Jenny and Craig loaded us and our bags into their car and drove us back to their fantastically clean, cozy, hipster-ville apartment, where Craig made us the best egg, cheese, and bacon sandwiches I’ve ever eaten (sorry, John—I just really liked the sandwich Craig made!).  They put us to bed and then the next morning they waited and waited and waited for us to eventually wake up.  We finally headed out into town around 2pm for a beautiful afternoon of bike-riding, market-eating, and walking through the parks.  Maybe it was the smog-filled gray skies in India that affected our perspective, but the sky in Melbourne seemed so beautiful.  Its blue color somehow seemed different than what we see at home.  I couldn’t help gazing up at it and remarking on it repeatedly.

  Unfortunately for Jenny and Craig’s sakes, John and I were pretty boring in Melbourne.  We were feeling so under the weather that we spent most of our week there sleeping and resting, recovering from our colds and also treating John’s stomach bugs, thanks to an Aussie doctor’s visit and trustworthy medication from a Melbourne pharmacy.  Jenny and Craig did manage to get us out of the apartment a bit, though.  We explored St. Kilda one evening, topped off with lots of fresh bakery treats, we had oysters and fish and chips, plus lots of pizza and even homemade burritos, we spent a sunny afternoon at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground watching a local cricket match, we went disco bowling, and we even got to celebrate Thanksgiving together with a freshly roasted turkey.

Best of all, Jenny and I engaged in our favorite pastime—afternoon tea with girl talk at a swanky hotel.  Sparkling wine, Assam tea, lots of sandwiches, and freshly baked scones with clotted cream.  Yum.

Jenny and I have been best friends for over twenty years, but for the majority of that time, we’ve lived in different states and sometimes in different countries, so it was really special to have the chance to visit her in Australia and get to know Craig (now her husband—congratulations, guys!).  We’re so excited for you guys, we miss you, and I can’t wait to see you again soon for wedding take two!

We spent five great days in Luang Prabang, Laos’s second city and definitely one of the most beautiful city stops on our trip.  The whole place has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so buildings both new and old are constructed in the traditional Lao wooden style, and it’s packed with striking, gilded Buddhist temples.

On our first three lazy days, we relaxed at Le Café Ban Wat Sene, where we drank coffee and ate delicious French food, thanks to the colonial legacy that was left behind.  We did get out on one of those days, though, for a really fun visit with the uncle of my good friend Alicyn from Austin. Last February, when I mentioned to Alicyn that John and I were planning to visit Laos, she responded, “My uncle lives there!”  I was surprised—in name and appearance, Alicyn is clearly of European descent, so I didn’t expect she’d have family living in Southeast Asia.  As it turns out, following his retirement, her Uncle Kenny headed to Luang Prabang to study Buddhism and ended up settling there for the last few years, where he now has a workshop in a large gallery space with a number of other artists.  At his workshop, Uncle Kenny spends his days creating and refurbishing spirit houses.  Laos is a predominantly Buddhist country, but from Uncle Kenny and others that we talked to, we learned that Buddhism there is not “pure,” in the sense that Laotians incorporate traditional animistic beliefs into their Buddhist practice.  One of these traditional beliefs involves spirit houses, which are little wooden dollhouse-like boxes.  The spirit houses provide a home for spirits that can create mischief if they’re not given a nice place to live.  Spirit houses are everywhere in Laos—on street corners and outside restaurants, hotels, and family homes—and the Laotians leave offerings inside of them—usually some sticky rice, incense, flowers, and fruit, and sometimes even cigarettes.  We met up with Uncle Kenny at a café along the Nam Khan—a river that feeds into the Mekong—for a leisurely breakfast followed by a visit to his workshop.  It was a beautiful twenty-minute tuk-tuk ride out to his gallery space, although sadly it was just in a regular tuk-tuk and not this great rainbow one that I saw—I especially love the driver on his pink cellphone.

Uncle Kenny showed us around the gallery and explained his work to us and afterwards chatted with us over coffee about U.S. politics and life in Laos.  It was a lovely morning!  John took a couple of pictures of me with Uncle Kenny, and I got a few of Uncle Kenny’s spirit houses and his workshop.

On our last two days in Luang Prabang, after we boarded the Mekong Sun (more on that to come in the next post), we visited several of the Buddhist temples that have made Luang Prabang so famous, including Wat Xieng Thong and Wat Wisunarat, plus the Royal Palace Museum and Mount Phousi for great views of the city.

We also drove out to the Kuangsi waterfall, where we had the chance to take a COLD swim in one of the waterfall’s pools.  After only half submerging myself in the freezing water, I watched while John climbed a tree to take a jump off a rope swing into the pool.  He emerged with a smile and goose bumps.

At dawn on our last morning, before the Mekong Sun began cruising upriver, we went to watch what Luang Prabang is most famous for—the daily religious ritual called Tak Bat.  Every day at sunrise, the hundreds of Buddhist monks that live in the city process down the main street with metal bowls to collect food offerings from Luang Prabang’s residents, who make merit by providing food for the monks.  It was really fascinating to watch, but trying to be respectful we hung back and just snapped a quick picture from a distance.

Last but not least, we visited Luang Prabang’s morning food market.  Just for my brother-in-law John B., who wondered if you can truly buy doughnuts everywhere in the world, we filmed this little video showing what the market has to offer.

Laos Morning Market

Although slow and peaceful now, Hoi An used to be a bustling, international trading port from the 15th to 19th centuries.  The silting of its harbor and the rise of Da Nang and other coastal trading ports in Vietnam ultimately caused the trading there to stop.  However, the town itself has been preserved just as it was, garnering UNESCO World Heritage Site status.  Today Hoi An is a quaint little town of small alleyways lined with homes, shops and temples that sits right along the Thu Bon river.  And it couldn’t be a more beautiful place.

Most of the alleys in Hoi An are closed to motor traffic, which is great for biking around the town.  The little hotel we stayed in had bikes you could borrow right out front and we took advantage of them almost every day we were there.

One day we even rode the bikes to the beach, just a 20 minute ride away.  It was by far the most pristine beach we’d been to thus far, perfect for swimming and lounging.  Some local hawkers had set up shop – and some comfy, red chairs for folks to sit on – under the palm trees with cold drinks and lots of their trinkets for sale.

We bought some chop sticks from one of the hawkers on the beach.  What a bargain!  Actually, we got taken for a ride.  But, she was very friendly and we really enjoyed her approach and sales style.  We hope to use these when we get back and start making more Vietnamese food at home.

Speaking of Vietnamese food, the food here has been the best food we’ve had on the trip.  Especially in Hoi An.  Everything we tasted here was delicious – fresh, herby and wonderful.

When we first arrived in Hoi An, Shelley and I took another play out of the Anthony Bourdain playbook and found the little Bahn Mi shop that he visited when he was in Hoi An on his show.

The woman who owns the place makes a really mean sandwich and we chatted with her for a minute about how we found her shop and how she makes her food.  She prepares everything at home and brings it to the shop to be put together.  I wish I had gotten a video of her making the sandwiches.  She was so fast!   And she had to be; there was a line out front day and night.

The article I had found online that pointed out her shop was posted on the glass of her deli cart, but after speaking with her I don’t think she realizes how famous Anthony  Bourdain is and how many people have seen her Bahn Mi sandwiches on TV.  Pretty amazing.

We focused our sightseeing in HCMC on visits to Vietnamese memorials that commemorate what they call the American War. We just had two days in the city, so we spent most of our time visiting the Reunification Palace, where the South Vietnamese conceded defeat to the Viet Cong in 1975, the War Remnants Museum, with many terrifying photos from the war, especially of the damage caused by napalm and Agent Orange, and the Cuchi Tunnels, a hand-dug network of about 75 miles of tunnels where the Viet Cong hid out and from which they also launched attacks. Neither of us learned very much in school about the Vietnam War, and it was really interesting, and saddening, to learn about it from the Vietnamese perspective, and right where much of the fighting actually took place.

The highlight of our visit to HCMC, though, was a big night out with our friends Scott and Cesar. Scott and I went to college together, and although we haven’t really kept in touch, I knew from Facebook that he and his soon-to-be husband Cesar were living in HCMC. It was amazing and so fun to walk through the door of their beautiful home and hug Scott after more than 11 years since we’d last seen each other, and it was wonderful to meet Cesar, too. We had fun swapping travel stories, but best of all, as locals they showed us a side of HCMC we never would have found on our own. We had dinner out in a lovely old renovated home with plate after plate of yummy Vietnamese food–fish in passion fruit sauce, beef cooked in a clay pot, crunchy fried tofu, and stir-fried greens with garlic, among others. Out of all of the places we’re traveling to, I was most looking forward to the food in Vietnam, and our dinner out with Scott and Cesar did not disappoint.

After dinner they took us out for drinks at Chill Skybar, a swanky outdoor place at the top of one of HCMC’s new high rises. Scott pointed out all of the new buildings added to the skyline since he and Cesar first moved to HCMC several years ago, and Cesar snapped a picture of Scott, John and me with the skyline in the background. From our smiles you can see that we were having a great night!

One of the most perplexing things we learned from Scott and Cesar that night is that Vietnam is a Footloose kind of place. Except for a few bars and clubs that have the necessary permits, in most public places dancing is prohibited. Scott pointed out that many people still “table dance,” which is definitely not dancing on top of a table but rather people standing around their cocktail tables individually bopping in a white man’s overbite from When Harry Met Sally sort of way. I wish we’d gotten a picture or video of it.

It was a great night out!  Next up, Hoi An…

So as we keep saying, we are horribly behind on our blog posts.  A week from now we’ll be renting a camper van to spend a couple of weeks driving around New Zealand, and we’re guessing we won’t have any internet access during that time.  So between now and then, we’re hoping to backtrack with posts about our final month in Asia and our three weeks here in Australia.  We’ve assigned each of ourselves a list of blog topics and we’ll start tackling them ASAP.  More to come!

Except in Siem Reap, the jumping off point for tours of Angkor, tourism has yet to completely take over Cambodia.  So, when we arrived in the small town of Kampot, about 3 hours south of Phnom Pehn near the coast, we very much felt like we were witnessing real, everyday life in Cambodia.  And at this point in our journey, especially after having been surrounded by westerners in Bali & Singapore, the vibe in Kampot was very refreshing.  In fact, touring this little town is, thus far, one of the highlights of our adventure.

We spent our first day in Kampot walking through the town in the rain, having arrived in Cambodia just as the rainy season was coming to an end.  The Cambodians didn’t seem to mind the rain at all.  They just went about their business on bicycles and motor scooters without rain gear or umbrellas, knowing that in a little while the sky would clear up and they would dry out.  No problem.

Walking through Kampot was quiet with relatively little traffic and we spent our time just observing what was happening all around us.  There were no touts.  There were no badgering tuk-tuk drivers.  Just people doing their thing and occasionally looking up to stare at the two random white folks that were walking down their street.

We walked through the local market, ducking under blue rain tarps and stepping over open, concrete gutters between stalls.  We bought some delicious mangosteens (we could do an entire post about the virtues of this fruit that we are unable to get in the U.S.) from a woman in the market.  When I tried to pick them out, the woman brusquely discarded my choices and picked some out for us to make sure we got the good ones.  It was a funny and genuine moment.

Eventually we found our way to the main roundabout, which has the world’s largest durian fruit statue.  I have no facts, but I’m willing to go on record and say that this is true.

We stayed in a little hotel right on the Kampot river called Rikitikitavi.  The staff was fantastic, the restaurant had amazing food for next to nothing, and during happy hour they just went ahead and brought you two drinks for the price of one.

The hotel restaurant and bar had a wonderful view of the Kampot river and the Elephant Mountains.  And when the rain cleared off that night, we got to watch one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen on our trip so far.  That’s Shelley taking a photo over the water in that second shot…  A great way to end a perfect day.

On our second day in Kampot, inspired by an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show, “No Reservations,” we took a tuk-tuk tour to Kep, an even smaller town on the Cambodian coast that is famous for catching and cooking crab.  The rain stayed away for us and we had a spectacularly beautiful day.

On the way to Kep, we stopped at a pepper plantation and tasted some fresh Kampot pepper.  It grows on a tall vine, and the peppercorns are picked entirely by hand.  These plants are only 12 years old, as it’s only been 12 years since the country has stabilized enough politically to enable enterprises such as this.

When we arrived in Kep, we had a delicious crab lunch, looking out over the water, and watched as the local people bought and sold the catch of the day at the crab market.  That blue sky remained with us the entire day.

There really isn’t much more to see or do in Kep now.  But, before the Khmer Rouge, Kep was very much a resort town.  Overlooking the coast were many burnt out villas, ghostly reminders of the genocide and Cambodia’s brutal past.

Cambodia is quickly emerging from its past, and I have a feeling that in just a few years, Kampot and Kep will be very different places.  But, for Shelley and me, they will always be a very special part of our SE Asian Adventure.

Six years ago in London, on my very first day at Shearman & Sterling, I met my friend Anna, who’s still with the firm and now working out of the Singapore office.  It had been four years since I’d last seen Anna, so I was super excited to see her, meet her fiancé, Tom, and introduce them both to John.  We met up with Anna and Tom later that evening once they’d gotten off of work, and they took us out for our first of many delicious meals in Singapore, at the Lau Pa Sat street food center.  There’s a large covered seating area (shown in the photos below), but the evening was nice, so we sat ourselves at a table outside.  They started off by ordering us a plate of chicken wings, beef and chicken satay, and Tiger beer, and then as we waited for a number of other dishes to arrive, it began to sprinkle, and then to rain a little harder, and then it became an absolute tropical downpour.  We kept moving our little plastic table and chairs closer and closer to the big buildings surrounding the street food center, until finally we were under an overhang of a building, but the wind was still blowing the rain all over us and our table.  However, that didn’t stop us from devouring Singapore noodles, mie goreng (fried Malay-style noodles), oyster omelet, and sautéed stingray.   Finally, it was time to make a run for it—unluckily, Tom had ridden his scooter, so he set off for a drenching ride home.  Meanwhile, Anna, John, and I made a dash for a taxi, getting totally soaked in the process.  How could we complain, though?  This was the first serious rainstorm we’d gotten caught in since beginning our trip months earlier.  Once we’d made it back to Anna and Tom’s place and dried ourselves off, we settled in for a night of “quality” American TV of NCIS and CSI, laughing as we joked about the terrible dialogue.

We spent Friday taking care of errands and then later that night we headed out with Anna and her friends Patrick and Laleh for plate after plate of Chinese food followed by a round of drinks at Social Haus.  Anna and I had fun catching up and laughing about the very different conversations we were having four years ago in London as compared to now, from being single ladies then to talking now about our weddings and what it might be like to start a family.  Life can change pretty quickly!

On Saturday Anna and Tom took us out for a traditional Singapore breakfast of coffee with sweetened, condensed milk (even John will drink coffee like that!) and toast with green coconut jam and soft boiled eggs.  You crack open the eggs into a bowl, stir up the runny whites and yolks with some soy sauce, and then dip the coconut jam toast into the egg mixture.  It sounds kind of weird, but the sweet and salty combination is actually really good.  (John and I ended up going back for a repeat of that breakfast a few days later before we left for Cambodia.)  Afterwards, we put a picnic lunch together and then took a taxi out to Sentosa Island.  Like much of the rest of Singapore, Sentosa Island is a fabricated paradise, with amusement parks, casinos, hotels, and restaurants, but we stuck to the beautiful beach there and relaxed for the afternoon with Tom and Anna and a bunch of their friends.

We took John for a hair cut on Sunday afternoon and arrived back at Tom and Anna’s place just in time to surprise them in the middle of practicing their wedding dance moves.  Then we all headed out for one of John’s most loved meals of the trip—Korean barbecue.  Yum!  It was an all-you-can-eat, grill-your-own meat kind of place, and Tom did not mess around with packing the food in.  I don’t know where he put it all, but he went through a lot of grilled meat lettuce wraps.  John’s equal enthusiasm for the meal made me realize how much I miss eating Korean food—it was great in London and New York, but there’s not much of it to be had in Austin.  We arrived home after dinner just in time for the four of us to sprawl on the couch for two hours of The Voice.  Ahhh, a good night.

I’ll leave it to John to cover our Monday daytime, but Monday night we spent our last evening with Tom and Anna over a meal of Thai steamboat.  Basically, they plunk a big, steaming pot of broth in the middle of the table, along with a platter of raw meat, seafood, noodles, and vegetables, and then you cook the raw food in the broth, or in the grill just above it, and then you dip the cooked food in this super tasty sweet and spicy Thai sauce.  Once again, we saw Tom turn into an eating machine, but with his rigorous daily bike-run-lift workouts he earns his food, unlike us.  We learned a new Aussie slang word that night when Anna suggested that we follow up dinner with some “dero” soft serve.  That’s shorthand for “derelict,” and it turned out to be McDonald’s soft serve.  I’ll admit it—the Oreo McFlurry was good.

Of all of the places we’ve been so far on our trip, Singapore reminded us the most of home.  We spent a while just wandering through a supermarket, going up and down the wide aisles and snatching up granola bars and Skippy peanut butter.  After reading all of this, you may be thinking that we gained fifteen pounds during our five days in Singapore, and you’d probably be right.  We’d heard that Singapore was known for its food, and Anna and I have always built our quality time around meals, so we made the most of our reunion by indulging in all of the culinary delights of Singapore.  During and in between all of the eating, it was wonderful to catch up with Anna, get to know Tom, and hear glimpses of the beautiful wedding they’re planning for November.  I really hope it’s not another four years before we get the chance to see each other again!  Helena, if you’re reading this, maybe we can all coordinate a visit out to Santa Monica sometime.  In the meantime, we’re sending a big thank you to Tom and Anna for their hospitality, for welcoming us into their home for five days, and for sharing many memorable meals with us.  We’re wishing you all the best for a long and happy life together, and we’ll look forward to our next meeting somewhere else in the world!

After a disappointing lunch that day, and a hankering for American food, we decided to start our date night off by heading to Chili’s for dinner.  Yep, they have Chili’s in Malaysia (seven of them, in fact!), and yep, I’m a little ashamed that we headed there instead of sampling the local cuisine, but, hey, sometimes you just want something familiar. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t really hit the spot–the food was pretty awful–my quesadillas were cold and John’s chicken looked like it was still raw in the center–and to top it all off it was pretty expensive for what it was.  But then it was off to the movies, and a bargain at just $8 total for both of our tickets.  We’d been wanting to see The Dark Knight Rises, so we were pretty excited that they still had it in the theaters.  It was definitely entertaining, maybe a little silly, but we enjoyed it.  Then it came time to exit the theater.

The movie theater was located inside a big shopping mall under the Petronas Towers, and by the time the movie had ended, the mall had long since closed, so instead of exiting the way we had entered, the theater staff directed us toward a back exit.  We walked down a long, windowless, institutional-looking hallway with some twists and turns before coming to a sign that I thought–from a quick glance–said that we needed to exit through the parking lot.  From John’s reading of the sign, he thought that it said to exit through the mall to the parking lot, but stupidly, I didn’t believe him.  I mean, the mall was closed, right?  How could we exit through it?  So instead of passing through a doorway into the mall, where the cleaning staff were hard at work, I led us through a doorway that I *thought* would connect to the parking lot.  We could always turn around if we’d gone the wrong way, right?  Realizing we were now in an emergency exit, we started down the stairs, but the flights of stairs just kept going and going and going, with no end in sight.  We were all alone.  It was eerily silent.  I turned and said to John, “Umm, maybe we should go back and go the way you said we should go.”  But he responded, “I don’t think we can get back out that way.”  He’d noticed that when we passed through the door to enter the stairwell, there was a sign that said “One-way door.  No reentry.”  Oh, crap.  I started to panic.

I started running down the stairs faster.  Finally, after what seemed an interminable number of flights, we reached the bottom.  But where was the door?  We turned a corner that led into an endless, dimly-lit hallway with lots of twists and turns.  We kept walking and walking, with me eventually breaking into a frantic run-walk.  I was imagining the worst and the movie hadn’t helped.  Then, after one last turn, there was a short flight of stairs leading up to a row of doors.  I ran up them and slammed myself into the push bar on the door.  It opened to the outside.  Hooray!

I turned and faced John and then started sobbing.  Now it seems totally irrational, but I guess for those few minutes I really thought we were going to be trapped in a dark, freaky emergency exit in a Malaysian mall.  Breaking taboo, I clutched his hand while we walked back to the hotel (PDA–even hand-holding–is generally frowned upon in southeast Asia.).  Whew, what a night.

Many expat Americans, including several families of American baseball players that bounce between Japanese teams and the majors back home, live in the same condo complex as our friends the Injays.  Trish happened to mention that we’d be visiting to one of her “baseball buddies” and was given 4 players tickets to see the Hanshin Tigers, Kobe’s “hometown” club, on the Friday night before we left Japan for Malaysia.  Naturally, we jumped at the chance to take in the game.

Although baseball is considered America’s favorite past time, the Japanese people take their baseball very seriously.  And, in the many years that pro teams have been playing baseball in Japan (their first pro league was formed in the 1930′s – I had no idea!), the Japanese have transformed a familiar American experience into something distinctively their own.  And it’s awesome.

The best thing about Japanese baseball is the fans and the atmosphere that they create at the game.  Completely different than an American game, where you might fall asleep between plays.  Not so in Japan.  It’s like what I imagine being at a European football game to be like.  Check it out:

baseballatmosphere

Screaming, chanting, trumpets, flags…  The fans don’t stop the entire time their team is up at the plate.  Just electric in the stadium.  Couldn’t have been more fun.  And, did you notice the beer vendors with mini-kegs on their backs?

We scored some sweet thunder sticks at the souvenir shop to help cheer on the home team.  They were like Hanshin Tiger nunchucks: hard, hollow, plastic bats with a chain connecting the two.   The Japanese fans were very polite with these “weapons,” using them only for their intended purpose.  But, I think if they were to sell these thunder sticks at American ballparks, riots might ensue.

Between innings, the groundskeepers would bring out the infield zambonies to keep it nice.  The Japanese always keep it nice.

Food options at the stadium are notably Japanese.  Sushi, various kinds of meat on a stick, tempura…  Shelley went for one of the most popular options, fried octopus balls in brown sauce.  I went with the tuna roti.  Seemed like it would be easier to eat in our small stadium seats (they’re built for smaller Japanese people!).

By far my favorite experience of the night was the 7th inning stretch.  The Japanese have their own take on it using balloons.  I’ll let the video speak for itself, one of the best I’ve taken on this trip, I think.

Description: Japanese Baseball

7thinningstretch

Needless to say we had an amazing time at the game.  The home team sealed the win when #6, Kanemoto, went yard in the 8th.  On our way out of the stadium, we were thanked for coming by no less than 5 different ticket takers/ushers standing in line at the exit.  Bows all around.  We couldn’t have asked for a better ending to our refreshing and uplifting time in Japan.

The next morning, we were off to Malaysia!

From the Hiroshima train station, we took the local trolley to the Peace Memorial Park and made our way to the building that’s now called the A-Bomb Dome. It was originally built in 1914 as an exhibition hall, but by the time of WWII, the government was using it to house the local public works administration. When the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, it exploded almost directly over the building. You’d think that would mean the building would have been decimated, but although I’m a little shaky on the science behind it, it seems that the energy released by the bomb pressed down on the building instead of blasting it apart, so that while fire ravaged it, the walls weren’t knocked down (i.e., pushed apart) by the blast. In the end, it was the only building left standing near the center of the bomb blast. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

A few years after the war ended, the Japanese parliament declared Hiroshima a “city of peace,” and since that time, Hiroshima has worked to promote peace while also advocating for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. The Peace Memorial Museum, on the grounds of the Peace Memorial Park, opened in 1955 to tell the story of Japan’s involvement in WWII, including its aggression in East and Southeast Asia, and how the U.S. was drawn into the war through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and ultimately the history of the development of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how and why those sites were chosen. We learned a great deal about the Asia-Pacific side of WWII, and of the horror of the bomb.

After leaving the museum we lightened things up by heading off in search of a traditional Hiroshima lunch–okonomiyaki–a layered dish of crepe-like batter, cabbage, noodles, egg and pork that’s cooked on a griddle and then smothered in a tangy barbecue-like sauce. You eat it right off the griddle surface using a small spatula.

Then it was time to catch the ferry to Miyajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima where we’d be staying for the night. To Shinto believers, it’s considered a sacred island, and it’s famous for its Itsukushima Shrine and the orange Torii Gate that marks the entrance to the shrine from the sea. It’s a quiet and beautiful place, and we spent the night in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn with tatami floors, sliding doors, and thin mattresses on the floor to sleep on. For some reason the layout of the room reminded me of a cabin on a cruise ship, but then it kind of felt like a sleepover party to spend the night on our side-by-side mattresses on the floor.

In the morning we visited the shrine and then took the cable car up to Mount Misen, the highest point on the island. The cable car leaves you with just a 30-minute hike to the top (as opposed to a 3-hour hike if you started from the bottom of the mountain), but, as usual on this trip, it was HOT and HUMID outside. John and I were already sweating through our clothes when we exited the cable car, even before we started the 30-minute hike. Meanwhile, the Japanese ladies that we saw on the trail were sweat-free, in full make-up, dresses, and high heels. I don’t know quite how the Japanese ladies do it, but they always manage to look totally put together. It was a beautiful day, and the views from the top of Mount Misen over the Inland Sea were pretty spectacular, with islands dotting the water. It looked just like the Japan you see in paintings.

Then it was time to make our way back to Hiroshima and board the bullet train bound for Kobe. We arrived back at the Injays’ place just in time for a taco dinner–yum! Next up…John’s favorite experience of the trip!