π₯Έ I bought a new pair of glasses. There's nothing particularly wrong with my current pair, other than I've had them for 7 or 8 years and wanted to change things up a bit. Since I've been in Japan I always bought glasses at Zoff or Jins because they're inexpensive and near the stations. They're inexpensive because all of their glasses are the house brand. I wanted to get a pair of Ray Ban's again, so they were off the table. Thankfully there's a regular glasses shop a short cycle away that had just the pair I was looking for. I will pick them up next week. For the first time I opted to get the blue-light coating, which is supposed to make it easier on your eyes when you use computers all day. We shall see....
π² After getting glasses, I rode my bike down to Totsuka for lunch with Yumi. It's definitely starting to cool off a bit, as I was able to make it all the way there without being drenched in sweat. After lunch we checked out the bookstore for anything interesting. I found a few books that looked interesting, but not enough to buy. Of note, the English book section seems to have shrunk from 2.5 - 3 columns to roughly 1. They didn't even have non-fiction books in English, which was disappointing. Back in the day, this bookstore was my lifeline for interesting things to read.
ποΈ A new shopping mall opened a few stations away called Soratos. We finally have a movie theather nearby. Along with a second Starbucks, a Tully's and a giant area designed to drain your wallet β 50+ crane games, including one large enough that a human attendant sits inside help (and costs Β₯500 a play).
On the roof of Soratos is a really nice play area β the kind with the squish ground. Since it's the tallest building around it has some nice views on the top. Once it cools off a bit more, I can see us spending many an hour up there with Leo.
On the way out we swung by the Tsutaya bookstore to see what it was like..and like Barnes and Nobles in the US, there's a significant "definitely not books" at the bookstore. We found a plush of Link from Breath of the Wild! Leo was, as readers of this blog can probably guess, incredibly excited to find it and there was precisely zero chance of me leaving the store without it. Truth is though I wanted it as well.
π΅Β I've been trying to introduce more aloha in my life to keep me relaxed and positive. This week's recommendation is Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's Facing Future (Apple Music).
πΊ I started watching What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 (Netflix). You can guess from the title that the show is largely about food as the main character cooks at home and explains what he's doing while he's doing it (to himself, not like a cooking show) and my explanation isn't doing it any justice. The sub-plot is that the main characters are gay men and it portrays a realistic look at what life is like in Japan as a gay man. Just watch an episode and I promise you'll be hooked.
π« The emoji is of pita, but it's the closest I could get to cheese naan. Sorry. Inspired by episode 2 of season 2 of What Did You Eat Yesterday where he cooks a butter chicken curry and cheese naan (official recipe from TV Tokyo), I had a go at making some and it turned out ok. Technically it may have been a cheese roti as I ran out of white flour and used whole wheat for the remainder. Either way, I will give it a go. Did I also make the buttery chicken curry you ask? No, I did not. Why? Because somehow I ran out of curry powder and garam masala and basically everything but cumin (I never run out of that). What is the world coming to...
βοΈ It feels like the temperatures for the summer have peaked or just about peaked in Kanto. It could be that the sun isn't fully up by 4:30am making the difference, but the heat is less oppressive in the morning.
πββοΈ Related to the oppressive heat, after having a reprieve from the temps in the US a couple weeks ago, returning to the heat is difficult mentally. It's just zapped my motivation to do...anything (perhaps you can tell as the top item for the week is about watching a TV show π). Still I got in 2 runs last week, not my goal of 3 but my "minimum number of runs".
π5am run club- typhoon edition Itβs gonna be a sizzler today, but the morning after typhoons are typically quite pleasant and give me hope that summer will pass quickly.
πββοΈ I hit a major running milestone, running a 5k in 30 minutes. I've been close-ish in the past, but have never been able to sustain a 6 min km for the duration. 100% I was able to do it because I've been running regularly for the past few months and it was cooler. I feel like even like slow runs in the Japanese heat still helped me to run faster in the cooler weather. Β
π¦ One day we went to a nice big central park so Leo could play on a jungle gym for a bit, burn off some energy, and be around some other kids. While we were playing I heard the siren-song of the ice cream man! The ice cream man isn't a thing in Japan, so I told Leo to run and I got him a sponge bob squarepants ice cream for $4(!). Quadruple the price I paid as a kid in the 90's. Ice cream... mini van?!Β
πͺ On our way to the airport we dropped by Pike Place market for a couple of hours. I could spend all morning there β all of the vendors and the food look so good. As we got there around noon, it was packed. The line to the original Starbucks was probably an hour long (despite the menu being the exact same). Carrots in multiple colors π Finding gyros is a challenge in my part of Yokohama, so I opted to get a lamb gyro for lunch. It did not disappoint, except for at the very end where it started leaking on to my jeans. π Walking with Leo in the market Next time I visit Pike Place, I want to go early when the vendors are just getting setup and there's less traffic.
βοΈ We stayed at a hotel near the airport because our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:45am. Hawaiian Airlines is so good. One of our bags was a bit over the limit and they didn't care or charge us. But even better was, because they heard TSA had long lines, she stamped our boarding passes for priority security checks, meaning we got to skip the wait.
Ultimately though, our flight was delayed by about an hour as they had to fix something while fueling the airplane. This delay meant our 2-hour layover in Hawaii, where we could stretch our legs and relax a bit turned into a mad dash from Terminal A to Terminal C (thankfully we caught the Wiki Trolly (bus)) just in time, so we could catch our flight.
There must not be enough bridges as or something at Haneda, as we had to deplane on to a bus that took us to immigration. Our ride to Japan When we got home I noticed that my bag that I had previously fixed in Hawaii was broken for good now. The plastic latch used to lock the suitcase, which is usually flush on the outside, somehow opened and snapped off transit. Always use a belt on your suitcases. Sad to see it go as it served we well since my first trip to Japan as a college student.
π₯ On the flight from Hawaii and Haneda I watched two films: The American President and Mr. Nice Guy. Watching the first one film and I felt like it was almost a precursor to The West Wing. Probably because Martin Sheen was in it and the movie was written by Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote The West Wing). The sad point of the movie was that they were talking about global warming and trying to pass legislation for it in it...in 1995.
Mr. Nice Guy on the other hand was the first Jackie Chan movie I have watched in ages and I forgot just how much fun they are. It's basically non-stop martial arts and stunts. Really good entertainment.
πΎΒ America was fun and, compared to our last trip, Leo did so much better this time. It wasn't exhausting. Part of that is learning from experience and partly him being older. But man is it good to be back home in Japan π₯°.
Anyone whoβs spent any amount of time on the Internet has a good idea of how prevalent meme usage has become in online discourse. Finding new memes on the latest happening and sharing them with various friend groups to share in the humor is a long-enjoyed
Iβve been thinking how cool it would be to be able to do something like this β using old iOS devices as servers, especially for the AI/Vision stuff it excels at.
