2-Years Anniversary - Taking Fresh To A Whole New Level!

(Her: Joanna)

When people talk about Croatia, the beautiful sea view and how gorgeous is the water usually comes up.  But the first thing that pops into my mind was sea urchins.  Not that I stepped on one when I was there.  It was far better.

When we were at Croatia, we went to the Korcula Island.  We hit the beach with a few backpackers we met at Dragon’s Den hostel.  It was hard to find a nice sandy beach at Croatia but there are a few pitches on Korcula Island.  As anywhere else at Croatia, the water was drop-dead gorgeous.  It would have been perfect if they were sandy beaches versus rock beach.  There weren’t much to see close by the beach when we snorkel around but we discovered plenty of sea urchin even in shallow water (it was actually quite dangerous if you didn’t know as we encountered a few people stepped on sea urchin hanging out at the beach that day).   Sea urchins are very sensitive organisms.  You can only find their presence in places with very clean water.  Again, physically proven how great the water in Croatia is.  It is so weird to find so many sea urchin just lying around.  If Japanese and Chinese discover this, I’m pretty sure they will be gone in no time. 

Being Chinese as we are, we picked a couple up and use our swiss army nice to crack the shell up at the beach.  We butchered our first 2 sea urchins not knowing how to cut it open.  It took us a good 15-20 min to crack our first one up and we only get this tiny bit of meat from each sea urchin.  It must be a pretty huge ass sea urchin for those we ate at the sushi bars.  

We threw a few pieces of sea urchin meat into our mouth with caution.  They are so fresh and delicious.  It was hard work to get half a teaspoon of sea urchin.  No wonder they are so expensive. 

We figured if we go somewhere deeper and less people, there will be much bigger and more abundant sea urchin we can catch for free.  So we Youtube “how to cut open a sea urchin” that night and hired a kayak the next day taking our snorkeling gear, soy sauce, a swiss army knife and a spork with us paddling to some small island on a mission to find sea urchins.  As bizarre as it may sound, it was one of the best days I remembered.  It was like any other gorgeous day at Croatia.  Looking into the water from the kayak, the water was so clear that you can see things underneath the water.  The sun was warm but gentle. Deeping my hand into the cool but not chilly water in the middle of the sea with some breeze blowing into my face while I leaned my head back being lazy and letting the warmth of the sun engulfed me was worth a million buck. 

We found an island in the middle of nowhere full of pebbles and with a few shrubs here and there to park our kayak. The water gradually deepens as we struggled walking toward the sea with the seabed made out of piles of huge but slimy rocks.  Charlie was having a much easier time than me walking on those rocks. The barnacles on the rock hurt my feet.  Charlie signaled me to stay close to shore while he went deeper into water and dive down.  After a few minutes, he came back up with a sea urchin at least twice as big as those we picked up from the beach yesterday.  With the spikes, he can only pick one up at a time.  Charlie picked up 6 sea urchins with a few trips.  We wished we have diving gears as Charlie spotted a few real big ones but was too deep for him to free dive down to get. 

We walked bare foot back to the kayak with the sea urchins fighting the hot peddles wishing we have bought the flip flops closer to where we entered the water.  But it was all worth it!  After learning from the Youtube video last night, we were much more efficient in opening the sea urchin today.  Every bit was that much more delicious enhanced by the soy sauce we bought.  All the hard work was worth it.  I totally didn’t’ expect to have sea urchin sashimi fresh from the sea at an Eastern European country caught by ourselves!

There is a saying that “Chinese eat anything with legs on the ground and the back facing the sky” (I think French comes into a close second).  I, then, realized how true that is.

Day 59: Home

(Her: Joanna)

Don’t know since when I shifted from being “I’m from Hong Kong” to “I’m from Canada”.  I feel excited to talk about how beautiful Vancouver is and promoting Whistler to other backpackers.  Unlike my trips to Australia, Asia, South America and Western Europe, Eastern European talks about Canada as the “promised land”.  I’ve only heard of this term describing Canada in text books.  It is so strange to hear it from people.  Traveling through the Eastern European countries and learning what had happened to them, relatively, Canada is a “promised land”.  The peace and security, I now learn, is not a guaranteed thing for every country.  We, Canadian, are a lucky bunch.  I’m proud to be Canadian.  One thing I love traveling is that it allows you to see and helps you realize and appreciate things that you have.

Happy Canada Day!!!

Day 59: Illusion?! Are the fishes in the water or in the air?

(Her :  Joanna)

We bumped into a backpacker on a train to Ljubljana that Plitvice is a must go but it is a pain in the ass to get to by public transportation.  We met a pair of young couple, Eric and Rena, from San Francisco at the hostel we stayed in at Pula who was also heading to Zadar the same day.  We sold them on going to Plitvice with us.

After 4 hours of painstaking search of car rental (thanks to Eric and Charlie), we finally got one.  Plitvice National Park was well worth the effort and the 2-hours drive!  The water was ridiculously clear.  You can see right through the bottom.  After you starred at the water for a while, you get confused whether the fishes are in the water or in the air.  I have never seen any water so clear ever in my life.   There were also a few waterfall, though not as spectacular as Iguazu Fall in Brazil/Argentina, the turquoise color water with the sun shining onto it is a beauty in another way.

On our way back to Zadar, Eric, who was in his early 20s asked us some questions surrounding the theme of “do you feel that you are old?” and advices.  At that moment I realized that these are some of the questions in my mind when I was in my early 20s that I used to ask people older than me for advice.  I hate to but have to admit that I’m no longer the amateur, inexperience baby who just graduated from college as my colleges more senior of me used to say.