Bali Bali – a quick trip to Indonesia

Holiday fever has started! I’ve spent 12 days with a friend on the Indonesian Island of Bali. It's a moderately cheap destination, plus the rainy season only starts in October.

We were surprised to see money being invested in relevant infrastructure – the airport is brand new, there’s a new highway connecting to Nusa Dua and some humongous statues in the main roundabouts – ok, not so relevant but impressive nevertheless! Balinese people love statues, depicting their gods and guardians, if not colorfully dressed, then majestically big.

As soon as we landed and started our journey towards Ubud, our driver told us that they were “having Kuningan” in a couple of days. We wanted to know more but didn’t quite grasp its importance so we left it at that. But next day everyone kept on mentioning it, plus the whole island was drilled with decorated bamboo poles locally called “penjor”, with curving upper ends to resemble the tail of the barong and Mount Agung. By this time we thought it was better to google it.

Besakih Temple with penjor

Every year the spirits of ancestors come to earth to visit their former homes and relatives – Galungan.  On the tenth day they return to heaven and this is Kuningan – Balinese Hindus go to the temples with their best garments and thoroughly washed and decorated motorbikes, bringing offerings to their gods, to thank them for being kind to them.

Pura Uluwatu - prayers and offerings	House entrance: guardian and offerings

Offerings control their lives. They do it several times a day, taking them to the temples, courtyards, fields, streets, etc. They take time to prepare and differ in size and content, also according to one’s profession.

As we discovered the island we saw more and more flags in front of people’s houses (some could cover a table for 100 diners). At first we thought “oh, crazy Europeans living on Bali” but soon realised that these were put up by Balinese football fans – the world cup was starting in less than 2 weeks. If the sizes of the flags reflect their passion, then FIFA (and betting platforms!) has found its playground. Not to mention the sellers of German, Brazilian and Spanish flags. They all knew Portugal but for a technical reason – the birthplace of Cristiano Ronaldo. Except for some flags in the Bukhit Peninsula, the red / green combination was hard to track down.

Apart from watching football the only sport-related activity we could notice on Bali was kite-running (!).

Pemuteran and Amed gave us some good underwater memories, since the diving and snorkeling here were top-notch. When we stayed more than 2 days in one place we felt like we already knew the people (and they knew us), except that it was just a feeling. In fact, I had trouble distinguishing them, but that’s a mere detail. Sidemen's landscape amazed us for its rice fields.

Sidemen

We didn’t quite like the one-day experience in Canggu for its touristy frenzy and dirty beaches but the last days on the rocky and rough Bukhit Peninsula made us forget about it. We joined the surfers and enjoyed a low-key relaxation (away from the waves though).

Bingin Beach, Bukhit Peninsula

We also had some communication and cultural hick-ups: our waiter in the Pemuteran resort was sorry because he had a special offer one night and our transport “dealer” in Amed liked to close deals with open pants (no photo, sorry).

But we have to praise our drivers. They were movie maniacs, football (and betting) lovers, gold watch bearers, but never careless or crazy, with one tiny exception.

Food was simple and cheap everywhere, with variations between restaurants and street shacks. Suckling pig and duck are traditional dishes but I had many vegetarian options with rice, noodles and veggies – fried, curried or wok-stirred. Spiciness makes it heaven on earth!

Field trip to Tokyo – Lost in Translation (Portuguese version)

Probably the worst time to visit Tokyo is during the golden week. So which time did we pick to visit? Golden week, what else? But it was far from unpleasant, as long as avoiding the shopping crowds in Omotesandō and Shibuya was part of the programme.

We booked a very nice hotel in the Chyoda ward. Tiny rooms but with all amenities (including PJs – this was a first!). After dumping the suitcases we started our culinary scouting with hot soba and tempura. We had to use a machine to order, everything was in Japanese. But an extremely nice lady working there spotted our confusion and came with a menu in English, plus she saved a nice table in the restaurant for us. It will be very hard to return to Europe and leave the Asian sense of customer service behind.

Buying a fish-shaped snack with azuki filling. In Korea it's called Bungeoppang.

Getting around in Japan can be tricky for first-timers but once you know the drill, it becomes logical and simple. Locate your destination on the map at the metro or railway station (if there’s no map in English ask a youngster and he / she will show how much it is on his / her phone app) and the ticket price will be next to your destination’s name. Buy the ticket for that price and off you go. If you change your mind halfway, there’s always a fare adjustment machine close to the exit.

Tokyo has two main subway network companies (Tokyo Metro and Toei) and you’ll have to pay a slightly higher price if you transfer between the two. They are gradually putting up barriers at the edge of the platforms in order to reduce the number of people “accidentally” falling on to the tracks. It's a complex society... 

Having a car is expensive (taxes are high and diesel is not an option), so the majority of the Tokyoites prefer to take public transportation (most of them commuting for hours), which improves air cleanliness and road congestion.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around the Imperial Gardens and Ginza just after. Dinner was at a sushi place close to the Tsukiji Market. It was noisy, the communication didn't really flow but we got what we wanted except for a second bottle of sake, which was probably for the better.

Next day we did Shinjuku and Roppongi. We got amazing shots from Tokyo Tower and the Metropolitan Government Office tower (whose top observatory is free by the way).

View from Tokyo Tower

The highlight of our Tokyo trip was in Shibuya – not the crossing (which was anyway ultra-advertised by Coppola) but the Kaikaya restaurant. It was a feast for your eyes and mouths. A friend living in Tokyo took us there (thank you Hughes!) and it was "oishi" (delicious) and noisy all the way! Giant prawns, amazing sashimi, surprising tuna ribs and to top it up, an OMG-green-tea-cheesecake-awesomeness for dessert. The menu is in English but the waiters speak only Japanese and the smokers room is actually more interesting and livelier than the non-smokers’. If you tell the waiters that your food is tasty they will shout it out loud and the whole restaurant will roar. :)

We proceeded our journey in the Land of the Rising Sun to Kamakura for temple and shrine hopping. Problem was that half Tokyo was doing the same. 

Madness in Kamakura - Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shrine

Still, we managed to see a wedding, traditional style, yeah!

Wedding - Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shrine

It was a surprise to discover that Japanese don’t see the coastline as we do. We want bars, restaurants, esplanades, food stalls, ice-cream parlors… well, they want a road to drive through and don’t really care about cleaning the sand. Weird!

Kamakura beach

Next day was shopping time. And the thing that stroke us the most is that after paying one of the staff will take the bag and accompany you to the door, hand you the bag and will not move while you are still in his / her sight. So if you’re clumsy and disorientated like us (never know where to go, turning in all directions), then it’s a test to their patience but they will bear with it.

We couldn’t leave town without the earthquake experience. We were far from imagining that it would be 6.2 in intensity but ok. It helped that it was at 5am and we were too sleepy to understand the risks. Anyway, the hotel was quite safe, built for this kind of situation – we could feel the building swaying beneath our feet for a couple of minutes after. Freaky!

And then it was over… domo arigato!

We are now back in the Land of the Morning Calm, kind of…

Hannam-dong, Seoul

Food for the Seoul

Street food in Seoul is a treasure hunt. You go from stall to stall and try different flavours done with different, but precise techniques. Many are actually sweet – newsflash: we will not leave this country without getting type 2 diabetes – but interesting nevertheless. Street food snacks range from:

- egg bread (gyeran ppang)

- fish-shaped bread with sweet red bean filling (bungeoppang)

- deep fried dumplings filled with sugar, honey, nuts and cinnamon (hotteok)

- spicy rice cakes (teokbokki)

- fish cakes (odeng)

- various foods on a skewer (kkochi)

- deep fried vegetables (twigim)

- pancakes (jeon)

- dry octopus and squid

- rice rolls (gimbap)

I don't have pictures to illustrate them all but will definitely update this post with more pictures as soon as I buy the next yummy snacks.

One can easily have a full meal going from one stall to another. No language skills are needed here. Money does the talking.

Some stalls cater for office people and close late afternoon. It's very common to see businessmen and women in dark suits holding their fish sticks and hanging out around a stall just after leaving the office.

Other Koreans put up their stalls around 5pm in busy areas, especially where nightlife is bustling – such as Hongdae (the university neighborhood) and Myeongdong (Seoul’s shopping haven).

In Namdaemun market, since they are more used to foreigners and especially when the business is slow in the evening, they even call out for us. In other parts of town, mainly in Insadong and in Hongdae, where for the first time in my life I was stuck in a queue to get into the subway station, they couldn’t care less.

In Gwangjang market they even have specific alleys according to the type of food – pancakes, meat (including pig trotters, yes, pig trotters), sashimi / seafood and so on… It’s so crowded that we had to queue for at least 10 minutes to buy two bindaetteok (see pic below). The place was so full that the ajumma waiting tables was pushing everyone in her way to get through. "Excuse me" is not something you hear often in Korea, even though they behave orderly, generally speaking. 

Gwangjang Market

No matter where you are in Seoul, if you have a couple of won in your wallet, you won’t go hungry.

Geonbae! Cheers!

It’s drinking time!

All the imported booze is heavily taxed in Korea which makes drinking wine a luxury, especially in restaurants, where bottles can easily cost you 50 to 60 USD (50,000 to 60,000 Korean won). Spirits... don't even mention it! On Saturday we were in a Mexican restaurant where they charged almost 20 USD for a Margarita! Surprisingly the food was one of the best we have had in international restaurants.

The Korean products are on the other hand extremely cheap. One bottle of soju in the supermarket costs around 1USD. The bottle of makgeolli is a bit more, but less than 2USD. So getting drunk is not a difficult task, as long as you grow fond of the taste of Korean beverages, which believe me, is pretty far from what we are used to.

Makgeolli

Wikipedia: Soju

Soju has a very plain grainy taste and the high alcoholic content is all you feel burning your chest when you gulp it down. Makgeolli – made from a mixture of wheat and rice – has a milky appearance and can be more interesting when perfumed with spices (cinnamon, ginger) and fruits (apple, orange).

Getting drunk is something normal but only among men. They drink together, mostly in the evenings, after leaving the office, and drag themselves in the streets afterwards, sometimes singing while hugging each other.

One hardly sees a woman drunk, except in Itaewon, the international area, though rarely. But when I say drunk, I say dead-drunk, which is a state they easily attain after two beers. :) Lack of the necessary enzymes to break down the alcohol.

A useful service has been gaining ground in Korea – the designated driver service, which you can call in case you had a bit too much to drink and want to be driven home in your own car. An estimated 100,000 replacement drivers tend to 700,000 customers every day across the country. This number increases by 30 % on Fridays (source: Korea Service Driver Society). In a 50 million people country, this is a significant number.

Thing about drinking in Korea is this: even if they drink a huge amount of booze they still maintain themselves morally sound. The drunk foreigners are the ones doing mischief.

Next post will be about food – street food, yeah!

Wiki Korea

It has been an interesting few weeks. I'm now feeling more hopeful regarding communication with Koreans, but probably I have taken my gesture skills to the next level in the meantime. And Google Translate has given me a hand.

I’m amazed with how much communication can take place with only a few gestures and words like:

• “spicy” – that’s the warning I get whenever I buy kimchi here, and then I'm asked if I wanna take it in the airplane (is that even possible? not only the because of the smell, I mean, there's still a lot of liquid inside!),
• “on / off” – very important when I have technicians coming to fix / handle appliances at home,
• “ice / hot” – whenever I order a coffee, tea or latte in a coffee shop I’m always asked if I want it iced or hot, even if it’s -10 degrees outside,
• “sign / no sign” – debit cards don’t require pin numbers in Korea. 3 out of 10 times I don’t even need to sign, which makes losing the card a big risk; on the other hand, it’s one of the safest places I've been…

Everything is high-tech and loud. There are tv screens everywhere and appliances produce annoying long-lasting sounds to indicate errors or that the programme has ended. Every time, the ATM and the metro card reload machine scream at me with instructions in English and I don’t know how to make them stop. And the voice in English sounds so much louder than the Korean. Almost as if foreigners needed extra encouragement.

Keys have no use in Korea. Everything works with codes, including our apartment door:

 Our living-room looks like a control room:

Everyone carries a Samsung Galaxy Note, though some lost souls try to stand out of the crowd with an iPhone. Since its launch, 10 million Notes have been sold in Korea alone. Most of the technology in public places is powered by Samsung. Our home is powered by LG (ok, except the microwave and the TV).

The banking system is pretty advanced in some things like paying bills by only scanning a QR code and so behind in others – I still had to go to the counter to change my card’s pin code (yes, the one I never use).

In the meantime we have found a little Portuguese oasis in Hongdae, the university area – the first and only Portuguese restaurant Taverna de Portugal with Super Bock beer and homemade “pastéis de nata”, yeah! It's run by a Portuguese-Korean couple and will be our safe haven whenever we feel homesick and need to speak Portuguese to someone other than ourselves. Difficult task, since there's just a few over 100 Portuguese in the whole country...

마포구 상수동 90-8

Another nice thing I've discovered this week: Spring is coming!

Hannam-dong, Seoul

Goodbye Brussels… hello Seoul!

I should have written this post a long time ago but moving leaves little time to stretch the mind. I feel I should honour the city where I lived for almost 7 years with some words.

Even though at first glance Brussels can be disappointing it grows on you and once you discover its hidden secrets, it’s hard not to like it. The only thing I’m happy to leave behind is the bad customer service, with a few exceptions.

My last days in Brussels were kind of emotional. I’ve tried to go to the places I like the most. The only miss was this sneaky Japanese restaurant in St Catherine – there’s only one living person I know who has actually made it there. It’s always full and they make it clear by having a “complet” sign on the door… all the time!

Otherwise, I went:

• one last time to the opera in La Monnaie and saw Jenufa with friends, after which we had a beer in the historic brasserie Le Cirio
• one weekend to Porto to celebrate my parents’ birthdays. Thank you Ryanair for helping with last minute decisions!
• to the El Dorado room in UGC De Brouckere to watch 12 Years a Slave and to Actor’s Studio to watch La Grande Belezza.
• to eat “moules and frites” in Le Pré Salé in rue de Flandres. Best mussels in Brussels, by the way.
• to Nespresso at least twice to bag as many capsules as possible to bring to Seoul – it’s a highend product here, not to talk about the Starbucks latte at 6,5USD.
• to Inno department store to stock up with clothes – fashion in Seoul is peculiar to say the least, although I’m finally in the land of extra small sizes, oooray.

For my last lunch in Brussels we ordered Turkish pizza, delivered in the office. We accompanied it with French wine and a lively discussion about curling while listening to Gangnam style and Silvio Berlusconi, alternatively.

Cheese pide

The “apero” later that evening was in a brand new restaurant / bar called Beaucoup fish. It’s worth a try and the way they bring the bill is kind of funny, at least for a Portuguese.

Tuna can Bom Petisco (PT)

So hard to say goodbye to friends.

My last morning was a mix of different feelings but sadness was the strongest. I was taken to the airport by an extremely nice Rwandan taxi driver, but didn't leave the country without having an altercation, this time with the staff at the check-in counter. This is Belgium!

Field trip to Kyoto – going zen...

After Osaka we spent the remaining 4 days of our short escapade to the Land of the Rising Sun in Kyoto. We got there in a local train from Umeda station for about 4USD, not bad! They have men in white (literally) helping foreigners in the main stations. Their help purchasing the tickets was priceless.

We were not very lucky with the hotel we picked but at least its location was central, in Kawaramichi dōri. The city was flying off the handle with the sales; it was a challenge to squeeze ourselves between the crowds. We gave in and bought some goodies, since prices are considerably more interesting than in Korea – especially when it comes to booze.

We started with a warm bowl of udon and bought some senbei (salty rice crackers) with sesame seeds for the road. Since ramen was out of question (not vegetarian), udon did just fine. We ended up by buying some takoyaki in the evening but they didn't taste as nice as in Osaka.

The best day was no doubt when we went to the Zen Buddhist temple Kinkaku-ji, the Arashiyama bamboo forest and the Fushimi Inari shrine with its intriguing red tori. Since it was the beginning of the year we managed to get some more treats in the food stalls at the entrance of the shrine: fried sweet potato and some azuki pancake.

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion

Bamboo forest in Arashiyama

Red tori in Fushimi Inari

Another worthwhile experience in Kyoto is Shimbashi (sometimes called Shirakawa Minami-dōri) in Gion, claimed to be the most beautiful street in Japan (even in Asia).

The restaurants in Pontocho were also a nice discovery although touristy. The restaurant we went to (Mimasuya) had some interesting vegetarian options (some not gluten-free) and acceptable prices.

We said goodbye to Kyoto by going to the Nishiki market. There we bought some treats: tonyu doughnuts (sold just next to a bio store) and some sesame balls filled with cheese (to die for) and azuki. We had lunch in one store / restaurant which sells only beans or bean-based products. The meals they served in the restaurant were also prepared with red / black beans, to level our protein intake up.

We almost felt home sick when leaving the market and seeing this stall in one of the shopping arcades:

Pastéis de nata (Portuguese custard tarts)

Até breve! Dewa mata!