Monthly Archives: September 2012

Trust Me!

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Sometimes you have a meal that is more than just a nourishment for your body — it’s an experience in itself. What makes these meals special could be any combination of the following factors: the quality and deliciousness of the food, the company you eat with, the place where you eat, the person who prepared the food, or perhaps the unique circumstance and experience you have while eating.

While planning for our trip, my brother said that there was one experience he wanted to share with me on his last night in Los Angeles before moving to the East Coast for good: having sushi at a restaurant he (and many Angelinos) considered as the best in LA, a place called Sushi Nozawa. This place was known for its sushi chef, Mr. Nozawa, who had been preparing sushi for more than 40 years serving only the best he could find at the market at any given day. Mr. Nozawa was also nicknamed ‘the sushi nazi’ by some because he implemented a very strict rule of dining at his establishment. His motto was ‘trust me’ — you’re supposed to trust him to prepare the meal for you and eat your meal in the manner that he suggested as the way to consume the food (e.g. don’t ask for extra soy sauce, wasabi, etc.). And while dining at his place, you should turn off your cell phone to focus on the dining experience. But in return, you would experience among the best sushi dinner anywhere.

My brother had been there once, and hearing his description about it, I was quite excited to go for this dinner. We went to the restaurant… and found that it was closed for that night. We’re quite disappointed. As we tried to figure out an alternative, my brother remembered that there was another restaurant in Santa Monica that was similar to Sushi Nozawa as the chef was supposedly a disciple of the master chef. Thanks to Google, we were able to locate the restaurant. It’s called Sasabune.

We drove to Santa Monica and found Sasabune. As we entered the restaurant, the host mentioned that the place only served sushi omakase (‘chef’s choice), and it didn’t have dishes like california roll, tempura, or other dishes you might expect at a typical Japanese restaurant in the US. We’re okay with that, and after starting with typical green tea and miso soup, we had our sushi omakase, served a couple of pieces at a time. There were twelve courses altogether, and every single one of them came out amazing. The fish were so fresh and clean tasting; we could tell this was a first rate sushi experience. It was easily the best sushi meal I had ever had in my life.

We didn’t get a chance to eat at Nozawa, and earlier this year, Sushi Nozawa closed its doors and it’s now succeeded by a new chain run by Mr. Nozawa’s son called Sugarfish that took the Nozawa’s philosophy and quality standard to a more modern concept. But I’m glad we ended up at Sasabune that seemed to carry the same spirit and served equally high quality of meals.

I took the photo below just before we started our omakase meal. The chopstick cover had a nice description of what sushi is, and the tag line similar to Nozawa’s: trust me!

Trust me!

Facebook and Traveling

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In the last few years, Facebook and other social networking tools have become an integral part of society. it’s hard to believe that none of these existed more than 10 years ago. I personally started using Facebook less than four years ago. Now checking Facebook for the latest happenings from my friends is part of a daily routine, and it is becoming a norm to announce major life events or share important news in one’s life through Facebook postings, and for others to reciprocate with replies there.

Facebook also enables connection (or re-connection) among friends who otherwise live world’s apart. In my case, my list of Facebook friends include those who I interact with frequently in real life, as well as some old friends whom I knew from as far back as elementary school in Indonesia and who live half around the world away from where I live.

In relation to traveling, having this network of friends can be nice in planning a trip. Sometimes you find out that someone you know had been to the place you wanted to go, and you can ask them for thoughts or advice in planning your trip. Or better yet, someone you know may actually live in the area that you’re visiting, and not only you can ask them for advice on their area to visit, but you may also include a visit with them as part of your trip.

When my brother and I were planning our coast to coast road trip, we noticed that we would be passing several places where we knew of friends whom we can meet along the way. So we checked with these friends to see if we could meet up even only for a meal during a stopover that would give us a chance to catch up and see them in person.

The first of these meetings was with an old friend of mine who lives in Southern California area. We went to junior high and high school together back in Indonesia, and reconnected via Facebook as we re-established the network of old friends from school years ago. Now she lives in California with her husband and young daughter. When I told her that I would be coming to Southern California to start my road trip with my brother, she suggested that we meet up for lunch if we could make time for that. And fortunately it worked out pretty well and we were able to meet up.

The photo below was taken at a small Indonesian restaurant where my brother and I met up with my friend and her family. During the two years that my brother lived in the area, he had become a regular visitor to this restaurant and its adjacent grocery store, so he knew the store keeper and restaurant staff. This lunch also served as his last visit to the place to say goodbye before he moved on to the next chapter of his life back in the East Coast. So in one lunch, we were able to meet old friends, say goodbye to others, and also enjoy delicious foods. Not a bad start for the trip.

Simpang Asia lunch

Santa Monica

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Santa Monica is a city about 14 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, California. It is known for its beach, and as an affluent area where some of the Holywood rich and famous live. Many people probably recognize the Santa Monica Pier, a landmark in Southern California with the little amusement park at the pier, white sandy beach nearby, and the row of expensive beach front homes. And the image of people at the beach and the lifeguards in red swimsuits were made famous worldwide with the TV series Baywatch.

I didn’t know much about the area until few years ago when my brother got a job with a company located there. During a couple of years that he worked and lived there, I had several opportunities to visit him, and came to appreciate the place. My brother lived in an apartment about 5-minute walk from the beach, and from his living room of his apartment we could actually see the beach in a distance. The temperature is pretty constant about few degrees cooler than in the inland, and the area enjoys around 310 days of sunshine a year. Despite of being in a driven metropolitan like Los Angeles, life seems to be more laid back as you get closer to the beach.

Few months before my brother moved back to the East Coast, I had a major life event happening, and my brother suggested that I took a little break and came over to California at least for a few days. I did that, and not only it was nice to hang out with my brother for a few days, but it’s also nice to just walk around the beach simply to get fresh air, watch life goes on around, and think about the next steps I would take in my life. What we didn’t know was that my brother himself would go through similar situation not long after, and he ended up making decision to move back to the East Coast afterwards.

The last time I went there was to mark the beginning of the road trip back to the East Coast with my brother. Now that I don’t really have anyone I know living there, I’m not sure if I have any reason for going there to visit. But at least the place has more meaning to me than simply a place you see on TV shows.

The photo below was taken the night before we started our road trip. This was the neon sign at the famous Santa Monica Pier.

Neon sign

Coast-to-Coast Road Trip

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A while ago I wrote a blog post about Route 66, based on a road trip that I did with my brother three years ago. For the next series of blog posts, I’ll write about our experience doing this ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ trip.

When my brother asked me if I would be interested in doing a road trip with him from California to New York, it didn’t take me long to say yes. I had done long road trips in the US before, including some with my brother, but the thought of doing a coast-to-coast trip across the continent sounded intriguing, and I think it would be one of those that we would remember for the rest of our lives. We wanted it to be a good, lasting memory, so we tried to be planned accordingly to make the best use of our trip time.

The main reason for the trip was my brother’s relocation from Santa Monica, CA, to New York City. He had some belongings that couldn’t be easily transported coast-to-coast without paying significant shipping cost, so he thought it would be more cost effective to rent a car for one-way trip, load it up with his belongings, and drive it across the country. Given the long distance, he didn’t want to do it alone.

Since my brother was very busy with the logistics for getting things wrapped up in California before he officially moved for good, he asked me to plan out the trip. I always enjoyed the planning aspect of the trip, so I agreed to take on the task.

The first decision we needed to make was the route we would take for this road trip. The start and end points of the trip were fixed, and we also had a time constraint. My brother had just started with his new work position, so he didn’t have much vacation time that he could take. More over, he had to be back in New York City for an event. Altogether, we had about maximum 6 days time to complete the trip. Considering the distance and safe traveling time, we pretty much had to take one of the direct routes between the two end points without much detours.

Even with the constraints above, we still had decision to make in terms of the route to take. There were several possible routes we could take that would meet the travel time criterion. I used a book by Jamie Jensen called Road Trip USA that was quite helpful in providing overview of the major routes across the country. We decided to take one that is roughly tracing the famous ‘Mother Road,’ Route 66, and then finish out with a route that was pretty familiar to me in the Midwest / Mid-Atlantic area. For the Route 66 part, there were also several books I read to learn about places along the route to decide roughly where we would stop.

Beyond the route planning, we made rough arrangements to meet some people we knew who lived in the places that we passed during this trip. But other than that, we left everything else open as we wanted to keep the trip somewhat flexible.

We ended up going around 3,300 miles over 16 states in five days. The map below shows the route and the stops that we took along the way.

Coast to coast route

First Travel Journal Wrap-Up

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Today I reached a milestone in blogging about my travel experience. At the beginning of this year I set out to write blog entries about the experience from a trip that actually happened about a year before. I decided to write about the trip in chronological order and covering experience I remembered about the trip. There was no other pre-planning on topics to write. 244 blog entries later, I finally reached the end of writing about this trip. It is quite significant because not only it’s the first time I wrote about a trip in its entirety, but also the trip itself was the first multi-country trip I had ever done in my life. I’m looking forward to writing more about other trips I had done (domestically or internationally), but to wrap up this series, here are some thoughts about the trip and about the blog writing experience.

Some thoughts about the trip:

  • Culture sensitivity: It is very important when traveling to be prepared and be sensitive about the local culture you’re about to immerse yourself into. Doing a little bit of research and learning prior the trip would help you understand what people value in the places you visit, the similarities and differences between your culture and theirs, and avoid committing cultural faux pas.
  • People to meet: One important part of a trip that enrich the experience is the people who you meet during the trip. This could be fellow travelers, the hosts or guides, people who provide services to you, or just random local people. Sometimes the interaction you have with them makes your experience unique and memorable.
  • Share experience: One great way to learn about the local culture is to share your personal experience or something from your own culture with the locals whom you meet. What you consider as ‘normal’ day-to-day experience at home might be a fascinating, novel thing to learn for the locals. Conversely, the ‘normal’ things for the local might be something new and fascinating for you to learn.
  • Overcome language barrier: I’m not naturally an outgoing person, and if you take out one tool I’m comfortable with (e.g. ability to communicate in a language I’m fluent in), then it becomes even more challenging to interact with others. But I need to constantly remind myself about the previous points above regarding people. There is more to the trip than just taking in the scenery or experiencing things yourself. And sometimes all it takes is the willingness to risk of making a fool out of yourself by attempting to say few words in the local language or using hand gestures, and keeping things lighthearted with a smile to break the ice and connect with the locals.
  • Don’t sweat small stuff: There will be things that don’t go according to plan — flight delays, bad weather, place closings, etc. Don’t let these ruin your trip, instead look at the unexpected as an opportunity to experience something different. Make the best use of your time to ‘make lemonade from lemons.’

Some thoughts about the travel blogging experience:

  • Ultimate souvenir: Dave Fox in his book Globejotting calls travel journal as the ‘ultimate souvenir.’ in a way, I think he is right as this is a great way to share your experience with others, and it’s a wonderful way to relive and cherish the experience.
  • Photos and notes to remember: If you want to write a travel journal, you need to keep things that help you remember the details about the trip. Photos are good visual reminders of what you experienced, but there are also things that are difficult to capture in a picture like emotions, smell, taste, sound, or even details like names. For those, it’s helpful to keep notes. The notes don’t have to be long or perfectly written; they just have to be enough to remind you about the experience.
  • Appreciate every moment: When you start reliving the travel experience, it’s amazing to think of a lot of little details that you would otherwise forget or overlook if you don’t come back and rethink about it. These add up to make your trip unique and memorable in comparison to others’ trip to the same places.
  • Learning more from writing: When I thought of a topic about my trip that I wanted to write about, I often did additional research about related facts to make sure what I’m writing is accurate. During that process, I often times learn about some facts or trivia that I didn’t know before. This made the process of writing even more interesting to me as I love to learn about things.
  • Taking time to write: Some people would write their travel blogs during the trip itself or only write random things the think or feel about the trip. I guess it’s a matter of personal preference or style, but to me, it is more worthwhile to take my time and think about what I’m about to write, as it would make it richer both to the readers of the blog as well as to me as the writer.

So that’s it about my Southeast Asian trip in 2010-2011. The photo below is a page from my passport with stamps from the countries I visited during this trip. Prior to this, my passport was pretty much clean and empty.

Stamps on passport