there are many different blogging styles; some people write short daily posts reacting to news they read and whatnot, but i prefer to sporadically write long grandiose semi-autobiographical posts, occasionally integrating brief reviews of stuff i've watched recently or other short rambles as i see fit. this is so i can keep things interesting, both for me and for you, since boring writing is written bored. i won't waste time with any quotidian diary posts like "i went to the store and bought a thing", every post here will try to be at least as interesting as "i accidentally discovered a new species of crustacean" or "i went to an odd restaurant" or "i got marooned on the moon" or "dang the united inflight magazine is kinda wacky", the kind of stuff i might still be recounting/ranting about to people at a bar in ten years. everything here is guaranteed to be at least 90% true, certain details have been changed to protect individuals involved and to make me appear cooler (and my enemies less so).
you might think that after our grueling hike up usui pass to karuizawa, we'd stay the night there. unfortunately, karuizawa is a hot resort destination for japanese tourists and staying there is pretty expensive, plus we had places to be, so we ended up staying the night at a different ka-zawa, kanazawa. "but wait, that is almost 300km away on the other side of two mountain ranges!"...
10.15
it felt like i'd barely done anything in japan before i suddenly found myself rushing back to tokyo to find somewhere else to store my suitcase, i could no longer keep it at my friends' airbnb because they were leaving, which meant that i was officially one month into the trip. i had known since the start that i was going to be playing the long game so i hadn't really been in a hurry to get moving, i didn't really care that i had basically squandered my first twenty days in japan just farting around in tokyo...
10.12
if i had to nominate a "final boss" of japanese towers (if it is not yet clear, i am something of an authority on them), it would be the 大平和祈念塔 (lit. "Great Peace Prayer Tower"), or as i have sometimes seen it called for short, the "PL Tower". for one, it's obscure, it never shows up in sightseeing guides and the local tourism promotion office won't even mention it...
9.26
going back to japan from korea, i did not book my return flight to tokyo like everyone else. instead, i took advantage of the opportunity to conveniently (and cheaply) reposition myself to miyazaki prefecture in kyushu, the southern reaches of japan. there aren’t really any big attractions to entice the run-of-the-mill tourist in far-flung miyazaki, one of japan’s poorest and most remote prefectures, but it did have something i’ve wanted to visit ever since i heard of it...
9.12
while doing some japan mountain research recently, i stumbled upon this interesting fact: mt. takao west of tokyo is the world's most popular mountain, with over 2.5 million annual climbers. i suppose that should come as no surprise considering it's one of the closest hiking spots to the world's most populous metropolis, but it was a little surprising to me because it didn't track at all with my own experience. when i went there the other day with my friends on a whim, it was almost abandoned...
9.3
just prior to my japan trip, i exchanged a couple emails with this guy shibs, who runs a site hosted on neocities called uchuudenpa. i originally reached out because he had a post on his site about travelling in japan that resonated with me, i was trying to approach my upcoming trip with a similar attitude. once i actually arrived in the country, the possibility of a meetup naturally arose in our email chain...
8.28
despite being a loyal alaska airlines flyer for over five years, i've actually never been in any of alaska's airport lounges, the free entry requirements are quite stringent because they really want people to pony up for a day pass or lounge membership. i did try to get in once after getting upgraded to first class...
8.10ok, admittedly this trip is a lot more premeditated than the slightly-sensationalized title makes it seem, it has been in the works for a while and i will be travelling there at the same time as a bunch of my friends, i booked my flight “last minute” because that’s when business class award redemption availability is the best...
8.4
my friend/business partner/former minecraft archnemesis invited me to go to some kind of quasi-family reunion in vegas, he never fails to deliver with these sorts of travel ideas. i've never been to vegas despite multiple attempts, it is obviously an essential destination for an anthropologist of hyperreality, but going there may also be a mistake for me, possibly some divine force has been trying to keep me away from there...
7.10
it's been a while since i’ve gone on a trip with my friend/business partner/former minecraft arch-nemesis, or any trip at all for that matter. despite having few interests in common, our trips together somehow always end up going great, except for that one weird spontaneous road trip to phoenix. i've mentioned this before but it’s good to have a more “normie” friend to stay grounded, and he did not disappoint by insisting that we go on a caribbean cruise...
6.23