Portgual River Cruise: Pre-Cruise Day 1

Saturday, May 23-Sunday, May 24: ORD > EWR > OPO

We had time for some of our typical Saturday morning routine before saying goodbye to the kitties and heading to the airport at 10am to meet up with Mr. E's mom L at the Polaris Club for our flight to Porto via Newark. This was one of the shortest international flights we've taken lately, only 7ish hours, so we barely had time to rest a bit after the dinner service. The plane was smaller, too, and I had to laugh at myself for lamenting the size of our business class seats compared to some of our other recent trips. Um, yeah, because I've gotten a little too used to those lovely larger private pods on ANA!

I watched two films during the flight, a Chinese thriller, Malice, and a British satire, Fackham Hall. I also finished my French book Madeleine avant l'aube during the trip and was blown away by the twist at the end of the second chapter. This was originally the selection for my French book club in June, but the group decided at the previous meeting (which I missed) to change to something different. Unfortunately, I had already ordered this book from Amazon (tried to avoid but couldn't find it anywhere else!), so I planned to just return it. However, when I completed the return process, the seller provided a refund but didn't require the book itself to actually be sent back, so I figured I may as well read it anyway. So glad I did! Definitely not an uplifting book or light reading, but I really appreciated the author's talent and approach once I reached that unexpected moment partway through the novel.

As we approached Porto around 7am, I could see a thick layer of clouds and fog hanging over the ocean and the coast, pretty much blocking the entire view of the water near the shoreline. The plane started to descend for the landing but ended up doing a fly by instead, and the captain announced that the weather conditions prevented landing on the planned runway, so we had to instead circle around to come in from the north. Apparently, this isn't unusual for the area, and we got a much better view of the country as we completed the U-turn for a successful and extremely soft landing on the next attempt.

Going through immigration and customs was easy and relatively fast, and we then took a taxi to our hotel, the Sheraton Porto Hotel & Spa. We had reserved three rooms for two nights to make sure we could get into the rooms as soon as we arrived on Sunday morning rather than having to wait several hours for a typical afternoon check-in. However, the front desk staff who helped us initially had some trouble finding our reservations. Good thing I had the info printed out along with the email interaction with a member of their guest services team confirming the two nights! We finally got checked in, but then the keys for Mr. E and me didn't work, so we had to go back to the front desk to get them re-made and also make sure they worked in the Club Lounge, since our room rate included access to that for daily breakfast and Happy Hour.

After a bit of a rest (Mr. E and L) and workout (me), we met up around 10:30am in the restaurant for the buffet breakfast. So nice that it was open until 11am so we had plenty of time after our morning arrival! We were all still feeling the effects of jet lag and lack of sleep, however, so after breakfast we just all went back to our rooms for a few hours and managed to get some sleep.

In the afternoon, we headed off to Serralves, which I had read about in the visitor's book in the hotel room. This destination features a large park, contemporary art museum, art deco villa, tea house, treetop walk, and cinema facility. We started at the art museum and all agreed that the current exhibitions didn't really speak to us much, except for the book at the end of one shelf of an installation that just coincidentally happens to be about Frank Lloyd Wright and Oak Park! (book with small red square on the cover)

From the museum, we strolled through the park towards the Villa, stopping along the way to admire some of the outdoor sculptures that are scattered throughout the grounds.

The exhibition in the Villa focused on Joan Miro, which was a bit more interesting, along with some other contemporary sculptures and artwork.

The interior architecture of the building was lovely, with some unique parquet floors and lots of marble in the restrooms (definitely worth a visit!), but I think my favorite part was the exterior view of the facade with its symmetrical landscaping and water features. A seagull seemed to appreciate the fountain, too.

Mr. E and I wanted to check out the treetop walk, and L decided she'd take a pause at the peaceful and secluded tea house, draped with wisteria vines and looking out over the former clay tennis court. From the elevated boardwalk amongst the trees, Mr. E and I enjoyed the panorama over different parts of the park, including the lake, and also got to see a group of young performers working on some sort of dance experience in a grove below the walkway.

We rejoined L at the tea house and then headed towards the exit, where we had much better luck with getting an Uber back to the hotel than when we had tried for a ride share on our way to the park (ended up having the hotel staff call a taxi instead, which was much faster).

We got back to the hotel around 5:30pm, which was perfect timing for the daily Happy Hour in the New Yorker Bar for Club Lounge access guests. There were enough food offerings for all of us, so that became our dinner as we relaxed for a couple of hours. In addition to the wine and beer provided, Mr. E decided to purchase a bottle of a local vinho tinto, based on a staff recommendation. Great choice!

By 8:15pm, I was fading fast, so I took my small glass of port up to my room, where I finished up the evening with my yoga practice and then crashed. I didn't even drink the port!!! Good thing there will be more opportunities for tastings as part of our cruise this week.

Japan Tour: Kyoto Part 1 & End

Thursday, March 26-Friday, March 27: DIY Kyoto Day, KIK > TPE > ORD

Our last full day in Japan was a free day in Kyoto on Thursday, so we luxuriated in a later 9am breakfast (and saw many others of our group doing the same!). We fetched second coffee at a nearby Starbucks and savored our final Sakura match doughnut.

I spent several hours in the morning doing homework while Mr. E worked on packing and figuring out the necessary Tetris arrangement to fit all of our new stuff in the bags!

Then we headed off to Kyoto Station and bought tickets for the train to Osaka airport for the next day. We explored the expansive and airy station as we climbed up to the sky deck and then stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on the upper level food court. Thanks to Google translate and my basic Japanese, I was able to communicate about my allium allergy with the very friendly and patient server, so we had a lovely lunch with seafood, tofu, and veggies.

The station had views from so many perspectives, including a big window in the lounge area of the ladies' restroom! We crossed over the sky bridge to descend on the other side of the station and discovered the amazing Lego model and view to the Kyoto Tower.

 

For more views, we visited the Tokyo Tower across the street before taking the subway to the famous Nishiki Market to stroll through all of the food and craft stalls.

After walking back to the hotel, we attempted to have Happy Hour in the lobby bar while I did more homework, but that area and the restaurant were mostly booked for two private parties, meaning that no dinner service was available for hotel guests. Grr! Why wasn't there some sort of info or warning provided about that??? I finished up some homework in my room, and we then walked a few blocks to the Courtyard Marriott to have dinner at their restaurant, Le Bon Vivre. We enjoyed great service and yummy food with a cheese plate, nicoise salad, and steak frites. We struck out on the Sakura macaron but were still quite pleased with the meal.

When we got back to the hotel, there was just enough time for Mr. E to hit last call at the lobby bar before we watched an episode of "Scarpetta" and then wrapped up the evening.

On Friday, we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and then left at 7:45am to make sure we could catch our 8:22am train to Osaka Airport (KIX). We took the JR Haruka train that just happened to have special Hello Kitty decor, so of course I thought of R when I saw all of that.  

We were too early to check in for our flight on Eva Airlines to Taipei, so we wandered around a bit and Mr. E bought a strap to help secure Bean since we were checking that bag in for the return trip. We almost had to check in our other carry-on bags due to weight limits, but we managed to talk our way out of that by assuring the staff that we'd redistribute items among the bags to even things out. Phew!

Then we checked out the lounge and I got some more homework done while Mr. E explored and found a few more Lucky Cats to add last-minute to our ever-growing collection. The flight from KIX to TPE was only 2.5 hours and included a tasty Japanese cuisine lunch. I watched a great French movie, L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche, about the architect who designed the Arche de la Défense in Paris.

During our 4+ hour layover in Taipei, we enjoyed the offerings in the lounge, including a bunch of steamed veges (which we'd been missing so much!), and I did more homework and also caught up on some work email. Then we had our 13.5 hour flight to O'Hare with more Hello Kitty swag (slippers)!

We both had the International menu meal for dinner, and I later had just some fruit and crackers for breakfast. I managed to get nearly seven hours of sleep in the comfy lie-flat pod and also watched two enjoyable films: The Shadow's Edge (action movie with Jackie Chan) and the Chinese comedy Number 2. We made it home to the kitties in the evening and crashed pretty quickly after all of the travel.

Lots of new experiences to reflect on, and we definitely want to go back to revisit a couple of spots and explore more of the vast and diverse country. And since I'm planning to continue my Japanese classes, my language skills should be much improved by our next trip!