The image above is the Lotus Temple – the Bahá’í House of Worship. Within the lotus flower, structure has almost no rooms – it’s mainly a giant atrium filled with pews. It’s unique construction has won it many architectural awards and is one of the most visited buildings in the world.

The India Gate is like the Indian version of the Arc de Triomphe. It’s a memorial to the 70000 soldiers of the british Indian Army who died various wars (The Great War among them). Like the Arc de Triomphe, an eternal flame for the Unknown Soldier burns.

As someone who really enjoys eating meat, this place is like heaven. Imagine eating barbecued skewers seasoned with Indian spices. It works like a buffet, but with two parts, the “appetizer” which is the skewers, and the “main course”, which is the standard Indian food, i.e. curries, naan bread, etc. But the appetizer is so good that I would just only eat that. But of course while in India, one must try everything!

The food in India is so different from what I normally eat, it’s pretty much impossible for me to tell what anything is. At best, I can tell what’s chicken, lamb, chickpeas, paneer, etc., but I have no idea what spices are in what dish. But it doesn’t matter, because everything tastes good. Despite what a lot of people think, not all Indians eat with their hands.

People don’t really follow driving rules here. This is us driving in the oncoming lane. Everybody honks, nobody follows lane lines, and when there’s heavy traffic everybody bunches up bumper to bumper with only a few inches between each car. Cars peek left and right to find space to try to get ahead, but the problem is when everybody does it, it slows everyone down. Big trucks have signs saying “horn please” to encourage people to honk as they pass because of their blind spots.

Occasionally, traffic can slow to a halt just because of some cows blocking the street. Or traffic can be slow because some local townspeople decided to pour their own concrete on the road to build a speed bump – because the city didn’t do it. Roads are bumpy pretty much everywhere. Freeways are slowly being built, but a lot of driving is still done on these patchy roads. Oh, and people pee on the side of the road on a regular basis.

Buildings on the other hand range from giant mansions to literally five sheets of metal stacked together to form walls. The wealth gap is huge. Poorer neighbourhoods have ditches full of trash, while richer neighbourhoods have guards standing watch in the night. But despite having a big house, the power company is notoriously unreliable. Intermittent power outages happen on an almost daily basis, so those who can afford it have backup power in their homes. Some homes also have a water pump as a water supply for their home. It’s such a reversal from what people in the western hemisphere are used to.

Check out my pictures of Delhi and Meerut!

The best sushi I’ve ever had was at the Tsukiji Fish Market. The place was called Daiwa (大和) and there is always a line up to get in. In Canada, we are used to eating a lot of raw salmon, but in Japan, it is all about tuna – especially bluefin tuna. We were also served sea urchin too and I would say that was the only time I’ve ever had sea urchin that was delicious. (More info here)

Sashimi by itself is definitely very delicious too. This sashimi platter was from a restaurant called Uokin (魚金), near Shinbashi Station in Tokyo.

At the same restaurant, we also ate cooked fish head. I’m sure it doesn’t look that appetizing to a lot of people, but it definitely tasted very good, and I’m someone who does not normally eat fish head, but I tried it since our hosts had ordered it. Good thing I tried it too!

This is probably a lesser known dish in Japan, but we were served assorted shellfish that were still alive along with a grill to cook them in. I thought that was pretty special. That was from a seafood restaurant chain called 鈴木水産.

And of course, there is ramen, a classic Japanese noodle soup dish. My favourite was from a place called Ramen Shokudo Ikinaisshou in Akihabara. Some people even like to mix the soup with rice too, and that’s really good too.

Lastly, here is a type of Japanese food known as a teishoku, or a “meal set”. This one, from a chain called Yayoiken (やよい軒), has a bowl of rice, soup, and various side dishes in a tray. This is more of a fast food place though.

Link to photos from Tokyo: here

Link to photos of just food: here

A while back I bought Groupons for a sushi platter at this restaurant and so today my friends and I went here for dinner to use them.  When we walked in, I went up to the counter and told the lady in German that I made a reservation for four people yesterday.  I then overheard her speaking Mandarin to her colleague.  It threw me off since I expected the staff there to be Japanese (even though a lot of Chinese people run sushi restaurants in Vancouver).  Knowing that the lady spoke Mandarin, I started speaking that instead and I told her that we wanted to use Groupons.  She seemed really surprised at how I started speaking Chinese and asked where I was from.  I told her I was from Hong Kong and she told me she was from Korea.  That totally took me aback.  For a Korean, she spoke Mandarin as well as someone natively Chinese.  She said that I spoke pretty good Mandarin for someone that came from Hong Kong (but maybe that’s just her being polite).  After that brief chat, she then invited us to sit anywhere we wanted and gave us our food menus.

Looking through the menu, I realized the restaurant had more than just Japanese food.  It had Korean and Chinese food.  The last few pages of my menu had some items written only in Chinese and my friend didn’t have those pages in their menus (likely because they knew that I knew Chinese).  It turns out they served the Cantonese style chicken feet (鳳爪)!  I definitely had to order that one.  I also ordered a bowl of Kimchi as I hadn’t eaten that in a while.  I had both of those along with the sushi platter that the Groupon got me.  My friends ordered Gyoza, spicy fried squid (I think it was 椒鹽鮮魷), miso soup, and Inarizushi (fried tofu filled with sushi rice).

My friends didn’t know what it was so I explained it as a Korean version of German sauerkraut except spicy.  I don’t eat Kimchi much, but this one tasted really good.  It had the perfect amount of spiciness.  I guess that is kind of subjective since everyone can handle a different amount of that.

The chicken feet that I ordered didn’t taste as good as I thought it would.  I can’t help but compare the taste with the kind I’ve had in Vancouver.  Some people do say that Vancouver has the best Chinese food in the world and now I’ve begun to see that.  Compared to Vancouver, the meat (pretty much skin I suppose) on the  chicken feet I got here seemed to be a lot “tougher”.  I was really expecting it to be really soft.

Although I didn’t try the miso soup, it looked really delicious.  It looked a lot different that the usual kind that I’ve seen in Vancouver.  I wouldn’t know which one is more legit or better tasting though.  Everything else looked really good and super legit too – especially the fried squid; that looked really good.

After eating our appetizers, we chowed down on the sushi platter.  Almost immediately, the mediocre seafood quality of Stuttgart revealed itself.  The taste was a lot more bland and had less of the natural flavour of the animal itself.  Again, I compared it to Vancouver and it’s really no contest there.  Vancouver has such good access to the ocean for fishing, while Stuttgart is landlocked and relies on frozen fish being delivered. 

Despite that though, I thought that this place had good sushi for a landlocked city. Although, the biggest drawback in eating sushi in Stuttgart is that it’s really expensive. The only reason we went was because of the Groupon that gave us 50% off the sushi platter.  I don’t think I would have gone otherwise.  Seeing that I’m going to be back in Vancouver really soon (16 days by my count), I can have all the amazing Japanese, Chinese and Korean food I want!

On our way out, I had another brief chat with the lady there and it was really difficult for me to understand Mandarin.  It wasn’t the way she spoke, but more so the way I really had to focus my attention to her talking because my Mandarin ability wasn’t that good.  My mind literally zoned out of everything and focussed purely on understanding what she said.  I ended up saying something back in like a mix of Chinese, German and English.  It was kind of strange, but she understood what I wanted to say.  It was kind of random yet really fascinating to have a trilingual language conversation and tri-culture meal going on.