Category: Travel

Manta Ray Night Snorkeling on the Big Island

April 12, 2026 / / 0 Comments

We were on the Big Island the other week and we did one of the night manta ray snorkeling tours in Kona. This was such a treat:

The way it works is that they take you out in a boat a short distance offshore and have custom light boards that you hold onto and float while facing down to look at the Manta Rays.The light attracts plankton which attracts the rays. Pool noodles are also provided to both assist you in the water as well as put under your feet to make floating super easy.

This was the company that we booked the experience through, and they made the entire thing very easy and very safe. Wetsuits and snorkels are provided (you are also able to take your own gear, which is what we did) and there is also an option of renting a GoPro to film the entire experience. The staff was very knowledgeable about the Rays and very attentive to everyone’s safety and concerns.

HIGHLY recommended.

Whistler 2024

July 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

We had the absolute pleasure of visiting Whistler earlier this summer to hike through old growth forests and mountain bike around lakes and down trails over a long weekend. The super long days and cool weather made it a perfect time of year to visit. We took the float plane up from Vancouver and were treated to fabulous views of snowcapped mountains.

(Pictures below the cut)

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Japan 2022

November 8, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Totally meant to do a Japan Trip #3 picture dump literally a year ago, which is when these photos are from. Then again, I don’t think I ever did a proper photo dump of our second trip in 2019. Whoops.

We booked and planned this trip a month before we left. Japan had just opened up to tourism and the yen was like, 150 to the dollar. We wanted to take advantage of the low crowds and being generally antsy to go somewhere outside of the state.

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Happy November

November 18, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I am not really great about updating this site, am I? I had a random actual/digital life update post sitting in drafts from way back in May but I think most of that is old news now. Anyhoo:

  • With the news that Japan would be opening up for tourism in October, we had quickly planned a November trip at the end of September. We actually just got back this week. Fabulous time as usual, I have a mountain of images to sort through, edit and post, which will be hopefully mostly done by next week because I kind of wanted to show them to family at Thanksgiving.
  • This is old news but my solution to needing a new personal computer and not wanting to deal with any GPU or CPU shortage was to just buy a MacBook Pro. A+, would recommend.
  • The bag that I use for my photography & adventure every day carry has once again changed, so I’ll make a post about that at some point.
  • A while back I came across a TTRPG system called Ironsworn and had bookmarked the site and put off looking into it. What I found interesting about it was that it could be played both solo and co-op. Recently-ish, Ironsworn: Starforged, a sci-fi themed followup RPG was released. I’ll make a separate post about this at some point but I have been playing it on-and-off in my spare time and it is very fun. It scratches a very specific analog creative writing/journaling, dice rolling, and world building itch. I’m really sad that I had missed the kickstarter.
  • I had this paragraph typed out in late May about how I had started up the Final Fantasy XIV trial again and was enjoying it but that phase only lasted about a month or so and I haven’t touched it since. Triple Triad for life though.
  • Finished reading Dragons of Deceit, the new Dragonlance novel on the plane trip over to Narita and started up The Expanse series. Slowly working through my reading backlog…

How to: Add a Suica card to your Apple Wallet

September 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Here is how to add an unregistered Suica card to your iPhone. Keep in mind that only iPhones 8 and newer have the chip that allow you to use your phone. I think Japanese iPhone 7’s have it as well. Mind you that this post is an imperfect guide. I don’t read Japanese fluently.

We found that using the NFC chip on our phones to be way more convenient than carrying around a physical metro card. It’s one less thing to have to worry about losing and it’s way easier to recharge it using Apple Pay (vs feeding yen into a machine).

There’s an English app that allows you to add a card without the need to change your phone’s region to Japan, but it doesn’t allow you to view the full virtual card number on your phone. It’s not really that big of a deal for normal metro use but if you need to register your card for any reason, the full number will be required to my understanding.Set your phone’s region to Japan.

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Japan: November 2018

March 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

We went to Japan this past November for two weeks. Our itinerary was: Tokyo, Takayama, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Takayama, Tokyo. I kept a daily travel journal while we were in Japan, and had planned on digitizing it here at some point. But….you know.

Here are a couple of images exported from Lightroom. I have about 2,000 images from our phones, but I really don’t feel like picking through those and uploading them here.

Vlog: NorCal

February 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Not so much of a vlog as it is a collection of videos from my phone, mashed together, and then uploaded from an app (which did a shitty encoding job). Shortly after Christmas, my husband and I went on a short vacation up the coast of California to visit family. Fun trip, would love to drive up Highway 1 but maybe during a less busy time period.

I do wish that the crane wasn't in the picture

Cinderella Castle (Musings on Disney World)

September 22, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I finally got around to pulling the pictures off of my camera and into Lightroom. I should in theory post at least some of them on Facebook or Flickr or something as requested instead of forgetting and then hoarding them on my harddrive per usual. It is way more convenient and way less cumbersome to just snap photos on my phone and then post them while waiting in line, but it is also far less satisfying than using an actual camera.

One thing is certain: Whenever it is that we get around to visiting Disney World again in future, it will not be in the middle of August. When we had visited Orlando in May 4 years ago, it was warm but not overly so. Nevertheless, we had a great time. I highly recommend taking the Keys to the Kingdom Tour in the Magic Kingdom if anyone has a chance.