Tagged: Travel
Strolling through Munich
Munich is cool.
Didn’t spend much time there as I was only on a layover on my way to Split. Luckily getting to the city center is super easy from the airport and naturally I wasn’t going to sit in the airport for 7 HOURS until my next flight.
I hopped on the S-bahn to Marienplatz and got to see the Glockenspiel and other attractions. Truthfully , I wasn’t even aware that the Glockenspiel was a big deal until I left the city and researched it.
I did catch the bells and chime show and that was cute.
Also, it was literally 9am when I arrived and people were drinking full glasses of beer. Oh, you Germans!
How to Catch a Geisha
How to Catch a Geisha…with your eyes:
- Head over to Gion, Kyoto’s famous Geisha district.
- Line up on the streets right before sundown outside an ochaya (a teahouse)- the best time to catch a geisha is when they are on their way to meet clients around 6pm.
- Don’t call them geisha- geisha in Kyoto are highly regarded and in a different class from your everyday geisha. Call them Geiko.
- Also, don’t call them geiko- a lot of them are actually geiko in training. They can be as young as 15 years old. Call them Maiko.
- Take pictures, but don’t touch- these are busy working women!
- They are not whores- they just play drinking games with wealthy and important paying men.
- Listen for ringing bells- maiko wear bells on their shoes.You’ll know it’s them coming around the corner.
- Snap a photo quickly before they shuffle into the ochaya- You’ll only have a few minutes before they’re all gone!
*It didn’t occur to me until later when someone mentioned how odd it is for grown adults to wait excitedly in the dark for young girls to pass in the night…¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Red Rocks and Old White People
How awesome is that pink jeep?!
Sedona, AZ has to be the most visually stunning place I’ve visited so far.
It’s a small town in the middle of an incredible backdrop with an overwhelming population generally over the age of 65.
A lot of old people- thankfully not the crotchety, grumpy type of old people. But the type of old people who share their inspiring life stories (warranted or not), sing kumbaya, buy healing crystals, and probably smoke a little weed. Obviously, the kind of old people you want to befriend.
I took a pink jeep tour around some of Sedona’s most famous rock formations and have never felt more in awe at a natural landscape. Honestly, the entire atmosphere is so breathtaking it just makes you want to get your spiritual woo woo on.
I’d retire there in a jiffy.
Really Can’t Escape the Snow, huh?
In early March of last year I went on my first ever solo trip and it was to Arizona (whoo!)- which I thought they called the valley of the sun.*
Except it was around 30F and snowing at the Grand Canyon.
(It’s not that I don’t like snow. I just don’t like being cold. If snow was warm, I’d probably be much more inclined to enjoy it. But maybe I’m thinking about sand now. Can we consider sand the opposite of snow? I do like the beach, but I don’t like finding sand days later in undesirable places…)
I somehow was under the impression that I was going to be escaping the lingering winter in D.C. at the time by jetting off to the other side of the country. The locals said they sometimes get one snowstorm a year. Lucky me it just so happened to be that week I was visiting.
So there you go. It does snow in the desert.
Bring a jacket.
*Later found out that phrase refers mainly to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
MILD MUSINGS AND OBSERVATIONS 