Porto Diaries

Decided how many days to spend in Lisbon compared to Porto was a challenge when I initially planned this trip. Porto had come highly recommended to me by someone who owns a shoe manufacturing business there, and travels there often from New York City. But Lisbon as the capital seemed to offer more to do. In the end I decided to divide time equally between the two cities, but in reality, plans took a very different course.

After 3 days in Lisbon we boarded a train to make the easy 3 hours ride north to Porto for another 3 days. We were supposed to leave from there to the Portuguese Algarve, to stay in Lagos and enjoy the beach. Unfortunately my morning sickness from pregnancy was in full force, and I could barely cope of even the short 3-hour train from Lisbon. I threw up constantly on board and by the time we arrived in Porto, my partner suggested we skip the Algarve – which would have meant another 7 hour train ride in three days – and stay longer in Porto to allow me to recover. I welcomed the idea, and it seemed the stars aligned because we were able to extend our airbnb reservation in Porto with ease, change our train tickets for no fee, and cancel our hotel in Lagos without penalty. So we ended up with 6 days in Porto.

Here in this city, having longer to relax and recover, I started taking a few risks. I would go on longer walks, further walks, and hope I didn’t get sick along the way. I was normally sleeping form 8:00pm-8:00am, but a few nights  I stayed up until 10:00pm to have dinner and even check out a local bar. I ate sushi and tasted (just tasted) port wine. I watched a World Cup game from the park amidst thousands of fans. I put on a swimsuit and got in the icy waters of the Atlantic – still unbearably cold in June. I still felt sick every day, but I also felt like I was beginning to heal. The six days allowed me to see Porto, over and over again, so that I knew it’s streets without a map, and the landmarks became familiar to me.

Lisbon Diaries

One of my most vivid memories from Lisbon is going to sleep in the early evening, and once darkness fell around 8:00pm, hearing my neighbor practice Fur Elise on the piano, the notes wafting through the night air. We stayed in a renovated apartment on the second floor of a building on a small street in the Estrela neighborhood. I would hear the piano music every night, either beckoning me onto the streets or deeper into a dream.

I wish I has written this on my trip to Lisbon, but now it appears on the page as a memory. I didn’t write a single word in my diary during my entire trip to Portugal. I thought I would. The purpose of this trip was meant to reawaken me to the world’s variety and refuel me to start my new business. At critical junctures of my life I’ve quit my job, traveled to another country, and returned to start something completely new. This would be one of them, and Portugal would be part of that transition. But what I had not anticipated was that I was in the 10 and 11th weeks of pregnancy, and at the height of my morning sickness. Fatigue and nausea overtook most of my days, and distracted me from writing, reflecting, or even processing my experience.

Every day in Portugal I awoke at 8:00am and was in bed by 8:00pm. 12 hours of sleep was nothing for me – I could have slept 16 if I didn’t feel guilty about wasting my time in a foreign country. I did manage to leave the room each day, to go out for walks, to photograph a few things. But the physical discomfort never left me. I was always only partially present, with the other part of me trying to flee my body away from all the sickness I felt.

It’s hard to know what sort of experience I would have had in Lisbon if I saw it from a different body, or from a different time in my own body. But this was the time and this was the body, and this was the Lisbon I experienced.

Tijuana: Expectations and Reality

No doubt I am so mystified by Tijuana because it is one of those places that defies expectations. I did absolutely no research before I walked across the border. I knew someone who lived there and I trusted him completely. The “expectations” came when I began talking to my Lyft drivers in San Diego, telling them I was heading across the border in a few days. Some of the responses:

“Oh I never go there anymore. It’s way too dangerous.”
“I hope you know someone there. That’s no place for a girl to go alone.”
“Just stay out of trouble. Don’t try to buy any drugs. And don’t start any fights. Everyone is carrying a gun.”

The warnings were not encouraging.

The other comments came from my friend himself. An ardent Tijuana enthusiast, he finds himself either constantly explaining or defending the city from it’s critics:

“Unfortunately, I often feel I have to explain to people why I love Tijuana. I have a good friend who I told about the city and she came to visit San Diego and popped down for a day visit only to complain that the city was so dirty and that the folks were so abjectly poor that she couldn't relax and enjoy herself. Another friend told me after I'd mentioned going to Mexico that he'd just returned from a Europe tour and that he wouldn't need to see Mexico because he's seen the original...”

Hearing this, I was worried Tijuana would be a slum of San Diego. Just a place where the poorest residents live and commute daily over the border for work.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, given the town proximity to the border, I was worried Tijuana would feel no different than San Diego. That crossing the border would be a mere formality, and that the two cities would feel utterly the same, that there would be no foreignness to the Mexican side.

Needless to say, both of these ideas were wrong. Tijuana is distinctly different from San Diego in every imaginable way. But it is not a slum. Not merely a place to sleep for the tens of thousands of workers for migrate to the US side for jobs every day. It hasn’t its own culture and vices, it’s own unique atmosphere and identity.

It is also not a vapid and soulless entertainment destination, like Las Vegas or Macau. Though it is often exploited by Americans as a place to party, drink, and find cheap sex and drugs, it is not merely a wasteland catering to these desires.

Here are a few things that surprised me about Tijuana. Some are good, other disappointing, and some without any judgement.

Not much English
Most of the Mexicans I encountered, including ones working at major restaurants and shops, did not speak English. I am not an entitled traveler and I do not expect people to accommodate my language, but having been to remote corners of the world I am surprised by the people I find who speak English when I expect them not to. Tijuana was different. I expected English to be a lingua franca and it was nowhere to be found. This surprised me because it is a border town, English is so close, and also because many Americans come over to dine and shop and usually those in the tourist industry will be bilingual to accommodate them. The only people in Tijuana who seemed to speak English were the hawkers at the souvenir shops on Revolucion, who would beckon me to their stores. Everyone else in cafes, restaurants, stores, and clubs was friendly and patient, but struggled to understand.


Fluid Queer culture
I knew there would be gay bars in Tijuana. There are gay bars all over the world even in countries where being gay is illegal. Of course Tijuana would have gay bars, but I didn’t expect so many, and with such an open and welcoming array of identities in their patrons. I went to a lot of gay bars in TJ and met a lot of amazing people who were living all kinds of lives. I cannot say any one definitive thing about the lives of queer people in Tijuana and that is what surprised me, that unlike Japan and other countries there are no prescriptive identities for queer people.


The streets and roads are so bad
This shouldn’t be surprising, given Tijuana’s other infrastructure woes, but it has not occurred to me that I would find so many pothole and scary high curbs in Tijuana as I did. Maybe I thought the roads would be well-maintained since it is the gateway to Baja Mexico, where many many people pass through. But potholes were so deep that when you see drivers swerve it is probably to avoid a pothole and not because they are intoxicated or wild.

typical sidewalk

gaps int he pavement

urban hiking on steep curbs

walking through a construction site

a makeshift bridge on a busy pedestrian street

Cars stop for pedestrians
This was truly shocking. Given the bad roads and unruly driving, I expected to get run over any minute. But drivers in Tijuana are actually quite considerate of pedestrians. I never felt unsafe crossing a street and cars always stopped for me the moment I put my foot out. So different from Thailand, Vietnam, or even Boston.



Uber English app
Almost most people did not speak English, I was pleasantly surprised to find an Uber English option on the Uber app in Tijuana. I’ve used Uber in many other countries and not seen this option appear. Basically, if you select Uber English instead of just UberX, your driver will speak English. I used this a few times and found all the drivers to be quite friendly and fluent.



The danger is hidden
Most everyone associates Tijauan with drug violence and kidnapping, but there are few traces of that in everyday life in the Zona Centro. This tiny pocket of the larger city is very well policed and protected. That doesn’t mean anyone is completely safe – the first weekend I was there one American was shot at a café, with a bullet that was intended for someone else, and three people were killed in a club on Revolucion when a gunman open fired into the crowd. I was naïve during the first trip, but afterward I learned that for people in some parts of the city, shooting are a part of daily life. Over 1,744 people were murdered in Tijuana 2017. In July of 2018, the most violent month in the city’s history, there were 251 murders. That’s 8 murders a day. Given this bloody statistic, one would think you would see more violence on the streets but in the central area, it’s business as usual.


Gourmet food culture
I knew I would be in for some amazing street food in Tijuana, but had no idea such a gastronomic revolution was taking place. In addition to the tacos and huevos rancheros I had night after night, I also dined at 5-star gourmet restaurants like Mision 19 and had great fusions takes on Mexican food at Oryx Capital and Telefonica Gastro Park. There is so much delicious food to be found on the street and in upscale restaurants.

eating sea urchin at Mision 19

Hipster culture 
There are actually a lot of hipsters in Tijauna. What can you expect? Where there are young middle class people, there are hipsters. The fashion trends were most noticeable to me at night, where they were also most difficult to photograph. The hipsters like to hang out at bars like LaMezcalera and Moustache and drink beers from Teorema Tasting Room.

hipsters love Instagram-able neon signs

Halloween is actually kind of a thing here

No, I don’t mean Day of the Dead / Dia de los Muertos, I mean American Halloween. I am surprised to find how this American tradition has taken off in other countries like Japan. With Mexico’s own important holiday happening at the same time, I wouldn’t have thought Mexican’s would be interested in Halloween. Evidence of the new tradition can be found in shop décor and bakeries.  

Halloween decor on a shop

Halloween decor in a bakery

Reminds me so much of Athens
This is a person observation that would occur to no one but me. Tijuana, as a city, gave me such a nostalgia for Athens, Greece. It might be the heat, the sun, the crumbling roads and buildings, the graffiti and trash, the food smells or the plants that grow in people gardens, but every time I walk through the Colonia Cacho of Tijuana, I feel like I'm in Athens again.

Colonia Cacho - not as hilly as Athens but still nostalgic

Return to Japan: a tourist after all

Ginza, a part of Tokyo I haven't seen in 15 years

After an on-and-off ten year relationship with Japan that culminated with me living in the mountains of rural Shimane prefecture, I returned to the city of my fascination as, of all things, a tourist.

Tokyo is one of those few places in the world where I have always thought myself more local than foreign, and going there to see the sights was an idea that didn’t appeal to me all that much at first.

I realized after many years and many trips that I have never seen Tokyo. I have only seen people in Tokyo, and that’s different. On all of my brief visits, I have gone to meet friends and strangers alike, but have never merely wandered the streets as a tourist. This time I would revisit the city that influenced so much of my youth and try to see it from a new lens – the same lens I use to evaluate any new place I travel to – that of a tourist.

Someone's house, Tokyo

The first time I set foot in Tokyo was July of 2003. If you had asked me how the city changed in the last 15 years I would say it hadn’t.  The ugly uniform architecture from the bubble period of the 1980s was still ubiquitous. Landmarks were the same. Even hole-in-the-wall restaurants were still there for me to return. But in the summer of 2017, the city did feel defiantly changed:

There were signs in English where there had never been.

There was new construction all around.

Cafes were opening left and right.

The once quiet and discreet gay area of Shinjuku was adorned with rainbow flag and men in ass-less chaps crowding outside the doors of bars.

Street art popping up everywhere

The city had finally changed. I blame the 2020 Olympics. And globalization. And the inevitable. But it seems to have changed and been changing for the better. Certainly I can’t complain about cafes and English signs and bustling gay bars.

In the end, I spent the majority of my time not with any of the dozens of people I’ve known for 10+ years living there – but with a new friend I had known for only a few months. So this trip was both an ode to nostalgia and a making of new memories.

Reflections on My SE Asia Diary

from a cafe in Kuala Lumpur

In 6 months in SE Asia, I was determined to write every single day.

No exceptions. I didn’t realize how ambitious my goal was until I began the trip. Finding time to write was not the biggest challenge. There was plenty of time on buses, trains, waiting for flights, and at the end of a long day on the bed of my hotel room. After all, I didn’t work. I wasn’t studying. Time was all I had.

But it was so incredibly difficult to write.

Why?

Because I didn’t know what to say. I would sit in front of my laptop and completely blank. It wasn’t a matter of writing for the public, it was about writing for myself. I always hoped to have something thoughtful  and profound, but many days nothing would inspire me.

Still, I know it would be a great waste if I didn’t keep a consistent diary abroad, so I decided to change my tactic. Instead of sitting down to write a “diary” entry, I began intervening myself.

“Describe where you are,” was the first prompt. I as not in the same place every day. Even when I was, the place was always different with new people, new music, new conversations, and new sunlight. It was never the same place as the day before.

At first this seemed tedious. After all, I can just takes pictures of the place and have a visual record that will last longer than memory. But the camera cannot hear, cannot smell, cannot feel. My descriptions are more valuable than my photos because my own experiences inform them.

In Vietnam I wrote that the winter sky was the “Hanoi sky was a sunless grey, the color of a pearl, the color of the inside of an oyster shell.”

In Malaysia I wrote that Penang’s sudden rain showers “sounded like a burst of applause from an eager audience.” I wrote that the low cloud of Kuching “seemed to drop on the city like a theater curtain.”

After descriptions, the next prompt I would give myself was this: “Tell me how you feel.” I wrote in my diary, “forgetting starts when the feeling stops.”

Thinking about, and then writing out my feelings at that precise moment was a way of bringing myself into the present. First I built awareness of my surroundings in the descriptions, then I built awareness of myself. The feelings did not need to be profound, sometimes – oftentimes – they were just rants of any present frustrations.

“I am always too hot, too tired, or too busy to connect with my feelings.

Distraction. Stimulation. Disorientation,” I wrote from Bali, on the fifth day or travel

“I don’t think I am a failed traveler just because I'm getting melancholy on this trip. Just like I wasn’t a failed ex-pat when I got melancholy in Japan. Perhaps my only real mistake is that I didn’t expect this,” I wrote from a café in Bangkok.

This approaches work, and with the exception of only a few days, I was able to write every something every single day in Asia. Now that I’ve covered the qualitative analysis of my writing pattern in Asia, I would also like to look at some metrics. Here are some curious statistics I’ve uncovered:

Total number of words: 103,173

Average entry: 819 words

Longest entry:

11/27 Chiang Mai, Thailand  at 2,406 words

That day I wrote 3 times, beginning just after midnight at 12:03am, then again from a café at 1:10pm, and from another café 9:07pm. It was a big long philosophical rant about my life.

11/2 Yangon, Myanmar 2,255 words

The second runner up was in Yangon, where I dictated my descriptions from the train into my iphone. The train was far too shaky for me to write, so I spoke my diary entry into my phone and transcribed them into my diary while on a boat in another part of Myanmar.

Shortest entry:

10/23 Hua Hin, Thailand at 65 words

I had a small breakdown in Hua Hin, where I felt the most depressed and miserable I had since the trip started – and I wasn’t even a month into it!

The entry in its entirety:

“On a short vacation, I can reflect on what I experienced once I go home. But here, moving from place to place, I am tired.  I can’t reflect on the last place because I am trying to absorb the current place.

As my mom would say,

‘Put the roast in the oven, lite a cigarette and stare at the sink.’

That’s how I feel now. “

I wrote the most in border crossings from Thailand to Laos – specifically Chiang Rai (1518) and Houay Xai (1211). In both cases, I was only in each place for one day waiting for the next mode of transportation to take me to my next place.

A close runner up was again Yangon,  Myanmar where I wrote an average of 1,052 words per day. That city inspired me so much, I never had a shortage of things to say about it.

I wrote the least in Jahor Bahru, another border crossing taking me from Singapore into Malaysia. I wrote precisely 0 words in Jahor Bahu and I remember detesting it and being eager to get out.

As close runner up was the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, where I wrote only 221 words per day because I got sick and felt depressed. 

Honestly, when I analyzed these statistics they surprised me. I had thought expected Chaing Mai to be the place I wrote the most per day since I returned there for a month at the end of my trip for the express purpose of writing. I was also surprised by the average length of my entries. Apparently I did have a lot to say about my surrounding and my feelings. In memory, my diary was just a long ramble of useless thoughts and observations, but when I went to re-read it, two years after travel, I was struck by its poignancy and specificity. Most of the entries read like a narrative, shifting between external and internal observations.

This diary has been pure gold to me. It my favorite and most valuable souvenir. It’s depth and breadth far outweigh anything captured by my photographs or other archiving techniques.