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 9. Instagram All good things come to an end, and hanging out with Vivian ends today, sadly. My train leaves Tokyo station at 6:26am, so, as per usual on my trip, Checkout happens so early there usually isn't someone even at the front desk. Conveniently though, most hotels have an automatic checkout machine that just eats the room key, making this process super efficient. The tricky thing I know about going into today is timing. This is the night I booked the super fancy Ryokan, and check in is at 3pm. Typically, I've been going to the hotel in the morning, dropping bags and running around until about 7-8pm, but in this case, I actually want to be at my hotel at 3pm and stay there for the rest of the day. Dinner is on a strict schedule at the Ryokan as well, so if I don't arrive by 6pm the latest, I might miss out on my meal. Meanwhile, there's a few sights in the area I'd like to see, which includes some of the art museums in Gora. What I learned on ...

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 ...