Another thing that this trip brought to my attention was snacks, or more precisely what constitutes a good & yummy snack. I never really thought about the structure of a snack. For me a snack was a piece fruit, a handful of nuts, or a protein bar.
Read More
Writing about this last trip has been hard: the irony of having traveled to Asia one last time exactly when all this mess we’re in right now was just starting. I’m emotionally conflicted: sometimes I feel like I’m honoring all the precious moments I experienced by carefully remembering and writing about them; at other times, I feel like I’m being inappropriate, writing about what now seems so meaningless, superfluous and pointless. But I suppose that there are a lot of things that feel contradictory right now and that shouldn’t stop us from expressing them, so here goes.
After my trip to Japan, I came back to Portugal to cook for the Mymarini retreat in Alentejo. Thanks to my generous friend and surf buddy Maria, from Cabeça da Cabra Guesthouse, I ended up staying in Porto Covo for another week for some of the best surfing sessions of the year.
By the beginning of November, it was time to go back to Asia, this time to Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a very special place in my heart. My grandfather’s family was a Portuguese family that immigrated to China a few centuries ago, having lived in several Chinese cities, and lastly in the former Portuguese colony of Macau. My grandfather used to spend his holidays in Hong Kong, and of course, had many friends there. He and most of the family eventually left Macau and spread all over the world, Portugal being one of the countries where some members, my grandfather included, settled for the rest of their lives. This means that the Asian culture has always been present in my life, and interestingly enough, it keeps on being present through people other than my family.
This brings me to Claire, whom I met two years ago and has since became one of the most important persons in my life. A friend, mentor, and someone who’s a vison-holder for my spiritual journey, Claire, who’s been living in Hong Kong for many years and is herself half Chinese half Austrian, was the one who had this idea for my second trip to Asia. Although disguised as a work trip, where I would create a bespoke plant-based workshop for Claire and her friend Mimi, it was everything but work. I did work, but I also volunteered at the inspiring women-only event The Garden Gathering, where I cooked for 100+ women, I attended tea ceremonies, went to talks and meditations, potlucks, cocktails and dinner parties; I hiked, did a 3-day Vipassana course again, I met with old friends and I made new ones. It was a vibrant month, even amidst the protests, which created a lot sadness and disturbances.
By the beginning of December, as my returning to Portugal was approaching, my yearning to stay on that side of the world was only growing. Or maybe it was my resistance to coming back to Portugal for the holidays that was increasing... Either way, I decided to postpone my return flight for a month and go visit Taiwan.
Vibrant Taipei
“I can see you in Taiwan, it’s like a laid-back Japan”, said Claire when I mentioned I was going there. These words sort of stuck to my mind while visiting Taipei, because it felt exactly that: vibrant, colorful, busy, like any big Japanese city, but way more chaotic, messy and relaxed, or should I say unpretentious. It’s an exciting place in itself but it felt even more to me because of its unfamiliarity and remoteness. It’s not the kind of place of which you’ve seen a lot of pictures and fantasize about going there yourself, and that just added charm, surprise and delight to the experience.
I’ll never forget what I felt right after leaving my bags at the hotel and rushing to the bustling streets of Taipei: an overflowing thrill of being alone, wandering in a new place, with no plan, no expectations, just pure presence. It helped that I started my explorations in the evening; it seems that that’s the time when everything comes to life in any Taiwanese city or town. Right next to my hotel was the famous Dihua street with all its food stalls, selling tea cakes, weird mushrooms, and all sorts of dried delicacies, some looking more appetizing than others. From there, I walked to Ximending, where hundreds of people were lining to get their favorite Taiwanese delicacies: oyster omelets, bubble tea and fried everything-you-can-imagine. However, the real food scene everywhere in Taiwan happens at the night markets. In Taipei, I visited Ningxia and Shilin, which seem to be the most well-known ones. And speaking of culinary landmarks in Taipei, my adventures also included indulging in a bowl of beef noodles at Yong Kang, as a sort of tribute to Antony Bourdain given that it was one of his recommendations, and an afternoon tea at the infamous Wisteria Tea House, where I sipped a caramel-colored, fragrant Oolong tea called Oriental Beauty for hours. Sadly, I missed having dumplings at Din Tai Fung: the lines were tremendously discouraging at all their locations.
Coffee drinking my way around Taiwan
Even though Taiwan is better known for tea, with tea farms spread all over the island, the locals are absolutely crazy about coffee and can even embrace it as a form of expression and art. On my first morning in Taipei, I headed to Fong Da Coffee, a long-established coffeehouse in the city. The first thing you notice is the strong, comforting smell of roasted coffee beans, perceptible many steps before arriving to this small café. The place is packed with containers filled with different types of coffee beans, all sorts of coffee-brewing paraphernalia and countless cookie jars and boxes. It reminded me of Portuguese vintage cafes, and how the third wave of coffee is unnecessarily hyped. I very much appreciated having a plain cup of perfectly brewed coffee with a couple of cookies, and no birch furniture nor any kind of modern technology at sight. Although, to be honest, when it comes to coffee I’m up for anything, any setting, vibe, grinding technique, brewing method and what-not, and unexpectedly on this matter, Taiwan, not just Taipei, blew my mind. While it is more likely that a lot of hipster cafes like Simple Kaffa, Fika Fika and Mountain Kids Coffee, pop up in modern, busy cities like Taipei, I was amazed with the coffee scene in Hualien, a quiet little town on the east coast, in between the mountains and the ocean. I had gone there to visit Taroko National Park, one of the natural charms of the island, not thinking that I would stay more than a couple of nights. Yet, I ended up staying for almost a week – something that happens when you have time on your hands and no plans – happy as a bee, flying from Morning mountain to Caffe Fiore to Soave Plan.
Here’s a curiosity, common to many of the café spots I went to: the best ones open late in the morning and stay open until the evening, late evenings in some cases. I’m an early bird and these schedules really messed up my routine. I embraced it, nonetheless, and let the bohemian in me come up, having cups of coffee in the afternoon and dedicating myself to writing, like a 17thcentury intellectual. The place where I really took it to the limit was in Tainan, on the west coast, and the oldest city in Taiwan. I spent Christmas there, and just like it happened in Hualien, I wasn’t planning on staying more than two nights. I don’t know what triggers it or when it happens, I just know that there are places that despite being unfamiliar at first, quickly unleash the warmest sense of belonging. As I was wandering through a maze of dark, old, narrow streets in Tainan, I came across this small, enigmatic café, so secluded that I don’t even know how I got there in the first place, so small that it wouldn’t fit more than ten people, and so shamelessly presumptuous that it turned me away at first because the barista had to go for dinner “Come in an hour”, a guy said. I instantly knew I had to stay around and wait to go in for a cup of coffee, even though it was 7pm. The barista/owner was like an artist, brewing and serving coffee was his art; there was no wi-fi, and photography and loud noise weren’t allowed: this was a living coffee experience installation. It got me thinking about the difference between artists and artisans, how the most mundane action can be turned into an experience, a meditation, a meaningful moment. Could there be an essential wisdom here, a clue to figure out life in times to come?
Other adventures that colored this trip
I stayed in Taiwan for a month, not everything was amazing, nor was I in a state of awe all the time. What will follow is a list of random little moments that are hard to put together in a written narrative but worth sharing, like being the only visitor for quite some time at a Buddhist temple on the top of a mountain in Taroko Park, riding an empty train carriage, surfing in Jialeshui, a classic longboard surfing spot in Kenting Park that it first came to my attention while reading the Japanese magazine Honey, going for an epic bike ride just to get to Lumi café, also in Kenting Park, and coming back under extremely windy conditions and at night, which made me question my own sanity when it comes to coffeehouses exploration, grabbing coffee and a warm sweet potato for breakfast at convenience stores more times than I would have liked to but that still comforted me beyond anything else, eating loads of street food everywhere, mostly dumplings and Taiwanese egg pancakes, but also indulging in scrumptious vegetarian buffets, noodle-filled pastries and red bean cakes, drinking the most delicious soy milk I have ever tasted in Tainan, lingering in Dulan, an artsy expat community on the east coast, where nothing really happens besides real and couch surfing, visiting the country’s biggest Buddhist temple in Kaoshiung, and wandering in the mesmerizing Jiufen Old street.
For more tidbits about this trip check my Instagram stories here.
This will be the third and final article about my trip to Japan. As I write it, there’s a Japanese milk bread in the oven making me even more reminiscent of this inspiring country.
Mount Koya
All I wanted was to experience a night at a Buddhist temple, taste their cuisine and take pat in their morning prayers. But the highlight at Mount Koya, also known as Koyasan, ended up being a blissful walk along the Okunoin cemetery and some sublime moments at the Kobo Daishi Mausoleum.
Known as the heart of Shingon Buddhism, a significant Buddhist sect in Japan, Koyasan is a place for pilgrimage. The legend says that Kobo Daishi, the man who brought Buddhism to Japan in the beginning of the 9th century and the founder of this sect, still rests in meditation in his mausoleum. Just the thought of this gives me the chills.
Since I planned very little, I didn’t have many available options for my stay. Most of the places were fully-booked or insanely out of my budget so I ended up staying at Hongakuin. Just as a side observation, if you don’t speak Japanese you may not be aware that there are beautiful places that are not listed at online travel agencies. Here’s a tip: ask for help beforehand. While in Kyoto, I asked one of the polite Japanese girls that were working at the hostel I was at to call a few temples that at the time didn’t have an English website, nor were listed at those agencies.
Anyway, I arrived, was guided to my room, traditional Japanese with a tatami floor, of course, had a cup of tea and headed outside for a stroll before dinner. I didn’t have much time, a little over an hour and a half maybe, I didn’t know much about Koyasan and what to visit. But I remembered a lady I met at the train station pointing to a place on the map on the northern east side of Koyasan: “Everyone goes there”, she said. “There” was the Kobo Daishi Mausoleum, and going there meant walking for about 2km along the largest and most significant cemetery in Japan.
It sounds gloomy but I’ve had some very special moments at famous cemeteries like the Père Lachaise in Paris, or the Assistens in Copenhagen. Very far away from any bustling city, Okunoin is located in a sacred mountain, surrounded by ancient cedars, pines, cypresses and firs. I’m still trying to figure out what makes a moment blissful and special but I know that nature definitely plays a big part. It had been raining and everything was beautifully sprayed with little droplets of water and the air was clean and crisp. For such a famous pilgrimage place, there were not a lot of people wandering around, silence and reverence were abundant. The holiest part of this place starts at the Gobyobashi bridge, after which no photos, food or drinks are allowed. As you cross the bridge, you can see several wooden markers anchored to the stream bed as a memorial to unborn children. There were a couple of buildings worth some attention but I went straight to the Kobo Daishi mausoleum and just stayed there for a while, in silence, hearing the mantras and absorbing the mysticism. I could’ve stayed there the whole evening but I had to rush back for dinner time. Everything after this felt staged - the dinner at the temple, the night, the morning prayers (I liked the onsen at temple though!) - all seemed to lack the authenticity and simplicity that I had experienced on my own at the sacred site. It was good, but it did feel more like an attraction for tourists than a meaningful experience.
Seto Inland Sea
After a couple days in the port town of Uno and Naoshima, a small island famous for its contemporary art displays, I decided I wanted to go back to Tokyo and explore the surrounding mountain landscape.
However, I have a natural tendency to be parsimonious. And some very stupid decisions are born out of that. Like choosing to take a night bus from Okayama to Tokyo instead of a 4-hour bullet train ride, just to save a few thousands of yens. A long story short, a missed bus made me stay one night in Okayama. With a whole day to explore the city and no plans whatsoever, I turned to Google maps to see what could be worth visiting around the area. I ended up in Kurashiki, home to a picturesque canal area and centuries-old buildings. The combination of having no expectations, and this little towns’s own charm, made up for one of the most pleasant afternoons of the whole trip.
What was left behind
While I was still traveling, I realized that Japan is a country that I would never be able to visit in just one go. At one point I was feeling so overwhelmed with everything, the culture, the landscape, the food, the architecture, the spirituality, that I just wanted to press pause on the trip so that I could have time to process it all. And by the length of these posts, you can see that I’m still processing it, I’m still integrating this journey and making sense of it.
A lot was left behind for a second or a third trip, maybe even a longer stay. I know that I still want to surf in Chiba, hike the Japanese Alps, sunbathe in Okinawa, see the stunning landscape of Hokkaido, and of course, take a picture of Mount Fuji.
Writing hasn’t been flowing as it was in Taiwan. I think it’s because my daily routine changed. Maybe it’s also because I’m suddenly fascinated with tea and have been studying everything about it intensively. Regardless, I feel like I have to continue to share the rest of this memorable trip with you.
A breakfast I’ll never forget
After those few days in Tokyo I headed south to a place called Kamakura. Kamakura is a coastal city which I chose to visit because of its surf & longboard vibe. I know what you might be thinking “Why on earth would someone go to Japan to experience their surf culture?”. Certainly, Japan is well known for many things and I wouldn’t say surfing is one of them. Yet, as with most if not all things the Japanese do, they do “surf vibe” very well. I stayed at a small hostel in Hase. The place was a traditional Japanese house, all made out of dark wood and located just ten steps away from the ocean. Luckily for me, I was their only guest.
Influenced by the dozens of Japanese surf magazines I had “read” the night before, I decided to ask for the hostel’s breakfast. It had been covered by most of the magazines so I presumed it would be good. Still, just to be sure of what was in it given that it was a traditional Japanese breakfast, I asked the only staff member around and he replied it had soup, seaweed, rice and small fish. It sounded like something I could eat but little did I know that my definition of “small fish” is quite different from his. To me a small fish is a sardine; to the Japanese is a sardine’s newborn (aka shirasu). “But at least I can eat the rice…” I thought. As I put my chopsticks underneath the pile of baby sardines to reach for the rice - thinking it would be warm and comforting – I’m unpleasantly surprised with threads of a sticky, smelly slime, which I reluctantly put in my mouth only to confirm that it was the most disgusting thing I had ever eaten. It turns out that the rice was mixed with natto slime, although no fermented soybeans were to be found. It was the first time in my life that despite being ravenous I wasn’t able to eat at all.
Traumatized but still hungry, I headed to the nearest place that could offer me the safest breakfast possible. I found Cafe Recette, where they specialize in making the perfect toast. A toast never tasted better.
No cherry on top of my birthday cake
This whole idea of going to Japan took a very specific form four years ago when, while in the UK during the Rugby World Cup, I was determined to travel to the country that would host the next competition, which - surprise, surprise - was going to be Japan. The dates were also coinciding with my 40th birthday, making it the perfect timing for such a special trip.
For the last night in my thirties I decided to treat myself with a night at a ryokan in the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park and then head to Kyoto the next day for a nice kaiseki dinner. A ryokan is a typical Japanese guest house with tatami-matted rooms and hot spring public baths, also known as onsen. Again, if there’s a place on earth where “sleeping on the floor” and “public baths” can actually be good experiences is in Japan. I confess I became quite a fan of onsen and even when I stayed in places that didn’t have a public bath I would prepare my own bathtub. At this ryokan the guests could enjoy the onsen in the outdoors and in private, making this experience twice as pleasant. I kicked off my forties with a - this time - delicious Japanese breakfast: tamago egg omelette, steamed salmon, tofu salad, warm rice, miso soup, Japanese porridge and a variety of pickles and condiments.
I was really aiming for the most cliché Japanese experience possible. However, I missed one thing. You see, going from Hakone to Kyoto meant taking the train that would travel the closest to Mt Fuji. But to my disappointment, Japan’s most iconic landmark was all covered in clouds. I didn’t even get a glimpse of it.
Kyoto bliss
Despite being home to some of the most impressive temples in Japan, temple hopping in Kyoto can be far from blissful. As a rule of thumb, it is recommended by a lot of people, myself included, that you go to the most touristic places either early in the morning or late in the afternoon to avoid the crowds. I had terrible experiences at Kinkaku-ji and Arashiyama bamboo forest and blissful ones at Ryōan-ji and Hōnen-in, all thanks to schedule considerations. This might require you to plan your visit differently but I don’t really know how can people enjoy spiritual places when surrounded by loud crowds trying to take the best photo.
So, visit your favorite temples yes, one in the morning, one in the evening, and in between eat and go for walks. Just as in Tokyo, I had a blast at Kyoto’s most famous food market, Nishiki, and went there several times. I also hiked Diamonjiyama and strolled along the Philosopher’s Path twice.
Café worshipping
By now I suppose it’s pretty obvious that food and spirituality are my life motors, what keeps me moving, from markets to cafes, from Nature to temples.
But now that I’m thinking about it, food itself is spiritual, and cafes and markets can be seen as food temples, right? Because to be honest I feel an immense solace whenever I’m at a proper café, where instead of being fed peace or ultimate reality, I’m drinking plants and eating delicious reality. Some deep spiritual moments in Japan were indeed spent at very special cafes.
Like when I arrived at Osaka and felt it was so different from all other places I had visited so far - it was dirtier, noisier, and overall weirder - I found comfort spending the whole afternoon at wad, a minimalist cafe and tea house, where you pick the handmade bowl where you want to drink your matcha from. Or when I found minamo in Nara while trying to escape from the heat and sun - it was like an oasis in the desert. Or when I arrived in Naoshima and was frustrated by the fact that there were no more bicycles left to rent and I should’ve booked one in advance, I went straight to get a warm hug (aka coffee) at Mikazukishoten, where I was also warmly welcomed by the owners and greeted with great music and an easy-going vibe. Or when, trying to escape the crowds in Tsukiji market, I came across a guy that was serving drip coffee in a dark side alley. I just sat on top of a plastic crate and watched him pour hot water over coffee, like some kind of sacred ritual, and then just drank it in silence with this other Japanese guy that was just as hypnotized, both of us appreciating the coffee and the moment.
There were many other cafes that I visited and many others that deserve one on my next trip to Japan.
