This trip begins with the end to another. Alex and I have finished an excursion visiting his family for the holidays in Oklahoma and just now mine in Minnesota/Wisconsin. We left late New Years Eve to fly from the Minneapolis St Paul airport with my parents kindly opting to listen to the Wild hockey game instead of watching to prevent a hefty Uber cost. After dropping us off, Alex and I went to check in to our Cancun flight through Spirit that gave us a nice overnight layover in Dallas Fort Worth for the night. When buying the tickets, boy was I proud of myself - getting 2 flights for the price of 1! Not only did we get to not pay for the cost of a direct flight back to DFW from MSP, but we ... read more

Like usual, I picked an early train to maximize my touring time. It takes three hours to get to Nikko, my destination for today. I debated last night not going and staying in Tokyo because of the travel time, but so many guide books and blogs recommended it, I decided to still go. I had to switch trains in Tokyo to catch a bullet train out. I had to switch again to get a local train out to Nikko (it's a small town part way up a mountain). On that train I made a new friends. His name was Rob and he was in Tokyo from Maryland for work, (something to do with bio engineering). He had a three day weekend (I'm thinking he works with the government as a contractor and gets memorial day off ... read more

Corey taught Judo this morning until 9am, so we didn't get up until he returned home. Then Clara made us all tasty pancakes that we covered with Nutella and bananas. What a great way to start the day! Meanwhile CJ was watching cartoons on the TV. The show was one about pulblic buses and other transportation in Seoul. Corey told me the site was such a big hit that the government started making some of their public buses look like the characters (same colors/eye headlights) and have the voices inside for stops sounds like the voice on the show. Great idea to get kids comfortable on public transportation, if you ask me. The bus system in Seoul is inanely large. When we went to the bus stop that morning, the flow of buses never stopped. Finally ... read more

Forewarning, this may not be the most interesting day to read about but I enjoyed the more relaxing day. It stated early with me catching the train from Nara to Kyoto, then the Skinkansen bullet train to Tokyo from there. I had a good three hours to read and relax. Upon my arrival to Tokyo, I trained over to the part of town known as Ueno. It is the museum district and has a huge park. After dropping off my luggage, my goal for the day was shopping for souvenirs. I wandered first to a store called Don Quixote which is a bit like a Japanese mini Walmart. I found the Kracie gummy making sets that Jeff (my old boss) had told me his daughter was obsessed with, so of course I had to pick up ... read more

It was supposed to rain so I got up early to head over to Miyajima, an island about half an hour away from Hiroshima known for the shrine there that has a floating Torii gate. In the past, normal people weren't allowed on the island because it was sacred. If someone wanted to visit the shrine, they had to take a boat and pass through the floating torii gate. The gate is only 'floating' though if the high tide is in, otherwise you can see the base structure sitting there in the sand. Of course the planner in me made sure to look up the high tide for the day and found out it was 9am. That meant I was up and on the island by then! I went straight for the shrine passing random deer ... read more