If you fol­low us on Insta­gram or have skimmed through our web­site in the slight­est, then you know that trav­el is a huge part of who we are. We’ve always put a pri­or­i­ty on explor­ing the world and deeply val­ue each and every sin­gle moment we’ve shared in the places we’ve vis­it­ed. And while we’ve doc­u­ment­ed each of these occa­sions exten­sive­ly through pho­tos, we’ve always regret­ted not get­ting a chance to film our adven­tures. So when we booked our recent trip to Hawaii, we promised our­selves that we’d do what­ev­er it takes to put a trav­el video togeth­er — one that would cap­ture the essence and sights of the islands we were vis­it­ing (Big Island + Kauai) and the expe­ri­ences we’d share. So we did just that.
con­tin­ue read­ing »

Over the past few months we have been detail­ing our trav­els across Japan that took place just over a year ago. In Part 1, we arrived in Tokyo, and in Part 2 we made our way to Fujisan and Yudanaka’s hot springs. This, is Part 3.

It had been six hours worth of train rides from Yudana­ka to Kyoto and we arrived just as the sun was start­ing to set. We hopped off of our train and walked under and through Kyoto Station’s mar­vel­lous archi­tec­ture, rush­ing over to the taxi stands so we could acquaint our­selves with the city in the lit­tle bit of day­light that was left.

In our time there, we came to real­ize that Kyoto is a city don­ning many dif­fer­ent hats, and at its core, is the melt­ing pot of Japan’s past and present.

Kyoto is prob­a­bly most famous for its over 1600 tem­ples — the very rea­son we found our­selves in Japan’s for­mer cap­i­tal. But in our time there, we came to real­ize that Kyoto is a city don­ning many dif­fer­ent hats, and at its core, is the melt­ing pot of Japan’s past and present. The result is his­tor­i­cal land­marks sur­round­ed by mod­ern archi­tec­ture and sophis­ti­cat­ed shop­ping dis­tricts, a dual­i­ty that makes for some always inter­est­ing, occa­sion­al­ly jaw-dropping walks. For us how­ev­er, it was the city’s intri­cate net­work of alley­ways that real­ly stuck out and where we spent most of our time explor­ing. The truth is, if you’re not on a main street in Kyoto, you’re prob­a­bly in an alley­way, lit­tered with hun­dred of bicy­cles, res­i­dents, shop-owners, and the occa­sion­al mini-truck try­ing to make its way through.

We checked into the Mit­sui Gar­den, a sleek lit­tle bou­tique hotel off of one of these very alley­ways. Like Kyoto, it blends mod­ern design with Japan­ese cul­tur­al ele­ments to cre­ate a real­ly unique aes­thet­ic. Small warn­ing: if you con­stant­ly flip your pil­low to the cool side through­out the night, you won’t be doing that here because they fill the under­side of their pil­lows with a thin lay­er of rocks. It’s an inter­est­ing con­cept. con­tin­ue read­ing »

We begin the next leg of our jour­ney imme­di­ate­ly from where we left off in Part 1, leav­ing the bright lights and bustling sounds of Tokyo for the qui­et beau­ty of the Japan­ese countryside.

This is prob­a­bly our favourite part of our trav­els across Japan — it’s also the short­est, at two days with sev­en hours on the train between them.

Just over halfway to Mt. Fuji, our train from Tokyo came to a halt at Ōtsu­ki sta­tion, a quaint lit­tle ter­mi­nal with wood­en accents that gave it a lodge‑y (if not toy-like) feel. Guides ush­ered guests to their next stop and, as we bought our tick­ets for the next train, one of them sug­gest­ed we take the Fujikyu Rail­way instead of any of the oth­er options. He hint­ed that we would enjoy it more, and that if it was our first time in the area, it was a must. He was right. con­tin­ue read­ing »

If you fol­low us on Insta­gram, you’ve prob­a­bly seen a few pho­tos from our trip to Japan last fall. It was sort of a end-of-the-wedding-season cel­e­bra­tion squeezed in between our penul­ti­mate wed­ding in Octo­ber and our “for-real” last wed­ding in Decem­ber. Once we got back, there was real­ly no breath­ing room to reflect on how amaz­ing the trip had been — we just jumped right back into the flow of things, work­ing on our last 2014 wed­ding, edit­ing fea­tures, and revamp­ing the site.

But a lot of peo­ple have been ask­ing us about our jour­ney through Japan, want­i­ng to know exact­ly where we went and how it all looked. Half-inspired to share more from our trip with these peo­ple, and half-inspired to relive it our­selves, we decid­ed to put togeth­er a guide/journal of our adven­tures across this beau­ti­ful coun­try. con­tin­ue read­ing »