Back to the Start

I can't even begin to name all the ways that my first trip overseas made me who I am, but nevertheless, studying abroad, even for only the month it was, had a huge impact on young, (relatively) innocent me.  Today I've come full circle, made it back to the beginning, and so I thought I'd write about it.  Venice was my first, unless you count Canada, which none of us do (sorry, Engrish), and even if we did, I didn't choose it.  In the fall of my fourth year of college I took printmaking and my professor, Subler, talked about a program that the University of Iowa did in the years of the Venetian Biennale (those would be odd-numbered ones), and I knew I had to do it.  I hadn't been obsessed with Venice the way I once was with Paris, but the thought wouldn't leave my head.  I HAD to do this.  That's how my dad ended up driving me to the Kansas City airport early in July 2001, slipping me a $100 bill when I was ready to go through security, "For emergencies" (he does that), and turning me loose on an unsuspecting world.

Well.  Not quite yet.  It takes a little more than an hour to fly from KC to Chicago, where I spent the night before my first trans-Atlantic flight, and maybe that long to get from Midway to O'Hare, which a number of people were very helpful in helping me to manage.  It's hard for me to believe this now, fourteen years later, but when I tried to figure out how to take the L between the two airports that day, I was made nervous by a single, simple transfer.  I've come a long way, baby.

Back in the day you could get some kickass deals on hotels with the right site - although I can't remember which one off the top of my head - and I stayed in the O'Hare Hilton for $35 bucks that night.  I got checked in and got my luggage to my room, sat on my bed, and basically burst into tears.  I should tell you (if you don't already know) that I cry at the drop of a hat, but even so travel's a big old ball of emotions, and fear and sadness factor into it at points.  You put yourself in a giant tin can and hurtle across distances that were imposing, less than a hundred years ago, and in the (relative) blink of an eye, you're a third of the way around the planet.  You've taken a machete to the jungle and cut it back.  "The world is not just books and maps, it's out there," at once much bigger than you could have imagined and much smaller than it used to be, because now you're in it.  That's cause to mourn, as well as to be a little bit afraid, because you don't know what's going to happen out there, and how it will change you, and when you get back, you won't be the same person you were before.  You can't say if you'll be changed for the better, but you will be changed for good.  Or at least you will if you do it right.

So I cried in the room and went to sleep early and managed to pull myself together for my first international flight from Terminal 5, where I met up with the crew from KC as well as the students from the U of I and wherever else we came from.  We had a layover, in Belgium, I think, and although I remember feeling like it took forever (7 hours was a lot of time for me then - now I think it's a short flight!) we eventually made it to Marco Polo airport, where we collected our luggage and were herded outside to get a water taxi to Campo San Maurizio.  I leaned over to look at the water, and promptly had my sunglasses fall in the drink, but hell, sunglasses are overrated.

We were whisked off to Campo San Maurizio, where the 20 students participating in the program were staying in two apartments.  It may have been crowded, but honestly I don't remember thinking so at the time.  During the days we were in the studio or scattered, doing stuff, and in the evenings the veterans of the group taught us newbies the game that would make a card shark out of me...Canasta!  Some of my flatmates cooked, but most of the time I was out eating pizza and gelato, and believe it or not, I lost 5 pounds that month.  Lots of bridges, 'nuff said.

The month was daily routines punctuated by activities.  The routines were my morning walk through campos still waking up, stopping to buy a croissant - some days crema, others cioccolata - at the bakery up the calle from the studio and a bottle of aranciata, before starting my artistic endeavors for the day (which did not amount to much - fiddling around in my sketchbook for the most part).  The activities ranged from the Biennale to a puppetmaker's workshop, a maskmaker's workshop to trips up the Brenta canal and to Padua.  There were the strains of the Brandenburg concerto (charming the first day or so, but they got annoying pretty quickly) from the guitarist who busked next to the well in our campo, afternoons on the beach at Lido, the night Piazza San Marco flooded and a couple of my classmates and I went to splash in water sparkling from the Plessi installation set up in the windows of the Museo Correr.  There was taking the vaporetto out to Murano and Burano and the Cimitiere, and the bus up to Mestre where I went to church a couple of Sundays.  And in the end there was my first art show, staged for one night only in the entry to our flat, just off the campo, for which one of the KC crew made tzatziki, which I'd never had but fell in love with that night.

It was over too fast, and while at the end of the month I was ready to go home, the magic of that month lingered.  Walking along the same routes each day convinced me that slow travel was the only way to go.  The lady I bought my croissants from knew me, knew I would be there every morning and what I would get.  I had a place I fit, and that set the tone for my future expat life.  As a high schooler, I was really disappointed that I didn't get to do the "grand tour" thing with a band group like my friend did, but who knows?  If I had, I might not have ended up coming at the world the way I have.  

A Moveable Feast

It took me a while to figure out why my friend Meen sent me a postcard of subway stations when she visited Moscow.  The tiny little stamp-sized photos didn't really do the actual places justice, and with the exception of Gyeongbokgung Station in Seoul (which used to have displays of children's art which delighted me each week on my way to church), the metro has always been a very utilitarian aesthetic experience.  Close space, lit well enough to see, well-marked, but not works of art.  It was only when I began my due diligence for this trip that I figured it out.

Art museums are the vaunted halls of the learned (say that right, please...learn-ed), and there are lots of people, at least in the States, who don't get anything out of them.  They feel uncomfortable there, because we've made them sacred temples...don't talk too loud, don't walk too fast, show reverence to the gods of Elementia and Principalis, and their prophets, daVinci and Van Gogh.  Call me cynical, but I don't see this getting better anytime soon, because we've also managed to fuck up education - and don't even get me started...I'm an art teacher.

The Russians...actually, let's call a spade a spade...the Soviets have entirely different ideas about who art belongs to.  The commie bastards might have fucked up a lot of other things, but their hearts were sort of in the right place.  The people were the ones to put up on a pedestal.  Art should be accessible to all.  Their metro system is designed to reflect this.

After hitting the Kremlin and Red Square, I decided to kill some time on my first day by riding the rails aimlessly, to see what I could find.  I started at Okhotny Riad on the red line, it being the closest to the Kremlin, and went one stop.  I got out, took a look around at Lubyanka Station, and walked to the transfer on the pink line, Kuznetsky Most.  I went another station down the line, to Pushkinskaya, and then walked to its transfer, Chekhovskaya on the grey line.  This time I got daring and decided to go for TWO stops, to Mendeleyevskaya.  Once again, I got off and walked to the transfer station.

Some of the stations I'd been through thus far had opulence reminiscent of the Winter Palace.  There were chandeliers and vaulted ceilings and art deco details.  But I hadn't been blown away until I got to my next transfer, Novoslobodskaya.

Jackpot.  Novoslobodskaya (yeah, the names are a handful, aren't they?) was everything I didn't realize I needed in a subway station.  There was stained glass.  There was a mosaic.  There were gold moldings adding a subtle emphasis to the arches.

I have to admit I found it a little hypocritical, this enshrinement of art for the people, particularly when I noticed authors or artists in the sculptures and stained glass.  Communism and intellectualism aren't exactly friends (if you don't know your history) and although my understanding of that period of human history is not as strong as I would like it to be, I have a feeling that if its leaders had taken better care of their intelligentsia, communism wouldn't have failed quite as direly as it did.  The fact that these professions are depicted at all is a bit surprising to me, since a lot of the art seems pretty propagandistic (if that's not a word, I'm making it one), with the working people...with their children, and their dogs, and their chickens, and their jackhammers, and their guns...showing up a lot.  But I guess it's the thought that counts.

That satisfied most of my interest in the metro system, but there was one more thing I wanted to check out: the Aquarelle train.

In 2007 (Moscow's Year of the Child), the Aquarelle (aka, Watercolor) train came onto the tracks.  It's not just a train - it's an art museum on wheels.  Or at least, that's the idea behind it.  The windows on one side of each car have been blocked out and those panels have framed works of art hanging on them.  In theory, it's a great idea, and I've got to admit, I've been thinking ever since I saw it about how this might look if - theoretically - I could get in touch with one of the bus companies in UB and showcase prints of student work on the bus!  But it didn't really seem to work that well in the Moscow metro.  See, those paintings take up sitting room, and so there were people (some of whom had the sort of - earthy fragrance - not normally associated with fine art) standing in front of them, which sort of took away from the art gallery experience.  Then there's the fact that the doors between cars were locked, so you couldn't move from car to car the way you can on the Seoul Metro, which kind of hindered you from SEEING ALL THE ART!

I spent about 50 minutes waiting for that train this afternoon.  Under other circumstances, I might be a little bitter about wasting my time, but hell, I'm on vacation, and I'd already seen my big 2 things AND found the Krispy Kreme (mmmmm, donuts!)  As an added bonus, the station that I spent all that time waiting in was Ploschad Revolyutsii, and even though it definitely didn't take 50 minutes to check out all the sculptures in the station, I never got tired of watching people interact with them.  Since they were bronze, you could tell where people had touched the sculptures, as the oil in their hands wore off the patina from the metal.  The dogs in the sculptures got the most love, and just about everyone who walked past them patted the dog's nose.  Some of them just reached out in passing, but others actually set down their parcels to take a moment to pet him.

I'm not much of a dog person, but even I thought that was sweet.

The Longest Day of the Year

 I would make a terrible princess.  I was born several centuries too late, so it's a moot point, but I can trace my ancestry to Edward III, and from him basically to most of the royal families in Europe, so I'm calling it a near miss.  I could have been a princess, and I would have done a shitty job of it.  I can pull off poise when I want to, and occasionally I can manage diplomacy (veeeeery occasionally), but I'm stubborn as hell and over the years I've come up with a shortage of fucks.  Don't like my cleavage?  Think it's horrible that I would invite my newly graduated students who have been slaving away for me several months to lunch in my apartment???  Sorry, I'm all out of fucks to give...I used them up on things that matter.  Like doing my damn job, or women's rights.

However, I DO have a taste for some of the finer things in life.  Good food, music, art, traveling...I could do with a princess' income, or her digs.  So I braved the swarms of tourists to visit the Winter Palace yesterday.

The Winter Palace (officially the Hermitage, but I'm a wannabe princess today, not an art teacher) was the home of the Russian emperors and their family.  Since 1917, it's been a museum, and although it did undergo some..."renovations"...during Soviet rule, it's been restored for the most part.  Some of the rooms were absolutely breathtaking.  I think the library was my favorite, although the smoking room made me regret my lifestyle for a while - there are times when (perhaps) I want a house, so maybe I could dress it up with all the treasures I've collected during my years abroad.  Orientalist-style smoking room?  Bitch, please - you should see my belly dance studio.

Okay, so I lied about not being an art teacher today.  The building itself was ostentatious, but the art collection was killer, too.  Look at this - it's a freaking room of Rubens!  Every painting in the room was by Rubens, with the exception of a few by his school.  When I went to the Louvre, they had a roomful of Rubens as well, ones that Marie de Medici commissioned for her husband, the king of France (which one?  I don't care.  Look it up yourself if you care that much).  When I saw those paintings, I may have cursed Marie a bit...why couldn't she have told Rubens to throw a few naked men in there for good measure?  This room of Rubens answered that question for me.  The central figure in the painting on the right?  That's not one of Rubens' trademark voluptuous women; it's Bacchus.  And voluptuous just doesn't look that great on a man.

I'm a little ashamed, but I didn't see the whole Hermitage.  I should be able to spend more than three hours in a palace/art museum, but my feet were swollen with museumitis, and the crowds - egad, the crowds!  There were just too damn many people there (for the record, if you're going to do this, I think afternoon is better...there was no pushy-shovey line to get in when I left around 2, and at least some of the tourists were on their way out by then.  Definitely buy your ticket in advance if you go in the morning).  I did some more wandery around-ish stuff, including hitting Starbucks and going to pick up my tickets for the ballet that night.  Extra super special performances at the Mariinsky Theater are part of the White Nights lineup and since I LOVE the ballet I had to go.  Well, I say I love the ballet.  I've been re-evaluating that statement since last night.  I think what I actually love is passionate dancing and men with nice muscles wearing tights.  The dancers last night were spectacular, and I liked the stage design and the costumes, but Jewels (the show I watched) was a little meh.  I actually had to work to keep myself awake (admittedly I was a little jetlagged, but still), and I found myself thinking about how much more I would enjoy it if they were all belly dancers, so I guess you shouldn't be surprised that I left at the second intermission.

Part of the reason why I left was the fact that it was Scarlet Sails night.  Initially I heard that Scarlet Sails - which is a St. Petersburg thing - took place in May, but when I started walking around town I saw signage for it that said it was taking place last night, so I was SUPER excited.  I walked along the Neva embankment under the twilit sky, and got to Palace bridge around 10 o'clock.  I actually wanted to go further up the river, but the police had blocked the street, so I found a place as close to the side of the bridge as I could and waited.  And waited.  And because I'd been on my feet ALL DAY, they hurt, so I found a place to sit down and pulled out my Nook.  Which wasn't working.  Somehow, between getting to the ballet and sitting down on the bridge, my e-reader had unregistered itself, right where Harry Dresden was about to confront the ENTIRE White Court of vampires.  WHAT THE HECK, NOOK???  So I sat and waited some more, albeit with less patience than I would if I were reading.  At which point it started raining.  It was chilly - did I mention the fact that I was wearing sandals and a skirt?  That factors into this fiasco, thanks to the ballet - so I put on my hoodie, but finally around 11:30 I was fed up and said, "##%# this *&$@@!, you *@&!" and left the bridge.  But my night was far from over.  Thanks to the barricades, I couldn't head back to Irina's the way I had been going (which involved a lot of walking but I didn't think I'd be able to get a taxi) and because I was cold and wet and alone and my feet hurt when I finally DID come across a taxi on the other side of St. Isaac's, I let him talk me into paying about $20 to take me home.  And it was the best $20 I've spent yet.

White Nights, White Days

I woke up at 3 this morning, and yesterday.  I never used to be a morning person, but after 10 years of teaching I've come to the point where I no longer want to kill people for speaking before 9 a.m.  These days I tend to wake with the sun, which could be problematic when the sun decides to be an insomniac.  At three, the sky was light.  Do you really, really get that?  The amount of light in the sky was approximately the same as when I go out to walk at 5:40 in UB.  I'd been sleeping for 6 hours by then, and so I thought, "What the hell!" and took my shower.  I really, really wanted to go out and do crazy things in the streets, because it was THREE AM AND IT WAS FREAKING LIGHT OUT!  In fact, I looked up St. Petersburg's erotica museum, MusEros, since that was in my plans for yesterday, and having figured out that it was open 24 hours, I considered getting up and going then, because why not?  (Well, there's the fact that going to an erotica museum in the middle of the night, no matter how light it is out, seems sketchy.  Going in the middle of the day just lends a scholarly veneer of respectability to the pursuit.  That's why not).

Just one of the displays at MusEros...

I didn't actually make it to MusEros until about noon on my second white day.  It's been overcast since I arrived, so it's been hell - can't tell the time or the direction.  I stumbled out of a street onto the Neva yesterday...I had no idea I was going north!  I'd intended to make yesterday my museum day, but after taking a ridiculously circuitous route to get to the Hermitage on the metro, only to look at the lines I went, "AW HELLS NO," and wandered off to find one of the ubiquitous Subway restaurants, then continued on my way down Nevsky Prospect to my fourth erotica museum.  Most of the labels weren't in English, but as my mom has said, "If you've seen one erotica museum, you've seen them all."  Okay, my mom actually offered that opinion about art museums, but there might be some truth in it here...it wasn't that different from the Musee d'Erotisme in Paris or New York's Museum of Sex.  In fact, as strange as it is for me to admit this, I think the Chinese did it best with the museum in Tongli.  Weird.

Also weird is the unsettling familiarity of being here.  Maybe I've been in Asia too long, but not only can I walk down the streets of St. Petersburg without getting stared at like a pink-spotted giraffe, but people actually try to speak to me in Russian.  I can't even begin to tell you how strange that is.  The first time I was told I looked Russian was in the Middle East, and rather than wondering if it was true (because I assumed it wasn't...let's face it, all us white people look the same), I questioned whether it was a compliment or an insult.  Now, I'm not sure.  Additionally, I am neither taller than everyone or fatter than everyone, and it is refreshing not to be laughed at or smacked on the ass.

The French never mistook me for one of their own (although genetically I'm closer and at least there I speak more than the handful of phrases acquired from Socrates), but I'm blaming at least part of my quasi deja vu on them.  Everywhere I look I see art nouveau embellishments, and although I'm not exactly great at picking up on architectural stuff, I can see places where the builders of the city have copped some Parisian style.

Shitty feet aside, I'm enjoying my wandering.  After coming out of the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood last night (more about that to come), I walked along the canal past countless stalls selling souvenirs.  In front of one building two sisters played duets on the violin and viola, and I stopped to listen, regretting the fact that I never got to travel with Lit, because she would have danced with me if she'd been there (just like we danced once upon a dream).  After my promenade on the Neva quay I steered my steps toward Irina's, through Mars Field.  Mars Field has an illustrious history as a park and military grounds, but what drew me there was the fact that you can smell the lilacs planted on it from two blocks away.  I spent a spring living in my uncle's spare bedroom waking up to the smell of sun-warmed lilacs every morning, and it's left an impression on me.  I walked across the grounds at Mars Field high on the scent, stopping here and there to just inhale, and was happy to be in St. Petersburg.

Great Success!

It's my first evening in St. Petersburg, and my feet are killing me.  I've been walking a couple of miles each morning for the last several weeks, which has been nice because I've been able to reclaim my territory for the first time in two years and my feet have actually not been punishing me for it, but today that was not the case.  I hobbled my way back to my airBnB homestay thing (I'll let you know how that goes round about the time I get back to Mongolia) and have been off my feet pretty much ever since.

It took leaving Irina's (my hostess with the mostest) for me to really start getting excited about St. Petersburg.  Getting here was pretty straightforward...I took a shuttle from the airport to the metro, and the metro to a few blocks from Irina's, which I did not quite make it to, but I managed to find an unsecured wifi network and was able to call her on Skype from around the corner, so I made it in the end.  She showed me around the flat and explained that they would be gone the next couple of days (which makes me feel like I'm in high school and need to take advantage of the situation...so, hey, if anyone can make it to Russia in the next couple of days - PAR-TAYYYYY!) then turned me loose.

One of the things I managed to learn about in my extremely limited amount of research leading up to this part of the trip is the smallest statue in St. Petersburg, a little bird called Chizhyk-Pyzhik.  I found the story of it charming and decided my first wander out into the great Imperial City would aim to find him.

Chizhik-Pyzhik, where have you been?
Drank vodka on the Fontanka.
Took a shot, took another -
Got dizzy.

The little bird comes from the poem above, which isn't actually about birds, but is rather about law students, who attended the Imperial School of Jurisprudence when it was just across the Fontanka (that would be the river) and used to wear green and yellow uniforms, resembling the bird they were nicknamed for.

I was a little worried about being able to find him...I didn't find really great directions, other than that he was by the First Engineer Bridge.  I looked up the bridge and headed in that direction when I left Irina's.

I should have been keeping my eyes peeled, but before I could even realize that I'd made it to the bridge, I saw the Church of the Savior on the Blood in the distance, and in the ensuing excitement to get my camera out I very nearly dropped my wallet into the Fontanka (no, I wasn't drinking vodka, although sometimes I wish I could use being under the influence as an explanation for the stupid things I've done).  I'd crossed the bridge and had just had time to think, "Hey, I wonder if this is the river I'm looking for," when I heard a series of clinks, and looked up to see people dropping coins onto the pedestal.

Chizhyk-Pyzhik has only been in situ since 1994 (and not continuously...apparently he's been stolen to melt down several times and now they keep back-up casts on hand).  During that time a tradition has arisen that you try to land a coin on the plinth on which Chizhyk-Pyzhik sits for good luck.

Thanks to the fact that Russian coinage annoys the crap out of me (WHY are the sizes so disparate???) I'd managed to accumulate quite a lot of it and was ready to win myself some luck no matter how long it took!  Aaaand, then I got it in my third or fourth attempt.  That 10 ruble coin on the lower right corner of the picture next door here is mine.  Apparently I have good luck coming my way now.

I went onward and wandered into the center, but it was just that - me wandering.  I have the next three days to see everything in depth at my own pace.  However, I was glad that I got to start the trip on a good note.

(Epilogue: So I was actually falling asleep writing the last couple of paragraphs...jetlag caught up to me around 9 pm.  Sorry about the typos, I've fixed them now).

Kyoto on my Mind

I always get emotional at graduation, but this year is going to be hell.  The graduating class is one of my two favorite classes, and includes many favorite students.  One of these - whom we'll call the Kawaii Kid, due to more than a few otaku tendencies - has gone from being an annoying pain in the ass to being an even MORE annoying pain in the ass, thanks in part to the fact that between work study, a free period, and art he spends 1/2 to 3/4 of each day in my room, and I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself when he's gone.  To top that, I'm ridiculously jealous of the fact that he's going to university in one of the cities I'd move to in a heartbeat if I could - Kyoto.

I haven't had much to write about since Istanbul, and thinking a lot about Kyoto thanks to the Kawaii Kid has made me realize I've never written about visiting there, almost ten years ago.  When I moved to Korea, Kyoto was at the top of my list of places I wanted to visit - I'd loved Memoirs of a Geisha and couldn't wait to walk down a street and see maiko in their makeup and kimono, so I went in October of 2005.  I think we had a 3-day weekend, for Foundation Day or something, and since there were direct flights from Incheon to Osaka I decided 3 days would be enough.

I got in during the afternoon.  If you've never been to Japan, I've got to tell you that they are the most helpful country in the world for foreigners.  This was my first time flying solo, and I was continually impressed with the facilities - easy to read maps, easy to use public transportation.  Ten years of travel later and I'm even more impressed.  Within 5 minutes of entering the arrivals hall I was booked to take a shuttle that would deliver me to my hotel.  Once I'd checked in and left my luggage, I set off, Lonely Planet in hand, wandering toward Gion and stopping at just about every shrine I passed til I made it to Yasaka Jinja.  The paper lanterns glowed in the dusk, and I rang the bell and clapped my hands.  I don't know if I've ever felt wanderlust as strongly as I did that day.

As you know, I love to see music and dance performances when I travel, and that hasn't changed.  This was another thing I did on my first night, something I probably found through LP, though I can't remember for sure.  I'd already seen geisha as I was walking down the street, and it was breathtaking.  Here I got to see one dance, as well as other performances, including a puppet show, some drama, a lady playing the koto, and a tea ceremony.  I hadn't even been in Kyoto 12 hours and I wanted to call up my Dark Lord and Master and tell him I wasn't coming back.

The next morning I was up bright and early to climb up to Kiyomizu-Dera.  From this temple you could see out over the whole city.  The building itself is incredible, but it also had a number of attractions.  There is the "love rock," which predicts finding your future love if you can stumble your way blindly to it.  Friends are allowed to help guide you (these friends being the same people who will help you find your love), but you can't use your eyes.  I figured with my grace I'd trip over it, no problem, but alas, no such luck.  The same area had little paper figures that you wrote wishes on, which dissolved when you put them in water.  But the coolest part, I thought, was the - I don't know even know how to describe it.  There's a building where you descend into the dark and feel your way through passages to a stone, lit from above, which you turn.  It was means to symbolize entering the womb of one of the female Buddhist deities, who had the power to grant your wishes.  There was a certain kind of calm and stillness in that place, that I've never felt anywhere else.

From there, I took a train down to visit Fushimi-Inari-Taisha, which is one of my top five all-time favorite travel experiences.  This shrine is built on the hillsides, a little southward from Kyoto, and consists of endless passageways of red torii gates.  It's a shrine to Inari Okami, a spirit of sake, rice, and foxes, and as you ascend the mountain, you pass numerous altars, covered with offerings, to which the crows are helping themselves.  When I got off the train and began walking past stalls selling knick-knacks, the sun was shining, but at some point beneath the tunnels of red gates the skies clouded over, and an otherworldly feeling overtook me.  It felt almost as if the pairs of foxes stationed throughout the shrine were watching me.

Eventually I came down the hillside, and somewhere along the way found a shop selling shaved ice.  I bought a cup of cherry - my favorite - and I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite that delightful.

I'd seen music and dance and plenty of shrines by the last morning, but I wouldn't have been a very good art student if I didn't visit the most famous Zen rock garden in the world, which I'd learned about when I took Asian art history in college.  It was on - I think - the west side of Kyoto, and between my trusty LP and the awesome handouts of the Japanese National Tourism Organization I found it with no problem.  October in Kyoto was serene, and I had the place mostly to myself, as I sat on the porch looking over the raked grounds, soaking in the stillness.

The last place I visited before taking the train back to Kansai International Airport was Nijo Castle, which was just down the street from my hotel.  I'd been walking past it for two days, and had just enough time to walk across the nightingale floors, listening to them chirp and imagining samurai hidden behind paper walls.  It was a great way to end my trip.

It's hard to believe it's been almost ten years since then.  I still remember things very clearly, like the light in the arrivals hall or the taste of the cherry shaved ice.  I think I just about walked my feet off during those three days - I did that a lot, I guess up until I wrecked them running in Ras Al Khaimah - but there were so many things to see, and I barely even scratched the surface.  In less than a month, I'll be revisiting my first great international adventure, that Queen of the Adriatic, Venezia.  The anticipation has literally killed most of the enthusiasm I had for St. Petersburg and Moscow, which I'm doing just prior to Venice.  I should care, but I really, really don't - I'll enjoy those cities, just not as much as Venice.  Part of me wonders if this is the stage of travel I've come to - revisiting old places instead of new ones.  Let's face it: Myanmar and Cambodia, with all their glorious temples and wonderful people, didn't cause me nearly as much excitement as seeing Bronte again and eating dolmades at a taverna in Monastiraki, or taking my young hellions to Istanbul.  So who knows...maybe Kyoto will be on the list again one of these days.  But not this year - I'll hit Greece again in October with Engrish, be home for Christmas, plan to spend Tsagaan Sar in Chennai with Fire Marshall and Domestic Goddess, take the hellions somewhere for spring break (possibly Moscow or Paris), and finally travel the old Silk Road with Blondie, if everything goes well up until then.  So many places, so little time.

Cooking Ruins Restaurants

One of the things I try to do when I travel is learn to cook something.  Bronte helped to nurture this in me - about halfway through my first year in Korea I asked her if she knew somewhere I might learn some Korean cooking, and she volunteered to do it herself.  I'm pretty sure the time we spent together in her kitchen, cooking sundubu, cucumber kimchi, mandu, and many other things cemented our friendship.

Since then, I've taken cooking courses in Jordan, China, Nepal, and here in Mongolia, as well as picking up Greek dishes from Bronte after she moved to Piraeus.  In fact, not learning to cook any Thai cuisine when Curly Sue and I went in 2006 was one of my great travel regrets, and I decided that I really needed to rectify it when I went to Chiang Mai last winter.  Baan Thai was recommended by Lonely Planet and had brochures at my guesthouse, and when Dougie Poo spoke glowingly of the cooking lesson he once did, I decided I had to go for it.

 It was heaven.  I learned to make pad thai, spring rolls, tom ka gai, panaeng gai, and fried bananas.  They also gave us a cookbook with all our recipes, all the other ones that were offered, and ones that weren't offered but that I'm incredibly grateful for.  Once upon a time I went to the Thai place in Yuldong and ate bananas in steamed coconut milk, and thought it was a dream, because I'd never seen them anyplace else.  I now know how to cook them.

However, there's a caveat to this story.  When I was younger my cousin used to talk about how she could make alfredo better than any restaurant she knew.  I found this obnoxious because - hello! - it's a restaurant.  If it wasn't good at what it serves, it wouldn't remain open.  I didn't get it until after I came back from Thailand, and considered going to Bangkok for dinner, until I realized I could make a better pad thai than they could.

It stopped me in my tracks - I had become that food snob who didn't want to go to a restaurant because my food is better.  The ironic thing is, I don't really "like" to cook.  About once a month I invite my friends over so that I have an excuse to thoroughly clean my apartment, but if I don't have someone to tell me how delicious everything was, all the effort of getting ingredients and putting them together only to have to clean it all up seems like too big a hassle.

And that thought helped me to get over my food snobbery.  In the end, my laziness is my redemption.  I may be able to cook a better pad thai, but on any given day, it's less work to order on Songo.

WHICH REMINDS ME!  Sorry, I haven't been much of a blogger lately, but ohmygosh, one of the bestest things to happen in UB in a long time is the arrival of our own Sherpa's!  In Shanghai, Sherpa's was a company that delivered food from a variety of restaurants, and it kept my lazy ass from starving on more than one occasion when it was too cold (haha) to be bothered going outside.  Well, here in UB it's Songo, but the fact that I can get lunch delivered to the school from somewhere other than Round Table0 is a lifesaver.  Apparently Pizza Hut and KFC are both coming to Zaisan, but why would that matter when someone will bring me sushi from Miko?!?