Still trying to get used to this land of the midnight sun…. Trying to persuade the body to sleep at night  even though it’s bright outside

Today is the first day of our princess 17 days land and sea tour…. So we moved from our airbnb to princess river lodge

Fun fact! You wouldn’t think of it but there’s a significant mosquito issue here in Fairbanks during this time of year…. And they are big!! 🤣

It’s an easy day today as we are still recuperating from yesterday’s epic 14 hour day trip

Woke up at 4am to this amgazing view outside

Here are the birds my merlin app captured

Joined a local wild life tour today to go to the artic circle

First stop is the great Alaska pipeline that ran vertically through Alaska…. It’s majestic

The drive to the artic circle sign is 5 hours…. Beautiful sceneries every where but desolate…the drive on mostly empty dirt road with few cars and people and no cell service…. But nature put out a show for us….

Our Guide /Driver Kevin whose main job is a Marine biologist is very knowledgeable and can talk straight through the 5 hour drive there dispensing tons of valuable info

Arrived back at our hotel almost 9pm.. A total 14 hour tour…. Amazing!!!

We left our home at 3:20 am to catch a 6 am flight from LA to Seattle and then change flight to Fairbanks Alaska…. We did the alaska cruise 15 years ago， this time it’s the land and sea cruise and we are very excited about checking out the land part, especially the national parks of Alaska

Love the very unique and cozy airbnb, a time capsule for us to relax and reminiscing about yesterday years… Today the sun is going to set at 12 am and come back up tomorrow at 4pm 🤣🤣, the sun here works extra hard….

Fun fact!! There’s no sales tax in Alaska!! Woohoo…. Only 5% tax on alcohol…

We were so looking forward to returning home after long away for so long …., did not expect to have a great meal at the airport but we did…. 3 decades ago I remembered having a wonderful pasta in Kyoto so we decided to try the pasta restaurant at the airport and we did not disappoint…. It’s so good that we each had two plates of pasta…. One of my dish even had tofu skin on it together with shrimp and scallops, how amazing is that!!

Well its time to say goodbye to Japan….from Hokkaido to Kyoto to Tokyo, we cherished and love almost every moment of it…. It’s for sure a cultural spa 🤗

Last full day in Japan we just about ran out of steam… So instead of scheduling full day of touring or hop on and hop off buses

First we had breakfast at a beautiful Starbucks overlooking the imperial garden, and then walk to the Tokyo train station to get tomorrow’s train ticket to the airport

We decided to only visit one of two unesco sites in Tokyo : national museum of western art design by the great Le Corbusier

The museum is another gem of brutalist design

The museum is amongst a cluster of other museums and the zoo right on Ueno Park and the whole park is buzzling with tourists and food fairs all in anticipation of the cherry blossom bloom

So for dinner, since it’s the last meal, we went all out and went to two yakitori place… Heavenly 🙌🙌

We need to say goodbye to Kyoto today after a whirlwind 5 day stay…. Kyoto is right up there on top 5 of our favorite city now…

Took a JR and then a shinkansen…. This time we go even bigger with our ekiben feast

Last full day in Kyoto…. We decided to take it easy with unesco sites today  and only check out one of them… Ginkakuji…（銀閣寺,already checked out Kinkakuji 金閣寺 last  October)

We decided to do museums today and the museum of crafts and design is right next to Kyoto city museum of arts… Both wonder place that showcase Kyoto’s artistic background

After a brief rest, we went out again with intention to have dinner and check out Gion at night…we were very lucky to pick a restaurant right by the famous Kamo River with Gion as backdrop and no lines….. Ordered Shabu Shabu and stone grilled meat and it’s super yummy with 100% vibe

What a great finale to our Kyoto stay…. We will surely come back 🙌🙌🙌

I guess today is unesco site tour, all three temples were listed as unesco sites … We visited ryoan ji temple first… It has a famous zen rock garden

Ninna-ji temple is within walking distance, and it’s a very quiet neighborhood to walk..

The way back to the city is a little tricky… We wanted to look for To-ji Temple but Google navigation some how failed us multiple times…. We ended up near the imperial palace park and have a simple ramen lunch at 2pm

The final stop of the unesco site tour is To-ji Temple, it has great bloom of sakuras and plum blossoms.

To celebrate the end of the day, we have HH with sashimi and wine at our little Japanese house

Took a short JR train ride to Arashiyama, the famous bamboo Forest, great refreshing way to start the day.

The beautiful UNESCO site Tenryu-ji is right beside it and it’s another gorgeous building with amazing garden

We then took a scenic train ride that took us from Arashiyama to Kameoka. This railway runs old fashioned trains on a 19th century narrow gauge railway through picturesque countryside between Saga-Arashiyama and Kameoka. On the way, the train runs along the Hozugawa River gorge, offering fantastic views of the forests and mountains.

Lunch is at the busy street right  outside the temple…. We were lucky to grab a window sit on the 2nd floor and watched all the tourist on Rick Shaws, on foot and in kimonos walk by

After lunch we dashed diagonally across Kyoto via JR train/subway to get to Fushimi Inari, the famous mountain side shinto shrine with hundreds of Tori gates

Back to Kyoto station, it’s a huge station with modern architecture, there’s a huge stairway called Daikaidan that were illuminated at night and form patterns…. Kyoto train station is definitely a must see spot itself

By the end of the day we were exhausted and I think it was another 20000+ step day and I’m not complaining… We scheduled to stay here for 5 days… With 18 unesco site in Kyoto alone… .   its unlikely we can finish, not even half…  Kyoto is uniquely special

Our airbnb is within walking distance from Nijo Castle, so we figured we start there….. When we were here in October our excursion canceled the Nijo Castle stop so we were kind of disappointed since it’s an UNESCO site… So we are happy we were able to capture it this time and we were glad we did as it’s amazing

After the amazing Nijo Castle, we went to Nijiki market for lunch…. We were so happy with it in October but this time, after actually experienced the local scenery, we found it very touristy and pricey…. Glad we were able to come back and get that perspective

We were still on foot at this point so the next must check out place is the Gion district… The way to Gion suddenly brought us to a super busy hyper street where we see the local youths and tourist from all over all heading  towards Gion and Gion did not disappoint….

For dinner, we dart into a small alley and found a yakitori plus hot pot place and love it….Great way to end a day full of wonders and we are truly in awe…. We realize when you are in a tour group there’s very little you can actually see  and experience, but when you really give it time, especially a city like Kyoto, you saw it’s truly beauty and feel it’s rhythm and spirits.