chiang mai chillin'

heat a wok over an open flame until the heat radiates off the inside and in goes fresh coconut cream. the pan crackles as the coconut oil starts to separate and that's the time when you throw in the chilli paste. soon as it hits the pan, the flavors release into the air. the heat of the chillis popping in the oil are enough to burn your nose and make your eyes start to water.

maybe it's masochistic, but i can't get enough spicy.

so the natural next step is to spend some time in one of the chillest cities on the planet, chiang mai, thailand, and learn a little bit about the great cuisine that is thai.

six dishes a day is just about enough to make a food lover like me faint with joy. this is one of the most delicious choices i've made in my trip so far.

the professionalism is high. numerous fully equiped wok stations. fresh ingredients and super smart staff. the teachers crack jokes while chopping garlic at rapidfire speed. then, outfitted in themed aprons (a gimmick, i know, but it does make me feel special...), we go outside to take a shot at replicating it ourselves. afterwards, we sit down with our spoons and eat. three times a day. by the end of the day we're stuffed and happy. i sneak leftovers home to share with new friends. if you're in cm, find out more about the chiang mai thai cookery school.

highlights: red curry with roast duck and pineapple, spicy coconut soup with chicken, rad na, panang curry, tom yum soup, sticky rice with mango... what more can i say?


chiang mai is one of my friend josh's favorite cities, and i start to see why. one of the coolest markets i've been to yet is the sunday walking street. several blocks of the old city shut down every sunday evening for vendors of all kinds of goods-- shoes, lamps, dresses, paintings. lots of handmade stuff. and the place is packed with a mix of locals and thai folks who gravitate towards the market from the surrounding towns. man... you can get yourself some new clothes, a thai massage, eat some good food and listen to local bands rock out, all in one evening.

it's also the place where young thai people come to kick it. friends tease each other and crack up, as they turn to yell chants to the passing crowd for pastries they're selling to fundraise for student groups. chiang mai university hipsters lay out handmade bags and keychains with cute bug eyed figurines, and flocks of fashionable young people crane their necks as they walk by.

not only is the chiang mai vibe really nice, but the people are good folks. via an awesome connection through josh, i get to hang out with his friends here-- really cool people!


there's oo, a foodie like me, and director of a chiang mai preschool. i meet up with her and her friends down the block at the swinging feet restaurant, located on the second story wooden deck, with outward facing seats that let folks enjoy good food while dangling their legs over the side of the building. oo, mam and i eat again, and even MORE at the sunday walking street.


and there's the gorgeous film, chiang mai university student with an awesome vibrant energy. riverside's the spot for live music and a view of the river, and i meet up with her, her brother, his girlfriend and a bunch of their friends.


i meet taa at root rock, where he and his crew are regulars, dancing it up to a live reggae band. we sip on his favorite concoction-- thai whiskey, coke, soda, red bull and lime. later in the eve he, pam and i go over to kick it at an outdoor bar run out of a converted van. the high bar stools, hip people, heart to heart about loves, has me feeling like i'm hanging out on the set of the thai sex in the city.

cm. i love it.

see more of my chiang mai fotos.

check out more of josh's videos on cm and his other travels. they're hilarious-- you will not be disappointed.

homestay karakul

[a bonus add...]

we descend into a place without beginning or end. dust rises in clouds from the roads as taxis and donkey driven carts barrel through. in a rush to get somewhere, though where isn't exactly clear in a place where business is slow, and any exit from the city leads you to the middle of flat desert for miles and miles. the young women in veils look like they could be my sisters. hapa children the product of other empires clashing. but we break bread together, and in their language and in mine we have nothing to say. we huddle in a small brick and adobe room around a small round metal stove, sitting on colorful woven blankets, covered in dust. the river freezes at night where they live, there's hardly radio, hardly tv. aside from the scarves on their heads, an outfit out of an earlier century-- a burgundy 1920s jacket and skirt suit with layers of long thick nylons browned from the dirt and closed toed shoes with a strap and a slight heel. they are mothers and wives first and foremost, no confusion of roles. their husbands and uncles make their business by inviting people like us, tourists, into their homes, to eat bread, play with and take pictures of their children. give us a good price for a motorbike ride around a lake that reflects turquoise crystal against the dusted mountains, capped in snow. do we also in america drink milk tea for breakfast? the grandfather asks. he means the kind that they do, salty from yak's milk, sipped out of soup bowls and accompanied by hard bread. do we answer by saying we drink coffee? and in a friendly gesture omit the running water, the dsl, the $80,000 education that grants jobs that let us land in any part of the world we want, with cash ready to burn in the palms of our hands...?

desert of the east

okay, i know, i know. string of inadequate excuses, pitiful groveling... and i'm back again. now for the rest of my trip.

it's kashgar, and jay and i want to see a real market. on tips from travelers we convince a confused taxi driver to drop us off along a desert road. once we shut the door and he drives away, the exhilaration sets in. men wearing green and white square shaped skullcaps and dark colored suits, hands clasped contemplatively behinds their backs, huddle around vendors who talk loudly about the groups of sheep they have tied together in the center of the circle. more wandering reveals cows, horses, yaks, goats. outside the livestock area, there are piles of watermelons by the road and vegetables on the backs of carts. one man gets his head shaved outside while a young boy watches.

turns out though that we're the strange ones. more people are watching us than we are watching them. doing double takes, looking at our clothes, probably wondering what we're doing there. i like to take this as a sign that we're being good travelers.

still, just as we're starting to feel kind of uncomfortable, the amazing happens. out of nowhere, a bus of tourists from japan arrives. not just any tourists, but a full procession of tourists on a photo vacation-- many draped with huge lenses over outfits that appear to be able to protect from the most extreme conditions: khaki fishing vests, cargo pants, bucket hats and surgical masks.


back at the hotel, a rundown former british embassy, jay and i have a few beers with our new friend marcus, a swiss guy in his forties. we recount our stories of the sheep, the yaks, and everything we've seen.

'yes, but this place is nothing like it used to be,' he says. 'before, there were no taxis, just horse drawn carts that would drop you off right here in front of the hotel. i walked around town today and i couldn't find a single horseshoe welder.'

the concrete buildings are rising up from the dusty streets of kashgar slowly and steadily like weeds. development a la 'shake and bake.' lined with neon signs, nights are something out of blade runner in the middle of the an empty blazing hot for miles and miles.

even still, it's all new to me. predominantly uigur muslim, xinxiang, in the northwest of china, is nothing like the china that you would imagine. duck into a back alley in the old town and you can lose yourself in a maze of adobe alleyways, ducking under wood beams, turning corners that lead down more alleyways. each humble home exudes pride, bearing an elaborately carved wooden door in bright colors that stand out against the desert streets. women in hijabs, turn down the streets, bringing home groceries, gossiping with friends.

if you think you've never heard of it, xinxiang is featured in several films, including crouching tiger, hidden dragon (jen runs away to the desert of xinxiang, where she meets her love interest), and the kite runner (afghanistan, uh, wasn't an option).

check out the xinxiang pics if you haven't seen them yet.

the road back to tokyo

so on the way back up i...

returned to kyoto to kick it with these guys at the local izakaya (johannes, the izakaya manager and taro)...

johannes, taro & izakaya manager
Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

visited kobe and ate korean bbq in koreatown in osaka with the tsuzukis, keiko-san and akira-san, my kaizuka host parents from back in middle school...

ready to eat Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

crashed my aunt's mah jong party...

DSCF1439 Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

went with my host sister ikue to the yokohama ramen museum (and theme park) for hokkaido style ramen (miso, butter chives... mmm)...

DSCF1452 Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

enjoyed keiko's fried chicken with her friends, noriko and hisae...

keiko and cool friends Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

along with, uh.. these guys..
(jack, clinton, leslie, lauren and your local mix of rockabillies)

IMG_1971.JPG Originally uploaded by jackjinlio

and embarked on random adventures with tammy in tokyo. a good companion even though she hums the japanese national anthem in her sleep. just kidding. gentlemen, any takers...?

tammy and me Originally uploaded by s_ritoper

tokyo, no goodbyes yet... i'll be back for more soon.

a flash of light

the tranquil sound of the river running through the center of hiroshima at dusk draws high school students to picnic under the bridge at night, and laughter echoes under the voice of a young woman who sings out into the dark, guitar strumming.

memories from the ground:
a flash of light.
impact.
loss of consciousness.
black rain.

toshiko saeki
"As I was running, I saw a mad naked man running from the opposite direction. This man held a piece of iron over his head as if to hide his face since he had nothing on his body, I felt embarrassed. And I turned my back to him. The man was passing by me, then, I don't know why, But I ran after him and I asked him to stop for a moment. I asked him, ``Which part of Hiroshima was attacked?'' Then the man put down the piece of iron and he started at me. He said, ``You're Toshiko, aren't you?'' He said, ``Toshiko!''... Oh, I couldn't tell who he was right away. His face was so swollen I couldn't even tell whether his eyes were open. He called me, he said, ``It's me! It's me, Toshiko! You can't tell?'' Then I recognized him. He was my second eldest brother."

akiko takakura
"Maybe I didn't catch enough rain, but I still felt very thirsty and there was nothing I could do about it. What I felt at that moment was that Hiroshima was entirely covered with only three colors. I remember red, black and brown, but, but, nothing else. Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers. I, I was so shocked to know that fingers and bodies could be burned and deformed like that. I just couldn't believe it. It was horrible. And looking at it, it was more than painful for me to think how the fingers were burned, hands and fingers that would hold babies or turn pages, they just, they just burned away."

survivors talk.

from the ground:
hair falls out in chunks.
a young boy vomits up his own organs before passing away.
family members' remains are found.
and then the tears.
the nightmares.
years of healing.

what now, do we remember?

whose mother takes shelter in a desert home to cry quietly after our oblivion drops?

hiroshima mayor, tadatoshi akiba's speech.

oishii...

imagine you discovered that you had family in japan. imagine that they were breadmakers in a countryside town nestled in a quaint valley between immense green grassy mountains. learn that while you were rolling your tricycle around paved streets in the neighborhood, cousins grew up catching bugs in tall nets and watching fireflies dance over the river in mid-june. and then take a train and arrive at their doorstep. speak japanese. make bread.

shigenori-san is a breadmaker trained in france and germany, whose renowned bread shop is indicated on the yufuin city map. those in the know come early. at opening time customers lined up outside the door flood in. the first hour is a flurried rush of "irashaiimase!!" and customers requesting bag fulls of the different kinds of specialty bread. one favorite, "raisin cabocha" (raisin pumpkin bread with a just a hint of sweetness), sells out in a matter of minutes. in the afternoon, it's an-pan fresh out of the oven, a japanese specialty, small round buns with the outsides slightly toasted, and inside warm azuki bean (red bean) filling.

and then there's me, bagging bread trying frantically to keep up with the "hitotsu"/"futatsu", "iko"/"niko" requests, and trying not to make it overly obvious that i don't know what i'm doing.

midori-san, my mother's cousin, is immensely friendly and willing to strike up conversation at any given time with friends, neighbors, shopowners. she takes me around and introduces me with with something to the tune of, "this is stefanie, from america. she's staying with us." and as their eyes get wide, she adds, "nandemo tabemasu!" (she will eat anything.)

and man did i eat.

one of the regional specialties is river fish, particularly ayu ("sweetfish") and yamame. midori and shigenori take me out to eat one night, and we drive up the winding road to yufuin to a two hundred year old house tucked into the hills. a stream runs alongside the house, and strategically placed boards and nets help to contain the fish so that they swim in circles right outside the back door of the house. just one woman runs the place, a middle aged woman with a warm smile, and after greeting us she ducks into the kitchen to catch and prepare our meal.

then she brings out dish after dish of river fish prepared in every possible way. there's shio yaki ayu, grilled and salted sweetfish that is prepared as if it's jumping off the plate. and then there's deep fried yamame, yamame soaked in sweet-shoyu and yamame sashimi. all this accompanied by ochazuke, rice with tea poured over it, and a sprinkling of the shells of shiso seeds.

this was just one of the many delicious meals i had in the area, others including sushi (with a skilled woman sushi chef... the first i've seen, gives me hope for my secret dream of becoming a sushi chef) and tempura (of incredible palate teasing varieties... egg, goya, and edamame included). drop me a line if you are planning to go to the area, and i can try harder to find out the names of these places.

but perhaps the best moments were unexpected. shizuko-san, my grandmother's sister, breaks open an album of old photos that midori-san and i start to look through. and there, shizuko-san and my grandmother, both young and sharply dressed, strike a pose with by the golden pavillion in kyoto. my grandmother's parents come to life, resting on a picnic blanket with my grandmother's brother as a child in my great grandfather's lap. and strangely, me-- a baby laughing at the table next to shizuko-san in her visit to los angeles. somehow all these years i had been there, amongst these memories in a place i'd never known.

after a week of immersion in delicious foods and incredibly loving and generous family, this has been one of the hardest places for me to leave so far.

pictures of food and family here.

yosakoi, yoshino and more

shikoku. land of mystery, intrigue, awe-inspiring scenery... and people who like to party.

almost naively i signed up to dance in kochi's yosakoi festival. on the phone the women told me cryptic directions that were almost like clues to finding some hidden treasure: "okay, at 3pm sharp, you're going to go to the otemai elementary school. find the team and tell them you want to dance. bring naruko." i didn't have any idea what naruko were let alone on what kind of massive scale the yosakoi festival takes place.

the streets fill with teams of colorfully dressed dancers, who dance coordinated rouitines to loud blaring music beating out of the backs of decorated buses. naruko are the little wooden clackers that the teams use in their routines and in general there is a lot of drinking and delicious street food in the thick, humid, summer heat.

my team was organized by kochi city, and bascially anyone can join. while others spend months rehearsing, we spent about a half hour learning a short and really easy routine that basically involves just clacking around the naruko, kicking and jumping around... to our bus band music... strangely, uh, james brown's "sex machine". i met a girl from osaka, kanako, who had biked down all the way from osaka to kochi (about 100 km a day). she was also wandering around solo in the festival, so we danced it up together and wandered around the crowded streets looking for okonomiyaki.

if you're interested, here's more on yosakoi.

i met so many cool folks along the way that in true mixtape form, here are shot outs to the people who made the trip worthwhile:

shaun in kochi: an aussie who spends his days making okonimiyaki, soba and the like at his job in the vibrant hirome market, and eats natto like three times a day. hm, he looks like an aussie, but... we took an impromptu trip to katsurahama (kochi beach) and ate grilled ika (squid) on scewers by the sea.

etsuko in awa ikeda: a korean japanese woman who cracked me up with her stories of living in mexico and leading tours of cancun for japanese tourists. she's got an awesome vision for alternative education. check it out (you may have to translate the page).

danny, doron and oran: three very cool israeli guys who allowed me to ride around with them in their rental car to explore the vine bridges of the iya valley. good conversation, absolutely gorgeous scenery and yummy soba. watch out for the ca-bo.

dave, teru, michael, jesse and the rest of the rafting crew of happy raft in the iya valley: not only do these guys run an awesome and professional rafting excursion down the yoshino river, but they also know how to have a good time. just watch out for markers when the sake gets passed around.

naoya, keitaro, tahashi and keiichi: my rafting buddies, these guys are japanese cops in one of the most tranquil areas of japan. we had a delicious bbq deep in the west iya valley alongside a river and mountains seeping in mist. special thanks to naoya for sending my lost swimsuit halfway across the country to get it back to me.

mariko: my second wwoof host, close to awa ikeda in the iya valley. a documentary filmmaker herself, she's working on a piece featuring sato hatsume, a benevolent elder woman who invites anyone going through hard times into her home, and cooks them onigiri from the heart. mariko's home is a refuge as well, with some killer weeds that i attacked, and after a long day's work we shared evening dinners of sushi, beer and good conversation.

dave: had a fun night out in matsuyama with this internationally travelled aussie who, if it came down to it, could curse you out in chinese. yum ume sours.

i have too many pictures. i'll post a smaller collection of them in a bit.