September 27, 2017
Today was a looooong drive from Fes to the Sahara just outside of the city of Merzouga. A friend of a friend runs the Sahara Garden. Brahim coordinated everything for us and welcomed us upon our arrival with open arms. Truly an amazing human being. We were welcomed with dinner and singing and dancing around a bonfire.
September 24, 2017
Our second stop in Morocco was the blue city of Chefchaoen. A small city located up on a hill, wandering thru the medina surrounded by so many shades of blue was quite a different experience from Tangier. We stayed at Casa Perleta, a small bed and breakfast recommended by our friend. It was perfectly located within the upper hill area of the medina. The blue hues of the walls of Chefchaoen are believed to have originated when the Jews came while escaping Hilter in the 1930s. The blue is said to serve as a reminder to lead a spiritual life while symbolizing the sky and heaven.
September 11 - 15, 2017
Enroute to our close friends' wedding in Greece we found a cheap flight to Paris via Reykjavik, Iceland and decided to take advantage and do a little stopover in an effort to (fingers crossed) see the northern lights. We decided to restrict our few days to just the southern highlights along the coast. The first thing we noticed was that even though it was supposedly shoulder/low season in Iceland there were significantly more people than when we came the year before in August.
We heard about the Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival so we rescheduled our time to spend one day in Sapporo before heading back home. Some of the snow and ice sculptures were pretty impressive, including a massive one completed by the Japanese military of Darth Vader and Storm Troopers, complete with TIE fighters. We pretty much spent the 24 hours we were there – wandering the city and eating food. Needless to say, we were stuffed for the long plane ride home.
Our second week in Niseko, more friends and family joined us. We moved to a new house on the outskirts of town to fit everyone in. We were lucky enough to get another good powder day on the same day we had guides from Hanazono Powder Guides again. Perfect timing. We also ventured over to Rusutsu for a day for a change of scenery. We enjoyed the onsens, good snow, good company and plenty of hot lemonade at the 1,000m Hut at the top of the mountain. We will definitely be back to Japan to ski in the future.
- Jonathan
We heard about Niseko through Jonathan’s brother and brother’s wife, Jason and Paula, who went to Niseko last season and couldn’t stop raving about the awesome snow. So, we knew we had to visit! We told a couple friends about it, not expecting anyone to come, but nine of our closest friends came out…and we couldn’t be happier about it! Then after four days, we had more friends come!
Before hitting the slopes in Niseko, we spent three days in Tokyo where more friends (Caitlin, Jack, Zak, Gena, and Pat) joined us!
Three days was definitely not enough time but we made the most of our time there. We stayed near the Shibuya Crossing, which is considered the busiest intersection in the world. It was the perfect location for us to jump on the JR train that took us to awesome, little spots around Tokyo.
Less than 24 hours back in the Bay Area, we jumped on a plane to Asia where we would start our three week adventure that would take us to Shanghai, Tokyo, Niseko, and Sapporo.
First stop – Shanghai. Our best friends, Hajime and Maily, moved here just under a year ago and we were really excited to visit them in their new city. Our other best friends from Chicago, Justin and Kelly, came out too!
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
