Driving Miss Karen

Kenroku-En gardens is supposed to be one of the three great gardens in Japan (along with Koraku-en and Kairaku-en). We are not sure what that even means exactly but it was on our route...

Kyoto is very convenient to Himeji Castle. About an hour by train with trains every 15-20 minutes. We were bold (for us) and didn’t even make reservations. Himeji is a cool little town but...

Kyoto is about and 90 minutes to 2 hours away depending on train speed from Hiroshima. Itsukushima shrine on the island of Miyajima is a 10 minute ferry from Hiroshima bay. Hiroshima is the...

Our longest stay in Japan was in Kyoto and that was a good choice. It was our favorite city in Japan and just had the perfect blend of size, connections, restaurants, and touristy stuff....

Tokyo is an interesting mix of old and new. It has wonderful shrines, temples, and gardens but lots of quirky modern neighborhoods as well. Though it is the largest city in the world at...

Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) feels even more different at night. They really do a great job on lighting and they have the Disney Electrical Parade which combines the old theme music (my favorite) with new...

DisneySea is unique but Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) is very much a copy of the WDW Magic Kingdom park. It was the first overseas park and is the only park that Disney has no ownership...

COVID restrictions were lifted just in time for us to make Japan. It was really in doubt for a while. We were really looking forward to Japan and especially Tokyo Disney and we feel...

Like India, Taiwan was not on our original itinerary. It was a nice stop before Japan and since China was closed to travel, it was our chance to go to a Mandarin speaking country....

OK I didn’t really like it but I didn’t dislike it either. It was kind of like eating a crunchy vegetable rind with no flavor. The oozy innards had been completely cooked off so...