None of us had been to Greece and we flew in to Athens with.... moderate expectations – I had read a few lukewarm reviews of Athens, but, everyone comes to Greece so I was ready to battle the tourist hordes as the place fits right in with the 7th grade social studies curriculum for 7 th grade. Having moderate expectations can be such a blessing because we just loved it! In Athens, we had such a sweet spot right near the Acropolis and as we got into our apt, stray but tame cats emerged from doorways and from under cars to say hi, just like the kids had heard and had hoped would happen. The whole area around the Acropolis is of course touristy, but in the enjoyable way that makes it such a magnet - everything is walkable, lots of no-car areas, outdoor dining everywhere, live music wafting from one street or another. Walking around that first night, eating just a delicious and inexpensive chicken souvlaki, I wondered for the 10 th time, where are all the ...
After our exciting train ride from Tokyo to Osaka (it was actually an easy train ride, it only exciting to go through Tokyo Station on a holiday weekend, by far the most crowded station I’ve ever been in), we made it to our apartment in Osaka. Osaka is home to Universal Studios Japan (with the newish Nintendo World) and home to the beautiful and impenetrable Osaka Castle. The Castle figures prominently in the book (and, I assume, in the Netflix tv show) Shogun as a key fortress for one daimyo (regional leader) power player and ultimately must be overrun by the man who becomes The Shogun (Tokugawa, who unified Japan and whose descendants all are Shogun between 1603 to 1868). I am excited to see the Castle. I was also excited to plan Universal Studios and the kids were excited about Nintendo World. However.... Mean researcher that I am, I was put off by the TripAdvisor reviews that note how crazy busy the place is; that you basically have no fun unless...
Tainan City The flight from Seoul to the airport in the south of Taiwan, called Kaohsiung, was easy. Though when we checked in at the airport in Seoul, we did have to show our flight information out of Taiwan. No problem for us this time, but it always annoys me because Scott and I often debated on this trip whether we’d have to show our tickets out of the country, upon entry, and I preferred to keep our stays flexible and try to risk not having a ticket purchase. Sigh, more often than not, to board an international flight, we did have to show the airline an email with our exit flight. Boo, more points for land-border-crossings! After the short flight, we had to board the high speed train from Kaohsiung to Tainan City. We took the subway from the airport to the high speed rail station; on the subway, a man struck up a conversation with Scott and the nice guy spoke Mandarin to Alex and Luke and they’d hop up from my side of the subway to Scott’s side so they coul...
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