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Mexico: Then and Now
Inhaling clear air, we felt slightly dizzy from the altitude at 3100m and the breathtaking scenery of pine-clad forests. The distant tinkling of bells, worn around the necks of goats and sheep, drifted…
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Mexico: Gone to the Beach
It was the start of a long day, a very long day. It was barely ten degrees, a bright, chilly and pine-scented morning in the gorgeous, mountain-town of San Christobel de Las Casas.…
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Mexico….Ruins and Ruinous Roads
The first rain came in a violent downpour just after Ireland had beaten Scotland in the rugby match which we watched on the laptop in our little apartment in Bacalar, a little town…
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Hola, Mexico
Our journey to Mexico was longer than expected…much longer. The first seven-hour leg from Dublin to Toronto was very pleasant. The Air Canada flight was more than half empty, leaving plenty of space…
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Japan: Highs and Lows
Now that we are back home from our six-week trip in a campervan around fascinating Japan, it’s time to reflect on our experience. We flew into and out of Osaka and in between travelled…
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Japan: Kyoto, City of Crowded Charms
We arrived in Kyoto in the dark after a six-hour journey from the Sandan Gorge. We hadn’t planned on such a long drive, thinking that we would stop somewhere along the way but…
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Japan: Holy Mountains and Glorious Gorges
Our visit to Fukuoka didn’t start well. The traffic was horrendous as we made our way into the city from Nagasaki. Fukuoka is the largest city in Kyushu (one of the main four…
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Japan: War and Peace
In my last post, I said that we were hoping to leave Amami Island, a small island in the East China Sea a few days early because there was a risk of a…
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Japan: Chasing the Dream (aka Running from the Rain)
We are in the terminal building standing in a queue to buy tickets for the ferry to Beppu in Kyushu when several phones, including Caoimhin’s, start making strange sounds simultaneously. It’s an emergency…
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Japan in a Van
Japan is a country of surprises. We are enthralled by its natural beauty, the tree-clad mountains and the numerous Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines nestling among cedar trees above swirling clouds. On a much…