There are several nice hikes you can do around Kamakura if you are tired of doing the touristy stuff there or in Tokyo. Just walking around the paths in the hills
around there is is quite nice. These can start in places
like Kencho-hi, which is quite nice in itself. You can also visit Ozu’s grave in Engaku-Ji in Kamakura, if you want to pay respect to him, which would be a nice thing to do.
I really loved my time in Kamakura and Enoshima Island (enjoyed my walks on the beach and the hills).
Got lucky with the light show on Enoshima as well (it was the final night).
Glad that you were able to experience that.
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Thanks and the Mt. Fuji area is nice as well (gonna rain/snow all day today though).
Finally heading back home tomorrow evening.
Scotland again in 2 weeks. Taking daughter #2 to visit daughter #1 for spring break
Grand Cayman, South Africa, Sicily
Took an Amazon River cruise in January. Doing an 11-day land trip to the Basque region of Spain in May. My wife’s maternal roots are from the region. Time to explore with an obligatory stop in Rioja. In June a short week in DC visiting friends. Late August to early October, touring the Umbria region of Italy followed by a 34 -day cruise from Rome to NYC. We will spend 10-days at Thanksgiving in Vermont with friends. That is about it for 2025.
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Currently “visiting” my own country for 5 weeks and I’ll be back with my wife and newborn in the Philppines from early April 11th to around June 9th.
Afterwards, I plan to visit Taiwan (Kaohsiung) for a couple of nights and will be back in Japan (Matsumoto, Toyama, Kanazawa, and Shirakawa-go) for about a week.
Last year was 6 months in Asia and 6 months at “home” in the US, but this year is starting to look like 8 months in Asia and only 4 months in the States.
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Officially a Global Entry member with TSA PreCheck (should have done this last year, but better late than never).
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Love to hear more details. We are doing Sweden/Norway in about a month.
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So far on the books:
Port Aransas (post tax season wind down).
Boston for a business/personal “long weekend”.
Willamette for a week.
There will be others. Just haven’t figured them out yet.
Just got back from St. Barth’s. One of my favorite places we’ve ever been. Great food. Great wine. Perfect beaches. Total vibe.
So good. I wonder how it’s changed. Last time I was there was probably 2006 or 2007. Did you stay in a villa or a resort?
Got back from our trip about a week ago. Flew into Stockholm and spent a few days there. Then we flew up to Lulea to go into Lapland (cultural area that includes parts of Sweden and Finland, and according to who you talk to, also some parts of Russia and Norway). It’s generally the area where Sweden and Finland meet. We stayed just outside of Tornio at a “resort” called Kukkolaforsen (https://www.kukkolaforsen.se/ ).
It was on the river separating the two countries. We were about an hour south of the Arctic Circle, and of course we drove up to Juoksengi to get our picture taken. We crossed the border several times (it’s wide open). Then we flew out of Kemi down the Helsinki for a couple of days. We then tacked on two days in Tallinn, Estonia.
The trip, at least for us, was all about chasing the Northern Lights.
The advantage of the trip we took was, in case we didn’t see the lights, we still got to see Stockholm and Helsinki. Also, up in Lapland, besides the Arctic Circle, we did dog sledding, reindeer carriage ride, ice fishing, bread making and a few other cultural stops. I have a friend who used to live in Chicago, and who also did some professional photography, who now (well, he’s retiring) does photogenic trips and tours, and this was one of his tours. There were 8 of us including my buddy. He used a local tour operator called LappOne (Home - LappOne ) run by Alessandro Maccari (fascinating guy). Alessandro and his team were fantastic.
We had a great time, and we got to see the Lights. One night they were pretty good, and another night only so-so. Timing was a bit bad in that there was a full moon, and we were sort of in-between solar storms. If we had been there 3-4 days on either end, we may have gotten more spectacular lights. But that one night wasn’t bad. One of the people was on his third trip to see the lights and finally saw them with us. Someone mentioned a friend who had been on 5 trips and had yet to see the lights. Alessandro put together a fantastic itinerary, but if you’re really, really serious about the lights, you might want to go further up where it’s even darker, and maybe less clouds. A lot of people go to Rovaniemi, Finland.
Stockholm was nice. We got a couple of tours of the town. We stayed in a touristy hotel, The Hotel C (https://hotelcstockholm.se/ ). Nice, clean hotel in a great spot. Nothing special, and it caters to tourists. It’s known for having an ice bar, which was unfortunately closed when we were there. It’s yards from the Arlanda Express train, which is the easy way to get from the airport to the city centre. Again, nice enough hotel to recommend, can’t say anything bad about it, it’s just is-what-it-is. Still, it was a nice hotel.
We did hit a couple of nice restaurants while in town. Went to Restaurant AG (https://restaurangag.se/ ).
Hip steak house. Great meal, great service. Place was hopping with the trendy types. Sat next to some guy who looked in his 50’s who was with what looked like to be two members of the Swedish volleyball team. Weird, not sure what was going on. But a great meal.
The next night we went to Den Gyldene Freden (https://gyldenefreden.se/ ) which is in the old town. Guide pointed the place out on the tour and said the committee responsible for selecting the Nobel Prize for literature meets there. He and the group were then surprised we had a reservation.
Had a couple of nice lunches on our own. One was at Restaurant Ardbeg Embassy (https://ardbegembassy.se/ ), essentially a VERY nice tasting room / restaurant for the Scotch brand.
The other lunch was at a local pub called the Hairy Pig (Välkommen till The Hairy Pig Restaurant | The Hairy Pig Restaurant ). It was a simple, fun pub. For lunches, I would recommend both.
In Lapland, all our meals were part of the tour. We did have a nice dinner in the Haparanda City Hotel (Restaurang - Haparanda Stadshotell ). Didn’t stay at the hotel, but it looked very nice. Problem would be, if you’re there for the lights, you would have to get outside of town to do so. Also, we had a nice meal at/near Elmers Gårdsbutik. Unfortunately, it was a set menu. Would have liked to have privately dined there.
We got in late to Helsinki, had a nice walking tour the next day, and then we had our final dinner at Restaurant Merimakasiini (https://merimakasiinifi.test.cchosting.fi/ ). It was a very nice dinner as well, and would have enjoyed more if dining privately. On the tour, we went to a market hall which had a ton of stalls for lunching, which was a lot of fun.
We tacked on two days in Tallinn. Took an easy ferry ride over (on a boat that looked like a converted cruise ship, and was basically a floating duty free shop). Actually the ferry was quite nice, and was a easy experience, less than 2 hour ride. The old town of Tallinn is beautiful. Very picturesque. I was going to cash in points to stay at a Marriott property, but prices in Tallinn were too good to waste points. We stayed at the Hotel Telegraaf by Marriott. Very nice hotel and in a primo location.
Had two fabulous meals. We considered Rado (https://radorestoran.ee/ ) for dinner, but it’s right beside the hotel (we could see the restaurant from the hotel window), so we did lunch. Had a fabulous lunch of chicken livers.
Then we did our final night dinner at Art Priori (https://www.artpriori.ee/ ). I would highly recommend both restaurants.
All-in-all, a fabulous trip. Everything went off without a hitch. Even the weather was good. And on the way back, we flew through Heathrow the day before the fire (dodged a bullet).
If you have any questions, let me know. Hopefully the website links above work. If you’re on Facebook, you can see more pics at Redirecting...
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Awesome trip. Thanks for the great info!
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Heading back to the Philippines (CDO) to be with my wife and newborn next week for the following 2 months.
Then I’ll be back in Japan for my 11th time and will visit Matsumoto, Toyama, Kanazawa (day-trip to Shirakawa-go and Takayama), and I’ll end my time in Japan with a re-visit to Hiroshima.
Next will be Canada (16th Country) and I’ll be in Calgary with a day-trip to Banff National Park. I’ve always wanted to visit Banff and Canada and finally made it happen!
I’ll be back in Japan and the Philippines from late July to late September. Re-visiting Sapporo and will have day-trips to Biei/Furano and Otaru.
Afterwards, I’ll be visiting Atami, Ito, and ending back in Tokyo before heading back to be with my family in the Philippines.
Trying to do Australia and New Zealand after the Philippines. Currently looking at Sydney, Auckland, and Christchurch.
Savannah
Virginia: Charlottesville, Richmond, Staunton and Little Washington; Maryland: Frederick. (Road Trip from NJ)
Paris and Colmar
Maybe London
Lmk if you need Lil Washington rec. Grew up around there!
Love Sperryville (am very sad that the Inn at Mount Vernon Farm has closed) and Little Washington. Have you eaten at Three Blacksmiths in Sperryville? Special. I also enjoyed Patty O’s in LW for lunch this go around. Great place to grow up!
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