My last meeting before leaving Boston today was in Burlington, a suburb that is about half an hour outside of Boston proper. I wasn’t sure what the traffic would be like, as Google Maps estimated that my car ride would take anywhere from 30 minutes to a full 55 minutes to arrive from the Downtown Crossing area of Boston. So of course, I left an hour early only to arrive half an hour too early for my meeting.

As I sat in the lobby of my customer’s corporate headquarters waiting for my hosts to come pick me up, I marveled at the fact that I was sitting right in the middle of what I consider hell: in the boonies of suburbia, a corporate office park where every single person, whether against their own will or not, likely has to drive to work every single day. They have to drive and park their car in the lot outside, and then, when the work day is over, they have to go to their car, pull out of the lot, and leave.

People love to hate on Manhattan and say it’s too crowded, too busy, that traffic is a mess. But really, I don’t care about traffic here because I’m not driving in it. I’m taking the subway, then walking a few blocks to work. One of the best things, to me, about living in New York City is that pretty much no one (sane, anyway) drives to work. We can literally take the train or bus, then walk right into our office. No car to park. No parking lot. None of that. Walk right in. That just sounds so glorious to me.

One of my brother-in-law’s absolute favorite topics to discuss is whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert. He especially loves to say that his brother, Chris, is an introvert, which is the opposite of what most people who know Chris would say. I guess the two of us are both in that bucket; we’re both fairly introverted, but most people who know us as outgoing, gregarious, friendly people would say we are definitely extroverted. I have a lot of extroverted qualities; I am fearless when it comes to meeting new people. I have zero problem going up to a stranger and introducing myself. I also frequently make conversations with strangers when I am alone, regardless of whether the other person initiates it or not. I’m just curious in that way, I suppose.

Well, I know for a fact that I am introverted because one of the most telltale signs that you are an introvert is that when you are around people you do not know well where you have to make an effort to get to know them, to dig deeper and peel away all those onion layers, you feel exhausted once the time is over. I had two nearly back-to-back customer meetings today in Boston, with two video meetings in between both, and I felt so tired after. I wanted nothing to do with anyone. I didn’t even really want to leave my hotel room other than to grab a quick dinner to go and bring it back to my room to eat in silence by myself. The meetings were productive, mind you; I got all the information I needed from these meetings. I shared what I outlined to share via my agenda. But when they were done, I was so happy.

These are the moments when you really do need time to yourself, when you’ve spent a lot of time socializing out of necessity, in this case, for business reasons, and need time to recharge. And the only way to recharge is to be alone, at ease in one’s aloneness and silence.

Today, Chris decided that we would take a day trip from Porto to what is often considered the birthplace of Portugal, or the ‘cradle city’ of Portugal because it is widely believed that Portugal’s first king was born there, and also due to the fact that the battle that led to the foundation of the Kingdom of Portugal was fought in the general area. Guimaraes is famous for its many castles, but unfortunately for us, we didn’t have too much daylight time to see a lot of it. We were able to have time to wander through its historic streets and also dine at a delicious local restaurant that we had to navigate through a parking lot and side alleys to get to.

At this point, we’d eaten so many delicious dishes during our Portugal trip, but this particular meal was especially notable given how local it was (it felt like local people who knew the owners were dining there, and we heard no other language other than Portuguese other than our own), how hidden it was through a parking lot, and how simple, short, and straightforward the menu of the day was. Simple is not a code-word for “boring” or “bland” at all here; instead, we had two of the most traditional and tasty dishes of our trip here. We enjoyed tripas a Portuguesa (traditional Portuguese tripe, pork, and white bean stew) with buttered rice and bacalao com nata, or salted cod baked with cream and what seemed like cheese, in an earthenware dish with a crunchy breadcrumb top. We also had the vinho verde, or “green wine” also known as a local young red wine (hence the “green” in the name) that is made from young grapes and has a thick viscosity.. it honestly reminded me of pouring blood out into a bowl. You drink it not out of regular wine glasses, but rather out of rice-shaped bowls like in Chinese cuisine. The dishes were simple but so comforting and homey. I kept eating more and more of the stew, struck by how simple the flavors were but how good it all tasted. The white beans were so soft and creamy, and the tripe had a little bit of chew and almost melted in my mouth. And the bacalau — this was very likely my favorite way that bacalau was prepared during this trip.

Portuguese tripe stew was actually on my original list of dishes I wanted to eat while in Porto, but here we had it in Guimaraes, which is close by. According to stories I read, tripe stew is a symbol of the Oporto people’s generosity, as according to the legend when Henry the Navigator was preparing his ships to conquer Ceuta in 1415, he asked the people of Oporto to donate supplies to stock the Portuguese navy. Well, they apparently donated so much that they had nearly nothing left to eat other than tripe.  However, that did not mean starvation for the people. Instead, they used their imagination to create this amazing recipe, which granted them the nickname of “tripeiros” or “tripe eaters.” 

I love stories like this when people use in cooking what would once be considered “poor people’s food” and turn their limited ingredients into something delicious that would eventually be treasured by a whole people.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the infamous Harry Potter book series and movies, once taught English in Porto and frequented the Livrario Lello, a bookstore in the town that goes back to the 1800s. She loved this bookstore so much that it’s been said it is one of her inspirations for Harry Potter. And you can certainly see the influences, from the stained glass ceiling above, the circular staircase that is in the center of the bookshop, to the old and classic facade. Once Harry Potter took off, the bookstore could not handle all of the tourists that came to visit, so it started to charge a small fee for entrance that visitors could use towards any book purchase. In a day and age when more and more bookstores are going out of business, this actually is a really good business model. People will come for the Harry Potter inspiration, and while they’re at it, why not buy a book and use the credit they paid to get in towards it?

It’s amazing that they were able to preserve the original look and feel of the bookstore so well, and continue to do refurbishments to keep the look the same. It’s one of the most unique and beautiful bookstores I’ve ever been in.

Our Thanksgiving meal in Porto last night was reserved months in advance. We had so many beautiful meals in Spain, Portugal’s neighbor, that I figured that Portugal would also have a number of fine-dining interpretations of Portuguese cuisine that would be interesting to try. One of the spots that was highly recommended and has a Michelin star is Pedro Lemos. It opened in 2009 by a chef of the same name, and this restaurant is a modern interpretation of the local Portuguese cuisine with some international twists. It’s located in Foz, which is a historic and very residential neighborhood in Porto.

All the dishes we were served in our multi course tasting menu were delicious, creative, tinged with Asian influences, and beautifully plated on colorful and ornate pieces of local pottery (of course, since we are in Portugal, all the ceramics are going to be stunners and custom crafted). We were even served a bottle of local wine that is two years older than me for a price that was so low that it would be unheard of back home. But one of the most interesting things of the night to me, other than the food itself, was listening to the dishes described to us in English with Portuguese accents, and noticing how certain things were said.

We’re really lucky that we learned English as a first (well for me, semi-first since I learned English and Toisan at the same time) language. There are so many nuances in this language that are hard to understand, from variations on pronunciations on certain sounds and letters to even sentence structure, that make very little sense when you speak another language first. When I studied French, I really struggled to understand when to use an article before a word or not (do you say “people” or “the people”?). There was a rule, but there were five million exceptions that “you just need to know and remember,” as my French teacher said. When you say “of the world,” do you say “du monde (which is “de” and “le” combined, or “of the”), or “de monde” (“of world)? It’s not consistent, and what is correct in this example varies depending on the exact use case. When I started to formally learn Chinese in college, I realized that the sentence structure is so simple, especially since there are no tenses in Chinese. But that makes it even harder to get English as a second language as a native Chinese speaker. For example, in Chinese, if you want to say “I like to eat Chinese food” in Chinese, it would be (in pinyin): “Wo xihuan chi zhongguo cai” (literally: “I like eat China food”). So when I learned this, I realized, ah, that’s why sometimes people who are speaking English as second language after Chinese forget to use articles in speech (“to”) or they say the country name instead of the adjective (“China” versus “Chinese”).

When the server was done describing each dish to us, she’d always end it by saying, “Enjoy it.” In the U.S. or any English-speaking country, you would know you’d never hear this. In fact, this short sentence is a quick giveaway that even without her accent that she speaks English as a second language. Instead, with a native English speaker, you’d hear the person say, “Enjoy.” But, when learning from a romance language, you rarely say a verb as a standalone and that’s it; you say the verb then the object, which is why our server said “enjoy it” rather than “enjoy.”

This reminds me to be more empathetic to people who are learning English as a second language, and of course, to remind myself that my own second language capabilities are so little in a country like Portugal, where it’s common for people to know two to three languages fluently.

After the last bits of gallivanting around Lisbon, we boarded a train that was Porto bound. In just a couple hours, we’d be in the city famous for port wines, or, really, old rich white men’s after-hour drinks.

While getting situated into our seats, I noticed a number of Americans on the train with us. One group was three generations of a family: a husband and wife, likely just a little older than us, with their five-month old son, their 5-year-old daughter, and the husband’s parents. We made some small talk; I found out that the husband and wife lived in D.C., while his parents lived in upstate New York. They loved to travel and didn’t want to stop when they had kids, so they’d bring their kids with extra gear with them to every place they wanted to go to. “It’s just a little extra to pack — that’s all!” the husband said to me, smiling, while holding his young infant son. He’d also sold his parents on the value of traveling during Thanksgiving given that many Americans get both Thanksgiving day and the day after off, so they’ve been using this time to explore internationally. And his parents seemed fully bought in. “In so many places, it’s low season, so it’s not only less crowded, but it’s cheaper!” the husband’s mom said to me. “I don’t know why we never thought of this before! But now we’ll be doing this more often.”

I did notice a lot more American tourists in Lisbon with us. While I’m all for the less common American route of traveling during Thanksgiving, I do not necessarily want to hear American accents and English while I am traveling abroad much. But I do commend them for taking the road less traveled and traveling, especially during a period when most Americans would never even think to do it.

Our exploration of Lisbon continued, and even more so of the divinities that make up Portuguese cuisine. While we treated ourselves to delicious local seafood on Monday, today, we tried the famous Portuguese egg tarts from Pasteis de Belem, famed for using the ancient recipe once used by nuns at the Jeronimos Monastery, Portuguese piri piri spicy chicken, Mozambican cuisine (given Portugal’s proximity to Africa, many Africans and thus their different countries’ cuisines are represented here widely), and Portuguese wine and cheese. Chris declared the pastel de nata (egg tart) from Pasteis de Belem the best egg tart he’d ever eaten. He rarely gets that visibly excited about anything, but after waiting in a short line (he absolutely hates waiting for anything), he purchased four egg tarts and said to me, “Okay, we’re getting four and then we’re leaving.” But I insisted we eat them there and take pictures. After taking his first bite, he exclaimed, “Holy crap. That’s the best egg tart I’ve ever eaten in my life,” then immediately and without hesitation made a beeline back to the counter to buy four more.

Chris grew up eating Nando’s piri piri chicken, so he was especially interested to try the famed Portuguese chicken while in Portugal. I’d enjoyed it with him a couple times during visits to Australia, and while I always thought it was tasty, nothing could have compared to the piri piri chicken we had today at a tiny hole-in-the-wall during lunchtime. We were served a little chicken (you know, the way they were before Americans decided to fatten them up and make them double the size of what they should naturally be), less than 1 kilo in weight, that was spatchcocked, marinated, and roasted over coals and a vibrant fire, constantly basted with additional piri piri marinade (the piri piri pepper originates in Southeast Africa, but was spread by the Portuguese to India). And finally, once the little bird is done roasting over high flames, the cook gives it one last brush with the piri piri oil glaze, chops it up ,and serves it to us on a long platter.

The smell was making me salivate as we waited for it. And when it arrived at the table, there was no mistaking it; it actually smelled and tasted somewhat like the Sichuanese (hua jiao) peppercorn chili oil I’ve been so used to having, just mixed with lots of herbs, spices, and the delicious smell of coal. The roasted coal flavor was evident, and the meat was moist throughout. This was probably one of the absolute best roast chickens I’d ever had in my life. In my humble opinion, this made Nando’s seem plain. The kicker really was the piri piri oil they brushed on at the end, which gave the chicken a slightly numbing and floral flavor. I was so sad when we were at our last bites. I kept licking my fingers and trying to mop up the remaining chili oil at the bottom of the plate with my last tiny bites.

The other delicious and surprising thing we ate today was at a random wine bar that we tucked into when the on-and-off rain came on again. It was a quaint little bar with no more than four or five small tables, a short menu of nibbles and local wines, and one server working there. We enjoyed two glasses each of local wine, ridiculously cheap for the quality and complexities, and since we were getting a little hungry but not too much from having two mini lunches earlier, we decided to eat a bit lighter and ordered a cheese plate, only 12 euros, which included five different local cheese, some mini toasts, and a little cup of house-made pumpkin jam.

I could honestly say that this cheese plate we ordered was one of my absolute favorite cheese plates I’ve ever had. I’ve always loved cheese, though I don’t really eat much of it, but this cheese plate really was the best and most interesting one I’ve ever had (and such a deal). Before we arrived in Portugal, I did a lot of research on the local food, and overall from food lovers who have visited Portugal, it’s pretty much agreed upon that Portugal is completely underrated for 1) wine, 2), olive oil, 3) bread, and 4) cheese. The cheeses of this multicultural and diverse country should be more known and celebrated, but I suppose they are like the Swiss with their delicious wines; they’d rather enjoy it and keep it to themselves rather than export it to other countries to make more money off of them; it’s a very anti-capitalist attitude, isn’t it? We enjoyed amarelo da Beira Baixa, a herby goat-and-sheep milk mix cheese, a cow’s milk cheese, two firmer sheep’s milk cheeses, and a softer goat milk’s cheese. They all went so well with the pumpkin jam, which I wanted to bottle and bring home with me. They were all a mix of grassy, vegetal, creamy, tangy, complex, and sweet. I looked back at pictures of the cheese plate when we returned to the hotel, and none of the pictures could do the cheese justice. they just look like cheese on a wooden board, but these cheese were truly spectacular.

It’s okay that we can’t get these cheeses as easily back home. I guess it’s one of those bittersweet things about travel; sometimes, it’s probably just better to enjoy the local foods and drinks in that area rather than trying to bottle and bring it back home. It makes it more special that way, and we’re then more grateful for the fact that we can be so lucky to travel to these lush regions with their incredible food.

Like many children probably did and still do, I used to tell my parents that I wanted to live  in Disneyland. Known as the “happiest place on earth,” with castles, oversized teacups, and song, Disneyland is the epitome of every child’s dreamworld.

I still love Disneyland and Disney, despite their artificial, commercialized creations of happiness and gender role implications, and the false idea that once you get married, it truly is happily ever after and smooth sailing from there on out. But what is actually even more exciting to me than Disneyland is the romance and enchantment that exists in real life, both in nature and what has been man made in history. Sintra, Portugal, is like the multicultural European Disneyland for adults, full of picturesque terrain, majestic mountains, and a large concentration of historical castles, palaces, and estates that have given the town its UNESCO World Heritage status.

We took a day trip to Sintra today, exploring the town, visiting three major sites: Quinta da Regaleira, the Palacio da Pena (Pena Palace), and the Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors). Quinta da Regaleira was an estate built in the 1800s and passed on from one wealthy family to another, but what makes it quirky is not its romantic palace and chapel, but instead its lush park filled with lakes, grottoes, wells, and fountains. The wells, called the Initiation Wells, are the strangest feature about it that seem like they came straight out of a fairy tale. It was known that these wells were never truly used as water sources, but instead as underground towers that were used for ceremonial purposes, including Tarot initiation rites. The windy and dark tunnels on the property connected the wells, in addition to other caves and grotto areas. Pena Palace, built in the mid-1800s, was one of the most eclectic and interesting castles I’d ever visited due to its unique mix of architectural styles, combining Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Neo-Islamic, and Neo-Renaissance. As soon as we got closer as we climbed the steep hills of the Sintra Mountains to get to the palace, I noticed many elements of the arches and the detailing of the designs that resembled Persian-Mughal architecture that we saw in Agra and Jaipur, India, during our summer trip. There was much in common with the detailing here, which I wasn’t expecting at all, but was a really pleasant surprise. It made the Pena Palace even more exciting in taking in all the different towers, arches, tiles, and pillars. It was like an intersection of culture being represented in the form of a palace.

One of the things that traveling has made me more aware of and want to learn more about is all the history I missed while I was in school. History was never that fun of a topic to me, but that’s partly because it was never connected to real life… or at least, that’s how I perceived it. There was no connection to real people or places for me. But it’s different when you’re learning history as you are traveling to different places. You’re taking these sights and sounds in and learning more about it by reading about how these places came to be. And that’s always going to fascinating if you really care about what is in front of your eyes. Sintra really is the fairy tale city that I never knew existed. It’s like Disneyland in real life, and not an amusement park.

We arrived in Lisbon just after midday today after a connecting flight from Madrid, and the weather was surprisingly holding up despite weather report threats of rain. Based on just a day here, it’s a lot like what I expected: hilly, colorful, lots of random street art, endless beautiful printed and painted tiles on buildings, both commercial and residential, and thankfully nowhere as crowded as crazy tourist magnet cities like Paris, London, and Venice. On certain streets, it just felt like it was us and a bunch of locals, leisurely strolling to get from point A to point B. Some hills were so steep that they required steps; it was like an older, more colorful and historic version of San Francisco.

The coffee and baked goods are as rich and delicious as I was expecting; the coffee was beautifully roasted, strong, and cheap at just 1.10 euros. The pastry we shared, a pao de deus, was thick crumbed, dense, moist, and topped with a large amount of sweetened and buttered coconut. We later had dinner at a restaurant that was recommended by a YouTube food traveler we follow and watch avidly named Mark Wiens, and we enjoyed their oysters, crab soup, sea bream fish, and octopus. Everything was so fresh and tasty; the octopus was Chris’s favorite octopus dish he’d ever had – thinly sliced, grilled, tender, and flavorful, not even a hint of rubbery texture. The fish was extremely moist and so good with the Portuguese olive oil it was served with.

I read a lot of different reviews for restaurants across cities we’d be visiting in Portugal, and it is always such a turn off whenever a review starts with a massive bias or outright disgust for some country’s food. One person who reviewed this restaurant started his review with, “Not a fan of Portuguese food and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but this place was an exception!” So what, are we supposed to respect this place even more now and want to try it because you are so bigoted that you would X out every single one of the dishes in this entire country of 10 million people? I just don’t get how people want to seem like they are cultured or well-traveled when they make such ignorant and stupid comments like this.