Daisann McLane's Real Travel

Winning the Gold

2011-11-10T11:10:02Z

It's always great to be recognized by your peers, but this one is especially sweet. Today I found out that my article, "Ghosts of Hong Kong", won the 2011 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold prize, awarded by the Society of American Travel Writers.

I've won Lowell Thomas awards before, but this is the first time I've won for writing a personal story about my life in the city I love. There are a few characters in the article, but there is one person who is the heart of the piece, who has for many years, patiently and with great affection, taught me how to see Hong Kong through the eyes of a Hong Konger. David Lau, my friend, thank you!

In the article David is the guy who takes me shopping at the wet market, invites me to his roof for dinner, explains all the mysteries of Hong Kong, including why dead fish still jump around in red plastic bags when you bring them home from the market.

I'm back in Hong Kong now, after a few months in New York. While I was away, David and his wife moved to London. They sold their magical flat with the rooftop dining room--the "heavenly platform." So an important part of the little world that I described in "Ghosts of Hong Kong" no longer exists. Hong Kong just doesn't feel the same without the Laus. I really miss them.

This is Hong Kong--you wake up in the morning, walk out on the street, and discover your favorite coffee shop has been wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and plastic while you slept. It's gone. Something new will take its place. If you're a real Hong Konger, you just get over it.

But I can't. This is the one part of being a Hong Konger that I think I'll never assimilate. And so I sit here tonight in a muddle of feelings--happy for the prize, sad for the loss of what I won the prize for to begin with. Oh, how I wish my friends were here tonight to share some celebration and champagne with me on a beautiful evening in Hong Kong!

Dinner on David's rooftop, Hong Kong island, 2009

The Grand Parade of Pigs

2011-09-16T15:43:00Z

The deep, dark secret of Hong Kong's world famous eating culture is this: Nobody likes Chinese banquet food.

That's the topic I tackle in this month's National Geographic Traveler magazine--my article is part of their terrific new all-food issue.

“Banquet food is always too salty, too rich and too greasy. And the dishes are always more or less the same.” This is not a person speaking, it is actually the translation of a Cantonese dialogue I had to memorize from an early lesson (“At The Banquet”) in my language classes. Little did I know how useful the phrases in this chapter would be: “This dish is too fattening and has too much MSG.” “Do you think this abalone comes from a can?”

As always, some of my favorite stuff got chopped in process. So for those of you who would like to read my original, the "Director's Cut manuscript is here.

My favorite part of every Chinese Banquet is something I call the Grand Parade of Pigs:

The restaurant lights dim, a squadron of waiters bursts through the kitchen doors balancing platters heavy with roast suckling pigs, their eyes replaced by little red electric bulbs that blink on and off and on again. (Since this wacky performance piece is the standard intro nowadays for every Chinese banquet from Toronto to New York to Hong Kong, nobody pays any attention to it.)

Then course after course quickly follows (usually 8, since 8 is the lucky Chinese number). A big soup of chicken and pork, with a faintly medicinal herbal fragrance (Soups, in Chinese culture, often do double duty as health tonics). A giant fish, steamed --usually until rubbery. Then, finally, little bowls of noodles and fried rice signal the meal’s end. (In a polite touch, the host saves the starchy staples until the last course, so that guests may fill their bellies with more expensive foods first).

I'm probably being a bit too hard on banquet food. Certainly the food at any run of the mill Hong Kong banquet is still far more delicious and better prepared than a meal in New York's Chinatown. (The curse of living in Hong Kong is that once you do, you will never be able to eat dim sum anywhere in the world again. Except maybe in the HK enclaves of Toronto and Vancouver).

Actually, I've been to some pretty decent Chinese banquets lately. One of my pals in Hong Kong is a politician, and he is always inviting me to his political party's shindigs in Kowloon. Since the purpose of these banquets is fund raising and frolic, rather than "showing face", the menus don't contain all the expensive show-off ingredients like Shark's fin, bird's nest, abalone, etc. The banquet organizers are then free to spend their food budget on--what a concept!--simple and delicious Chinese food.

But even though banquets can be fun, I prefer eating Chinese cuisine in smaller, more intimate settings (in Hong Kong, that means groups of 6-8). And if I have a choice, I'll steer away from the giant, noisy Hong Kong eateries called "Jao Lau" (literally, "Wine House", a term which tells you something about the origins of these big restaurants) and head to a quiet, more intimate place. I've assimilated a lot of Chinese culture, but this is where my Western cultural bias comes out big time--I still don't enjoy shouting across a big round table, and standing up and leaning over to reach the tasty dish with my chopsticks. Here's what makes me a happy eater in Hong Kong: a plain white tablecloth, a party of 6 to 8, and a restaurant with no red curtains or golden dragons in sight. Like this place, tucked away in an old Hong Kong converted shophouse.

The Jazz of Travel

2011-09-06T21:52:04Z

Welcome to all Frugal Traveler fans who've landed on this page from the link in Seth Kugel's well-written and thoughtful article about women and travel. As some of you already know, I was the NYT Frugal Traveler from 1998 to 2004--an amazing, intense, and wonderful time to be frugal traveling (way back then, 1 USD =85 Euro cents. Eat your heart out, Seth!)

If you're one of my readers from those days, and finding this blog for the first time, a special warm hello to you. Hope you enjoy poking through the other entries on this blog. BTW, if you're not a blog person, you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter. (Confession: I ~~waste~~ spend a lot more time there than on my blog.

And every month, I write about life on the road in my Real Travel column for National Geographic Traveler.

*********
One thought I'd like to add to Seth's musings on the different ways that men and women travel. As I mentioned in our interview, I think that every traveler brings a different set of characteristics to the table--gender is only one of them. There are others, from our size, our race, our different abilities, sexual orientation, talents and interests. (The dean of living travel writers, Jan (formerly James) Morris, traveled as both a man AND a woman.)

The trick that we travelers, whatever size shape and skin we're in, must learn is to use all of our personal characteristics to help us get the best out of our travels.

How do we do this? Well, I call it the Jazz of Travel.

I was a musician long before I ever traveled anywhere. And when I think about it, the skills I learned in music improvising are not so different from the skill set I bring to my travels. A great trip is like a terrific jazz solo.

At any given moment when you are traveling, you can turn right or left. You can speak, or not speak, to that stranger. You can sit down at that little cafe, or ignore it and try the one around the block. You can hop the bus, or hire a taxi. Every decision you make changes your experience of a place. Every choice changes where your travel story will go. Every time you choose to do one thing, and not another, your subsequent choices change, too. You open doors, close others.

A great traveler is like a virtuoso jazz cat who understands how to play the rhythm of choice.

How does gender play into the Jazz of Travel? Well, your gender is part of your instrument. Coltrane played sax, Mingus played bass, I play middle aged, 5 foot 9 tall, blonde female who speaks Cantonese. When you travel, you have to work with what you've got. That's my starting point. Then I balance and riff in each situation I encounter, within the framework of each different culture and place, trying to anticipate where the melody is going. (Looking out for my own safety, of course, is part of this).

This all happens in a split second. Thanks to my many years Frugaling I've had a lot of practice. (c.f. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule). Life, like music, doesn't stop while you are planning your solo. You have to take your leap of faith, and run with it.

And in the end, when I'm in the thick of my travels, that's what I do. I take a deep breath, and dance (boldly, and in my own rhythm) down that unknown street.

Follow @Daisann_McLane

Bathing In Fukushima

2011-09-01T14:44:16Z

Part 2 of my series on traveling in post-disaster Japan was the most difficult to write. I went to a hot springs resort in Fukushima, called Noji Onsen, and unexpectedly ran into some of the most unlucky survivors: the fishermen of Namie-machi.

Namie-machi (machi means village in Japanese) is four miles from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The village got hit by the earthquake, and then by the tsunami. It rolled in so fast and high that it took boats, houses, and people away. Here's a part of an interview with one of the fishermen that I couldn't fit into my Slate.com article:

"I looked up and saw the big wave coming. And I just gave up. I thought I was going to die. But then I didn't. The wave caught me and dragged me in through the window of someone else's house. I held on. The house was swept up like a boat. I don't remember what happened next, but when the water receded, I was alive in someone else's house."

What an incredible story! I tell him, and start to smile. But no one else in the room is smiling. And then another fisherman says, in a low voice: "He lost his wife. The wave saved him but swept her away."

As if this weren't enough sadness, the villagers also got exposed to the radiation. They can't go back to their homes, probably never. Yet when I met them at Noji Onsen, they were still holding out hope.

Every human disaster has heartbreak stories like the fishermen of Fukushima. We step back from these stories, not to be callous, but in order to be able to keep going forward. The challenge of writing about horrible events is to hold your readers there with you, in the center of the sadness, so they feel it too, even if just for a moment. It's tricky--fall into cliches, and readers will roll their eyes. Ditto for sappy, overblown writing.

I ended up cutting a lot from my first drafts to keep the finished story tight and hold the mood. But my visit to Noji Onsen wasn't all gloom. Here's a vignette from Fukushima--a more cheerful one-- that didn't make it into the final mix:

Three naked grey-haired women sink into the sizzling hot, milky-white waters of the Demon Face Outdoor Bath at Noji Onsen, chattering merrily among themselves. They smile across the rising steam at the foreigner (also naked, save for the requisite wet towel draped on top of her head), and I smile back. An onsen, or hot springs, is one of the happiest places you can be in Japan. Even when the onsen is in Fukushima.

To my surprise, one of the women immediately shoots me a question. My translator Keiko, soaking in the bath beside me, chuckles. “They’re speaking Tohoku dialect,” she says. “It’s different from standard Japanese--more raw and direct. She wants to know how old you think they are.”

I hesitate for a minute; it’s really hard to tell. In the unforgiving sunlight of the outdoor bath, the women’s skin looks droopy and wizened. But the three ladies descended the slippery stone steps into the rotenburo far more gracefully than me. I make a guess, and shave off five years just in case: Sixty eight? Maybe 70? Keiko translates, and the Tohoko-speaking women hoot with laughter. “No! Wrong! We are 85. See how healthy we are? We Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the world.”

Oh, by the way, because of spam issues, I've had to disable comments on this blog. If you'd like to comment, you're welcome to head over to my Facebook page--the link is over there in the left hand column. I'm also on Twitter: @Daisann_McLane.

Tomorrow: the Slate story concludes, with a stop in Tokyo.

Ah, Ah, Earthquake, Ah

2011-08-31T16:28:56Z

The first installment of the three articles I wrote about traveling in earthquake-devastated Japan, for Slate.com came out today.

Writing these stories about Japanese who are trying to make sense out of what happened to them was wrenching and difficult. But I'm very happy I had the chance to do it.

A little behind the scenes story. I was in the middle of writing part 2, the part about the radiation-exposed fisherman in Fukushima, when suddenly my house in Brooklyn started shaking. At first I thought somebody was doing construction somewhere in the neighborhood. But the shaking got harder, and finally I ran out into the street.

There, I found my California-born neighbor, Chad. "Earthquake," he said nonchalantly. (I figured he had to be an expert).

So while I was writing about one earthquake, I was experiencing another. Earthquake stereo.

Like I said, writing this piece was really a trip. Part 2 goes up on Slate.com tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Sometimes I swear I can smell it still

2011-08-19T13:30:00Z

A few months ago, I wrote a Real Travel column on the way that the sense of smell shapes our travel memories. It got me thinking about another essay I wrote some years ago, also for National Geographic Traveler, about the aromatic power of India's herbal medicine, ayurveda. The article isn't available online, so I've put it up here for your reading (if not smelling) pleasure.

"..I didn't need to explore Kerala, for it had come to me. Its herbs were on my palate, its plants and leaves lived in my pores. My scalp, after days of sirodhara, was so greasy with ayurvedic oil that even the strongest shampoo could not clean it and finally I gave up trying. The exotic aroma lingered in my hair for weeks after I left Kerala. Sometimes I swear I can smell it still."

Ghosts of Hong Kong: Director's Cut

2011-08-14T23:32:55Z

I was so busy, back in March, that I forgot to spread the news about a long feature article of mine that was published that month: “Ghosts of Hong Kong”, in National Geographic Traveler. Consider the news spread.

It’s about a place very near and dear to my heart. As many of you know, Hong Kong’s been my adopted home these last 7 or so years, and I have been chronicling it (lately, alas, sporadically) in my other blog, Learning Cantonese.

Looking at the article today, I remembered it was cut and rearranged in the editing process. Like all high-strung creative ego types (ahem), I am never happy when that happens, but over many years of writing professionally I’ve gotten tough-skinned about the business of magazine journalism: it’s a collaborative enterprise, after all, and sometimes you gotta just breathe and let go.

But today, a friend asked to see my original version, and after I emailed it to her, it occurred to me: why not do what all the famous directors do on their “Special Edition” DVDs? So I decided to put up my original Writer’s Cut here on the blog.

I know that some of you are also aspiring writers, and it might be interesting for you to see how an article moves from writing, through editing to final publication. And so, my unedited draft of “Ghosts of Hong Kong” follows. You can contrast, compare, decide whether you like the piece better as it was edited or in the “unplugged” original.

(Administrative note: I had to turn off the comments section in this blog, unfortunately. The spam is just too much for me to keep up with. Hopefully I will figure out a way to get around this, but for the time being you can keep in touch by joining (liking) my Facebook page--the link’s over there in the left hand sidebar and it will take you straight there.)

The original Ghosts of Hong Kong is here. Have fun reading!

Walking in a Brooklyn Wonderland

2011-08-10T17:32:32Z

It's official: New York City is the most walkable city in the U.S. But what's even more exciting, for me, is that my Brooklyn neighborhood, Park Slope, ranks even higher in walk-ability than the city as a whole, chalking up a score of 97 out of 100 on the walk-o-meter. As a hard-core walker who's never owned a car in her life, it figures I'd end up in one of the most foot-friendly corners of the walking-est city in the nation.

"Until I learn a place with my feet, I never really feel like I know it." That's what I wrote in a Real Travel column of mine called "Traveling in Stride.", and it's especially true for me and my Brooklyn nabe.

Here, I walk everywhere, and it is an endless pleasure, particularly in the summer and early fall in this tree-filled enclave (trees--their shade, anyway--are a walker's best friend).

There is so much to do, and all within a ten minute walking radius of where I live. This is my benchmark for "place", when I travel. No matter where I am in the world, I'm always looking for a hotel or guesthouse that's located in the center of an area I can comfortably explore on foot. It doesn't have to be a famous place--in fact it's better if it isn't. I prefer digging into what I call the "hyper-local"--picking a few blocks, and letting my feet guide me to the surprises and delights of everything inside the perimeter.

What I'm really looking for, of course, is a hotel that's the equivalent of my Brooklyn apartment.

So, let's pretend you are all guests in my Brooklyn "hotel." And, in the spirit of the hyper-local, I'll give you a personal guided day tour of my super-walkable neighborhood. All the following sights, eats and activities are within a 15 minute walk of my nearest subway station, the Q/B stop at 7th Avenue, Brooklyn.

Let's start where everything begins: with morning coffee, of course. We're spoiled for choice here, so I tend to hang out where there's also good stuff to eat. Cafe Regular, a tiny French-style coffeeshop with four cafe tables outside, has free wifi and delicious chocolate croissants, so I often head there. But the competition is stiff, since my other "regular", Prospect Perk Cafe also has free wifi and carries the best bagels in Brooklyn, from the Bagel Hole bakery. They're small, chewy, not at all like any you've ever tasted before, and worth a subway ride to experience!

After coffee, it's time for the mandatory neighborhood experience: a stroll through the magnificent Prospect Park. It was designed by the same architect, Frederic Law Olmstead, who designed New York's Central Park--except Olmstead considered his Brooklyn park a great improvement over the Manhattan one. It's wilder, with beautiful broad open vistas (there's an enormous "Long Meadow,", real forests and a giant pond.

Walking here is really great at any time of day, but it's particularly cool to come to Prospect Park in the evening, when the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series brings top musical artists from all genres to the park bandshell--for free ($3 donation suggested).

Worked up an appetite for lunch yet? Come with me! The Brooklyn Larder is a locavore's heaven of a charcuterie, where slow foodies can luxuriate in exotic farm cheeses, hand-picked condiments, crackers and chocolates from all over the world, and a selection of killer handmade sandwiches. When I'm far away in Hong Kong, I actually dream of their BLT, made with homemade bacon, handmade mayo, and ripe heirloom tomatoes. (Better get one soon: when tomato season is over, so are the BLTs at this very serious locavore foodie emporium).

The antidote to the indulgence of Brooklyn Larder is right around the corner--Brooklyn Yoga School. It's housed on the second story of a beautiful old brownstone with a rounded glass greenhouse-style window--in the early 1900s, the building was a fancy restaurant. But the architecture isn't the only special thing about my local yoga center---the classes are donation-only, pay what you can ($5 minimum suggested). So if you feel like you need to stretch your heels and hamstrings from all that walking, this is the place.

Fifth Avenue, nearby, is becoming the go-to strip for vintage, and locally made clothing in Brooklyn. I can easily while away a few hours poking through the second-hand racks at Beacon's Closet, or trying on cool retro-style dresses at Flirt, a store that not only showcases local designers like Karina, the creator of my "perfect" travel dress, but also offers sewing lessons!

Fifth Avenue and its cross streets are where most of my fave local restaurants are located, too. My favorites are always changing, and the scene is fluid, but right now my shortlist of recommended dishes includes:

the tasty fresh Atlantic oysters at Brooklyn Fish Camp,

the spicy Chicken (franguhino) de piri-piri at Portuguese/Corsican/Spanish spot Convivium Oesteria, and

whatever's on the daily menu at the pan-Latin resto Palo Santo.

I'm just scratching the surface here--I'll have more for you on the culinary delights of what is arguably one of America's most buzzing new areas for food and restaurants in a future post.

In the meantime, I hope you'll put on a good comfortable pair of shoes and explore the hyper-local wonders of my neighborhood--and let me hear about some of the delights in yours, too.

For more of Daisann McLane's Real Travels, check her National Geographic Traveler column, and look for her on Twitter @Daisann_McLane

At Home, I'm a Tourist

2011-07-31T17:58:31Z

I split my year between Hong Kong and New York, and just got back to my Brooklyn apartment a couple of weeks ago. Of course I'm feeling discombobulated--brutal jet lag and all--but I think that's a good thing. One of the advantages of never completely settling into a place is that you never get a chance to stop seeing it with fresh eyes. That's the great gift that traveling gives all of us. Even (especially) when we're in the most familiar surroundings, we can still feel the thrill of discovery. At home, we're tourists.

(Apologies to new wave rockers, the Gang of Four for stealing the title of their spectacular chugging guitar anthem!)

By the way, I use the word "tourist" in a kindly, not a pejorative way. You can be a Real Traveler and a tourist at the same time--it's a matter of attitude, thoughtfulness and point of view. As those of you who follow my National Geographic Traveler column know, I occasionally sign myself up to wear a little badge and follow a fellow with a yellow pennant and whistle. Because you can learn a lot about a culture by taking that great leap forward into its tourist attractions.

Anyway, I've been enjoying this time of readjustment to my Brooklyn haunts. Since my mind is still kind of in Hong Kong, and my ears are still poised to hear Chinese, the streets of my "new" neighborhood, Park Slope (where I've lived more than 15 years) feel truly foreign to me. I find myself wandering up and down the gorgeous, mid-summer avenues, some so lush with trees that they tunnel over the roadways, and absorbing the architectural details of the gorgeous brownstone rowhouses as carefully as if I were in Paris with a Michelin guide in hand.

I've actually had several weird encounters with checkout clerks, because I couldn't understand what they were trying to tell me (I've haven't yet switched from Cantonese to Brooklynese).

And I'm noticing stuff about the sometimes peculiar local culture that I doubt I would have noticed if I stayed at home year-round. For instance, there's this:

This is the fourth or fifth tableau I've seen like this in the last two weeks. Nobody in Park Slope, it seems, can bear to throw away a book. The love of books is hardwired into the local culture of my dear old neighborhood. We leave them, like foundlings, piled on doorsteps, balanced against wrought iron fences, even propped on top of walls. They stare at you as you pass by, begging like lost puppies, for a new home. And they say that print is dead!

I'll tell you more about the multiple attractions and delights of my quirky Brooklyn neighborhood (rated the #1 in New York by a very trendy magazine!) in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, I'm going to dive into one of my "foundling" book finds (yes, I picked one up for myself. How could I resist?)

Martin Yan's Culinary Journey Through China. I have been wondering why someone left it sitting, all by itself and lonely, on their Brooklyn stoop--were they daunted by the recipes? Did they move to China and figure they didn't need it anymore?

Mysteries never to be solved by this urban tourist. But the Chinese cookbook by the Canadian author is the perfect book for the neither-here-nor-there place I'm in right now.

Follow @Daisann_McLane

5 Heat Beating Tips from the World's Hot Spots

2011-07-23T17:46:20Z

As readers of my Real Travel column in National Geographic Traveler already know, I'm not much of a fan of cold weather travel spots. Since I started traveling around the world, I've always been drawn to the hot and steamy places.

So as the temperatures here on the East Coast pushed past the 100 F mark (I'm currently in Brooklyn, NY for a couple of months), I didn't break a sweat. Because the time I've spent exploring the world's hot spots have taught me a thing or two about how other cultures deal with hot and humid climates. Along with my memories of tropical places, I've brought back these tips for beating the heat.

1. Carry an umbrella, even when it isn't raining

The umbrella, used for shade, is a crucial accessory in places where the sun beats down ferociously. And in places that have rainy seasons, from the Caribbean to Bali, it's a must-have accessory--you can use it to protect yourself from an unexpected downpour.

Mine is foldable, made of a lavender-colored nylon, and has an inner liner of reflective UV material that keeps me extra-protected from damaging solar rays. I got it for about $12 in a Hong Kong department store called Wing On, but you can find similar umbrellas on sale almost anywhere in the world (I've spotted them in New York's Chinatown, too.)

2. Carry a Fan

Pull one out of your pocket on a sweaty subway ride for some heat relief. They are not only cool, they are cool looking, too! I was in Tokyo a few weeks ago where shops and businesses have turned their a/c way way down, at the government's request, to save electricity. To stay cool, Tokyo citizens are turning to old technologies, like these gorgeous paper folding fans, on sale at Takashimaya department store (Japan's Saks Fifth Avenue). And guess what: they're for men.

3. Drink the right stuff

Year round residents of tropical places know better than to guzzle ice water. Room temperature, or even warmer drinks are the best way to slake thirst. In China, lukewarm watery tea is the hot-weather beverage of choice. From my time in the Caribbean and Southeast, I've developed a taste for coconut water in the shell, so I'm thrilled to find there's a coconut water fad happening this summer in the US, with three different brands on sale in my local grocery. (Right now my fave is Zico). The packaged stuff not as good as the real thing, but it sure is great to not have to worry about carrying my machete around.

I'm also really happy with the lemongrass tea I brought back with me from a trip to Bangkok last month--I brew it hot and let it cool to room temp before drinking..so refreshing.

Speaking of Thailand, you might consider adding salt to your lemonade, as the Thais like to do. It's surprisingly refreshing, and also a smart thing to do, since it helps replace the salt you lose through all that sweating.

4. White is the New Black

I remember well the first trips I made to Trinidad, wearing my New York summer uniform--a black sundress. Instead of being applauded for my minimalist chic, people would come up to me and tsk tsk: "Girl, what happened? Somebody die?"

Black--or any dark color--just won't do in the tropics. Not only is it a heat magnet, at night it is a mosquito trap. Thanks to my travels, I've changed my color palette to whites--linens and cottons, the lighter the better. And yes, they do show dirt more easily than patterns and colors--but in steamy tropical weather, you're going to be changing (and washing) your clothes everyday anyway. Plus, nothing looks more breezy and cool than a white shirt, dress--or, in this Pakistan pic, a salwar kameez-- that has been sun-dried on the line!

5. Take it Slow

The most important thing I learned from traveling in the Caribbean is how to wait. And breathe. And let life's small irritations glide off my back. People in hot climes tend to take life more slowly, and for good reason. The alternatives--rushing, getting stressed, complaining, throwing tantrums--are energy-using, and heat producing. By keeping your cool, you'll stay cooler. And that's not a bad habit to continue even when the temperature slides back to the temperate zone.

Packing, again

2010-06-01T11:44:00Z

I'm packing again. It feels like I always am. I suppose I should be grateful for a life that lets me run footloose, but I never fail to get stressed out when confronted with an empty suitcase (or two) and a pile (or three) of folded clothing. I suppose this is another form of the leaving anxiety that I write about in my column in this month's issue of National Geographic Traveler.

The happy thing, though, is that this whole process made me remember an old Real Travel column I wrote about bags. It's from 2005, so it's not recent enough to be up on the magazine's online website with my other columns. So I've reproduced the text below, for your reading pleasure.

Real Travel: Pack Mentality

by Daisann McLane

The other day I was reaching, on tiptoe, for a box on the top shelf of my hall closet when something black and shapeless came tumbling out and landed at my feet: my 25 year old Tumi ballistic nylon foldable carryon super-sized suit and dress bag. When I saw it, covered in dust bunnies, pangs of guilt overwhelmed me, just like when you suddenly bump into an old friend you've neglected to check in on lately. I hadn't taken the suit bag on a trip with me since..well I wasn't sure. Ten or fifteen years? The crumpled paper tags--MIA and LHR--still clinging to the handle offered some clues. The quick trip to London for a business meeting in 1989, or maybe that job interview in Miami in 1990.

It made me sad to think of my old faithful travel buddy, the suit carrier, no longer living the glamorous life flying around the world in airplane storage compartments. But when your life as a traveler changes, so must your bag. The Tumi was with me during the years when most of my traveling was business related--and, most importantly, when airlines allowed economy passengers to carry such a bulky item onboard and store it in a hanging compartment. The rules, as we know, changed. And so did my travel style. Eventually I started going on longer trips to faraway places where it didn't matter if my suits and dresses arrived wrinkled. Where, indeed, it didn't matter if I'd packed suits or dresses at all. I moved on to other kinds of journeys, found other kinds of bags to get sentimental about.

A bag--whether it's a backpack, suitcase, carryon, wheelie, or hard valise--is not a teddy bear or a security blanket, but to me it sometimes seems that way. Because when you travel a lot, especially for long stretches of time, the bag is the only real constant in your life. It is my home, best friend, steady companion, and more: my entire life edited down to basics and compressed into a bundle. I became so close to the royal blue Patagonia soft-sided nylon carryon with convertible backpack straps that I lived with for three months in India, that I can still trace in my mind the irregular splotch of the curry stain that, one month into the trip, disfigured the bottom end (a messy lunch near the railway station in Trivandrum). I can remember the panic I felt when, in another Indian train station, a wizened stick figure of a fellow snatched the blue bundle from my arms as I stepped down from the carriage to the platform, and began to scurry off with it towards the exit (as it turns out, the elderly man was the station porter, and he wasn't about to wait for me to decide whether I needed his services!).

In Thailand and Malaysia, the Patagonia magically expanded to fit stacks of silk fabrics and batik sarongs; without complaint it swallowed guidebooks, the cheap tripod I bought on Khao San Road, and a set of four shiny brass chargers I picked up in Bangkok's Chatuchak market. By the time I boarded the last leg of my flight home, my bursting "carryon"no longer passed the airline's muster, and, to my chagrin, I had to check it. It arrived at New York's JFK, but when I pulled it off the baggage belt, I discovered that a careless baggage handler had caused one of the zipper heads to rip off. When I took it back to the Patagonia store to see if they could fix it the clerk just shrugged and said, "You have a guarantee, so we'll replace this one, but you have to leave the old one with us."

I stood there paralyzed for a moment, not wanting to part with my curry stained, broken-zippered India travel pal. Then, pragmatically, and feeling foolish, I accepted the replacement.

I have traveled with the shiny new replacement bag exactly twice.

What is it, about certain bags, that makes you want to use them forever, like a pair of well-worn shoes? Design is part of the equation, and so is style, but for me the crucial element is simplicity. I have spent hours researching and exploring baggage that has a million separate compartments dedicated to everything from wet laundry to spare housekeys. But I never buy any of these bags: they are too rigid, too strict. I prefer the bag that allows you to discover new ways it can be used, that the extra compartment on the side, when stuffed with socks, makes a perfect pillow to rest on between flights in a lonely airport, or that the shoe compartment is a good place to put your trashy paperbacks.

Actually, nowadays I seldom spend much time thinking about my travel bags, for the airport luggage rules adopted in the last five or so years have put an end to the days when I could comfortably carry everything I needed for a long trip onto the plane with me. Once I prided myself on never checking a bag; now I check everything, since it is too annoying to have to drag it through security checkpoints. Besides, my carryon these days needs to fit all of the comfort items--pillows, a blanket, food, water, noise-cancelling headphones-- that no longer come with most economy class fares .

At the airport counter you will have no trouble spotting me, for I am the traveler with the cheap, functional black suitcases on wheels, the ones purchased for less than $30, usually in some American discount mall or Asian bazaar. If they turn out to have too many compartments or annoying features, I ditch them; if they turn out to be to small, I buy another, larger one in the market in Beijing, or in Buenos Aires. That's my traveling life right now, and that's my bag: global, pragmatic, inexpensive, ruthlessly efficient.

Still, I miss my other travel lives. The other day, from the pockets of the 25 year old Tumi hanging suiter, I recovered an ancient TWA boarding pass and a receipt from a Miami Beach hotel that no longer exists. And then I dusted and cleaned the Tumi, inside and out--and put it back up on the shelf. Maybe this bag would never hit the road with me again. But I didn't want to tell that to my old friend, at least not just yet.

Bangkok, Dangerous?

2010-05-03T04:41:00Z

Saturday night in Bangkok. I stop to watch the moon's reflection in the Klong Rupkrung, the little canal that separates Samsen Road from the old Phra Arthit neighborhood on the Chao Phaya riverside. At 10pm the night is hot enough to cause a few beads of sweat to trickle down the back of my knees. Still and sleepy, the neighborhood moves to a languid, sticky and slow beat.

About two miles away, I know, protesting Thais--the "Red Shirts" are camped out and occupying the city's main intersection. The situation is grave, the politics complicated, and the sides deadlocked. There's been violence: a few weeks ago, on April 10th, 11 people were killed in the political clashes, and hundreds wounded.

That's when many foreign goverments--including mine--issued tourism advisories warning their citizens to avoid travel to Bangkok.

I came anyway. Walking down Phra Arthit road on Saturday night, busy with young Thai kids strolling in the park, hanging out in streetside bars and coffeehouses, listening to folk singers playing guitars, I was glad I did. Without the crowds of backpacking tourists, who seem to grow more numerous every year, this lovely old corner of the Bangkok riverside felt completely--and wonderfully--Thai.

Do I recommend ignoring travel advisory warnings? Yes--sometimes. Too often government advisories are written as a "one size fits all", and pitched to the least experienced, most fearful, traveler. Also, governments tend to hoist warning signals these days at the slightest of provocations. You almost wonder whether govenments are trying to protect tourists, or avoid trouble for themselves (for if something does go wrong, the government may have to finance evacuations and/or arrange flights out of a troubled area for its nationals).

Still, when a warning sign does go up, I do pay attention.

And then I do my own research.

I didn't really worry much about going to Bangkok in the middle of a political crisis. I've been to the city dozens of times, know it well, follow the politics closely. I knew that the demonstrations were happening in two distinct and well-defined areas of the city that I could easily avoid if need be (Bangkok is a sprawling city of separate neighborhoods.)

Most importantly, I have local friends I can rely on (one of them is even a policeman). Before buying my ticket, I phoned them to see what things were like on the ground. And they said: It's fine. But traffic is bad and the shopping malls in Siam Square are closed.

The traffic, I laughed, is always bad in Bangkok. And the closed shopping malls sounded like a big plus to me (and to my pocketbook).

For a traveler on a budget like me there are advantages to traveling where you're not "supposed" to go. I got a great deal, nearly 40% off, on a hotel room. Taxis were easy to find, restaurants not crowded. (The tourist advisories are killing small businesses in Bangkok. I tipped extra, everywhere.)

But the real bonus to traveling against the grain isn't financial. It is an empty lane, a quiet moon over the canal, and the sound of laughter and Thai folk music floating in the velvet Bangkok night.

Empty road near the Pra Sumen fort, Saturday May 2nd, Bangkok.

Leaving: The Soundtrack

2010-04-23T04:33:00Z

My latest Real Travel column, "Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow" has just been posted on the National Geographic Traveler website. It's also in the magazine's May/June issue--on newsstands now.

Leaving is one of the most emotional experiences I have as a traveler. As the old song goes, I "Never can say goodbye...no no no!" I'll share more thoughts about separation anxiety in the next few days, but first I wanted to try something new--a soundtrack that goes along with this month's column.

In the essay, I talk about how the theme of arrival, rather than departure, dominates most travel writing. And how little in the travel writing canon deals with the subject of going. (One notable exception comes to mind: this essay by Joan Didion, which isn't exactly travel writing, but it's certainly the most memorable door slam on New York that's ever been written.)

Travel writers may not like to deal in the farewell, but songwriters sure do love their sorrowful partings. Musicians really have a handle on this subject, and curiously, so many of these musicians are Canadians. From Ian and Sylvia to (the late, lamented) Kate McGarrigle, to Neil Young, they pretty much rule the turf in the land of bittersweet

Does Canada have the cultural edge on the farewell? I don't know, but the goodbye songs in the following videos are absolutely guaranteed to give me a good cry. (Good thing that Joni's not crying--she'd ruin that magnificent eyeliner she's wearing!)

Towers of Dreams

2010-04-10T04:36:00Z

Another essay by me, from Singapore Airline's magazine, Silverkris. The editors asked me, Pico Iyer and two other writers to talk about our favorite travel discovery of 2009. I didn't have to think about that for very long: I chose to write about the wonderous, mostly abandoned Chinese towers, or diaolou, that dot the rice fields and farms of Guangdong Province. The diaolou, recently added to the list of worldwide UNESCO heritage sites, knocked me for a loop when I went there with my friend Ping and his sisters last winter. So much so that I had to go back a second time, just to see them again. Get there soon, before the Chinese local tourism machine rolls over them.

Here's my Silverkris Magazine article, with some additional pictures from me after the jump:

Asia, Imbibed

2010-04-01T04:10:00Z

In my latest Real Travel column for National Geographic Traveler I talk about how I always like to sample the local brew (or grape) when I travel--it's one of the fastest ways I know to dive into another culture.

Usually, I'm doing my tasting in the same place where the drink is made--wine tasting in Mendoza, warm cans of beer at a football match in London, tequila in Mexico, etc. But lately, in Hong Kong, I've been using spirits to explore far away places.

Hong Kong doesn't really have an alcoholic drink to call its own. (In this hyper-intense business and finance city, our hometown drink of choice is yun yeung cha, coffee mixed with tea and boiled milk. It's like Red Bull times twenty). When cocktail time rolls around, we drink the rest of the world. The British left their mark on local drinking culture--beer is the number one choice for our "Happy Hours" (which have the distinction of being the longest such "hours" in Asia-- in my neighborhood, most bars clock HH from 3pm until 9pm).

But, thanks to an adventurous pal from Malaysia (hi Yvonne), I've found a new drinking culture here. That's why, on many Tuesday nights, you'll find me sitting at the horseshoe shaped bar of an Okinawan izakaya, hidden away on the 13th floor of a non-descript office building in Causeway Bay, holding a hand-tinted blown glass tumbler containing ice drizzled with an extraordinary clear liquid made from distilled rice: awamori.

The appeal of Ku-Suya Rakuen (that's the name of this place) isn't just the wonderful drink, which looks like clear sake but tastes like a light herbal whiskey. (Awamori is around 25-30 proof, stronger than wine and sake, but far less alcoholic than scotch or vodka). It's the atmosphere. From the moment you step into the place, with its rough-hewn wooden bar and stools, and its collection of ceramic jars holding 100 different kinds of awamori, Hong Kong disappears. A buzz of Japanese fills the air. You are in Okinawa.

Hanging out at Ku-suya has gotten me to thinking about the way we travelers never stop traveling, even when we're supposed to be settled down somewhere. In New York, I seek out those dark little corner bars and diners where Hispanic working men drink Presidentes from the bottle, while they fill the jukeboxes with quarters, playing their favorite bachata tunes...I am in virtual Santo Domingo. Other friends sate their wanderlust at uptown Irish pubs where the Guinness flows freely. Or cultivate their Francophilia over Cote du Rhone at a pitch-perfect Parisian-style corner bistro on Smith Street in Brooklyn.

I love being in Hong Kong, where I find a little adventure nearly every day. But every now and then it's nice to have a shot of something--and someplace-- else. And so, awamori. I haven't yet been to Okinawa, but I have to say that, thanks to the local drink, it's now in my top ten "next trip" list....

And, speaking of great local drinks...what makes them taste even better is when they have a cuisine built around them! Ku-Suya Rakuen is as much about the food as it is the drink. There, you can order some really extraordinary little dishes to accompany your awamori. Yvonne's favorite menu item is: "Mascarpone Cheese with Fish Guts".

And here's mine: pickled sea grapes. They look like little jade pearls and taste salty like the ocean. When you wash them down with awamori, it's like inhaling the fragrance of herbs on a moist summer breeze. Eat, sip, savor the spirit...ahhh, Okinawa.

Comfort Food, A Tale of Three Cities

2010-03-28T05:34:00Z

I've been writing essays lately for Silverkris, the magazine of Singapore Airlines. They don't have an online site, so the only way to read my magazine articles is to take a flight on Singapore (highly recommended!). But that's not always possible, so I'm going to share them with you here, after they've flown around the world in the seat pocket for a few months.

This one is my meditation on comfort food in three of my favorite cities: New York, Hong Kong and Bangkok:

I thought I knew everything about som tum--the yummy shredded papaya salad that's one of the most famous dishes in Thai cuisine. But that was before I invited my friend Tip out to lunch.

Tip lives in Bangkok, in a soi, or lane, off Samsen Road that straddles a muddy canal near the Chao Phaya river. But her roots are in the Northeast of Thailand, the dry rice-growing region called Isaan, where som tum is almost as ubiquitous as rice itself.

Overthe years, migrant workers from Isaan have moved to Bangkok, and brought their taste for som tum with them. Now, when you walk down lanes in certain Bangkok neighborhoods (like Rangsam Road, near the Victory Monument), it's almost a guarantee that you'll be greeted bythe melodious thunk! thunk! thunk! of stone pestles gently pounding green papaya, garlic, tomatoes, salt, sugar, fish sauce, dried shrimpand hot peppers into a scrumptious snack.

Tip is a skilled practitioner of traditional Thai massage, and she'd just cured the pain in my back that had defeated two doctors, a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. To thank her, I had invited her to a fancy lunch at Senses cafe in Gaysorn Plaza, Bangkok's upscale shopping mall. I've eaten at Senses a lot, and I thought their som tum was pretty good, soI ordered some, since I figured Tip, being Isaan, would like it.

But I noticed, as we were eating, she barely picked at it. "Isn't it spicy enough?", I asked.

She answered, reluctantly. "It's okay...just not...right," she said.

Her answer intrigued me, since I couldn't taste anything wrong with this som tum. The papaya was fresh, the tomatoes ripe, the flavors balanced perfectly at the intersection of salty, hot, sour and sweet. The restaurant even served the dish with its traditional accompaniment,sticky rice. Still, Tip had been eating--and making--som tum all her life. I could appreciate the dish, but Tip was the cultural authority who knew it. So I wondered, what was she tasting that I was not?

Curious,I asked Tip to lead me to some som tum that was "right". She pulled out her cellphone, called her boyfriend, and soon the three of us were weaving in his car through traffic choked streets on a quest for the best som tum in Bangkok.

Food is, more often that not, the key ingredient of my best trips. I like to travel in a way that allows me to share and explore other cultures, and have found that eating local food--preferably with local people-- is a sure way to break the ice.

One thing I've discovered along the way is that most big cities have a "signature" food. It's usually something simple and homely, inexpensive yet utterly satisfying, and almost always you can eat it in on or near the street. In Shanghai, itis the little handmade dumplings called xiao lan bao, that steam in wicker baskets everywhere. Tokyo has the onigiri, the ball of rice molded into a triangle, then wrapped in crisp norimaki seaweed.Denizens of Madrid stand at busy counters and nosh little sandwiches of the delicious Spanish jamon serrano.

There's another thing I've discovered about these urban signature foods--you don't really "know" a city until you've staked your position in the eternal argument over where the "best" is to be found, whether it is croissants(Paris), cheesesteak hoagies (Philadelphia), roti (Port of Spain,Trinidad) or falafel (Tel Aviv).

I know these contentious discussions well. My adopted city is Hong Kong, where we engage in a constant battle that I call the "Won Ton Wars." That is, in which of the city's tens of thousands of noodle joints can you get the mostperfect, most delicious, most "traditional" bowl of won ton mihn, theclassic Hong Kong noodle soup with hand-wrapped shrimp and pork dumplings?

The won ton wars rage on the websites devoted to Hong Kong food connoisseurship, like openrice.com, and the China forums of chowhound.com. They also simmer, more quietly, in the prejudices and particular habits of my Hong Kong Cantonese friends. David, for instance, shuns the venerated Wellington Street institution calledMak's Noodles, even though its soup broth is a dense, complex wonder of shrimp and pork flavors, its won tons are tightly wrapped and perfectly bite-sized, and the kitchen uses as garnish the more expensive white chives instead of the cheaper green ones. "The bowl is too small forthe price," he sniffs. "You finish and you're still hungry."

David,and our friend Leung, prefer a little storefront on the edge of WanChai, near the Bowrington Market, called "Freedom Noodles." It does not appear on any of the connoisseur websites, and to be sure, its broth is not nearly as exquisite as the fine wine of Mak's (although its wontons, each one containing a whole shrimp, are little bundles of treasure). But in the universe of signature cuisine, "Freedom Noodles"has an important edge with my friends--there's an emotional connection.David is a schoolteacher, and the noodle shop is in the building directly beneath a teacher's union headquarters where he has spent much time over the last years. He's been a "regular" at Freedom for tenyears. When he comes in, they don't even have to take his order, and inthe won ton wars, familiarity counts at least as much as white chives.

I'm not a native born Hong Konger, but I've lived there long enough to form my own noodle soup opinions, which I'll admit, have emotional as well as culinary bases. My favorite won ton minh is served in Wing Wah, a modest storefront shop on busy Hennessey Street in Wan Chai.

Icould say that Wing Wah won my allegiance because of its noodles, which is partly true. This is one of the few noodle joints left in Hong Kong that makes its wheat noodles on the premises, pulling them out on a bamboo-pole in the old-school method. But the real reason I became a Wing Wah partisan has to do with the way I was introduced to the place.One night, shortly after I moved to Hong Kong, I went out to a pub with two interesting local characters, a writer and a politician. After we'd been chatting and drinking beer for a few hours, the writer realized it was past midnight. "Let's eat," she said.

Hong Kongers love to"sik siu yeh", to eat a late night snack. After midnight, almost any of Hong Kong's most famous snacks--curry fish balls, grilled cuttlefish on sticks, stinky tofu--can be found in stalls or storefronts if you know where to go. Sharing siu yeh with your buddies is a local tradition, a rite of passage.

And my first siu yeh was won ton minh at Wing Wah. If I had to judge the place like a restaurant critic, its broth would fall short of Mak's. But for me Wing Wah's soup will always be deliciously connected with that wonderful Hong Kong ritual of late night snacking, of friends, and shared good times--and of my initiation into the life of a city not my own.

New York is my native city. We New Yorkers are no different from the Cantonese who turn up their noses at a bowl of too-salty won ton noodles. We cherish, savor and argue over our local "signature"foods--the cheesecake, the knish, the hot dog. But the "local" dish that we hold most dear is a beloved import from Italy: pizza.

In New York, we prefer to eat our pizza standing up, by the slice (which always seems to cost exactly as much as a subway fare). We even have a special way to eat it. When I'm at my neighborhood pizza joint in Brooklyn (it's called "Pizzatown") I always buy a "regular" slice. When it comes out from the big steel oven, I take it, and fold the triangle in half, upwards, so I can take the first bite without losing any of the cheese topping (or burning my mouth).

Lately, New York's pizza has gone all gourmet and trendy. One of the famous old handmade pizza stands, Di Fara's, has even raised the price of a single slice to$5. New pizza restaurants are springing up everywhere. These places boast wood-fired ovens instead of the usual gas-fired ones. They use artesanal and sometimes organic ingredients. And instead of costing the same as a subway fare, the pizza in these new New York joints have aprice that's closer to a cab ride.

The best of these new artesanal pizzas can be sampled at Franny's, a popular place in Brooklyn with lines outside that are almost as long as the selections on its fine wine list. The crust is super thin, a bit blackened at the edges, redolent of woodsmoke. Fresh buffalo mozzarella and just-snipped basil leaves adorn this crusty canvas. You wouldn't dare fold this pizza--it's made for a knife and fork. I lift a bite to my mouth:everything about it, from the tang of the tomato sauce to the crunch of the crust, is impeccable.

And yet, I hear the echo of my Bangkok friend Tip's voice in my ears: "It is okay, but just....not right."

A city's signature food is more than the sum of its parts. The "best" wontons, or steamed dumplings, aren't just the products of a great chef or a perfect recipe. They are little bites of local culture, morsels of emotion. I eat pizza and remember how I shared slices with old boyfriends; in Hong Kong, my friends do the same thing, only with noodles.

And in Bangkok, on a hot humid night, Tip's boyfriend drove until we reached a narrow busy street called Rangnam Road, and asmall restaurant with an open facade called, in Thai, "Isaan Rotdee",which means "Northeast Taste". As he parked, I could already hear the familiar thunk! thunk! of the mortar and pestle. Tip placed her order,instructing the som tum maker exactly how much dried shrimp, pepper and peanuts she wanted in the papaya mix. She grabbed handfuls of longbeans and Thai basil as side accompaniments.

We ate the som tum out of plastic bags in the car. Tip showed me how to press the sticky rice into small balls, to soak up the juices.

"This is right," said Tip, smiling. "Tastes just like when I lived on the farm in Isaan."

Thesom tum was, indeed, tasty. And what made it "right" wasn't just the ingredients or the preparation. It was the Bangkok night, the moment of sharing with friends, the experience.

Someday, I hope I will have the chance to teach my friend Tip to fold a New York slice of pizza.

Signature Food: in Bangkok, Hong Kong and New York

Won Ton Soup in Hong Kong

Wing Wah Noodle Shop 89 Hennessy Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong, China. Tel: +8522527 7476

Freedom Noodles G/F, 15 Canal Road West, Causeway Bay

Mak's Noodles

77 Wellington St., Central, Phone: 2854-3810

Som Tum in Bangkok

Tida Esarn Restaurant
1/2-5 Rangnam Road, Rajthevee, 0 2247 2234

Isaan Rotdee
3/5 Rangnam Road, Rajthevee, 0 2246 4579

Senses Restaurant
999 Gaysorn Plaza, 1st Floor
1 Ploenchit Road

Pizza in New York

Franny's 295 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn (718) 230-0221

V&M Pizzatown, 85 5th Ave, Brooklyn (718) 789-4040

DiFara's
1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn (718) 258-1367

Unfortunate Bedspreads and Other Travel Delights

2010-03-23T15:53:00Z

We've just entered our "Worst of Travel" nominations in Doug Lansky's The Titanic Awards.

Including: World's Worst Hotel Bedspread

(From my book, Cheap Hotels )

The Meandering Real Traveller

2009-04-21T09:13:00Z

Every year I try to give myself the gift of a few weeks to go off the grid, and travel alone without a plan or itinerary. Southeast Asia is a great place to be a meandering traveller. The logistics here are so easy. Guesthouses and hotels are cheap and plentiful, you never need to worry about finding a place to sleep even if you don't have a reservation. Transport is no sweat--there are good connections by air, rail, bus and boat.

And best of all, you will never, ever find yourself far from delicious food.

Last month I bought a round trip ticket from Hong Kong to Bangkok for about $200. I wasn't sure where I'd go from there, but there were a lot of options and I packed for every possibility. I brought some salwar kameez outfits, in case I ended up in India (there's an Air India Express flight from BKK to Calcutta that costs around $200 r/t). I brought assorted light cotton blouses and sarongs for Thailand's islands. I dug in my drawer and found some Thai bhat, Malaysian ringgit and Indonesian rupiah from previous trips, and stuck them in my wallet, just in case. (The ringgit is the official currency of the meandering traveler..check out the design...)

And, as always, I brought a flashlight, a stack of good books, a package of detergent, and some plastic twine. Because, as you will read in a forthcoming Real Travel column, it isn't a real trip, unless I am doing my laundry.

stay tuned....more to come.

Global Spam (and Skippy, too)

2009-02-23T14:43:00Z

a jar of genuine American Skippy peanut butter sells for $58.60 (about $8) in Hong Kong!

A couple of years ago, a fellow American expat told me about a little-known basement-level supermarket here in Hong Kong called Gateway, that sells nothing but brand-name American supermarket staples, and junk food, to homesick expats.

I tucked that information away in case I ever woke up in Hong Kong with a craving for Cocoa Puffs or Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese. But it hasn't happened. In fact, I spend an unhealthy amount of time wandering the aisles of Hong Kong's giant gourmet emporium, CitySuper, where you can find amazing foodstuffs from all over Europe and Asia.

Talk about choices! It sometimes takes me more than an hour to work my way past the jars of Taiwanese garlic and chili flavored dipping sauces for hot pot feasts, the eight different kinds of Japanese soba noodles, each made from a different grain, the fully stocked sake section. Who needs Joy or Dove to wash your dishes when you can choose between Hong Kong's own Axion, Japan's LiOn, and Britain's Waitrose?

Me, I've become a huge fan of the Hokkaido milk that CitySuper imports from Japan's northernmost island--the milk is said to be sweeter because of the climate and the Japanese cows that "grow in Nature at ease."

Come to think of it, Hokkaido milk would probably be fantastic over a bowl of Rice Krispies...

In my January Real Travel column, I wrote about how visiting supermarkets in a foreign place is great way to get a quick immersion into local culture. Many of you wrote in to agree--and to share your stories about the unusual gifts and inexpensive treasures you were able to pick up in foreign aisles.

Given the amazing variety of super supermarket stuff available in Hong Kong, I couldn't imagine at first what would draw customers to Gateway, a badly lit basement--sort of a mini Sam's Club-- filled with corrugated boxes of Pringles, Kool-aid and jumbo-sized boxes of Tide.

I scouted around to see who was shopping. Three customers were in Gateway when I was there, an Indian couple and a Chinese housewife. The checkout staff and the manager were all Chinese.

It suddenly occurred to me that the all-American supermarket staples offered by Gateway might be as thrilling as a Taiwanese garlic chili sauce to someone who hadn't grown up in a Land o' Lakes and Birds Eye frozen vegetables. Thousands of miles overseas, my nation's supermarket staples are exotic transmitters of a "sense of place" far away from their familiar surroundings.

And maybe more than that. I secretly hope that the Indian customers are adding their crumbled Pringles into their Channa Chat snacks, Filipina cooks are dicing up SPAM to toss into their pancit, and that Hong Kong housewives have discovered that Skippy makes the most perfectly smooth peanut sauce for Sichuan cold noodles.

In The Tunnels

2009-02-19T08:37:00Z

The other day, on a beautiful morning in Hong Kong, I decided to go and have a walk and a late breakfast in Kowloon City, an old neighborhood of low-rise buildings across the harbor from where I live. As I mentioned in my Real Travel column in this month's National Geographic Traveler, I'm big on walking as a way to really get to know a place.

Kowloon City is well worth exploring, for it has a fascinating history. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was the site of a lawless, walled state-less enclave within the British Colony, where gangsters ruled, and criminals took hiding. (You can read more about the old Kowloon Walled City in Martin Booth's wonderful childhood memoir, Gweilo.) The Walled City was torn down in 1993, but the surrounding area still has lots of terrific old Art Deco architecture, a thriving Thai immigrant community, and lots of the great little Hong Kong lunch counters we call cha chaan tengs.

The other reason why Kowloon City has such a wonderful sense of place is that it happens to be located in the flight path of Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport. Huge planes used to swoop low and terrifyingly over its rooftops (check out this great video) on their way to a Kai Tak landing. For safety reasons, the government banned the construction of tall buildings in the area. And so, Kowloon City remained relatively untouched by the intensive urban development that has changed Hong Kong's landscape so dramatically in the last fifteen years.

Since Kai Tak airport closed in 1999, the developers have been circling, and high-rises are going up--along with new highways and overpasses that create a more modern kind of wall around Kowloon City. When I got off at the nearest bus stop and started walking towards the center of the neighborhood, the first landscape I encountered had zero sense of place--was I in Sofia, Bulgaria, Seoul or London?

My Saturday morning slog through this grim pedestrian walkway came to mind today when I read this letter from a reader responding to something I wrote in my Real Travel column. I'd mentioned how a friend and I had found it impossible to escape on foot from her new Hong Kong hotel, which had been built isolated from the nearby neighborhood, surrounded by ramps and highways. My reader took issue:

Hong Kong is one of the most walkable cities in the world! Downtown or Central has miles of overhead walkways that connect all major government, office and shopping centers. [...] The walkways pass directly into and through shopping areas, also even the post-office and many major hotels. On Kowloon there are literally miles of underground walkways....

He's right--Hong Kong is a lot more accessible to walkers than many cities. Overhead pedestrian bridges and underground subways make it possible to cross busy Hong Kong highways on foot, which is admittedly a lot more than you'll find in big American car culture cities like Los Angeles. The network of raised catwalks and connections between Hong Kong's downtown shopping malls and offices is a unique urban landscape, a real Vertical City.

Yet, as I make my way around Hong Kong on foot, I often find my mood turns frustrated and irritible. Yes, I can get across the six lane highway, but the bridge that allows me to do so requires me to take a senseless three block detour. On a sunny, beautiful day, I must abandon the comfort of huge banyan trees to plunge into a dark, tunnel. The walkways bear the mark of the planner's drafting pencil, included as an afterthought to segregate pedestrians from the all-powerful and potent highway drivers. Fences and gates make sure I won't be wandering off from the "approved" path.

Part of the pleasure of foot travel is that it is spontaneous. When I travel, I walk with the expectation I will discover something I wasn't looking for. I walk with the secret hope that I will get lost.

What makes a city a great walking city? Accessibility is only half the equation. The parts of Hong Kong that I love to walk around have the life and chaos of a streetscape that developed organically from the ground up--the bustle of people on foot, tending to their storefront businesses, hauling things in their pushcarts.

In streets like these, with a little imagination, a traveler can wander back into another time.

But in a pedestrian subway, I know I'm not going to encounter any epiphanies, or any surprises (at least not the pleasant kind!). They are just a means to an end, put there as an afterthought to the freeways.

Fortunately, in Kowloon City as elsewhere in Hong Kong, there's almost always light (or, even better, a cha chaan teng) at the end of these tunnels!

mmmm! my favorite steamed pork bun.