We took a short Winter trip to the west coast to visit some friends! Drive from Redwood City to Big Sur Big Sur! Pauls amazing photography! Napa Lots of wine at Robert Mondovi! The French Laundry, Yountville, CA San Francisco Lunch at Cockscomb in San Francisco
Our second stay in Tokyo was in Roppongi, a bustling area famous for its night life. We stayed in an awesome one bedroom apartment through Airbnb. Tokyo is so, so big that it’s really hard to get a grasp on all there is to do, but for these couple of days, the main attraction and …
We left Osaka and headed South into the mountains early on Thursday morning. Mount Koya is a really small, quiet town in the mountains; accessible by 1 train, 1 bus and 1 rather exciting cable car. The town is essentially run by Buddhist Monks. There are not really any standard hotels but the Monks open …
After our short stay in Kobe we arrived in Osaka, the second largest city in Japan with 19 million people. We stayed there for 4 nights, spending our time exploring covered open air markets, walking around and eating in busy neighbourhoods and taking a day trip to nearby Nara. Here are a couple of the …
We went to Kobe for 1 night and 1 reason – to eat Kobe beef. Kobe Beef at lunch before it was cooked. They bring the meat out out so you can see it, and then they cook it for you, and cut it up into cubes. The meat is commonly served with fried garlic, …
We left Hakone/Miyanoshita on Thursday afternoon and headed for Kyoto. This time of year Kyoto is a huge destination for Japanese and other Asian tourists because of the abundance of amazing Cherry Blossoms. This weekend specifically is the one that most target on their calendars as the perfect time to come see them in full …
From Toyko, we took a train ride to Hakone, which is about 100 km SW of Tokyo. Hakone is much smaller and more rural than Toyko, with a population of ~13 thousand. Once we got to Hakone, we took a short but slow train ride up the mountain, with switchbacks every once in a while. …
We spent 3 days in Tokyo – the most populous metropolitan area in the world, home to an astounding 36 million people. During our three days, we explored a few different disricts (Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Harujuku) explored a few parks (Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Yoyogi Park), caught a local baseball game and even hit a …
Yes, we are here! Long flight and always exhausting trying to navigate new airports and transit systems but all is good. Key things so far: Tokyo Metro is really big, really efficient and surprisingly easy to navigate in English. Pocket WiFi is amazing and should exist everywhere. Toilets have anywhere between 5-10 additional buttons/switches/handles than …
The Cinque Terre is made up of 5 small towns along the West coast of Italy. We stayed in Manarola, which is the second most south of the 5 towns. We chose to go to the Cinque Terre based on many recommendations from people at home, and people along the way on our trip who …