Joe Rodin Has A Blog

It is incredibly difficult to make a top 10 list in the heat of the moment. Almost every day on the trip I found something I loved, so by the end of my trip, there'd be many items from the early part of the journey that'd be missing from the list. Now that I've given myself a few weeks to decompress and look back on the trip as a whole, I've come up with a top 10: 10. Sapporo Is it fair to write down an entire city? This is my list, so I say yes! Sapporo was tied for the shortest stay with Nagoya, both of which lasting only 19 hours, so the way I see it, you can do what I did in Sapporo in a single day trip. The three main tourist attractions in the city are all grouped very close together, Odori Park was a beautiful snow covered stretch, plenty of shopping and food to go around as well. Sapporo is at the top of my list for cities I want to see again, mostly based on that I wasn't able to spend much time there. Sapporo TV Tower, Clocktower, and Government O...

January 16. Instagram I need to preface this day by reminding everyone the only reason I wanted to go to Beppu in the first place was because of one specific ramen shop. No other reason, just Yume Wo Katare. The train today is going to be a little bit of a long ride, mostly because there's no train that cuts right through the water, so it's straight west, then looping back to the south and east. Two trains, 186 miles in only three hours, I love Japan's train system. Beppu is in Oita prefecture, and is the furthest south I've visited so far. It doesn't feel it as the temperature is in the middle 40's, but Beppu is on the same longitude as Northern Africa and Charleston, South Carolina. There is something really hot in Beppu, and it's what they're most well known for: hot springs. Mount Tsurumi erupted in the year 867, and since then, thermal vents and hot springs take up the entire mountainside, sliding all the way down to Beppu Bay. The hotel I...

Criteria The most important thing when it comes to traveling, first and foremost, is where I'd like to go and what I want to accomplish: Criteria . A real vacation should cover these six fields: Sightseeing/Tourism, History, Food, Shopping, Weather, Leisure. Sightseeing/Tourism : If it's ancient or brand new, if it's a cool building, a fun event, a "must-do" whether for locals or travelers, I want to do all of it, or as much as possible. I'm a tour guide in Boston, so I love to see what other cities have to offer. History : Square and a rectangle with sightseeing, not all sights you see are necessarily historic, so if I'm going to a new country/city, I need there to be a draw in terms of its history. Food : When it comes to being at home, I honestly order almost the same thing every week from the same places, and maybe have 7-10 recipes I rotate through. When I'm in a new country, I love to just go wild trying every new dish I possibly can, and ...