9 entries
The return to Japan, and almost the opposite trip. Two weeks running for the mountains and the sea: peak-autumn Nikko, a clean Fuji from the bullet train, the floating torii of Miyajima, a rental car driven across the bridges and islands of the Inland Sea, a white castle, a whirlpool strait, and onsen at Hakone. A long, ambitious loop, and the trip where we both got sick on the road and kept going anyway.
Read entry →My first time in Japan, two weeks with Nicholas that ran from the temples and torii of Tokyo out to Kamakura's Great Buddha, west on the Shinkansen to Nara's deer and Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera, and back to the city for Halloween. A dream I'd been pointing at for years, finally real.
Read entry →The last Terrace House we watched, and the last one ever made. We loved this cast, including Hana Kimura, and what happened to her is impossible to write around.
Read entry →A show told twice over: once from a new cat owner's side, once from the cat's. As a guy who lives alone with a black cat, this one landed for me.
Read entry →Going back to the first Netflix Terrace House: the infamous Meat Incident, the studio commentators we loved, and the Tokyo season that started it all.
Read entry →A comfort anime about a few girls camping in the Japanese countryside. I watched it during the early pandemic while learning Japanese, and it made me want to go camp out there myself someday.
Read entry →The second Terrace House Mary and I watched, the sunny Hawaii season. A likeable cast, a house with a pool we both coveted, and a stretch of 2020 we got through an episode at a time.
Read entry →The first Terrace House I ever watched, in the early weeks of 2020. The show that got me through the start of the pandemic, taught my ears some Japanese, and gave me the recommendation that started a friendship.
Read entry →The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, a 24-year-old named Miki Endo who kept broadcasting evacuation warnings until the wave reached her, the hard truth about why you cannot just automate a human voice, and how all of it pulled me toward Japan's earthquake-warning world and a piece of software called jQuake.
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