The Birth of Ru-tube
Winter. It’s cold, it’s dark, and this year we couldn’t even get together for a knees-up on the Solstice because of lock-downs. My dad tested positive for COVID-19 on 27th December, and in the course of caring for him, I […]
November 2020 Art Roundup & Update
If you’re a person who is reading this after reading my 2019 tales of Japan, you may be hoping for more stories from my year of living there, or at the very least, and explanation of what happened and where […]
The Accidental Pilgrim
After a few more days spent in Tokyo, including a hilariously bad date that I’ll carve into a short story one day, I headed off to the Izu Peninsula. My first Workaway position was set up in Shimoda (the end […]
Time Spent With Flowers
So, a confession. Honestly, I thought sakura season in Japan was going to be overhyped. The street I grew up on in England is lined with cherry trees and every spring I would happily kick through the fallen blossom, nature’s […]
The Lobster in Lipstick
We interrupt this usual travel blog for a detailed retelling of an anxiety attack. Lobsters, to oversimplify things, do not age. Thanks to the ability to constantly produce telemerase, a substance that caps chromosomes and allows cells to divide without […]
Large Pots and Long Walks
On Saturday, I slept late. My whole body ached, right through; my sleep disturbed by a Rubenesque German with sleep apnoea snoring three bunks over, and my throat still constricted and tight. I didn’t know if it was the sleep […]
Ueno and the Boneyard Bus
On my third day in Tokyo, I found a photocopied notice pinned to the wall just outside the hostel elevator. “Do you want to come to a digital art museum?” It said. “I have a spare ticket- hit me up- […]
Supplies and Sumida
As I may have mentioned, I’ve been to Tokyo before. When I was 19, after I lost my job in pharmaceutical data entry thanks to the global financial market crash, I headed off to Tokyo for four days on a […]
Shrines in Shallow Grass
Here’s a top tip for getting from Narita to central Tokyo- Keisei Bus run a shuttle direct to Tokyo Station. It takes about 1 hour, costs 1000￥, runs every 10-20 minutes, and means you don’t have to struggle with all […]
On Flying
One of the many fascinating things about air travel, leaving out the sheer physics wizardry that is mankind getting huge hunks of metal up into the sky in the first place, is that most of the time no matter how […]