Greetings from Japan!
First of all, I hope you and yours are well. My family and I are doing fine. As you may or may not know, we moved to Japan about 6 weeks ago to participate in a “study abroad” program on a small island (see the first link from my blog below for details). Thus, I am relaunching the newsletter for the next phase in my writing life.
This newsletter is how I send a short monthly(ish) note to people interested in me and/or my work. Not everyone gets my updates via RSS or Twitter, so this newsletter is a convenient way to get notified of blog updates as well as other interesting tidbits that I curate and share. It has been almost 3 years since I sent an update, so if you are not a recent subscriber, you probably signed up in one of my previous membership drives. I hope you stick around, but if you no longer want to receive updates there is an Unsubscribe link in the footer.
What should you expect from this newsletter?
As I have been blogging for almost 20 years, there has understandably been changes in themes over the years. The last few have been on the intersection of technology and politics. That kind of content might pop up now and again, but likely the next phase will be centered around the book-writing journey, Japanese history and Asian international relations, life on a small island in Japan, and of course lots of photography. I have a number of multimedia projects in the concept phase that I looking forward to producing for you!
In the past 6 weeks I have been fairly quiet online. Of course, COVID-19 has taken over everything, but I have also been working hard in supporting my wife and kids as we went through a funeral and then a national emergency right in the middle of our international move. Below are some personal items from April, which is when I officially left my job. Since then Japan has been under a national (soft) lockdown for nearly a month, and it looks like it will be extended for another month. After being in a holding pattern, we are finally making the move to our small island next week. From then we will have a more permanent living situation (and internet!) and I can become more active.
So, until next month, stay healthy.
Cheerio,
/ck
🖋 From the Blog
The Next Chapter My announcement of leaving my job to come to Japan and work on a book.
Moving to Japan during a pandemic The first 4 weeks in Japan: an international move, a family funeral, and staying in place under coronavirus.
🧭 Elsewhere
We are staying in southwest Kyoto close to farmland, so we have been taking walks through rice fields and visiting mountain temples where it is easy to maintain social distance. As always, you can see my photos on Flickr →
Since we have a car, we could drive some of the normally crowded tourist spots in Kyoto: Driving up Nene-no-michi →
It has only been 4 months but I have almost completed my 2020 reading challenge thanks to the Lockdown. See what I have read this year on Goodreads →