Takayama

The quickest way to avoid a crowd is to go up a mountain. This seems to be true in Japan, where the tourist season, although running thin now, is a bit robust for us, who are used to 3rd world tourism. Read: sparse with loads of space. In Takayama, we ditched the crowds around the […]

Shirakawa-go: finally feeling like a tourist.

We descended on this little mountain village with round about 5000 (?) other tourists for the day. Let’s just say it got a bit crowded at times, as both morning and afternoon tours flooded in by the busload. Well, couldn’t blame them. You get very trigger-happy in a place like this, with such a gorgeous […]

Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen Garden

Capturing a thousand colors of autumn in one of the most beautiful Japanese gardens is a privilege. As the city prepares for winter, the trees in Kenrokuen Garden are propped up by yukizuri, a network of ropes and stilts, to help them carry the weight of the snow through the winter months. From Kenrokuen Garden […]

Kanazawa Fish Market Fun

Situated on the west coast of Japan, Kanazawa turned out to be a little culinary hotspot. We’ve heard about the legendary Kanazawa snow crab from our Japanese friends, but you need to see it to believe it. Well, here you go. Some photos for all those crab lovers! As usual, the Japanese do seasonal things […]

OBUSE

The little town of Obuse was such a surprise. After our visit to the Snow Monkey Park in Yudanaka on the afternoon of our arrival, we had a whole day to do…we were not sure what. The weather wasn’t great and all the summer activities in the area had already closed as snow might set […]

Japanese Macaques – aka Snow Monkeys

After spending a week in Tokyo – of which I will have to write later because it was just so busy and I’m herding my thoughts on that one – we activated our Japanese Rail passes and left for Yudanaka, on the east side of Honshu island. This area is best known for its onsen (hot […]

Monterey

What I love about traveling are the things that you get to learn along the way and not necessarily visiting places you already know about because of their history or any other remarkable feat that makes them stand out. This was my experience with Monterey and its Cannery Row, thus named after a novel written […]

San Francisco

A dreamy place, huddled in a blanket of fog that comes and goes at it pleases. One day there is not enough – what were we thinking – but if you have one day only, you make the most of it. It helps if you are up at six and ready to rock and roll, […]

Nothing like a little wurst…

This was our first meal in New York, and biting into that wurst was the exact moment in which I realized we’ve left the swamp behind. Nothing beats Curry Wurst and Sauerkraut from the Saturday morning street market close to Times Square. Inner city roads are closed for the day to make way for huge […]

A little bit of wine, please…

We are now in the land of the Super Size. In our wonderful resort where we’ve been staying for the past 6 days, everything is big. The oven, the microwave, the fridge, even the toilet paper squares are bigger than normal J Can you imagine our surprise when we ordered wine at Epcot Centre and […]