there was something i was dreaming of when planning this holiday about catching the train around china. something i didn’t get, and learnt a bit more about why i like trains – it’s the comfort and conveneience, neither of which i got on my china train trip this time round. i’d already changed my plans and was skipping hong kong, which meant skipping one train trip anyway, but after the 24 hours i spent on the train from shanghai to guilin i was pretty happy with my decision.
i got to the train station early, and thought i’d just wait around (i’d read about a ‘soft sleeper’ lounge). like buying the ticket the day before, nothing was sign posted and everything was hard to find. i sat in the big waiting hall for a while, then noticed my train number was red and the time had disappeared. i worked out something was going on with the train, but my lack of mandarin meant i didn’t know if it had been cancelled or delayed. and the hall was so noisy that when an announcement was made (in english) i couldn’t hear it anyway.
i finally found that soft sleeper lounge, and they said to me to wait there, the train was leaving at 5.15 (instead of 4.25). i went to find food, bought instant noodles and then realised the soft sleeper lounge was too posh for instant noodles because there wasn’t a hot water tap like the main hall. so i waiting patiently, and finally at 5.45 they rushed to me and said ‘go now go now!’. so i went to the train, and finally it left some time after 6.
late is fine, i am patient mostly. but this train ended up getting in around 3pm, 3 hours after it was scheduled. i had booked a transfer to my hotel, but had no idea if they’d be there. luckily, they were, and i sighed, loudly.
on the train i ate some food, briefly, but was pretty much appetiteless. i was sharing my cabin with a fancy, stripey pants man who snored, and ate instant noodles with prawns he’d brought along and added. i went to the restaurant car and for the first meal ordered rice, vegetables and chicken, thinking the meat would be good for me, but when it arrived i realised i couldn’t eat it for the bones and knuckles and so forth. so ate the fried lettuce and rice and that was it for the day. the second meal i had on the second day andjust had the rice and cabbage, which was fine. i’d even lost my sense of hunger by then, which was an interesting feeling.
and so by the time i finally got to my guesthouse, around 5pm, i’d gone over 24 hours without a proper meal and was hungry, not starving. and so ate in the restaurant of the place straight away: shredded potatoes and dumplings. just like being in sydney.
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slowing down in shanghai
i’ve been to shanghai before – back in 2005, for a week. and then there were those eventful 5 weeks in beijing. so china is familiar. and this time round i’d come to see r & j, who’ve been here for a year living the expat life. and i am perplexed about what shanghai is but a shopping and business mecca…
but it’s been good too, because i’ve been doing lots of not much. slowing down, only venturing out when i feel ready to face the city and the day. resting up for a few days in the middle of these 3 weeks i’m away. monday i went shopping in the local arts/touristy district, whose name escapes me. i came back with not much, but did manage to find yarn shops along the way (thanks to an excellent google map of yarn stores in shanghai) and bought a whole lot of merino/cashmere and other wools. jumpers for next winter perhaps? (but i need to finish the ones i’m knitting at the moment still!).
i also made it to the shanghai south train station where i managed, finally, to buy my ticket to guilin for wednesday. which i’m hoping is a soft sleeper and will be an adventure in itself.
and then i found a rest spot, a cute little cafe in a courtyard garden in the french concession where i caved in and had tea and cheesecake (it was all that was on offer) and rested my pretty sore feet. before rushing home in a taxi to meet ross at the gate.
and then we made it out to east nanjing road to meet up with the boys from the boat as planned and we went and ate dinner (cheaply) and then wandered on the bund for a while. then the tiredness hit and i wanted bed.
dinner was dumplings (3 kwai!), sliced rice cakes with greens (and pork), shanghai duck and tofu casserole. with tsing tao beer and lots of chatter. a rogue bunch of people that i enjoy the company of, hey?
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a slow boat to china
here i am, sitting in a little 4 bunk cabin on a slow boat to china. i’m sitting on the floor while my three roommates play a card game i cannot for the life of me work out. they invited me to play but i can only watch and learn for now.
the hosties are doing yoga in the foyer on the wii. the other gaijin and the japanese cyclist were my breakfast companions, and i’m contemplating sneaking into the onsen upstairs to have a scrub.
and i’m out of range of communication, finally, and i like it. not worrying about the next bit of data i might encounter, the next text message or little smile or email i might get. instead i’m just here, reading, thinking, eating (and then eating more) and talking in broken english to my room mates, or in a slow english to the other gaijin.
the free breakfast was ok, the rice porridge with pickles filling and tasty.
for lunch i had the set meal – duck and potatoes with vegetables and sides.
and then dinner i had cold tofu skin and dumplings – off the menu and more expensive than the set meal, but worth it and filling. and the excitement of china to come.
what a long day, with so little happening. sitting on a boat reading, talking, eating, drinking, watching the horizon through the hot ‘reading room’ at the front of the boat. finding new things to do, new places to go and be in.
i had a scrub and a bath in the first class sento up on the 3rd floor. it was pretty amazing to be lying in the hot bath, watching the ocean through the window at my side.
the guy hacking up his lungs in the room next to me is less exciting, but then i remind myself of where i’m heading, and the life the expat leads and how that will be good for the next few days.
i’m realising that you don’t need to put yourself through suffering just for the sake of it. if you can make something easy, why not?
we watched a horrendous US movie – ‘valentines day’ on the laptop of the italian, from the hard drive of the japanese, and while horrendous we perservered, i suppose grateful for the shared space and time.
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cooking in kyoto
i made it through the night and managed to even make friends with my room-mate. she had offered me gifts of sweets and writing paper, and so i offered her breakfast back in return. i’d gone out the night before to find something to eat for breakfast, and ended up with cheese slices, crazy bread slices, and coffee bags. and so we ate cheese on toast togehter, speaking very rearely because of respective poor language skills.
this is my coffee bag filter through into the cup, and the cheese on toast is in the background.
i finally made it out for the guesthouse just in time for the 12noon lockout (so many rules in that place!) and started to make my way up to the cooking class i’d booked into. before the cooking class i tried to find a temple market that only opened on the 21st day of each moneth. after lots of walking and trying to communicate i finally got there, and had a look around and ate some snacks!
this is a pie filled with custard, cooked fresh in the hot iron:
on my way there i found this beautiful rainbow – it was there just for a few minutes and i caught it just as i went hunting for coffee (the coffee shop i found wouldn’t do takeaway though, so all i got in the end was the rainbow, which i was happy with).
i found 5 other westerners at the bus stop we were told to meet at and then our host – taro – and all 6 of us walked to his home. inside his small home there was a kitchen, an open plan living/dining are, a bathroom and then 2 upstairs tatami rooms that we saw at the end of the class. the 6 of us, with taro and his wife yoshiko spent the afternoon learning how to cook:
- dashi stock
- miso soup with vegetables
- tamago (egg omelette)
- go-mae (spinach with sesame seed paste)
- simmered eggplant
- agedashi tofu
- (the others learnt to make chicken meatballs or kobe beef)
after the 4 or 5 hours in the kitchen we sat down and ate together around the table.
we parted ways at the bus stop, and the english guy in the class and i headed to our same bus to head back into the gion area. i invited him to joing me on my attempt to find a temple that had been advertised as being open at night, with night lighting.
we walked and walked and then finally came upon it:
we walked around in awe of the night lighting, and i found another set of little jizos, strangely not lit up by the colourful lights. but i stopped and looked, and explained to edward my understanding of them, and then why i was interested in them. the second person i’d told about the miscarriage on the trip, and in a different context, with little expectation of response. and there was little, but it was still a good moment.
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from nara to kyoto
my morning wake up and breakfast – rice porridge again. at guesthouse yougendo they serve breakfast in individual rooms for each bedroom, each room being in the old japanese house style, overlooking a garden, and seated on the floor.
after breakfast i checked out and began my trek to kyoto, my destination. i was booked into a fabric dyeing/batik course at 3pm, and although nara was only an hour a way i left pretty early, hoping to stop off and see parts of nara that seem to be on the must see list. the 15 minute train was easy, and once i go to the station i walked (bags and all) to the other station, and managed to do some shopping on the way. i had planned to leave my suitcase in a locker at the next station, go off and explore the park and then come back ready to catch my 1pm train to kyoto. but alas, all the lockers were full (although it took me a while to work this out) and so, with the help of the information desk woman, i decided to head up to the park with my suitcase. which meant getting on a local bus, and following the crowds. and as it turned out, the deer.
nara park is famous for it’s deer. there’s a reason they are there, but i didn’t really take that i. the deer were all a bit too much for me, and i didn’t last very long there. i bough street side sushi for a lunch snack in a park (no deer!) and then just headed back. the temples were big, but also full of thousands of people, and i just wanted some quiet time!
but the deer were cute, albeit hornless…
once back on the train, i worked out i needed to get to a far flung suburb of kyoto for my class. i’d left myself an hour, and luckily i did because the bus did actually take the whole hour to get there. but i was pretty happy once there, and proceeded to choose my design, paint the wax on the fabric and then dye the fabric (well, some of this was done for me):
and then the finished project:
this is my japanese door curtain. the maple leaves for autumn, the eggplant because i like it as a vegetable, the jizo for my year that’s been, and the words that came with it that say ‘let’s put out hands together and think of happiness’ (aroundabout). i was pretty happy with what i’d made and happy to have gone out exploring the city with a purpose.
then i had dinner at the restaurant at the end of the street; chicken kaarage and salad.
and then finally checked into the hostel i’d been looking forward to (the acorn women’s guesthouse) but which was the biggest disappointment and kinda weird and crazy:
the biggest thing for me was the bedroom:
tiny (it should normally sleep 3, but there were only 2 the night i was there), and windowless. and then a gas heater, which my roommate had on for ages and i finally asked if i could turn off, for fear of dying from gas inhalation. and even then the night was a restless one, worrying about the lack of fresh air and how to deal with it. turns out i like a window in bedrooms, and am happy to sleep with cold air around me, as long as i am warm and snuggled up.
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nara day
this morning i woke up to the rain. rain on a wooden building, held together without nails, through the sliding paper window coverings. feeling safe and warm inside my room, snuggled into the warmth of the futon.
i had booked an early breakfast again, hoping to make it to nara for a 9.55am start to the walking tour i wanted to do. giving in to tourism of some sort and being guided around the unknown city. and so i ate the japanese omlette filed with enoki mushrooms and rushed out to get the train on time.i always seem to time the trains to be the ONLY ones i can catch to make it, and they seem to usually work out. which this one did. i made it to nara, and then walked through the rain with my new, 100Y red/clear umbrella and tried not to be tempted to look in all the shops. so many shops! luckily they didnt really seem to open till 10, and i needed to be at the meeting point at 9.55.
i got to the kintetsunara train station (different train company, different station) and found the group i would be walking with. the tour is called ‘naramachi walks’ and is an english language guided tour of the naramachi area – apparently an often overlooked area of the city, with most people visiting the park and the temples. the naramachi area is the old town, perhaps like the rocks in sydney? with lots of old houses, and also the home of the city’s few geishas and maiko (geishas in training). the tour group was me, the gaijin, and then 5 japanese women who were looking to have english conversation practice/thinking about starting up tours in other cities. it was a nice group, and we set off (still in the rain) on our walk.
we walked through to one temple area, where we saw from a distance the second biggest pagoda in japan. only from a distance though! and then as we walked through the temple grounds we were also shown a cluster of little jizos, watched over by a bigger one. their bibs were sopping wet from the rain, and our guide told us about the tradition of making the red bibs and writing children’s names on them, for protection and good luck. the other women in the group remembered their grandmothers doing this too, and i enjoyed hearing their stories of the traditions they could remember, but that they didn’t necessarily continue themselves. the memory is perhaps a substitute for the practice.
and this i suppose was my first encounter with the jizo in japan.
we kept on walking, hearing about the house design, and good restaurants, and looking in on certain shops (the apothecary was very cute). and our guide told us about what i think is a young gentrification of the area, with (hipsters) young people wanting to move into the area and rejuvenate it. it’s happening the world over, and so maybe the naramachi is more the redfern of sydney?
finally we visited a model naramachi house, with its perfect design for function and beauty, all the lines balanced and the rooms with purpose.
we had our photo taken and then the tour was done, but not before we had a chance sighting of a maiko (maikosan! maikosan!) and then four of us headed back to a restaurant we’d passed for lunch.
and over lunch we talked in english, and i didn’t feel bad for my lack of language because these women had specifically wanted to practice.
we talked about their families, their children. the things i was planning to do in japan, what i do in australia. i said i wanted to go to an onsen, but that i was worried they might not let me because of my tattoo, as i slid my sleeve up to reveal the diver. they gushed and one of them touch it, and they asked what it was for. i explained my ideas about diving in, taking a big leap with my study and so forth, and reflected to myself on where i am at with that leap. somewhere, but maybe resting on a lower platform perhaps? and they said to me to just put a bandage on it for the onsen, and then i pointed out my other markings. the woman next to me asked about why an envelope and i said it was a reminder to me to write to people, to think of people, and that i go it recently after i had a miscarriage, to remind myself of the letters i wrote in my head to that possibility. and she said what is now to me the universal ‘oh, i’m sorry’, and then translated to the other two what i had said (i’m assuming miscarriage isn’t a common vocab word when you’re learning a language). and that was it, we moved on to the next conversation, but it’s marked as a revelation time for me on this trip – and started me wondering how many times i’d ‘reveal’, and to who and why. i wanted to ask them about their pregnancies, and if they had had miscarriages, but it wasn’t the right time, and so we ate and chatted. and then parted ways, with big smiles and arrigatos.
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a slow day in japan
This is the first day of my slowing down and what I’m calling ‘making peace with the jizo’. I slept so well last night, with the aid of my now-familiar sleeping tablet, something I hope to become less dependent on as the time passes. But for now it helps with with my healing.
i am in oji, a town half way between the centre of osaka and nara, in a guesthouse that’s a bit over budget but very much worth it. i had the place to myself last night, and then had a beautiful japanese breakfast of rice porridge this morning.
i left the guesthouse and smiled at this cat, keeping warm.
and this was a slow day. i did very little, wandering around the town and it’s shops to start with, looking for the elusive 100Y store. my sense of space and distance was out of sync, and i’d come without a map and little idea of what the signs all said. but i managed to find myself lunch, and realised once it appeared that i was at a chinese restaurant. there was even ice-cream and tea for dessert.
my aim for the day was to get my hair cut. it was something i’d been meaning to do for weeks in australia, and i just didn’t ever get time. so i asked at the guesthouse whether it was possible, and originally she recommended the english speaking places in osaka, listed in the kansai scene english magazine. but i didn’t want to go to osaka, preferring to stay in the local area. so tomomi, my guesthouse host, arranged an appointment for me at a salon called ‘happiness’, across the road from the chinese restaurant. oji is a small town, and after one lap around i had it all under control. there was something freeing about wandering into shops and buildings not knowing what i would find.
and so the hairdresser. my 3.30 appointment for a cut went for a couple of hours, most spent drying my hair. the cut was good, and the language exchange was hilarious. those who did know a bit of english kept quiet till the end, and even then it was only a little bit. we managed to ascertain during the drying time that my roots were very bad and i needed to colour my hair.they originally though i’d do it when i got back to australia, but then i said no, can you do it tomorrow? and so i made an appointment for the next day to get a hair colour, with some extra red thrown in for good luck. i made it back to the guesthouse and then dinner was a big bowl of noodles from the place in the basement of the shopping centre.and then a beer back at the guesthouse, where i sat and chatted a bit to the americans who were also staying.
a day of wandering and wondering how this trip would go.
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starting a journey
it’s been a long time between posts (yet again!) but let’s see how this goes.
i’m sitting in a guesthouse in Oji, Nara prefecture, Japan, on what is day 2 of what I’ve been calling my ‘end of year trip’, but is so many other things as well. it’s a journey to spend time with myself, to remind myself i can, it’s a pilgrimage of sorts to see the mizuko jiuzo and spend time with my thoughts there, it’s a reward for 3 months of intense work (albeit spending the savings i’d pegged to support me through that last semester of my phd), and it’s about having fun, smiling, and doing what makes me happy. which right now is sitting on my futon in a tatmi mat room having just had an amazing rice porridge with 5 toppings for breakfast.
this blog is mainly food related, but for the next 21 days or so i hope to entertain you with my travels (which will obviously revolve around food!). there are cooking classes, boat trips, and many more things to come. enjoy!
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a new project on the boil
it’s been a while between posts over here, for many a reason, and so to kick start the nourishing and healing eating i need to be doing i’ve started a new project. six nights a week i’ll cook at home, from the excellent vegan cookbook appetite for reduction. there’s no time limit on the project, and will see where it takes me…
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buckwheat pancakes
i’ve been making chickpea pancakes a few times a week and filing them with tasty things. this time round it was buckwheat grains, cooked till soft.
the pancakes:
mix a cup of chickpea flour with a cup of other flour (plain flour, or gluten free flour).
add enough milk (i think i used rice milk) to make it a thin runny batter. i put a big pinch of salt and pepper in too.
pour enough to make a thin crepe into the fry pan and cook as you would.
the filling:
for the buckwheat, i think i toasted the buckwheat first in a dry pan, then put it in a bowl, cooled it a bit and mixed a beaten egg through it all. a cup of buckwheat i think. then cooked that in the pan till the grains separated. then i think i added a chopped onion, kept cooking it, then added water (not sure how much – maybe 2 cups?) and simmered it for about half an hour till it’s soft and most of the water is gone. i’ll double check when i get home, but i think it was pretty simple. oh, and i stirred another beaten egg through at the end, and added chopped parsley and rosemary from the garden.
assembly:
then filled the pancakes with it (and the persian fetta – although i bet goats cheese would be even better) and baked it in the oven for 20 minutes.
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