Trip to Japan

After many, many years, I finally visited a new country. In my longest trip since forever, I traveled to Japan with some friends where we spent two and half weeks exploring Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Here are my thoughts on the trip along with some photo & video highlights.

Mount Fuji in all its glory
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Accelerated Autumn

It’s almost end of the November and definitely feels like the typical winter out here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s time again to post about what I’ve up to during the last season. My major outing was a 2.5-week trip to Japan. Other than the trip, I didn’t do too much else, just two fall foliage hikes. Here are the video/photo highlights.

The brilliant gold of the subalpine larches on the trail to Cutthroat Pass. Larch Madness up there.
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Summer Shimmers

Meteorological fall has arrived on queue in the PNW with rain and cooler weather. This is means it’s time to look back at all the (mis-)adventures I’ve been up to in the summer. Actually I didn’t do too much compared to previous years in terms of recreation, since I was dealing with a few other things. Here are the photo and video highlights.

Hiking Ptarmigan Ridge in the North Cascades. Big views of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan, plus some fall foliage up high.
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Spring-Time Sessions

It’s mid June, so it’s time again for my spring time activity update on this blog. During this time, I transitioned from winter activities to summer activities. I skied in April, and started hiking in June, and collected and ate more shellfish in between. Here are the photo and video highlights.

Skiing down from the summit of Mount Bachelor. Volcano skiing!!
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Winter Wanders

Spring is finally here although sometimes the weather still doesn’t quite feel like it. It’s been a while since my last update post, so here is a summary of what I’ve been up to during the winter. Like the last couple of winters, I mostly just skied during my time off. Also went razor clamming for the first time. Here are the photo (and video) highlights.

Skiing in Snowbasin, Utah with a buddy
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Fast Fall Follow-up

It’s almost US Thanksgiving, and it feels like winter in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s time to do my seasonal out-and-about update. My main outing during autumn was the family road trip down to Southern California, and that was a lot of fun. Other than that, didn’t do much during the fall other than some late season foliage hikes. Here are the photo highlights.

View of Lake Ann from the Maple Pass Loop. This is probably the most popular fall foliage hike in the area.
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Oregon-California Road Trip 2022

I recently went on a family road trip through Oregon and California, all the way down to San Diego. It’s been a long time since we have been in Southern California. We saw some friends and family, and visited a number of national parks along the way. It was a fun trip and here are the highlights:

Crater Lake Watchman Overlook
Crater Lake from the Watchman Overlook. Seeing that beautiful radiant deep blue that the lake is known for
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Summer Saunters

It’s mid-September and I can already feel the crisp autumn chill in the air at where I live. This means it’s time again to post some highlights and photos of what I’ve been up to during the past season. Summer is a good time in the Pacific Northwest as weather is nice and it’s usually not super hot. We didn’t get a record-setting heat wave like 2021, but there were plenty of hot (by PNW standards) days. I didn’t take a long vacation or travel far during the summer, so pretty much all of the highlights are hiking and outdoorsy stuff in the PNW. Without further ado here are the photos

Summit Lake
The absolutely gorgeous Summit Lake. Probably the most beautiful scenery I’ve encountered so far hiking in the PNW. Was here two years ago but couldn’t see much due to foggy weather. Picked a clear blue sky summer day this year and got this fantastic view.

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A Not-so-Springy Spring

Time for another recap post of my “adventures” through the last quarter/season of the year. Summer and warm weather has finally arrived in the PNW, which is a good thing since spring has been rather cool and damp this year. I escaped the wet weather for a little bit by taking a trip to Las Vegas/Utah/Arizona. Other than that, I still managed to get outside a little bit locally, and here are the highlights with photos/videos.

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Las Vegas + Utah and Arizona Trip

I took my first family trip since the Covid epidemic. In a repeat of three years ago, we went to Las Vegas, because just like three years ago, I won a weekend trip to Las Vegas from a sweepstakes. We tacked on some extra days to see some spots in Utah and Arizona as well. It was a great trip, and this post has the highlights.

Las Vegas night
Night time view of the Strip from the other side of Bellagio’s fountain.
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