Tag Archive for 'travel'

Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo & Vietnam!

Published by Kevin & Cathy on June 29, 2008 in Japan.   123 views 0 Comments

….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. We showed them around some of the major attractions of the area, and introduced them to our students, our guarantors and our friends. After Takikawa, we all headed down to Kyoto & Osaka for a few days, exploring the mid-section of Japan- the old culture and tradition of Kyoto and the lights and sounds of Osaka. We took the shinkansen to Tokyo and spent a day there before we all jumped on a plane to Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam.

We spent a week in Vietnam, exploring Ho Chih Minh, Hue and Hoi an and battling the heat and the sun.
In total, we were travelling for 2 weeks: a week in Japan and a week in Vietnam. A much needed end-of-April break.

Photo time!

Sakura
梅
Pokey
Cherry Blossoms @ ueno park
Blossoms
Cathy's #1 fan
gliding through
Tour boats
waiting
Waterscape


Camping at Toya Lake, Hokkaido.

Published by Kevin & Cathy on June 23, 2008 in Japan.   341 views 1 Comment

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 more than beautiful.

We bought a tent from Costco a while back for 6000 Yen (that is 56CDN as of Jun 23 2008). This trip was the first time for us to use the tent. We found a campground which allows open fire. (Our campground - 仲洞爺キャンプ場. Here’s a great website for looking for campgrounds in Hokkaido: camp navi hokkaido). In Japan, it’s not very common for people to camp and have open fire. It is usually not allowed in camp grounds. Moreover, it is also not common for people to camp just at the middle of no where. People usually camp in camp grounds. We had our doubts about it before this trip, but due to high security around the Toyako we decided that it is best to stay out of trouble by staying in a campground.

Our campground is really not what you think it is. It is still the middle of no where, but with running water and toilets. (In our case, it also had a onsen nearby - 来夢人の家) We set camp RIGHT by the lake. We had an open fire going right by the water and we fell asleep listening to the sound of the lake (and rain for the first night.) We were blessed with beautiful fireworks on the lake as part of Toyako’s attraction during summer. It was really quite romantic to be snuggling under big umbrellas, drinking beer, eating bbq steak and watching the fireworks by the lake.

The tent held up to the rain the first night. We had minor leakage but it was very fixable problem with a little help from garbage bags. Kevin went outside with a giant sun umbrella at the middle of the night with gold miner head flashlight to attach garbage bags to the corners of the tent. After that, we stayed dry and comfortable inside. Thankfully for the tent being a 3-person tent, we had plenty of space. Kevin, as a giant, had to sleep diagonally in the tent.

We woke up at 6′o clock in the morning and find ourselves facing a beautiful calm lake with white mists and swans swimming by. (there were so many swans, they even tried to come on shore to attack us and steal our food, in our imaginary scenario that’s what they’d do of course.)

We had delicious Jingisukan (ジンギスカン) and yakiniku (焼き肉) and cheesy japanese pinky sized cocktail weinies and of course, marshmallows. We toured the town of Toya during the day and visited the Sun Palace Hotel onsen and the brand new super-eco toyako visitor center that’s dedicated to greeness. There were fields of solar panels and wind generators around the beautiful new log house. G8 is definitely bringing Toya new life.

Our trip goes on to Hakodate after Toyako. More to come.

We will go through photos and upload them slowly. Will insert photos later.

On Our Way to Taroko

Published by Kevin & Cathy on October 25, 2007 in Around Taiwan Trip, General, Taiwan and Video.   354 views 0 Comments

Our trip around Taiwan started on Wednesday. We were fortunate enough to get our hands on a car from Cathy’s dad’s company. It’s a Corolla just like Cathy’s old car, but much cooler equipped with a GPS system. (and automatic side mirror closing device)

We started driving from Taipei down the number 5 highway (commonly known as the “Snow Mountain Express Highway” - 雪山隧道). We started our trip with couple LOOOOONG tunnels and a slightly confusing GPS-miscommunication-induced detour at PingLing (坪林). It took us about an hour to get from Taipei to Suao (蘇澳) where we stopped and shared a NT$ 75 (around two canadian dollars) bento box & bubble tea.

From there on, we switched to the number 9 highway (蘇花公路) which traitorously winds its way across the east coast on a sheer cliff overlooking the pacific ocean. This highway was full of people passing on TOTALLY blind corners and speeding through sharp turns in the heavy rain. Our average speed on the highway was about 30km/hr. The rain was pouring from the sky in a tropical rain shower and at several points, the highway was washed out by landslides. It was foggy and the visibility was horrible. (But we could still see the beautiful mountains scaling up the cliffs through the fog)

The GPS system guided us to HuaLian to our homestay (民宿 -translates into “people housing” or “civilian housing), it’s much like a B&B that’s run by locals. Some of them are fancier (& pricier) than 5-star hotels; some of them offer only bunk beds. Homestays offer a great alternative from hotels as lots of them are beautifully designed like mini boutique hotels and others are great in price for budget travelers. We were very lucky to find a good one called the Moonlight ocean (月光海洋). It’s very beautiful, clean and well priced (We paid $1800 NT for one night - less than $60 CDN). The hostess at the front desk is very helpful and friendly. We had a very wonderful stay here.

Tomorrow we wake up early to enjoy a complimentary breakfast and we’ll head into the Taroko Gorge. It’ll be a full day ahead.

Including videos of us on the highway.

Circumference

Published by Kevin & Cathy on October 23, 2007 in Around Taiwan Trip, General, Taiwan and Video.   259 views 1 Comment

We leave tomorrow for our around-island trip of awesomeness. (you do know Taiwan is an island, right?)

We start by heading down the east coast towards Hualien. The next morning we drive through the Taroko gorge (pronounced tie-roo-guh) before staying at a five star resort in the heart of the gorge. The next couple nights we’ll spend in the southern part of the island visiting hot spring resorts and beaching, before visiting Cathy’s uncle in the South.

The rest of the trip, we’ll figure out as we go, but the most interesting part of the trip by far will be the rock-sissors-paper match between Kevin and Cathy to see who gets the to use the wide-angle lens in the gorge. (We’ll post the play-by-play)

We leave you with a clip of the trip semi-planning-session at Cathy’s aunt’s house, where everybody had more than enough to say about where to go and what to do.

“bla bla bla bla bla bla bla…. that would be where.”

(bla bla bla = Cathy trying to explain what sailing is, because she doesn’t know the actual word, and asking where to find sailing.)

GPS, online!

Published by Kevin & Cathy on October 22, 2007 in General and Taiwan.   1,114 views 2 Comments

Well, we got our GPS logger figured out!

DG-100 Data Logger
Our Globalsat DG-100 Data Logger records our GPS position every 10 seconds as we walk around Taipei (or bus, or train).

After a few days, we can download the data, map it and link it with the photos we’ve taken so we know exactly where we took them.

Google Maps ScreenshotWe’re still getting the hang of it, but you can see a Google Maps Log of our travels over the past few days!

In other news, we’ve started planning our “Around-Taiwan” tour of the whole island. We’ve booked a few hotels, and figured out our first couple days. We’ll spend about a week starting down the east coast, to Taroko National Park and down to the south part of Taiwan, where we’ll be staying at a 5-star hotsprings resort. We’ll figure the rest of the trip out on the way, but we’ll visit with Cathy’s uncle for a few days in the south before returning up the west coast back to Taipei.