Furano is another Hokkaido ski resort area that has figured out its off-season strategy. From late spring until the snow starts again in October, the town is known for its miles of lavender and poppy fields.

The flower farms resemble a perfect Alpine farm, albeit ones that serve lavender ice cream and lavender coffee.

Japanese fishermen arrive at Hakodate fish market before 5am. Surrounding sushi stands bustle to life to serve them food. Some of the day’s catch shows up immediately at the breakfast table.

The Hokkaido region is famous for its snowy crab and salty uni (sea urchin). We tasted them in many preparations as we wandered from stall to stall. They were barbecued, in triangle onigiris, and served raw on top of rice donburis.  The fish stall owners, dressed in rubber boots and plastic aprons, would pause from hosing down their stands to serve us a sublime small bite for breakfast.

I was impressed by Arnau's ability to eat raw fish for breakfast. The only time he freaked out was when we realized that the head of our squid sashimi was still moving, 20 minutes into our meal.

Squid Calamari head still moving.

snowy crab soup, uni + ikura donburi, ebi sashimi, and calamari sashimi for breakfast!

Barbecuing a crab leg

Sahoro Ski Resort in Hokkaido Japan has a unique off-season strategy. In the summer, the bears that were hibernating during ski season wake up. The mountain’s surrounding forest then turns into a Jurassic Park-style ‘eco-safari’. 

The double locked automatic doors whooshing open and then closed behind the bus felt ominous, especially when paired with the bars wrapping the bus at exactly standing-bear height. For the most part though, the bears ignored us - preferring to crocodile in the ponds or scratch their backs on trees. 

I'm always intrigued to meet people who live in real-life desert islands. The views are beautiful but life can be tough and isolated.

In the case of Man-O-War Cay, the Albury family moved there after the American Revolution. They were faithful to the British crown and wanted to build a loyalist, religious community. The 2.5 mile long, 100 meter wide island is now home to 3 churches for its 300 residents, most of whom are related to the Alburys.

50. Dining while Sailing (The Abacos, Bahamas)

While sailing, our family likes to anchor in deserted bays to sleep at night. We prefer isolation among the sea and islands to ports full of people.

We start dinner prep as soon as we anchor the boat in the late afternoon. Our raw ingredients are cobbled together from poorly supplied harbor and tiny island town grocery stores. But as in camping, innovation is rewarded. One evening we harvested conchs from the beach and made fresh conch salad. Another night, Arnau’s dad lit rum into blue flame for crepe flambe.

As we served yet another invented dinner on the deck’s plastic dining table, I felt so grateful for our small island of family perched in the sea.

There are small islands in the Bahamas where swimming pigs live. They eat coconuts and the offerings of passing sailors. 

I pictured swimming next to a friendly pink pig and insisted that we stop our sailboat near a pig-populated island. As soon as we pulled our stand-up paddleboards onto the beach, however, we were charged at by a large hairy brown pig. We ran, and the pig nonchalantly picked up Arnau’s snorkeling goggles in his mouth. We saw him chomping and slobbering on it as he brought it back to a junk treasure trove behind a tree.

My next 30 minutes were spent trying to distract the pigs so that Arnau sneak past them and retrieve his goggles.

I love cities where antiquities are used in daily life. Ancient plazas and temples feel loved and accessible when they serve as children’s soccer fields or as a place to rest and sit.

We were in Istanbul for the end of Ramadan, and the touristic center turned out to be where the city gathered to celebrate. With the two famous mosques of Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmed looking on, families and large groups of friends unpacked tupperware and grocery store bags onto picnic blankets. People showed up in the early afternoon to stake out the coveted picnic tables, and transformed from bored phone browsers into gregarious shouters once their friends showed up. 

We joined in the fun, grabbing grilled corn and doner kebabs from streetside vendors while we strolled the celebrating city, against the backdrop of pulsating neon lights and street performers. 

The Chinese were among the thousands of international settlers that arrived in Columbia during the short gold rush period of 1850-1860. 

They were confined into two small streets within the town, a defacto ‘Chinatown’, and only allowed to mine what the white people had already mined over. The dense warrens of Chinatown were blamed for a fire that swept through town in 1857, and they were forced out of their homes. Unfazed, they soon settled on the town’s edges and rebuilt their community. 

“1857 September 18, 1857 - “The authorities of Columbia have passed an ordinance requiring the Chinese to leave town within a specified time. It is necessary for the safety of the place.”(from the Sacramento DSS)”

from: Columbia Gazette – The Chinese

Gold rush era Chinese miners (from crossroadsarchives.org)

A Wells Fargo express post office and bank in Columbia, CA, one of the first ones in California. Shipment time to Missouri for a parcel in the 1850s was 29 days – not bad!