Vacation to Turks and Caicos

Grace Bay Beach: It's a very long stretch of sand, and all of it quite nice and with very calm water.

I can't believe it's already been over a month since K and I returned from our vacation to Turks and Caicos! Our trip took place when I was 20 to 21 weeks pregnant, and in hindsight that was definitely the right time to travel on what you might call our "babymoon." Had I waited even two or three more weeks, air travel and even walking around in a new place would have been significantly less physically comfortable. (And well, little did I know I was about to be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which would make eating a lot more complicated...) 

This post is sort of a review of both Turks and Caicos as a destination and also of our hotel, The Palms Turks and Caicos ("The Palms"), both of which we enjoyed and were quite happy with. I'd totally love to go back to both on a future vacation, though it must be said Turks and Caicos is generally a super-expensive destination, and I'm not entirely sure K and I's general career plans would make either place the most feasible trip price-wise for us once we are a family of three or more. 

My primary goal when selecting a vacation destination - it was K and I's first big trip together since the start of the COVID pandemic! - was total relaxation on a nice beach. When I started planning the trip this May, Turks and Caicos was one of relatively few Caribbean destinations that didn't require a negative COVID test result for entry, and that was a big part of why we selected it. Because I need to go to the office every day, and NYC doesn't have the lowest rate of COVID positives, it would've been too nerve-wracking to know our fairly expensive trip could be disrupted by a positive test. 

Getting There

JetBlue runs round-trip direct flights from JFK airport to Turks and Caicos basically every day, and that was the most convenient option for us. (United flies direct from Newark, probably the next best option for many NYC-area travelers.) We've heard a lot of horror stories about flight delays and disruptions recently, but I think the nature of JetBlue's JFK-Turks & Caicos schedule is such that any disruption more significant than an hour or so's delay here and there is relatively unlikely. Our flight home was delayed 40 minutes, and that was the only problem we encountered. 

I've been hearing a lot about how expensive air travel is recently from various friends who've flown often for both work and pleasure this year. I don't think that was too apparent with our tickets for this trip, maybe due to the location. We paid right around $395/person for our flights, which isn't too bad, I think?

Life Lately: Back From Vacation

One of K's photos from beautiful Grace Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos.

I just got back from a lovely and rejuvenating vacation or "babymoon" to Turks and Caicos, and am now settling back in for several more extremely busy months at the office before our little bean arrives. Today's post is a grab bag of a few smaller, non-pregnancy related things that have caught my attention recently. 

I greatly enjoyed this Harper's Bazaar article about the history of Tibi as the brand reaches its 25 year anniversary. There won't be too much new information here if you've followed the company and its founder Amy Smilovic for a while, but I still find the story of Smilovic's complete reinvention of the brand around 2011 fascinating. It's particularly interesting because Tibi was first founded with its original more preppy, print-focused aesthetic - so different from the brand's approach to design today - in 2008, around when I first became interested in fashion (though I didn't have any sense of my personal style and just read about what was popular in fashion magazines and other blogs). Many brands I remember from back then are no longer around.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Speaking of things I first came across in part because of my interest in Tibi, here's another jewelry brand somewhat in the same design vein as Smilovic favorite CompletedWorks (also here, here, here, and here): I recently learned about Agmes Jewelry (also here, here, and here) from fellow Tibi fan TheCreativeClassicist, who in turn discovered it in part because of new J.Crew head of women's design, Olympia Gayot. Agmes is somewhat similar to CompletedWorks in that both favor very contemporary, more sculptural designs. Some Agmes pieces I like can be found in the widget below: 

These days, I find I have many ideas for longer-form posts, but not much time and energy to write them because of my long hours at work. Among other things,  I haven't really written about personal finance or money for a long time. 

One big idea is for a post about K and I's experience with negotiating and signing a fairly straightforward and simple prenup, which then became a postnup - a distinction that generally doesn't make a significant difference under New York law - due to getting time-crunched in the weeks before our courthouse wedding last year. Throughout the process, I did learn that some of my original assumptions about prenups were a bit incorrect. 

In general, I feel like many people around my age in the US have a fairly accurate sense about how prenuptial agreements generally work and why both people entering a marriage might want one. For instance, when the topic comes up on r/MoneyDiariesActive (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here), most replies are in the zone of reasonably correct. There aren't too many people whose views are completely off-base. People do sometimes forget that because prenuptial (or postnuptial) agreements are contracts, they can be negotiated and customized to a potentially very large extent by the parties. Thus, relatively few things are inherently true about all such agreements. 

Entertainment-wise: This year's Formula 1 racing season has been incredibly dramatic, but often not for happenings on the racetrack. K and I continue to derive tons of amusement from following the sport. 

We also recently took advantage of a few months of free Apple TV+ through one of K's other subscriptions, and it's been fun watching some of their shows, in particular Foundation and For All Mankind. The writing quality on For All Mankind can be uneven - it's an alternate history about the space race with very long time-jumps between seasons, which can cause some issues with character development - but we've still been really enjoying it so far. 

Skincare Reviews: Some Mineral Sunscreens for Body

During our recent Turks and Caicos vacation - in which K and I spent basically all our daylight hours relaxing on the beach, with several dips in the ocean throughout - I tested out three different mineral body sunscreens. In trying to research "reef safe" and mineral sunscreens before our trip, I found myself quite overwhelmed because there were so many brands out there, many of them smaller or less well-known than what's typically available at many US drug stores. So I figured I might as well review the ones I tried, in case that information could possibly help anyone else!

Please note that my reviews here are subjective and not particularly scientific. I'm basically going off my personal observations from using each of these sunscreens for the equivalent of around two full beach days each, ~10:30 AM to 6:30 PM, switching between them as I ran out of one or the other. (Many mineral sunscreens aren't available in super-large packages like the drugstore brands.) 

Each day, I reapplied sunscreen roughly once every 2 hours, or a bit sooner if I thought more sunscreen than expected had washed off during one of my quick ocean swims. So I was generally applying around 4 times a day, and maybe a fifth time on my shoulders and arms, spots that felt like they got more sun exposure. Additionally, I wore a straw sun hat - albeit one that'd gotten a bit floppy and squished from somewhat careless packing - and also tried my best to stay as covered as I could under a beach umbrella whenever I wasn't in the water. That beach umbrella definitely wasn't perfect protection because of how the angle of the shade changes drastically throughout the day with the sun's movement.  

I may not have picked the best or most popular brands of mineral body sunscreen available in the US. I didn't have much time or mental energy for research before our trip because I'd been so busy at the office. Every time I searched  Google for the "best" mineral or reef safe sunscreens, I felt like many websites had drastically different lists of recommended brands or products. Plus, I was nervous about buying any fancier, Sephora or department store-priced mineral sunscreens if I didn't have someone I personally know make the product recommendation. Thus, I ended up sticking with things sold at Target, which maybe limits one's options too much in this product category. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

My biggest worry was that, with many mineral sunscreens, one often sees at least one or two extremely negative reviews. Think something like "this sunscreen doesn't work at all, we still got badly burned wearing it" or "it was impossible to blend into my skin" or "this had a really off texture that made it difficult to use." If any of the sunscreens I picked turned out to have issues like that, it would have been a disaster with the kind of high sun exposure beach vacation I was planning. Happily, there weren't any big problems, all the sunscreens I tried were reasonably functional. All three also had no noticeable scent or fragrance. 

Though one warning, I generally found these mineral sunscreens were not very waterproof, with sometimes very visible signs that they were washing off, potentially after an extremely brief swim. I think this may be a common issue with many or even most products in this category, compared to many chemical sunscreens?  

July 2022 Shopping Reflections

Thanks to my recent particularly intense busy period at the office, I'm way behind on writing that post I promised about my first trimester "items explicitly labeled as maternity wear" shopping. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it soon. In the meantime, here's my July 2022 shopping reflections post, now including both maternity wear and "regular" wardrobe purchases. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

K and I are headed off on a beach vacation - I guess one could call it a "babymoon," given the timing - to Turks and Caicos very soon! I absolutely can't wait. After all my long hours at the office this year and all the business travel, I was desperately in need of a chill vacation. We don't plan to do very much at all besides sit on the beach and relax, and that will be amazing. 

Fashion - (Total: $235.25) 

• Old Navy Maternity Rollover-Waist Linen-Blend Shorts, flax - $25.99 - Although I didn't really have the beginnings of a noticeable baby bump until around week 13 of pregnancy, I did have so much bloating on and off before then that I haven't really fit into non-maternity pants since week 9. And between weeks 6 and 9, I only felt comfortable in my most relaxed-fit jeans, mostly the Tibi Brancusi (also here). These shorts are primarily for my upcoming beach vacation, as I don't normally spend much time wearing anything but dresses in the summer. (While my office is still not back to its original business casual dress code, shorts would definitely be a bridge too far!) I liked these linen-blend shorts better than another pair of Old Navy maternity shorts I also tried on, these are a bit lighter in material and have a less bulky rollover waistband. 
• Longchamp Le Pliage Filet Bag, white - $119.76* - (also here and here) This was admittedly a highly impulsive purchase, inspired in large part by some of Lumiere d'Helen's Instagram posts. I think it'd be reasonable to consider this a ridiculous price for a bag comprised almost entirely of cotton string, but I'm really enjoying carrying it so far, it's so light and is a fun look for summer. At present, I mainly use this for groceries or as a second bag - in addition to my recently-purchased Madewell woven leather Transport tote (also here) - while I'm commuting to or from work. 
• J.Crew Cotton Voile Ruffle Beach Dress, navy - $44.75 - My bump's now big enough to pull up the hem on my old swimsuit cover-up from J.Crew, so I was in the market for a new one. This "beach dress" definitely seemed relaxed-fit enough that it should work for pregnancy, even if it's not labeled maternity wear. I liked both of these colors, so I decided to get both since we'll be spending a full week in Turks and Caicos, and I plan to be at the beach or pool most of that time. 
• J.Crew Cotton Voile Ruffle Beach Dress, vivid flame - $44.75 - This beach dress runs extremely large, by the way. Pre-pregnancy, I was a true size M or 8 or 10 in most J.Crew tops and dresses, and the size S/M in this is huge on my current body! Part of it is my being only 5'3'', I guess, this item is definitely designed for someone taller - as are most regular-sizing clothes ever, admittedly - so it's maxi-length on me. The cotton voile is on the very light and arguably flimsy side of what one might expect, I don't think this would be suitable for most people to wear anywhere outside of poolside or the beach. 

This month, I also tried on the Quince 14k bold stacker ring, but returned it because I didn't like the way it looked on my hand. I tend to like the look of daintier rings, and also some very thick ones, but a lot of more medium-sized "bold" rings often don't suit me as well. I probably also need something between sizes 7 and 8 for my index finger, so anything that's only available in full ring sizes probably won't work. 

On COVID-Era Business Travel

KLM gives out these adorable little ceramic houses as souvenirs for international business class travelers. We normally prefer to fly through London on another airline for our work trips, but that connection wasn't possible on Saturdays back in March.

I've done two lengthy business trips so far this year, one international in March and one domestic earlier this month. It's been a bit nerve-wracking both times because of worrying about COVID, including the negative test requirement to fly back in to the USA from abroad and the risk of depositions getting cancelled or rescheduled - after we've already traveled all that distance - if any of the many necessary participants get sick. 

In-person depositions generally include, at a minimum: the witness, the court reporter, the videographer, and at least one attorney from each side - so that's at least five people who need to be healthy before they spend several hours in an often windowless and cramped conference room together, in an event involving almost-constant talking. There's often also a second-chair attorney or client representative here and there, though their presence is not absolutely necessary. So it could be more like seven or eight people total. I'm not sure if my colleagues' strong preference for in-person depositions - though we have also done several remote ones since the pandemic started - is highly unusual in this COVID era. 

And ah, having done many non-remote depositions since February, in cities all across the US - and a few international ones -  most people generally choose not to mask during depositions, I'm often the only attendee in a mask throughout. The only exception is when the office we're using to host the deposition has rules in place about masking, but relatively few places do these days. (The witness is on video and we generally all agree they should not mask for that reason, but that's not necessary for anyone else.) 

My international business trip in March, to London and Luxembourg, ended up going completely smoothly from a COVID and COVID-testing perspective. The requirement to have a negative COVID test within a day before flying back in to the USA was a mild hassle, but we can generally always pay to get a suitable COVID test and documentation of the results from the types of hotels we stay at for work. 

Busy at Work Lately

via Serious Eats

Oh dear, pardon me for disappearing from this blog for a few weeks longer than originally expected! Quite a few things came up at the office after my deposition, and I'm only just now coming up for air for a brief moment. Things will be extremely hectic at work for the next three months at a minimum - and maybe for longer than that - so I can't make any promises about how often I'll be able to post in that time window. 

Many apologies, I wish I still had the energy to write blog posts in the late evenings after work, the way I used to earlier in my career. Alas, these days I'm only able to work on the blog over the weekend, and some weekends I'm just too tired. 

The photo above is from the recipe for Lacy Brown Butter and Ricotta Cookies at Serious Eats. Mine didn't turn out quite so lacy-looking. It's apparently a recipe where the finished product can look very different depending on the brand of ricotta used. The 35 cookies estimate when portioning the dough into roughly one tablespoon sized scoops is far off, by the way, I only got something like 19 cookies. For those with small households, I'd suggest baking only a small batch at a time and freezing the rest of the portioned out dough, as I found the texture was best the day they were baked.

I liked, but didn't enthusiastically love, this cookie recipe. It's a good addition to my limited baking repertoire and not very difficult to make. But if one doesn't do the toasted sugar or used vanilla pod upgrades, the flavor is not that nuanced. (Then I used the rest of that 16 ounce tub of ricotta to make a one-third portion of Maialino's ricotta pancakes, which was a good amount for breakfast for two.)

My recent - and first ever - deposition as the first-chair attorney took place in Miami. I was quite nervous about travel and COVID risk before my departure. It turned out fine, though I got a bit of a scratchy throat and sniffles afterwards. I took three at-home COVID tests in the following week - two of them in the days immediately after my very mild symptoms started - and all were negative. 

A Stay at Mohonk Mountain House

Thank you all for your kind congratulations and well wishes about K and I's recent wedding! I can't reply to every comment individually, so I wanted to make sure to thank everyone. 

As part of my mom and sister's recent visit - our first time seeing each other in person in nearly two years - I treated them to a few nights' stay at Mohonk Mountain House ("Mohonk"). It was an extremely fancy outing, one I would probably have considered solidly out of budget were it not for spending $0 on travel in 2020 and the earlier months of 2021, after already saving up a substantial "travel budget" for that trip to Taiwan and Japan K and I were supposed to take back in April 2020. Mohonk was even featured as a location for an exclusive business conference in an episode of Billions, so that's how you know it's really fancy! 

It was maybe impulsive of me to go ahead and spend a large percentage of the money I originally saved for two weeks in Taiwan and Japan on three nights at Mohonk. But it'd been so long since I saw my mom and sister that I wanted to treat us to something special. And we all really enjoyed our time at Mohonk, the grounds are absolutely beautiful; the hotel is charming and comfortable; and the food is delicious and served in generous portions as part of the all-inclusive price of a stay. (Alcoholic beverages are extra, of course.) My mom and I aren't quite as accustomed to moderately strenuous hikes as my sister, and we still had plenty to do. 

One thing to be aware of when researching a potential stay at Mohonk: They currently charge 15% in service fees on top of the entire base price of the stay. They refer to it as an "Administrative Fee" in the fine print when booking, and note that it covers rooms, dining, (non-alcoholic) beverage, and room service. While they don't refer to this fee as a gratuity, they do note in the fine print that there's no need to offer gratuities or voluntary tips on top of these 15% fees. The fee definitely wasn't a surprise, it's quite clearly disclosed when booking. But if I wasn't used to significant resort fees from some other trips I've taken in the past, I might've felt a little sticker shock. 

COVID safety-wise, because most activities at Mohonk are outdoors, it's possible to make it an extremely COVID-safe trip. Guests and employees are all required to wear masks while walking around the hallways in the hotel. It's only if you choose to partake in indoor dining in the dining room that you'll spend time unmasked, and around other unmasked individuals. I actually know someone who stayed at Mohonk last summer, long before COVID vaccines were available, and back then all dining was apparently room service-only. These days, you can still choose to have all your meals via room service, and there's no extra charge as long as you order during regular mealtimes. 

Pandemic-Era Travel: Crested Butte, CO

Last week, K and I took our first plane trip in the 17 months since the world first shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of K's closest friends was having their wedding in Crested Butte, Colorado, and it was very important to K that we attend. (K was also in the wedding party.) COVID conditions in some parts of the US deteriorated significantly between when we first started planning our travel in early July and when we departed last week, which caused us some concern. But ultimately, because K and I are fully vaccinated; have no significant COVID risk factors; and only have direct social contact with fully vaccinated adults - additionally, all the wedding events were also fully outdoors - we felt safe taking this trip. 

Crested Butte is a very small town in a rural area, where all the major activities are outdoors. We didn't even dine indoors anywhere once we were there, as it was very comfortable to sit outside and eat everywhere we went. (K and I haven't specifically decided to stop dining indoors at restaurants in NYC, but it's also been three weeks since either of us have sat down at a restaurant here. Also, NYC law will soon require guests over the age of 12 to present proof of vaccination in order to do various indoor activities, including eating at restaurants.) 

Plane travel to Crested Butte from NYC is a bit long and difficult, and one pretty much needs to take a long drive from whichever airport one chooses to fly into. (I'm not really able to drive, so K needed to do all the hard work for us on that front.) We took connecting flights through Dallas/Fort Worth airport, which was extremely crowded. We couldn't really avoid being unmasked briefly to eat and drink while at the airports, though we did our best to find quieter spots in the terminals with fewer other people when we needed to eat or drink. Throughout our trip, people were very good about masking at the airports and on the plane - as US federal law requires - except when actively eating or drinking. 

Life Lately: Definitely Not in Transit

For obvious reasons, I am no longer on my lengthy international business trip and will no longer be going to Paris. 

Last Thursday, while we were in Luxembourg, at around 4:00 A.M local time, President Trump announced the travel ban on foreign nationals coming to the US from the Schengen Area of the European Union. Members of our team were almost immediately woken up by concerned family members calling from the US. It quickly became clear that everything we were working on in Europe would need to be cancelled immediately and only rescheduled at some unknown future date, after things settled down. (At the time, I'm not sure it was clear to us that Americans were supposed to be exempt from this new travel ban. In any case, none of us had an appetite for waiting to test that.) We all booked new tickets home immediately. 

Coming home on Thursday evening felt a bit surreal. There weren't any changes to screening policies at customs and immigration in JFK. (I can personally verify that not everyone flying in from Europe was tested for COVID-19, contrary to the President's claims. But I don't think this comes as a surprise to anyone, given how few tests have been done in the US.) With the dramatically increased numbers of travelers rushing to get where they needed to go before the new ban was fully in place, getting back in through immigration did take significantly longer than usual. 

Once I got home, K and I thought it was best to stock up on some more food and other supplies that evening. We found extremely long lines at our nearest grocery store, amounting to what was ultimately a nearly two-hour wait to check out. The entire meat aisle was wiped out, and a lot of other product categories were also extremely depleted, though there was still a good selection of fish and produce. We're fully stocked up on food now, enough for at least two weeks, taking into account some of the supplies we already had at home before that trip to the grocery store. 

We also had a hard time finding paper towels and hand soap. (Hand sanitizer and Lysol or Clorox wipes have also been nowhere to be found for nearly a week now. Toilet paper is also nearly impossible to find in stores at the moment, but we had recently received our usual two-to-three month supply not long ago, so we're not hard up.) We were particularly desperate for hand soap: I had thought we were set because I had put in our routine order recently - two large refill bottles from Target.com - around March 9, but it's now backordered and won't be shipping in the foreseeable future. I went to five different drugstores looking for hand soap while K waited in line at the grocery store, and only saw a tiny bit left at one store, two 12-oz bottles that I bought.

Many law firms in NYC, and also my current workplace, have instituted work from home policies for now. I will be practicing social distancing and working exclusively from home for at least a week, and most likely longer, if it's allowed by my supervisors. (Our office's work from home policy will be reassessed week-to-week.) I don't plan to leave our apartment for anything nonessential. Among other things, I'll be staying out of our in-building gym. 

K and I have also decided it would be best to postpone our vacation indefinitely. Part of our travels would have involved visiting extended family members, some of whom are elderly. I would not have felt comfortable visiting them, having so recently traveled internationally for work in areas where there were COVID-19 cases, and while the extent of COVID-19 spread in NYC is also unclear. 

Working Life Lately: In Transit

One small perk of work travel: We usually book tickets that come with lounge access...

Well, I’ve officially embarked on my lengthy European business trip now, even if international travel is looking more high-risk and potentially ill-advised than it did this time last month. For litigators, many of the things we travel for in relation to our work are in the service of court-ordered deadlines or things of similar weight. Accordingly, we'd all be very reluctant to cancel that type of business trip. In my case, the decision of whether to continue with this trip as scheduled was made well above my pay grade. We’ll see if our plans end up needing to change midstream. 

I’m now well over two-thirds of the way done with my extremely intense first quarter of 2020. As predicted, I’ve stayed consistently on track to bill 2,800 hours this year for the entire period. (And at this pace, the expected year-end total would be 3,000 hours if I took no vacation.) I’ve survived, but just barely. There were days when I was so exhausted I felt like my memory and cognitive abilities were not 100% or I felt like I was barely capable of coherent speech. 

At the same time, while working like this, one also starts to gain an insidious awareness about how - even when working at this pace - there still remain more hours in the week that could, theoretically, also be billed. During these months, I’ve still had maybe three or four weekends where I barely needed to work two or three hours total, effectively a free weekend by industry standards. (There was always a lot more work waiting to be done, of course. But in the absence of urgent deadlines, one tries to keep the weekends free to rest up.) I’ve also only been stuck at the office past 10:00 P.M. a handful of times. (Though I’ve also almost never left work before 8:30 P.M. on any weekday this entire period, even on Fridays. And I often do bill some more from home, in any case.) 

Our vacation plans for early April are also in some doubt, though K and I have decided to keep our bookings for now. I really hope we can still go, as I desperately need to take this vacation. Working nonstop at this pace for so long has basically driven me to the point where I’d almost consider taking the full two weeks off, even if I couldn't travel anywhere. That would not, however, be a particularly rational or good use of said vacation time by any stretch of the imagination, so I’ll try to restrain myself.

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This is mostly a rather dour and un-fun post, but I’ll try to share some cheerful things too. First up, I've still been doing a good amount of reading for fun. I’m almost done with Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (on Kathy’s recommendation), which has been a really engaging but serious read. I also enjoyed Saeed Jones’s memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives. Finally, I'm incredibly excited for the newest Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light. (Wolf Hall was a bit slow to build up, but absolutely worth it, and Bring Up the Bodies grabbed my attention from the first page to the last.) 

Back in January, while restocking my Bumble and Bumble Sunday Shampoo, I also picked up Tatcha's Kissu Lip Mask on a whim. I like it a lot! Although the Tatcha Kissu is marketed primarily as a lip mask, I find that it absorbs quickly enough that it works fine for morning use, as well as for before bed. Though note that I don't wear makeup most days. I don't think it'd absorb fast enough if I was going to be applying another lip product shortly after. Admittedly, my lips don’t typically get particularly dry, so for me this product is more a fun indulgence than anything else. 

Maui Trip 2019: Maui Chef's Table and Mama's Fish House

A scallop dish, the second to last savory course from our dinner at Maui Chef's Table. I think this might have been the best single dish I've ever had! (And I've been to some really nice places in NYC, mostly for work...) Sadly, I'm not a great talent when it comes to food photography (or iPhone photography in general), so my photos don't do justice to the food.

As promised, here is my second and last post about our recent family trip to Maui, focusing on some of the delicious food that my mom, my sister, and I got to try. 

In actuality, I'm normally not an extremely food-focused traveler: I greatly appreciate and value good food, of course, and particularly enjoy having tasty street food or hawker center food on my trips, but my travel plans generally don't prioritize food. We often don't have many specific restaurants we want to try, for instance. K and I will generally do one fancy meal on our longer trips (for example, I booked him a birthday lunch at Tin Lung Heen at the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong a few years back), but that's about it. On this vacation though, some of our plans focused very much on food. Specifically, I booked reservations for us at two of the most popular fine dining attractions in Maui: We did the Maui Chef's Table, a once-a-week (usually Saturdays) tasting menu and fine dining experience and we also went to Mama's Fish House, a well-known local restaurant. 

First up, a few details about food expenses generally when traveling to Maui. As I mentioned in my last post, restaurants tend to be quite expensive, maybe a little more than I'm used to, even in NYC (~$15/meal at fast casual places and closer to ~$25/entree at nicer sit-down places seemed typical for Maui), at least in the tourist-focused areas we frequented (Lahaina, the Kaanapali Beach area, etc.). It's probably the first destination where I felt strongly that it would be a good idea to get a hotel room, suite, or other lodging with a kitchenette, and to rely in significant part on cooking food from grocery stores for at least a few meals, particularly breakfasts. There was a large Safeway in Lahaina that we stopped at a few times, and there's also a Costco near the airport that many tourists go to before driving out to where they're staying. 

That's not to say the restaurant food is a bad value! I enjoyed pretty much everything we had, whether from a fast casual place or a slightly fancier sit-down place. (More fast casual-leaning places we liked included Joey's Kitchen in the Whaler's Village shopping center food court and Ono Kau Kau.) It's just that the prices on the menus give such sticker shock, even to people used to very HCOL areas like NYC or the Bay Area, that one can't help but start thinking about ways to save on food costs during any future trips. Grocery stores and Costco in Hawaii also have really good poke, by the way, good enough that it'll ruin you for ever eating that dish again anywhere else in the world. (One of my favorite comic artists on Instagram, @dami_lee, recently made this exact observation in one of her comics.) 

Please follow the link below to read about our experiences at Maui Chef's Table and Mama's Fish House, both of which we greatly enjoyed.

Maui Trip 2019 (With Brief Tangents About Ocean Safety)

Kaanapali Beach, on one of the few days of our trip where the water was somewhat calm. 

We had tons of fun on our recent 10-day family vacation to Maui! The island is absolutely gorgeous, and very different from any other beach resort-type location I'd been to in recent memory. While I don't think I'll be back anytime soon (Hawaii is a long and onerous trek from NYC, and I'd rather see the other islands there next time), I have a decently long list of things in Maui that I'd happily do again on a second trip. This is the first of two posts about my trip, the next one will focus on food.

A week, maybe even five days, might be enough to have a good time and see a lot of the major attractions in Maui, particularly if you're a high-energy traveler or trying to squeeze in another island as part of a longer Hawaii trip, but I also liked having the full 10 days to do everything at a relaxed pace. Early on in our trip planning, we thought briefly about doing two islands in ten days, but between the travel time required for my sister and I to get to Hawaii from the East Coast (no direct flights and at least 15 hours in transit each way, including waiting time at the airport) plus expected jetlag, we ultimately decided against it. Looking back, we could also possibly have cut the trip down to eight or nine days and still have been able to do everything we wanted to, weather permitting, at what would still be a fairly leisurely pace.

The Hotel

We stayed at Kaanapali Beach Hotel which, based on my research when I booked, is generally one of the more affordable large beachfront hotels in Maui, and is pretty much the cheapest large hotel on Kaanapali Beach, south of Black Rock (a.k.a. Black Rock Beach). It's neighbors with the Sheraton, and on the same beach as a Marriott, Hyatt Regency, and one of the multiple Westins in Maui. We paid ~$260/night, including tax, for a non-ocean view room with two queen beds (and $14/day for parking, it's very helpful to rent a car). Most of the other hotels I named would generally be at least $100/night more for the room at this time of year. The hotel is a bit dated both outside and in, pretty much all the others are a fair bit newer and look it, and the pool is quite small, but service is friendly and I think it's a good value for travelers that don't plan to spend too much of their time hanging out at the resort.

One other nice thing about our hotel location: It was very close walking distance to the Whalers Village shopping center where I bought my new Ray-Bay Wayfarers (affiliate link) and where there's an ABC Store that sells just about anything a tourist could need, including plenty of reef-safe sunscreen and a wide selection of souvenirs, like these Hawaii-themed Gudetama plushes.

Although I thought our hotel was an excellent value for its location, if I were to go back to Maui, I'd probably stay somewhere else where the rooms have kitchenettes. Restaurants in Maui are expensive (close to $25/entree at most nicer sit-down restaurants in the tourist-geared areas, and ~$15/entree at fast casual places). While the food was generally tasty everywhere we went, on future trips, I'd probably prefer to save money by doing some basic cooking, particularly for breakfast. (Oh, but I must put in a recommendation for poke, which, even at grocery stores, was much fresher and tastier than anything I could get in NYC. Poke in Hawaii has ruined me for the dish anywhere else in the world!) An eight day-plus day trip might also be enough time to stay in two different locations on Maui, which is also something I'd consider next time.

Ocean Safety

One other factor that's somewhat relevant to choosing where to stay in Maui, and maybe in Hawaii in general: At least with the surf conditions on Kaanapali Beach, I'm not sure I'd be so eager to select a beachfront hotel again, given that this feature tends to come at a premium price. On past beach-y vacations, I've always enjoyed spending most of my time lounging on the beach, with frequent breaks to cool off in the water. Kaanapali Beach wasn't really the place for swimming or wading while I was there, and after reading up a bit on ocean safety elsewhere in Hawaii, that may be the case for quite a few other famous beaches there. 

Ocean conditions at Kaanapali Beach changed dramatically throughout the trip, with maybe two days where the water seemed very calm with only small, relatively gentle waves, followed by several days in a row of much stronger waves coming in at unpredictable intervals (at least to my eyes). It was a shock to see a beach where the water looked calm enough one day for parents to let their small children play in it suddenly become one where some waves that looked almost as tall as I was were crashing down onto the sand, punctuated by less intimidating, but still kind of scary and powerful-looking ones, just a few days later.

And on one of the days were conditions were in between those extremes, but far closer to calm than not (there were young children playing in the waves just a few feet from where I was, and the waves mostly looked barely tall enough to reach my calf or knees), I had a rather scary moment in the water. Even though I'm a reasonably strong swimmer, after taking a decade of regular swim lessons as a child, I was scared. I'd been swimming around just off the beach for a bit with no problems, in what looked to me like fairly calm water with small waves. But when trying to get back to shore (approaching at an angle, never turn your back on the ocean, especially in Maui, there were so many rogue waves just in the relatively little time I spent watching the beach) I got caught in some deceptively strong shorebreak that pushed me down underwater, head and all; spun me around underwater; and bumped my shoulder into the sand, leaving a quarter-sized abrasion with some bleeding. I was in very shallow water at the time, probably just past my knees if I was standing instead of wading. When I got back out, there was sand coating much of my body, including under my swimsuit, and stuck in my hair down to the scalp.

All things considered, it was a minor ocean-related mishap, I climbed out without too much trouble immediately after, and I didn't even get much seawater in my nose or mouth. It happened so fast that I didn't have time to panic. But, in part because I didn't see it coming (and I don't think the kids or other tourists right near me in the water got swamped that way either, it was probably a freak incident), it scared me so much that, for the rest of my trip afterwards, I'd wince slightly every time I saw a tourist in the water at that beach without a boogie board or surfboard.

Admittedly, I may be unusually nervous in the ocean for someone with my swimming abilities. I even get anxious sometimes while snorkeling in completely placid conditions! And I once booked a "discover scuba diving" dive in super-calm water in Thailand with a good, highly-recommended instructor, but I still got too scared to actually dive. So maybe I'm not the most reliable narrator for this, but I really felt like an inexperienced swimmer could have easily gotten into a bad situation on that beach, as has happened before! (That particular beach is No. 3 on the "deadliest" list.) Plus, Black Rock, just north of where I was, is supposed to be a top snorkeling spot, but most days of my trip, it likely wouldn't have been safe to try and get in and out of the water with snorkeling equipment on. I even saw people struggling to do exactly that from the same patch of beach on one of the less calm days, they gave up because the waves were just too strong.

A few more unsolicited tips for first-time snorkelers, which might be terribly obvious, but that I wasn't told before my first time trying the activity and didn't figure out until later: No matter how strong a swimmer you are or how calm the water is, if it's your first time, please use a flotation device! (I had another scary moment in the water years and years ago due to never receiving that advice before my first snorkeling session.) Before swimming too far from the boat or shore, please also take a few moments to make sure you're comfortable with the equipment and how to use it. And, although I've admittedly never tried one myself, I personally think those full-face snorkel masks look unsafe, given what gets me into potential trouble while snorkeling (mostly feeling panic ramp up suddenly due to leaks or breathing issues, which is at least easier to solve quickly with a traditional snorkel mask by lifting your head out of water, spitting out the mouthpiece, and pulling off the mask).

Hah, that turned out to be a long and not particularly fun digression, but I feel like it's important, and I don't think all of this information is particularly obvious or intuitive. For a return to the actual fun details about our trip, please follow the link below!

Life Lately: Vacation Plans and "Big Cleans"

Photo from a recent visit with a good friend and her cats. Her other cat is much more shy and still spends much of the time hiding whenever I visit. This one is much more outgoing!

Things have been hectic at the office recently, which I think is actually the new normal, given the current status of some of my biggest projects. We may have several months of steady work to look forward to, but that's a good thing. And don't worry, it's not going to be anywhere near as intense as the busy periods I had earlier this year! We likely won't have court filings of quite that size and scale again for a few months, and thank goodness for that.

I have a good number of fun and relaxing things coming up, though: A law school friend is visiting from out of town this weekend, and then I'll be heading off for vacation in early May. For this year's big trip, my sister and I are chipping in together, in shares proportional to our income, to take our mom to Hawaii. (Alas, both my sister and I completed graduate school with student loans a bit in excess of our first year salaries. But we're both working hard on repayment, and still get to splurge once in a while, clearly!) None of us have ever been before, so we're very much looking forward to it. We'll be in Maui for around ten days, and will also get to celebrate Mother's Day there. Any travel recommendations for Maui would be greatly appreciated, of course. 

This past weekend, I spent Saturday cleaning the apartment to get ready for my friend to visit and stay over. K was working all weekend long, so I did 100% of the cleaning this time around. See, even if he's far more likely to initiate and do the lion's share of our occasional "big cleans," including a few weekends ago, I'm capable of doing my part too... when I absolutely have to.

And good golly, if I may fuss for a bit, my back and my joints ached something awful the rest of the day, mainly from scrubbing the bathtub and the tile floor in the bathroom. (For the floor, unlike in the kitchen, the Swiffer has always proven entirely unequal to the task of scrubbing hard enough to get it clean.) This may well be what drives me to the point of finally declaring that we must hire semi-regular cleaning help. Now that K and I are both consistently busier at the office, the decision calculus for that particular question has changed significantly since this time last year. And I absolutely plan for us to pay well and tip generously, given that I've been driven to this choice by a deep appreciation for the difficulty of the labor.

On Sunday, I was shocked to find myself completely without the motivation to write anything for the blog. That almost never happens, I spend some of just about every single weekend writing or revising something that will eventually be posted here. Alas, I think I'm just very ready for that vacation. Given how my schedule looks between now and my departure flight, it's probably safest to assume that I probably won't be able to write here in the meantime. See you again in mid-May!

Oh, and in other recent blog-related news, I only recently realized that Disqus's default settings for website moderators resulted in my not getting email notifications when comments here are automatically blocked as spam. And it's not even particularly easy to figure out where on Disqus's site to view and moderate such comments, it took quite a bit of clicking around. To add insult to injury, the algorithm they use to flag spam is prone to inaccuracy, with maybe only a 55% success rate at best (at least when it comes to comments here). Nearly half of the dozen or so things they flagged as spam since I started using Disqus were real, substantive comments, including from people I frequently have conversations with in the comments here. I've approved all the wrongfully flagged comments now, some of them from more than a year ago. I'm terribly embarrassed that I didn't notice this problem sooner. 

Japan and Taiwan Trip 2018: Instances of Slightly Unexpected Spending

Photo via K, whose phone takes better photos than mine! I think this was at Tofukuji Temple.

At some points during our recent trip to Taiwan and Japan, I was starting to feel like we hadn't done a very good job of planning. It was a slightly more eventful, less smooth trip than we're used to, and that was a shock to me, as I pride myself on being somewhat well-traveled and pretty good at packing and preparing for my trips. Some of the complications were, of course, due to weather, and that was entirely outside our control. The biggest unexpected expense of our trip was, unsurprisingly, needing to book extra time at our hotel in Kyoto at the last minute when our trip was delayed by Typhoon Trami. There was no real helping that one, and the price was also a little higher than when we booked our original stay around two or three weeks ahead. (It was ~$250/night, as opposed to the ~$206/night we were originally charged.)

By separating out all my thoughts about the more troublesome details of our trip into their own post like this, I may run the risk of sounding like a huge complainer. That's definitely not my intention! I absolutely loved my trip, and already have a rather long list of ideas for a next trip to Japan someday,  which will hopefully not be too many years from now, though it'll likely be a while. I think I'm just not accustomed to needing to plan a big trip in such a hurry. We confirmed our travel dates and booked plane tickets and hotels within a month of our departure date, and I found that stressful. I'm definitely the type of traveler who strongly prefers to have tons of time to research all the options, and I wasn't used to such last-minute travel.

Also via K's phone, from our trip Fushimi Inari, where my shoulders definitely got tired of carrying my tote bag.

Plus, to my consternation, I found that I may now be someone who needs to, or at least strongly prefers to, carry a backpack if I plan to tote around much more than just my wallet, phone, Kindle, and passport for a full day of touring on foot. All I really added to those bare-minimum daily essentials was a water bottle, light jacket, small portable power bank, pocket wifi, a small folding umbrella on rainy days, and some of the small souvenirs we purchased throughout the day, but ack, things started feeling rather heavy, and my shoulders a bit achey, towards the end of each long day of walking! (If I ever get a professional backpack that's a bit smaller and sleeker than my gigantic North Face from law school, I'll probably be bringing it along on future vacations.) I wasn't fully prepared for how much walking we did pretty much every single day of our time in Japan, and carrying all my things in a tote bag probably added to how tired I got each evening.

Before I get started with my fussing, here is one more generally applicable and potentially money-saving tip (most of the other small issues that arose for us were idiosyncratic). Although many sources make it sound like a Japan Rail ("JR") Pass is something almost every international tourist buys for just about any trip to Japan, that might not actually be the case. For itineraries like ours, involving rather long stays in a small number of cities, with only a few not-too-far day trips to surrounding areas, a JR Pass might well be significantly more expensive than just buying separate train tickets for each leg of the trip. (I dabbled with an online JR Pass calculator and was able to quickly verify that we definitely did not need JR Passes.)

Oh and I must sing the praises of luggage forwarding services, though it's not, by definition, a money-saving choice. It cost us ~$15/large suitcase to send our luggage from our hotel in Tokyo to the one in Kyoto, which I found to be totally worth the price. It does require a bit of advance planning to factor in the time it takes for delivery (~36 hours for us), or if you're staying in an AirBnb, as you may need to do some research into drop-off and/or pick-up locations. I'll admit, I'm probably unusually wimpy about dragging suitcases around a crowded subway or train station or trying to find space for them on trains. Regardless, I found luggage forwarding to be indispensable for our shinkansen trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, and I think most other people would agree it's helpful and worth it unless they packed very light. (Keep in mind that Tokyo Station is unusually large and extremely busy, enough that it was overwhelming and a bit stressful to someone accustomed to traveling through the likes of Time Square, Penn Station, and Grand Central in NYC during rush hours. Also, they schedule the trains so tightly and efficiently in Japan that, even in Kyoto or Osaka, train platforms were sometimes so crowded as to also have the potential to be a bit overwhelming if I had a heavy and unwieldy suitcase with me.)

Please follow the link below to read about the things I wasn't always good about planning ahead for!

Japan and Taiwan Trip 2018

Kinkakuji in Kyoto; You can't tell, but it was actually as crowded as a NYC subway platform during rush hour all around me in the designated photo-taking area where I was taking this!

We had a wonderful time on our recent trip to Taiwan and Japan! K and I took off for a little more than two weeks total, with an extra two days added thanks to Typhoon Trami. We were in Taipei to visit my family for around three days, Tokyo for about five days, and the Kyoto and Osaka area for what turned out to be closer to nine days with the storm delay. Before I get started, a quick confession: Because we had family to show us around and pick restaurants in Taipei and close friends in Tokyo to help do the same, I have less in the way of practical suggestions for those places! 

Taiwan is always lovely, I regularly push for people who haven't been before to consider taking at least a quick trip there, maybe as an add-on to a larger trip elsewhere in East or Southeast Asia. It's generally a fairly affordable destination by US tourist standards, the food is tasty, it's an extremely friendly place, and I'm told by others that it's fairly easy to navigate with English only, particularly in Taipei. I've gone so many times over the years, and I tend to do the same things over and over. A few things I recommend in Taipei:

• Chia Te to buy pineapple cakes for gifts, as they're the best of the bakeries I've tried. It's normally not too busy at random times on weekday mornings. This year, though, the line was way too long. Apparently, because it was almost mid-Autumn festival, the store had been really busy at all hours for quite some time (this was even discussed in a segment on the local news!), even though I don't think they make traditional moon cakes. They sell Chia Te pineapple cakes at many 7-11s though. We felt a little silly when we saw them at the 7-11 near our hotel after we'd already bought something else for our friends in Tokyo. 
• Din Tai Fung - it's so good! I always make a point to drop by when I'm in Taipei. The lines can be daunting, but I think it's worth it. (Their soup dumplings have very delicate skins and consistently perfect proportions. It's a solid step above the best I've had here in NYC.) I tend to stick to the branch near Yongkang street (a well-oiled machine, they're quite accurate with estimated wait times, which can reach a peak of 120 minutes, but usually it maxes out at 90), which means we can browse in the neighborhood (lots of souvenir shops and restaurants!) while we wait our turn. 
• Night markets are a must-do, of course. K and I have been to Raohe and Shilin together, and we want to branch out more next time. When I was younger and visiting with family, we used to go to Shida, and that was also fun. 
• Taking the Maokong Gondola to visit the teahouses in Maokong makes for a nice change of pace from the rest of the city. They do shut down the gondola quite often due to weather conditions, however! 

Japan was a completely new destination for K. I'd been once before, but that trip was so brief that I didn't see much. One thing we noticed about both Tokyo and Kyoto: touring both cities requires so. much. walking. This is despite extremely robust public transit systems. (In particular, the Tokyo subway system, with JR trains added, boggles the mind in its complexity when compared with any other I've ever used.) Keep in mind that we're NYC dwellers, so we were already accustomed to walking a lot, almost every day. It was a bit of a shock! Our feet were sore every evening, even towards the end of our trip, when you'd think that we'd have gotten used to it. Packing-wise, I hadn't expected that I'd need to wear sneakers every day in Japan.

Some travel tips that were essential to us:

• The Japan-Guide website gives excellent overviews of basically every tourist site we could think of. There are a good handful of places that are only open on limited days, or require advance bookings, so doing a fair bit of research when mapping out a general itinerary is definitely recommended. 
• Be sure to plan out whether to get a pocket wifi or local sim card beforehand, and some advance booking may be required. We used JapanWifiBuddy, but I didn't do enough research to know if there were better deals available. 
• Definitely install the HyperDia app on your phone (may require a licensing fee after 30 days, but it's initially free to download and use) to map out train and public transit routes throughout Japan. Google Maps will not be enough for that purpose. 
• I'm a little bit embarrassed that I didn't think to do this, but I'm told that people appreciate when tourists come prepared to use a few simple phrases in Japanese (things like "excuse me" or "please" and "thank you" of course, and even "I don't speak Japanese", "how much?", and so on), and that it's very helpful. It's the first place I've ever been where, with only English and my rudimentary putonghua Chinese, I felt extremely... clunky and awkward getting around sometimes, like there was a major language barrier. (Because my particular combination of language skills takes me so far as a tourist in a other countries I've been to, I'm terribly inexperienced with navigating any kind of true language barrier.) 
• Don Quijote or "Donki", a large discount store that sells absolutely everything, is awesome! People recommend buying Japanese snacks (including special KitKat flavors) there to bring home as gifts. You'll also be able to do all your Japanese cosmetic and skincare shopping there. They also sell groceries, clothes, designer luggage and even some handbags (including some well-priced Longchamp totes in the Dotonbori branch in Osaka)... Literally everything! 
• Definitely carry a coin purse. I'd accumulated nearly $15 USD in coins just in my first two or three days. 
• We were also able to use credit cards in a lot of places, by the way, Japan isn't as cash-reliant a society as some travel guides imply. Some places were American Express only, no Visa.

One thing I hadn't realized about Tokyo hotels was that some rooms that technically sleep two (particularly at hotels that likely see many business travelers) are so small that we would actually have been happy to pay more for a slightly bigger room. (Think of a room where one could almost touch every wall while sitting or standing on the bed, or there wasn't enough open floor space anywhere to open up a medium sized suitcase fully, so that both sides of the bag could lay flat on the ground.) Never before had K and I ever been particularly fussed about space in hotel rooms, even in Hong Kong where rooms are quite small (but not this small!). Not a big deal in the end, but something we would take into account next time.

Food in Japan is generally excellent, regardless of price. Famously, even the convenience store food* is delicious and varied, and it is no sad thing to turn to 7-11, Lawson, or Family Mart for breakfast several days in a row. (See, for example, this video by Strictly Dumpling, one of my favorite travel and food Youtubers. The convenience stores in Taiwan are also great, but the ones in Japan really take the cake!) We had some absolutely delicious meals that were quite affordable (including conveyor belt sushi and yakitori) but also splurged on some fancy meals where one could see the quality of ingredients, the skill of the chefs, and how that justified the cost (including lunch at the ANA Intercontinental's teppanyaki restaurant). At the fancier restaurants, the prices can jump up dramatically for dinner, so trying to get a lunch reservation may be best.

*In terms of food and ingredient quality in Japan, I may still be thinking wistfully of the packaged hardboiled eggs from 7-11 I had for breakfast the morning we went to the airport. To get the same depth of flavor from eggs here in the US, I think I may have to go through some trial and error with buying the fanciest, most humanely-raised free-range organic eggs ever. 

We had so much fun in Japan that, immediately after our trip, I was already half-making plans for a next one, despite our limited opportunities and vacation time for taking longer trips (once a year, if we're lucky), and how there are so many other places in the world that we also still want to see. Things I may want to do next time include: Staying at a ryokan for a night, probably in Hakone; going to Kamakura and Nikko as part of a trip to Tokyo; and spending more time in Osaka. And that's just the things that occur to me immediately, without any extra research! It'll probably be at least a few years before we can concretely think about taking another trip to Japan, though.

Please follow the link below for more photos from Kyoto and Nara, and more detailed travel tips for the Kyoto area!

Reading Life Lately

I've had a touch of writer's block lately when it comes to my ideas for more serious posts. Things may also slow down more here in the coming weeks because soon, for the first time since spring 2016, K and I will be taking off for a long vacation! In large part because of the scheduling needs and pay cut associated with the clerkship, I've only taken shorter, smaller trips for fun in the last two years. We'll be traveling to Japan, and we've basically done zero planning up to now because it took so long for us to confirm dates that we'd both be able to take off from work. We're looking forward to getting our travel plans in order in the next few weeks! 

Today's post is about a few books I recommend. Lately, I've been trying to read more for fun, something I go through on-again, off-again phases with. My taste in books can be oddly fickle, so there are times when I pick too many dud books in a row, and then I lose momentum and fall out of the habit for a while.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in a commission, typically a few cents, for me if you click. Thank you for your support!

Bad Blood, John Carreyrou's book about the rise and fall of Theranos, is excellent. It had been years since I read a popular nonfiction book I enjoyed quite so much. (I've stalled on and dropped quite a few other bestselling ones in the meantime.) I found this to be a quick read because Carreyrou is such an good storyteller, and the facts themselves are just so wild. David Boies, super-prominent litigator and a big player in Ronan Farrow's account of Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies, is also a part of the Theranos story, in another arguable example of what may be questionable judgment when it comes to trying to get people to keep quiet about one of his clients. 

I'm also enjoying Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger. It's rather slow-moving, but her writing style is engaging and immersive. One unfortunate thing that keeps me from enjoying this book as much as I think I otherwise would is that I was only inspired to pick it up after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson, and it turns out that the trailer gave away the entire plot (which is fairly simple, admittedly). Although I'm still enjoying the experience of reading this, it's a fairly long book and a very slow burn. Part of my brain is definitely wondering if it's still worth keeping at it if I already know exactly where it's going. So be forewarned, avoid the movie trailer if one has any interest in the book. 

This is a book I read years ago that I don't think I've ever mentioned here, but Andrew Solomon's wonderful Far From the Tree has been made into a documentary, which I hope to see at some point. It's a difficult book to describe, with sometimes heavy subject matter and it takes some work to fully get into (it's a giant volume), but it's well worth it. To try and put it simply, the book is about how parents grapple with having children who are different from themselves, but it's really about much more than that. It touches on themes of love, identity, and the incredible resilience of the human spirit, among many other things. Andrew Solomon writes with such extraordinary empathy and compassion. I can't recommend Far From the Tree enough. 

Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think? Have you read anything else that was particularly excellent recently? I've also tried and failed to get into some other popular books in recent memory. Particularly disappointing were Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 and Shari Lapena's The Couple Next Door, both of which I thought were boring, tedious, and had annoying, poorly-drawn lead characters. I keep trying to recapture the magic of reading Gillian Flynn's novels, all of which I loved and devoured in about a day and a half total, one right after the other, but I've never found any other bestselling thrillers quite like those. Oh, and if anyone has any must-see, must-do, or must-eat travel recommendations for Japan, particularly Tokyo and Kyoto (we're maybe thinking about a third location, but I really haven't done my research yet), those would also be much appreciated! 

Long Weekend in D.C.

Xu Bing's Monkeys Grasp for the Moon

For the Memorial Day weekend, I visited my younger sister, W, in the Washington, D.C. area. W graduated with her master's degree last year, and now lives and works in the D.C. suburbs. We had a wonderful time! I'd been to D.C. before, so we didn't feel any pressure to go out and see too many things, just wandered through D.C., Georgetown, and the Old Town area of Alexandria. We also saw LP in concert, and she was fantastic. (I think people are most likely to know her from one of her songs having recently been in Orange is the New Black, but I hadn't watched that season and her music was new to me before I went to the concert.)

We splurged on one fancy meal, at 1789 in Georgetown. I really enjoyed the food, and the restaurant is located in a cool historical house. Pictured above is the foie gras dish (a dainty but satisfying portion - looks bigger in the photo than it actually was!) and the duck, both of which were delicious. The plates were all beautifully composed, and they make good use of seasonal vegetables. (I had a burrata dish, not pictured, where asparagus and peas were the highlight of the dish, and I don't usually especially like either vegetable.)

Follow the link for a few more photos, from some of the Smithsonian museums, and restaurant recommendations!