234 - The One About Japan 🗾
Hey there, !
I went to Japan. There's too many things to write about so instead here are a selection of highlights and thoughts :D
- Cherry blossom hunting is so fun! We had a great time lining up to get into Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo and seeing ALL the cherry blossoms - my gosh they were so dense and we were so lucky that the blossoms were a bit late this year. The forecasts seemed to say they were early, but we were RIGHT on time. Absolutely fortuitous timing for this Rooster (Year of the ROOSTER BAYBEE).
- TeamLab Borderless was, as always, a fantastic experience. Have been to the one in Singapore, but they're always different. We got the shots, and the teahouse hidden in the back had some really cool projection stuff in it too - highly recommended! We walked around that place for like 2 hours and still missed stuff HAHA
- The Tsukiji Outer Market was a fantastic place for street food. We had, in no particular order: wagyu beef with uni, a corn prawn dog thing, some prawn cakes, some tuna sashimi, an orange soda that had the whole orange on top of it (which they hollow out in front of you to dump the guts into the drink), and this lobster cracker thing that you see below. I saw people walking around with it and was like I GOTTA FIND IT - it was super crunchy and textural - my FAV.
- Steph heard about a tonkatsu sando place one day that did these large sandwiches which was really fun to try - and everyone writes on the walls as well. We bumped into some people from Sydney who were there based on the EXACT same insta post that Steph had seen. What we wrote was 'The Leung Family was here' hahahaha
- Kobe beef from Kobe - in a teppanyaki style, one of the more expensive meals that I had on the trip, and absolutely DELICIOUS. It was so rich, but the set course menu was really well done. The most reverence I had seen for a meal where all the people I went with were absolutely enraptured by the sight of the chef just cutting the beef we had ordered. The perfect melt in your mouth tenderness 🤤
- Ghibli Park in Nagoya! A wonderful theme(d) park - no rides or anything, but lots of places for photo ops (like the one below at the back of the cat bus!). There were LOTS of lines (like for no-face) which we couldn't be stuffed waiting around for, but some of the sets and areas were really fun! We got there a little late in the afternoon so didn't have too much time to see everything, but we covered a lot of ground! There's a exclusive Ghibli short they screen there as well which was super fun.
- Mario Kart in Osaka - absolute peak experience absolutely GUNNING IT in one of these go karts down one of the main streets in Osaka, and feeling like a car could take you out so freakin' easily. We were stopped a Dotonbori which made me feel a lot of that 'dude in a car riding around town' energy - I feel like I get it, even though I was dressed in an alien onesie and in a small go-kart? :D
- Finding things like this:
Can't wait to go back again!!
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
-
Suzume - from Makoto Shinkai who also did Your Name. The story is okay, and the meanings are very on the nose - very much a coming of age story, striking out by yourself, drawing links to all the lonely places in Japan now that people have abandoned them etc. - but the animation is GORGEOUS like wow animation has really developed so well in Japan. There were seamless 2d in 3d elements that I really loved. Highly recommended!
-
New York Perfect Cheese - from Japan. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but it's actually kinda delicious? It was a very unique snack that Steph recommended and it tastes kinda nice! It smells like a lunchable (lol) but tastes quite refined. Really interesting cheesy flavour - recommended!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
-
Remembering Daniel Kahneman: A Mosaic of Memories and Lessons - imagine having such an impact on the world. A titan of his field, even if there are replication crises in psychology, it's still lovely to hear such obituaries and the impact he's had on the world. Should probably read Thinking Fast and Slow in remembrance.
-
Seasons of Glass and Iron - I found out that the author of one of my favourite recent finds This is how you lose the Time War also wrote this beautiful short story. A tale of two girls who meet and have to deal with the curses placed on them. Really lovely prose!
-
Raising kids on the eve of AI - an interesting perspective to be thinking about