We’re back from Japan! After seven years from our totally awesome study abroad experience, we’ve finally found the opportunity to visit our old  home. The photo above marked the location of the beginning of my courtship with my wonderful wife, as this was the place where we had our first lunch date/picnic.

We have much stories to tell, advice to share, & nearly 5,000+ photos to wade through & edit for upload—keep visiting our site for more!

You’re probably read some news about the Japanese government giving away free flights to Japan, but they’re likely awarded to those who are willing to publicize their experiences. We’ll try to audition for the job through our blog, so if you can share our site with your friends & family who you would think would enjoy the wild & zany adventures of a married Asian couple in a foreign land, that would be the best! Thanks & stay tuned!

One thing we value is work life balance. After a busy 2010, we decided to put that into practice and set off for a little R&R on the west side of the Maui to a resort called Honua Kai on Kaanapali Beach.

The resort is gorgeous. It’s a brand-new beachfront property, & according to Trip Advisor, it’s the highest rated place in the area. This means a lot since Kaanapali appeared to be one of the fairly swanky parts of the island. Even though beach access is so convenient, they still provide big, warm pools & plentiful lounging areas. This was the first time I’ve seen those lounge chairs in the pool (I don’t go out much).

We both did a lot of swimming, but the studious Cindy loved to take in the sun & lounge with her Kindle in hand.

Between the pools & the beach was Duke’s Restaurant, an open-air food hole with an outstanding happy hour. A good place to get cheap bar food like tacos & ribs.

We check in & the receptionist says that we’re upgraded from a 1-bedroom/1-bathroom to a suite double that size. I mentioned that we’re a married couple, so I’m not quite sure why the extra bedroom was necessary. I suppose I shouldn’t complain about getting a bigger place. At least we could take simultaneous showers in our separate bathrooms.

Of course, the reason we booked a suite at a beachfront property is for the views. We were promised a partial ocean view, so for those moments when it wasn’t raining, we kicked it on the patio (or as Cindy calls it, the lanai). Again, Cindy curled up with her trusty Kindle & I took advantage of our free wi-fi with my MacBook Air.

Our second night was pretty intense. Maui was storming like crazy. Never has a storm woken me from my sleep, but the constant thundering & the pouring rain drilling our bedroom window got me out of bed at 3:30am. The next morning, many parts of the resort was flooded, including the well-manicured footpaths.

We didn’t let the rain bother us much when it came to pool time.

We got tired of Duke’s real fast, & since we rented a car, we explored our neighboring areas like Downtown Lahaina. A friend recommended visiting Ululani’s Shave Ice, because, in his words, the owner “was originally from Oahu and learned there, which is why it’s as close to Matsumoto’s as you can get on Maui.”

For those who have been to Hawaii know that Japanese cuisine has a huge presence. We took advantage of that & had our share of ultra-tasty ramen & kaiten-zushi at a chain Cindy used to frequent back in Japan.

When we got tired of always going out to eat & had our fridge stacked with leftovers, Cindy did her magic & re-purposed the food into a brand new meal. Cooking on vacation? She thinks it’s relaxing & therapeutic. I just nod in agreement & accept that I’m a lucky husband.

Like I mentioned earlier, we did a lot of swimming. I’m kinda bummed that we didn’t get to go snorkeling (I even packed my snorkel), but since the pools were so nice & warm, I didn’t mind it too much. Oh well, I’ll snorkel next time.

Visiting the beach was probably the most adventurous thing we did on the trip. Even still, all we did was lie on the sand while Cindy—you guessed it—read books on her Kindle. Yep, nothing too adventurous for us!

To complete our relaxing vacation, we drove down to Wailea to the Grand Wailea Hotel & Spa to get treatments in their world-renowned facility. The resort itself was quite impressive, but the treatments were even better. To start you off and get you into relaxation mode, you go through a series of baths similar to some onsen facilities in Japan with water of different temperatures containing therapeutic minerals and salts. Though quite expensive, worth every penny.

The only other part of Hawaii I’ve visited is Oahu. Would I visit Maui again? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to anyone who is visiting Hawaii for the first time? If you’re a city guy/gal, stick to Oahu & Honolulu/Waikiki areas (which I love). For those who want to get away, live it up in luxury & can spare the expense, you’ll love the Lahaina/Kaanapali area.

I thought this photo would be appropriate to upload in light of the big day coming up in a week. It also gives me a reason to share some of my old photos from my stint in Japan.

On December 14, 2003 (nearly seven years ago), we just got back from Kobe—a three-hour trip from my old hometown of Okayama—to check out the gorgeous light show, the Luminarie. Back at home, we hit up a karaoke spot after dinner to unwind. It was just a bit past midnight when all my friends pulled out a makeshift cake: a chocolate log ice cream cake with pieces of Pocky as the ‘candles.’ The Pocky wouldn’t stay lit, so T-Bone held a lighter flame next to it so I could make my 20th birthday wish.

Late night karaoke? Pocky? When in Rome…do as the Japanese do!

Quite the eventful trip we had out there! Cindy & I love taking short vacations, especially if they’re related to baseball! The A’s finished their season in Seattle, so we thought it would be fun to support the green & gold up in cool Seattle for the last two games this year. So we packed up our A’s jersey, baseball glove, & camera, but most importantly, my iPhone to help me build my iPhone autographs collection.

Cindy hooked us up with some outstanding seats five rows from the field—super close to the action. She pretty much set us up for a good time. What a great way to end the season—I scored two autographs in one game! Chris Carter (above) & Eric Sogard (below) are rookies, naturally relatively new to the A’s. They did their ballplayer duties & made the rounds for the fans, signing his autographs for the kids.

The best souvenir of the weekend: we made it on TV!

After the second inning, the family that sat behind us unfurled their home-made A’s banner. With the combination of sitting so close to the field, wearing out-of-town colors, & sitting next to a family with kids, all sporting A’s paraphernalia, I realized this would be an opportunity to be on camera, so I prompted Cindy to start waving. It’s really hard to tell if the camera is pointed at you, especially hard to know if you’re being broadcasted, so I just started parade-waving, panning left to right just in case the cameras happen to be on.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time we were on TV with the A’s:

This happened in 2009. With last Friday’s broadcast, that’s two years in a row on TV. Let’s keep the streak going next year!

Yeah, we’re big baseball nuts. We couldn’t wait for baseball to start in the Bay, so we flew out to Arizona to get our fix! This was our first MLB Spring Training out in Arizona, & we can’t wait to do it again next year.

We wake up in obscene hours here in Bay to catch a 7:00am Saturday morning flight from SFO. We land in Phoenix, shuttle over to the rental car complex (a 10 minute bus ride from the terminal) to pick up our PT Cruiser, then drive straight to Scottsdale Stadium to watch the Giants play the A’s. The game ends at 5:00ish, so we take a 15-minute walk from the park to our hotel to freshen up for dinner. It was the night of the Pacquiao fight, so we walked over to a local steakhouse for a little dinner, boxing, & mechanical bull riding.

After church on Sunday morning in Tempe, we went straight to the A’s Spring Training ballpark at the Phoenix Municipal Stadium, sliding into our seats a bit before showtime. It felt good to see the ol’ boys back on the field. On top of that, we were blessed with gorgeous weather during our whole trip & the A’s winning both games during our visit.

No, I didn’t get any iPhone signatures this time, or caught any homerun/foul balls, but one cool baseball-related thing that happened during our visit: at the restaurant on Saturday night, we were almost sure that Alfonso Soriano from the Chicago Cubs was dining at the table next to ours.

An Australian photo album wouldn’t be complete without a photo of a kangaroo! It was our last few days in the country, & right next to our beach resort was a wildlife sanctuary. They have this breakfast thing where you can have breakfast with the birds, so we thought it would be a good place to start our day before heading back to the airport.

They had all kinds of native animals for viewing. You can walk right up to a kangaroo. They’re a bit scary—they have really huge claws on their feet. Don’t wanna mess with them.

It was pouring when we visited, so there were puddles all around. My shoes & socks were soaked, but I tried my best to try to keep the rest dry by rolling up my pants & covering up with a cheap poncho.

The birds rely on human leftovers, so they can be a bit gutsy:

Was the place worth our time? Absolutely.

Honeymooning in Australia

Sydney was our first stop in Australia so the first few days, especially for me were spent battling jet-lag. As with any westbound journey it wasn’t too bad, we just ended up waking up before daylight and going to bed after an early dinner.

I don’t know if it was because it was the first leg of our trip, but we didn’t enjoy Sydney as much as the other cities. We found it to be a little harder to navigate. Even once we figured out the train system, we continued to have trouble even getting to places we’d been before. It was great exercise but a little tiring on the legs and draining in the heat. We also found it harder to find places to eat. I would definitely recommend staying in the Circular Quay or Darling Harbor area since that’s where most of the tourist destinations are. We stayed near the Darlinghurst area across the street from the Anzac Memorial so while it was easy to get to a train station, we usually didn’t want to go back out to where we were after we came back to freshen up before dinner.

Our favorite spots:

• Pink Peppercorn. Laotian restaurant in Darlinghurst. It was a short walk from our hotel and was recommended by one of the guidebooks. We really enjoyed the lamb kabobs which were cooked and seasoned perfectly and we had a delicious coconut curry with chicken. Ian loved the fragrant rice which went perfectly with both of the dishes.
• The Cantina. Tapas place in the Darlinghurst area. They had an early bird special
• Sculptures by the Sea. Sculpture exhibit from Bondi to Bronte beach. We were fortunate to catch it because it goes for only about 2 weeks from the end of October to mid-November. Many of the installations were built into the rock areas along the walkway but there was also a park right before Tamarama beach that had quite a few additional sculptures.
• Open market at the Rocks. On the weekends only. Fortunately my brother gave us a heads up about this because we were only in Sydney for 1 weekend day. The shops close up before 5pm so we were only able to shop for a little bit but we were able to get some nice souvenirs.

Places we recommend avoiding:

• Sydney Tower/Oz Trek. I’ve been to towers and lookouts in other cities I’ve visited and felt like it was a worthwhile experience, but the same cannot be said about the Sydney Tower. For one, it’s not the highest point in Sydney and also they didn’t have placards like most places do to let you know what you’re looking at. We did our best to try to figure it out with our guidebooks, but especially since a view of the Opera House was obscured it really wasn’t worth it in my opinion. As Ian mentioned in his post, Oz Trek was not a good experience for me. I’ve been on other simulators before and been okay but something about this ride made me really ill and I was out for the night.
• Museum of Contemporary Art. Admission was free and for us we were thankful that it was. Neither of us are big contemporary art fans but it is located in such a prime location we had hope. The best thing about it was to see all of the school kids on field trip doing hands on projects with the docents. It seems like they had a really good program for field trips but with the exception of a couple exhibits, it was not our cup of tea.

The only thing we didn’t do that we wish we had done was to go see a performance at the Sydney Opera House. We went on a tour there which was impressive in itself especially since we were able to see some of the ballet people do their warm-up exercises but we could only imagine how much better it would be to see an entire show.

Honeymooning in Australia

Places we enjoyed:

• San Churro. Cafe where they make fresh churros with different dipping sauces. Came highly recommended by my brother. They also have them in Sydney but good thing we didn’t try them until Melbourne because we went there twice in three days.
• Longrain. Thai fusion restaurant that came as a recommendation from our friend’s colleague. There is also a location in Sydney. She called it the best Thai in the world. It was conveniently located across the street from our hotel and the perfect place to celebrate our last dinner in Melbourne. It was definitely more upscale than the Thai restaurants we go to at home but it was delicious and worth every penny.
• Brighton Beach. More of a locals beach with cute little bathing houses.
• St. Kilda. Really cute beach area with lots of trendy shops and restaurants.
• Cafes in the laneways near Flinders Station. Free wi-fi and reportedly the best coffee in Melbourne.
• Phillips Island. We loved it so much it deserves a separate entry.

Skip it:

• Camy’s Dumpling House. In the guidebooks touted as the best Shanghai food outside of Shanghai. Two words: not true. It was cheap but not worth it.

Honeymooning in Australia

Ian’s been doing a great job of carrying our blog for awhile now, but I thought it’s about time to chime in and share my perspective.

Australia is a place that has been on the top of my list to visit for quite some time. The beaches, the wildlife, the friendly vibe that Australia seems to have has always attracted me. We figured that it would be a great destination for our honeymoon since we’d be able to spend more time there than we usually do on our regular vacations.  Also since it’s an English speaking country we hoped that it would eliminate an additional stress that usually comes with travelling to a foreign country.

Booking the flight was easy but everything else I found to be a bit more of a challenge then when I’ve gone abroad in the past. A large part of it comes from my reliance on Yelp and other online resources. Nowadays before I go anywhere or buy anything I look up reviews online so I know exactly what I’m getting into. Admittedly it does take some of the adventure out of it but I hate having a bad meal or wasting my money on something that’s not worth it.

Fortunately to satisfy my need for information, I was able to get references from friends and friends of friends which put my mind at ease. I also relied heavily on TripAdvisor.com when looking up accommodations and activities, but I found it to be a little cumbersome to navigate not to mention that it’s harder for me to determine the reviewers reference point to see how they stack up to mine.

Here are some of the useful things we discovered during our travels.

General

• Most restrooms do not have toilet seat covers. Toilets also have half and full flushes.
• Free internet at the Apple Store. Internet at hotels were quite expensive. We also got a 50MB plan for Ian’s phone for about $50.
• This is applies to anywhere you travel, but be careful about marking yourself as a tourist. We got yelled at by a panhandler in Bondi Beach in broad daylight for pulling out our map.
• Sun is INTENSE. The no ozone layer thing is not a joke. Bring lots of sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses. The highest SPF they sold in Australia was 30, so if you think you need more protection, bring it with you.
• No international driver’s license required if you have a driver’s license written in English.

Money

• Bank of America has a “sister” bank called Westpac. ATMs can be used without any additional service charges.
• Many hotels charge a 1-3% surcharge for using a credit card.
• Tipping is not required. Though the guidebooks often recommend 10% at fancy restaurants our Australian friend told us that tipping is not necessary anywhere. To us it felt really wrong especially since there were many places we received excellent service so we did tip, but as the trip went on we got a little more used to the concept. As an alternative many hotels and restaurants allowed us to make small donations to charities in lieu of tipping. We thought it was a nice way to solve the issue.

Eating/drinking

• Food is expensive. Expect to pay $30+ for a main dish. Of course there are many fast food options, including Subway all over the place but we found that cafes were good places to sit down and get affordable and good meals especially for breakfast and lunch.
• It is standard that hotels provide hot water heaters, tea, coffee and milk. Most of the hotels we stayed in also have small kitchenettes.
• Most days we bought pastries for breakfast which was a more affordable option and also saved us from having to rush out first thing in the morning.
• Most restaurants allow you to bring in your own wine for a small corkage fee.

Actually, I was there with her, too. Putting ‘Cindy’ & ‘Sydney’ in a sentence is fun. I betcha you can’t say the title three times fast!

Our sightseeing on Darling Harbour lead us to the Sydney Aquarium. We thought it was a good idea to escape from the sun by ducking inside a cool, dark building. We enjoyed it because it was educational. Did you know that crocodiles are a threat to humans? Hey, printed signs don’t lie:

Platypus, penguins & dugongs, oh my!

Honeymooning in Australia