Wandering…

I had not heard about Japanese Manhole covers before we got here but they are amazing. I started noticing them and took some pictures. It is indeed a whole thing – Japan Manhole Cover Society (if you want to really dive in). Here are some of the ones we came across: We want to the…

January 18, 2024 Today will be today for 38 hours or so. We awoke in Tokyo on Thursday, January 18th. We had a final breakfast at a Japanese hotel and then set off for a few hours in Tokyo. This time we were near Tokyo station which has a much more business feel. Our final…

January 17, 2024 Today we started our journey home. We left Hiroshima and headed toward Tokyo and our flight back to the US. The journey is about 4 hours on the train, but we have a stop to make on the way. Early in the trip, we looked into going to the Studio Ghibli Museum…

January 16, 2024 Today we decided to visit Fukuoka which is the further west we will go on this trip in Japan. We found Fukuoka because I misspelled the city I was looking forward. When we go to a city I have been grabbing sites that talk about the top XX things to do in…

January 15, 2024 After breakfast at the hotel we walked down to the Peace park. The first stop was the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum. It was a moving experience. The scope and scale of what happened is hard to grasp. Both of us were very moved and it really causes you to reconsider the cost…

January 14, 2024 Today we left Osaka. We stayed in an AirBnB that was convenient and an old Japanese house. Two features that we did not think we should incorporate at home. On the way out of Osaka we stopped at Mr. Donut for a bite for breakfast. It seemed vaguely familiar and does turn…

January 13, 2024 We decided to repeat our start of the day and get pancakes covered in whip cream. We returned to Eggs N’Things for more breakfast. We were much better at navigating the three city blocks of underground malls to get there this time. From there we headed to Osaka castle. The first cool…

January 12, 2024 Today we started out questing for a western style breakfast. While we got west in a way the closest we could get was Eggs N’Things, a Hawaiian breakfast chain. It was good and filled the craving for the most part. We did not get any SPAM. From there we ventured to the…

January 11, 2024 We decided that the focus of Osaka was food and doing things. We signed up for some different tours and experiences and have been eating whatever we see. As we walked around we saw this restaurant. We thought it was a subtle indication of what they serve. We started at Teppanyaki Toyota…

January 10, 2024 After a breakfast to close our stay at Takimi we went to Tsumago to hike the Nakasendō. The Nakesendō is a post road that extended from Tokyo (aka Edo) to Kyoto. It was one of five roads and the one most often used by nobility. The other major road went along the…

January 9, 2024 Today we backed up with some clean clothes to leave Nagano. We had a quiet morning at the inn and learned some Origami from the owners and had breakfast. For today, we set off into rural Japan. In the way we stopped at Matsumoto Castle. This was the first castle we have…

January 8, 2024 Today is the Coming of Age day (observed) in Japan. Not that it was a big deal for us apart from some closures but thought I would share. What is relevant is that Nagano got its first major snow overnight. There was snow everywhere and it was lovely. We hoped the would…

January 7, 2024 Today is our last day in Tokyo for now….first a goodbye to our Mt. Fuji view… We packed up (everything fit back in the bags) boarded the train for Kawagoe and then on to Nagano. Kawagoe is about an hour north of Tokyo. We were not here to see a the bell…

January 6, 2024 With our first journey successful we decided to embark on another adventure outside the city. This time we ventured to Kamakura. The beach was lovely and there were a lot of people surfing. From there we walked to the Daibutsu statue. It is a giant Buddha statue and was impressive to see.…

January 5, 2024 Today we decided to get a closer look at Mt. Fuji. The first question was how best to get there. The Japanese rail system is amazing but has all the complexity and ambiguity of a market system. Lots of providers. Many different ways to do things. A lot of knowledge is assumed.…

January 4, 2024 We ventured out to explore the areas of Asakusa and Ueno. One of the things that a lot of people were doing in Asakusa was renting Kimonos and wearing them around but we did not wander down that path. We can ask the AI to make that picture for us in the…

January 3, 2024 The pattern continued of awaking to a hotel buffet breakfast. This one obviously had a distinctive Japanese flavor with Miso soup on the buffet and a new favorite – banana juice. When traveling you remember all sorts of stuff you heard before….like the fact that Japanese have celebrate New Years for several…

January 2, 2024 We arrived in Japan on the morning of the 2nd and set about settling in. We made it to the hotel without trouble, found some food nearby, and rested. 🙂 Adjusting to all the time changes has been a challenge but we are good and looking forward to this next part of…

January 1, 2024 We had left the door to our balcony open and heard the call to prayer. We went to breakfast and the hotel really one upped the Raddison in Oslo. However, the day before we had started to hear about a rally that was plane ed to culminate at the Galata bridge in…

December 31, 2023 We got up and after another breakfast we headed to the airport for our 5th flight and a journey to Istanbul. We did get into the lounge at the airport and started to understand the passenger on the first flights rage about not having the Chesapeake Lounge at his disposal. We arrived…

December 30, 2023 A while back (probably more than a decade now) I went to Oslo several times for work. It was a pretty cool experience at the time but I never really took in the city apart from some wandering in the evenings. Our day started the same way my work days did with…

December 29, 2023 Today is our last day in Tromsø. We enjoyed the farm breakfast one last time…jammed all our stuff back into the bags and ventured back toward the city. We got to see the sun trying to peak over the mountains but it did not make it. We went through the underground streets…

December 28, 2023 We spent the day outside of Tromsø enjoying the beauty of the mountains and the water. It started with a lovely breakfast at the hotel. Everything from pickled Herring to a lovely hard boiled egg with pesto. Then with outfit change one we suited up in our winter gear and took off…

December 27, 2023 Leaving DC, we boarded the flight assuming the trip to Reykjavik would be dull. It started out that way. We took in Indiana Jones – The Dial of Destiny. (I had not realized Phoebe Waller-Bridge was in and I kept expecting her to break the forth wall and start narrating) Shortly after…

December 26, 2023 Owen and I are getting started on our journey. We had a great Christmas Day yesterday and are now sitting in the airport getting ready to take off. Packing for a 3.5 week trip across three continents was a bit of stress but we both got everything into the bag and will…