Chased out of the Japanese Alps before the famed Daikeretto ridge between Mt. Yari and Mt. Hotaka due to rain, fog, and high wind we hadn’t quite gotten our fix of the Japanese high country. So when we saw a two day window of beautiful weather open up we started looking for an accessible overnight hike in the Matsumoto region that would afford us an alpine experience...
Japan’s cities deservedly get so much of the tourist attention, but the mountains are just as spectacular. In fact, one of our drivers for visiting Japan was the chance to explore the so-called Japanese Alps: a long mountain range dominating much of Northwestern Honshu. In the end Mica and I decided to make the Denver-like city of Matsumoto our home-base to spend a...
The “famous” Tokyo Robot Show is simply a must miss attraction. This is despite (because?) the fact that the robot show/restaurant in Tokyo is one of the most consistently cited tourist attractions that you must see when traveling to the city. Literally dozens of articles and reviews gush about the spectacle. It has a 4.1 out of 5 on google reviews with...
Our first impression when flying into Hong Kong was how green and mountainous it looked out the airplane window! Miami-esque high rises and active maritime shipping equipment laced around the perimeter of giant green mounds of tropical jungle. After our easy 24-minute Airport Express train ride, we were met by our friend Maddie Copp! She and her husband Austin hosted...
After the bucolic charms of Bulgaria, Istanbul was a riotous display of color, culture, and streetwares. That is, once we got there. From Molly and Nasko’s Bulgarian wedding we drove past the turn for Istanbul (which would have been only a 4 hour drive) back to Sofia just to drop our rental car and take the 10 hour night train from capital city to capital city...
Arriving in Sofia, Bulgaria two weeks ago felt new and exciting! As we mentioned, it was the first place on our trip that we hadn’t been to before. Staring out the window of the taxi, Soviet era block apartments with peeling paint and crumbling concrete were sprinkled liberally amongst green parks and pre-Communist buildings. Our taxi...
When you fall in love, I think it’s common to yearn for your partner to deeply know and love the places that formed you. We want to transcend our separate pasts and have our loved ones understand implicitly the magic in our holy places. I felt that when I begged my college boyfriend to make a trip to Baltimore, when I convinced my New York friend crew to come to a...
I want to take a minute to acknowledge a major challenge in taking time off to travel. For me, it was very hard to leave. I felt a great deal of guilt and sadness leaving kids on my Speech team during their high school journey, colleagues who I had built curriculum and relationships with, growing nieces, aging grandmothers, and a city full of close friends. During my...
Bulgaria possesses beautiful and rugged alpine mountains. In our time there we visited two different ranges in mid-September: the Rila mountains and the Pirin mountains. Both are easily accessible from Sofia or Plovdiv. Both are highly worth the time and effort. This post, Part I, talks about getting into the back-country of the Rila Mountains. Part II discusses our...
Bulgaria was not on our list of countries to visit until a friend of mine met a guy here, fell in love, and decided to get married. However, after scratching the surface and spending 2 weeks here we began to realize that this country rarely visited by Americans, has absolutely everything you could want in a vacation (and at a fraction of the price!). Mountains:...