On a whim, we snuck away to D.C. for the weekend to visit our friends J and K who were stateside for a few weeks.

We dined in old historic buildings with tasty prix fixe menus and visited the Dutch masters and Rodin exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Then there was brunch at Acadiana for delicious southern Louisiana gumbo and eggs Benedict over crawfish cakes (which, felt very much the right thing to eat while the air was so hot and thick) followed by a nice drive with the top down and the wind blowing through our hair.

Check out these personalized luggage tags by Etsy seller, HarLex. I love the one that reads "my clothes won't fit you"—so great.

HarLex also makes customizable iPad cases, passport wallets, and camera straps.

[1-2. HarLex via This is Glamorous]

Something in the way she moves. 

Reminiscing over pictures of the la belle mer.

[1-2. c. lynn]

A couple of photos that I took yesterday walking around the neighborhood of Meguro-ku in Tokyo.

--

I'm looking forward to seeing Aa again.

[1-2. c. lynn]

I’ve been staying at my friends H and S's house in their family’s charming neighborhood inside Tokyo. It's really fun to imagine what it would be like to live here, which isn't something that I've been able to do while staying at hotels in the city center. 

Another great thing about staying here is that H has offered to teach me some Japanese home-cooking including a delicious seafood nabe or stew (なべ物), which is wonderful since my father gifted us with a proper donabe (土鍋) for Christmas this year. She uses a metal pot, but the one I have is made of earthenware and must be cured properly before use with day-old rice.

Gather:
15 small chicken meatballs (you can purchase these already prepared at a Japanese market, but to make them combine ground chicken thigh, soy sauce, and green onion)
12 shrimp, deveined
10 scallops
10 oysters (optional)
1 small blue crab
12 cockles
1 package soft tofu (or firm if you wish)
1 leek, cut into bite-sized rounds and soaked to remove any sand
1 bunch of hakusai, or Chinese cabbage, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 package glass noodles
1 carrot, cut into thin rounds or length-wise
1 bunch enoki mushrooms, cleaned, chopped in half, and pulled apart into bite-sized clusters
1 daikon root, sliced thinly into small half moons
2 yosenabe soup packages (you can purchase at a Japanese market)
1 bottle ponzu (optional) 

Equipment:
1 nabe pot (metal/clay)
1 portable gas cooker

Cook:
1. Prepare and clean all vegetables. Arrange together in bunches on a plate for ease of cooking.
2. Add yosenabe packages to nabe pot, cover, and bring to a boil over open flame.
3. Add daikon, carrots, and half package of glass noodles to yosenabe mixture.
4. Add cockles, crab, and chicken meatballs.
5. Add shrimp, hakusai, enoki, and leek.
6. Bring back to boil and add scallops, slices of tofu, and add the rest of the glass noodles.
7. Add oysters.
8. Overall cook time should be about 20 minutes from when the yosenabe boils.

To serve, bring pot to table and place on gas cooker to keep everything warm. Place a small bowl, chopsticks, and a soup spoon at each place setting. Serve up nabe and add a dash of ponzu if it suits you.



[1. Shoko Muraguchi]

If you're visiting Tokyo, then you're going to need a map (地図, "chi-zu"). I've found these guides by Knopf to be very helpful. I usually jot down newly discovered spots so that I can find them the next time that I visit (although I know my favorites by heart!).

To be a bit more discreet about your map-checking, you can cover your map guides with a paper jacket, similar to the way many schoolchildren cover their borrowed textbooks in the states. Book jacket covers are very popular in Japan and are sold in any stationery shop. Should you purchase your book at Kinokuniya, you could ask the cashier for one. The jacket cover will keep your book neat while traveling and you can swap it for a new one each time you visit.

[1. Knopf MapGuide: Tokyo; 2. Tokyo (Everyman MapGuides)]

Let's have cereal for every meal! Or at least stews, soups, porridge, ice cream, and anything else that could be served by bowl. Who needs plates, if you set the table with these bowls from One Kiln.

[1-2. One Kiln]

What a wonderful trip so far! We've seen so many things together and have thoroughly enjoyed the company. I love traveling as a pair—taking turns navigating, making judgment calls, scouting new coffee shops, picking lunch restaurants, and pitching in together no matter what comes our way.

But we must nurture ourselves apart as well, so I'm off to Tokyo while Aa attends a workshop. I'm excited to share some of my favorite parts of this city with you.



[1. Janne M; 2. Kim Erlandsen]

A few snaps from the robata restaurant where we feasted on hokke, pork sirloin, green onion, and grilled potato.





[1-3. c. lynn]

I had to post about this amazing tempura (天ぷら) restaurant that was recommended to us on our first night in Sapporo. Ebi-ten serves up the most delicious tempura that I've had—just as amazing as the tempura that we once had in Kyoto at Ten-ichi (a high-end tempura restaurant that Clinton visited during a presidential trip to Japan).

At Ebi-ten, we enjoyed the Hokkaido tempura set meal, which included the most delicate squid tempura, as well as tempura kabocha (カボチャ) or winter melon, succulent hotate (ほたて) or scallop, potato, salmon, Hokkaido surf clam or hokkigai (ほっきがい), and shungiku (春菊) or garland chrysanthemum. We also had to order the kuruma ebi (くるまえび) or Japanese imperial prawn, which is served as a piece of tempura prawn accompanied by a tiny popcorn-sized tempura prawn head (atama, あたま). I firmly believe that I could eat these by the bowlful, which makes me wonder about how potentially delicious crickets and grasshoppers could be served in the tempura style. 

(Below: The ultimate onion ring: a tempura pearl onion)




[1-4. c. lynn]

This afternoon we decided to check out Otaru (小樽市), a neighboring city of Sapporo, known for their snow candle-lit path alongside a canal (yukiakarinomichi). The canal is draped in strands of globular glass lights and the path is adorned with snow structures that house little tea lights producing a magical winter wonderland effect.

I loved the little pressed flower ice votives and the warm glow from the candles buried in pockets of snow. What a romantic way to spend an evening just before Valentine's Day!





[1-4. c. lynn]

I loved the patterned porcelain at one of the shops near our serviced apartment in Shanghai. They offered really modern, interesting patterns including a burnout lace pattern, a faux dip-dye, a collections of thin lines, as well as coral motifs. I really adore that small pitcher in the center of the photograph.

[1. c. lynn]

From Nanjing, we took the high-speed train to Shanghai. The train ride used to take upwards of 4 hours, and now, they've shaved it down to one and a half hours. Here we are clocking in at around 215 miles/hour.

Our stop in Shanghai was brief but we managed to pack in a lot. First things first, there was a trip to the Din Tai Fung for the best xiaolongbao (Shanghai soup dumplings) in town. Did you know that you can now get these delicious pork soup filled dumplings at their L.A. or Seattle branches? How lucky for us!




[1. J. Aaron Farr; 2. AA, 3. c. lynn, 4. AA]

Another favorite spot that we liked so much that we visited twice, was the Purple Mountain (Zijin Mountain) in Nanjing. We strolled around several important heritage spots in Chinese history including the Ming Xioling mausoleum, where the plum blossoms were on the brink of opening up and the air was just beginning to fill with their intoxicating scent. We also visited the Sun Yat-sen mausoleum and climbed the stairs to the top where we had an incredible view of the Purple Mountain and all of its visitors.



[1-2. c. lynn]

My favorite moments in Nanjing were peaceful ones when we weren't beating back the crowds, turning lazy susans or fighting with surly cab drivers. These are a few snaps from our time in a scholar's garden in the center of town. We found this lovely man drawing characters with water on the stone bridge.

The gardens made us fantasize about walking the paths in traditional garb, leaving hair pins that our delicate and articulate scholarly suitors would find and compose poems about.

[1-3. c. lynn]

Chinese New Year in J's hometown of Nanjing was a trip in itself complete with major fireworks, multiple seafood-driven banquet hall dinners with J's family, and plenty of gift-giving and Baijiu toasting. We had all of the most elaborate dishes presented to us including shark fin soup, abalone, drunken chicken, braised squab, dongpo rou (pork belly), and many more.

On the night of the 3rd, J's cousins were gracious enough to let us tag along for the fireworks festivities. A group of young Chinese gathered along the main drag and shot off enormous boxes of fireworks for nearly an hour. By the end of the night, the streets and sidewalks were littered in red dust and papers and the sky was still booming with explosions into the morning.

The whole city (and country I'd imagine) was decked out in red lanterns, gold luck charms, well wishes, as well as massive year of the rabbit displays. I wonder if they will keep them in storage for twelve years until the next year of the rabbit or toss them out and begin anew.

[1-4. c. lynn]

As sick as we were, we managed one trip to a neighboring village outside of Yangshuo where we snapped a bunch of country life photographs.

The view of the river wasn't too bad either. (You may recognize the view from the 20 yuan note below.)

[1-8. c.lynn]

After we left Hong Kong for rural Guilin, I lost contact with blogger throughout my trip in China until we arrived in Shanghai. It was probably for the best anyway, as we came down with a serious cold and were stuck resting in bed for several days. We've mostly recovered except for the sniffles and a few hearty coughs.

Staying in Yangshuo might not have been the easiest place to be sick—taking turns fetching water and relying on friends to bring us backpacks full of Chinese medicine, but it was peaceful with mountain scenery and quiet so we didn't feel too badly about missing out.




[1-3. c. lynn]