ramblings and visions

Driving from Singapore to Cameron Highlands is not the most efficient way to get there, but that is precisely the point. Over nearly 700 kilometres, the road shifts, the air cools, and the experience accumulates – through food, distance, and quiet moments – into something that feels less like a trip and more like a reset.

Itoshima arrived as the trip’s soft landing: a basket carried into trees that creaked in the wind, a coastal photo queue managed by strangers, and the quiet handover of a rental car. The road trip didn’t end with a vista. It ended with familiar city hum and fire at the centre of a dining room.

Kumamoto was a kind of enclosure after Aso's exposure – streets quieter, air colder, the city holding itself in. We missed the castle up close and settled for its illumination at a distance. What stayed instead was dinner in Shinmachi: local craft on the table, wagyu cut thick and tender, a claypot sealed by hand, and hospitality generous enough to make a late arrival feel forgiven.

Kurokawa announced itself in small adjustments: roads narrowing, cedar replacing signage, and cold sharpening our desire for heat. We moved more slowly through its wooden lanes and over its low bridges, recalibrating ourselves in mineral-scented water. Even our late arrival to dinner was met with quiet generosity – kaiseki served without haste and warmth offered without performance.

In Aso, we stood at the edge of a breathing crater, ate miso-glazed skewers over charcoal, and learned when to stop chasing viewpoints. Some landscapes don't need amplification – just the sense to keep driving.

Cold fingers, blue water, and a coastline that refused to perform. In Miyazaki, we followed shrines carved into cliffs, horses with unimpressed expressions, and an influencer's food trail that didn't always translate. Between salt air and warm canned coffee, the only thing that felt certain was forming our own view.

Snow started falling before we even left the rental lot, and it didn't let up as we climbed toward Takachiho. First-time driving in whiteout-leaning visibility, we measured everything—speed, traction, judgement—then traded the car for a rowboat and a gorge that made us feel small.

In Fukuoka, queues moved with purpose and good things arrived without explanation. A wrong train to Dazaifu became a quiet lesson in momentum, not mishap. Between yatai steam, bakery trays, and “fine” convenience-store hype, the city fed us well—then carried on.

Cuenca paused us. El Palmar fed us. Barcelona received us differently the second time. Cliffs over the Huécar, paella heavy with carabinero, Basque cheesecake queued for without restraint, and a final dinner at El Xampanyet that reminded us why we liked the city in the first place.

Granada gives you geometry and spectacle. The Alpujarras give you exposure. White villages cling to slopes. Jamón hangs in mountain air. And somewhere outside Lanjarón, a single-lane dirt track narrows as rain begins to fall. Some roads are scenic. Others demand your attention.

Granada moves fast between centuries. One moment: muqarnas vaulting, Arabic inscriptions, water engineered into symmetry. The next: razor clams in garlic oil, waiters sprinting through chaos, applause for a stranger's proposal at dinner. History and appetite don't compete here. They overlap.

Seven hours on the road from Logroño to Granada, with a detour in Getafe. At Mesón La Catedral, chipirones and mussels—cooked simply and transparently—reminded us how powerful restraint can be. Then came the windmills of La Mancha and, finally, Granada under the Sierra Nevada.

Logroño doesn't ask for reservations but it demands appetite. On Calle del Laurel, we moved from bar to bar—mushrooms stacked with prawns at Bar Ángel, foie gras at BAR DONOSTI, an engineered "Egg Explosion" at El Canalla—before realising the best meal wasn't the most theatrical, but the one we went back to.

We arrived in San Sebastián with a dining itinerary and a mythology to confirm. By the end of the night—after Bar Sport, Ganbara, La Cuchara, and cheesecake at La Viña—we realised the city was better when we stopped trying to measure it against its legendary.

Day three escalated quickly – a complimentary BMW upgrade in Barcelona, a missed Black Madonna at Montserrat, lunch at a rustic Catalan tavern, then 2,072 metres of mountain tarmac over Port de la Bonaigua before pintxos in Artíes.

We landed in Barcelona underfed from a red-eye, over-ordered brunch in a fit of jet-lagged vengeance, then walked it off through rain-soaked Gaudí architecture before falling silent inside the Sagrada Família. By the end of 48 hours, with pizza at Sartoria Panatieri and tapas at El Nacional, we knew we had only scratched the surface of the city.

Getting some grub at Mercato Centrale di Firenze in Florence