Adventures in Japan

Okay to start, I know it’s been forever and a day since I’ve posted anything.  I had a crazy few months of work and then needed some detox time after weeks of working 80+ hours.  Now that things have slowed down, I’m hoping to start posting again more regularly.  I have a bunch of ideas in my head so I’m going to try to be diligent about getting it up here.

Now to the whole purpose of this post.  My boyfriend and I just got back from a 10 day trip to Tokyo (a first time trip for both of us).  I know what everyone is thinking, 10 days is a  long time to spend in only Tokyo.  While I agree, it was a long time to be in Tokyo, and we were definitely ready to come home by the end of the trip, we definitely kept ourselves busy and didn’t even cover everything that we had wanted to.  It’s okay, though, now we still have some things on our bucket list to do on our next trip to Japan.

I know this may sound crazy, but since this was our first trip to Japan and our first trip alone outside of the country, I spent hours preparing and researching for the trip.  I wanted to make sure that I had a good idea of everything Japan had to offer so that we didn’t come home realizing that we had missed something amazing.  My research included places to go, things to eat, tours to consider, stores to shop at etc.  That being said, based on my experiences I’m thinking about starting a new travel series to share everything that I found during my research and from our experience in Japan.   Honestly, there’s just so much from this trip that I’d like to share that I don’t think I could fit it all into one post.  While I pull my thoughts together, though, I’ll start off with a few of my favorites from the trip.

{Giant Gundam – Diver City Odaiba}

{Exploring Odaiba – There was surprisingly a lot to do in Odaiba, including 4 different malls}

{Sensoji Temple}

{Sanja Matsuri Festival}

{Sanja Matsuri Festival Food – Fried potato twist with cheese and onion powder, rice stick wrapped with beef, and okonomiyaki}

{Street vendors in Asakusa}

{Chocolate Cronut filled with Custard from Mister Donut}

{Ramen Museum – Miso Ramen, Shoyu Ramen and Tonkotsu Ramen. Can you guess which one was my favorite?}

{Ladies in Harajuku}

{Famous Shibuya Crossing – crossing this street was madness}

{The streets of Shibuya}

{View of the top of Mt. Fuji from the 5th Station}

{Exploring the Mt. Fuji 5th Station}

{Lake Ashi Cruise – Can you spot Mt. Fuji in the distance?}

{Going up the Hakone Komaga-take Ropeway

{Made it to the top}

{Breakfast in Tsukiji Market – fatty tuna, uni, shrimp, crab, fish roe, scallops, regular tuna and tamago}

{Exploring Tsukiji Market, but let’s take a minute to focus on that amazing marbeling}

{Found this gem of a stand. If this market is still around the next time we go to Japan, I guarantee we’ll be revisiting this guy}

{5 year old scallop cooked in sake and shoyu = happy belly}

Adventures in Chicago

I recently had to take a trip to Chicago for work.  This was my first trip to Chicago, and I must say that I loved the city.  Maybe it’s because I went during one of the few months where the weather was wonderful, but I love the architecture, the hustle and bustle in downtown and of course the food.  Deep dish pizza . . . oh yeah!    When we went, the weather was perfect, probably between mid 60s to mid 70s, which is cool enough to not break a sweat while I power walked down the streets, but warm enough for me to handle.  While I was there for work, we were able to make some time to see the sights, try the food and of course make it to a Cubs game.  Here are a few snapshots of our week out there

{SkyDeck in Willis Tower}

{amazing architecture}

{love the spiral buildings}

{Cubs game . . . I love the building top bleachers outside the stadium}

{some of our eateries . . . look at all that cheesy goodness}

{the BEAN}

{Crown Fountain}

{Jay Pritzker Pavilion}

Adventures in NYC

{Times Square}

After a long and over extended busy season, my boyfriend and I finally got to take a much needed vacation to NYC.  Since it was our first trip ever, we decided to stay in Times Square, right in the middle of all the action.  I can definitely say that NYC is a whole new world compared to Hawai’i.  The middle of Times Square is ridiculous.  The lights shine so bright at night, it’s almost like it’s still daytime.  There are so many places to go and things to see that we obviously could not pack it all into our 5 day stay, but we did our best.

{Central Park}

{Halal Chicken and Rice}

Oh this chicken and rice.  What can I say about this chicken and rice other than it’s mindblowingly delicious.  Yes, I think I just made up my own word to help describe this.  When you walk around Times Square, I think there are Halal carts that sell this chicken and rice on almost every corner, but you need to find the one on 53rd and 6th.  There may even be another cart on that corner, but don’t be fooled, you’ll know this cart because it’s the only one with a line.  Don’t be skimpy with the white sauce because it’s what adds the mindblowlingly to the delicious.  Maybe add some BBQ sauce if you want too, but be warned the hot sauce is HOT.  They’re not lying.  So if you think you can handle super hot foods, I suggest you try a little first.  Don’t want to ruin your entire dish because you want to prove you can handle hot.

{Eataly}

{Rockefellar}

{Radio City}

{Subway Station}

{Katz’s Deli}

The infamous Katz’s deli.  This place is known for their pastrami sandwich, and let me tell you, it’s not overrated.  I’ve never had pastrami that’s so moist and almost melts in your mouth when you eat it.  They give you a small plate of pastrami to taste while you wait for them to make your sandwich.  The meat is so tender that it was falling apart when I tried to pick it up.  But now let’s talk about the lovely knoblewurst sandwich.  The pastrami gets so much hype that I feel bad for this ignored sandwich because it’s also sooo good.  It doesn’t get the attention that it too deserves.  I mean, how can you go wrong with a grilled garlic sausage people.  Yes, garlic sausage, nuff said.

{Rice to Riches}

{Momofuku Noodle Bar}

{Hershey’s Store}

{Cafe Habana}

Are you noticing a pretty dominant food theme yet?  Yes, we were determined to try as many food places as possible.  Unfortunately we didn’t make it to some of the landmarks that I wanted to see, like the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty or Ground Zero, but I can tell you that we ate good.  I’ll save those things for the next trip, along with the long list of food places that we didn’t have time to visit.

{Russ & Daughters}

{Lombardi’s Pizza}

{Walking the streets}

{Laduree}

Macarons, who doesn’t love macarons?! I mean how can you go wrong with two cookies, crispy on the outside and so soft and moist on the inside with a creamy filling.  I cannot begin to explain how determined I was to make it to this place.  I’ve heard so much about these macarons that I was literally power walking down 6 blocks at 6:55 to make it before they closed at 7:00.  Needless to say, picking what I wanted to buy was the fastest decision I’ve ever made in my life since I walked in at like 6:58.  Unexpectedly, I think pistacchio was my favorite, but all of them were delicious.  The worker recommended salted caramel, rasperry, pistacchio and rose so of course I got one of each.

Okay so after all the researching and planning that I did for this trip, I’ve come across a new monthly blog theme that I’m hoping to bring to life.  So starting in July, I’m going to try and do a monthly post on some of my foodie favorites.  Each month will have a new topic, like dessert, garlic or bacon, and I’ll be sharing some of my favorite foods/places.  Realistically, it will be skewed (just trying to be honest) since I’ve only traveled to a handful of places, but hopefully it will help some people plan their food destinations on any upcoming vacations.

Adventures in Kauai

With the holidays here, I decided that I should take a much needed vacation with the boyfriend.  While it was only a couple days long, it’s always nice to escape to an outer island away from all your responsibilities and just relax.  While Kauai is definitely a peaceful island, let’s be honest, there’s really not that much to do.  For all your outdoors people, there are beautiful beaches, lots of nice hikes and some good tours that you can do.  Personally, next time I want to do the Zodiac tour along the Na Pali coast, as well as these inner tubing tours that take you down an actual lazy river.  However, if you’re more of an in doors person (i.e. shopping, bar hopping, etc) it might not be your cup of tea.  We decided that we would just take it easy and really not to much of anything.  I just wanted a break from everything, well mainly work, and the opportunity to just do nothing.  It was wonderful to get away from schedules, meetings and deadlines and to be able to do everything on our own time, no rush to get anywhere. Here are some of the highlights from our trip.

{Puka Dog}
“Puka” in a local terms (pidgin) means “hole,” and “Puka dog is exactly what this is; a hot dog shoved through a bun with a puka, rather than your typically bun. I got the polish sausage with spicy garlic lemon secret sauce, mango relish and lilikoi mustard. I’m not gonna lie, I’m not used to all that sweetness in my hot dog so I think by the end of the dog I was puka dog-ed out. The first half was awesome, but then I started to get a little overwhelmed by the sweetness, so the second half was not as good. Either way, still something unique and worth the experience.

{Fresh Squeezed Lemonade”
You can’t go wrong with fresh lemonade when it’s sunny and muggy outside. This definitely hit the spot.

{Drive from the airport to the hotel}
I’m not sure what kind of trees these were, but driving through them was like driving through a tree tunnel. Pretty cool, I know.

{Wailua Falls}
First time I’ve been to a waterfall that you can drive to and it’s right there, no hike necessary. Not to mention, this was probably one of the nicest waterfalls I’ve seen in Hawai’i up close so far. Per Yelp, it sounds like there’s a way to actually hike to the bottom and walk behind the falls. This time I wasn’t properly dressed to attempt this, but next time I go I plan to be.

{Lychee Sangria at Josselin’s Tapas Bar & Grill}
This is probably one of the best sangria’s I’ve ever had. Sooo good.

{Rock Shrimp and Duck Confit Tacos at Josselin’s Tapas Bar & Grill}
Favorite dish of the night. The taco shell was like a crispy won ton and the meat was moist and wonderfully seasoned. On top of the tacos I think was a mango relish, which added a nice freshness to the dish.

{Tempura Rock Shrimp at Josselin’s Tapas Bar & Grill}
Who doesn’t love shrimp tempura? The presentation of the dish was pretty awesome. Below the plate was dry ice to keep the rice cold.  As the dish is brought out, all the smoke from the ice flows out through the holes in the plate, adding a nice effect. The dish had a good dimension of flavors and textures, even temperatures (okay the cold rice against the hot shrimp might have been a little weird to me). If you eat the ginger between bites to cleanse your palette, it also brings our the shrimp flavor in your next bite.

{Fish Tacos on the way to Waimea Canyon}
I got the mahi mahi tacos, which were delicious. The fish is nicely grilled and the slaw accents the tacos nicely. Plus I just love fish tacos.

{First stop on the way up to Waimea Canyon}
There’s something just relaxing about standing at a view like this with a gentle breeze and the sun in the sky.

{Waimea Canyon}
The view of this canyon is beautiful and as you drive up to the top there are numerous scenic stops to take pictures. A quick tip, this canyon has tons of hikes that you can do. If you’re interested, I recommend starting your day early. The hikes range from as short as 0.2 miles to I think 5 or 7 miles. When we were almost to the top there was a gift shop/museum stop that showed all the different hike routes. There were so many trails I think you could spend over a week hiking everything.

{Rooster}
Kauai is filled with chickens and roosters. Believe it or not, we saw a chicken crossing the road . . . in a side walk.

{Ni’ihau Facts}
Did you know that Ni’ihau is a privately owned island and the locals speak Hawaiian as their first language?

{Bird in the Grass}
I think this was a plover bird. It looked so peaceful just sitting there by itself and enjoying the sun.

{Wai’ale’ale}
Apparently Waimea Canyon has got one of the wettest spots on earth. I did see quite a few people coming back from the hike with mud covered legs and shoes.

Adventures in the Bay

I just got back from a week of training in the bay.  I did spend a few years in the bay area, so I must say it was nice to have a free visit back.  There are so many wonderful things to do and sooo much delicious food.  Here are a few of my favorites from the trip:

{Pupusas . . . can’t get this at home}

{Dahlias}

{Dried White Peaches . . . sooooooo good}

{Blue Bottle Coffee}

{White Salmon!}

{Fresh Cheese}

Adventures in Philly

I just got back from a week of training in Philly.  The experience was interesting to say the least.  I think I walked around 4 miles each day between walking from the hotel to work and all of the exploring.  Overall, I must say it was a fun trip and something that makes me grateful for the opportunities that work gives me.  Here are a few pictures from my trip.

{Love Park}

{Museum of We the People}

{Independence Hall from A Far}

{Rocky Statue}

{Stairs from the Rocky Movie}

{Inside the Museum of Art}

{Stained Glass from the Museum of Art}

{Philadelphia City Hall}

{View of the City}

Adventures in Maui

A few friends and I decided to enjoy Independence Day and the long weekend with a short trip to Maui.  We had an awesome time exploring the island.  
Here are some snapshots from the trip.  

{View from the back of the hotel}

{Maui Ocean Center}

{Maui Ocean Center: Starfish and Sponges that you can touch}

{Maui Ocean Center: the big tank}

{Krispy Kreme}

{Krispy Kreme: fresh donuts . . . yummm}

{Snorkeling at Molokini}

{Guri Guri ice cream . . . a must try!}

{Bumper Boats}

{Black Rock Beach}

{Perfect ending: good food, friends and a beautiful sunset}

 

Adventures in LA

Here are some highlights from my recent trip to LA.  I always love exploring new places and trying new things and I thought I’d share some of my favorites.

{Tea time: Cranberry Scones and Turkey and Cranberry Sandwiches}

{Gorgeous purple and yellow flowers}

{Carmela Ice Cream . . . perfect for the warm summer weather}

{Lasgna Verde at Angelini Osteria – I’ve been wanting to try this since I saw it on The Best Thing I Ever Ate}

Getty Villa . . . so beautiful