Japanese Toilets

Doing your business while travelling can be tricky stuff sometimes, especially when there's squatting or wild animals involved. However when I went to Japan a few years ago, I found that the Japanese toilets are just as high-tech as everything else in this Asian country.

Photo by Nemo's Great Uncle under Creative Commons licence

Upon my first encounter with a Japanese toilet my behind was treated to a heated seat. Yes, that's right. Japanese toilets seats are heated. Not in the someone-just-sat-here-before-me-way, but in a ooh-that'-nice-kind-of-way.

My Most Memorable Trips

What do you do when you are not going away for a while and the weather at home only makes you want to crawl into bed and sleep till spring? You go through old boxes of photos from trips gone by. Yes, my travel adventures predate the digital era. Reminiscing about past trips is the perfect remedy to forget the wind and rain, but I won't bore you with listing all of the trips that passed by over the weekend, so here is my top 5.

St Maarten

Buenos Aires

Working for American Airlines ten years ago, allowed me to travel to exotic places for next to nothing. Now when you have cheap tickets at your disposal, you tend to go on whirlwind. I went shopping in NYC for one day, travelled to Tokyo for a long weekend, but my most memorable airline staff trip was when I flew to Buenos Aires for a friend's birthday party. It was only a three day trip, but besides showing up at the party dressed as Super Woman, we managed to see the grave of Eva Peron in the Recoleta cemetery, go out in the  Santelmo area and taste empanadas and dance a little tango in La Boca.

Tokyo

Another one of those memorable staff trips was a round the world in one weekend trip to Tokyo. Three of my friends flew out on ANA across Asia and discovered the weird and wonderful Japanese culture, before flying back home on American Airlines via Chicago. We did get some weird looks from fellow travellers when they asked us how long we were travelling for.

Cuba

There was a nomadic life before my travel career and when I was a student I was looking for a holiday as a newly single girl and decided to learn Spanish in Cuba. I stayed with a Cuban family and enjoyed private lessons in my teacher's home, which allowed me to see what day to day Cuban life is really like. Something you don't normally get to experience when staying in a 5 star resort.

Northern Ireland

When I was living in Ireland I went on a three day tour of Northern Ireland. We saw a few natural and urban gems, but what made this trip one I still remember vividly was the visual division between the two religions wich really came to life during a tour of Belfast in a black cab tour. You only realise the segregation in cities such as Belfast and Londonderry/Derry when you see it with your own eyes.

NYC

Number 5 maybe doesn't count as a trip as I was living in NYC at the time, but I will not forget the summer of 2001 any time soon. I was living in Queens, working a season as a holiday rep for an inbound tour-operator on 11th September. Luckily I was at home and none of my friends and colleagues were hurt, but those days were probably the most scary and uncertain of my life.

So there you have it. My 5 most memorable trips taken over the past 20 years. Happy ones and shocking ones, but memorable either way.

Five Fun Things to Do in Tokyo

Tokyo is one of those cities that will always fascinate me. I think it's the mystery of the East which contrasts so much with all the high-tech 'Western' gadgets, neon-lights and architecture.

I could spend days just wandering around the streets, but if I had to pick, I'd pick one of these fun things to do in Tokyo:

• Sing your little heart out in one of the private karaoke rooms. I hate being the centre of attention  let alone stand on a stage and make an ass out of myself. So these private karaoke places are perfect if you're like me. You rent them for as long as you want, you pick your own songs and drinks are delivered to your room while you pretend to be Britney or Rihanna.

• Go around the food halls at the many department stores and feast on the samples that are laid out around the different counters. No lunch required.
• Visit the Tsukiji fish market at 5 am. The best way not to miss the most lively moment to visit this market, is to go out all night (Ropongi is a good place to do this) and take the first metro to Tsukijishijo. I swear, the fish I tasted here was the best fish I ever had. 

• Step in Bill Murray's and Scarlett Johansson's shoes and have a cocktail at the New York Bar & Grill at the Hyatt Park Hotel near Shinjuku. Even if you're not a 'Lost in Translation' fan, you'll love the views from here across Tokyo.
• Hop on a train to Kamakura, just south of Tokyo. Rent a bike and ride around the quaint little town, dotted with temples and there's a massive sitting Buddha in town as well.

Sushi and Soho

 Today I strolled around Soho where I ended up in what could potentially be called Little Tokyo; Brewer Street. Ah, Tokyo. My favorite country in the world, when it comes to eating. And not just because I love Japanese food, but I really love all their eating customs and habits. The sitting on the floor, the chopsticks, and the surprise aspect of it all because you don't have a clue what you just ordered.

On a trip to Japan my travel buddy and I had found a place that looked like a decent eatery and walked in. Only to be directed to a machine hanging from the wall. It had a lot of buttons with little stickers printed next to them. Of course all in Japanese. Luckily they also had a display outside with plastic versions of the different dishes they were serving there, looking all  extremely similar.

A friendly couple that barely spoke English helped us figure out what type of meat we could chose from. Learning all those animal sounds when I was 3 years old  finally paid off!! We copied the characters for chicken onto a little piece of paper and headed back to the machine to compare to the stickers. I'm not quite sure if it was indeed chicken I ended up with, but it was tasty anyways.

So yes, I love Japanese food and find myself drawn to the Japanese restaurants and supermarkets on Brewer Street in Soho many a lunch time. And I can order my food here in English. Yet, somehow that infamous chicken dish on my trip to Tokyo has never been equaled. I guess when you have to work that hard to order something, it just tastes better.