"How was Osaka?" "It was good. Well, I prefer Tokyo though," I replied. My mom's reaction to my response was a burst of laughter. She then followed with: I'm not surprised. Because we are Tokyo people. This conversation occurred more than two years ago. Bryce and I had just returned to my grandma's house in… Continue reading Osaka v. Tokyo
Sometimes I see the notifications comes into my email that I gained a new blog follower. "Oh, that's nice," I think to myself. Nice that someone out there is interested to subscribe to a blog that has been dormant for 12 months. How did this even happen? There are a few factors. The first half… Continue reading The last 12 months
Being from Seattle, we scoff at people who use umbrellas. We don't need umbrellas! Yes, it rains but it's usually just an off-and-on type of rain, or a light drizzle. Nothing our rain jackets, or even a hoodie, can't handle! However, I was grateful I brought my grandmother's umbrella with me on our trip to… Continue reading Kyoto: Sloshing about at Fushimi Inari
I've been back home in Seattle for four days and am still trying to recover from my jet lag. I enjoyed a fantastic two-week vacation in Japan visiting family and also exploring new places. Isn't that the best though? When you get to see family and also see new cities you have never been to?… Continue reading Japan: bullet trains, family time, good food and lots of walking
I won't bore you with all the itty-bitty details, but this past year was pretty great travel-wise! January-February: Three-week honeymoon in New Zealand. We book-ended the trip with stops in Hawaii before and after, which nicely split up the travel time from Seattle, and allowed us to visit family. New Zealand is AH-MA-ZING. We drove… Continue reading 2019 Travel Year in Review
I couldn't figure out why my husband's phone was telling us we were 15 minutes away from the visitor center. When we had entered the national park, we thought we'd be at our destination in a mere five to 10 minutes. "Are you sure you inputted the location correctly?" I asked him as he continued… Continue reading An impromptu Denali afternoon
Does anyone do spontaneous trips anymore? Getting in the car and driving anywhere can be fun, but I'm talking more like buying a plane ticket day-of and flying somewhere with no plans or itinerary. I feel like back in the day it was more common. People would just show up at the airport and energetically… Continue reading A spontaneous trip to … somewhere …
There are two things I obsessively check the weather for: an upcoming marathon and upcoming travels. They are kind of one in the same. I usually start checking two weeks prior to my departure, which I know is too early since weather patterns can obviously change that far out. But, I must know what conditions… Continue reading Packing woes
I'm a runner who is trying to remember what it's like to be an uninjured runner again. For me, that meant signing up for a race, setting a race goal, training for the race — and then running the race. I chose the Seawheeze Half-Marathon in Vancouver, Canada. I was more worried about getting to… Continue reading The trip where everything just worked out
I kept refreshing Google maps on my phone. We would be cutting it very close. We were driving from Sea-Tac Airport to the Vancouver Convention Center, a 160-mile drive, in Friday afternoon rush hour. I know, not the best idea. But, Bryce's flight from a work trip had him landing at Sea-Tac just before 3… Continue reading In the nick of time
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