September 27, 2017
Today was a looooong drive from Fes to the Sahara just outside of the city of Merzouga. A friend of a friend runs the Sahara Garden. Brahim coordinated everything for us and welcomed us upon our arrival with open arms. Truly an amazing human being. We were welcomed with dinner and singing and dancing around a bonfire.
September 24, 2017
Our second stop in Morocco was the blue city of Chefchaoen. A small city located up on a hill, wandering thru the medina surrounded by so many shades of blue was quite a different experience from Tangier. We stayed at Casa Perleta, a small bed and breakfast recommended by our friend. It was perfectly located within the upper hill area of the medina. The blue hues of the walls of Chefchaoen are believed to have originated when the Jews came while escaping Hilter in the 1930s. The blue is said to serve as a reminder to lead a spiritual life while symbolizing the sky and heaven.
September 11 - 15, 2017
Enroute to our close friends' wedding in Greece we found a cheap flight to Paris via Reykjavik, Iceland and decided to take advantage and do a little stopover in an effort to (fingers crossed) see the northern lights. We decided to restrict our few days to just the southern highlights along the coast. The first thing we noticed was that even though it was supposedly shoulder/low season in Iceland there were significantly more people than when we came the year before in August.
July 18, 2016 - July 20, 2016
We got in much later than we expected and still had about an hour and a half drive ahead of us. Allie's friend was letting us stay in her home up in the hills of the Tuscany region. Lucky for us, she had a helper, Guido, meet us to guide us to the house, which was up a lengthy narrow dirt road, which we would have never found on our own.
July 13, 2016 - July 14, 2016
We arrived in Verona mid-afternoon and journeyed up a winding hill at the edge of town to a small campground that claimed to be the best in the city. After paying for a spot in their lower section we tried to drive the van up an extremely narrow and tight turn. After coming close to getting the van aligned to make the turn, I ventured up to the campground to check out the site. Let's just say the campsite we paid for was basically a parking lot. More like it WAS a parking lot and there was no way the van was going to fit. Instead, we took a tent spot and Allie and Jason parked overnight on the street. Way easier and way cheaper!
days two hundred and eleven thru two hundred and fifteen: april 17, 2016 thru april 21, 2016
Coming to Japan, we had really wanted to see a sumo match. After doing much research, Jonathan discovered that every year there is a free match at Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo. Of course, the seats are first come first serve, so we tried to show up an hour early, but still ended up waiting in a long line. However, the arena is fairly large and we were able to get pretty good seats in the shade where we could see.
day two hundred and ten: april 16, 2016
Today, we headed over to the train station to catch the bus to a nearby flower festival where pink flowers were supposed to cover the entire grounds with Fujisan in the background. Just before purchasing our tickets, the man collecting the tickets told us that there were less than 10% of the flowers blooming and that in his opinion it wasn't worth going. We took his advice and decided it probably wasn't worth the money so we headed out to the lake to enjoy the morning air and find a clear view of Fujisan.
days two hundred and eight thru two hundred and eleven: april 14, 2016 thru april 17, 2016
After landing back in Osaka from Seoul, we boarded the train and headed north for our full day of travel to get to Lake Kawaguchiko. Our timing couldn't have been more perfect. Our AirBnB host told us that it had rained all morning and it had just cleared up within the hour before our arrival. We rode the express train, which we were pleasantly surprised with since it was a Fujisan themed train.
days two hundred and five thru two hundred and eight: april 11, 2016 thru april 14, 2016
Previously we hadn't given much thought to visiting South Korea, but with a few extra days on our hands and flights being pretty cheap we decided to take a quick hop over to visit our friends there. We had a great time exploring around the city and shopping and eating and spending time with old friends. Allie especially enjoyed checking out the street art around the university area.
days two hundred and one thru two hundred and four: april 7, 2016 thru april 10, 2016
On the 7th, we spent the day in transit on trains and boats making our way south to Teshima Island. Every three years, there is an art exhibition called the Setouchi Triennale. We had been told by friends of friends that Naoshima Island was a must visit if we had the time. After doing some research we discovered that Naoshima is just one of the islands in the Seto Inland Sea that houses permanent and temporary art installations. With our last minute planning we were only able to find one option for accommodations on any of the islands and to our pleasant surprise, it was an awesome AirBnB experience with Kazu Hide, a Teshima local who had returned home to grow and sell fruits and vegetables while also managing a small homestay. He was an excellent host and hosted us each night with tea and great conversation. He also cooked dinner for us one of the nights and it was quite exceptional.
day two hundred: april 6, 2016
After realizing we would be seriously missing out if we moved further south without visiting Yoshino/Nara, we booked another night at our AirBnB and took the train to Yoshino for the day. We were not disappointed and were happy we went early in the morning too as it got hazy in the afternoon. Oddly enough, we ran into a woman, Donna, from our New Zealand trek on the Milford Track in Yoshiko. What an incredibly small world!
day one hundred and ninety-five: april 1, 2016
We spent a night in Hakone at a really great AirBnB that was in a remote area of Hakone, but unfortunately the weather wasn't great and we couldn't see Mount Fiji, so we only have one photo from that day.
days one hundred and ninety-six thru one hundred and ninety-eight: april 2, 2016 thru april 4, 2016
After saying our goodbyes, we boarded a train back south in pursuit of sakura in full bloom. First stop, Nagoya. Wow, what a difference a few days makes. Our two days in Nagoya were quite something with the sakura in full bloom. After a full day of cruising around the city, we were lucky enough to meet up with another group of friends visiting Japan. Our friend Fion and her husband Marcel stopped thru Nagoya to have a quick dinner with us and catch up before to Kyoto.
Later that evening we headed to one of Nagoya's main parks where the sakura were supposed to be illuminated. That's not the only thing we found in the park. Tons of locals were out enjoying the sakura and there were food stalls and live music. It was quite a celebration!
The next morning we continued to explore Nagoya and took our time and enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery with the locals.
Hope you're not tired of sakura yet...because there are a lot more pictures coming! :)
days one hundred and ninety-three thru one hundred and ninety-four: march 30, 2016 thru march 31, 2016
Next stop, back to Osaka in search of more cherry blossoms. In just the few days since we landed in Japan, the sakura blossoms were already more mature, beginning to bloom and the locals were already out enjoying the beautiful scenery, weather, and picnicking under the blossoms which they call hanami .
day one hundred ninety: march 27, 2016
In the late afternoon we headed to the airport to catch a late night flight to Osaka, putting us in close to 2 AM. To our surprise, the immigration lines at Osaka airport were some of the worst we've experienced thus far. We didn't get our bags and exit the airport until close to 4 AM. For such a major airport, we would have expected there still to be taxis available to take us into the city, but we weren't so lucky. Our other option was to take a bus into the city and then a taxi the rest of the way to our AirBnB. At around 5 AM we arrived at our AirBnB. I went to sleep for a few hours while Jonathan went up to the rooftop to check out the sunrise with Osaka Castle across the river.
days one hundred and ninety-one thru one hundred and ninety-two: march 28, 2016 thru march 29, 2016
Today we took the train to Kyoto, dropped our bags off in a locker at the station and went to meet our friends Lindsey, Clement and Kari who were on vacation from the states. Thankfully, they were ok with us crashing their trip. For two days we cruised around Kyoto and explored temples, shrines, and ate as much food as our stomachs could bare.
When we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine, it was late in the afternoon and we intended to find a nice place to watch the sunset. Not surprisingly, there were tons of people walking thru the Torii Gates and was near impossible to escape the crowds. Jonathan had the bright idea of following a trail that wandered off the side of the hill and supposedly reconnected with the main walk path at the top of the mountain. Let's just say that we successfully escaped the crowds, but we also didn't get to see much of a sunset. We did, however, get to make our way casually down at dusk which was much more peaceful than being amongst the crowds down at the bottom of the hill.
After leaving the shrine, we were starving. Lucky for us, just nearby the train station there was a small yakitori restaurant that was still open. I think we ordered the most of anyone there.
The next morning, we headed to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion and managed to snap a few photos with barely any people in it, quite an art form when some of these places are seen in person.
This was one of the first areas where the sakura (cherry blossoms) were starting to bloom, but many weren't open yet.
Next stop, the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest and the nearby park.
Just above the bamboo forest is an area overlooking the river down below. The sakura contrasted against the green surroundings was beautiful.
That evening we went to visit Kiyomizu-dera Temple perched up on the hillside with a view of Kyoto. We had read that some of the areas were illuminated in the evening so we wanted to check it out.
Afterwards, we headed back to Gion for some dinner with the rest of the group. On our way, we came across this beautiful weeping sakura tree hanging above the walkway.
We found another small yakitori restaurant off a small side street and were told that we could wait for seats to open up. After about 5 minutes of waiting they called us in and asked if a room upstairs would be ok and if we could squeeze. To our surprise, the room was more than big enough and we even had our own little balcony area. (yes, we pretty much ordered the entire menu!)
Next stop, Osaka!
day one hundred and eighty-one - march 18, 2016
It was difficult deciding where to go after Raja Ampat. After discussing our options we decided to head to Hong Kong to visit Jonathan's cousin Stephanie (Stef) who moved there late last year. Our close friends Hajime and Maily were also moving to Hong Kong at the same time which was an added bonus.
days one hundred and seventy thru one hundred and eighty-one: march 7, 2016 thru march 18, 2016
Oh yes, we're back. It didn't take much convincing for us or even Jonathan's parents, to dive Raja Ampat. Hey, we know what we like, right? Similar to our first cruise, we spent 11 days on the Samambaia exploring the Raja Ampat area with the same crew we've grown to love. We got spoiled again and pretty much had the boat to ourselves - it was us, Jonathan's parents, and our cruise director's parents. Not bad, eh?
days one hundred and fifty-six thru one hundred and one hundred and fifty-nine: march 3, 2016 thru march 6, 2016
We had a short gap of time to fill before heading back to Raja Ampat and we decided to stop thru Singapore since we had friends we could visit. In our three days there, we were pretty impressed with the city. Amazing architecture that integrated sustainability, efficient public transportation, clean streets, and thankfully good food too!
