Winter Travels Pt. 2: Mad about Maokong

After two days in Okinawa, my band of merry JET friends and I headed off to our next winter travel destination, Taipei! We were only there for three days, but managed to pack a lot of adventuring into that short amount of time. I'm pretty sure it was my favorite destination of the three as well, since the food was incredible and the public transportation made it easy to reach all the destinations we wanted to see. I was glad to have been able to do so much in such a short amount of time.

On our first day, we headed up into the mountains in Taipei on the Hello Kitty themed Maokong gondola. Taipei seems to love Kitty Chan just as much as Japan does.

The gondola floats serenely over the city for about fifteen to twenty minutes, with the option to stop and explore different places along the route. Followers of my blog from the Hong Kong days might remember a similar cable car experience I had when I visited Ocean Park, and it did sort of feel like a deja vu moment. Either way, I'm a big fan of the floating over mountaintops public transportation movement. Talk about a way to travel!

Our first stop was Taisui shrine, a huge ornate building covered in dragons, gods and flowers. The shrine had a sort of a one size fits all sort of thing going, as there were different places to pray depending on whether you were followed the Tao, the Buddha or Confucius. You could also buy a token for good luck to hang on your rearview mirror for roughly $8 USD.

This room was my favorite by far. The ceiling was lit to look like the night sky, and in these cases all around the room were different saints for everyone's birth year. We all went around and found our own personal "guardian angels."

Here's my saint-- if you were born in 1992, you have this lovely scholar watching over you. Apparently, my lucky number is 9, my lucky color is purple, and I have a lot of wisdom, if the shrine is to be believed.

After we had our fill of temple gazing, we returned to the gondola and continued up the mountain, eventually arriving at the little town of Maokong. Famous for tea flavoured soba and special Chinese tea tastings, the tea drinking grandma in my heart was very excited at the opportunity.

We picked a random shop and tried an assortment of tea themed snacks, including tea oil noodles, tea meats, and steamed buns (pictured below). 

 My tea set, complete with tea biscuits, tea jelly, and, of course, tea! I tried a new flavour (but since it was written in kanji, I have no idea what it was called). It sort of reminded me of jasmine tea, since it had a very floral taste.

Black sesame, matcha, orange, cranberry and herb flavored steamed buns were a real treat. You can see the tea oil noodles and Elley's beef dish (possibly also made with tea?) in the background.

After we had stuffed ourselves with tea themed dishes and had a mosey around a couple tea shops, we tried a special Taiwanese dessert, the ice cream spring roll. It was taro and pineapple ice cream with shaved peanut brittle and cilantro-- it sounds nuts (haha, get it?), but I definitely recommend it.

The purple ice cream is taro flavoured, the yellow is pineapple. The cilantro made it so refreshing too! 

 Allison and I triumphantly eating spring rolls. 

A view of the town from the gondola platform

The gondola ride was such a treat on our first day in Taiwan, and it's a really inexpensive way to get to have some really unique experiences. If you like tea, Maokong is really the cream of the crop. Or should I say, the cream of the milk tea.

Actually no one should ever say that. Is it just me, or are my jokes getting worse?

I'm not done with Taiwan yet! Stay tuned for the next Winter Travels post to catch up with the rest of our Taiwanese adventures!

Winter Travels Pt. 1: Zamami Islands

Author's Note: I wrote this post on December 23rd, 2014, while we were in our Okinawa hostel. I wasn't able to actually upload it until now, so please do excuse the belatedness of the post.

Good morning everyone! I hope the days leading up to Christmas (and all other super fantastic holidays) are going swimmingly for you! To soak up my time abroad, I've decided not to return home for the holidays this year and see a little bit of the world instead. I'm hoping it gives my family some time to miss me more!

I've sent all my presents home and attended all my Christmas parties and "bounenkai" (forget the year parties) so now I figure there's only one thing left to do-- travel!

I'm currently sitting in a hostel in Okinawa after the first day of my sixteen day winter vacation extravaganza and I thought it might be fun to do some blog updating on the go-- true travel writer style. Besides, I have to post these photos as soon as possible. I'm running out of space on my phone!

For the first leg of our winter holiday, we flew to Okinawa last night and got into our super cute hostel, only to get up early this morning and catch a ferry  to Zamami Island, a tiny beach town with a population of 400. 

The water was so turquoise blue.

As a lover of humpback whales, I enjoyed this sculpture greeting us on our way into the harbor.

We immediately hiked up to this lookout point at the top of a mountain. I don't think I was prepared for so much uphill walking, but it was definitely worth it. The view was breathtaking!

Panorama shot of the beach-- I felt like I was on the island from Lost.

I had a second to get a selfie with the view of town! You can check out my new haircut too, what do you think?

After we were done reveling in the amazing views, we decided it was time to hit that amazing beach we were admiring from above. We hurried down the hill to town, rented bikes and made our way over. Little did we know, we'd have to climb another gigantic hill to get there! My legs were aching!

Me, Bridget, Elley and Allison on our bikes.

On the deck in front of Furuzamami Beach

Bridget and Elley build a sandcastle while I sit shivering in my towel. I forgot it was winter and the wind made me feel quite cold after swimming.

After some ominous looking clouds and rumbling bellies convinced us to take an early respite from our beach adventure, we went back to town to have lunch. There was literally one restaurant open, since it was Sunday, but the food wasn't too bad and we supplemented our appetites with frequent trips to the only general store on the island.

Some of my favorite Okinawa specialties included "taco rice," which was literally just taco fillings and hot sauce on rice, and "soki soba," a thick noodle soup dish with pork. Both were equally delicious, and definitely unlike anything I had eaten in Japan before.

Finally, muscles aching from our long day, we hopped on the ferry back to the mainland. I thought the island was quite a treat even if we came on a windy winter Sunday, when most of the island was on vacation and our noses were a bit chilly all day.

Tomorrow we'll be exploring Naha, the biggest city in Okinawa. Hopefully my feet will be rested and ready to go by then!

Kyushu Cities: Kumamoto + Fukuoka

Kumamon from Kumamoto

Kumamoto and Fukuoka, the big cities of Kyushu! What adventure, what promise they hold! I had wanted to visit Kumamoto and Fukuoka since arriving in Miyazaki. I had heard that Miyazaki was a profoundly rural prefecture, and apparently, if you want some urban flare, Fukuoka City and Kumamoto City are the places to be.

Also, Kumamon, the Kumamoto mascot, is literally everywhere in Miyazaki. He's a black bear with two red cheeks and everyone goes crazy for him!

Hi, Mu and Ka from Miyazaki

However, I think that's a little strange because we have our own mascots, named Himuka. They’re three dogs dressed as a chicken, a hyuganatsu, and a palm tree, because Miyzaki has food, nature and fun. Totally reasonable. And way cuter than a bear! Though I suppose it's debatable...

Regardless, when I heard that the Miyazaki JETs were planning a trip to see sumo wrestling in Fukuoka, I signed up ASAP! The idea of seeing a sumo match appealed to my deep love of obscure sports, and it already lined up with my hopes of seeing Fukuoka, so it was a win win! When I realized Kumamoto was on the way as well, I decided to make a whole trip of it. 

So on Saturday, I headed out to visit my friend Elley, another JET, in Kumamoto. She has a great little apartment in the city, so we had the opportunity to chat, do some shopping and explore! 

We even got to go to a movie theatre and see Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar-- which to me was crazy because the closest cinema to my house in Kadogawa is about an hour and a half away. It felt so luxurious (I missed the movies!), and that particular movie was absolutely thrilling too. Go check it out if you get a moment!

The Kumamoto foliage was much brighter than the leaves in Kadogawa.

When Sunday rolled around, it was time to head to Fukuoka! We arrived in the city about two hours before I had to pick up my sumo ticket, so Elley and I wanted to do some sightseeing. Fukuoka is known for the amazing canals interspersed throughout the city, and apparently even little gondolas float along the water from time to time.

Ellen standing like a cool person in Fukuoka

I had heard about this place called Hakata Owl Cafe from other JETs who had gone before, so we stopped in for a visit. My other JET friend, Louise, met up with us there as well. 

It did not disappoint. For around $10 USD, we got coffee and to hold owls. My dreams came true.

 Owl-tside the owl cafe...

 Hedwig says hello!

 People holding owls!

 Ellen holding Riku-kun

 Louise petting the adorable Koko-chan

 Selfie with Riku-kun! He's not that into it.

 Here was my favorite owl, Taro-chan! I loved his tiny moustache!

 Taro-chan and I being besties.

Ellen was really interested in Taro-chan, and Taro-chan was really interested in Elley's arm.

After a nice owl coffee and several minutes trying to get decent pictures of me holding said owls, Louise and I realized we would be late for sumo if we didn’t head over right away, so we grabbed a taxi and made our way over to the sumo-plex.

Ian looking pensive in our box seats for high quality sumo viewing.

My paparazzi shot of a sumo right before his bout!

The sumo matches were actually fantastic. I think it might be my new favorite sport. We had all purchased box seats to check out the athletes-- let me tell you, it was worth it! I even started a little wager among my fellow JETs to guess who would win each round. The losers all had to buy the winner something from the conbini (which is Japanese for convenience store). I was really invested in trying to win, to the point where I was practically screaming at the athletes during every match! It was so exciting!

I didn’t take too many photos because I was honestly just enjoying myself so much, and I figured the photos probably wouldn’t be great anyway. Regardless, it was an awesome time! I'd love to go back next year.

Especially if I could run into this dude again! SUMO POWER!

My First Japanese Thanksgiving

Oh the holidays-- the joy, the laughter, the family togetherness. What a wonderful time to wear a sweater and surround yourself with good people who you care about!

Obviously, living abroad changes the “family” part of things a little bit. However, the American JETs weren’t going to give up our delectable holiday without a warm-hearted fight! 

So the Northern Miyazaki American JETs (plus one Canadian) were still able to have a good time, eat delicious things and enjoy warm fuzzy thankfulness feelings. Amelia, our hostess, even procured a turkey for everyone to share! It was a lovely evening and I ate until I wanted to lay down and sleep for ten thousand years.

I set out to create my first ever baked dessert in Japan and it turned out quite successful actually. I bought some simple ingredients and made apple crumble. Paired with vanilla ice cream and slightly burnt around the edges, it still turned out to be quite delicious. I was very happy with the results. It was truly caramel-y decadence.

Thanksgiving in Japan was so nice and I was able to call up my family during their annual Thanksgiving brunch by waking up at 6am! Maybe I wasn’t as coherent as I wish I could have been but it was still nice to see everyone’s beautiful faces. 

I think living abroad is good for self-awareness. When I’m living in California, I always take everything for granted. I don’t pay attention to the little things that make life so rich and full (i.e. a hug from my parents or a nice conversation over coffee with my oldest friends). 

When you are taken out of your comfort zone and relocated, the things about your hometown just stand out in a different way. The things that I really miss about Thanksgiving aren’t the foods (which are GREAT all the same) but spending time with my friends and family back home.

Okay, maybe the foods too. There are these really great celery stick things my mom always makes...

(Our Game of Thrones Thanksgiving photo ;)