what I have done in 2025
Here are some things I’ve done this year.
- returned from a trip to Japan
japan trip
— Mentioned in what I'm doing now #7, what I'm doing now #8, what I have done in 2025For Christmas and New Years, I went to Japan with my wife Z, my mom, my older sister, her boyfriend, and my younger sister.
Daily Log
Saturday 12/21/2024 / Sunday 12/22/2024 – Tokyo, first time at an izakaya
- Z & I flew @ 12:45pm directly from Vancouver (YVR) -> Tokyo (NRT)
- Z slept while the rest of us ate at a nearby izakaya (drinks, raw tuna, cheese pancakes, potato croquettes, chicken karaage, etc.)
- chocolate ice cream bar at 7 Eleven on the way back to the hotel
Z & I flew with Air Canada. We upgraded to Premium Economy to avoid being stuck in a couple of middle seats. It was expensive, but it made our flight much better. I spent the whole flight reading and writing. I read the first 150 pages of Normal People and
wrote about it, pausing only to eat meals. I couldn’t believe it when it was announced that we were beginning our descent.
Monday 12/23/2024 – Tokyo, a day of shopping
- solo coffee nearby while Z & my family ate breakfast at the hotel
- together took train to Shibuya City, then ate at a good conveyor belt sushi restaurant
- solo flat white @ The Roastery by Nozy Coffee on Cat Street
- solo browse MoMA Design Store & other boutiques, bought tea towel from Hay
- solo walk thru Shibuya, fatigued from jetlag, got another coffee
- solo browsed robe store but did not find what I wanted
- with group again, bought hoodie @ Carhartt Work In Progress store
- bought shoes and slides @ Hoka store
- visit Tadao Ando’s public bathroom in Jingū-dōri Park, which was featured in the movie Perfect Days
- Shibuya crossing! then very spicy ramen at a place with weird vibes
I had severe allergies until the early evening. This happens to me whenever I travel somewhere new. In 2017 I went to Europe for the first time and I spent the first full day sneezing and oozing. Same thing this time in Tokyo for the first 24 hours. Reactine didn’t seem to make a difference, just had to wait it out.
Tuesday 12/24/2024 – Tokyo
- arrived at Disney Sea @ 12pm
- rode on lots of rides, walked a lot, listened to Disney Xmas carollers
- subpar pizza & pasta in Little Venice
- explored the rest of the park, rode on more rides, fought jetlag
- left @ 9pm, closing time
The architecture and spatial planning of the theme park was really impressive. It seemed like every corner we rounded we encountered another stridebreaking view of the park. It reminded me of the architectural tactic of constraining the height and width of hallways to reinforce the impact of emerging into a bigger space. It’s a method that’s been employed by Tadao Ando of Osaka and other famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright.
Wednesday 12/25/2024 – Tokyo
- solo walk through the Shimbashi area getting a couple of coffees
- Z & I explored Ebisu on foot, stopping at a puppy store and a pharmacy
- cocktails @ bar EAS MOR, which had great atmosphere
- visited mall briefly, then dinner @ Toki Taruza withe everyone
- 7 Eleven for snacks on the way to the hotel
Thursday 12/26/2024 – Tokyo -> Takayama
- get two flat whites from INCredible Coffee
- took bullet train @ 1pm to Takayama via Nagoya
- dinner at a nice sushi restaurant
- fell asleep by 9pm, finally cured my jetlag
Tokyo station was huge and very busy. It felt like being in a beehive. It took me and Z a while to figure out how to pick up our tickets. One machine gave us an error message but then we tried a machine in a different section and it worked. Then we circled through the masses, trying to figure out which screen listed our train’s platform. When we finally found it, we struggled to pass through the gate. Z put in the two tickets as the ticket machine had instructed but that wasn’t enough. We had a confusing interaction with a worker there, who we finally understood was saying to scan our IC card after inserting the tickets. We made it through and with thirty minutes left until departure time, we lined up to buy food and drinks to take onto the train. It’s good we came an hour early.
Friday 12/27/2024 – Takayama
- while Z had breakfast at the hotel, I walked into town and had coffee @ Brand New Day and then @ Hids’ Cafe
- at Miyagawa Morning Markets we bought a beef bun, a fridge magnet, two pairs of chopsticks, and two ceramic mugs
- pop into a cutlery store and then have lunch & coffee @ Ember coffee in beautiful 150+ yearold house
- walk up hill to Shoren-ji Temple, enjoying the snowy scenery
- back in town, stop at stationery store
- I bought a yukata at a kimono store
- dinner @ ramen restaurant
- incredible cocktails @ Yu
- thirty minutes in a private onsen w/ Z at the hotel
This was one of the best days of the trip.
Saturday 12/28/2024 – Takayama -> Shirakawago -> Kanazawa
- solo walk over fresh snow into town for coffee @ Falò Coffee Brewers, then got cash from post office ATM, then coffee @ Ember, before returning to hotel
- we took the bus to Shirakawago
- delicious snacks and drinks from window shop on street
- walk through village, across pedestrian bridge over the river, to the museum, and then back
- coffees & Baum stick
- we took the bus to Kanazawa, then food & drinks @ Pari King nearby
- beer & instant ramen in the hotel room
Sunday 12/29/2024 – Kanazawa
- Z & I had breakfast & coffee at Isotope Coffee, a beautiful space
- solo stroll through town listening to music and taking pictures
- drank coffee and wrote about Normal People
at Townsfolk Coffee
- Z met me and we walked north through Omigi Market for dinner at a fine dining restaurant called Barrier
- we walked through the Higashi Chaya District
- Z went to the Kanzawa Forus mall and I sat at a small pub to read Normal People & drink beer
- we had cocktails at Furansu Cocktail Bar, which bartender at Yu in Takayama had recommended
- bites and drinks at Izakaya Hanagumi
- spent the rest of the night at Donuts Music Bar
Monday 12/30/2024 – Kanazawa
- breakfast & coffee at Moron Cafe
- visit beautiful Samurai house with an exquisite garden and a small gallery of artifacts
- coffee @ Townsfolk Coffee, then a brief stop at a combini store
- walk through to Oyama Shrine, through gardens, up to Kanazawa Castle ruins, down past Kenroku-en Garden
- Z took the bus to the Kanzawa Forus mall and I walked through Shiinoki Green Space back to the hotel
- I rested & read Normal People in the room
- met Z for dinner nearby, but Love For All’s kitchen was closed so we went to The Cottage
- stop at Lawson, then back to hotel
Tuesday 12/31/2024 – Kanazawa -> Tokyo
- tax to train station, where we ate and waited for our train
- arrived in Tokyo, train to Shimbashi, checked back into the hotel
- rested a couple hours at the hotel
- dinner @ Daigo, a fancy Shojin restaurant
- karaoke @ Big Echo
A thunderstorm began while we were in a taxi on the way to the Kanazawa train station. Flashes of lightning so bright I thought for a moment our driver had run a red light and triggered a super powerful automated stoplight camera. We tried a coffee shop near the train station but it was closed for New Years, which is the biggest national holiday in Japan. Train station was full of stores and flooded with white overhead lighting. Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift playing in the overhead speakers. We sat in Tully’s Coffee lounge with our bags piled around our ankles. On the far wall a horribly sappy and nonsensical marketing poem for & Tea. I felt like I could be in any other manufactured commercial center around the world. Soulless places like these often have this sort interchangeability, lack of identity. Being there, it doesn’t feel like you’re in an actual place. You’re just temporarily detained in a massproduced commercial limbo.
Grateful to be back in the sun.
Wednesday 01/01/2024 – Tokyo
- coffee & breakfast @ Starbucks
- visit fancy mall where teamLABS is
- watched Gladiator II @ 109 Cinemas
- ramen dinner nearby
It was certainly a mistake to visit Japan in the first few days of January. As noted all over the internet, New Years is Japan’s major national holiday and many things close not only on the first but for a week. I’m sure Z would’ve determined this if we had been more involved in planning the trip. Lesson learned, I suppose.
Thursday 01/02/2024 – Tokyo
- visit various neighborhoods including Gakugei-daigaku, Naka-meguro, & Ebisu
- visited two more Tokyo Toilet locations, designed by Masamichi Katayama & Kashiwa Satō
- incredible sushi @ Standing Sushi Nemuro Hanamaru in Ginza
- shop @ UNIQLO Flagship store
- cocktails @ La France in Ginza
Friday 01/03/2024 – Tokyo
- visit Tokyo National Museum
- lunch & coffee there
- Hello Kitty special exhibition and gift shop
- visit Senso-ji temple w/ Z
- solo walk in Asakusa area
- dinner w/ my friend H @ Monja Shichigosan then drinks at nearby pub
I had
mixed feelings about the museum. Or, I don’t know, maybe I just needed a meal. Or a better sleep. Or to feel like I chose to go there. Or to have had a period earlier in the day where I’d gotten to direct my attention to things of my choosing. Or a period to produce something, so that I might be in a more
absorptive mood. That certainly makes me feel better about socializing aimlessly in the evening, when I feel like I’ve done something productive with my day.
Saturday 01/04/2024 – Tokyo
- solo coffee & journaling @ City Bakery
- teppanyaki dinner w/ my mom on top floor of mall in Ginza
- visit the teamLAB Borderless Digital Art Museum
The Digital Art Museum was really cool. It was a dark maze on the bottom floor of a fancy mall where myriad projectors shone moving patterns and images of light on walls, floors, and ceilings. This by itself might’ve been a gimmicky socialmedia tourist trap, but embedded throughout the large labyrinthine gallery were rooms where sculptural elements combined with light, music, and mirrors to create surreal experiences.
Sunday 01/05/2024 – Tokyo -> Vancouver
- check out but leave bags at hotel
- solo cortado from Brooklyn Roasters in Ginza
- solo browse flea market & buy orange tinted glass to use for cappuccinos at home
- pick up bags at hotel and take train to Narita
- flew directly @ 6pm from Tokyo (NRT) -> Vancouver (YVR)
My intention was to browse Hands and Itoya in Ginza, but I came across the flea market when I stopped for coffee by Ginza station. There were dozens of stalls selling ceramics, porcelain, kimonos, jackets, bluedyed fabrics, and so on. The orange tinted glass I bought was only 400 yen, less than three dollars in USD, and I could see it selling for tens times the amount at trendy stores in the USA and Canada. I’m still sour about going to the East Vancouver “Flea Market” to find they charge an admission fee and sell priced up secondhand and vintagestyled clothing.
with Z and my family
- watched The Brutalist in theatres with my friend D
- watched Punch-Drunk Love at home alone
- did a late Xmas gift exchange with friends in Seattle
- visited family and friends in Victoria
- watched A Different Man at home alone
- watched Interstellar at home with Z
- watched A Complete Unknown in theatres with my mom and younger sister
- read The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy
- went skiing with Z and our friends at Mt Baker
- read The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan
- went to a few Whitecaps games with friends
- found a great new apartment for Z in East Vancouver
- got a great console table for Z’s apartment
- went skiing with Z @ Cypress in Vancouver
- watched seasons one and two of Severance at home with Z
- watched season three of The White Lotus at home alone and sometimes with friends
- attended Ziwe talk hosted by Shad about What It Means to Be “American”
- watched The Big Lebowski
- renewed my passport
- read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- hosted Z’s childhood friend H in Vancouver
- watched Mickey 17 in theatres with friends
- watched Saturday Night at home with Z
- hosted my mom in Vancouver
- hosted our friends K & C in Vancouver
- watched The Pitt at home alone
- got nice, cheap meditation pillows for extra living room seating when many people come over to Z’s apartment
- figured out my complex tax situation
- listened to audiobook Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
- submitted immigration paperwork to protect my permanent resident status
- read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
- rewatched Princess Mononoke with friends in theatres
- watched Sinners with friends in theatres
- watched Past Lives with friends at home
- visited Tofino with my family
- stood up on a surfboard for the first time
- read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
- hosted Z’s childhood friend E in Vancouver
- hosted my childhood friend F in Vancouver
- got a couch to complete living room in Z’s apartment
- read Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
- read four short stories by Flannery O’Connor
- hosted my mom and younger sister in Vancouver
- read Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut
- hosted our friend D in Vancouver
- watched Friendship in theatres with Z and our friend D
- read The Barnhouse Effect by Kurt Vonnegut
- hosted our friends N & K in Vancouver