This is the part where I apologize for taking such a long time between posts. In my defense, there was a lot going on. Visitor after visitor after visitor meant the blog took a back seat. We’ve been busy since Vietnam, and gotten very distracted by bikes.
回想A Short Recap
Before we get into it, here’s what you missed since Vietnam:
We went back to Thailand with August, starting in Chiang Mai where we went to an adult-only water park that was essentially a full-scale replica of Wipeout. Giant balls you run across, inclined rock climbing, a giant trampoline two stories up where you could launch yourself into the water, and Ryker’s personal favorite: the inflatable pillow. Picture a pillow the size of a swimming pool, where one person lays on one side and another person jumps fifteen feet off a platform onto the other side, launching the first person into the air. In this scenario, Ryker launched me. I had whiplash so bad I couldn’t turn my head for three days.
We caught a flight to Bangkok to see Peach, and also to get intensive medical tests done. The US medical system can absolutely go f*** itself. Your doctor just wants to come in once a year, hit your knee with a hammer, say “u good?” and charge out the ass. If you dare bring up an actual problem, the whole appointment doesn’t get coded as a checkup anymore, so they charge you even more. It’s almost like they want you to be sick, stay sick, and shut up about it. But not in Thailand. In Thailand, money can solve problems. I learned a lot of new things about my body and got a ton of data, which I will be feeding to Claude to solve all my problems. I plan on redirecting all possible medical conversations to AI. The only time I ever want to talk to a human doctor is for them to read out test results. They clearly don’t have the time or wherewithal to care. Not saying all doctors are bad, just that I personally have never met a good one, and the whole insurance system they work within is bad. #AI democratizes healthcare.
We got stupidly sick again in Phuket.
Ryker forgot our international driver’s license in Bangkok, so we had to do increasingly insane things to avoid police checkpoints in Phuket, including driving scooters on a hiking trail in the dark. We only scared one monk, and Ryker only had one moment of profound personal crisis.
After Southeast Asia’s wonderful cleanliness standards got us sick for the third time, we decided to go to a civilized country. Actually, the most civilized country: Japan. (But first a 36-hour trip to Hong Kong. Please see previous post.)
東京Tokyo
We arrived in Tokyo after Hong Kong with very little sleep. Oh, did I forget to mention Sofia arrived? She made it from the airport to the hotel entirely on her own using public transit. Please hold for applause.
A few highlights from Tokyo:
Big purchase: Ryker went to the Anker store and dropped a pretty penny. Two new battery banks, a Japan-exclusive Pikachu charging set, a full yellow carrying case, a 67-watt Pikachu wall plug, and yellow charging cables. He shipped it all home with August as a gift to himself for when we get back.
Also huge news: Meg finally got glasses. She’s blind and refuses to admit it. (She insists this is not true. It is not true that it is not true.) Every time she puts them on she goes “oh wow, that’s crispy.” She looks very cute, for the record.
We hit Tokyo Castle, which somehow we’d never visited despite this being our fourth trip to the city. We went to teamLab Borderless, the other teamLab location, wandered the art installations, and took way too many photos.
Sofia discovered she loves onsens immediately and informed us we would be going every single day for the rest of her visit. Fair. There’s something genuinely great about getting naked with your friends and soaking in a hot tub surrounded by strangers.
That night was redemption night for Meg. All you can drink lemon sours and Japanese yakiniku. (Kento, if you are reading this: yes, it is in fact possible for Meg to control herself at an all you can drink. We have proof now.)
尾道Onomichi
We said goodbye to August and sent him back to real life in Seattle. He moved in with his best buds with a backyard and everything, so he’s not doing too bad. Meanwhile Ryker, Sofia, and I headed to Onomichi to start an epic bike trip. This is also after I had a two-day hormonal meltdown about being social for too long, so shout out to Ryker and Sofia for not leaving me in an onsen somewhere.
Onomichi might be tied with Sapporo for our favorite place in Japan. It’s a small coastal town of 100,000 people where everyone rides bikes. School kids, commuters, everyone. We had a day and a half to explore before starting the Shimanami Kaido, the famous multi-day bike route across a chain of islands in southern Japan via a series of bridges.
しまなみ海道The Shimanami Kaido
This stunner of a bike path is, in typical Japanese fashion, perfect. Paved trails mostly separate from cars and expertly marked, snaking across the Seto Inland Sea. If you’ve ever taken the time to picture paradise, this is it. Sofia, Ryker, and I took a leisurely week to explore the route. Our days were locked in for maximum joy. Wake up, find a cute coffee shop, bike under the golden glow of sun overhead with a sea breeze keeping us at exactly the right temperature. Stops at our leisure, exploring whatever caught our eye, a quaint lookout, a hundred-year-old shrine, a perfectly placed park bench.
Meg and I had one of the best meals of the entire trip.
It was a tiny yakitori spot with genuinely bad Google reviews. We almost skipped it. The reviews all said the owners were rude, controlling, mean. We sat down nervous.
Turns out the entire reputation was built on one rule: no phones, no laptops while you’re eating. That’s it. They just wanted you present for the food they were making you.
We ended up chatting with the table next to us, mentioned it was our honeymoon year, and they translated that to the chef. He started sending out extra dishes we hadn’t ordered. We were stuffed. At one point my hair was down while I was eating, and the chef came over and mimed putting it up, clearly worried I’d get hair in the food. I tied it back, and a minute later his wife appeared behind me with hair ties so I wouldn’t be inconvenienced for the rest of the meal. They walked us through exactly how to eat each skewer, which ones needed sauce, which didn’t, when to take a sip of beer in between.
It was one of the most attentive meals either of us has ever had. It felt like eating at someone’s grandparents’ house, where every detail mattered because they genuinely wanted you to have a good time. And it’s proof you can’t always trust Google reviews. This was a restaurant built for savoring food, not consuming it. Completely lost in translation if you weren’t there for it.
After Sofia left, Meg and I decided to rent bikes for one more day and try to do almost the entire Shimanami Kaido round trip in a single day. We made it about halfway back toward Onomichi before turning around, totaling around 110 kilometers. We were extremely pleased with ourselves.
Naturally, this gave us wildly inflated confidence going into Korea.
きっかけHow Korea Happened
While biking along the Shimanami Kaido, we met a man named Stephan. He was recognizable as an American by his t-shirt, which proudly proclaimed Albuquerque as his former home. He now lives on Oshima island with his wife from Yokohama, and has strategically retired right on the bike trail, where he volunteers his time helping passing cyclists with water and a toilet in exchange for some conversation, something hard to come by in the remote but beautiful southern islands of Japan.
We sat on the porch of his modern, recently renovated house on the ocean and told him about our honeymoon year. He told us about a bike path in Korea called the Four Rivers Route, a cross-country ride spanning the whole country. Our appetites were thoroughly whetted. We biked on.
One week and one flight later, we were standing in Seoul with rental bikes, looking south.
The Korea ride was too big to share a post — it got its own: 633km Across Korea →