At some point during the trip planning phase, Hong said, “eat some egg tarts for me!” She was referring to the Portuguese egg tarts that Macau was famous for, because we hadn’t been to Macau. Those are usually brought up in contrast to the Hong Kong style egg tarts, which further branch into flaky crust
Vacation
HK & Macau 2024 (2/9) – Move
I have grown to really enjoy different modes of transportation around the world and made it a point to experience them on each trip. Hong Kong and Macau, small chunks of mountainous land surrounded by water, had to devise ways of moving people without the luxury of placing cars on paved roads everywhere. They were
HK & Macau 2024 (1/9) – Visit
With Hong’s encouragement, Phil and I embarked on a guys’ trip to Hong Kong and Macau. Itinerary Phil had a long transit day from SD to SF, while I had to end the work week with an unusually rough email to an outside party. Then the fun began! We boarded the flight (Cathay in premium
Korea & Japan 2024 (10/10) – Misc. Japan
Return Flight To smoothly wrap up the trip, I was initially hoping to fly home on JAL from Haneda Airport. Award availability in economy was abundant through early July, but entirely disappeared for the rest of the summer. Cash prices looked ridiculous, too. After months of stalking different options, we ended up flying ZIPAir home
Korea & Japan 2024 (9/10) – City #5 – Tokyo
Another Shinkansen train ride later, we arrived at Tokyo. We pulled a pro move hopping off at Shinagawa rather than going all the way to Tokyo Station, saving a few minutes of travel time. Conrad Tokyo The family stayed at this awesome hotel for five nights. With Hilton’s fifth-night free, I was able to book
Korea & Japan 2024 (8/10) – City #4 – Kyoto
From Fukuoka’s Hakata Station, we took a Shinkansen train to Kyoto. It traveled the 661-kilometer distance in 2 hours and 14 minutes. Meanwhile, Bah and Mah flew from Taiwan into Kaisai Airport, and then took a hour-long train to meet up with us. Thus began our 3-day visit in Kyoto. Kyoto’s Top Attractions Hong and
Korea & Japan 2024 (7/10) – Gundam
Gundam is a lot like Marvel. I’ve never considered myself a fan and can’t tell you much about its lore. All I could do was name a few of the more iconic characters… like 3 of them. However, I did grow up with the franchise permeating the pop culture, and love similar media and products
Korea & Japan 2024 (6/10) – City #3 – Fukuoka
On Thursday morning, we stepped into the ferry port, cleared immigration, and officially entered Japan. We hailed a cab (our very first car ride in this country) to the hotel. The city center was only 1.5 miles away and I knew the path was fairly walkable. However, the sun was already scorching at 8am and
Korea & Japan 2024 (5/10) – Overnight Ferry – Camellia Line Busan to Fukuoka
Every other person we know had visited Japan this year or was planning to go soon. As such, our trip would be rather un-special if we also flew there like everybody else. Nah. We entered the country by boat instead. As a result of extra zooming into Google Maps during our trip research, I came
Korea & Japan 2024 (4/10) – City #2 – Busan
Our next stop was Busan, one of the world’s busiest sea ports situated at the southeast corner of the Korean Peninsula. This city is quite similar to Chongqing for a couple reasons: We had originally hoped to spend 2-3 days here, but scheduling constraints squeezed our time to just under 1.5. Stormy weather further prevented