The new kitchen job is going well, but man, keep your knives in a bag on the way home. People did not like my butterfingers.
Went to see Across the Spiderverse. It was amazing!!
Got diagnosed with a stress fracture on my foot on Saturday!
Gonna have a tough conversation with my boss today since this isn’t my first stress fracture working here… (about the future of my employment)
so i went to gyoumu and one of my main objectives was can coffee since they usually have it cheaper and i have a crippling caffeine addiction. bingo! 6-pack under ¥300, so i grabbed it and some other tasty vittles then made my merry way to the checkout. i just so happened to look over as the cashier was ringing up my liquid crack and noticed he spun a can to find the barcode instead of doing it on the box, then punched some buttons to make it x6. so i glanced at the screen and it said ¥408?!? thinking maybe i had been mistaken (their labels can be haphazard sometimes) i paid, bagged my things, then circled back to confirm. i was right! so i flagged a floor staff and asked politely and she apologized and refunded the difference. petty, maybe, but the main reason i made the longer trek there on a sweltering sunday afternoon instead of a closer store was to *save* money on that very thing!
careless mistake or malicious intent? either way, stay vigilant, fellow yennie-pinching shoppers!
Visited Hiroshima! Great time, Miyajima was beautiful
Asked a girl out on a date after texting for a few weeks and turns out she moved away from my city sometime ago 🤦♂️
Back to square one.
This is for parents with under 1 years old I went to Osaka Umda area links building floor 4, there is a nice playground free for under 1 years old with one parent (300 extra paid for additional adult). Usually it costs 800 per 30 min for over 1 year.
Took the kids bowling and had a great time. If anybody has suggestions for similar activities that can appeal to kids from 1 to 11 (and hopefully don’t cost ￥5000 a pop ☠️) I’d love to hear them! Also took a morning hike with the oldest and a friend for friend’s birthday. I enjoyed it, kiddo did not, especially since friend didn’t bring her kids and so he didn’t have anyone his age to ~~complain~~ talk to.
Also made curry on Sunday with the same kid to prepare for his 野外活動 and we both had fun, and the wife appreciated the day off from cooking.
Stayed up way too late Saturday night refreshing the news and playing 世界樹の迷宮.
Had a great anniversary weekend, still cant believe we’re back to Japan, living in the same town we got married at.
Climbed Takao San and drank their own brand one cup sake at the top. It made the descent more fun
I spent all of this weekend excitedly remembering “less than a week until the new Indy Jones is released!”
Hey um, my company-provided bike got stolen, and my company is saying I need to pay for it. On the head that seems reasonable but the more I think of it, it feels kinda strange. In my contract theres nothing explicit saying I need to do that. Is that.. legal?
Went to a board game cafe for my friend’s birthday. Place was awesome!
Catan was going great until right at the end when SOME a-hole stole all my wheat.
Went to Mimuroto-ji, the famous hydrangea temple in Uji with a friend. Afterwards had a delicious maccha parfait in the city proper. The weather was hot, but not *too* hot.
Really really fun day, and managed to walk 20,000 steps too.
Moving in two weeks, so spent a big chunk of each morning packing. Normally I would be procrastinating like crazy, but pregnant wife means we want to get as much done early as possible.
With the busy upcoming events, caught up with a few friends while I still have some free time. Went for Korean food and then had some terrace beers to enjoy the nice weather. They also offered to help move if needed, which is much appreciated.
Rode motorbike from Kashima to Daigo, visited Fukuroda Falls which was as swollen as I’ve ever seen.
Then went to a soba shop where I had yamame (landlocked masu salmon) for the first time. It was very similar to the kokanee my grandpa used to catch back in Canada. Hit a nice onsen and headed home.
Drank beer and played Void Bastards. Then continued on watching the Hulu Wu-Tang series which is often very corny but also often very good.
Worked
Brought a second/thirdhand Dynabook V for 17000 yen on Mercari because I couldn’t wait for the Dell to arrive on Tuesday- would’ve been too late for my test. It works amazing and I think I’m in love with it
Thinking about the future with AI on the horizon, media saturation, that comment on last week’s complain thread on how recent children are harder to work with because of their short attention spans and unreceptiveness to traditional education methods that aren’t gamified etc and getting worried about the future of Japan. The way I see it as someone with severe ADHD, experience many of these problems and am in a constant state of trying to work through them while surviving in a Japanese uni, Japan does NOT know how to work with students that are not traditionally 真面目. As much as I think collectivism is beneficial, I think that unless Japanese society/education systems adopt a more individualistic approach and encourage students to become more introspective and find their own ways of making things work for them, they’re going to have a big problem in the near future… I also think Japanese parents need to be more personally involved in their children’s education and know what their children need/don’t need instead of just sending them off to 塾and expecting everything to be okay, but that probably has to do with work culture.
I lucked out as a southeast Asian by having parents, especially a mom, that grew to understand that I have different needs and really, really cared, wanted me to and did anything they could to help me thrive. When I read stories of how people became NEETs/hikkikimori in Japan, I feel I would’ve probably became one of them if I was put through the Japanese system and presented with no alternatives. I wonder if there will be an influx of them in the future with how things are going right now.
Also I wonder if their standard, extremely carb heavy, low protein and fat diet contributes to this, like how sugar makes children more hyperactive? I think I read somewhere that Japanese rice has a very high GI value and converts to glucose incredibly easily
Just my thoughts.
Had a big move from Nerima-ku to Katsushika-ku, all within Tokyo, last weekend. Now I find myself missing some random essentials, so I’m at a loss for where to start haha
Anybody have any suggestions for where to buy adapters (for Canadian plugs), blankets and sporting goods in one place? Much love! ❤️
Bought a secondhand MSI motherboard from Amazon last month. It has been working well so far. Damn secondhand stuff in Japan is good.
Across the Spiderverse 10/10
Iranian restaurant called Zakuro in Nippori is a fun place. The owner has too much energy lol
Took advantage of the 3 for 1 special at Dominos. Silly me was thinking I could take advantage of the both this and half-price pick up but nope, full price. Still an ok deal but I don’t think I’d do it again.
This was last weekend but I want to share the awesome experience/savings of the Kintetsu まわりゃんせ pass. The ticket is a flat 10,200円, and includes a limited express roundtrip from anywhere in the Kintetsu line to the area of Ise, Shima, Toba. So if you start at Osaka/Kyoto that by itself almost covers the price. You also get 4 days of unlimited rides in that area, plus 4 limited express ticket vouchers for that area. Plus, you can ride the local buses (very convenient for visiting the big temples) for free. Plus you can ride a number of ferries in that area for free. You get access to the Toba Aquarium (my favorite aquarium thus far in Kansai), Mikimoto Pearl Island (seeing the Ama diver show was amazing), Dolphin Island (I would skip that), Spain Village Amusement park, and some resorts for relaxing (these are the main points, but there’s some museums that are also included which I didn’t go to). I really enjoyed my weekend in Mie, and the Yokoyama observatory is super cool. Last day I tried surfing since the local bus can take you to a surfing beach. I also met the G7 bodyguards and AP in two separate occasions. I really really recommend making use of this pass. In a future trip I want to get to know more about Ama diver culture which is super interesting.
Sold a couple guitars and some clothes on Mercari. Selling the guitars was the easy part, packing not so fun. Trying to decide what non-fun adulting items to buy with the extra money. Trash can for the powder room? New litter box for the cat? Coffee maker for the WFH partner? Roomba?
Walked up and down the river for a couple of hours, Mini Stop takeout coffee, lovely chat with an Iranian guy who’s been here as long as I have, made a killer Putanesca and ate it with a gorgeous salad and a superb non-alc import beer, brushed the cat and watched House of Cards. Job done eh.
Went haikyo hunting. Found a pretty old ryokan near a waterfall from the early 80’s and checked it out with my wife. Too dangerous to enter since the wood was so rotted out but found a lot of cool stuff.
Went to then IJET (International Japanese-English Translation) conference in Tokyo! Two days of pretty interesting and beneficial lectures, on top of a lot of networking. Hope to go to next year’s conference as well!
Split up on different days, I took both my kids to the city play center.
Saturday – It was very quiet, just two other parents. One, whom I’ll call Gucci Mom (because some one went to the effort of making sure their Gucci bag was *very* prominently displayed in the front of her locker) had her 2-3 year-old son’s hear dyed like a Yankee.
Okay. Kid had no shyness, my son is twice his age/size, I’m this big foreigner, kid was just “Here’s a melon”*, bam,* hits me with a melon toy, “here’s a pumpkin”, *bam* …well, you get the pattern.
Both moms were nice and complimented me that my son was patient and helped their kids play. When Gucchi-mom and Tokyo Revengers-kun went home, she took the Gucci bag. Sometimes, you just know.
Sunday – Busy as hell, all little kids, including mine. And for maybe the first time, it was a dad majority amongst the parents, alright, nice.
But then it got a bit weird, because it was almost like the dad’s were competing to play with their kids the hardest. I’ve been going to this place for years, so I almost wanted to say “Fellas, that’s some nice energy, but if you have work tomorrow, turn it down a notch.”
Interesting experiment, to be sure.
On Saturday, a friend who is a flight attendant visited me, and she came to spend 2 days in Tokyo. We last saw each other, like… 10 years ago!
It was nice to see again the “bright eyes” of someone who never have been to Japan before 🙂
I went to the new Hyatt hotel at Fuji Speedway on a whim Friday night. It was so lovely!!!! Really recommend it!
The onsen was great. It was open till midnight so we had plenty of time to relax there – it was my first time going to a public onsen which was quite exciting haha. Saturday morning had some small race event going on at the Speedway which we could watch from the cafe terrace (pls don’t ask me anything about racing tho lollll)
As it was Hyatt, obviously the breakfast was absolutely insane. Huge buffet AND a tabehodai order menu??? Insane.
It was too cloudy to see Fuji-san but the scenery was so beautiful. Not too hot, not too bright for my weak eyes! I love rainy season for this reason. It was a really great trip :))
And here’s a photo of the poached egg avocado toast from breakfast hehe
Saturday, went to driving school as always, and to my surprise, passed the 一本橋 on first try. Instructor said “Passing mark is above 7 seconds, but don’t worry about time for now and just try balancing through it!” and I went for it. It is indeed more difficult than I thought, but not that hard. Went through it in just over 9 seconds. Instructor was like “😳😳😳 what”. Glad I have over 8 years exp riding a 150cc bike back in my home country.
Sunday… went to see the bike someone won at the auction for me. It is a beauty. Can’t wait to ride it around but my expected graduation from the course is mid-August. Guess I can do nothing but wait. Boo.
I went to the Teikoku Hotel in Hibiya for the annual OB-kai of an international exchange program I participated in 9 years ago. It was great to see so many of my senpai and kohai. Since the program is sponsored by a major Japanese company, the chairman of the company was also present, which meant great food and drinks for two hours.
Watched Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers for the first time yesterday. Pretty good, yo. The siege of Helm’s Deep both felt like an hour long and didn’t overstay its welcome.
33 comments
The new kitchen job is going well, but man, keep your knives in a bag on the way home. People did not like my butterfingers.
Went to see Across the Spiderverse. It was amazing!!
Got diagnosed with a stress fracture on my foot on Saturday!
Gonna have a tough conversation with my boss today since this isn’t my first stress fracture working here… (about the future of my employment)
so i went to gyoumu and one of my main objectives was can coffee since they usually have it cheaper and i have a crippling caffeine addiction. bingo! 6-pack under ¥300, so i grabbed it and some other tasty vittles then made my merry way to the checkout. i just so happened to look over as the cashier was ringing up my liquid crack and noticed he spun a can to find the barcode instead of doing it on the box, then punched some buttons to make it x6. so i glanced at the screen and it said ¥408?!? thinking maybe i had been mistaken (their labels can be haphazard sometimes) i paid, bagged my things, then circled back to confirm. i was right! so i flagged a floor staff and asked politely and she apologized and refunded the difference. petty, maybe, but the main reason i made the longer trek there on a sweltering sunday afternoon instead of a closer store was to *save* money on that very thing!
careless mistake or malicious intent?
either way, stay vigilant, fellow yennie-pinching shoppers!
Visited Hiroshima! Great time, Miyajima was beautiful
Asked a girl out on a date after texting for a few weeks and turns out she moved away from my city sometime ago 🤦♂️
Back to square one.
This is for parents with under 1 years old
I went to Osaka Umda area links building floor 4, there is a nice playground free for under 1 years old with one parent (300 extra paid for additional adult).
Usually it costs 800 per 30 min for over 1 year.
Took the kids bowling and had a great time. If anybody has suggestions for similar activities that can appeal to kids from 1 to 11 (and hopefully don’t cost ￥5000 a pop ☠️) I’d love to hear them! Also took a morning hike with the oldest and a friend for friend’s birthday. I enjoyed it, kiddo did not, especially since friend didn’t bring her kids and so he didn’t have anyone his age to ~~complain~~ talk to.
Also made curry on Sunday with the same kid to prepare for his 野外活動 and we both had fun, and the wife appreciated the day off from cooking.
Stayed up way too late Saturday night refreshing the news and playing 世界樹の迷宮.
Had a great anniversary weekend, still cant believe we’re back to Japan, living in the same town we got married at.
Climbed Takao San and drank their own brand one cup sake at the top. It made the descent more fun
I spent all of this weekend excitedly remembering “less than a week until the new Indy Jones is released!”
Hey um, my company-provided bike got stolen, and my company is saying I need to pay for it. On the head that seems reasonable but the more I think of it, it feels kinda strange. In my contract theres nothing explicit saying I need to do that. Is that.. legal?
Went to a board game cafe for my friend’s birthday. Place was awesome!
Catan was going great until right at the end when SOME a-hole stole all my wheat.
Went to Mimuroto-ji, the famous hydrangea temple in Uji with a friend. Afterwards had a delicious maccha parfait in the city proper. The weather was hot, but not *too* hot.
Really really fun day, and managed to walk 20,000 steps too.
Moving in two weeks, so spent a big chunk of each morning packing. Normally I would be procrastinating like crazy, but pregnant wife means we want to get as much done early as possible.
With the busy upcoming events, caught up with a few friends while I still have some free time. Went for Korean food and then had some terrace beers to enjoy the nice weather. They also offered to help move if needed, which is much appreciated.
Rode motorbike from Kashima to Daigo, visited Fukuroda Falls which was as swollen as I’ve ever seen.
Then went to a soba shop where I had yamame (landlocked masu salmon) for the first time. It was very similar to the kokanee my grandpa used to catch back in Canada. Hit a nice onsen and headed home.
Drank beer and played Void Bastards. Then continued on watching the Hulu Wu-Tang series which is often very corny but also often very good.
Worked
Brought a second/thirdhand Dynabook V for 17000 yen on Mercari because I couldn’t wait for the Dell to arrive on Tuesday- would’ve been too late for my test. It works amazing and I think I’m in love with it
Thinking about the future with AI on the horizon, media saturation, that comment on last week’s complain thread on how recent children are harder to work with because of their short attention spans and unreceptiveness to traditional education methods that aren’t gamified etc and getting worried about the future of Japan. The way I see it as someone with severe ADHD, experience many of these problems and am in a constant state of trying to work through them while surviving in a Japanese uni, Japan does NOT know how to work with students that are not traditionally 真面目. As much as I think collectivism is beneficial, I think that unless Japanese society/education systems adopt a more individualistic approach and encourage students to become more introspective and find their own ways of making things work for them, they’re going to have a big problem in the near future… I also think Japanese parents need to be more personally involved in their children’s education and know what their children need/don’t need instead of just sending them off to 塾and expecting everything to be okay, but that probably has to do with work culture.
I lucked out as a southeast Asian by having parents, especially a mom, that grew to understand that I have different needs and really, really cared, wanted me to and did anything they could to help me thrive. When I read stories of how people became NEETs/hikkikimori in Japan, I feel I would’ve probably became one of them if I was put through the Japanese system and presented with no alternatives. I wonder if there will be an influx of them in the future with how things are going right now.
Also I wonder if their standard, extremely carb heavy, low protein and fat diet contributes to this, like how sugar makes children more hyperactive? I think I read somewhere that Japanese rice has a very high GI value and converts to glucose incredibly easily
Just my thoughts.
Had a big move from Nerima-ku to Katsushika-ku, all within Tokyo, last weekend. Now I find myself missing some random essentials, so I’m at a loss for where to start haha
Anybody have any suggestions for where to buy adapters (for Canadian plugs), blankets and sporting goods in one place? Much love! ❤️
Bought a secondhand MSI motherboard from Amazon last month. It has been working well so far. Damn secondhand stuff in Japan is good.
Across the Spiderverse 10/10
Iranian restaurant called Zakuro in Nippori is a fun place. The owner has too much energy lol
Took advantage of the 3 for 1 special at Dominos. Silly me was thinking I could take advantage of the both this and half-price pick up but nope, full price. Still an ok deal but I don’t think I’d do it again.
This was last weekend but I want to share the awesome experience/savings of the Kintetsu まわりゃんせ pass. The ticket is a flat 10,200円, and includes a limited express roundtrip from anywhere in the Kintetsu line to the area of Ise, Shima, Toba. So if you start at Osaka/Kyoto that by itself almost covers the price. You also get 4 days of unlimited rides in that area, plus 4 limited express ticket vouchers for that area. Plus, you can ride the local buses (very convenient for visiting the big temples) for free. Plus you can ride a number of ferries in that area for free. You get access to the Toba Aquarium (my favorite aquarium thus far in Kansai), Mikimoto Pearl Island (seeing the Ama diver show was amazing), Dolphin Island (I would skip that), Spain Village Amusement park, and some resorts for relaxing (these are the main points, but there’s some museums that are also included which I didn’t go to). I really enjoyed my weekend in Mie, and the Yokoyama observatory is super cool. Last day I tried surfing since the local bus can take you to a surfing beach. I also met the G7 bodyguards and AP in two separate occasions. I really really recommend making use of this pass. In a future trip I want to get to know more about Ama diver culture which is super interesting.
Sold a couple guitars and some clothes on Mercari. Selling the guitars was the easy part, packing not so fun. Trying to decide what non-fun adulting items to buy with the extra money. Trash can for the powder room? New litter box for the cat? Coffee maker for the WFH partner? Roomba?
Walked up and down the river for a couple of hours, Mini Stop takeout coffee, lovely chat with an Iranian guy who’s been here as long as I have, made a killer Putanesca and ate it with a gorgeous salad and a superb non-alc import beer, brushed the cat and watched House of Cards. Job done eh.
Went haikyo hunting. Found a pretty old ryokan near a waterfall from the early 80’s and checked it out with my wife. Too dangerous to enter since the wood was so rotted out but found a lot of cool stuff.
Went to then IJET (International Japanese-English Translation) conference in Tokyo! Two days of pretty interesting and beneficial lectures, on top of a lot of networking. Hope to go to next year’s conference as well!
Split up on different days, I took both my kids to the city play center.
Saturday – It was very quiet, just two other parents. One, whom I’ll call Gucci Mom (because some one went to the effort of making sure their Gucci bag was *very* prominently displayed in the front of her locker) had her 2-3 year-old son’s hear dyed like a Yankee.
Okay. Kid had no shyness, my son is twice his age/size, I’m this big foreigner, kid was just “Here’s a melon”*, bam,* hits me with a melon toy, “here’s a pumpkin”, *bam* …well, you get the pattern.
Both moms were nice and complimented me that my son was patient and helped their kids play. When Gucchi-mom and Tokyo Revengers-kun went home, she took the Gucci bag. Sometimes, you just know.
Sunday – Busy as hell, all little kids, including mine. And for maybe the first time, it was a dad majority amongst the parents, alright, nice.
But then it got a bit weird, because it was almost like the dad’s were competing to play with their kids the hardest. I’ve been going to this place for years, so I almost wanted to say “Fellas, that’s some nice energy, but if you have work tomorrow, turn it down a notch.”
Interesting experiment, to be sure.
On Saturday, a friend who is a flight attendant visited me, and she came to spend 2 days in Tokyo. We last saw each other, like… 10 years ago!
It was nice to see again the “bright eyes” of someone who never have been to Japan before 🙂
I went to the new Hyatt hotel at Fuji Speedway on a whim Friday night. It was so lovely!!!! Really recommend it!
The onsen was great. It was open till midnight so we had plenty of time to relax there – it was my first time going to a public onsen which was quite exciting haha. Saturday morning had some small race event going on at the Speedway which we could watch from the cafe terrace (pls don’t ask me anything about racing tho lollll)
As it was Hyatt, obviously the breakfast was absolutely insane. Huge buffet AND a tabehodai order menu??? Insane.
It was too cloudy to see Fuji-san but the scenery was so beautiful. Not too hot, not too bright for my weak eyes! I love rainy season for this reason. It was a really great trip :))
And here’s a photo of the poached egg avocado toast from breakfast hehe
https://preview.redd.it/v6hcqf0sta8b1.jpeg?width=1995&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c59cb1935bb7ca0d207f8c274dd9b18b96551def
Saturday, went to driving school as always, and to my surprise, passed the 一本橋 on first try. Instructor said “Passing mark is above 7 seconds, but don’t worry about time for now and just try balancing through it!” and I went for it. It is indeed more difficult than I thought, but not that hard. Went through it in just over 9 seconds. Instructor was like “😳😳😳 what”. Glad I have over 8 years exp riding a 150cc bike back in my home country.
Sunday… went to see the bike someone won at the auction for me. It is a beauty. Can’t wait to ride it around but my expected graduation from the course is mid-August. Guess I can do nothing but wait. Boo.
I went to the Teikoku Hotel in Hibiya for the annual OB-kai of an international exchange program I participated in 9 years ago. It was great to see so many of my senpai and kohai. Since the program is sponsored by a major Japanese company, the chairman of the company was also present, which meant great food and drinks for two hours.
Watched Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers for the first time yesterday. Pretty good, yo. The siege of Helm’s Deep both felt like an hour long and didn’t overstay its welcome.