It’s that time of year again when the men on the subway do nothing but talk about how hot it is. The rags to mop your sweat start appearing in every woman’s hand instead of her purse. Uniqlo is sold out of quickdry and linen. 夏です。It’s not a surprise really, since all the classic literature I can drum up bemoans Japan’s hot and muggy summers in great detail, and yet, it always seems to catch the Japanese off guard, like the heat wave is rolling in earlier and earlier each year.
So how does one deal with the oppressive heat of such a summer? With seasonal drinks at the kombini? With unagi-don on the Day of the Ox? Or with ice cold somen noodles in front of a fan on full blast?
The Japanese will not give up their noodles, and I must say, I agree with their priorities. So even in the dead of summer, they’ve devised a way to eat ramen without getting a face full of steam. It’s called the tskumen set. In one bowl will be a pile of chilled noodles. In another bowl will be tepid broth. On a plate will be all the usual accouterments. This brilliant invention can be applied to any noodle of choice: ramen, soba, udon, and even somen.
Somen. These thin, soft, very chewy noodles can be tricky to eat, but if you keep at it, you’ll be rewarded with a satiation in summer that doesn’t leave you heavy and uncomfortable. After a day of sweaty sightseeing, I needed some relief, and when you’re in Nara, you eat the Miwa Somen. So I ate the miwa somen. It was delicious, by all means, and when it was followed by shaved ice, this cold luncheon was nothing short of pure bliss. I’d highly recommend giving miwa somen a try if you get the chance.
There are plenty of gear reviews out there for backpackers, but not a lot out there for jetsetters. We aren’t endless nomads, but we pack like them. We have hubs from which we escape out to far flung destinations, and we’re ready for anything, but we don’t need to bring the kitchen sink. Out of all the videos I’ve looked at over the years, I’ve yet to come across a good packing one. So I made one myself. It’s a bit long, but you get the idea. We’ll start with the clothing.
Clothing:
1 pair thongs (Rainbows)
1 pair mary janes (Me Too)
1 pair canvas shoes (Sanuk)
2 pair socks (Smartwool)
2 t-shirts (Uniqulo QuickDry)
1 tank top (Holister)
1 oxford (Northface)
1 raincoat (Mountain Hardware)
1 dress (polyester)
1 pair jeans
1 pair shorts
1 pair athletic pants
1 sun hat
1 weeks worth of undergarments
Ladies, please, I beg you, stop with all the extra nonsense. I know you want to look good, we all want to look good, but you have to make some concessions. Why? Because there won’t always be a porter to carry around your bag. Expect stairs in subway stations and expect small luggage racks on the train. Prepare for rain and prepare for long hauls to the hotel. You should always be able to carry your own baggage, and if you plan accordingly, it should be no problem when you have to carry it with you all day. Start counting every item in terms of ounces and you might find you “need” a lot less.
I am bringing a lot of electronics, and that’s okay. I’m planning on doing some work on the road, and for me, work requires a large arsenal of materials. It’s heavy, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to have my entire studio essentially mobile. I do have a few rules though that keep me from bringing all my gear. If my trip is over ten days in length, I’m allowed to bring my laptop and my dSLR. If it’s under ten days, I just make do with my Stylus Tough and my iPhone. That way I never worry about documenting everything as I go, I just do it when I return. Over ten days, and I need to keep in contact with the rest of the world. It’s a pretty good system.
Electronics (full list including those not in video):
headphones (Bose QuietComfort 2 and iPhone earbuds)
mp3 player (iPod 160GB Classic)
journal (Moleskine lined)
wireless mouse
reading material
travel documents
toiletries
To me, this packing list seems like a lot, and to be honest, it’s a lot more than I usually bring anywhere. To most people though, this seems sparse for a month long trip. So how does one manage to live for an indefinite period of time on so little? By buying it there. It’s a three step approach. 1) Don’t bring if you can easily buy. If, instead of preparing for every occasion by bringing something for each occasion, you were to bring only what you couldn’t easily buy there, you could significantly lighten your load. Think of it as paying 400¥ for the convenience of not having to lug around your own. For example, I’m going to buy an umbrella and shampoo when I’m in Japan rather than worry about checking them in my luggage. 2) Do without. Don’t bring an evening dress just in case you need to go to a fancy restaurant. Chances are you can get by without that cocktail dress. You’re going to Paris for ten days, do you really need that face cream or can you live without it for a week? Don’t bring when you can buy, and don’t buy when you can borrow, and don’t borrow if you can do without. For example, I rarely bring guidebooks, since most hotels or guest houses have maps and offer recommendations. You can probably rent a hair dryer at the front desk. Rest assured that if you really need it, you can find it. 3) Bring multi-purpose goods. Don’t bring anything that only does one thing. Bring items that you can mix and match to satisfy many needs rather than many things that each suit one. For example, I bring shoes that I can dress up or dress down. I bring cameras that can also take video, and mobiles that can check email in a pinch. My body wash even doubles as laundry detergent. Most importantly though, I make sure I bring clothes that are high-performance, so they may fit in well as city clothes, but they hold up well when I take them to the hiking trails, and I wait until something gets worn through to replace it. That way I cut down on my load but am prepared for everything.
In addition to the usual suspects listed in the video above and the text below, there are a few other odds and ends that I consider travel musts. They’re pretty unassuming, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I don’t always end up using them.
Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-one Castile Soap
Dr. Bronner might have been crazy, but his all purpose castile soap is a godsend for us travellers. With just a small three-ounce bottle of the stuff I can go for two months without any other toiletry. It’s olive oil based, so it won’t dry out your skin, and it’s mild and safe enough to use on anything and everything, and it’s non-allergenic, organic, free of additives, and comes in a varietal of flavors. Essentially castile soap is an ultra concentrated soap you can use to clean floors and counters, faces and hair, clothes and dishes, bodies and teeth, and pretty much anything else that needs cleaning. If you can’t find Dr. Bronner’s anywhere, go for the biodegradable CampSuds available at any sports/outdoor store or camping catalogue, and you can stop searching for shampoo, body wash, laundry detergent, dish soap, disinfecting wipes, and other liquids in general.
Vaseline
Few people truly understand the wonder of this petroleum product. For under a dollar, a tiny tub of vaseline will last you the better part of a year and it functions great as a lubricant for squeaky doors and chairs, a super strong balm for chapped lips and skin, a protective barrier for cuts, scrapes, and burns, as a means of keeping dirt and dust out of the eyes, as a water repellant for goods that need to stay dry like matches or swiss army knives, or even as a fire starter in a pinch. This stuff is invaluable, especially for cold-weather travel.
Microfiber Pack Towel
The microfiber pack towel is about the size of a hand towel but absorbs enough water to dry off your car. This thing is small, super lightweight, ultra absorbent, and will air dry in the space of two hours. As Douglas Adams taught me, I always know where my towel is and I never leave home without it. He was right too, because there are an infinite number of uses for a capable towel, from beaches in Australia to sento in Japan, from avoiding towel rental fees in Italy to cleaning up spills in Mexico, and everything in between.
Liquid Bandage
I do allow myself one other liquid/gel, and that is liquid bandage. There are some things my trusty mini roll of gaff tape (a cloth tape as strong as duct tape, but leaves no residue and reflects no light, another must-have for longer term travel) can’t mend, and when gaff doesn’t do the trick, liquid bandage inevitably does. Think of them as your one-two punch combo of repair. Liquid bandage can mend the fiddly bits otherwise impossible to suture: things like knuckles, zippers, behind the knee, thread snags, calluses, hair cracks, and the like. Plus liquid bandage disinfects before it hardens, and is fully waterproof for every body cut and gear gutting the road can dole out.
Airport/Airmac Express + Retractable Cat5 Cable
This one is an invaluable tool for the flashpackers. I don’t always use it, but there are many hotels I stay at where a hardwire ethernet connection is free, but the cable rental costs money. Many places simply don’t have wireless, and if you’re travelling with others, fighting over who gets to use the internet gets old. Enter the Airport Express, a square piece of plastic that, when wired to the internet and plugged into the nearest outlet can turn any land line into a wireless network. It even remembers settings from plug in to plug in so your internet-ready devices will be connected the moment you plug it in. Pair it with my retractable ethernet cable, complete with adaptors that turn one cat5 outlet into two, or can turn a male-male cable into a male-female or female-female cable, and you are a serious travel hacker.
Surge Protector
Most of us have more than one gadget these days, and there are never enough outlets available to charge everyone’s gear. I always travel with a surge protector for a few reasons. Firstly, I never know where my next working outlet will be, so I fill up everything I can with juice when I find one. Secondly, some countries have highly unreliable internet and a twelve dollar investment is well worth protecting the things I use to support myself. Lastly, whether I’m waiting in an airport or attending a convention, staying at a hostel or a hotel, there are many times when other people brick block your outlets. Having a surge protector helps you make an awful lot of friends in these very situations. I even rented out my extra outlets once for magazines on a particularly long layover in Fiji.
(And for the Ladies) The Diva Cup
Google this, google it now. This is a product made for travellers, hippies, and yuppie business women alike. You, like me, may have heard horror stories but I am here to tell you firsthand that any horrors you’ve heard are false, and any hesitation you may have will pale in comparison to the benefits of using this one little device. There are so many reasons to switch, I could write an entire post about it, but in an effort to not turn off all of my readers, I’ll stop here. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them directly via email. Otherwise, the internet offers many more success stories to convince you dropping the $40 is well worth it. And boy is it.
Every city divided by an important riverway has a south bank whether it goes by that alias or not. But even now, when a river as infamous as the Thames of London, once the lifeblood of the city, retires itself to little more than a historical artifact and a pleasant landscaping element, a certain richness is lost. I was sure that South Bank would be an irreverent part of the city, like so many other neighbourhoods that easily dismissed the river. Yet my day in South Bank convinced me that the Thames does not lay by the wayside in London, rather is given a place of prominence, a cultural reminder that the city has a lot to be thankful for.
The London Eye draws tourists from far and wide, and its 3.5 million visitors per year prove the largest ferris wheel in Europe is definitely worth a visit. And that’s just the start of South Bank’s bounty. Passing over one of the Thames footbridges will start you off on an epic walk along South Bank, where you’ll pass pubs, eateries, theaters, museums, and so much more.
The Queen’s Walk is one of the best walking tours of London that takes you straight past the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre. It’s positively chilling to think that underneath the renovations and constant upkeep, the very cobblestones you’re walking upon have been trafficked by thousands of residents, visitors, and passing businessmen for thousands of years. This site has been here since medieval days and you may be standing where some royalty or author stood years ago.
And then the walk dead ends at Borrough Market, a hub of fine food and specialty sundries. You don’t have to be of the foppish sort to enjoy the goods on display here, whether it’s the myriad flavours of Turkish delight that tickle your fancy, or the endless array of seafood curries that curl your toes. Either way you’ll find something to indulge in at the market.
After I tired me feet from walking and wore out my eyeballs from staring, it was time to sit on the outdoor patio of the many pubs lining the river, enjoy a pint or a Pimms cup, and take in the glory that is South Bank.
Kamatama Udon-ya is an unassuming little shop halfway between Hase station and the daibutsu in Kamakura. Like so many small noodle joints in Japan, you’ve only got a handful of choices, and even less elbow room to boot. Still though, the smell alone is all you need to be assured of its quality, and even then, if the smell wasn’t enough, there’s the tray of flour-speckled udon clearly just made today, the flying hands behind the counter chopping minuscule green onions, and the faint sizzle that can only mean tempura-battered something or other. You will not be disappointed.
It may seem crass to us foreigners, but eating the face of Buddha in your noodle soup is pleasantly kitschy in Japan, and in Kamakura especially, mere minutes from the great metal Buddha, such a gimmick is fitting. The soup itself is far from gimmicky. Perhaps it’s just been too long since I’ve had a proper bowl of noodles, or that my American sensibilities are so easily impressed by the delights of properly prepared Japanese food, but in any case I may have come close to reaching nirvana in that very shop.
The noodles are thick, but light, not dense like some fall varieties of udon tend to be, and of a completely un-uniform nature that points to their handmade authenticity. Your smiling buddha udon can be served hot or cold, depending on the season, in a scalding or a lukewarm dashi stock, depending on your preference. Alongside the standard noodles and broth is a large soy bean (Buddha’s third eye), a fried fishcake (his nose), and one of the tastiest cured eggs I think I’ve ever had: a hard boiled, just set mix of salt and age that one could only hope to duplicate. Needless to say, I licked the bowl clean.
I wish there was a hard and fast rule that could tell us when to hold on and when to let go. The “don’t wear white after labour day” of emotional investment, if you will, because while society is great at telling us when we’re dressed pathetically, society isn’t so good at helping us make decisions. We’ve all made hard decisions and we’ve all made disastrous ones, but with a bit of practice at it over the years, I thought decision making would get easier. It hasn’t, and to be honest, I still have trouble deciding when something is worth fighting for and when something is worth scrapping.
For example, I lived in Los Angeles for a few years — just long enough to decide it was an awful void of a place and realise I needed to leave — but even as I despised my residency, I was afraid my hatred wasn’t the city’s fault. So I gave it a bit more time, convinced I could make it into the place everyone kept telling me it was. Of course, I couldn’t because Southern California doesn’t budge for anyone, least of all a meagre university student. While I wasn’t miserable all the time, there was a general vibe of malaise I couldn’t shake, a sort of nag that told me something better lay across great distances, and the moment I gave into that calling, my life changed drastically for the better.
Open and shut case, no? Girl moves to LA. Life is horrid. Girl leaves LA. Life is good. Seems pretty simple, but even now that I’ve been away from LA for a year and have no intentions of returning, it’s still a foggy mess in my book. See, I know the bad, but I feel the good. I’m thinking about Los Angeles, and I’m remembering how I lived for six months on nothing but French bread, manchego cheese, and haas avocados. I’m remembering how many people I conned into taking me to Little Tokyo for noodles. I’m remembering how my Buddhist temple was within walking distance. I’m remembering Saturdays at the beach, Sundays at 7&Grand. Problem is, these memories are not Los Angeles. I spent years fighting to carve out corners of the city that didn’t make me regret moving there and while I sit here recalling the few fleeting rays of hope I spent far too much energy collecting, I also sit here forgetting the intense frustration I felt all the time at the traffic, at my rent, at the turgid restaurants, at the complete inconvenience that was Los Angeles. In short, I’m forgetting that Bicycle Kitchen was always closed and that the beaches weren’t always surfable because there was too much poop in the ocean (this is real thing, by the way). My brain remembers both sides of the coin, but my emotions only remember the gold-plated memories.
I’ve begun to notice this certain phenomenon creeping up in to many different corners of my life. There are blogs I read that only post something worthwhile every 20th article, the hobbies and habits I’ve adopted are completely against conventional wisdom, and I have a tendency to frequent the same beloved restaurants over and over despite collecting a massive list of new places to try. I know I should unsubscribe from that blog, but I feel like I’ll be missing out on that one remarkable article if I do. That’s where I get all confused and, generally, hold on when I should let go. In Los Angeles, society at large (media, movies, magazines) and at small (friends, family, flatmates) told me to hold on, but they were wrong. Sounds like a case of “follow your heart” right? Yet when deciding to move across the country, every instinct I had cautioned me against leaving, but they were wrong. So how is anyone supposed to know when it’s time to move on or time to suit up?
There’s no steadfast rule of thumb because value is an intensely personal thing. And even then, context changes everything. Living and visiting somewhere are very different things. I’m going back to Los Angeles for a weekend of insanity before I head off to Japan and I can already tell it’s going to be both glorious and heinous. First I think of a list of the things I’d like to revisit, next I get terribly sad that I won’t be able to fit them all in, then I grow frustrated that I’m only going to be there 48 hours, after that I remember how I didn’t even want to stopover in LA in the first place, but I interrupt myself saying it’ll be fine and I’ll like it a little bit, which makes me wonder why I didn’t like it more when I lived there if I can think of all this fun stuff to do now, so I’m angry that I didn’t like it the first time, now I don’t want to go again, and so on and so forth. I should be more torn about LA, but on the contrary, I find this is a reassuring argument to have. The mere fact that I’ve been waffling about it for years shows me that Los Angeles still isn’t working for me and it isn’t about to change anytime soon (unlike some places).
LA, I’m breaking up with you. It’s not me, it’s you. See, I wholeheartedly love living in Washington DC. I adored living in Tokyo. Houston never fails to make me wish I was staying longer. I even have some fondness for Brisbane, which at the time was a bit underwhelming. Truth is, I don’t want anything to do with a city that isn’t likable. I don’t need to hold on to a place that makes life so difficult. Your unpredictable rewards aren’t enough for me. It won’t be easy; after all, it’s hard to really know a place intimately and write it off completely (I’ll always miss those Kogi tacos you make), but even my upcoming visit is bringing back the same angst that spurned me to leave it for greener pastures. So Los Angeles, I don’t care what everybody says or how many $2 Scoops and tonktsu ramens you put in front of me, you’re a tease, a tyrant, and a trickster and we’re through. It’s time to let go.
I’m a planner. I like to make maps and lists and collections of everything from bookmarks to brochures. I like schedules and I even enjoy research on some topics, so you can bet I always have something on the drawing board: the next trip to take, the newest redesign of my website, the ever-evolving to-dos I’m readying myself to tackle next, you know, the usual. For someone who spends a lot of time looking ahead, I find there’s one way of looking at it in particular that really grinds my gears. I disagree with the phrase, “what’s next.”
Two seemingly innocent words have robbed me of more good times than I’d like to believe, and hearing it one time too many is off putting, not because of the phrase itself, but because of the kind of people who are fond of asking it. I don’t like the spirit of the phrase, “what’s next.” Say it any other way; “up next” implies something to look forward to, á la Saturday morning cartoon announcers while “where to?” implies a willingness to accommodate others. But “what’s next” is the worst because it inevitably becomes a demand, an unwritten expectation that all things must be exciting, and the mere suggestion that what we are doing right now is not enough is quick to infuriate me.
My first reckless weekend trip across the country landed me in the heart of the midwest, not the most glamorous of destinations which, save for the Twin Cities and Chicago, don’t have much to offer urbanites spoilt by the likes of global cities and European icons, but then again I wasn’t there to see the cornfields and cow pastures, I was there to see the person who invited me. Of course the midwest and middle America have their own charms, and I had set my expectations accordingly when I stepped off the tarmac and made the commute to your average suburban homeset. There, amongst a seemingly endless landscape of open roads and strip malls, I certainly didn’t expect a flurry of activity, but there it was, a full day’s itinerary of ideas followed by a laundry list of must-sees.
No thank you. Even if I did come to your fair city for the many goings on it portends, I am not the sort of gal that likes to dash about from place to place at a clip. I’m the sort of lady that likes to amble a long and winding road, who likes to take many breathers and is happy just to be somewhere else. I’m the observing type, not the breed that likes to go get ‘em right out of the gate. Perhaps it is not so surprising that I detest the “what’s next” mentality.
Things I enjoy while travelling:
people watching in a local park
browsing a bookshop
drinking beverages in cafes, pubs, and lounges
wandering a neighbourhood
sitting somewhere purely to admire the view
reading public transit maps
chatting with the elderly, preferably in a piazza
walking off a delicious meal
I am often criticised when I reveal my favourite travel activities. Sure I wouldn’t mind laying eyes on the sights worth seeing, but I much prefer to stroll around a residential area until I find a place that smells of good coffee. The truth is, museum going is about the most touristy I get and the only timetable I’ll agree to is the one the bus runs on. While it may seem contradictory to travel all the way to Paris to ride the subway to you, it seems totally absurd to go to France without checking out at least one bookshop to me. I don’t travel to see le Tour Eiffel, I travel to be somewhere different.
When you travel to be rather than to do, you find there are no boxes to check off. The interesting bits to me aren’t the monuments that are one off, but the routine ones. I take great interest in the bits of daily life that are totally normal to the residents, the portions that differ from my own life ever so slightly. I like to watch the families in the afternoon and I like to note the school hours and I like to buy my groceries with the locals, spending ages reading labels and admiring the options. Perhaps its a testament to a larger belief that societies, even seemingly wildly different ones, are more alike then they aren’t, perhaps I simply take comfort in routine, even routine of someone else’s devising. It’s life, just somewhere else, and it isn’t what’s next, it’s what’s now.
Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms are in bloom so I head down to the tidal basin, picnic in hand, to host my own hanami party. It’s of course not on the scale of the sakura in Japan, but it’s a neat little walk all the same.
I get juiced up on the java as I do a coffee shop crawl in Houston, Texas, frequenting four great stops in the same neighbourhood. Not sure which coffee shop is for you? Not to worry, I give you the skinny on all the spots in the heart of the city no matter your needs, from tea and coffee to brunch and lunch and great meetups and outdoor patios. It was an afternoon well spent.
leigh at unlikelysquiggle dot com
ltcooper
unlikely squiggle
unlikely squiggle
unlikely squiggle
xplicitdipthong
ltcooper
Leigh Cooper
xplicitdipthong
ltcooper
ltcooper
xplicitdipthong
ltcooper
ltcooper
ltcooper
ltcooper
ltcooper
Leigh