http://www.goodfishies.com We travel the world. Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:15:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_373" width="300" caption="Photo of the Jeita Grotto (from the internet) "][/caption] The highlight of our trip to Lebanon was the Jeito Grotto. It's a limestone cave just outside of Beirut. The cave is so big that it's divided into upper and lower cave. The size of the chambers is simply ... http://www.goodfishies.com/jeita-grotto-cave-lebanon/ We often joke that our goal for traveling is to eat. We enjoy eating and all kinds of cuisine. So far, we haven't found any food that we don't enjoy. Being such foodies, we are always on the lookout for amazing restaurants and new recipe. We had a fantastic foodie ... http://www.goodfishies.com/tel-aviv-for-the-foodies/ Balletrina at Tel Aviv Arts & Craft Market @ Carmel Market You might not think of traveling somewhere like Israel for vacation (unless you're on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem!), but we did! We stumbled upon Tel Aviv this month, and instantly fell in love with it. As controversial as Israel ... http://www.goodfishies.com/tel-aviv-israel-in-a-day/ We fish have traveled a fair bit since the first day we teamed-up a few years ago. We won't call ourselves travel professionals quite yet, but we are getting really good at packing (and re-packing) our entire existance into backpacks, suitcases, duffel-bags & boxes and moving to a new ... http://www.goodfishies.com/the-goodfishies-guide-to-packing-leaving-relocating-across-the-world/ If you are heading to China, you HAVE TO see the Great Wall of China! We hiked the Great Wall on our recent trip to China and it was easily the highlight of our entire trip. The Great Wall is very long; however, the most popular section of the Great ... http://www.goodfishies.com/the-great-wall-of-china-simatai/ If you are a tourist in Puerto Vallarta, eating can get a bit confusing. Either you get cramped in a 'supposedly' authentic Mexican restaurant with a bunch of other cruise ship / sun burned / wristband-tan-line tourists, or you end up in a giant lineup for the 'supposedly' new hottest ... http://www.goodfishies.com/musteat-food-in-puerto-vallarta/ Hey everyone! We spent 6 days in Hong Kong taking pictures, eating foreign food and getting elbowed in the face. Hong Kong is an amazing, international, beautiful city - We had a fantastic time, but realized after even a few days of arriving that keeping your sanity in Hong ... http://www.goodfishies.com/the-hong-kong-survival-guide/ Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful city sandwiched between the coast of Banderas Bay and mountain ranges behind it, speckled with hundreds of lavish all-inclusive resorts on the beach. Swimming in the ocean, tanning on the beach, enjoying big margaritas, surfing, scuba diving, and snorkeling are all wonderful choices for this ... http://www.goodfishies.com/snorkeling-in-puerto-vallarta-mismaloya/ Last year we welcomed the coming of 2008 at Zojoji Temple, at the foot of the Tokyo Tower in Japan. Thousands of balloons were released into the sky at the stroke of midnight, with Tokyo Tower lit up proudly in the background. It was a spectacular way to welcome ... http://www.goodfishies.com/happy-new-year-2009-from-taiwan/ Yokohama is a beautiful waterfront city on the very outskirts of Tokyo. Some of the Tokyo subway lines actually reach as far as Yokohama, which tends to create some confusion among tourists that maybe Yokohama is part of Tokyo. It's not. And if you spend even a ... http://www.goodfishies.com/yokohama-japan/ Kansai in Japanese kanji is 関西. It literally means the west border. Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe are some of the major cities in the Kansai region. (to learn more about Kansai read the wikipedia article here.) Kanto in Japanese kanji is 関東. It means the east border. Some of the ... http://www.goodfishies.com/cheapest-way-to-travel-from-kansai-to-kanto/ When our 1 year in Japan was just about coming to an end we decided to do one last trip down south before we left. We had already traveled through all of Hokkaido, visited Kyoto and Tokyo (a few times), so we decided that it was time to ... http://www.goodfishies.com/kansai-trip-in-japan-hiroshima-kobe-nara/ We spent 10 days in South Korea visiting with our good friends Song & Joe, from Vancouver. It was a short 3-hour flight from Chitose airport to Incheon, in Seoul. We met happily in the airport, and spent our first night together in Seoul. We hopped a ... http://www.goodfishies.com/korea/ Eastern Hokkaido Roadtrip - Akanko, Kussharoko, Abashiri, Shiretoko We took a camping/onsening/feasting roadtrip through eastern Hokkaido- known to have absolutely nothing to offer but breathtakingly beautiful scenery. We took along with us our friend Michael Tripp who also is a former Hokkaidoite. Our final destination was Shiretoko but we planned on stopping ... http://www.goodfishies.com/eastern-hokkaido-roadtrip/ Along with our camping trip to Toya Lake last month, we also visited Hakodate. We enjoyed the freshest (wiggling on our plate) squid that was perfectly clear in color and tasted like heaven. We also had uni (sea urchin) for breakfast. Such a luxury! It was ... http://www.goodfishies.com/hakodate/ ....Oh yea! In case you hadn't picked up on the dwindling frequency of our blog updates, we completely forgot to mention our recent trip down to Kyoto, Osaka & Tokyo AS WELL AS our recent Vietnam trip!! Kevin's parents, Barb & Harry came to visit us in Takikawa for a few days. ... http://www.goodfishies.com/kyoto-osaka-tokyo-vietnam/ Have you heard of the g8 summit? Well, this year it's happening in Hokkaido at Toya lake. We took a camping trip to Toyako (which is Toya lake in Japanese in case you haven't figured that out already..) last week. Aside from the super high security highway checks, it was ... http://www.goodfishies.com/camping-at-toya-lake-hokkaido/ [caption id="attachment_73" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Kevin getting ready for the marathon. "][/caption] This Sunday was the annual Healthy Marathon (ヘルシ　マラソン) in the nearby town of Biei. Biei is about 120km away from Takikawa, and is known for its annual marathon as well as its beautiful flower gardens spread over vast rolling ... http://www.goodfishies.com/biei-marathon/ We spent the last Saturday in town being very big Barbies, but more in the sense of a Japanese dress-up doll instead of the blond and pink. We were invited to go for dinner with the Takikawa Soroptimist group, for a formal Kimono dress-up session, make-up, hair, and dinner. It ... http://www.goodfishies.com/kimono-dinner-with-the-soroptimists-in-takikawa/ Of all the things that you have heard about Hokkaido, they are probably all true, but really, Hokkaido is all about its winter. There might be delicious diary products and ice creams here, but nothing beats the powdery fluffy snow. To keep warm in this kind of weather, we have ... http://www.goodfishies.com/our-winter-in-hokkaido/ After waking up in a strange McDonalds in Ueno and finding it much busier than when we had decided to nap quietly in the corner, we headed to Asakusa to drop our bags off at the hotel. Cathy had found us a series of great hotels over the next ... http://www.goodfishies.com/happy-new-year-2008-from-tokyo/ 16. Cathy and I had been tossing around the idea of where to go for Christmas / New Years for a few weeks. We had considered going down to the tropical southern part of Japan, Okinawa, or maybe driving around Hokkaido, soaking in the wintery goodness. We ended up ... http://www.goodfishies.com/how-many-trains-does-it-take-to-get-to-tokyo/ Konnichiwa! We took a trip to Sapporo last weekend with our gaijin friend Matt (We've only known Matt for a few weeks, but he's been around to help us with many things, as he is the only foreigner who A) works at city hall B) is fluent with both English and ... http://www.goodfishies.com/sapporo-white-illumination-festival/ Samantha & Rafael were the teachers here before us. We spent 2 short weeks together learning our way around Takikawa and the ins & outs of the job. Sam & Raf left for Vancouver on November 25th: Hey peeps! How are things? Is everything OK, are you guys still confident about everything ... http://www.goodfishies.com/goodbye-sam-raf/ One of our classes every week is at the Takikawa Kindergarden. We play with the kids in the morning and "try" to teach them English in the afternoon. They are the most adorable things ever but it can be quite exhausting at times. The kindergarden is right beside a temple ... http://www.goodfishies.com/takikawa-kindergarden/