Anna S. E. Lundberg - Blog on career transitions and other adventures

5 Highlights of Being (Not So) Sleepless in Seattle

8 July, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

I’ve always had a soft spot for the northwest of the US. Portland, Seattle, across the border to Vancouver… it’s been a region that I’ve wanted to visit for a while. I do love the ocean, and I guess I’ve imagined a really green area with lots of seafood and kayaking… In any case, I took the opportunity recently in combination with my cousin’s wedding in Denver, Colorado, to pop over to the west coast (yes, I know, it’s like flying to Lisbon and saying you might as well pop over to Warsaw…). I started my trip with three weeks booked in an airbnb in Seattle.

When I arrive in a new city by myself, I tend to spend a lot of time with my head down at my laptop, making lots of great progress on my different work projects – and this visit was no different. I’ve got lots of new materials up on the website, I’ve been busy with new coaching clients, and I’ve even co-authored a book that’s just been launched on Amazon. I did manage to enjoy my new location, though! Here are five of the highlights…

1. Staying in West Seattle

Seattle skyline — The top highlight was definitely the view of the city skyline from my window!

It’s always hard to decide on where you want to stay in a city that you’ve never visited. I did some research online about the different areas – for example, the Waterfront (tourists), Pioneer Square (nightlife), Capital Hill (gay) – but eventually settled for a little studio in West Seattle. This was across the bay from the city centre, so I wasn’t exactly in the thick of things, but it was just a short water taxi ride into town. My neighbourhood was really lovely, with an eclectic collection of different architecture styles, and there was plenty to do there with Alki Beach just down the hill, the famous Salty’s restaurant, paddle boarding and kayaking, and heading out for some beautiful runs along the oceanfront.

2. Being Sleepless in Seattle

Pike Place Market opened in 1901 and has more than 10 million visitors each year. I had an ‘oyster shooter’, watched salmon being thrown about, and ate an ahi tuna salad at one of the restaurants inside.

In my usual commitment to learning about a new location, I immediately set about watching Sleepless in Seattle on my first night in the city. The fashion may have changed (it was released in 1993) but the love story is timeless! There are plenty of movie locations to discover around town, and I did my best to seek them out: lunch at the Athenian Inn inside Pike Place Market, Seattle’s most popular tourist destination and the 33^rd most visited tourist attraction in the world (according to my other trusted source of information, Wikipedia); dinner at Dahlia Lounge, which has unfortunately moved since it was used in the film; the airport (exciting!); and Alki Beach Park.

3. Drinking lots of coffee

Original Starbucks — The coffee frappuccino tasted the same as it always does but it was fun to see where the global behemoth first started out with its first-ever coffee shop…

So I’d say that Seattle is the only place in the world where you are culturally justified in spending time at Starbucks, given that the city is in fact its birthplace. Just as Dahlia Lounge has moved since Sleepless in Seattle was filmed there, however, so too the first Starbucks café moved, the very first one being located at 2000 Western Avenue and this “Original Starbucks” now being found at Pike Place. Despite this, I definitely wasn’t the only person who had decided that it was worth visiting this ‘historic’ spot and I knew that I was in the right place when I saw the long queue outside.

Tip: If you haven’t read it, Howard Schultz’s Pour Your Heart into it: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time is an interesting read!

4. Touring a space shuttle

The weather wasn’t great the whole time I was in Seattle (apparently it’s known for its many rainy days) so one particularly grey afternoon seemed an appropriate time to head to a museum for a bit more culture. Seattle is famous not just for Starbucks but also for Boeing (and Microsoft as it happens), and the Museum of Flight is the largest private air and space museum in the world. It’s not a huge museum, although it has buildings on either side of the road, and I was pretty excited to discover that you can book onto a tour of the NASA space shuttle trainer crew compartment. There was also a great 3D film that told the story of human flight from the Wright brothers (and dreaming of it long before that) right into a future in which we’ve colonised Mars.

Tip: If you want to grab a bite to eat then I recommend Randy’s Restaurant just down the road, a diner decorated top to bottom with aircraft memorabilia. The food isn’t great but it’s fun and it’s better than the café at the museum!

5. Eating up in the Space Needle

My aunt and I ended my Seattle visit in style with a glass of prosecco and a three-course brunch in the Sky City restaurant.

I had a disappointing experience in London a few years ago when I paid a lot of money to go up in the Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, and found a pretty mediocre view from the top; and as a result I was not that fussed about going up into the Seattle Space Needle, even though it’s one of the city’s top attractions. One review on Trip Advisor even advised heading to the Sky View Observatory instead for “spectacular views – much higher, cheaper and more peaceful than Space Needle”. When my aunt was passing through town, however, I managed to book us in for brunch in the Sky City restaurant, and this was a spectacular way to end my stay in Seattle before heading on up to Canada. The circular restaurant spins around inside the tower once every 47 minutes, giving you the view of everything from Lake Union to Frasier’s city apartment and the downtown city centre.

Tip: The restaurant was fully booked when I first called, and online booking didn’t bring up all the available times – so make sure you call ahead!

On the Road (and Alone) Again

10 June, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

As I was packing for another trip last week I started questioning, as I always do, if this is really what I want to be doing.

This whole year so far has been back-to-back trips with just a few days in between, those days always crammed with laundry, topping up my prescription medicine (in the UK now they’ll only give you two months’ worth, even if it’s something you’ve been using for 15 years and that doesn’t change), doing various admin tasks that require being in England or having access to my ‘stuff’, and packing for everything from paddle boarding to attending a black tie wedding. All that preparation is exhausting but not only that, I’m often heading off to places I’ve never been to and where I don’t know anyone.

I always question everything I do, so this isn’t new. I’d be questioning myself just as much if I was buying a house and staying put forever.

It’s not just me doing the questioning, though. People are constantly asking me if I’m enjoying it, isn’t it exhausting, when or where am I going to settle down? Even my nephew asked me a while ago, “Aunty, why are you always travelling around the world?”

There’s a voice that keeps on calling me
Down the road is where I’ll always be

I think that when I started my travelling was a means of escape for me, a kind of rebellion, and a way of embodying that freedom that I realised I value so highly. It’s the thing you do when you quit your job; it’s about seeing the world, having new experiences, ticking things off your bucket list.

But travelling alone has given me so much more than that, and something that once seemed scary, something that ‘other people’ did, now feels completely natural. I’ve learned to get my bearings in a new city, finding my way around and exploring what my temporary home has to offer. I’m very happy in my own company (well, really, who wouldn’t be?!). I’m incredibly self-motivated and productive, and get a ridiculous amount of work done while I’m on the move. I’ve developed expert packing skills. And I’m completely comfortable with talking to strangers.

That last point is an important one, and one that opens up the real magic of travel when you’re on your own. When you’re travelling as a couple, or in a group, you’re likely to be mostly chatting to each other, closed both physically and mentally to meaningful encounters along the way. I used to never talk to people I met, apart from the superficial pleasantries that you’d expect.

Within the first 24 hours of my arrival in the US, I had two encounters – both with Uber drivers, in fact – that made the whole trip worth it already.

First, there was Raynier. He initially made me feel a little uncomfortable as he told me he “loved my accent” (fair enough) and that I “smelled good” (maybe less appropriate). He continued, though, with a great story about driving Swedish hockey player Peter Forsberg while he was living in California, as well as his own experiences of being a professional basketball player. He also gave me possibly the best compliment I’ve ever received, that “In the States, you’re considered the ideal woman – you’re like a goddess here.” (Yes, again super inappropriate but call me a goddess and I’m afraid my feminist edge will inevitably soften! And, really, he didn’t mean anything offensive by it, and mentioned his girlfriend several times.) Obviously we’ll see over the next few weeks if this proclamation has any truth to it; let’s hope so, given my soft spot for American men thanks to a misspent youth watching all those high school movies with teen hunks.

The second driver was William, a retired LAPD officer who had another fantastic story (in addition to also loving my accent, naturally). He and his family had been visiting the Houses of Parliament in London, where he asked for a photo with the police officers guarding the entrance. There must have been some solidarity felt between the two police corps as the officers made a phone call and gave him a note that would get him in at Downing Street. So off he and his family went, bypassing the hordes of tourists outside of the gates and posing for pictures in front of Number 10. A memorable trip for this family, and one that clearly meant a lot to William.

Oh, and tonight I’m venturing away from my computer and volunteering as event host at an Irish pub meetup for newbies to the Seattle area! (I didn’t tell them I’m only here for a few weeks, shhh!)

Every stop I make, I’ll make a new friend
Can’t stay for long, just turn around and I’m gone again.

I think this confidence I’ve developed, this openness, has in turn opened up a whole world of other possibilities and my life is all the more meaningful as a result.

I’ve said it before but it’s those little moments and interactions that make travel worth all the logistical hassle. Meeting people you’d never meet back home, hearing their stories, and, yes, being called a goddess (that simply doesn’t happen in England or Sweden – listen and learn, men of northern Europe!).

Am I searching for something? Maybe. Will I want to settle down when I find the right person, or place to do so? Probably. But in the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying, and learning from, the journey.

I’ll be in Seattle now for a few weeks so I’ve got plenty of time to settle in, drink some Starbucks and, maybe as a result of all that caffeine, finally be Sleepless in Seattle…

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.

[Song lyrics in italics from The Littlest Hobo theme song, to which I was introduced by a friend at university. They resonated then and they definitely do so now!]

Wedding Weekend in Istanbul

3 June, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

The Blue Mosque, probably the most iconic and recognisable structure on the Istanbul city skyline, as seen from the rooftop of my hotel

I was recently fortunate enough to be invited to a wedding in Istanbul, Turkey, giving me an excuse to visit this city for the first time.

Istanbul is a transcontinental city, one part in Asia and the other in Europe. My weekend visit was limited to the European side, the old town where all the main tourist attractions are located. The city, previously known as Byzantium and later Constantinople, has been the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman empires. Converted to Christianity under the Romans, it remained so until the Ottomans took over in the 15^th century. Today the majority of the population is Muslim, specifically Sunni. As of the Turkish Republic forming in 1923, the focus was shifted towards the capital of Ankara; but Istanbul retains its cultural and historical importance.

I’ve never had so many positive comments on my Instagram posts as I had during this weekend – “I love Istanbul!” and “Say hi to Istanbul for me” – so it’s clearly beloved by those who have spent time here.

I’m always interested in places that were used as film locations and Istanbul doesn’t disappoint.

The Bosphorus Strait, with Asia over on the other side, as seen from the rooftop of my hotel

In the second film of the James Bond series, From Russia with Love, Istanbul Ataturk airport, the Grand Bazaar, Hagia Sophia, and the Basilica Cistern all feature as does the Bosphorus ferry and the Orient Express. Fast forward to the Pierce Brosnan era and The World is Not Enough sees Istanbul playing the role of Azerbaijan, with M imprisoned in an 11^th century lighthouse, the Maiden Tower, at the mouth of the Bosphorus. And for a spectacular finale, in Skyfall, the motorcycle chase of the opening scenes took place through Eminonu Square, across the rooftops and into the Grand Bazaar.

(A quick Google tells me that there are several other well-known films that used Istanbul as a setting, including Argo (in which the Grand Bazaar represents a market in Teheran!), Taken 2, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.)

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia comes from the Greek for ‘Holy Wisdom’ (in fact my second name is Sofia, and naturally I am very wise). Today a museum, it’s been both a Christian church (a Greek Orthodox basilica, 537-1453) and an imperial mosque (1453-1931). As a result, it’s an interesting mix with mosaics depicting Jesus and Mary alongside Islamic features like the mihrab (a niche in the wall that indicates the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca) and the minbar (the stair-like pulpit from which the imam delivers sermons).

Perhaps my favourite feature was some Viking graffiti on the upper level!

The Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque is not particularly blue but, as I discovered, the popular name comes from the coloured tiles inside the mosque rather than the exterior. Its official name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, commissioned by Sultan Ahmet I in the early 17^th century. It’s an incredibly impressive building with its 13 domes and 6 minarets.

The inner courtyard was lined with notice boards, on which you could read and learn about the pillars of Islam and its various rituals. It’s possible for visitors to enter into the main dome area, having borrowed a mosque-branded covering to abide by the regulations to cover a woman’s head, shoulders and legs.

Blue Mosque courtyard — Looking up at the main dome from inside the courtyard

When I first entered the courtyard, I was approached by a friendly man who I thought was an official of the mosque, explaining that the mosque was closed for prayer. “I’m not a guide, I sell carpets,” he said, seemingly reassuring me… as if selling carpets to me in the mosque would be more welcome than giving me useful information! I returned the following to day to visit the interior.

The Basilica Cistern

The Cistern (in Turkish Yerebatan Sarnici, which means ‘cistern sinking into the ground’) was built in the 6^th century. It’s the largest of many cisterns that lie beneath the city and that provided water to the nearby palaces for many centuries.

The underground chamber is lined with marble columns. The Hen’s Eye column, decorated with tears, is said to honour the hundreds of slaves who died during construction. Another notable design element (there are signs throughout the Cistern pointing the way) are the two columns whose bases are carved into the head of Medusa – one upside down, the other on its side.

The Grand Bazaar

Some of the ornate lamps on sale at the Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar, one of the world’s oldest and largest covered markets, is also one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions. It was built soon after the Ottoman conquest of what was then Constantinople, its construction completed in 1461. A century later, a second covered market was built a little north of the first, and gradually shops were opened up between the two so that it became one large commercial area. By the early 17^th century, it was the hub of Mediterranean trade.

Turkish delight, but not as you know it!

Different businesses now tend to be focused in different areas, for example with jewellery along one street, carpets along another, leather goods along a third… I was with a friend who seemed to be able to navigate effortlessly along the different streets, but personally I was soon completely lost. I was nervous as always about the haggling that’s always expected at this kind of market, but I was relieved to find that the sellers were not too pushy. They were actually pretty funny, their sales techniques showing quite some creativity:

“Genuine fake leather goods!”

“I have everything you need!”

“Come and buy something you don’t need!”

Given my nomadic status I didn’t really need any big carpets or lamps but I did buy some tea, spices and Turkish delight. I know the latter mostly from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which the White Queen for some reason tempts Edmund with a box of Turkish delight. I’ve never liked the powdery stuff that you get in England but the colourful range on offer here at the Bazaar was very different. I bought a stick of pomegranate and pistachio; the chocolate one was also tasty!

The Wedding

The Dutch-Turkish wedding itself was exactly what you could have hoped for: a short but moving ceremony, held in Turkish and English on a rooftop with views of both Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque; delicious food kicked off with a platter of cold meze; traditional Turkish dancing, and a belly-dancing scarf for each of us to join in; oh, and fezzes and Dutch bonnets to top it all off.

The best man made a poignant remark about how thankful he was that we had all come to the wedding despite what had happened (in March, there was a suicide bombing in front of the district governor’s office), and I think we were all happy to have overcome any lingering concerns to celebrate the couple on their special day.

I stayed at the Seven Hills Hotel, a short stumble across the road from the Four Seasons where the wedding was being held. Even if you don’t stay there, I’d definitely recommend that you visit the restaurant on the top floor – the highest rooftop in the city, they say – for stunning 360 degree views of Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and across the Bosphorus to Asia.

Some notes about opening times: The Grand Bazaar is closed on Sundays and some bank holidays. The Blue Mosque is closed periodically for prayer so make sure you check the exact times for the day you want to visit (you can enter the courtyard at any time and you’ll see the opening times for entering the building written on a board).

It’s Not Just Sushi: A taste journey through Japanese food

15 April, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

I have a confession to make: when I told people I was going to Japan, I mainly talked about the sushi… (and the karaoke!). What an idiot. The length of this post is a testament to the huge variety of delicious food I experienced during my trip.

The detail that goes into the preparation and presentation of food – at any restaurant, from the more expensive down to the local pub – is impressive. Even in a simple meal, you’re likely to get many different dishes with artistically displayed food that is always fresh and absolutely delicious. Restaurants will often offer sets as well, which will include miso soup, rice and green tea.

Here are some of the amazing food experiences I’ve had in the past month while travelling around Japan…

Sushi and sashimi

fish on a plate — A beautifully presented selection of sashimi from a restaurant in Tokyo

Yes, there was sushi, and, yes, it was delicious. There is a huge selection of fresh fish on offer at any given sushi restaurant, and if you sit at the bar you can watch the chefs as they artfully prepare it. I would usually get a combo set, as it’s just too difficult for me to make an individual selection, and it’s really hard to go wrong with a bit of everything thrown in!

The best experiences involved going right to the source: the sashimi at the Omi-cho fish market in Kanazawa just melted in my mouth, while the sushi that I had at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo wasn’t too bad either.

Even the sushi I got in a bento box for the long train journeys would be super tasty – even though I rarely knew what was in them.

Beyond sushi and sashimi you also have some variations on the basic concept. There was the bara-zushi at Azuma-zushi inside Okayama train station, a dish created in the Edo period that consists of a plate of sushi rice covered in various kinds of fish and vegetables. You also have the simple donburi, essentially a bowl of rice with fish (or meat) served on top.

Shellfish

Oysters in Miyajima, decorated with the famous Itsukushima Shrine gate. The area was also known for its maple leaf cakes, *momiji manju* – but that’s another story…

Hiroshima, it seems, is known for its oysters, and we had some delicious ones in Miyajima, a short ferry ride from the city.

If you don’t eat raw fish, you might prefer the battered and deep-fried tempura. And if you don’t eat fish at all, fear not: one of my Japanese friends who lives in Tokyo is allergic to fish, so it must be possible to survive on other food.

Marbled beef

We didn’t try Kobe beef specifically but we did have some delicious Wagyu beef at Teppan-Kuya in Okayama; and we also had Hida beef from the Gifu prefecture at Suzuya, Takayama

Of course, as it turns out, Japanese food is not just fish. Many of you will have heard of the Kobe beef, famous for the tradition of massaging the cows and feeding them beer to make the beef taste extra delicious. In fact Kobe beef is specifically from the region of Kobe, but it is part of a broader categorisation of Wagyu beef (wagyu in fact meaning “Japanese cow”). This kind of meat is beautifully marbled and simply melts in your mouth.

Shabu-shabu and sukiyaki

I had my first shabu-shabu in San Francisco last November, and so I made sure to seek this out in Japan. It’s a ‘hot pot’ dish in which you cook thinly sliced meat in a pot of broth, dip it in ponzu (a citrus-based sauce) or goma (sesame seed) sauce, and usually eat this alongside tofu, various vegetables, and noodles.

Sukiyaki was a new discovery in Japan, but a worthwhile one! Similar to shabu-shabu, you again cook thinly sliced meat but in a sweeter mixture of soy sauce, sugar and mirin (rice wine), again alongside tofu, vegetables, and noodles. You actually also dip the meat in raw egg, which seemed unappealing at first but was in fact delicious.

Tamagoyaki

A simple dish, but one of my favourites: tamagoyaki is the little omelette that you can get on sushi or on its own, often at breakfast. It’s made of egg with rice vinegar and sometimes also sugar or soy sauce, cooked in a special rectangular pan and then rolled up before it’s sliced into pieces. I even bought a little tamagoyaki pan so that I can try to make this at home – although I will try it without the sugar!

Okonomiyaki

I really didn’t expect to enjoy this but I went dutifully along to an okonomiyaki restaurant on one of my first days in Hiroshima. In the end, I did a very good job of eating almost all of it. Described as a “savoury pancake”, Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is a layered feast of pancake, shredded cabbage, egg, spring onion plus your choice of meat on top; oh and noodles… Apparently in Osaka they use the same ingredients but they mix it all together in the batter. To top it all off, you add a healthy (or not-so-healthy) dollop of a thick umami okonomiyaki sauce, oh, and mayonnaise if you’re so inclined.

Vegetables and tofu

As you may have noticed, there isn’t a huge amount of vegetables in these dishes. You do get some in the sukiyaki and shabu-shabu but otherwise it’s usually limited to a tiny serving, and pickled.

I have eaten quite a bit of tofu while travelling in Japan, most notably at the Yudofuya restaurant in the Zen Garden of Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto. Here they served yudofu, which is boiled tofu that you dip in a spicy sauce. Generally it doesn’t taste of a lot, but it feels like a nice healthy, clean protein to add into the mix alongside everything else you’re eating!

Izakaya

Okinawa seaweed — *Umibudo* seaweed, or ‘green caviar’

Izakaya is not so much a type of food as a place to eat it: Wikipedia calls it “a type of informal Japanese gastropub”. You generally order several smaller dishes and share these, tapas-style, as the kitchen brings them out as and when they are ready. It helps to have someone who speaks Japanese to order for you, as otherwise you may have to resort to pointing at pictures or just taking a wild guess. You may order things like edamame beans, yakitori (chicken skewers), or takoyaki balls (containing diced octopus, pickled ginger and spring onions and served with takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise).

One of my favourites was an Okinawan izakaya in Osaka. We had the locally grown seaweed, deep-fried seaweed, pork belly… The highlight was the most delicious sweet potato I have ever eaten in my entire life. Okay, so the awamori may have affected my judgement (see ‘drink’ below) but I could have sworn there was cinnamon and sugar in the dish, while the chef insisted that it was just pure (purple) sweet potato. Dreamy.

Another favourite place has to be Gonpachi in Tokyo, also known as “the Kill Bill restaurant”. Eating there in a big group, my Japanese-speaking friend ordered a never-ending array of food (mainly, as it turned out, different parts of a chicken), while the setting itself was enough to make it special.

Kaiseki

Kaiseki is the multi-course extravaganza that you can expect to be served when you stay in a traditional ryokan. Often you will eat it in your room, and you will then be wearing your yukata dressing gown while sitting on the floor on the tatami mats. There will usually be at least an appetiser, sashimi, several hot dishes… and, when you think you can’t eat anymore, they’ll bring you rice, soup and green tea to finish it all off.

Green tea

Like a woman possessed, I sought out green tea everywhere I went: I drank matcha tea (the powdered green tea that is used in tea ceremonies) or matcha tea soy latte at every opportunity, even at Starbucks (they have Wi-Fi!). My favourite thing was the “cake set”, a bowl of matcha tea with a lovely little cake to go along with it; I ordered it at every possible opportunity.

In fact, I sought out not just green tea itself but anything that was green and could conceivably contain green tea: ice cream, Swiss roll, croissants, even KitKats!

Sweets and cake

Speaking of cake: I had no idea that I would enjoy the desserts so much in Japan – the little blobs you get on the Yo Sushi conveyor belt in the UK don’t exactly paint a flattering picture of cake in Japan. In fact, you rarely get dessert at a restaurant – you might get some fruit or a small scoop of ice cream – but I soon adopted the tradition of afternoon (and sometimes also morning) tea with a cake stop at a local café.

I’ve already admitted to my obsession with green cakes; my other colour of choice was pink: sakura cakes in various forms were all-pervasive during this spring season, although I still couldn’t tell you what cherry blossom actually tastes like! And then there was anything and everything with red kidney beans in it. Sounds odd but I found the sweet “bean jam” delicious. And beans are healthy, right?!

Finally I have to mention the “happy pudding” in Kurashiki – see last week’s post for more on this.

Drink

Just as I had limited my thoughts of Japanese food to sushi, I must admit that I had limited my thoughts of drink to sake. Now there is a lot of sake in Japan, and I certainly drank a good amount – but, of course, that’s not all there is.

Sake tank — Usually you get sake in a tiny little cup – sometimes you get to choose it yourself from a selection – but at this particular izakaya, I got a slightly larger “sake tank”

In addition to sake, there is shōchū, usually compared to vodka, and distilled from rice, barley, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, or brown sugar. Another spirit is the awamori that comes from Okinawa, made from long-grain rice from Thailand. Without exception, when the people I met spoke of awamori, their comment would be “ahh it’s strong”. This also led to my being labelled a “strong woman” for being able to hold my liquor (is it okay that I’m a little proud of this?).

Perhaps more surprisingly, the Japanese are also increasingly proud of their grape wine. I tried both rosé and red, not bad at all.

Finally, I’m not sure how typical this is, but I had the most spectacularly served Irish coffee in the hotel bar in Hiroshima. There are few occasions when I think it’s appropriate to drink coffee and alcohol together – but I think your arrival in Japan after a 12-hour journey and plenty of jet lag is one of those occasions. The bartender brought a trolley full of whiskey to my table, where he proceeded to perform an impressive display of setting the whiskey on fire (sacrilege! But undeniably entertaining), adding the coffee and the lightly whipped cream on top. I’m not sure if I can drink another one of these in the future, as I can’t imagine the delivery will ever live up to this high standard.

As for my favourite place to enjoy these drinks, I think the award has to go to the tiny little bars in the Shibuya district in Tokyo, where each bar unusually had space only for about four people. Very intimate and cosy! Look out for the one with the magical bartender who can solve the Rubik’s cube in three seconds with just a flick of his wrist…

So, there you go: not just sushi!

Travel with a Purpose: Finding your “why”

8 April, 2016 By Anna S E Lundberg 3 Comments

I’ve written before about the different reasons why people travel, provoked by a friend who claimed that “of course everyone likes to travel as it’s just going on holiday”.

Langkawi, Malaysia — Nothing wrong with a holiday!

Travel can of course be “just” a holiday, or perhaps an escape from something back home. It can also provide some much-needed time and space to process things that are happening and to gain a new perspective on a problem or a situation. It can be a way of getting out of your comfort zone, putting yourself in unfamiliar situations so that you continue to learn and to grow. It can be a way to meet interesting people that you’d never come across back home; and it can be many other things too.

Do you know why you travel?

It’s impossible not to notice all the messages we see these days about quitting your job and becoming a digital nomad, working from the beach on your laptop, travelling long term without a care in the world – but this isn’t for everyone. Likewise I’ve come across all sorts of sporty types and professional adventurers who do things like cycling backwards through the Amazon – and this definitely isn’t for everyone either! When you haven’t defined your own reasons for travelling, your own purpose, I find it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s plans and approaches to life.

I wonder if we might not also get lost in meaningless activities or distracted by things that aren’t really that important. There can be a manic urge to tick the boxes, to “see everything”, to make the most of our time while we’re in a particular city or country. We may rush around or flock to the popular sights and miss out on richer, more subtle experiences.

On my current trip to Japan, I’ve been struck by the absurdity of TripAdvisor and other similar reviews of sightseeing destinations.

Inari Shrine — Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine in Kyoto. Getting there early, we were able to experience the shrines before the hordes descended…

Who is really to say that Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine (sitting at the base of a mountain, it encompasses a long corridor of distinctive red shrines, which were soon infiltrated by hordes of tourists from all over the world) is #1 of 847 things to do in Kyoto, while Sanjusangendo Hall (a Buddhist temple that includes a long wooden building containing an awe-inspiring one thousand life-sized statues) is #4?

Or that Rokuon-ji Temple (a beautiful Golden Pavilion where we were herded along the path in a Disneyland-type queue system) is #2 and the Gion neighbourhood (a historical geisha district that is lit up beautifully with lanterns at night) is #14?

I never set myself a clear purpose for this trip, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “see the top 10 ‘things to do’ on TripAdvisor for every city I visit”.

I’ve also been swept up in what I can only define as online hype and PR gimmicks. These make us go out of our way for experiences that can simply never be as epic as it is claimed, whether on TripAdvisor or in travel magazines, or on one of the many blogs from intrepid explorers around the world.

In Kurashiki, I queued for over an hour for a “happy pudding”. This small vanilla dessert was very nice and, sure, the smiley face on top was a cute touch – but was it that much better than the smile-less pudding from across the street? A friend of mine here in Japan topped this with her own story of waiting for three hours for shave ice at some presumably celebrated café. And I have since exceeded that again by staying up all night to be one of the lucky 120 people who got to visit the early-morning tuna auction at the Tsukiji fish market.

We often chase these unique, “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences, ticking things off our bucket list, looking for things to do that will give us stories to tell.

As Richard says in The Beach (a film that was made 16 years ago, when the whole backpacking scene in Asia in particular was really thriving):

“Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.”

It definitely hurt lying on that cold floor for three hours on Wednesday night as I waited for the tuna auction to begin… but was it worth it?!

Of course you could say that it’s through accepting all these invitations, trying new things, that we get to have the very experiences that we’re actually craving – even if they’re not what we were expecting.

The happy pudding may have been over-hyped, but it still makes me smile when I think about it – and the hour we waited was spent outside in the sunshine, watching people go by and chatting to others who were similarly lured by the pudding. The tuna auction was not the captivating experience that had been promised, but the hours that led up to it in the company of a new group of friends (involving chocolate bread and an impromptu karaoke session up on a bridge in goodness-knows-where) were all the more unforgettable. And, of course, I now have a ridiculous story to tell people about the time I stayed up all night to walk around a wet and cold fish market at five in the morning…

Having a purpose can help to remind you why you travel, when you find reasons to start to question yourself – and help you to decide when it’s time to stop.

open road — On the road again – but where are you going?

You may be missing important milestones back home, away from your family and friends; you may have to say no to job opportunities that require you to be in a particular place at a particular time; and although I think you increase your chances of meeting your soul mate when you travel, it can be hard when you have to say goodbye before you’ve worked out if it could be him.

All this being said, maybe it works in the other direction as well: maybe you can actually find your purpose by travelling.

Maybe you fall in love with a country and decide to move there more permanently. Maybe you fall in love with a person and decide to move to be closer to each other. Maybe your discovery has nothing to do with the act of travel itself but it’s simply a realisation that manifests itself during your travels.

Maybe the point is this: although travel on the surface looks like it’s about the packing of your suitcase, the flight to the other side of the world, the names of the cities and the sights that you’ll see… it’s not about that at all.

Like all of life, it’s about those moments: the laughter and the intimate conversations you share with fellow travellers whom you may never see again; the delicious meal at the little restaurant that someone takes you to and that you never would have found by yourself; the stranger on the street who gives you his umbrella and then continues on in the rain; the new ideas and insights that come to you that will change the way you look at things when you get back home.

These moments may be harder to pin down than the top 10 sights on TripAdvisor – but I think that’s why they’re worth treasuring; and, in the end, I think that’s why I travel.