Kyoto

Of all the cities in Japan, Kyoto is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful. Its narrow alleyways and immaculately groomed gardens are filled with old world charm and are the "Japan" that always comes to mind when I picture the country.

There are temples galore in the city - most of which we'd explored during our last trip. This time, we did a few different things.

Firstly, a fantastic Japanese cooking class, where we learnt all sorts of traditional techniques starting from the very basic (dashi stock and Japanese omelette) moving through to beautiful, melt-in-your-mouth Kobe beef. Our teacher, Taro, was a talented communicator and very passionate about his country's food. It was a pleasure to work with him and the feast afterwards was the icing on the cake...figuratively - there was no cake!

We also enjoyed some more extravagant...okay, maybe downright decadent food in Kyoto. There were the Kyoto-style okonomiyaki (by the way, we did eat more than okonomiyaki during this trip, though you wouldn't think it based on my last couple of posts!).

Then there were the desserts. My goodness, the people of Kyoto know how to make a dessert! The first two are actual desserts enjoyed by yours truly. The third is an ever so slightly larger option available to diners.

One cannot write about Japan without at least briefly discussing the toilets. My personal favourite on this trip was in Kyoto. It had so many buttons, features and automatic functions and was quite simply awesome! The in-built motion detector raised the lid in a quasi-ceremonious fashion every time I entered the bathroom. The in-built seat-warmer meant my posterior was never chilly and the trickling sounds of a small waterfall effectively hid the sound of my own...umm...waterfall...

This baby was in our hotel room - a hotel I feel is deserving of a special shout out, as they were simply outstanding - head and shoulders above anywhere else I stayed in Japan (and that's saying something, because Japanese hospitality is second to none!).

Another fun thing I did during my time was go for a run along the canals, with a fellow Up and Runner - my only exercise of the trip, but definitely an enjoyable and novel way to see the the city and, of course, meet a new friend.

Then there were lots of walks, lane exploration and just chilling out and watching the world pass us by.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is a city that really resonates with me. It is very easy to get around (lots of English signage), is full of stunning flora and satisfies my inner history buff. This was our second trip to the city and instead of visiting the main tourist attractions as we had on our previous trip (i.e. the Peace Memorial Museum and Hiroshima Castle), my beloved and I decided to walk from garden to garden. We spent an entire day walking the perimeter of the CBD from park to park, stopping to explore interesting shops and areas and, of course, to eat.

Here are some of the beautiful sights:

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

 A-Bomb Dome

 View from the CBD

Shukkei-en Garden

Traversing a city by foot takes a reasonable amount of energy. This means good fuel is essential. We enjoyed a particularly lovely lunch in the Shukkei-en Gardens - a big bowl of wakame udon soup for me under the shade of some of the garden's established trees.

At around $4, this meal was an absolute bargain!

Aside from some of the more sobering things that Hiroshima is famous for, its name is also associated with one of Japan's great foods - okonomiyaki. This layered savoury pancake/omelette is available throughout Japan, with each region claiming that their take on the dish is superior. However, Hiroshima is undoubtedly the most okonomiyaki-obsessed city that I have visited - there's even an entire multi-storey building devoted to the food - Okonomimura. Naturally, we had to sample one a few okonomiyaki.

I especially love the interaction of this food. The chef prepares your pancake on the grill in front of you serve yourself right from the hot plate. A casual, fresh and friendly way to eat.

The mixture of noodles, prawns, pork, egg, spring onions, cabbage, pickled ginger, kewpie mayo, okonomiyaki sauce and various other condiments is an absolute winner. Oh, and there's only one thing better than okonomiyaki after a long day of travelling - okonomiyaki and beer!

Spectacular Saigon

Dear blog (and readers), I'm sorry for neglecting you, but I have been overseas having fabulous adventures for the last month and, rather than documenting them as they happened, I wanted to enjoy myself and really try to live in the moment. So here we are, some weeks later and it's time for me to start posting about our mischief. Today's first post - Saigon (as the locals call it) or Ho Chi Minh (officially).

We spent five nights in Vietnam's largest city in late August. Originally, we had anticipated a shorter stopover somewhere in south-east Asia before heading to Japan, but we decided to extend our time and really get a feel for the city.

Our trip could not have started off more perfectly - an upgrade to business class. We thoroughly enjoyed the (amazingly!) edible plane food and the warm service. If I was able to fly business class everywhere, I definitely would...but I think there are a few financial obstacles in my way right now.

Our first impression of Saigon was "crazy traffic". The road rules (as far as I could tell) involved copious horn honking until one is able to push through. This was all well and good in the back of a car, but was a little more nerve wracking on the back of a motorbike or on foot. Crossing the road entailed a very deep breath and a small prayer. We were told the best way to cross was simply to do so confidently and at a steady pace and drivers would swerve around us. That appeared to be the right approach, as we're still here to tell the tale...

So what did we do in Saigon? Well, this portion of our trip was all about relaxing and unwinding after a crazy couple of years of work, study and other pressures (not necessarily all bad, but pressures nonetheless), so we decided to indulge. To eat. To sleep. To be pampered. To take tours. To shop.

Eat.

Let's start with the bit I'm sure everyone wants to know about first - food.

I think I consumed a phở a day (you know what they say....) while in Saigon. Our hotel offered a delicious array of local and western breakfast options. I wasn't interested in the latter, but gobbled up all the Vietnamese treats. I should add here that we did not try the street food except for one evening during which we participated in a street food tour (where the places had been carefully vetted for hygiene). Ordinarily, I'm not quite this careful, but as we had 2.5 weeks planned in Japan after Vietnam, I didn't want to take any chances.

Anyway, back to phở (because all roads lead to phở!): the stuff is so darn fortifying, not to mention delicious. I'd continue to happily eat it for breakfast regularly, even in Melbourne. The soup in Vietnam had a slightly different flavour to the broths I enjoy at Vietnamese eateries at home. It was a little more herby and healthy tasting - really nourishing.

Vietnamese drinks also proved to be fantastic - freshly cut coconuts spilling over with juice and my new favourite coffee, cà phê đá (pronounced "cafe da", as far as I could tell), were slurped up in generous quantities at breakfast time with my soup. Come to think of it, there was lots of slurping going on at breakfast!

We also enjoyed spring rolls, Vietnamese omelette, bánh mì (i.e. Vietnamese pork rolls) and rolled rice noodles among other things.

...not to mention canapés with a view thanks to our hotel's happy hour.

Thanks to Saigon's large Chinese population, there are some outstanding Chinese options also. An entire Peking duck prepared three ways at our table at a 5-star international hotel for less than $20? Yes please!

I mentioned that we participated in a food tour - this one specifically. During the tour we were able to sample some food that is a little less accessible to tourists. Bún bò Huế was a personal favourite of mine from the evening - a spicy beef noodle soup with a strong hit of lemongrass.

My beloved was even brave enough to try the balut (if you're squeamish, skip ahead now). Basically this is a cooked egg with a semi-developed foetus inside. Yeah, told you...kinda gross, right?! I pride myself on being adventurous with food and was intending to try this, but after peering inside and being confronted with the bluish-yellow mush, I just couldn't. The beloved claims it tasted of "chicken-y egg", which may solve the age old question of which came first...or perhaps not.

We also enjoyed barbequed okra and frog, as well as lots of seafood and were transported to each destination on the back of a motorbike with our guide, which was great fun.

Shop.

We didn't anticipate we'd buy too much in Vietnam (it's certainly no Hong Kong, Singapore or KL as far as shopping is concerned), but I had heard that tailoring was very cheap and of a reasonable standard. As such, we signed up for another tour (again with XO tours - they were really fantastic!) to take some of the hard work out of the day for us.

We were met at our hotel by our drivers and guide and were asked what we wanted to buy. I mentioned that I wanted some dresses made for work and we were off to their recommended store. I tried on a variety of samples (where it was loudly noted by the employees that "You have very big bottom, but white skin. So lovely." Umm, thanks. I think?!). I was happy with the outcome at $40 a garment! We were also taken to a real lacquerware factory after stating that we would like to look for some home wares (there's a lot of poor quality imitation lacquerware in Vietnam, so it was good to get a better understanding of what to look for). Later in the day we were taken to a local market (not the dreaded tourist trap of Ben Thanh), as well as a shoe manufacturer. The bargaining was all taken care of by our guides and we walked away with some really good buys and great memories.

Pamper.

When massages are only $20 for 90 minutes (at an upmarket place), it is imperative to enjoy more than one. Likewise, when manicures and pedicures complete with nail art come in at under $10, there's no excuse for shabby nails.

Tour.

One of the coolest things we did during our time in Vietnam was a Mekong Delta tour, complete with cooking class (because clearly I haven't spoken enough about food yet!). This tour was marketed as the "risk-takers" tour of the Mekong Delta region, as it involved travelling on a Vespa, which is quite easy for the unacquainted to tolerate around the city, but a little more challenging for hours and hours on end. I loved being in the open air and whizzing past my surrounds. In particular, I enjoyed being able to go off-road (i.e. on paths too narrow for cars or trucks to use).

The cooking course was a highlight of the day. Ingredients were used that I hadn't even thought would be incorporated in Vietnamese cooking - for example, black pepper. We learnt some tricks to making perfect rice paper rolls, enjoyed well-seasoned greens, an array of shellfish and some very tasty pineapple fried rice.

At the various other stops on the tour we soaked up the day-to-day lives of the locals at cafes and their places of work and worship.

Aside from formal tours, we of course did a tonne of self-directed exploration. We took ourselves to the War Remnants Museum (a very interesting and harrowing place to visit), the Reunification Palace (a completely retro blast from the past), Notre Dame Cathedral and simply wandered the streets stopping as we pleased.

I loved lots of things about my brief time in Vietnam, but most of all I loved the genuine warmth of the people we encountered, who were just so happy to engage with us and impart some of their culture. From the fruit sellers on the streets to cab drivers to hotel staff and tour guides, we were always greeted with big smiles, their very best English and a healthy dose of cheek.

Would I return to Saigon? I would certainly stopover in the city for a couple of nights, but I feel that I have explored it sufficiently (at least in the short term). However, now that I have both a literal and figurative taste of Vietnam I am totally excited about the prospect of returning in the near future to see more of the country. I hear Hanoi and the beaches of the east coast are particularly special and will make it a priority to get there in the next few years.