Food played a major role when choosing to come to Japan. We could barely wait to get our hands on all those yummy dishes that we knew existed but this time around it would be the real deals. Japanese kitchen has much more variety than people often seem to think, and it's quite funny how people always come home from Japan going "Oh, but we only ate Sushi once!". Kyoto is definitely the place to be when it comes to trying out traditional dishes, and it's very known for it's food scene. So, let's take a quick look at what we got on our plate...

Whether it is visiting the world-renowned Fushimi Inari Shrine, Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, Golden Pavilion or just one of the many other palaces and shrines in Kyoto, one thing's for sure - it's hard to beat this city when it comes to sights and historical places. No wonder it's often called the City of Ten Thousand Shrines! You can visit, visit and visit some more, and still feel like you're only scratching the surface of the shrine supply. 

Singapore, oh Singapore. Home for all kinds of warning signs and odd rules (bringing chewing gum is a crime), polite people, diverse food and those oh-so-smelly fruits also knowns as durians. Just to clarify, it's a fruit they love so much that it is forbidden everywhere - in taxis, metros...and even on a street (although they do find a way to consume it anyway, even as an ice-cream version!). Why am I talking about this? Well, imagine anything rotten and then place it everywhere, and there you go! Not even sure which is worst, the Parisian smell (read: urine) or this. But it's not the only scent that comes across in Singapore though - thank goodness. This place has world renowned haute cuisine along with its top-notch hawker centres. And perhaps I'm being too harsh on the durians, too, because we did try them once and they weren't as appalling as the smell would suggest...

The Signature Skyline @ Marina Bay

Malacca was our last stop in Malaysia before heading down to Singapore. We had a couple of days to go around this town that is, just like George-Town of Penang, culturally rich in so many ways. Like I've said it many times before, Malaysia is a melting pot for different religions, people and food, and you could describe Malacca the exact same way but it all comes in a much more compact package.

Chinese, European, Malay & Indian settlements make up for a typical cityscape in Malacca.

No trip to Kuala Lumpur is complete without standing and marvelling at least once at the bottom of its most famous landmark - The Petronas Towers. So what makes these two so famous, I mean they're just skyscrapers, right? In fact they used to be the world's tallest skyscrapers for six years and even now that they've lost their title of the highest building, they still dominate the KL skyline and continue reflecting the modern face of the city.

Malaysia was one of those countries that took us by surprise and instead of staying only about a week there, we could've easily spent more time traveling around this culturally rich melting pot. We had planned to have just a quick visit in Georgetown, Penang, but even that was cut short because we missed our ferry in Langkawi. Hence, our quick visit turned out to be even quicker. That was unfortunate since this city has quite a lot of interesting things to offer and we only got a glimpse of  them.  

It's often said that Penang is the food capital of Malaysia and that it has a particularly wide variety of multicultural street food. Surely this was something we didn't want to miss out on and the first thing we did after dropping off our stuff at the hotel was sampling the hawker food stalls. We found this food court that had several different stalls and this middle-aged lady was kindly serving or rather advising us since we had no idea what all these menus on the walls were about. All kinds of dishes from Malay, Indian and Chinese cuisines and barely any pictures or translations, so it was good to have someone to recommend the good stuff! Also, she took us around the stalls to show what was there to choose from...and we did end up having such an original meal trying out so many different specialities and in the meantime she kept us pretty entertained throughout the dinner! I think already back then we were hooked on the food of this country and knew we would spend a fair amount of time eating ;).

Like any Southeast Asian city, Bangkok comes alive after sun has set. Streets are illuminated with  sparkling lights and local entrepreneurs are setting up their food carts in order to cook their steamy dishes. Places like Chinatown are basically deserted during the day whereas at night time they're crowded of hungry locals and visitors alike. The good thing about street food here is that the proportions are relatively small, which means you can try out many different foods and hop from one stall to the next one! And this, my friends, is a Thai kitchen experience at its best! 

We did, however, treat ourselves one night to bit of a different style of dining- namely in the 60th floor of Banyan Tree Hotel in a restaurant called Saffron*. They offer contemporary Thai cuisine that you literally enjoy in the sky. It's definitely one of those most memorable restaurants where high-class dining meets outrageous skyline view! They make you feel like a royal the minute you walk in, and seriously spoil you with their service (they even 'wash' your hands and bring you flowers!) throughout the dinner. Last but not least you can climb up the last few floors to get to the outside rooftop where the Vertigo and Moon Bar is located. Now, you pay the price for your cocktail but seriously the experience is all worth it...
Aside from some low-key chilling on Khao San Road, we found it hard to choose where to go for a fun night out. In a city this spread out it's like heading out blindfolded, and thats what we literally ended up doing; we got in a taxi and asked him to drive us to a good party! When he pulled over to this random alley, we got all skeptical and second-guessed our judgement to put our night in some taxi driver's hands. The place was 95% Indian and somehow strange but thanks to these funny guys that invited us to their table for the entire night (and pour us drinks for free), we ended up having a good time! Things got even weirder when one of the guys gave us his business card stating him to be some kind of Indian royal...Oh well, that would explain the free drinks and his demands on the waitresses to move around tables to make some space for his personal dance floor! ;) So in the end of it, even there were no drag queens and she-males involved in our night out, I can well imagine that some of the most legendary party stories out there take place in this very city...

After round the clock bus ride from Cambodia, we finally got to the Vietnamese border where we all hopped out of the bus to pass the immigration. We were actually pretty surprised by how quickly and hassle-free it all went down and we got to continue the last stretch of the long bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City. Few first notices were that Vietnam seemed quite lot cleaner than Cambodia, and the people were really warm and welcoming (unlike some stories we had heard before). Saigon blew our minds with its gorgeous buildings, great food and generally cool vibe. It really is a cosmopolitan city with so much variety when it comes to restaurants and bars- you can even grab a drink with a view on top of one of its skyscrapers! 

Back in Chiang Mai we met a crazy hippy telling us "not to go to Vientiane, it's like visiting Detroit".  Well, let's say Vientiane is not the most appealing Asian city but there are a few spots to visit (read: temples) but other than that the city is quite quiet especially at night. Even the mighty Mekong doesn't look so amazing here...

Like for many others, for us too, it mainly served as a transit point on our way back to Bangkok. Take it or leave it :).