Category: General
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Hanami
In Japan, the best seasons are the fall and spring. These are the times of the year when you can be outside and enjoy all that the flora can offer around town. Or, many people take special trips around this time. The spring offers views of the famous cherry blossoms where you can see people…
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Kyoto Day 3
Our last half-day in Kyoto was a cold and wet one. We put on our Oregonian minds and endured the rain drops enough to do the short walk along the Philosophers’ Path (哲学の道哲学の道) where we reminisced about the old days when J and I created our own pronunciation of philosophize to philoSOPHisize because we had…
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Kyoto Day 2
Nearly another 20,000 steps saw us with a “lighter” touristy day…. We decided to head out to Arashiyama since J had never been out there and it had been quite a while since I went out that way. It is not far outside of the downtown area and E was super excited about the train…
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Kyoto Day 1
It’s been many years since I made a visit to Kyoto again after living there for three years in 2001-2004. Sometime ago I made a short visit as my first time back since my divorce. I wanted to remember my love for the city outside of the time being unhappily married during those years. Now,…
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Ikaho Onsen
Missed posting yesterday because J and I took a girls’ trip out to higher elevations, colder temps and warm hot springs in Gunma’s Ikaho Onsen area. It was a short trip out of Tokyo (about 1.5hrs from Ueno Station to Shibukawa). We did the famous 365 steps up and down from the shrine to the…
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Summer 2015: Scandinavia – Bergen, Norway
Back to my updates on summer travels – it is fun to look back at all that I did in such a short time! So, our last stop in Norway was Bergen. We took another ferry from Belastrand to Bergen. It was a fairly chilly ride, so we stayed inside for most of this one.…
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Summer 2015: Scandinavia – Belastrand, Norway
One of the main reasons to head to the west coast of Norway is to see the fjords. It was beautiful just to wake up to the view of the lake and we got to watch a bit more of the parasailing competition before we hopped on the three-car local train from Voss to make…
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Summer 2015: Scandinavia – Voss, Norway
After our fairly short visit in Oslo, we took the train from Oslo to Voss. Voss seems to be the European destination for sports, camping and general ‘outback’ family holiday. It is a beautiful town located on a lake and my hotel room looked out on the mountain caps and lake. [shashin type=”photo” id=”10201″ size=”small”…
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Summer 2015: Scandinavia – Oslo, Norway
Our next stop on our Scandinavia adventure was Oslo. So, we took the train on a rather wet morning through the countryside and found ourselves in the small capital of Norway. While people in the touristy areas were friendly enough, no one was overly friendly. We still did a lot of walking and found ourselves…
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Summer 2015: Scandinavia – Copenhägen, Denmark
After the couple of days of “work” in London, I flew off to Copenhägen, Denmark to meet my friend, J, for our Scandinavia adventure. We had booked a 12-day ‘tour’ to see the region and I couldn’t wait! We started with Copenhägen for two nights and fell in love with the sights, people (aka tall men!)…
