SNOWBIRDS TAKE ON THE BIG THREE: CHINA, KOREA & JAPAN!

The past month has flown by!  We’ve traveled through Thailand, China, Korea and Japan and suddenly it was time to pack our bags for the long journey back to the good ‘ol USA!  (Good Lord, I’m so glad we opted to leave these outfits at home!)  It wasn’t long and we were ready to go! After all, someone stateside was waiting patiently for our return! But we had time to kill before Ubering it to the airport, so we walked over to Starbucks for breakfast and a coffee!   We patiently waited back in the room, until it was time to head to the airport!  We bid our good-byes to our travel buddies, and waited to board our plane to Washington! We crossed the pond overnight on an uneventful flight, made it through customs and TSA in Washington, and flew the final leg into Tampa International!  Patte and Mike picked us up (THANK YOU Patte and Mike!), we got home and showered and unpacked!  I am currently WIDE AWAKE……we had an AMAZING ADVENTURE, but it is really great...

I woke up still stuffed from last night’s meal!  John, on the other hand, was rip roaring ready to take on the food tour!  We Ubered it to where we met up with our Culinary Backstreet tour guide for the day, Mairi.   She explained that YANESEN was the area of Tokyo where we would walk today (and eat and walk and eat some more)!  The homes were narrow (due to the taxation based on property frontage) and very deep.  Most of the (typically three storied) houses had been in families for generations.  Because of this, many of the current family members had no mortgages to pay, so they were free to work their passion without the worry or need of making a lot of money.  The result was an eclectic area of whimsical shops and tiny, funky cafes. (And extremely happy owners!) Mairi further described YANESEN as an area that was comprised of three, quite different sisters.  The first area, SANDAGI, was the quiet sister.  We walked to nearby cafe and were ...