Halfway through our Japan trip, we had such a lovely time in Kyoto. It’s quite the darling of Japanese cities, as we enjoyed plenty of its historical attractions, food, shopping, and even some nature. Anchoring it all was our stay at the Ace Hotel Kyoto. Something about this West Coast American (from Portland) property in…
From the quiet, meditative spaces of the art islands, we traveled straight into the center of the chaos when we took a shinkansen into Osaka. The trains were all nearly full, as it seems like everyone else was also going back to the big city after their New Year’s breaks. We spent only two nights…
I first heard of Japan’s art islands when my friends visited a couple years ago and declared it their favorite place in the entire world. The islands of Naoshima and Teshima are set in the Inland Sea, west of Osaka. They require at minimum a train and a ferry– half a day’s travel– to reach,…
We flew out on Christmas night, skipping over the 26th and arriving the morning of the 27th in Taipei. I hadn’t been to Taiwan since before the pandemic, and Alex hadn’t been in a decade. This would be our first Asia trip together! After dropping off our luggage at the hotel in Gongguan, we then…
So much to see and do in Mexico City! We’re continuing on with part two of our holiday trip to CDMX. Jumping right in with a walk around the neighborhoods of Condesa and Roma Norte. There’s apparently a small Japantown of sorts budding in Mexico City. We happened upon a Japanese grocery store, where we…
Mexico City is home to 22 million people and has also become quite the draw for tourists, food-lovers, and digital nomads. I had never visited, but Alex has been to Mexico City several times. We had grand plans of going together back in 2020, but of course that never happened– until now! We arrived in…
It’s the final leg of our honeymoon! Since it was November, we wanted to get a bit closer to the Equator in hopes of finding warmer weather. So we chose Gran Canaria to round out the vacation after Portugal. Gran Canaria is the second most populated Canary Island and thus part of Spain, although it’s…
As the capital and largest city, Lisbon is generally lauded as the must-visit city of Portugal. But rather unexpectedly, we actually enjoyed Porto more. Of course this was very skewed for various reasons, not least of which is Alex got food poisoning and was sidelined for two days. Plus, we arrived in Lisbon on a…
The Douro Valley is one of the most beautiful wine regions in the world. We visit our California wine country (Napa, Sonoma) all the time, but we were told that it would be well worth the time and effort to take a day and drive from Porto to the Douro Valley, and that was absolutely…
Nearly one year after we were married, Alex and I finally went on our honeymoon! When it came to our honeymoon destination, we came up with a huge list of possibilities all over the world and eventually circled back to the first idea for a travel destination that we’d had even before the pandemic, Portugal. …
On an absolutely beautiful day under the clear blue sky, A & A spoke of the stars and the universe and all the forces that conspired to bring them together. Theirs was a union of souls, families, and timelines. Every part of the wedding was carefully considered and selected for this moment, especially the setting,…
We had such a wonderful time in Calgary, arriving on Canada Day (July 1st) and staying just past the Fourth of July. We stayed at an airbnb in Inglewood, just east of Downtown, and it was perfectly situated for a few days of exploring the city. Lucky for us, dinner on night one was right…