There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Despite the fact that I regularly travel to foreign countries, it is not often that I know when I will return, if ever. Japan, on the other hand, tends to be an outlier in this regard — not only do I typically know exactly when I will be returning for my next visit, but I have been to the nation enough times over the years to have begun to build a life there. When I bid Japan farewell before returning to America, each time I have to say my goodbyes to familiar faces and sights that have come to shape a home away from home. As such, these final moments are what shine brightly in my mind each time until my next visit, and perhaps much more brilliantly than in the past, shone my final moments with Usagi during the year’s Golden Week. “November”. Each of my friends, and of course Usagi, knew before I had even left in the spring that November would bring with it my return to Tokyo; November would be a time of reunions and would […]

To many, the work culture of Japan is infamous for the demands it places on its employees. Perhaps it is precisely for this reason then that the country’s “Golden Week” finds itself to be the most anticipated time of the year. Each year between April 29th and May 5th, a series of four national holidays alongside weekend days and cleverly used PTO effectively grants the population roughly a week of holidays. To utilize this time to the fullest, many among the Japanese choose to travel — some making entire family trips out of it — and train stations are packed with excited tourists with luggage in tow. It is for good reason that many travel websites warn foreign tourists to avoid traveling to Japan during Golden Week. Despite their exorbitant rates due to the peak season, hotels are still somehow booked to capacity — often months in advance. Airports are crowded. The Shinkansen (新幹線) has no seats to offer, even to foreign travelers with their vaunted Japan Rail Passes. And finally, if one actually manages to arrive at the tourist […]

On my computer, I keep a folder of unfinished topics that I hope to blog about in the future. Whether due to lack of substance or a deficiency of passion for the topic, many ideas sit unwritten as they wait for a chance to be shared. The topic of this post is something that I have been wanting to properly write about for a long time, yet I feel that it is only because of my experiences over the years that I can attempt it at all. Since 2018 this post has existed in the form of an unused empty folder on my hard drive with a temporary title named after a patient I once cared for during my time as an ICU nurse. Every so often, I happen to be reminded of nascent topics such as this one; whether due to a recent experience, a memory, or even the weather by chance, something inspires me to organize my thoughts and do the topic justice. As such, I want to take a moment to write about the brain. Seven years […]

Ever since I first visited Japan in 2018, and all of the subsequent times I have visited since, Akihabara (秋葉原) — with its scores of arcades, anime stores, maid cafés, and overall celebration of otaku (オタク) subculture — has come to exist in my heart as a warm, gentle glow of countless treasured memories. Certainly the joys I have experienced in Japan are not limited to Electric Town (and indeed every place I have journeyed to in the country has a fond tale of its own), but somehow Akihabara and its famous maid cafés has come to serve as a grounding point for me — it was the first place in the country I made friends, after all. The concepts of idols and maids are unique to Japan. Enamored, as I wrote the subsequent post detailing my first experiences, I closed somewhat musing at what type of people the maids were when they were not in-character; what kind of personalities did these girls have to want to work as maids? By the time I visited again in 2019, I had […]

Enterprise, didn’t you used to say that you’ll never be able to win if you’re always scared of death? Hehe… I always thought that was a bit morbid, but . . . besides, aren’t there more pressing issues for you to be worried about? That’s right, you can’t spend your entire life on the front lines. As the hero leading everyone forward, you sometimes have to stay in the back to help give others a little push . . . For many, 2020 has come to represent a lost year, and a mere glance at my blog even suggests as much for myself. Despite it now being the final months of 2021, a mere two posts since precede this one: an entry made on the final day of 2020 and another published during the first weeks of this year. Neither post covers the events of 2020 in any appreciable detail and, in fact, both are largely centered around happenings prior to the global pandemic. Yet also to many, 2020 was “lost” not because of uneventfulness, but for what it represented — a stalling of […]