Japan and Taiwan

I took a 10 day trip with visits to Japan and Taiwan. I was going to Taiwan for my cousin's wedding, and made a stop in Japan on the way to Taiwan. It was my first visit to Japan and we joined a tour group with 9 other tourists.


We traveled in a tour bus with a guide. Our tour group concentrated within the Kanto region and saw temples, shrines, a castle, Imperial Palace, shopping districts, a national park, hot springs, Toyota show room, and parts of Tokyo. We enjoyed great Japanese food - sushi, udon, tempura, and green tea ice cream.

Japan is a clean country, with a focus on hygiene, and safety. It is also hospitable towards visitors, and many Japan service workers are used to dealing with foreign visitors - if you visit Japan you will know what I mean.


My favorite hotel was the New Akao Hotel which has a Japanese theme (rooms look like Japan houses) and is located on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This hotel has hot springs for people to dip in. The procedure is: shower then dip in the hot springs naked - that's right, everyone enters the springs with absolutely no clothes on.

Pictures
Japan - batch 1
Japan - batch 2
Japan - batch 3

Taiwan (the Taiwan album includes pictures from my last 2 trips to Taiwan - first week of November 2008 and during the 2007 Christmas season)

Boston

My first trip to Boston.

Highlights:
* First time sitting in an exit row on a flight - the extra space sure was nice
* I stayed at the Hyatt Harborside hotel near the airport, which had great views of the Boston skyline
* I grabbed dinner and dessert in Chinatown with Dan Lin who was in Boston for work
* I visited the MIT Museum, which had projects of students work
* Enjoyed an early taste of Boston's fall foliage (it usually peaks in mid October)
* When I finished walking the Freedom Trail, I was at a dock waiting to catch a ferry from the USS Constitution sight to downtown Boston, and started talking to these 2 married couples (random people from my perspective). They were also visiting Boston (1 couple was from Chicago and the other from Salem, MA) and they invited me to join them for dinner.
* When I returned home, I ran into Aaron and Nelly at the airport - they had just returned from a trip to Washington DC.

Pictures:
Boston Harbor

Freedom Trail with lots of historical sites

Fall Foliage