Thailand Recommendations

We had an absolute blast in Thailand.  Can't recommend it enough.  I only wish that we'd had more time there.  We stayed some really great place, ate some really great food, saw some really great things.

Here's some of our greatest hits should you be heading to Bangkok and/or Koh Lanta...

The Atlanta Hotel


Siam Paragon Mall - Both the food court and the movie theater are worth a visit.

Wat Pho - A beautiful temple complex containing a 46 meter reclining Buddha.  One of the most impressive things we've seen.

By Kalpapruek Restaurant

Placement on map is approximate

87/2 ตึกออลซีซั่นเพลส อาคารซีอาร์ซี ยูนิต 101,130 ชั้น 1 ถ.วิทยุ แขวงปทุมวัน

Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Get Directions

02-6853860

Banana Garden Home, Klong Dao Beach, Koh Lanta - This place is great and the proprietor Annie couldn't be nicer.  Annie is a bit scattered though, and we would recommend emailing far in advance to secure a room.  Also, follow-up with her as Annie rarely writes things down.  That said, this place is a magical paradise, and we could have stayed there indefinitely.

Some (Possibly Not Very Interesting) Observations on Money

Traveling, you need to relearn how the money works in each place that you go.  Part of this is just making sure that you can pay for stuff and that you're not walking around with gobs and gobs of local currency, and the other part is trying to do the calculation to dollars to see how much this is actually costing you.


In the US, paper money is king; change has value, but in most ways it's best collected and changed to paper money. If you have a lot of change in your pocket, it's likely that at most you're going to have several dollars. In Japan, Hong Kong and Korea on the other hand, bills start at the (equivalent) 10 dollar denomination with 5 and 1 dollar equivalents being minted as coins. (In Hong Kong there is also a ten dollar coin, but money in Hong Kong seems designed from the ground up to confuse you – more on that in a minute.) You can have quite a bit of money in your pocket in just change.


The real weirdness about money in Hong Kong is that it is issued by at least three separate banks – none being an official government entity – and each bank has a different design for the notes. So a ten HK dollar note can look three totally different ways (same for the other larger notes).

Tokyo: We Were Sad to Say Good-bye

Tokyo is a food lovers town, and I can't recommend it highly enough on that basis alone. Variety is something that Tokyo has in excess and it doesn't stop with the food. Tokyo as place has variety baked in. On two consecutive days during our last week we went to Odaiba followed the next day with a visit to Mt. Takao. The contrast between these places could not have been more striking and each is just a train ride away.

I thought Tokyo was like visiting the future during our 2006 trip, and on this trip Odiaba gave me a similar feeling. Odaiba is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay with a mix of shopping malls, offices and residential buildings. The architecture though is pure sci-fi. To get there you take a train that leaves from the fourth story of the Shimbashi train station. The train takes you over Tokyo and then over the water with spectacular views the whole way. Once you arrive, you are greeted by broad walkways that would be at home in any Star Wars movie. Walkways connect a number of huge structures that continue the sci-fi vibe. The whole thing appealed to the 8 year old boy in me. We both also really enjoyed the massive outlet mall, the interior of which was stolen lock, stock and barrel from the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Complete with a faux Italian fountain and Church facade.

The next day we set out for Mount Takao. We had a great day of hiking the highlights of which were several different opportunities to view Mount Fuji. It was a real thrill to see such an icon in the flesh. We ended our day at Mt. Takao with a trip to Yaku-ou-in Temple complex. The temple is a series of beautiful traditional buildings built at various levels on Mt. Takao.

Seeing these two on consecutive days felt like seeing past and future.  Despite it's constant drive for renewal and reinvention, Tokyo always nods to it's history and tradition.

These last few post are just a taste of our time in Tokyo, and I can't believe how quickly the five weeks went by.  We just got to Tokyo!  But no, month four of our travels came and went in an awesome dream.  We must say a special thank you to Molly and Andrew who truly shepherded this part of our journey to make it so much greater.  Not a bad suggestion left their lips, and we are totally appreciative for all their help and guidance. We also just loved hanging out! Thanks guys!

Month five here we come...

Tokyo: We Came, We Saw, We Ate.

The food is Tokyo is bonkers, amazing, crazy bananas. We love Japanese food, and we were lucky that in the East Village we had one of the best selections of Japanese eateries in NYC. It does not compare in any way to what is available in Tokyo. We put so many things in our mouths that just stopped us cold, it's going to be hard to relate the best of the bunch, but I'm going to give it a shot though...

5. There was a piece of sea urchin negiri sushi that I ate at Sushiko Tsukiji that I'm still thinking about. It was a perfect bite of food. Clean and creamy and briny.

4. One afternoon we walked to Futako-Tamagawa from Sangenjaya. We stopped in at a ramen shop along the way. We probably ate ramen 10 times this trip and this one was the best. Perfectly balanced. Good bite to the noodles. Rich flavorful broth without being greasy.

3. The grilled scallop at the Bettar Ichi Festival in Ningyocho. Totally simple. A grilled scallop with a bit of mirin added during cooking. It was perfectly cooked. Sweet and tender.

2. Rodney and Molly found a great restaurant for dinner the last night my folks were in town. We had a tatami room and the six of us enjoyed a truly memorable meal. The highlight for me was a grilled pork skewer cooked next to a pile of charcoal in the pit grill in our table. The pork was fatty in the best possible way and so porky with a little bit of smoke from the grilling.

1. It's a tie here. Both things were eaten in the same meal at an extraordinary restaurant in Sangenjaya and I won't choose between them. Molly and Andrew call the restaurant “The Horomon Place” as they specialize in horomon. As best as any of us can figure horomon is cow uterus. We ate a lot of it in Tokyo, but at The Horomon Place the proprietor makes a soup of horomon that's meaty and rich and yet delicate and nuanced. In the soup sit pieces of horomon and the whole thing is a heady combination. I hope that I have the chance to enjoy it again someday. If that soup wasn't enough, the chef made us a piece of grilled beef that was top three pieces of beef I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It was perfectly grilled and sliced into 6 thin slices accompanied by a small bowl of salt for dipping. As complex as the horomon soup was, the beef was just as good in it's simple beefiness.

Tokyo: Easy Days

Even without insider status, Tokyo has many layers to reveal. A lot of what effected my feelings about Tokyo was getting comfortable with the geography of the city. We walked a lot, and we walked a lot between neighborhoods. Getting your bearings anywhere is an essential part of the experience, but really becoming familiar with the layout of a large city frees you to explore. One of the best things about Tokyo is that it's so safe. You can go anywhere. You can walk there. You can ride there (on a most excellent public transportation system). You never need to contemplate the safety of a neighborhood or if someone is going to rip you off trying to get there. This aspect of the city cannot be taken for granted. It let's you relax in a way that Beijing and Shanghai don't. It let's you explore all of the little cities that make up the Tokyo metropolis. (As I write this we are on the plane to Bangkok and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit apprehensive about what awaits us.)

There are two other major things that make Tokyo a great and easy place to visit. The first is that there is a baseline quality to everything that frees you from having to search for good stuff. The people who live there care deeply about the city and the place is spotless. Shop owners have well designed and well curated stores. This baseline quality becomes the most obvious in the restaurants. It's hard to find a bad meal in Tokyo. You don't need to search at all, you don't need recommendations or a guidebook. The food starts at good and just goes up from there. It takes a lot of pressure off of meals. Often when we got hungry, we would walk into the next restaurant we saw and without exception we had a good meal.

The other thing that constantly blew us away in Tokyo was attention to detail. Everything is just so. Nothing is askew or out of place. It's just perfect. The milk for the coffee comes in a tiny perfect pitcher that has a most gratifying heaviness. The sphere of ice in your drink has been checked to make sure that there are no errant icicles that might water down your beverage. Each compartment of your gleaming black lacquer bento looks like a food stylist was called in to arrange it.

Back to the Future

Tokyo was a whirlwind.  We were so happy to get to spend time with so many friends and family.  After a lot of chatting and planning my folks made it to Tokyo for ten great days.  It was a weird and wonderful experience to see them in Tokyo, and we hope they had a great trip they'll remember for a long time to come.

Tokyo was a very different part of our trip.  It was the only place in Asia that I had been prior to our travels, and coming back to a place changes everything.  The first time I was there was with Rodney in 2006, and I was like a kid who had landed in 2055.  It literally felt like visiting the future.

This time around Tokyo felt like an alternate reality more than traveling forward in time. Rodney has visited Tokyo a bunch of times, and her experiences coupled with those related by Molly and Andrew and our new friend Hannah provided a small window into a place which I will never truly understand. Molly also recommended the excellent book "Tokyo Vice" which further shed some light. Our time in Tokyo and all of the collected anecdotes we heard and read allowed me to see Tokyo as real. On my first visit, I was so enamored of my surroundings that it was hard to see anything but a futuristic fairyland.

There's a lot about Japanese society that seems ridiculous and arbitrary and surprisingly inefficient. (See Rodney's post about trying to free ourselves from the shackles of picnic trash for a tiny microcosm.) Much seems like it will need to change as Japan feels cut off from the rest of the world in a way that is no longer sustainable in an increasingly global world.

None of that had any real bearing on our time there except perhaps the realization that Tokyo is an insider town in truest sense. If you live in New York for years (not even a lot of years), you're a New Yorker and you will almost certainly be an insider in whatever social or cultural sphere you choose to roam in. Tokyo doesn't feel that way. I believe that, as a Westerner – as any non-Japanese person, for that matter – you could live in Tokyo for years, decades and you'd still never really be an insider. There will always be a separation as long as a you are not Japanese.