A look at the scenery outside of Taipei

June 1, 2023

Still being in travel mode, I decided to not stay in Taipei but hop on another bus instead and get out to the coast. I dropped off my bag in a city called Jiufen and then found another bus that goes around the coastal road

This part of the country has a very industrial feel from it’s fishing and mining industries

A lot of the rocks are permanently discolored from all the mineral runoff from the mines

I wouldn’t touch this water, but it looks kinda neat

Getting back to Jiufen, this is the famous teahouse

everyone goes here at night to photograph the lanterns

This is the spot to set off lanterns for good luck and prosperity

And then doing some more hiking in the misty weather

I had to hike on the tracks to get to this spot, kind of exciting

the mix of lush green scenery and industrial vibes

small, run down, but also charming village of Mudan

This guy posing nicely for me in the tunnel over the tracks

This is what happens when you put your umbrella down

Back out to the coast the next day, finally some sun

Yehliu Geopark, the most famous spot for the funky rock formations

Hopped on another bus out to the Laomei Green Reef, which only looks like this for two months of the year, and only at low tide

The last evening, and then it was off to Hanoi!

Two week trip around the island Pt. 2 Tainan, Alishan, Sun Moon Lake

May 31, 2023

From Kaohsiung I hopped on the train to Tainan, which is Taiwan’s 4th biggest city. It’s supposed to be more chill here, but this traffic doesn’t look all that chill!

Snail Alley, a few small back streets with some art installations

Chikan Tower, one of the oldest buildings in Tainan, a former Dutch outpost

Tainan is famous for some of it’s really old buildings

This temple seemed to be the popular hangout spot

You’ll notice that Tainan has lots of temples

Burning paper to make sure the deceased have enough ‘means’ in the afterlife

Took a train and bus to get up into the tea growing highlands

Taiwan always has such nice walking/hiking infrastructure

Too cloudy for either a sunrise or sunset, but very peaceful

Taking the early morning bus to Alishan Natural Scenic Area

Heavy fog was definitely the best way to experience the park

sections of old railway turned into hiking paths

And the famous train that runs through the park

Quick stop to Sun Moon Lake, view from the Citadel

So my overall thoughts on this section: The city of Tainan I thought was a bit underwhelming. On the plus side, it did have some interesting local food options, and the old buildings were cool. But the old buildings were also mostly limited to very small sections that were quite touristy, and not really authentic feeling. Most of the city was just pretty normal/boring looking, with not all that much going on, unless you’re really interested in the various types and styles of temples. Which I am not. Also the public transit situation was not good. I’d say the city is nice for relaxing and trying various new food options, but don’t get too excited about the tourist attractions. Definitely go for the local beef soup.

Alishan: I loved the early morning fog. People always complain how crowded this place gets, especially on weekends, but I was here on a weekday and started bright and early, and I had the place almost to myself for the first few hours. Seeing millenia old trees in that ethereal light was undeniable cool. When more people started arriving and the fog started melting away it became a much less interesting place. I was also a bit surprised at how small it was, by mid-afternoon I was basically out of trails to walk!

Sun Moon Lake: Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by seeing some beautiful lakes in my lifetime, and had my expectations a bit high because this place is always on ‘must-do’ lists in Taiwan, but Sun Moon Lake was definitely pretty Meh. It’s just really not that aesthetically pleasing of a lake. The water is murky and brown, you can’t swim in it, the water level is low, it just wasn’t all that nice. But it’s good to get some exercise in, spend a few hours riding around the lake on a bicycle, stop at a coffeeshop with a view, do the night market in the evening (which has some good aboriginal food options) and you’re done. The whole place is shut down by about 7pm. I spent two nights here and one would have been plenty. I was happy to get back to the hustle and bustle of Taipei after this.

Two week trip around the Island Pt. 1

May 21, 2023

Initially I wasn’t sure how long to stay in Taiwan, I thought two weeks would be good at first, but in order to properly do Taipei, the stuff around Taipei, as well as get around the whole island, my research indicated three weeks was preferable. Fortunately the planning was extremely easy as everywhere I wanted to go was easily accessible by bus or train. And with Taiwan being only at 1/3 of its pre-covid numbers, everything was easy to book at last second, which I love. For this post I’m just going to post photos with captions, the order of the photos is clockwise around the island, so starting with the less densely populated east coast. First stop: Hualien and the Taroko Gorge

Very nice looking train station in the city of Hualien

I rented a scooter the evening before and left at 6am to catch the sunrise on the black pebbled beach on the way to the Taroko Gorge. The sun was stuck behind the clouds though

heading into the canyon, as you can some of the sections of roads are just blasted out from the rock

something about the minerals give it that nice blue turquoise color

very nice road conditions, just had to watch out for falling rocks

view from the bridge over the canyon before the rains came. After waiting a few hours for it to clear up, I had to bail out unfortunately.

The next day it was an easy train trip to the small town of Chishang to do some bicycling in the rice fields

There was a popular airline commercial in the 90’s that used this street and this tree in Taiwan, so now it’s famous. And then a famous actress took a photo for social media in front of the wrong tree, and now that one is famous too. Groups of Taiwanese tourists love it.

Woke up early and had a nice sunny morning in the next village over

Very pleasant scenery for cycling, and nobody around

Taiwan is pretty good at placing art in some random spots

That day I hopped back on the train + bus and made it all the way to the far south of Taiwan, Kenting Nat’l Park.

This was part of a one night stopover on a small island called XiaoLiuQiu, famous for it’s rock formations and it’s turtles. I saw about 15 turtles snorkeling in the afternoon, it was pretty fun. Then I went scuba diving the next morning and we hardly saw anything. Pretty weak!

From the island I took a bus to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city. Hustled over to the Lotus Pond to get this shot at sunset

View from the other side: Dragon and Tiger pagodas

Cool looking temples are everywhere in Taiwan

I guess you can go inside the mouth, but it was too late now

Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum, home of one of three remaining Buddha tooth relics

85 Sky Tower with the light rail in front

trying out all the different views of the tower

Thoughts: This was a really nice section. The Taroko Gorge as well the coastline was great, riding a bicycle in the rice fields of Chishang was lovely, the beach in Kenting was a good place to relax, snorkeling with the turtles and riding a scooter around the island of XiaoLiuQiu was fantastic, and I thought Kaohsiung was a surprisingly nice, well put-together, modern city that seemed to do all the small things right. I guess the only disappointment was the scuba diving on the island, that was pretty lame. Oh well. And meeting any new people in the hostels was difficult. But overall the diversity of the scenery in Taiwan is certainly one of it’s strongest suits.

Taipei days

May 21, 2023

Next up on the ole list of things to do was the zoo, which was an easy train ride away to the outskirts of town. I got there right when it opened to avoid the crowds and apparently I had chosen school field trip day, yippee! Hundreds, maybe a thousand kids were already there, in all shades of colors of school uniforms. What a zoo. But besides those kids I virtually had the place to myself! At the very least it was easy to see and take photos over their heads. It’s definitely one of the better zoos I’ve been to, but I’m not going to bore with you what it is like to walk around a zoo, here’s some photos.

From the zoo you can catch a gondola up into the hills where they grow tea and have cutesy instagram teahouses. I don’t exactly love tea or cutesy instagram places, but I like gondolas and good views, so sure why not. Tea is something Taiwan is very well known for, so you don’t have to pull my arm to have a cuppa out on a balcony overlooking Taipei. The skyline isn’t incredibly impressive compared to some of it’s neighbors, but Taiwan’s tallest building, Taipei 101 certainly steals the show.

And that’s where I was off to next. I hopped on a bus and was on my way. Public transit is sooo easy in Taiwan. You stop into any convenience store and buy + load your easy card and then you’re basically good to go for public transit all around the island! And with a country as well run as Taiwan, google maps functions almost perfectly, telling you which bus gets you where, and when, with a GPS indicator of each bus coming, so you know down to the exact minute when your bus is going to arrive. I’m starting to forget how people even functioned in the pre-smartphone era of travel!

I had the option of going up to the top of the tower or doing the hike nearby to get a good view of the whole skyline, and photo-wise seeing the entire skyline was the more appealing option. The hike is called Elephant mountain and it takes maybe 25 minutes to get up to the top. I waited around in a fancy coffeshop near the base for the sun to go down a bit, the type of place where they don’t have lattes and cappuccinos, just single origin roasts from various parts of the world. I went for an Ethiopian cold brew, and it costs $8! My god. Fortunately the view was worth $8!

And now, what to do in Taipei when the sun sets? Night market obviously! There are night markets all over the city. Some are more for locals, some are more touristy, each one has it’s own unique dishes and flair, although the staples will always be around. So what are some of the night market foods to try? Stuff like scallion pancakes, Taiwanese hamburgers, coffin bread, stewed pork rice, oyster omelets, sweet potato balls, pepper buns, steamed dumplings, fish balls, fried chicken chop, quail eggs, shrimp cheese skewers, well really all types of skewers, plus a wide variety of noodle dishes are all the more foreigner friendly options. And then you get into some of the more local favorites like stinky tofu, pork knuckles, blood sausage, and all sort of offal dishes. Washed down with avocado or papaya milk, or of course the omnipresent boba tea, with multiple shops being a stones throw away from wherever you are in the city. And that’s with a weak arm.

And here’s some more photos just from wandering around the city. These photos aren’t truly representative of Taipei as a whole, because I stayed in an older part of town and just prefer the old parts of towns for walking around and taking photos :)

A new country, Taiwan!

May 10, 2023

This one has been on my list for a while, and with cheap flights from Manila, and Taiwan pulling out of winter, it was time! Welcome to Taipei! I got in at around 1am. To be honest, I really didn’t know much about Taiwan going in. I know some of their history with China, I know it’s generally considered a nicer, cleaner, better English speaking version of China, and I know that people have told me that the foods in the night markets are great. That’s about it! As I’ve spent a decent amount of time in China so I guess it’s a bit surprising I’ve never been to Taiwan before, but here we are…

I went straight to a nearby travel hotel and crashed, and then took the high speed rail (HSR) into Taipei the next morning. Emerging from the main station I wasn’t totally sure what to expect, but definitely strong China vibes! An old lady selling steaming buns right next to the exit, the way the billboards are attached to the buildings vertically, and mainly the style of the buildings themselves – they have this distinctive tiling, always seemingly slightly worn out and gritty, and windows with cages where people put potted plants and hang laundry. And the weather was gray and cloudy, which was the usual weather when I taught English in Guizhou.

A bustling weekend flea market in the old town

The area next to the station was an older part of town, which is great because I love the older parts of town. But the streets were wide and clean and on the ground level of these worn out looking buildings were all very nice, brightly lit, glass windowed shops. My guesthouse was next to a Patagonia store. My accommodation was a cube style dorm room, but like Japan and Korea, these dorms are really nothing like any backpacker dormitory you’d find in SouthEast Asia or Europe. It’s mostly Taiwanese guests, most are younger, but many are businessmen. Everyone is extremely quiet, nobody talks in the room. Each bed is it’s own small living space, with enough room for some luggage, a bit of shelving, a little lockbox, lights, and of course power outlets with multiple types of plug ins. Bathroom slippers, toiletries, towel and robe also provided. And the bathrooms are spotless.

Seeing normal middle aged people staying in these types of shared living environments made me think of how difficult and expensive it is to travel around the US solo. Outside of few major cities, hostels are virtually non-existent, and even then more geared to a young international traveler. If you are traveling in the US for business, like I often do, the options for a solo person on a reasonable budget are pretty abysmal. Any decently rated hotel is generally well over $100. The cheapest options (which aren’t even that cheap!) are always shitty motels outside the city on the highway, and those are often not very nice places, run down, with some less desirable tenants, with many people just forced to live there semi-permanently because they can’t find anywhere else to live. Hell I consider myself a pretty desirable tenant, can pass a background check, a credit check, have money in the bank, and I’m pretty sure I would still struggle a lot to sign a lease at a nice place without proof of employment or a strong rental history in the US with recommendations. So I can’t even imagine what it’s like for some of these other people. motel. Nice shared accommodation in the heart of a city >>>>>>>>>>> run down motel outside the city on the highway.

The entrance to my hostel/guesthouse in Tainan

In Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, it’s incredibly normal for a business traveler to stay in these cube style dormitories. And why not? Just like in the US, hotels in major metros are expensive. Not everyone can afford hotels like this, and even if you can, for many people, myself included, it just feels like a waste of money. I just need somewhere halfway decent to sleep. It is so nice to have an alternative! I mean even if hotels in the US had some smaller rooms, priced for one person that would be amazing. In Japan they have hotels with tiny rooms, a twin bed, bathroom and that’s basically it. But even though they’re small they’re nice, they have flat screen TVs, coffeemakers, fridge, modern bathrooms, nice towels. It’d be spectacular to have options like this. It feels so incredibly wasteful and inefficient when I’m in a big room with two queens beds. Do I need all of this extra space? Absolutely not.

Anyway, back to Taiwan, the place I was staying at would certainly provide me with a good nights sleep, although meeting other international travelers, probably not so much! I set out into the drizzle to get a SIM card, and from there it seemed like a pretty good museum day. Taiwan actually has a great museum with very old and rare Chinese antiquities. They were brought to Taiwan by the retreating Nationalist armies in the 40’s and thus were able to escape the fate of most ancient artifacts in China – getting destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Although lots of the most important things are old books, scrolls and the precise calligraphy used in them. As people who write with the roman alphabet, it’s quite hard to fathom how important Chinese writing and each individual character is to Chinese culture and how fundamentally intertwined they are. Pretty fascinating.

Next it was on to the Chiang Kai Shek monument, one of the most recognizable places in Taipei. The drizzle had stopped but dark clouds still loomed, which felt fitting. From there I wandered my way over to the Longshan Temple, the most important religious site in the city, which is also in one the oldest parts of town, and I love just walking around the little alleyways.

Dinner was my first night market. The one closest wasn’t one of the bigger more famous ones in the city, and being a wet weekday night it wasn’t crowded, which was fine because I’ve heard the lines at night markets get crazy sometimes. First ting I saw was scallion pancake, delicious, then I stopped in the most popular looking place and ordered myself a tea egg, some fried tofu dish, and braised pork belly on rice. Oh man, what a good choice. That pork belly was just to die for, the sauce was so rich, it just melted in your mouth. Damn. Welcome to Taiwan indeed!

Wrapping Up: Bohol and Camiguin

April 6, 2023

After leaving Dauin, Alex and I would spend a night in the tourist zoo of Oslob, then take a ferry over to a large island called Bohol. It was a just a tourist ferry, ie a small boat, and it sucked! There’s no pier for the boat to dock, so they have to shuttle you out to the boat, and then of course it was windy and choppy and it took more than three hours to get to Panglao, which was the touristy part of the island. Specifically Alona beach is where all the action is at, loads of tourists, not just westerners, but domestic tourists as well, plus loads of Japanese and Koreans. The Japanese and Koreans are kinda funny, they don’t like swimming, they hate the sun, but they do like snorkeling and scuba diving. And if there is a restaurant with fresh fish that they cook in front of you, they are there!

Alex, being the Tinder guru, already had us meeting up with a French girl and her Russian friend that evening. French speakers are like magnets on these apps, because if there’s one thing they all love doing while abroad, it’s speaking in French! And even if they say they’re going keep the dinner conversation in English, that happens roughly zero percent of the time, so it was good the Russian girl was there too! So we would hang out with them the next few days, which was nice because the weather was crap and our diving trips got cancelled for a few days in a row. We did have enough clear weather to spend some time scootering around the island though, went to the tarsier sanctuary, saw some caves and waterfalls, always a good time.

But overall this part of the trip was a bust for scuba diving with the wind and the rain, and a few days later we headed a few hours north on the island, to a very non-touristy place called Anda. Here the skies cleared up, the beaches were mostly untouched or just a few locals and it was a good place to detox a bit after too much drinking in Alona Beach. There were two tourist oriented, expat owned bar/restaurants and the rest was all the usual Filipino fare. The area was nice for riding the scooters around and had some scuba diving as well. Good weather, good visibility and lots of turtles!

This was also where Alex and I would part ways, as he was off to El Nido and Coron, the spots that I had already been to. It’s always nice having a travel buddy to do stuff with, especially in the evenings for dinner and then some drinks. It makes it much easier to approach other people (girls) and do very casual Tinder meet ups, where there is no pressure of it being a more date-like 1 on 1 meet up. So it was a bit of bummer parting our separate ways, although I didn’t mind a few days of alone time to relax and not do much of anything.

I chilled out for a few days and then took the ferry to a small volcanic island called Camiguin. Similar to Anda, and other places that are a bit off the well tread trail, it was particularly quiet and still very much in post-covid recovery. But I was able to book a nice sea-facing bungalow and there was a dive shop on the premises of the ‘resort’. The word resort can sometimes be used very loosely in the Philippines!

The only other people diving at the moment were some Spanish guys doing an open water class and two Germans who were staying at an actual resort nearby. So I was paired up with Germans, who in true German fashion were decked out in very new and expensive looking (and presumably the safest!) dive gear! But in not-so-German fashion their English was almost non-existent so we didn’t really talk all that much outside the usual pleasantries. Kinda lame. It’s no fun when you’re staying at a place to dive and you can’t really meet any other divers.

The weather was also back to being very hit or miss. It was very windy so a few times we couldn’t just walk across the beach and hop in the dive boat (because it would bottom out) so they had to shuttle us to the port area and get on the boat that way. Lots of little annoyances with the La Ñina weather pattern this year. It’s not supposed to be like this at the end of February! The diving was fine, but not as good as most places I’d been, in addition to being the most expensive I’d done, so it wasn’t my favorite dive locale.

Fortunately Camiguin is a great island for scootering around, you can get around the island in a few hours, and there’s a few nice beaches and snorkel spots, plus some waterfalls, peaceful countryside scenery, and you can even hike to the top of the volcano and check out the crater. I didn’t do this because the weather made the trail too muddy and awful, but it sounded kinda neat! Oh and I almost forgot Camguin’s most famous feature, the sandbar that is a 10 minute boat ride from the coast. It is possibly the nicest beach I’ve visited in all of the Philippines! It’s got beautiful white sand, turquoise water, and the volcano looming in the distance (although its normally covered by clouds). The tourists groups usually go in the morning, so if you go in the afternoon you have the whole place to yourself, magical!

It goes from sunny to cloudy in about 3.2 seconds

the only people on the beach were some fishermen

So that was just about the end of my trip. I flew back to Manila, met up with the woman from Dauin, Donna, to do two more days of muck diving, just three hours away from Manila. We saw some more really cool sea slugs, and then it was back to Manila to play poker for a few nights, managed to win a little bit, and then a cheap flight a few hours north to Taipei, Taiwan! Oh and plus a nice little fee for overstaying my visa. They don’t actually care if you overstay, as long as you pay the fine. It didn’t feel like it, but it’d been 2.5 months now in the Philippines! Wow. While I might get bored of city hopping after a few weeks, I can really do the laid back, tropical locations with good diving for a long long time! So that was all for the Philippines, definitely one of my favorite countries. There are many countries where you are one and done, but I’d go back to the Philippines anytime, in a heartbeat!

Muck Diving in Dauin

April 6, 2023

Next stop: A small village on the beach known for it’s muck diving. To get there would be via trike, bus, trike, boat, motorcycle, trike! Easy. We started off by taking a trike the few miles to get us to the main road in Moalboal, where there is no bus station, you just have to flag down the bus on the side of the road. And we were unpleasantly surprised to find out that the bus stop not only had no shade, but it was in front of the new Jollibee, which was having their grand opening weekend. Yay. This meant they put massive speakers out front, replaying the same the pre-school aged Jollibee song, at full volume. Jolly jolly - jolly jolly jolly jolly! And there were huge groups of Filipinos eating outside on white plastic tables, right next to the speakers like it was nothing. I don’t know how they do it. But anyway, worst bus stop ever!

After a loooooong 25 minutes, the bus finally came, and of course it was basically full and there was no under carriage for peoples’ bigger backpacks, so you just mash in there, full luggage and all. Fun. Eventually some people got off and we could sit down. 1.5 hours later we got dumped off at the bus station, which of course isn’t near the ferry pier, so we had to take another trike to get to the pier to take the ferry. The ferry was only 20 minutes or so, and from there we decided to hop on the back of motorcycles (instead of a trike) to get into the main town of Dumaguete. There we went to the bus station, but it had a shockingly long line waiting for the bus we wanted, so we opted for another trike to take us the last 12 miles. The trikes are not very comfortable for non-Filipino sized people! Finally we were dumped off at the side of the road in Dauin and found our way to the guesthouse, a collection of mostly bungalows with a section of black volcanic sand beachfront. Nice! Sometimes getting relatively cheap beachfront property is harder than it might seem in the Philippines!

In Dauin we met some other divers staying there, two older Americans who were friends, the guy from NYC, the woman from Michigan. Dauin is famous for it’s muck diving, which is basically diving in spots that have a mostly sandy bottom and searching around for sea life in their holes, in the weeds, or among the debris – the muck. At first glance it might not look like much, but when you pay close attention there’s lots of little critters to be found everywhere! And when I say little critters, I do mean little, as in tiny. Some animals are just a fraction of the length of your fingernail, and take a very discerning eye to spot! Of course there’s also larger nudibranches (sea slugs), shrimps, crabs, octopus, cuttlefish etc. The nudibranches in particular are extremely diverse and colorful in this area.

Most of the diving is just walking in from the shore, the only tricky part is getting to the access points, as most of the shoreline is on private property. For our first dive site – The Pier - we had to load all the gear into a little truck, take some very bumpy road, pay a local landowner for access, gear up on land and walk in the water, and then put on the fins while battling the waves and undertow. It was so choppy that the NYC guy, Paco, who isn’t super mobile, couldn’t get his gear on correctly in the waves and had to abort the dive. Bummer.

But once we were finally there the dive site was awesome! We saw so many cool nudibranches that I’d never seen before. In most dive locations there are only a handful of nudi varieties you see over and over, but here – wow! The variety and brightness and vividness of the colors are spectacular. I really wished I had an underwater camera. Fortunately the woman I was diving with, Donna, who is still actively diving at age 74(!) had a camera and case that is designed for macro photography (shooting very small things from close up) and I could borrow some of her photos. Muck diving sites are very very popular with underwater photographers, with good reason. And I must say, I’m very tempted to get a decent underwater set up for this type of diving as well, as a photographer it really sucks being able to see great compositions in your head and not being able to take proper photos, and meanwhile having to watch other people take all these really nice shots!

So anyway, that was a great first dive and proper introduction to muck diving. For our second dive we drove the truck down past a resort and when we were gearing up the owner came out and yelled at us, he was really pissed off, as we were supposed to park a few hundred feet back and walk from there, not drive all the way down to the shore. Oops! Unfortunately at this dive site the waves were even bigger and Donna didn’t feel comfortable making the entry, so it was back to the guesthouse to do a shore dive from there. Doing these walk-in shore dives isn’t exactly ideal. But the nice thing about muck diving is that you can do some of the same spots over again and what creatures you see can be totally different depending on the time of day, the tides, your eyesight, and of course total luck.

Another thing to do from Dauin is take an hour boat trip out to the marine reserve Apo Island, which is famous for having stellar corals and lots of turtles. We picked a kind of lousy day to do it, completely cloudy and bit rainy, but better to be underwater when the weather sucks! We still saw some turtles, a sea snake, but for being a famous dive site, it was a bit underwhelming. Oh well.

The rain kept coming, so we spent a lot of time just chilling in the bungalows reading or whatever. On the last night there some Aussie girls arrived and they wanted to go find some flamboyant cuttlefish. They showed me some videos of what it looked like – I’d never seen or heard of one before, and that became our mission for the morning, find the cuttlefish! Our group was 10 people, the 3 Aussies, Donna and Paco, Me and Alex, and three instructors/divemasters. So 20 eyeballs! I had to laugh when one of the Filipino instructors forgot his weightbelt and used rocks from the shore to put in his BCD. Very Philippines!

Muck dives usually don’t have much current, so people normally spread out and just kind of do their own thing, hunting around for stuff. At one point I saw a dark little object moving around, I assumed it was just another fish, and then I saw it’s sides light up – yellow and purple. YESSSSS! Found it! And there was another one right next to it! So cool! I was near the divemaster, Maya who excitedly came over, but there was no one else around! Maya was banging on her tank, but no one was coming. So she pointed for me to stay put with the cuttlefish while she went to go find the rest of the group to come over. So I had a good few minutes to just chill and watch they little things all by myself, the bright colors changing, undulating, pulsing as they crept along the sandy bottom. So cool. And then the rest of the group came and I got out of the way a bit so everyone could have a look and take photos and all that stuff.

It was a great way to end the time in Dauin, we all got to see what we set out to find, and I got to take the credit for finding them!

The Visayas: Cebu, Malapascua, Moalboal

March 29, 2023

Last time I was in the Philippines, for whatever reason, I did not go diving with the thresher sharks at an island called Malapascua, I don’t know why, and now I needed to correct that mistake. First stop was flying to the big island of Cebu, the capital Cebu City, which is the 2nd biggest city in the Philippines. There’s not much to do in the city, but plenty to do around the island!

When I’m in the Philippines there’s a FB group called Travel Philippines, and there’s lots of useful information and updates posted on it. A lot of time people post their interests and itineraries in case other people want to meet up. One guy posted that he was doing something very similar to my itinerary and that he wanted to do a bunch of diving, so I posted something saying we should meet up. We ended up taking the same bus up to Malapascua together. He’s 29 from Montreal, traveling Southeast Asia for a few months, and works as an arborist for the majority of the year, just not the winters. Sitting next to us on the bus was a Russian girl who was also really friendly, she’s a travel blogger and organizer for Russian clients, and basically travels almost full time. So already we had a nice group of three.

After we took the 40 minute boat over to the island me and Alex found a place with bungalow type accommodation and a dive shop (and a pool too!) while Alena wanted a bit more higher end accommodation. But we all met up at sunset and had dinner together. They have a local seafood market with 4 or 5 different places that have all their fish on display and you just pick out whatever you want them to throw on the grill. And after El Nido and Coron tourist prices, this place felt like a steal.

The next day we took easy and went to the beach and all three of us did one afternoon dive, a nice quick one, 15 minutes away by boat. Nothing amazing, but it was good for Alena who hadn’t done any dives in a few years. The next morning was the thresher shark dive which you have to get up at 4:30am for! The threshers are these sharks with long, whippy tails and are very distinctive looking!

So we all met up 4:45 at the shop, and by 5am we were on the boat, and it was another hour to get out to the dive site. It’s a popular place. It’s what the island is famous for! So we geared up, jumped in, and went off to find some sharks. Although they find you! The way it works is you pick a spot along the shoal where they normally hang out, and just wait for them to swim by. It took a little while at first, and I was starting to get frustrated because we seemed to be staking out a spot kind of far away from other divers, but eventually someone pointed directly behind me, and there was our first one! The first thing you notice when their swimming towards you is how big their eyes are! They’re almost unproportionally big, unblinking eyes, that kind of look like an anime cartoon eye. And then once it swims past is when you see just how big that big long tail really is. It’s like the whole length of the shark’s body! We ended up seeing 5 or 6 on that first dive. Which seemed like a lot. On the second dive we saw even more!

The second dive we saw them right away as soon as we jumped in. And this location seemed to have a bit better visibility, so we could get an even better view. We found a good spot to park ourselves and saw at least a dozen sharks on this dive, although I don’t know how many were the same shark swimming past over and over again. But it was a very cool experience! The only downside were the tiny jellyfish in the water that were stinging my face and hands. It was painful enough that this would be a one-time diving experience!

The next day was a divesite called Gato, which was also a really good one, we saw a shark and blue ringed octopus, which I was really excited about because they’re hard to find! Then it was party night in Malapascua, Saturday night, the once per week tradition. One of the bigger bars had a DJ, dancing, a multi-lingual host – because there’s lots of Koreans, and it was a good time. Of course I was done by midninght, Alex was out till 4am or whatever. The next day was a rest day, beach day, and that concluded our stay on Malapascua. Early the following morning we were off to see the sardines at Moalboal, unfortunately a good 9-10 hours by boat-bus-taxi-bus. Travel days in the Philippines are no joke!

reef shark swimming around near the tunnel

I felt kind of bad for Moalboal. Its still a popular destination, but it used to have a nice beach that got swept away by typhoons. Then they built a beautiful pier into the ocean and that got knocked out in the last few years too! But what it’s famous for is this massive school of sardines that hang out not far from the coast, is still there fortunately! Plus there’s a nice shelf that has lots of fish and plenty of turtles as well. The first morning Alex and I got our snorkeling gear and went out to see the sardines. You just swim to where there is a group of people out in the ocean and eventually you find it, hundreds of thousands, millions?? of these small fish all swimming together. It’s quite the sight. It’s like a living, moving organism. You can dive down into the school and they part all around you. It’s a lot fun if you can free dive a bit.

You can see the beach is mostly just rocks now, broken pier in the background

Of course this very same morning is when I broke the underwater casing for my phone, so I couldn’t take any photos. It was in the front compartment of my scooter and I hit a bump and it popped out and hit the ground. I figured it would be fine, but nope, it was leaking this gel material into the casing which I’m guess is for the deep water insulation. So that was a pretty big bummer. I really liked my phone casing. And the shot of diving into the school of sardines is probably one of the most unique, instagrammable shots in all of the Philippines. Sigh.

Around Moalboal also has a lot of waterfalls, so me Alex and Alena all rented scooters and decided to spend the day cruising around to check them out. The roads up into the hills aren’t great, nor clearly marked, but it makes for a bit more adventure. We went to three different waterfalls, each one different in their own way. One was tall, but not good for swimming, one was where all the local kids hang out, and one was perfect for doing jumps. These type of days, just driving around finding cool spots with scooters are always some of my favorite days when I’m traveling! And since we were parting ways with Alena that evening, we had a nice Italian meal (her favorite) courtesy of our guesthouse owner, who is Italian and cooks dishes made to order, as long as you order your dinner before noon the day of! Although the wine was not great and the risotto was undercooked, but hey it’s the Philippines!

More Photos from Coron

March 18, 2023

Coron Island Hopping Trip

March 18, 2023

There’s a bunch of cool stuff to do in Coron, namely riding scooters, scuba diving - wreck diving! and the island hopping trips. But instead of doing day trips with the tourist horde, I had signed up for a 3d/3n trip that gets you far away from the mainland to see some of the sights that are impractical to do on daytrips, and you get to sleep on mostly untouched tropical islands!

The company I booked with has pretty outstanding reviews so I was looking forward to it. After a couple days of wreck diving it was time, we all met at a restaurant near the port area, although I was slightly disappointed to see it was mostly couples. Our crew consisted of an American couple who lived in Seattle and were on their honeymoon, a Canadian/American couple that lived in Ohio doing a big South East Asia trip, a British couple from a small town near London, and another British girl from London. And of course my self. It turns out that there were supposed to be more people on our boat, but some people couldn’t make it due to the ferry issues from El Nido. Bummer! Maybe they should have taken the 13 hour quasi-legal bangka!

Hiking up to Kangayan Lake and looking back down to where the boats are parked, damn.

taking the stand up paddle board at twin lagoon, also crystal clear water

We boarded the boat around noon and headed to some of the famous spots closeby, Kangayan Lake and Twin Lagoon. Both are spectacular pools of water nestled in between the sharp limestone formations. Weather was mostly cloudy as usual, so the coor of the water didn’t get that nice pop. These two spots in particular are very touristy, but since we were going in the afternoon most of the day trip boats had already gone through, so we there were only a few other boats around. Our boat was also equipped with two kayaks and a stand up paddle board, so that was a nice perk to be able to take those out in the lagoon. Tough to take good photos on a stand up paddle board though!

crossing from one part of twin lagoon to the other

The next few hours were spent getting out to our little island a few hours away, called banana island. It’s a privately owned island and it has a bunch of bungalows, a little store, some hammocks, and a volleyball net and that’s about it! I guess on the other side of the banana is an expensive resort as well. Whoever owned these island around Coron from way back in the day have been cashing in the last decade or so of development in this part of the Philippines. We dropped off our things, a few of us played beach volleyball for a bit, checked out the house reef by snorkeling, and then enjoyed one of the better sunsets on the trip! Like usual we couldn’t actually see the sun set, but the after colors were great. It should be noted that all the drinks on the trip are also free, so the rum and pineapples were flowing as well! Not long after the sunset they had are our big buffet dinner waiting for us, which looked fantastic The big table was right on the beach, which is how we would eat all of our breakfasts and dinners, listening to waves. Everyone stayed up a while to drink and chat – like almost till 10pm! Haha it’s that kind of trip, not a party boat.

our island. It doesn’t look like a banana from this angle

I had no trouble sleeping, but the UK couple laid down in their bed to find a very large moving lump, which they thought was a rat, but it turned out to be a massive gecko! I guess the locals who stay on the island all know who he is and had a good laugh! We had a beautiful sunny morning and since I was up early I had time to do a bit more snorkeling before catching breakfast, which was eggs, corned beef, sausage, fruit, and pancakes. Not bad! After that we headed out to a sandbar connected to a mostly deserted island, followed by some more snorkeling. That would be how most of the trip would be, beach spots, snorkeling spots, eat, cruise around, rinse and repeat! And fortunately the sun was coming out and staying out!

That afternoon we anchored the boat to an even smaller island this time, with even nicer and softer white sand. A few day trip boats were there when we arrived, but by the time the sun was going down we were the only boat remaining. It was a similar set up, a handful of bungalows and not much else, with 2-3 people there as the island caretakers. The island featured a small mangrove swamp and stairs to the highest point on the island, a whopping 10 minute walk. I enjoyed taking my book, a beer, and a plastic chair and putting it at the far end of the beach which I had all to myself. Dinner was similar, and most of us stuck around afterwards to play some card games before getting to bed.

This was the most picturesque of our islands to sleep on

I feel like it’s getting a bit repetitive, but breakfast was on the beach, it was sunny again, we went to a snorkeling spot that had a sunken ship, then to a mostly deserted beach on a small island, had lunch, then visited a larger island that had large black limestone cliffs. There was a cool cave inside, some big monitor lizards around, and a good outcropping to jump off into the water. We all agreed that this was the best island on the trip.

Certainly the most chill rooster I’ve ever seen. He had no problem being picked up. I even think he liked it!

In the late afternoon we boarded the boat again and headed to an island bit closer to mainland where we would find our bungalows. This would be the last night, so they made an extra large feast! The traditional meal is served communal style on large palm leaves and called Kamayan, which means using hands, or a Boodle Fight, because you compete with all the people around you for all the food! Good thing there was a lot of stuff to fight over! The crew also sat and joined us which was nice. Everyone was also drinking quite a bit as tonight was karaoake night, and participation was not mandatory, but highly encouraged.

A bonfire was set up, and nearby were two large speaker and microphone. We drew straws to figure out the order, as nobody wanted to go first. I don’t think we had any regular singers in the group. Charlotte, the girl from London was the unlucky one, she started us off with a quite dismal rendition of ‘Summer of 69’ which just really isn’t a good karaoke song. So that would set the very low bar for the rest of the night! Almost everybody sucked. Even the Filipino crew! I figured since they’d been singing their whole lives they might be good at it, but nope. But in the Philippines people are just way less shy about sucking. You walk around and you will hear people belting out just some of the worst off squeaky, off key performances in front of a bunch of strangers and they don’t care!

It eventually got to me, and even though my voice is god awful, after watching how terrible everyone else was I didn’t have much to worry much! I’ve had enough karaoke bombs to know to choose a song that absolutely everyone knows, and it has to be upbeat, and you have to get into it a bit (the booze helps). Any slow weird parts or choruses of a song are a total energy killer. So my song was Hit Me Baby One More Time by Brittney (obv) and it went off without a hitch. Just so you know how low the bar was, my performance was voted as best of the night!

So that was a fun grande finale. The one thing that sucked was had to get up early and be on the boat by 6am, everyone hungover and all. But I guess they have to get the boat back into town to get it ready for the next tour. I’d say not being able to actually enjoy the last morning on the beach, which faces the sunrise, was probably the thing that bothered me the most about the trip. But anyway it was still a very nice tour and even though it was pretty pricey by Philippines standards we all agreed it was worth it!

Hellboat: El Nido to Coron

March 11, 2023

El Nido to Coron

The last time I was in El Nido 10 years ago there was no ferry in between El Nido and the island of Coron, it was just a Bangka boat, and it was a pretty horrible experience. It took 7 or 8 hours, the water was choppy, the boat lurched over every wave, people were puking, and it was the worst boat ride I had in the country. Fast forward to now, there’s a daily ferry running between the two spots, woo! No more crappy Bangka boat!

So the morning of the ferry I strolled my way over to the small port where the ferry office is and attempted to purchase my ticket. In all my traveling in the Philippines I’ve always booked ferries the day of and not once has this ever been a problem. Well it was now! The next one available was in four days! Shiiiit. I’ve basically run out of things to do in El Nido. There is an option to fly, which is pretty expensive, but even that was sold out for days as well. I stopped in some travel agencies and they all told me the same thing, I was basically SOL, gotta wait four days. No other option.

So I was talking to the lady that runs the hotel, and she said she’d call around for me. Ok, great. Turns out there is a ‘cargo bangka’ leaving at 2am for Coron and I could get on it if I want. Hmm, a crappy Bangka boat, middle of the night, no sleep, costs even more than the ferry, I literally can’t even imagine a worse option. But at least I had an option! I really didn’t want to be in tourist trap El Nido town for 4 more days. I said I’d take it.

That evening the hotel owner gave me a blanket and pillows to get some sleep for a few hours. Pickup at 2am. We weren’t even leaving from the El Nido port, we were driving an hour north and leaving from the far tip of Palawan. The 2 am pickup turned into 3am, and eventually the van stopped by, someone pounded on the door, and I sprung up and crawled into the van. We still had to pick up 10 more people on the way north. By 4:30am we reached our destination. It wasn’t a port, it wasn’t pier it was just a piece of dirt and rocks a little bit off the main road with the Bangka boat, dimly lit, waiting in the water. We walked the gangplank and boarded in almost total darkness. All the big bags went into a section beneath the deck, and we all sat on the wooden benches on the front deck, about 20 people in total. I’m almost positive that this was not a legal boat trip. But ‘legal’ is a looser term in the Philippines.

After being on the water for a little bit one of the crew asked if anyone wanted to go on top, and having experience with the long Bangka ride to Coron before, I was the first one (and the only one) to go up top. Two crew members were already up there curled into balls, and I would be doing the same thing, using my small backpack as a pillow. I literally had the best spot on the boat. As we got further out the wind and waves and the spray started picking up and one other person joined me up top, some went back into the boathouse, and the rest just stayed sitting on the front deck, getting sprayed with water in the darkness like suckers.

Eventually the sun came up, which was quite beautiful from where I was, with little islands around whose rocky faces jutted sharply out of the sea. Eventually we pulled over near one of them for breakfast. Lots of weary, disgruntled faces, not even 3 hours in. Apparently breakfast was included in the cost, but really nobody on the boat was hungry. It was rice, hot dog, and hardboiled eggs. Most people just picked at it, kind of annoyed we were stopped so long.

Once we finished, most of the people on the front deck finally wised up and climbed up on top. Except there were so many people up there now that it was impossible to lay down. People squeezed me out of my prime position, so I just had a small section to sit. But without anything to rest your back on, sitting is not very comfortable. The sun started to get hot, so eventually I stripped down to my swim trunks, loaded on the sunscreen and headed down to the front deck to take on some spray.

It appeared we had chosen a particularly windy day. It felt like our boat was just crawling over the waves. The Bangka boats are small enough that they can’t really ride through waves as the stern will just get buried into the wave and lots of water will come on deck, so we just went fast enough to creep over the top of the crest and down again. Although every larger than average size wave, combined with the wind, would send spray all across the front deck. Really annoying! Looking on offline maps if you extrapolated how far we’d gone in 3 hours, this was looking like a 10-11 hour boat ride. Yikes. They told us 6-7 originally. Some people asked the crew how long they thought it would take and all they would say is “I don’t know”. Bad sign! Very bad sign!

I think some people were optimistic that conditions would get better and we’d start making better time. But I knew the truth. The further out we got was less protected by other islands and more like open ocean, so if anything it was going to get worse. I mentally prepared for getting in after dark. Time to go into zen mode and turn off the brain. Watching the clock and the location on the map only makes it worse. I got as comfortable as I could laying down on the front bench and let the spray do its thing. See the ocean, be the ocean.

And it did get worse. The water got even choppier, there were more white caps, and even more spray onto the boat. It felt like we were hardly even moving. Islands ahead in the distance seemed to get no closer. After 6 or 7 hours some people started getting angsty. At this point it was apparent that we were in it for the long haul. One French guy started yelling at the crew and his friends had to cool him off. One girl was almost in tears because her stomach was hurting.

Fortunately no one was puking, we were going so slow that you don’t really get that hard boat lurch that drops your stomach, but you could tell plenty of people were nauseous and out of it. It seemed as if I had made a poor choice by giving up my spot on the top. People on top weren’t going anywhere, people in the back boathouse weren’t going anywhere, so I was stuck up front with the spray. Eh whatever, I was used to it now. At least I don’t really get seasick, so I felt alright.

We kept plodding along and after many many hours crossing the open section of sea we finally made it close some more islands that protected the water a bit. We started picking up speed, the mood on the boat was visibly lifted. We could now see the beautiful green face of Coron Island, rising out of the water. And that’s when the engine died.

It shook and rattled for a few seconds and just cut out. Noooo. For 30 minutes we sat there not moving, wondering if we’ll ever move. Listening to the clanking sound of a hammer on metal, on a complicated piece of machinery such as an engine, does not inspire confidence. We’d been on this hunk of wood for 11 hours now, people were in rough shape. No said anything, just waited silently, despondently. And then sure enough it started! But we soon realized we were not matching the speed we had been going at before. The water got calmer and calmer as we got into the bay, this is supposed to be the part where we could zip into shore! But nooo. Even though the conditions got better we still just putt putted along. The hardest, most frustrating part was being able to see our final destination, with smooth water in front of us, but feeling like we were hardly getting any closer to it. It’s right there! Agghhh. Back to zen mode.

Of course after another couple hours of plodding we finally made it into the port of Coron Town. Thank god. The sun was just setting, the scenery was quite stunning. Most people were excited, some looked like they’d been put in a burlap sack and beaten with a stick, limping off the boat. Everyone who wasn’t sitting in the boathouse was donning some shade of pink to deep red, as there was zero cover. But we made it! 13.5 hours in total on the boat, 15 if you include the van ride. So all in all, just one long travel day! I’d get to bed nice and early and be up and at’em the next morning.

The one and only, El Nido

March 7, 2023

So I had made it to El Nido, probably the prettiest place in the entire Philippines! Well not the town itself, but the surrounding areas that is. I thought it was getting a bit touristy 10 years ago, but now the place is proper tour mall. Mega hostels, resorts, infinity pools, new modern apartment buildings, air conditioned coffeeshops with decent wifi, the whole thing! One section of beach that only had a few wooden bungalows was now completely transformed into all high end shops where they charge you $12 for a smoothie bowl or whatever. But the thing is, the infrastructure can’t keep up. The wifi is mostly terrible, there’s lots of power outages, the streets flood when it rains, they have trouble keeping the ATMs stocked, etc. At least there are ATMs though, I ran out of cash once 10 years ago and had take the 6 hour bus to Puerta Princessa and 6 hours back just to reload! Brutal.

It was also disappointing to find out that the main beach in town was almost gone after it got hit by the typhoon a few years ago. It wasn’t the nicest beach, as it’s used as a harbor with all the boats, but 10 years ago every single restaurant set up tables and chairs and candles on the beach and that’s what everyone did for dinner! It was a really nice setup to eat in the open air watching the ocean. But alas, not anymore.

My first stop was that transformed section of beach I was talking about, about 2km from town. I stopped at a trendy looking place playing soft trance music, a huge bar, ornate wooden furnishings, rope swing chairs, and of course an expensive menu. I ordered the smoked fish salad, which was tasty, small, and overpriced, which is just what I expected! But you don’t find too many proper salads in the Philippines. A normal salad here is like 2 pieces of tomato and some cucumbers.

From that beach I turned the corner and the entire coastline was almost completely empty, just as I remembered it. I was a bit surprised as I thought this area, which has great views of the karst formations and the sunsets, would surely have seen some development by now, but nope! So that was a pleasant surprise.

The next day I joined one of the boat trips out to the islands. This is nothing like the relaxed, uncrowded boat trips in Port Barton! There’s chaos at the beach trying to figure out which boat is yours, and they don’t all come on time. Vendors everywhere trying to get you to rent their underwater phone casings, mask and snorkel, water shoes, etc. Finally your boat pulls in and you wade through the water, climb up the wooden ladder and you can relax a bit.

All of the boats are pretty full and if you’re doing Tour C for example, all of the boats doing Tour C do the exact same order at the exact same time! You have a time limit at each spot and then it’s back in the boat to join the caravan. Perhaps the most scenic spot on the trip is ‘secret lagoon’ which was just a mass horde of people and bright orange life jackets. Most city slicker Filipinos (who make up most of the domestic tourists) are actually terrible swimmers, it’s not uncommon to see them form a chain in the water, holding onto the person in front of them, and having one of their boat crew swim them in a line through the water to whatever lagoon or snorkeling area is the next destination!

The highlight of trip was mostly just being on the water with all the awesome karst formations around. And the lunch. We found a more secluded spot and they cooked us up one of the famous Filipino feasts. And then more beaches and snorkeling. But really it’s not all that great when you’re around so many other people. In El Nido, now especially, its worth it to try and find a few more people and do a private tour. Or also I heard since Tour D is the least popular, it’s actually the nicest!

I had more fun renting a kayak for the afternoon and just paddling myself around to the coast to a nice beach or two, going through some of the rock formations. The beach I chose had just a handful of people there and some enterprising locals with coolers of drinks. Perfect.

Renting a scooter is also great in El Nido. You can get around the island pretty easily in a day and there are some stunning, mostly untouched beaches around. The ring road around the island is paved nowadays, so that helps. Here’s some of the scenery from driving around:

Then there is also some pretty good scuba diving, nothing amazing, but certainly worth a day or two. Just being in a non crowded boat out in the water with the scenery is almost worth the price alone!

hardly anyone on the beach in Port Barton

Time to relax in the Philippines

March 7, 2023

I ended up booking Seoul Incheon to Manila on NYE because it was the cheapest flight, although in hindsight I kind of wish I would have done NYE in Seoul. In Manila it was mostly just people lighting off bootleg fireworks in the streets, which was entertaining enough I suppose. Normally people don’t really stay in Manila because it’s kind of a dump, and the traffic is awful, but after spending not-backpacker sums of $$ in Japan and S Korea, I felt like I needed to recoup some of my spending by (hopefully) accumulating some nice stacks of Filipino Pesos. The biggest bill is about $20, so for the poker games I’m always carrying around a nice fat stack.

Although I’m going to mostly skip Manila poker stuff, because it was pretty unexciting! I stayed in a high rise condo Airbnb with a big fancy pool, although it was one of those places that makes you wonder how it’s rated 4.8, because it’s not THAT nice. Good communication with host I guess?! It was rainy so I could hardly use the pool, so I spent most of my afternoons wandering around the Mall of Asia, going to coffeeshops, catching up on my photos, getting massages, and really just a whole lot of nothing! But I needed it, my travel schedule was pretty hectic for Japan and South Korea and I can’t sustain breakneck travel speeds like I used to!

At night I mostly played at a casino called Okada, which was a really nice place to play, and they also had a little tournament series going on. I actually didn’t play in the tournaments, just the cash games at night. The games I played were the equivalent of $1-2 NL or $2-4. They did have some bigger games, but it was too difficult to get so much money out of the ATMs to play in them! Also losing big in the middle of trip would just annoy me too much, so I was happy to play in the smaller games. But they really weren’t exciting! Very tight, very passive, not much gambling going on. But it’s not that difficult to beat tight passive players and I won almost $2,000 to help discount some of my Philippines traveling. A somewhat boring week, but can’t complain!

The lobby of the Pearl Wing, Okada Casino

Next I booked a flight to the far western island of Palawan. I’ve actually been there before, about 10 years ago, and I wasn’t sure if I’d go back this trip, but looking at the weather forecast it seemed to have the best weather in the whole country, so I decided on round 2. The Philippines is experiencing a La Niña year, and looking at weather reports on the facebook group was kind of depressing, just extremely rainy and cloudy for January, which is supposed to be dry season for most of the country. I wanted to chase the sun!

No sun in Port Barton! But no rain either

I took an early flight to the capital city of Puerta Princessa and then had to wait a couple hours to grab a van to the small town of Port Barton, which is known for being a laid back, backpackery type place. No real large resorts or big hotels, lots of family run guesthouses to choose from, which is what I like. The owner of mine was a middle aged guy named Jeno, he just opened the place before covid (as Port Barton has been getting steadily more popular) and was very glad to see tourists coming back! Walking around the village, it was nice that is was a very local place, Filipinos lived here and the tourists were their guests. Little Bangka boats were everywhere, used for mostly for fishing. There were a few beach bars, some with live music in the evenings. I liked this place!

no place else to go but the beach at sunset

ooh finally some colors actually came out

I met a French couple and the next day we went off to go find the waterfall, which was about an hour hike, although the hike was mostly on the road, so not exactly the prettiest. It was a nice swimming hole and you could swim directly under the falls. Afterwards we walked to a mostly deserted beach where we bought some coconuts from the villagers and relaxed a bit before making the walk back. It was cloudy and I didn’t wear sunscreen though, rookie mistake.

The next day I did the island hopping tour, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We had a group with a bunch of solo travelers in it, two British girls, a Swiss girl, a Belgian guy, a lesbian French couple, a Canadian-Russian couple, and me. It was cloudy again, but the snorkeling sites were really pretty, we found a turtle to swim with, went to a local fishing village, a gorgeous beach, and had a massive fresh cooked lunch on the boat. In the Philippines they always seem to give you awesome lunches on the boat trips! A bunch of fresh fish, chicken adobo, salad, vegetable curry, fresh fruit, and loads of rice of course. Fantastic. At one of the stops I had a dog swim with me to the boat, and then he got on the boat, which was pretty cute. But he looked so sad when we had to put him back in the water to leave!

All of the single people got together that evening for drinks, and dinner, and then more drinks, and then for after hours you have find some reggae bar that’s a bit outside of town, which makes sense for the noise. It’s always fun to have a late night out every once in a while. Port Barton definitely had more a party scene than I was expecting. And compared to Korea and Japan, meeting people is quite a bit easier in the Philippines! Waking up for the 8am bus ride was a bit painful though, I was the last one in the van and they literally shove the door into me like I was a piece of luggage to get the door the close. A very uncomfortable 3.5 hours later we were in the very popular El Nido town.

Seoul Pt 2

February 25, 2023

Day two was the royal palace, which happened to fall on a free day, so it was somewhat busy. Just like in Japan people like to dress up in the traditional Korean Hannam? Outfits. Big puffy ankle length skirts for the women and funny top hats for the men. Always fun to see the added flair. I also signed up for the paid guided tour of the gardens, which wasn’t exactly stunning as everything is dead, but at least the thin layer of snow on the ground added a certain tranquility to the scenery. There was a guy who was about 6’6” who stuck out like a sore thumb also doing the tour solo, so I got to talking to him for a bit, Australian guy who played college basketball in the states. We were heading in different directions after the tour, but we agreed to meet up for dinner at that Korean BBQ place in Itaewon that evening. I was really glad to have a friend for the KBBQ!

But first I wanted to get to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a huge futuristic looking structure built by a famous architect named Zara Hadid. It was a fascinating place, when you’re inside you wind your way up through these curving all white minimalist hallways that take you past various free art exhibits. The stairwells were super trippy as well. Fun place to take photos. On the outside the dull grey looking spaceship has lights built into it and turns all sorts of purple and green shades after the sun goes down. My fingers were completely numb, but I had a lot fun running around the outside and finding interesting angles to take photos. And I wasn’t the only one, it’s a popular spot for budding architecture photographers! I think the most interesting thing on the whole Seoul trip was the diverse and eclectic architecture in the city.

And then it was off to some K-BBQ. The place we went was really foreigner friendly and they actually have all these servers come around and grill the meat for you and then place it off to the side of the grill so you don’t have to do anything but focus on eating, drinking, eating. The meat is pretty thin, so we ended up ordering a lot! We probably should have filled up more on all the small banchan plates they serve with the meal, oh well! Korean BBQ checked off the to-do list. We hopped around Itaewon bars a bit and called it a night.

Next day I was off to the National Museum, which is a huge rectangular structure that looks kinda odd, like a Soviet design. The whole museum was completely free. In Korea lots of museums and places of interest are free or almost free ($1-2). A nice place to kill a few hours given how cold it was outside.

From there I took the metro over to Hongdae, which is known for it’s younger crowds, cutesy type shops, karaoke cafes, and pet cafes. I stopped in two of the pet cafes just to see what they’re like. The first one wasn’t really a ‘cafe’ at all, but they did have three foxes and raccoon on the first floor, and some meerkats and a kangaroo on the second floor. It’s a combination of cute and somewhat depressing. The foxes seemed fine, they let them out of their enclosure to run around, while the raccoon was constantly pacing around his. The meerkats seemed fine running around their area, while the kangaroo mostly just sat there and didn’t do anything. I didn’t feel like waiting 20 minutes to be able sit in the meerkat area, so I mostly just hung out with the foxes downstairs. They mostly don’t pay much attentions to the humans unless you have some snacks to give them. I didn’t stay long, not really my cup of tea.

I did go to one other place that was an actual coffeeshop that had a sheep pen outside. This one was more to my liking. You could relax and enjoy your drink and if you wanted you could go hang out with the sheep for a little bit. No touching or feeding them. They just kind of stare at you and that’s about it!

The last day it was one more museum, which had a free section of historical artifacts and paintings, plus a contemporary art section which you had to pay for. I did both. As usual the contemporary art stuff is very hit or miss, but there were a few exhibits I particularly enjoyed! My favorite was a machine that shot smoke rings at random intervals across the room, with weird electronic music and a huge LCD screen in the background, and the rings would terminate on a bunch of spikes sticking out from the wall. Do I know the deeper meaning of this exhibit? Absolutely not. But was it visually interesting and oddly satisfying to watch? Yes, definitely.

The rest of the afternoon was going to the riverwalk, which was freezing cold btw, and also had another Christmas tree. Then eating streetfood, and wandering through what I think might be the main downtown section. The way Seoul is set up is pretty spread out, there’s three different ‘downtown’ sections with lots of cool buildings and skyscrapers, it’s not like Chicago with all of them clumped together in one spot. But honestly I loved the architecture in Seoul. It was way more varied and eclectic than I was expecting! And then I ate even more streetfood for dinner at Myeongdong Plaza, which was jammed with people.

To finish off the night I thought I’d head up to Seoul Tower, but it turned out that the wait to actually get up to the top was 90 minutes and I wasn’t that committed. The view from the base of the tower was on top of a big hill, so the views were already pretty decent. Then when I was walking down I couldn’t figure out if there was a direct walking trail towards Itaewon, so I asked a pair of ladies who appeared to be night hikers, ie they were power walking in stride wearing athletic gear, and they decided to guide me on the correct path down the hill! So that was kinda fun. It was a bit treacherous as everything still had a bit of snow cover, so you had to watch your step, and they were always looking back to make sure I didn’t fall. We got down to street level and they pointed me in the right direction and continued walking/hiking to wherever they fancied!

That was an endearing way to end the Korean trip, following these 50-something hiker ladies down the hill! I really did enjoy interacting with Korean people overall. I was thinking to myself if I had to choose a place to live between Korea and Japan, I think I’d choose Korea. Despite the fact that Japan is nicer, cleaner, better run, and probably has better food. As purely a tourist I’d choose Japan. But the easiness of interaction with people in Korea is much more easy-going and genuine.

Seoul

January 31, 2023

As I was taking the bullet train to Seoul I was talking to the guy next to me and he asked where I was staying in town, so I told him Itaewon, and he shook his head and said now isn’t the best time for Itaewon. And I was confused because I read it’s one of the more happening places in Seoul, but then he brought up the Halloween crush incident. Ohhh, shit. I had kind of forgotten about that, it’d been two months since it happened. No wonder that name sounded vaguely familiar. He was saying people are kind of avoiding Itaewon right now. Bad vibes. Hmm.

When I arrived it was a little eerie. My guesthouse seemed to be on the darkest, seediest street in the whole neighborhood, the bar next to it was abandoned, windows broken in. Yikes. But it was fine once I was inside the guesthouse, although the days of spotless bathrooms in Japan appear to be over. After a brief walk around it really was a diverse place, lots of Muslims and kebab shops, even a mosque nearby, also a surprising amount of pizza parlors, cute coffeeshops, an African restaurant or two, really lots of different cuisine, Italian, Vietnamese, Mexican Korean fusion, etc. Not that much traditional Korean food, which was a bit of bummer. And hardly any of it was crowded. Just a few people here and there. The one Korean BBQ was packed though.

Walking down the main street I passed by a side street fully loaded with thousands of sticky notes on the wall and a policeman standing around. Well, this is it. The street where the crush happened. Damn. Very surreal. It really looks so painfully ordinary. It’s just a pretty normal looking side street that connects to the bar street running parallel to the main street, forming a T-intersection. It’s got one convenience store on it closer to the main street that people were able to escape into.

It’s quite difficult to imagine how it’s even possible for 156 people to die from suffocation on a fun night out. I mean the crowds in the street must have just been massive, but even then I still can’t quite fully fathom how it happens. So it was quite a sobering start to the Seoul trip, reading all the post-it notes on the wall to the victims. Visiting the memorial with all of their photos. They give you a rose to put wherever you’d like. There’s a shockingly large number of police still around. Everyone in the photos is so so young. Really just awful to think about. Two months after and you can almost feel the heaviness in the air, like a dark cloud hanging over the place. It is going to take some time for Itaewon to get back to normal. So, uhh not exactly the greatest first night in Seoul.

The next day I did some exploring, I didn’t have much of a plan, but I took the bus to Gangnam Station and did some walking around there. The station actually has a whole subterranean mall that goes a few floors below street level. Pretty impressive.

From there I walked a few kilometers to the massive mall complex, COEX, checking out all the high rises and making a pit stop at a temple. It’s fun to notice all the different architectural design elements than what I’m used to in the US.

At the mall they have a famous library, an open public space with tables to work or study, and library shelves that go from the floor to the roof. I’m not sure if you could check out the books or not, but you could definitely take them out and read them, if you could reach them! And since it’s Christmas time, it’s gotta have a massive tree smack dab in the middle!

Outside the mall is a sculpture garden, as well as a bunch of old temples, nestled in between all the big buildings. A small respite from the city hustle and bustle.

As I kept walking things got ritzier and ritzier, boutique shops, a Lamborgini dealership, exclusive looking luxury high rises, restaurant with finely dressed attendants out front. Eventually I ran into fashion street, which is where all of the high end fashion brands have their flagship stores, and I’ve gotta say, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ll let the photos do the talking!

That evening I found a hookah bar and ended up drinking with a Saudi guy at the bar who was a pilot, really funny guy, he even paid for my whole tab too without me realizing it! I stayed at the bar until like 3am, and he said he stayed out that morning until 7am, I can’t handle that! Plus I stuff to do with only 4 full days in Seoul!

The start of the hike looking out over the ocean

Some more Busan

January 25, 2023

meandering our way along the cliffs back towards Busan

Busan’s famous Hongdae Beach in the background. Too bad it’s winter

One last walk around before taking the bullet train to Seoul

Seoul is up next

Busan, Day 1

January 24, 2023

Walking out of the train station in Busan was a harsh shock to the system! This is actually winter. It was cloudy, below freezing, and the wind was really whipping from over the ocean. It felt like 10-15 degrees. If it stays like this I’m going to have to buy some more clothes, a hoody and light puffy jacket are not gonna cut it! I made my way to a little guesthouse near the station, up on the 6th floor. Decent little place up on the 6th floor of an apartment building. It seemed to be all Koreans who stayed there, but unlike in Japan it was much easier to strike up a conversation, and people actually say Hi to you first sometimes! The guy I met in the lounge gave me a good recommendation for a nature walk in Busan and a girl who lives in Seoul gave me some trendy areas to check out when I got there. Nice.

For my first full day it was time have a nice stroll along the waterfront to the largest seafood market in the country, and one of the biggest in the world. The weather had improved to 40 and sunny, very manageable. No need to do any jacket shopping just yet. I crossed a bridge overlooking the port, which had probably 100 tugboats parked, plus lots of old looking ships and industrial equipment, nice looking high rises in the background. An old vs new juxtaposition. I took a detour to observe the ship-building. It felt like I was walking back into the 80’s or something, everything felt very dated, lots of rusting iron, chipped paint, big clunky structures, massive bolts, steel chains that looked like they weighed 100 tons. Some of the boats seemed like they could be from a Mad Max movie, or I suppose Water World with Kevin Costner might be a more fitting example! I liked it though. It did not feel like Japan.

The building with the bird wings is the fish market, surprisingly nice structure for a fish market!

As I kept going towards the fish market the buildings got noticeably nicer. I knew I was getting close when I stumbled into a small market area of ladies in thick jackets sitting around with buckets of fish in front of them, with little tables where’d they cut up the fish for their customers. It didn’t smell particularly nice.

The next building was the infamous Jagalchi market, and it was huge, and actually very nice looking. The first floor was just halls and halls of vendors, with electronic markers designating exactly which part of the market you were at. All the vendors wore bright knee length rubber boots and gloves up to their elbows. The fish weren’t just sitting there out in the open, they were all in tanks with bubbling water. Some filtration system I think, to help keep the fish alive, barely. People in Korea like to know that their fish are fresh! It also didn’t really smell much at all, which is pretty impressive for a massive seafood market! There were so many weird things that I could only guess what they were! A lot of it did not look appetizing. You could choose your selection and have one of the many restaurants on the 2nd floor cook it for you. Shockingly expensive though!

An octopus sits in a tray of sea penises

I opted to keep walking, and after the main section of the indoor market was the outdoor walking street market that seemed to go on and on forever. Just an insane amount of dead sea life in one place. The scale of it just did not seem sustainable. As a scuba diver, it did make me a bit sad, seeing so many beautiful underwater creatures taken out of their environment, the squids, octopus and cuttlefish especially. It did make for some interesting photos though. For lunch I stopped at the popular section of the street where there were lots of stalls that had pots of bubbling broth. I grabbed an open seat and chose the one that most people seemed to be eating, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but I’ll give it a try. It was liver! I can stomach some liver, but it’s really not my thing and I had massive chunks of it, I ate about half. Hmm, I shoulda ate at the 2nd floor of the fish market I guess.

After that it was onto Gamcheon cultural village, which was built mostly by refugees from the Korean War, a slum that sat in the hills, yet close enough to work in the port. In the early 2000’s it underwent a revitalization campaign to beautify it a bit, repainting the buildings and adding artwork and murals. As the #1 thing in tripadvisor in Busan it felt a bit underwhelming, but it was interesting enough to wander around the tiny alleyways and steep stairs. The residents were mostly older and many had trouble with all the steps. I felt bad for the residents having all these tourists wander around right outside their homes. There’s signs around saying to respect the residents privacy. Hopefully some of the tourism dollars generated goes back into the community.

I hopped on a bus to get down the hill and back into the city center to get to the top of the Busan Tower as the sun set. The views are nice, but I must say it might be the worst lookout tower I’ve ever been in for taking good photos. The glass panes have some sort of weird honeycomb inserts in them. At 6 pm the sign said there was a fireworks show, so I excitedly stuck around for that to take photos of the fireworks over the city skyline, but it turned out the fireworks display was the glass windows lighting up as an electronic firework display. So lame! That’s why the glass wasn’t completely see through! Aghghgh.

I didn’t mention it was Christmas Eve, so when I got back to the main strip, it was completely jammed with people making their way over to the giant lit up Christmas Tree. Like I said before, Koreans love Christmas! At some point the police cleared the street for a parade, complete with a live band playing Christmas tunes. Nice.

For dinner I made my way to the street food night market, which was a complete zoo, but I tried lots of new things!

Walking around at night, the tent restaurants were interesting. Koreans also have the tiny venue places.

The lovely looking (but dated) Commodore Hotel

Then when I was walking home, I passed a section called Texas Street. I had to see this! Would there be any Texas style beef brisket or BBQ pulled pork?! Definitely not! There was one American themed restaurant, but the majority of the street seemed to be mostly dead with closed Chinese and Russian restaurants plus a few neon-lighted hostess bars, staffed with Filipina girls calling you in. Hmmm. That was not what I was expecting for Texas Street! A very interesting day though.

First Impressions of Korea (and comparisons to Japan)

January 24, 2023

I started in Busan, which is Korea’s second largest city, and I stayed in the older part of town, so my first impressions might be a bit a bit different than if I started in a ritzy part of Seoul, or even the fancier part of Busan. Walking around for a day or two here’s what I thought.

Definitely a different feel than Japan, moreso than I would have thought. Buildings are different, more high rise apartments, more gleaming glass windows, more colors and funky design elements. Some look nice from afar, but not particularly so when close up. Busan in particular just has a more industrial feel, being a port city.

Walking through the streets definitely felt grittier, but of course not dangerous in any way. It reminded me more of China. Some of the buildings were showing their age, some loose wiring, missing paint, occasional cracked sidewalks, ugly concrete sections etc. Things were generally very clean, but a you notice a bit of random trash and cigarette butts here and there, piles of rubbish occasionally out in the open, nice looking storefronts but kind of grimy back alleyways. So like almost all cities not in Japan. It really is amazing how clean Japan manages to keep everywhere.

More American influence. Although this was a quasi red-light area, not a Texan food street!

More people that look like normal people, by American standards anyway. Not dressed up so much. More blue collar types. More jeans, more athletic wear, things like yoga pants and uggs, sweatpants and sneakers. More bright colors. I swear most women in Japan only wear some shade of black or charcoal or some off-white oatmeal, beige, etc and that’s it. Some of the younger Koreans dressed a bit edgier. Some interesting haircuts, certainly more died hair. K-Pop influence? I saw a guy walking around in cut-off jean shorts and converses in the middle of winter, ha. I don’t think you’d see that in Japan.

A bright red puffy jacket would look more out of place in Japan

Surprisingly better English. Easier to ask questions or order at a restaurant or talk to the reception at a guesthouse. On the train to Seoul I actually talked to the guy sitting next to me for basically the whole ride. Also more American influence, partially due to our perpetual military presence.

People willing to approach or engage you in English. Even something simple like “can I help you find anything?” when at a store. Or asking where you’re from, or making a random remark about the weather. One girl stopped and asked if I was a photographer, and if she could see the photo on my camera. She said that’s really cool, have a nice day and kept on her way. At a convenience store the guy behind the counter told me that I had an interesting choice of fashion! I’m sure it was tongue and cheek as I was wearing a pretty ugly rainbow colored beanie with my blue puffy jacket, but after coming from Japan it was kind of refreshing to hear someone say anything like that. Both those two mundane examples literally never happen in Japan!

More street food. Even though it was winter there were still a bunch of stalls open selling all sorts of mostly unhealthy stuff. And an entire nightmarket for just for quick bites. Although it wasn’t that quick because the place was packed! There’s also tent restaurants outside that have just 2-3 small tables or perhaps just a bar that are covered by a see-through tarp material.

Communal eating is the norm. The places with bar seating are way less prevalent than in Japan. People almost always seem to eat in a group. So many restaurants have the type of tables that have the grill or heater in the middle for cooking meats or keeping a big pot of soup/stew nice and hot. Most meals are served with lots of small plates called banchan, which are meant to be shared. Korean BBQ places generally won’t serve a single person, as they’re taking up a whole table. It’s not exactly ideal when you’re a solo traveler!

Spiciness! Lots of Korean dishes have a real kick to them, unlike in Japan. My first night in Korea I went for spicy chicken wings, the hottest ones they had. The sticky glaze was a nice mix of some sweet Asian flavors and scorching heat.

More bus based. At least where I was at it was easier to take the bus around than the subway, which would be rare in Japan. In two days in Korea I took the bus more than I did in 3.5 weeks of Japan.

Crazy menus at the tea and coffeeshops. I’ve never seen so many different flavors of coffee and tea drinks! I didn’t have that much tea, but I had a brown sugar flavored latte and a marshmallow one. Kinda sweet, but not bad!

Seafood on display. Walking down any restaurant street in Busan you’re gonna see their tanks out front, so you know what you’re getting is fresh. And I don’t know if Japan is the same way, but they really do eat all sorts of seafood that are not exactly on the palates of westerners. At the huge seafood market, I had no clue what a lot of the stuff was, and it did not look particularly appealing!

They also love Christmas!

Delivery food. I guess it’s extremely common in Korea to order almost anything as delivery, and they have the guys on motorcycles zipping around town to get orders in on time. This is really annoying actually, these guys drive like complete jackasses.

K-pop! While J-pop is a thing, it’s nowhere near the industry that South Korea has. On the S Korea facebook group there were plenty of people in the “BTS Army” who mostly wanted to visit Korea because of their huge interest in K-pop and BTS in particular. I guess one of the band member’s dad has a café in Busan and it’s very popular with the fans. That was not on my list of places to visit though.

More drinking. You see people with a whole bottle of Soju (rice wine) that’s about 15% alchohol to drink with their meal. More of a clubbing culture as well. Everyone is working for the weekend!

This guys looks to be about 3 bottles deep

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head!

Flight Out and Final Thoughts on Japan

January 20, 2023

My last stop was Fukuoka, which I’m going to gloss over because I didn’t really do anything in Fukuoka, besides the Christmas Market, but I did stay in an interesting cube hotel! It was one of the floors of a nicer hotel, so the lobby, bar, and restaurant were all really classy, and the room included a free happy hour from 5-6, not bad! The bed was laid out like a sofa, and you pressed a button on the iphone in the room (it’s like an iphone 3) to make it recline all the way into the bed, or as much as you wanted. The iphone also controlled the lights. There’s nowhere to lock your stuff up, you just pull down your shade and assume no one would ever take anything from your bedroom area, and they don’t! But still a difficult concept to get used to when you’ve got a laptop, DSLR and some lenses in the bag!

Then I also had an interesting experience on my flight. It was a 8:30 am flight, and I guess security didn’t open until 8am, and because of that the security line was wrapped literally around the airport. At some point around 45 minutes before the flight when it became clear that there was no way I would make this flight, I went back to the airline flight desk, told them I was going to miss the flight, and asked about booking another one. They were looking at me like I was speaking Swahili, and told me to go back in the line, someone will come. Uhhh ok.

So now I’m back at the end of the line, wondering what is going to happen. I still assume I’m missing this flight but we’ll see. It’s a cheap flight, so not the end of the world, but still really sucks. Maybe 10 minutes later a lady with a placard comes around yelling Busan, Busan, Busan and then people appeared out of thin air to join her, we formed a group that got taken to our own private security entrance, getting through in 5 minutes, and onto the other side. Boom! A private security entrance, what a world. And for immigration all I had to do was scan my passport, it flashed green and I was good to go. Awesome. You rock Japan!

Literally any other airline in another country you are basically on your own in the airport. Unless you ask people to cut in line, you’re just gonna miss that flight, there’s no one there to help people in danger of missing their flight. You’re most likely screwed. So that was a nice way to leave the country! Although I do wish I knew about this arrangement ahead of time, that was the most stressful morning of the whole trip! An hour later I was in a new country, South Korea.

Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed Japan! It’s pretty hard not to. Everything is sooo smooth. From the bullet trains, to the pavement, to the tonkotsu ramen broth. A Japan trip is really travel on easy mode, so low stress. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Lost? People are more than willing to help if you ask. Miss your train? There’s another one in 10 minutes. Traveling by bullet train is basically the best form of travel, period. It is so choice. The rail pass is great. One day I wanted to edit some photos and see some scenery so I hopped on the bullet for an hour and a half, and then took it right back. Fantastic. It’s also probably the most enjoyable country i’ve been to ride a bicycle!

Just look at that pavement, yessss, you can just feel how smooth it is on a bike

One of the very few things that tripped me up traveling was sometimes finding my line in the mega train stations where there’s like 14 different lines connecting. Besides that, let’s see, occasionally you’ll know exactly where something is on google maps, but it’s in a building with 20 floors and you need to know which floor it’s on. And hmm, every once in a while there would be places without an English menu. I suppose I probably screwed up some etiquette stuff here and there too, but tourists get a free pass. After wracking my head, that’s about all I can think of! I don’t think there was a single time when I was upset or angry with anyone or anything really. Literally all of my plans went right according to plan for the most part.

One of the only things I found disappointing was traveling in low season and meeting other travelers. It wasn’t really easy. It’s also not exactly a backpacker hotspot to begin with. If you’re staying in a cube hotel, forget about it, nobody talks to each other at all. Even other foreigners you see also seem to adopt the very Japanese custom of never talking to a random person. Besides maybe a bartender, I don’t think a single person came up to me chat, ask what I was doing in Japan, or anything along those lines. But I was also never asked to buy something, asked for money, never had to haggle over anything, they basically just leave you completely alone! It’s certainly not a bad thing! But I wouldn’t mind a random conversation or chat every once in a while! And I suppose the constant mask wearing doesn’t help.

The Japanese are almost still at 100% percent mask usage in public. Even outdoors and socially distanced, riding a bicycle, or going for a hike, people are still masking! The only people you ever see not masking are tourists, and sometimes some rebellious high school students. One of the cultural phenomena of Japan is that it has a very strict code of public and social conduct. So the power of peer pressure to conform and fit in is especially strong, nobody wants to break it. Until the government says mask are 100% not necessary outdoors, I don’t see the Japanese changing anything soon! But I certainly would have preferred not wearing a mask all the time, heh.

I actually thought the constant neatness and orderliness of Japan might make things a bit boring, but it really wasn’t the case. It’s almost a spectacle in and of itself, how well things run and operate in Japan. I still have some trouble grasping how there’s no litter anywhere, how the roads and sidewalks are always in such perfect condition, the temples never have as much as a spot of paint missing, the bars, restaurants, the public spaces, the toilets especially are so nice and clean. Like plenty of places in the world are kept to a high standard of cleanliness, but nowhere is like Japan. Pooping in a public place is no worry at all!

Traveling a bunch in developed countries also usually doesn’t excite me that much, but there’s just so so so many things that are new and different in Japan that it’s a real treat to see. Everything from the malls, to the public baths, cube hotels, electronic gadgets, ordering food, the city planning, its all so interesting to observe - as well as compare and contrast with the US. Well, Japan wins the vast majority of things! Oh man there are so many things I wish the US had that are more like Japan, but having efficiently designed, walkable and bikeable cities with excellent public transit is a big, huge, winner. Also the restaurant culture where you’re able to have all these small, unique bars and restaurants packed in different nooks and crannies of the city is just superb. The tiny bars that seat 6-8 people are really fun and basically nothing like you find in the US!

I also think that smaller food shops that specialize in just one or only a few things is much better than all the places in the US that come with pages of menu items. And as a solo traveler I do love all the bar seating! These places do one thing and do it right. If you want tonkatsu ramen, you go here. If you want curry you go here, if you want tempura, you go there. One of my favorite food experiences was riding my bike in Kyoto down a walking street and smelling something outrageously good. I stopped my bike and there was a very small shop and it was just one item, crème brulee donuts. I rang the bell and the owner came out from the back and I bought a donut. He took out his blow torch and carmelized the sugar right in front of me. Fantastic.

Some of the coffeeshops are the same way. They don’t mess around with espresso drinks and certainly not frappucinos and the like. They have just a few types of very high quality beans from select countries, its drip coffee, and its black. That’s what you get. Love it! People in Japan have good taste, and they show it. That’s why you see certain random places with lines down the block. Standards are high and people consider it worth the wait for high quality food.

Eating in Japan was great. And that’s from someone who was just stopping in at random non-high end places that looked good with no real recommendations. In the cold weather I especially enjoyed the curry places with deep fried chicken or pork katsu, mmm. Also having eel! A fantastic food, I can’t believe it’s not eaten hardly at all in the US except as sushi. And then there’s these Izakaya restaurants that are small servings of different things, lots of sashimi, but also lots of interesting vegetable dishes. Great. And Yakinuku – grilling your raw meat on small griddles in front of you, lovely. Of course there’s the sushi, high quality and affordable, I actually ate this less than I expected. But that’s only because I didn’t realize how fun the sushi belt conveyor restaurants are until the end! And finally the ramen, my staple meal, so good, so many types. So rich and comforting in the winter. The quick and easy bar seating is perfect. Mmm.

Oh and did I say I love the breakfasts? They love light and fluffy. The pancakes are about 2 inches high! The French toast is similar. They load it with a bunch of crème on top, so I guess it’s not light in calories. And the omelets that you slice open and they ooze out everywhere, yesss. Light and fluffy applies to desserts too, the cheesecakes are like a combination of angel food cake and cheesecake. The egg tarts just melt in your mouth. And perhaps my favorite snack desert was a sweet potato cake-like pastry, shaped into a little cylinder, served hot and fresh. I’m going to find this recipe and make it when I go home. Maybe start my own shop. It’s that good!

And in all this writing I didn’t even touch on how beautiful the parks, temples, castles and shrines are, or how Japan has such a long and interesting history. There really is a lot to like!

I was there 3.5 weeks and I felt like that was just about the perfect amount of time for me. Maybe a whole month would have been best, but not much more than that. I could have spent a couple more days doing absolutely nothing but riding the trains around! But I had just about reached my quota for spending time by myself. I certainly would like to go back at some point, maybe do the north in Sapporo or the south in Okinawa. And cherry blossom season is still on the list, even though I know it’s a double edged sword because the whole country sounds like a zoo for those couple of weeks! But overall Japan exceeded my expectations and I highly recommend it, especially for most tourists who want a convenient easy travel, fantastic cuisine and cocktails, beautiful outdoor spaces and historical sites, and just everything clean, cared for, and well run!

Himeji and Hiroshima

January 18, 2023

Back on the bullet (BotB) to Hiroshima, but making a pit stop in a place called Himeji that has one of Japan’s grandest castles. Making a pit stop is usually a PITA traveling with luggage but in Japan of course they have a great setup of large coin lockers at all the stations so it’s easy to throw the big backpack into the locker, grab the key and go.

The first walk out of the train station is pretty pretty great. You exit onto the main street that leads directly to castle, which is sitting up on a hill, overlooking the city. It feels like it’s staring you right in the face even though it’s more than a kilometer away. The castle makes an excellent backdrop for photos as well, it’s such a cool centerpiece. Japan does such a great job of blending the old and the new. Although the ‘old’ usually isn’t actually very old, considering so much of the country was destroyed by the US air raids in WW2, but they’ve done an impeccable job with restoring cultural and traditional sites. And to the US’s credit, they gave lots of money and few restrictions for the urban renewal after the war, and didn’t have the Soviets to compete with for influence, economic or ideological.

I paid my 600 yen to go inside and have a look around the famed Himeji Castle, aka white heron castle. It went from sunny to snowing while I was there, which felt fitting. This one was built in 1333 by some military dude, I can’t remember all this history. But castles in Japan are actually pretty boring inside! When the castles were in use they were mostly a storehouse for weapons and ammunition and the top floors were used for strategy meetings, but nobody lived inside them and they weren’t really decorated or anything. You could climb the stairs up to the 6thfloor for the view, but there’s about 100% chance you get stuck behind someone old or injured going at about 1 stair per minute.

Walking around the city was nice as well, they have a walking street that’s all lit up for Christmas. And of course I couldn’t stop taking photos with the castle as the backdrop! Then as I was getting into the train station the sun came out just before it set, illuminating the castle in that striking red hue and nothing else. Perfect finish for the day! Then I was BotB and in Hiroshima in an hour. Time flies on the train.

In Hiroshima there wasn’t anything going on at the hostel, real shocker there, so I walked around town a bit and got some ramen, always a winner. It was entertaining watching the electric railway cars go around town, some are modern, but a bunch are cool retro looking ones. I really enjoyed taking photos of them! Apparently trains, including taking photographs of them, is a very common hobby in Japan. And I get it!

The next morning it was an early start. I actually hopped in the electric railway car, but it wasn’t like the buses, and I couldn’t figure out how to pay or buy a ticket! So I hopped off the next stop and walked to the Peace Park. I had the time and the weather was great. Upon arriving the first thing you see is the brown brick Atomic Bomb Dome, in stark contrast with the sleek modern glass plated buildingto s next to it. The dome is one of the few structures that remained standing after the A-bomb was dropped, I guess because the building was almost directly underneath the bomb detonation so it didn’t get hit as much by the horizontal blast forces that radiated outward. It’s pretty wild to see, and think about.

You cross the bridge and there’s the Peace Park that has an eternal flame blazing, in the name of world peace, not surprisingly. It was very quiet when I was there, just a few people milling around. This is also the site of the Atomic Bomb Museum, which gives a good account of the daily life of people in Hiroshima in the 40’s, the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the stories of the survivors, horrifying photos, and the longer term struggles the locals faced dealing with all the loss of life and family members, radiation sickness, and rebuilding. It sounds like many people made what looked like recoveries and then soon their hair started falling out and they were dead not long after. And then of course of the people that did survive the short term, many died of cancer down the road. A very sobering but worthwhile visit.

After this I had some time to wander around, grab something to eat, take a look at the Hiroshima Castle, and eventually catch the train to Miyijama, which is where you go to catch the 10 minute ferry over to Miyajima Island, the site of the famous Torii shrine that sits just off the beach, the base submerged at high tide.

There’s also a bit of hiking on the island, but I really didn’t have enough time for it if I wanted to see anything else around. Oh well, I’d walked enough this trip – averaging 9.5 miles a day! First order of business was the grilled oyster stand. The island is famous for it’s oysters, and they’re big ones! I’m no oyster aficionado, but they were pretty tasty. I then checked out the shrine at low tide, hung out with the deer, stopped in a temple. It’s all pretty touristy. Then it was on a cable car to the top of the island, the views were fantastic!

The next day it was raining, so I had a chance to go out with my umbrella and long lens and take some shots of the electric railway cars in the drizzle. Loving the drizzles!