Luggage Tag...

Tacoma Daycation

2009-07-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours, Tim Cross, has some of his work showing at the Tacoma Art Museum as part of the Neddy Fellowship Award Exhibition. I think that is pretty cool to get your stuff in a museum, congratulations Tim! Not wanting to miss it my friends Jeff and Geno and I decided play tourist for an afternoon in Tacoma.

The Tacoma Art Museum is small and has some interesting works in it and like everything in Tacoma they love their Chihuly glass. This outdoor installment was really pretty, as the light changed in the afternoon the colors and shadows did too.

After finishing up at the museum we walked over to Central Station, the old railroad station now a Federal building housing a big Chihuly exhibit.

From there we walked over the Bridge of Glass and wandered around outside the Museum of Glass. There is a really fun fountain called the Water Forest, water collects on the top of each cylinder and when the breeze comes up it blows the water off. On this hot and sunny day we felt like kids playing in it!

Our Chihuly walking tour came to an end at The Swiss where we stopped for beers and sandwiches before heading back to Seattle. We were told that he spent a lot of time eating at The Swiss and gave them these pieces as a "thank you".

Tacoma is actually quite pretty with all it's brick buildings and interesting museums. It was really clean and really quiet and we all commented on the bad rap it gets. And then the breeze blew... aroma... and we headed home! Thanks Jeff & Geno for a fun day trip!

All the photos (taken only with my iPhone this time) are here

Viva Las Vegas!

2009-07-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

Every year a group of my girlfriends get together and invade Las Vegas. It started out A LONG time ago and we use to go in December for my birthday. A couple of days in Vegas right before Christmas was actually really relaxing- you were whisked away from the last minute shopping and holiday stress and plopped in a chair at a less busy than normal blackjack table with Christmas carols playing on the sound system. I can remember our financial status' by the hotels we stayed in- Harrahs, Flamingo, TI, Mirage...

photo courtesy of brookenbria

For my bachelorette party (hen's night to you Aussie's!) 6 years ago (next month!) we of course went to Vegas. And the yearly party switched from a winter to a summer thing. Some go every year and some we haven't seen for a while. There have been pregnant attendees and those who have left newborns at home with dads. But I'm happy to say I have attended every year and will continue to do so (since I look upon it as my little party!).

No Vegas trip is complete without a trip to In-n-Out Burger, this year we had a kick ass limo driver who took us to the drive thru! Yeah, double double animal style in style!

This year I put the girls in charge of the hotel decisions and kept the limo & restaurant reservations as my job. Ally did a great job of getting us beautiful and connecting rooms at the Wynn Encore. I can't say enough about the staff at the Encore. The service here was really top notch! Our bell hop even took time to show us around our room, including a lesson in using the bedside remote for lights, tv, drapes, etc. There are two pools, one family style and one European pool where you have to be 21 to be in. This was awesome as we never heard or ran into any kids! They have a rule that you aren't allowed to take pictures at this pool either...

photo courtesy of Ally Cox

Some of us went to the spa at the Encore for massages and all declared it the best of the Vegas spas and our massages in our top 3, really it is fantastic and I highly recommend!

Our girl Ally is turning 40 this month so as a treat we had a little surprise party for her before going out to an awesome dinner at Bouchon on Saturday night.

photo courtesy of brookenbria

Brooke and Michelle did a great job of decorating the room and setting up a nice table of snacks. Ally's husband Dino surprised her by sending 2 beautiful bottles of Schramsburg Champagne up to our room. And we all brought fun little presents for the girl of the hour.

Four years ago during one of the annual trips we also had dinner at Bouchon. The Bouchon Bakery was opening the same weekend we were in town so I asked our waiter if Chef Keller happened to be in the restaurant that night. When he said "yes" I asked if he could come to our table for a minute. Chef Keller came out and actually sat with us for a bit, signing all our menus and being very gracious. At the end of the evening he sent out every dessert on the menu for us to enjoy. When we were seated this time we realized we were at the same table and had the same waiter, he remembered our experience also and at the end of our dinner the kitchen sent out every dessert on the menu again. Very nice and an easy way to make us all feel very special!

A few nights of late night gambling, drinking cocktails non stop, laughing our asses off, hanging out at the spa, playing "Wheel of Fortune", singing the Party Pit song and catching up on all the celebrity gossip makes for a very fun weekend with the girls. I'm already thinking about next year...

The real weekend in Orange County

2009-06-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Visiting my aunt and uncle in Orange County is always fun and this trip was no exception. We started the weekend with a casual dinner & drinks at a near by restaurant in Newport Bay. Live entertainment provided by my family's friend Bobby made for a very fun evening. In Southern California they publish where police are doing road blocks to check for drunk drivers in the local paper so everyone takes detours. This weekend's block was on Dover. After affixing our sticky note to the dash with the reminder "Don't drive on Dover" we were off. Funny at the end of our evening as we were leaving the parking lot the security attendant gave us his advice to "don't drive on Dover" also. This became the mantra of the weekend (you had to be there, it was funny!)

The next morning we were off to Temecula for an afternoon of wine tasting. We started out at Callaway where some of my uncle's friends, Brian and Sue, joined us. We had never been to this wine area before but found that every winery charged $8 and up for tasting, generally gave you 6 tastes and even if you purchased wine there were no refunds on the tasting fee.

We decided to pick up sandwiches from a great little deli and find a picnic spot at one of the wineries to enjoy our lunch. We ended up in a nice grassy spot with a pretty little view at one of the sparkling wine producers, we would realize later that this was the only winery without a dedicated picnic area, oh well!

The rest of the afternoon was spent tasting at Stuart, Falkner and South Coast Winery. All had something nice but I think I can speak for the group that none of them completely blew us away with their wines. My highlight was riding with Sue in her pretty silver Porsche- varoom!

My aunt's sister, who has a house in the area, was out of town and had generously invited us all to stay there so we made our way home and got down to the business of cocktails and hot tubbing.

The house sits out near an airfield and planes were dropping skydivers almost directly overhead. The wind helped them over to their landing spots miles from where we were but for a few minutes you could look up and watch the free fallers pop up as their parachutes opened. Also out here in the "country" were burrowing owls and lots of horses. The wild west!

We had a wonderful dinner of grilled steak and lobsters, steamed artichokes with butter and caprese salad. Dayne made up Sazeracs and of course there was wine from the day's outing.
We headed back to Costa Mesa the next day detouring through Dana Point and Laguna Beach areas. The weather was gorgeous so the beaches and towns were packed leaving us no options to park and wander around. We ended up in a little shopping mall with a Tommy Bahama store. This particular store also had a restaurant/lounge and was serving up happy hour. Really nice drinks and excellent small plate food served with live music at a very good price. And Dayne got to go shopping- so all in all a win!

The evening was spent at my family's house enjoying the hot tub, patio & bbq- ultimate vacation relaxation.

Our weekend wrapped up with a short drive to Huntington Beach for brunch at Duke's. The restaurant has a great loction right on the beach and valet parking is only $3! All the food and mai tai's were tasty, unfortunately a busser dropped a dish of salad dressing on my aunt's lap while clearing our table and the manager really didn't go out of her way to make things better which was disappointing. I think my uncle contacted the manager after the fact and got a better resolution.

Thanks to Uncle John & Aunt Karen for a great weekend! The rest of the pictures are here

Drink, Eat, Baseball

2009-06-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last month we went to Chicago for the weekend to visit our friend Judy, catch up on the food and cocktail scene and take in a ballgame. We used miles to fly and stayed at the Monaco Hotel thanks to a great $81 per night deal! A quick ride into town on the train, free since our friend Dino had sent us some unused train tickets, and we were ready to hit the town.

We met Judy and her friends Amy & Andreas for dinner at Mado in the Wicker Park/ Bucktown area. Dinner was casual and fun and there were lots of new things for me to try since the kitchen pretty much sent out the entire menu (that is what happens when you go out with Judy, everyone knows her!) Of the things I was brave enough to try: grilled pork heart with radicchio, pecans and saba (excellent!) also blood pudding (ok but not a good texture for me). The food here was all quite good, I thought they needed to cook their beans a bit more in the porchetta dish and the octopus dish but overall a good "farmer" style of meal.

After dinner we walked a few blocks to The Violet Hour. Passing the line at the door (another Judy perk) we were seated in a gorgeous room, at a huge booth. The rooms were much prettier than I expected having only been to Bourbon & Branch and Milk & Honey as far as "speakeasy" style bars go. We each had 3 excellent cocktails in our 2 hours spent there, and a shot of chartreuse on the bartender. But when 2am comes, it doesn't matter who you are- the lights come on and you need to get out! So home we went...

Doesn't this look like a Suntory ad?

We had tickets the next day for the Cubs vs. the Marlins at Wrigley Field, a field we hadn't been to before so I was super excited. More excited when we picked up our tickets and were told they moved us 2 rows and a section closer to home plate. The game was action packed with the Cubs winning 6 to 1 and the weather was perfect. What wasn't exciting was the food, ugh!! You'd think in Chicago you could at least get a proper dog at the game. Blah, we are so spoiled by the food at Safeco Field!

Andreas and Amy had also been at the game so we hooked up with them after and had HUGE German beers at Uberstein in Wrigleyville. I like saying Wrigleyville, it's funny! At Uberstein you and your friends can do a "ski shot". They bring over a snow ski that has 4 shot glasses glued to it and you and your buddies all hold the ski and tip it up and do your shot. If you are the shortest you will get drenched with your shot. Ah youth... :p

Before heading to dinner we met up with Judy at her new penthouse apartment for cocktails. Penthouse + cocktails = awesome! Check out the view

Judy, her friend Scott, Dayne and I were dining at Blackbird that night, I had been wanting to go since it first opened! We were given a very nice table right in the front window and pretty much tasted the entire menu between the four of us ordering and the extras that the kitchen brought out (again...Judy!) The meal (and wine, thanks Scott!) was stellar but I really think they shine the brightest with their appetizers. Now I need to get to sister restaurant Avec!

After dinner we headed to The Drawing Room, I had heard about their tableside cocktail service and sure enough once we ordered we were offered either drinks done fast at the bar and brought over or each made individually in front of us from the card. This is so much better than tableside Caesar salad! And then out came a platter of wonderful crudo (on the house because of "you know who again!"). I thought the drinks here were really good, the only drawback was that there is a disco in the next room and you could hear the bass going. I'd recommend it though!

Dayne and I finished our quick trip the next morning with brunch at Perennial. Dayne picked the place from some menus I showed him based on the fact that they had breakfast sliders! It was a good brunch- inexpensive, pretty inside, little patio outside, good food. And bonus running into my friend Kyle (Hi Kyle!)

The weather all weekend was just gorgeous! Thanks again to Judy for all her hospitality and wonderful to meet Amy, Andreas & Scott!

Full set of photos here

Entertaining Seattle style, a weekend in our own backyard

2009-05-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

Last month our friends Chuck and Wes came up to visit for the first time from LA. We met them 3 years ago during a Tales of the Cocktail seminar where after they took us to Johnny's Po-Boys for a quick lunch before our next session started- this immediately secured them as our friends as those were some damn good po-boys!

I picked the boys up at the airport and we immediately headed to Salumi for some damn good sandwiches, Seattle style. I think they liked the product as the trunk was loaded with salumi on the way out. It was such a gorgeous spring day that we decided to grab a beer (or two) out on the deck at Rays Boathouse.

We met Dayne back at home and had a casual happy hour before heading out to Union where Rocky had arranged a fabulous tasting menu (damn if I didn't give both my menus to Chuck so I don't have all the dishes). But let me tell you, when dinner starts with Rocky using a huge knife to saber off the cork of a champagne bottle you're in for a good time! All the food was amazing although there was too much of it!

Saturday morning we started off at Besalu for the best pasteries in the city and then caught a ferry over to Bainbridge Island. Our weather wasn't as good on day 2 but who doesn't like a ferry ride, scenery and getting some good lunch (and a Playboy Bloody Mary) at the Pub?

That night, cocktail crawl Ballard. We eased into things at the Copper Gate then headed down for a nosh, splitting between La Isla & Ocho. More drinks at Moshi Moshi and finally on to Sambar. We have some awesome bars in our little hood!!

Cocktail geekery was enjoyed by all!

Sunday while the boys went to the geek museum I prepped the house for a little cocktail party we were throwing in honor of Chuck & Wes' visit. I think when you have great bartender friends and great cocktail geek friends it's best just to let them all have at it! So with that in mind Dayne pulled up a various assortment of bottles from the liquor dungeon and put them on the island/bar, he & Chuck made a big jug of punch & he also created a huge ice block to chip from, Rocky made some kick ass spring rolls, I filled the absinthe loucher and the guests arrived with more bottles of delicious spirits.

There is nothing better than having your house filled with bartenders. Period. I did basically nothing the whole evening except ask certain people to make me a cocktail. It was a very nice group of folks too with the travel prize going to Blair for coming up from Portland and driving back the same night. Other usual suspects were in attendance including Paul, Jim & Zane, Keith, Stevi, and a special appearence by Murray.

Monday morning Chuck made Brandy Milk Punch for us and we had brunch at home before they went to explore Pike Place with Zane. Another bar crawl that night, Downtown to Queen Anne. Easing into things at Vessel (the night before was not an early one!) we then made our way down to Spur for some seriously delicious dinner, on to visit Anu and her awesome Saffron Sandlewood Sour at Rob Roy and finishing the evening with Jamie at Tini Biggs.

Rocky, Chuck, Wes and I had a leisurely and awesome lunch the next day at Matt's in the Market before the boys had to fly back to LA LA land... but I know they will be back, right boys? :)

Photos from the weekend here

The San Francisco treat!

2009-05-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

A free night in our favorite SF Kimpton, a few new cocktail bars & restaurants to check out and Dave & Dino's birthday party... all great reasons for a weekend in the bay!

We couldn't help but notice that there was no traffic when we landed on a Friday night last month, we were checking into the Palomar 30 minutes after we had landed! After snacking on the chocolate dipped strawberries waiting for us in our room we grabbed a cab and headed out to The Alembic Bar. This wasn't our first time here but last time we had met friends on a Sunday so there was a much different vibe going on Friday evening. We had a few cocktails made expertly by Danny & Daniel- The Gilded Lily with real gold dust (although a bit too perfumy for my taste), The Southern Exposure (which was a delicious blend of mint, lime juice, celery juice & Junipero), a Promissory Note (Repossado, vermouth, Canton, honey, absinthe and a radish slice and grated nutmeg garnish), and a "Take Your Chances" which resulted in a Dark & Stormy.

We had to only wait a few minutes before we could sit at the bar but by the time we left it was packed. Go before 9pm and you should be fine. It was sitting here at the bar that I first noticed the bartenders could shake one drink while stirring another simutanously- envision the head patting/tummy rubbing and you get the idea.

Off to dinner at SPQR. They don't take ressies so we went down the street to Dosa and had a cocktail and a dosa, which was yummy! The place is very large and pretty and was quite a scene. We headed back to SPQR and were seated at a tiny table in the front window next to another tiny table, the space was really too small for even a 4 top so two 2 tops was a squeeze to say the least. All our food was good and if this were in my neighborhood we would frequent it but it wasn't good enough to be a destination restaurant in my opinion.

Off to Heaven's Dog where another round (or two) of wonderful cocktails like the Bumble Bee, Remember the Main, Tiger's Milk #2 & an Old Fashion were served up by Erick, Jackie and Eric. And again there was the simultaneous shake/stir going on!

The next day was beautiful and sunny so we headed out to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan Town. It is a small community festival with lots of dancing, music, Japanese street food, etc. A very nice way to spend the day!

Later that evening we joined our friends in celebrating Dave & Dino's birthday at a great little wine bar in Burlingame. This was the second year in a row we were able to travel down and play with the boys, very fun and lots of great wine!

The next day Ally made a wonderful Easter breakfast for us all and then we went for a little walk in the Skyline area. We were all looking forward to lunch at In n'Out Burger before hitting the airport but they were closed for the Easter holiday! grrrrrr!!

We left the sun and our friends and came home to dark, stormy skies greeted at SeaTac by this double rainbow!

photos

Puerto Vallarta

2009-04-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

In mid-February one of my well-up-the-chain-of-command bosses at work surprised me with an offer of a free trip to Puerto Vallarta, all expenses paid, as part of an annual rewards program. Wendy and I were a last-minute addition to the group that was going -- someone had dropped out, and I was apparently next on the list -- and we were temporarily in a bit of a bind. Forest was coming for a visit at the end of the month, and we had a party planned for her, just when we were now supposed to be in Mexico. Fortunately, Wendy is neither one to turn down a vacation nor one who's afraid to change plans, so after a quick consultation with Forest we moved her party back a week and started packing the sunscreen.

Our Friday morning flight was made lass-than-pleasant by having to sit next to an extremely inebriated man who proceeded to get more drunk throughout the flight and give us all sorts of "useful" advice, such as "Don't buy drugs from Mexican cops." Thanks buddy.

Although this was a work-sponsored trip, at an all-inclusive resort (our first time in such a surreal place), we only had a few organized activities with my co-workers. The first evening we had a sunset reception / cocktail party next to the pool, which was a great way to get into the vacation mode; afterwards Wendy and I went to Piaf, the on-resort French-styled restaurant. The wine at Piaf in also complimentary, but they do have an up-sell menu (for additional, and outrageous, prices) that looked a lot better. When the sommelier realized that we weren't very enthusiastic about the standard wines, he brought us one of the better wines that had a water-damaged label and gave it to us at no charge; now that's service! We had a nightcap at the lobby bar after dinner and enjoyed the warm evening air before turning in.

On Saturday elected to spend most of the day lounging around the pool (with a swim-up bar!), soaking our Seattle-pale skin in the sun. That evening, however, we went into Puerto Vallarta proper to have a rum drinks at La Bodeguita del Medio, a great Cuban place, followed by dinner at the unusually-named Daiquiri Dick's, where the ex-wife of a friend of ours was a chef and manager. Not only did we have a fantastic meal next to the beach, after dropping off several hard-to-find-in-Mexico American amenties, were given a 2 kg bag of coffee beans to take home.

It was on Saturday that we also discovered the 'all-inclusive' moniker means just that; we could order a full bottle of liquor per person per day to the room (and ice and vermouth were freely available) so we knew immediately what that meant: home-made martinis!!

Sunday was our day to wander around Puerto Vallarta's downtown and beaches, and buy some tequila to bring home. Being Sunday, many of the shops were closed and the whole city was pretty sleepy.

Monday was ziplining! Neither of us had ever been before. We took a bus for about an hour and a half up into the mountains north and east of PV, had a brief instructional class, and started zipping between the trees. I was very proud of Wendy; heights are not her favorite thing, but she did great and ended up having a lot of fun. We did a total of 19 lines, and finished with a rappel from about 65 feet. I was about twice the size, or more, of any of our guides, so they had a little difficulty manipulating me at the transition points, but they were all very professional.

When we got back to the hotel, we had a company dinner, including fireworks on the beach, and finished up at the lobby bar.

On our final day, we enjoyed the poolside bar until the last possible minute, not knowing when we'd see the sun again.

Our full photo set can be found here.

A day trip to Inari and a farewell to Japan

2009-04-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Japan, tomorrow we all would leave at different times, 3 separate taxis scheduled to pick us up and take us to various train stations and airports.

We started with breakfast in a nice tea house we had seen on our first day's walk of Kyoto. The garden here is so pretty and the koi are HUGE!

After breakfast Dayne, Matt & I decided to take a day trip to Inari. It was an easy and quick train ride to the small town where the streets were jammed with people making their way to Fushimi Inari Shrine and the the 1000's of torii that wind their way up the small hillside.

The streets were also lined with food vendors, a street carnival feel going on although very different than the street foods we see at home. Here there were whole mackerel grilling on sticks, skewers of chicken, soba noodles being griddled, candied fruits, whole grilled squid on sticks and Sapporo beer everywhere.

We spend some time walking up the hill, through the thousands of orange torii gates. Small "neighborhoods" of shrines would be grouped together here and there, most covered with offerings of sake, sushi, rice, etc. It was a very pretty walk, the higher you got up the hill the less people there were.

After some street food and some beers we headed back to Kyoto to meet up with Forest for our last night. One last cocktail hour in the apartment, one last night out for dinner which would consist of kushi skewers and then okonomiyaki (our favorite food in Japan) and finally a go at karaoke!

We got a private room and immediately ordered up some Japanese whiskey and set about trying to figure out how to work the equipment. There was a good assortment of song choices and even some holiday tunes. We had forgot our animal costumes so just had to sing in normal clothes!

It was a great last night spent with good friends!

Dayne and I had a bit of trouble getting out to the airport the next day. After a quick and uneventful bullet train ride up to Tokyo I accidently got us on a train to the airport which stopped at every town between Tokyo and Narita, making the trip over 1 1/2 hours! We arrived 45 minutes before our flight departure but no one seemed to mind. We rushed to our gate and stood in the long line to board and were then informed that they were moving us from our coach seats at the very back of the plane to row 6 in First Class!! We were so excited as we sat down and were served champagne. This was real international First Class which I had never had a chance to fly on! I spent about half the flight home playing with my seat which fully reclined and had a massage feature. We were also served this lovely dinner

Thanks for following along on our trip and thanks for the nice comments. As always if you'd like to see all the pictures from Kyoto you can click here.

Starting 2009 in Japan

2009-04-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

For the first day of 2009 we decided to do our own walking tour of the Gion and Pontocho Street. Forest took the lead and off we went exploring our neighborhood. It's amazing how beautiful the area was! People, many in traditional dress, were still streaming in mass to the shrine so it was good to be walking in the opposite direction.

You know the saying "sometimes the best things in life are free"!

It's always fun to just wander and take it all in. We found a little noodle restaurant and decided to stop for lunch, it is traditional to have noodles on New Years Day to bring you prosperity for the months ahead.

We had to break out the language books (thanks Lauren!) to order as there was no English menu, but we did well and received big bowls of delicious noodles in an amazing broth and a huge tempura prawn on top! We sat crossed legged on the floor slurping noodles and listening to all the others diners slurp too.

Continuing our walk we headed across the Kamogawa River to Pontocho Street. This is an interesting area, originally the red light district and now crammed with restaurants, bars, tea houses, love hotels, etc. The first street is so narrow that you can barely pass people walking side by side, the second a bit wider. It's a very interesting area and I only wish we would have had time to go at night. We did spot a big kareoke parlour...

We had decided that evening to check out the Touzan Bar at the Hyatt Kyoto . Although Dayne makes a mean martini and we had had some delicious Japanese whiskeys we were all jonesing for a nice, well made cocktail and had heard really good things about Touzan. The bartenders were great and after a drink or two we were so happy with everything that we decided to just have some sushi and make ourselves at home for the night. We took a great video of just how much care goes into the making of cocktails! Thanks to the iPhone application of Cocktail DB and our bartenders who were very excited to make different things we had a great night, I highly recommend Touzan!

Happy New Year!

2009-03-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Now that the Spring Equinox has come and gone, I think it's well past time to post about our New Year experiences.

On the day before NYE, the four of us walked out of the Gion District, across the Kamogawa River, and to the nearby Nishiki Market. I was expecting something along the lines of Seattle's Pike Place Market, if maybe a bit bigger. Instead we found miles (yes, miles) of covered streets that were packed wall-to-wall with people, containing stores and stalls that sold all manner of often-unidentifiable food and related items. It's hard to describe how packed it was; we didn't have any basis for comparison, but we assumed that the crowd was due to pre-New Year preparations and the holiday break, rather than being representative of normal traffic.

We knew that we wanted to bring back one of the highly-acclaimed knives from the Aritsugu knife shop. The shop was easier to find than we had anticipated, though no less crowded than anywhere else. Wendy and I picked out a chef's knife that we liked and they polished it, then stamped a phonetic 'Miller' onto the blade in katakana. By far the nicest knife we've ever owned, it was also surprisingly inexpensive; now that we can see how high the online ordering prices are, I wish we'd bought several more at the time!

After the market, we walked back to the apartment, rested for a bit, then went out for a simple dinner at a neighborhood izakaya. We did hit one bar before retiring for the evening; good thing, because it almost broke the bank! We found a nearby bar, not gaijin-oriented but not unfriendly either, that was run by a woman who we surmise was a retired geisha. She was remarkably precise and unwaveringly polite, but our ~1oz/25mL shots of Japanese whiskey ended up being $25 each. Thankfully we realized that after one and quickly left to return to our "home" bar!

On New Year's Eve, we all took the train out to Nara, a nearby city and the location of a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Since Forest works for UNESCO, you'd think she could claim this was all work travel, but no.) We were particularly interested in seeing Tōdai-ji, a huge Buddhist temple and the largest wooden building in the world.

Tōdai-ji and the surrounding areas were in full preparation for the coming NYE festivities, so we saw food stalls and other merchants setting up everywhere. Nara is also apparently a home to a large population of urban deer, so much like on Miyajima, we had to watch where we walked and watch what the deer tried to get into.

The temple itself reminded me of a large aircraft hanger in its immensity, but was at least as ornate as anything else we'd seen. The biggest surpise was that the current structure is 30% smaller than the previous, which was destroyed by fire in the late 1600s.

By the time we returned to Kyoto, all the main streets in Gion were becoming crowded as people streamed towards the Yasaka and other local shrines. After some champagne at the apartment to celebrate in Western style, we joined the throngs and wound our way up the hills. In Japan, on New Year's Eve and for the following several days, it's traditional to visit the shrines with one's entire family, in part to pray for peace and prosperity in the coming year and in part as a huge social occasion. In Kyoto, home to the largest number of surviving pre-WWII shrines, the locals take that particularly seriously. In our quiant Gion district it had been easy to underestimate the population of Kyoto; that night, though, it was obvious what a huge city it was, and everyone was trying to go to the same small parks! We found it curious that there wasn't a big event at midnight, such as bell-ringing or fireworks (I have to believe that fireworks are discouraged around so many old wooden structures).

Eventually we toasted the New Year over beers in a tent that had been set up for the occasion, and then found our way back to our apartment for our first sleep of 2009!

Geisha Glamour Shots!

2009-03-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

For my birthday Forest had arranged for us to get geisha makeovers! That is definitely not something you get to do every day at home, or ever!!! We were excited and headed out to find the studio which proved to be much harder than we had anticipated. Even with the exact address written down locals in the area could not figure out where this place was. We asked a waitress at a coffee shop (which would turn out to be just 2 blocks from the studio!), delivery men- who you would think knew the city, and even called the studio for additional directions. In Kyoto we saw a lot of people dial the phone number into their phones which would then give them the address and the area of town that the location was in. This was also true of cab companies which just asked for the land line and then showed up on time.

Once we did find the studio they had us change into plain white dressing robes. I'll just say that Japanese women are much more slight in build than American stock ;) Forest and I were bound and strapped tight into these little robes!

Then the makeup was applied- creamy white base, bright red lips, heavy black eye liner. Was this a geisha makeover or had we stumbled into the mime makeover studio? Of course Forest and I found this all very funny and started giggling uncontrollably which led to me having tears of laughter which smeared my eye makeup which got us a firm lecture from the makeup lady! We are trouble.

After the makeup was applied we picked out a kimono from a rack we were led to. The women wrapped us in layers and layers of garment. There were more lightweight robes to be put on over our dressing gown, then the heavier kimono. Then various sashes, ties, belts, etc. were pulled incredibly tight and tied. Finally a large headpiece of hair and hair ornaments all set in a metal cap of sorts was set and tied upon our heads. Oh lord, if we hadn't already been giggling...

We were lead to the photo studio (and walking in these things is crazy hard!) where each of us were given our own photographer. Mine posed me and had me hold things that were very geisha like I assume. She spoke no English but would hold her hand where I was to gaze. My make up woman had already told me that I was to smile very small for this look. There were umbrellas, Japanese balls, high heeled wooden shoes, etc. Each time she took a photo she would get excited and exclaim "OK! Very Good!" if she liked it or "Oops, Sorry!" if she didn't.

The photo shoot was actually a blast! It was much more fun that getting our make up done as we expected. They even shot a few of Forest and I together, they let us do a "free style" as they called it and we flashed peace signs. They loved that!!

The studio mailed us our professional photos just last month, they are actually pretty good- much better than these here. I'm happy to show them to you next time you are over, I'll entertain you with drinking games and witty banter as well, for that is the way of the geisha! :)

Kyoto walking tour

2009-03-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Our first morning in Kyoto we took a 1/2 day, 4 mile walking tour of part of the city with local guide Shihoko. She layed out a plan to show us just a few of the temple and shrine highlights of this amazing city.

As we had stayed up a bit late and slept in we hadn't had any coffee/tea. When we asked about grabbing something she took us to a Starbucks! She said it was the only shop that did "to-go", oh well.

As we walked out of our Gion neighborhood Shihoko pointed out the Geisha school and tea houses. Also she showed us the apartments where the geisha live and the small wooden plaques hung outside showing who lived inside. There are so few geisha left in Kyoto and they were all living just steps from our apartment!

We started off at the beautiful Yasaka Shrine, a very popular shrine on holidays. There was lots of activity as everyone was getting set up for new years eve. Shihoko was great at explaining what everyone would be doing that evening and also what people did in general when visiting the shrines. She also helped me to shake a lucky number out of a wooden box and then turn it in to receive my fortune. The fortune she read to me was the best she said! Money, love, health, etc were all to be mine! Now that was worth a couple of yen for sure!

Onward to Chion-in Temple and the massive gates that welcome you. There was a service going on inside and Shihoko took us in to watch for a while. The buildings were so old and beautiful. We learned how the smoke from the incense was thought to make you more beautiful and smarter so we stood in it for a while. I'm pretty sure it worked!

From the temple we walked through the beautiful Maruyama park and then through part of the Higashiyama neighborhood. I can't say enough about the beauty of this city. The buildings, parks, streets, etc are charming and so interesting to look at, truly foreign to our eyes. As we walked through the crowded streets we gasped as we saw a geisha standing silently and posing for pictures. Shihoko told us later that Japanese tourists will pay to dress up and walk through parts of the Gion. This girl looked really good but what gave it away I guess was her being by herself as well as being out at this time of day (early afternoon) when most would be in school.

Perhaps the most impressive of the sights that day was the sprawling Kiyomizu-dera Temple. We climbed the steps through massive orange gates up to a height which gave you wonderful (although hazy) views of Kyoto. Here sat the pagoda and other surrounding buildings. We walked with thousands of people towards the temple which is a huge wooden structure built completely without any nails. It sits 13 meters (about 42 feet) above the ground and the site is over 1200 years old! There are many different shrines and statues on the grounds, each with their own story. One of the things I enjoyed the most was watching worshipers line up at Otowa-no-taki to catch the flowing spring water in cups and drink it for health and prosperity.

Our last stop of the day was at Sanjusangen-do, the temple of 1001 Buddahs. Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take pictures inside but I found this website that has some great images. Once you take your shoes off you enter this massive building, surprisingly quiet for the number of people inside, lit very dimmly and smelling of incense. The site of all those statues with their real gold is amazing! The temple is also know for training the best of Kyoto's archerers and you can still see marks in the beams where some of the arrows stuck.
Walking around Kyoto with a local was such a great way to get aquainted with the city as well as learn a little of the customs of the people. I would highly recommend Shihoko should you ever go!

To see all the photos from our walking tour click here!

Hypocenter

2009-02-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

"Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focusing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed." --Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee, Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945

When the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the city essentially came to an end. That one fact represented almost everything I knew about our next Japanese destination. I'd of course seen the pictures of the Atomic Bomb Dome, but very little else, so I was left with the impression of a ruined city with some surviving suburbs, guidebook information to the contrary. When we actually got to Hiroshima on the shinkansen, what we actually encountered was almost completely opposite my preconceptions. We left the station and found a modern, vibrant city in front of us. We'd decided to stay in a hotel rather than an apartment in Hiroshima, and our choice, the Hotel Active! (inexpensive, ultra-modern, and ideal location), was only a short distance away. We wanted to take a streetcar, but due to a slight traffic obstruction on the track had to taxi instead.

We hadn't really done any research on restaurants for the evening, but needed something to eat, so after checking we went across the street to the start of the city's entertainment district. After wandering for less than half a block, we found a fun little seafood place that was obviously a favorite of the local hard-drinking sarariman. A beer or two later and we were ready for bed!

I wandered around a bit the next morning through the entertainment district to get my bearings (and locate martini makings) while the girls slept in. Eventually Wendy and I walked over to the center of the city for lunch and found a highly-recommended stall for okonomiyaki on the 5th floor of a building completely full of similar food stalls. The counter was tiny -- I was growing used to that -- but we loved watching our meal made layer by layer in front of us.

Our friend Matthieu came in by train from Osaka (where he'd just arrived from Paris) to join us for the rest of the trip. When he made his way to the hotel, the four of us headed back out to visit the Peace Memorial Park and Musuem, including the A-Bomb dome.

There are only a few places I've visited that have similar impact. The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is one, though that was abstracted from where those atrocities took place, and certainly Dachau, though I was fairly young when I visited there so have only half-remembered impressions. The A-Bomb Dome, Peace Park and associated Museum were every bit as well done, and right next to the hypocenter of the actual event, so were hugely moving.

The most impressive part of our entire stay in Hiroshima was that, as Americans (all but Matt) we never once felt any sort of resentment, and were welcome everywhere. Maybe it's because the city was so completely de-populated by the blast that most current residents never felt any direct effects to themselves or their families. Maybe it's the effect of time. Or maybe the Japanese have a great ability to look forward and not back.

After spending a couple of hours at the memorial, we needed some dinner. Only a half block from the A-Bomb done, the hustle and bustle of the entertainment district took back over. We wandered through the covered street malls until we found a likely-looking hibachi joint, and settled in for Matt's first real meal in Japan and our first where we'd had to prepare our own food. Wow, fantastic meat! Some of the beef was so fatty it looked like tuna.

We did a little bar-hopping in Hiroshima as well. Bars were everywhere, but not all were gaijin-friendly. Still, without too much effort we found an underground (not in the "covert" sense, but literally underground) bar to finish up the evening.

The following day dawned bright and sunny again, which was fortunate since we'd decided to take a boat out to the island of Miyajima where, among other things, was one of the most-photographed scenes in all of Japan, a floating torii (shrine gate). The island also happnes to be the home of largely domesticated deer that will steal food right from your packets, as well as some fantastic shrines, pagodas, parks, and the attendant tourist infrastructure and trinket shops. Still, all of us enjoyed the island and the views.

A quick ferry ride and train transfer later, and we were ready to head off to Kyoto!

Our complete set of Hiroshima photos can be found here.

Merii Kurisumasu!!!

2009-02-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Japanese style! We woke up snug in our pods in Tokyo and set about catching our first bullet train out to the country. The train was very fast and very clean. An attendant came through each car selling snacks and drinks off a cart and before leaving each car she would turn and face us all while giving a little bow. This happened on every train we would take in the country and without fail- charming!

We were headed to Hakone, a mountainous area southwest of Tokyo famous for onsen (hotsprings), views of Mt. Fuji, Lake Ashinoko and ryokans (traditional Japanese inns). We had reservations at Senkyoro, a ryokan over 100 years old.

Upon arriving I was excited to do the Hakone Round Trip tour where you travel on 5 different forms of transportation around the area. We boarded the bus and headed up and around the mountain getting off at Moto- Hakone. From here we walked thru the Ancient Cedar Avenue and also the Checkpoint Museum.

We finally got to Lake Ashi and were excited to board the pirate ships which would take us to the other side but the weather had turned from gorgeous, bright and sunny to windy, dark and stormy looking so the ships were cancelled for the afternoon. grrrrrr! We grabbed a bus and headed back to the train station to collect our bags we had stored in lockers. We then took a cab to the ryokan (ok so only 3 forms of transportation this day!)

As noted previously we had sent our luggage ahead of us via a courier found at 7-11. I can't recommend this more highly! Our luggage was waiting for us in our room while we were able to travel for a day with just a little carry on bag each. This was so nice since we were figuring out the trains and multiple stations for the first time.

A woman dressed in traditional clothing showed us to our room and then proceeded to make tea for us while we sat on the floor around our table on tatami mats. This was our first experience with the low traditional table and zabuton cushion. Once we had tea she gave us each a yukata (robe), obi (tie) and tabi socks. Can you imagine the giggles? Yes, we are very mature and had to do many many poses in our robes while having martini's made by Dayne-san.

Our room was great! A large living room with tatami mat floors where our table was and where we would sleep later. A small sitting room with a balcony. A nice bathroom seperated by toilet, shower/bath and sink areas. And a mini bar filled with One Cup sake!

We had our own little Christmas present party complete with Forest in her Santa hat. It was fun thinking of the past Christmas' we've spent together- on safari last year with about 105F tempatures, in Paris a few years back and handling an unfortunate incident with some power failures...

We booked a private onsen before dinner and enjoyed a VERY hot soak in the mineral springs. Our bath was in a room that had an open wall to the forests. it was very pretty and HOT! The water is so thick with minerals that you can't see into it. And it's HOT!! Forest and Dayne were super troopers since the baths are taken nude and we had only had one martini each at this point!

We made our way back to our room just in time for our room host to arrive and let us know that she was going to start serving us dinner. The 12 course meal was beautiful and artistic, we had brought our own champagne to go along with everything and had a really good time!

After dinner they set up our futons and gave us different yakatas to sleep in. More giggling and posing and picture taking. We had quite a little party that night with champagne, japanese whiskey and sake while doing our own style of karaoke and dancing! Merii Kurisumasu!!!

The next morning Forest and I headed to the women's bath to soak a bit, it was a large beautiful bath with a wall of windows looking out to the mountains. We were the only one's using it so we didn't have to worry about committing some major onsen faux pas!

We met Dayne for breakfast in the large cafateria like room, lit with my favorite flourescent lights. ugh. They served us so many dishes for breakfast that even after we asked multiple times what went with what we had no clue! I mean look at all this, it is for ONE person!!

We did get to pick back up out tour around Hakone that day. It was sunny and clear as we boarded the cable car and got amazing views of Mt. Fuji while heading up to see the volcanic activity in the crater of Mt. Hakone.

And we finally got to ride on the pirate ship too!
Official mode of transportation count while in Hakone...6! train, bus, foot, taxi, cable car and pirate ship! Hakone photo set is here.

Electric Town!

2009-02-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
-- William Gibson, Neuromancer

My images of Japan prior to our visit were murky at best, overly influenced by bits and pieces of Shogun, Black Rain, Blade Runner (yes, OK, technically that was in LA), and Lost in Translation. By far the most most enduring vision, though, was from the opening scenes of Gibson's 1984 masterpiece. I was a bit disappointed on our initial evening train ride into the city from Narita, knowing we were passing by the streets of Chiba with no way to see what they looked like. (I understand there's nothing really compelling in Chiba, but still...)

But I knew that eventually we'd get to Akihabara Electric Town, the Tokyo district that's the electronics geek capital of the world and probably the one place -- with the possible exception of Osaka, where we unfortunately weren't visiting -- that could live up to the mental images I'd developed. The chance came a bit earlier than I'd thought; I'd left our camera charger back in the States by mistake, and in the quest to find a new one I took a train to Akihabara one evening while Forest and Wendy napped. The place was surreal: more neon than I'd ever seen in one place; tiny booths selling circuit boards, transformers, individual chips and just about every other part you could imagine; multi-level electronics-and-manga megastores; and pachinko parlors everywhere.
Since our camera was more than a year old, and therefore ancient by Japanese standards, I didn't end up finding a compatible charger and was "forced" to buy a brand new camera. I unfortunately had to head back to our apartment near the Nishi-Okikubo station, way across town, sooner than I would have liked. At least I knew we'd be able to take pictures for the rest of the trip!

Flash forward a couple of days to Christmas Eve, the morning after our Tapas Molecular Bar experience. We packed up all of our things, sent the bulk of our luggage on to our next major destination outside of Tokyo [Hakone] courtesy of a courier service in the nearby 7-Eleven, and took the train back to Akihabara, where we were going to be spending the night in a pod hotel. I wasn't thrilled at the thought, but Forest and Wendy had really wanted to try it, so I got out-voted.

The hotel itself, "Capsule Inn Akihabara" (the white building in the center of this view) didn't look very promising from the outside, but actually was well-maintained and seemingly well-run once we checked in. For some reason, they are completely closed from 10am (when the previous night's tenants have to leave) until 5pm, when they let people back in for the next night's stay. The floors are segregated, so Wendy and Forest headed up to one of the women's floors to put their overnight bags in a locker, while I did the same on a men's-only floor. We walked the couple of blocks over to the main Akihabara streets to explore a bit and find some lunch. With the possible exception of the Harajuku area, "Akiba" probably highlighted the most unusual aspects of Japanese city life and culture. One of the stranger aspects were the "cosplay cafes", where the waitresses dress up as French maids or manga characters. We picked a decidedly more tame destination, a small noodle shop. Even there, though, nothing was quite what would be expected in any other part of the world. We had to purchase our meal by using a ticket-vending machine at the entrance that [thankfully] had pictures of all of our choices. Rather than the fast-food ambiance that suggests, though, we were then treated to an excellently-prepared (and welcomely warming) sit-down meal at the counter. The rest of Akihabara was a bit overwhelming (especially our brief attempt at playing pachinko.) Forest had left her phone charger in France -- we must have been on the same wavelength -- so we stopped into several shops looking for a replacement, only to be told that nothing like what she needed existed in Japan, despite the fact that her phone was made by Sony-Eriksson. Seems that if something isn't the latest and greatest, the Japanese don't want anything to do with it!

By the time we wandered back to the Capsule Inn for the 5pm check-in, we were pretty beat, so we each went to our separate pods for a short pre-dinner nap. It was at that point that I discovered that the pods were approximately 196cm long (I'm 197cm tall). When laying out straight, I was just barely too long. Fortunately the capsules were fairly wide, so I was able to fit in diagonally.

Since we didn't have rooms per se, this was to be our only night where we couldn't have apéros before going out. We couldn't let Christmas Eve go without some celebration; we'd decided to go to the New York Bar in the Park Hyatt Tokyo hotel, on the 52nd floor of the Shinjuku Park Tower. The bar was made famous by the movie Lost In Translation, although sadly a certain someone was not anywhere to be found on the night we visited.
We hadn't realized that the bar didn't open until 8pm, so we had a small wait, but the place was absolutely stunning, with unsurpassed views of the Tokyo cityscape. They had a lounge band and singer, but as an added bonus we were serenaded with Christmas Carols by a visiting group of Harlem gospel singers. The Hyatts in Japan seem to run top-tier bar programs, and the New York bar was no exception. Unfortunately for me, though I wasn't paying attention to the tabletop snack mix and inadvertently ate a peanut, to which I have an allergy. Almost immediately, I lost all my appetite and wasn't able to even enjoy my martini, which considering the 2,000 JPY cover charge was especially annoying.

Since I was feeling pretty miserable and just wanted to crawl into my pod, Wendy and Forest went on to eat near Shibuya Crossing (which I was sorry to miss) and I took a train back to Akiba. Upon arriving, I was surprised to find that the seemingly near-empty hotel was now packed; all but one or two of the pods on my floor were occupied. The next morning, after meeting up with the girls again, we boarded a train for Hakone.

Our complete Tokyo album can be found here.

Tapas Molecular Bar

2009-01-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

When I was trying to decide where to go for my birthday it was between RyuGin and Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. They both seemed so great, so different and so interesting- so we did both, not in the same night of course!

The Mandarin Oriental is a stunning hotel in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo and the Tapas Molecular Bar is on the 38th floor offering amazing views of the city and a very interesting dinner option. Chef Jeff Ramsey serves just 7 diners a seating and 2 seatings per night. We were very excited and after talking with the chef for a few minutes we could tell he was glad that we were into molecular gastronomy and had been to some of his mentor's restaurants.

After a welcome cocktail he immediately dazzled us with foie gras cotton candy and deep fried shoestring beets (which as most of you know we don't ususally eat beets but these were good!).

And there was carmel corn (corn puree entrapped in carmel), a very tasty frozen manchego sorbet stuffed in an apple "cigar", pearls made out of seaweed served with beautiful shasimi and scallops with pumpkin sorbet. There were about 20 courses all together, small bites of fun and delicious food.

A couple of my favorites from the evening were the lamb chop that you had to eat in one bite as it was filled with jus, like a soup dumpling the jus exploded in your mouth when you bit into it! And also the miso soup which was suspended in tofu skin with powdered wakame on the side of it. As you put the whole "egg" in your mouth the flavors all melded together- oishi!

The desserts were just as fun- a "Blue Hawaiian" snowcone which shot smoke out your nose and mouth when you ate it, cheese cake that was niether cheese nor cake and then a fun tasting experiment with a super berry which turns normally bitter and acidic flavors sugary sweet in your mouth.

Chef Ramsey finished our very enjoyable evening by presenting me a birthday gift. An egg which he instructed me to drop on his counter. As I dropped it he smashed the egg open to reveal a tiny oragami crane, the inside of the crane read Happy Birthday!

We finished the night with drinks at Dazzle with friends of Murray's who live in Tokyo now. The drinks were good and well made, unfortunately that super berry was still making everything taste quite sweet! The bartenders here would hand carve balls of ice for your scotches and whiskeys, still a big thing in Japan. And I do think the bathroom had the best toilet in all of Japan, all the bells and whistles!

The Big Birthday part 2

2009-01-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

Yeah! My birthday night in Tokyo! Martini's at the apartment and then to start the evening we thought we would find Mori's Bar as we had seen this interesting video on YouTube but the info we had was incomplete so we ended up having very nice cocktails at Muduro. The bar was part of the Hyatt in Roppongi Hills. We would come to learn that Hyatt's are THE place for cocktails in Japan.

We had late dinner reservations at Ryugin, which I had read an article in Food and Wine about and the chef Seiji Yamamoto. The restaurant didn't have an English speaking person on shift for the day we were reserved so the woman who had taken my reservation came in just to work with us. Over the top service.

A 12 course meal, complete with champagne, wine pairings and saki was served to us in a very moderately decorated room. It seemed that everything was muted to enhance the beauty of the dishes. One after the other came these gorgeous traditional looking creations but each one had something that made it whimsical, molecular or otherwise unique from what pure tradition would be.

House made bottarga, monkfish liver, shashimi, shark fin, sakura shrimp and seaperch were just some of the fabulous ingredients presented to us.

And then the most interesting dessert I have had- Candy Apple of Minus 196 Degrees Celsius. An actual lady apple filled with powdered ice cream. Break it open and take a bit and it is Apple Pie in your mouth. Beautiful and yummy!

Chef Yamamoto was kind enough to come out a few times to our table, our waitress playing interpreter as he doesn't speak any English. He wanted to know how we heard of him and the restaurant and what we thought of Japan and the food. He also took special time to sign my menu, no easy feet as there is no kanji for Wendy, but he wanted to make it personal and finally got it down.

He even walked us out to our cab and said goodbye. We were the last to leave the restaurant, I think it was 1:30am.

The trains had stopped running so we had no choice but to take a cab home, unfortunately the cabs in Japan are insanely expensive so $100 later we were finally in our apartment. Dayne fell asleep immediately but Forest and I shared One Cups and talked about our fun day!

I loved having my birthday in such an amazing city but also having two totally unique meals! Absolutely memorable. Oh and Forest's bday present to me was to have geisha make overs in Kyoto! Fun!!! (More on that later)

The next day we were a bit worse for wear- jet lag, lack of sleep, lots of drinking. So we slept in and took it easy. We planned on doing a loop of the city by subway and made our way to Shinjuku station. It was loud and big with huge electronic board displays outside. but our first stop was Harajuku and it was a beautiful, warm sunny day. So we got off to explore the area, or stalk Harajuku girls as Forest and Dayne did!

The area was really busy, people everywhere and lots of shop keepers announcing their deals via megaphones on the streets. We wandered around and Dayne and Forest got shots of some Harajuku girls after deploying a surround technique to capture their prey!

My 40th Birthday in the world's largest city

2009-01-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to me! We decided to head to Japan for this year's holiday trip and I wanted to have my big birthday in it's big city. The world's largest city with over 35 million people in the greater Tokyo area. Isn't that amazing? I can't even wrap my head around that number!

Dayne and I met Forest in the Narita airport and took the airport express into Tokyo, which took about an hour. We had rented an apartment right by the Nishi-Ogikubo train stop. It was very small but perfectly outfitted for the 3 of us and 30 seconds from the train station. After a very long lesson in all the different types of recylcing we were expected to adhear to from our property manager (glass, combustable, non combustable, food, etc) we walked over to the grocery store for martini makings and snacks. It was late and we were all exhausted after a full day of traveling so we decided to "do it at home" so we could get up early and head to the Tsukiji Fish Market.

6am the next morning I woke up Dayne and Forest eager to take advantage of us being out of wack with the time change to head to the fish market. I was greeted with choruses of "are you kidding me? what the hell time is it?!" but it was my birthday so they had to let me have my way!

The market was crazy even at 7:00am. And dangerous with small fork lifts buzzing everywhere, not caring if you were in their way or not. Huge tuna frozen solid were being broken down and sold off. So many different varieties of shellfish- most we'd never seen before- were on display as were live fish, dead fish, dried fish, eels, squids, monk fish liver and all other matters of things that come from the sea. The market is huge and every square feet is bustling.

After dogging forklifts for a while we decided it was time for breakfast. With the help of a local we found the line for the best sushi in Tokyo- Sushi Dei. It was 8:30 and the line was 2+ hours long. We took turns exploring the outer market shops, bringing back food for each other to try and holding the place in line.

After 2 hours we were finally in the short line near the front door and windows. Everyone was peeking into the very small restaurant, with just 11 seats, trying to figure out when their seat would be available. Finally the woman host asked us to choose either the 7 piece or 11 piece sushi menu and the next thing you knew we were sitting on impossibly small stools and all the staff was yelling "irasshaimass!!!" It was 10:30am.

We ordered beers and the sushi started coming. 1st up the most impossibly marbled fatty tuna I've ever seen. Then came sea bream, octopus salad of sorts, mackerel, sea urchin, egg, miso soup, maguro, LIVE surf clam, flounder, weird mushy small shrimp, maki, horse mackerel (YUM), sea eel (couldn't do it after Dayne and Forest's reactions) and finally a call your own piece. I was so stuffed that the only thing I knew I could make room for was that amazing fatty tuna. Forest asked the chef to give her his favorite, now how can that be safe? Forest got COD SPERM SAC! She said it was pretty good and announced to all that it was very creamy! LOL!

We tried to walk off our breakfast by walking around the beautiful Ginza area until we found a liquor store that Jim from Vessel told us about. Finally home to take a nap and rest up for the big birthday dinner- Tokyo style!

And finally by sea...

2008-12-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

On our last full day in Kauai we decided to take a 6 1/2 hour Zodiac tour of the Napali Coast to get a bit more up close and personal to the amazing rugged peaks and valleys. We toured with Capt. Andy's and for the most they were very good. The captain and crew were fun, informative and seemed to really want everyone to have a great time and see as much as possible.

We started out of Port Allen and immediately came upon a pod of Spinner Dolphins! They were so funny to watch, playing around our wake, jumping and racing each other. Then it was about a 30+ minute, somewhat wet and wild ride up to Polihale, which is the last place you can get to by vehicle. Many people camp on the beach here with these dramatic mountains just next to them. All the way up you could spot huge sea turtles bobbing around in the water!

We decided to head up to the north end of the coastline before stopping for lunch. The weather was sunny and warm which was good as the captain pointed our Zodiac directly out into the huge waves crashing on a reef. For about 20 minutes we rode HUGE waves, our small boat seemingly being tossed around but yet still somehow in control. Very fun and adrenaline inducing!

He then moved us closer in to the coast where we explored a few sea caves, pulling right into them. So amazing and beautiful!

At this point we had a bit of a problem, the Zodiac has 2 engines and one of ours died. And it really needed both to get our boat of 10 all the way back to Port Allen which is now at least 1 hour away depending on the currents, waves, etc.

After multiple tries to get it cranking we went on one engine over to Nualolo Beach, accessible only by tour operators who qualify. It was a barren beach made up of rocks and a little open picnic area where the guys served us a really good hot lunch. We snorkled before, snorkeling was ok but nothing spectacular. For lunch there was a pineapple chicken dish, great rice, fruit, salad and dessert. After lunch we went on a walking tour of the ancient Hawaiian fishing village that use to be there.

The village was really interesting. Remains of burial grounds, houses and springs. All around the valley walls you could see the scars of old waterfalls.

We even saw a monk seal lounging on the beach which is incredibly rare as they are on the endangered list. Our guide explained that they are so friendly the locals call them the dogs of the sea. They will just come right up to people and boats and unfortunately this made them easy prey for hunters.

Unfortunately during this whole time the captains were hard at work on our raft but couldn't fix it. They ended up taking a family of 6 off our raft and adding it to the now very crowded second raft, leaving just 4 of us on our handicapped vessel. We were really worried that it would take hours to get back but the captain did a great job and we were back in just under 2 hours. And we had a great time along the way still hitting some huge waves and getting tossed around as if we were riding a mechanical bull!

We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel, and salty and sweaty! A dip in the pool and a tropical cocktail were perfect. We stayed at the hotel that night and had an ok sushi dinner at a small place next door.

The last day we didn't leave until 10pm for our flight home so the Marriott was nice enough to give us keys to the Members Locker Room and we just stored our luggage and hung out at the pool all day. I was very sore from the raft expedition!

We had dinner that night at Roy's before heading to the airport and catching our red-eye home.

A fantastic trip and a great way to spend our 5th year anniversary. Kauai has definitaly become one of my favorite islands!

For the full set of our Kauai photos click here.

p.s. the photos in this segment were taken with our underwater camera which uses film and has a protective cover which gets foggy- that's why they look all dreamy and kind of old fashion. I like it!

from the air, from the land...

2008-11-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

In an effort to experience Kauai from every possible angle- after flying overhead and driving up it's steep cliffs- we decided to hike it and paddle it! Following a tip from Fodors Message Boards we found our way to a small ancient Hawaiian village and rented a kayak. We were given some instructions on paddling up the Wailua River and hiking to our destination: Secret Falls!

We made it into the kayak without toppling ourselves and our gear in the river and headed out. After a few wrong turns we finally found the beaching ground. We then asked some people who were leaving as to where the train head started as we couldn't see anything and were pointed to an area on the opposite side of the small arm of the river we were on (big secret hu?). So we waded across and started on the trail, soon taking another wrong turn only to end up at a dead end with no falls in site (Amazing Race contenders for sure!).

Back on the trail in the correct direction we had a really nice hike. The trail was barely marked in most areas and you definitely felt as though you were in a tropical jungle with exotic flowers, vines and birds surrounding you.

Our first glimpse at the falls confirmed our thoughts that the secret was out but soon all the people left and we actually had the falls and it's pond all to ourselves to swim in- very cool.

As the next wave of people came we left and headed back to our kayak. Heading back up river we came to the landing for the Fern Grotto. A short hike in and we were rewarded with an amazing open cave filled with ferns sprouting out and cascading down. Grotto = Cave - cool!

We headed back to the river, passing gorgeous and fragrant flowers and plants. The water felt so good in the heat I could have just jumped in and swam back to the village!
After hitting a bbq place for lunch and a Mai Tai we made our way up to the north coast for some snorkeling. The views all the way up made for such a nice drive!! We arrived at Tunnels Beach late in the afternoon, the water was warm and clear and we finally saw our first turtle! Unfortunately we didn't have the underwater camera with us so you'll have to take my word for it.

We snorkeled for a while, layed on the clean sand and admired the views of Bali Hai and then made our way farther north to Ka'a Beach passing really interesting caves and cliffs covered with vines. We got to Ka'a about an hour before sunset and it was very pretty and calm- people either packing up from a day spent at the beach or arriving to take in the sunset.

Waimea Canyon

2008-10-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

It was going to be tough to top our anniversary day! The helicopter tour was really a once in a lifetime experience. And we spent a lovely evening at the Grand Hyatt for drinks and dinner. But with only 5 days on Kauai we were determined to see and do as much as possible- and then kick by the pool on our last day :)

So we were up and in the convertible the next morning, on the road to Waimea Canyon. The views are just over the top amazing! We followed the road up and stopped at each lookout point. It was fun to watch the helicopters flying thru, looking just like tiny dots and knowing that was us the other day. As our book and others suggested we kept driving to the very very end- the Napali Lookout. Here you can see where the canyon ends at the Napali coast. The clouds build up in the valley and you have to wait it out, but when they clear...wow!

This was the only time we were rained on, it started soft and then really dumped for 5 minutes. I was driving with the top down and finally we had to stop in the middle of the road and put it up as I couldn't see for all the water in my eyes. And then it cleared up and we were on our way. The drive and the canyon were just awesome.

As we came down we stopped for lunch at the Waimea Brewing Company which had good beer and yummy Kalua pork nachos!

On our way home we stopped at the Spouting Horn and watched the hole throw ocean water high into the sky for a bit but really we were ready to be back by our pool and catch the hula show that they were doing just before sunset.

Another gorgeous day on this beautiful island.

Remember T.C.?

2008-10-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

I always thought that Theodore "T.C." Calvin, Magnum's friend and owner of Island Hoppers helicopter tours, had a pretty good life. Sure, he didn't get to live in a 200-acre beachfront home, or drive someone else's Ferrari, but flying over the Hawaiian islands every day seemed like a decent trade-off.

I'd always hoped to be able to have that experience.

We'd realized that we weren't going to be able to get back to French Polynesia, our honeymoon location, for our 5th-year anniversary, even though that had been our original thought. The twin realities of available vacation time and available funding reared their ugly heads and dictated a vacation that was both shorter and closer to home. Fortunately, we got a great deal on accommodations and airfare and were able to schedule a 5-day stay on Kauai.

Our flight landed in Lihue after dark, so when we drove to our nearby hotel we really didn't get to see very much, and were somewhat skeptical that our so-called ocean-view room could actually see the ocean. We just had some sushi and late-night drinks at one of the attached restaurants that night, but looked forward to actually seeing the island the following morning.

Fortunately, the next day dawned bright and clear, and we discovered that we did actually have a view of the Pacific, albeit somewhat obstructed. We spent the morning exploring our hotel (including gigantic koi pond), pool (largest on the island, and in fact the largest in which either of us had ever been) and beach.

On the advice of several friends, we'd scheduled our helicopter tour for our first full day so that we could get a feel for the topology of the island. We walked over to the helicopter operator's office, directly across the road from our hotel, received a brief safety lecture and were bused the mile or so to the airport.

The American Eurocopter EC130B4 "ECO-Star" in which we were flying had room for two passengers in the front seat (to the pilot's right) and four in the rear. The tours, from all oeprators, take a clockwise flight pattern around the island, so the front and right of the aircraft are the best viewing seats. Even though we'd requested those locations, weight distribution of passengers meant that we ended up with the left rear, to our initial disappointment.

Neither Wendy nor I had flown in a helicopter before. When it took off, I thought she was going to squeeze my fingers off. I personally thought the flight was extremely smooth, and with the noise-canceling headphones we were wearing, it was much less noisy than a commercial airline flight. It was a bit disconcerting to slide sideways from time to time, or to rotate in place.

Within five minutes, we were flying through a rainstorm somewhere over the south side of the island, next to a mountain range, with zero forward visibility. Very wild! That lasted a grand total of only a few minutes, and then we were in the clear and heading up over a ridge and into Waimea Canyon, which easily compares to, and exceeds, the [distant] views I've had of the Grand Canyon, or my direct experiences in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Raydah Escarpment in Saudi Arabia.

Eventually we headed to the northwest corner of Kauai and began flying along the incomparable Napali Coast. Our pilot was great, and when he took us into individual canyons he was careful about rotating in both directions so that Wendy and I were able to get clear views of all the cliff walls and waterfalls. In particular, the 3000-foot cliffs and falls of the crater in Mt. Waialeale were unforgettable -- we hovered about halfway up the cliff, rotating in place, and it seemed like we were in some prehistoric Land of the Lost.

The tours unfortunately only last about an hour, so all too soon we had to head back to the airport. But it was a fantastic way to start the trip; T.C would be proud!

A Day in the Neighborhood

2008-09-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday we attended the Fall Fisherman's Festival at Fisherman's Terminal near Ballard. It was dark, wet and stormy- just like the weather those tough guys put up with.

Our friend Brooke was swimming in the Survival Suit Race for her company Clipper Seafoods. Teams had to quickly put on the survival suits, jump in the water and swim across an area of water where they hauled themselves up into an inflatable life raft. There were rescue divers in the water on hand if anyone needed help.

After watching how hard this all is I'm amazed that anyone actually survives in an emergency! Scary! They didn't win but they did good and looked good doing it!!

There were tons of things for kids to do, lots of arts and crafts. I loved that after building these wooden boats they could just drag them on the rain covered asphalt.

Additionally there were salmon fillet contests, no hands oyster slurping contests, a BBQ, children's trout fishing pond, beer garden, band and a "meet creepy fish of the sea" display.

That Whooshing Sound

2008-09-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

It seems that everyone else in the blogosphere has already published their recap of Tales of the Cocktail 2008 in New Orleans -- back in July. Not us! No, we choose to do things in our own sweet time, or as I like to say, we lead from behind.

Wendy made me promise to write up our last trip before we went on a new one. I didn't actually manage to do that, but mostly because I kind of feel the same way about deadlines as did the late, incomparable Douglas Adams: "I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Now that the LHC has come online and the planet has failed to get swallowed by a man-made black hole, I guess I should quit procrastinating and write a bit about our trip.

Wendy wasn't able to join me the first night, so I was forced [forced I say!] to go out with Keith and "Old Two-Livers" Rocky. After hitting an opening reception for Tales, we went to Cochon for dinner. Two-Livers apparently has a couple of stomachs too, but Keith and I tried gamely to keep up. We finished the night at LaFitte's Old Absinthe House, which is amazingly inconsistent in quality of drink (and bartender) but which was doing a bang-up job that evening.

Although I went to a decent Tales seminar the next day ("Artisan Spirits"), I was really mostly looking forward to Wendy's arrival. She showed up in plenty of time to join me at the slightly-dizzying Carousel Bar for part of a muffuletta that I'd brought back from an enjoyable lunch at Napoleon House with Rocky, Keith, Anita, Cameron, and a few others. Then it was off to Cocktail Hour and, more importantly, the Spirited Dinner at Restaurant August, where Charlotte Voisey was the "bar chef" for the evening. Although August is a great place -- Wendy and I had eaten there the year before -- and Charlotte tends to make tasty drinks, I have to say that this year things didn't really gel right. I know it's hard for the mixologists to pair against food they haven't tasted, so I won't be too judgemental, but there were really only one or two pairings that worked well, and several of the cocktails were not to the taste of some of the admittedly non-cocktailian members of our table. One thing that utterly failed was the tomato tart for dessert. Ugghh.

On Friday I had made the mistake of scheduling two whiskey seminars: "Whiskies You've Never Tasted" and "Rye Nation". While both were good, my palate was utterly destroyed by the end; I could not force down another drop of brown and was in serious need of citrus. I think Wendy did much better scheduling "Rum, Ron, Rhum" for herself! We headed out to the Swizzle Stick Bar, where Michael took great care of us as always, and then went to Emeril's for dinner; I actually enjoyed it much more than I expected (no Bam! though).

The highlights of Saturday were a brunch at Brennan's that ballooned from 2 to something like 15 people, an afternoon walking cocktail history tour of the French Quarter (where Wendy and I somehow managed to get separated from a group of 20+ people on foot, but still beat them to the last stop), and a meal at Herbsaint. Finished the evening with another stop at the Swizzle Stick Bar.

...and on Sunday it was time to go home!

Our pictures of Tales and New Orleans this year can be found here.

The Old New York?

2008-08-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

If New York is the New Amsterdam then isn't Amsterdam the old New York? oh well, anyway after leaving Provence via Lyon and Paris we flew to Amsterdam where strangely neither Dayne or I had been before. On the flight over we were told (warned) by fellow passengers that the big match between Amsterdam and Spain was that evening so be aware if heading to the bars, and wear orange if you have it!

As soon as we stepped out of the airport we could see orange everywhere- flowers, posters, outfits. The cab drivers were all lined up and watching the pre game on a huge teletron outside the main airport driveway. One luckily offered to take us to our hotel as he said it was 45 minutes to game time and he would head home after. The ride into town was FAST and SCARY as this guy was serious about not missing a second of the game! I honestly think that if we didn't have money when he dropped us off he would have just shrugged and sped off to his tv.

We had picked a great hotel, it was small with just 8 rooms- all were quite large and off the main tourist area on a small canal called Liligracht. t'Hotel included breakfast and these super steep stairs to help you burn off the calories!

We had such a great time in the city, it is soooo beautiful! We did most of the typical things0 took a canal cruise to get a feel for the layout, went to the gorgeous Van Gogh museum, ate lots of Gouda, cruised through the red light district both day and night and visited the Rijksmueum, toured the Anne Frank House and ate amazing Indonesian food.

A couple things we did were maybe not as normal. For one we visited the Bols Museum a cocktail museum. It was really fun and at the end of it you go to a computer and pick out a cocktail, print out the recipe and take it to the bar. In the bar there is a "flair" booth where you can try your hand at flair bartending (think Tom Cruise in Cocktail). We learned that the Dutch really like flair!

The other was spending some time with our friend Klary who lives in Amsterdam. Klary does market tours for visitors and took us to one of her favorites after meeting up for coffee. The market was huge! You could literally buy anything you wanted for your house, your cooking or your wardrobe. Of course we had to try the frites, this particular stand was selling Mad American Sauce which was like McD's secret sauce.

We also tried raw herring which was really good! Dayne and I had ours just cut up with raw onions and dill pickles that were strangely sweet. Klary had hers on a bun similar to a hotdog bun.

And on our last evening we had a wonderful dinner with Klary and her husband and another couple at a Moroccan restaurant. It was a great time, lots of laughing and story telling! We both decided we really loved the city and could absolutely see ourselves getting a couple of bikes, a little canal boat and an old canal house and living there!

The rest of the shots from Amsterdam can be seen here