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🔗 Is Australian Sunscreen ACTUALLY stronger than Asian Sunscreen? I put them to the test!
by JamesThank you for joining me on this journey. A journey full of many discoveries... and many regrets. I now own enough sunscreen to protect a small village. Than...
Glad to see the ones I regularly use doing well in the test. Also, they have pumps with sunscreen for everyone in Aus like we have alcohol for cleaning our hands in Japan?! Amazing! tl;dr The best sun screen is the one you actually use. -
The Week #210
by James- 🍣 There was a time when all sushi didn't rotate and rotating sushi was different. But times change and now most sushi in Japan is of the rotating variety and sushi that doesn't rotate is different.
Which is a very roundabout way of saying we went to our local kaiten-zushi place. I enjoy sushi but it's never something I crave. If I get sushi, it's usually at a local sit down place. I can literally count the number of times I've been to kaiten-zushi on one hand: once in uni on exchange at Tokyo station, once with my brother (while also on exchange) around harajuku...and this time.
This was Leo's first time, a late bloomer amongst our peers, as they all seem to visit conveyor belt sushis on a semi-regular basis. These days though, there isn't a chef making sushi with a conveyor belt shuttling sushi around them and you pick from what's there. Rather there's an iPad that you can order from and a bullet train carrying the sushi is sent on a track that stops at your table. There's even 3 decks so multiple orders can go out at once. It's probably more efficient and safer food safety wise (how'd they monitor the temp of that raw fish rotating about?), but also another tablet (whose camera is always on...). On the plus side, they now offer fried things as well, so if the sushi didn't work out for the little ones (it didn't), there was plenty of fallback.
Unrelated, but if you're interested in the history of conveyor belt sushi, I recommend this episode of Begin Japanology. - 🏊♂️ We changed Leo's swim class to the weekend. While initially it seemed like he could ride the bus on Friday with his friends and we could have at least one-day a week without something on the schedule, turns out not to be the case for now. The class was too big for him.
The practice this time was how to swim with your clothes on (water safety). Odds are you're not going to fall into water in a full swimsuit, so you should learn what it's like to be in water in clothes so you don't panic. If you did in a full swimsuit, it's probably on purpose and called "swimming". They also learned how to use a plastic bottle as a flotation device.
The point of all this, while Leo was busy learning how not to panic when he falls into the water, I was out busy shopping at the drug store nearby and found this: Legend of Zelda™: Tears of the Kingdom™ Boss™ canned coffee (not ™). I almost bought it, but then I remembered, I don't drink canned coffee.Legend of Zelda canned coffee! - 🥵 You may have heard, but the climate is changing. Things are getting hotter. Weather isn't climate yadda yadda yadda, but it's been 36 degrees with 60%+ humidity for the past few days here in Yokohama and it's the pits and I need a moan. You have to get out before the sun rises (which rises at 4:30am) if you want to do anything. And even then it's 25 degrees with 90% humidity. Summer, I'm so over you. I need to introduce more latitude and altitude into my life.
- 🏃♂️ This week I beat the number of runs I ran last year and we're only a bit over midway through this year. This puts me almost 50% of the way towards my yearly goal. If all goes well I'll be able to report being 50% next week Still, I'll need to keep up the pace of runs to hit my goal comfortably, but well on my way.
- 📺 I started watching The Bear and I'm really enjoying it. It has an appropriate number of f-bombs for being a show about working in the kitchen. ( I've got a thing for chef / kitchen shows. I enjoy cooking, but being a chef/kitchens seem so similar to building product and programming (in my mind). For both cooking and programming, quality isn't an accident (2016)).
- 🍣 There was a time when all sushi didn't rotate and rotating sushi was different. But times change and now most sushi in Japan is of the rotating variety and sushi that doesn't rotate is different.
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by James5am run club
Got out the door directly at 5, so it was still easy to find shade. Still 26 and getting hotter. Opted for the big Aquarius today.4.5km
30.1min
18m climbed
158.5avg bpm
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by James🔥 5am run club 🥵
The _low_ is 25 today. But still got out there and did the thing.4.3km
30.2min
20m climbed
158.5avg bpm
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Checkin to Starbucks
First time getting one of the comfy seats against the wall. -
by James
5:30 am run club
Super humid this morning, but at least there is cloud cover.4.2km
30.6min
21m climbed
151.9avg bpm
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Checkin to Starbucks
A rare Tuesday office day. -
The Week #209
by James- 🌴 I took a day off work, my first day off that wasn't for taking care of a sick kid since probably...the start of the year-ish? Far too long. Naturally, it rained real good. Not one to be deterred by some rain I went to Kamakura, which thanks to said rain, was quieter than normal. This enabled us to get lunch at Oxymoron, which usually as 90 minute wait. Afterwards we dropped by Patagonia to look around and ended up buying some new running shorts for myself and a swimsuit / UV shirt for Leo.
- 🏃♂️ Running continues. This week one of my runs was a proper "LSD" run ((Long, slow, distance) this maybe a Japanese running term???) where I ran for an hour. I've run for an hour in the past, but not in the last few years. A weekly long run sounds like a worth goal I should have, but for now "every so often" is sufficient. Lowering the barrier for a run such that pace, time, and distance do not matter is what keeps me getting out there.
- 🗺️ Back when handheld GPS units started becoming a thing, I always wanted to try Geocaching. Geocaching is a game where someone hides something at some geocoordinates and you go find it. I never had the money for a unit in high school so I kinda forgot about it – until this week.
Leo and my bonding time is usually on the weekends and I've grown tired of going out to the Aquarium or hanging around the house trying to kill time (that one is actually kinda stressful). Historically Leo has been the type of kind to walk 10 steps then "get tired", but lately that isn't the case.
I asked Leo if he wanted to go on a treasure hunt with me and that according to this app, someone left something over at a local park. He got his backpack, put some snacks in it, and walked, uphill, the entire way to the park. In the end we were unsuccessful in finding the caches but he kept in good spirits the entire time. He even said he wants to go treasure hunting with all 3 of us. - 🚲 I rode bikes with Leo both days this weekend. The second and longer ride we went to Ito Yokado. This is the same place we went a few weeks back for Leo's longest ride and he did it again like a champ. While there he didn't have a meltdown about not being able to play the crane games (successful communication ftw!). On the way back we went a bit further to our local family run Onigiri place and bought lunch. I don't have a basket on my cross-bike, so Leo put them in his and carried them home. Riding bikes with the boy is super fun.
Picking up rice balls - 🚲 This ride above was also the first one with my new grips on bike. Replacing them was easy-peasy. Peel off the old ones and a bit of alcohol to clean the bar and slide on the new ones.
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by James5:30 am run club
“Late” start this morning. Sun’s been up for an hour, may as well do something. Daylight’s burning. Bench 7-11 in all of its glory.4.2km
31.5min
18.2m climbed
151.4avg bpm
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by James5am run club
To Sakaigawa and back, enjoying the cooler weather. New Patagonia running shorts are comfortable af. Ended at bench 7-11, per usual.8.4km
63.8min
55.8m climbed
163.2avg bpm
