Adventures & Things @lburz - Tumblr Blog

Maiko waiting for their taxis like the rest of us...

#geiko #maiko #geisha #Kyoto #gion #Japan

Memoirs of Geisha: Exploring Gion

My first day in Japan I had to leave my hotel in Kyoto almost as soon as I arrived to meet up with two other people near Gion, which is a hanamachi - or Flower Town. This isn’t actually related to flowers, but geisha! There are several hanamachi in Kyoto and all over Japan but they are much smaller. In Gion alone, just one flower town within Kyoto, up until WWII there were thousands of geisha. Now there are about 200. I read somewhere that in the height of their popularity there were 80,000 geisha in Japan.

Kyoto has its own dialect, so the say geiko, not geisha. A geiko in training is a maiko, and that status lasts for about 5 years before you become a full fledged geiko. You can expect to spend enormous amounts of money to visit a tea house and see a maiko or geiko perform, thousands of dollars. Don’t get to excited however, as most tea houses are members only affairs where you must be referred. A foreigner could not just walk in, no matter how much money you may have.

Our guide for the evening was absolutely lovely, and almost immediately we stumbled upon seven or eight maiko taking a photo outside of their boarding house. This was thrilling, as you just have to hope that you’ll spot one on her way to an appointment, so to see a group of them all dressed and about to head out is extremely rare. We were also able to see the main tea house that was used in Memoirs of a Geisha. While there are definitely inaccuracies in the movie, it’s not completely far off and it was amazing to see. At one point, there was a maiko leaving a tea house with a man who looked just like Ken Watanabe’s character in Memoirs of a Geisha, who I had a huge crush on when the movie first came out, so that was quite a thrill!

We walked around Gion and learned before heading for a kaiseki meal, a great way to start off a trip to Japan. Kaiseki is a combination of Japanese imperial cuisine and temple cuisine for monks. It’s big in Kyoto, and is a multi-course meal that has dishes based on the season. After dinner we went back to the hotel and I absolutely collapsed!

#kaiseki #gion #kyoto #japan travel #japan #geisha #geiko #maiko #memoirs of a geisha

Shots from our day on the road.

On our full day in the Sacred Valley we were doing the via ferrata climb, about 500 total meters of rock climbing with fixed metal rods stuck into the cliff face. Sound epic? I know!

I am cautious of heights, being a tiny person I think that I mostly belong on the ground or at least in a little burrow. Climbing up the metal ladder itself seemed perfectly safe, but it was not idiot proof. You have to hook yourself on and off (don’t worry, there’s a backup cable) each time you hit a break. So a moron could unclip both of their cables and just fall. It’s SO far.

But, it was pretty exhilarating, I could tell the boys were really loving it. My favorite part was the last photo, we had to lean against the rock then slowly raise ourselves up onto the cable ladder. I didn’t mind moving sideways, just up above.

I’m super short (obviously), which meant I couldn’t reach all of the hand holds. This meant I had to find natural ones in the rock, or in a more traumatic incident, hop, from place to place. Still, just want to emphasize that I was hooked on and even if I had fallen I would have been saved by the safety cable.

Kris was like a little gazelle, so far ahead that we couldn’t see him which gave me some hard anxiety. All was well though, he waited for us on a ledge. It was pretty cool, we opened our backpacks for our tiny packed lunch, and could see the whole valley around us. In that moment I was pleased with my decision, even though the last half of the climb I was equally terrified.

The last half of the day was a zip line, which I’m way more comfortable with. The highlight on this was the one where we got to go together. I have gone side by side with someone, but I actually had to wrap my legs around Kris. We weren’t quite heavy enough to make it all the way, so we had to get pulled along.

#via ferrata #zip line #peru #South America #travel

Quick thoughts on Peru

I like bulleted lists, and there are some fun things that don’t really fit with any of the posts...

- Everyone here is super lovely, even when you’re bargaining people are sweet and friendly and seem happy to have you. It reminds me of Southeast Asia, which is probably why I like it!

- A ton of food here has lemongrass, ginger, even coconut milk - love a little fusions but I would have never expected it.

- Our guide is part of the Inca religion, which still has a lot of followers in Peru. They aren’t supposed to get tattoos so you aren’t marked when you die which I thought was interesting. I love seeing that a lot of the culture has been retained. I also saw a Buddhist monk wandering around Cuzco - who would have thought?

- The bar snack here instead of peanuts is dry roasted corn kernals, I’m super into it.

- Quinoa has been grown here for hundreds and hundreds of years - so despite what the basics would have you think quinoa is not new.

- Guacamole for breakfast is a thing and I am in love with it.

#Peru #Don't want to forget #Travel #South America

Get in my belly tarantula!!! Not so scary now are you?! #Cambodia #localeats

#localeats #cambodia

Rosella and coconut ice cream... I love SEA! #Makphet #Vientiane #Laos

#makphet #vientiane #laos

The sky last night was crazy! Love a good storm. #VangVieng #Laos

#vangvieng #laos

Lao PDR: Please Don’t Rush

Another busy day in Laos today, by which I mean rather relaxing and stunningly beautiful. Early in the morning we took part in the alms giving (tak bat), but I’ll do a more detailed post on this separately because it was so special.

After a breakfast of pancakes with cinnamon butter and ginger syrup (yes.) and french toast with caramelized banana we were off for a two hour boat trip on the mighty Mekong. I saw some great local life, pictures to follow as always.

We stopped at a few villages, and I learned that one of the reasons people ask if you’re married is because it impacts the way and level of respect with which they would speak to you, just like your age would. I’m not sure whether this is only in Laos or throughout Southeast Asia.

The language is very similar to Thai, if fact my northern Thai friends could be understood just about perfectly by a Lao person, which makes it a touch easier to learn the key phrases in the language - though I can’t imagine how badly I’m butchering the tones. The food is also somewhat similar, it’s a yummy cross between northern Thai and what I know of Khmer cuisine so far. It’s a landlocked country, so it makes sense that it will have been influenced by its neighbors, but the feel and charm is very much its own.

The ride down this part of the Mekong was beautiful, so peaceful compared to the bustling markets and shipping lanes I saw in Vietnam. We stopped at the Pak Ou caves, which were amazing - there are literally THOUSANDS of Buddha statues in every conceivable nook and cranny, some hundreds of years old, some only a few. Photos and details to follow later.

Tonight was low key, we had a swim in the amazing pool here at the Amantaka and walked to the night market - they aren’t stingy with the coconut cream on mango sticky rice here so that was an actual delight... I had planned on staying up and posting about the alms as well but I’m exhausted from our 5:15 am wake up!

#Laos #Luang Prabang #Tak Bat #Mekong #travel #Southeast Asia #wanderlust #Aman #Indochina

purplebuddhaproject

Mussels with lemongrass, fish sauce, and chili. Love Vietnam #theaudleyway

#theaudleyway

Hong Kong Airport is worrying me

Arrived in Hong Kong after my first premium economy flight, which made a 16 hour flight shockingly bearable. I had wagu beef with rosemary potatoes abd TWO ice creams because the guy next to me was lactose intolerant. Wine was a mistake though... Still I'm not sure how I'm gonna fly home economy now that I know how the other half lives. Anyways, in Hong Kong Airport the very first thing they announce is a bunch of scary warnings about Ebola and I'm like... Thought we were done with this? Now it's 10 minutes to boarding, nobody is at the gate and they literally just announced where to go. Since I landed I've also been warned off birds, poultry (different than birds apparently) and camels, and almost been run over by several different packs of tour groups from the mainland. It's a jungle out there! Crossing my fingers I get to Ho Chi Minh in a reasonable amount of time.

#hong kong #travel