How Water Built a “Castle”

We learned from our guide that each terrace is a natural bowl of travertine, a limestone deposited when hot, calcium-carbonate spring water loses carbon dioxide and solidifies. Over millennia the process stacked basin upon basin, producing a 200-metre cliff that gleams as if it has never known a footprint.

UNESCO recognised both the geology and the adjacent Greco-Roman spa of Hierapolis in 1988, ensuring stricter water-flow management so the terraces retain their snowy coat.

Ruins with Stories in Stone

At the hilltop the ground levels into the ruins of Hierapolis, founded by the Attalid kings in the second century BCE.

The theatre dominates the skyline. We hiked up to the top an watched the sunset.

The city sits atop the Pamukkale fault zone, a geologically active area responsible for both the mineral-rich hot springs and the site’s seismic instability. Major earthquakes are recorded in 17 CE under Tiberius and again, even more devastatingly, in 60 CE under Nero. The city was rebuilt with Roman imperial funds, but the threat of further destruction always loomed. Additional earthquakes in the 14th and 17th centuries CE led to significant structural collapse and abandonment by the surviving population.

Within the ruins, stray animals call it home. Among the stray cats and dogs, a turtle stands out, a pet-trade species now ranked among the world’s most invasive reptiles.

The Myth of Cerberus

South-east of the stage lies the Ploutonion, once famed as “Pluto’s Gate”. Ancient writers described sacrificial bulls collapsing here while priests emerged unharmed. Modern gas probes explain the trick: a fissure still vents carbon dioxide strong enough to reach lethal concentrations near the ground.

From the viewing deck we could see the statue of Pluto and Cerberus guarding the gate to hell.

The Bare-Foot Gauntlet

The guide offered us two options to go back into town: 1) to take the bus back, or 2) walk down the terrace – reluctantly, I opted for the second option.

Visitors must walk the slope barefoot, a rule that protects the fragile crust but punishes one’s soles like walking on Lego.

We chose each step carefully, hunting for the smoothest stripes between ridges. The descent stretched only a few hundred metres, yet the stinging pressure made it feel closer to half an hour, each step a tactical decision rather than a stroll.

A Welcome Shift in Flavour

Once we all made it down, our guide took us to a restaurant that happened to be run by Chinese immigrants in Turkey. We slid chopsticks through shrimp fried noodles, a flavour more reminescent of home, something welcome especially by now I was slowly getting tired of Turkish food.

Hot Air Balloons

As we prepared to depart the next morning, we looked back to see hot air balloons launching into the morning sky.

See more of Pamukkale / Hierapolis here

At the time we went, Iceland was one of the few countries in the world that allowed vaccinated foreign visitors. All that was needed was proof of vaccination – not even a pre-entry COVID test. The fact that most people were vaccinated meant that most people were not wearing masks in the city, but this was before even the Delta variant – it seems like so long ago now.

I had been itching to go travel somewhere since the pandemic began, and this was a very welcome nudge towards normalcy. Flying with Icelandair was the same as before: the seat and leg room is pretty comfortable, but there’s no food included with the airfare. The only difference is the extra bureacracy related to COVID, which increased how long it took each person to get through immigration, resulting in long lines after the plane. It didn’t help that we arrived so early in the morning that the food places weren’t even open yet and we had to wait in line while hungry. Eventually, we picked up the rental car and drove into Reykjavik for breakfast. We took the day easy by just exploring Reykjavik on foot, and took a nap in the afternoon when the jet lag caught up to us.

That night, we had probably the most memorable meal we’ve ever had at Tapas Barinn. The great thing about tapas is that as tourists, we get to try a little bit of everything as opposed to ordering entrées.

I even got to try some Flóki single malt whiskey. The smokiness from the whiskey actually comes from the barley smoked using sheep dung, a traditional cooking method. I also got to try some more brennivin like my last trip to Iceland – it’s essentially a grain alcohol (40%) and flavoured with caraway seeds, which gives it a sweeter flavour than something like vodka.

I had visited Iceland a couple years ago, but it was in the winter where there was only 4 hours of light per day, and even then the sky looked like dusk.

This time, travelling there in the summer, I didn’t see the night sky the entire time I was there. I could more clearly see and appreciate the nature around me, like the endless fields of moss growing on the rocks, and sheep freely roaming the fields.

It is thought that the Icelandic sheep were introduced to Iceland by the Viking settlers. Farmers allow them to freely roam around in the summer months, and as winter comes, they round them all back up again.

Like my previous trip to Iceland, we travelled along the Ring Road to see the waterfalls, and the volcanic beaches.

This is what the view at Seljalandsfoss looks like in the summer versus the view I saw in the winter. I had no idea Iceland could be so green. In the summer, people can even walk behind the waterfall, between the rock and the falls itself, but in the winter, the trail is closed because of ice.

Skógafoss looks about the same between summer and winter, except the vegetation is greener in summer.

A kitty even came out to hang out with us! As we were walking, the cat just walked up to us and stopped, expecting pets as a payment to pass through. After that, off it went.

Unlike travelling to Iceland in the winter, there were no restrictions (4WD) to drive up to Dyrhólaey in the summer. As we drove up, I could see why. The road was a set of steep switchbacks on gravel roads that were only a little more than two cars width – and there were no guardrails.

From the top, one can see the endless mountains, or watch the waves crash against the beaches of volanic sand.

The next day, we took a Superjeep tour to see ice caves on an active volcano known as Katla. The reason why it’s called Superjeep is because it can deflate its tires (for icy roads), and inflate them back up again depending on the terrain, but otherwise it looks like your typical Ford Excursion but with big tires.

The ice caves were located a ways in from the glacier. In summer, a lot of the ice had melted, revealing the volanic sand and rock underneath.

Only just now as I was writing this, did I realize we were travelling on a literal volcano, but I suppose it’s safe.

As we headed up the volcano, the lush, green vegetation quickly disappeared, revealing a rocky landscape with a mix of ice and black volcanic rock. Grey clouds covered the sky and it began to rain.

Eventually, the tour guide parked the truck, and we began our volcano hike. He brought his ice pick with him and used it several times to cut steps in the ice.

Despite the summer season, the temperature still felt like a mild winter. But it still meant the ice caves would not be as fully developed as in the winter season, and this could clearly be seen when comparing the ice caves from this trip versus the previous one. In fact, the winter ice cave was really more of a tunnel, while the picture of the summer ice cave was taken from the end of the cave with the camera pointing out.

The ice on top of the volcanic rock looked so alien that several movies used this place as a location for another planet. Rogue One was filmed in the area for the opening scene where young Jyn Erso hides from the stormtroopers. The movie doesn’t show the whole cave, but the similiarity is clear. If the movie had shown the whole cave, one would see why people call it the “Yoda Cave”.

It was nice staying in the cave for a bit as a brief respite from the rain. We made the mistake of wearing jeans for a multi-hour hike in the rain, and our wet clothes just made us even colder. We also got the chance to chat a bit with others on the tour. We met an orthodonist who practised in Greece by the name of Thanos (I wonder if he was aware of the MCU), and another who claimed to be a “voodoo priestess”, whatever that means.

The next morning, the plan was whale and puffin watching. It turned out to be an incredibly bad idea because I apparently get seasick, and didn’t get to see a lot. Even those who did see whales could really only see a small fin barely capturable on camera. Only a small percentage of people get to see the whale flying out of the water and crashing back down. Good thing the puffin watching was on a separate tour so I got to recover from the seasickness, but we decided not to go and instead gave the tickets away to another group that we overheard looking for tickets to the same tour.

Instead, we went to go get some Icelandic hotdogs for lunch. The key things that set it apart are the condiments, and the sausage. In addition to ketchup, and sweet mustard, they also add “remoulade”, similar to mayo with added herbs. The sausage uses lamb, as opposed to chicken/pork/beef.

Next, we headed to the Reykjanes Peninsula and the Blue Lagoon. We reached the tip of the peninsula and stood on the cliff watching the waves crash against the shore. If there was such a thing as the end of the earth, this was it. Despite strong gusts of wind, thousands of birds nested on the side of the cliff. From far away they look like white specks, but one can see them clearly with a good set of binoculars.

Next, we went for a relaxing soak at the Blue Lagoon, a man-made spa fed by water used by a nearby geothermal plant.

The water forms a milky blue colour from the high silica mud, and is supposedly good for the skin. They even sell super overpriced skincare products at the gift shop.

The area is beautiful with all the steam slowly rising from the hot springs with the light cool breeze. It would have felt like a whipping biting wind if not for the hot spring. You just submerge yourself until you feel not too hot and not too cold, and then relax with their cleansing silica face masks and a drink.

After leaving Blue Lagoon, we’d learned there was an active eruption happening at the nearby Fagradalsfjall volcano, and was happening slow enough such that it was OK to go see it.

A short walk from the parking lot led us to the lava flow. The trail continued upstream of the lava flow to the mouth of the volcano.

There were warnings for people to not walk too close to the lava flow because of risks of toxic fumes, but many did it anyway (as did we). Many curious hikers threw rocks on it just to find out that the lava flow had already hardened, even though there were still visible fumes coming out.

The hike turned out to be really long, and we weren’t really prepared to do a multi-hour hike at 20:00 in the cold, wind, and rain. As we reluctantly turned around, we saw people pointing the other and when we looked, we managed to catch a glimpse of the volcano spewing lava from afar. It makes sense now why people call it the “land of ice and fire”

It was surprising to see how watery the lava looked. I expected molten rock to be more viscous. The lava just spewed out in a splash. I felt super lucky to have seen such a sight.

As we walked back, I noticed these hexagonal patterns in the ground. Maybe this is how basalt columns form? From what I’ve read, under certain conditions, the cooling magma can cool in a way that forms these hexagonal shapes.

By the time we reached the parking lot, we were wet and cold (seemed to be a recurring theme by this point). Luckily there was a food truck at the parking lot selling hot soup.

The next morning before heading out to the Golden Circle, we started the day off with a nice brunch at Sandholt.

The unexpected star of the breakfast was the bread. As an amateur baker myself, this is the bread I aspire to make – it’s soft, light and airy with a crisp crust.

Next step along the Golden Circle was Geysir. The geothermal heat creates pressure underground causing the water to explode upward every few minutes. The entire area is filled with geothermal pools, some of which are so hot they’re bubbling from the heat and pressure.

It’s cool just to just stand in anticipation of the eruption. From looking at it, there’s no indication that it’s going to explode at all, and then it just does. At one point, the wind carried the water toward us and got us all wet, but luckily by the time the water hits the ground, it’s cooled down.

From the Geysir, we drove to Gullfoss. Unlike other waterfalls, this one has a unique feature where the water does a zig zag before hitting the bottom.

There were attempts in the past to build a hydroelectric plant here, but those efforts have not succeeded, and since then, the waterfall is now under government protection.

The last destination of the Golden Circle was Kerið crater. It’s believed that the crater formed through volcanic activity. Once the magma chamber emptied, it collapsed, forming the crater. The accumulation of water is not formed by rainfall, but is actually ground water.

On our last day before we left, we got the chance to try more Icelandic dishes. This time we had some lamb soup, dried fish, fermented shark, and some Einstök white ale, a local craft brew.

It’s not often that I would rave about soup, but I liked it so much I’ve been trying to recreate the flavour at home. It’s savoury soup with vegetables, lamb, and herbs/spices. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the dried fish and fermented shark though. The dried fish is served with butter and its flavour reminds me of super tough beef jerky with a light fish flavour, while the fermented shark has a texture of a ham with a soury tang. Perhaps it’s an acquired taste. The beer was great though.

That’s pretty much it for Iceland. We got the chance to try all sorts of local delicacies, and see a piece of nature we wouldn’t normally see in our part of the world. At the airport duty free, I even got to pick up some Brennivin, and a bottle of the Flóki sheep dung whiskey!

See more pictures of my trip to Iceland here

I always thought that Petra was just a single structure – the same one that gets shown everywhere, but that structure is just The Treasury that’s a part of an entire city built in the rocks.

From the entrance, we walked 30 minutes through a winding gorge formed by a fault line that tectonic forces split apart until we reached The Treasury. Stray dogs followed us every step of the way hoping for scraps of food. Leaving at 6:00 didn’t help because the only people that the dogs could beg from was us.

We arrived so early we were practically the only people there. We admired Petra on our own without the large crowds of tourists everywhere. We took our time walking up to it, all around it, up the slope to get a better view (nobody is allowed inside it though). We did all of this before the crowds showed up.

Petra was the capital of a kingdom of the Nabataean, a group of nomadic Arabs who established the city as a major trading hub. The Nabataeans constructed massive structures by carving it all out of the sandstone. Although it’s called The Treasury, the building is believed to have been the mausoleum of the Nabataean King Aretas IV.

The area around Petra is also home to the Bedouin people, a group of nomadic Arab people who inhabit the desert regions in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In the modern times, many have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and many Bedouin around Petra work as tour guides, offer camel rides, among other things. One of the Bedouin people there is actually the descendent of a woman from New Zealand who married a Bedouin man and wrote about it, called Married to a Bedouin.

The area is over 250 square kilometers, something I totally didn’t expect (because I totally did not do my research before I went). I’m not too big on hiking and I was totally not prepared for a hike that day – I would have totally brought more water, and more food along with me that day. Despite that, I hiked up the 900 or so steps to the monastery anyway, while getting hassled by vendors trying to sell me their junk. Temperature-wise, the temperature shot up to a whopping 20 degrees Celsius from the 0 degrees Celsius just two days before. My body did not like that.

We spent about 8 hours in Petra, walking along the rock faces, seeing the ancient ruins, hiking up the hill, but if I had more energy I totally would have hiked up the other trials for even better views of the area.

For dinner we had mansaf, probably the national dish of Jordan. It’s a delicious dish made with lamb and rice dish mixed with a yogurt sauce! This tasted even better than the chicken rice dish we had the day before. I had no idea that lamb and yogurt was such a great combination. It was a great meal to refuel after such a long day.

More photos of Petra here

We flew into Israel from Tel Aviv and boarded a train to Jerusalem. I totally expected the Middle East to be pretty warm in February, but nope, it was snowing tiny little flakes in Jerusalem. If it weren’t for the Europe trip before this, I would have actually not brought any winter clothes, so I definitely lucked out there.

The Way of the Cross

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is probably what Jerusalem is most well known for. The Way of the Cross (aka Via Dolorosa) in Jerusalem is what is believed to be the actual path that Jesus walked during his crucifixion – regardless of whether you’re religious or not, it’s still pretty cool to see. This was a key event in the establishment of Christianity. The crucifixion of Jesus is considered to be historically true even by non-religious scholars.

The Way of the Cross begins with Jesus’ encouter with Pontius Pilate, the man who orders Jesus’ crucifixion. The Church of the Flagellation is built on the spot where Jesus was flogged by Roman soldiers before he carries the cross.

It’s said he falls three times during his walk.

Along the way, Jesus encounters several people (although some of these encounters are disputed):

• Mary – his mother
• Simon of Cyrene – he helps Jesus carry the cross
• Veronica – she wipes the sweat off of Jesus’ face, and so Jesus’ image was then supernaturally imprinted on the piece of cloth, now known as the Veil of Veronica
• the pious women – Jesus stops and gives a sermon

Eventually he makes his way to the location where he is nailed to the cross. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built on the spot where it is believed he was nailed to the cross, and his subsequent death.

This is supposedly the spot where Jesus dies on the cross (below)

He is then taken down from the cross and anointed on the stone slab below. Anointing is a ceremonial ritual where a person’s body is smeared in aromatic oil to introduce a divine influence on the body.

Finally he is laid to rest in his tomb.

Of course his body isn’t physically in there, because supposedly after his ressurection, he ascended to heaven.

The entire Way of the Cross and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was extremely crowded and people lined up everywhere to pray in all the spiritual locations, like Jesus’ tomb, the home of the Virgin Mary, the Stone of Anointing, etc. People even touched all the surfaces that Jesus was said to have touched and I could see them in deep prayer.

Western / Wailing Wall

In Judaism, the Western Wall is one of its holiest sites. The actual holiest site lines behind the wall, the Temple Mount, but due to restrictions, Jews are not allowed to pray there, and thus the wall became the place where Jews went to pray.

Some Jews go on a pilgrimage to the Western Wall, some spend hours praying there. If you look closely in the video below, there’s a fellow running in circles and singing while people around him are rubbing their beards against the wall.

The Temple Mount

The Temple Mount is a flat plaza built on top of four retaining walls (the Western Wall among them). Although Jews are not allowed to enter for prayer (e.g. praying, singing, or other religious displays), people are allowed to enter the area as tourists.

The Dome of the Rock is one of the Islamic structures built on the Temple Mount. Unfortunately, non Muslims are not allowed to enter. Inside the dome is the Foundation Stone, and has religious significance to both Jews and Muslims.

Yad Vashem

This is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The entire memorial consists of a museum dedicated to the history of Jewish persecution throughout Nazi Germany and the places it conquered.

The eternal flame honours the victims of the holocaust. In front of it is a stone crypt containing the ashes of the victims.

The Hall of Names pictured above contains the the names of millions of Holocaust victims. The shelves around the room contain the names, while the cone above display photographs of the victims. The people standing in the photo are all Israeli soldiers – Jerusalem had a huge police presence with a lot of them openly carrying assault rifles (I felt very safe). Even some men in public that I saw had buzz cuts – presumably they are/were in the military. A few days before we arrived, there was a terrorist attack where a driver rammed a car into Israeli soldiers.

This train car is an example of the cattle cars that Nazi Germany used to perpretrate the Holocaust.

The Garden Tomb

Some sects of Christianity don’t believe that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains the real tomb of Jesus Christ. They assert that the real tomb is actually elsewhere, which they dubbed the Garden Tomb

Outside Jerusalem’s old town

Because Israel has so many Jewish people, McDonald’s started a special chain that serves only Kosher food. Even though it’s kosher, it tastes the exact same as regular McDonald’s which is pretty amazing for what it is.

Oskar Schindler is famous for saving 1200 Jews during the holocaust. He is now buried in Jerusalem. Putting stones and pebbles on the grave is an ancient Jewish tradition to honour the deceased.

There are also a lot of stray cats everywhere! I didn’t see any dogs though, just lots and lots of stray cats everywhere. People must take care of them though because they all look pretty well groomed.

Photo album: here

Heidelberg

Heidelberg probably has the most picturesque old town in the entire Germany. Out of all the views I’ve seen in Germany, this is one of the best.

The view is from the ruins of a castle that was destroyed during the Thirty Years War (17th century). I believe the old town is mostly in the Baroque style.

For breakfast, we had a very traditional German pastry, known as a Berliner. It’s similar to a doughnut, but without the hole, and it has a jam filling on the inside and powdered sugar on top. They’re super delicious and not insanely sweet like a lot of American doughnuts.

For lunch, we had more traditional German street foods. The top of the bottom image is currywurst, cut up sausage with curry ketchup on top. The flavour is a very savoury sausage with a slight sweet and spicy zing of curry. The bottom of the image is a bratwurst in a breadroll with mustard. Everything about this is better than the American hot dog. Better sausage to bun ratio, better bread, better sausage, and better mustard. And of course, fries are seasoned with mayonnaise instead of ketchup.

After lunch, we drove up the hill across the river from the old town and visited an old ampitheatre. Why is this amptitheatre interesting, you might ask? It’s actually a relic of the Nazi period for holding propaganda performances.

The main allure of Heidelberg itself is its picturesque views both in the old town and up on Heidelberg castle. Visitors can easily enjoy this by strolling through the old town and making their way up to the castle (there is also a tram), which are main attractions of the city.

Zweibrücken

From Heidelberg, we drove to Zweibrücken. It was a slight detour from Luxembourg, where we were actually trying to go, but we had read about a cool observatory decorated like R2D2, so we thought we’d check it out! It would have been cool to look through the telescope – after all the sky was completely clear of any clouds.

Driving to the place was super scenic! Nice rolling countryside hills with towering wind turbines.

From there we continued our drive to Luxembourg.

Luxembourg

We crossed the border into Luxembourg at dusk and stopped by the town of Schengen. This is the place where the Schengen Agreement was signed – the agreement that removed the hard borders between its European member states.

Normally, it’s possible to walk across to the island to see the small exhibit that discusses the Schengen Agreement, but we were super surprised to see the river at such a high tide (it did rain a lot the past couple of days). On the right of the picture, there’s a little shrub, street signs and flagpoles poking out of the water.

By the time we reach Luxembourg City, it was nighttime. To our surprise, the city looked deserted even though it was only 19:00. People walking on the street appeared drunk. There was even a guy taking a leak in the street without even trying to do it in an alley!

We walked around a bit to check out the town, but otherwise, there wasn’t much to do at that hour on a weekday.

We didn’t stay too long in Luxembourg, and we continued our drive to Bastogne, where we’d stay the night.

Photos:

• Heidelberg
• Zweibrücken
• Luxembourg

The luwak coffee has no added milk or sugar and is sweet on its own. It tastes like regular black coffee with sugar in it, but then I’m not a coffee drinker, so my taste for it isn’t as nuanced.

The luwak eats the coffee cherry (the fruit that contains the coffee bean), and. The bean itself is partially digested and defecated and then used to make the coffee. Yes, the coffee is actually made from part poop. Plantations send people out into the woods to specifically look for the poop. The guide said 1 kg takes 42 days to produce.

It’s one of the most expensive if not most expensive coffees in the world. Our guide at the plantation called it a “cat-poo-ccino”!! The plantation doesn’t actually charge for any of the tours and samples (except for the cup of luwak coffee), but rather they rely on people buying coffee and tea to make money.

The next stop was the monkey forest. It was really cool to see monkeys running around with humans so close to them.

There was a sign that said to not stare at the monkey for too long, but I clearly forgot…

Monkeys like to play too!

The monkey forest was the coolest place in the whole tour. Mike’s video has even more clips of the monkeys. Check it out below.

The next stop were some rice fields. But a freak rainstorm occurred and cut that way short. At first we thought, it’d be okay with a little, but then it just poured.

The raindrops were HUGE.

15 minutes later, the rain was gone. A bit of a drive later, we reached a waterfall as the conclusion of the tour.

From there we drove back to our accommodations and passed by some more rice fields. Throughout the car ride, we chatted with our guide about sorts of things like the history of Indonesian independence, North American culture, and life in Indonesia. One thing that really stood out to me was that he spoke very fondly about how dad prepared dog meat really and how much he enjoyed eating it. To him, it’s something super normal and part of the culture, but it seems so foreign to us in North America.

This ends our day trip in Ubud. See more of the trip here.

Each elephant has a story of what it spent its life doing while in captivity such as elephant riding, or illegal logging, etc. Some even have injuries like broken hips from their past abuse. But now they get to live out the rest of their lives in the sanctuary.

The santuary is not just for elephants, but for cats too! There are also dogs lazing about as well.

We started the tour off with feeding the younger elephants. Even though they’re only a few years old, they’re still huge. It was cool to feel the elephant grab an entire bunch of bananas with its trunk and put it in its mouth. For a brief moment, I felt the scaly skin of its trunk, covered in dirt, brush against my hand. The reason elephants are covered in dirt is because the dirt protects their skin from the sun.

We got to pet a few of these elephants. I learned that elephants actually have hair! Some elephants had less hair due to their abuse. The guide explained that when they are used as riding elephants, they tend to lose a lot of hair from people climbing on and off of them. Their skin feels scaly as one might expect, but the sparse hairs are quite stiff – kind of like the bristles on a toothbrush.

It was so hot that day, they went playing in the river. It was probably the hottest day of the trip so far. So hot that I really didn’t want to move out in the sun.

This guy came running right for us. The guide said some of these elephants were the same ones we fed, and so it was possible they recognized our scents thinking we had more food. There are no fences in between humans and elephants, and there are attendants everywhere that the elephants listen to.

The guide told us that the more sunken in the elephant’s head is at its temple, the older it is. As it ages, the air inside the elephants skull slowly leaves, which causes the sunkeness. I definitely noticed this between the smaller/younger elephants and the larger/old ones.

Be sure to check out Mike’s video about the elephant park. It’s got clips of us feeding the elephants and us trying to dodge them as they charge toward us. There’s even an elephant that peels the bananas before eating them!

Going to this place was totally awesome and I definitely recommend it for anybody travelling to Chiang Mai. For the rest of the pictures of the elephant sanctuary click here.

Near the waterfront was the Old Market Hall. It has a small set of shops and cafes, but it seems to be mainly aimed at tourists.

I was recommended to go to the Soup Kitchen for some Finnish seafood soup. It has a tomato base, with some cut up veggies. The protein were chunks of salmon and shrimp. It had a savoury flavour that was somehow perfectly balanced by the acidity. I could taste the intensity of the flavour without it being overpowering – this is something I’d like to know how to replicate in my own home cooking!!

Another popular location in Helsinki is the Esplanadi. It’s essentially a urban park in downtown Helsinki with restaurants and cafes on the side for people to chill at.

On the nearby island of Suomenlinna is the site of an old Finnish sea fortress from the 18th century. It’s a pretty nice place to walk around with views of the water.

There’s also a museum for an old retired Finnish submarine too.

For dinner, I had the chance to try bear meat for the first time! It’s from a Russian-style restaurant called Ravintola Saslik.

The bear itself was grilled and wrapped in bacon. The bear tasted like a rougher red meat. It wasn’t that chewy and fell apart easily. It’s true when people say apex predators don’t taste as good. Unfortunately, I felt super lethargic that day from the hectic days of travelling, so I didn’t have the appetite to really enjoy this meal as much as I wanted to.

At night, the Christmas market at Senate Square is still bustling.

On my last night in Helsinki, I went out with some of the folks I met at the hostel I stayed at. We went out for dinner and drinks and I finished the trip with one last hurrah. I also learned that Finns really like to karaoke! It is said that Kimi Räikkönen really likes karaoke, despite his stone cold responses in his press conferences.

Here’s a bonus picture of a dog that I met while browsing a bookstore! Her name is Lola and she is the bookstore dog. She likes to lie there and take pets from passers-by!

Photos here

The weirdest part about boarding the plane: all the flight attendants just assumed I was Korean and spoke Korean to me, but changed to English for anyone that didn’t look Chinese/Japanese/Korean. I guess better to do that than to wrongly assume and speak English to actual Koreans. What’s cool about a Korean airline is that they serve Korean food like Bibimbap too. Oh, and they also asked me if I had a Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I guess that makes sense. Exploding plane… not good…

I arrived in Hanoi at night, and after a terrible night of jet lagged sleep, my adventure began.

Crossing the street on busy streets without traffic lights

Probably the biggest WTF moment I had was when I noticed that there are exactly zero traffic lights at intersections and there’s like a hundred people on mopeds crossing these intersections. People here are somehow magically able to weave through each other while crossing the intersection. People crossing the street just walk at a constant pace and just let the drivers drive around them.

The first time I crossed the street, it was like a giant leap of faith. As I’m crossing the street, I’m thinking “I wonder if this is what it feels like to know your life is about to end”. After I crossed, I thought, “Oh that wasn’t so bad”. But then there are like a dozen more intersections to cross before getting to the destination. After a while though, it definitely got easier.

There’s so many people here and the air pollution is epic

I thought I was used to large Asian cities (e.g. Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.), but Hanoi is on a different level. The average population density of Hong Kong is about 6000 people/square km, but in Hanoi, it’s about 15000. For some reason though, it doesn’t seem like there are as many people walking around as in Hong Kong or Tokyo. Maybe it’s because they’re all driving their mopeds. It’s so crowded here that some people live in front of an unused railway track.

The streets are way less spacious too. People are always selling stuff on the side of the street, or people are parking their mopeds everywhere, so it makes it really hard to just walk in a straight line along the sidewalk. And as you’re walking, you’re constantly smelling exhaust.

Lots of cheap stuff

The street markets are often selling cheap knockoffs of things. People on the street were selling tons of North Face jackets. Apparently, they are made in Vietnam, but I have no idea whether or not the jackets here are real though, but they sure felt real. And they only cost $35 USD. I picked up two football jerseys for Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund for about $5 USD each. Dong Xuan market is another place selling tons of cheap stuff. Stores are tiny, but full of merchandise stacked up and the walkways are super narrow, but to our western standards, everything is super cheap. This is a city where a regular guy like me can walk into a Louis Vuitton store without being judged by all the people working there.

I almost bought this “Lepin” Millenium Falcon for $40 USD. The lady wouldn’t budge on her price =/.

On weekends, there’s a night market selling more cheap stuff.

They’ve got a really cool lake in the middle of the city

It was definitely the most scenic part of Hanoi that I went to.

On weekends afternoons and nights, everybody is going to Hoan Kiem Lake to hang out with their family and friends. At night, the lake lights up real good.

Of course, there’s the food

A while ago, there was a story about Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain eating dinner in Hanoi. Since that happened, the restaurant they went to, Bún chả Hương Liên, became famous and tons of people went there to eat the “Obama Special” – Bún chả and spring rolls. A local guide we met later in the trip told us that this restaurant is overrated, but I thought it was good. Thanks Obama!

There was also this barbecue place. There’s a giant selection of meats with different cuts and you pick which ones you want and it all gets cooked on a giant barbecue platter. Aside from the usual beef, chicken, pork, they had an entire frog. Looking back, I should have ordered it. Frog is definitely up there on my list of delicious exotic meats. If I knew Vietnamese, I would have asked them if they had dog meat because I would have ordered that for sure. We ended up picking up a few things that looked good, but had no idea what they were. One of them tasted like beef and was kind of chewy and reminded me of beef intestines that I ate in Osaka.

At one point in the trip, we got a volunteer tour guide to take us around the city to eat stuff. We help them practice their English and pay for their food, and they show us around – it’s a pretty cool idea. Our guide took us to try some fried eel in a salad and some eel soup.

Our guide also took us to eat this Vietnamese version of a steamed rice roll. Not as good as the kind I eat at Dim Sum.

Everybody knows Pho. It’s a lot different than the ones I eat in Vancouver and not very comparable. The ones I ate in Hanoi were generally plainer and was less savoury. It also costs about $2.50 USD. Some people prefer this taste over the kind we get in the western world, but I would disagree.

By far the best meal of the whole trip was at “The Hung Snake Restaurant“. Yep, I got to eat an entire snake – a bamboo snake. A guy came with a sack with a snake inside. He took it out and let me hold onto it to “play” with it before eating. Sure, okay, playing with a snake is great and all, but that thing was frickin poisonous and the entire time, I was just kind of freaked out and hoped that thing didn’t bite me.

The next thing you know, the guy takes out a platter with scissors and knives like in a surgery and cuts open the snake. As it bleeds to death, he drains its blood into a glass, THEN takes out its beating heart and puts it into another glass. FINALLY, he cuts out part of the stomach and drains its stomach bile into another glass. He hands me the glass with the still beating heart and tells me to eat it. It was exactly what I came here for and it was amazing. I only wish I had chewed the heart before swallowing it instead of swallowing it whole like he told me to.

The blood and bile were mixed with some sort of alcohol and I drank those too. My friend on the other hand, could not bear to watch the snake get murdered like that and barely ate any of it when the food actually came. More for me :). All sorts of snake bits were used with different cooking styles: grilled meat, deep fried bones, deep fried skin, snake tail boiled into a soup, sauteed meat, spring rolls, steamed meat, the stomach, etc. Everything was GREAT. A++, would eat again – the king cobra next time.

In addition to snake, I also wanted to try cat meat. I asked the staff at our hostel and he told me that he knew that people did eat that sort of stuff, but wasn’t able to tell me where. Too bad. I also missed out on this silkworm omelette that they only serve in the mornings. Everywhere I saw a cat or a dog, I’d wonder if people would kidnap them and cook them =/

As usual, I drank the local beer. The Beer Corner is a popular place. It was weird to see a kid who looked about 12 pour my beer. Apparently that’s allowed around here.

Their way of life can be very simple

Just some kids playing Tug of War.

Let’s cut some hair on the side of the street.

Unique history and culture

This is a country where for so much of their history, they were conquered by someone: China, France, Japan, etc. The French left behind some of their architecture too.

Since Vietnam is a communist country, of course there has to be a statue of Lenin.

There was also an influence from Confucianism here. Enough for there to be a Confucian temple, which is also the site of the Imperial Academy, the first national university of Vietnam.

How fitting that when we were there, there were groups of students posing for pictures for graduation.

They’re really proud about going up against their enemies and winning

From going to museums there, they are really happy about finally having their own country back again. There were so many exhibits about their triumphs against the colonialists, against the Japanese, and eventually against the Americans. They even claim that the Americans fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident as an excuse to fight in Vietnam. That could very well have been true, but everything just seemed super biased. During the war, the North Vietnamese shot down a B-52, which they proudly display.

There’s even a bit of a B-52 in the water where it crashed. The buidings in the back are also super narrow, which was because buildings were taxed on their width (not sure if this is still the case though).

They also like to point out all the terrible things that their French conquerors did to them at the Prison Museum.

The body of Ho Chi Minh is preserved and displayed in the mausoleum. When we were there though, his body had been transported to Russia for some work, and so it wasn’t on display.

At their military museum, they went on about how they fought a war against American imperialism and showed off the weapons they used. And of course, every time I see a tank, I think “cuz baby you’re a firreeeworkkkkk” and drinking margaritas.

I think that sums up the visit to Hanoi real good!

Link to photo album: here

Dog lovers out there beware, some people eat dog meat in Korea – in a stew form, called Bosintang. We had to go to a shady shop in an alley in Myeongdong to get it. I didn’t know that it wasn’t a mainstream thing to eat until the lady at the tourist info center told us.

The meat was very tough (typical carnivore meat), and it tasted a lot like lamb. To be honest, it was pretty good, but it’s not something I would eat more of, since beef, chicken and other mainstream meats taste so much better.

Now for something less weird than dog meat. Our friend who lives in Seoul took us to a Korean restaurant to have something more mainstream.

It’s nice to know a local who is able to introduce us to such delicious food! Aside from the pork, we had acorn jelly, chives, seaweed, etc. Next, there is eating fresh seafood at Noryangjin Fish Market – a giant warehouse looking building where people sell seafood and then buyers can take their purchases to a nearby restaurant for preparation.

Somehow it was clear to all shop personnel that we were Chinese, and people kept yelling at us in Mandarin to buy their seafood. One shop kept insisting to us that we buy crab, and as we kept refusing, they kept lowering the price even though we actually did not want to buy it for other reasons. This “unintentional” haggling, however, did get us a slightly better deal on fish, giant prawns, clams and octopuses.

Eating the octopus raw is interesting since when the tentacles were served to us, they were still squirming as they were freshly killed. I learned that the whole point of eating this is to feel the tentacle grab on to the inside of the mouth as it is chewed, but otherwise it is pretty tasteless.

We also had Korean barbecue, although for some reason, the place we went to was super expensive for very low quality meat.  We still don’t know why it was so expensive.  We went to another Korean barbecue place that was a lot better and cheaper, but I felt that the Korean barbecue restaurants were on par in terms of quality.  And oh yes, there was also lots of kimchi.

E-Sports

I’m not a fan of StarCraft, but I play DotA 2, so naturally we watched a DotA 2 tournament. There was no cost to watch the game, but there wasn’t that big of an audience either, so a rowdy audience was definitely missing. The game was exciting and we saw a lot of pro plays, but the cast was all in Korean.

Before entering the stadium, we saw people at the entrance wearing Zephyr shirts, and I thought, “they must be fans of that team or something” and asked them for directions for where to get food. Later, I found out they played for Zephyr. Awkward.

During the intermission, I got to chat a bit with “Whiplash”, one of the English casters, who was casting the game for Internet viewers. It was weird at first since he introduced himself by his online name – quite unexpected. From him, I found out that teams who play in Korea generally live together in the same house so it’s easy to practice together.

Pet Cafes

I heard much about them before my trip. It definitely sounded intriguing. Go in, get a drink, pet the animals, right? Kind of, only if you find one that likes being pet by you! Most of the animals we saw didn’t really pay any attention to us except for this one beagle who was licking my friend’s face non stop.

Plastic Surgery

Ads. Ads everywhere. In the street, in the metro – complete with before and after pictures. Walked by a lot of clinics too. Yup it’s definitely a thing in Korea.

Link to more photos: here