-put sound.
On my walk, I found a man playing “Can’t help falling in love” by Elvis Presley on a saxophone, and stopped to take another (240P) video of him.
I also ran across an antique store selling tiles from houses rennovated in the 60’s – but these tiles were from the 1600s and 1800s! Quite old – and each hand-painted! Of course, most of them were pretty expensive, but they were fun to browse.
Though some tiles shared the same design, small differences between each made it clear that these were hand-painted. How cool!
After this, I walked to the Stedelijk Museum, which is a contemporary art museum (next to several other museums). Entrance for a student (which I feel like I’m close enough to still ;)) was only 10 euro, so I went in and explored.
After the museum, I took public transit back to (near) my hostel and grabbed a kebab pita wrap for dinner, before prepping for a remote job interview I had at 7:30 PM local time. I think it went well!
OLYMPUS C5050Dinner! Fanta, water, and a greek sausage kebab pita wrap thing.
Finally caught up to today 🙂 The next few days might be busy too, so we will see when the next dump of posts happens! All for now.
This one should be quick – most of the 13th and 14th were travel days by train. I stopped in Lille, a little town in Northern France, for the night – otherwise it would have been about 16 hours by train. I’ve found that the slower travel is worth it for me – less recovery time when I do get to my destination.
While walking to the train station in Lyon, I stopped at a cafe for breakfast, and snapped a few photos along the way.
A warning about high voltage inside!A view across the river Rhone.The gates of the Park of the Golden Head in Lyon
One neat thing I’ve noticed in Lyon – there are cracks in the sidewalks that have been filled in with little mosaics. According to one local I met, this is all the work of a street artist called Ememem (named for the sound his moped makes). He calls this art “flacking” – turning cracked blemishes in the sidewalks into public works of art that are owned by all.
The one on the left was the first thing I took a picture of in Lyon!
After a few hours on the train (during which I technically stopped in Paris, but only to switch trains), I was in Lille!
The trains here are often quite comfortable! FAR more than airlines in the US.The train station in Lille was very pretty.This is what a lot of “Old Lille” looked like. Cobbled streets with pedestrians everywhere, old buildings, and beautiful architecture.
I was pretty tired from travel, so I got myself a (supposedly) nice dinner (I don’t know if it was just not something I liked or if this restaurant wasn’t great) of Flemish (local) cusine, and turned in for the night.
It did look nice at least, and the salad and fries were delicious! The croquets left something to be desired though.
Lille -> Amsterdam, 4/14:
Breakfast was a mocha and a delicious breakfast sandwich at an apparently very popular cafe.
As I traveled on the train, it became pretty obvious as I drew closer to Amsterdam – windmills began passing by every now and then. I didn’t manage to catch any out the window, but I did snap a photo of this cool old warehouse.
Amsterdam’s train station was also really cool looking! I didn’t have much time to stop though – my next train left in 5 minutes so I had to run to the next platform!
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
After crossing a large canal with a ton of other people on foot and bike, I was almost to my hostel (the red building in the photo below).
The room in the hostel is utilitarian, but comfortable and quiet. I don’t spend a lot of time in there anyway!
That’s all for this day! Still no Mopeds 😉 But, I can rent them here! We will see when it happens. I’m a little scared to have that much power on the roads of Amsterdam 😛
The view from my AirBNB was fantastic – I was up on the 9th floor of a high-rise building built up on a hill overlooking the Rhône river, which flows from the Alps down to the Mediterranean Sea.
My AirBNB also had two persian cats, who were both very friendly.
Every time I came back to the AirBNB at night, the white one would follow me around meowing – I think all she wanted were pets, since when I did pet her for a few minutes, she stopped meowing (and she had food and water).
This definitely isn’t as old as real cave art – but was a remarkably good recreation as grafitti near my AirBNB.
Breakfast today was fast – a cappuchino and a chocolate (not actually a croissant, but that’s what we call it in the US).
Nearby the cafe, there was a street market selling CDs, Records, Posters, and books/comics.
Tintin was popular here – but that makes sense, Tintin is from Belgium, not far away.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Afte this, I went to a cute antique sovinour store and picked up a couple of trinkets for friends back home. They had vintage postcards from Lyon – much cooler in my opinion than most new ones (if less usable as postcards because of already being used :P)
Next up was the Musée Cinéma et Miniature – a museum in Lyon with several floors of props used in movies (a lot of which I recognized!) and then one floor of little miniature scenes crafted by artists of the museum.
My camera does not do well in low light, and most of the museum was darkly lit. Most of the props look better in the movies anyway. However, I did see some from movies I enjoy a lot, particularly from Wes Anderson’s films – there was a whole room dedicated to his work, with props from the Grand Budapest, Isle of Dogs, Astroid City, and others.
In an adjacent room was a short film showing some behind-the-scenes looks at how Astroid City was filmed and the props it involved. I really enjoyed seeing this – Anderson’s team creates a 3D model of most of the world the film is set in, and then builds as needed at different scales. The train from Astroid City was about 1/10th the real life size, for example. Of course things that humans interact with, like the diner, are real size.
After a few other stops including a (currently non-functioning) animatronic from Alien, I headed up to the miniatures floor.
This whole scene, titled Apartment of the 80’s (translated from French), was about 1x1x2′ width x height x depth. These chairs are about 1.5″ tall!
This was honestly the more interesting part of the museum for me – a lot of the movie props were kind of gross looking and were much better in the movies…
I wish this place existed full size!
But the miniatures! I had to stop myself from taking a picture of EVERY single one.
Some of the scenes were just still lifeSome looked out of a dungeons and dragons world…Others from an older time…Or a long-forgotten space.
After the museum, I slowly meandered back to my AirBNB on foot, and took more photos along the way.
This is the closest to a Cybertruck they have in Lyon. Good thing – it would not fit on the roads here.
Sorry for the long delay between posts! I’ve been remarkably busy since leaving Lyon. Amsterdam is great – I’ve rented a bike to explore the city, three days only cost 21 euro!
More posts to come – I’m sitting at a bakery hoping to write just a few more before I continue exploring 🙂
jacobblogs 