Malia Yoshioka is a freelance Food & Travel Writer and ESL Tutor from Hawaii. She's slowly eating her way around the world, 43 countries and counting so far! Get behind the scenes news, travel tips and the best food stories from around the web in her weekly Savor the Journey newsletter.
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Looking for light where we can ✨
Published about 2 months ago • 4 min read
👋 Greetings from Tokyo!
The start of this year has already felt so heavy in many ways, and I know many of us are feeling the need to consciously look for moments of steadiness and light where we can.
It’s said you have to be lucky to get a clear view of Mt. Fuji, so I took it as an good sign when I got this view from the Shinkansen on my way back to Tokyo.
For me, being in Japan and spending time connecting with the language and culture over the past few weeks has offered up many moments of glimmers. Experiencing familiar new year rituals in their place of origin helped me better understand some of the traditions I grew up with in Hawaii and why they’ve stayed with me all these years.
On a practical note, I’m putting the finishing touches on the free gift attendees of my DIY Trip Summit talk will receive: What to Eat in Europe (and where to find it).
To get your copy and watch my presentation when it goes live on Tuesday, click here:
Click the image to sign up for your free DIY Trip Summit ticket - my presentation is Day 1 (Tuesday January 13th)
Also, the First Class Pass is currently at its lowest price before the summit begins, so consider upgrading now if you'd like to take your time with all the talks and resources!
Stay warm, stay safe, stay kind,
❤🩹 If you are in the US and feeling helpless with regards to issues in the news, an easy action step is to call your congressional representatives to voice your concerns.
✨ Featured on Shoyu Sugar
⛩ Starting off 2026
I made it to two shrines and a temple all before noon on January 1st, to get the year off to a good start!
Growing up in Hawaii, I celebrated Japanese New Year traditions passed down through generations. Experiencing them in Japan gave those rituals new meaning.
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Destination Inspiration ✈
Ketti from Tiltled Map brings us Sustainable New Year’s Resolutionsto kick off the year right. (Psst... Ketti is also a presenter at the DIY Trip Summit, Day 3, January 15!)
In his video essay Kansas Never Plays Itself, travel writer Rolf Potts examines how his hometown has been imagined and mythologized on screen, and why accurate representation of place matters.
Enter to win a Visa gift card worth up to $500 and free celery from Duda farm fresh foods for a year. Enter by 2/6. Details here.
The Gist is giving away a trip to Buffalo Trace Distillery, a Big Game experience or a Chris Stapleton concert. Enter by 2/28. Details here.
Viking Cruises is giving away An 8-Day Mediterranean Ocean Cruise for two plus roundtrip business-class airfare. Enter by 3/31. Details here.
✈ What's new in the community?
Join our Savor the Journey Facebook Group and get a daily dose of travel and food stories and a chance to engage with like-minded travelers. Get recommendations from members for your upcoming travels or your home kitchen.
✨ New language course alert!
The Meal-a-Day Method shows you how to use one meal a day as your language practice anchor, with a short video and printable guides you can use on your next trip. Just $5 for newsletter readers.
There’s something about ink, paper, and faraway postmarks that feels like analog magic, don't you think? If you’d like a handwritten postcard from my travels, just reply with your mailing address and I’ll add you to my list. ✨💌
👋 Hi, I'm Malia Yoshioka!
I'm a freelance food and travel writer and guidebook author from Hawaii, slowly eating my way around the world and sharing the flavors with you in these weekly updates and on ShoyuSugar.com
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Malia Yoshioka is a freelance Food & Travel Writer and ESL Tutor from Hawaii. She's slowly eating her way around the world, 43 countries and counting so far! Get behind the scenes news, travel tips and the best food stories from around the web in her weekly Savor the Journey newsletter.
👋 Aloha friends, If you joined me through the 2026 DIY Trip Summit, another warm welcome. I hope your trip planning is going well! After nearly three months in Japan, I’ve swapped plum blossoms and takoyaki for trade winds and poke back home in Hawaii. I’ll have my head down this week, putting the final touches on a guidebook update. It’s not glamorous work, lots of fact checking phone calls, photos and on-the-ground research, but I'm grateful to be able to show visitors some of my hometown...
🌸 Greetings from Osaka, The first blossoms are beginning to open against blue skies, such a contrast to the snow from only a week ago. This month I’ve been taking a food writing course, and there's one idea I keep returning to when the rest of the world feels too heavy to be writing about something like food or travel. Writing about food is rarely just about the food. It opens into culture, history, language, identity, power. It is a way to stay curious and connected. During Mahina ʻŌlelo...
👋 Greetings from Kyoto! It’s that liminal space between Christmas and the year’s end where I often forget which day it is. Do you feel it too? When traveling, this effect can be magnified. Without routine, daily habits can be harder to stick to, and there’s always something happening, somewhere to go, or someone to meet. This past week in Kyoto was a reminder of how important being social is for me when I travel solo, even at this stage of life. Somewhere in the middle of all the hustle and...
