Travels on Sam's Blog

Puerto Peñasco

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About

Trip to Puerto Peñasco with Kenta, Kenta’s dad (John) and Tristan.

12/26:

Played some poker the night before and got up around 7:20. Ally woke me up. Packed up the last bit of my stuff and had Ally drive me over to Kenta’s. Met up with Kenta, his dad John, and Tristan. Piled in the four-runner and headed to Mexico.

It was about 4 hours to get to rocky point. We got the rods set up and went to the pier. The pier was right next to wrecked on the reef. It was basically a ton of massive concrete blocks haphazardly stacked on top of each other.

We cast for a bit, I lost my lure and we didn’t catch anything.

We drove over to el pollo Lucas and had amazing roasted chicken with tortillas.

After that, we drove through the touristy part of rocky point which I remembered from when I was a little kid (have a photo with Alec there).

We drove to our resort and brought our stuff in. We grabbed the rods and headed down to fish directly in front of our place which was right on the beach.

We didn’t catch anything but Kenta caught a pelican. I practiced casting, lost a lure, and successfully tied a new one back on. So that was good. I’m definitely a bit embarrassed at being so bad at fishing.

As the sun started setting we went back up stairs and then headed out for dinner. We went to some taco place and got aguachiles, quesadilla, and tacos. After that, we want to Al capones and watched a crazy 49ers vs bears game and I had a guava beer.

We went home, chilled, watched despicable me 3 in Spanish and went to bed.

12/27:

We got up around 7:30 and got out of the place around 8:30. The water wasn’t working in our resort which delayed us a bit.

We went to Reggie’s and got some breakfast burritos which were a little dry but pretty good if you added some salsa.

We took the highway three, passed las conchas to the second estuary “la pinta”. The highway is a tiny two lane road that follows the hills underneath it. We were cruising along and it kind of felt like a roller coaster at 70/80 mph.

To get to the second estuary we turned off the highway onto a dirt road marked by an abandoned house and mile marker 32. Taking the road for five minutes we drove passed another shack looking house with a green tractor. We were also met by a dog that got up real close to our car and barked as we entered.

John drove up the beach a bit until he felt the sand was a bit loose and then parked the car to avoid getting stuck. This would have been a problem as we were completely alone. This was a popular spot where normally you could see other people fishing, but today being a Monday morning close to new years it was completely empty.

The morning was a blast. I got a handle on casting the spin rod and closing the bail fast and keeping the tip up to avoid getting my lure stuck. I did get it stuck early on and John and I made almost every mistake possible getting a new one on there it was hilarious (not really) because I was useless and keeping John away from catching fish.

We then instantly started catching fish. John caught a corbina, a small grouper, and a leather jack. Tristan caught similar fish and so did Kenta. I caught one good size corbina when John gave me his rod that had some fly fish feathers obscuring a hook that the fish seemed to really like.

The tide was going out all morning so while we were able to cast farther out the fish stopped biting. Seems like knowing where the fish are going to be is a complicated ordeal… but we had a better chance as the tide was coming in and just after it started going out.

We also saw a dorsal fin pop through the water which seemed to be a dolphin but kind of looked like a shark. This was a problem as it was eating all our fish!

After about 1 o’clock, I was basically just practicing casting, nothing was biting. John even brought out his fly rod but it was a bit too windy. Around 1 we called it and headed to Tortas Siria.

We walked in with our water shoes on and just ruined their floor with mud hahaha. We asked for a mop to clean it but the lady told us it was no problem. We got tortas and John accidentally got something off the breakfast menu. I got a torta millenesa which was good. Kenta got some prepared drink which we think was made with local water but he seems fine, it was kind of funny because he got a bit nervous at the time.

After lunch we drove over to malecon or the tourist area that I remember as a kid and walked around. It’s kind of annoying just a bunch of people asking you to buy useless shit. A bunch of guys asked if we wanted to go fishing. I told them we had been fishing all day. He then said “what about finger fishing!?”. After walking around a bit we got some ice cream. And drove back to the resort.

We turned on Scarface. Tristan and Kenta went down to the hot tub which was apparently not hot, and I talked with John.

We decided to fish/walk down the beach from where we were staying and go to a bar for some beers. It was rocky and difficult to catch much with the large waves, but we cast out a bit and got to the bar around 6. We watched this guy at the beach get his stupid jeep unstuck and the cops ran out to give him a ticket. We had a few beers and Kenta, Tristan, and I had mango margaritas.

We walked back up the road to the car to get dinner.

For dinner we drove to Diego’s tiki bar. Which was back up toward la cholla. We got shrimp tacos, coconut shrimp, bacon wrapped shrimp, etc… there was a theme! Our waiter was nice and Tristan is basically fluent at Spanish at this point. We got his backstory and he told us about puerto Peñasco and Mexico, how most places are safe, that he plays soccer and the restaurants all play soccer against each other. He also let us know how many ladies he was getting.

We were super full after dinner. We headed over to a super market to get some breakfast for tomorrow as we plan on getting an early start. We got some beef jerky and conchas… breakfast of champions.

Watched a bit of Scarface and then showered/headed to bed.

12/28:

Got up around 7, a bit before Kenta/tristan but after Kenta’s dad who had already gone down and prepared the gear.

Had some old coffee and a bit of a concha for breakfast. Started having a headache about an hour after I woke up. It was the usual sort, pain in the temple and lasts for 4-5 hours. I think due to all the salt/dehydration from the day before.

Got packed up and then we drove over to the second estuary. Started fishing and I caught one fish. Wasn’t feeling great and my stomach was starting to churn.

I saw the splashing of some fish about 25 yards off shore and attempted to cast my lure out right in the middle of that area. I cast shittly and left it about 10 yards short of where I wanted it. I quickly reeled it in and sent it out again and hit the spot perfectly… almost too far. I started reeling it in and immediately got a fish on. It was a pretty good sized corbina, I didn’t have the tension right so I was struggling to bring it in. Tristan came over and increased the tension a bit, and I managed to bring the fish in and gently drag it ashore.

The fish was hooked twice in the mouth and once through its right fin. They were pretty easy to get out and I quickly let it back into the water.

At this point, I gave John my rod (it was better than the one he was using as he wanted us to catch fish) and watched for an hour or so. Around 11:30 the wind picked up and we called it a day. We got the gear packed up and drove back to el pollo Lucas for lunch.

I wasn’t feeling great so I didn’t eat, but got some tortillas to bring home. After lunch, we got some gas and headed back to the border. We drove passed all the people trying wash our car and sell us puppies to have our passports checked. Tristan had an emergency passport and the agent said at first he came up as an interpol person of interest before he manually typed in his info and found that to be wrong. We drove through why and ajo before one more border patrol checkpoint look at us and let us through.

Driving back from Gila bend, John told us about his skateboarding and snowboarding days. As well as Living in Hawaii and Japan. He also talked a lot about his work at perforce, enforcing abuse of rogue wave’s software licenses (ALWAYS BE CAREFUL WHAT SOFTWARE YOU DEPEND ON AND READ LICENSE AGREEMENTS)

Summary:

Amazing trip, I need to get better at fishing and knot tying. Puerto peñasco is an amazing resource within 4 hours drive of where I live that I had underrated before. Spending time in nature with friends is one of my favorite things. I really enjoy speaking Spanish and generally like speaking local languages it’s so much fun.

Whiskey that John likes: Weller, Eagle rare

Rod: Phenix redeye

Korea

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

About

Trip is South Korea (Seoul and Jeju) from 2025-11-07 -> 2025-11-21.

Below is my daily notes from the trip, lightly edited post trip. (Edits are bolded).

I’m picking one photo from each day to include.

Summary Thoughts

Korea Travel Log

Korea journal

2025-11-07:

Currently waiting to take off for SF. Today was very chill compared to yesterday where I got a flat tire on my way to present at our summit. (This was a work summit where I was presenting on Q CLI).

Feeling pretty good, back is still a little tight, I kind of tweaked it riding some gravel with Kaiser a week or so ago.

Anyway, feeling pretty relaxed overall, ready to sleep on some flights. Landed in SF, walked around and talked to my girlfriend. Got some ramen and sat next to the cofounder of some startup talk about how his life is designed around revenue, dreams about his customers, doesn’t know what holidays are all he does is work, and how he’s slept with his gay banker but he’s not gay… going to keep tabs on this one and see how it does lmao!! Welcome to San Francisco. Preferred meeting Charles Barkley last time when I was flying to Japan hahaha.

2025-11-08: 3

I guess it’s the 8th now although it’ll be a short day for me. I’m like 9-10 hours into the flight to Korea. Slept ok for first 8 hours. Almost 18 hours since being driven to the airport, I can’t decide if it’s felt like a long 18 or not. Anyway, going to wrap up the last few hours of this flight and then on to the 9th.

2025-11-09:

Landed, struggled to figure out T money but eventually got it and got in the right train hahaha (This involved me realizing I needed to get cash to load the things and going back and forth between thinking I needed cash or not… then figuring out how to get cash). Got picked up from very nice Airbnb lady who brought me up to the room. I made coffee, cooked breakfast (homemade jam) and talked to pal on the beautiful porch. Sent the airbnb lady a picture of my breakfast and she gave me more eggs and tomato’s… so nice.

Took the bike they have out for a nice ride on their river path. It was awesome, so many riders out, great weather, and nice pavement. (This didn’t feel grerat on my back but was a beautiful windy day for a ride)

Got back and then walked over to the noodle place that our host recommended. (This place was extremely surprised to see me and was located in what seemed like a neighborhood surrounded by small statues). The walk was nice it was almost in a neighborhood and then I came to a place with a ton of statues, walking to the end of them lead me to the noodle place. I took my shoes off and sat by myself and had a massive bowl of buckwheat noodles. Had a nice walk back checking out the town a bit before heading home.

The bathroom was so cramped I had to sit in the tub to shower hahahaha. Zach arrived around 8, I let him up and went to bed.

Noodles: 인천광역시 계양구 학고개길 15-29 Sufia : 인천광역시 계양구 정서진로 1247

2025-11-10:

Woke up at 3:45 so almost got 8 hours. Made coffee/toast with Zach, cleaned up and headed out (watched a little football too). (This required some finagling with a VPN/location settings).

Took an uber to GMP where we got dropped off at the international terminal so had to walk over to the domestic one. I needed a new boarding pass so it would match my passport so we had to wait and got Jamba Juice. Then at security at turned out Zach needed the same thing but they didn’t do it for him so he had to go all the way back and redo it.

Anyway hope we make this flight to Jeju hahaha.

Flight got delayed and had plenty of time. Met some nice people from Sevilla if I’m there I need to visit Bar baratillo.

We landed in Jeju and Zach forgot his water bottle on the plane. We got that, picked up Ray and then drove to some random noodle place to get lunch. It was good and then I had Zach drive to the Airbnb without routing it and he did pretty well. We also saw an f-150 on the drive over, America!

Stopped at an emart for groceries and went to the new Airbnb. This place is ok, good views though. Went for a walk and the surrounding area is beautiful. The JW Marriott we are next to is crazy as well. There’s some good restaurants around us.

Anyway feeling a bit tired, going to try and stay up until 8pm and call it a night.

Also lemon sour hi-chew are good and strawberry snickers are bad.

2025-11-11:

Slept for like 11 hours and got up at 7. Cooked up coffee and oatmeal which took forever in this tiny little kitchen. Of course we don’t have salt, pepper or laundry detergent.

Went out for a quick walk along the coast which was beautiful. Then face timed Ally and watched the packers vs eagles a bit (won fantasy football this week).

We decided to go check out a waterfall which wasn’t really happening because it only happens when it rains, but saw some big spiders and oranges. On the way there we stopped at this cute coffee place (I got orange juice and a slice of cake) that had an amazing logo. I think I’ll use it to make ally a shirt.

Then we drove to a forest loop hike where the entire path was paved with this braided rope that was very soft to walk on (about 5k) (This hike smelled pretty bad as we’re pretty sure we were surrounded by manure from the thousands of farms on the island)

When then headed towards a running track on the north western part of the island so Zach could run. It was by Donatos a place we wanted try for pizza. While Zach was running I walked over to hanmart and bought detergent. Then we decided we’d go to some little Thai food place for dinner.

We walk into this Thai food place (Lam Taetae) and there was nobody there. In fact we’d be the only people to enter the entire time we were there. It was just a guy and, I assume, his wife and we had amazing fried rice, pad Thai and he had us try soy bean soup. He was very nice and we chatted a bit with him, apparently he had been a chef at a thai restaurant for a decade. Amazing meal, just another example of randomly walking into a great experience while traveling.

We drove back home (1 hour ) in the dark, hitting speed bumps and making a wrong turn or two. What an interesting place/culture.

2025-11-12:

Woke up and was a little quicker at making coffee/oatmeal today. Heading to hike Hallasan (the mountain in the middle of the island). Didn’t realize we had to make a reservation so did that really quick and headed over there before our 10am cutoff time.

Parking lot was full and we missed the cutoff time. So then we decided to do a different hike that climbed another side of the mountain, while that one didn’t meed a reservation it still had a cutoff time to start for some reason and the guy wouldn’t let us go through hahahah. So we ended up looping around this cool cemetery and we’ll try hallasan again tomorrow. (We did not realize that we needed to be a bit more prepared to do this hike, they seem very regimented about it)

Our new plan was to drive back to Cheonjiyeonpokpo Falls and have our sandwiches. We parked kind of close which led us to walk around for a few hours before finally getting to the park and checking out the falls. (We did not park close, we parked on the absolute wrong side and walked all the way around the park to get to the falls haha)

We took photos, ate sandwiches and started back towards the car. We got some snacks from CU (I like seaweed lays chips) and watched old people play put-put golf. We both kind of wanted coffee so we ended walking back down these stairs we had just gone up and into the town.

The coffee place we wanted to go was closed so we walked past another that looked cool. Had coffee and I bought some beans for my mom. We then went up this small street that seemed to be dedicated for an artist and get gifts for people from a small book store and another shop.

We walked back to the car and drove home. Out on the roof, I was helping Zach improve on chess while we ate yogurt and hatched a new plan for the Hallasan. After the sunset, we needed to get dinner. I found this random place called inupaen that was incredible. Some of the best steak I’ve had in a very cute place that was well decorated.

After getting back we decided we wanted to sleep in tomorrow. We’ll drive up the eastern side of the island tomorrow and do Hallasan on Friday before our omakse experience.

2025-11-13:

Woke up and I burned some avocado toast. We charted a few places to stop on the way to the eastern most part of the island where they have this cool glass house cafe.

We headed out around ten and went to seosokkak. It was this little inlet where freshwater meets the sea. We rented a small boat and paddled up it. We walked the beach a bit and then headed towards our next stop. (I found a small heart shaped rock for my mom on the beach)

After driving past a place that said Texas bbq the next place was closed, opening in late November. So we decided to go to a burger place instead. It’s called fantastic burger. With a view of the sea we had large quantities of curry and onion sauces poured on top of burgers with milkshake and fries. Suffice to say we had to go for a walk after. (Zach did NOT enjoy this meal)

Leaving the car at the burger place we walked down to some tide pools to help digest the slop. We then headed towards an herb farm.

The farm was pretty cool, extremely well manicured. There were tons of cool looking plants and we got some grapefruit tea which was pretty nice to walk around with. We couldn’t figure out how to play the put put golf so after a bit ended up leaving (think it was more for couples at night).

We continued on to the glass house. We parked our car by the ocean on this peninsula and walked to this massive glass building. Inside I bought shoes and Zach bought more gifts. We then went to the bakery and got some baked goods/coffee. We sat up on the second level overlooking the sea and played chess. (This place and the surroundings were highly aesthetic, would recommend)

After this we walked around outside to a small lighthouse before turning around and heading back to the car. We drove to a supermarket to get supplies for tomorrow. After wards, we went to a nice Korea bbq place for black pork. It was excellent we had pork, egg dish, rice, and tons of sides.

Driving home I booked our tickets for the hike tomorrow (I think they were literally the last two available). Got back and made some sandwiches and am going to bed now. Going to be a great day tomorrow but we are getting an early start.

2025-11-14

Woke up at 4:30 had coffee and oatmeal and then we were out the door around 5:30 headed to the parking lot. The drive up was cool in the dark the rods are tight and it was a little hard for Zach to see.

When we got to the parking lot it was already full at 6:30. Luckily we had a backup plan to park at the university and grab a bus back to the parking lot (comprehensive shooting range west was the bus stop name). We parked and got a taxi instead which worked out fine.

Back at the parking lot we showed them our QR codes and were hiking by 7:00am. The hike started off pretty chill then we hit a middle section which was steeper/rockier and the last bit was extremely steep pretty much just stairs. The weather was great, there was no water but there were rest stops/bathrooms. People kept giving us oranges and on the way down we must have said hello in Korean 1000x.

The top of the mountain was pretty cool, great views. We had some snack and then hiked down, we didn’t wait too long as we didn’t have much water. The way down was rough, the rocks we had hiked up now required constant attention/balance while dodging people going the other direction. At least passing was easier as we had nobody to pass.

It took us about 6 hours total to do Hallasan about 5 hours of hiking. We took a bus back to the car (the driver just waved us on as we had no idea how to pay). Driving home we made it back by like 3PM after getting some gas that we thought we didn’t pay for but turns out we did. Zach and I had a bet about how many “dings” we’d get which occur when Ray hit a bump too hard.

We showered quickly and then hung out a 60 beans, Z got another flat white and I got a hot chocolate. Even though the Airbnb wasn’t great it was in a good location and we just sat and watch the ocean.

Afterwards we walked back up the hill a bit to our dinner at Hachi. This was an amazing omakse experience. I got to butcher a bit Japanese, eat some amazing pieces of fish, and ended the night with a little green dessert ball that was amazing.

This was one of the best meals I had, and for only $100 per person it was a bargain. If I end up in Jeju again I’ll have to go back. This was an amazing day to end an insane stay. I was telling Zach that I didn’t think I would be able to be as cool as Japan and this week has been! It’s been great in pretty much every way.

2025-11-15:

Alright our big travel day begins. Calves are a little sore but we’ve got nearly every possible form of transportation to take.

We cleaned up the Airbnb and hit the road at like 7:50. Apple Maps fucked up and we ended up taking a scenic route on the other side of Hallasan we had been the day before. We dealt with some slow/dumb drivers. Before retuning the rental car (not full). We took a shuttle to the airport where we checked our bags and then headed through foreigners security.

Through security I got some snacks at 711 before our flight was delayed 15 mins and our gate was changed. We got on a bus which took us out to the tarmac where we boarded our flight. On the plane now hopefully no issues as we need to take the subway over to Busan Station to catch our high speed train to Seoul.

Took the subway to Busan Station. No problems and we got lunch at the station (Ramen + Kimbap). high speed train rolled up on time and we headed to Seoul. There wasn’t much to see and our ears kept popping. I ended up watching Seinfeld and playing chess poorly. We both agreed we were glad to say we’ve taken the KTX but it was NOT worth the hastle.

After we got to Seoul station around 6pm and we were both tired. Butttt we had more subways to take. Lugging our bags we took several crowded Friday night subways to Walkerhill. At our final station, we had another 1km walk ahead of us UP THE HILL to the hotel. We did all the travel but wow it was not worth it haahahaha.

We checked in. We were going to get an extra bed but decided against it because the room was small and our single bed was big. The shower is great and the hotel it really nice but everything is overpriced. I was so tired I just skipped dinner and went to bed.

2025-11-16:

Got up early. There was some coffee I could make in the room but I thought it was instant coffee so I poured it straight into the cup but you were supposed to poor water through it via a filter lol. So I went downstairs to the buffet and got a fucking $8 Americano. I chugged that and then got my stuff together for my hike.

Ready to go I set off for Baegundae peak in Bukhansan National park. My right calve is pretty sore but overall I feel ok and today is the best weather for it. I took the subways without issue. Grabbed a snickers bar at the base and started up.

The first bit was basically on a road before the actual hike. Some taxi crashed his car on the road oof. I made it up to the start but was a bit low on water. I went downstairs to this small shop that this lady was trying to open. I helped her get the lock open and then got some water from her shop. I threw a liquid IV in one of bottles and started off.

This thing was steep my legs were still tired from Hallasan. While this was shorter it was tough. Reaching the top, I threw my gloves on for the final scramble to the peak. It was kind of like half dome but with less ropes and more metal railing. It was very crowded and I don’t hang out long at the top. Took a few photos and heard back.

Rather than heading down the same way I decided to descend the other side and cross the park. This side may have been steeper than the other and there was no stairs whatsoever just straight rocks. I got down to this road and then it was easy from there. The road was beautiful with fall colors and I was having a great time listening to 80s music. I wasn’t super hungry but decided I needed lunch. I needed up at a small Korean restaurant where I ate a bunch of rice tofu and fermented vegetables. This white fig and some Koreans sat at the table next to me and I think they worked for black diamond. I was going to show them my carabeaner but decided not too.

I walked to a bus and then took subways back to walkerhill. Shower felt great and than Z got back from exploring the city. We waited a bit for his lab mate Skylar to show up. We had to go down and get Skylar his room because his card was getting declined.

All three of us went and got dinner, I randomly found some place called Bao Seoul that was amazing. We had Bao, Fried chicken, and noodle… insanely good. After walking out it started raining so we waited underneath a convenience store and I debated purchasing these little nipple patches that looked hilarious.

The rain stopped and we walked over to this place called nowhere which was an art installation that also seemed to be selling glasses and perfume (Gentle monster was the name I believe). I talked to this lady about what her favorite weird glasses were and then we Ubered back to the hotel. we made sure to clear out the complimentary minibar before hitting the sack.

2025-11-17:

Going around and exploring the city today. Got up around 7 and Z went to the buffet. I had coffee in the room, watched football and called my parents. my dad has his surgery scheduled for 12/11 so that was good to hear.

I headed downstairs to go explore the city and was hit with a blast of cold air… went back up and threw my thermals on. Another breakfast at Starbucks for 1/8 the price of the hotel and then I was off to Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was pretty cool but my legs are shot from the last few days of hiking/travel and the amount of tourists here is nauseating. It’s hard to do anything without getting in the way of somebodies photo. I walked around for a bit before taking shelter in the modern art museum across the street. This place is pretty weird but it’s nice to sit inside and eat a little pastry and type this out.

I think I’m going to go to the national museum of Korea next and look for lunch.

Started toward the museum and immediately found a cute lunch spot by the palace. More Korean food but it was really good and had a little purple flower on top. Finished up and took the subway to the museum.

Zach sad he would come but ended up getting hung up so I walked through the museum by myself. It was pretty cool but my legs were hurting from all the walking and a left around 4. It was freezing outside and the sushi place I wanted to try didn’t open until 5pm so I ate so MnMs in a 7-11.

I pulled up to Sushi Tei right at 5 and was the first one sat for dinner. I got the sushi set which was a bunch of sashimi (tuna, white fish, squid,etc) as well as some udon. It was excellent. Took the subway back to the hotel and read a book about hotels in the library. After that I helped Zach practice his presentation and called it a night.

2025-11-18:

Got up around 8:30 and went to Starbucks again to get a little breakfast. It’s just convenient and cheap. I’m taking the subway to go make Kimchi with a nice lady named Grace.

At my final station there was a little flower shop so I could buy grace flowers I don’t know how these things work out so perfectly this happened the last time I did one of these Airbnb experiences as well.

Two other people showed up and we made/learned about kimchi, made kimchi pancakes, and ate pork with kimchi and drank tea. It was amazing and grace was so nice. She even made us homemade dumplings and we got a nice jar of kimchi we made to take home. Amazing experience, and I’ll have to go back and do her dumpling class!

I’m now sitting at bean brothers with a cup of coffee it’s quite cold. Not sure where the rest of the day will take me but I need to get this kimchi back to the hotel hahaha. Crazy I’m taking this home.

Went back to the hotel with the intention of leaving but ended up staying at the poster session for a few hours. It was fun to talk with various people about their work and I could understand enough that it made for good conversation. I worked up an appetite so I headed to a restaurant that grace recommended called namdosikgark. I’m sitting here now waiting for my food to come out, I’m the only one here.

Food was excellent. I got a large vegetable pancake and spicy beef stew. I learned how to say radish in Korean today so I asked the lady if the kimchi was radish in Korean even though I already knew it was radish.

I was kind of in some sort of shopping district so I walked around after eating and got a few things for ally. This one artist had drawn John wick on a scroll so I bought that for Louis. There is an endless supply of cute tiny things here

Took the subway back uneventfully and then hiked back up to the hotel. Showered and then hung out in Zach’s lab mates room (Skyler) who has a great view of the river/bridges. Went to bed around midnight.

2025-11-19:

Woke up to all the lights coming on in the room randomly around 9:15. Called ally and talked with her for a bit. Got out of the hotel around 11 and headed toward inwangsan which is a mountain in the middle of the city. Took subway over and stopped at Starbucks for a hot chocolate.

The inwangsan hike was pretty cool. My legs are tired it was steep as hell but the view of the city at the top was unbeatable. The Seoul wall is also pretty cool. Hiked back down while eating some wasabi covered almonds which are excellent. Decided to take the subway over to the buk-seoul art museum. I’m sitting on the roof now and it appears to be a bit of a mistake to have come here, there’s only like one exhibit. I think my plan now is to head back to the hotel and meet up with Zach and Skyler for dinner. I do need to go to bed at a reasonable hour as the DMZ tour is early tomorrow and I don’t want to be wrecked for it.

Went back to the hotel and met up with Z and Skyler we took the subway to some chicken place where they put bunch of stuff in a big pan right in front of us and we ate it. The guy that worked there was nice and showed us a little donut shop so we got donuts after. While leaving the donut shop i used my new ability to say “see you later” which was a hit.

We went back to the hotel and a realized that I didn’t want to get up at 5am for the tour. So I booked a 10am tour and wrote the 7am one off as a loss.

2025-11-20:

Woke up at 7:30 and had coffee/yogurt in the room. For some reason I checked Viator and noticed a message saying meet at 9:30 instead of 10 so I hustled over to the station and made it there on time.

We hopped on the bus and our tour guide Lina talked us through some basic instructions as we took the highway towards the DMZ.

We got to our first stop after about an hour which was just a little tourist park with a train going over a river. I think it was sentimental about a particular battle there and there were memorials. I walked around, got some snacks and bought some North Korean currency which is kind of cool to have, I think I’m going to give it to Jeff.

We boarded the bus and headed to the tunnel. This was the point where we actually crossed into the DMZ. There was a little checkpoint and some 20 year olds on military gear hopped on the bus to check our passports. Anyways, Apparently North Korea has been digging a ton of these tunnels under the DMZ toward South Korea. Every once in a while SK finds one, and this one they turned into a tourist attraction. We watched a 8 minute SK propaganda video which was pretty funny and then got to go into the tunnel.

We were given a hard hat before walking down a 300m long very steep tunnel. This one was well built. At the bottom we hit the North Korean made tunnel. It was quite small, hence the hard hats, and you kind of walked bent over to the end of it where the blocked it off. Then you turn around and huff it all the way back up. Lina gave me a sticker for being the first to make it back up. It was pretty cool to be there.

Next we want up to the Dora observatory where you could look at but not take pictures of North Korea. There was a tit-for-tat flag battle between the two nations that was finally needed when North Korea built a 160m tall flag and SK decided to stop playing the silly game. That flag is pretty cool to see it’s very large and high up, even from 5k away and a bit foggy it was very visible. Otherwise there were just abandoned factories and mountains you could kind of make out in the distance.

I went to this little cafe and had a chocolate muffin while looking out at North Korea. It was a cool experience, they also sold shitty hotdogs and a had to listen some lady bitch out her sister next to me while I enjoyed the view.

We went back to the bus for our last stop. This stop was through a village of farmers that were still allowed to live in the DMZ before stopping at a glorified convenience store/bathroom to allow us to buy things before heading back to Seoul. I bought a water and met some nice guys from London who K chatted with for a bit outside.

Back on the bus we headed back through a military checkpoint to make sure that everyone that was in the bus on the way in was on the bus on the way out. I chatted with a nice guy named David from Charleston as we drove on the highway back into the city.

I asked Lina for some food recommendations, she pointed out a few places and then one of the lady’s on the tour mentioned she was going to this dumpling place that was on the Michelin guide (for value restaurants). We got off at myeongdong station and decided to get dumplings with her.

The tour made it difficult to remain sincere about the whole thing and the tragedy that is the war and the current state of North Korea with how curated/touristy each of the sites was.

We walked up to the third floor of this restaurant and they sat us and brought out noodles and dumplings almost immediately. They were pretty good, the kimchi was very spicy. She was nice, she was traveling for several months after being laid off due to trump cutting all the funds of USaid. We talked about politics a bit and she’s also going to stay in some Buddhist place for meditation which sounded cool.

We parted ways after our dumpling snack and I headed back to the station to go have dinner with Zach. Dropped stuff at the hotel and we headed towards this place by the lotte world tower. That place closed at 9 so we were cutting it pretty close. We ended up walking around and randomly found a small restaurant called dokidoki. We got fried chicken, a tepenyacki noodle dish which were both amazing. Then we got one more dish which was some sort of fish roe pasta that was great. An amazing dinner to cap off the trip.

We headed back to the hotel and Zach packed a bit and I got a coffee from the CU on the basement for tomorrow and headed to bed.

2025-11-21:

Woke up around 7:30. Packed up my stuff and dropped the bags off at the concierge. We checked around for anyway to load our T Money Cards but realized we’d need to leave the hotel. We walked over to a bank and pulled out 10k krw for a fee of 4200krw hahaha.

I got a banana from Starbucks and we waked over to a little park. Zach walked barefoot on some barefoot walking trails and I chatted with a lady about Achason mountain which I didn’t get to hike but was right next to Walkerhill.

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and took the bus to the station. Two hours of subway later. We made it to the airport. We got Chinese food and then I said goodbye to Z and we parted ways as his flight was in Terminal 2.

Flight was delayed a bit, so I walked 5-6 miles around the airport which was mostly just souvenirs shops and extremely high end fashion. I wonder if there’s an arbitrage opportunity for buying things here and selling them back in the US. I didn’t go in to check any of the prices but would’ve been interesting to know if they were priced differently. I also wonder how often they update the price with given exchange rate changes.

On the flight we had a massive tail wind which saved us probably over an hour of flying time. I chatted with some of the flight attendants I had met in the airport after I found an AirPod and gave it to them. One guy was 51 and had fun out clubbing in Seoul the night before, he told me to visit Singapore and Greece.

Once we landed we got stuck on the runway and lost all the time we had gained in there. I hustled through customs, re checked my bag and easily made the next flight, so the rush wasn’t as warranted as I thought.

On the flight from SFO to PHX I sat next to a guy who works for openAI we played chess and had a good conversation. He’s had dinner with Tyler Cowen before (no wonder he’s so bullish on “AI”).

Mom picked me up and then I showered and had dinner at home. I picked up Zach from the airport and brought him home. I wasn’t really tired, so I decided to drive down to Tucson to see ally and pick up my bike. I made it down to Tucson in about 90 minutes getting there before midnight. And that closed out an extremely long day (21 hours of travel to Phoenix + another 2 to Tucson).

Japan

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Japan Travel Log

This trip was the best/most impactful traveling experience I’ve had as an adult.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to do this.
I’m happy I spent a few months learning some basic Japanese.
I’ve drastically underrated traveling by myself
If I have children, I will highly encourage them to live abroad for an extended period of time as a young adult

Whats below?

Below is pretty much my stream of thought, recapping how each day went in the moment. I’ve lightly edited for clarity. My core reflections are above, although I have done some further reflection internally that won’t make it here. Any post-hoc edits will be highlighted like This.

Day by Day

4/14:

Mom dropped me off at airport. Was a bit busy for 5:30 am. Walked around terminal 3 and ran into Charles Barkley which was wild hahaha. Missed a great opportunity for a San Antonio joke. I’m on a hot streak for seeing famous people. I had seen David Goggins a few days before

Sat next to James on the plane to Hawaii. He’s in the army stationed in Honolulu and is a helicopter pilot/instructor. Good guy!

Flight went well beat all levels of angry birds while listening to young thug. Managed to drink about a liter and a half of water and ate ~700 cals… so feeling pretty good going into the second leg. Hopefully the WiFi works nicely.

Stretched my legs and walked to the garden at the Honolulu airport, it was really nice. The small garden is extremely nice and a great way to break up 16 hours of flying PHX -> HI -> JPN

4/15:

Ok so this is a little weird because of the time change but I’m still traveling to Japan (Honolulu to Japan leg). We’ve just changed days. Sitting next to another military guy had a good chat with him for 2 hours. Talking about if he likes the military, why do people sign up, kinds of people that are there etc… they are going to Japan for 1 month I guess for training or something. We also talked about voting, and how he thought that some sort of service to the country could be a requirement to vote and the pros/cons of that

The WiFi on the flight (Flight was equipped with free star link internet which was excellent) was nice but I wasn’t feeling all that great I toughed it out and got some sleep which made me feel better and played some chess.

Got off the flight and it I think a bunch of international flights all came in at the same time… so it took like another 2 hours to get through customs/duties with my bag. Met some guy from Finland who was cool.

Found the train station, eSIM doesn’t say it’s active but I still have service I guess from t-mobile. Can’t tell wtf train I’m getting on but I’m so tired I just bolt into the train I think is right and the doors close on me on the way in. I made a split second decision to get on which ended with the train doors closing on my backpack as I squeezed through the door

Turns out it was right! Got off at Kamata station and start to walk to the Airbnb. It’s wild like this place is straight out of a movie and I’m just in some tiny city outside of Tokyo. Make a few wrong turns walking but get to the place.

Do all their check in stuff and I get to their door and I can’t get this Lock Screen to come up so I can enter my code. So I just start tapping wildly and it works hahaha. The lock on the door was a little weird to use especially on basically no sleep

I had a little snack but I’m so tired I can’t go out to eat. I’m going to shower and go to bed hopefully by like 9:00pm. I’m going to set an alarm for 9:00am and force myself to get up after 12 hours of sleep. 12 hours of sleep was a PIPE dream.

4/16:

Woke up at 4am so got 6:30 hours plus the time in the plane… not bad. Showered, had a little food, did some laundry, made an instant coffee and organized a bit.

Worked on Ally’s website (slamming effect) Claude won’t do what I want so may have to make some tweaks. I’ll see what time a get back tonight and work on it then. I was making a website for my Girl Friend's birthday, but I know very little about web development and was running into issues

Current goal is to go to 7/11 get some cash, and maybe a snack. Then hit the grocery store, drop off what I get and then head out for the day and get some breakfast/go to the shrine. Let’s see how this goes. For some reason I was very nervous about going to stores... IDK

Ok 7/11 went smooth I got 20000 yen, a coffee and a snack! Payed with suica! Ate me little açaí cup in a park. There was a small park next to me airbnb

Grocery store went fine. I got bananas,yogurt, avocado, bread, juice, almond milk for like $10. Got change for one of my 10000 yen bills so that’s nice as well. I think the lady asked me if I wanted a bag, which I actually had studied, but she said it too fast so I just stood there looking like an idiot until she just got me a bag.

Went to kamata cafe which was good and then walked around sun road. Saw a couple restaurants that looked good. Now taking the train to the temple.

Walked through the cemetery and to the ikegami rooftop garden. Got a cool picture of mt fuji from far off in the distance. This would be the best view of Fuji I'd get even though we'd visit a city directly next to the Mtn it was covered by clouds Walked through the shrine. Inside didn’t allow photos but it had a cool golden display and large drums, very intricate/ornate. Continued walking around, bought a matchbox and sat in a park with a little pond and some trees.

Walked back to Airbnb from kamata station with no maps assistance! Bought some strawberry KitKat, eating them in the park by the Airbnb, they are pretty good!

Noticing a few things about the culture here:

No adults walking around wearing shorts
Nobody has sunglasses except some older people
Very quite in public places, no talking/eating on trains
Everything very clean
Everyone has their work uniform, seems most take pride in their work
There are 0 public trash cans

Took the train to go meet Chris for dinner. Sat by the meguro river and waited before dinner had some edamame snack. Another guy came to dinner with us named Ben. Good conversation. We talked about Japan a lot, what it means to live here the people/culture. Dinner was good, bunch of small plates, apparently fish semen is really bad, so is the raw chicken… horse is good though. We just ordered from our phones and they brought it. We did not get Fish semen, horse, or raw chicken we just talked about those things

We got booted from our table after 2 hours and went to a small pub. They played heavy metal and the bathroom had a chord attached to a door and a guitar, so when you opened the door a chord on the guitar was played… so cool. After a beer, we walked back to the train station and Ben and I took the ekigami line back, he got off before me.

Walked back to the Airbnb so tired! A couple of beers and lack of sleep will do it to you.

4/17:

Slept until 5:20 so got 7 hours!! Made some avocado toast but there’s no salt and pepper in the Airbnb but there WAS some in this little plastic utensil set bag a had… huge win.

Took train over to great cycling tours. Met Yuki-San and Takashi-San and chatted with them for a bit. Then met Eva and caitlin/rob (from Alaska). Was pretty hungry and only brought a couple strawberry Kit Kat.

We went to: - Nihonbashi Bridge - Kanda Jimbocho (book town) - Koishikawa Korakuen (Japanese Garden) - Sugamo shopping street - Gokokuji Temple - Zoshigaya Cemetery (Soseki Natsume’s grave) - Kishimojin Temple - St. Mary’s Cathedral (sorry, in Japanese) - Yasukuni Jinja shrine - Imperial Palace - and through lots of backstreets

Caitlin got a flat, so we stopped at a shrine and it was the tightest tire I’ve ever seen. Apparently it never happens because the roads are so smooth and clean, and these bikes aren’t the best maintained lol. After an hour and some bloody knuckles we got it fixed.

Lunch was really great had curry with udon noodles and tempura vegetables. Stopped for a while and got a matcha tea towards the end. After the tour we struggled to pay (Their device wasn't working quite right) and Caitlin forgot her phone and we had beers.

Took the train back but must have fucked up a bit and realized I started to go the wrong way about half way home (train started going west lol) got off and walked over to the right line and was fine.

Had a great dinner at Hung’s kitchen tiny Vietnamese restaurant and a nice conversation with the owner. Amazing experience, the epitome of why I enjoy traveling. Took some spring rolls to go and went to bed.

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” - Hemingway

4/18:

Went to bed at 9:40 and woke up at 5:40! Got a full 8 hours!! Called pal and ate some breakfast at home. I got the right amount of food, was really nice having some avocado/banana/yogurt for breakfast at home.

Called pal, sounds like she’s doing well. I struggled to articulate my experiences. Like I can talk about what I’m doing, but I’m struggling to capture how I’m feeling, how I think about Japan/the culture and the people/places I’ve been since I’ve been here. I just need some more time to process. The beau miles short film I watched this morning actually fits pretty well.

Took three trains to get to Mt Takao. Wasn’t bad at all and got to the Mt at like 10:00 am. Hiked up to the top there were a lot of schools with big groups of kids which clogged the trails a bit, I went up #6. The nature was beautiful and there were nice flowers.

I had a snack and some matcha ice cream at the top. Then I started to descend trail #4 and it spit me out directly at the soba noodle restaurant, I got the sansai since I didn’t want the raw egg and ate outside with an amazing view. I just wandered into probably the coolest meal so far this trip hahahaha… it just keeps getting better. Had a funny conversation with the waiter about a little jar she brought out which turned out to be spices. I tried to translate the writing on the jar but it was just the name of the merchant and the address not actually what it was and we both laughed. Randomly walking into this place and soaking it in epitomizes what made this trip specials

I kept walking down after the meal and asked some guy what time it was in Japanese which was cool. Ima nan ji de su ka? Then saw a waterfall/shrine where there was a monk washing himself and praying. Waterfall is Taki.

Kept walking down and saw a small animal, kind of looked like a badger or those things we have at Sabino canyon. Headed back down where all the shops were and bought Ally a cute owl and a card.

Now headed back to the Airbnb on the train going to get ready to hang out with Kenta tonight.

Took the train and met up with Kenta, train was packed to the brim and some lady was bringing her birds haha. Shibuya was busier and bigger than I could have imagined. I was disoriented just walking around. Bought a couple post cards for pal. and we walked to the place for dinner.

Kenta’s friends are nice guys, they all went to international school so they speak English fluently and they banter in some combination of English + Japanese. We had some nice sushi, little squid, octopus, chicken kutsu, seaweed soup and drinks for like 40$ per person. I don’t know if I was tired from hiking or just tired from the time change, but I felt like I had vertigo at dinner haha, it was wild.

Next we went to a pub and got a DK shot Pretty nasty. Some random guy asked to hang out with us and Kenta said sure lol. DK shot was just some nasty double shot, so did one of those. We went to another one of those British Pubs, I guess they have a bunch of British type pubs here it’s like a chain.

We went out side and I was a little buzzed and had 45 mins of trains to get home so ended up heading back around 9:45 and headed to bed.

4/19:

Actually slept in until 7:00am today, had some breakfast at home and started getting all packed up. I can’t believe it’s already time to leave this Airbnb, it was a good pick. Had everything I wanted, quiet location, and forced me to use the local trains to get around.

I got packed up and then got some cash from 7/11 and hunted around for some flowers to give Taka-San and Keiko-San, but couldn’t find any so headed to the station. Where I had a short ride over to Omori station only one stop away. I was at the station early and got some flowers from a little shop (just worked out perfect) fumbled all the Japanese haha.

Met Taka and this Croation couple and walked to Taka’s house about ten minutes away from the station. I had my full bag on my back the entire time at this point and we walked slowly, chatted and stopped at a shrine and by the time we had gotten to the house I must have been wearing it for an hour, so my traps/shoulders were completely shot.

Taka and Keiko are amazing people we did udon noodle making (danced on the dough), origami, made tempura vegetables, learned about our cultures, made sushi, were given gifts, and wrote our names in Katakana in calligraphy. Keiko spilled shochu on me and was very apologetic but it was totally fine. It was such a special experience, just a gem of Japanese culture from people who were caring/dedicated enough to spend so much time preparing for us and inviting us into their home. I can’t wait to return the favor/come back at some point and at the very least send them some photos of us making Soba/Tempura. I have since attempted to do tempura at home once and sent them photos, it turned out ok.

After that ended, went back o Omori station and headed towards the Airbnb, turns out the Airbnb in the google doc was not the right Airbnb as the address Tristan sent was completely different. Luckily they had landed, so I was able to clarify and get on the correct trains. I made it to the Airbnb first after walking through hordes of people with my bag and finding the door down a small path next to the building, it was a cool three story place above a kebab shop. But it was hot and I was a little nervous about how close we were to some of the busiest places in Tokyo.

Tristan and Matt showed up next and we walked around for a second and got a few things from a family mart. Then Kaiser showed up and we started ambling around to dinner. I ended up walking us into a Korean place a bit from where we were staying and we had a nice meal where I tried to navigate ordering and that went poorly. But it all worked out the meal was ok, but it was still just fun to hang out and go to a random spot half way around the world (literally).

I walked home and went to bed the rest of the guys went out for bit I think.

4/20:

On this day we were going to a baseball game and my friend's parents house, but I also needed to travel ~3 hours to a small town to go ride bikes the next day. I was pretty nervous about fitting all of this in and navigating the 4-5 trains I'd need to take to get out there.

Woke up at 6:00 today so I think I’m doing pretty good on my sleep schedule. Just wanted to get everything in order for heading out today as all I’m going to have on me is my backpack. I’m a little nervous for this trip, I think I’m going to skip dinner at Kenta’s parents house to give myself the best chance at making it to Kiryu and getting some sleep. I’m going to make it to Kiryu!!!

Ok so everyone finally woke up, I had gotten all ready early in the morning since I went to bed early. Grabbed a little pancake thing from Lawsons. Came back and Tristan and Mike were ready but Matt wasn’t so we went and got more pancakes and coffee. Then we came back and Matt still wasn’t ready, so we had to take a later train.

I got us on the right train and we met Kenta on the train. We got to the game it was dope. Lot of singing, but we lost, however it was fun and got some good food. Then I got some chopsticks from the shop. Some of Kenta’s friends showed up mid game and hung out with us.

Then we went to Kenta’s mom’s house and met Kenta’s Mom, Grandma, and sister. I’m so glad I decided to do this and not just go straight to Kiryu, I got to eat a little food and speak some japenese, I think I impressed Kenta’s grandma.

I’m now on the final train to Kiryu, I actually made a few mistakes closer to central Tokyo, but we freestyled and made possibly a better route. I’m a little tired and need to eat some of my food, but I’ve got everything I need and I made it to Kiryu!! (Fingers crossed).

Checked into hotel, shaved and called Al. Went to bed but couldn’t figure out how to close window so kept waking up as the wind would blow really hard haha. CLosing the window was not hard, but I spent probably 20 minutes attempting to do it.

4/21:

Got up after not great nights sleep but going to get after it. Suited up and walked over to Rob’s warehouse. Met Frances, had some coffee, and got set for the ride.

What a ride, I mean I can’t do it justice with words but I must go back the photos are such a sliver of a momento from such a vast and majestic place. Rob was such a nice guy! A few highlights:

started off riding on the river path
Roads so smooth few easy climbs
Massive perfect tunnel that nobody uses haha
Large climb can see volcanos, Tokyo, cherry blossoms and lakes
Stopped for lunch by the lake, chatted about friendships DO A BIG TRIP WITH FRIENDS 1/2 times per year
Frogs We saw two frogs on top of one another in the middle of the road
Flatted off a rock

Made it back to town and had lunch then got myself sorted at the shop. Walked back to the hotel and told the lady I was checking out early. Went up showered and found someone else’s shirts so I gave those to the lady and told her a spilled coffee on the sheet (it was blood from cutting myself shaving lol) and she was nice and charged me 1000 yen.

I then walked over to the other station in kiryu (shin-kiryu) and bought a limited express train ticket. This route is wayyy better than my previous one. Only need to switch trains once. Man I am a little fucked up and dehydrated. But was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

Got back at like 8:30 and the boys waited for me for dinner. We went to this little place and I met Walid, Julian and Jorge. After dinner we got a couple snacks and went to bed I was cooked.

4/22:

Woke up around 8am and got my shit organized didn’t get out of the house til ~9:30 but the boys picked me up and we walked over to Meiji Jingu. The gardens were really nice and peaceful. After the gardens we took a train to harajuku, and we shopped and looked at gaming cafes. Not really my thing

After a while I dipped out with Matt and went to this place for ramen which was gas. Had to buy a ticket at the machine and gave it to a little lady that sat us right in front of the chefs. They would take the noodles out of the boiling water and shake the boiling water onto the ground. Ramen was great.

Then matt and I took a train to meet up with Kenta who was going to take us around a museum. Tristan and them showed up a little after and he had crawfish so he was mucking crawfish with gloves on and got it all over his new bathing ape shirt and we were all laughing. I made friends with ladies in this little cafe and got an ice cream.

We went into the museum and looked at old Japanese stuff for a while. I got a postcard for ally from the gift shop. Then we walked to this large open air market. There was a ton of crazy stuff (fish, turtles, clothes,etc…) we stopped for fried octopus balls and beers.

Next we hopped on a train for a sushi dinner. Got to the place and they served out large trays of different sushi almost immediately it was really good and we got Matt an avocado only roll because he barely ate anything. I got us to stop at the hub (British pub) and we had some large beers and a DK shot. After that, we took a train back to the Airbnb, I took a separate train from the other guys but we met up in the walk back from the station.

4/23:

We had to get up early for a bus ride out to Mt Fuji at 10:15. Spent the morning packing up and then we went to the station to meet Kenta. Kenta brought us to the bus station and I had a fun 2 hour ride listening to music and shooting the shit with Tristan.

We got to the hotel around 12:00. Dropped out stuff off and went to a Hoto restaurant and sat in the bench in the floor and had hoto and a grape sour. It was very good. Walked back to the hotel and got our room. Room was essentially an open space and then a bathroom/shower.

We headed out and walked around the town, rented a couple swans and paddled on the lake. Went back to the hotel and put on our traditional bathrobes and want to down to the hot springs.

There was a locker room and then inside were like 30 seated showers. You shower off first and then go in the hot springs. There’s an indoor, outdoor, and half indoor/ half outdoor. They are hot 44 degrees C, our favorite was the half indoor/outdoor, spent a lot of time with try Kenta and Matt.

Then we met everyone up on the seventh floor for dinner which was a nice buffet. Ate and drank a ton. Then we went back the room and everyone got a little pissed and we played cards. Mike and I went down and got more beers out of a vending machine and eventually went to bed around 11. Somehow a window got left open and we got hammered by mosquitos

4/24:

Got up at 5:15 am, was sweating so much my bed was soaked. We went up to the observatory but still couldn’t see Fuji because of the clouds. We went back down and did another 90min sauna session before going to breakfast.

The other guys woke up like 15 mins before breakfast ended. We checked out and then went up a cable car to a view point above the lake and did a short hike to a small shrine and got some ice cream. We got down and Kenta and I walked back to the bus station while the others took a car. Kenta and I went to get ramen while we waited for the bus.

The bus back was fine, we worked on Matt’s hinge profile using the photos I took earlier. Then we got back to the station and walked to their hotel. It was a bit of a shit show so I headed to the airport early and said goodbye. Dumped a couple beers by a vending machine and made it to the train. Went through Kamata station one last time as I headed to the airport.

The people who were on the first bike tour from Alaska were on the same flight to Honolulu. The flight was pretty easy, talked to this girl I sat next to for a bit and then mostly slept. Was pretty groggy landing in Hawaii, but grabbed my bag and re-checked it in after customs with no issue. The flight kept getting delayed, I could’ve spent some time at the garden but every 15mins it’s get delayed like 15 mins. Almost back to PHX now, a bit tired but just need a shower and a meal. Travel went fairly smooth.

LA Spring 2025

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Recap of my trip to LA from 3/13/2025 -> 3/19/2025

13th Flew to LA, checked the bike no problem (this was my first time flying with my bike). I borrowed a bike bag from a friend, it was pretty easy to pack. Flight delayed 1 hour, so I walked six miles in the airport. Few weirdos on the flight. Got to bed around midnight.

Bike all packed up:

The Cat:

14th

Woke up at 9:15 did a few things for work, built my bike and went to Sprouts. Very rainy but got stuff for a pot roast. We went back to Ben’s and then drove over to meet Jacob (Another 3L at USC). We did a 9 mile walk through a lake and over to dinner at tu madre. We ended the night going through a few bars before walking back to Jacob’s and driving home. Good guy, it was a fun time.

Saw this cool Isuzu Trooper:

15th

Woke up pretty late. Bike was shifting terribly. Did a 2:30 hour ride through some really nice neighborhoods in Beverly Hills. Not much shoulder, plenty of cars, but it went fine. I put the pot roast on before we left. Very simple roast just seared up some chuck and then letting in simmer in stock/vegetables for a few hours. Took the bike to REI and Brian got it shifting better. Drove home and had dinner with Gabi and Bishop. And then we walked to salt and straw and got ice cream.

16th

Woke up at 10am, watched some premier league soccer . Went for 90 minute ride up the same nice neighborhoods. Running a little late, Mitch came over and we drove to the intuit dome. Clippers smacked the hornets. Dome was extremely annoying to get into but the large screens were cool. Watched sexy beast which was ok.

17th

Woke up going to do a big ride with Jeremy (Another 3L at USC) today around Palos Verdes. Was really nice to start with a bit of traffic, the beach path was quite sandy. The coastal road was basically falling apart and closed to bikes but we went anyway there was an incredibly steep pitch. The rest of the ride was cool there was some switch backs that this McLaren kept doing over and over. Descent was a little sketchy. We stopped at Mickeys Italian deli for lunch and got corned beef sandwiches for St.Paddy’s day. After leaving, we had about an hour to get home and it started raining super hard… we were freezing. We got home and had to dry all our clothes out. Then we had leftovers and watched collateral.

18th

Drove up to Santa Barbara. Airbnb small but nice, dropped our stuff off and went for a ride. Climb was super long and steep. Saw a vulture grab a dead gopher and drop it right in front of us. Some of the coolest riding I’ve ever done. We chose the right direction to do it in, as the pavement on the descent was really nice. We showered and got Mexican food. Gave my pozole to a homeless women, got ice cream at Ralph’s.

19th

Walked to the beach in the morning and got some avocado toast. Drove back to LA. Put my bike back in its case for the flight and got dropped off at LAX. Flight was uneventful, and I made it back safe.

The international terminal at LAX is wild:

Kauai Trip

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Recap of our trip to Kauai, HI from 2025-02-05 to 2025-02-12.

2025-02-05:

Landed after a 7 hour flight due to a strong head wind, but we had the middle seat open! It was raining as we walked over to Avis to pick up the rental car, but it was that nice Hawaii mist rain so it felt good.

Guy at Avis tells us there are no small sedans left (what we rented) so instead we get a 2023 Ford F-150 XLT…

We immediately drove to Dukes #America and had mediocre burgers on the beach. After Dukes, we drove to Costco in some semblance of an attempt to spend less then $1000 on food in Hawaii (things are expensive). I got some tuna jerky (which was very good).

After Costco, we did our 65 minute drive up to Princeville and unpacked at our place.

2025-02-06:

First full day, we had big plans of doing the Jurassic park trail. We drove down a small road, clipping tree-branches with the truck, and parked at the arboretum. We saw some cool Rainbow eucalyptus trees by the stream.

As we started to hike towards the trail a construction worker told us it was closed that day, so we pivoted and did the Powerline trail instead. The Powerline trail had incredible views, we did a good amount of it and turned around as it started to get a bit muggy.

We drove back towards Princeville and stopped in Kapaʻa to walk around. We bought some over priced Mango and Eggfruit and ate it on the beach. Made it back home, cooked dinner and watched the sunset.

2025-02-07:

Woke up early, made smoothie bowls, and watched the sunrise. We drove to the Kilauea lighthouse and saw whales, birds and some big waves. I was chased by a Brown Booby who was protecting its little chicks! After the light house we stopped by the agriculture center and got a big avocado and a roast beef sandwich, both were excellent.

We drove to Anini beach and found a nice spot a short walk down the beach underneath a large tree.

We snorkeled a bit and relaxed for the afternoon. We left Anini and drove to Hanalei to get some shaved ice. The sharp left turn as you follow the road down into Hanalei gives an incredible view of the mountains and beach. We cooked dinner at home and watched a bit of The Prestige

2025-02-08:

We couldn’t get enough of Hanalei, so I found the Okolehao trail which seemed to give great views of Hanalei… it did not disappoint. We only went up 3.6 miles, but it took 2 hours due to how steep and slippery the trail is. It’s very muddy after the fist viewpoint and the trail is overgrown with steep drops on either side. It continues to go on further, but it only gets steeper and muddier so we decided to turn around. I would probably not do this one (passed the first viewpoint) if it was raining or if it had just rained a lot.

After making it back to the car and changing into swim suits, we had some PB&J sandwiches, that we made earlier int he day, in town as well as some more shaved ice. We spent the afternoon at Hanalei beach. We were looking for rocks and Ally said “Oh there’s a pink one” and grabbed my big toe thinking it was a rock.

We drove back to our place and cooked up some steak sandwiches. One of the neighboring resorts over looked the ocean from some cliffs, so we brought our sandwiches over to a picnic bench and watched the ocean while having dinner and saw a whale.

That night we slept with the windows open to keep things cool, and some guy in the up stairs unit started snoring soooo loud we couldn’t believe it. We ended up switching bedrooms which gave us some reprieve. The moon was really bright this night, but I didn’t take a picture.

2025-02-09:

We decided to have an easy day because we are getting up early tomorrow. We went back to our spot at Anini and snorkeled. It was kind of cold and I wasn’t sure I wanted to snorkel, as Ally started to go out by herself, I said screw it and put on my stuff and got in. I was lucky I did, as not 5 minutes later we came across two sea turtles and got to watch/swim with them for a while! It was awesome. I got really cold and had to go back in though after ~30 minutes. Ally realized she forgot her medication, so I drove back and got that for her.

We cooked up salmon for dinner and went to bed early.

2025-02-10:

We woke up really early and went kayaking up the Wailea river and then hiked to a waterfall. It was pretty crowded as different guides shuttled hundreds of tourists to and from the waterfall each day. Leaving early was definitely a good idea, as it was quite hot on the way back. It was nice to meet some of the other people on the tour, and it was something I’m glad to have done once.

After kayaking, we drove south to the Koloa Fish Market and got poke (The tuna was really goog) and a smoothie. We continued our journey to Waimea canyon and did the hike to Waipo’o falls that I had done three years ago. There was not a ton of water flowing, but you can’t beat the views and there was still a small water fall at the end. Going later in the day, we saw very few people on the trail except for this couple that were absolutely struggling to get back up the climb to the parking lot. The drive to and from the canyon, it made the F-150 feel like a Porsche.

We then drove the two hours back to Princeville and cooked up the last of our food and watched some of the hunting party RIP Gene Hackman.

This was a huge day, but definitely worth it. If we had more time I would probably have split it up.

2025-02-11:

We got packed up and threw everything in the truck. With a red-eye not until 10pm we planned on driving around doing various activities on our last day. We went to Holey Grail Donuts in Hanalei which were really good, I also purchased a shirt from them.

After donuts, we navigated single lane bridges on our way to the Limahuli gardens. The gardens are beautiful, surrounded by steep mountains and jungle. After walking around for a bit one of the ladies asked if Ally and I were married and said we were glowing (May have just been from how pale we are hahaha).

We drove all the way back to Lihue and ate pad Thai at Big Monster 7.2/10 and talked to our server from Thailand named Tom (Very nice guy!).

Then we went back to Old Koloa town and got a smoothie from the same smoothie place. She was out of mangos, so we walked over to a guy selling produce and bought three mangos and give them to her. Ally has been using her recipes at home to make some excellent smoothies.

We then drove to shipwreck beach and hiked along the coast. We saw a lady get proposed to. Then we sat overlooking the ocean, I pointed out to the ocean to make ally think there was a whale as a joke… but then there actually was a whale that breached right as I pointed! Ally was not as impressed by this, but I still can’t believe this happened… I mean what are the chances.

Then we drove to Poipu beach and saw the turtles, the place I stayed at 3 years ago on my last visit, and a seal. We watched the sunset and then had a good meal at Kenji burger before filling up gas at Costco. Kenji burger was excellent, we will be stopping there instead of Duke’s for quick bite next time.

Last but not least, I managed to average 19.7 mpg in the f-150! I think this is a huge accomplishment.

Glacier National Park

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Travel/Stay

Spent three days in Glacier National Park this summer, and it was one of my favorite visits.

We flew into Kalispell and stayed in Columbia Falls. It was a great little town to stay in with a short 20 mintue drive to the park entrance.

During peak season with the Going to The Sun Road open, its critical to get into the park early. We’d pack a cooler with snacks, cold water (it gets pretty hot during the day) and head out as early as possible (Trying to park before 6:30am).

There are a few different fees you have to pay. I had paid these so long before our visit that the first day we drove in, I thought I hadn’t paid the West entrance fee only to drive back away from the entrance to get cell service and figure out I had bought it.

Hiking

In the middle of the Summer an early start is definitely the way to go. If you’re doing a longer hike that might take a good chunk of the day, starting early will give you lower temperatures and optimal parking.

We planned on doing smaller hikes but more of them, which gets a bit difficult as parking becomes scarce during the day. Our best day consisted of doing Avalanche Lake early in the morning. If you’re doing the popular trails I would highly recommend starting early.

After this hike, we said screw it and decided to drive up to the Logan Pass visitor’s center (~10am) and fight it out for a parking spot. If we couldn’t get anything, we had some back-up less packed areas we wanted to check out and have lunch at.

After about 15 minutes of jostling in the parking lot, we got a spot. I think the best strategy is to wait at the end of a row, there were a decent number of people leaving and if you kept circling the parking it became difficult to time it correctly and snag a spot.

Establishing dominance in parking lot musical chairs allotted us the reward of doing the Hidden Lake Overlook Trail. The trail still had a bit of snow cover and there were tons of mountain goats. Hidden lake was “closed” due to too much bear activity, but the overlook was excellent (I would bring binoculars next time). It was hot, but not bad as we were at higher elevation.

You could spend a full summer here hiking, many of these trails are worth doing multiple times at different times of day. The glaciers in the park are slowly disappearing, so it was special to get to see them in their current state.

Flathead River

We did a rafting trip on the middle fork of the Flathead river which was fun although the water was quite cold. There as a lot of history and wild life along the river, although we didn’t see any bears.

The river runs next to Columbia Falls. After a long day, Ally and I ambled down about a mile from where we were staying to the river. There was a cute little park next to the river with a decent sized community garden and open space with large trees. We slid down a small sandy embankment and picked up smooth river rocks out of the cool water. They had tons of color and unqiue patterns when wet. It was one of those days you already know is going to be a fond memory for the rest of your life.

Other stuff

You can buy bear spray pretty easily in the park. You can’t fly with it, so you kind of have to find some place around the park to buy it. If you’re driving, you can actually get two cans of the stuff from Costco for like $45, I paid ~$55 for a single one in the park. Since I couldn’t fly with it home, I spent another $10 to ship it. The kid working at the UPS store actually didn’t know if he could ship bear spray, but after calling his mom he said it was fine and took it (lol).

Funny enough this trip actually occured during the CrowdStrike blue screen of death incident. As you might guess, bricking tons of computers running windows makes it hard for airlines to function. It actually worked out in our favor as we originally had some nasty connection from Kalispell -> Chicago -> Phoenix, AZ. We ended finding a direct flight from Kalispell -> Mesa, AZ and got home in a few hours. We checked our previous flights just for fun and with the delays it would’ve been a completely unneccesary 10 hour travel day.

Half Dome

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Had the opportunity to hike half dome via the (John Muir Trail) JMT on July 10th, 2024. It was a fantastic hike and I wanted to record the experience and a few ways to approach the hike.

Red = Mist trail
Green = John Muir Trail
Yellow Line = Ascent from Nevada Falls to Half Dome
Blue line = Panorama Trail (Not hiked/referenced below)

We put in for the permit lottery when it opened up. Three of us submitted with dates spanning May – August, and only one of us landed a permit for four people to hike half dome on July 10th, 2024.

I booked a place in Groveland which is about an hour and twenty minute drive from the base of the trail (given no traffic). I’ve stayed in this town before, its pretty nice and has everything you’d need. It’ll depend on the person, but you could certainly stay closer to Yosemite… this will likely require planning far ahead.

We flew into San Jose on the 8th and drove 3 hours to Groveland. We made a pit-stop at REI on the way so that one of the guys hiking could buy hiking shoes lol. On the 9th, we hiked Sentinel dome. It’s a short trail and provides great views of the whole valley, you can also see half dome and pretty much chart out the entire trail leading to the top. We did this on a Tuesday and things were busy but not realllllly busy. It was definitely a good amount of driving from Groveland which, compounded with the previous travel day, meant a lot of sitting. Going to the dome in the afternoon was a good reminder of how hot it can get, especially in the sun, even at higher elevations.

After driving to sentinel dome, we headed back to Groveland to cook dinner and get prepared for the hike the next day.

The plan was to wake up at 3:30 AM the next morning, hit the road by 4:00, park by 5:20 and start hiking by 5:30. There were three of us hiking, I took 3.5 liters of water while the other two took 3 liters and 4 liters of water. I choose to wear trail running shoes (Saucony Peregrine 13), I’ve been using this shoe for a few years, and I like it. I usually pick up last years model on Amazon in some weird color-way for half the price of the new shoe. I had bought new hiking boots a month before this hike, but on a practice hike I got some blisters and ended up going with the trail runners instead as I’d never had issues with them.

I packed roughly 2500 calories of food
I did not bring hiking poles
I wore some breathable hiking pants with long socks
I wore a light/breathable t-shirt
I brought a bag of Kleenex, a portable charger, a head lamp, a water filtration kit
I brought some cheap glovesfor the cables!

I used a 2.5 liter bladder which I filled to the brim. I then used two 500 ml bottles which I stuffed into the sides of my pack. The 2.5 liter bladder was nothing but water; however, in the bottles I added ~1200mg of sodium via sodium citrate, 120 calories worth of white table sugar, and a Nuun tablet for a bit of flavor. I am not a hydration expert and I probably was not perfect with my hydration on this hike, but I subscribe to what Dr. Alex Harrison has said on the topic (a quick google search and you’ll get all the info you need).

Total pack weight was ~11-12lbs, I felt confidant with this set up. I’ll speak about it later. Overall, I was happy with it.

For training, I spent a week hiking and biking at > 8000ft elevation in Greer, AZ directly before the hike. In the months leading up to the hike I averaged 15-25 miles hiking per week, 3-4 hours biking per week, 5-10 miles running, basic full body gym routine 2x per week, and ~12,000 steps per day on average. The longest hike I did before half dome was 10 miles with 1500 feet of elevation gain at high elevation (~9000 feet). In general, I was just keeping a decent level of fitness.

I had been continuously battling a strained hamstring, which I initially strained in March 2024 while doing a dumbbell stiff leg deadlift. I was unable to walk without pain for a several weeks and couldn’t work out legs in the gym. The strain got better, and I was nearly back to normal when I reinjured it again in early May. It felt great the weeks leading in to the hike. I was fairly confidant but was still a little nervous given the several weeks of inactivity and reinjury leading up to the hike.

We watched the first half of the Eiger Sanction (great Clint Eastwood movie), before getting to bed around 9:30 PM. I was a little nervous for the cables and for my hamstring, but overall I felt prepared and figured worst case I can always just turn around.

Hiking

We woke up at 3:30 AM the next morning. My lower back was entirely frozen, it hurt to sit down and I couldn’t really bend over. I remember noticing there were some ants that had wondered into our AirBnB’s kitchen, when I bent down to look at them I immediately seized up. I think it was due to all the sitting and travelling I had done over the previous few days as well as sleeping in a new bed. There was certainly some bad luck thrown into the mix as well. The good thing was that I had no issue when I was standing up, it was only sitting down. I took an Advil and figured if I felt bad on the trail I’d just turn around.

We hit the road by 4:15 AM. There was no traffic that early, and we parked about a half mile from the trail head at 5:30. After getting our packs on, walking to the trail head, and taking a photo we began hiking at 6:00 AM.

The first ~ 5 miles of the JMT to Nevada falls took us about 2.5 hours, it’s a steady climb with many switch backs all the way up. I was able to eat a few hundred calories and steadily kept sipping water. We only stopped for a few minutes at the falls to put on sunscreen before continuing. I took another Advil at this time and a caffeine pill. It was about here where I knew I would be fine, I just couldn’t sit down hahaha, so I’d need to pretty much be standing or walking for the next nine hours.

After the falls, the trail flattens out for a few miles, it gets a little sandy but we chugged through it, everyone still chatting and having a good time. As we began to wrap around the back side of Half dome the final two miles begins to get steep again, luckily it was still cool and shaded. The time at elevation really began to pay dividends here and for the rest of the hike, I had no issues. We stopped a few times to rest at this section before finally getting up to the base of the sub dome.

From the base of the sub-dome to the top of half dome couldn’t be more than a ¾ of a mile, but you gain ~1000 feet of elevation all the way up to 8800 feet. Ascending the sub dome is essentially just a bunch of stairs with a bit of steep scramble to get all the way to the top. Once you crest the sub dome all that’s left is the cables. Below is a photo of the scrambling section of the sub dome.

There were gloves at the base of the cables but I was happy to have brought my own. They gripped the cables well, which was quite important as the rock of half dome is actually quite slick. When I got the top of the sub dome, I really didn’t want to even think and wait, I mainly just wanted to get it done. I shot up the cables quickly, we were going up at 10:00 AM on a Wednesday so it really wasn’t very busy. With both hands on the cables its quite easy to pull yourself up while finding a solid place to put your shoes and step up. There are wooden boards and areas where the rock juts out a bit for resting. There are a few very steep sections, but if you just focus on holding on and resting when needed its not that bad. I did the full cable section in what I think was < 10 minutes, but I didn’t time it nor was I really paying any attention to that.

Once we had all made it up, we walked around to both sides of the dome, took some photos and had a bite to eat. I was still a little nervous about going down, so I didn’t have much of a stomach to eat very much. After 4 hours of hiking to get to the top, I had probably only eaten 600 calories and drank about 2 liters of water. I had a good bit of adrenaline at this point and wasn’t really hungry at all. This was also the point where one of the guys I was hiking with turned to us and said he had no water left… this was bad because we were about 4 miles away from water I could filter and 7 miles away from a true source of drinking water. It was also probably going to take ~4 hours to descend so we’d be hiking down from 11:00 AM to 03:00 PM when it would be hot. This revelation made me even more nervous about getting down so after we took our last photos I started down the cables.

I was nervous for the descent but, again, it wasn’t bad. Two hands on the cables at all times, face the dome, don’t look out if you’re afraid of heights and rest on the boards if you need to. If someone needs to pass or you need to pass someone, coordinate so one person has a good place to rest comfortably and then grip one side of the cables with both hands and go around. Everyone was very nice and courteous, and most people were fine… a few were quite nervous. The biggest thing I could take away from this would be to avoid the crowds on the cables at all costs, it would have sucked if it was just straight lines of people all the way up with slow/nervous people causing problems. I also would never even think about going up if there was any inkling that it would rain or had just rained. The rock is extremely slick from so many people climbing it, if you have good upper body strength it’d probably not be a problem but it’d be a serious additional risk.

With three of us off the cables and on the sub-dome by ~11:30 AM, it became very apparent that it was going to be really hot, and we needed to get back to water before we all ran out with three people sharing the water of two people.

We pretty much had no reason to stop on the way down, about one mile out from Nevada falls the other guy I was with ran out of water and at that point I only had about a half a liter. When we got to Nevada Falls around 1:30 PM, we used my water filter to get a bit of water. It was quite slow and we filtered enough water for everyone to have a few drinks with the understanding we were just going to smash it down to water fountain that was approximately an hour away.

After sharing my water, I eventually ran out about 20 minutes away from drinking water. At this point we were booking it down the switchbacks of the John Muir Trail (We never used the mist trail, we took the JMT both ways). We got to drinking water and filled up our bottles with about 30 minutes of the hike remaining. At this time of day there are MANY poorly equipped day hikers on the lower parts of the trail.

Large groups, people arguing, people hiking in flip flops, people hiking with no water.
They have no concept of hiking etiquette, its hot, and we had to weave through this
unruly crowd with 16 miles in our legs.

We finished the hike around 3:00 PM; my girlfriend picked us up and had cold water and ice cream in the car for us, which was exactly what we needed. Total distance hiked was 19 miles, 5500 feet of elevation gain, a total hike time of 7 hours and 30 minutes, and a total time out on the trail of 9 hours.

Takeaways

I’d make sure to do this hike with people of adequate preparedness and fitness.
I would probably bring 4 to 4.5 liters of water, I probably would have been fine with three, but in reality I really should have been drinking more than I did.
I would try to eat a bit more and take in more sodium. I only ate ~1500 calories and was sweating profusely for the last 3 hours of the hike.
My calves were a bit sore the next day, but otherwise I was fine. Seemed as though the training a did was plenty, as I felt good during the hike as well.
I would consider doing the hike over-night and watching the sunrise on Half Dome, also breaking the hike up and camping (given the proper planning) would be a good idea. I don’t mind the way we did it, but I would like to take every opportunity to limit my exposure to heat and large crowds.
I would bring a water filter again just in case… some people were drinking the water directly from Merced River. I think this is highly stupid and a good way to give yourself the runs. The filter is light weight and will save you from butt pee.
I would freeze some water and keep it in your car or a cooler to have on the way back, something cold was nice.
I might take the mist trail on the way up and then the JMT on the way down. The mist trail offers a nice little mist from the falls, is more direct, and would still be a bit shaded in the morning despite not having a ton of tree cover. The JMT would be easier on the way down especially with tired legs and would offer more shade.
Trail running shoes or hiking boots would both have been fine.
Cables were not a big deal as long as its not busy. If you’re afraid of heights, just face the rock in front of you.
It is CRITICAL to take in salt, sugar, and a lot of water… also, probably try and eat ~200 calories an hour.

It was an excellent trip that I’d definitely do again.