New York City (October 2025)

We made our (now 3rd) annual trip to the Big Apple recently. With the flight, I had access to some hotel deals and figured we’d go back old school and stay at The Palace. The Lotte New York Palace was the place we stayed the first time we went to NY together in 2016. At the time it was undergoing some construction. The location is also very convenient.

After landing a little bit earlier than scheduled, I definitely felt like there was more breathing room making our 10:30 pm dinner reservation (this was the ONLY reservation for this particular restaurant the entire 5 days that we were visiting). With traffic, we also decided to take the train (Skytrain and then subway) to get into the city which saved us at least 30 minutes compared to a taxi. After checking in and dropping our stuff, we caught another subway down to SoHo to Raoul’s.

Even though it was a late Wednesday evening, the place was packed and the atmosphere loud. After a short wait, we were seated at our cozy table (right in the middle of the restaurant with patrons squeezing past and a random little fish tank. For dinner, I started with the seared foie gras and D had a endive and blue cheese salad. Known for their steak au poivre, we both elected to get that, which came with house made fries and a salad. Of course we also had to get a cocktail. One of the things the establishment is known for is a very large painting of a nude woman lying in repose – D had the view during our dinner.

Day 2 started with me ordering some Liberty Bagel (lox bagel for me, cinnamon raisin for D) as well as some Black Fox coffee (both a convenient short walk from the hotel).

Vancouver (2024)

We recently took a somewhat last minute trip to Vancouver, BC earlier this month. Part of the trip was for D’s birthday but we actually had ulterior motives to make a trip to our neighbors of the north. Due in part to recent current events, we had discussed the possibility of moving out of the country. I had some contacts for potential work in Canada, where you need to have a job offer in hand to obtain a work visa to move there.

On early Sunday morning we made our way to the airport (with our flight times both leaving and arriving, we elected to leave our car at economy parking) with great time and then eventually had an early lunch prior to boarding. There was actually quite a bit of choice in the terminal (CPK, Wahoo’s fish tacos, Wolfgang Puck (pizza and regular food), a Mexican place, Habit burger, along with Peet’s and Starbucks). We settled on Point the Way Cafe (which is run by Golden Road brewing).

Our flight was slightly delayed but we still landed in the afternoon and once our rental car was obtained (my first time driving a Volkswagen Tiguan) we got on the road and headed east of Vancouver. Being further north, it got dark real quick and felt like night-time when it was only like 4:30 pm. There was some light drizzle during the drive but overall the 1 hour 40 minute drive was smooth. I also had to get used to driving in km/hr vs mph – and didn’t know what the average speeds were (how much over the speed limit can you drive without getting pulled over).

Kyoto Day 2-4 (Japan 2017)

We awoke on our first full day in Kyoto with some big plans. There were quite a few locations we wanted to tick off our boxes in Kyoto and we only had so many days to see them. We decided to head over to the Imperial Palace as it was supposed to be prime sakura (cherry blossom) viewing. There is a web site that lists the various locales within Kyoto and the status of the cherry blossoms in that location – ranging from peak viewing to not blossomed. The Imperial Palace was a short subway ride and walk from our AirBnB.

The Imperial Palace actually sits in the middle of a very large park. Upon first entering the park, you could see that others had the same idea of checking out the cherry blossoms. With it still being mid-morning, the lighting was actually quite good for picture-taking and so we did like the other tourists and posted in and around the trees. We didn’t actually go to the front of the Palace and elected to check out the Shirakumo Shrine, which is located towards the south-eastern portion of the park.