If it wasn’t for mothers, birthday’s would eventually die out for lack of acknowledgement. Chika’s Websummit event was happening right at the tail end of fall break, so why not meet up in one of my new favorite cities of Lisbon. And then there was a subtle suggestion that maybe my siblings 50th birthday could suggest a different venue. Quick U-turn and we were booked to the USA (slight detour for Chika as she was called to Asia for work).

This trip stayed on the tracks the whole time. Travel went easy. Weather was great. And even the unplanned stuff came up roses (what a great time in the escape room on Kai’s birthday). And of course the food rocked in all dimensions — from Kai’s birthday Kobe burgers, to the perfect grilled steaks, fresh grilled french toast, to Mike’s birthday meatballs, flourless chocolate cake, adventures in Indian food, the multi-city epic dim sum fest, and lots and lots of grilled cheese + soup combos.

On top of the great PA experience, Mike and I had an amazing excursion to Kentucky, dad got a day off while me mom and the boys did an overnight in NYC, and finally one last day a Great Adventure. Extra special bonus was staying through Halloween — the cousins conquered big time.

Instead of the regular blow-by-blow, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. But it was a fantastic trip.

After an overdue COVID pause, we finally were able to travel to Japan. This was not without it’s challenges. First, with the war in Ukraine, prices were extremely high and the typical flight path over Russia was not an option. Luckily, we spotted a good deal via Munich. Not perfect, but still got the job done and left some euros to spend on other things. Secondly, as the only non-Japanese, I needed to apply for a visa to enter the country. But with the organized Japanese bureaucracies, I was able to navigate the process without too much hassle (with thanks to Megumi for the critical documents).

With all the basics out of the way, we needed to organize what to do. Tokyo is woefully hot and humid during the summer, so we initially considered flying down to Okinawa for a beach holiday. But then after doing a bit of research, I figured I could make it all the way to Sapporo after landing in Tokyo. Once the idea was hatched, Chika took over. The result was one of the best trips ever to Japan.

We first began orienting ourselves in Sapporo. As with almost every activity, we sought out special foods in the region. We by accident discovered a strawberry sweets shop (cakes, ice cream and more) which still lingers in my tastebud memories. In the evening, we had dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden, a 2 hour feast of unlimited beer and BBQ (delivered by robots!)

The next day, Chika organized a rental car and we headed northwest to Otaru. We ate amazing sushi, hung around the port, and stayed in a wild backpacker Airbnb unit (there were 4 bunk beds in a loft apartment). We dined in the morning on fresh crab (kuni), fatty tunny (toro), salmon caviar (ikura), and sea urchin (uni). This was followed by a tour of (and tasting in ) the Nikka Whiskey Distillery, my first love when it comes to Japanese whiskey.

Next it was time to travel into the mountains. I had no idea where were going or what was in store. After a few hours we finally arrived at Hoshino Resorts RISONARE Tomamu, a magestic resort complex nestled in the mountains. To my amazement, we had a 2 room suite, complete with our own whirlpool and sauna — I had died and gone to heaven.

The first night, we went to the grill restaurant Agi, where we dined on steak, lobster, and more on the 32nd floor. And what the perfect location to watch the fireworks that evening.

The next morning, Chika and Kai woke before 5am to experience the “cloud walk” at the top of the mountain (Teo and I enjoyed sleeping in). This was followed by a special breakfast for the tower residents.

We went out to explore the local activities, which ended up being fishing (which was great since the boys really wanted to go). This was followed by a visit to the amazing aqua complex with a giant wave pool. Sadly, Teo tore his toenail running around the pool. We quickly adapted and switched the dinner into a parallel activity — takeout for the boys, while Chika and I got to sneak off for a shabu shabu date night.

The next morning, we hit the one of the main breakfast buffets and enjoyed so much great food — including the famous Hokkaido melon. Afterwards we had one final swim and then headed back to Sapporo.

Now when Chika suggested we needed an extra day to spend at the Chitose airport, I was skeptical. Now I am a believer. I’ve never been to an airport with such amazing variety of foods. We ate ramen the first night for dinner, and then returned the next day for sushi lunch and ice cream. And we also bought many things to eat as well.

Finally it was time to head back and hit Tokyo. Except there was one unexpected glitch — Megumi had tested positive for Corona while in Kanazawa. As Chika was busy with meetings, it was me and the boys on a solo mission. We enjoyed ourselves visiting their favorite Skytree Pokemon center and enjoying soup dumplings and matcha soft serve ice cream. We enjoyed dinner one night with our friends Hiroe and Chinatsu (to celebrate a special birthday it turned out) at Gonpachi, an izakaya made famous in Tarantino’s Kill Bill movie (I showed the boys the fight scene before going). Any my friend Hideto managed to survive about 4 hours with me and the boys before heading for the comfort of his home, but not before some excellent beers and burgers.

The last night, I escaped briefly to meet my friend Phil who always manages to find the best restaurants. Everything was amazing, but the egg, truffle, rice ending was sublime.

On the last day, Megumi was doing better so came with mom so we at least got to meet. We had a great sharkfin lunch after which I went out shopping to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate before heading to the airport to catch our night flight home. I won’t go into the details of our voyage, but let’s just say we had some adventures and entertaining moments to be told over a tasty beverage or two.

While I have always loved Tokyo, I now have a new flame in Japan. I’ve got Hokkaido on my mind.

One of the challenges of living in Berlin and working in Munich is that the holidays often don’t match up, especially around school holidays. Winter break is the worst, as it is often starting the last week in January/1st week in February while Munich barely gets back to work until the 2nd (or even 3rd) week of January. In the past, I used to drop in a few days while the family was off for ski week. But then enter COVID…

As the office instituted a mask mandate at the desk until end of February, it was a no brainer to work from home. And so this year, home for the week was a lovely little village in the Austrian Alps, Reith im Alpbachtal. With the whole week there, I decided to do a bit more due diligence in the area. Surprisingly, the little town center had a lot more to offer than I expected. First, two doors down was a cheese/dairy manufacturer (which also had a 24 hours vending machine for all your midnight lactose cravings). Then there was the bakery which even opens at 6.30am on Sundays (that’s commitment). There were a few restaurants which we didn’t have a chance to try as we were quite tired/or busy at the end of the day. But the highlight was Cafe Konditorei Thaler. Every day the locals would gather from 10am to have a beer, glüwein or coffe and enjoy freshly made krapfen or doughnuts. Forget Krispy Creme, these delights are carefully crafted before your eyes. First the dough is raised (maybe steamed, not sure) before being dropped into the hot oil, flipped to brown both sides, and then removed. A minute later, they are prepared with your filling of choice (Teo loved the cherry, Kai was a fan of the vanilla, while I loved them all including the apricot) and then topped with the relevant sugar (granulated, powder, or cinnamon sugar). To me they are the GOAT.

But I guess I am digressing from the actual focus of the holiday — skiing. We decided on the first day to explore a new area (Skiwelt). While it started at bit ominously (the lady selling the lifts told us lifts were down due to high wind), it was a great first day with the sun coming to join. We ended up skiing the rest of the trip at our regular mountain area Ski Juwel. While Chika took charge of getting the boys to ski school during the middle of the week, I thoroughly enjoyed my alpine home office — which had a killer Italian coffee machine to boot. I managed to join the last day of skiing in time to see Teo and Kai win 1st and 2nd place in their races and have some good family runs to end out the trip.

I could get used to this kind of lifestyle of working around the world. The question is where to next?

We all started together on the first leg to Frankfurt, after which Chika peeled off to take care of some business meetings. Kai, Teo, and I arrived successfully into Philadelphia, with the first of many, many, many great meals. The next day we went to go meet the extended crew for some outdoor activities — the weather was great.

To augment all the fun with some education, I took the boys down to Philadelphia to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell (and of course some Dim Sum) where we got to catch up with Allan Kyle (wish we had more time to spend together).

Thursday Chika arrived (just in time for some amazing steaks). Friday we needed to get our PCR tests and then the kickoff for big event with Friday night services and a dinner where we got to catch up with Goldman’s.

The next day the big show was on. Sydney was a magnificent Batmitzvah and William did amazing job in operations. I will not comment on my own performance, but was happy that camera’s were not allowed.

As amazing as the day was, the evening was beyond expectations. A rockstart party from every dimension. Venue, decorations, food, drinks, music, entertainment and more. Everyone just had an amazing time.

So we had a final meal with the family for Sunday brunch, and then headed back to prepare for our trip to the Dominican Republic (and for me and Chika to escape for a quick sushi meal in Yardely — quite good surprise!)

At 6am, our transport was there to take us to the airport. Amazingly, we managed to fill 4 bags to the max and barely made it onto the plane… But after all the hurdles and challenges we had finally made it. It was pure bliss just waling around in December with t-shirt and shorts. But, at our destination there was plenty more — in fact too much. They abilty to eat and drink non-stop (room service, mini-bar, pool bar, multiple restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.) was overwhelming. Even when we ventured into Santo Domingo, the food was too delicious and overproportioned. Luckily, we did some small hiking into caves to burn a few of those calories.

In the end, the best was having such a special time for the boys to spend quality time Grandmom and Pop Pop. That was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We were still navigating holidays in COVID circumstances and had originally planned to keep it small with a landing day in Munich followed by some Austrian explanations. Then came the text from Chika — a Google Map url somewhere towards the North Western areas of Germany. I was in Munich, Chika and they boys were in Berlin, so we decided to meet in Frankfurt. Off we went to Hiedelburg, home of the oldest University in Germany (1386) and the Hiedelburg Castle. We visited both (hiking up to the Castle and then lunching a the student canteen after our original mountain top terrace was closed until evening). We spent the evening in Rüdesheim am Rhein, famous for Riesling wines which we enjoyed along with a lovely whole duck stuffed with figs and dates (not to mention their famous flaming coffee). The next morning, we strolled through the old town and took a gondola ride to rise above the morning fog.

Afterwards we drove up the Rhine river to spot the many castles along the way, with a short stop off for bobsled riding before reaching Koblenz (which has an amazingly large number of ice cream spots for such a small old town, and the one which we tried — eGeLoSIa Laden — was extremely good). We rode the gondola up to the fort for a beautiful view of the city, but then needed to move on to catch our dinner reservations (and shopping) in Dusseldorf.

The next morning we needed to head back to Berlin, but decided the day should bring something to the table and settled on stopping for lunch in Hannover. While expectations were somewhat low for this commercial/EXPO town, we did discover a very nice area around the opera (who knew) and had a 5 star meal at MARY´s Restaurant where our children managed to survive for almost 2 hours.

Was too short and too lovely a trip, so will need to head back again in the near future.

It was the last date for tickets to go on sale for the final weeks of the exhibition, and even with troublesome website that kept crashing for 30 minutes Chika kept on and managed to get us tickets for this Sunday.

It was an amazing show even for the kids (Chika had a great idea to show the boys a video background about Kusama so they understood more about the unique background of the artist.) The interactive nature of her art and the intensity of the visuals is unparalleld. Definitely the best exhibition since moving to Germany and easily a top 5 in my lifetime.