Japan

That’s right, not an actual national park, just a formally-named quasi-national park. The name tickled me all day long. We didn’t get out of the house until Noon after doing some laundry and just generally lounging around. We walked 20 minutes to the train station. I love the way ivy grows on everything here, and…

We woke up to bright sunshine. It felt extra sweet after a few days of cold gray drizzle. We are already not morning people, but without school and jobs to get to on the trip, we are reaallly not morning people. We had read that to get the most out of the morning market we…

We woke up to more cold rain this morning, so took a brief taxi to Sapporo station instead of walking. We stocked up on snacks for the train and then set off for the 3.5 hour journey to a peninsula on a bigger peninsula at the base of Hokkaido, Hakodate. I say it every time…

We had big plans for today. We were going to visit the small coastal town of Otaru, and the continue onwards to visit the famous Nikka Whisky Distillery. But then after breakfast Nick and Millie got sucked into watching the potentially-final World Series game. It was pouring and cold outside so we weren’t in a…

We slept in until 9 after the late night last night and then had to rush to free breakfast before it closed. It was very Japanese and had lots of little dishes of fish and roe and miso soup. Millie knew today was Halloween and wore her Elsa dress all day. She has been very…

The usj travel morning: packed up, cleaned up, & checked out. We called an uber and a 112-year-old man picked us up. He was definitely not street legal and drove similarly to the now-infamous Chinese Pedal Pumper. Halfway through the drive Nick looked at me and said “I think this man also attended the tap…