Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Bookish Places I’ve Visited (Share all the cool places you’ve been that are bookish or tied to books! This includes neat libraries, book stores, places featured in books, places inspired by books, author homes/places they’ve stayed, etc. You can also share your bucket list of the bookish places you’d like to visit someday.) (submitted by Susan @Bloggin’ ’bout Books). My post this week is a bit of a mix of all of those things
1. Last week we were in Ubud, Bali and I saw this super cute bookstore mural. Monkey's are a pretty big deal in Ubud so there were quite a few monkey themed murals around. If we go to Bali again, I would be tempted to see if we could happen to be there for the Ubud Writers Festival
2. Earlier this year we visited Turkey. We saw so many amazing things in Istanbul including the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern. On one of the days we visited the Topkapi Palace. This was the library there.
3. There is so much history in Turkey, from WWI back to the Ottomans and further back to the Romans. One of the highlights was visiting Ephesus. This is the library at Ephesus
4. Last stop in Turkey, this time at Konya. which is the home of whirling dervishes and burial place of Rumi, famous poet. Recently I read The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak which tells the story of Rumi and the wandering dervish, Shams.
5. Earlier this year I visited Kolkata in India which is home to College Street. In the immediate area there are hundreds of booksellers, mostly selling secondhand text books but there were also some fiction books available. I also visited Chuckervertty Chatterjee &Co which is the first book showroom in Eastern India
6. One of the fun things about reading books is that you might get inspired to try something new. This was the case when I read Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa which is all about a doriyaki shop. When we visited the Japanese Garden in San Francisco and it was on the menu, I had to try it. I then had it a number of times when we visited Japan.
7. I expect to see a number of mentions of visits to Shakespeare and Co in Paris in TTT posts today
8. One of my favourite places that we visited in Paris is Saint-Chappelle, which I had added to my bucket list after reading Die for Me by Amy Plum.
9. When we visited London a couple of years ago, one of the things I wanted to do was to have a proper afternoon tea. We looked at lots of options but in the end, it had to be the Library at County Hall, which is across the river from the Houses of Parliament. And it wasn't just about the location. The food was delicious!
10. I know that there are lots more places I could mention including Eilean Donan castle in Scotland, The Strand bookstore in New York and more but it would be remiss of me not to mention the State Library here in Melbourne. Visiting the library is one of my favourite things to do in the city. I just love the Reading Room with its soaring dome, the green lamps on the desks. Amazing place!
Last week we visited Bali in Indonesia which is considered to be quite close to us. It's a six hour flight from here to Bali, compared to say 15 hours to Los Angeles or 24 hours flying time to Europe. It's funny though, despite its nearness, it wasn't somewhere I was all that interested in visiting until around 18 months ago or so. I saw some pictures and realised that I didn't like the reputation as being full of partying Aussies and that was why I wasn't that interested in going.
We chose to base ourselves in Ubud which is up in the mountains and away from party central, and it was a location that really worked for us! We stayed in a beautiful hotel, with our own private pool, and tried to make sure that we had time to see some of the sites without being frantically busy. We wanted to make sure that we had relaxing time and I think it worked out pretty well. I was really quite impressed with what we saw.
On the negative side....oh my goodness the traffic! I was so glad we didn't have to drive in that traffic, and there is absolutely no way you could get me on one of the scooters that zoom around all over the place. Most of the time the riders are not wearing helmets or proper shoes. No thanks!
The hotel is built into the side of a hill and so the view that you see is of jungle all around. It is a little bit removed from the town which was great from a not being so busy aspect but it did mean that we had to get taxis everywhere! There was also a Sky Terrace where they put on events, like the Grill evening which they have every week. While we were there, it was the 81st anniversary of independence from the Dutch, so there was an Indonesian evening which included all Indonesian food and some dancers as well. The view that you can see above is dawn from the reception desk, which was just beautiful! When we left they also gave us a little bamboo box which contained a traditional cake which was a lovely surprise
One thing that was included every day was breakfast, although one day we opted to take things a step further and have a floating breakfast in our private pool which feels very luxurious! I chose to have the granola bowl which was actually pretty light on in terms of granola but had a lot of dragonfruit! I loved the experience. I think the water might have been a fraction cold for Robert though!
After relaxing on the first day, the second day we had book an Instagram highlights of Bali tour. It was a small group with only 5 people in total. One of the other girls was definitely there to share all her poses on Insta. Think evocative poses at a waterfall and so much more. She was very nice but it was amusing to watch her do her thing.
The day started with a walk along the rice terraces, which was very interesting to see how rice was traditionally grown, followed by a visit to a coffee plantation (it also had a giant swing which looked amazing when our insta girl was doing it, with a long flowing pink dress out behind her but there was no way I was doing that!). We did get to try quite a few different coffees and teas, although you had to pay extra to try the Lewak coffee. We already had some at home which we don't drink, so we didn't! I did like the coconut coffee, vanilla coffee and mangosteen tea out of the options that we tried.
After that we visited a waterfall which was very cool (a lot of steps though) and then a long drive to get to Lempuyang Temple and then the final stop at the Tirta Gangga where we got to feed gigantic koi fish.
One of our food highlights was at the end of this tour. Even though it had been a very long day with lots of walking and driving, we asked if we could be driven back to Ubud and dropped near a restaurant we had seen call Monkey Legend, as they had something called Rijsttafel. Robert had said that he hadn't had one of these in years. Rijsttafel translates from Dutch as rice table and features a large serving of rice which is surrounded by a variety of different dishes ranging from a crispy duck leg to eggs, prawns with vegetabls, sambal and so mch more. When it came out, it was definitely a wow! moment, and we had a couple of passersby asking us what we were eating!
Another activity that we chose we to do a traditional cooking class. We started with a visit to a local market and then headed to the class where we all helped create the dishes which we then shared. We had to chop, make pastes, fry tempeh, make pandang crepes and more. It was a really interesting group with a couple from Germany, another from the Netherlands, a group from France and ourselves. We also made a very pretty little flower box which is similar to the offerings that you see all around the islands.
The dishes that we made included chicken and mushroom soup, Sate Lilit (Balinese Satay), a boiled salad, tuna cooked in banana leaves, fried tempeh and more. The dessert we made was something we ate a lot of while we were in Bali called Dadar Gulun. It is a rolled pandan pancake which is filled with shredded coconut which is cooked with palm sugar. It is so good! I also ate a lot of nasi goreng, but that isn't really a surprise given that we like making it at home!
We also had two massages, including one in an amazing room which came complete with an outdoor shower, and I had a Japanese head spa which was totally amazing! I am now obsessed with having another one here, but whereas the one in Ubud cost about $87 for a 90 minute experience, including a facial massage, a mask and a foot massage, the starting point in Australia for a 60 minute head spa is around $100.
I haven't even mentioned the traditional dance we attended at a temple, the visits to wood carvers, sari producers, jewellery makers but hopefully this will give you a taste of our wonderful visit to Bali!
I started a new role around 7 months ago. If you had of said that as a result of that decision I would have had the opportunity to spend a week in Kolkata, India, I would not have believed you. However, that is exactly what happened over the last couple of weeks. In previous roles the furthest I got to travel was to Sydney for two days.
The arrangements for this trip came together very quickly. A few weeks ago my boss said I think we are going and then next thing I knew I was applying for business visas and we were off. We went to visit our offshore processing team, and I have to say the welcome we received was incredible. We were looked after really well!
One of the bonuses of travelling for work with this company was that it is business class travel all the way. I have never travelled business class before, and I am pretty sure that there is no way that my husband will ever pay for that so it might be the only time it happens! So, yes, I was absolutely the person taking photos of everything around me including the meals. It will be a bit of a struggle to go back to economy when we go on holidays in a few weeks...depending on what the state of the world is at that time. We are supposed to be going to Türkiye via Dubai so that may or may not happen!
The food in business class was pretty good, and came with real cutlery and crockery. I had pre-booked all my meals so knew exactly what I was having. I made sure it was a good mix of western food, Indian food and Singaporean food.
The company we were visiting is huge. There is something like 27000 people working at the site we were visiting. It's hard to comprehend that number! We ate in the executive dining room every day where we had soup, a choice of dishes from the buffet and dessert. Most of the buffet and dessert dishes were local Bengali dishes. It was here that I discovered that I do actually like paneer. It is not something that I would necessarily have chosen to eat off a menu here, but I tried several different versions and they were all delicious!
My favourite discovery though was a Bengali dessert called Mishti Doi. It is a yoghurt that is sweetened with jaggery and then set within clay pots. The clay pots are porous and help draw the liquid out so that it sets into a firm but smooth texture. The closest texture I can think of is like a panna cotta. It is so delicious! I have been trying to find restaurants here that serve it, but I think it will be a case of if I see it on a menu I will just have to have it as it might not be there the next time! We also tried some other dessert such as Roshomolai, Baked Rusgala and a saffron flavoured Sandesh.
One of the highlights was a dinner that we had with the leaders. It was at a beautiful restaurant at an upmarket hotel and the food was amazing. The host just ordered a selections of dishes which came out one after another ranging from prawns to chicken to paneer and more. Everyone was really full when she said now it's time for the main course!
Whilst the work aspect of the trip was really intense, as was the humidity in Kolkata, they also made sure that we got to see some of the sights. I stayed two days longer than my bosses because we booked flights so late, and so I go to do a day trip around the city visiting some incredibly interesting places.
Whether I get to go again or not, I had an amazing experience and I am so glad I got to go!
Weekly meals
Saturday - Away Sunday - Away Monday - Spaghetti Bolognaise Tuesday - Korean Chicken Burgers Wednesday - Zucchini, Parmesan and Tomato Risotto Thursday - Japanese Pork Curry and rice Friday - Takeaway
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
Last week I shared just some of the food that we ate during our recent trip to Japan, but it didn't include any sweet food. That's because the cakes, particularly in Japan, were A-MAZ-ING and therefore definitely deserved a whole post of their own.
One of the things that amazed us in Tokyo was how amazing the food areas were in each of the major train stations. Our hotel was quite close to Shinagawa station, one of the busiest train stations in the world, and once you got inside the station, there were the most amazing stores selling all kinds of things from sweet treats to cooked food you could have for a quick dinner, and everything in between. We went into these food halls in multiple stations and they were all different but all amazing!
Before I share some of the things we did eat, I thought I would talk about something we didn't eat!
Look how gorgeous these biscuits are! We saw these in the shop at the station and I instantly said we need to try those. Little did we know we would try for three days and still not get to eat them. Every time we went through the station they were sold out! One time, I joined the queue and they said it was at least a 45 minute wait, and in my wisdom I said I am not waiting in a queue for that long for a biscuit. That was probably our best opportunity. We knew that they should be restocked at 8am and 5pm so one our last morning I sent Robert down to get some at 8am but the delivery was running late so we still didn't get any.
Now, onto things we did eat.
I was very surprised by how prevalent strawberry was as a flavour in Japan. The first night in Tokyo we decided to buy two different flavour cakes - strawberry and orange. The strawberry was deliciously light and fluffy. It honestly feels a bit like you are eating air. I didn't enjoy the orange one quite so much.
After we didn't get the biscuits I mentioned above, we consoled ourselves with these strawberry mousse cakes which were totally amazing! Inside there was some sponge and strawberry sauce! So good!
On the Saturday morning, we ended up walking along a waterfront area where we ended up in a large local shopping centre which included a little dog park for residents to exercise their dogs, and nearby there was a cafe where dogs were welcome. There was even a dog on the straws! I had an ice cream which had a black charcoal cone!
When we couldn't get the biscuits that we wanted on our last day in Tokyo, this was the alternative - it is a biscuit which is filled with strawberry jam and flavoured cream. They were so good!
One of the things I knew I wanted to try again was Doriyaki. I first heard about them when I read the book Sweet Bean, and then when I watched the movie of the book. We had some of these when we visited Osaka Castle. I had the tradition red bean paste flavour and my husband tried the custard one. Aren't they so cute!
One of the things that we did on the cruise was a wine tasting class. They gave us a few tips and then we did some blind tasting using the dark glasses on the table, and you had to tell them whether it was red or white wine, what kind of wine it was and whether it was an old or new world wine! They were trying to get us to be able to smell and taste the underlying flavours which I can never do. One thing this lesson did really surprise me with was when it came to how food changes the taste of wine. Now, I know that wine and food pairing a thing, but this was such a simple demonstration. When we tasted the wine, and then had a bit of macaroon, and then tasted the wine again, there were definitely differences in the wine experience! And the bonus was we also got to eat macaroons!
I mentioned in last week's post that we went to a fish market in Okinawa. I also tried this ice cream there which is a salt pineapple flavour! It was really good!
The way that food is presented in Japan is just so beautiful. This is a slice of Castella cake. Each perfect slice comes individually wrapped, and then packaged in a gorgeous box. Castella is considered a specialty of Nagasaki, and originally derived from Portuguese cakes when they were one of the few traders allowed into Japan when it was otherwise closed off from the Western world. I had heard about Castella before when I read What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, and one of the characters taught herself to make the perfect Castella cake. I was excited to be able to try it!
Moving on to Seoul, we went to crazy busy market in Seoul where we got to try these baked fish. They are actually filled with bean paste whilst the one on the right are corn shaped and filled with custard. So good!
On our last day in Seoul we went searching for a Pandora store (because I buy a Pandora charm for every country we visit) and we needed a break so we went to a coffee shop and had this amazing mandarin cream cake. It was so good! We did share it, although it was very light and fluffy and delicious and you could easily eat one by yourself! The drink I had was a peach and strawberry frappe and Robert had a condensed milk cappuccino. My mouth waters just thinking about that frappe!
I did think that would be the last of the sweet treats to share until the ice creams were handed out of the flight from Seoul to Singapore. Have you ever seen ice cream shaped like a cob of corn? I hadn't!
Weekly meals
Saturday - Beef and Broccoli Noodles Sunday - Out for dinner Monday - Pressure Cooker Spaghetti Bolognaise Tuesday - Chicken Stir Fry Wednesday - Green Curry Chicken Pie Thursday - Baked Tuscan Chicken and Rice Friday - Away
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
Last week Robert and I returned from a 18 day trip to Japan and South Korea, which included a 12 night cruise. Along the way we ate some amazing food! Normally I would mix savoury and sweet together and just do a week at a time but we didn't have internet on the boat so instead I am going to do two posts - one will be lots of savoury food and the second will be sweet treats. Oh my goodness ....the cakes! But that is next week.
We have been talking about going to Japan for a long time, and one of the main reasons for booking the cruise we did is that we would get to be there for cherry blossoms! We didn't quite get the full cherry blossom experience where you have cherry blossoms fully blooming on both sides of a path creating a blossom tunnel. We were probably a week early, but we did still get to see lots of cherry blossoms in both Japan and Korea.
In Tokyo, we spent some time in Euno Park where there was a Sakura festival taking place. This mean heaps of interesting looking food being sold. The day we were there it was busy enough. I can't imagine how busy it would get once all the blossoms came out.
The one thing that we wanted to do while we were in Japan was to go to one of those small restaurants that you see in Japanese series like Midnight Dinner. The kind where there are just a few seats in a small restaurant, with a tiny kitchen which serves up delicious morsels. We found this kind of place as we walked through all the laneways, although we just had a beer because it was standing at high tables only and they were very clear when we walked in that there was no English menu available.
We ended up wandering down the street a bit further and found a place. We weren't really sure what the food was going to be like but it was a place which specialised in soba noodles. Everything was delicious, although we did get two surprises here. One was that the noodles were cold, and the other was that this cute little bottle was for whisky soda! I saw the can and the word soda. It was only when this glass arrived that I realised we may have made a boo-boo!
At the end of our second day of walking around, we really just wanted to go somewhere local and so we found a little place a short walk from our hotel, which really fit the definition of the small restaurant I mentioned above, but much more modern. It was run by an older couple, cash only, no English menu but the Chicken Katsu Curry was had there was absolutely delicious and super cheap! It also had a takeout window so I suspect a lot of people just come there to get something cooked for them and then take it to their nearby houses to eat it.
On our last night in Tokyo we went up the observatory tower, Skytree, which was absolutely crazy! Talk about crowded. It seems everyone wanted to be there for dusk. The view from the top was amazing though. We headed down to the shopping centre and then wandered through the floors where all the restaurants were. We really struggled to find a place where the food looked okay and there wasn't too long a queue. Getting both of those was a bit of a struggle, so in the end we just picked a place and then queued up to wait for our number to be called. And let's just say, we chose a great place. They serve up all sorts of dishes where you get an assortment of dishes including very thinly sliced meat in a broth which is sitting in a dish over a flame so that you dunk the meat in, and it cooks very quickly. It also comes with an egg, some miso soup, pickles and a steamed egg custard. This meal completely blew out minds. The broth was oh my goodness level of delicious! What we didn't know is that we would see this style of dish several times over the next few days, but this one was spectacular.
The others were all good too, and each had regional variations which represented the city that we were in, and they all looked so beautifully presented. In one place, there was a little bit of whitebait, in another the specialty was more fried dishes as accompaniments and then in another place, instead of the ingredients being in a metal pot over flame, it was served up in a thick, coated paper, which didn't burn as long as there was still some liquid in. They were all so beautifully presented
We did buy this gorgeous tea set from a market set up in one of the cruise terminals. I wasn't really looking at buying anything like this but I had to have it when I saw it!
When it comes to the food on the ship, it was fine, nothing much to write home about, but we did do a dinner in the French restaurant on board which was really good! I had French Onion Soup (not quite as good as the one we had on our foodie walking tour in Paris but not too far off), a beautiful piece of steak and a poached pear served with a dark chocolate sauce and ice cream. Robert had a mushroom soup, pork with peppercorn and floating meringue islands.
In Okinawa we went to a really interesting fish market. There were all different stalls where you could just go and choose whatever seafood you wanted. I forgot to take a photo of what we chose, but here is one of the lobster options that were available. They were really reasonably priced too.
In two of our stops, Nagasaki and Jeju, we didn't really have any time to have have any meals as the ship left port mid afternoon. We did visit a village on Jeju where women divers live and work, which was an amazing experience. I knew that was the excursion I knew I wanted to do after reading Lisa See's book The Island of Sea Women. I did learn that Jeju is famous for it's mandarins and we did get to taste a piece of that, and the women divers also gave us a taste of some of the seafood that they catch when they were out diving. I tried some conch but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of that unfortunately.
On our first day in Seoul we did a full day excursion before getting dropped off at our hotel. The lunch stop was at a big market where you could get absolutely anything. Food, drinks, fabric, electrical, kitchenware, you name it! Our tour guide tried to encourage us to try one of the specialties which is raw octopus but I ended up choosing the steak tartare bibimbap instead, which I quite enjoyed. I wouldn't normally choose steak tartare from a menu, but with the egg, vegies and rice it worked out quite nicely
Our last night in Seoul we stayed in a hotel quite close to the airport, as we had an early flight and it takes at least an hour and a half to get to the airport from the city. We weren't really sure where to go, but we ended up wandering around and found this Korean BBQ place. It has these very cool contraptions on the table which was really interesting to see! We had dumpling soup which came with various side dishes including what I think were maybe picked quails eggs. Whatever they were, they were slippery little suckers. It did amuse me to see that the Korean man next to us just used a spoon to pick his up!
We flew to Tokyo and then back from Seoul on Singapore Airways. I have to say that they are right up there when it comes to their service and food. That is one airline that you don't get off the flight and think gee I am really hungry.
Next week I will be back with some of the sweet treats we enjoyed
Weekly meals
Saturday - Meatballs Sunday - Roast pork and vegies Monday - Honey Pepper Chicken and Rice Tuesday - Pork chops, mash and vegies Wednesday - Takeaway Thursday - Pork Nachos Friday - Out for dinner
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
Recently we spent some time in South Australia. We went to Adelaide as my brother was hosting Christmas, and we thought we would take the opportunity to see a bit of the state given that Robert's work has a compulsory shutdown period. We decided to focus on the Eyre Peninsula, as I hadn't spent as much time there as I had in other places.
In order to try and share as many pics as possible without taking up too much space, I was going to try creating some groups of slideshows. however I couldn't really get them to work so apologies in advance but this post is very image heavy! Originally I was going to do the silos, sculptures, scenery etc in just one post, but I think I will break it up into different posts just to make it easier!
I have shared some individual photos here and there over the last couple of weeks, but this will be more comprehensive.
So let's start with the silo art. We have seen quite a few art silos now. You can see others by clicking on this link. Most of them have been in Victoria but we had previously seen one in South Australia and one in Western Australia. Our route for this road trip was really designed to see as many as we could, but we did surprise ourselves by adding an extra in on the way to Adelaide that we hadn't actually planned for.
We then planned to see more on the way to Wallaroo where we stayed one night, and a couple more on the Eyre Peninsula. All up, I think we saw 13 different silos on this trip. Actually, we saw many, many more of them but 13 of them had art on them. Now when I see unpainted silos I just see a blank canvas just waiting to be decorated.
We won't mention the fact that I got sea sick on the ferry trip from Wallaroo to the Eyre Peninsula
Horsham - we had seen this one before!
Arkona - This was a new one to us, and was interesting because it is an invisible man, and something a bit different. The way I interpreted it was about how important sport is in country communities.
Albacutya - This was one that we only realised was close by when we were at Arkona. When I say nearby, it was about 70kms away, there and back. Distances is relative right?
Kaniva - We had seen this one before, and I only had a couple of minutes to grab a photo because I had added on more travel time by going to Albacutya
Coonalpyn - The first of our South Australian silos. This one is right on the main road between Melbourne and Adelaide and so we have seen this one before!
Eudunda - This one is about story and books, and honours a famous South Australian author called Colin Thiele who came from near this town
Farrell Flat - Great colours on this one!
Owen - We have seen one of this artists other silos in Victoria before.
Bute - All of these have lovely details in them. In this one I liked how the flowers seem to be flying off her dress.
Wallaroo - This one is a bit different in that the silo isn't painted, but there is a light projection that is shown every night as it gets dark.
Cowell - This one commemorates a local legend and his camels! Yes, we have lots of camels in Australia.
Tumby Bay - I swear you can feel the joy in this one!
Kimba - The last of the art silos for this trip. Kimba is approximately half way across Australia going from East to West.
I will be back with the customary What We Ate of Holidays post for Weekend Cooking in the next week or so and the other posts in the next few days, hopefully!
I have added the map below to give some idea of where we went. The blue line is a very approximate idea of the route we took. All up we travelled approximately 3500 kms, so it was a fair bit of driving. We did try to plan to only drive a maximum of 4 hours each day after the first day, and we mostly stuck to that!
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