A selection of photos taken with film cameras while living in Japan (round 2). Most of these are with my new-ish half-frame Olympus Pen EE-3.
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A big birthday on the Peak of the Balkans Trail
I’m not sure if you’re anything like me, but my belief is a birthday is the perfect opportunity to ask for something you might not normally ask for. For me, I can’t think of a time that has meant a tangible “thing” per se, but more often has meant that I feel a little extra inspired to ask Kev to do something with me that he might normally need a little more convincing of but because it was something I asked for on my special day, he feels more reluctant to outright pass on. While he’s almost always game for anything I throw at him, I can rattle off a number of birthday “adventures” in the recent past that he might not have immediately jumped up-and-down about at first, but ended up loving in the end. I also have to note that even if parts of the adventure become “type 2″ fun event at some point, that is 98% almost always still the case 😂 Needless to say, this birthday was no different!
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Christmas and New Years in Australia
I must admit (because Lindsay keeps reminding me) that I wasn’t super excited about traveling to Australia over the holidays. I don’t really know why I wasn’t excited, it’s possible it just felt like a hassle, or that we’d been moving around a lot (we’d done lots of trips in November around Tokyo). There was a lot of planning and transportation and such that went into the trip and it just felt like a lot. In the end, the trip was amazing and I have very warm / fuzzy feelings every time I think about it.
The trip had roughly four phases:
- Cairns and a live-aboard, diving the great barrier reef for three days
- Sydney
- Driving and camping from Sydney down to Melbourne over Xmas
- Melbourne
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Somedays I Did Not Make the Most out of Living in Tokyo (and getting a year older)
One day I woke up in what, to me, is one of the greatest and most exciting cities in the world. I walked Lindsay to the train station and saw her off on a week long vacation to Thailand. At that point from around 7:15AM onwards I had complete freedom to do almost anything I could imagine in Tokyo. Practically speaking I had no constraints on my time or money, plus I was healthy and energetic.
But, I chose to spend the day sitting in the same room I sit every day, working on an electronics hobby project and trying to figure out how to make two little LEDs blink. I worked at this until lunch time, at which point I did not go out and explore some new neighborhood in Tokyo nor did I eat ramen or sushi at a delicious lately restaurant. I ate the same thing I eat (most) every day, a bowl of oatmeal with homemade yogurt. Then I worked on the blinking lights the rest of the day until the evening, at which point I went out to Matsuya, a chain beef and rice bowl place a 10 minute walk away, had the cheese beef rice bowl.
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Walking Across Tokyo Metro South to North and West to East
I completed a Tokyo bucket list item that I feel was a mild accomplishment and wanted to post a few details about it.
When we were moving to Tokyo, before we left Michigan, I thought it could be cool to walk across the entire breath and width of Tokyo’s Metropolitan area as a way to get a feel for what Tokyo was in terms of size. “What do the edges of the Tokyo metro area feel like?” I thought. It just felt like a nice thing to do.
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Bali, Indonesia (and some great airport food in Kuala Lumpur)
I’ve read a lot about Bali on reddit in the “digital nomad” community the past few years. Especially since COVID and the explosion of work from home one of the prevailing themes of discussion is the country has been overrun with wannabe influencers and scammy startups. The cynic in me assumed that this was going to be the case, but that turned out to only be part of my experience.
It turns out a lot of popular destinations do indeed feel overrun with people specifically there to take selfies, but the island is so incredibly beautiful that it largely made up for that.
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A real vacation in Cebu, Philippines, (briefly) visiting mainland China, and what’s the point of it all?
I occasionally wonder what sort of value traveling has to me at this point in my life. I’m not sure the best way to word this because it’s not really a concrete thought and it’s not even a serious question, but essentially when I look at the limited resources in my life (primarily: money and time) I wonder if one day in the future I’ll look back and say, “you know, I really should have skipped some of the trips and spent more time <investing in friendships / developing hobbies / doing an intensive language course / watching TV / etc>.” When I’m old and decrepit will the memories I make bring me warm feelings and a smile, a feeling of contentment with a life (reasonably) well lived?
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Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macau… except not Shanghai
Tickets back home to Michigan over Xmas were too expensive this year which meant Lindsay and I had to figure out what to do to maximize our time together over the holiday break.
To be honest I would have probably stayed in Japan and spent our modest budget visiting a new region or city or something, but Lindsay really wanted to go somewhere totally new and tickets were reasonably cheap to Shanghai, China – unfortunately the tourist visa was something like $185 USD and took a long time to process… BUT you can get a transit visa for 144 hours as long as you are flying through China somewhere else. In other words, you can’t book a trip Tokyo -> China -> Tokyo and qualify for a transit visa but you CAN book a trip Tokyo -> China -> Hong Kong -> Tokyo. So this is what we booked.
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Tokyogurt: Part One – New Beginnings
This is, obviously, a bit of a different topic than my normal travel related updates, but I wanted to write in this blog a bit more often. My primary motivation is simply that I think I should write more than I do in general – too much consumption, not enough generation.
Most of my early yogurt making memories come from my Mom. She used (maybe still uses?) quart jars filled with milk and put under a towel with a heating pad (the type you use for a sore back) underneath the jars. From what I remember this always worked really well. I actually wonder now why we didn’t do this all the time, I feel like it was a “few times a year” thing.
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The first 4ish months living in Tokyo: A shorter post, probably, or at least fewer photos
We have officially been in Tokyo for four and a half months now. I wanted to record a bit about how the move went and how things are going on in this still relatively early stage of our life here – last time we moved to Japan I didn’t actually post anything until we were fairly close to leaving and I think it’s possible I missed some of the details from early on.
When we landed in Japan this time around I felt quite a bit different than last. I’ve developed a sort of constant (perceived) life-GPS or “grounded-ness” that made it impossible for me to feel that my life had totally changed when we stepped out of the airport. I still feel like me, just in Japan. That might not make sense but in the not-so-distant past I remember arriving to a new place and having an out-of-body feeling that took a LONG time to go away. This was disorienting but on the plus side, very exciting and in ways intoxicating. That said I felt (and still feel four+ months on) very very happy, you might say “joyful” when we got out of the airport.
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We’re (probably not) moving to Tokyo (edit: ok, actually we are)
Warning: This will be more of a high school emo style blog post without a lot of photos, so set your expectations accordingly!
Note: if you’re reading this, either we’ve decided to move to Tokyo, or it’s been weeks or months since this discussion came up and we’ve decided not to and the thought has been well put to bed. I’m writing this for myself, to process my thoughts / feelings and document them for the next time this type of life changing issue comes up.
Two weeks ago Lindsay got a “cold call” from a quality international school in Tokyo, Japan asking her to interview for a middle school position that starts in August of this year (roughly three months time). They had found her resume in a hiring pool from a job she had applied to a long time ago and reached out randomly and without prompting. This was totally out of the blue, and unexpected, and pretty “world rocking” to be honest. To be clear, we had absolutely zero plans on moving to Japan, or even visiting Japan this year, BUT… Tokyo! One of the worlds great cities! Japan! Curry! Onsen! Sento! Beautiful mountains and streams and Hokkaido in the fall! Easy access to Korea and Vietnam! Etc.
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A Longer Stay in CDMX – Mexico City (plus Tolantongo and Cozumel)
Lindsay and I spent a bit of time in Mexico City a few years ago – roughly a week I think. We went there a few days after the Christmas holiday and were there for New Years Eve. It was a really wonderful trip, and I think Lindsay and I both were pleasantly surprised by the “ease” we felt there. We decided at the time to add a longer return trip (if the opportunity should present itself!) to Mexico City (henceforth CDMX) onto our travel TODO list.
Last year when we were planing our 2023 travel plans we decided it would be a good time to head back, this time, for a bit over a month and a half. The timing was almost exactly the same as before except we found a cheaper flight New Years Eve so arrived in CDMX on the 1st of January.
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How to remove your appendix in Argentina (via Brazil) for only $4,403.23
Our first “big” international trip after moving to Michigan was a two parter: a week in Rio de Janeiro with our mates Kevin and Sabrina, followed by roughly 5 weeks in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It had been roughly 2 years since Lindsay and I had left the UK (between then of course moving to California, then back to Michigan) and we’d done zero international travel during that period. This was largely due to COVID, but also just all of the general life stuff happening. It was honestly a bit weird taking an international flight after that stretch and arriving at an airport in Rio.
Fresh off the plane in sunny Rio! The thing that sort of hit me is both how out of place I felt arriving in a new country, but also how comfortable and “normal” it felt. Unfortunately the “normal” part I don’t mean in a “I’m so cool and used to travel” sort of way, but more in a “I am sadly slightly less excitable when it comes to arriving in airports in new places.” I’d say I felt somewhat “shocked” actually, like “wow, I’m in this amazing new country, but I don’t feel that much different.” Again, this isn’t exactly a good thing, it’s just how I felt.
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Back to Michigan to buy a house
If you didn’t read the previous post about our time living back in California, the tl;dr; is that we left California both for family but also because we decided as much as we love the Bay, we wanted to live somewhere less expensive, with more fresh air, and with a bit of a slower, “chiller” vibe.
No matter were we are living we always feel a draw to our families. This is both amazing, and difficult. It’s great because we love our families, and we’re incredibly lucky to have such amazing people in our lives we genuinely love spending time with. On the flip side, no matter where we live we always feel at least a bit unsettled because we are often so far away from family. SO, when we left California to try something new part of our decision about moving back to Michigan was because of the opportunity to establish a home base near family. This was an intentional choice designed to help future proof our lifestyle, provide security, and also allow us to both be near family but also in our own space.
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We lived in Oakland, California, again
I think if we had said aloud, “We want to stay in the UK for another year, we will figure out a way to make it work”, we would have done just that and very possibly been in the UK to this day still. But that’s not what happened!
Sometimes I ask Lindsay, “why was it we ever left York?” We always have to talk about it for a few minutes before we remember what it was like at the time we made the decision – Lindsay had no more classes or “purpose” in the UK, we hadn’t been home in roughly a year, and the pandemic made the future seem uncertain (In the last post I wrote about living in the UK I touch on this a bit, but barely.). And so, Lindsay decided to start applying for jobs and (semi)unexpectedly ended up getting a job back in San Francisco, and so our next move was decided! I really do think we could have just stayed put in York and lived there happily ever after.
Instead, we left and made a short stop over at our family homes in Michigan before moving back out West to California – Oakland specifically.
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A few random film photos from the past few years
The ones of people that regularly read this blog likely are aware that I have a film camera to take most photos these days. That isn’t saying a lot really, I don’t actually take that many photos nor is my heart quite in it the same way it was back in university days. That said, I wanted to post a few random photos from the past few years as I just recently FINALLY was able to go through and scan my film photos from our time living in the UK.
The photos from Japan I actually have had on Flickr for about a year now – there was a photo store in the mall in Koryo ( エコール マミ ) called Kitamura and I was able to cheaply get all of my film developed there. When I moved to York, I had a few last rolls of film from Japan to develop and there was York Camera Mart that was great. Unfortunately because of covid, I wasn’t able to developed most of the film I shot in the York so ended up developing the rest of it in San Jose when I moved out to California (where we live now – Oakland!).
Anyway, here are some photos.
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Living in York in the United Kingdom during COVID-19
I don’t get really really sad all that often, but last night and today I’ve been pretty bummed out. Last night, Sunday May 10th, Boris gave an update about measures and next steps being taken in the UK to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The tl;dr; for me is that the country is not opening up (much) again anytime in the near future. My family, who was planning to come for almost an entire month in June, will almost certainly not be coming (this already seemed fairly unlikely, but I was holding out up). Lindsay and I will more than likely not visit another restaurant, museum, coffee shop, library, or pub while living in this wonderful country. We won’t visit Ireland or Northern Ireland. People we are just really starting to get to know and form friendships with we likely won’t see again before we leave.
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Three and a half weeks working and traveling between Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, and London, and an analysis of working while backpacking
For the month of December Lindsay and I decided to take advantage of the long break Lindsay had from school between classes and the semi-flexible work schedule I have by spending (most of) the month “backpacking.” We actually JUST arrived home last night around 8:30PM.
I’d say the theme of this trip was “work a lot.” Honestly this isn’t a complaint or a problem, in a way this was a “bucket list” item for me – doing the “romantic” backpacker thing all while working a reasonably stressful and high-intensity full time job. In ways it’s a dream, because I could, in theory, continue to travel indefinitely like we did in December throughout Europe and live out of backpacks and hostels, seeing the world all while maintaining an income. I now at least have some idea of what that would feel like (as opposed to long term travel WITHOUT jobs, which of course is something we have a lot more experience with).
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Moving to the United Kingdom (York!)
edit: After writing most of this blog post, I realized that I didn’t provide much context about why we’re moving to the UK. Long story short, while in Japan Lindsay decided that it was about time to get a masters degree. After months of researching different graduate programs, Lindsay narrowed it down to a program in Vermont at Marlboro College in Vermont, and the University of York in York, England. The University of York ended up feeling like a better fit for what Lindsay was looking for, so we decided that was the next place for us to move after Japan.
Back to the States
Moving home from Japan ended up being a fairly tiring endeavour, but we did it in two full days (a bit more really as we left on Saturday in Japan and had the benefit of gaining a number of hours on the way back to the States).
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Tonight is the last night in our Japanese apartment
The past several YEARS of updates have often been written out of necessity (wanting to capture / record memories so we can look back and remember some details about the things we’ve done) more than because I had a strong urge to say something, and they’ve been long, and most importantly they’ve been very untimely.
But today, I wanted to do something slightly different and post an update as something is happening. As soon as I post this blog post, I will shut my laptop, go into the laundry area, unplug the SoftBank Hikari router and NTT fiber modem, put them in a pre-addressed box I have sitting next to me, walk to 15 minutes down the street to the post office, and send them back to their respective companies. Soon after that, the water company will come to our apartment and shut off the water. Then Lindsay will be coming home from her LAST day teaching English in Japan, saying her last goodbyes to teachers and friends at school. We’ll spend most of the rest of the evening finishing packing and cleaning. We’ll then sleep our very last night in our apartment in 広陵町, Japan, and tomorrow (likely after a morning trip to the local onsen and a final walk together through the rice fields behind our apartment) we’ll head to the Kansai International Airport (KIX) to start the long trip home.
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