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…
2024 was a very full year, packed with adventures near and far and projects large and small. We traveled to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos, New Mexico for a ski trip in February. We visited Tampa Bay and Miami for baseball stadiums number 25 and 26 in April and Kansas City for the 27th in September….
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…
I read 40 books in 2024. It was a great year for thoughtful memoirs and eye-opening nonfiction, as well as some imaginative novels. Book covers in the graphic above are arranged from favorite (top left) to least favorite (bottom right). Below are some recaps for a couple of my favorites, which all happen to be…
Each year, I collect small gifts along my travels and compile them into a holiday gift set for my wedding clients. It’s my way of sharing a small part of my year with my couples when they’ve shared such an important part of theirs with me. Here’s a little peek at what I sent out…
Second Thanksgiving has been an annual tradition with the Yaus since 2011. It happens the Saturday after Thanksgiving, with a full new Thanksgiving feast (not leftovers– that’s for Sunday) and an ever-expanding group of friends and their little ones in attendance. For me it has become a signpost, marking the years with a trek down…