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Japan – Day 4

Today, I made my way to Sapporo to see my friends Dave and April and their kids. A quick refresher in case you don’t know: Sapporo is on the island of Hokkaido while Tokyo, of course, is on the island of Honshu. There is a train that connects the islands, but I opted for a flight — one that happens to leave from the Haneda Airport in Tokyo at 8:00am. Since the subway doesn’t open until 5:00am, I was worried about making it early enough in case I took the wrong one, etc., but I didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a cab. (Astute followers of these travelogues will note that catching the right train has not exactly been my strong suit).

After checking out of my hotel, I asked a taxi driver the cost for a ride to the airport. He quoted me 900 yen (which is not what I expected at all — but hey less than $10 Canadian — so, what a steal!) Soon the ride started with a base fare of 500 yen and started counting up by 100 yen every 10 seconds or so. I quickly realized he probably meant to quote me 9000 yen, which would mean this cab ride was going to push the better part of $90 CAD. Fine, at least I don’t have to worry about missing my plane.

April greeted me at the bus terminal. She said it was fun picking me out of the crowd from such a distance because I was a head taller than everyone else there. We took the subway back and made our way to their lovely little home on the university campus. I was struck by the change in conversation flow. I’m not sure the right word to use, but I’ll describe it. In Tokyo, I had been living a solitary silent retreat kind of life, but now I was surrounded by friends and we chatted a lot. It was an abrupt change from my internal dialogue to an abundance of chatting — not bad but notably different.

Dave and I went for a walk to the park.

Some sort of Canada/Japan association at the university put on a Canada Day party which we attended. We loved the delicious food and it was nice mingling with some new acquaintances. When it was just about time to leave they held several draws. I won a Terry Fox t-shirt, April won a heli-skiing vacation package discount, and Dave won a bowl and spoon designed for pouring water onto wet sauna rocks — a wonderfully specific prize, to be sure.

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Japan – Day 3

Today, I endeavoured to travel to a Japanese volcano and visit a traditional Japanese onsen. I failed in such a spectacular fashion that it makes this particular report almost pointless.

That’s not to say I didn’t travel. Boy, did I ever travel.

I was still feeling worn out from my day at the Disney park yesterday and got off to a late start. I figured a soak in a natural hot spring would be just what the doctor ordered. I headed onto the subway and, following the directions of Apple Maps, just took whichever train it suggested. I have a metro card that allows for basically unlimited use, but it’s only for the trains in downtown Tokyo. I very quickly found myself outside of the metro area taking trains my card wouldn’t cover. When I got to Shin Yokohama, I disembarked because I knew that eventually I was going to have to pay, but I wasn’t really sure which trains I could take and which I couldn’t.

I scrunched up my face in confusion at the schedule signs and, seeing my consternation, a conductor asked where I was trying to go. Long story short, he helped me pay what I owed and then led me to another employee who helped me buy a ticket to Odawara where I would get a bus to Hakone-Yumoto. Things were looking up. She told me the next train leaves at 10:45am.

I left and went back to confirm which train I should be taking. She very clearly said any train on platform 3 or 4. After ascending the escalator, I quickly inspected the electronic train schedule. I confirmed my location on platforms 3 and 4, and all the trains arriving in the next 20 minutes or so had the same company name in matching orange letters. This all seemed like good news. One of the trains was leaving at 10:39, and it was an express train! My thought process went something like, “Hey, that’s just one minute away, and I can make up some time from my late start — what luck!”

The express train in question turned out to be on the Tokaido Shinkansen line — it was a bullet train. I soon discovered it was en route for Nagoya, a 1-hour-and-15-minute high-speed race across the small island country. Oh dear!

Map of Japan with my unintended route

Going on an expensive train far, far away from my destination was indeed some kind of luck, but not the kind anyone wants.

Alas, when I arrived in Nagoya after stewing in my thoughts in the silent car, I ended up taking the next bullet train back to where I came from. When the inspector came around to check tickets — it felt like a scene from a movie — he moved from one passenger to the next, suspense building, and I knew that in just a minute or two, he’d be asking for mine! I did NOT want to pay the $100 CAD+ fee I surely owed for being on this train.

I explained I’d taken the wrong train, and he told me to just get off at the next stop (where I had come from) and it would be fine. It was such a relief.

Feeling disheartened, I headed back to my hotel, had a shower, a beer, and dropped into bed at about 5:00pm.

Tomorrow: Sapporo.

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Japan – Day 2

The day started with some trepidation: should I really pull the trigger and do a day at Tokyo DisneySea or listen to the voice in my head telling me it would be weird to go to a Disney park alone and that I should do something more worthwhile with my time? The art museums and cultural sites I was thinking about as an alternative don’t open until 10am and I’d already been up all night with jetlag so I resolved to just go for it.

After a series of wrong trains — and still not having cash for the JR Line — I got myself sorted and finally made it all the way to Tokyo DisneySea. A sea of people was already lined up for security at 9:00, so despite one more delay, I still got into the park plenty early.

The entrance to the park was stunning, and then things only escalated from there. I absolutely loved my whole day. What an incredible experience!

I lined up for “Journey to the Center of the Earth” first. The sign warned of a long wait.

The 140 minutes shifted to 160 minutes mere moments after I took the photo. That’s a 2-hour-and-20-minute wait! But once the ride vehicle shifted into high gear and we raced through the tunnels, I whispered to myself, ‘This is awesome.’ That’s the exact moment I felt vindication. I knew, with total conviction, I’d made the right call.

One of the things that made the day so special was the people. The civility here is remarkable. I witnessed exactly zero people budging in line or displaying any friction whatsoever. I can’t say the same for my trips to Disney parks in Anaheim. People just went about their business happily and quietly. I love it here.

I watched an Aladdin-themed magic show, which was fun even with the language barrier, and also did some shopping. I went on quite a few rides, twice on “Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure”. I also used the single rider line for the rollercoaster ride “Raging Spirits”, which features a single vertical loop after a thrilling drop. As it happened, the single rider line had just closed. The kind cast member took pity on me and let me in — not before standing me up against the height ruler, though. Onlookers chuckled as the cast member measured to see if I was too tall to ride.

The lunch I bought at The Ugly Duckling didn’t look like much but the taste was amazing! The ambiance and theming of the restaurant also made for an enjoyable meal. Some Aussies sat at the table next to me, and their cute baby spilled some water. The baby and I made eye contact immediately after, and she smiled mischievously — delighted to be keeping everyone on their toes.

By 6pm, tired and sore, I ventured back to my hotel in Tokyo. Yes, the park had finally gotten the better of me with three hours left to enjoy it, but since I had been up since 2am, I needed to get home and sleep. Once again, I took multiple wrong train lines (my ways are not your ways), but I finally got myself sorted and relished the strange but amazing shower in my tiny hotel room before I collapsed into bed.

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Japan – Day 1

Before I even arrived at the airport in Saskatoon, good fortune already fell upon me. A mishap at the drive-through caused a 10-pack of Timbits that Andrea had bought for the kids to fall onto the ground. Without missing a beat, the woman at the drive-through insisted it was no problem and that she’d get us another pack. I jumped out of the car and found the box, unopened, on the ground. When we offered to give back the replacement pack, they told us to keep both. That’s how I scored a 10-pack of donut holes for my flight. Things are looking up.

I’ve landed in Calgary and am about to board. Sitting in the terminal, I’ve been people-watching and thinking about how many people are glued to their phones. I’m not much of one to talk – typing away at my MacBook – but I do like to talk to strangers.

Anyway, at the very end of my first flight, I struck up a conversation with my seat-mate, who is going to Tokyo to climb Mt. Fuji. She’s also going to visit some of the parks around Sapporo. That’s the danger of chatting with strangers: FOMO sets in quickly. Should I also be planning a climb of Fujisan? It’s not in the cards for this trip.

On the main flight, I sat next to what appeared to be the only baby on this nine-hour transpacific flight. Luckily, he was a champ, sleeping most of the way and lighting up the cabin when he woke. He’d already flown four hours from Toronto earlier that day. His parents were kind, and we chatted about our travel plans as well as our kids. I’ll say it again: chatting with strangers is one of the things I love about travelling.

Getting from the plane to my hotel bed was next. My friends had warned me that while tap payments do exist in Japan, they’re far from ubiquitous. I ran into trouble paying train and subway fares without resorting to credit cards in the wrong currency. The roughly $2 CAD subway fee derailed (pardon the pun) my trip home for nearly 20 minutes while I figured out how to pay, because the machine wouldn’t take anything but cash or a metro card. I finally bought a reusable “unlimited” 72-hour subway card online, then used a QR code to get the machine to print it for me.

When I finally arrived, I turned on some Japanese TV and found the shows exciting and bizarre: game shows, news, and something resembling America’s Funniest Home Videos, but with picture-in-picture shots of guests predicting what would happen next. Considering the ups and downs of the journey, it was a pretty fortunate day – much better than the one those featured on the show were having.

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  1. I don’t know what the show was called, but it’s a missed opportunity if they never titled it “Ow, My Balls.”[↩]
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Dr. Chelsea Matisz on Brain and Gut Health

Back in October, My close friend, Chelsea Matisz gave a wonderful TEDx Talk called, “How modern life could affect gut health”.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to speak at TEDxCalgary about an idea I’ve been thinking about for years: the way that many modern struggles stem from the mismatch between the world our gut and brains evolved for, and the world we live in today.

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Japan… Again!

It’s been 33 years since my childhood trip to Japan and next month, I’m going back!

My friends and their family are currently on a four month exchange in Sapporo so I’m going to stay with them before they head back to Canada.

That original trip to Japan was so formative in my life and something that I’ve been able to look back on as a core memory. Travelling is so good for broadening perspectives and cultivating new ideas. I highly recommend it.

Stay tuned for more about my upcoming trip.

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How to Get Out of Bed

Against all odds, after a 53 year dry-spell, the Knicks won the NBA championship last Saturday in a dramatic underdog story that will probably be made into one or more Netflix documentaries.

Mike Monteiro thought about the series and turned it into a useful metaphor for life: How to Get Out of Bed, which you should read.

There is no 28 point shot in basketball. The only way to come back from a 27 point deficit is one shot at a time. Two points here. Two points there. A few three pointers sprinkled in. Some timely foul shots. And you have to do all of this while the other team is trying to do the same thing. Trying to grind you down. You just have to score a little bit more than they do over a set span of time. And if you score just one more point than they do at the end, you win.

(via)

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Siri A.I.

Today during WWDC 2026, Apple announced it was releasing Siri A.I., a profoundly more capable version of Siri, but when I downloaded and installed the developer beta, Siri A.I. was no where to be seen. After some searching in the settings, I discovered a “Try the new Siri” button which then said that Siri A.I was not available and that I could join a waitlist. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m in Canada or if that’s what everyone on the developer beta is getting.

Update: Looks like the waitlist is for everyone.

Update: Five days later the new Siri showed up on my phone.

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Would a Satanic Panic by Any Other Name Sound as Sweet?

David Friedman’s essay on the power of rhyme: The Best Thing About the Satanic Panic.

For readers too young to remember, the Satanic Panic was a widespread moral panic in the late ’80s and early ’90s where some people believed that Satanic cults were abusing children and influencing pop culture through things like heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons.

It was a moral panic over Satanism. A Satanic Panic. It’s maybe the most perfect name for anything ever. It works so simply. It describes what it is. It’s slightly sing-songy. And of course, it rhymes.

Like them or hate them, there is something intriguing about rhymes. I went to a trivia night hosted by the local public library a couple of weeks ago and one group of questions all had rhyming answers. Here are a few that I remember:

Click on any of them to reveal the answers.

A limousine’s shelf for holding liquor.

Car Bar

A shaky gobbler

Jerky turkey

A smelly homeless person

Fragrant Vagrant

A moonless playground

Dark Park

(via Kottke)

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Goodnight and Good Luck

Stephen Colbert’s run at the late show is over and it got me thinking about the tiny backwards message that he put into his 2007 audiobook, I Am America (And So Can You). So I updated my old posting about it from Shockwave Flash to instead play mp3s.