On the road for 30 days
This June happened to be the brief period of time in my life where I had the time, energy, and money to be doing “long-form” travel, so in the weeks before graduation, I hastily threw together the hectic East Asia travel plan that was my life for the last month. Now that I am properly situated back in my home state of Michigan after an egregious amount of flying, I am doing a long-form recap.
Honolulu, Hawaii
June 5 — June 10
I spent the first day here alone mostly just chilling and enjoying the vibes. I ate some papaya acai and some handmade udon at Marugame. My friends and I stayed in Waikiki, which is the classic tourist neighborhood in Honolulu, but there was always something going on, which was nice. The food staples on my trip here were spam musubis. They’re a Japanese-Hawaiian fusion food, consisting primarily of a slice of spam wrapped around an oblong rice ball with a piece of dried seaweed. Deluxe versions using include tempura, unagi, shiso, and/or plum sauce.
The two popular hikes to do here are Diamond Head and Koko Head, both of which go up to peaks of craters on the coast. Despite warnings from friends that have previously climbed Koko Head, I vastly underestimated the fear factor of the ravine section during the hike. I ended up climbing it on all fours, which was a little embarrassing since everybody else was just walking it, but looking back I feel no shame. While Diamond Head has switchbacks and a relatively low grade, Koko Head is a set of railway tracks converted into Stair Master. It’s a straight shot up the crater.
I also tried surfing for the first time! The lesson was only 1 hour and smack dab in the middle of Waikiki Beach, so it was very crowded, but the waves were also much tamer. For some reason, I was imagining that the water would feel very “sloshy” beneath my feet, but there’s actually a lot of up-and-forward resistance as you stand up. The hardest part is mostly paddling out towards the water. Probably need to start hitting the gym. Later that day, I went to my (first) cat cafe on the trip. Unlike most cat cafes, this one actually takes in kittens instead of fully grown cats, and they were all up for adoption.
A word of advice: Honolulu is not very walkable, and Ubering across the island can get very expensive. The morning we did Koko Head, we actually went to the airport and got a rental car for the day. After the hike, we were able to drive to a lot of destinations not easily accessible from Waikiki, including Pearl Harbor, Dole Plantation, and Ehukai Beach on North Shore. Dole Plantation isn’t actually a plantation anymore, it’s just the original site of the farm. They have some touristy things to do there, but really it’s quite small. We ended up spending some time at Green World Coffee Farm just across the street, which had a small coffee garden for the ambience. Also, although Sunset Beach is the popular beach on North Shore, Ehukai is just south of it and actually just as nice and peaceful. We went there instead for sunset and saw a ton of local surfers there as well.
There were a lot of Korean and Japanese tourists in Honolulu. I guess since it’s so close to East Asia, it’s the ideal American experience vacation that’s not too far away. It was a little funny because it felt like the island was trying to cater to two completely separate audiences. For the American tourists, there was udon, tonkatsu, and matcha. For the Asian tourists, there was McDonald’s and a massive IHOP. Naturally, we all share our love for poke and spam musubi.
Japan [Tokyo, Fuji, Kyoto, Uji, Nara, Osaka]
June 11 — June 18
Tokyo
The group was instantly captivated by the vending machine upon arrival in Tokyo.
I spent four days in Tokyo, which in hindsight was a little too long, but I guess the good news was that I visited almost every corner of the city. The conclusion? Izakayas are the best for eating chill food and meeting locals. I ate exceedingly well during these 8 days in Japan.
The second morning, most of us were jetlagged, so we got up early and headed to Tsukiji Fish Market, which was the must-see of the city for all of us. We walked around admiring all the stalls and ate a few bites here and there before getting seated to eat what I believe is called kaisen don.
Later that day, we tackled all the flagship stores in Chuo/Ginza. The Itoya flagship store had over 10 floors and was a paradise for stationery lovers. The Uniqlo and Muji flagships were right next door and were also many-floored. During my exploration of the Muji flagship, the rest of the group ventured to the Pokemon Cafe, and as a result, I was separated from them briefly in the afternoon. I spent this solo time on Kappabashi Dougu Street shopping for chopsticks and chopstick rests.
In my enthusiastic search for chopsticks, I also forgot to eat lunch, and I ended up walking into this local okonomiyaki restaurant around 3:30pm where neither of the owners spoke English. I thought that this language barrier would not prove to be an issue, given that I was equipped with my trusty Google Translate, but I was mistaken. The first mistake that occurred was the overordering of okonomiyaki. I had no idea what okonomiyaki was, to begin with, and even if I used Google Translate to ask, I would have no idea how to interpret the response (I found speech-to-text very unreliable this entire trip). I discovered shortly via Google after ordering two okonomiyaki that it is a type of Japanese savory pancake that you cook on a griddle in front of you. The owner was very kind and helped me start the first one. The second mistake was the lacking-of-cash-in-wallet. As a began to cook and eat my food, I saw a Google review indicating that the restaurant only accepted cash. I texted my Japanese-literate and Japanese Yen-carrying friend to save me. Thankfully, there would be no rush as I clearly had the monumental task of finishing my food ahead of me.
After a stuffed stomach and a crisis averted, I visited Senso-ji temple as what I thought would be my final stop on this eventful day. Little did I know, I would also go to my first izakaya that very night and forever be changed. Near our Airbnb was a very small but very local izakaya called Kagahiro that one of my friends enjoyed so much his first night, he insisted we return. The pork skewers were superb and the vibes were excellent. Towards the end of our meal, a local clearly having a meal with his coworker pointed at my SPY x FAMILY shirt and told me he had the same one. He pulled out a Japanese-English translator and spoke with us for several minutes. He seemed thrilled to be meeting foreigners.
The next day started off in Shibuya and ended in another izakaya. We saw the famous Shibuya Crossing, which I was really excited to see because of Alice in Borderland, a Japanese sci-fi thriller I finished watching last year. It was a slightly underwhelming experience, but how exciting can a scramble crossing get anyways? Just north of the area was Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jingu, which we walked around for most of the afternoon, with a brief intermission at Takeshita Street. I thought Yoyogi Park was really peaceful and Meiji Jingu also had a wine barrel wall that was really cool, but Takeshita Street was a little too much for me. There were a lot of small shops and stores, but it was incredibly packed and very touristy. We returned to Shinjuku and hit up Kagaya, another local izakaya. The menu was listed in Japanese on wooden planks above the kitchen, so we just had the owner order his recommendations for us.
The last full day, the rain felt like a bucket of water being dumped on our heads. We went to a few cafes after heading out but eventually returned to the Airbnb because even our umbrellas couldn’t protect us from the torrent. Most of the day was spent inside Taito Station, an arcade chain with many locations around the city. Our group had adopted the crane game obsession, and although we’d already been to two Taito Stations in Shibuya, we couldn’t seem to get enough. When the rain cleared we went to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which had many pagodas.
Fuji
On our way to Kyoto, we stopped by Fuji for one night to have the luxury ryokan experience. We stayed at Kaneyamaen, a hot-spring “resort” just at the base town of Fuji. It was perhaps the most luxurious experience of my entire life. Once we arrived, we went to a complimentary tea tasting with matcha and a small dessert. The open-air hot spring on the roof was open for women that day until 6pm, so I quickly rushed to change into a yukata. The hot springs were kept at 40 degrees Celsius, so although the air itself was quite chilly, I felt like I was sweating from head-to-toe after just 10 minutes outside. The onsen was a purifying experience.
Dinner was what I believe is called kaiseki ryori, a traditional multi-course meal. Ryokan staff brought out each course one at a time and patiently explained each dish to us, even drawing pictures of ingredients when they didn’t know how to explain it fully in English. Afterward, we headed straight to the lobby for a taiko show, which was surprisingly followed by bingo. Not to brag, but I won a small Fuji mountain-shaped pastry.
The ground-level onsen was open until midnight, so I decided to check that one out before sleeping too. While the open-air onsen actually had these “modesty” blankets you could wear into the onsen, it was made apparent to me within a few minutes of stepping into the locker room that this one was the full onsen experience. Very daunting, but nevertheless I prevailed.
In the morning, before checking out, our group went to a buffet-style breakfast with every possible classic Japanese breakfast food item one could imagine. There was build-your-own miso, an entire mochi bar, and of course, natto. We saw Mt. Fuji as we passed by the garden on our way out. I didn’t want to leave.
During our entire stay, I don’t think I was dressed in anything other than yukata except for check-in and check-out. I found the outer jacket to also be one of the coolest items we could use too. Unfortunately, I was told that I had to inform them ahead of time if I wanted to purchase one — which I was fully intending on doing — but I’m taking it as a sign to return to a ryokan again in the future.
Kyoto
We got to Kyoto around early evening, and the first stop was Lake Biwa Canal, which was surrounded by alleys of small restaurants and shops, each tucked into its own Japanese-style house.
I had the most fun in Kyoto at Nishiki Market, a long street of food stalls and small wares shops. I desperately wanted to buy a leek-shaped chopstick rest but it was more expensive than I anticipated and I decided against it. Simply put, I have regrets now. For some reason, Kyoto felt more touristy than Tokyo — I saw more tourists than locals there.
Our three main destinations were Kinkaku-ji (the golden palace), Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, and Fushimi Inari shrine. Public transportation in Kyoto was mostly by bus, and the three tourist spots formed a perfect triangle, with vertices on the outskirts of town. We didn’t get to Fushimi Inari until almost 9pm (after an amazing omurice dinner, by the way), when we then also decided to hike to the top. We ran into some friendly cats on the way up and some less friendly wild boar on the way down. Thankfully, the wild boars were actually pretty small, but my friends and I clustered with a few other nighttime trail goers and formed a little apocalypse survival group, should the need become apparent. I should have Strava’d it.
I think it would have been nice to spend more than 2 nights in Kyoto. I managed to see all the main sights, but I wished I could have spent more time exploring the small streets off the tourist paths.
Uji
This was the first stop on our half-day trek to Osaka. Uji has one tourist street and it is entirely dedicated to tea. I consumed matcha then udon then matcha then (sencha-hojicha-matcha) dango then more matcha within an hour and a half after arriving. I consider the massive caffeine headache I experienced post-matcha a part of the experience.
Nara
Nara is probably the only tourist trap I will ever approve of. Deer are so cute. So cute. The best 200 yen I spent was on a stack of 5 or 6 crackers that you could feed to the deer. I had a very wholesome interaction with a nervous Japanese high schooler after giving him a cracker and convincing him to feed a deer. I also randomly ran into some MIT folks on the street on my way into the park.
Osaka
I spent one night here and didn’t even get into the city until super late due to enjoying Nara too much. I have no idea what the vibes here are actually like, but I had some late-night takoyaki that was absolutely fire.
Taiwan [Hualien, Taipei]
June 19 — June 22
Hualien
I started off Taiwan strong by meeting up with a Duke friend I hadn’t seen since Oxford study abroad last semester. We hopped on a train almost immediately after deplaning, then met up with my other Duke friend who is a Hualien native. Thanks to my local friend, we had a vehicle in town, and after a short drive and hike we were greeted with an amazing viewpoint.
Hualien was healing. We had beef noodle soup, Taipei-style shaved ice, and Taiwanese mochi. My friend’s incredibly sweet and gracious mom bought us breakfast in the morning too. So many Taiwanese classics! I tried this thick rice drink (brown drink pictured) for the first time and it was like taking a brown sugar tapioca and liquefying it. So delicious.
While we were in Hualien, we went to Taroko National Park and did a cliffside trail. Rather than hanging off the edge of a cliff, the trail was sort of cut into the side of a mountain and wrapped around it and through a gorge. In the evening we had dinner through 10 different food stalls at the Hualien Dongdamen night market. According to my local friend, there used to be four separate night markets in Hualien, all scattered around the city, and semi-recently the government decided to consolidate them all into one massive night market. We had skewers, fish cake, winter melon iced tea, sweet potato puffs, and bamboo rice.
Taipei
After two days in Hualien, I trained back to Taipei for another two days in the city. I of course had to try the Din Tai Fung there, and while the experience was really nice, it was a bit on the pricier side and the dim sum didn’t blow my mind. The taro dessert dumplings were maybe the most unique thing I had at the restaurant. I spent the rest of the first day walking around town and ended up buying some pineapple cakes from Sunny Hills. I really liked these pineapple cakes because they put actual pineapple chunks inside. Staff will give you a free pineapple cake and tea to test-taste before buying too!
My younger cousin is studying abroad in Taipei this summer, so I met up with her for the first time in approximately four years. Coincidentally, I arrived in Taipei just in time for the Dragon Boat Festival, so we met up and bused north to watch some races. While we were there, a Japanese university team member saw my SPY x FAMILY shirt and was so excited to see it. My shirt was really making some big waves. Anyways, she was so excited to see it that she gave my cousin and me each an onigiri-shaped cracker snack from her fanny pack.
Hong Kong
June 23 — June 24
Study abroad is truly the gift that keeps on giving. When I was at Oxford, I met several HKU students studying law and never thought I’d see them again so soon. And yet, just half a year after wishing each other well, I was around the world and meeting up with them in their hometown. Despite having busy internships (vacation schemes, so they’re called apparently), one of my friends offered to host me for the two nights I was there and even took me around town on both days to see the sights.
The first day, I had this taiyaki-shaped red bean + ice cream dessert at my friend’s apartment and I still think about it from time to time. We took the 360 Ngong Ping cable car up to see the Big Buddha statue, and let me tell you, that Buddha is big. I was also shocked to find some wild cattle that roam about peacefully near the temple. They didn’t seem to mind the humans at all.
I spent more time in the heart of the city on the second day. My friend and I met up with the other HKU law students and got dim sum together. Then, I went to my second cat cafe of the trip at Meowcastle. I ate well that day: desserts included an egg tart, a rice flour shao bing, and the Michelin Guide Kai Kai dessert.
Hong Kong was definitely one of the denser-packed cities I’ve been to, but honestly I think it was almost on the same level as Manhattan. The buildings, however, are incredibly tall, big, and uniform though.
Beijing
June 25 — June 28
I visited family in Beijing. I booked my flight into Daxing airport without realizing that it is actually very, very far from the city itself. My aunt and I spent over an hour driving back. It was really hot here so I mostly stayed inside. This was like the rest stop on the trip for me; I had some homecooked food, ate some youtiao and Peking duck, and built legos with my older cousin. I slept in. A lot.
Seoul
June 29 — June 4
My first official solo travel! Even though I knew people in Seoul at this time, I was staying alone and kind of nervous about the prospect, to be honest. I realized after arriving at my hostel that I was in a pretty touristy part of town, though (just outside of Myeongdong station), and it felt pretty safe at night just because there were so many tourists still out and about. The Philstay Myeongdong Station hostel was actually really nice for the price point, but one of the things that was kind of awkward was that none of the rooms had windows, so it was impossible to tell when it got dark or light out. Since I was already pretty tired by this point and because I’m awful at getting up to my alarms, I spent so much of these few days just laying around in bed in the morning.
I definitely found myself wanting to have people to chat with during my time in Seoul, but solo-ing it also went pretty well. For the amount of time I was there, I really hit every single location I wanted to go to. There was simply no dilly-dallying. I went to the top of Namsan and put a love lock on the bridge. I also found a convenience store that sold pouch juice, which I really wanted to try drinking for some reason. I ate soondubu, kalguksu, bibimbap, sujebi, Pyeongyang naengmyeon, omuk/odeng, bossam, miyeok guk, jjajangmyeon, tangsooyuk, and seoulnongtang. I went to the Osulluc Tea House in Bukchon and had the fanciest rice cake ever. I even found the elusive Medibless Puremay Chrysanthemum toner I raved about in a previous post of mine.
I really liked walking around the Insadong area because it had so many traditional Korean houses but also felt just spacious enough to not feel cramped. There’s an open-air shopping space called Ssamzigil that hosts artists selling keychains, stationery, jewelry, etc. I also enjoyed the Starfield COEX mall, but it’s the complete opposite of the Insadong vibe. The library was wall-to-ceiling and all of the shops were super modern. I bought two sets of Crocs charms there too — how cute is it that corporations like Kakao and Line have character families?
I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in over six years too. We had roomed together at a summer camp during high school but hadn’t met up with each other since going to college. A lot had changed since we last saw each other, but that just meant there was also a lot to catch up on. We had samgyeopsal, took cute pics at a photo booth, went to a noraebang, and finished off the night with patbingsu.
Walking around somewhat randomly led me to run into some pretty interesting stuff too. I walked by a drama shoot and a pride parade within minutes of each other, and I also ended up going to my third cat cafe of the trip (I did feel kind of bad about this one because it was clear the cats weren’t up for adoption and were overfed from all the visitors).
One of the things I did plan ahead for was going to a 1M dance studio class. When I was in high school I used to watch so many dance videos by this studio on YouTube, and I always imagined what it would be like to take a dance class here. Now I am no dancer, so I simply signed up for the beginner-level class, but it was still much more fun than I expected. The instructor used Korean that I could actually kind of understand (from my years of watching kdramas).
There were a lot of foreigners in Seoul, but they were mostly clustered around Myeongdong, Hongdae, and Gangnam. Most people also speak some degree of English, so getting around without any knowledge of the language wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Still, many Korean mishaps occurred on this trip due to failed attempts at engaging with staff in Korean. For example, when someone asked “Will you be paying with card?” I said “No” incredibly confidently while handing him my credit card.
Interesting fact / side note: you can’t use Google Maps in South Korea. I had to download Naver Maps and match up location names with the ones I had pinned on Google to get around the city. This is due to South Korean regulations on the storage of mapping data.
Seattle, Washington
June 5 — June 10
I made it back to the States! Instead of going straight back to Michigan, I met up with my family in Seattle for a brief pit stop. My brother had a summer program here for a couple of weeks and I managed to catch the tail end of it. I almost went to my fourth cat cafe but they did not have spots available, thank goodness. Cat cafes really are my vice.
After my brother’s program ended, we went to Vancouver for a day and got some dim sum at the apparently-famous Dynasty Seafood restaurant. It was, in fact, very good dim sum.
We then immediately dipped out of Vancouver to go to the Sea to Sky gondola in Squamish. My god, this gondola ride was steep. We did a chill trail at the top of the mountain, then immediately dipped again to go to the Richmond night market, the largest North American night market. Getting into this night market was actually kind of a fiasco, though. None of us thought to withdraw any CAD, and the exchange rate for USD was 1 to 1 there. We sucked it up and paid it anyways. The Asian food was elite and made up for it. Many of the stalls also had these intricate neon signs too.
The day before we left, we also took a day trip out to Mt. Rainier National Park for some hiking. We made a quick pit stop to see Narada Falls, and then it was off to Paradise for the actual hiking.
Originally, we were going to do a short 1.5-mile hike, but after we got to the end of the trail my brother and I just kept going, and our parents followed. We ended up doing most of the Skyline trail and hiked up to Panorama Point at 6800 ft, of which our hike contributed 1200 ft of the elevation. We saw many marmots on our hike. They didn’t mind us huffing and puffing our way up.
Unfortunately, Panorama Point was a bit of a disappointment due to the foggy nature of that particular afternoon, but as we started to descend, the sky really cleared up and we could see that we were, in fact, surrounded by glorious mountain. If only we had stayed up at the viewpoint a little longer.
Fin
This trip allowed me to fulfill so many of the traveling wishes and hopes I’d always had, and I got to see so much of the world that I could only envision or glimpse through media. Other than maybe Beijing, which I’ve been to before, I think I had a lot of conceptions about these cities and places that only actually going to the place could actually remedy. Like I’ve said before as well, it’s also a very different experience being a tourist and trying to be a local in these places, and even more so in East Asia.
For example, in Japan, people tend to dress and look very homogenous, and there were a lot of norms and customs that I was just completely unfamiliar with. People are always quiet on public transportation, and even on the hottest day you won’t see a single person outside wearing shorts. It’s a very polite and formal society. I was a little bit more familiar with the culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and speaking some Mandarin definitely helped me out a bit, but even so, I felt like people could tell I was American. I have been told I am a little overly friendly to strangers and generally loud. Lastly, I’m really glad I got to go to South Korea during this trip because out of all of these places, I definitely needed to get my perception of Seoul reality-checked. Seoul was so cool, don’t get me wrong, but I needed to experience it to see beyond the kpop music videos and kdrama scenes.
My plans for the next couple of months before I start work are still a little up in the air, but I want to take some time to learn and work on a personal project or something akin to this. I still need to apartment hunt in New York, which I have been feeling a little worried about, but other than that I am just living life and enjoying being at home.
