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Tokyo Travel Guide
Tokyo was our last spot after our trips to Seoul and Kyoto. It was nice in a way, because, compared to Kyoto, we felt like there was less that we HAD to do beyond enjoy good food, see some sites, and walk around/take in the neighborhoods. I know everyone tends to really focus on Shinjuku and Shibuya but ultimately, I preferred the quieter neighborhoods that we visited. We did go through the Harajuku neighborhood (which had great vintage shopping AND crepes!) but we also got to explore a bit of Ginza and, my favorite, Daikanyama (aka the Brooklyn of Tokyo). My recommendations:– Afternoon tea at the Park Hyatt – A…
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Kyoto (& Nara) Travel Guide
?I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity.” ? Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East After our weekend in Seoul, we took a short flight over to Osaka and then the train over to stunning Kyoto. As soon as we entered the city, a sense of calm took over. Kyoto is all about nature, beauty, and aesthetics married with ancient traditions and an underlying current of spirituality. It was wonderful. We spent…
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Weekend in Seoul
My husband and I had a chance to spend a weekend in Seoul before our 10 days in Japan (more on that later!). Thankfully, we had a wonderful guide as an old friend currently lives there — which made getting around and communicating so much easier! Seoul is a MASSIVE city so definitely plan well if you’ll only be stopping through for a weekend. You definitely won’t see everything but, hey, it’s a great excuse to come back! Here were some highlights of things to do if you’re in Seoul for a weekend and my recommendation for how to split it up between two days. Day 1: Gyeongbokgung Royal Palace…
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New Zealand Travel Guide (with LOTR stops!)
I am a massive Lord of the Rings fan AND a travel lover… so, of course, New Zealand was a bucket list trip for me. This February, my husband and I took a 10 day trip to New Zealand so I wanted to share some highlights (with some LOTR stops included) in case it would be of assistance to anyone! For this trip, we decided to focus mostly on the South Island (as our travel preference leans towards the nature/hiking/scenery side of things + a good chunk of LOTR sites are in the South Island). But we did spend 2 days in Auckland so we could go on the Hobbiton…
