You could be on your way to a beach.

A beach where the sand plays koto with the crashing waves for backup singing, you could be meeting up at the front gate of Kyoto Estación with your icebox, your sun hats, enough ice to build an igloo and bags upon bags of useless 100en beach toys, you could be riding a train small enough to fit in your childhood railway model kit, diving through mountains and popping out along the coast, you could be walking a deserted country trail down to your very own 10 acres of pristine white sand, swimming the warm waters of the Sea of Japan in August, you could be preparing fresh guacamole in the sunset with a piña colada in your hand, you could be barbecuing tandoori chicken in the dark, you could call on to your cro-magnon roots and be the Master of Fire for a night, you could sit around a bonfire, burning your fingers trying to melt marshmallows on chopsticks, you could be laying back on a beach, sand in your hair, skies in your eyes, noticing the Great Starry River for the first time since you started living on an island of neons and streetlights: for every late Summer shooting star you catch out of the corner of your eye, drink your tequila and bite a lemon, if you missed it: drink anyway because it is damn good stuff and made from cactus so it can’t be bad for you, you could start running along the beach, throw your underwear at random and dive headfirst into the sea for midnight skinny dipping, you could light up the sky and wake up the fishes with fireworks until you run out of lighters or energy, whichever comes first, you could be playing poker with a flashlight and a stash of one-yen coin and realise that beachwear makes for very quick rounds of strip poker, you could be falling asleep with the sound of waves crashing at your feet, you could be eating chocolate on bread for breakfast with an aftertaste of salt on your lips, you could be making fresh yakisoba with grilled slices of pumpkin for dessert, you could be spending your day playing in the waves or napping in the shadow, you could be listening to the sand singing under your feet, you could be doing a thousand other things under the sun…

Of course, you could.

Happy birthday to me. Another year of backward aging and waning maturity on the way back to infantile bliss.

2 days of sun, sand, waves, bbq, tequila, fireworks and fun. 【map】

If you know any bearded marxist revolutionary currently stationed in
Kansai, please get in touch.

Never congratulate yourself too much on where you are in life.

More often than not, where you are, has more to do with where you come from than who you are.

08/28-08/31 09/04-09/07: 東京 field trip (the usual, please)

08/26: Sweet 16 Birthday Party (champagne, coke & geisha)

08/23-08/24: beach extravaganza in 琴引浜 (champagne, bbq & camping)

08/20-08/22: finding cure for cancer (vaccine should be ready by end of month)

08/18-08/19: writing 21st century literary masterpiece (counting one day for editing)

08/16 – 7pm: 大文字 (things burning on hills surrounding Kyoto + drinking)

08/16 – 3pm-5pm: Ohbaku Aquatic Park (aka the local swimming pool)

Get your tickets now, they are going fast.

I barely took any pictures these past 2 weeks (none in Boston,
actually). Here are a few I snapped in Singapore. Comments forthcoming.

When my advisors (a combination of current and past ones) suggested that I get on the “2 weeks, 5 cities” tour, I was initially very excited.

As it turns out, however, they were not talking about an all-expenses paid tour of Asia and America’s best nightlife spots.

For mild entertainment and posterity value, a few frackload of random tidbits gleaned over the past 10 days and 25,000 miles (counting):

Boston is a nice city. Somewhat nicer than I imagined (was perhaps one of the only major US city I had never been in). At least in the middle of July, when the sun is warm and rain had apparently stopped pouring, just in time for my arrival there. But weather concerns apart, it feels like one of a rare breed of US cities, where you can live (fine) without a car. Which automatically puts it toward the top of my book. It also has lots of nice tree-lined avenues with cute little houses, and plenty of coffeeshops with semi-witty names and lovely US-style breakfasts (baaaacon…) that nearly make up for the filtered sock juice they call coffee…

Coincidentally, and with no bearing on the above statement of appreciation: Everybody in Boston is a 20-something upper-middle-class white person who only wears pastel polo shirts. Really: everybody. Even Asian people there are white. And they wear pastel polo shirts. On their way to one of the 259 Ivy League universities within walking distance of Fenway park.

I am told there are black people living in Boston too.

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