Japan! Days 0.5, 1, 2 and 3

We got to Osaka around 7:30PM on Wednesday, but still had a pretty great evening with the time that we did have. Our place was right near Tsutenkaku tower, in Shinsekai. This area is touted as being the old (which it is) part of town that is now seedy (we didn't notice this at all). We had a. Incredible meal of high quality sushi that set us back about $85 CAD. The next two days were all over Osaka and then yesterday, Saturday, we came to Kyoto. We'll be here another two full days and then off to Kobe, Okunoshima and Hiroshima.

Here are some videos that show, in a nutshell, what we got up to!

Sushi selection at a supermarket in Osaka!

 

Day 1 in Kyoto

 Day 2 in Kyoto

Affording Food in Korea

Coming from Canada, we knew it would be a bit tricky finding the particular health foods that we were used to buying at home. We eat a lot of organic, and fresh produce and it's everywhere. In coming to Korea, we expected it to be a little more difficult to find the stuff, and variety that we're used to, at the prices we're accustomed to paying. We knew it would be difficult, but because we're in a rural town, it's even more difficult. Frozen blueberries cannot be found, avocados are $3+ each, apples are $1.50 - $2.00 each... Produce (unless locally grown) is expensive here, if available at all. We're slowly developing a strategy for food and supplements that allows us to get what we need / want.

Our current strategy is 4 fold.

1 - Hwarang Mart - Our local grocery store. We get basics there like lettuce, seaweed, eggs and a few others.

2 - The local market - we get some produce here also, but still not a 'write home about it' value. Every 5 days there is an extra big market day with a TON of vendors selling pretty much the same stuff. We get fresh fruit and vegetables there often also.

3 - iHerb has been a lifesaver. The prices are pretty good. We make at least a 4 or 5 purchases a month through iHerb for everything from vitamins and fish oil to protein powder, flours, nuts and seeds. Here's a short list of what we buy fairly regularly.

Greens – http://bit.ly/1SNOwrO
       Great ingredient profile and I trust the brand. Taste is mediocre, but it's greens. 

Omega 3 – http://bit.ly/1OPKy1u
       Can't go wrong with NOW foods brand. They source the oil from small, cold water fish and it's molecularly distilled, so we like. 

Vit D – http://bit.ly/1DaCBCS
        NOW Vit D. For the winter mainly, but still good to take here and there throughout the summer. 

Chia – http://bit.ly/1Mx6al5
        An absolute staple in our diet. We go through a lot of this so we always buy in bulk for extra savings. 

Probiotic – http://bit.ly/1glb9s8
         Mercola brand is top notch. These probiotics are not cheap, but they are incredibly good quality. Neither of us have gotten sick while here (first 5.5 months) and I attribute that in large part to these beauties. 

Pea Protein – http://bit.ly/1U86CaO
        Julia's plant protein. Good value and she loves the taste.

Enzymes – http://bit.ly/1LYQC9N
          We use some digestive enzymes on occasion if we're going out for dinner or eating something out of the ordinary. 

Stevia – http://bit.ly/1DQuQwM
           I prefer stevia to sugar. :

Whey – http://bit.ly/1DaDfR5
            Brian's protein. No bells and whistles, just the basics.

Cocoa – http://bit.ly/1DaDivW
             Straight cocoa. No sugar, but nice to add to chia or smoothies. 

Coconut Oil - http://bit.ly/1LSfDSs
             If you don't fry your food with coconut oil, check yourself. 

B Complex - http://bit.ly/1IrsHIM
           B Vitamins - energy, stress etc... Good stuff. 

If interested in any of these products (or anything else on iHerb) and you're a new customer, go here:

iHerb New Customer

and use coupon code JKM400 at checkout to save $10!

4 -  GMarket. GMarket is like amazon / ebay. You can buy just about anything. We've been finding more and more stuff on GMarket that we're going to start buying. Frozen blueberries and avocados are a couple of examples. Avocados are 11 for $22, so a definite savings there! We can save by buying some things in bulk. 

Below are some random photos of the products we've bought through iHerb and GMarket as well as our local market / street vendors: 

 

Creamy Brussels Sprout Slaw

This Salad is a great combination of sweet, tangy and fresh, and loaded with quality nutrition. Brussels sprouts are a great source of a number of vitamins and minerals, particularly Folate, Vitamin K and Vitamin C.  With the health fats from pecans and extra virgin olive oil, as well as the garlic, this is also a great heart healthy meal. Just remember to not go too overboard with the dressing, as it is fairly calorie dense, and dressings and sauces are where people tend to go overboard and end up consuming many more calories than they think they are.

Salad

1.5 lbs brussels sprouts, thinly sliced

1 large navel orange, flesh removed from skin

1 cup dried cranberries

1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

 

 

Wash brussels sprouts, cut off ends, cut from top to bottom and slice very finely with a sharp knife (or use a food processor with a shredding disc) and place in a large bowl. Peel orange, open into segments and remove skin from the flesh. Use your hands to break apart flesh into small pieces. Top with dried cranberries and chopped pecans. Mix well to combine.

 

 

Dressing

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

Juice of 2 small lemons (or 1 regular sized)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil/avocado oil

1/2 cup tahini paste

3 tsp. miso

3 tsp. maple syrup

3/4 cup water

Prepare the dressing by whisking all ingredients in a mixing bowl (or combine using a food processor).

 

That's it! Pour the dressing over a portion of salad (be careful not to go overboard!) and enjoy! Also keep in mind that the base of this salad is Brussels Sprouts. Just saying.

 

Plant Based

With so many 'diets' out there these days, the understanding of each can easily get misconstrued through second hand (or third or fourth of fifth etc) interpretation. So many claim to be the ideal way of eating, but how can that be true for everyone? It's our opinion that you should eat the foods that make you feel and perform the best, that you enjoy the taste of, that fit your lifestyle from a 'time to prepare' standpoint and that you simply believe in. We believe in a plant based diet.

A Plant Based diet is one that focuses on getting the nutrition your body needs from plants (duh). While Julia is a "vegan" (because she uses no products whatsoever that are animal derived, in whole or part, including cosmetics, clothing, accessories, cleaning supplies etc) her diet is 'plant focused'. A 'vegan' diet doesn't necessarily mean a healthy diet. Coke, oreos, French fries etc, all vegan, but don't necessarily resemble plants, and certainly don't improve health and performance. A truly plant based diet focuses on whole, unprocessed plant foods. Fruit, vegetables, beans, grains etc. Our diet is largely fruits and vegetables, some grains (mostly those that are gluten free), nuts, seeds, & beans. We do use some nutritional supplements to get additional protein in our diet, typically adding plant protein powders to smoothies.

We focus on creating meals that fit certain criteria:
1. They need to taste amazing. This is left to Julia.
2. They need to provide a balance of macro and micronutrients.
3. They need to be realistic in terms of time for preparation. We're both busy and so the quicker we can whip 'em up, the better.

If you're not vegan, not a big deal. A lot of the meals we create can easily be accompanied by fish, chicken, beef, etc. We just urge you to buy free range, grass fed, wild caught, organic etc. Better for you, better for the animal, better for the world.

Bottom line is that you really can get everything your body needs from sources that are not animal derived. Just because we were brought up on milk, meat and potatoes, cheese and crackers, lunch meats and a plethora of other animal products that we're led to believe 'do our body good', doesn't necessarily mean we need to still believe this.

We urge you to do some self exploration. Try some different ways of eating. Cut out certain foods, adopt new ones, see what foods make you feel best and regain your health, energy and life!

Some Details of Our Resupply Strategy

April 28th. That’s our official start date. It’s on paper, it’s planned and we can’t wait for it to come! The other date is April 14th, our wedding date!

We’ve done SO much planning in the past while. So many details have been clarified and we’re feeling more and more confident going into it.

Our resupply strategy:

Thanks to Abby, we have a resupply strategy that we’re extremely comfortable with. Abby is a close friend of Julia’s family and just so happens to live in California. She’s offered to help us out with some of our resupply boxes. Certain towns that we go into along this trail will consist of nothing more than a gas station, convenience store and a post office. In those circumstances, Abby will mail us a box that we can pick up at the Post Office that will have everything we need for the next stretch. Luckily for us, from Campo to Tehachpai (where we'll get off trail to go to Bakersfield for a few days) there are plenty of good spots to resupply so Abby will only have to send us one box, that we'll prepare here in Ottawa and mail to her, that she will then mail to us on trail in mid May. This may sound complicated, and it is, but it makes complete sense to us now!! I've learned an immense amount from a handful of guys (Dug (Rawhide), Adam (Krudmeister), Paul (Outpost), Tamsin and Chris) who are all vets of this trail. Tamsin and Chris are also both Canadian, so they offered some advice that is specific to us Canadians.

Bounce Box:

A bounce box is simply a box that you continuously mail to yourself along the trail. It is typically used to hold supplies, equipment and specialty foods that you may not find everywhere. There's no sense in carry maps for the ENTIRE trail, so what you do is just split them all up in sections and only take the ones you need with you and send the rest ahead in your bounce box! Same goes for certain articles of clothing that may be needed in colder or warmer temperatures. We'll also use our bounce box in cases where we arrive in a town with a
great resupply store, though the next stop won't be so great. We'll buy enough food for the next stretch and then send some ahead in the bounce box to the next stop.

Certain stops REQUIRE that you send your boxes VIA UPS, others don't have outgoing mail and others charge you an arm and a leg to get your boxes. This all has to be accounted for as well.

Kennedy Meadows is one important stop. It's the last stop before you enter the Sierras and it's where you pick up two important pieces of equipment; a bear canister (ours are Bear Vault BV500) and an ice axe (ours are Camp Corsa Nanotech). You also have a LONG stretch of around 174 miles between there and the next stop of Vermillion Valley Resort. This means you'll need a ton of food, especially since your appetite will go through the roof as you work much harder climbing over serious mountain passes. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS SERIOUS! AND HEAVY!

Food Matters: Reloaded

Over the past few months we've put in some serious time dehydrating food and vacuum sealing individual portions that we were planning on putting in resupply boxes that would be mailed to us along the trail. Then we began to question our plan. What about customs? What if we have a box sent to us, only to be held up in customs, or even worse, denied entry to the US altogether? We’d get to a town expecting to be able to pick up our food for the next stretch, and there’d be nothing there for us. I asked around and got even more discouraged to go with this method, as it’s just TOO risky, not to mention the postage costs. That we knew about and we okay with, but the uncertainty of these expensive little boxes of joy actually getting to us, well that kyboshed the whole operation.

NEW PLAN! (tentative as Julia has her reservations as to the details)

Many people utilize a “buy-as-you-go” method. I’ve read a few peoples’ experiences with it and this is, given our situation, how I think WE should go about it.

Firstly, we’ll have to get a really sturdy “box” (one each) that we can use as a bounce box. A bounce box is exactly as you’d expect. It’s a box that you mail to yourself, continually bouncing it up the trail as you go. When we get to a “bigger town” that has adequate resupply facilities (a decent grocery store) we’ll resupply for the next stretch as well as put some stuff in our bounce box to send ahead to the next town that may not have as good of a grocery store. Some places will only have gas station convenience stores that carry junk food and the basics.  In some rare situations, we’ll have to squeeze in some stuff for a couple stretches, but may be able to find some “basics” along the way, or eat out of hiker boxes every now and again. These are boxes in which people ditch food that they are sick of eating and don’t want to carry.

I have no doubt that we’ll get into situations where we can’t find the quality foods that we want, and variety for a few days will be lacking, but that will only be a few days out of about 18 weeks. We’ll survive.

Julia also has a very close family friend (that I’ve met as well on a number of occasions) that lives in Bakersfield, California. We MAY (?) be able to have her mail us a couple of pre-prepared boxes to a couple SELECT locations. One important one would be Kennedy Meadows. That’s where we need to pick up our ice axes and bear vaults for the Sierras. It would be fantastic if we could mail these to her long in advance and then get off the trail near her place for a couple days to set-up the few boxes she would send to us.

I think the costs incurred along the trail, buying food as we go and maybe staying a few extra nights in motels / campgrounds and the extra cost of the extra bounce box (we’d have one anyhow) will be made up by not having to buy all the food NOW, dehydrate it (electricity ain’t cheap!) and then mail it (this would be insane expensive) as per our initial plan.

I’m comfortable with it. She needs some more convincing / details first. J

There’s only about 134 days until we hit the trail, maybe less.