September 9, 2008
The purple "Okinawa" sweet potato:
Perhaps the most delicious potato known to man. These potatoes were introduced to Hawaii from the Japanese Island Okinawa, and are now generally available in Asian food markets. I steamed and mashed them, paired them with some vanilla bean brown rice and, because I thought the meal was lacking protein and spice, improvised some dal with tomatoes and about 7 or 8 spices I thought might taste good. Surprisingly the dal went perfectly with the potatoes. But they're so good I do believe they'd go well with a muddy boot. If you can find them, purchase them immediately.
That super cool plate you see pictured is part of a set I got Josh for either Christmas, Hanukkah, or his birthday... They're beautiful. You can buy them here!
I'll get back to the Europe post soon; the Okinawa potato was just too exciting to hold back.
August 29, 2008
Now I know my blog posts are sporadic enough as it is, but the reason for my recent lack of posting is I've been busy running all around Europe backpacking; exploring the ruins of ancient civilizations, seeing priceless works of art, eating 5 chocolate croissants a day, etc. I can't begin to cover the enormity of our trip here, but I'll give you a brief, very brief outline:
London: we left with an enormous dent in our wallets. Spectacular Indian and Indonesian food. We saw some amazing installations at the Hayward Gallery, some pretty nice modern art at the Tate Modern, and a whole lot of nothing at the Dali Museum. Now some facts on Big Ben: it's a 315 foot high clock tower named for the 13 ton bell, Ben, which was named after a fat bureaucrat. The clock faces are 23 feet across, and the minute hand? 13 feet long!
The interior of Saint Paul's Cathedral, the main cathedral of the Anglican church. Though the surrounding neighborhood was leveled during WWII, St. Paul's remained nearly intact. The late Renaissance-styled interior is unbelievably ornate and stunning, and the church features a 365 foot dome (which we climbed) inspired by St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
the Whispering Gallery in the base of the dome, constructed with such acoustic precision you can heard a whisper from 170 feet away (I think I was only about 75 feet away but I did hear Josh whisper!)
After London it was on to Amsterdam. I loved this city. The architecture was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The three million bikes dangerously whizzing by every minute were charming. And the food was surprisingly good! In a place like Amsterdam I kind of wasn't expecting food to be one of the city's top priorities. We found some great Indian and Thai restaurants - oh and the chocolate was the best we had in Europe.
One always amusing note about Amsterdam: the buildings are crooked. Really crooked. The above shot is in no way altered, believe it or not, this is what some of the buildings look like. Here's why: buildings in Amsterdam are built on piles of wood sunk deep into the mucky, soft soil. Building the houses in a "row home" style helped reinforce them, allowing the buildings to lean on each other. Well, not everyone was good at building the wood foundations, and not everyone had the necessary resources to build them properly. So houses started to lean... then whole blocks started to lean. When the government decided to step in and pile the foundations themselves, they taxed the residents based on the width of their houses, which is why most houses in Amsterdam are comically narrow (the narrowest measuring an insane 39 inches wide!).
In the sixteenth century, many of Amsterdam's wooden buildings were torn down and replaced by more Renaissance-looking brick ones. Buildings built during this period are easily recognizable; they all share similar façades that look like a staircase at the top, typical in Dutch Renaissance style.
On the way to the Van Gogh Museum, we had fun climbing all over these Amsterdam letters (that's the Rijksmuseum behind us)
We took a boat cruise through the canals and learned that one car per week drives over the foot high barrier into the water.
Berlin was wonderful, such an incredible mix of history and at the same time change, with reminders everywhere of the city's past. Remains of Soviet buildings, what's left of the Berlin Wall, communist propaganda murals left up, the immense Holocaust Memorial, the Reichstag with its glass dome, it seems everything in Berlin is packed with history and meaning. Hitler's bunker, and the spot where he committed suicide, was turned into a dumpy parking lot so as not to commemorate him in any way; on the street across from where book burnings took place is a stand selling the books that were burned at discount prices, to get them back into circulation. There is even a line of stones running along the ground showing where the wall used to be. And there is graffiti and scaffolding EVERYWHERE. We took the Free Tour and I asked our guide, Ben, about all this scaffolding business, to which he replied, highly passionate: "That's because Berlin is always changing, always building, always evolving! It'll look like this for the next 10-20 years." Overall Berlin was the most interesting city we visited, and I highly highly recommend the Free Tour - you'll learn more in a couple of hours than you would in 3 years of high school. The guides (who work on tips only) are energetic and so passionate about what they do. Our Berlin tour was one of the highlights of our entire trip I think.
Prague: the gloomy weather pairs perfectly with the daunting gothic architecture. I do have a photo of this church on a sunny, clear day, but this version gives a more lasting impression I think. It rained only twice during our 5.5 week trip, once in Germany and once in Prague.
A close-up of the Astronomical Clock (also called the Prague Orloj) in Old-Town Hall. The figures are set in motion at the hour, and Death, represented by a skeleton, rings the bell. In the doorways above the clock there is a presentation of the Apostles. Pretty intense for 1410.
The buildings were so beautiful. Pictured directly above is the inside of a random cathedral we never would have known to go in had our crazy Prague guide not suggested it.
Back to Germany: clean, efficient, organized. What an incredible contrast between Germany and it's neighboring countries, not that I didn't enjoy the culture shock. Munich was nice, but aside from the extraordinary above-pictured New Town Hall (so gargantuan I couldn't fit it all in the picture. Also note the Marienplatz in the center of the building, similar to Prague's Astronomical Clock) and dinner at Zaf at Zerwisk's (the best, most innovative meal we had perhaps on the entire trip) aside from all that the city itself wasn't anything above standard. We mostly used it as a point to get to other, more interesting places like Neuschwanstein Castle and Dachau Concentration Camp.
Munich did have this sweet warthog in the middle of city though.
Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for the Walt Disney Castle. Try to ignore the scaffolding (though that's something we got used to after a while). We took this shot from the Marienbrücke then climbed a nearby cliff to see the castle from a higher, more dangerous view.
We stopped in Verona, Italy to break up the long trip from Munich to Venice. It was a great random choice, Verona is an adorable old Italian town with great food and the best gelato we had on the entire trip. Pumpkin ravioli and Stracciatella gelato... yum... I won't be forgetting Verona's food anytime soon. This picture is from the Giardino Giusti, designed as backdrops for the Giusti Palace in the 15th century and visited by the likes of Mozart and Emperor Joseph II. We also saw the courtyard and balcony where the whole Romeo and Juliet ordeal supposedly took place.
Venice is a city I've dreamed of going to for as long as I can remember. "A city built on water?" It fascinated me to no end. And it wasn't disappointing - Venice is so freaking romantic and beautiful it doesn't seem real. Granted the food is terrible and you get lost every time you leave the hotel, but the scenery makes up for it. On the note of terrible Venetian food, Josh and I did manage to find a decent (if not exceptional) Indian place called Ganesh Ji. But good luck finding it :)
Somehow we ended up with this magical view overlooking a very gondola-filled canal
And here is the result of the only time we broke out Josh's tripod!
Turned off on the idea of paying the equivalent of $117 for a gondola ride, we instead rode a water taxi up and down the Grand Canal, occasionally passing an entire fleet of gondolas.
Saint Mark's Basilica, built in the 11th century and absolutely enveloped by pigeons. It's also the lowest point in the city, right at sea level and is constantly flooded.
Inside Saint Mark's, built in the classic Greek-cross style, and made entirely of gold mosaics and marble.
Despite my concern for your bandwidth I just have to include about a thousand Cinque Terre pictures. By far the most beautiful place we have ever seen. Cinque Terre is comprised of 5 towns, spread out over 7 miles of rugged Riviera coastline: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. We stayed in Riomaggiore, the southernmost city. All five towns are connected by an insanely breathtaking hiking trail, which led us through all types of terrains including beaches, vineyards, jungles, deserts, and forests. We explored each town as we hiked through them and concluded that the best pesto focaccia pizza on Earth is located in Cornigila.
The beautifully terraced mountains
Manarola
some Corniglian houses
The villages themselves are adorable - everything is cramped, crowded and narrow. And generally very steep; to get to our room every night we had to climb 950 steps. But the view was worth it.
Vernazza, the most touristy of the villages, and the most intensely rugged part of the hike, at this point I was losing a little steam.
Vernazza again from a distance
Monterosso al Mare, as the sun started to set (we hiked for 7 hours)
OK at this point I'm going to have to halt the entry - stay tuned for Florence, Pisa, Rome, Capri, Provence/French Riviera, Paris and Ireland!