Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

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

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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.

bara-zushi
The bara-zushi dish of Okayama

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
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

Hida 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

sukiyaki
Meat and vegetables for the sukiyaki hot pot dish

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

Eating okonomiyaki
Eating okonomiyaki at Nagataya in Hiroshima

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
A kaiseki meal served to us in our ryokan in Yoshino

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

green tea collage
All things green

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.

happy pudding
The (in-)famous “happy pudding” of Kurashiki, outside Hiroshima

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”

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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.

tuna auction
Big tuna. No comment.

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.

happy pudding
Feeling happy after pudding!

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.

Remembering Hiroshima

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I’ve long wanted to travel to Japan, and I’m so excited that I’ve got a whole month here – although, of course, that’s not long at all to see much of what this country has to offer. We’re travelling around the main Honshu island, right at the start of the cherry blossom season. I’ll be sharing some of the rich cultural experiences in the coming weeks – the food, the temples, the onsen baths – but this first post will be somewhat darker: our first stop was in Hiroshima.

Having visited the USS Arizona Memorial last December along with the site of the Japanese surrender, the USS Missouri, at Pearl Harbor, I was interested in seeing the other side of the story. As you can imagine, it was an emotional experience.

Ground Zero, Hiroshima
Ground Zero: the atomic bomb exploded 600 metres above this point, the position chosen to inflict maximum damage on the city

There were three B29 bombers that carried the atomic bomb: one carried devices for scientific observations, another photographic equipment, and the third the bomb itself. At 8.15 am on Monday 6th August 1945, the bomb was detonated.

It was between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees centigrade inside the hypocentre and burns resulted up to 3.5km away; the people who happened to be within 1.2km faced severe injuries to their internal organs and most of them died within days. All wooden buildings within 2km were crushed and windows were smashed as far as 27km away. The intense heat rays of the explosion set fire to the wooden houses and telephone poles and the flames enveloped the city for three days. “Black rain” fell across much of Hiroshima as dust and soot became radioactive.

Abomb dome
This building was the only structure remaining near the hypocentre, and soon become known as the A-Bomb Dome. Today it is officially named the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, standing as a reminder of the bombing and a symbol of peace

As you enter the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, there’s a horrific scene recreating the skin hanging off the bodies of people in the street following the explosion. There are pictures of bodies with bad burns, charred remains that are reminiscent of the bodies of Pompeii (and in fact the materials melted by the intense heat were said to resemble molten lava).

On the steps in front of a bank, a black shadow where someone had been sitting as they waited for it to open. People were trapped under the collapsed houses, and those outside could only say a quiet prayer as they ran away to save themselves from the fire that was engulfing the city.

Afterwards, when they were searching for their loved ones, many were unable to find the remains and often had to make do with a random item of the individual’s personal possessions – a hat or a bag, a notebook, a tricycle – as a keepsake or for the burial.

One of the museum exhibits tells of how Tsuneyo searched desperately for her husband Masatoro in all the relief stations around the city. Eventually she found the ruins of his office building, and where his desk had been she found bones in the position of someone sitting in chair, a lunch box and pipe lying at the end of his outstretched arm.

A child's uniform
The exhibits include this uniform of a five-year-old child, along with a school lunch box with the charred remains of a lunch that was never eaten

Many who died were school children, pupils in year seven and eight, who had been mobilised towards the end of the war to demolish buildings for firebreaks (gaps that would act as a barrier to the spread of fire): around 6,300 boys and girls died when the bomb fell.

The worst stories were of the parents who survived their children.

“I killed her,” says Aiko, a woman in one of the audio recordings, “I killed my daughter.” The little girl had said she had a headache that morning but her mother told her she had to go to school; the girl never came back. Another mother tells how she was caring for her daughter in the days following the bomb and the little girl asked for a tomato; while her mother went out to fulfil this request, the girl died.

There was a chronic shortage of medical supplies to deal with all the injuries of those who did not die right away. There were rotting bodies, often unclaimed, as whole families were dead. It was a huge task to manage to cremate them all, there were so many.

Children's Peace Memorial
Sadako Sasaki was aged two when she was exposed to the bomb but she grew up without any apparent injuries. Aged twelve, she contracted leukaemia. In hospital, she folded tiny paper cranes – it was said that folding 1,000 cranes would make a wish come true – in the hope that she would recover; she passed away in October 1955. The story of the little girl and her paper cranes spread around the world and inspired this Children’s Peace Memorial, outside the museum

Of course, we now know that there were long-term effects from the radiation, not immediately obvious in the aftermath of the explosion. Acute effects of the explosion lasted five months and included “epilation, symptoms of damage to mucous membranes including diarrhoea, melena and bleeding from gums, and impeded blood-forming functions”. People would appear uninjured but days later would start vomiting blood. The fish died.

Around 350,000 people are estimated to have been in Hiroshima at the time of the bomb, including many thousand Chinese and Koreans along with foreign exchange students and American prisoners of war. By the end of the year, 140,000 people were dead.

Perhaps the worst part of the whole exhibit was the sign at the end, which explained how the dropping of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) did not end the use of this weapon but instead signalled the start of a Nuclear Age. The Cold War created an arms race that brought a hydrogen bomb with a destructive force more than 3,000 times that of the atomic bomb that had been used on Hiroshima.

You may have come across this visual representation that was shared on social media a few years ago, depicting all nuclear detonations as of 1945 on a world map; it’s quite evocative. It’s now estimated that there are still 16,000 nuclear warheads in the world, 90% of which are held by Russia and the United States.

 

Packing list for Australia, New Zealand and Asia: what to bring and what not to bring

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Since returning from my three-month backpacking trip to South America, the post that gave my take on what to bring and what not to bring has consistently been one of the most visited on my blog. I hope my new packing list for Asia, once again with the benefit of hindsight, is equally helpful…

This time around it was a shorter trip, 31 days, I wasn’t travelling into winter weather, and I wasn’t going hiking, which all helped! On the other hand, it was still another tricky one as I was combining completely different countries, climates and trip types. I was starting off on the north island of New Zealand, which would see the coldest temperatures of around 13-14 degrees and where I would be driving around with my friend in a flashy BMW Z4. Then on to Sydney and Melbourne, where I’d be living the city life in museums, shopping malls and bars. The second half of my trip would take place over in Asia, bussing up and down the west coast of Malaysia before ending up in Singapore where the temperatures would be 30-35 degrees.

I had planned to be “roughing it” for the second half of the trip but in fact I continued my trip in comfort, staying in nice hotels and even flying domestic sometimes instead of taking the bus. I was also treating this trip differently, in that I would be working remotely while travelling. This meant bringing my computer as the iPad just wouldn’t cut it for working on documents, editing my business website, and so on.

Backpack vs suitcase: Last time, after lugging my big backpack around for three months, I actually decided that a suitcase with wheels would be a more civilised choice going forward. I once again succumbed to convention this time, though, and packed a backpack – a smaller backpack, but a backpack nonetheless. It felt like the right choice for Asia and, let’s face it, having a backpack is sort of integral to the concept of backpacking. It worked fine but again a suitcase would have been absolutely fine too. I wasn’t travelling on chicken buses and there was always a lift up to my room since I was staying in hotels rather than hostels. Next time: SUITCASE!

Sleeping bag: I didn’t bring a sleeping bag; I did bring a sleeping bag liner but didn’t use it, again, as I was staying in nicer hotels with clean sheets!

Jeans: It’s true that you don’t need jeans in Asia. It’s HOT. You need light trousers, shorts and skirts. But I brought a pair anyway for the plane journey there and back again and to wear in New Zealand as well as on the cooler evenings in Australia.

SLR vs point-and-shoot: I’m getting more into my photography and so I made the decision to bring my Nikon D5100 on this trip. I brought only one lens, a zoom lens (18-200mm) to cover most situations. I didn’t bring any other kit, I had no tripod, and I didn’t have the proper bag to put it in, carrying the camera loose in my shoulder bag for easy access. (I felt less uncomfortable with my big camera in Asia than I would have in South America, but I’m still surprised by all the tourists who openly flash their big brand cameras and iPads around all over the place.) I also brought my GoPro for the first time, shooting short video clips throughout the trip. And I had my iPhone to take some candid pics for Instagram 🙂

Computer vs iPad: I took a big gamble and brought my Macbook Air. I was very careful with it, in Asia especially: I didn’t get it out on buses or in public places, I didn’t bring it to cafés or bars. I had backed everything up ahead of time, and turned on the FileVault encryption for added security. This was a bit of a test for me as I start to live more of the “digital nomad” life…

Bags:
1 x 50l backpack (Lowe Alpine Cholatse II ND Backpack – Black/Lavender, Size 50-60)
1 x old Longchamp bag* (Le pliage)
1 x small handbag (I also bought a shoulder bag during the trip that I could wear across the body in Asia)
6 x packing cubes to compartmentalise my clothes (eBags Slim Packing Cubes)
1 x mesh bag for dirty laundry
*No small backpack this time, as I wasn’t hiking

Shoes:
1 x flip-flops (Havaianas)
1 x old sandals (thrown away and replaced during the trip)
1 x old ballerinas (thrown away at the end of the trip)
1 x sandals with heels for the evenings (barely worn but good to have them)
No trainers or hiking boots!

Trousers and shorts:
1 x jeans
2 x loose trousers
1 x lacy shorts

Tops:
4 x short-sleeved tops
2 x vest tops
1 x tunic top for temples (to cover my shoulders)

Dresses and skirts:
2 x casual short dresses*
1 x maxi dress
1 x knee-length denim skirt
*Barely worn. Even though other tourists (especially the Chinese) were wearing skimpy little skirts and hot pants, I was more comfortable wearing my long trousers while travelling in Malaysia, which is officially a Muslim country.

Underwear and swimwear:
14 x pairs of knickers*
3 x bras – 1 strapless nude, 1 white, 1 colour
1 x socks for cooler evenings (barely worn)
1 x bikini, with bag to put it in when wet
*Last time I only brought enough underwear for a week so this time I went all out!

Jumpers and cardigans:
2 x cardigans

Outerwear:
1 x light windbreaker (from Uniqlo)
1 x warm pashmina
1 x light scarf
1 x sunglasses*
1 x mini umbrella (especially useful in Malaysia and Singapore)
*Instead of my cheap sunglasses that I brought to South America, I brought my old Chanels this time darling…

Additional clothes bought on the trip:
1 x midi-skirt
1 x maxi dress
3 x tops
Ahem. I had a bit of a shopping spree in Sydney and then again in Melbourne…

For sleeping:
1 x sleeping bag liner*
1 x pyjama vest top and shorts
1 x eye mask and earplugs (no inflatable pillow this time)
*Never used, as I stayed in nice hotels with clean sheets!

Toiletries:
Small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, face wash, face cream, body lotion
Cleansing wipes
Deodorant, perfume
Razor
Nail travel kit including scissors, nail file and tweezers
Nail polish
Cotton buds
Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss
Lip salve with SPF, Vaseline
Sun cream, for face and body
Hand cream
Make-up – mascara, eyeliner, concealer, powder, blusher, lip gloss
Anti-bacterial hand gel
Wet wipes
Tampons
Tissues
Hairbrush, hair grips and elastics
Wash bag*
*I like Cath Kidston’s Cosmetic Roll Cases – they come in a larger size (it’s huge!) and a smaller one, which I use for this type of trip. The detachable pockets and the hook for hanging it make it super practical.

Medication:
Insect repellent, after-bite cream
Malaria tablets, antibiotics, Imodium, rehydration tablets*
Small first aid kit, sterile needle kit*
Migraine sprays
*I never used any of the medical kit, which is a good thing!

Electronics:
Macbook Air (11 inch) plus charger
iPhone 5S plus charger
Earphones
Kindle plus charger
Adapters for Australia and New Zealand (Malaysia and Singapore are the same as the UK)
Nikon D5100 with 18-200mm Lens plus charger
GoPro HERO3+ plus charger
USB sticks, memory card, memory card reader

Admin:
Passport, photocopies of passport
American Express, Visa debit card
Vaccination booklet
Printed flight bookings
Lonely Planet Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei*
Small wallet
*I had this on my Kindle but I would really recommend the paperback version. It’s so much easier and more enjoyable to flip through the book in your hands, to find pages that you’ve marked, and to refer back to a map or reference that you need.

Security:
Padlocks*, including one with a cable
Money belt to wear under my clothes
*Never used on this trip, unlike in South America where I constantly padlocked my backpacks while travelling as well as locking my things up in the hostel lockers.

Other bits and bobs:
Travel towel*
Headlamp*
Notebook and pens
Toilet paper**
*Never used as I was staying in hotels and private rooms instead of hostels and dorm rooms
**I picked this up along the way and it did prove useful at some bus stops and bus terminals in Malaysia.
I didn’t bring travel detergent or a washing line this time – in New Zealand and Australia I was mostly staying in apartments where I had my own washing machine, and in Malaysia you could send off your laundry really cheaply. I had a bit of a shock when I wanted to wash something in Singapore, though, as prices there are on a par with Europe. 

As you can see, this was more flashpacking than a traditional budget backpacking trip. I had my computer and my big camera, I had a Longchamp bag, and nice sunglasses. And, though not planned, I ended up staying in nice hotels throughout the trip. If you’re going to do luxury, though, you might as well do it in Asia, where you get a huge room with 5-star service for the price of a closet in the big European cities like Paris and London.

So what do you think? Anything missing that you couldn’t live without? Anything I’ve included that you think is completely unnecessary? Let me know how you get on with packing for your next trip!

Why not also check out my other packing lists, for South America and for travelling as a digital nomad!

Packing for Asia

Flashpacking on Steroids: Staying at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore

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The one part of my trip that I had booked ahead of time was the end: two nights staying at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, for a luxury end to what turned out to have been quite a luxury trip. Ahem. Built in 2010 and the second most expensive building in the world, this is now the iconic hotel of the city and its three towers have become an integral part of the Singapore skyline.

When I checked out of the AMOY Hotel in the morning and took a taxi over to Marina Bay Sands, my garden view hotel room wasn’t available yet. For a small additional cost, however, I could upgrade to a room with a city view and move indirectly. This I did, and so I soon found myself on the 50th floor, the curtains opening automatically when I entered the room to reveal a view out over the river and the business district beyond.

The hotel, and the whole surrounding area, is like a whole different world…

Marina Bay Sands Hotel
I found in Singapore that everything should be visited twice: once during the day, and once at night. The experience is completely different. The hotel from below, during the day…
Marina Bay Sands at night
…and at night.
When I was there at Christmastime, the shopping centre also housed an ice rink where you would find carol singers (angels!) during the weekend.
Whether or not you’re staying at the hotel itself, you can wile away the hours in the huge shopping centre, where you’ll find all the big luxury brands and a range of restaurants. You can even rent a boat and travel up and down the river inside the complex – like Willy Wonka but without the scary flashing lights and the Oompa Loompas. When I was there at Christmastime, the shopping centre also housed an ice rink where you would find carol singers (angels!) during the weekend.
ArtScience Museum
The ArtScience Museum building out in front of the hotel looks like something from a sci-fi film…
Helix Bridge
The Helix Bridge is another futuristic architectural design that looks impressive both during the day and at nighttime. Behind it to the right you can see the Singapore Flyer, the world’s second tallest Ferris Wheel (it’s all second best! Sorry, Singapore…).
Infinity pool
Perhaps the best part of staying at Marina Bay Sands is the infinity pool, the world’s highest and only accessible to hotel guests. As you’d imagine, it was pretty busy even when I arrived early in the morning, and again when I returned at night. Most people could be found at the far edge of the pool with their selfie sticks, ready to make their friends jealous.
Marina Bay Sands pool
Errr… yep, I did it too! Daytime…
Marina Bay Sands Hotel
…and nighttime.
View from Marina Bay Sands Hotel
One night I had dinner at the Ku De Ta restaurant at the top of the hotel. The view was… quite nice.
Wonder Full Light and Water Spectacular
Every evening at 8pm and 9.30pm there would be the “Wonder Full light and water spectactular” at the event plaza out in front of the shopping complex. An odd display of water fountains with projections of smiling children along with lasers and spotlights, all ending in a dramatic finale of smoke and bubbles to the sound of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
Gardens by the Bay at night
There was another light show at the Gardens by the Bay, a great park that transports you to Pandora, the land of Avatar. In fact, one evening I timed it perfectly so that I could watch this one and then walk back over the bridge and through the hotel and shopping centre to watch the Wonder Full show again.
Gardens by the Bay
The Gardens by the Bay as viewed from the top of Marina Bay Sands.
Cloud Forest, Gardens by the Bay
The Cloud Forest at the Gardens was particularly unusual. You entered at the bottom, taking the lift to the “lost world” at the top and then following the walkway back down to the bottom.

On my last day, I had to check out of the hotel in the morning but my flight wasn’t until 9pm. What to do? UNIVERSAL STUDIOS! Of course. So I set my alarm for 7am, packed my things, and off I went to Sentosa. (Resorts World, by the way, is the third most expensive building in the world.) I bought the Express Unlimited pass, a magical bracelet that let me skip the queue on every ride. Yeah baby. Unexpectedly, my favourite ride was probably the Transformers: a shaky simulator-type experience where you put on sexy 3D glasses and things come flying out at you, very cool (I haven’t even seen the films. Though I did love the adverts of the 1980s – sing it with me: Transformers! Robots in disguiiiiise!).

The Land of Far Far Away, Singapore
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Hollywood sign
Oh yes.
Every hour on the hour it would snow in Santa's Land in Hollywood. Quite bizarre, both when I arrived and it was sunny outside and as I was leaving when there was a torrential downpour.
Every hour on the hour it would snow in Santa’s Land in Hollywood. Quite bizarre, both when I arrived and it was sunny outside and as I was leaving when there was a torrential downpour.

By the early afternoon, given that I had zoomed to the front of the line on each and every ride, I had had enough. I’d been on Transformers twice, as well as on the Revenge of the Mummy, the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure and the Canopy Flyer twice each; and I’d been on Madagascar: A Crate Adventure, Sesame Street (oh yes!), Lights Camera Action, Shrek and Enchanted Airlines. I’d had chicken nuggets, chai tea and churros. And I’d wandered through all the shops and browsed the various toys and souvenirs (I didn’t buy anything, honest!). With the skies having opened, it was time to leave.

Getting to the airport more than four hours before my flight, I cleverly booked a two-hour stint at the pay-per-use lounge at hotel. For $30 I got a shower and a dim sum dinner, and was able to change out of my Universal Studios clothes to start my two-day journey back to the UK completely fresh.

And so ended my Asian adventure! For this time…

 

The practical bit:

Marina Bay Sands Hotel: The Marina Bay Sands Hotel has rooms from the ‘basic’ deluxe room right up to the presidential suite, with a garden or city view. Breakfast was not included in my room and cost $44++ (which means plus tax and service – pretty outrageous) so I opted to grab a coffee and pastry downstairs in a café on my way out each morning for the princely sum of $10.

Sky Park: If you’re not staying at the hotel, you can still experience the views with a ticket to the Sky Park ($23 for an adult). Or why not eat at one of the restaurants up there and you get the view for free!

Gardens by the Bay: The gardens are also accessible to all, and most of it is free. A combo ticket for the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome was $28. The Sky Walk (a walkway around the giant mushrooms) costs $5 but was closed due to rain when I was there.

Universal Studios: From Marina Bay Sands, I took the Downtown line from Bayfront to Chinatown, changing to the Northeast line to Harbourfront ($3.30 for a return ticket). There you follow the signs to the Vivo shopping centre, where you can already buy your ticket to the park ($74 for a one-day pass plus $4 for the monorail (the return trip is free). You can get the basic Express card ($50) that lets you skip the queue for each ride once, or the Express Unlimited ($70) for… unlimited queue skipping! It wasn’t very busy when I went, compared to the crowds I had expected so close to Christmas, but it was still amazing to get to walk past everyone and get a seat on the front or back of the ride as I so desired (by the afternoon, there was a 30-45-minute wait for the most popular rides). If you’re there on your own like I was, you can often skip the queue anyway, to fill up empty seats – sometimes there was even a separate line for single riders.

Lounge: The pay-per-use lounge is in Terminal 3, which was a bit annoying, as I had to trek all the way across from where my flight was leaving at Terminal 1, with my by-now-very-heavy rucksack. There’s a monorail that takes you between the terminals and I even succumbed to using a trolley to give my back a break. For $30 I got a shower (in a private bathroom with towel, shower products and a hair dryer) and a dim sum dinner. You can also pay $14 just for the shower, or $60 for a three-hour stint in the nap room!