The rest of May had lots of parent time!
Jonny’s parents, Don and Sheila, joined us in Japan at the end of our stay. We saw some sights, and showed them “our” Tokyo. Then we continued on to Taiwan with them to show them WW’s home country, and to spend more time with her parents, Yingwen and Joseph.
We did a Sake tasting at the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association. It included an informative presentation, tasting and explanation of different varieties and a fun quiz to test your knowledge at the end!
We also went on a quick boat tour of Tokyo! It was neat seeing the city from a different perspective, and was the perfect interesting, non-walking activity for our tired feet!
And of course we made sure to keep Jonny’s parents well fed! (And we had great success given the challenge of Sheila’s seafood allergy)
We went on a quick trip to Kawaguchi-ko & Odawara.
Sheila and Don have been to Japan quite a few times previously, but have always had bad luck with weather when it comes to Fuji. We were lucky to get two perfectly clear, sunny days!
We also went to Odawara to check out Enoura Observatory and maybe see Mt Fuji from a different angle.
If you literally google “Japan” you will pretty much see this view (except with cherry blossoms). This is Arakurayama Sengen Park near Kawaguchiko.
We found a spot that was mercifully free of tourists and thoroughly checked off the “see Mt. Fuji” box on our list!
The view from Jonny’s parents’ onsen hotel room.
After a quick zip back to Tokyo to have dinner at Birdland, the next day we set out to Odawara to check out the Enoura Observatory, and Odawara Castle.
Enoura Observatory is a place that is sort of hard to describe. It’s an art museum, but most of the real artistic value lies in the architecture of the observatory, along with beautifully curated gardens, and a few art installations.
Much of the observatory’s architecture celebrates the relationship between the positioning of the Earth and Sun through corridors like these that will light up perfectly with the sun at sunrise of the winter solstice.
A haunting wood sculpture, co-created by humans and bees.
A lot of the art we have seen recently in Japan tends to celebrate the site’s relationship to nature.
We ended our Japan trip with a bang by going to Hustle Fire Japan!
A large Hustle event organized by the group of friends we became closest with during our time in Japan. There were so many people from all over the globe at this event! It was lovely to dance with many people for the first time, as well as reconnect with old friends. We had a blast!
Lovely photo taken by the professional photographer at the event, it really captures the momentum of the dance!
We made so many friends during our time in Japan. The Hustle community was so welcoming and warm towards us. We are very grateful for their generosity and love. The people we met was 100% the hardest part to leave behind!!
WW and Abdiel (one of the guest instructors) matched outfits accidentally!
We went to our favourite izakaya chain Torikizoku with some friends and Jonny’s parents for some pre-Hustle drinks and food. It was lovely to get the opportunity to introduce Don and Sheila to our Tokyo people.
Don and Sheila came to watch some of the event on the next day, and Sheila got a quick Hustle lesson from Jonny! (And even got asked to dance by some other event attendees!)
Then we headed to Taiwan! We stayed in Taipei for about 5 days.
It was rainy! It was hot! It was humid! But we still had a great time.
WW’s parents came up to Taipei and we checked out the Grand Palace Hotel (with the tour of Chiang Kai Shek’s escape tunnel) and had a delicious lunch there. then we went to the national palace museum for the afternoon.
We checked out Guandu Nature Park and Sheila got to see some spoonbills, which she has wanted to see since she was a kid! (We couldn’t get a photo of the spoonbills, so here is another bird – and a water buffalo!)
We went to Jiufen old street, and got to experience a tea service at A-Mei teahouse!
We spent a few days in WW’s hometown of Taichung, too.
Thanks to WW’s parents for having great suggestions for things to do in Taiwan and Japan! WW’s parents took Don & Sheila to the Lin Family Garden, and also had all of us over at their house for Runbing, a family-style DIY meal commonly had around this time of year for Tomb Sweeping day. It’s kind of like Taiwanese spring rolls, with a very specific type of wrapper (which you can observe being made fresh at many traditional Taiwanese markets!).
We took a tour of Taichung National Theatre, which has very cool architecture and design.
We went to Gaomei Wetlands which was a very very windy experience, and saw lots of mudskippers and little crabs!
We went to Din Tai Fung for lunch with WW’s parents so my parents could try their excellent Xiao Long Bao (soup dumpling). They were very impressed!
We had coffee at REC and enjoyed a wonderful view of Taichung.
After that, we rented a car and drove east into the mountains and visited Sun Moon Lake and the Alishan area.
Rain continued to be an ongoing theme! It was refreshing to get out of the city and see some of Taiwan’s natural beauty. We decided not to go to the East Coast of Taiwan because of the recent earthquake (and nearly daily aftershocks!) in Hualien, but that just means we’ll have more to discover next time!
We checked out Sun Moon Lake Old Tea Factory: Sun Moon Lake is famous for a particular type of black tea called Red Ruby. The tea factory smelled sooooooooo good.
There is a Nine Frogs Stack at Sun Moon Lake that measures the water level – the water level was so high because of all the recent rain. It was just a 1.5-frog day!
The Visitors’ Center at Sun Moon Lake
The Alishan Forest Railway was built during Japanese colonisation of Taiwan. It’s a tourism railway now, but its original purpose was for the Japanese to log all the ancient Taiwanese cypress trees and take them to build things in Japan… Learning the history makes this place a little bittersweet.
The huge trees that are still around largely remained because they were deemed unfit for lumber (hollow or too crooked). They were all incredibly majestic – humans for scale!
Even with all the rain, we managed to catch a great sunset from Alishan National Park.
We visited Xu Long Tea Company and got a tour of the tea plantation, got to try our hand at part of the tea manufacturing process, and tried some teas, too! The couple who ran the place were kind and warm in the Taiwanese way that we love, and insisted on taking this “grandparents only” photo with Don & Sheila.
The view from Sun Sweet House, where we stayed for the night.
It wasn’t the season to see the “Sea of Clouds”, but we got up to appreciate the sunrise anyway.
Sun Sweet House to home to two affectionate cats and one very friendly, loving dog called Pangpang.
It was fantastic to spend so much time with Don and Sheila. Thank you for coming to visit us! Since they left, we’ve been hardcore chilling in Taichung, catching up on travel planning, blog post writing, and alone time.
Originally we had planned to go to Portugal, but we had to rearrange our plans last minute since WW is becoming a Canadian citizen on June 18th! Yay!
So here is a current snapshot of our plans for this summer (you can see the most updated version on our homepage anytime):
| Right now, we are in | Taiwan |
|---|---|
| May 21 – June 11 | Taiwan |
| June 11 – June 26 | Montreal |
| June 26 – July 3 | Ottawa (Linton Family Reunion) |
| July 3 – July 24 | Wei-Wei: NYC Jonny: Montreal |
| July 24 – July 29 | NYC (New York Hustle Congress) |
| June 29 – August 5 | Vancouver (Vancouver Street Dance Festival) |
For more photos, check out this post.
Did you know that you can comment on this blog? Some of you do! Thanks for taking time to leave comments, we love reading them! (even if we forget to reply sometimes…)
We enjoyed reading your update and your take on our travels together! We did have a wonderful time, and ate very well despite limitations. Special thanks to you both for curating our trip, including a meal at a Michelin starred restaurant. Additional thanks to Wei-Wei, with her awesome language skills, for clearing all my food with the cooks so I could eat without any worries at all. Mount Fuji and the spoonbills were truly bucket list items, but the whole trip was epic.
You’re very welcome! 🙂
Yes, WW is the MVP for sure! Glad we could get some bucket list items in there! Those spoonbills were really a lucky stroke though!
Love reading all your posts and updates! Looks like you two are having a blast!! 😁 We’ll have to do Asia together next time~
Looking forward to having you two back in Montreal for a bit!