We’ve finally reached the final post of our Taiwan & Japan travels from this winter! Rewinding a bit from the Japan portion of our tour, we circle back to January first, in Taipei. After having watched the famous Taipei 101 fireworks the night before from our friends’ place out on the west side, we ventured…
Tokyo! After a whirlwind eight days visiting four other places in Japan, we finally reached its biggest city, Tokyo. We stayed for five nights in Ginza, a nice, relatively quiet commercial district filled with luxury brands and nice hotels and restaurants. Alex had made a reservation ahead of time, so after checking in to the…
From our lovely stay in Kyoto, we continued eastward, where we made the train-equivalent of an extended layover in Nagoya en route to Tokyo. My friend Julianne happens to be living in Nagoya for two years, so we took the opportunity to do a one-night stay to say hello and even do some laundry! Our…
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…
December recap! We actually began the month in Los Angeles and ended it in Taipei. But here are some of our adventures around the Bay in between. Our new-old Barbour jackets we got from Goodfight! Mine a re-loved and Alex’s is new. Time to go pick up our very first fake Christmas tree. The Garrisons…
November recap! We begin with pizza at Rose’s in the Mission. Cassie came over for a first-time knitting tutorial. Just in time for her to work at polls on election day. A special meal at Rintaro for their 10-year anniversary, featuring house-made soba Cassie and I visited Nancy at her coworking space inside the Ferry…
We did it! Almost a year after we started, we finally completed the Crosstown Trail. Our friend Cindy joined Alex and me for this fifth and final leg of the hike, walking from Park Presidio in The Richmond, passing by Baker Beach, and ending at Sutro Baths. First, we met at Breadbelly in the Richmond…
Alex and I embarked on section four of five of the Crosstown Trail back in November, squeezing it in before we left on our travels for the rest of the year. Section four took us from the Sunset up through the Richmond via a cross section of Golden Gate Park. Not the most spectacular part…
One week after we completed section two of the Crosstown Trail, we resumed the hike with section three: “the stair section!” I wouldn’t have guessed it would be my favorite section (since walking up and down a ton of stairs doesn’t sound all that fun), but it turned out to be absolutely beautiful and charming!…