Armed with a recommendation from the New York Times travel section’s incredibly trusty 36 Hours feature, we set off for lunch on Monday at Butao Ramen, supposedly one of the finest ramen places in Hong Kong. Accompanied by my aunt, we found ourselves in a tiny dead-end side street buried in the heart of the city’s central district. Most of the shops on the street appeared to be closed — except one. Butao’s popularity meant that a line had formed on the other side of the street.
We got in line and were advised that the wait would be 30 to 45 minutes. The store itself was smaller than many walk-in closets, with only a few tables and chairs that literally spilled out of the storefront onto the sidewalk. Its diners share the table in very close quarters, dressing their ramen with daily special toppings that the store lists each day on its Facebook page.
As we waited, we were invited to fill out little order cards. We could specify what kind of broth we wanted, as well as several different toppings and fixings. Had there not been an English version of the order card, I don’t think we could have figured it out.
We got seated after about 50 minutes — Emmy and my aunt first as two seats opened up, and me after a couple minutes more. We were served very quickly, and I immediately began trying to negotiate the chopsticks and spoon we had been given to enjoy the delicious mix of spicy soup and noodles that lay before me.
Ramen is, perhaps, a uniquely international food. One of my fondest memories of my time studying abroad is a meal with my friend Vernie, whom we’ll be visiting in Singapore, at a wonderful little ramen place called Ki-Mama on Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm’s Östermalm neighborhood. I remember thinking at the time what an idiot I’d been all my life, thinking that ramen was basically instant noodles. In fact, ramen can be as gourmet as you’d like it to be, combining a potent broth with meat, seafood, and any number of vegetables. Originally a Chinese invention, ramen migrated to Japan at some point, and has since become culturally synonymous with that island nation worldwide.
The ramen was incredibly delicious. I cleaned out my bowl of spicy, salty and flavorful noodles as quickly as I knew how — which wasn’t very fast at all, given my low skill level with the utensils. As we left, someone came out from the kitchen to chat with us. When he heard where we were from, he asked whether we had read about them in the Times, and we admitted that we had. It was a very interesting contrast to the dim sum place, which, though also exposed to foreigners in various travel publications, seemed very uninterested in doing anything to welcome tourists and the like.
After our meal, we took the subway under the harbor to the Kowloon side, where we walked to the jade market, a warehouse-like market of stall after stall of jewelry. Emmy was almost convinced by one particularly aggressive saleswoman, but my aunt very helpfully intervened — all of the woman’s jewelry was fake, she said.
We walked back to the subway through a street market that was selling mostly produce, and my aunt chose a bunch of exotic fruit for us to try when we got back to the house. I had never seen most of them before, but dragon fruit and lychee turned out to be delicious, and very unlike anything I had ever had.
When we got back to Repulse Bay, my uncle joined us for a quick dip in the ocean. We sat on the beach for a while, enjoying the twilight and talking about everything under the sun. By the time Emmy and I were ready to head back into town for dinner, it was nearly 9:00, and the restaurant we had chosen turned out to be closed. We ate at an unremarkable Chinese restaurant nearby and headed to Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s busiest bar street. We were still feeling pretty tired from our jet lag, so we nabbed a quick drink at one bar that my cousin had recommended before hopping one of the last buses back to my aunt and uncle’s flat.
Singing along
Written by Chaz on 1 September 2011I began my last full day in Stockholm with the ultimate trip down memory lane: a return to my apartment in Sundbyberg, just outside Stockholm in the direction of Spånga. Erik and I took the tunnelbana to Duvbo, and despite having been up the station’s escalator hundreds of times, I was still impressed by its height and length.
As two years prior, the front door of the apartment building was unlocked, so we went right in to the first landing and saw the door of my apartment. Having done just about enough creeping, we walked down to the center of Sundbyberg and hopped the pendeltåg into Stockholm.
I had two errands to take care of in Stockholm before starting the day’s touristing. First we stopped by the Stockholm tourist bureau to buy a map of the city’s ABBA tour, a gift for my friend Joanna. And second we stopped by an office building downtown to drop off a copy of my friend Vernie’s fantastic senior thesis for her Swedish host family.
After exploring the museum and its grounds, we rode back up to the Djurgården ferry and headed over to Slussen. Once again, the views across to central Stockholm were fantastic.
We walked from Slussen down to Fotografiska Museet, the photography museum, which is new since my time in Stockholm. The museum, perched right on the Baltic by the ferry terminals, was terrific. In particular, I really liked the exhibit of Liu Bolin, a Chinese photographer known as the invisible man because of his knack for painting himself right into a photograph.
We took the tunnelbana up to Odenplan to meet Erik’s friend Jasmin, and as it had begun to rain a bit, we made a beeline for dinner at Ramen Ki-Mama. Both Erik and Jasmin are in Stockholm University’s Japanese studies program, so it was only fitting. It was my first ramen since our ramen in Hong Kong, and I have to say, it compared very favorably. The near-natives approved too, which is worth something.
After dinner, we headed back to Djurgården for a Swedish tradition: “Allsång på Skansen,” a one-hour singalong at Skansen, Stockholm’s outdoor museum, that features well-known Swedish musicians and is broadcast live on Swedish public television. The songs, all widely known in Sweden, are available in a little book, and the host says the number of the song they’re going to sing so that you can find it in your book. The TV broadcast also has the lyrics at the bottom of the screen, karaoke-style. The show had a new host this summer: Måns Zelmerlöw, a pop singer who rose to fame from Swedish Idol and Melodifestivalen. The show also had a “web host,” Anton Lundqvist, who, I was shocked to learn, is younger than I am.
We had seen the show on TV at Lögla, and since the show is free to attend after you’ve bought a ticket to Skansen, I thought it would be pretty cool to go. We arrived a few minutes before the show’s live broadcast began at eight, and immediately wished we had allowed more time.
But we did make it inside in time, and while our viewing spot wasn’t optimal, I had a pretty good view thanks to my height. I was really glad we went! There was a huge crowd, and lots of people had brought signs. It was also a beautiful evening — the rain held off — and the view from Skansen out over the city was great.
Allsång was also interesting to me culturally. I can’t really imagine the U.S. having an equivalent, not least because there aren’t that many songs that the whole country shares as folk knowledge. Sweden is a small enough country that this kind of thing is possible. The show also reflects Swedes’ well-deserved pride in their country and its capital. The show always opens with a song called “Stockholm in my heart,” really a love song to Stockholm.
After the show ended around 9:30, there was still plenty of light, so we took a walk through the Nordic animals section of Skansen, checking out the foxes and the bears. Exhausted, we took the spårvagn back to the central station, where we parted ways with Jasmin and headed back to Spånga. Another wonderful, busy day in Stockholm.
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Tags: Chilling with the locals, Cultural commentary, Ethnic eats, Music, Ramen, Sightseeing, SO MANY PEOPLE, Traditions