2019 Japan/Korea - Seoul 1

Hello Seoul! We arrived later in the morning and immediately noticed the warmer, hazier weather. For our stay we managed to book a room at a high rise hotel thanks to the surprisingly reasonable hotel rates in the lively Hongdae area.

Korea is known for many things, but one of the things we were looking forward to the most was it’s FOOD. Spicy, greasy, and unlike many other cultures it’s one where my picky taste buds are more than willing to accept the majority of their menu offerings.

The installations that the famous eye wear brand Gentle Monster supports is known for being pretty great, especially given how frequently they actually change them up.

Many (fat) stray cats in this park called Gyeongui Line Forest Park. It was originally an old rail line that has since been repurposed as a narrow park that cuts through the city and is lined with small little shops. While there were many other places in Seoul that I thoroughly enjoyed, this was probably my favorite in terms of a place to stroll and burn time. Plus look, they have cats!

Other nice thing about the park is that lead directly into the heart of Hongdae where we ended up spending a good portion of our trip wandering around for more delicious foods and drinks. This area stays active deep into the night with (really good!) street performers who are either practicing or trying to get noticed as the next potential KPOP star.

Perfect way to end the first night by getting all the standards; Korean BBQ, cheesy corn, and some sweet “home made” soju!

2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 5

This was the one day in the whole trip I was most looking forward to, a trip to the Honda Collection Hall in Motegi. This was also the first time I would drive in Japan and Asia in general, so I was a little anxious navigating in a language I genuinely did not understand. Fortunately the majority of the road signs were romanized so while we may not have understood what the words meant, they were at least legible to our English-speaking eyes. Also our rental included VERY useful GPS. It not only called out where to go pretty well, but had wonderfully useful (if not a little dated looking) graphics that showed which specific lane I needed to be in. Honestly preferred it over Google maps during the drive, even if some of the functions were stuck in Kanji and the assistant’s voice had a few Engrish moments in its pronunciation.

Some RHD cars are designed better than others and fortunately being Japanese and from a RHD country, our Nissan Juke is one of the better ones which flips the side the indicator stalk lives. Wouldn’t have been an issue in this automatic-equipped car anyways, but it was one of the things that really annoyed me with the Vauxhall we rented in UK, which forced me to use my shifting hand to start/cancel the indicators.

Going to put together other posts dedicated to the car/bike spottings on this trip, but I highly recommend a visit for anyone who’s a fan of cars, motorcycles, or Honda/racing in general. It was a really amazing place and even though it seemed like I thoroughly combed all 3 floors, I’d happily return here again someday just because some of the vehicles here are that amazing. Just as I started to feel like I’ve become jaded over all of the stuff I’ve seen over the years, places like this instantly get me geeking out all over again.

One of the great things about the collection was it’s located within one of Japan’s most legendary racetracks, Twin Ring Motegi. Like several other tracks in Japan, racing isn’t the only thing this place offered, as there was a mini-amusement park and an adventure park for families. Could even camp here if you wanted to!

After grabbing a quick lunch of some light-broth ramen, we started heading back into Tokyo to drop off the rental and enjoy our last night in Tokyo before heading off to Seoul the following morning.

One of the breweries we managed to swing by was Yo-Ho brewing, a brand I was familiar with in SF by their very unique styled artwork on their cans. They have several locations, this one being their Aoyama location which had a great vibe; active but not too crowded or loud. And while their beer was really good, their German style appetizers (sausage & potato wedges) were great!

Finally ended the night with dinner at Tonkatsu Maisen Aoyama Honten. Really, really good katsu at really reasonable prices, it’s definitely on our list of places we’d want to go back to.

Finally grabbed some dessert at a cafe across the street and headed back to the hotel just as the rain picked up. Next stop, Seoul!

2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 4

Before we headed back to Central Tokyo, we swung by Shimokitazawa, an area best known for its many vintage clothing shops. Despite being known for being one of the largest cities in the world, there are plenty of areas within Tokyo that don’t feel incredibly busy and crowded. This was not one of them, as the small floor space of the shops meant that it only took a dozen or so people to make the place feel packed.

Once we decided to start heading back, we swung by our favorite neighborhood, Nakameguro. This was the area that we stayed around during our first visit and it’ll likely be the area that we’ll try to look for lodging for the next time we go back.

2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 3

Starting off the day right at Hoshino Coffee next to Tsukiji Market. Unfortunately the market had closed (as a thriving fish market) back in 2018 so nowadays it’s more of historical site than anything, not that I personally am complaining about the lack of fishy smells.

Later that morning we headed over to Gotukiji to visit the Temple and check out the area. As fun as Tokyo itself is, the neighborhoods outside offer a really nice breather from the pace of the city.

This temple is best known for cat figurines. Lots and LOTS of them.

2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 2

This was a place we originally discovered in our first trip and then later stumbled on another branch in Dundee, Scotland of all places. Considering they’re based out of New Zealand (and nothing to do with the streetwear brand) it seems like they try to stick with small islands.

A tiny, homely bar with craft beer and cute dogs? Love it!

2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 1

Last year in October we took a trip to Asia. Originally we were planning on going to Hong Kong and Seoul, but due to the protests that were happening in HK at that time we ended up making a last minute change to Tokyo since it was still relatively close to Seoul and we didn’t need any excuses go to back to Japan. Since I already saw a lot of the typical tourist locations from the previous trip and I wouldn’t be able to make it to one of T-Site’s car meets, I wanted to go to someplace really special, so we spent one of our days outside of Tokyo but the rest of the time in Japan was in the city.

We arrived late at night and so we went straight to the hotel, walked around a little bit to find some dinner, and went to bed. Last time we were here we went for an AirBnB but earlier in the year Japan changed some of the regulations that allowed for hosted places. That resulted in a decrease in options and an increase in pricing to the point that the hotel options ended up being more attractive on both fronts. Our hotel ended up being a little further from central Tokyo than we liked but the room itself was VERY roomy, had a funky Scandinavian-like style, and had a great view.

2020 UK Trip Pt 6 - London

Final post of the trip. The whole day was dedicated to stomping around old favorites as well as exploring some areas that we haven’t really seen. We started off going straight to our old neighborhood and favorite area, Shoreditch.

If the previous day seemed quiet, this was even quieter. No surprise that many businesses ended up closing down after the week had ended.

A great spot that I never managed to visit before was Bike Shed. They now have a location in SoCal as well, but I couldn’t imagine it looks as great as this under-bridge lair.

Since we were so close, we decided to swing by the old building that we stayed at several years ago. It’s since been renovated to a much nicer apartment complex, but the streets still look and feel the same as they did back in the day.

Finally saw the infamous “MI6” building.

And so we end the night and trip grabbing one last order of boba (of course) and head back to the hotel for an early flight the following day. We were VERY fortunate that not only had the flight back been mostly empty and without any issues, but that we didn’t experience any symptoms the following weeks when we were home. \

As I mentioned in the beginning, it was a very strange trip. With our previous Asian trip we made a relatively-last minute pivot from Hong Kong to Tokyo due to the protests and looking back that was clearly the right call at the time. This time wasn’t quite as clear, but a lot of it had to do with pure luck in timing. The experience was incredibly smooth and easy, but the stress of the world shutting down around us ensured that this was something we didn’t want to experience again.

2020 UK Trip Pt 5 - London

One last day of driving. Waking up in Lake District and grabbing a quick breakfast, we eagerly got back on the road.

Finally in London, the last stop (and close to the airport). With two nights to spend here, we mainly focused on dinner for the first night and taking it easy, especially after the string of days on constantly traveling. We also tried to stay mindful of the number of times we would take public transportation, so we tried to stick with one area, and this round we chose to hang around Covent Gardens.

One thing for sure, it was really REALLY quiet during the whole stay here. With exception of Christmas Eve and Christmas day, I don’t think we had ever seen the city so empty.