I've recently discovered Yelp and will be blogging about my dining adventures via Yelp to share with the rest of the community. I still plan on taking pictures of my meals and adding hopefully useful, cool, or funny reviews. Sadly no one thus far has complimented any of my reviews and it's going to make it that much harder to become Elite.

Reflecting back on this past year, I had no idea what 2008 had in store for me. I commented on Jan 2, 2008 that I had no definite plans for any travel this year. Who knew that a year later, I would have flown some 96,000 miles! I had no idea on Jan 1st that I would be going to Ghana for a volunteer service trip, joining a new SAP implementation project which would bring me out to NJ a total of 14 times, or going on vacation in Japan. I came one step closer to realizing my goal of as many countries as years I am old, but am still one behind. If I’m fortunate, I’ll either be able to complete this goal in the next few weeks of Dec or more likely I’ll have to visit 2 countries next year. Now that I can cross Japan off the list I’d still like to visit: SE Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East, or maybe take a road trip and visit some of those mid-western states that I still haven't been to!)
Jan: Skiing in S. Lake Tahoe, Ghana Orientation in NJ
Feb: Skiing in Lake Tahoe (2x), Las Vegas, CRM training in NJ
Mar: Skiing in Lake Tahoe (Real World), CRM training in Atlanta, GA, Ghana Volunteer Service Trip
Apr: Ghana Volunteer Service Trip
May: Working in NJ (1 week)
Jun: Working in NJ (3 weeks)
Jul: Backpacking in Desolation Wilderness (Lake Tahoe), Wedding in LA, Working in NJ (2 weeks)
Aug: Working in NJ (2 weeks), Backpacking in Point Reyes (San Francisco)
Sep: Working in NJ (2.5 weeks)
Oct: Working in NJ (1.5 weeks)
Nov: Working in NJ (1 week), Japan (2 weeks)
Dec: Japan, Tahoe?

Back in the states and finally finished uploading and captioning the Japan photo albums.

Japan Sights

Japan Food

The best way to see the captions is to chick on one of the above links then "slideshow" and then "show info" to display the captions.

We used Osaka as a base to do a few day trips including Kobe to eat Kobe beef, Himeji to visit Himeji castle, and then we also dined on Okonomiyaki (japanese pancake with veggies, egg, and flour). Yesterday we stayed at a traditional ryokan on Miyajima Island just 30 mins from Hiroshima. We were able to take a cable car and funicular to the top of the mountain and then hike down. There were lots of very friendly deer roaming the island. The next morning we visited the Hiroshima Peace park and museum which was very good. We then headed south to Fukuoka and dined on some Hakata Ramen at a Yaki tori (food stall which is setup every night by the river edge). Today we are at a hot spring town called Beppu where we are relaxing...took a hot sand bath today and will shortly take a few more hot springs bath at our ryokan. Headed to Nagasaki tomorrow via Fukuoka for a day trip before returning to Toyko on Sun where we will stay for 2 more nights before leaving the country. It has been a great trip and I will miss Japan greatly.