We did lots touristy stuff and found great Vegetarian and Vegan food.

We stayed at the Conrad in Tokyo. It was conveniently located near the Ginza and many great restaurants.

Our favorite Vegan ramen place ended up just down the street at Kyushu Jangara. We went there twice!

We visited the Meiji Jingu temple. On the way back, we went to the famous Shibuya Crossing. It’s the busiest intersection in the world!

One day, we went to the famous Horikiri Iris Garden. The blooms and colors were amazing!

We visited the Imperial Palace

The Palace is an Oasis surrounded by skyscrapers!

We had dinner at a fantastic 1 Michelin Star restaurant named Faro. It had a 9 course Vegetarian Tasting menu.

We took the Bullet train to Osaka. It was an experience navigating the train system to our hotel!

We topped off the experience with a 3 Michelin Star meal at Hajime. The difference between a 1* and 3* is quite evident in the complexity of dishes and the experience presenting and eating them. Truly amazing!

One day we took a tour of Kyoto.

Kyoto has 17 World Heritage spots including the Torii Gates. We visited most of them!

Osaka is famous for it’s knife crafting history. We went to Tower Knives and purchased a 165mm Nakiri Knife and a 150mm Petty Knife from Nigara Hamono, a famous sword forger. The Nakiri has a damascus pattern.

On Christmas Eve, we went to a restaurant on the Beach and were treated to a fireworks display.

On Christmas Day, we had a visit from Santa!

The only other thing we did was hang out at the pool or on the beach. On one of the days, we saw some whales playing off the coast (third pic).

All in all, a very restful vacation!

The Sandeman Winery was definitely the highlight of the trip. The rest of the time, we spent touring several museums and castles.

Here are a few pictures from the famous Sintra Castle.

After Sintra, we went back to Lisbon and visited the Modern Art museum and several smaller castles in the region of Belém.

No trip would be complete without visiting some great restaurants. Lisbon in particular had a significant “Vegan” scene. The city center had lots of choices and was bustling as if Covid didn’t exist.

We enjoyed our trip to Portugal and are already planning our next trip. Saúde!

We stayed at a nice apartment near the Piazza Navona. All the major attractions are within walking distance from there.

Below is the family at the Pantheon.

Abhijit and Apurva came at the last minute to visit (all the way from Orinda)!

Here’s the boys at the Trevi Fountain with the obligatory coin toss.

Below, I am pretending to be Caesar near the Colosseum.

Here is the Vatican. Easy to visit and see without the throngs of tourists.

An “illegal” picture from inside the Sistine Chapel (no picture taking allowed).

Just past the Vatican is an old indoor locals market. One of the stalls had wines that were amazing. Of course Abhijit being the sommelier that he is was able to pick some amazing wines. They fill the bottle for you and you can bring it back the next day for a refill. Pretty cool.

I’ll end it on a funny picture. This was a dessert at one of our favorite restaurants. It sounded quite fancy in Italian, but ended up being a plate of oranges!

Here are some pictures from her orientation day.

For those that know… the picture below is actually taken at Scripps College (next door).

So proud that she is able to attend such a great college (and my alma mater)!

Below, Vikram receiving his Math/CS Degree from UC San Diego!

It’s now so obvious to me that yellow is her favorite color!

In December 2017 we went to Playa Del Carmen, Tulum and Chichen Itza.

Here are some pictures from that trip starting from Playa Del Carmen.

We did a day trip to Chichen Itza and hiked up the pyramids.

We started our journey in Reykjavik.  The trip from the airport to downtown is about an hour drive and right away, you can start to see the volcanic terrain of the island.

We spent a night in Reykjavik and did some local sightseeing, before heading out in our rental car along the northern coastline.

The main church of Hallgrímskirkja was right next to our B&B.

The next morning, we began our drive to the volcanic Snaefellsnes peninsula.

There were so many beautiful waterfalls along the drive.

The drive ended at the ocean and the Londragar lava formations.  One can follow the lava flows from the mountain all the way into the ocean.  Fantastic!

As we drove further into the northern part of Iceland, we ran across a seal “crossing” near Hvammstangi.  The seals were lounging in the sun and there were dozens of them. Look closely – there are three seals in the foreground and six in background.

On day 4 of our trip, we made it to the northern city of Husavik.  This is known as Iceland’s whale watching capital.  We took an all day boat tour on a a viking sailing vessel from North Sailing.  I’d highly recommend their tours as you will see from the below pictures.

On the way to the whale site, we ventured past Puffin Island – a natural habitat for the puffin birds.  There were tens of thousands of the birds.

Finally, we got to the whale site and after about two hours of seeing humpback whales from a distance we finally got “lucky” and had one come up right along side the boat.  What a thrill!  We also saw a number of Minke whales – these whales are much smaller and faster.

There was one whale that played along side our boat for at least 40 minutes.  According to the captain, this was quite an unusual treat.  Must have been the fantastic weather!

Definitely the highlight of the trip and ingrained in my memories for life.

From Husavik, we drove a couple of hours inland and saw a pair of waterfalls called Dettifoss and Selfoss. Dettifoss (which is a short distance downstream from Selfoss) is know to be the most powerful waterfall in all of Europe.

Next stop and a bit further inland is Lake Myvatn. The area surrounding Lake Myvatn has the highest concentration of volcanic and geothermal sights in Iceland.  In a single day, we were able to explore pseudocraters, rock formations, lava fields, see mud pools and steam vents and eventually relax in a volcanic steam bath.

These are photos from the Hverond Mud pits and Steam vents – a little off the beaten path but so eerie and quite smelly. Definitely worth the drive!

After Hveraond, we went a short drive to Dimmuborgr Lava formations and explored the natural lava formations.

In the distance, you can see the Hverfjall Cinder Cone.  We spent a couple of hours and hiked to the top of the cone.

At the end of the day, we went to the Jardbodin Nature Baths.  It’s the northern Iceland equivalent of the Blue Lagoon Spa.  The water is heated and regulated by the steam vents.  Kind of an odd experience – probably would not go back to do this.

From the Myvatn area, we headed back to Reykjavik to catch our flight back to LA!

What a fantastic, experience and highly recommended!  With less than a week between booking our tickets and beginning on our journey, we leveraged the expertise of a travel planner from Kim Kim.  I’d highly recommend it as our planner Chris McCarty pointed us to so many sights we would not have known about.

Once she wet, she’s all in!

Here is Luna playing with her fried Shelby.

She is named after a character from Harry Potter named Luna Lovegood.

She is two months old,  11 pounds and so very sweet.

She’s got quite the personality so far.

We landed in Mexico City and spent the first few days seeing the sights.  We took a day trip to see the pyramids in Teotihuacan.  These are the Sun and Moon pyramids and we got to climb to the top of both of them.

The ride back from the pyramids is about an hour and a half and we pass thru the mountain ranges and see the the most colorful houses.

On Day 3, we went to a small town on the Pacific side of Mexico about a 1 hour flight from the city.  We rented a nice beach house right on the sand on Playa Bocana just outside of Huatulco.

We had the most amazing sunrise every morning.

Here is a picture from the pool deck.

About a 10 minute walk up the beach, there was a reservoir with pink flamingos!

All day long, we would see the pelicans fishing in the ocean.

On one of the last days in Huatulco, we went for a river rafting excursion.

It looks pretty scary but wasn’t too bad.

Check out this amazing photo of an eagle we saw on the river.

We are now back from vacation and getting ready for school after a long summer!

Here they are in the procession line.

Here is Nikhil receiving his diploma.

Here is Vikram after receiving his diploma.

And finally the boys with their grand parents.

Here she is with Mom and Dad.

Here is Annika with her big brothers.

Here is Vikram with his date.

And Nikhil with his date.

Here is Anjali before the boys head out.

And of course Annika below.

Its getting harder and harder each year to get them up for a picture.  Here’s their “serious” pose.

Here’s the gang enjoying dinner.

We rented the farm table from Classic Party Rentals big enough to seat all of us comfortably!