Welcome
HM Travels

Several months ago, some loud aircraft flew over my home city, prompting discussions on Nextdoor on what these planes might be. Someone posted the website info of ADSB Exchange which shows all planes at any place at any moment, plane's trajectory and origin. Being a flight enthusiast and a private pilot, I played with the website and discovered many things. Soon I was checking the regions near Fiji, where I had visited recently, and checked Indonesia & Papua New Guinea. Goin

The iconic harbor bridge of Sydney Harbour has always looked so beautiful in pictures. Today when I landed in Sydney, I discovered that there was a ticket I could buy to go climb it. It is illegal to climb the Harbor Bridge and so you always have to go with the company named BridgeClimb. For the privilege, you get to pay them 347 Australian dollars. It is a good thing that US dollar is pretty strong so the pain is not that much compared to my last visit. Last time, there was

I love Google maps. I merely have to type in the destination, in this case the trail head for Mt. Kaimon, and choose the train option, and it shows a multi-part plan. It also indicates which train type to take, the platform number, how many stations to destination, and these stations' names. While you are in any particular segment, the Google maps also shows you your exact location at that particular moment in time. Since few Japanese people speak English, this map feature ma

Japan Rail offers an excellent, reasonably priced ticket for foreigners called the JR pass which can be used on local, express and the fast Shinkansen trains all over Japan, and it can be purchased for 1, 2 or 3 week validity. I had been to Honshu and Shikoku islands of Japan's four main islands so far and so decided to go to the wesetern island: Kyushu. I read about the natural beauty of Kagoshima , which is almost the southwestern point of the island. Using the JR, in the f

For many years, traveling abroad meant paying large sums for telephone bills. With WhatsApp and Skype, we seldom have to pay any phone calls anywhere around the world. However, with the rising scams, most people use a multi factor authentication device, typically tied to your phone number. Google has a virtual phone number that one could use. If you want to travel, but still continue to do regular work, call clients, receive phone calls on the number your clients know of, get

Called the Venice of Japan, Kurashiki is a walking city. The kurashiki river flows through it and has a few bridges like those in Venice. You can see people in a small boats, similar to Venetian gondolas, enjoying the views of the city. It is a cute and quirky place, I saw an antique shop with hundreds of dog statues on the roof. It is also dotted with many cafe's, traditional Ramen, Soba, Izakaya, and western restaurants. I saw a new swanky Hungarian goulash place, which se

The castle named after the city, Kochi castle, is over 400 years old and still intact with original tower and construction. As I walked towards it on the rainy morning, I got a glimpse of it from a far distance, and it looks majestic. I reached at 8:30am while the castle is open to visitors at 9am. Walking the grounds and around the fortress, I could admire its location and the view. The castle is well preserved. Like the ryokans I visited, the castle also requires all visito

Founded in the year 815AD, the 11th temple in the pilgrimage is named Fujidera, which means Wisteria. It is surrounded by a dense forest and looks very serene. The Wisteria was in full bloom, as I was lucky to be visiting during the month of their glory. The temple was the gateway to the start of the pathway to the 12th temple, Shosan-ji , which was up the hill, needing a six hour hike, including a 4000 feet vigorous climb. I had decided to continue seeing other parts of t

On the second day of the pilgrimage, I was up by 4 AM, a vestige of the jetlag, by 6am I was pretty hungry. I decided to go to the Sobe...

The long flight from San Francisco to Tokyo followed by a long ride in the Shinkansen brought me to the Okayama train station. The Shinkansen is usually fast and reliable but today it had something they announced as "invasion on the tracks". This resulted in a 45-minute delay. At Okayama, I took an express train to come to the Itano train station which is closest to the first Shikoku temple out of the 88 on this pilgrimage. The Jetlag and the long journey so far had had its

In a Seinfeld episode, I had seen the cupboard like spaces in which the Japanese tourists had spend the night. The capsule hotels in Japan, in my instant, in Tokyo gave me a similar experience. I was in Tokyo at 9 PM and wanted a place to spend the night before leaving for my pilgrimage to Shikoku. I found there was a very cheap hotel close by which was a $26 a night capsule hotel. I decided to try it out. I walked to the location and there were cops outside. However, a tour