Comfort Foods

#1 Nashi



Crisp like an apple, yet sweet and juicy like a pear, Asian pears are certainly a fruit of the gods. Heading into November has left nashi season to fade away until next year, but that makes room for other comforts to come.

Oktoberfest and Tsukimi

The wind has blown a warm yellow moon up over the sea; a bulbous moon, which sprouts in the soiled indigo sky, and spills bright winking petals of light on the quivering black water.

-Sylvia Plath

It was time for one of our favorite little celebrations of the year: Oktoberfest. We started the night with some German beer.

Then it was time to dig into the main course!

Apples with caramel apple dip, French bread, German Sausage Kettle, cheddar cheese and summer squash with onion, garlic, tomato and cheese. Yum!

Beer, apples and caramel apple dip

Close-up of the summer squash dish

Chad and Yasu, digging in.

Never realized until that moment that French bread actually makes Chad's eyes roll.

After eating way too much (and adding more German beer and wine to the festivities), we decided it was time to check out the moon. A less well-known celebration in Japan, Tsukimi, or moon-viewing, takes place in the fall to honor the autumn moon. I think this is a really sweet tradition, and falls in line with the cliche about stopping to smell the roses. We should stop and recognize the beauty of the moon every night, and Tsukimi is a nice reminder. And to top it off, part of the tradition includes drinking sake and eating mochi (rice cakes)!

We had some white mochi with a light sugary powder and anko (sweet red bean paste) inside.

This year, the night for Tsukimi fell on September 22nd, but at that time we were on a plane headed to Thailand. I had wanted to celebrate so badly that I checked the moon calendar to find out when the next full moon would be. Turned out it was the same night we had chosen for Oktoberfest, and despite the clouds, we got a great view.

By the way, you might know a tricky little cat (who doesn't know me anymore!) named Tsuki. Please remind him to be nice to us when we visit Michigan next month. We've got tickets to go home for two weeks!

Every day in Thailand...

...we ate delicious food:

(...including fresh fruit! Mangosteens, rambutans, jack fruit, dragon fruit, pomegranate, papaya, banana, pineapple...)

Dragon Fruit

Pomegranate

Pearl Tea

...Saw interesting signs:

No smoking

No crazy goats, weapons, sex, dogs, alcohol, durian or smoking in this taxi.

A restaurant menu, including a mystery Quick Meal

A McDonald's advertisement for chicken porridge

Visited markets:

Saw very interesting, colorful streets:

(Tuk-Tuks, or auto-rickshaws)

Got massages, relaxed, and enjoyed traveling together!

That's it for Thailand, at least for the time being. We both had a lot of fun and really want to go back! For now, we're settled back into life in Japan, so our blog will be too! Get ready for updates on October and November, starting with our little Oktoberfest.

On our fourth (and last!) day in Thailand...

...we took a riverboat to a floating market.

Many people suggested we take a tour since it is a little difficult to get to the floating market from Bangkok--plus many tours make stops at a coconut farm on the way. In our case, I can definitely say taking a tour is not a good idea, as it was ridiculously overpriced, there was a time limit, and--among other things--there was no coconut farm stop!

Despite the many failings of our little day package, we still had fun.

Here we are on the colorful riverboat headed to the market.

Below is the view from the riverboat.

After arriving, Chad's first impression was, "Ohhh, tourist trap." And I got that. It's hard not to with all the kitschy souvenirs and call-outs to foreigners. But at the same time, you could catch the tradition and community of the trade, and that was very appealing to me.

Above you can see some shots of the market, as well as a vendor who made us soup right from her boat.

Here, Chad is buying Thai coffee (it was very sweet!)

Ahhh, one of my favorite parts: coconut milk from a coconut cracked open right before our eyes!

On the long ride back to our hotel, most of the group fell asleep. It was quite surprising when suddenly, in the middle of Bangkok, the van driver pulled over on the side of the road and told us all to get out. In my sleepy confusion I just sat in place. Where were we? What was going on? Why wasn't he taking us back to our hotels?

He just kept saying, "Get out. I'm done here." Of course, everyone was pretty taken aback, not to mention pretty angry considering the amount of money we had all paid to be taken to and from the market. Chad convinced the man to pay for a taxi--thank goodness. (Our hotel ended up being about a 25 minute taxi ride from where the tour driver had stopped!)

All in all, it was a pretty interesting day, to say the least!

On our third day in Thailand...

...we saw ancient ruins in one of Thailand's former capitals, Ayutthaya.

It was quite surprising to go from riding the very modern SkyTrain to riding a normal train in Thailand. There are three classes of trains, and we took a third-class one as it was the cheapest. The train was completely open-air--no air conditioning--and felt very old. As the train headed farther away from Bangkok and filled with more and more people, things got very crowded, hot and sweaty. Merchants walked up and down the narrow aisles carrying baskets of food and drinks, calling out to passengers to buy. One merchant took money from a passenger and stored it in her ear! She had quite the little storage spaces in her ears--a lesson to always wash your hands after handling money I guess.

When the train finally arrived in Ayutthaya (about 2 hours from Bangkok), we took a little river boat to cross over from the station to the city, and then we rented bikes. Cycling about and seeing the ancient ruins in Ayutthaya was one of my favorite parts of our trip. Below are some pictures from various ruin sites.




...Look closely.

I had heard so much about riding elephants in Thailand, and had seen many great pictures of friends riding along on them, that I was very excited when we took our own ride around the ruins atop of one of the huge animals.

Tree roots have grown around the head of Buddha. It is one of the most famous sites in Ayutthaya.


After hours of biking around and checking out the ruins, we turned in our bikes, rode the riverboat back to the station, and prepared for the long haul back to Bangkok. We definitely weren't excited about the train ride, but the overall experience was worth it. Also, when we were walking back to our hotel from the station in Bangkok, we passed a group of guys playing futsal and they invited Chad to play. Of course, that made his day (and he even scored a goal!).