During our long trip, we were lucky enough to be able to spend six weeks in Hawaii and discover two islands, Oahu and Kauai. Although they are both absolutely beautiful, I think I preferred Kauai for its beaches as well as its lush greenery. It is not called the “garden island” for nothing and the best way to make the most of its stunning landscapes is hiking.
These days, I’ve been nostalgic of our travels through Japan and I’ve been thinking about the pretty city of Kyoto a lot. It was the first Japanese city we visited and it didn’t take long for us both to fall in love with it. We were lucky enough to arrive just before the end of the cherry blossom season which gives the town some magical tone. We were also especially struck by how kind people were with us. It happened more than once that locals came to help us when we were lost (in public transportation among others!) although they didn’t speak a word of English.
The Mont-Saint-Michel (Saint Michael Mount) is an islet located in Normandy and is one of the most visited sites in France. I’ve had the chance to see it several times and the visit of my brother and his girlfriend for Christmas was a perfect opportunity to go again.
The number of countries we would visit, of months that we would be away, the itinerary we would follow… we had a plan when we quit our jobs, sold everything and left our French home to travel. As we know it well though, things don’t always go as planned. When we realised how tired we were all the time after only three months on the road, we decided to forget about the plan and privilege the countries we absolutely wanted to visit. We knew we would cut our long journey short and the last place I didn’t want to skip was Sri Lanka.
Nara is located close to Kyoto and Osaka, two cities that we visited during our one-month trip to Japan. We had a feeling that there might be more that we would want to see in Kyoto so we took a day out of our week in Osaka to visit the lovely town of Nara. The trip from Osaka takes about one hour and costs 10 dollars one way.
If you are like me and are not a big fan of fancy suitcase tags or passport covers (to be fair, you have to remove them most of the time when you go through customs in a new country), you will be able to find other gifts ideas for the travellers in your life.
When designing our itinerary in Japan, we picked Fukuoka for its location by the ocean, thinking it would be a nice change from the other big cities we would be visiting (Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka). What I thought would be my favourite stop in the country finally turned out to be the most gruelling.
Out of all the places we visited, Hong Kong isn’t our favourite. Our first impressions of the city were not the most positive and we were never really able to feel comfortable there. In hindsight though, I think staying in Wan Chai wasn’t the best choice for us. The image of it that I keep in mind today is a rather gloomy and dark city with dirty streets and locals staring at me although foreigners are everywhere.
