The Re-Ramble

Hoo-boy. This is a long one, so strap in for a blog post that’s longer than most final papers I produced in college. There’s a lot to cover.

Back in August, as I readied myself for departure, my family promised to come visit me during Maya’s winter break. For months, that seemed to be the case. We made plans to travel around Japan and even venture to Hong Kong, a first for me as well as Doug and Maya. As December inched closer, Airbnbs and flights were booked. But with just days to go, I received a series of concerning updates. First, Maya was violently ill with the flu and seemed to be on her deathbed. Second, while my parents were trying to care for her, the historic flooding up in Washington caused some damage to our rustic cabin in the southwest portion of the state. (Side note for my international readers: there is the state of Washington, located north of Oregon, and then there is the capital city and federal district of Washington, District of Columbia. I will almost never refer to the latter as “Washington,” as “D.C.” is the preferred nomenclature, unless I am discussing the federal government or the sports teams that call that place home. Thank you for your attention to this matter.) In the midst of trying to deal with these two issues, my parents realized that their passports were due to expire in less than a year. It is difficult to travel internationally when your passport is that close to expiration, as no doubt both airlines and immigration will take offense.

With less than a week to go, everything was up in the air because of this passport mishegas (there was also the issue of Doug bringing state-issued technology into a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China, but that was on the back burner). There was talk of the entire trip being scrapped and me coming home instead, or even of meeting halfway in Hawaii. The situation was hairy, and I was only hearing about it through sporadic texts, leaving my mind open to intense speculation. But after an emergency trip to Seattle to the special passport renewal center that apparently exists there, we were back on track. I had a low-key holiday season, as I missed Hanukkah and attended one Christmas party – I had to work all the way through my departure date of December 26th. But when that day came, I made my way to the Matsuyama airport and flew up to Tokyo.

Tokyo

Though my family’s presence was enough of a present for me, they also arrived bearing gifts.

They hooked it up with this sweet T-shirt bearing 100% factual, non-controversial statements – you can’t see the bottom of the shirt, but it references CONTELPRO, the FBI’s program of surveilling and disrupting left-wing political movements. I could wax rhapsodic about the sabotaging of these movements, and Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland (adapted into the Oscar-nominated One Battle After Another) – which I read earlier this year – satirizes this phenomenon. My family also brought me a well-worn copy of Serpico, upon which the movie of the same name is based. While the book is a little cheesy at times, I enjoy it because I get to picture Al Pacino sporting a sweet mustache and awesome 70s fits. And finally, my Sergio Tacchini velour tracksuit, which I purchased online during Black Friday. As much as I abhor consumerism, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to obtain a luxury Italian tracksuit, which I have desired ever since I became infatuated with The Sopranos some 5+ years before. While it was expensive, I paid for it with my fantasy football championship winnings. Thanks to Derrick Henry (whom I traded Rico Dowdle and Keenan Allen for after Week 6) and Drake Maye, I have a trophy I can wear.

I’ve been living on my own for five months at this point. Though I have a social life in Matsuyama, I’m very used to having my own space and a lot of time to myself. Climbing up the very steep stairs of that loft in Sumida City, I was awakened to this, as I would now be sleeping in close quarters with my family. If you’re not familiar with the travel style of my family, which I, to some degree, have inherited, let’s just say it really pushes the limit on what can be considered “vacation.” It involves a lot of walking and is not for the faint of heart. This would be challenged by Maya’s lingering illness and Jo developing more leg injuries than a Blazers center (Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Arvydas Sabonis, Greg Oden, etc). Tokyo is also a big city. You know that, but it’s hard to wrap your head around just how big Tokyo is.

The map on the left in particular is mind-blowing. While it might not be 100% accurate (nerds on Reddit are saying it’s a map of the Tokyo metropolitan area that is using only the strict city population of US cities and is thus an unfair comparison), it gives you an idea of how massive it is. The most populated metropolitan area in the world is not easy to tackle in four days. To compound things, the country basically shuts down for the week surrounding New Year’s. Most everyone is at home with their family, and most restaurants and businesses are closed, contrary to what it says on Google Maps. Nevertheless, we gave it our best go.

We wandered through the bookstore haven of Jimbocho, from tiny shops so densely packed that you don’t even have room to flip through the endless stack of Japanese movie posters (my search for the Japanese poster of Heat (1995) continues) to century-old grand emporiums with titles like “Ambiguous Very Sequences in Transeuraisan Languages and Beyond.” A trip to Meguro was dampened by our destination (some sort of craft museum) being shuttered.

These cool buildings come from the Shibuya neighborhoods of Daikanyamacho and Ebisunichi. Described online as “Brooklynlike,” it definitely was more Williamsburg than Bed-Stuy, as the shopping skewed towards the bourgeois side.

This place, the Shibuya City Botanical Garden, is the smallest indoor arboretum in Japan, and it features a cafe that serves dishes and drinks incorporating many of the plants they grow. If you think about it, it’s kind of like my “seafood restaurant in an aquarium” idea, except it doesn’t bum you out (that idea is confined to the dustbin of my Notes App on a proprietary list titled “Shark Tank”).

Another day, we traipsed through the historic neighborhood of Yanaka, one of the few parts of Tokyo that wasn’t destroyed during the Second World War.

Eating out proved to be a struggle with so many establishments being closed for New Year’s. After striking out yet again, we ended up in a long line outside a ramen shop. As the line inched along, I peeked inside and noticed that this ramen looked familiar. I could see mountains of bean sprouts, cabbage, and pork looming over the rims of bowls.

You can see the detailed instructions on how to line up and order properly

This is Jirolian ramen from Edomondo, and I had it in Matsuyama within a week or so of my arrival, without full knowledge of what I was eating. With the help of my friend Google (fuck Chat GPT and all AI LLMs – if you use them, you’re contributing to the rapid decline of humanism), I learned all about Jiro Ramen. The portions are massive, and after you order a size of bowl from the ticket vending machine, you can customize your toppings. I think the smallest size (which we all got) is 150 grams of noodles.

	Nashi (without)	Mashi (extra)	Mashi mashi (extra extra)
Ninniku (garlic)
Yasai (vegetables)
Abura (pork backfat)
Karame (concentrated soy sauce (shoyu) soup base)

Some people online complained that this place was rude, but it’s all about the quest for efficiency. I can see how it might be daunting, especially for someone who doesn’t speak Japanese. Think of it like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. You wait in line (everyone else in line is a young man dining solo, which tells you something about the culture surrounding this ramen), carefully staggered on the sidewalk so as not to disrupt the flow of traffic. When it’s your turn to order, you duck into the shop, feed cash into the ticket vending machine, and order. You reemerge with your ticket back in line, and when the guy comes around with his dry-erase clipboard (a piece of equipment to let you know that they are not fucking around), tell him your customizations. Jo declined the garlic, and the rest of us went with “zenbu mashi,” or everything extra. When it was our turn to sit, we sat at the tiny counter with maybe ten other people. Playing from a Bluetooth speaker was the kind of instrumental electronic music you would hear if you were on the boss fight level of a video game – I guess to motivate you to conquer the ramen.

I accidentally poured tea into my water cup, and feared a tirade of verbal abuse from the ramen fascists, but if they noticed, they refrained from commenting. And the ramen is excellent. It’s super rich and super fatty. You can see the garlic piled high, and you actually want it there to cut through the fattiness of the pork. The noodles are thick and chewy. It’s the type of meal where you could go to sleep afterwards. Instead, we accidentally find ourselves in the Shibuya Crossing, which, for me, is the sixth circle of hell. We’re looking for a good depachika at Maya’s request.

For dinner, we end up in Kanda because we want to cook our own okonomiyaki at the table. It was here that I experienced the most bizarre restaurant customer experience to date in Japan. It was Kafkaesque because, for the most part customer experience in Japan is excellent. For starters, when I asked for waters for the table (some restaurants will give you a glass of tap water when you sit down, sometimes there’s a jug and small cups – common at noodle joints – and sometimes you have to ask), our waitress directed us to order it through the iPad provided. The iPad only had bottled water, which they brought out, and when I asked for just tap water, they only brought us one glass (really strange). The second weird thing was that they turned the grill up wayyy too high. When they brought us our okonomiyaki ingredients, they told us to flip it after 15 minutes. But when I checked it at five minutes, it was burnt. Did they hate us because we were foreigners? Were they just having a bad night, or are they always like that? These were some of the questions we asked ourselves as we persevered and enjoyed our night. We also cooked our own takoyaki, overseen by Maya.

Matsuyama

The next morning, we embarked on our train journey to Matsuyama. In hindsight, flying would have been cheaper and faster. But nothing beats the comfort of train travel. Except when your Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets are unreserved, and you end up standing at 200 miles per hour. It takes us about three hours to get to Okayama, and then another three hours on the much slower JR train to Matsuyama. But the scenery is beautiful. My first time riding the Shinkansen, there was someone vomiting into a paper bag the whole way. The Jello-y sound effects and foul stench are still with me a decade later.

I made a reservation at my favorite izakaya, but I had to push it back because our arrival was later than I anticipated. We ended up not at that izakaya, but at their sister establishment, which was more of a fancy restaurant. But we had an amazing meal, better than any we had in Tokyo.

Here we have clams steamed in sake, potato salad (with the pornographic runny egg, just like at the other izakaya), and a dish of salmon and ikura. A glass of sake came in such a cool cup (kind of like a glass drinking horn, shaped like a rounded cone with a wooden stand) that Jo had me ask the staff where we could buy one.

The next day, New Year’s Eve, I took them to the tempura restaurant underneath Matsuyama City Station for lunch. We waited for probably 90 minutes, but their seasonal winter menu was delicious. Another win for Matsuyama, some people are saying it’s a better food city than Tokyo.

On our way up to Matsuyama Castle, we encounter an old man feeding the stray cats.

Of course, the castle closed early because of the holiday. I went over the summer at like 8 PM, but this time it was closed at 4 PM. A nice family gave us their chairlift tickets, so we didn’t have to walk back down.

We had more time to kill before dinner, so we hopped on the streetcar and headed over to Dogo Onsen. I still have yet to actually bathe at the famous spot that inspired the onsen in Spirited Away (2001), partially because there’s always a line. Nothing makes a public bathing experience less appealing than it being super crowded.

For dinner, my friend Bobo met us at a yakitori joint of her choosing.

We had a lot to eat, including agadashi mochi and crispy chicken skin in ponzu (a new favorite).

As we were walking home, I heard the deep metallic boom of the massive bronze bells that hang in Buddhist temples. At my insistence, we pointed our feet in that direction and found a small neighborhood temple tucked away on a random street sandwiched between two tall buildings. During the day, I would probably walk right by without noticing it. There was an old man there – not sure if he was a priest or just hanging out – who invited us to ring in the new year (literally). After a moment of quiet reflection with eyes closed, each of us in turn gave it a solid gong that reverberated throughout the night. While we were doing so, another family arrived, and we made small talk, with me speaking Japanese and an elderly woman employing a bit of English. Her younger male relative offered us all onsen towels from a large bag – super random, but sweet.

I was largely frustrated with my Japanese New Year’s experience. Earlier in the year, I had a fantasy that a kind Japanese person – a friend or a colleague – would invite my family to join their celebration, and I would spend the holiday immersed in tradition. Such an invitation never came (despite my hint-dropping), and instead, I felt shut out from Japanese society as everyone went home to their families and closed their shops and restaurants. It didn’t help that New Year’s coincided with my becoming less enamoured with life in Japan as the honeymoon phase wore off. But that small moment at the temple – it didn’t last more than ten minutes – made my evening.

The next day, I showed my family around Iyo. I showed them my apartment, and attempted to take them to three different restaurants, only to discover that, you guessed it, they were all closed. I sullenly ate my konbini lunch (still a novelty for my family, but a sad meal from my perspective, especially on a holiday). I showed them my school from the outside, and my view of the sea. Enjoy these photos taken with my digital camera by Maya.

That night we ended up at Sushiro, a popular chain that I occasionally frequent when I want sushi (people back home must think I’m eating sushi constantly just because that’s the most popular Japanese dish – I’ve had it maybe half a dozen times here).

I hadn’t been to this particular location, so I had never encountered the giant flatscreen TV from which you order. Instead of the sushi train that you’re used to, you order, and it whizzes to your table via the train. It’s more like sushi Uber than the communal train experience, and we bemoaned this as we ate. A casualty of Covid, we think. Previously, we had been to another kaitenzushi (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurant in Tokyo, where this had also been the case. It had been overpriced and underwhelming, and while Sushiro is not overpriced, the fast-food nature means that the sushi didn’t knock anyone’s socks off. Breaking your neck to scroll through the menu was a little dystopian.

The next morning, we hit the road again, or more accurately, the water. We hopped on the ferry to Hiroshima, just as I had on multiple occasions prior. It really is a beautiful and scenic way to travel. We had a few hours to kill in Hiroshima, as it was only an hour on the bullet train to Fukuoka. Doug and Maya had never been, so we walked around the Peace Memorial Park. As we wandered, it started to snow – much to my delight. Snow for me is a pure novelty, still. My last encounter with snow was when I returned to DC (on the eve of the Washington football franchise’s first playoff win in 20 years), and it was frozen on the sidewalk for a week, and it is not fun in the slightest when you almost bust your ass twice a day walking to and from class.

We ended up back at the train station after a few hours of walking, and I lunched upon a delicious and spicy bowl of Sichuan-y mazesoba.

It continued to snow as we embarked on the Shinkansen. It’s impossible not to romanticize the snow-dusted landscape as you whizz by.

Fukuoka

Longtime readers know that in the summer of 2019, I spent five weeks in Fukuoka as part of a language immersion program. I lived with a host family in the suburbs and attended a Japanese language school with other foreigners. Unfortunately, my younger self more or less neglected the blog during this time (if I recall, I was beginning to study for the SAT during this time – a bit of deja vu with me here now studying for the LSAT), but I had a great time nonetheless. I had more or less complete freedom, my parents’ debit card, and thanks to Japan’s mostly great infrastructure, I could explore to my heart’s content. I would ride my bike (graciously loaned to me by my host family) to our local train station, take the train into the city, and hang out. Being a fifteen-year-old, I spent a lot of time at the mall, not buying anything. I made friends with people from all over the world (Canada, Finland, Germany, etc), none of whom I remained in contact with. But it’s definitely a time I regard fondly. So when we pulled into Hakata Station, the memories started to trickle back.

Editor’s note: We arrived in Fukuoka at about six or seven in the evening, and wanted to find some dinner. Given that it was January 2nd, it was difficult to find anywhere that was open, and after much wandering, we ended up having a horrific dinner that was so atrocious we all immediately pledged to never speak of it again.

Our first stop was to check out this building, the ACROS Step Garden, which, as you can see, is almost entirely covered in greenery. It’s not only pretty, but it’s eco-friendly, as this shrubbery offsets the building’s carbon footprint (and then some, I’m sure). For lunch, we headed to 333 for their famous tomato ramen. Now, Fukuoka is famous for its Hakata ramen (we’ll get to the whole Hakata vs. Fukuoka thing later), but this is not it. Maya was very skeptical, as not only does she sometimes not enjoy tomato soup, but she was putting a lot of emphasis on “only wanting to eat Japanese food.” For some reason, she wasn’t interested in my attempts to broaden her horizons on what “Japanese food” can be – case in point, my attempt to steer the group to a Japanese-Italian fusion pizza joint on Day 1 or 2 in Tokyo went over like a turd in a punchbowl. Personally, I have been convinced of the magical umami properties that can be weaseled out of a tomato ever since my friend Alanna blew my mind with her caramelized tomato paste-based vegetarian matzah ball soup freshman year of college. The tomato ramen was flavorful, if light. It did not have Italian overtones, but I would not have objected to a grating of fresh Parmesan on top. I think I still prefer the variety of tomato soup with which one might pair a grilled cheese.

The more we wandered, the more memories came flooding back. As we proceeded down a familiar-looking shopping arcade, I came across my favorite ramen place from that summer many years ago.

They may have changed the facade (and from a look inside, the interior layout as well), but the ramen is still a mere 290 yen – $1.83 today, slightly more back in 2019.

In the afternoon, we wandered through some serene temples.

In the evening, we dined at an izakaya recommended to us by the manager of our Airbnb (where we slept in bunk beds, by the way).

We sampled some authentic Hakata dishes like this fermented miso tofu (imagine, if you will, miso fudge (not too far removed from halva)), spicy mentaiko (pollack roe). Our main dish was mizutaki, a traditional chicken hotpot. Fukuoka is famous for motsunabe, a chicken offal hotpot. Some members of our party balked at the idea of organs – offal is awful, they said (not me) – and mizutaki (lit., “boil in water”) was a reasonable compromise. While very mild in flavor, it was enhanced by yuzu kosho, a Kyushu condiment made from green chili peppers and yuzu. It’s very difficult to find any sort of chili pepper here (just yesterday I was unable to locate any sort of fresh chili at my local grocery store), so to have this was a real treat. It reminded me of zhug, a serrano and cilantro-based sauce of Yemeni (Jewish) origin. One time, I made zhug: one of my favorite things to do is make an excessive quantity of a niche condiment or topping, use it once, and leave it in the fridge for months (I also did this with pickled persimmons). Anyway, I washed it down with sake that I requested in a traditional wooden box called a masu. The point of the box is to catch the deliberate overflow, so you can have more of a hangover in the morning. I don’t really drink sake on my own, so it was nice to have my parents around to expose me to sake.

On our way home, we walked past a gorgeous temple, full of people getting their New Year’s spirituality in.

The next day, it was time to get some real Hakata ramen. We arrived at this spot about 30 minutes before they opened, and there was no line. So we decided to kill some time in a grocery store. When we returned ten minutes later, a line of at least a dozen people had formed.

While we wait, we might as well address the Hakata vs. Fukuoka thing. So, the city is called Fukuoka. But many things in and from the city are called Hakata. The ramen, the train station, and many more places and things are called Hakata. So what’s up with that? Basically, back in the day, Hakata and Fukuoka were two different cities.

Hakata is one of the oldest cities in Japan, and has served a crucial role in times of peace as well as war for its proximity to Korea and China (you can take the ferry between Fukuoka and Busan, South Korea). As you can see on the map, Fukuoka was a separate city that sprang up on the opposite side of the Naka River when Hakata was already centuries old. Fukuoka was originally called Fukusaki, but was renamed by the local daimyo (feudal lord) after his hometown in Okayama Prefecture. During the Meiji Restoration, the settlements were merged and subsequently renamed Fukuoka despite Hakata being more populous. It reminds me of Budapest, two separate cities that were merged, and a new name was derived from a portmanteau of their names. Anyway, back to the ramen.

This ramen had chashu, wontons, and a raw egg yolk. When you walk around Fukuoka, you will constantly get whiffs of something funky – you’re smelling the ramen broth. Have you ever heard the expression “put your foot in it” to describe delicious cooking? Well, Hakata ramen broth actually smells like feet. The soup base is tonkotsu, or pork bone (arguably the most common base for ramen), and you can choose how firm you want your noodles (we like them al dente around here). Don’t be put off by the smell, because the flavor is full-bodied, and I might argue that it’s the best style of ramen.

After eating, we headed out to Daifuzu Tenmangu, a massive shrine on the outskirts of town dedicated to the deity of learning. As such, it’s a popular destination for students praying for academic success and favorable exam results.

It’s large and absolutely crowded. I manage to squeeze in and pray for a good score on the LSAT. Thankfully, now that I’ve prayed, I don’t have to study anymore, so I can tell Kaplan to stick their Parallel Flaw Questions where the sun don’t shine (jokes).

You can’t come to Daifuzu Tenmangu without trying the umegae mochi, baked and filled with sweet red bean paste. The story goes that Michizane, the guy who became a deity to whom this place is dedicated, was a big fan of plum trees. He would eat these mochi, and when he died, his caretaker left one on his grave. Nowadays, they are stamped with the insignia of a plum tree. They’re pretty good, crispy on the outside.

In the evening, we end up hanging out near the canal. We’re supposed to eat at the yatai, little food stalls not unlike Portland’s food trucks, except you sit on a stool at the counter of these little wooden shacks. Except it’s freezing cold, and the yatai are either packed and therefore have nowhere for you to sit, or some are completely empty, which raises alarm bells for any experienced traveler. We wonder to what degree yatais are for locals versus tourists, especially in the winter.

Check out my new hat, inspired by Fargo (1996)

We strike out with the yatais and are spooked by our Kafkaesque dinner from two nights ago. So we end up at Torikizoku, an old favorite chain izakaya that we also patronized back in Tokyo. The big draw for us is that every dish at Torikizoku is the same price: 390 yen. Plus, they offer cabbage with sesame oil with unlimited refills.

I keep using “the next day” as a transition, which is lazy writing. But I’m not sure how else to introduce the following day of events. Anyway, I lead the group (remember, I’m the one with cellular data, so call me Magellan) to a lunch place, but when I peek in the place next door, it’s full of people, so we opt for that instead. It’s exactly the type of unexpected place where you have the best meals: a grimy, counter joint full of office workers on their lunch break and staffed by a gruff mom-and-pop duo.

A customer encourages us to order the special, which is a bowl of udon with braised beef and burdock tempura. It’s hot, delicious, and hearty. One of the best things we’ve eaten so far on this trip. I don’t even mind too much that I accidentally dunked my t-shirt in the traditional squat toilet while shedding one of my many layers in the bathroom.

Afterwards, we walk around some more and end up at a temple in a park on a hill overlooking the harbor.

Some selfies at the park. I’m not taking this hat off until the cherry blossoms bloom.

For dinner, I reunited with my friend Jay, a Fukuoka native whom I had met through my host family back in 2019. Having lived in Australia for several years, his English is fluent with a faint Aussie accent that comes out when he says the word “no,” which sounds more like “naur.” We met him at a Chinese-y gyoza-focused izakaya. It was slightly strange, as I hadn’t seen him in such a long time that I didn’t remember him at all.

The food was good, a more interesting spin on Japanized Chinese fare than I have previously encountered. Besides gyoza, there was some cold chicken in chili sauce, shrimp in a thick sweet sauce that was very reminiscent of Cantonese-American cuisine, and this green salad with chicken that, with plenty of raw onion and lime, had a Thai twinge. My family peppered him with questions about himself and about Fukuoka. Jay is of Korean ancestry (relatively common in Fukuoka, given its geographical location and history), and we inquired about his experience, which ended up being mostly a story about filling out paperwork rather than anything terribly introspective about identity. I think being American makes us take birthright citizenship for granted (although it is under attack from right-wing bigots), as it is far from the norm outside of the Western hemisphere (the reasons for which are tied up in the legacy of settler colonialism). In Japan, children of immigrants do not automatically become Japanese citizens, and given the history of xenophobia and homogeneity in Japan, one can infer that the process of becoming a citizen is cumbersome by design. Our family friend Hemi’s family has resided in Fukuoka for generations, yet they were not considered Japanese by the government.

Jay also taught us that there are five different dialects within Fukuoka – what?! My Japanese is not discerning enough to distinguish any sort of regional dialect from hyojingo, the standard Japanese taught in schools.

And with that, our time in mainland Japan came to an end (“mainland Japan” is a gargantuan misnomer, as Japan is an archipelago, but is shorthand for the four main islands). I was more than ready to fly to Okinawa, a brand new place for me where warmer weather beckoned.

Naha

The first thing that struck me about Okinawa was the magnificent shade of teal the ocean is. The second thing that struck me was that the domestic arrivals wing of the airport was dingy and smelled like stale cigarettes. But we scooped up our bags and headed outside, where the monorail and a lovely 60-degree day awaited us. As we trundled above Naha, I saw palm trees, canals, and what looked like military bases. Our accommodation was essentially an entire house on a calm side street adjacent to the main drag of shops and restaurants, largely aimed at tourists. The first stop was the local market, where the ground floor hawked seafood and other ingredients, and the upper floor had small restaurants (reminding me very strongly of my trip to the fish market in Seoul).

After taking a brief gander at some of the exotic fish that you don’t see in regular Japan (although some of it is surely imported from Hokkaido, as the waters around Okinawa are too warm for most of your standard sushi fare), we kept it pushing. Instead, we headed for Okinawan soba, in which we can observe some of the differences between Okinawan and mainstream Japanese cuisine. I neglected to take a better picture of the bowl, instead deciding to showcase how the silverware is stored in a drawer right where you sit. The vibes of the restaurant were very minimalist, very 2010s Brooklyn hipster sort of situation. The guy serving my soba looked like The Alchemist.

When you think of soba, you probably think of the brown-gray noodles made from buckwheat, most commonly served cold with a sauce to dip. But then you remember that the noodles in yakisoba are made with regular wheat. Those Chinese-style noodles more closely resemble the Okinawan variety. As for the accoutrements, much like Hawaiian cuisine, the pig is imperative. I dig swine, so I was psyched to have stewed pork belly and spare ribs on top. To spice things up, you can hit your soup with koregusu, a condiment consisting of chili peppers soaking in awamori, the local rice liquor (more on that later). The koregusu reminded me of the pickled chili peppers I saw everywhere in Rio de Janeiro. The fact that I didn’t blog my week in Rio circa January 2023 is a crying shame. One thing I would recommend you do is chop up some serranos, throw them in a jar with vinegar, and stick it in the back of your fridge. Pickled chilis are good on everything from eggs to fried rice.

We commenced wandering, scoping a pottery street and the surrounding neighborhoods. I was amazed by how lush and green Okinawa is. One of the many traits that distinguishes it from the rest of Japan (which can be lush but with different flora).

At this random antique shop, I picked up some glass balls that fishermen used to use to float their nets. While these are most likely replicas, they’re still really cool, and I learned about them from the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel, as many of them wash up on the coast of Alaska. I mostly bought them so I could make jokes about “my balls.”

More wandering led us to the Sogenji Ruins, a park that once contained a 15th-century temple that burned down in 1945, and now just contains stone walls on the perimeter. There was a wild-eyed, homeless-looking gaijin in the park who ignored us – I wondered if he was ex-military. We also poked our heads in this basketball shop, where there was a photo of the owner with John Wall.

We made it to the beach, and I was very upset to find that a highway overpass ran between the beach and the open ocean. This struck me as very American – more on that later. To soothe me, I had this beverage: Orion natura. Orion is the brewery around here, set up during the American occupation. They have a line of chuhai (short for shochu highball, shochu being liquor made from any starch) featuring Okinawan tropical flavors called Watta, natura is the more natural variety made with just fruit juice.

We saw this shrine tucked into the cliff on the beach. Also, a single basketball hoop on a dirt court, apparently gifted by France during the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, which was hosted in Okinawa, as well as Jakarta and Manila. When I was in Jakarta, I played on a court built by FIBA and featuring their branding, but it was actually a real court. This one struck me as slightly sad: what an awesome location for a basketball court, but where’s the rest of it? Elsewhere in Naha, I saw way more basketball courts than I ever have on the mainland – I wonder if that’s a legacy of the American occupation. But this is kind of indicative of how Okinawa feels a little rustic and broken down compared to the rest of Japan, even compared to where I live, which feels 40-50 years behind a big city like Tokyo.

Our restaurant for the evening was recommended by the Soba Alchemist, and it is kendo-themed (a Japanese sport/martial art involving fighting with bamboo swords that I briefly tried in first grade, only to give it up because the breath of my instructors was so offensive that I nicknamed them “Tuna” and “Pickles,” respectively). While it’s not exactly lively, the food is good and traditionally Okinawan. We start things off with a frosty mug of Orion (when I leave Japan, I’ll do a blog that’s just pictures of cold ones; they really respect the value of an ice-cold brewski here) and a glass of awamori. You might be tempted to label awamori as Japanese sake, but you would be wrong to do so. For one thing, sake is made from Japanese short-grain rice, but awamori is made with long-grain rice more commonly found in Southeast Asia, reflecting Okinawa’s historical relationship with those lands. Furthermore, unlike sake, awamori is distilled, not brewed. What’s the difference, you ask? Even after reading up on it, I’m unclear, but as far as I can tell, brewing is the process of encouraging the fermentation of grain, fruit, or other ingredients into an alcoholic drink by using yeast to convert sugar into alcohol. Distilling is brewing, plus heating your end result to the point where the alcohol evaporates, and capturing that alcohol while discarding the rest. So while beer, wine, and sake are brewed, awamori, like liquor, is distilled. While sake tends to be 18-20% ABV (stronger than beer or wine), awamori is around 30-43%, much stronger. I was not a fan, personally.

To eat, we had a variety of local specialities. That weird green thing is umibudou (lit., “sea grape”), a type of seaweed native to this part of the world. It’s also called sea caviar in English, which is a good description since the texture is reminiscent of a small fish roe like masago. It’s crunchy, bursts in your mouth, and has very little flavor. Definitely a novelty to eat a vegetable with that texture – I was not offended. We also had goya champuru, a bitter melon stir-fry with egg, tofu, and pork. Bitter melon also grows in Ehime, since I’m in the southern part of Japan, and I was gifted some straight out of a garden in my first few weeks here. I made champuru, and it was pretty good. Prior to this, I had encountered it in other cuisines and did not enjoy it in the slightest. Heavily salting the bitter melon and letting it sit before rinsing helps to neutralize some of the bitterness. Still not the biggest fan. Another dish was mushroom tempura (oyster mushrooms, perhaps?) that was tasty.

Our neighbors at the table next to us looked to be a dad with his two young boys. It appeared that he was encouraging one of them, who I would estimate to be maybe fourteen (although he could have been older, as Japanese people often have a baby face), to drink awamori, of which he had a bottle on the table. Jo also claims that when he unzipped his bag, it was full of stacks of cash, mobster style. Maybe he was yakuza? But I was unable to verify the claim about the backpack full of money.

The next morning, I bought a bunch of bananas from a local vendor on the way back from the 7-Eleven coffee run. They were labeled as apple bananas, which I enjoyed voraciously during my time in Southeast Asia. They tend to be sweeter than their Western hemisphere counterpart, the Cavendish banana. I’m not being facetious when I say that the history of banana cultivation in Latin America is a story of colonialism, brutal right-wing dictatorships, anti-union death squads, and more heinous things (where do you think the term “banana republic” comes from?). But the end result (besides the exploitation of two continents) is that there is only one type of banana in the Western hemisphere. Bananas are monocultures in the Western hemisphere, making them incredibly vulnerable to disease and extinction. So if you’re reading this, you have probably never had any banana besides the Cavendish. You can get apple bananas in Thailand, battered and deep-fried – yum. Unfortunately, these were not ripe enough and sucked all the moisture out of my mouth.

It’s time for a Rambler signature: a really long walk instead of taking public transportation. We take detours to get off an unpleasant main road, get lost, and end up in residential dead ends. We stumble across a local grocery shop (literally named “Family Store” where there’s a line of locals to buy the ready-made food that they’re dishing out. While the fried chicken and bentos look delicious, we opt for something more portable: an Okinawan onigiri, with Spam and an omelet. Say what you will about Spam, but people who live in (former and current) American colonies in the Pacific can’t get enough of the stuff.

We’re walking to Shuri Castle, the former seat of power for the Ryukyu Kingdom. The Ryukyuan Kingdom was formed in 1429 when the island was unified into a single entity. Prior to unification, the Ryukyuans had established trade and diplomatic relations with a variety of other kingdoms, including Ayutthaya in Thailand, Joseon in Korea, and most importantly, Ming in China. Before and after unification, Okinawa was a tributary of China, sending them tribute in exchange for political legitimacy and trade assistance. Using ships provided by China, the Ryukyuans traded both Japanese and Okinawan goods with kingdoms as far away as Malacca and Sumatra. This relationship with China heavily influenced Okinawa, as one can see demonstrated in everything from architecture to cuisine.

It’s a real schlep to get up to the castle. Climbing these stairs, however, provides us with a beautiful view.

Like a lot of historical places here, the castle was almost completely destroyed in 1945. They’ve built a replica within the original stone walls, although the replica was destroyed in a fire in 2019. It’s slightly strange to visit an ancient castle and see them actively building it, but hey.

The blend of Japanese and Chinese culture also reminds one strongly of Taiwan.

Here’s a Lawson and 7-Eleven in an earthy shade of brown instead of their traditional colors. I can only assume it has something to do with the castle.

Enjoy more digicam pictures from Naha.

For lunch, we opt for taco rice, a Japanese-American-Mexican dish born of the occupation. From there, we visit the Okinawa Museum, which is split into both a history/culture wing and an art wing. I learn a lot from the history wing, particularly about the American occupation. While I knew that America had occupied the island, I figured that was more of a military base thing. But no, the United States literally ruled the island from the end of the war until 1972. While there was a native Ryukyuan government, the Americans could supersede any decision they made. Okinawans drove on the right side of the road and used the US dollar as currency. The entire time I was in Okinawa, I wondered how people felt about Japan. Okinawa was an independent entity – albeit politically subservient to China – until the late 1800s, when it was colonized by Japan. Did the people consider themselves to be Japanese or Okinawan? Where did the word “Okinawa” even come from, and did they prefer the term “Ryukyu”?

It turns out that Okinawa is actually the indigenous term, and the first evidence of its use goes back more than a thousand years. Apparently, the word “Ryukyu” comes from the name “Liuqiu,” which referred to Taiwan and was erroneously applied to Okinawa. Ryukyu was never used by Okinawanas. So during the American occupation, the government was known as the “United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands.” In keeping with the history of the term Ryukyu, it was further associated with the American government, which issued Ryukyuan stamps and passports with the hopes of fostering a Ryukyuan nation. Not so, especially because of how Americans treated Okinawa. So even though Japan colonized Okinawa, support for Okinawan/Ryukyuan independence polls very low. I guess ill will towards the Japanese government evaporated and remanifested as (deserved) anti-American hostility.

Our dinner is split between a strange restaurant that, while highly recommended online, is mostly empty except for other tourists. The sushi isn’t bad, despite the fact that most of it is probably shipped from mainland Japan. Mind if we have a loud discussion about Israel in your restaurant?

Some of us are still a little bit hungry afterwards, so we pull up a stool in a pissy alley for some snacks, including tsukune, one of my favorites, a chicken meatball that you dip in an egg yolk. While some of us think that we’re being slightly mistreated because we’re tourists (why did they bring us bottled beer instead of draft?), I still enquire about their spicy miso that is served alongside another dish – is it an Okinawan speciality, or merely one of the house? It’s the latter.

In the morning, we get up and go to the airport. We have a nightmareish experience where our rinky-dink, Mickey Mouse airline only allows 7kg of carry-on luggage, total (that’s about 14 pounds, no one’s carry-ons weigh that little). When we’re forced to pay for our suitcases, doubling the cost of this flight, all of our credit cards are declined by the airline despite the fact that we’ve been using them all trip. Doug and I have to literally sprint through the airport to a convenience store to withdraw money to pay for our bags before the check-in desk closes. If you work for HK Express and you’re reading this, go fuck yourself. We have to book it through security and customs, impeded by the fact that my Japanese visa means I have to fill out a special form to leave the country. Somehow, we made it on the flight in time. Good grief.

Hong Kong

To be honest, guys, I couldn’t have been more excited to leave Japan. At my orientation back in August, we were all warned that after the honeymoon period wore off, we would enter another phase, the name of which escapes me. But now that the novelty of living here has fully worn off, a new attitude has taken hold of me. Isolation isn’t the right word, as I have a good group of friends here. But it is an acute sensation of not fitting in. Japan is a society bound by a strict social contract. This can manifest in little ways, like the fact that you will rarely see jaywalking. I initially resisted my family’s calls to jaywalk, but eventually gave in. But when you live and work here, as I do, you begin to see it in deeper, more foundational ways. There’s a phrase here – 空気を読む – which translates literally to “read the air.” People here communicate indirectly and subtly. For instance, if you ask someone for something – let’s say you’re trying to make a restaurant reservation – instead of simply saying “no,” they will say something like “oh, it’s difficult to…” This runs very contrary to my personal philosophy, which is to communicate as directly and honestly as possible. For better or for worse, I wear my heart on my sleeve. Plus, I’m also just not good at reading people, and can sometimes be oblivious to how others are feeling.

So even though Japan is a collectivist nation in this sense – that one puts the group above the individual – there are other norms that seem to contradict this. People in Japan are polite, but I wouldn’t say they’re friendly. Small talk is not a thing here, and while asking the cashier at CVS how their day is going is more of a formality rather than a genuine question, I deeply miss those kinds of spontaneous interactions. Last year, when I was living in DC for my senior year of college, I would have random small talk with all sorts of people, all the time. There was an older guy who would hang out at my bus stop on the corner of Idaho and Massachusetts, playing music out of a large Bluetooth speaker and smoking cigars, and we would infrequently chat about DC sports teams, but usually we would just exchange a nod or a smile (one time I caught him breaking his neck to check out a girl’s butt). One time, on the bus on the way to the bar, I had a full conversation with a mostly-crazy, probably-homeless woman about how Wonder Bread successfully lobbied the FDA to loosen the definition of “bread” so their product could be considered as such. Here, people are silent on public transportation – in fact, it’s rude to talk loudly or on the phone. I’ll exchange an occasional hello or smile with a passerby, but more often than not, they will avoid eye contact altogether. I had thought that I would have made scores of Japanese friends at this point, but the truth is I don’t have a single one (though I’ve met some cool people).

I get stared at, too. Foreigners are much more common in Japan today than a decade ago – tourists and residents alike – but in my neck of the woods, we’re still somewhat of a novelty. Sometimes I stare back, at which point they usually break eye contact. You could be sitting on a crowded train, and many people will rather stand than sit next to you. Or you might sit down, and your neighbor will immediately get up and move to another seat, or even prefer to stand. People, for the most part, want to fit in, not stand out. Even when people are dressed more flamboyantly, it’s usually in accordance with a certain trend, fashion, or subculture. I relish wearing bright colors, the sole person wearing a bright red fleece when everyone else is cloaked in darker tones of black, blue, or gray. They’re gonna stare anyway.

So when we stepped out of the train station in Kowloon, Hong Kong, looking like the bewildered tourists that we were, and someone immediately came over to ask us if we needed directions, it put a massive smile on my face. The streets were loud and chaotic, packed with people. Cigarettes were being smoked on every corner. When we arrived at our Airbnb, a small apartment in a tenement building that reeked of cigarettes, the security guard gave us precise instructions on which apartment was ours, and the lady in the elevator even pointed at it. And technically, we weren’t even supposed to be there – our host instructed us to say that we were friends of his if anyone questioned us.

Our first stop was for some Michelin Guide wonton noodle soup.

I had about a million restaurants saved in my Google Maps, so our strategy for eating as many different things as possible was to eat smaller meals more often.

So with that in mind, this little bowl of simple soup was perfect.

With that, we commenced wandering. A dizzying mix of English and Cantonese, neon signs, food on every corner, stank sewer, and fragrant roasted meats wafting, and everywhere this bamboo scaffolding, which, while janky and homemade-looking, is actually both sturdy and lightweight.

Jo was magnetically pulled into this emporium of fine scents, featuring sandalwood, agar wood, incense, and the like. This lady even chopped it into small, burnable pieces for us.

Some of the 7-Eleven fare

While we were looking forward to the Temple Street night market, located just a few blocks from our apartment, we were sorely disappointed. While the orange and purple lanterns were photogenic, the fare was unappealing and inauthentic – I didn’t come all the way to Hong Kong to have Turkish coffee!

So instead, we bailed and wandered around till we found something that appealed to us.

This streetside seafood joint was packed with locals, and although we were touted, which we usually despise, I didn’t really mind. While the big-ticket crustaceans and shellfish were a little rich for our blood, we did enjoy some salt and pepper squid, stir-fried pea shoots with garlic, and this dish of eggplant with roasted garlic on a bed of glass noodles.

I know I just engaged in some serious Japan-bashing, but make no mistake: Japan is the best country in the world for toilets.

For dinner part deux, we moseyed on over to a roasted meat joint that had caught my eye earlier.

One of my favorite things to eat in Singapore was this kind of roasted meat, usually char siu (barbecue pork with that sweet, sticky sauce) or roast duck. I can’t ever recall seeing a goose, but that’s the main draw around here. It’s rich, fatty, and has a hint of orange peel. As I was eating it, I exclaimed that it was the best thing I had eaten all year. I found myself saying that practically every day of our time in Hong Kong.

For breakfast the next morning, we found ourselves at the Australian Dairy Company, a famous cha chaan teng (tea restaurant) around the corner from our apartment. These greasy spoon-like establishments serve Hong Kong-style Western food (also known as “soy sauce Western”). While they’re known for their scrambled eggs, we stick to French toast, an egg pudding, and to drink, yuenyueng, a blend of coffee and milk tea. The French toast is dense, while the pudding is reminiscent of a soft-boiled egg, sans yolk. While the food is good, we can’t fathom why this place sometimes has an hours-long queue.

We hop on the excellent subway and take a ride under Victoria Harbour (that’s how they spell it here) to Central, where much of the legendary opulence of Hong Kong is. We wander around, gawking at the skyscrapers mixed in with old temples, graffiti, and cobblestone roads.

We aimed to end up at Maxim’s, a dim sum institution with a view of the harbor. The Lonely Planet says that most people don’t have time for dim sum during the week, and the expansive dining room is maybe half-full. Ambiance-wise, it feels like dim sum restaurants at home – same gilded-tacky decor, white tablecloths, and circumnavigating carts. Except I unknowingly picked the worst seat in the house. While it’s right next to the entrance/exit to the kitchen, and we have a great view of the carts exiting, laden with fresh food, they all immediately turn away from us on their route. And when they do finally approach us, they’re out of anything we want.

After sitting for maybe thirty minutes and only having one dish – some spareribs – we decide to bail. By now, a massive crowd has formed. Oh well. We instead end up somewhere more our speed, a small joint with maybe ten tables. No carts, but the food comes out hot – and it’s everything I dreamed of. We have soup dumplings, har gow, some other dumplings, and this radish stir-fried with XO sauce, a lovely umami-bomb concoction of dried seafood, ham, and chilis.

Properly satiated, we do some more wandering. The city is so vibrant. People are everywhere. Often the sidewalk is super slanted – San Francisco-style – and sometimes it’s literally stairs.

On a street with antique stands – where I get some Mao merch – this old guy’s junk shop, which has probably been there for decades, is squeezed in next to a craft beer shop. That’s the kind of dichotomy that’s at play here. You can get ox tongue or tripe pizza.

We hop on the tram, known as the “ding ding” for its distinctive bell. It’s old and wooden, and runs along the length of Hong Kong Island. It’s a double-decker – just like the buses here – and is a great way to get a view of the hustle and bustle of Central, as this area is known.

We take the ferry back to our side of the water, and score some sourdough egg tarts that earned today’s “this is the best thing I’ve eaten all year” award.

Now what in God’s name are they serving at the Italian-Indian-Mexican-Middle Eastern restaurant? Sometimes fusion goes too far.

For dinner, we’re meeting up with some of our old friends from the Panama days. Nathan and Lisa are American expats whom we got plugged in with because Nathan’s uncle worked at Meals on Wheels with Jo. Super random, but they’ve taught English all over the world, including Panama and Oman, and they’ve been in Hong Kong for the past two and a half years. They take us to a fancy place for expensive cocktails and a gorgeous view of the sunset.

We pepper them with questions – as we are wont to do – about their life in Hong Kong. It seems like a pretty awesome place to live. Granted, we’re visiting during one of the rare times that it’s not super hot and humid, but still. It’s a massive, international city – is there anything you can’t get here, I ask? Decent Mexican food – it’s always Mexican food. Something we take for granted at home: up and down the American West Coast are shitty little armpit towns where you can nonetheless get a fantastic birria (hello Salem, Oregon, and Longview, Washington). But once you leave it, all of a sudden it’s scarce. Another thing we want to know: when you sit down at a restaurant, and they bring you cups of hot water/tea, are they meant for sterilizing your silverware or for consumption? It’s the latter, though many locals use them for the former. After our fancy cocktails are gone, we get on the bus and hurtle uptown, far past our neighborhood, for dinner.

We’ve made the treck for dai pai dong. These open-air, streetside eateries are similar to ones you might find all over Southeast Asia, dishing out delicious local food for budget-conscious diners sitting on plastic stools. But dai pai dongs are a dying breed. The government has been gradually cracking down on them since the late 1950s, citing hygiene and traffic concerns. Licenses are no longer issued, and can only be transferred to one’s spouse – you can’t even pass them down to your children. While there were no doubt hundreds, maybe even more than a thousand dai pai dongs at their peak, just 17 remain as of July 2024. Much like Singapore did with its hawker stalls, Hong Kong is pushing for these small restaurants to relocate to indoor cooked food centres. We poked our heads into a few of these centers, and they didn’t have any of the charm of eating on a bustling street.

It’s not merely the aesthetic that marks dai pai dong as special. One trait of Cantonese cooking is wok hei – literally, the “breath of the wok,” a charred, smoky flavor that only comes from stir-frying over an open flame. Nerds say that wok hei is a combination of caramelization, the Maillard reaction, and the partial combustion of the cooking oil itself that occurs when you’re cooking at such extreme temperatures (in the neighborhood of 400 Fahrenheit). When you’re cooking outside, you can achieve this by cooking with kerosene. Not so easy to replicate this magic indoors. If you want to try at home, my GOAT J. Kenji Lopez-Alt recommends modifying your gas stove if you’re up for that, as you want a single, concentrated source of heat rather than a dispersed, small ring of flames that is typical of a gas range.

This is Mr. Lam, the chef/owner, who blew my mind. Not only are him and one other chef responsible for cooking up for the entire restaurant – the seating area for which seems to span an entire city block – but he’s such a rock star that he still has time to take picture after picture with adoring fans. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone do anything as well as Mr. Lam can cook, and I watched Shaedon Sharpe baptize Justin Champagnie at the rim live from Capitol One Arena in DC. Because the flame is so hot, each dish takes maybe 60-90 seconds to cook. It’s not unreasonable to project that he literally cooks thousands of dishes per night. Despite the insane heat, Mr. Lam only uses a small rag to handle the wok. Everyone gathers around to watch him cook in awe, as flames lick the walls of his outdoor stove. As we struggle to pick our jaws up off the floor, we get to talking with an American couple who look like if Jeff and Wanda from Curb Your Enthusiasm were a couple. They’re in the same situation I was in a few years ago, where they’re supposed to leave for Vietnam tomorrow, but their visas haven’t been approved yet (when I say my initial visa, which I applied for in time, was rejected because I forgot to include my middle name, Jeff incredulously exclaims, “me too!”)

Finally, it’s our turn to sit, and we order up a storm. Beef and potatoes. Razor clams in black bean sauce. Prawns typhoon shelter style (a variety of crustacean cooking we saw everywhere, featuring gargantuan amounts of fried garlic and chili, and apparently a product of a community of boat-dwelling peoples here). Three different kinds of greens. And a fried rice. What a sensational meal. If you’re in Hong Kong, you absolutely must go to Oi Man Sang. Who knows how much longer it will be around?

We walk over to a night market in the hopes of scoring a bootleg Yang Hansen jersey. A quick note on him: he’s only 20, and so raw, but we’ve been jerking him between the big boy squad and the G-League Rip City Remix. I don’t know if this is good for his development. He’s only averaging 8 minutes per game, and it usually comes in garbage time (although we’ve been in a lot of close games, so there really hasn’t been that much garbage time). He’s kicking ass in the G, averaging 17/9/3 with about 2 stocks per game in 30 minutes per game on 51/31/73 shooting splits. In the G, we run our offense through him, using him like Jokic, an offensive hub around whom players cut to the basket to receive perfect passes. He’s dominant in the paint and doesn’t have any qualms about letting it fly from three. But in the NBA, he’s split minutes with Duop Reath, who is one of my favorite super-niche players and one of the feel-good stories in the league (as documented by teammate Matisse Thybulle), but also is three years removed from being a 26-year-old undrafted rookie – it feels like we should prioritize Yang getting minutes over him. Yang is not ready to take over Robert William III’s minutes yet (who is a per-36 demon), but could we get maybe 10 minutes a game of Yang with the ball in his hands as the decision maker with Avdija on the bench? Anyways, back to Hong Kong.

Shoutout to Zach LaVine and Jordan Poole. Two of the basketball players of all time.

Do you think we have Nixon on tape talking to Halderman about this Thai chicken rice? Anyway, dessert is some sort of mango pudding with a top layer of sliced mango, a middle layer of ice cream/sorbet, and a bottom layer of creamy custard. Great evening of eats.

The next morning, at Lisa’s recommendation, we visit a different cha chaan teng to try these peanut-y beef satay noodles. For some reason, the noodles of choice are instant, but the beef is delicious. We also got kaya toast, which brings me back to Singapore.

More wandering. We walked to a really random part of town to see a temple, which was so choked with incense smoke that none of us could bear to be in there longer than a minute or so. From there, we got a different ferry to the island.

For lunch, we pulled up to a hole-in-the-wall with a line. Exactly what we’re always looking for.

This ended up being arguably the best meal of the trip. We kept ordering more dumplings because they were so good. While the dan dan noodles were a little soupy (like the Japanese tantanmen), the wonton chili ones were fragrantly floral with the aroma of mala, and left your lips and tongue tingling. A sip of fresh soy milk helps to extinguish the heat.

I was looking for a New York-style slice of pizza, but I’ll settle for this square focaccia-y slice from a place where you pay based on the weight of your pizza. I’ve seen way more basketball courts here than in Japan, tucked in between skyscrapers and populated by old and young, Chinese and Westerners alike.

For dinner, we head back to our neighborhood for some local dim sum. We finally find shrimp noodle, aka cheung fun, a family favorite since Maya and I were sitting in our high chairs clipped to the table. This one contains fried shrimp on the inside.

The next day is Sunday. Sundays in Hong Kong are marked by what’s known as “Little Manila(s).” Like Singapore, Hong Kong’s wealthy are served by an underclass of imported domestic labor, most of whom are from poorer Asian nations such as the Philippines. Sundays are the one day a week that these workers have off. With no third spaces to gather in, these workers pitch tents and recline on cardboard anywhere they can find: sidewalks, stairs, plazas – literally anywhere. Depending on your perspective, “their occupation of public space” can be regarded as “an inversion of the socio-spatial conditions they experience in their labour” (Kwok 2019) or makes “visible the dramatic social and spatial impacts of the economic restructurings of both the global market and labor forces” (Zigmund 2020). Is it empowering, or indicative of their exploitation? Maybe both. The gathering of these women in the same space as one of the world’s global financial centers and amidst designer fashion stores is a striking contrast. One thing that is for sure is that these gatherings are full of joy. They chat, laugh, sing karaoke, and even give pedicures and hairdos. We walk by a birthday party (as clearly indicated by the big “Happy Birthday” sign), and are even invited to join the celebration after we offer a requisite “Happy Birthday.” It’s not something I ever saw in Singapore, despite a similar population of imported laborers. It’s one of those things that make Hong Kong feel like a more vibrant, gritty, and real approximation of Singapore (I often remarked that Singapore felt fake, like The Truman Show).

Anyway, we’re on our way to the neighboring island of Cheung Chau, in search of a tranquil, albeit brief, respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. It takes about 45 minutes via ferry, and we slowly watch the skyline shrink and fade from view.

The island is definitely calmer compared to the city. However, much to our dismay, litter floats in the harbor.

While we didn’t know what to expect, it feels somewhat disappointing. The island doesn’t offer much of interest, and it’s not warm enough to swim. At my behest, we pay a visit to a cave on one tip of the island that allegedly once held the treasure of Cheung Po Tsai, who wreaked havoc on the Qing Dynasty and the Portuguese before being captured and presented with an invitation to join the navy to avoid punishment.

The cave was narrow and dark, and I didn’t want to get stuck, so I missed out on crawling all the way through to the other side. I took a class on the Golden Age of Atlantic Piracy while in Singapore, and Tsai’s story vaguely rang a bell, as I think one of my classmates may have written a paper on him.

Our lunch is some Panda Express-adjacent glop (but some good dumplings), and I spill my Ribena (a British blackcurrant soft drink) all over my pants and shoes. This nearly ruins my whole day, but I rally. After a quick gander at the beach, we hop back on the ferry.

An attempt to find a scenic spot for sunset goes awry, and we end up walking next to a busy road on our way to the zoo/botanical garden.

For dinner, we dine on Michelin-guide wonton noodle soup, which was decent but not mind-blowing. Dessert is much better. What you see here is my mango and pomelo sago (a palm starch), a refreshing cold dessert soup. Maya was gunning for mango pudding, and we got two. We also get fried sesame balls with peanuts. Delicious all around, and our friendly neighbor let us try a bite of his milk tea shave ice after we had ooh’d and ahh’d over it. The odds of a Japanese stranger offering you a bite of their meal are about equivalent to being struck by lightning.

The next day is our last, so we have to make the most of it by starting with dim sum. Shrimp noodle, greens, turnip cake, fried wontons, and these charcoal egg yolk buns that were heavenly.

We head to the former city of the Kowloon Walled City, which is now a park. If you don’t know about the Walled City, it was a former fort that became an incredibly densely populated (35,000 people living in 6.5 acres) enclave that the government gave up on governing. Without the state, it was lawless, run by triads, and a good place to get any illicit goods, from dog meat to drugs. But amidst the gangsters and the prostitutes, there were plenty of normal, poor people who were just trying to get by. The community looked out for one another, setting up health clinics, schools, and senior centers. They managed to source water and electricity. It was evicted and demolished in 1994. Now, in its place is a peaceful garden and some historical recreations of shops and businesses.

After checking this out, a random local restaurant caught my eye. For a taste of local halal cuisine, we’re here at Islam Food Since 1950.

This was also one of the best meals of the trip. We started with these beef buns, which were so juicy inside that they could have been soup dumplings. We doused them with this homemade sambal, which reminded me very strongly of the delicious chili sauce I had in Taiwan – much more flavorful than spicy. Next, we had this succulent beef brisket curry, bursting with spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and anise, and served alongside a bowl of plain noodles for us to mix at our leisure. We also had some classic scallion pancake. And a glass of fresh soy milk.

From there, we walk to a temple and fall into step with a pair of German brothers. They’ve lived all over the world, from Shanghai to Singapore to back to Germany. While the temple is interesting, it’s also crowded and feels a little like Disneyland with its brand-new bright hues. We bid auf Wiedersehen to the Krauts and head to a cool exhibition of rescued neon signage.

Our last dinner, and I want some more roasted meats.

Our pushy waiter tries to coerce us into getting more food than we want. Just like with the previous night’s Michelin guide spot, I wasn’t all that impressed and thought the first night’s roast goose was better. As our institutions crumble and we realize that they were only real because we pretended they were, perhaps Michelin is going along with them. After all, what does a tire company know about food?

The next morning, I bid a sleepy farewell to my family before the sun was up. I’ve got a long day of travel ahead of me. I fly into Osaka, then hustle with the quickness over four or five different trains to make it into Matsuayama in about six hours’ time. I take the same train from Okayama, but being earlier in the day than last time, I am rewarded with a beautiful view out the window as we cross from Honshu to Shikoku.

This trip has been amazing, but also exhausting. While I average about two miles of walking per day in my normal routine, I averaged more like 5-10 for more than two weeks. I was kind of ready for a vacation from my vacation. We traveled by plane, train, ferry, and foot. Before I leave you, I would be breaking a promise to my mom if I didn’t present a Top 10 for this trip:

Tokyo-Matsuyama-Fukuoka-Naha-Hong Kong Top 10:

• Tempura: a seasonal menu featuring crab and veggies, plus plenty of accoutrements to adorn your rice (especially that tempura’d egg)
• Hakata ramen: funky, layered flavor that’s quite unlike conventional ramen
• Udon with burdock tempura and braised beef: humble and unexpected, a hearty bulwark against the winter cold
• Okinawa soba: slow-cooked porky and fatty goodness – imagine the best barbecue served in a noodle soup
• Har gow: perfection in simplicity, the pinnacle of excellence for the humble shrimp, bouncy in texture while slightly sweet in flavor, gently swaddled in a steamed flour dumpling wrapper like a baby in a blanket
• Roast goose: unbelievably rich, sweet, and fragrant – the skin is the best part
• Halal beef buns: piping hot and juicy, smeared with vibrant vermillion chili paste
• Egg yolk buns: runny and sweet, with a hint of vanilla
• Mango pudding: smooth, creamy, and refreshing
• Egg tarts: occupying that magical dairy zone somewhere in between egg, cream, and cheese – fluffy

Not sure what my next adventure will be – I need some time to recuperate. Stay tuned!