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Always Pack a Runcible Spoon a round the world adventure possibly involving a pussycat, an owl and a pea-green boat |
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Categories
About this Runcible Blog (1)
About Us (2) Absurd photo du jour (5) Adding a comment (2) Asia is easy to love (9) China (48) Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty (18) Hong Kong (7) India (43) Indonesia (7) Japan (12) Life after RTW (2) Singapore (3) Taiwan (3) Thailand (19) Things that perturb me (3) Travel thoughts and whimsy (10)
Recent Entries
* Disruptions to scheduled broadcasting
* Day Eight: The Mechanics of Desire * Day Seven: Kyoto Women * Day Six: A Gastronomic Adventure (or kindly pass me the mucous, please) * Plastic food writ large * Day Five: Homelessness and Pinball * Day Four: Geisha and a Bullet-train * Day Three: Choco Ring and Angel French * Lucky cats are everywhere * Day Two: A Ten Tatami Mat Room and a Very Hot Bath * Recidivist Miffy * Day One: Landing, Super-travellers, Vending Machines * Eight days, eight addictions * Japan: the Godzilla of travel destinations? * Taipei: the surrealness reaches its zenith * Taipei: surreal experiences upon settling in * Taipei: surreal experiences on entry * It's milky, it's tangy, it's fizzy ... it's FantaLactic! * Cheapskates ride the yum cha train again * Sad about Taiwan
Archives
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May 22, 2005Disruptions to scheduled broadcastingJust by way of apology, I wanted to say that I have been unable to post for the past little while due to a server crisis that befell the fabbo crew at BootsnAll. It seems to have been fixed now:...Read this update May 21, 2005Day Eight: The Mechanics of DesireThere’s acres of fake tan and miles of russet-blonde locks on the young women here in Osaka. It’s Japan’s second biggest city, and so much more besides. Compared to mild, tender-to-the-bite Kyoto (tailor-made to please tourists), Osaka seems insanely busy...Read this update May 20, 2005May 19, 2005Day Six: A Gastronomic Adventure (or kindly pass me the mucous, please)We had a date at 12.00pm sharp today, and we couldn't be late. Our date was for lunch at a restaurant that's nameless to us as we can't read Japanese. It's tucked away down the thin alleyway of Nishiki Market,...Read this update Posted by Tiffany on May 19, 2005 07:47 PM
Category: Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty, Japan May 18, 2005Plastic food writ largeI can't explain it - I won't even try. Plastic food is a BIG concept here, but this spacecraft giving birth to baked beans is just in a realm of its own....Read this update Day Five: Homelessness and PinballSomehow, in all the stereotyped images of Japan that lodged in my head over 26 years, thoughts about homelessness were nowhere to be seen. Why does no one mention Japan's homeless - whose numbers do not seem inconsiderable - when...Read this update May 17, 2005Day Four: Geisha and a Bullet-trainTired day, rising earlyish to open the sliding shutters and enjoy the maple-syrup coloured slanting sunshine as it hits the futon. We leave today for Kyoto. The ryokan owner materialises as we're going, and we have a very J-exchange wherein...Read this update May 16, 2005Day Three: Choco Ring and Angel FrenchRise to the gorgeous, slow light entering the ryokan through paper screens. Hurry out in case etiquette demands that our hosts be given the opportunity to clean without us in their way. Skipper over to Mister Donuts, where we order...Read this update Day Two: A Ten Tatami Mat Room and a Very Hot BathOur ryokan is beautiful. The interior downstairs is cool and just-slightly dim. Incense is vague in the air like a half-remembered conversation, and the atmosphere is calm and precise. We left last night's business hotel and brought our bags over...Read this update Recidivist MiffyMiffy behind bars in Fukuoka (incarcerated with that other well-known offender, Pooh)...Read this update May 15, 2005Day One: Landing, Super-travellers, Vending MachinesSoon before landing, as the body of the plane started to swoop low in earnest, l saw the edge of the island like a bitten biscuit. Just jutting into the black space of night, all filled with pinpricks of light....Read this update May 14, 2005Eight days, eight addictionsToday's officially 'Japan Day Eight' in the scrappy notes I have been scribbling to myself ever since the night we fled Taipei and arrived here. Eight days and yet I've told you basically nothing: my bad. The reason (in addition...Read this update May 11, 2005Japan: the Godzilla of travel destinations?Japan seems to loom very large in the collective travel consciousness somehow. There are plenty of other expensive destinations on the planet, for example, but mention you're going to Japan and you can expect to see people's eyes widen like...Read this update May 10, 2005Taipei: the surrealness reaches its zenithI could go on and on about our final day in Taipei - but it would bore you senseless. Suffice to say, it was one of those travel days where everything and nothing happened. Where lots and lots of trvial...Read this update May 09, 2005Taipei: surreal experiences upon settling inFinally, Taipei's bus and metro systems disgorged us onto the deserted streets around the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, where we had arranged to meet R, our host. We found him waiting for us, since the hour-and-a-half he'd estimated it...Read this update Taipei: surreal experiences on entryThe airport in Taipei seems crappy and run-down; it's lino-floored and filled with those tired yellow lightboards you see at BKK. At least in my present frame of mind, it feels tiny and provincial, like arriving on some forgotten island....Read this update It's milky, it's tangy, it's fizzy ... it's FantaLactic!This particular gem is from Taiwan. It represents one of the best things to happen to us there, on our brief and ill-fated stopover. It IS Fanta, just not as you know it ... it's milky and fizzy and slightly...Read this update May 08, 2005Cheapskates ride the yum cha train againIt was supposed to be our final fling with Hong Kong. We'd had foot massages that made us wince (apparently, internal organs I hadn't even heard of were in dire trouble), and we'd shopped for gizmos ‘til consumerist society lost...Read this update Posted by Tiffany on May 8, 2005 05:54 PM
Category: Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty, Hong Kong May 07, 2005Sad about TaiwanWe are heading to Taiwan tonight. It’s just a very brief stopover – two nights – on our way to Fukuoka, Japan. Taipei was actually was meant to be three nights, but we delayed and stayed an extra day in...Read this update Filthy lucre in tabloid technicolourHong Kong and cash go hand in hand in innumerable ways. Cash is the only way to pay when hammering home a deal on cutting edge electronics sold in the city’s back lanes and byways. The scent of gold shops...Read this update FonziesNeed I say more? (My sincere apologies if you happen to live in a country where these 'corn snacks' are known as Fonzies [ha! laughed again just typing that!] ... I'm sure that if the Fonzies brand is familiar to...Read this update May 03, 2005We of Hong Kong's glorious Golden MileFrom the tiny, high-up windows of Cosmic Guesthouse we can just about reach out and touch the windows of the salubrious ‘Golden Mile’ Holiday Inn. Budget dosshouse and ritzy hotel, kissing up against one another smackbang in the middle of...Read this update Certifiable madnessWe had to have been certifiable, crossing the border between Guangdong and Hong Kong by bus on the morning of the first day of one of China’s largest public holidays, May Day. May Day heralds the start of ‘Golden Week’...Read this update Yum cha equals homeOkay, okay, I admit it: there might have been another reason why our final stop in mainland China just happened to be Guangzhou. And that reason would be yum cha – aka dim sum. Those of you who know Andrew...Read this update Posted by Tiffany on May 3, 2005 05:55 PM
Category: China, Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty Durian breath and the city: GuangzhouGuangzhou is the contemporary name for the place English speakers used to call 'Canton'. Canton lives on in our word for the language in these parts - Cantonese - but other than that, it's now firmly Guangzhou all the way....Read this update May 01, 2005I do so like green eggs and hamI love air travel. I love it in a 'Green Eggs and Ham' manner: I would like it here or there, I would like it anywhere. Indeed, I like it here in China very much. My ardour is fervent, ridiculous,...Read this update |
Latest Comments
Madhu: Wow..geisha's...in real life. I always thought the... [read]
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