Tag: travel

Saying Sayonara: One Last Night in Kyoto
Soft focus photos of sexy school girls dangle from the bar in what look like trading cards for fetishists. Unusually tiny, unshelled peanuts fondle the chopsticks under the neon light, and a Formula 1 driver mugs it hard on a calendar nailed to the door next to a replica jersey that spells out O-H-T-A-N-I.

With only one night in Kyoto, a city full of well-intending, well-groomed Chads and Logans who like to remind you that it is literally illegal to take photos of geishas without their consent, I have gone out of my way to find a Japanese bettola for your reading displeasure. Potentially translating to izakaya in Japanese—which after around 10 days in the country I somehow still do not speak—from another language, Italian—which after nearly 20 years of study I somehow still do not speak—a bettola is, for those who do not know, “a small, informal, and often inexpensive restaurant or tavern, or a seedy bar or dive.”

I will now share my failsafe, points-based system to help determind whether or not you’ve found a real bettola:

The menus are handwritten (2 points).

The menus are in a language you don’t understand (1 point).

There are no pictures of food anywhere (1 point).

None of the clients look, sound, act, or think like you (500 points).

There is a way to get sufficiently soused for less than or equal to the price of a value meal at the local McDonald’s (no “Hobo” option? -2 points).

It’s this mentality that brought me to such a godforsaken place on the quasi-bland quasi-outskirts of this beautiful town. I could’ve gone to the brewpub emphatically recommended by my friend, a longtime Japanese resident and accomplished food blogger. I might’ve opted for that spot in the trendy neighborhood of Gion with its smoked wagyu, punk music, and stylish, evidently happy clientele, or the place near my guesthouse that’s been serving an all-eel omakase for over four centuries.

Instead, on my last night in Japan, my endless pursuit of “authentic experience” finds me gawking at the sequences of squiggles they call a menu while three the real-life school girls at the bar stare, giggling at my inability to understand why they’re giggling at me.

Getting shamed by the locals who are probably too young to even be in a bar: 3 points.

Stealing glances at my translation app, I muster up the confidence to order a hotto imojōchū—whatever the hell that is—and the masked man slicing salmon behind the bar raises his arms in celebration, as if I’ve finally unlocked some great code. Bottle-blonded, his age indeterminable, the bartender swings an arm around like a late career Elvis shooting fireballs from his pointer fingers, then shouts something that makes the girls laugh even harder, and soon enough I’m cradling a steaming mug of something that is, clearly and mercifully, alcohol.

“It’s my last night in Japan,” I say in remedial, over-loud English to no one in particular, then repeat it into my app for the bartender to see.

Looking me over with a wellspring of pity, he pours me a shot of Tokyo’s infamous Denki Bran—the stronger of two “electric” brandies, neither of which are brandies at all—then follows that with a bit of Hiroshima’s paint-stripping Sakurao Gin served with one perfect ice cube. “Number one,” he says with a wink, then meets the schoolgirls at the cash register to tally up their tab.

Bartender sharing free tastes of strange booze: 2 points.

Saying yes to duress.

As if to spare us from being alone in the bar together, moments after the first group leaves, the front door swings open, and a new group of five shuffle in. The chef shouts something I don’t understand as a cordial couple takes the pair of stools to my left, bowing, followed by a pair of girls strapped into the kind of shiny pink gyaru gowns on display on the bar.

[Tangent from the Gyaru Wiki: Gyaru (ギャル^?) is a Japanese transliteration of the English word ‘gal’. The name originated from a 1970s brand of jeans called “gurls”, with the advertising slogan: “I can’t live without men”, and was applied to fashion- and peer-conscious girls in their teens and early twenties. Its usage peaked in the 2000s and has gradually declined.]

The fifth entrant, wan and angular, sways back and forth as if on the high seas. Trailing one of the girls a little too close, he takes the seat directly opposite of mine, sprinkling ash from the stump of a dangling cigarette. Slowly, his eyes settle in, squinting at me through the neon, then widen in surprise. “Good morning!” he shouts with a laugh as the chef hands him a highball.

Funny and clearly rather depressive local drunk: 1 point.

“She normally works here,” the woman to my left says in a language I can understand, nodding to one of the gyaru girls. The girl, lighting a slender cigarette, makes a point to ignore the angular man, and it’s not clear to me whether he resents or enjoys such treatment. “Tonight,” says my neighbor, nodding to the same girl, “we celebrate her twenty-one years!”’

Kamaboko in the flesh.

The bartender hands me a kamaboko, a lightly toasted fish cake with minced green onions served with spicy mustard, followed by a slate platter featuring four kinds of thick-cut sashimi and a flickering lantern which he’s carved from a daikon.

…and yet, no PBR on draft.

Excellent food presented with panache: 4 points for the quality food and -4 points for the quality presentation.

My neighbor is impressed by his work. She whispers something his way and he responds with a mournful word. “It’s your last night in Japan,” she tells me, as if I weren’t aware.

I shove a bit of kanpachi directly into my gob, and it is sweet and almost disturbingly tender. The fish cake is squeaky and gray, but filling and warm. I order another highball, the birthday girl orders another glass of what appears to be blueberry juice, and we all clink glasses. My neighbor insults her husband to his face, calling him broken-down, and he laughs, “yes, I am very old.”

Having fun: .5 points.

It seems the birthday gyaru is staring at me now, skirt hiked up, massaging her bare thigh with one hand and ashing her smoke with the other. My neighbor leans in. “Do you like Japanese women?”

I am now sufficiently soused.

As I’m busy stammering to death, the bartender presents a beautiful, fish-free cake—chocolate ganache with forest berries—and lights a daikon-free candle. Passing around the slices, the prime cut reserved for this absolutely discombobulated piece of shit, they all sing Happy Birthday To You in impeccable English.

Not knowing whether your experience is incomparably innocent or unspeakably filthy: 4.5 points.

The bartender shouts something, drumming on the bar, and everyone applauds, clinking their glasses of water and juice once more. “He wishes you a happy journey, and wants to thank you for coming to Japan,” my neighbor says, and my heart melts like sashimi in my chest.

I stand, tearing up, and tell them that even after such a short time, I feel forever changed by their country, that I will never forget their hospitality, and that I will miss each and every one of them. They respond in silence; only my neighbor understands, and I can tell from her face that I’ve overdone it. She eyes my empty glass. “Are you safe getting home?” She feels bad for me. I leave my money on the bar and leave as quickly as possible.

Final Score: Yes, it’s a bettola, alright.

Goodbye (and hello), Kyoto Tower

Kokoro. 605-0951 Kyoto, Higashiyama Ward, Higashikawaracho, 696. Kyoto.
March 19, 2025
Two Pubs in Paradiso

On an old television in the corner of the pub, an augur of inaugurated bronze doom flickers, dressed like a child in a suit that’s several sizes too big. Here, a man of untold misery and loneliness rests his hand on a bible, muttering inaudibly with a scowl shared by all around him.

Forcing myself to look away, I pour molten wax onto the tip of my finger, drop by drop, then rub it into the mahogany table ad nauseam. I feel nothing.

“Look at America! Look how sad he is,” squeals Lur, the wild-haired Cuban woman sitting by the front door. She claps her hands together in hysterics, as she always does. After a month’s worth of nights at Bistrò, Lur has yet to learn my name, content in calling me “America” while scoffing in mockery at just about everything I say. I don’t object, for I am a beta cuck.

Lur’s husband, Marco, the pensive and wise bartender of the tiny, wood-lined bar, looks at me with pity, and calls me to the till by name. His graying hair is pulled back in a ponytail, hemp necklace dangling from his sunburned neck; he reeks of spliff. Pulling a greasy bottle from beneath the bar, he pours me a large glass of some clear and wicked liquor reserved, it seems, only for emergencies. “From my garden,” Marco says mournfully, his voice gruff and nasal. “Please.”

“Offer, I, too for you?” My Italian, broken and soaked through in sour wine, sounds as pathetic as I feel. He waves it off, pushing the shot under my hanging head. It stings my nostrils. With a backward tilt of my head, it disappears. Magic.

Winter, 2017. In the wake of an Orange November, I trade my savings for a few months’ rent in a moist, fungal apartment carved into the castle rock of Dolceacqua.

Neither Italian nor French, this tiny village above the Rivêa d’e Sciûe (Liguria’s Floral Coast) offers visitors a privileged plunge into an ancient and romantic world mere minutes from the Casino de Monte-carlo and the migrant detention centers of Ventimiglia. During the warmer months, spandex-clad bikers stop here for torta verde and pigato wine in the midst of their Le Tour, niçoise families retreat from crowded beaches to flood the town’s taverns for rabbit, boar, and a few glasses of the local rossesse, and immigrants risk their lives crossing the highway for France under the blanket of night in pursuit of a better life.

These days, however, Dolceacqua is largely still, silent, and covered with a thin, cool film of condensation. This heavy mist blots the ruins of the Castle Doria from sight, the Nervia River slows to a trickle under the bulbous, 15^th century Old Bridge, and with hardly an outsider around, the streets are starved for footsteps:

At the historic Cinema Cristallo, a teenaged ticket-taker sighs with boredom, so slight was the draw one month into the screening of Lion, the three-time AARP Movies for Grownups Award nominee starring Dev Patel as Australian entrepreneur Saroo Brierly; at Piazza Garibaldi’s finest pizzeria, a balding server in a wine-stained apron polishes silverware on a white tablecloth set for guests that just weren’t coming; down the Via Patrioti Martiri (Martyred Patriots Street), a pub oozes an alluring familiarity: tinny sounds of the Sex Pistols spill out onto the cobblestone amidst rusted signs advertising Guinness to great effect.

Heraldic eagles through the ages.

With that double shot of garden poison rotting my gut, I peer into the AquilaNera Irish Pub with much apprehension. Where I had avoided the familiar in Dolceacqua up until now, my love of potato chips, sticky floors, and the inimitable contours of an imperial pint glass pouring that rich, foamy stout oyster down my gullet was simply too much to resist.

It was like entering a haunted house. “Salve, c’è qualcuno,” my voice echoes. “Anyone there?” As I wobble my way onto a stool, resting my head on the bar, a lanky figure emerges from the back with a Cheshire grin of welcome.

“You alright ovar ‘dere,” she asks, her Cheshire—er, Kilkenny—grin melting away. It was the first bit of native English I’d heard in months, and I sit up in surprise.

“Oh, it’s just I’m…I’m American,” I say, feeling a little naughty speaking my own language.

A voice startles me from a table along the wall. “One hell of a day for yez today, bruv?” An outstretched arm, holding up the remains of a whisky on the rocks, startles me from the darkness. “Put ‘at one on my tab, Col’,” he says to the bartender, before settling at my right. Don’ mind ‘f I join ya?” He unfurls a newspaper at taps his rocks glass for a refill.

“You’re…the waiter…” I say, gobsmacked. I’d been greeting him all this time as he polished his wares, thinking him to be a local when he’d been a damned Englishman all along.

“Eh,” he grumbles. In close proximity I can see what must be years of fade coffee stains on his shirt, his ruddy skin pocked and bloated. He was certainly older than I’d initially thought, or was at least a hard-lived forty. He spreads his copy of The Daily Telegraph atop the bar, pointing to the picture on the front page, where that miserable bronze face glowered in a full-page spread. It was official.

“T’America,” he says, clinking my glass and downing the rest of his drink.

Col’ sets our new round on the bar begins to say something, but thinks better of it. The Englishman looks over the paper. “Bet all ‘at wiggling trash at the border’s shitting ‘mselves about now. America First, fookin’ right. Cheers.”

I struggle to take my first sip, my ears ringing. OK. With a deep breath, I launch into a lecture of all the reasons I think this man is mistaken, spouting off a long list of reasons carefully curated from six months’ worth of progressive blogs, YouTube videos, and talks with my leftist friends. Why, he’s just a racist, sexist, proudly uneducated meanie, that’s all he is, I say, proud of myself. This guy doesn’t get it, I think. He’s on the other side of the world, how would he know?

“Il fookin’ Doo-chay, man, that’s who he reminds me of.” The server sips his new drink, savoring it for a moment, and a devilish grin spreads on his face. “Now that was a fookin’ leader, Moosolini.” Col’ llooks on, bemused, polishing a pint glass. “Man had guts,” he continues, and I feel the red creep onto my cheeks. “Nowdays out here, we got all ‘m melanzane pouring in ‘n no one does fook all.”

“Hanno fatto anche buone cose!”

“But I…I…” I shoot a look to the bartender for some backup, but she just shrugs. I’m in over my head. “Well. Agree to disagree,” I say, voice cracking. I wish I could hide behind my damned beer, but instead I pretend to look around the pub as the bald man continues on about racial purity. I wonder if that cobblestone on the vaulted ceiling is real, or painted on, I think, wanting anything but to look the man in the eye, though his focus is locked on mine. “Ha ha, maybe,” I say, drinking my beer as quickly as possible.

With one final gulp that nearly drowns me, I stand and curtsy like a fucking idiot. “I thank you for the generosity,” I say with an almost courtly grandeur, “but I really must be going.” With a nod to the befuddled bartender, I take my leave from the pub.

Wobbling more than ever back out on the street, I look back at the AquilaNera. Its wrought-iron mascot—an eponymous black eagle, naturally—soars above a maroon shield painted in medieval Blackletter. Black Eagle, I think to myself editorially. What an interesting name for a bar.

La Fenice Bistrò. Via Roma, 26.
Acquila Nera Irish Pub. Via Patrioti Martiri, 17.

June 13, 2024
I Pooped My Pants Camping in Iceland So You Don’t Have To

The Westman Islands (regionally called Vestmannaeyjar) are a collection of remote, mostly uninhabited islands off the south coast of Iceland. These otherworldly archipelagos are known for intense jagged rock formations that are home to a plethora of birdlife. Among them, puffins are known to burrow and nest in the nooks and crannies of these austere pieces of land formed by underwater volcanic eruptions 10-20 thousand years ago. Only one island, Heimaey, is inhabited and can be reached by ferry from Landeyjahöfn. While many who have the chance to experience these glorious islands would say they took their breath away, I am able to say that they literally made me shit my pants.

Butterfish:those who have tried it, know to stay away. Although it melts in your mouth, acquiring its name from its buttery texture and rich, smooth flavor and comes at a fraction of the cost of many other options—you will pay for it in other ways. Banned in Japan and Italy and highly regulated in many other countries, butterfish, otherwise known as escolar, can cause a multitude of issues for some eaters. These may include, according to Health Canada, “one or more of the following: the rectal passage of an oily yellow or orange substance (called keriorrhea), diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and headache.” I was well-aware of these dangers having worked in a restaurant that served butterfish. What I didn’t know is that this slippery fucker goes by many names.

Our trip was a family (my husband, 6-year-old son and myself) camping expedition, and the campsite on Heimaey was beyond beauty I can shape into words. We found a spot behind some rolling hills that doubled as hobbit houses and luxuriated in the backdrop of blue skies, Simpson clouds, a massive wall of verdant cliffs scattered with sheep and the swiss cheese-like sides overlooking the ocean with thousands of puffins soaring in and out of their cubbies. It was a warm day, so we walked into town for lunch and decided upon The Brothers Brewery, the only brewery on the island that had a cute bistro with outdoor seating. Always looking to take in the local offerings, I asked what the fresh catch of the day was. I should have shuddered with PTSD flashbacks when they described the walu as a “flaky white fish”, as that is exactly how we would describe the Butterfish to patrons at Karla’s in New Hope, PA (unless we liked them, in which we would tell them to stay the fuck away). Instead, I ordered it up and demolished it, and much like the abyss when you stare into it, the walu, in turn, demolished me.

The butterfish before the storm. Photo courtesy of the author.

Following lunch, we went to an interesting swimming area with numerous pools of varying temperatures from freezing cold to volcanically-hot. There was an area for kids and families that included waterfalls, pool, rock climbing walls and slides that culminated in a massive bounce pad that hurled you into space before dropping you into tepid water. My stomach had started to bother me but I assumed it had to do with being tossed around and screwing with my body temperature. I could not have been more wrong.

Back at the campsite, I found myself barreling to the only two bathroom stalls numerous times and started to recall the horrors I, many of Karla’s patrons, as well as the bathroom attendant, had endured as a consequence of butterfish. The non-stop, oily, orange sludge is unlike any other stomach ailment side-effect known to man. But I hadn’t eaten butterfish. What did I order again? Walu? What is Walu?” As the night wore on, I found myself unable to sleep. Awoken by cramping and the urge to run for the toilets over and over, up and down the hills, the sheep bleating and laughing at me—until I decided to just stay. Just stay on the toilet and resign myself to the worst night of camping ever.

The next day I had promised my son I would take him on puffling patrol and to the rescue aquarium, Sea Life Trust, while my husband golfed. My stomach had settled a bit so we headed to the ports at sunrise. While we were out, the issues resurfaced and we got a tour of most of the bathrooms on Heimaey. With limited cell service, I was unable to research other names for butterfish but it proved to be inconsequential. While strolling past the tanks of rescued local fauna, buttcheeks clenched, I stumbled upon my nemesis. Each tank had a bubble that served as sort of a fish-eye lens to better view the wildlife. In front of me was a long, almost eel-like fucker staring me down—practically dancing. I looked to the placard next to the tank and there it was, “Walu, an escolar, sometimes known as butterfish.” I had unmasked my monster and it was mocking me.

We walked to meet my husband at the golf course (with a few more bathroom tours). Breathtaking views of green, rolling hills set against black sand basalt cliffs were at once hauntingly gothic and fairy-like. In awe of a natural composition so overwhelming, I almost forgot about my “situation”. I started to tell my husband that I was right—I had eaten butterfish! But before I could relay the tale of the squirmy asshole in the tank, my stomach began to roll as if a hundred marbles were on spin-cycle inside of it. I began to run towards the impossibly far toilets, but running was a precarious mode of travel. Speed walking offered a safer method of containment but wasn’t quite fast enough. Through the hopelessly beautiful and untainted stretch of earth, I urged myself towards my destination—only to fall short and taint the entire experience (along with my underwear). I walked away (awkwardly) with the knowledge of this monster’s many names, and I will share them with you now, dear reader. I urge you to withhold walu (waloo in Hawaii), snub snake mackerel, eschew escolar, oppose oilfish and spurn super white tuna—your gutty-works will thank you.

March 20, 2021