Tekka-Tac-Toe

Amy and I love to entertain and cook.  Obviously we love to bring friends and family around the table to break bread, but it also means that we get to cook and sometimes even try new things on dinner victims...I mean guests.  Singapore is an amazing place to experiment with new flavors due to the abundance of fresh produce and exposure to new recipes from a variety of cultures.

We make frequent visits to the Tekka Market in Little India.  Wet markets are fresh food markets- sort of like a farmers market. They are called that because the floors are wet due to the cleaning of the floors, ice-melting, fish-cleaning and vegetable-washing. (We wouldn’t advise you to wear your new Prada sandals here.)

They have pretty much everything you could ever want in a wet market from fruit, vegetables and spices to little sharks, huge prawns and chickens chopped up however you’d like. (See Why is your time more important than mine? for more information on shopping and lifestyle in Singapore.)  There are plenty of things in the market that we can’t even identify. The Tekka Market is known for having great vegetables and meats. There are other markets that specialize in areas such as flowers (Tiong Bahru Market) or live big turtles, frogs and eels (Chinatown Market). Here is a great website highlighting the five best wet markets in Singapore if you’re interested.

Clockwise L-R : The line of cars to get into the parking lot for the market; the butcher; an overhead shot of the fish and meat part of the market; the Tekka Market is located off of Buffalo Road. 

We learned a long time ago to never go grocery stopping on an empty stomach so our first stop is normally to grab some curry at the hawker center (think mall food court) at the market.  Amy knows she can get me join her at the market if it includes a curry meal.  My favorite stop is the naan place to get some gobi (cauliflower/potato dish), dal (lentils) and garlic naan (a flatbread).  Amy heads a few stalls down for some rice with chicken served on a banana leaf.  All of that amazing food and we are usually so full we could burst for under $13!

Our next stop is at Chia Vegetables. What I love about this shop is that the people are very nice and helpful but they also have great prices.  We can get a full basket of vegetables for the same price as a head of lettuce and some brussels sprouts in the grocery store. 

From here we normally head to get some fruit.  There are a few good places to get bananas and a variety of citrus fruits if you go exploring. (They have great mango here!)

On our last trip we decided to make a purchase from the fish and meat section of the market. We didn’t adventure too far outside of our comfort zone, but we did acquire some delicious prawns for our Sunday night BBQ with friends. They were delicious!

When you come visit, we will take you on a tour of the market and treat you to some curry.

Until then,

Raegen and Amy

You Can Have Your (Moon) Cake and Eat It Too

Today (September 8^th) marks a special day in the Chinese Culture. Today is Mid-Autumn Festival Night.

The night is part of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is the second most important (traditional) Chinese Festival after Chinese New Year. This year's festival takes place from September 6-8. It is also known as the lantern festival, Chinese Thanksgiving or the moon festival as this is the time of year that the moon is at its roundest and brightest. 

Chinatown decorated for the Mid-Autumn Festival 

Last week I went on a local tour of Chinatown to learn more about this festive time of year. The tour was set up by the American Women’s Association and we learned quite a bit about the history of Singapore’s Chinatown (which is right next to our house) but we also learned about the traditions and the stories around the Mid-Autumn Festival.  

There are many traditions and celebrations around Mid-Autumn Festival Night such as having dinner with family, making moon cakes, eating a fruit called pomelos, and lighting lanterns.

Pomelos

The moon cake is the special food of Mid-Autumn Festival. On that day, people sacrifice moon cakes to the moon as an offering and eat them for celebration. Moon cakes come in various flavors according to the region. The moon cakes are round, symbolizing the reunion of a family. People gift moon cakes to relatives and friends to wish them a long and happy life.

Moon cakes made with lotus with cranberries and macadamia nuts

One of the stories behind the Mid-Autumn Festival is the story of Hou Yi and Chang’e.

The story, as told by the website China Highlights, is as follows:

Long long ago, there were 10 suns in the sky. They burnt all the plants on the earth. People were dying.

One day, a hero whose name was Hou Yi used his bow and arrows to shoot down nine of them. All the people on the earth were saved.

One day, the queen of heaven gave Hou Yi a bottle elixir that could make Hou Yi become an immortal, but the elixir was only efficacious for one person. Hou Yi did want to become an immortal, but he wanted to stay with his beautiful wife Chang'e more, so he didn't drink the elixir and asked his wife Chang'e to keep it for him.

Hou Yi was becoming more and more famous after he shot down the nine suns and more and more men wanted Hou Yi to be their master. Most of them were accepted by Hou Yi.

Not every student of Hou Yi had good morality. Feng Meng, one of his students, wanted to seize his elixir. One day, Hou Yi went hunting with his students, but Feng Meng pretended to be ill and stay at home. When making sure Hou Yi had gone he went to Hou Yi's house and tried to force Chang'e to give him the elixir. Chang'e knew she couldn't defeat Feng Meng so she drank the elixir immediately. The elixir made her become an immortal and fly higher and higher. Finally, she stopped on the moon.

From then on, people often pray to Chang'e for fortune and safety. During the Mid-Autumn Festival they offer lots of foods to Chang'e. (sic)

So while we’re not able to enjoy moon cakes with you in person to celebrate this great day, we will enjoy them in your honor. If you’re lucky, we’ll bring some back with us next time!

Happy Trails, 

Amy & Raegen 

One Heck of a Rock

Photo courtesy of japan-guide.com.

There is an old Japanese proverb that says something along the lines of “He who climbs Mt. Fuji once is a wise man. He who climbs it twice is a fool.”

Normally I like to do some sort of surprise for Amy’s birthday, but when you are planning on hiking 12, 388 feet (3,776 meters) up a dormant volcano you can’t just spring that on someone like you’re going for an afternoon hike. (My cousin who has hiked it twice might disagree.)  The hardest part about planning was finding reliable information, especially in English.  What we did find is that the mountain is open for climbing season in July and August. We also found out that we had multiple options on how to tackle the mountain. We wanted to hike the mountain in the traditional Japanese way so we opted for a night at one of the huts on the trail.  We were put on a waiting list at one of the huts despite calling months in advance. A few weeks later I received an email all in Japanese stating that said we had 2 spots at the Goraiko-Kan hut at station 8.5.  (Thank you to Google Translate). This was the highest hut on the mountain which was about 1,000 vertical feet from the summit (top).

It’s a 2 ½ hour journey involving buses, trains and automobiles to make it to the 5^th station where the hike starts.  We knew it was going to be a long slog to make it to our beds in station 8.5 and since it is peak climbing season we knew it would take some time and patience.  As far as scenic and beautiful, the views in the distance were amazing. The trail consists of volcanic rock that made you feel like you were hiking on the surface of the moon.

After a couple hours of hiking, sore joints, a few Advil and multiple stops to wait for the hiking tour groups, we finally made it to the hut. On a good day this place would be considered rustic and cozy.  By rustic I mean there’s a hint of sewer in the air (but at least they have a western style bathrooms). If you consider 150 smelly climbers cramped into a room that closely resembles a chicken coop cozy, then it was cozy.  The photo and description do not give it justice.  When was the last time that you shared a bed with 8 people? (If you have an answer, we don’t want to know.)  Amy and I were allocated a glorified mat the size of a single bed for both of us (with 6 people next to us), two doll size pillows filled with beans and a blanket that I wasn't going to get under.  I can’t make this up when I tell you that there were times throughout the night that the woman next to Amy kept snuggling with her foot and there were points during the night that I realized I was sleeping butt to butt with the man next to me. Needless to say when you have 150 people stuck in a room to “sleep” there is not a single quiet moment, even with ear plugs! 

Around 1:30 am everyone decided to get up and start hiking so we put back on our smelly gear and walked into the 35°F cold to finish that last 1000 feet.  I was blown away by the streams of people hiking at that time. 

A view from the top of the climbers' headlamps

It only took us about an hour to get to the top, which left a very cold 1 ½ hours to wait for sunrise.  I managed to find some coffee and Amy had some weird corn soup that kept us warm.  That lasted about 5 minutes and we were back to shivering even though we were huddled and twisted together like pretzels.  I had on most of my skiing gear and I was the coldest I have ever been. The 25+ mph wind didn't help!  

Finally about 3:30 am we made the decision to start hiking down the mountain a little bit. So much for the idea of sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji but it would be close enough.  We walked down the hill about 200 vertical feet and found a perfect quiet spot outside of the wind.  As you can see the sunrise was pretty awesome!

After an amazing sunrise we learned that the hike down was just as bad as the hike up! By that point we had no sleep, limited substantive food, and were just worn out. Although we made it down much quicker than we made it up.  At the bottom we celebrated being alive with some hot food and sake. It was such a wonderful experience but we were both ready to be back in Tokyo to take a shower and have a real bed that we don’t have to share with 6 other people.

Until then,

Raegen & Amy 

P.S. - I forgot to mention that I asked Amy for her hand in marriage as the sun was rising over Tokyo.

  

Going to celebrate. Amy's fingers were a little swollen from the hike....the ring fits now. Phew!

Touring and Treating your Taste Buds in Tokyo

Our first trip together to Tokyo was part of our around the world in 58 hours adventure in February 2013. We were only in the country for 8 hours so we didn’t get a chance to experience all that Tokyo had to offer. While we were able to conquer the train, hit the Tsukiji Fish Market and Senjoji/Asakusa Kannon Temple on that trip, it was just the tip of the iceberg.

For this trip to Tokyo the flight was a little shorter than last time, only 7 hours from Singapore. Once I landed I took the Narita Express train into Tokyo Station. One of Tokyo’s airports, Narita, is about an hour or so by train from the center of the city. You can buy your train ticket at the airport and it is around $45 for the green car or $31 for the ordinary car. In the green car you receive assigned seating, bigger and nicer seats and more legroom. Then you sit back and relax until you get to Tokyo Station.

If you’ve ever been to Tokyo Station (or to many of the city’s train stations for that matter) you know it tends to be a bit of a madhouse with people everywhere. During rush hour at some stations they actually have train workers who stand on the outside of the train with white gloves on and push people into the train cars so the doors can close. (Video courtesy of  TheFat Finger and youtube.com) Luckily for me it was about 4 pm so it wasn’t as frightening as it could be. So there’s your education for the blog post- a little insight into using the train in Tokyo….very efficient, reasonably cheap and effective.

Now to the really important part…the food! Everywhere we went, whether the meal was $1.50 or not, the food was outstanding. We'll highlights 3 diverse dining delights from this trip. One of our favorite places is the Tsukiji Fish Market. The Fish Market is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. For those of us who don’t need to buy a whole tuna, there are little restaurants set up everywhere with counter only seating where they serve the most amazing fish and seafood for cheap. (Contrary to the appearance in the photo, it is actually very clean.) The market has a variety of other vendors as well. After a delicious lunch of fresh ahi, we visited our favorite ceramic/housewares shop and Raegen also picked up two knives for the kitchen. (Japan is known for high quality knives.)

The other two great dining experiences we had were in the Omotesando/Harajuku area. A recommendation led us to a stellar place called Gyoza Lou’s where we enjoyed their gyoza, bean sprouts with meat sauce and miso paste cucumbers. Raegen said this place ranked high on his “restaurants that changed his life” list. (Did we mention it was also cheap?) Another night we happened upon a barbeque place. Now this may not sound that exciting to you all, but remember we live in Asia and barbeque is not readily available, let alone good barbeque. Urban BBQ Smokehouse had great craft beer, excellent espresso rubbed beef brisket, homemade barbeque sauce and one of the best burgers we’ve had in Asia.

To work off all that food we walked a lot. So does everyone else. The intersection at Shibuya, which you might akin to Times Square, is one of the busiest intersections I have ever seen for pedestrian traffic. I am going to go out on the limb and say it’s one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world. Watch this video of the pedestrians crossing that we took. Mind you this was on a Saturday afternoon when it wasn’t very busy.

Lastly, the most unique experiences we had in Tokyo was visiting a Pachinko parlour. Since gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, these parlours/casinos are set up to ‘gamble’ but you can’t win money, only prizes. The parlour can best be described as a giant arcade, full of plinko/pinball machines with hospital bright lighting. There is only one type of machine, all in Japanese, and it uses little pinballs as currency. You flip around the pinballs and apparently there’s a strategy to it and you win. I forgot to mention it’s really loud (rock concert loud) so you have to shout at each other to talk. After about three minutes, I was shouting, “let’s get out of here…this place is nuts and overwhelming.” Luckily we only lost $5 each.

Photo courtesy of Electric City Akihabara Pachinko 

Thanks for bearing with us…this post is a long one but there was a lot to report. Stay tuned for next week’s post about the adventure that was hiking Mount Fuji in Japan. Trust us, you won’t be disappointed!

Happy Trails,

Amy & Raegen

PS- Did you know you can click on the bold words in our posts to link directly a website on that subject? Try it- it’s fun!