eat + travel + live

Visiting a fish market has quickly become my favorite activity in Japan.  Countless number of shops selling fresh fish and then the restaurants around them that make them into superb meals…what is there not to like?

Here is one that we visited the very next day after landing in Sapporo:

We were greeted by a dizzying array of crabs:

The second one we visited was a smaller complex:

BUT, the best part about this market was that they were giving out free samples!  It’s like going to Costco on a Sat morning for all the samples…except in this case the samples are fresh Japanese seafood delicacies.  Score!

This might really be the biggest reason why I go back to Japan...I <3 fish markets!

I didn’t expect to run into Airbnb marketing in a remote corner of the world…but that is the world that we now live in.  Airbnb had a marketing igloo at the Snow Festival and was giving out free bags for signing up.  Pretty brilliant:

What happened to these?  Weren’t they suppose to take over the world…

Crossfire really seems to be a cult that’s taken over the world:

:) :

Our hotel in Niseko was a really interesting take on modern Japanese living w/ a hipster flair.  For starters, Costco and Kirkland exists in Japan?!

Our b&b lodging also offered this.  This also made me smile, I’m guessing that this was vegan?  We never tried it although it looked so good:

Before I set foot in Sapporo, I was advised to invest in a set of snow cleats as the Sapporo & Hokkaido were not particularly vigilant on keeping the sidewalks un-icy for its residents.  Of course if you grow up doing the icy-sidewalk-balancing-act, you’re going to be fine.  But if you are a California-raised traveler, not so much.

So I invested in these set of cleats, which came in quite handy:

Speaking of treads and navigating icy surface, this was my first time seeing industrial-strength snow bike tires:

This type of wear was pretty standard, down/puffy jackets, wool coats, hats, scarves, and ugg boots:

With some things leaning towards that Japanese cute-sy, like this cute take on a winter hat sold at the Snow Festival:

And then, of course the matching leopard-print & hat w/ purple uggs lady:

Thankfully this was not representative of stylish women, we saw others with more understated taste:

I’ve never understood how women can wear bare-skin clothing in freezing weather.  Either they literally have thicker skins, or this is the price of beauty?

Being on an island, I was expecting great seafood feasts and I was not disappointed.  When in Niseko, we had a number of excellent seafood meals including great sashimi:

And cooked fish, this one is salted and dried, and so, so delicious:

There is something ethereal about the way Japanese fry foods, this one is fried oysters:

It was so good that we ordered another round after inhaling the first.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Hokkaido had a diverse array of food options, not just seafood.  I discovered Okonomiyaki…a Japanese comfort food that reminded me of pa-jeon, the Korean pancakes.  It was a fun, festive experience of the chefs cooking it on their griddles:

So kind enough to provide instructions:

Yum, looking at the increasingly crispy Okonomiyaki is making me hungry:

Using our “spoons” aka scrapers to stuff our faces:

Another local Hokkaido tradition is the Gingiskan, traditional bbq’ed meats of lamb and other meats.  As ravenously hungry snow ski/boarders, we visited one of these bbq restaurants for dinner one night.  Upon entrance, we were greeted with this:

Hmm, should we re-think that putting dried branches and leaves hanging from the ceiling where you have a bunch of charcoal fires is a good thing?!  I was a bit afraid that we would also be cooked to a crisp in an unfortunate fire incident...however reasoned that if this has been the tradition for years there must be something to it.  Every table was equipped with a fire pit like this:

So we chose to ignore that we were sitting in a hotbox and focused on the delicious food in front:

Finally, I have to mention the above-expectations, very pleasant surprise that was our lodge’s breakfast:

The way it was organized was quintessentially Japanese.  My favorite was the Japanese “traditional” breakfast:

With this surprise inside…local Japanese veggies that tasted like a cross between mushrooms and turnips:

Very sadly, I didn’t get the name of the vegetable. :(  Next time in Niseko...

Details:

Okonomiyaki place: Okonomiyaki Jyu

The last stop of our trip was Niseko, *the* ski resort on the Hokkaido island.  We were greeted with this enchanted view upon our drive in, very blurrily captured through my camera:

We arrived at our lodging Niseko Nebula, walking distance from the Annupuri ski entrance:

and spent a few pleasant days here.  We had a hiccup in the beginning with sorting out the billing, but thankfully was able to get this resolved.  I wish I took more pictures of the common room, which had an old-timey wood-burning stove.  But the only pic I have is of the breakfast bar, which at least shows you the bar they had behind...a very nice apre-skiing option.

The other picture of Niseko Nebula would be what I called the hobbit hole right next to the lodge.  Mysterious…expecting winter gnomes to pop out at any moment:

Upon looking for the ski shop we were greeted with this, is this a ski area for kids or for everyone?  Since this is Japan, I’m not so sure :):

We were skiing for 3 days, and it was snowing…the. entire. time.  Amazeballs fresh powder snow!

And such beautiful scenery!

It snowed so continuously that every day we left the car at the ski lodge it would be covered in snow like this by the time we came back:

While having fresh powder snow was amazing, I found the wind + temperature + snow condition to be too harsh for skiing so continuously so opted for a Hokkaido-flavored “spa day” that included some onsen time on the second day.  This is the perfect 3 snow days in my book. :)

Details:

Japan is a well-rounded country from in that it seems to offer some form of the best of…things one appreciates and derives pleasure out of in life. Nature. Food. Drinks. Culture/History. Arts/Entertainment. Sports. Certainly makes for an interesting traveling experience.

This post is dedicated to the “Drinks” part of that list.  Fortunately I was traveling with a group that appreciated fine spirits which made this experience more fun.  One of our first stops was the Asahi Brewery.  We had assumed that it would be set up like the Sapporo Brewery where people can walk in and taste beer in a tasting room.  But apparently that was not the case, we arrived to gigantic factories without any specific place for visitors.  We decided to make up for this by visiting the restaurant that was on site and just ordering beers…an excellent backup if I may.

EXCEPT…a slight wrinkle.  The menu turned out to be in all Japanese.  

Man, this place *really* was not equipped for tourists!  I spy branding & revenue stream potential (can’t take the MBA out of the traveler :).  After a bunch of pantomiming, pointing, and to be honest completely randomly selecting we ended up with these two:

Another worthy stop if you are in Sapporo: the Sake Museum & Shop.  There was an educational part where you could learn about sake:

But let’s be honest, the best part was “learn by doing” :) which happened at the sake tasting counter:

So I didn’t realize this but Japan also produces some of the best whiskey in the world.  We decided to make a “pit stop” at the Nikka Whiskey Distillery (only if all pit stops were like this!).

The backdrop of this place was so gorgeous with the white powder snow everywhere:

Once in the tasting room, we tasted the 10:

the 12:

the 17:

and some apple wine:

My favorite was the apple wine (surprise surprise, I’m not much of a spirits sipper).  But how awesome is this to be able to taste whisky in a cozy room by a large window on a wintry day:

Some interesting construction work going out there at the time:

I couldn’t figure out what made this bottle “special” but I liked the picture (and that is how they get you…marketing):

As if one liquor pitstop wasn’t enough, we decided to make a second one at a sake shop.  I found it really cutesy in that Japanese way:

At this point I stopped drinking, but here are some of the sake that they sold…even their sakes are Japanese cutesy!

Details:

Asahi Brewery: is here

Sake Museum: is here

Hokkaido is known for a number of things…the annual Snow Festival.  Some of the best skiing conditions in Asia.  Fresh abundance of local seafood.  The uni a that high-end SF restaurant that is flown in from Japan?  I can get that straight from the source here!  (See my previous blog post for my uni glamour shots…drool makes me want some right now).  King crab, snow crab, hairy crab…wait wait hold on.  What the heck is that?

Turns out that it is a delicacy of Sapporo...so of course that was on the top of my list.  We went to a well-known restaurant that even had a hairy crab on the outside…just screaming out to the tourists so there’s no chance of missing that this is a HAIRY CRAB place:

Upon entering we were greeted with a pond of hairy crabs…is it bad that I thought “Yum”?

They served us a delicious multi-course seafood meal, this photo being an amalgamation of couple courses:

And of course, the hairy crab in all its glory:

A visit to Sapporo wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the ramen alley, namely a tiny alley only comprised of ramen shops:

Look Anthony Bourdain came here so *clearly* it must be legit:

We actually went to a different shop, and tasted delicious bowls of ramen.  We opted for a classic chashu+corn ramen with the very traditional stick of butter on top, and a local seafood ramen.  I liked how the seafood ramen broth was clearer and lighter, a different take on ramen for sure.

Details:

The Hairy Crab Restaurant: Sapporo Kani Honke (has multiple branches, here is the Susukino one)

I had no idea what the Sapporo Snow Festival was, so when I found out that I was going to land in time to catch the last day I didn’t think too much of it.  And THEN I found out that this festival is one of the largest winter festivals in the world with with 400 snow sculptures and over 2 MM visitors.  Crazy!

And even then I still didn’t quite understand why it was such a big deal until I got there.  For starters, when we say ice sculptures we’re not talking about statue-sized ice concoctions or luges that we occasionally see at parties (that would be the Canadian club’s party at business school) and on TV.  We’re talking about multi-story scale GIGANTIC creations made from snow.  I really don’t think the term sculptures do it justice.  They should call these...ice monuments!  That is for sure a more appreciate phrase.

Here is shot of such an “ice monument” (yes, I am coining this term when it becomes big you can attribute it to this blog :), this one is literally building sized, hopefully you can tell from the backdrop:

I like the ones with faces the best (call it my biological/human impulse).  This one of a horse was lovely:

So angry!  The Evil Queen from Snow White?  Hilariously, there was a band performing in front of this scary face:

My favorite of the faces was this big face to rule them all.  Naturally, there is a couple w/ a selfie stick as Darth Vader beckons them to the dark side.  I mean this selfie stick is a REAL thing.  That is probably the scariest thing from this whole scene:

In addition to huge, amazing icy works of art, there were a variety of entertainment activities as well.  There were kids performing snow tricks on this slope.  Mind you, literally in the middle of the city center w/ buildings on either side of the divider:

This Latin American group traveled pretty far to perform here!  My first thought: are they not freezing?!

Of course, then we stumble across this 2nd performance where even more unbelievably one of the girls is actually showing bare skin:

Seriously kids, wear some leggings!  That is my wimpy Californian self talking.

I really appreciated their efforts to make everything out of ice, including this smoking area:

And then at the end of the day when it was all said and done, it was time to say good bye.  Let me tell you, these people do not waste any time in taking it all down.  One moment we are admiring the final night time sculptures:

Then with a blink of the eye it’s all being tore down.  These bulldozers demolishing everything reminded me of transformers…somehow I expected them to start turning into robots in the middle.  Sadly that did not happen.

details:

Where in the world can you find a bunch of adorable kids waddling around in 80-style ski suits?  Yep, that’s right that would be Sapporo, Japan.  Who knew that the beloved American-style ski suits were all the range in this remote corner of this Asian island?  I for sure had no idea until we started walking around town.

And then they were EVERYWHERE.  Looking through my photos I didn’t realize how many photos I had taken of kids, hopefully the locals weren’t sketched out my subtle and frankly not-so-subtle attempts at taking pictures of cute kids everywhere.

To start off, the classic one-colored red ski-suit onesie walking so fashionably down the street:

These ski suits are quite sturdy, definitely built for the roll-around-in-the-snow-and-get-into-all-sorts-of-trouble use cases:

If Santa had an army of Japanese kid helpers I imagine their ski suits would look like this:

The girly-girl 80-style ski suit:

The American version?

The requisite kid bear hat!

This one feels very eskimo-ish to me.  He was running around at the ski lodge and I was trying to chase him around serriptiously…buy the end I resigned myself to this back shot:

Some of the hipster lumberjack style in this one?

A ski suit that this little girl is growing into:

Plaid and polka dots?  What a fashion statement :)

I love sampling snacks wherever I go in the world.  It’s a true and unique way of understanding the culture.  As expected, Japan’s Hokkaido represented strong.  AND as a bonus, it was interesting to see amazing Japanese snacks with the wintry twist, something we don’t get in California.

One of the first snacks we bought was this decadent yet light and fluffy chocolate cake.  One of the many facets that I love about Asian snacks is that they tend to be less sweet while being super flavorful.  This chocolate cake definitely belong in that category.

This is a local chocolatier brand.  I was sorry that I found out about this too late to see if we could do a factory tour.  I guess more reason to go back!

One of the highlights of the Sapporo Snow Festival experience was seeing all the food stands with its tempting fare.  It was like looking at carnival food, except with a winter Japanese twist.  For example, corn dog = snow-crab-on-a-stick.  funnel cake = those long fried tentacle looking things.  YUM-MY!

There are some types of food shops that are ubiquitous in Hokkaido.  Example one: pastry shops with all sorts of deliciousness in the subway stations.

It was a difficult decision but we decided on this savory morsel at the end:

Example two: seven-elevens with elaborate food contraptions to keep your off-the-shelf food fresh.  This is one of the pre-dinner snacks that I had that had the broth separately packaged from the other goodies.

And this sight of a seven eleven fish cake station truly brought me back to my childhood days where we would go skiing and my mom would prep fish cake soups for our lunch breaks.  Seriously, the perfect snowy day food!

Welcome to the first post of my blog series on my Japan trip!  I had the opportunity to visit the lovely island of Hokkaido for a very wintry week for a little Snow Festival-ing and a little Niseko skiing.  It was a trip that fell into place last minute, including a last-minute frequent flyer mile ticket.  Hey, you have to embrace these carpe diem moments right?

My one Japan experience before this had been a delirious half-day trip into Tokyo during a long layover, which was so worth it as it mainly consisted of a visit to the Tsukiji market for some fresh sushi lunch (That is, I am not counting the several times I’ve spent in layovers in Tokyo en route to other places in Asia..as described here.  btw this time I was transferring between Haneda and Narita and did not have time for a proper airport curry rice meal…sadness).

Considering that Japan has been on my list of places to explore in the world, I was really excited for this trip.  And it didn’t disappoint.  The theme of this trip: uni+onsen.  That is, every day I had uni or went to an onsen…and on one particularly awesome day did both!

The Uni:

Uni is truly one of my favorite foods in the world.  With all the richness, creaminess, and briny sea flavor how could it not be?  Uni is a bit like foie gras for me…and given that I once wrote a post on how I ODed on foie gras in France, that should give you some idea of how much I love it.  And for all the haters out there, I would challenge you to tell me your opinion after you’ve had it from the real deal source, i.e. Japan.  I know of multiple people who swore off uni only to have had the authentic uni experience in Japan and became converts.  Hmm this reads a bit like a 1% statement which is not my intent, all I am saying is that until you’ve had GREAT uni, you can’t really make a judgment on whether you like it or not.  Or you can say that you dislike mediocre uni which I would wholeheartedly agree with.

What really struck me about visiting Hokkaido was how uni was such a casual and normal part of everyday living.  This is what I was greeted with upon landing in the Sapporo airport:

I mean really?  Uni sets at the airport?!  Something tells me that this airport uni is probably better than much of the uni sold in the US.  Considering that in California it is such a BIG DEAL to get uni flown from Japan, we took advantage of this for a fresh seafood medley breakfast at the local fish markets every day in Sapporo.  Look at this…uni AND chu-toro!  I think heaven looks something like this :).

Another mouthwatering breakfast:

Whatever Japan trip I take from now on I will put into the itinerary sushi breakfast at the nearest fish market.  Non-negotiable.

One last shot of uni, dressed up with a flower:

The onsen:

I didn’t even know what this word meant before I embarked on this trip.  But I can tell you definitely what it means after having gone to one every day in Niseko, the biggest ski resort on the Hokkaido island.  An onsen is Japanese word for a natural hot spring that is used as a gender-separated communal bathing space.  We found a number of amazing outdoor onsens which coincidentally makes for the perfect apre-ski relaxation event.  I couldn’t take pix of the onsens themselves for obvious reasons, but here are some from the Internets, including this very upscale Hilton one which I actually visited:

Personally I prefer the local ones which are smaller with more homey facilities but still with equally breathtaking sceneries and more relaxed vibes.  It was also snowing the entire time we were in Niseko...for sure such an unique experience to be soaking in hot mineral water while powder snow is softly falling down on you.

There are a couple of lessons that I learned in regards to tourism shopping from this Burmese trip.

One is that you can find great shopping across all spectrums of the world, including Myanmar.

Two is that one should not always trust a friend's guideline in how much money to bring into a country even though that said friend just returned from the said country and supposedly took shopping into account.  That's right I'm looking at you STEPHANIE. :)

Three is that one real-meal days become much more attractive when one does not have access to a credit card and cannot exchange more local currency and there is still a mountain of shopping to be done.

All three points were really clearly crystalized at our visit to the laquer factory in Bagan.  while laquer is available all around the country, Bagan is famous for it and I highly recommend that you get it there...they have the good stuff.

First of all, the Burmese handicraft embody every sense of that word...it was really interesting to see from step 0 to the finished product.

the apprentices and crafts(wo)men (who were coming from generations of laquer making families btw) were clearly used to showing foreigners their work...even though they couldn't speak english they were body language to convey what they did (oh, and our guide's translations helped too :p)

We saw similar artisan-ness in Inle Lake, our next destination.  Watching these women extract and spin lotus silk by hand was...simultaneously impressive and painful.  It's like the Industrial Revolution never touched this corner of the country...horseless carriages, what is that? :)

ok it's not that bad, in the sense that they do have cars and smartphones, but when it comes to manufacturing....I asked our guide that I assumed these goods were being mass-produced elsewhere in factories and he looked at me like I was semi-crazy.  I mean why would we need steel equipment to replace this masterpiece of machinery?

some additional glimpses of craftsmenship found in Inle Lake...this is blacksmiths shop the four men are taking turns VERY quickly hammering out the white-hot metal knife.  someone could lose their hand here but of course when we saw it, it was a perfect harmony of clings.

some ladies rolling Cheroot, Burmese cigars:

funny story on that one...j and i had a i-love-lucy moment when we sat next to them and tried to roll cigars ourselves.  let's just say we wouldn't make it as Cheroot rollers. :)

artists doing their thing:

Yangon was much more about the big-city mass-manufactured shopping....Nothing terribly exciting to report here, your standard developing country mall of hawkers trying to fleece you the foreigner...but much much nicer than some other regions like Thailand and China.

of course this wouldn't be complete without the spoils (the work of a few nights of apples and granola bars for dinner :)!

That would be a bell from the blacksmith shop, lotus silk scarf from the textile shop, and two laquer bowls from the laquer shop.  i wish i took more pix of the handicraft but let's be honest i was completely dazzled by the treasure trove of all these goodies and shopping like a chicken without a head. :)

other good trinkets and factory-manufactured traditional skirt longyi and a cool top.

so the lesson to be learned: take LOTS of money into the country for shopping since it's more likely that you'll run out of $ from all the "souvenirs" you want to buy!  ok but maybe not *too* much since you do want to make your rent or housing payments...i didn't even cover their jewelry here. :p

shopping details:

lotus silk: In n paw khone village at Inle Lake

cheroot (cigars): Pauckpar village at Inle Lake

gold & silversmith: Ywama village at Inle Lake

blacksmith: Saekhaung village at Inle lake

big-city souvenir shopping: Scotts Market at Yangon

one of the things i really enjoy about traveling in developing countries is that this whole notion of organic, unprocessed food is taken for granted.  i mean, *everything* is farm-to-table…maybe a bit too much so with water that's not safe to drink, etc.  this was pretty evident in all the "farmer's market" i.e. their regular markets and the plantations (so…colonial.)

for example, dried snake fish stands on side of the road:

with "fresh"ly drying snake fish:

generally we really enjoy going to markets to really get the local flavor of the land…this time was no exception.  generally bustling hubs where people come to grocery shop, fresh produce was everywhere:

it's such a good snapshot cuz everyday fabric is woven into these markets, like the toddler that plays (and eat…and apparently paste food on his face):

to the old woman enjoying a cigar…one of our favorite sightings!

the Mun state has a number of plantations (so colonial…so british.) we saw a number of produce plantations with beautiful fruits like this:

one of the highlights was the rubber tree plantation - i mean have you actually ever thought about where 100% organic :) rubber comes from?  i had not either.  pretty cool!

[ok after falling off the travelogging wagon, I am determined to finish up this last portion of my myanmar adventures...before i become completely senile and forget everything might as well write down my thoughts :)]

Working in the mobile gaming space, it's always fascinating to see how games and IP that make it big on mobile can successfully migrate to other "platforms" i.e. the real world.  I definitely wasn't expecting to see this played out in Myanmar, but lo and behold guess what greeted us as we were touring temples on the first day?  That's right Angry Birds.

 As this local little Burmese girl leisurely lounging in a touristy temple demonstrates to us, Angry Birds is EVERYWHERE.  Even in developing countries that is phasing out a totalitarian government.

It was pretty easy to spot throughout the entire country, even in the rural regions.

Oh, but you the enlightened one say of course, little kids everywhere love Angry Birds! yes, this is very true but something you don't really see here in the states would be this:

that would be an Angry Birds stick shift cover that our 20-something driver was sporting while he was driving us around in Bagan.  I asked him if he played Angry Birds and he kind of giggled [for the lack of a better word] and said that he likes to play on his computer.

Angry Birds is even a women's fashion statement:

This would be a lady from the Shan region (region of Inle Lake, our favorite place) sporting an Angry Birds purse, leaving after praying at a temple.

My favorite Angry Birds experience was when we were coming out of a temple in the Inle Lake region.  I spied a group of kids hanging out around a table of flowers.  Not sure what the flowers were for, BUT the important thing :p is that one of the kids were wearing an Angry Birds fleece:

Of course I had to document this as part of my Burmese experience so I motioned the boy over and had him pose for the camera:

and somehow that turned into all the kids running over and posing for a picture:

Overall, we were very pleasantly surprised by the local Burmese cuisine.  I've been to Burma Superstar in SF eons ago, and remember thinking that it was pretty good but overrated for the long loooong dinnertime lines.  J and I were also cautious given our Bhutanese cuisine experience of the traditional food being…well generally bad with no flavor. :)  We were preparing ourselves for bad case scenario of too greasy/salty/abrasively spicy/bland food.

We're happy to say that we were wrong, the Burmese definitely know how to cook.  Can you guys hop over the border and teach your Bhutanese neighbors how to cook? :)

Here are some highlights from each spot/region we visited.

Yangon

Our first real meal was at Feel Myanmar, which was highly recommended by several of our friends.  And it did not disappoint, in fact we liked it so much that we went back for our last meal in Myanmar.  We were greeted by a plethora of enticing dishes:

Although our eyes were bigger than our stomaches at this point, we proceeded to pick out several main dishes & soups.  At our table we were greeted by shrink-wrapped dishes & cutleries…how sterile of them.  It's as if they knew that we Westerners have a latent fear of being food poisoned. :p  thanks y, my plate model :)

We feasted on prawn curry, pork curry, sautéed veggies, tea leaf salad (of course we had to try some), mohinga (soup), and a noodle salad dish with papaya (called Athotsa).  All the food was very flavorful, with expert balance of some heat, sour, and salt.

The best part in my opinion (and the reason why I like this local Burmese food compared to local Thai food) is that they saved the *real* spiciness on the side for you to add as much as you want. These peppers are tiny but I made the big mistake of popping one in my mouth…and blew out my palate for probably rest of the meal.  good thing i ate it towards the end!

Golden Rock & the Mun state road-tripping

We stopped at a very simple locally "authentic" (as in, eat here at your own risk you Western tourists :) restaurant on our way to Golden Rock. I was pleasantly surprised to find the food to be still good w/ different flavors and spices represented.  The mutton curry, fish, and bean salad were all simple but delicious.

I love how they gave us this "candy" at the end of our meal…it being pure, 100% brown cane sugar.  No additives, faux-sugar, artificially coloring here.

We also had the chance to try the Burmese interpretation of Indian food.  While it was pretty good, this meal was SUPER-greasy and I can say that this was the first meal that gave me stomach issues.  Thumbs up on the soup though!

We were eating such full meals for lunch that we ended up skipping dinners probably half the time…our night in Golden Rock we actually had a tasty dinner of…cup noodles that we "borrowed" from the airport lounge on our layover! :)  here is j enjoying hers. :p  really hit the spot for junk food-y craving!

A Mohinga stand!  This fish-based soup was ubiquitous throughout the country (one may say it's analogous to kimchee in Korea…altho not that extreme... :) and considered a good hearty breakfast solution.  So tempted but we dare not eat street food :(

Bagan

Honestly the places that we went to were more touristy than other places…the one standout in my opinion was the Moon vegetarian restaurant.  Papaya salad, pumpkin curry, and tofu curry were all simply prepared and delicious.

Inle Lake

I knew we had made a good decision on our resort (I highly recommend Inle Lake Resort if you are in that area), when the staff greeted us with refreshing cucumber/lime juice with right amount of sugar and citrus.

The restaurant food was actually some of the best food we had in Myanmar.  For dinner, we had sautéed prawns, veggie curry, and lake-caught fish (either trout or butter fish I believe).  the flavors were once again really well balanced, ingredients fresh, with very flavorful spices incorporated.

The Shan noodles (which is a specialty of the Inle Lake region) were also excellent at the resort.  We ordered all 3 noodle variations for breakfast one morning…mohinga, Shan noodle soup, and Shan noodle salad.  In noodle heaven!

Finally, tea leaf salad was fairly ubiquitous.  Our guide explained to us that tea leaf salad was typically eaten as a snack rather than meal component.  While shopping in Inle Lake, we munched on this snack dish…the one-bite of fermented tea leafs, spiced nuts, and briny saltiness of dried shrimp was SO good!

Spotted: a Burmese baby monk!  Apparently toddler monks are a bit like spotting leopards on a safari as typically at that age they are not old enough to make the decision to join a monastery on their own.  Hence it's the parent making that decision for them, and most likely for commercial reasons…if you can't tell from my reaction here, baby monk == tourist attraction == $$$.  a sad reality that j, y, and I were trying to not promote by not giving children anything throughout the trip. 

We met Bo Bo when visiting a monastery in Bagan.  He was running and jumping around, but immediately recognized our guide Nye Tun.

So cute with chubby cheeks!  Apparently we were not the only ones to think so.

He was quire rambunctious, running around the courtyard like crazy and hitting these bells.

We follow Bo Bo inside the temple and Nye Tun explains to us that his mother brings him out to get donations from foreign tourists.  Ironically, he is a magnet for tourist donations but he always puts them into the donation box instead of giving the money to his mom!  Hilarious, a baby monk with a heart of gold…totally smitten! :)  

Nye Tun gave him a dollar.  As any good local would do, he first examines the dollar bill :)...if this monk thing doesn't work out, perhaps a career in finance? :)

Then turns to us and thanks Nye Tun:

True to form, runs over to the donation box at which point the hovering mom materializes:

Bo Bo refuses to give the dollar to his mom and puts the dollar into the box, like Nye Tun said!

And speaking of Nye Tun, who was our guide in Bagan, we had the most hilarious convo on our sunset cruise boat ride:

It started with an innocuous question of "what do you do in the off tourist seasons?" to which he replied that he has a banana plantation on the side as a hobby.  A plantation as a hobby?  We had to find out more.  So it turned out that Nye Tun profited greatly from the political transition and country's economic development climate.  He told us that he bought an acre of plantation land for $500 years ago that was now valued at…[wait for it… :)]…$80,000.  Can we say 16x return on real estate?!?!  With foreign capital coming in and country opening up, there's been crazy appreciations and transactions like this.  As another example, he told us that he had an old Jeep that he had purchased for $2,000 years ago that he recently sold for $80,000. Can we says car APPRECIATION?!  So it turns out that the rich were buying old used cars so they could exchange it for a nice new foreign luxury car, to get around the luxury car import permit regulations.

Bagan is the tourist crown jewel of myanmar…at least I assume so given that they had the most "developed" tourist economy infrastructure (think kids besieging you to buy postcards…one enterprising kid drew his own postcards which were super-cute and y did buy, so guess it works!  should've convinced him to join kiva and we could've all crowdfunded his promising business :p).  and for a good reason!  in this region there used to be +10,000 Buddhist temples, of which +2,000 temples and pagodas are still standing today.

We started our visit off with a drive that showed gorgeous temples like this:

Some of the details that you can *still* see on these temples are pretty exquisite, like this ogre face on side of temple:  

It's incredible that they have survived, especially with grubby tourist hands touching and feet climbing all over the place!  let's say the word "preservation" isn't really part of their vocab…yet.

One of the coolest Buddhas I've seen was in this region.  From temple entrance, Buddha's face started with being close-eyed and friendly looking…

And then when you go under it you get the *real* Buddha look of staring down at you with really, a fairly judgmental look.  Genius mr. sculptor, draw then in with the friendly gaze and then bam!  make a hypothetical tourist feel guilty for eating meat or something (may I recommend their mutton curries there btw? delish! :p)

Highly recommend viewing the sunset from top of a temple as well!  But of course, the ultimate source of view and really highlight of this whole region was the hot air balloon ride.  How cool is this?

I will note that this was pre-Egypt hot air balloon incident (thank goodness!  otherwise we would've prob been looking for emergency landing spots whole time we were in air or something).

How cute…kissing balloons (as j would say)!  BTW apparently the haze was from controlled burns of bushes, not fog.

I took lots of pics from the air, like this one:

But honestly, I think the best pic is the one I've been showing off to friends on my iPhone:

Funnily enough, maybe a third of the time reaction has been "you took that with your iPhone?  which model is this?"  just goes to prove how mobile camera tech is true competition to your regular digital cameras (what were those things again?  standalone cameras for normal people? :)