Chi-Chia's blog

After checking out of Tobu Hotel Levant Tokyo, we took the Sumida River cruise from Asakusa to Hamarikyu Gardens, met friends for dinner in Mita, walked over to Tokyo Tower, and ended the day at Shinagawa Prince Hotel, where the room's age and lingering smell were a letdown.

Getting sick made my progress fall even further behind, so I got up early for work and walked to the office from Daikanyama through the cool, quiet streets. Setting up Flask-OAuthlib went badly all day, lunch was a satisfying steak meal with coworkers, and by afternoon I was still lagging far behind.

After the typhoon passed, Tokyo's sky turned brilliantly blue, but halfway through breakfast a migraine hit and I had no choice but to take the day off and stay in bed. Chills, cold sweats, vomiting, and dizziness came in waves, and even when I briefly got up in the afternoon, I still had no strength and could only worry about my progress before falling asleep again.

I had already planned to stay home and rest. After getting up near noon, I did some laundry and made lunch, then spent most of the day loafing around. I had meant to look at some programming-related things, but did not get much done. I just hoped the weather would calm down by tomorrow so I would not have to go to work with an umbrella.

On the second day of the first holiday weekend after starting work, I forced myself out the door and took the train from Shinjuku to Enoshima and Kamakura. I spent the day sightseeing on a tight budget, taking photos and collecting station stamps, unexpectedly wandered into Kodama Shrine to see a poem monument by Goto Shinpei, drifted all the way to Gokurakuji, and did not make it home until ten at night.

We went to Ueno Zoo that day, but our daughter got sleepy and cranky in the crowd, so we headed back to the hotel to rest before returning to Ueno for dinner with friends, picking up HARBS cake, and then visiting another friend who was expecting.

After leaving Tokyo Disney, we transferred to Tokyo Skytree in Oshiage. Our daughter got completely absorbed in Chikyunoniwa Kids Garden at Solamachi, and we ended the day at Tobu Hotel Levant Tokyo with a room facing the tower.

On the first weekend after starting work, I went to Ueno Zoo and stopped by a nationwide pottery fair on the way, where I bought a blue owl mug. The zoo was packed, and the elephants and hippos were impressive, but the red pandas were a letdown compared with Maruyama Zoo. After that I visited Toshogu Shrine, ate dorayaki at Usagiya, stopped at Yushima Tenmangu Shrine, then kept going through Ameyoko and Akihabara before finally dragging myself home exhausted.

Breakfast was rice, seaweed, and natto; during the day I got completely bogged down trying to deploy Flask on Google App Engine and work with Google Open Connect, while also having to start preparing for a presentation. At lunch I ate and had coffee with Ito-san, and in the evening I walked to Tsutaya Books Daikanyama to listen to music before making my way home along deserted nighttime streets.

After badly underestimating how crowded the 9:04 train would be, I had to wait for the next one; the day was spent checking backups, setting up Redis on EC2, and dealing with an ssh tunnel, while the evening turned into a slightly awkward but warm walk through Loft with another intern.

As I gradually got used to commuting and navigating Shibuya Station, the day was mostly spent learning AWS, Elastic IP, Route 53, and S3 backups; I ended up eating ramen for both lunch and dinner, and in the evening I also watched the lunar eclipse with coworkers.

My commuting rhythm started to settle down as I spent the day reading git and Python documentation and beginning to explore AWS; at lunch I ate sushi and talked about manga with coworkers, then spent the evening browsing Loft and Muji in Shibuya before finally seeing Hachiko.

I headed to HDE on a typhoon day, found my way through Shibuya in the rain, and finished introductions and laptop setup after arriving soaked; lunch with coworkers and a view of Mount Fuji made my first day in a Japanese office feel both tense and fresh.

A typhoon hit on my second day in Tokyo, so I mostly stayed in, browsed online, and bought daily necessities; small frustrations with unstable internet and limited Japanese reminded me to be more proactive about fitting into life here.

Even during the pandemic, we wanted to keep one meaningful zhua zhou first-birthday picking ritual for our daughter, so we chose Radium Kagaya in Beitou for a banquet, the issho mochi tradition, and adorable tiger-costume photos.

Our first overnight trip with our daughter in Taipei, staying at Radium Kagaya International Hotel in Beitou for a Japanese-style room, private hot spring, and dinner at the hotel.

A travel note for Komatsu, Kanazawa, and Toyama that organizes the Asuka period, the spread of Buddhism and writing culture, and the archaeological evidence for settlement, production, administration, ritual, and tomb change in the three cities.

A Taipei family activity at Suiye Farm where the kids learned about chickens, mixed feed, fed hens, picked eggs, and met retired horses.

I flew from Taipei Songshan to Haneda, took the Keikyu and Yamanote Lines to Shinjuku to handle my housing contract, and settled near Toritsu-Daigaku Station with 27 kilograms of luggage; after shopping that night, I reflected on my goals for the trip and reminded myself to change something in these short two months.

On our fifth day in Okinawa, we played the coin-operated rides at Naha Airport, shopped for souvenirs, and headed home to tackle the mountain of luggage.