Day 5- Mandalay

It's been a day and a half here in Burma, and it's been so fun and interesting to learn more about the culture and history here in Mandalay.

We got to Mandalay early in the morning and met our family! Yes! Finally!

At the Mandalay airport, we met with our tour guide and driver and found out that we had our own personal 24 seater bus! So awesome.

Our first stop was Maha Myut Mune. Built in the early 1900s, the bug Buddha is currently adorned with tons of gold leaves donated and offered by visitors. The original statue was quite skinny and not even gold, but after the king allowed visitors to put gold leaves on it, the size has grow and the statues itself has even become a bit disfigured because of the abundant amount of gold!

Women aren't allowed to actually do the offering of gold, so the men of the group went for us. Eric couldn't get over the size and how cool the experience was.

Next stop was the Golden Palace, the home of the old king and queen. The palace grounds were huge and had so many different buildings and quarters. The king had 67 official wives with 4 chief wives, so you can imagine how much living space there is!

We then stopped for lunch and then headed for Shwe Nandaw Kyaung. Which means the golden monastery. This monastery is unique because it is in its original state. Many monasteries in the area have been rebuilt after being destroyed from the war bombings. However, this one kept intact but is no longer gold after years of weather. You can now see the original teak wood that the entire monastery is built out of. The carvings are incredibly detailed!

We then headed off to the biggest book in the world. Made of over 700 pages, each page has its own pagoda and has enscriptures of Buddha teachings. There were rows upon rows of white pagodas with a page inside each!

The last part of the day was the best. We went up to Mandalay Hill to watch the sunset. Since our bus was too big for the mountain hill, we transferred to two smaller (more fun) pickup trucks which we used to go up the mountain. Super fun! We felt like locals!

The view atop Mandalay Hill was gorgeous, and the sunset was a great ending to the day.

We're having such a great time with family, and we are learning a ton! I can't wait to see what Mandalay has in store for us tomorrow!

Day 4-Finally in Yangon!

We had an early start this morning and woke up at 4:30am to get ready for the Tsukiji Fish Market. We had amazing Kobe beef yesterday night, so we couldn't wait for our amazing sushi. Our hotel is only a 10 minute walk from the market, so we headed out on foot looking for a delicious breakfast.

After taking the sights in, we decided to stop at the amazing sushi place we went to exactly one year ago. It was just as we had remembered..melt in your mouth o-toro. Oh man.

After stuffing ourselves with all this fresh protein and deliciously creamy uni, we walked around hoping to burn some calories so we could go to another sushi place for one last meal before we headed out to Burma. We were hoping to go to the wholesale marketplace but found out that it was a holiday and was closed for the day... no worries- we just went and got more sushi! Eric and I were in heaven.

After being complete gluttons, off we headed back to Narita airport. What a great layover! We will be back in Japan for another layover when we finish our Burma adventure. And you can bet we will have some more sushi.

After our 8 hour flight, we finally arrived to Yangon! Our family had already started their trip and was in the city of Bagan, so we had the night to ourselves before our early morning flight to Mandalay, where we would finally be reunited.

We were greeted with smiles by our driver and travel agent and were quickly swifter off to our hotel. After meeting a family friend, we went to Feel Restaurant for a traditional Burmese dinner.

There were some things we had to avoid, so we wouldn't get sick, but the meal was good and, of course, spicy. After our dinner of spicy dried lamb, braised pork belly, tofu and vegetables and creamed corn, we quickly headed to Shwedagon Pagoda to catch a glimpse before it closed for the night. It was absolutely breathtaking....

Very similar to the pagodas in Thailand, I would say this pagoda had a lot more gold rather than the green and colorful Thai statues. I guess that's why they call Yangon the golden country. Built in 600 BC, the pagoda has a ton of different Buddhas and so many different stories and tales. There were various sections and Buddhas for the day you were born-Eric and I did a few prayers at the Thursday section since we were both born on Thursday (or so he thinks).

We did a few prayers, worships, learned some history and walked around just simply amazed at how beautiful this place was. I could have spent all night here-it was huge.

The last thing we did was fan the big Buddha. They say that if you fan the Buddha to cool and de-stress him, you yourself will be cool and de-stressed. What a relaxing ending to the night.

We went back to the hotel fairly early for our flight to Mandalay tomorrow. We want to make sure that we get rested for the Liu-Chu-Lee family! Next stop, Mandalay!

Day 1-3: We are finally in Asia!

After 2 flight cancellations, 46 hours on the phone with United, 3 departure airports, we have finally gotten out of the US. And it only took us 3 days!

Going from JAX to Orlando to Tampa might sound fun, but Eric and I were very close to having an anxiety attack from all the "excitement". Worse, we thought we were going to have to cancel our entire trip to Asia. The weather in the northeast has caused many delays and cancellations but we are very happy to finally head to our destination where our family awaits.

I could be more upset since we lost a few days to our trip, wasted time driving around north and central Florida for 3 days, I lost my business class seat upgrade and was separated from Eric and got stuck in economy in between two strange men for 14 hours, or I could just be thankful that I am safe and still get to have an amazing adventure with my family. I'll go with the latter.

We still stuck to our original plan and flew to Tokyo, Japan for our 18 hour layover. We arrived this time and DID NOT take a cab to Tokyo. We got on the Narita Express and arrived at our beautiful hotel- the Conrad Hotel. Think the modern contemporary design of The W hotels plus the sophistication and classic elegance of the St.Regis, you then have the Conrad. This was one of the more beautiful hotels we have stayed at.

We quickly took showers, changed and headed off to our Kobe beef dinner reservation. We walked 20 minutes to the town of Ginza and ate the best beef we have ever had. Ever. Real Japanese Kobe Beef. Yes, the extremely rare and regulated good stuff.

Stuffed and extremely satisfied (Eric shed a tear as he was eating his meal), we took a quick walk around the shopping capital and headed straight back for some r&r. I mean, we did just get off a 14 hr flight.

 

We are finally heading to Rangoon tomorrow! We can't wait to finally get to Burma and see my beloved fam! But for now, we are enjoying the beautiful view from our amazing hotel.

And so it begins

And so it begins. Another year, another new journey to embark.

Where are we off to this year? Burma!

For those of you who don't know where Burma is.. here's a map:

Yes, we are very excited for our trip to Myanmar. This one is going to be a special one.

For those of you who don't know, my family was born and raised in Burma, and this is my first time visiting the country to learn more about my family and their history.

We are headed with my parents, aunts and uncles and a few cousins. It's going to be epic. We'll learn a lot along the way, and definitely eat new and interesting foods. We can't wait!

We are leaving Saturday 1/4/14 and will be arriving in Burma 2 days later. (We of course had to take a long layover in Japan to enjoy some sushi first).

Not sure how much internet we'll have, but we'll sure post as much as we can.

Now all we need to do is pack and get ready for our conveniently upgraded business first class seats :)

Love,
Melric

Day 15- Hakone

*Sorry, pictures will be posted asap!

It is our last full day in Japan and we are sad to see our trip come to a close. We want to thank everybody who has been keeping up with our posts and would like to thank the comments and emails of support! We hope to take more trips like these- we learned a lot, ate a lot, and had a lot of fun.

Last night, we spent a lot of time in the busy street of Tokyo, enjoying the shopping and activity of the town. We thought for today, we would end our trip on a relaxing note and head to Hakone for the day to catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji! (Thank you Jen Jen for the suggestion)

We woke up this morning to head to the Ebisu train station to get to the Romance car train that takes us to Hakone. There are a few modes of transportation you can take to get to this small town- we heard that the bullet train was pretty cool, but after our extravagant meals we were thinking of going the cheaper route (which isn't really cheap to begin with- thanks, Tokyo).

After an hour and a half of train ride, we finally arrived to the chilly, small town of Hakone. We were looking to go to Mt. Fuji, but unfortunately, we were told that it was too foggy and it wasn't visible today! Boo!

We decided to head to our Hot Springs Bath house- Tenzen Tohji-kyo, one of the best bath houses (recommended by our hotel). We took a public bus and within 15 minutes, we were at our relaxing spa getaway for the day!

Tenzen is beautiful. Quiet, serene, isolated, Tenzen is a very traditional bath house that has multiple open air hot springs! Before we spent our day at the spring, Eric and I decided to get a traditional Japanese lunch. With small, refreshing bites of tempura, soba noodles, miso soup and rice balls, we were quite full and ready for a day of relaxation. It was amazing. We first got a couples massage and then headed for the bathhouses...

Be warned.. in these traditional bathhouses, you are not able to wear any clothing- yes, everybody is fully nude! The men and women are always separated and they have their own spring baths. If you are able to get over the nudity, you will have one of the most relaxing times of your life!

Eric and I separated and set up a time to meet back in the same lobby. After 4 hours of relaxation, we headed back to the city of Tokyo to get our last amazing dinner! Eric stated that it was the most relaxing day he's ever had!

We were very excited for our dinner. It was our last night in Japan, and of course, Eric wanted to end it big. We made reservations at a small, traditional sushi house where everything was a chef's omakase. We REALLY wanted to go to Jiro, but unfortunately we weren't able to get reservations, so we asked the hotel to make us reservations as someplace similar! It was delicious!

We had out own sushi chef, named Kenji who catered our meal to our likes and dislikes. He watched us as we ate each bite of sushi and gauged our reaction to what he would prepare next for us. It wasn't necessarily the meal that was amazing, but the experience itself. How many people can say that they have had this catered experience in Tokyo!

After this great meal, we were absolutely stuffed. We decided to walk it off and head to a Belgium bar (guess who's idea that was). After observing a drunk Japanese couple have a lovely nap at the bar, we headed back to the hotel to rest up and get ready for our trip back home.

We can't believe that our trip is already over- it has flew by! Thank you all for reading, and we hope to have more trips like this to continue the adventure!

Back to the USA!

Day 14- Culinary Journey

It is our first full day in Japan, and let me tell you- it made up for our awful day yesterday. We had the best culinary journey today.

We woke up bright and early and headed to one of our most anticipated stops of the trip- tsukiji fish market! For those of you who know Eric and I well, you would know that we love sushi and is one thing we have deep interest for. So you can only imagine how excited we were to take a train from Ebisu station to the Tsukijo station on the Hibya line to go to this fish market!

When getting off the train, we quickly spotted a ramen shop. What is interesting about Japan is all the vending machines they have to sell anything and everything! So of course, we ordered some ramen from the vending machine for our breakfast- yum!

After scarfing down some ramen, we were eager for some sushi. We walked 10 minutes to the fish market and were surprised by all the shops and different seafood all around us!

There sushi shops after sushi shops and we really didn't know which one to go to. We decided to turn a random corner and go to one that was offering three different kids of toro- toro, Chu-toro and O-toro! Mmmmm

After our quick snack, we explored some more and quickly realized how rich the Japanese are. Things here are very expensive (as if we didn't figure that our from yesterday's cab ride) and just simple household items were insanely priced!

As we walked around the fish market, getting ready to leave, we came upon the highlight of our morning. A restaurant had recently just purchased a huge tuna from the market and was showing it off to all the locals! They cut the entire tuna (that took 5 men to carry) and showed off the beautiful flesh! The locals were cheering in excitement and congratulating the restaurant chefs on their new prize. Yes, fish are prized here.

It didn't take long for us to decide that we had to eat at this sushi restaurant- so off we went!

What was the best part? We got to eat the tuna that they were showing off to the locals! They cut the fish in front of the crowd and just handed it to the sushi chefs inside. They had the freah fish on the counter and just sliced off some pieces of it for our nigiri. I don't think you can get fresher than that.

The sushi was absolutely indescribable. The regular toro was better than any o-toro I've had in the US. The Chu toro was so divine and pure. And then when we got to the o toro, we really didn't know what to say, except that we NOW finally understand what melt in your mouth means. Heck, it melted in our hands!

After this great start to the day, we got back on the Hibiya line and went to the Imperial Palace.

The bonsai trees in the surrounding the garden was beautiful and the palace itself was so majestic. I wish I could live there!

After our trip to the Imperial Palace, it was time to head to the bustling city! We took the JR line to Shibuya first and walked around this busy city. Boy is Japan crowded!

We saw some cool plinko looking machines in a parlor.. But we weren't really sure how to play, so we just watched! I wonder what they were doing....

We walked around town and stopped at another arcade parlor. We still had no clue what people were doing but we decided to join in this time. When it Tokyo! We lost all our coins pretty quickly since we were completely clueless. :(

Then it was time for a new town, Shinjuku! Shinjuku, although only a few train stops away was completely different. Shibuya was more like Times Square while Shinjuku was more like.... Penn Station- a lot more quieter with business buildings all around.

We got the best dinner at Shinjuku! Eric commented how he's always wanted to do Shabu Shabu in Japan, so we searched for a good place, and oh, we found it. Yes that is the best wagyu Kobe beef you have probably ever laid your eyes on... Look at that marbling!

After our amazing dinner, we walked around, stopped at a Belgium bar (yes, this was Eric's idea) and decided to call it a night. After all, we are heading to Hakone bright and early tomorrow!

Day 13- What A Day!

What. A. Day.

So we woke up this morning and started heading to tokyo- our last stop for our trip. And then it started..

We had a flight booked with a one hour connection in beijing,china. Our first flight got delayed and upon getting to beijing, we had to run through the airport, through security and barely made our flight. The only reason we made it was because an airport security man driving a buggy saw we were running so he picked us up and drove us to our gate. He then of course lied and told us his services cost money...oh and then i twisted my knee.

We finally got to tokyo and as we were getting off the plane, we were greeted by a very cute japanese girl holding a sign for 'mr.eric bruner'. On our first flight to thailand, we were greeted in the same way because of our first class tickets, and we were given a special buggy ride through the airport to a VIP immigration check in. However, this was different.

We find out that our bags didnt make it and we had to stay in the airport for an extra 2 hours sorting the situation out.

During these two hours, we learned that our hotel had lost our reservation and had no record of our stay. Perfect.

We finally were able to leave the airport, and learned our biggest lesson of the trip. DO NOT take a taxi from Narita Airport into Tokyo. Period.

So after our awful day, we finally checked in to our hotel after midnight and needed to find a way to make our day better... So we decided to walk (i limped) to a nearby sushi restaurant.

The best ending to an awful day.

Fresh, delicious sushi in japan. What can be better?

Well it can only get better...right?

And off we go to bed, in our kimonos because we don't have our suitcases with us!