Another “cultural difference”: butter comes in singular 200g blocks that are big and flat, like a bar of soap sort of, and don’t have dividers to help you cut off a bit of the bar.
Harumi Chihiro did start her new series. Unfortunately, it looks like the release schedule is going to be one chapter every two months, so I wonder if I’ll keep my comic-fuz subscription vs just buying the magazines…
I’ve finally finished reading the Japanese edition of Starting Over, one of my favorite light novels. There’s just something compelling about the premise and execution, even if I can’t really condone the protagonist’s behavior, it’s fascinating to watch his evolution. After all, as he himself notes, who gets a chance to redo life…then decides he doesn’t want to change a thing?
I do feel a bit more accomplished now that I can sort of read “real literature” in Japanese, even if I’m being boosted by reading things that I’ve read before in English.
A choice quote (translation, and mistakes, my own):
I think my mistake was that I played it too safe. For example, take the 100 meter dash. If a hundred people run, there’ll be someone who always comes in around third, right? But that person ended up third while trying their very best to be first. If they had aimed for third place from the start, then they would have finished seventh, even ninth, right? I think the mistake I made was that kind of mistake.
I’ve finished reading
No choice quotes from this novel—I didn’t write anything down. Next up is another book by the author of Starting Over called
I went and tried out a Uyghur restaurant in Ueno,
I have been looking for the Japanese equivalent of NPR’s Books We Love but haven’t managed to find one. Of course, there are bestseller lists, but those aren’t curated. I have found some recommendation lists too, but they still aren’t curated as nicely as NPR’s list, which slices and dices books across multiple categories and not just genre. The best I’ve managed to find so far is 話題の本.com.
I went and saw Princess Principal: Crown Handler 4. Overall, I think I would’ve been happier if I hadn’t had to wait so long for it to come out; hopefully the 5th movie comes out sooner rather than later.
Chipped my tooth today when I hit a curb a bit fast on my bicycle. It turns out going to the emergency dentist and getting it checked out and patched cost…2390 yen.
]]>I found another source for evaporated milk: it turns out Gyomu Super does carry it. Either it was out of stock the last time I looked, or I simply overlooked it.
I finished Bo-young Kim’s On the Origin of Species and Other Stories. On the whole I think I preferred her previous collection I’m Waiting for You, but this one was still pretty enjoyable. My favorite was the first story, “Scripter”, a sort of isekai parody.
After Googling her on a whim, it turns out Harumi Chihiro has announced a new series! It’s to serialize in Honbunsha’s Shuukan Manga Times starting in April, and it’s called “Ichiru no Nozomi” (
The sakura have started blooming. It’s still early, I’d say the progress is only about 5%.
]]>failed: unlazy force execution: failed to load LLB:
security.insecure is not allowed, then all you need to do is use earthly -P
or earthly --allow-privileged. The log output explains this later but if
you’re like me and fixate on the error message, Google doesn’t find anything
helpful.]]>I’m surprised that domestic Japanese flights do not check your ID! Just scan your boarding pass and go. Unthinkable as an American.
The cheese shop was nice enough to pack my purchase in a cooler bag with an ice pack so I could take it on the plane without worries. It’s
If you’re using Apache Spark with Apache Hive and trying to configure S3 and Minio and it is hanging/stalling/stuck, remember to set path-style access!
I finally realized I could use the fish grill to roast vegetables, instead of needing a full oven. It doesn’t quite heat evenly, but otherwise works fine.
I’ve finally found “real” yogurt in Japan. It’s seemingly only available at Seijo Ishii, is called “Rich the Yogurt”, and is about 10% fat, just like the Cabot greek yogurt that I adored back home. It feels and tastes about right so I hope this isn’t a limited time thing!
Other things different about Japan: usually when you use your card online, you get a code over SMS that you have to type in. It does make the shopping experience feel a bit safer.
]]>Summarizing the Wikipedia article about the phrase, it first appeared on a blog in 2016. Parents end up getting stuck on the waitlist for admission to preschool/childcare, despite applying early. Officially, the problem has gone down, though. As I recall, the problem is indirectly referenced in SAHARA Mizu’s My Girl as well, when the single father Masamune suddenly has to deal with finding childcare after not realizing he needed to apply early for preschool. (I might have mixed it up with another series, though.)
Incidentally, both of those series are good reads—definitely go check them out.
Aka
As with tourism in Japan in general, everything is overrun (of course, I’m part of that crowd). That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t get into restaurants or get good photos; it just means some waiting, or going out of your way or at different times. I had excellent soft serve (what I mean is: creamier, and with a very pronounced “dairy” taste—the only time I’ve had that in the US is when Morganstern’s in NYC had a “raw milk” flavor) at Machimura Nojo Farm Odori which is literally right next to Odori Park, and I never had trouble getting a seat—I just went after dinner. Other dessert spots have been similarly empty. Maybe the
Most of the Hatsune Miku merchandise I wanted was sold out by the time I got to it. It annoys me that a lot of these vendors don’t have online sales—the gatekeeping is infuriating. Can’t/don’t want to show up and stand in line for a couple hours? Then you’re not a real fan, apparently. This made my day in Otaru a bit of a pain, because it was a choice between lining up all day for different booths vs actually being able to see the city. In the end, I grabbed some merch for friends, wandered around to take photos, then left for Otaru proper. (Protip: don’t walk from the mall to Otaru, just get back on the JR.)
Miku Sky Town in New Chitose Airport had quite a bit of merch as well, along with a little vocaloid history exhibit and a 1:1 scale Snow Miku stand. Just remember it’s before security, not after!
Getting pictures of the Miku tram has been a fun experience, particularly when I happen to spot it coming by. My main joy/frustration has been my choice of gear. I have an Olympus (now OM System) O-MD E-M10 MkII (Micro Four Thirds) with a TTArtisan 35mm (70mm equivalent) f/1.4 lens. The lens is a bit heavy, which makes walking around with it in my bag annoying when there’s also my laptop. (I wish I had chosen a smaller/lighter laptop.) Moreover, it’s fully mechanical, so I have to focus it by hand, and I am new to this and don’t always get it right. Focus peaking and zoom help, but the camera does not always show focus peaking highlights, particularly when dark (though presumably the autofocus would also struggle in those situations?).
The bigger problem is the focal length; the crop factor means that the lens is way too zoomed in. Sometimes that actually helps: when I spotted the Miku tram coming once, I crossed the street, and the 70mm focal length meant I could still get decent shots. (The camera is only 16MP so zooming by cropping in post only goes so far.) And when I wandered around the Snow Festival the night before opening and saw they were testing the Snow Miku light show, again the 70mm lens was enough zoom to get good shots. But otherwise for most things it’s just too much, and I wish I had gotten the 50mm equivalent (which was much more expensive).
Yes, this is all a skill issue.
I am not good enough at photography to really justify new gear. I have a 20mm (40mm equivalent) f/1.7 lens that I stupidly left at home, and the 14-42mm kit lens, both of which have autofocus, but the manual lens is more fun…More importantly a better bag would be useful, since the shoulder bag is a bit of a pain when it gets heavy, even though I like the form factor when walking around casually. Ideally I’d like a totepack that can handle a laptop, camera, umbrella, and drink, plus misc items (tissues, charging cables, battery pack); normally I wouldn’t carry most of that and could carry it over the shoulder, and when fully loaded I’d put it on my back.
Some restaurants I’ve enjoyed:
I bought a manual lens since it was cheap and have been trying to figure it out. Some notes from a newbie:
Blake’s Hard Cider (from Michigan) is now being imported to Japan. It wasn’t my favorite cider, but it’s nice to get something from “home”!
I have gotten a bit faster at reading Japanese, I think: I finally finished
As always, I would like to write more in the future. 2023 and 2024 ended up with me not really writing public blog posts or doing talks due to work, and I hope to change that. (That includes here, the company blog, and the Arrow blog.)
I spruced up the theme here. The background color may be a bit too aggressive; maybe I’ll continue tuning it. (Can you guess the theme?)
In lieu of a reflection post I’ll offer some things I liked reading in 2024, in no particular order. (I read a lot due to multiple struggles with sleeplessness in 2023 and 2024.)
I finally found condensed milk: it was at National Azabu, an explicitly expat-focused supermarket. The wine person there (an American?) said he had tried to get the market to import apple cider (the American variety: unprocessed pressed apple juice, non-alcoholic) before, but it was too expensive to be worthwhile. (Figures: it needs to be refrigerated, does not keep well, and is heavy.)
]]>Well, I’m back from an attempt to cycle the Shimanami Kaido. This trip didn’t quite work out…
Oh well! Matsuyama was quite nice, and the taxi driver was certainly an unusual tourist experience. Iwakuni would probably have been prettier two weeks later once the fall foliage really came in, and it was a bit dreary in the rain, but it still came out well in photos.
COMITIA150 was quite tiring, but fun; in the future I’m not sure I’ll go so religiously, but we’ll see. The main goal was to see SENGOKU Hiroko and deliver her a fanletter, along with delivering some gifts to a few authors and asking YATOSAKI Haru for an autograph, all of which I managed. Everything else was just a bonus.
I wasn’t expecting Yatosaki-sensei & co to remember me as “the guy who asked on Twitter about sashiire”…guess maybe that’s a bit unusual?
The Rakuen le Paradis exhibition featured basically some commentary (illustrated as manga) from a variety of authors. HARUMI Chihiro was notably absent again, but SHIMA Tokio notes she first started work because an editor of Rakuen introduced themselves at a doujin event, which I suppose makes sense though I hadn’t ever considered that happening before.
It seems Sengoku-sensei was happy about the letter(s) she received, judging from her Twitter. I hope she liked mine…
After checking Gyomu Super, Seiji Ishii, and Kaldi, I still cannot find evaporated milk, only condensed…
It turns out even in your first year in Japan, you can use furusato nozei to pay down your residence tax burden. After running things through a calculator, I now need to figure out how to use this before next year…
Autumn is still not quite here in Tokyo; it seems the gingko have changed, but the maple are still in the process.
Getting a Rakuten Card (credit card) was apparently pretty easy, given they approved me just a few hours after I applied.
]]>