Visiting the Honolulu Apple Store, Bob and I were instantly struck by the clientele. They weren’t shopping at all! They were a bunch of old folks using the store’s computers to check their email. Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook pages up everywhere. Homesick vacationers deep in concentration, smiling, in their own little worlds far from Hawaii.
I don’t know if all Apple Stores are so accommodating, or if credit goes to the laid-back Hawaiians. The staff were not bothered in the least.
Maybe the company would rather have people taking advantage of unlimited free internet than have an empty store.
With his backpack at his feet, one man carried on a loud conversation on an iPhone. If it hadn’t been tethered to the table, he might have wandered out with it. His call continued the entire half-hour we were in the store.
You are lucky indeed if you ever get the opportunity to experience a kaiseki meal, especially one in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. You’ll enjoy a long, relaxed procession of delicacies in small portions, exquisitely presented, and usually specific to the season.
I had the incredible good fortune to indulge in a week of kaiseki lunches and dinners in Japan. One meal featured tofu in many forms. One featured tempura. Another was Buddhist vegetarian. The most breathtaking were those served at Yagyuno Sho Ryokan in Shuzenji, on Japan’s Izu peninsula.
I’m in awe of Takashi Shibayama, Yagyuno Sho’s chef, who showcased an endless variety of glorious creations in perfect balance, meal after meal. As you’ll see in the following photos, his magnificent presentations are the synergetic result of his ravishing edible works of art complemented by precious serving pieces, and owe a nod to whimsy.
These photos are from a single kaiseki dinner titled “A Picnic Under the Cherry Blossoms.” A menu was provided in Japanese calligraphy, along with an attempted English translation.
One Kaiseki dinner
Cold sake in iron pot
The meal begins with a treasured sake poured from iron pots into flat red lacquer bowls. Just a sip, it’s a fruity and fervent taste bud wakeup call, accompanied by a tiny red lantern glowing with a short-lived candle. In a deeply-textured covered bowl, a surprise awaits.
Foie gras Japanese style
Surprise indeed! Who would expect haute cuisine—and foie gras, no less? It’s a silky paté “with white radish agar (moon) and salty meringue (cloud),” a garnish of gold foil and cherry blossom petals—an edible haiku in beige. How about…
Fat goose flies in spring
Cherry blooms, moon in cloud, his
Liver is dinner
Kaiseki understatement: “Simple Meal”
A wooden tray is presented. Paradoxically called “Simple Meal,” it is anything but. In the gorgeous little covered bowl: “bamboo shoot, udo, butterbur dressed with young Japanese pepper and moso.” In my excitement, I forget to take a picture of the opened bowl. The central plate of gold-leaf floats on a gold-leaf-spattered strip of handmade paper. It holds “sushi balls, picnic dumpling, and dried wheat.” On the black ceramic dish, sesame seed tofu with caviar. In the beige: “rape blossoms with dried wheat gluten.”
Gluten makes frequent appearances. Itself bland with a pleasant, chewy texture, it’s an excellent sponge and carrier of flavors.
Cold sake
Our cold sake arrives in crystal glass decanters deep in red lacquer bowls of ice and flowers. You must not pour your own sake—but look after your neighbors, and make sure their cups are full. I can’t help noticing the uniformity of the ice—crushed to perfection.
Small soup in big bowl
A small “clear soup with red sea bream dumpling” is in a large lacquer bowl, black with gold bamboo on the outside, dark red on the inside. We are reminded that we are not expected to like or consume everything, but I can’t help myself. I do and I do.
Covered boat sashimi
Boat-shaped dishes with tantalizing covers are set before us. Our chopstick rests are swapped for porcelain cherry blossom petals. We begin to wonder how large the ryokan’s tableware pantry is.
Sashimi revealed
Lifting the bamboo roofs, we discover sashimi: tuna, sole, and horse clam. We’re gently instructed on which condiment highlights each fish. All the garnishes are edible, including the cherry blossoms.
Hot stone at table
Done with delicate for the moment, a hot rock is brought to each of us wrapped in fresh juniper branches in a wicker basket. We are served at meals by the same women who look after our rooms, and now they cook for us. Izu beef, shrimp, squid, and a green chili pepper are placed on each heated stone, which sears the food in a minute or two. I get two fat scallops instead of beef.
Dengaku
These colorful popsicles are called dengaku: “grilled tofu and dried wheat gluten on skewers coated with miso glaze.” They’re balanced on a bamboo cane on a rough plate the color of bamboo.The plate is a mossy pond whose surface is disturbed by koi kissing air.
Steamed icefish on raw sea urchin.
Steamed icefish on sea urchin. The tiny white fish are complete with little eyes. The beautiful bowl and urchin-colored saucer are paper thin. We’ve learned to recover our bowls when finished with a dish. The staring fish and raw sea urchin gonads are too much for some; their bowls are quickly covered.
Tomato juice
“100% fresh tomato juice.” It is thick enough to eat with a wooden spoon, and very cold in a crystal shot glass. A concentrated flavor break between two hot dishes.
Bamboo shoot in liquid starch
In a brown and gold covered lacquer bowl, “deep fried bamboo shoot with liquid starch.” There must be a better translation for “liquid starch,” but the Japanese haven’t found it. Enriched broth? Thickened consommé?
Miso soup mystery
This one has an element of mystery. The menu translation is “dark brawn miso soup with bean curd tofu skin.” Is that dark brown soup or dark prawn soup? Either way, it is delicious. Ahhh… another bottle of sake, please!
Rice finale with small shrimps
Finally, and always last, comes the rice. It’s in a stunning stoneware bowl with an accompaniment of cooked small shrimp. A plate of pickled vegetables on the side.
Sweet summer yellow orange
And for dessert, something small, cold, and light on a silver dish. “Sweet summer yellow orange,” a strawberry for contrast, and a sweet drink made from fermented rice with soybean milk pudding.
Breakfasts at the ryokan are just as spectacular, but served expeditiously, in well over a dozen different little plates and bowls. I’ll spare you the photos.
Over five dramatic meals on the property, I never saw the same serving piece more than once. And all of this was managed just days after the earthquake and tsunami, under the threat of nuclear meltdown, between scheduled rolling blackouts. Praise and thanks to Yagyuno Sho Ryokan and its wonderful chef and staff.
I have to say, there’s something rather cozy about a warm toilet seat. Definitely got used to that in Japan. I came to expect the full panel of services, too, from waterfall or babbling brook sound effects to various water-jet options. I was a little taken aback the first time I entered and the lid saluted me, opening on its own. And I was just plain amused by a toilet with a lit bowl. Maybe even a little horrified.
Oh, and yes. They flush and close by themselves, too. Any more questions?
Starbucks has a bad rap when it comes to theft. Customers focus on their drinks, their conversations, their open computers, and thieves know it. A busy coffee shop is a mess of people coming and going, pushing between crowded tables, standing waiting, looking for seats, looking for friends, looking for loose objects…
Bob and I were in Lisbon’s bustling Starbucks, waiting for its broken internet to come back on (it never did). One lucky customer had found a nice corner with a power outlet and had dragged a chair over. He was opening his laptop when… his phone disappeared.
His reaction caught our attention, but we were dismayed that the perp hadn’t. We consider it our business to spot thieves before they strike. This time, we failed. We never saw him.
The victim said he’d set his phone down only a minute ago. Sitting beside the milk and sugar station, he hadn’t worried about the constant human traffic.
Bob looked up and saw a surveillance camera. “Get them to show you the video,” he urged the victim. But Starbucks’ manager refused to access the video unless the victim filed a police report. The victim threw up his hands in frustration. He didn’t want to spend his short time in Lisbon dealing with police and looking at surveillance tapes. He walked out.
“It’s only getting worse,” a security guard told us. He was positioned just outside the old elevator tower. “We see them every day;” he was referring to the city’s pickpockets. They don’t necessarily ride the elevator. It’s just a short walk up the hill to the lift’s viewpoint, and that’s where they wait for their prey.
That was corroborated by the security guard who keeps watch on the elevator tower. She seemed fascinated by their chosen profession, picking up on many details that others in the security business miss. All she can do when she sees pickpockets though, she said, is warn the visitors and shoo the thieves away.
It’s been two years since our last visit to Lisbon. Tram lines 15 and 28 are as crowded and infested as they were then. More buildings are boarded up and the city looks worse than ever.
Lisbon looks terribly dilapidated, its glory days over, deteriorating as we watch. Its structures are still grand, but they’re dressed like homeless derelicts, with the same empty-eyed glower, all dignity and self-respect burned off by neglect.
Arachnid kebob, anyone? If you haven’t lost your appetite from all the lusty hawking and spitting and splatting, your stomach will certainly rumble as you browse Beijing’s edible temptations. Between great steaming caldrons and vats of bubbling oil, squirming specimens are lined up, already impaled, ready to be plunged to their crispy deaths. They’re simply waiting to be chosen…by you?
If you’re bored by the ordinary, fed up with fishballs and fried octopus, sick of spicy noodles and delicate dim sum, why not try the next level of Beijing street food? Have something on a stick.
The adorable seahorses must be all crunch when fried, but who’d want to eat such a fantastical creature? I’m heartbroken to see the splintery skewer piercing the armor of its chubby belly while it’s big round eyes stare sadly… Excuse me while I anthropomorphize. Don’t call me ethnocentric!
On the other hand, I get the shivers looking at the seahorses’ stick-mates. The headless scorpions curl and straighten their tails and claw the air. They’re certainly fresh, but not terribly appetizing, even though my heart holds no soft spot for them.
When I see them fried, they’re no more offensive than a barbecued shrimp: a thin-shelled body with a lotta legs. Crisp and plump, with the promise of succulent sweetness inside. It’s mainly a difference in attitude and behavior, isn’t it, between the shrimp and the scorpion. One swims, one hikes. One fishes, one hunts. One has charm and magnetism, the other is furtive and hostile. The scorpion’s reputation makes him repugnant. It’s prejudice! And look: unlike the shrimp, the scorpion’s fully edible—no legs or tough shells to spit out. Still…no thanks. I can’t bring myself to nibble one.
The young woman in the video is a Russian tour leader. And yes, she ate them all—I watched. She judged the fried scorpions “actually quite pleasant.” She was hesitant to eat their tails, but I know about these things and told her the shop would have removed the stingers if they were harmful. She bought it and chowed ’em down.
Silkworms, locusts, and grasshoppers are other potential snack options, sold separately or in colorful combinations. Big fat larvae, mahogany brown and shiny with oil, are five on a stick. They look like beads of exotic hardwood, but I know their liquidy centers would gush out at the gentlest squeeze. Wait, on closer inspection they appear to be candied. My mouth waters in anticipation of a brittle coating of burnt sugar shattering against my teeth. Maybe they’re buttered, not oiled… I’m close to grokking the allure of the delicacy. If it weren’t for the damn ick factor.
Read the rest with more photos… Continue reading
People often share their credit card anxiety with me. They’re afraid their cards will be lost or stolen and huge bills will be run up by a thief, and that their identities will be cloned. “Is it better to just carry cash?” they ask. “Should I follow the waiter when I pay my restaurant bill?” “How safe is it to use a credit card on the internet? Will my identity be stolen?”
So let’s put these questions to rest. Then we can move on to the real risk.
First, yes. Your credit card can be lost or stolen and big debts can be incurred by others. You won’t be responsible—your financial institution takes the hit. But in the grand scheme of things, the odds are not high that your credit card will disappear and be compromised. The risk is higher in some places than in others, and for some people more than for others. But that’s life. Get over it and live.
No. It’s not better to carry cash. Keep some cash for small (or secret) purchases, and use credit cards for the rest.
Yes, shop on the internet with your credit card. If it makes you feel better, get one of those temporary credit card numbers on your account, good for a single transaction or a limited amount. Without internet and a credit card, you’re crippled.
The real risk of identity theft and credit card fraud
It’s big business. The hotels and hospitals we go to, the stores, banks, schools, airlines, doctors, utilities, banks, credit unions we use, and even government organizations. All of these and more store information about us. They all comply with information security regulations to some extent. But how much and how well? Our identities are in the hands of those who store our details.
Database data loss
If our PII (personally identifiable information) is set free, it will most likely be due to an electronic data breach of some sort, in a (probably-large) batch with others’ information.
We used to be concerned that manilla folders containing our records were physically locked up. Who had access to them? How were they discarded? Shredded or dumped in a Dumpster? There’s so much more to worry about now, and so much more than a single set of paperwork. Our most sensitive secrets and deepest dirt are stored electronically on hard drives, on servers, in the cloud, backed up, on laptops, mobile phones, and even on thumbdrives.
Laptops and thumbdrives are lost and stolen every day. Databases are breached every day. This is where the risk is, and it’s out of our hands.
The advantage goes to data thieves like RogelioHackett who, until a little slip-up, broke into the computer networks of businesses, downloaded credit card information, and sold it for profit. Big profit.
“The bad news is that banks and businesses have not made great progress in the fight against account takeover fraud,” says The Information Security Media Group in its 2011 Business Banking Trust Study. Bringing institutions to compliance has been a painful process.
Security vulnerabilities are uncovered daily in computer networks everywhere, from the Australian Parliament House to the Pentagon to our water supplies In the 3/28/11 Los Angeles Times, Ken Dilanian wrote that “Impeding the move toward bolstering U.S. infrastructure is the government’s lack of authority to coerce industry to secure its networks and industry’s lack of an incentive to implement such protections.” He was referring to the threat of terrorist cyberattacks, but our personal security is at risk as well.
Read this for the state of cybersecurity:
A new survey reveals that roughly three-quarters of energy companies and utilities experienced at least one data breach in the past 12 months. … Seventy-one percent of respondents said that “the management team in their organization does not understand or appreciate the value of IT security.” Moreover, only 39 percent of organizations were found to be actively watching for advanced persistent threats, 67 percent were not using “state of the art” technology to stop attacks against SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, and 41 percent said their strategy for SCADA security was not proactive. The survey also concluded that the leading threat for energy utilities was not external attackers, but rather inside ones—43 percent of utilities cited “negligent or malicious insiders” as causing the highest number of data breaches. …
To get a fuller grasp of the number of electronic records lost or stolen, take a peek at the DataLoss DataBase project, which “documents known and reported data loss incidents world-wide.” You can search by type of data lost (Social Security numbers, financial information, credit card numbers, etc.); by the industry sector (business, government, educational institution, etc.) You can see if the breach was by an insider or an outside attacker, and whether it was malicious or accidental. And you can search by many types of breach: improper disposal, a hacked or lost computer, a stolen drive, a web attack, etc. I’m especially fond of the datalossdb Twitter feed, for minute-by-minute reports of data losses, with links to known details. For example:
http://bit.ly/eDcD2s – Blockbuster Video – Employee and applicants’ records containing names, contact details, Social Security and personnel matters found discarded
http://bit.ly/gW2WYs – AllianceBernstein Holding LP – Employee downloaded client files and transactions before resigning
http://bit.ly/hdmt25 – Hyundai Capital – Personal credit rating information of 420,000 vehicle loan customers plus 13,000 security passwords acquired by hackers
And on and on. The feed may shock you daily, as it does me. Why is our vital information handled so carelessly?
Well-known and trusted companies like Brookstone, AbeBooks, Ralphs Grocery, Ritz-Carlton, Smith’s Food & Drug, Best Buy, Verizon, etc., assure us they store our information responsibly. Then they farm it out to Epsilon online marketing, a company they do not control. Epsilon got hacked.
More than 65 companies have been impacted, to the great risk and inconvenience of their customers. I got emails after the breach from three of the businesses, warning that data on me had been among the stolen records. Security experts now expect a massive increase in “spear phishing,” in which individuals are personally targeted and tricked by spoofs of companies they have a legitimate relationship with. I get plenty of phishing email already, and some of them look damn believable. Expect them to look even better now, addressed to us by name.
I’m not going to address every risk and precaution here. There is much, and it’s all to be read elsewhere on and off this blog. My points are two:
1. Our ordinary everyday activities may expose us to a little risk of credit card fraud and identity theft, but the big risk is out of our hands.
Pattaya, Thailand’s got to be the seediest, one-track party-town in the world. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Huge signs advertising the Fcuk Inn Bar and Kiss Food and Drink make the theme obvious. Couples like this one are ubiquitous.
Hot, sweaty days are for advertising the possibilities of hot, sweaty nights. Bored “massage” girls pose on plastic chairs in front of their shops, long bare legs ending in spike-heeled evening shoes dangling in the trash-filled gutters.
Just across the narrow lanes, clusters of old, fat, ugly, white men slouch and slump over beers, gathering confidence from one another. They all look the same. They all wear floppy shorts and t-shirts and sandals. Some wear socks with their sandals. These are the tunnel-vision men those pretty Thai girls are dreaming of.
The local specialty, called ladyboys, also ogle these men. Look at the 23-year-old ladyboy pictured at left, who just had her bag snatched while riding on the back of her Italian boyfriend’s motorcycle. (A reversal of the classic Italian scippatori theft, in which the thief—not the victim—is the backseat rider.) The Italian “boyfriend” may or may not have known what was under the coy ladyboy’s skirt.
After dark the lanes explode with open-air billiards bars, tiny beer bars, bars named for your country, pole-dancing bars, and enormous “pussy bars” offering “pussy menus” and buckets of ping pong balls. Establishments large and small feature alluring girls.
The city’s other passion is food. I love the street food culture in Pattaya. Entire restaurants zip through the streets on the backs of tricycles and on motorcycle sidecars, their sauce buckets sloshing and condiments precarious. In grubby plastic baskets they carry the myriad fresh and fermented ingredients that their specialties comprise. Seductive food is cooked to order on smoky charcoal grills or stirred over car-battery-operated stoves.
Hot, ready-to-eat curries are peddled from wooden trays on the backs of bikes, single servings tied up in clear plastic baggies. Mysterious delicacies are baked in bamboo canes—the ultimate environmentally-friendly fast-food container. Longons, lychees, mangosteens, jackfruit, dragonfruit, durian—the tropical fruit displays are mouthwatering.
Whatever your pleasure, Pattaya is to drool for. Western men tend to visit for three week stays. Many or most have met their exotic girls online and come specifically to see them. They pay the girls about US$100 a night to stay with them in their hotels. They might visit their girls two or three times a year. Sometimes the couples marry and the men take the girls away to live in their Western countries.
For a beach resort town, Pattaya’s remarkably unattractive. Where trees should be, tangled electrical wires form a shadeless canopy over streets, the thick cords nearly obscuring the mosaic of signs for Cialis, Viagra, pharmacy, clinic, laundry, and rooms-for-rent. There’s nothing for the eye here—just hard-driven business: that is, the business of the sexual drive. It’s a lewd town, but an honest one, advertising what it’s about in every way it can.
Despite the focus on negative experiences compiled on this site, it is possible to travel without being ripped off. It bothers Bob and me that our blog, as well as our lectures, present travel as a minefield of risk and theft. Because we discuss and relate mostly the catastrophes, the sadnesses, and the evils of travel, our audience gets a scary mass of horror stories compressed into an unfair perspective.
Bob and I have just completed a totally theftless traipse across Asia, and I’m in the mood to write about the joys of travel—the foreign experiences we seek, as well as the serendipitous discoveries.
Japans shoe rules
I’ll begin with a simple little story here and, unless I interrupt myself for something time-sensitive, I plan to post several more Asian vignettes.
Say goodbye to Western street shoes for the duration of the stay.Temporary shoes, just to get us to our rooms.
As a child, I had school shoes and play shoes. I have quite a few more now, but no dedicated “toilet shoes.” There are no communal shoes in my house, either.
Last month, I had the great fortune to stay in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Upon arrival, we leave our street shoes at the entry, and slide into flat black leather slippers.
Indoor sandals with tabi socks.
These are used only to get to our rooms because once there, proper woven sandals await—but they require special socks. We change into multi-layered and belted yukatas, and tabi socks, which have a split toe. The split toe allows us to wear the thonged sandals. But not in the room! On tatami mats, we pad around in just the tabi socks. (Fresh ones provided every day.)
Clogs for the stone floor.Sandals for the private garden.
For stepping down into the stone-floor garden room next to the glass doors, two pairs of white leather clogs are strategically positioned. Slide open the glass doors to enjoy the bamboo, mosses, koi pond, and hot soaking pool. Step out, and thick wooden garden shoes await.
Slippers for our own tiny toilet room only.
One pair of woven toilet slippers are always arranged toes-forward just inside the bathroom door. They are not to leave the bathroom! One must back out when exiting, so the shoes are ready to be stepped into next time. We found toilet slippers in many restaurant bathrooms outside the inn. You wouldn’t want to get close to the toilet in just your socks, would you?
At the same time, you wouldn’t want to wear your toilet shoes outside of the toilet room. Yet we find it’s easy to forget to take them off. We repeatedly looked down in horror to see toilet slippers on our feet in the bathing room. Gross!
We wear the woven-straw thonged sandals when leaving our rooms, but leave them at the door of any tatami room—toes pointed out, of course. Everybody’s are the same, so it doesn’t matter which you step into when you leave.
At the tatami dining room, most of us leave our sandals helter-skelter. When we come out, they’re neatly arranged, toes-out, for step-in-and-go convenience.
Wooden shoes for outdoor strolls.
Want to go for a walk in the woods? At the inn’s entry, grab a pair of wooden outdoor shoes, the wider ones for men. These are particularly tricky to walk in, sized to fit no one. But—no Western shoes until check out!
Some of us have considerable difficulty with the one-size format. My nephew’s size 12 tootsies hang off the backs of his shoes, while my tiny sister developes a sliding shuffle to avoid inadvertently stepping out of her slippers. Our men, considerably larger than the Japanese, unanimously cry pain.
Shoes, lit.
We visit a martial arts studio across the road to watch the ryokan’s chef demonstrate his sword skills. We wear the outdoor wooden shoes to get to the studio. On entering, we’re given sandals to cross a stone floor—three or four steps across—then ditch them and wear only tabi socks when stepping onto the tatami mat.
Have you lost count? That’s eight separate single-function footwares to use (and learn the rules of) while staying at a ryokan. Mistakes were made, of course.
The Nocturnal Sting and the Bite
Skansen, Stockholm’s outdoor museum, suffered a nasty spate of pickpocketing incidents one midsummer. Up to eight known incidents a day occurred within the dark confines of the nocturnal animal exhibit, a part of Skansen’s aquarium.
Jonas Wahlström, owner of the Månskenshallen (Moonshine Hall), had an idea. He placed a particularly irritable five-pound Australian beaver rat into the shoulder-bag of an aquarium employee, and had her mingle with visitors at the exhibit.
An earthy smell permeated the cave-like area, and the only light came from the dimly-lit habitats. Visitors tended to murmur softly, as if they might otherwise disturb the animals. Therefore, it was shocking to everyone when a deathly human scream erupted and a heavy animal shot up toward the low ceiling before thudding to the ground.
There was havoc, of course. Visitors screamed and clumped together as far as possible from the hubbub, too curious to flee. When the poor animal fell, the aquarium employee who had been wearing it dropped to the floor and trapped it with her shoulder-bag before it could cause further harm to anyone else or itself. No one saw the man who screamed.
The badly bitten pickpocket left a trail of blood on his way out, and it is a testament to Swedish mentality that he escaped so easily. The trap was laid, the bait was fresh, the exits unguarded.
