A Circuitous Journey (2024)

28/05/2022

Exploring the Oregon coast at the High Meadow & God’s Thumb trail in Lincoln City.

08/04/2020

This is a photo from when we first arrived in Kyoto and went on a lovely tour of the Gion district. It was very culturally informative! We even saw some Geisha and Maiko leaving their performance practice hall. There is a famous area called Nineizaka with crafts shops lining the streets and a lovely view of the famous Hakan-ji Temple.
Today was Jessie's 30th birthday so we wanted to take some time and focus in on the long arc of how life is going, not just the next sight or activity. We rented kimonos and walked around what has become probably our favorite place in Japan, and certainly our favorite shrine, Fushimi Inari. It's one of the most famous and iconic places in all of Japan (notable for its thousands of orange tori gates). Winding your way through the gates surrounded by waterfalls, stone lanterns, cherry blossoms, and fox statues is a sublime experience.
Getting wrapped in the kimonos was pretty interesting, in particular how tight and layered they are (is this what wearing a corset is like?). I'm not really a dress up type of person but it was actually pretty fun to pick out the color, and you feel pretty comfy and strapped in. We had our little sandal shoes with the toe socks (tabi, 足袋) and shuffled our way around the shrine.
We removed our masks briefly to slurp down some udon noodles (they're thicker than ramen noodles), and in an effort to take a step back and meditate, we went to a tea house and tried the traditional matcha tea + Japanese sweet combo. They give you the sweet because matcha is pretty bitter (we also got a syrupy brown sugar milk thing, for good measure). Rounding out our contemplative day, we folded some origami foxes in a serene garden area. There are foxes all over the shrine, because they're the helper of the Shinto god of rice, Inari. Still haven't exactly figured out why the god uses foxes but every little shrine has some cool stone foxes out front, and all the souvenirs around are fox themed.
We'll share photos from our fun dress up day soon!

05/04/2020

Greetings from Kyoto (and photo evidence of our early travels from Tokyo).

Let’s talk about LOVE amidst fear. In the middle of what seems to be an apocalypse, it’s hard to think of anything other than our own well being and the safety of those we care about. It’s easy to cast blame and look for fault, especially when our freedom to move around and choose our own paths seems restricted. Now more than ever, it is important for us to love one another and be cautious for the safety of not only our own families but everyone in our community. We have seen our friends and families taking great care to limit their interactions with others, not only to protect themselves but also to protect those most susceptible to the disease in their communities. So we wanted to thank you all for staying home and wearing masks when you go out in public - your kindness towards others will make the biggest difference in slowing down the spread of this pandemic.
We’d also like to talk about “social distancing”, which should really have been called “physical distancing”. As we mentioned, building the bonds of our community is essential to stop the spread of this disease. And we can safely do that by transitioning our physical interactions into digital ones - don’t stop talking to your friends and family and neighbors! Have meaningful conversations over video calls and in online forums like Reddit or NextDoor (or Instagram). Get your book club on a video conference so you can still meet and have discussions. Play some co-op games online with your friends!
Start a conversation with us! We want to hear what you think and what you’re doing to pass the time. We’ve been playing a lot of video games, reading together, Colin has been solving Project Euler problems, and I’ve been writing LinkedIn articles! :)

25/03/2020

Quarantine in Kyoto Day 7.
Here is a picture of our explorations in Hakone when we discovered a temple on top of a hill. From the road it looked like a little garden, but as we started to
poke around it opened up into this large hillside full of memorials, with a temple at the top. The surrounding area was incredibly peaceful; there was a gentle breeze rustling the leaves around the temple and from the top the view opened up of the surrounding mountains.
Hakone is in the mountains near enough to Fuji. You'll ocassionally get these views where the clouds will part a bit and looming in the background is Fuji-san. Fuji stands a good head taller than the surrounding mountains, and with its snow-capped top it towers over the other mountains, on a completely different scale. Hakone itself has an amazing verticality to it. Along all the roads there are these large nets holding back the vegetation, but still trees and bushes are growing through it. If you take the time to stop and look up, the tree branches reach over your head, and it gives kind of a dizzying effect.
Hakone is a mountainous region that sits on top of a very seismically active area. The interior heat of it pushes hot groundwater up to the surface in various places around the town. As a result there are hot springs (onsen, 温泉) all over the place, making it a poplar destination for wellness escapes. We highly recommend Tenzan Onsen for the best traditional onsen experience and Yuryo for those who are shy of public nudity (they have private baths).
In keeping with the reputation of a health and relaxation
destination, you can find lots of little soba shops. Soba is a buckwheat noodle, so a little starchier and thicker than your typical ramen. The noodle version of whole wheat bread.
We left Hakone refreshed and ready for a little more break-neck touristing (or Corona dodging, as it turned out).
@ Hakone

22/03/2020

Taking a break from posting about our travels to update everyone on our response to the global COVID-19 crisis. We are attempting to get in contact with the US embassy in Osaka, but are still awaiting a response. For now, we are “sheltering in place” in our hotel in Kyoto for the next week, as we feel safest remaining in Japan.
The response here has been very level-headed so far. Everyone wears masks, most museums and public gathering places are closed, there is hand sanitizer available at the entrance to almost every building. People seem to be cautious, but calm. We have been communicating with several Japanese locals and their perspectives are similar and have re-enforced our feelings of relative security here. We are still nervous about how events will progress, but for now we are going to continue our voluntary quarantine in Kyoto.
For the time-being, we are no longer visiting tourist sites and are only going out to get groceries and other essentials. We have masks and are trying to maintain distance from other people as much as possible. To stave off madness, we have been studying Japanese, playing games, writing, and reading through our backlog of books. We just finished “Into the Water” and are almost done with the Dark Materials trilogy. We’ve been playing a quirky puzzle game called Machinarium (beautifully artistic and on sale on Steam).
Our hearts are with our family and friends back in the states who are struggling with supply shortages and general fear over what will happen next. We’re praying for a quick recovery and that the extreme measures everyone has taken to protect themselves will quickly limit the spread of the virus. Be safe everyone, we love you! ❤️
⛩

14/03/2020

We’re back in Tokyo today after spending part of the week in Hakone. It was a bit of a ghost town this week, as you can imagine, but the mountains and the onsen we visited were so astonishingly beautiful.
We took the Odakyu buses back and forth from our place near the Hakone-Yumoto station to the various attractions within the mountain. The buses seem pretty complicated at first, because the stop names are all written in Kanji, but they show each of the names on the screen at the front of the bus and you can follow along with Google maps so you know when to press the button for your stop. We purchased the Hakone Free Pass in Shinjuku, which saved us a bit of time and money since you can use on a round trip from Tokyo and on all the Odakyu buses in the area.
We visited the Hakone Open Air Museum after spending the morning wandering around Lake Ashinoko (and catching a glimpse of Fuji-san through the clouds). The museum was fantastic; it is primarily contemporary sculpture situated with a backdrop of the surrounding mountains. There were some very creative exhibits, including a lovely one that blended modern architecture with a children’s play zone, so we were surrounded by peaceful music and the sounds of children laughing at play. We would highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area and consider stopping for lunch at the nearby Futaba for a traditional Japanese set lunch served up by a delightful local family.
I’m excited to talk about our visit to Tenzan Onsen in the next post, as it felt like something out of a dream. We are taking the day to do laundry and rest, as it’s quite rainy and we’re down to our towels as the only viable clothing remaining (only sort of kidding), but we’ll be exploring Shinjuku Gyoen and Harajuku tomorrow so check out our stories for more of that. ❤️

@ 箱根神社一ノ鳥居

10/03/2020

Talking a stroll on a rainy day in Taito City. The cherry blossoms should be blooming in Ueno Park in the next few weeks, but today we found the park to be as empty as the trees. Today we are planning to retreat to a cafe to do a bit of work and trip planning and then we’ll head up to Akasuka for some okonomiyaki! 🍽
@ Ueno Park

06/03/2020

We had a fun first day in Shinjuku! Our early morning excursion revealed that few of the cafes are open at 6 AM, but luckily we were able to get breakfast from the Family Mart nearby (food haul pics in our stories). We spent the day walking around and getting to know our area. We are just north of the more urban Shinjuku area and Harajuku.
We are still feeling pretty jet lagged, so we woke up at 4 AM this morning and walked into the city center where we observed some of the local nightlife wrapping up from the previous evening. It is COLD here right now. Hopefully it warms up over the next few weeks, but now we are on a mission to acquire gloves and hats. Aside from that, we'll be doing a bit of work in another cafe today and hopefully stay awake enough to go on a walking tour around 6 PM. I'll likely be sharing some of that in our stories later, as well. ❤️

04/03/2020

We said our goodbyes to beautiful San Diego yesterday as we set off on our journey to Japan! The flight was 12 hours on Japan Airlines, but very pleasant (except for the part where my pen exploded on me as I was trying to fill out the immigration forms 😂). We watched a bunch of movies and listened to audiobooks and were plied with snacks and hot tea every 30 minutes or so. When we arrived, the airport has a ton of uniformed attendants standing at the ready to direct you as you walk down several fairly long corridors to immigrations. The process through immigrations and then customs was pretty easy and then we just had to stop in the main terminal to pick up our SIM card. (You can see this part of our journey in our IG stories).
Things got a bit more complicated after that when we made it to the train station area, but once again there were many helpful attendants standing by to direct us! The signage was a little hard at first since the train information is mostly in Japanese but Colin was able to figure out our route and we made it through two train transfers without missing any connections. Our total journey to the apartment was about an hour and 45 minutes, including walking time.
One thing I noticed that was pretty interesting was the number of people wearing masks. Almost everyone had the same style of white surgical mask, making me think they are being handed out somewhere. I knew this was pretty common in Japan already, but it seems there's been a surge in use with the recent Coronavirus scares. It was quite trippy to witness a sea of masked people (we among them wearing our own masks), but also gave me a greater feeling of safety, as everyone is clearly taking great precautions here to stay safe.
We eventually made it to our apartment in the evening, meandering down winding streets and alleys. It is so beautiful here and the architecture/infrastructure is so different than what we are used to in the US. We'll be taking a slow pace today as we recover from the flight and will be scoping out the local area before we dig our teeth in tomorrow. ❤️

03/03/2020

We’re doing our final gear review today before we set out on our travels at 10 AM tomorrow. It’s a 12 hour flight and we’ll arrive in Tokyo at 4 PM the following day. We'll be posting pictures of our packing strategy and bags to our IG stories, so check that out if you are interested in these Cotopaxi bags you’ve heard me singing the praises of for the past few months. 😁

01/03/2020

I can hardly believe it... We depart to Tokyo in two days!! I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking I've surely forgotten something critical, but all our ducks are in as close to a row formation as we're going to get them. It's time to take the leap and hope for the best. We'll be spending our first week in Shinjuku and then heading over to Taito City to get a few different takes on the Tokyo experience. Watch our instagram stories this week if you want to see way too many pics of food! 🍱🍙🍥

29/02/2020

There is something about leaving a place that imbues us with a new energy to explore it more thoroughly and also creates this slight feeling of loss that we didn't quite do or see enough while there. We are so excited to head out on our travels, but we've been trying to harness that energy to get better acquainted with San Diego while we're still here and also remember this feeling so we really make the most of each new place we visit!

28/02/2020

Soaking in some final San Diego sunbeams (from the shade with sunscreen on, of course) before we depart for Tokyo on Tuesday. We have been working on piecing together all the final preparations for our trip- I was super psyched to find a debit card that doesn’t charge international fees for ATM withdrawals (Charles Schwab).
With the recent rise of Coronavirus cases in South Korea, we are planning to bypass the country for the moment, but Japan still appears to be safe for travel. The schools in the country will be closed for the duration of our trip, so perhaps that will be another measure to limit the spread of the virus. We are hoping the situation in South Korea and China improve soon!

A Circuitous Journey