Togetsutei Ryokan

You can't go to Japan and just walk around temples all day, well, you can and you'd still have a great time, but to really soak in some of the culture you gotta hit up a ryokan. This was probably the nicest place I've ever stayed in and our room had it's own private onsen (geothermally heated spring water.)

The one we stayed in was very pricey but it was well worth it.

Miyajima Island

After landing in Tokyo and resting up for one night Charlie and I headed to miyajima island. The whole island is covered in shrines and deer and because the whole island is sacred, the deer there basically act like giant pigeons. Because we stayed over night we basically had the entire place to ourselves from 6pm until 10am next morning. We walked down the mountain after taking the last cable car up and visited Daisho-in temple in the morning.

Walking to the temple.

Some of  disciples of Buddah

Hana Hostel

We stayed in out first Japanese style hostel last night and it was one of the nicest places we've stayed in so far. Here's a tour of the room.

MIA -> ZRH -> NRT

Man I smell right now. 

We left the boat this morning, or yesterday morning I guess, at 830 and went directly to the laundromat to wash up before the next leg of the trip. As far as laundromats go it was actually really nice, the whole thing was an open garage so it had a nice breeze going the whole time and the people inside were pretty friendly. After that was all done we decided to kill time by walking towards the airport thinking that there'd be lots of stops along the way for coffee, lunch and the all to rare wifi hotspot but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. 
After walking for an hour or so  and working up a sweat, we finally found a cafe and stoped for a rest. Were both totally fine with walking all day but considering just how boring the scenery was we decided to go see a movie to kill some time. After that we sat around some more and then headed to the airport.

We paid an extra 200 to have upgraded seats for our Miami to Zurich and Zurich to Tokyo flights but due to some kind of error nothing was actually upgraded and we're stuck in cattle class with no power outlets to charge our stuff. As I write this were still 4 hours out and I'm bored to death with the in-flight entertainment. Theses screens are in SD people, that's STANDARD DEFINITION. Uhg. I'm also starting to smell like a goat, so that's great. 

You sure learn a lot in the first week of travel. Bring your universal adapter to change stuff, heavy stuff goes at the top of the pack and not the bottom, wetwipes and deodorant goes in the carry-on, make sure Spotify hasn't magically deleted all your music again...

Anyways, that's enough for now gonna try to sleep while I stink up the plane. 

~~~

It's about 430am by my clock and I've been up for almost a day now.
We're flying into the sunrise and the horizon looks like a giant blue wall that stretches 10,000 feet high and for as far as as I can see. The thin strip of red light wedged between the sky and the earth looks like a vast long forest fire. You can see for so far that it almost looks like you can almost see the slightest curve of the earth it's self. 
I've wanted to travel for so long that I guess I just got comfortable with the idea that it might not actually happen. It's easy to get bogged down in the day to day, But we made our plans, we saved, we prepared. And now were here. Charlie and me, were finally here. This is the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen. 

Posts from the Cruise

Day 3  

The Norwegian Escape knows what it's doing. The food on this boat is amazing, all the staff are really cool, everything is idyllic. The boat itself is huge, I knew cruise ships were big big but damn this boat is big. Unfortunately there was a pretty serious medical emergency on our first night so the boat had to turn around and head back to Miami a few hours after we left. As a result, they had to change all the ports and cancel all the excursions that people had booked. It was a bummer but I hope whoever had the health problem made it back alive.

Yesterday we walked around Cozumel and got some beers with fish tacos at an ocean-side bar. Overall the port wasn't that nice, I kinda got the feeling that the port was more geared up to cater to water sports instead of people that just like to walk around. 
Today we were in port at Costa Maya. Charlie and I decided to walk into town instead of taking a bus or taxi and it was a great idea. It took an hour to walk but the road had a boulevard with a nicely shaded path. We saw a bunch of lizards, birds, got some more fish tacos and walked back. En route back to the ship we spotted an art shop which was run by a lovely woman named Madeleine Chartrand Sperlich from Montreal. She fed us home made ice cream, let us pet her dogs and she showed us her lovely art. It just goes to show you what kind of experience you can have if you're willing to hop off the beaten path. You can check out her work here.
As for now Charlie is at a spa and I'm going to go relax on deck until my spa appointment, (gonna go for a shave,) after today I think I'm going to grow a travel beard.

Oh yeah, also, there was a bit of seaweed on the beach.

~~~

Day 5
Dani and Morgan organized a snorkeling excursion in Grand Cayman today was amazing. Our catamaran was awesome and the crew manning it was even better. We sailed out to some of the shallows a couple of km off shore and fed some stingrays then sailed over to an island to check out some star fish. I don't think the sting rays appreciated being taken out out of the water but they sure enjoyed being and fed by all the people.
After the catamaran we got some food and watched Rosco absolutely kill some of the arcade games. He actually won the grand prize in a stacking game netting him 7500 tickets, (most games only reward ~8 tickets.)
Overall it was an amazing day.

~~~

Day 6
Ocho Rios Jamaca, we decided to do our usual thing and just walk around in port but we left shortly after having the same convorsation about 40 times.
"HEY MAN, YOU SMOKE WEED?"
"Want a tour? Want a cab? Some weed?"
"Heeeeey welcome to jamaca, don't shop at these stores, come over here for some real stuff. *politely declined* No problem man, hey, you smoke weed?"
We got some jerk chicken, then promptly got back on the boat. 

 ~~~

Day 7.
Last day at sea was relaxing. I read my travel bible (Frommers) and planned out some of the things were going to see in Japan. 

Day 1

Good morning! 

It's a rainy day in Miami so we're going to chill in hostel until we can board the cruise. The beds last night were... well, they were clean, I guess that's the important part. Going forward I'm going to pack my bag so that my toiletries, pajamas and clothes for the next day are at the top of my bag rather than buried all over the place. I think we were pretty annoying to the rest of the people in the hostel last night. 

Probably not going to be able to update for the next week because I don't want to bring my laptop into port with me, but if the cruise wifi isn't exorbitantly expensive I'll try to post an update.

Final goodbye to mom and dad.

Dusk from the plane.

Final days of packing.

Started getting ready for the trip a few days ago. I can't help thinking that as soon as we're in the air I'm going to realize I forgot some crucial item that I won't be able to buy along the way. I'm going to try not to stress about it too much. All I've really got to do at the point is actually pack the bag, give the house a good cleaning and pick up my malaria pills from the pharmacy.

Also found out that the cruise isn't going to have wifi so I might not be able to post to much from the boat but maybe I'll be able to get an update in when we're in port.