Corinnes Africa

 Well just as we started. At the airport altho not Portland but Japan ready for the long haul home to Portland. Just such an amazing adventure. On the plane going to highlight the best photos with the most meaningful memories of the trip. It was so diverse from wildlife safari to amazing cities like Cape Town to wine country to ancient cities of Istanbul and Cappadocia crazy city like Dubai of course India to the exotic island of Japan. Have lots to go through and reminisce while coming back. Hoping the blog was enlightening and enjoyable to read. Thanks for joining this extraordinary journey!!

 Well we made a great decision to not go to Kyoto. Flights buses and trains cancelled. They have 28,000 customers without power. Doesn't seem like a lot with a population of millions!!  We kept thinking rain was on its way from Typhoon 7. We took our umbrellas and headed for the subway. Goal today the Imperial Palace. Wilson has this subway nailed. Actually it's not that difficult. Once you realize it's run by numbers-each station-color-which line- and know the end of line you just find where you want to go on the map..Wilson experimented with this autopay system sort of like Apple pay but Japanese style. It is pretty slick. He doesn't need to put his destination in like me my phone doesn't recognize the language, and the system deducts his ride once he exits. We got to the Palace walked around and found it's closed to the public. All we could do is walk the perimeter. As we understand the royal family still lives there. The surrounding area is beautiful. We hea...

 We had to leave our recent Airbnb and find a new one. Typhoon 7 is on the path to strike Kyoto. They are cancelling the bullet train which we were going to take. So we decided to move to a different part of Toyko. What a find. It's totally in the mix. Just check out these streets. Crazy. We found this beef bowl restaurant. Omg. It was absolutely amazing. Wilson kept saying this is raw. I said it's not. The meat was so incredibly tender. I used Google translate to ask how it was cooked and what part of the cow is used. They said it's the shoulder and they boil low heat  in a bag in water. Then they barely seared the meat in the pan with a little oil. Just incredible . Going to try to repeat this when we get back. It was served with garlic rice and coleslaw. There was a horseradish mayo that was drizzled over the top. Yum!!  Then we went to an.Osen. An Osen is a hot springs with different pools ranging from.a cool.pool to 106 hot pool.  There was also a sauna. There w...

 Our goal today was to meet Harumi. She is a dear friend and her daughter Moena has been Hannah's best friend since 2nd grade. I think their drive to become doctors came from Greys anatomy no kidding. Hannah was Meredith and Moena was Christine. We couldn't find Harumi. We got off at the wrong station. We couldn't figure out how to get there. We ended up taking an Uber and finally met up. We went to this great restaurant thank goodness  Harumi spoke Japanese.  Had sushi and sashimi again. I hate to say it but I maybe getting sushied out. We parted knowing we will see each other in Del Mar. We were so intrigued with this area. We just walked around. Japan is so very different than any place we have ever been. The people here are so respectful polite and willing to help. It's interesting. We were at a stoplight yesterday.  I said Wilson let's cross there are no cars. He said no look at everyone they are waiting for the light to change to cross. I'm like we can cro...

 Started off the day walking to the fish market. This market is the largest fish market in the world!!  We walked around and couldn't believe all the seafood. I have never seen oysters so large. We witnessed an auction. This 45 lb blue fin Tuna was up for action. Blue fin in Japan is called black diamond due to its extreme demand. One blue fin in 2019 sold for $3.1 M. Funny since in Mexico these fish are in every sushi roll!!!  We then went to lunch. We had no idea what we were ordering. We saw other people dishes and asked what they had and would ask for that. Crazy. When we were walking back we saw the skeletal remains of the blue fin. Not an ounce wasted now I understand why. Got back then met up with our bike tour group. There were only 3 of us. The guide was pretty cute. His English was barley understandable but as   the tour was coming to an end he was easier to understand. He took us to a Japanese garden. We were very lucky to be there on this very day. O...

 We took off from Udaipur at 4 after our indulgent day. Landed in Delhi at 8 to wait for our 1 AM flight into Tokyo via Hong Kong. If you notice the first pic of people standing in front of a little screen that is your boarding pass. No more scanning your boarding pass or showing your passport. Just stand there look at the screen it scans your eyes and you are in.  We thought maybe we aren't in their system. Oh far from it. They know exactly who we are. Kind of unsettling but I have nothing to hide:) Got in around 4 PM to Tokyo.  By the time we figured out the money exchange and the subway it was getting late. If you look at the signs you can understand!!  We went to the Tokyo station which is 1.1 km walk from our place. Searched in vain for sushi to no avail. Made it back to our our second to the last hotel before headed home:/

 Writing this one early. Wilson went down to get us very authentic chai in the clay cups. I just love chai!! Again started the day with our new yoga instructor. Then had a wonderful massage. Having lunch in our new favorite restaurant before taking off to Japan!!  Going to be a very very long travel day. Arrive in Japan tomorrow the 11 at 8 AM. Hoping we can get in!!  They have this registration online it's not an evisa something different that's impossible to fill out. Hoping they can help us🙏🤞🤞. Next report will be from Tokyo!!

 Started the day with an Indian yoga practice. It's very different than our California vinyasa that's for sure. It was nice and it was challenging in a different way. Enjoyed it all the same. We had another traditional lunch then walked around looking for new alleys to find. Sometimes looking too deep isn't always the best. You see a lot of what is hidden from the tourist area.  As I always say that's why one travels to see the hood the bad and the very different. We had been eyeing this rooftop restaurant from our side of the lake since we have been here. Decided to check it out for cocktails at sunset. Oh my. This is the happenin spot that's for sure. The views amazing. Very American music in fact they were playing the music on the rooftop louder than the prayer music. Seemed like it was fine. Then this loud chant from one of the temples kept repeating and repeating. We asked our waiter what are they saying. He said he was rotating his beads in his hands like a ro...

 Woke up this morning to the songs of the Hindi. We are on the bank of the lake. On either side of us are 2 Hindi temples. The one on our left is mostly where they pray and give thanks. There people bathing in the lake with all their clothes on. Women are washing clothes on the rocks. You can hear the slapping of the clothes on the rocks. With the music in the background it's surreal. There isn't any soap as far as we can tell being used. Its funny because Wilson and I were commenting on how clean everyone and their clothes are. If you saw where they lived you'd wonder how they could look so polished. The women's saris are so bright clean it's crazy. Now we know why. It was cool waking up to this morning ritual. We went to the city's palace. It is said metal was discovered in the 3500 BC in the middle east. Mostly bronze. Around the late 1300 AD is when the sophistication of the weapons came into play. Pretty amazing. It's interesting there have been no west...