#I just got home from the club it’s 1.30am here

[here-there-everyfuckenwhere]

I’m kinda drunk rn everyone send me your favourite Edward Teach Images

[valeriehervo]

Valérie Hervo runs Les Chandelles, the legendary Paris sex club where members of French high society, politicians, barristers and rock stars (and an increasing number of Brits) come to indulge their erotic fantasies. Can it survive the twin threats of the pandemic and a moral backlash?

Adam Sage

Saturday March 20 2021, 

Valérie Hervo is outraged. She has just been listening to a radio station where two male presenters, chatting about her forthcoming appearance on their show, kept referring to her as the owner of a “group sex club”.

“That really is low-class vocabulary,” she tells me. “It’s very macho as well. Only a man would say something like that.

“And it is not what this place is about. To me, it is a journey through the mystery of the senses to a land of sensuality and encounters.”

Hervo is particularly aggrieved at what she took to be the implication that she organised sexual games for the benefit of men.

Nothing could be further from the truth, she insists. “Here, everything revolves around women’s pleasure. This is a place where a woman can do what she wants, when she wants and with whom she wants – and if she wants to do nothing, she does nothing.”

Hervo opened Les Chandelles, her recreational club – as she would prefer it described – in 1993, and it has since become a part of French high-society folklore.

Any Parisian will tell you that this is the place where the country’s political, economic and cultural elites live out their sexual fantasies beyond the sight of ordinary mortals, where government ministers, television presenters, rock stars and chief executives engage in the ancient practice of libertinage.

But what exactly goes on behind the plain façade in a narrow street near the Louvre in central Paris? And what might this tell us about French values? Or indeed about British values, given the steady flow of clients rumoured to have crossed the channel in recent years in the hope of fulfilling their “erotic potential” under Hervo’s stewardship?

With telephones barred from the club (they have to be left at the entrance) and hardly anyone willing to talk openly about their evenings there – “It’s a matter of intimacy,” says Hervo. “You don’t start telling everyone about your sex life at dinner parties” – such questions have given rise to few answers and much speculation.

Now, with the club closed because of the pandemic, Hervo, 53, has written a book that explains what happens when the dancefloor empties, usually around 1.30am, and the salons around it fill with writhing, sighing bodies.

Les dessous des Chandelles, which could be translated either figuratively as The Secrets of the Chandelles or literally as Underneath the Candelabras, is the portrait of a quintessentially French establishment.

Where else would the lost property include designer thongs or customers eat Ladurée macarons off the back of a naked woman, a famous male barrister end up in an alcove with his female rival days after their clash in a criminal court, or Mick Jagger reportedly be turned away for wearing a pair of jeans?

Hervo explains that her club is a bastion of French “savoir vivre”, where a select group of beautiful, intelligent and well-educated people conduct themselves in a way befitting a nation that has given the world some of its greatest suggestive literature, from Molière’s Dom Juan to Laclos’ Les liaisons dangereuses.

Consider, for example, her account of one of the Eyes Wide Shut theme parties she holds from time to time. “A naked woman, her gaze hidden by a Venetian mask, lies on a table,” she writes. “A nymph in a transparent toga joins her. She kneels down and delicately pulls her legs apart.”

She has torrid encounters herself, for instance with a woman whose perfume she found bewitching and whose body she discovered behind a veil in an alcove.

Much of her time, however, is spent looking after her patrons, like the couple of regulars who realised to their horror that their adult son and his partner had also begun going to Les Chandelles. Hervo tells how they begged her to help them avoid what they said would be a “regrettable” meeting.

On another occasion, a male customer arrived with his mistress, explaining to Hervo that his wife was stuck at home because she was ill. An hour later, the wife arrived with a younger man, she writes. “Don’t say anything to my husband,” she told Hervo. “He thinks I’ve got the flu.”

Hervo promptly rushed downstairs where she found the husband, “naked and frolicking with his partner and a few other accomplices”. She advised him to leave through the emergency exit.

I am discussing these and more adventures with Hervo at a table in her club’s pink and white restaurant, which is to be found at the bottom of stairs that wind down from an ordinary-looking blue door on the street.

Opposite us is another staircase that leads to what could easily be mistaken for an 18th- century Parisian literary salon – were it not for the mattress in the alcove at the end of it.

A third staircase, encased in walls painted in gold leaf, descends to a dancefloor, a bar and more salons with their alcoves, benches and mattresses.

It is difficult to find an English word to describe Les Chandelles. Some have called it a swingers’ club, although that conveys none of the cerebral sophistication and cultural aspirations that go with elite sex in France.

Others have used the term wife-swapping (or échangisme, as the French call it), but Hervo is no more happier with that than with group sex.

“For me, échangisme is very reductive and sad,” Hervo explains. “It involves some kind of contract between four people and they all need to agree, which can’t happen very often.”

What prevails at her club, she says, is libertinage, a concept dating back to a 12th-century rebellion against the church by disaffected clerics who were determined to place physical love above the courtly version promoted by troubadours and their ilk.

The contemporary version of this philosophy involves making “everything possible and nothing obligatory”, Hervo says.

One couple might go for sex, either with each other or with someone else, she says. A second might go along to watch. A third could be happy with a turn on the dancefloor.

“For some, it is enough to have an imaginary journey. For others, they will want a little bit more. But what happens in the salons is the icing on the cake and it doesn’t matter if nothing happens, because we’ve had such fun with the preliminaries.

“Everyone goes at their own rhythm. You may be happy with a look, a caress or with voyeurism. But that is all very different to échangisme.”

Libertinage, which has come and gone in France over the centuries – the early 17th and the mid-18th being among the high points – enjoyed a return to fashion from the late Nineties with the emergence of hundreds of clubs amid a spirit of unrestrained freedom.

The number has since fallen, with adepts taking to organising their own house parties. At the last count there were 269 such clubs left, according to French state radio.

The health crisis looks likely to drive many more out of business, their activities scarcely being compatible with social distancing.

Les Chandelles, however, has a status apart, and this should offer it protection against the vicissitudes of fortune.

Hervo says her customers include “politicians from both the left and the right” and “celebrities from across the whole world” (she refuses to divulge their names).

Hervo says that as her club’s fame has grown, so has its allure to visitors from Europe, the US, Asia and “a lot from Britain”.

It is not enough just to cross the channel and knock on the door, though. In order to get in, you need erotic knowhow, Hervo says, along with familiarity with Parisian savoir-vivre.

“It is an alchemy. A way of being,” she says.

In his Histoire du libertinage, Didier Foucault, a history lecturer at Toulouse University who is a specialist on the subject, writes of how the practice became fashionable after 1600 among aristocrats driven “by a haughty refusal to bow either to common law or to any authority whatsoever, be it temporal or divine”.

There may be something similar about the French elite that frequents Les Chandelles. The entrance fee is €96 for two, or €310 with dinner and a bottle of Deutz champagne thrown in. If Deutz is too downmarket, there is Cristal Roederer for €490 or Dom Pérignon Rosé for €470.

But the selection policy is not based on money, Hervo insists. More important to her are “elegance, refinement, education and taste.

“I have a very tough door policy. I turn away a lot of people.”

The badly dressed, the ugly, the vulgar, have no hope of getting past her, she says, while the overweight may struggle as well, at least if they are male.

“I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I am going to say it anyway. I think I would be more concerned by a fat man than a round woman. Round women can be very beautiful but, in general, men who are fat are… Well, someone who lets himself go physically is someone who does… not respect himself. And if he doesn’t respect himself, he is less likely to respect other people.”

Les dessous des Chandelles is a strange, almost dual work. On the one hand, it is a window onto this secretive world of privilege and exclusion created by Hervo beneath Rue Thérèse in the French capital.

On the other, it is a tale of the author’s personal voyage through libertinage and her claim that the sexual liberation she found along the way, first in other clubs and then in her own, helped to unshackle her from a traumatic childhood marked by incest, guilt and depression.

Our conversation reflects the same duality.

For much of the interview, Hervo comes across as the archetypal Parisian businesswoman, complete with carefully applied make-up, an elegant hairdo, an articulate discourse, a headstrong Yorkshire terrier and a well-trained fiancé – Tom, the maker of an excellent Sancerre white wine, who rushes off shortly after I arrive and returns later with an armful of her outfits for the photoshoot, including an all-white suit and a glittering jacket.

One minute she is talking with off-putting clarity about the female orgasm, telling me in a tone that brooks no argument that “a woman’s sexuality is so much richer than that of a man”. The next she is explaining, with equal equanimity, how she resisted underworld attempts to take over her club following her divorce in 2005.

Like all self-respecting Parisiennes, she knows how to throw a strategic fit of pique as well, announcing that the photographer is driving her mad and that Tom had better summon a friend for help, and be quick about it. The friend duly arrives with a bottle of sancerre to enable Hervo to get through the afternoon session.

Yet, from time to time, there are signs of the scars left by childhood, as when she concedes that she took refuge in libertinage in part because “at night-time, you can’t see the suffering so much… the glitter masks the pain”.

At one point, her eyes fill with tears as she discloses that her relatives have refused to speak to her since the publication of her book, which recounts her rape by her grandfather as a young girl, her parents’ refusal to believe her, her teenage struggles with depression, her toxic marriage to a man 20-odd years her senior, and her salvation in swingers’ clubs.

It was her former husband who introduced her to libertinage. She writes of her first experience in a club where “in a salon plunged into darkness… some couples are making love while others are observing them”.

She did not want to join in – at least not the first time – but says, “My emotion [was]great and my excitement real.”

“I was 24 and I instinctively knew it was right for me,” Hervo tells me. “What I liked in those places was a feeling of freedom and especially a feeling that I was meeting couples who seemed to get on well together.

“That was not the image of the couple I had received as a child because my parents argued all the time. It was like Disneyland as far as I was concerned.”

When her former husband suggested opening their own swingers’ club in Paris, she jumped at the chance. He put up some of the money, they borrowed the rest and she became the manager.

“It was a success straight away, because I think it was the first club to give so much importance to women,” she says. “At that time, in 1993, in other clubs, the women were just treated as objects and it was the men who took charge of the games and who brought along their wives.

“I think that they were probably men of little courage who were not able to cheat on their wives and who went to this sort of place instead. But that was not at all in the spirit of libertinage.”

Les Chandelles would be different, she decided. “Women who are objects are women without humanity. Here, I made sure that the women were subjects.

“In fact, I created here what I never had myself. I tried to encourage women to take their time, to dare to set the tempo, to ask men to be attentive and unhurried and to be gallant, because women adore gallantry.”

She says her door policy has always involved refusing entrance to couples if she suspects that the woman is being dragged along against her will or kept in the dark about the true nature of Les Chandelles. “Even now in 2021, there are boors who don’t tell their partners where they are taking them,” she says. “It’s increasingly rare but it still happens. But if I have the slightest doubt, I question them. You get a feeling for these things.”

Inside the club, no means no, she says, explaining that men can be expelled for repeating a request to a female customer if they are turned down the first time.

“I think women are much safer in this sort of place than in traditional nightclubs where they get hassled all the time,” she tells me.

She says that she herself came to see Les Chandelles – of which she has been the sole owner since extracting herself from her disastrous marriage 16 years ago and buying her former husband’s share – as a refuge from the wounds left by her troubled childhood.

“This has been my bunker and my incubator,” she says. “It was where I revitalised myself, and where I discovered myself too.”

Can her club really be as idyllic as she pretends?

For years, Les Chandelles has been described in the French press as a favourite haunt of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who resigned following his arrest on suspicion of rape. Although the charge was ultimately dropped, reports of his attendance at Les Chandelles have done nothing for its image.

Recently, it has also been linked with Gérald Darminin, President Macron’s interior minister, who, it has emerged, went to Les Chandelles in 2009 with a woman who had asked him for help in overturning her criminal conviction – he was legal affairs adviser for an opposition political party at the time – and who has accused him of raping her later that evening.

He denies her claim, but the publicity has scarcely been an advertisement for Hervo’s establishment.

She says the coverage has been misleading and unfair. DSK, for instance, barely ever visited Les Chandelles, she insists.

“There are many other politicians who came more often than him and who were much more important than him,” she says.

As for Darmanin, she says that when he dropped into the club a little over a decade ago, he was a young bachelor, and that young bachelors sometimes visit “for an evening with – what’s that word they use now? – oh yes, les sex friends, that’s it.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you find yourself on your own for a year or so, you might want a regular one of those. Why not?”

Until now, the interview has gone smoothly enough, interrupted only by the barking of Cerise, Hervo’s Yorkshire terrier, at the emergence of the photographer from below.

But then I make a big mistake. Noting the entrance policy favours single women – who are allowed in on evenings otherwise reserved for couples, when single men are banned – I ask Hervo whether she uses them as an enticement for male patrons seeking a threesome with their wives and another partner.

She looks daggers across the table. “That is really a stupid, male, Cro-Magnon thing to say,” she tells me. “It’s very maladroit of you.

“Single women come because they want to have fun, because they could meet a man who pleases them, or a woman, or perhaps neither. Sometimes, it’s just two women friends who come for a drink because they know that here they won’t be bothered and because they will be appreciated because they are pretty.

“When I began here, I didn’t receive single women in the evening, because society considered that a woman who came alone to an establishment like mine was either a whore or a bitch. I fought to make people understand that life does not work like that, and I am proud to say that today I have single women among my customers.”

I ask Hervo if she is a feminist. “I certainly am not a neo-feminist,” she says, explaining that she laughs off wolf whistles in the street, likes being complimented on her looks and wants to “seduce or to be seduced, freely. But I am feminist for some things. I am in favour of women being able to experience pleasure alone at first, to discover their bodies and to enjoy their bodies, and only afterwards to share all that with a partner if they so wish.

“That sort of thing has not always been possible in the past.”

Pointing out that Foucault’s history of libertinage shows how sexual freedoms have come and gone over the centuries in France, I wonder out loud whether the country is shifting back towards greater restraint.

“You’re right, it is,” she says. “The difference is that today, it is not religion that is trying to cover everything up, it’s our moralising society. There is a very prudish scent around these days.”

In a thinly veiled attack on #MeToo, she complains in her book that the social networks have been transformed into “popular tribunals”, that the law has come to treat women “as weak beings which have to be protected” and that the ancestral French game of seduction is being subjected to new codes and new rules.

It is difficult to determine whether the pandemic will brake or accelerate this trend. Some predict that when the crisis ends, we will see a repeat of les années folles (the mad years), as the Twenties were known in France, with a yearning for freedom, parties and libertinage.

Others forecast the continued spread of the Anglo-Saxon-style feminism that Hervo abhors and the curtailment of French love-making and seduction. She is not overly worried, though. On a personal level, she has emerged from years of therapy able to confront her past and look forward to the future, she says. She has become a part-time therapist herself, has a house in the country, where she has spent much of the past year, and is planning to “marry the man I love” this summer.

Even if the moral backlash gathers strength, she thinks that Les Chandelles will continue to triumph.

“There have always been currents and countercurrents, but if society goes one way, people will need a place of liberty where they can do what they want, where they will have the freedom to talk, to exchange.”

Indeed, she believes that her club may even come to play a role similar to that of literary salons in the 18th century, when they nurtured the ideas that helped to topple the ancien régime.

Only in France could there be dreams of Enlightenment amid the shadows of a basement sex club. Les dessous des Chandelles by Valérie Hervo is published by Cherche Midi

[tisziny]

Long post.

Sometimes I just feel completely emotionally constipated. Like I feel over whelmed by my anxiety or my depression or what I think is a decent case of ADHD, and whatever else. But I can't cry. The only times I seem to cry is watching sad Pokemon episodes, or if my girlfriend and I are on different pages on something and we talk it out with tears. Or when a pet dies but let's not go there.

Sydney (and new south wales as a whole) is in a covid lockdown at the moment. I have left the house twice in the last month, once to the chemist to get my script and once to a different chemist to get my second shot of the covid vaccine. And this is my first real lockdown. Last year I was still working the whole time and still grocery shopping in person. But the Delta wave is more serious, work can't pay me because the federal government won't give us the same support as last year, so I have been on unpaid leave for all of August and will continue to be for all of September and with what I've seen in the news it's gonna stay like this until at least November. (But the state government is offering a payment for people who can't work in lockdown so I don't have to worry about rent etc)

The thing is, I really underestimated how much not having a choice in this whole thing would weigh on me. I was sorta jealous of people locked down? Because I didn't want to go to work and I didnt want to go get groceries and I didn't want to be an essential worker in that I was going to work but not essential enough that I got the vaccine early or kept on the higher payment from the government as long as other careers were. And I always thought I would be fine stuck at home because that's all I ever wanted to do was stay at home.

I've always considered myself as very introverted. But I'm starting to wonder if I've just taken all my social anxiety symptoms and called it introverted because it's easier to explain. And like, I don't like large social groups, I'm anxious around too many people, especially new people. I don't like going to night clubs or bars or parties where I only know one or two people. I hate when I have to go places I don't know the 'rules' too or have never been to before. But at the same time I want to see my friends and I want to see them often. I'll call people my friends even if I haven't seen them in years and I'm always happy to go out of my way to catch up with someone passing through the city. But on a regular basis I only ever really talk to the same three or four people outside of my family and Meagan. I'm good at small talk (according to my girlfriend) and I like to make casual chitchat with a friendly person on the bus (as long as they're not giving me bad vibes) or the uber driver or whatever. Even when im having a panic attack in public if I'm in the middle of shopping I make an effort to be friendly to anyone I need to interact with. Am I'm not introverted at all? I'd hardly say I'm am extrovert but maybe I'm just in the middle. But my anxiety and my fear of making a fool of myself, paired with my (as yet undiagnosed) ADHD and tendency to hyper fixate on topics of interest to me (and people) has made me hyper aware of being embarrassing when I talk too much or about the wrong things has just lead me to believe I was introverted. And my sister always point things like that out to me never helped.

I'm getting off topic. The point is, I'm not coping well in lockdown. I thought I would be fine. Meagan had been fine. But I thought I would be okay and I really haven't been and my coping mechanism has always been shut down and work on auto pilot if necessary. But I feel like I'm spending all my time shut down in an endless abyss of not knowing what to do and not feeling capable of doing anything. I don't feel like I can concentrate on tv plots or something unless I'm doing something with my hands but colouring hurts my hand after a while because I hold my pen wrong and I can only draw in short bursts and I haven't been able to even try writing any fanfic. I need to to stuff with my hands. I painted a puzzle! I made a teacup shaped cardboard cat scratcher from old boxes and painted it. I crocheted from a pattern for the first time. I enjoyed all those tasks so much because they kept my hand busy and I had a task to focus on while getting to enjoy tv. But without a task like that all I have the capacity to do is sit in the feeling of being stuck or distract my self in scrolling through whatever app I can, normally cycling between Facebook, insta and Tumblr until I run out of things and then I go on tiktok until I'm video fried.

I've been online shopping too much and when that stuff arrives I'll be distracted with an activity for a bit. A couple days maybe. But then it's back to this. The stuck feeling. I don't want to be doing nothing but don't have the energy or the concentration or something whatever it is to push through my executive dysfunction and like, clean or go for a walk around the block or literally anything.

Doesn't help that my sleep schedule is waaayyyy off. And my appetite. Plus the executive dysfunction doesn't help when it comes to making dinner.

And the point to all of this was that I was sitting here at 1.30am, knowing I probably won't go to sleep for another few hours, feeling all these frustrations and the release of a good cry sounds so amazing. But I can't. I guess I really am shut down. It's the trauma✨

[housewarningparty]

Amerikate + neon lights

this one’s really long but fuck it you’re my favorite person in the whole world i love you so much

22. Neon lights at 1.30am

As birthday bashes go, it’s not Kate’s most extravagant. 

Her dad rented out an entire banquet hall for her sweet sixteen — celebrity chef catering, half her school showing up along with a half dozen C-list celebrities. It feels absurd to think back on it, like something that had happened in another life, to another girl.

Thinking of her dad is something she does less and less these days, but she can’t help but glance at her phone, at the conspicuous lack of birthday messages from him. Susan had texted at least — sent a little gif of two kittens hugging (nice) and venmo’d her at least two months rent (nicer). 

“Hey,” America’s voice is uncharacteristically light, she bumps her shoulder into Kate’s to jolt her out of her own head. “No frowning allowed inside La Taqueria Fantastica. They’ve got a sign up and everything, you can get kicked out for that.”

She points at a printed 8” x 11” sheet of paper taped up on the wall over the salsa bar.

“That won’t work on me anymore,” Kate rolls her eyes, smiling anyway, which is annoying because America looks predictably smug about it. “I’ve been here long enough to learn to read at least a little bit of Spanish. That’s just this month’s menudo specials.”

America grins wolfishly and sprawls back into the corner of their side of the booth, legs falling open a little as she reaches lazily for the horchata they’ve been sharing. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” 

“I can’t believe this place is still open,” Kate says, glancing around the bustling restaurant, packed with taco-loving drunks despite the late hour, the fine drizzle of uncommon mist blanketing the streets outside.

“New York’s not the only city that never sleeps,” America teases, kicking Kate’s leg lightly with the side of her shoe.

The thought of home makes Kate’s heart ache, she can’t help it. The older she gets the more weirdly melancholy she feels on her birthdays — and it’s been harder out here, without her friends, without Clint, without the familiar sights and sounds of the city that had raised her. “Guess not, huh?”

America pauses, studies Kate’s face and sees something that evidently makes her frown and then she’s sitting up, leaning in with her arm over the back of the booth, the sleeve of her jacket brushing Kate’s bare shoulders. “What’s up? I didn’t drop in with your whole crew, take you out dancing for hours and then drag you to the best taqueria you’ve never heard of just to see you thinking this much on your birthday.”

“Me? Think? Since when?” Kate tries to deflect, pitifully unsuccessful judging from the exasperated eye roll it earns her from America.

“Okay,” America sighs dramatically and reaches over, grabbing the last half-eaten taco off Kate’s tray without asking. She shoves it in her mouth unceremoniously and urges Kate up out of the booth with insistent hands on her shoulder, guides her out of the restaurant with a hand on the small of Kate’s back, hot even through her clothes.

It’s colder outside, and damp, but it’s quieter and Kate finds her breath a little easier to take, her mind a little less cluttered for the space from the crowd. Trust America to know what she needed before Kate really put it together for herself.

“What’s up? Really,” America asks, the most serious she’s been all night, brows drawn low, a good superhero quality brood coming on.

God, Kate wishes her taste wasn’t so predictable.

“It’s just…”

America looks so good out here, bathed in the flashing red and green neon lights of the taqueria. Her hair is still mussed from all the dancing they’d done in the club, eyes hooded, lips pursed in that sulky little pout she gets when she’s trying to tell Kate something without using her words. She’s rarely this beseeching, usually preferring to tell Kate to get over herself or else distract her out of a funk.

It had been such a nice night, Kate feels kind of foolish for being this aimlessly despondent about it. America had portal’d into Kate’s apartment this morning with Billy, Teddy and David in tow and a cake on top of everything — even if it had those stupid joke candles that wouldn’t blow out. And they’d spent the whole day together, Kate showing her friends around all her favorite local haunts. They’d only split up after the club, the boys going home to get some rest while Kate took America up on her offer of a late night food run.

And yet, here Kate is, brooding in the rain on her birthday like some kind of… Clint.

She misses him suddenly, fiercely, wishes that their Skype call earlier had been longer, had been her and him on the couch in his apartment, Lucky between them and an episode of Dog Cops on TV in the background.

Had been what her life was a few years ago, basically, when everything made sense.

America’s hand is cupping her elbow, urging her hand gently away from where she’d been furiously kneading her temples. She’s a little shocked to find her eyes wet, decides to blame it on the late hour and the alcohol from earlier.

“Do you ever feel like… like you have a good life and you like what you’re doing for yourself and it should just be good, you know it is good, but it just feels like… nothing fits? Like you’re in the right place at the wrong time?”

America’s quiet for a long moment, unspeakably beautiful in the cast off light. She rolls her shoulders, pushes a restless hand through her thick, curly hair and sighs out into the night. “Yeah.”

And she has. Of course she has, because if there’s anyone Kate knows that would understand what it feels like not to fit anywhere it’d be America. The feeling rushes through America’s veins with every pump of her heart, keeps her kicking through dimensions, slipping in and out of Kate’s life like a sewing needle; piercing her and stitching her back together in turns.

It’s a moment of poignant realization of shared loneliness, of the terrifying amount of power America’s presence carries, of the kind of vulnerability they’d both usually do anything to avoid but feels inexplicably, intensely right tonight.

So, of course it’s ruined when an unspeakably loud, monstrously huge pickup truck drives by, idles at the red light across from them blasting the loudest reggaeton Kate’s ever heard in her life.

She cracks, collapsing forward into America’s arms. America who doesn’t even rock with Kate’s impact, steady and sure, just wraps her arms around Kate more tightly, dips her head to rest into Kate’s shoulder and laughs with her. 

She’s so tall, Kate always forgets until they’re touching like this. She’s warm and solid and she smells like sweat, and being pressed this close together reminds Kate of dancing with her earlier. America’s hands had been sinfully low on her hips then, not innocently framing her shoulder blades, the laugh she’d breathed into Kate’s ear on the dancefloor had been darker, the look in her eyes hungrier.

Though not by much, Kate thinks, pulling back to meet America’s gaze.

“You wanna talk about it more?” America offers, not loosening her grip on Kate in the slightest.

“Nah,” Kate shakes her head. America frowns and Kate amends, “Not right now, anyway.”

“Okay,” America nods. “You wanna go home?”

“Nope,” Kate says. She keeps her eyes locked on America’s, leans in a little closer. Licks her lips just to lay it on extra thick and is rewarded when America swallows, lets her hands slide lower, fingers drifting to the small of Kate’s back — definitely skirting the line of just friendly, now.

America shifts a little, darts her gaze away for a moment before returning it.

Kate waits. She’s not the most patient of her friends, not by a longshot, but she can outlast America, this much she’s sure of.

“Oh, fuck it,” America says, bare seconds later, proving Kate right again, and leans in. She presses a swift, firm kiss to Kate’s lips, no less full of intent for its brevity. “That?”

“Mmm, that,” Kate agrees and leans up to kiss her again, tangling her hands in America’s long, damp hair.

It’s good, as first kisses go. A little mellow, Kate chalks that up to the mood the night has taken, but she finds she likes it. It feels good to just lean in and kiss someone who already knows her this well, who already feels this comfortable. And then America’s tongue tentatively brushes her bottom lip and the air between them sparks. Kate gasps into America’s mouth a little, she can’t help it, and leans up on her toes and—- Christ.

“You okay?” America asks, voice gratifyingly rough, as she catches Kate’s weight against her body. “I mean, I know I’m good but I’ve never actually made a girl’s knees give out. Not from a kiss, anyway.”

“Oh, do not get that cocky with me yet, you definitely have not earned it,” Kate warns and then winces. “These heels are killing me.”

America leans back further, lets her gaze cast slowly down Kate’s body, past the edge of her skirt, down her legs to the monster heels she’d worn out because they make her calves look insane. “Yeah, ouch.”

“If only there was someone nearby who could, y’know, save me. Someone with… uncommon strength. And perhaps an ability to get between places quickly. A superhero, even.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Well, it is my birthday.”

America heaves a put upon sigh, but she leans down, scooping Kate up into a bridal style carry so sudden it sends her squealing, just for a moment. “You really are a princess, Princess.”

“Less than you’d think, actually,” Kate says, wrapping her arms around America’s neck and leaning up to whisper, low. “Take me home and get me out of these things and I’ll show you.”

The stomach-dropping feeling of falling through one of America’s portals is worth it for that stunned, eager look on her face.

[theessaflett]

72 Hours (ish) in... MANCHESTER

Your friendly neighbourhood Essa has a look round a city best known for the industrial revolution, bees, and bad weather. 

…The start of my trip to Manchester wasn’t the smoothest.

The only thing I could find to eat at Euston station for my tea before my 19:40 train were chips coated in some sort of suspicious chilli dust, so it was a very queasy Essa who arrived at Manchester Piccadilly a few hours later and wandered around trying to find the exit. (I had in fact been to the station before last October as part of a band tour, but as I was VERY sick and feverish at the time I had very little recollection of the place indeed!) I trundled my suitcase out of the station and off into the night - and my, what a night.  9.45pm on a Saturday night in Manchester is quite the experience, and as Google Maps took me down back alley after back alley I found myself humming ”Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” to myself with increasing speed. One particularly memorable back alley held two sad looking figures, one of whom was violently throwing up behind a bin. 
“You alright, Tim?” called the other one, who was busy trying to use a wall to stay upright. Tim was almost certainly not alright. I left them to it. 

After about 20 minutes of nervous trundling I arrived at Hatters Hostel. It turned out that Hatters was on top of a nightclub, opposite a nightclub, and instead of being part of the Hilton hotel chain as I’d originally surmised it was called “Hilton Hatters Hostel” because it was on Hilton street. I was beginning to regret some of the decisions that had led to this moment. 

Looks nice, doesn’t it. LIES. 

I tried to get the eye of the receptionist, was told I would have to wait as she was “doing the money”, and sat down on the only couch next to a man in gym clothes who had seemingly waited so long he’d passed out. Many minutes passed. In the end I passively aggressively opened and shut all the leaflets next to the desk  - Manchester offers two walking tours and a make your own beer festival, incidentally - and once Sleeping Man had been woken up and his booking put through it was my turn. Sleeping Man had been asked for ID, and I nervously started my explanation that I’d forgotten my passport but had my 16-25 train card when it was cut off by the receptionist. She didn’t really care, it was just a formality. Also, where had I dyed my hair? She’d tried to dye it that colour but it had just gone green and her mum had made her cut it off because green wasn’t an acceptable colour for her sister’s wedding. But now it was purple which was also cool. I murmured positive words about purple, took the key card and headed for the lift, trying to ignore the fact that the floor numbers on the wall were peeling off. I found 104, glad that the door looked less battered than some of the other ones, and after the second time of trying, keyed myself into my home for the next three days.

…The Hatters Hostel website photographer deserves some sort of award for misguiding photography. And possibly to be sued. I was expecting a fancy room, plush and cosy. I admittedly got quite a comfortable bed, but I also was given a TV that had been installed at an angle that meant I would need to be the girl from the Exorcist to watch it in comfort, a broken heater, no main light, no kettle, thin, pathetic towels…and a hell of a lot of noise. Here’s the thing about arriving, at 10.30pm on a Friday night, into a room on the first floor directly on top of a night club and opposite several other nightclubs: it is astonishingly, awe inspiringly, horrifyingly loud. The vibrations shuddered through the floor and up my legs, and my suspicions about the sturdiness of the walls were confirmed when I laid a hand on one of them and felt vibrations shuddering through the brickwork too. Some optimistic soul had put in double glazing on the one, sad looking window, but it was no good: the pounding music was coming up through the bare linoleum floor and in the cracks between said floor and the walls. Friends, I am not so proud as to deny that I had a bit of a disappointed sniffle as I sat on the edge of the bed in the cold, listening to four different nightclub bangers (that all had driving dubstep basses…they sadly didn’t even merge into one pleasing cross-rhythm beat) and trying to reassess my accommodation expectations. The reason for the massive tub of free ear plugs on the reception desk was becoming terribly, horribly clear. After a bolstering call to my parents where I let them know I’d arrived and tried to elicit some sympathy for the damp boombox situation in which I’d found myself (“Well go down to reception and ask if you can get another room then, sitting there moping at me isn’t doing anything”  is arguably the Scottish version of “Aw poor diddums” so I consider the sympathy bid a success) I mournfully trailed back to ground level and put on my best pleading puppy face. It was no good: there were no other free rooms for the whole weekend, he was very sorry, my heater should be warming up at any moment. (this was a lie. I am certain that I had no heating for the full three days.) I grimly stocked up on earplugs and, comforted with the paltry commiseration that the nightclubs shut at 1.30am, went back to my unappealing room. This was it, was it? This is what £264 got you for three nights in central Manchester? Bloody hell. Tried out the shower. It was cold. Went to bed and sulked. (To be fair, several Destiny’s Child and Britney Spears medleys later, the noise did mercifully stop at 1.30am. Which was just as well, as by that point I was fantasising about punching night clubbers.)

Day 1

My main reason for being in Manchester over the weekend was to attend a one-day writing course at the LGBT Foundation  - 2019 may be a year of me writing lots of things but there’s still not much time for writing “just for fun” so I was looking forward to writing anything I liked for a full day! I blearily made my way out of the hostel - glaring at anyone who looked like they might have been making noise six hours earlier - and headed off to the Foundation, stopping at the “park” (a few trees and a bit of squelchy grass does not a proper park make, Manchester) Cafe Nero on my way. This proved a wise move, as soya milk has not yet made it to the LGBT Foundation so I was sadly under caffeinated for the day…

The LGBT Foundation 

The writing day itself was lovely; I enjoyed the chance just to spend time tapping away on my laptop, the other course members were friendly and the heating was on. The only real disaster was lunchtime, when I ordered rice at a nearby Asian to-go place and got noodles instead. I can’t eat noodles. Ended up eating random selections of snacks and showing people my noodles whilst saying sadly, “Look, they gave me noodles!” (Received a satisfactory amount of sympathy from all.) The LGBT Foundation staff were friendly and it’s great that there’s such an extensive support centre in the heart of the Gay Village…my only quibble about the building would be that it was surprising and disappointing to see they only offered Male or Female toilets and there was no mention anywhere of the additional “IAQ+” that I’m used to London folk using most of the time. It would be a real shame if Intersex/Asexual/Non-Binary/Gender Queer young people used the building and didn’t feel like they belonged, when just a few posters and different bathroom signs  would make the Foundation welcoming to absolutely everyone. (Alright, snowflake millennial moment over!)

After the course I headed over to HOME   - stopping off at Pizza Express on the way, where a chatty waitress asked me if I was an artist…I considered creating a new persona but in the end decided I didn’t have the energy - to see the Old Vic production of Wise Children. 

Part of the HOME complex

Although I felt like some elements of the production jarred (why must new plays always include grim scenes of child abuse, incest and/or rape?) and the ending was just bizarre, I thoroughly enjoyed the onstage music and the breath-taking stage design…and the fact that I knew one of the cast members! Paul Hunter from Told By An Idiot didn’t look very different to when I worked with him on Get Happy in 2013 and it was great to see him in action, getting belly laughs from the whole audience as he strutted up and down the stage in full-blown comedic idiot mode.

The brilliant stage design for Wise Children

Getting back to the hostel afterwards proved a little more difficult than anticipated due to a lost Uber driver and there being two Hatters Hostels (naturally I was delivered to the wrong one) but I eventually made it back to Purgatory Room and grimly waited out the Michael Jackson remixes coming through the walls by watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine clips with my head underneath the covers to retain warmth. By 1.20am I was passing the time by fantasising about how I was going to switch on both of my radiators in my London flat when I returned on Monday night and toast myself in front of the two of them until the heat was similar to Barbados in August.

Day 2

I groggily crashed out of the hotel at 11am with only one clear thought: CAFFEINE. Manchester decided to give me a true North of England experience: it was cold, grey, and miserably wet. I tried to find my cafe of choice with some urgency.

Teacup Kitchen Cafe

Teacup Kitchen was recommended as a vegan cafe on Yelp. This, it turned out, was not wholly accurate. Some of their menu was vegan. Very little of their menu indeed was gluten free, but it turned out that that at least was easily rectified as they did have GF bread. As I had clearly stumbled into the Manchester equivalent of Shoreditch the decor was brutally bare, the music was loud and everyone was dressed in black so it was impossible to tell who were the waitstaff and who were just pretentious. (I found this very funny until I realised I was also dressed in all black, at which point I found it slightly less funny and instead wondered when it was exactly that London had turned me into such a hipster stereotype). 

Note the bare light bulbs... 

I ordered poached eggs and avocado on toast, which, this being Northern Shoreditch, came with chilli flakes and raw onion for some reason. I pleaded for no onion but got it anyway, which led to some sad toilet trips later.

General Public Announcement: Food intolerances aren’t just fads, everyone!!!

Who would ruin a perfectly good avocado by dumping a whole load of onion on top of it anyway?! 

Indignant with this most first world of first world problems, I paid an eye-watering £17.10 for what was essentially eggs on toast, a cup of tea and a juice (more expensive that Shoreditch?! Discuss)  and trudged out into the rain once more. …Then hopped into Forbidden Planet, because Forbidden Planet!! For the uninitiated, Forbidden Planet is a magical world of deep nerdy joy.  

If a non-geek person would react to an object by saying, “Oh that’s from that show you like, isn’t it…that’s nice…?”, they probably have it. That being said, they did not have nearly enough Doctor Who or Tim Burton merchandise for my liking and after wandering around having fun spooking all the nervous looking nerdy teenage boys (A woman!!, I could practically hear them whisper amongst themselves. The last time we had one of them in here was in 2009! Darren still hasn’t recovered!!) I headed off to the John Rylands library.

The (rather wet in this photo) John Rylands Library

Now, my understanding of the John Rylands library was that it was one, quite impressive, hall. This proved to be similar to saying that the Titanic was quite big. It was absolutely massive, with four or five main library spaces and lots of awe-inspiring  corridors and staircases in-between, many of which I am certain have been used in Harry Potter films. By pure good luck it was a great time to be visiting, as there were two really interesting exhibitions on about the role of women in literature and society in general. The Women in Manchester exhibition in particular was fascinating and gave a brief but vivid idea of how crucial the women of the city were both in the Suffragette movement itself and in protests before and afterwards. The “Historical Bathroom” is worth a visit too (if you’re as curious as I was about that description, it turned out to be a ladies bathroom that had been preserved exactly as it was when the library opened in the early 20th century. It was fully functioning but very draughty), as is the main Historic Library. 

The magic of the building overall was, for me at any rate, slightly dimmed with the knowledge that it wasn’t actually very old at all, just built in the style of earlier buildings by late-era Victorians wistful for an earlier “Utopian” age of social harmony, unnerved as they were by the unrest and turbulence of the Industrial Age in which they found themselves. I’m sure that most infamous of old-school folk song collectors Cecil Sharp, for instance, would have been delighted by the righteous pomp of the marble statues and stuffy regal halls, the library a grand symbol of an age and an Empire already on the way out when the building first opened.

That said, the John Rylands library is still beautiful, impressive and well worth a trip - just allocate more time than I did! I finished off my visit with an organic cola (would not recommend) from the rather chilly open-plan cafe then tried to decide what to do next. My initial plan had been to go to the Museum of Manchester, but a quick check of their website brought up the unwelcome news that due to renovations the only section still open was “Fossils and Meteorites”, which was not a gallery that exactly filled me with unbound excitement. In the end I decided to go to the People’s Museum instead  - admittedly because it was only four minutes away and, after inevitably going the wrong way and walking round in circles for a bit scowling at Google Maps, I arrived at the brutalist museum in dire need of the loo and a plug socket for my fast-dying phone battery. 

The rather damp looking People’s History Museum 

They had both of those things, so we were already off to a good start when I guiltily ignored the “Use The Stairs, Save Our Environment!” sticker next to the lift and saved my aching legs the climb to the third floor. It became fairly clear very quickly that this was a museum where if you accidentally started the exhibition backwards everything was really quite confusing, but sadly that was what I somehow did on every single floor. (There are still some things that I’m puzzling over, and probably will be forever.) I also started off foolishly presuming that as I was on the 3rd floor I would be going chronologically back in time rather than forwards, but it turned out that there was no such clear organisational system in place for the exhibits: rather, photographs from the 1940s and propaganda posters from the 1880s rubbed shoulders in cheerful harmony. This only added to my overall confusion but gave a nice overall air of linear history being an unnecessary construct of our modern-day society. The writers of the Old Testament would have approved wholeheartedly!

The museum was truly fascinating, and quite shocking in how openly socialist-bordering-on-communist it was in its beliefs; lots of Karl Marx quotes on the walls and leftist liberal exhibit blurbs. I enjoyed it thoroughly -  particularly the excellent section about the Votes for Women movement - and was delighted to find the cafe offered a proper cuppa and gluten free biscuits. This was the life. The museum sadly shut at 5pm (as do many, many things in Manchester) so I was turfed out to wander the wet streets once more. After an accidental detour into a very posh outdoor dining area complete with more decorative lightbulbs than you could shake an over-priced mojito at, I arrived in China Town. My main aim was to get a good photo of the famous China Town arch, but as I achieved that in the first five minutes I decided to also do something else, whatever that might be. 

China Town’s Arch

I’m not sure what I was expecting from China Town, but I was expecting it to be big; instead, unless there were lots of shops hiding from me, China Town was largely just a square - bizarrely, a square built round a car park - with maybe 20 or so shops… and then that was pretty much it. Those shops were wonderful though, and I loved being an unabashed tourist and wandering round a seafood place full of giant tanks of lobsters, supermarkets filled with cans of things you never thought to pickle but apparently are in fact pickle-able… pickled mango was an especially interesting concept… and gazing hungrily at the menus tacked up outside the many Chinese restaurants. (I had no luck. Very not Essa friendly indeed.) 

Instead I settled for a bubble tea from Chatime. I made several bad decisions and ended up with an apple tea with little ball things (??? Tapioca??? Whatever it was they were suspiciously savoury and worryingly chewy) and rainbow jelly. I gave up halfway through as I could feel my teeth beginning to rot. 

Diabetes in a cup. 

Chatime 

After risking my life and health on some questionable 50p Asian sweets - they were covered in sugar and salt and my pathetic Western constitution decided it couldn’t quite cope with this final insult - I finished off my day out with a very nice sit watching the coloured fountain display in the “park” and then going off to somewhere I could confidently expect to be fed: Zizzi’s. 

The very splooshy water fountains. 

...They may have fed me undercooked, over salted gluten free pasta, but it was gluten free pasta never the less, and I trooped back to the hostel fed and happy.

After attempting to write my journal in the communal kitchen next to a group of very noisy Italian twenty-somethings making a very complicated meal that seemed to need lots of loud chopping, banging and semi-regular cheering, I relocated to the communal lounge instead and turned up Royal Blood to eardrum-bursting volumes to drown out the horror film the other two sofa loungers were watching. By 11.30pm even loud rock wasn’t managing to drown out the film and I was beginning to suspect the heating had been switched off as it didn’t seem much warmer than my own little ice box of a room, so I waved the white flag of surrender and beetled off to watch YouTube under the covers once more. Would it be too much to hope that Sunday nights at least were fairly quiet here in nightclub land…? My heading to bed was foiled, however, by the fact that the key card to my room no longer worked. I trailed unhappily back down to the ground floor and explained the situation to an unsympathetic receptionist who said, “Oh it always does that for 104, just try it a few more times” without looking up from his computer. I explained through gritted teeth that I had been trying it for five minutes, thanks very much, and he reluctantly came with me to see what the problem was. I passed the journey by mentioning how my heater didn’t work. “Oh, that heater,” he said without a hint of irony. “Yeah it doesn’t work, it’s just for decoration.” Apparently my room was meant to be heated by a magical vent blowing warm air into the room. I said grumpily that it did not seem to be doing that at all. “Well, it’s 104,” he said with a shrug. “It’s always cold and the door never works. Dunno why, it’s really weird.” As I contemplated the fact that I HAD BEEN STAYING IN THE POLTERGEIST ROOM THIS WHOLE TIME he swiped me through with his master and left me in my Spectre Apartment. I lay in bed in the dark that night pretending very hard that I wasn’t the slightest bit unnerved and listening to the pounding bass coming through the walls (one stubborn nightclub somewhere in the middle distance was subjecting its patrons to Sunday night indie rock) until 1.30am blessedly rolled around and Geoffrey the Ghost and I managed to get some sleep.

Day 3   

By this point I was thoroughly sleep deprived and just generally over the whole staying-in-a-hostel thing, so it was with a happy song that I stuffed my belongings back into my suitcase. It was an uneventful exit from Hatters apart from one heart- stopping moment when a bit of the shower fell off at exactly the same second that the bathroom light went out (…It was just the timed light clicking off and me turning the wobbly thermostat wheel too firmly. But, hey -  let me tell you: when you’re standing there in the pitch dark, naked and alarmed, “ARGH!” is the defining first thought rather than “I’d better wave my arms and get the light to switch back on.) I strode out into the Manchester streets and decided that as I’d had an improvised breakfast of snack bars I didn’t really need anything else apart from a cup of tea, which I could probably get at Chetham’s Library. Second library of the trip, here I came!

After a significant amount of lost trundling, sometimes round in circles, my suitcase and I finally arrived at Chetham’s, which is situated next to a very nice but sadly throughly fenced-off park and an absolutely enormous museum about football. I sat on a little stone pillar, tried to enjoy the park’s water feature despite the massive fence and munched on fruit I’d bought from the nearby M&S (it had occurred to me that I hadn’t really had much in the way of fruit or vegetables since arriving in Manchester, which is possibly a true representation of the Northern diet but it did seem a shame to get scurvy on my weekend off). 

The very picturesque park with a very large fence. 

It was all very nice but I needed the loo  - an ever present theme in my life - so I decided to get a move on and go see the Library. This is when my day went horribly wrong.

I had not, you see, realised that the Chetham’s Library  - unlike the Bodleian Library -  didn’t have anywhere for visitors to dump their suitcases. Worse, the grumpy security guard refused full-stop to let me take my suitcase anywhere near the building whatsoever. What was I meant to do, I asked him with quite poor grace. I had the suitcase. I wanted to go and see the library. Couldn’t he look after it in his little security hut? What if it had a bomb in it? I assured him there was no bomb. No. Absolutely not. I had a suspicious unidentified suitcase. Hadn’t I seen the news recently? Maybe I could see if the station across the road had lockers.

It was an unimpressed Essa that stomped into Manchester Victoria on the hunt for a locker. There were no lockers. The Information Centre might have been a useful place to ask for advice about what to do next, if it had been open. I went to the loo (always a good thing to do in a time of crisis, I find), stared suspiciously at a very creepy statue of a bee in a dress and decided that as I seemed to have found the busy hub of tram travel I might as well get on a tram.

TRAM!!! I thought the trams were very exciting. 

 After trying to buy a tram ticket at a ticket machine for actual trains for an embarrassingly long amount of time I realised that the tram ticket machines were on the tram platforms and navigated the alarming open-track walkway to get to the right bit of the station. (Manchester runs its public transport system from the viewpoint that if you’re stupid enough to cross a walkway without looking left and right first you deserve to get mangled by a massive tram. I only nearly died once, which frankly is quite good for me all things considering.)

I bought my astonishingly cheap £1.40 one-way ticket, tried to tap my paper ticket on the machine for tapping in plastic travel cards and was puzzled for really an unacceptably long amount of time for a 23 year old before I figured out what was going on, and got on my first TRAM!! It tooted to another tram and I felt like I was living my best life. It would have been even nicer if the tram hadn’t smelt of weed and wee, but as most of Manchester seems to smell of weed and wee I accepted my fate. I realised I had previously been unfair on the “park” as we rumbled through it  - there were considerably more trees than I had first thought and the grass looked less mushy. I admired the greenery, noted with resignation that the tram was making me travel sick and then realised it was time to get off! In a…deserted dark tunnel…? I really don’t know what I did, but I found out later there was actually a legit way to exit the tram station, with proper doors and a little escalator and everything, and I most definitely did not do that. I ended up wandering around a tunnel, nearly getting run over at one point when a tram unexpectedly came round a corner (told you I’d nearly got mashed) and finally finished my mini underground journey by being spat out next to the taxi rank. After some seriously bemused searching I found the train station, only to decide that it was actually just too draughty a place to wait out out a few hours and marched down the hill towards the Costa…that was about an 8 minute walk from the Hostel I’d left with so much optimism several hours previously. Ha. Ha. Ha. Isn’t life funny. As I was meeting a friend at Manchester Piccadilly I decided to just call it quits, buy several random Costa snacks to create lunch and have a quiet few hours in the warm before having to heave my suitcase back up the hill to the station for 3pm. Who says I don’t know how to live a wild life…? 

After a very enjoyable catch-up I was back on the train and headed, feeling slightly battered, back to to noise and grime of Euston station. It had been quite the weekend, and I left still unsure of what I thought about Manchester. At times it had seemed ruggedly attractive, the several red-brick old buildings nestled in amongst all the mid-20th century concrete particularly eye-catching, and at times it had just seemed…wet. And a bit grey. 

The whole “bee mascot” thing has, to an outsider, been taken to a slightly unbelievably wild extreme - there were bees everywhere. On walls. On doors. In restaurant and shop logos. On mugs. On bags. On posters. Even on street bins. As someone who doesn’t particularly like bees, this was a bit unnerving.

On the whole, I did like Manchester - and I would certainly visit again, which says something in itself. 

Next stop: My mum and I’s trip to Berlin in April! Where should we visit? 

What Essa saw:

Manchester LGBT Foundation 

https://lgbt.foundation/ 

HOME Manchester 

https://homemcr.org/ 

Teacup Kitchen

https://teacupandcakes.com/

Forbidden Planet Manchester

https://www.facebook.com/fpmanchester/

The John Rylands Library (free entry)

https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/ 

The People’s History Museum (free entry)

https://phm.org.uk/

Manchester’s China Town

https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/chinatown-p275031

Where Essa stayed (but does not recommend):

https://hattershostels.com/manchester-hilton-chambers/ 

[thatfestivallife]

Girls all in independent designers: Kokomo Design perspex dress, Palace Flophouse skirt & Duvet Days trousers & Rosa Bloom top!

Delicious music, culinary delights, more than a dollop of cultcha and an escape to the far-flung deserts of Morroco at the end of miserable March?? I didn’t need much persuading to ‘buy the ticket and take the ride’ to the innaugral Beat Hotel festival, in Marrakech.

The Beat Hotel was already well known to me for their big venue near Glastonbury’s pyramid stage – but apart from a few showers of rain over the weekend, this offering, couldn’t have been much further from its Pilton partner…

Those Festival Facts

What? Beat Hotel Marrakech “A long weekend of live music, DJs, one-off culinary collaborations and a talks programme featuring some of today’s great minds and voices.” Inspired by the ‘Beat Generation’ of poets and authors.

Where? The Fellah Hotel, a 20-minute drive outside of Marrakech in Morrocco…. my first festival in Africa! (ticked that off the bucket list!)

When? This year it was the last weekend of March – 2020 festival not confirmed yet. It ran Thursday through Sunday with music and wellness programming from 9am – 4am.

Who? Organisers are Brits and the audience (in my experience!) were mainly from the UK with a smattering of locals and attendees from across the globe to make up the neat 2000 capacity. 

Set in the Fellah Hotel, a 25 minute drive from the outside central Marrakech, the festival site was a resort made up of winding paths lined with rosemary and cactuses, cosy bedouin tents decorated with golden lamps and opulent Moroccan textiles, shimmering swimming pools and hidden indoor rooms. Within this paradise, the programming blended together the worlds of art, literature, wellness, and music.

“Follow your inner moonlight”

Skip straight to practical tips for attending Beat Hotel next year!

Undoubtedly ’boutique’ (whatever that even means any more!), this isn’t a trait I’d usually be mega keen on but here it came with the territory, a festival held in a 5-star resort is gonna have a 5-star feel! The resort setting reminded me a little of beach festivals I’ve been to in India like Sunsplash but 20 times more lavish…

What was best about this boutique-ness was the size. Apparently, a compact 2000 revellers attended Beat Hotel, which was super intimate compared to Oasis, a techno festival on the same site which has a cool 8000 guests! Whilst having the classic where have we met before / have we met before? chat with a fellow dancer on the first night…. he hit the nail on the head when he said it was the best festival he’d been to in years because it recaptured a feeling “like someone had put on a party for you and your mates”.

Thursday Opening Concert

After a day of taking in the gardens and museums of the festival’s culture-rich neighbouring city (stay tuned for my Marrakech itinerary!) we headed for our first evening at the Beat Hotel site just in time for the magnificent red and pink clad Deep Throat Choir in the ‘Interzone’, a beautifully dressed clear marquee that served as the festival’s main stage.

I’d wanted to catch them for ages after seeing their live session video from Greenman festival…  the combined raw power of their amazing voices singing original material and choice covers like Little Dragon’s Ritual Union was such a perfect opening to the festival. 

Deep Throat Choir

In homage to the festival’s home, The Master Magicians of Jajouka were next… which was an experience. They are a legendary family from rural Morocco who play some of the oldest musical styles still preserved on the planet! At first we thought the complex rhythms and the loud wail of their instruments (imagine the sound of 20 bagpipes, if they were Morrocan?!?) was a pretty strange choice for a 2 – hour – booking when this was the only stage open….!

BUT we decided to get stuck in at the front of the crowd and actually it was amazing… to punctuate the 4000-year-old music a small man in a fur-covered costume came onto the stage (basically their hype man) and had us totally transfixed. apparently, he was the fertility goat and everyone he hit with his stick in the crowd would soon be with child!!! Queue side eyes for two of our mates who got a solid smack…

Closing was Awesome Tapes from Africa – and he did not lie, they were awesome tapes! If you have never heard of this selector and label owner, he mixes only on cassette and has a huge collection of rare tapes that he has found from all over Africa ranging from traditional music to African disco and pop, which were all blended seamlessly and left us at the end of the night with sore feet and raucous shouts of “one more cassette, one more cassette!”

Friday Photo Tour

On Friday I headed into the medina for a tour with “conscious creative collective”; Patternity.  I’m not usually one for guided tours, preferring to get to know a place myself, but with limited time for exploration this was actually a perfect opportunity to be spoon fed a speedy introduction to the city and connect with the area we were in before fully submerging ourselves into festival fun… and a nice chance to meet fellow festival goers!

View from the carpet shop roof…

Two of many cats on the Cat-ernity tour

Touring the beautiful tiled Dar El Bacha museum

We met at a beautiful palace turned museum for some tile goodness, wandered around souks, got a tour of a carpet shop, gathered on rooftops for mint tea and enjoyed a demonstration of Moroccan tinctures in an apothecary… Anna from Patternity was a wonderful host and it was definitely one of the best decisions I made on the trip – all festival should have a local tour on the first day!

We finished up with cocktails on the rooftop of some fancy riad and then I hopped in a taxi to site with some girls I met on the tour just in time for sunset over the pool… 

Malika & cocktails by the pool

Zac in the lazzzers

The Friday headliners were Maribou State who were extreme levels of lush as always, a more intimate version of the magical first time I saw them, dragged to the front row of the main stage at Secret Garden Party… 

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                  🌞 @mariboustate at @beat_hotel with all my gorgeous pals 🌞 #BeatHotel#ThatFestivalLife

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Later on, we headed through the winding paths to a tucked away stretch tent that housed the second stage ‘San Remo’ which was absolutely bouncing for Andrew Weatherall. We drank ‘Ballantines Moroccan mules’ from the sponsored bar next to the stage –  there were plenty of brand partners on site but luckily it was done in a classy not overbearing way (reminding me a bit of Magnetic Fields festival actually).

The interzone adorned with Morroccan lamps.

Closed the night dancing to Hunee from the pyramid stacked next to the main stage, reminiscent of the Glastonbury Beat Hotel…  Made it home and had an impromptu house party (riad party?) with a group of our lovely neighbours.

Saturday Showers

Saturday evening started with some torrential downpour and classically getting to the festival later than we meant to meant we missed a talk from Irvine Welsh (the Irvine Welsh!!) and ‘disco naps yoga’ in the wellness area Spiritlab which sounded like just what I needed tbh…

Speakers Corner

Luckily we hadn’t missed all of the non-musical entertainment and popped in to listen to a bit of a talk in the Speaker’s Corner from Scottish writer John Niven and a lounge on the luscious Morrocan rugs in the space… 

The skies cleared so we headed to the San Reo for some reggae by the pool… Shout out to the best food on site, the Berber and Q stall by the San Remo bar, I had a DELICIOUS mezze plate which was 1 zillion times more amazing than the photo shows… plus top marks and bonus points for silver plates and real cutlery – the rest on site is plastic, unfortunately.

Steph by the pool

Berber & Q Mezze DELICIOUSNESS

Emma’s nailzzz

Full of food and heavy with last night’s excesses we sheltered again in the Speakers Corner for a really interesting discussion on “Music, Fiction and Mythology” from another Scottish Author (the theme of the day!?) David Keenan and last night’s best DJ Andrew Weatherall.

As the lamps were lit and the sun went down the rain came back with a vengeance (go to Morrocco for your holiday they said!) and Friday night was still taking its toll so I went for dinner #2, a veeery delish lentil, beetroot and goats cheese salad with sautéed potatoes… and then just as everyone was discussing calling it a night I decided to book a tarot card reading for 1.30am…!!

San Remo closed due to the rain and the terrain so all of the programming was moved into the pool / bar building to make a club-esque setting.  As some of our pals went home we stayed for an amazing night of dancing at the Ransom Note takeover, punctuated by a couple of intense tarot card readings with David Keenan – our third Scottish from earlier!

Tarot Reading with *** in the beautiful Beat Hotel Tea Room

The last dance

Got to site late again… the problems of having your own super luxurious riad and a fridge full of food and booze!

I would have loved to have caught the writing and drawing workshops in Speaker’s Corner – but that is my constant refrain at all festivals… I always wanna do all the workshops in the morning but unfortunately, I also wanna party all night and these things don’t always go hand in hand! We got there just in time for an incredible, intense set from Young Fathers who totally blew me away.

Young Fathers

Beat Hotel

With San Remo back in action, we danced to whoever the excellent Dj was there around midnight and settled into the best night of the festival… 

Me and my friend Amie stumbled on the secret room, which was above the pool bar – but apparently had moved from underneath the San Remo building into the pool bar when it rained which was originally where the cinema had originally been (wrap yer head around that)…

My favourite set of the festival was from another unknown DJ in the secret room who opened with Bronski Beat and later played a timely Prodigy track to a wild crowd (of about 30) and two tracks of the drum n bass I’d been hoping for all weekend… someone put a star sticker on my face, someone else gave me a branch of rosemary to brandish like a shaman… it was so great.

The rest of the evening included a lot of cocktails, rolling around on the beds beside the pool and disappearing for an hour because I was learning Arabic and chatting football with the medical staff…

Amie in her Duvet Days halter

We found the full crew at the main stage for the close and danced for the rest of the night (to Gerd Jansen? Maybe? There’s a theme here…) The night ended in a stage invasion and us enveloping each other into a giant group hug – bringing that proper festival flavour I have mainly only experienced in UK fields 💖

San Reno vibes

It was wonderful…  so smooth for an inaugural year in a very culturally different country.  They obviously cared about their audience, all the staff were lovely – for example, there were plenty on hand at the end of each night checking if people could get home okay.  You could tell they’ve done festivals before, accreditation was soo smooth, the info point was informative, it rained but the stages were all undercover and any hiccups that came along (unavoidable in a festival first year) were dealt with really well.

More toilets would have been great – and compost loos would be even better,  I would have liked it if they had booked a few more females across the programming… and I would have liked to have dipped my toe in some more of the wellness and Speaker’s Corner, but that might be my own fault for not getting out of bed sooner! Attention to detail like secret rooms and offsite activities meant it was so much more than just a music festival…. can’t wait to relive it at the Glastonbury version in a couple of months!! 

Top tips for Visiting Beat Hotel Festival in Marrakech

Getting to the Beat Hotel

There are loads of reasonably priced flights into the local airport Marrakech (RAK) – I flew from Stanstead and then returned to Bristol. Getting from the airport to your accommodation might not be quite as easy though – we’re pretty sure everyone in our group got separately mugged off for our taxi fare… to top it off, we didn’t even have the right address for our riad, doh! Our driver did give us oranges and play some bangin Arabic tunes in the taxi though so all was forgiven…

Where to stay in Marrakech

So, we booked a couple of months in advance as we were out there for a mate’s 30th… we struck gold on our accommodation and had an incredible riad, 11 of us with a huge pool, massive kitchen and a gorgeous rooftop overlooking the Atlas mountains! And it was just over £100 each for 6 nights… If you’re in a big group I would highly recommend hunting on Airbnb to see what comes up. Most of the accommodation in town wasn’t as private as this was so it was worth being a bit out of town – it was about half an hour drive South of the city but only 10 minutes South of the festival site. 

Tricky to leave your hotel when it looks like this…

If you’re on your own or in a pair it would probably make more sense to stay in town because of traveling into the festival each day, which leads me on to… 

Getting around in Marrakech

This bit is important! We struck gold with our riad location and the fact that it came with a driver. We got one free return ride into town / the festival a day and then could book later pick-ups with our legendary taxi driver Ismael. 

Top tips for getting around the city and getting to the festival:

Do a bit of research on how you’re gonna get in and out of the festival, see if your accommodation can recommend your transport.

Make friends with people staying close to you and buddy up to make it cheaper. It could be a pain in the butt and really sting you for cash if you haven’t organised it properly.

The festival did put on a shuttle which you could buy a wristband for – I didn’t get it myself so can’t really feedback but speaking to people it was apparently quite sporadic and only stopped at a few places so depending where you were staying you’d probably have to find a taxi to get you through the middle of town.

Getting around town itself whilst sightseeing is pretty easy as long as you know the names of the places you’re going.

Make sure you haggle with your taxi!

Taxis can’t go down most of the winding souks and streets (but watch out for mopeds!) so download Marrakech onto the HERE we go app and mark all your landmarks on it before you’re out of wifi – this top tip courtesy of Sophie from Saints on a Plane!!

I had a couple of experiences when I was stopped in taxis from the city by a police blockade at the end of the road to the festival – the driver was made to get out and once I was… Still not entirely sure what it was all about and it felt really sketchy. 

What to bring and what to wear

Weather-wise you can expect temperatures in the 20s but dropping down to about 10 at night so come prepared for both! If you’re unlucky like us it could also be a wee bit rainy… 

I packed one small sized cabin bag for the duration of the trip and brought the following stuff to Beat Hotel: 

Modest clothes for exploring the city – Morrocco is a Muslim country so keep your legs, shoulders etc covered when wandering the city.

But less modest clothes/bikinis etc. totally acceptable for the festival site, like Lannah’s Kokomo ‘Sunset Boulevard’ perspex dress above! 

Swimwear.

Light jacket for the evening – I brought a denim jacket which was enough to keep me warm in the chillier nights but I could have done with a scarf too.

Bumbag for the festival – I brought my trusty tasseled Beksies Boutique Bum Bag.

What to Eat and drink

The food offering is not mega veggie friendly but there were a few good options which I’ve mentioned above! The stalls were run by the popular Marrakech restaurants Nomad, Cafe De Espices & Le Jardin and there was also the Berber & Q stall running int the day time. You should expect to pay UK festival prices for meals. As well as the stalls Beat Hotel also curated a series of pre-bookable banquets but at £80 a pop these were a bit out of our price range. 

The Beat Hotel bars were plentiful but did run out of stock a few times and the cocktail bar staff had noooo idea what was going on for the first few days!! Was kiiind of funny being brought the wrong drinks three times in a row until I remembered I was paying a tenner a go… you aren’t allowed to bring your own supplies in so we spent a lot on the bar… 

Also worth noting that Morrocco is a Muslim country so there aren’t a huge amount of places in town that serve alcohol. As we were in self-catered accommodation we bought all our food and drink from a local Carrefour which did serve booze.  

Money! What to bring and what you can expect to spend… 

The festival is totally cashless, my first experience with RFID wristbands! It was actually really smooth and pretty nifty but I did spend a lot, especially considering I was having most of my meals and drinks back at our accommodation. I topped up on site but the wristbands could be pre-loaded before the festival which meant you got a bonus and the chance for a refund.

£1 = 80 dirham

It’s a closed currency in Morroco so your best bet is just to get your ‘dirham’ for the ciy and taxis etc. from an ATM when you get to the airport – bring emergency cash to exchange in case your card doesn’t work or that ATM’s at the airport are out of use!

Personal Safety

As with all other festival travel – be extra careful if you’re indulging, keep your passport, spare money etc. safe at your accommodation. A good idea is to whatsapp your friends a scan of your passport and your flight ticket details and make sure you get travel insurance!!

Some specific advice to Beat Hotel Marrakech:

As explained above, get your taxis sorted, watch out for getting scammed – haggling is a part of life here don’t be shy to walk away if you don’t think the price is good, it will usually be agreed to if it looks like you’re leaving! 

Cover up – there were a lot of similarities between the covered streets of the souks to the winding markets of India, but in India it’s just never-ending staring, in Marrakech it was lewd words muttered by most men we passed and swear words shouted at us down the street when I glared at them… not pleasant!

Be careful in the Medina at night time – I only went in the day and I don’t think I’d be comfortable on my own at night at all. 

Similar to the urchins at Love International festival… this time watch out for the spiky cactuses!! If you do get some in your leg/arm/butt just pop into the lovely friendly guys in the well equipped medical room, they’ll have it out in a jiffy and if you’re lucky like me they might give you an Arabic lesson in the meantime! 

Some more general Marrakech tips coming soon in a separate post… you can find more festivals around the world here! xx

Beat Hotel Festival, Marrakech Morocco '19 Delicious music, culinary delights, more than a dollop of cultcha and an escape to the far-flung deserts of Morroco at the end of miserable March??

[grgop]

Working and living at the Anchin Restaurant

I had the experience of working and serving the dishes at one Japanese restaurant for several days during my summer trip to Japan in 2015. But there is much more to be told. How I got there, what was it like to be there, what were my colleagues like and many other questions you might have are going to be answered here. :-)

The name of the restaurant is Anchin, named after the character from the legend of Anchin & Kiyohime which story took place in the nearby temple of Doujouji located in Hidaka and town of Gobo in the Wakayama Prefacture, southern part of Osaka Kansairegion with the administrative center in the city of Osaka, part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area (Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe) and one of the largest in the world. Gobo though was a relatively smaller town with the population of around 25 000 citizens and my home for more than two weeks of my stay in Japan where I had the first contact with the Japanese society, made first friends and contacts, became part of the local squad and which became my second home abroad not just a material one but because of the bonds and nice memories with the locals who did everything to make my stay there unforgetable.

First evening in Japan and the big welcome dinner at Anchin

I was not supposed to be here at this place at all. And thinking of right now after spending nice time here I guess it would be pretty hard and strange for me to accept that some things would have been totally different. I would have for sure visited the restaurant at one point during my stay in Japan or at least got a glipse of it such as the cookies being produced there...but I would have never gotten a chance to meet the people who were working there, the area and the chance to be part of the team. Here is what happened. On the day of the flight on 1st July I got the urgent email in the morning, several hours before going to the airport, in which it was written by the local Lions Club Gobo that due to unfortunate and unexpected problems that occurred in the family that was supposed to take care of me I was going to be given temporary a new host family. The information included that they were a bit older, around 60, they were cooks and owned a restaurant. They had their family living close by and who often visits them. They spoke Japanese and English as much as I was able to speak in Japanese uppon arriving there. And lastly – they had a cat. We became good friends. Mitsa and I. I  was worried just a little bit as I did not know how it was going to be with the family who spoke no English, I had no prior experience to this, and if we were going to manage to overcome the language barrier. It turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me that summer, the thing that the plans changed my destination and allowed me to meet much more people and experience something totally different I could not imagine earlier.

On the 2nd of July my plane landed at Osaka Interntional Airport (KIX) about 10 am from the local time at Doha, Qatar. In Croatia it was probably 8am. However, after my host family Ishikura picked me up at the airport and came home (cca an hour or more) the sky quickly turned dark and the night replaced the day. It was kind of a shock for me since I left Qatar arond 1.30am during the night and arrived to Japan after 9 hours long flight again at the evening if not night. As soon as we came to the parking lot next to the house and the restaurant the sky turned dark and it was raining.

It was in those moments when I was at the same time both a little bit tired (actually needed to stretch after sitting for so many hours) and super excited as my 28 days long life in Japan was about to begin. I did not know what to expect, how I was going to survive without knowing any Japanese (except for 3-4 phrases) and how am I going to be involved and adjust to the local society. On our way in the car there were 3 more persons with me who waited for me at the airport. These are Mr Ishikura, the head of Ishikura family I was going to stay with and the head local restaurant business, and two other members of LC Gobo who helped in organization of my arrival. One of them, Mamiko-san, also knew English pretty good so she helped me from the airport till reaching the home of Ishikura family. She was sitting next to me on the back seat and helped translating between the other two in the car. She saved me also many times later during several welcome parties when I had no idea what was going on and what was I supposed to do, as well as going ot the bank and explaining the bank stuff my problem with not being able to withdraw some cash. We left her at her home on our way to the restaurant. There was now 3 of us.

After leaving the car with my heavy luggage I met mom Mieko Ishikura who showed me my room and the house I sat down in the living room and met the other members of Ishikura family. There came son of Mr Ishikura and his wife and children. Since they spoke very little English and I the same amount of Japanese we had to use the dictionaries and the hands a little bit. I was sitting there and thinking how much fun and challenges I was going to have in the next days until I get used to everything. After 20 minuts all of us were invited to go to some restaraunt, as I understood them. Back then I still had no idea where that restaurant was precisely (and the name Anchin was written in Japanese only, I could not read it at all on my first day) right next to the house. Literally it is about 1-3 meters away.

Next to one of the entrances (the southern one) is a vending machine selling you drinks. These machines are much bigger than those I am used to in Europe. We enterd the interior and my first Japanese kitchen experience was about to begin. We sat at the table and when my eyes caught the clock on the wall it was already 7pm!! Which meant my family probably had late breakfast right now at 10am in Croatia. It is 9 hours differece, more than 1/3 of the Earth, that was dividing us. And for them I was living 9 hours ahead in the future. We were sitting at the tables of the first floor as later I discovered there were 2 big halls and more rooms on the second floor the other day.

The interior of the restaurant was pretty cosy and comfortable. At least on the first floor it seemed to be much more open to all kinds of guest than you would get a feeling once you climbed up the stairs. There were tables and seats for about one and a half bus of visitors. The tables had a yellow cover. To my left was the cashier where one could order their meal and check what was offered to eat and drink. You could see something written above it on the wall and there was a bell and a dragon around it breathing fire. Since i was totally new I did not know what was the thing with the illustration and what it had to do with the restaurant. After visiting the nearby temple of Doujouji everything changed. Behind the cashier there was a door leading you into the kitchen. In front of me was another cashier, maybe the main one, surrounded with may artefacts and newspapers. Speaking of artefacts, many were again in this shape of the mysterious bell with a dragon. I was curious about the newspapers and wanted to read them (aka not understand anything but just admire the Japanese writing system and way of putting this into the columns). This cashier was under the stairs leading you to the upper floor. And at this place was the eastern entrance with the automatic doors as well as the passage further into the shop and the fridge. Once I went there tomorrow during the day I saw the Football World cup ball and Croatian flag so was able to show my co-workers there the form of it.

And the last – what was waiting for us on the table itself? Food? I was welcomed with the full table of different Japanese dishes. Some of them (such as sushi) I was able to recognize but the vast majority of the rest was pretty unknown to me and I could not guess the name to be honest. Mr Ishikura sat in front of me and was telling me the names of everything before me eyes. I still remember perfectly the moment he pointed out what was maguro, ebi, tai, ika, wasabi, soba, suika ... I remembered the names and used the names only in Japanese but did not know all of them in English or even Croatian. When I was passing by some Japanese restuarants later on back in Zagreb I could not recognize the name in Croatian and link it with the image but could name it in Japanese after seeing the photos of the food. I was already a bit satisfied since I ate had lunch in the airplane and ate a sandwichh but tried to eat as much as possible this evening and we managed to empty almost whole table. I was then full.

I tried eating sushi which is rice with some other ingredients nice packed so that you can eat one per time. One of my favorite tastes there that had a totally new taste in my mouth was mixing maguro (tuna fish) with wasabi which would give it a pretty strong taste. I learned there one does not eat wasabi alone but rather mixed it with other sauce and puts the ingredients such as fish in it but just a little bit! Speaking of what we call „pasta“ and for them is „soba“ I automatically started eating it by rolling the pasta around my fork. Then Mr Ishikura started correcting me „no no no, iie iie, no italian stayru, japanese ...“ and showed me how they did it. Since then I automatically even today eat pasta by just taking it up in the air instead of rolling around. The chopsticks were also kind of a problem to get used to in the beginning but I managed to learn the proper use (though abandoned it later haha). After half an hour of enjoying the food (and for some things it was my first time), especially eating rice with the chopsticks and their sauce, we tried to communicate a bit but it was still very much difficult. What I was learning in the airplane, some phrases, I tried to use it when the son of Mr Ishikura was about to leave so I tried with „Mata ne!“ and it proved to be the right choice. I helped clean the table and entered into the kitchen for the first time. I still did not know that I was going to spend several days helping there. Read further please.

Welcome Party of the Lions Club Gobo

After the dinner I was told about some Welcome Party on my second day in Japan. I had no clue what that really meant (and the word „party“ will be probably associated with something wilder). Anchin was also the only place where one could have the access to the wi-fi so I contacted my family and friends from there and shockec those who had not known I was going to Japan by posting photos of the dinner there. For many of them it was simply „What the duck?! I saw you two days ago in the center of Zagreb?! What are you doing in Japan?!“ and some told after more photos the other day that they had believed I just did check-in randomly and downloaded the images from the internet to mock people. Anyway, the other morning after not sleeping much because of the jet-lag problems (my brain was totally confused as well as my bio-rhythm) I had breakfast around 9am, went for a walk around the house and then found Ishikura-san watching TV in the living room, told him I was going to go a little bit around the area so they know where I am (I don't think he understood me precisely but just said 'oke oke'). Later on, when I came back home and had my impressions of what I had seen and took photographs of, mom Mieko brought me lunch from the restaurant. It included of course hot rice with some delicious sauce and some other vegetables. I felt pretty much satisfied and not hungry afterwards.

I spent the rest of the day by entering once more the restaurant but just quickly as I did not want to bother people there and had little contact with them. I was not sure if they knew I was staying with Ishikura-san and that it might be complicated to explain with poor knowledge of Japanese. Instead I came back to my room and was reading the learning material and sleeping again as I felt a headache. I used to get the headache right in the morning after waking up and in the afternoon after lunch. It lasted for almost a week until I totally got used to the time zone in Japan. In the evening I heard „Gureeego!“ from downstairs and Ishikura-san told me to take long trousers as we were going to this party.

We were using the exterior stairs to climb to the second floor of the restaurant. There we took off our shoes and walked in the socks only. I saw that one part of the upper floor was filled with light and enclosed so that it was more than obvious the place was reserved and not meant for the others to be seen. Then we stepped into the reserved part of the hall.

I was shocked a bit and surprised as I saw about 30 people in suits, men from the Lions Club Gobo, and was a bit scared of what should I do and say there. I had no idea if anyone there spoke English to help me a bit and did not know if I had to prepare some speech in front fo them. Everyone turned their faces towards me and started clapping and welcoming in Japanese which also made me feel a bit strange as I did not expect all this. The food was already prepared on the tables. We walked until the middle of the table and I sat next to Mr Hiro, the president of the LC Gobo. We introduced each other and then I shaked my hands with the others around me. Half of the people were talking and looking into my direction. The majority of the people present that evening were a bit older guys. But left to me was sitting (relatively) younger man of those and he spoke English. Apparently, it was the member of the host family which was supposed to host me but due to the problems it was not possible. He told me not to worry about everything and that he was going to help me if I get stuck with language barrier.

Then the fun with the dinner started. We had a nice divers buffet right in front of us and started enjoying the meal. There were some wines and sake and lots of different Japanese traditional meals. Again, I found sushi and enjoyed maguro with wasabi. Then they had also brought me a cake with 'Gureko' written on it. I was curious about the meaning of this and asked someone. Apparently that was my name written on it. Since that day and the moment I sent the photograph to my friends and family it became one of the symbols of my trip and one of the favorite names for my grandparents since the moment they saw it. It was really delicious and I felt again more priviliged than I should have been as a guest there. They put a lot of effort to make my first days fantastic. And they were trying to merry me to every possible girl there after I was naive and said I had no girlfriend. After that I was forced to make up a story of having one in order to spend my time there in peace and quiet. Actually, Mr English (let's call him like that :D ) tried to put me in a relationship with every girl or a woman of my age we came across. He would start telling stories of me (and I had no idea what he all said?!) and I just wanted to escape haha. It happened in another restaurant and in the karaoke bar. Luckily not during the baseball match.

I had to say a few word eventully and totally confused myself and was not even able to remember „I am sorry but i do not speak Japanese.“ In the end it was all okay. The guys in front of me (I met them a few more times including the day before my flight) told me they knew of Mirko Filipović and football. Most of them had known Yugoslavia and that it broke up in 90s but not much about the newer independent countries. What was especially fun to me was when one of the guys in front of me told me my face looked like Bill Gates. I believe i looked like any other Westerling from their perspective (and I agree much with that). Another funny thing was after the dinner was over and we were preparing to go home. One of the Lions members came again happy to me and wanted to meet me personally. He asked me if I was Canadian. : - ) (after they mentioned „Kuroachia / Croatia“ for about 50 times haha). I also met there my 3rd host family. Analyzing the situation from the comfort of home and having all that already experienced makes many things much clearer than being there new and lost a bit with information.

Someone was taking lots of photos of us and one group picture of all of us around my host families and me in the center. I received them during the last days and keep them as a memory. Mr Ishikura told me I was going to help the next day by assisting in the restaurant. He said „tomorrow, arbaitu arbaitu, oke oke?“. I accepted it and was curious about the following day and went to sleep.

First day of work at the restaurant and welcoming guests from Hong Kong

After having a bit of a headache again in the evening (my 2nd night) I woke up about 8-9am and stayed for 15 minutes in the bed feeling like „just a few more minutes, please“...then I heard „Gureegooo“ and Ishikura-san was calling me. I quickly jumped out, prepared myself, had breakfast and he came to me with the white work clothes that would suit my size. I was getting both excited about this and found it to be a pretty cool thing and at the same time a bit scared since I have never done this kind of a thing before. And this was not going to be helping someone in the kitchen but at the restaurant that had many visitors every day and I felt uncomfortable of thinking I could screw something up. The other thing that bothered me a little bit was how was I going to become part of the team there and socialize since there were mostly seniors working at the restaurant, they spoke only Japanese of course (with an exception of one older man who knew enough English for emergency situations and one more person of my age who was learning it). And here is what happend.

I went inside the restaurant through the automatic doors with Ishikura-san and entered the small room in the middle of the restaurant that was the place where the workers would come and leave for home, that used to be as another exit when carrying the boxes with the served dishes into a car in the yard and lastly the place where one would take the new gloves, protection masks for the face, white suits and boots.

I was told to put the mask on my face in order to make the preparation of the dishes as safe as possible (but did not have to put anything on hair as the women there had too). Talking of the boots or special slippers I had to take the biggest number there which was still smaller than my size so my fingers or the last part were a bit behind. They were also pink! : ) Later on when we were washing the kitchen in the evening after work was done I was helping them with but needed the boots for the job. The biggest number I found there was of the boss – Mr Ishikura.

We walked now inside the big room with several workers and here my story starts and everything changes. As soon as I stepped in I saw several tables with lots of plates and boxes around with prepared or half prepared dishes. There were two rows of tables and maybe 30-40 boxes marked with Anchin in Japanese. This was also the beginning of my Hiragana study. There were several people working there who were curious about me and we greeted each other but talked a little bit later. I was pretty careful not to do something stupid and a bti nervous if everything was going to be okay. The first task Ishikura-san showed me to do was preparing the dishes for the lunch and it was about proper preparation of maguro, wasabi and shrimps with rice – or sushi, one of the variants. I was a little bit slow at the beginning making it sure i did not do something wrong but then quickly caught the desired tempo. After I prepared several boxes of dishes (and into each box there was a space for 4-6 plates, depending on a size and importance) I wrapped them all with the plastic foil. After first successful job everything else was easy to do and the only barriers that slowed me down were the linguistic ones since sometimes I could not get it right what they wanted from me unless showing (or especially when explaining where to take it...out of 10 words I understood 1).

I should also note one thing that is very important and part of the identity of the restaurant as I remember it - the music. There is a tradititonal Japanese music being played in the background in all the rooms of the first floor, particularly in the kitchen and the other room. You cannot be there and not hear it. It got stuck in my ears since the moment I entered the restaurant and spent hours inside. You can listen to something very similar here.

I could talk now for hours about everything refreshing my memory of all the tasks. So here is a list of several things I was doing there:

Preparing sushi pack of maguro (tuna), wasabi, ebi (shrimp) and rice on yellow plates and later wrapped them with the foil. One also has to add the green plastic leaves next to the rice, the thing that most of you will recognize immedeiately on the photographs of the food. I enjoyed this part as it was also a strong smell and a few times I could not help myself but just take a little bit of the maguro (which tastes just fantastic) and eat just a little bit. I would then put all the prepared plates into the boxes which were further carried to the places reserved for the guests.

Another job included preparing the salad with several ingredients. This was sometimes a bit time consuming as there could have been 4-5 different ingredients on the plate that required some special ratio and the way they were organized and it took me a bit more to get used to the rigth measures and tempo. For example, Mr Ishikura took a bit of the greenery or somethign ans aid „sukoshi, sukoshi“ („a little bit, not much“) and showed but later on I was grabbing a bit more than required then had to fix it. We joked then that in Japan sukoshi was just a finger as a measure of something and Croatia a fist. He was laughing and said „no no no, Japanese stairu (style)“. When I take a look at the picture of it it consists of a few pieces of salad, a bit of a meat cubes, some yellow-orange vegetable that I know no name of and the water with some spice. It was then covering another darker bowl when served for the visitors at the table and also later wrapped with the foil.

I might include different sorts of desserts. On one of the photos below you can see what it looked like prepared. Some were with many ingredients and some with just a few. We would cut the fruit, put some cream and other flavours, but nothing was too much , just a bit of everthing in order to make the balance with other food. This is also what I learned there that in the restuarants (and not rarely at home) they try to eat a lot of different food but trying to maintain balance. Unlike us at home where we prepare a tone of one dish of something they prefer to keep it diverse but small meals.

Preparing soups was also interesting. It would include different ingredients too that I was not sure what they really are. I remember carrying the huge pot around with the hot water that was poured into the metal bowls and added a few more spicy things.

Using the machine where one has to put the rice and then it will export it out nicely rolled – rice rollers. The machine had sort of a plate that was turning around for 360 degrees and was throwing out the rice packed as a little cylinders. I would then take them quickly and prior to that put my hands into the water in order to fix the little cylinders or rollers. After taping them I had to pay attention on which side I am putting them down in the box as it mattered (the part where you could see how the machine sticked two parts together). There were about 70-80 of these rice rollers per box. Later on they were used in combination with other dishes; wrapped into the black stripes or a shrimp was placed on them, filled with something else etc...making some kind of a sushi.

Packing the cookies. Now this was one nice somewhat easier job that I got used to most. I also learned what to do on my first day. I sat on the table where I saw hundreds of cookies every single of them being wrapped into the transparent foil directly upon being exported from the machine. The cookie were shaped in the form of a bell. The very much same form of the one I saw earlier on the wall above the cashier and other souvenirs. And the same as I had seen later at Doujouji temple. The man who was working this job was in the third room between us and the store. He was the one who spoke English and for me he was known as Mr English-jin. We had there several wooden boxes where one would put the packed cookies. And here is what it looked like:

There was a pile of two hundred cookies on the left side of the table, freshly prepared and brought from the other room. We also had a ventilator who kept trying making them cool. My task was to take the foil from the right side from the foil pack, a big one, and put 5 packed cookies in it while paying attention to turning them on the right side when inserting in. And I had to take the cookies that were cooler, it was not good to put the very warm or hot ones in. Here I learned the words „yukkuri, atsui - atatakai dame dame, samui – tsumetai oke oke“ which could be translated as „slowly, hot/warm is not good, cold okay!“. I was doing this maybe for 2 hours and it was nice as this is the kind of a job where I did not have to think too much of some other things rather than just paying attention to the proper inserting into the foil. I enjoyed doing this. I also used to put my notebook and the mobile phone aside in order to write thoughts, notes and translate vocabualry when needed (more of this soon). After putting them into the foil I would pack the foils into the wooden boxes where there was place for about 15-16 of the packs of 5 cookies. I filled several wooden boxes and would put them on on the right place. There were two other colleagues / co-workers who were doing the same as I did or the next phase of the process. And the next phase was putting them then into a cardboard box along with some paper ready for the shop and the potential customers. A few times when I was done with putting the cookies into the big foil I would switch to the new phase and start filling the white boxes with the cookies and insert in the end a colored paper with some info and facts of Anchin.

When not working or having a break I would walk around the restaurant and the shop to see what they got there and what were the prices like. It was especially interesting to see the tourits arriving by buses in front of the restuarant and then walking by it. Many of them would also enter our store and buy something. I was especially happy when I saw my packaging there and when someone took it to the cashier haha. The visitors were going to visit the Doujouji temple and aftwards would have their dinner waiting for them at Anchin on the upper or the first floor.

Preparig different kinds of the main meal. I just have random flash memories of going to the kitchen to pick up the freshly baked and grilled shrimps and putting them back on the plates in the room I spent 70% of my day at. It was this 'tempura' – fried crabs or fish, that I was supposed to serve nicely on the plates along with few additions such as a sauce or salad.

Speaking of the other restaurant, I had seen it once when there were no guests and when Mr Ishikura went with me and mom Mieko. It had the illsutration of the wife of Mr Ishikura-san, a prety nice and beautiful art ont he ceiling and the doors in manners of the traditional yet modern Japanese art. As I had heard this restaurant was mainly for the businessmen or „this kind of people“ if you know what I mean.

Serving the freshly cooked rice in the boxes. There was one of the elderly colleagues, an older woman, who showed me how to properly put rice and the proper measure for each bowl-box that was supposed to go for a single person. I called her 'sensei' (the teacher) which entertained a lot all of them arround including her and they were laughing constantly. We would then go to the kitchen and fill several boxes with around hundred cups filled with the fresh 'gohan' (rice). I would then carry them to the tables.

Setting the table for the guests and carrying chairs. Another favorite part at the restaurant. I was helping with carrying the dishes from the kitchen and the other room in the yellow plastix boxes into the hall for the guests. The job then included sorting the plates and bowles properly and I had to come back 3-4 times on average in order to deliver all the dishes. This was the fun part with wrapping again all the plates to protect the food and before the guest arrived I had to ignite the little candles. It all looked pretty perfect in the end. I was just careful not to brake or drop something on the floor. Then, just for fun, I would take random newspapers and pretend that I am reading the news in order to entertain the others arroudn me. If there were some shorter workers and the seniors I would try to help them by carring their part and at least make them work less during these days I was there. I was rarely sent to the upper floor to pepare the dishes as we would have used the elevator from the kitchen where I had put the yellow boxes with dishes and press the button to deliver it up where someone would then pick it up. However, when we had to bring more chairs in case of lack a few of us would grab the chairs from the room I worked in and walk up the stairs. I tried to help them again by taking double and told them not to worry. I did not find this to be exhausting, tiring or boring but waited for the chance to jump in and help. The more I was working with them the sooner we all got to understand each other perfectly.

Delivering dishes by car. You see, there was another restaurant pretty close by, about 50 meters away. And it was also full of people every day. Thus we had to go there several times a day quickly bringing the boxes with the food. I remember the first time I heard word „kuruma“ which means 'car' I had no idea what they wanted from me. Then I followed them ar ound the restaurant with 3 yellow plastic boxes full of dishes being confused where to deliver it. Finally we go through the automatic doors (and it happened 100x time daily non-stop) and showed me where to put it behind in the car. I used to go with a colleague Kira-San who was pretty temperamental and open person, very talkative (and talked pretty fast, I could not understand almost anything of the vocabualry I learned). While I was trying to say „excuse me“ we were already there by car, it is a ride of 30 second. We'd then quickly jump off and take the boxes inside the restaurant but the part reserved for the staff where one could wash it or replace with the newer ones. There was someone else waiting for us who was serving the guests and then forwarded the news/needs/requirements. I was supposed to quickly leave the stuff fromt he car and pick up the new ones. We would then rush back to Anchin #1 and get the new dishes waiting for us in the boxes. And then it all repeats.

Alright. Back to our story with the Hong Kong guests. You have probably forgotten the title after all this text. So, as I was spending more and more time with my co-workers we got used to each other and it was fun. After all I was trying to help them and it was fun for me and they had been entertaining themselves when watching me or even trying to speak in Japanese.  There was also a funny scene during the first two hours of working there that day that the tallest one among them in the kitchen came to my while I was packing the cookies. The others quickly gathered around us and watched. He stood next to me and stretch to the normal height. After being confused for a moment I then quickly got what he wanted to see. I did the same and stood so that my natural and true height can be seen. I was still taller for several centimeters or maybe 2-3 inches so everyone was laughing while he just had a sad face after not having desired triumph.

The kitchen before cleaning. :-)

Having a break with Pocari!

In the evening when the sky got a bit darkened (and it was a cloudy day so even faster without visible sun) we had everything prepared and waited now for our guests from Hong Kong who were going to visit Doujouji and then come to us. They told me during the day (they...funny Mr Ishikura of course) that I will get the cook's hat on my head and will have to welcome the guest. I did not believe it that much but what happened was not far from truth.

I lit the candles and indeed got the white hat on head. I was still wearing the white suit. My colleagues told me that I will just have to stand next to the doors with the others when they start getting in and welcome them in Japanese by saying 'Irashaimase!' which is sort of "welcome" refering to a shop or some service. Anyway, the moment came and I started saying that and bowing with the others. I think they were more surprised and confused when they saw me there than everything else earlier. haha I took a photo of them and a video and saw the happy faces when enjoying the dinner at Anchin. An hour earlier I set the table completely with one or two other colleagues so everything was perfect.

I could say the first day was a big success. Afterwards I got to know the others much better and throught the next 2 weeks as I visited my colleagues there often we had our jokes and managed to overcome the language barriers. My Japanese on the first day and a week later was a difference of a hundred or two hundred words and phrases in vocabulary, the most important ones which helped me in everyday situation. Which brings us to the next topic which is

Learning Japanese at Anchin

When I think about everything months later I can say that I learned the most of the Japanese vocabulary while spending my time with the first family and colleagues at Anchin restaurant. During my first two-three days I was struggling a bit to be able to communicate with the locals since I had no prior knowledge of the local language. This was also my first experience ever to go in the area or country where some language was spoken that I had no clue what to do. In Austria and Switzerland I was able to survive with using German only. Even in Italy if I was forced to use Italian instead of English I tried with some phrases and survived. Here it was much more different since except for several phrases I entered totally different world both culturally and linguistcally.

My everyday with the host families and especially at Anchin always looked liked this: whereve I went to, alone, with someone or a group of pepole, at home or at work ... I always kept a notebook and a pen in my pocket and several papers with the elementary Japanese vocabulary and phrases for tourists and learners. I was taking down the notes of everything I found to be important and of use to survive. I also had my mobile phone filled with several downloaded applications to learn Japanese. These included some English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, apps to help me learn read and write hiragana and katakana, and one that helped me with the elementary grammar and phrases for the traveling.

Speaking of Anchin only I learned there the majority of the vocabulary right there interacting with my co-workers. In the beginning I could not understand them almost anything but I tried to record all the words what they said and tried to search for the translation in the e-dictionaries. The efforts had paid off as I was able to make a basis of more or less everythign important they were saying there. It included things such as „quickly, slowly, take left, go right, staright, in the car...“ and also the names of the food. While packing the cookies for instance I kept my notebook on the table next to me so in case of emergency I was able to look after the words or write the new ones.

It was also very interesting for my colleagues to follow what I did and my progress with the language. Certainly they did not have boring time when I was with them and I hope I broke the everyday they had there. After several days of having studying the grammar on my mobile phone and from the papers I tried to build the larger sentences in Japanese only in present tense and expand the vocabulary. So imagine me there in front of them trying to tell them about my adventures in Japan, what I did and what I saw,  about Croatia and home ... in broken Japanese. Every time when I had a break I would revise everything i had written so far and talk to myself or with them for fun. I tried to write some Hiragana but back there I was able to recognize maybe 10 characters in total. I learned to read Hiragana once I came back home (as for Katakana, forgot almost everything though, I see the signs but forgot the reading).

Every night before sleep I used to spend an hour in my room reading the materials and trying to rememebr the phrases or understand more of the grammar. This was the unique experience and a good situation to test my methods, experiment a bit and see what functions best when learning a foreign language from scatch but being surrounded with the natives every day. Of course, the purpose of the Lions Exchange had nothing to do with learning languages. I mean, that was not the purpose and the goal to go to some country and learn the local language. It was mostly me who desired to learn Japanese becuase – why not? My opinion is that everyone should at leaslt try to learn the local language of the place you are going to visit and stay in as it shows your respects towards them. Learning the local language is also an excellent opportunity to immerse into society and culture. You will understand and see the things from different perspective and of course from the locals' one. For me it was fascinating the way the Japanese see the world regarding the language and especially using 3 scripts at the same time in writing (or even 4 including the Latin script which the were able to read too). I wanted to see how difficult it would be for someon who has not been surrounded with this system since the early age to develop and react. Thus I felt like Indiana Jones everytime I was able to recognize and guess the meanin of some Kanji symbols or hiragana signs on the products or the monuments.  

Anyway, after revising everythign and trying to learn more of the vocabulry I would try to use in conversation with my colleagues at the restaurant. And they always kept me motivating and supporting for every try or mistake I did and encouraged to contine further. From what I heard there they found it sometimes impossible or strange to see the foreigners (or Westerns like me) to try to speak in Japanese as they might have not been used to it and the whole idea of Japan as an island and planet for itself.

I also gave my colleagues the papers so they would write me in hiragana or tried in latin script the words or phrases. Someimes I had to draw things literally what I meant (a house, sun, evening, night, running, eating...) in order that we understand each other and .. well, it took a bit of creativity but it was fun in the end.

In conclusion, all the Japanese I remember at the moment and could use in conversation with some natives in the streets is the Japanese I learned while helping at the restaurant, visiting it later and interacting with the colleagues there.

The rest of the days before moving to the new family

Though I spent about a week with my first host family and the restuarant owners I did not work at the restaurant every day as they made excursion with me around the area to show me the other sightseeings and interesting places. Then I would go alone around or stay at home a bit. I also discovered a piano in one room of my host family as my younger Japanese sisters there and the grand children of Mr Ishikura were playing a piano. After playing it for them mom Mieko invited two other colleagues from the restaurant so I played a little concert for them.

Actually, when I had nothing else to do and did not want to stay at home i went twice into the restaurant, now feeling pretty comfortable with everything, took my white clothes and the slippers, put the gloves and started assiting them in preparation of dinner. I thought it would be a waste of time sitting at home and doing nothing (or going around by foot as I already had seen everyting) and I was honestly happy to stay with the others there and help them. I would ask everyone there if they needed my assistance otherwise I would automatically go to the cookies, pack all of them and let me co-workers listen a bit to my music from the smartphone (since they had nothign against it). That being said Anchin cookies were being packed with TBF songs in the background. I just felt satisfied and „knew my place“ where I had to be and wanted to be while working there. I already learned the procedure and the daily phases of preparing lunch or dinner for the guest, knew everything with the delivery by car and what to do at the next restaurant, using the elevator in the kitchen to send the dishes up, carrying the chairs, preparing the table etc.

At the end of the week on my last day I showed them the national clothing of Northern Croatia which was very intersting to them and something totally different from they were used to. In the end Ishikura-san became a 'Zagorec' with 'škrlak' on his head. :-)

I also brought my laptop with photographs of Croatia and a magazine in Japanese so everyone made a break and came to read at the table. :-)

Visiting Anchin by bike

When I changed my host families I was about 1,5-3 kilometers away from the restaurant. I asked if they had a bicycle and they had one which was a special pleasure there go by bike through the street around Gobo. After changing to my 3rd host family that was 1,5 kilometer away I took their bike, checked on the google maps where to go and then came to surprise my first family and the colleagues at the restaurant. I would then leave the bike in front of the store and my hat and headphones inside and then went inside. They were always happy and a bit surprised when they saw me. I would then make a tour around the place and also sneak into the faily house behind and surprise mom Mieko, the rest of the family and our cat Mitsa.

I visited them 3-4 times by bike. Once while staying at the 4rd family I went there for a short visit but they made me have a lunch with them which I did not refuse, ate in the kitchen of the family's house and then decided to stay a bit longer to finish the packing of the cookies and if they needed some other job.

Unexpected visit by camp

Two weeks later when I joined the camp we made a trip to Gobo and Hidaka to visit Doujouji temple. Ishikura-san was also with us. After visiting the temple I wanted to visit my colleagues and I starte running down the portal and stairs from the temple's hill through the street to the restaurant. I greeted everyone again and told me what we had seen with camp (meanwhile I visited Hiroshima, Osaka, Universa Studios Japan and other places), showed them some pictures and promised we were going to see each other at the end of July.

Greetings from Anchin and LC Gobo while in camp

During one of our camp trips around Kansai region we spent one day and a night at hotel near Shirahama beach. After spending several hours in the morning swimming in the Pacific with a very warm sea and sand (and stupid me who forgot to put more sunscream and got sunburnt like a tomato) we enjoyed the fireworks in our honor at the beach in the evening. And then something happend that confused me there and put into a bit uncomfortable situation since I had no idea what was going on. During the fireworks we heard the loud speaker talking in Japanese. I heard several times Lions Club XY including LC Gobo, the name of a few other participants and lastly name of families Ishikura, Yanase, Anchin and Lions Club Gobo. And my name 'Gurego-san' too. I was confused as I had no idea what was happening, should we say something or what. When I came back to Anchin and Gobo after the camp experience they explained me there that my Gobo friends sent me a greeting message while i was in the camp. I felt sorry that I did not understand the message and that noone else there translated what they were talking. I was very happy, proud and full of respect for them what they did. I even got a small present from Mr Ishikura later, a frame with the photo of Shirahama beach and the text in Japanese about me and LC experience there as a memory.

The last day in Japan and Anchin

I spent 2-3 days back in Gobo before going home to Croatia. I wanted to use the opportunity to hang out with the others as much as I can before I leave. Thus I used the opportunity to go by biek again to Anchin, talk with the others and help them a little bit like 3-4 weeks earlier „where it all started.“ There came as well the other people from Lions Club Gobo whereas some knew English so I was able to talk a table about all the experience and thoughts I had during the month there. On my last two days I went there and spent a few hours in total.

On my last day I spent the whole day going around by bike and visiting everyone I knew for the last time (before the next time!). The last on the list to visit were Doujouji to talk with Mr Ono and Anchin. I had to share with the others that today we pack the last cookies together until I return and I was sad. After short visit I told them that I needed go to back now for lunch to my 3rd family Yanase and that I will come once more quickly to them later before entering car for the airport.

And that never happened. We had no time later to go back to Anchin and I missed the opportunity to talk with mom Mieko and my colleagues and friends there as I wanted to. It was good in the end I came to Anchin before lunch as I planned to do it afterwards.

Conclusion and what happened after Japan

It was the strange when I was in Zagreb the other day surrounded with my normal everyday life, family and friends. Just 24 hours earlier I was at the restaurant in Japan!

I stayed in contact with many of them who had Facebook or we have been using Email or Whatsupp/Line to communicate and share the news. Thus they got greeting cards from Croatia, from Dalmatia, and from Vienna during the Christmas holidays. We send each other reports as photographs and so on.

I have to mention a few memorable gifts from Anchin that are going to become the family heritage haha and hopefully be used more frequent soon when I am going to be at home after Austria. When I was leaving the first family and the restaurant they gave me as a gift two wooden original boxes and a circular plate for the sushi and Japanese lunch pack. I was so happy and thankful for them. I also got the high quality chop sticks for the whole family and we tried to eat with them when Madoka was with our family later in August. These are for sure going to be a nice memory on the fantastic days spent in Japan at Anchin and the others. I also recently got a photograph of Ishikura San and one other colleague from the kitchen (the cook who knew about Mirko Filipovic and often checked what I was doing by saying 'so so so') sent by my other friend working there.

Thanks for reading.