Tokyo Photo Blog & Business Update

Sorry for the severe lack of updates. I've just been insanely busy as of late and have had more important things to do than updating my blog. I kept wanting to do it, but then also kept postponing, because there was too much urgent stuff I had to take care of first.

It's been forever since I've posted any pictures in this blog so first and foremost I'll start off with the pictures I've taken over the past month or 2. Starting off with:

My new Bike

The second hand bike I bought got stolen last year, which meant I was commuting to the gym almost every day by tram and paying 240 JPY a day(2.4 USD) to get to the gym alone. Over the course of a year this adds up to about 750 USD + the fact that it saves me about 10-15 minutes each day if I go to the gym by bike made me finally buy a new proper bike.
I once again decided to get a mountain bike, because that's what I've always driven. I've been using it for 2 months now and I'm very happy with it. I'm considering to go everywhere by bike in a few weeks once the weather is nice. By that I mean, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, everywhere! I love the city, so it seems awesome if I get to actually see some of it going by bike rather than seeing nothing when I use the subway.

Next up some food. Firstly, this random yakitori(I think) place we went to, but mostly ate non-yakitory dishes. The grilled saba was so good I insisted we order a 2nd one. The wine however was not so good illustrated by how generous they were when filling the glasses. All of this according to my friends of course, because I don't drink.

 Saba

Massive Sashimi plate

The last picture of the large plate of Sashimi I ate with my friend Takuma. It was ridiculously cheap at only about 2000 JPY for this much raw fish!

These are a handful of recent entries in my food blog. Mainly Unagi, which is currently my 2nd favourite food. When spending <2500 JPY, you're best of eating Sushi, but I actually believe between 2500 and 6000 JPY Unagi is the best value for money food. I haven't eaten enough food more expensive than that to be sure, but I believe it to be Sushi again above a certain treshold(maybe 10.000 JPY).

1 Michelin Star Unagi: http://tokyofoodjournal.blogspot.jp/2014/02/1-michelin-star-unagi.html
Best Unagi Ever: http://tokyofoodjournal.blogspot.jp/2014/02/new-best-unagi-ive-ever-eaten.html
Disappointing Tsukiji Sushi: http://tokyofoodjournal.blogspot.jp/2014/03/tsukiji-sushi-isnt-always-best-sushi.html
Great Tsukemen: http://tokyofoodjournal.blogspot.jp/2014/03/very-good-tsukemen-thanks-to-royal.html
Good Unagi near my house: http://tokyofoodjournal.blogspot.jp/2014/03/good-value-for-money-unagi-but-only-if.html

A few weeks ago we had MASSIVE snowstorms in Tokyo. I heard the last time Tokyo got covered in this much snow was 15 years ago!! It was quite cool in a way, but there were also a few days, I remember 1 in particular where I had to go to the ear doctor for my ear infection, where it was literally almost impossible to go anywhere. Usually it would take me 10 minutes to walk there, but this time it took me more than half an hour!!! On top of that I was SOAKED when I got back and it wasn't even raining or snowing. All from the massive amount of ice, snow and other wet stuff laying everywhere!

 Downstairs from where I live

 From my balcony

 In front of my building

 

 Road leading to the main station

 

 Frozen flowers

 Shopping district nearby

 Main Ikebukuro station area

 Downstairs from my building

 

I absolutely love the view from my balcony. The skies in Tokyo are so clear and you can see everything really well on most days!

Here's some pictures of the area around Tokyo Tower. I shot them before going to a bar/restaurant of a good friend who's created a super awesome friendly community around his bar. We sometimes play futsal and he often organises cool events.

 Tokyo Tower

 Tokyo Tower

Mori buildings

Nice picture of Ikebukuro shot from outside my apartment, but in the same building:

Rather weak Unagi in the restaurant downstairs from where I live:

Here ishe view from a friend's office. I randomly ran into him in the subway and he invited me to come to his office. SUPERsick office in a super expensive area with a great view as you can see.

 You can see Shinjuku in the distance and it is even possible to see my tower mansion in Ikebukuro in the far far distance

 You can see Marunouchi, Roppongi and Tokyo Tower looking in this direction

It's kind of interesting how some of the billboards on top of the buildings are clearly targeted towards rich people(investments etc.) and thus seem to be targeted specifically towards the people in the building I was in. They definitely are up too high and facing in too strange of a direction to be targeted towards people in the streets.

A shot from close to where I live. Out of the 2 skyscrapers on the right, I live in the front one. On the left you can see a new skyscraper that's being constructed. Constructing is progressing at lighting speed and it's shocking how fast it continues to rise. I'm pretty sure it's already taller than my building  and I wonder how far they'll continue building.

 Higashi-Ikebukuro's skyscraper landscape

Then next is a video from a very strange and interesting ice cream shop I came across.

Here are some pictures from Bob and Hitoshi's surprise wedding party. They're a gay couple who recently got married in San Fransisco. The pig wine holder with hearts painted on it is the gift 2 friends and I made for them.

 Married couple on the left, a guitar player and a friend singing on the right

 The cake made for the newly weds

 The newly weds

 Newly weds with my friend who made the cake

 Unwrapping of the gift 2 friends and I gave them

Loss of words

Me with 3 friends!

These are probably the 2 weirdest sayings I've ever come across. Kyushu-ben... people in Kyushu clearly have an awesome sense of humor:

 Weird language I'm studying...

It actually makes sense in a way..., but woow!!!

More Great Unagi. I had been here before, but was happy to be back!

 Pickles

Soup

Unajuu(Unagi)

My desktop recently broke down and because it seemed like a super complicated problem that was hard to fix I decided it would be too expensive(time-wise) to repair and I bought a new one. Here's the old one being taken apart, because I decided to reuse 3 items(power supply, blu-ray player, sound card).

3 random pictures from Shinjuku. I took them trying to capture the snow, but kind of failed. It's rather hard to see, but on the 7th of March in the middle of a fairly warm, sunny day, it suddenly started snowing like crazy!!!

Another visit to the AWESOME 37 Steakhouse in Roppongi with a few friends from JP Morgan and Merryl Lynch. They serve the best steaks I've ever had the pleasure to taste:

 21days aged 650g bone-in rib eye

More food pictures from a Shikoku culture night organised by the bar/community where we sometimes play futsal and do activities. All the food originates from Shikoku(the smallest of Japan's main 4 islands) and tasted amazing! Probably mostly because it was made by Fumiki, the chef of the place who's an insanely good cook!

 Fishcakes

 Pasta

 Unsure what this was

 Tofu

 Spinach with fried tofu

 AMAZING Katsuo(Bonito) Sashimi. Not the best I ever had, but very close!

 Some sort of sushi, but very strange.

 Desert called Taruto

Super sweet, super awesome candything.

Last, but not least I took a ton of pictures during my recent weekend onsen trip with 3 friends. However, most of the pictures were taken by my pro-photographer friend, so I will update about this after I receive all the pictures from him.

Before I finish this blog up, let me give you a short update of how business is going. The app has definitely been delayed by the project leader who fell seriously ill and had to stop working. He's been replaced by a different project leader, who doesn't seem quite as experienced as the previous one, but I'm glad he stepped up to the plate and took over. We really are very close to finish and launching it. I don't think I'll ever set launch dates again, but we really are very close. With ~5 mostly minor items left to fix. I personally feel like it can be done within 1 week, but I'm not the one doing the programming.
Furthermore, I've started designing my 2nd product for Language Link. Hopefully I'll get a chance to show a little something in the next few weeks and explain it in more detail. It is again a mobile application, but much different and for iPad and Android Tablets only. Smartphones' screens are too small for it to work unfortunately enough.
For both of these projects I am looking to hire app developers as soon as I can. The tablet app I want to develop entirely in-house, because I haven't been entirely satisfied with outsourcing things and I hope in-house development will work out better. Furthermore, I am by no means even close to finished with the language exchange application. There's a TON of stuff I want to add to it and it will likely be the core product of my Language Link brand for the next decade. To further tweak it and develop it further I will need those in-house app developers.
So, if you know anyone skilled at developing iOS or AndroidOS applications and is knowledgeable in Objective-C or Java, please introduce them to me!

The entertainment project is also progressing bit by bit. Nothing big to report on as of now, but we're working on various things.

I have a ton of other stuff I want to blog about, such as some new psychology stuff, this SICK documentary I saw last week called "I Am" and the onsen trip. However, it's already taken me 45 minutes to type this blog in English only, even though ideally I want to post it in Japanese AND English. And I have also not even added the images yet, because I'm at a SB and don't have a cable to connect my phone to my MacBook, so I'll have to do that tomorrow if I have time or otherwise Monday when I'm home(typing this on Saturday).

Last thing I'll add to this blog is a short update on how my goals for this year are going that I posted in my 2014 Goals blog:

1) 1.000.000$ Net Worth(basically Language Link worth about 1M$)
I have started developing additional products for Language Link very early, that's good, however although I expected some possible delay in the app launch I definitely expected we'd launch early February at the latest. The fact that it looks like it'll be late March or dare I say early April, rather sucks and makes this goal harder for sure. Hopefully I will be able to find app developers relatively soon at least so I can start development of the 2nd product soon as well as continue further additions to the language exchange app asap.

2) Understand Japanese TV
Starting to watch Japanese TV has definitely improved my listening skills a ton. I noticed at the start of the year within a few weeks I progressed a ton. However for the past month or so I've been crazy busy and slacked a bit on both Kanji study and watching TV. Hopefully I can increase the time I spend on Japanese again soon and achieve this goal. I definitely think it's possible to understand ~80-90% of Japanese TV by the end of the year.
Even though I speak pretty well, I actually almost never get to speak any Japanese anymore :( Excluding this last weekend(where I got to speak a lot of Japanese), I've maybe had 1-2 Japanese conversations in the last month.

3) Look like a fitness model
EZ-mode! I'd be surprised if I didn't accomplish this in the 1st half of 2014. I've grown rather large as of late and am pretty happy with my muscle mass. All that's left is switch to a fat loss program and lose maybe ~5KG of fat. Just waiting for the right moment to do so.
Funny side note. I'm now eating 4500+ kcal a day, but nonetheless not gaining much if any weight. To give you an idea of what eating 4500+ kcal a day is like. It basically means having a big appetite and constantly eating from the moment you wake until the moment you go to bed up to the point you honestly don't want to eat anymore.
Anyway, I'm in great shape and getting pretty close to this goal. Just a month or 2, maybe 3 of fat loss and I'll be there.

4) Complete Sea to Summit in under 15 hours (including the climb down)
As I mentioned, I hadn't decided 100% yet that I would go for this. I think now I've pretty much decided not to do this, mostly for 2 reasons. In January I watched a college relay long distance running race and I got VERY worried about my body shape for long distance races. All those guys were super skinny and probably weigh a good 20KG less than me. Hauling an extra 20KG with me from the sea all the way up to the summit of mount Fuji over the course of like 60-70KM is a pretty daunting task.
Secondly and FAR more importantly I did some research into the type of training required for a marathon and thus also this type of event and I found out it was not a type of exercise I like at all. Mostly it consists of spending a lot of time running, but not pushing yourself at all and running under race-pace. Hard to properly explain, but training for a marathon did not sound like my type of thing, thus I somewhat lost interest. There's simply more enjoyable training for me. After I lose a few KG of body fat, I'll likely get into olympic movements or possibly do a Smolov program(heard it is REALLY fucking tough).

Okay, now updating you on these goals took another 15-20 minutes. I think this may be the longest blog I've ever written up till this point, so it's probably time to end it.

Hopefully I'll have time to write another update sooner and I won't have to make you wait a month again!

Finshing off with a few random bonus pictures:

My desk

Random tree

View from Hamamatsucho station. Love the contrast between Nature and modern Skyscrapers. There's lots of that in Tokyo. Nishi-Shinjuku is probably my favorite when it comes to this kind of stuff.

My post workout shake, before I add in milk and protein powder.

自分を嬉しくする。新しい発見！/ A new discovery about making myself happy!

This isn't exactly the same thing as the happiness research I did last year(English / Japanese), but it's somewhat related. Basically just noting down some (to me) interesting things about how my brain works and thus what kind of person I am.

このブログは去年の幸せの研究のブログ (英語 / 日本語) と同じじゃないけれども、ちょっと関係がある。基本的に、自分の脳がどんな制度であるや、俺がどんな人である事に就いて(俺に)面白い点を記すブログに成る筈。

The two things I learned from the happiness research, phylisophy, thinking or whatever you want to call it, were one that I don't like to waste time and want to use it as the valuable resource it is and two that asking myself the question "am I happy?" too often and overthinking things makes unhappy. This second discovery is the reason I stopped thinking about it for the most part. However, I recently discovered some more stuff without really thinking too deeply about it.

幸せの研究から発見した事はただ二つ。一つ目のは時間を潰すのが大嫌いで、有意義の物としたい。二つ目のは自分に「幸せか幸せじゃないか？」という質問を聞きすぎたら、嬉しくなく成る発見である。二つ目の発見の為に幸せの研究を続けなかった。しかし、最近そんなに考えなずに新しい発見をした。

It started with the fact that a lot of things have been bothering me as of late. Little illnesses and stuff. In the last 2-2.5 months I've:
-Had to take a week off from fitness due to a muscle in my upper back/shoulder that unluckily stretched in a not so good way.
-Been out with a cold for about a week.
-Caught an ear infection that came back twice and after visiting a doctor twice still isn't 100%
-Got really scared when my knee started bothering me in the same way it did last summer and paid 5500JPY for a cab to save myself from walking a few hundred meters while changing trains. Physio took a look and seems like it was just some tightness in my right quadricep causing my knee to hurt, so it luckily turns out not to be that bad.

色んな迷惑で始まった。小さな病気等。２、２．５ヶ月以来下記の事があった。
＊肩の或る筋肉の為に一週間で運動出来なかった。
＊引いちゃった風の為に一週間で病気であった。
＊急性外耳道炎を引いちゃった、二度も戻って来て、二回耳鼻咽喉科に行ったにも関わらずにまだ１００％直ってない。
＊膝が作家と同じ様に痛んで着たら、怖く成って、数百メートルを歩かなくては行ける為に５５００円掛かったタクシーで帰った。理学療法士に行って、右大腿四頭筋がちょっと堅いだけであると言われた。

This stuff just messes with my rhythm and flow like crazy and gets me out of my beloved daily routine. It also messes with my focus and motivation. It's not like I haven't dealt with uncontrollable setbacks before... being able to deal with the uncontrollable may be the single most important skill a professional poker player can have. However, being kicked out of my regular routine really stresses me out. Especially when it means not going to the gym regularly (and by regularly I mean at least 5 times a week).

こんな事に自分のリズムと流動を影響して、大切な日課を取り乱す。フォーカスともモチベーションも影響する。コントロールが出来ない挫折を扱った事がない訳ではないんだ。コントロールが出来ない挫折を扱うのはプロポーカープレーヤーに取って一番大事な技量であるかも知れないんだ。だけど、日課を取り乱したら、物凄く緊張成って行く。特にあまりフィットネスに行かない時に。あまり行かない時というのは一週間に４回以下である。

However, yesterday I realized there is one thing that stresses me out even much more than uncontrollable things that mess up my routine and progress. Yesterday there was a CRAZY amount of snow in Japan (got a ton of pictures, but my picture blog will be the next blog... sorry!), so crazy that it was extremely hard to go anywhere. I had to go to the ear doctor, but instead of the usual 5-10 minute walk it took me 30 minutes and I was soaked when I got there. Especially my feet and socks were cold and wet.

 しかし、昨日コントロールが出来なくて日課を取り乱す物よりもっともっと緊張する物存在してるに気づいた。昨日、日本で雪が一杯降り積もってた。　(写真を沢山撮ったけど、次のブログに成る。ごめん！)　どこにも行きにくい程一杯。耳鼻咽喉科に行かなきゃ行けなかったけど、普通の５，１０分位じゃなくて、３０分掛かって、到着したら、ずぶ濡れだった。

So after I got back, I decided I couldn't go out and there wasn't really any work laying around I could do either, so I wasn't really sure what to do. Could've studied some Japanese, but 12 hours long? Considered doing a LotR marathon, but I've seen it over 10 times already. I wasn't really sure, because I'm not sure what else I can do besides work and socializing. I decided I'd play a videogame(hadn't played any in AGES) and try to enjoy it.

帰って来てから、出掛けられない事にして、仕事もあまりあらなかったので、「どうしようかなあ。日本語の勉強は？うーん、１２時間で？指輪物語マラソンは？もう１０回以上見たけど。」と思ってた。仕事と交流の他意外の出来る事は全く出て来なかった。結局ビデオゲームをやる事 (凄い久しぶりであった) にして、楽しもうとした。

It wasn't bad, an okay way to kill time, but nonetheless I felt HORRIBLE at the end of the day. Why? Well... I noticed my subconscious mind rebelled against me wasting that much time. I don't mind if I watch a movie every now and then and I don't view everything tiny thing as a waste of time, but playing video games specifically and for that many hours... something in me wasn't pleased. That little something made me feel extremely stressed out and kind of sick in a way. Fortunately enough I went to the gym today, had a fun time getting my hair cut and was able to be quite productive. For a lot of people, exercise and work are reasons for stress, but for me it has the opposite effect. It soothes me and without either I get very stressed.

悪くなかったのに、日の終わりに気分が酷く成って来た。何で？じゃ、潜在意識の精神は 時間を潰してた俺に反発した。玉に映画を見るのが好きで、細かい奴を全て勿体無いとして見る訳ではないんだけど、ビデオゲームこそ、そしてあんなに長くやったから、自分の奥の何か喜んでなかった。あの小さな何か自分を緊張掛けた。良い事に、今日はフィットネスに行ったり、髪の毛を切って貰ったり、時間を生産的に過ごしたりしたので、もう大丈夫。沢山の人達に取っては運動とか仕事等が緊張する物であるんだが、俺に取って逆の効果を持ってる。自分を宥めて、無しで大変緊張する事に成る。

I'm not sure I'll always be like this, but currently... this is me.

いつもこのままで残るかどうか分からないけど、今これは俺である。


So I guess lessons learned are:

1) Don't concern myself with the uncontrollable, focus on what I can control. (I already knew this, but need to do a better job)

2) Work more or be unhappy... :)

習った事は:

１) コントロールが出来ない事を考えなずにコントロールが出来る事をフォーカスして。 (もう知ってたけど、もっと頑張らなきゃ)

２)もっと働いて。それとも、幸せじゃない。。。 ^_^


Unless something crazy happens, I'll post a blog with all the pictures I've taken　soon!

変な事が起こらなかったら、次のブログは写真が一杯入ってるブログに成る！

日本語ってさー美しい言葉だなあーーーーー！！！！！！もっともっともっともっと上手に成らなきゃ！！

日本語で小さなブログを書いた

Sorry, no English this time. Purely Japanese writing practice.

何を書こうかな

 

インスピレーションが欲しいなー！作者に成りたくて書くのが超うまい友達がいるんだけど、彼女の様に書けるって良いんだけどなー！

日本語がうまい日本人って言えば、敬語が圧倒的にうまい友達もいる。最近彼のプレゼンテーションに行った時に一時間半でプレゼンテーションに聞いて楽しんだ！彼の言い方は、本当に芸術の様な物だと思う。そんなにうまいんだ！

俺 の夢は彼と同じうまく成る事だ。しかし、たいてい出来ない事が存在してないと思ってる(Impossible => I'm possible)にも関わらず、これは本当に出来るかどうか知らない。今のままで必ず自分の日本語を改良することが出来るので、現状の心配じゃないだろ う。当分は一生懸命に頑張るぞ！ 

A Good Start to 2014

First of all, sorry that it's been a while since I posted any cool pictures in this blog. Fact is I just haven't really taken any pictures as of late, but since I bought a new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone the other week, I promise I will put forth an effort to take some pictures around Tokyo to post in this blog.

I blogged about random facts and about my 2014 goals recently, but I haven't really blogged about any specific things I've been doing, so that's what this blog is dedicated to. What the hell I've been up to. If I summed it up in 1 word 'work' it'd be quite accurate, but it wouldn't make for much of an interesting blog, so I'll expand on that 1 word a bit :)

I have definitely been very busy over the past month. I was actually quite bored for most of November and early December and spent a lot of time networking, meeting people, hanging out with friends etc, but middle-December things picked up big time and I've been extremely busy since. The most notable non-work things I've done were a karaoke party around Christmas, falling ill for nearly a week in between Christmas and new year due to a cold and falling ill for another half a week or so in January with an ear infection.

Language Link

The Language Link application's date of expected launch when development began was yesterday, the 21st of January, and we haven't launched yet. However, development completed a while ago and even most of the bug testing has finished. However some bugs remain surrounding certain Android models, which may take a little longer to fix. After all the bugs have been fixed, I will produce a little video, take screenshots and then submit it to the app store. Launch date will mostly depend on how quick we can fix those last few bugs. I don't think we'll make January, but I really hope we'll be able to launch in early February.

My work on Language Link consists partly of testing the application every time there is a new build and sending back feedback to the developer, but most of my time has been spent on the accompanying website. I've sort of soft-launched it and you can take a look around at:

http://www.languagelink.net/

You may notice that there's one bug left(list the articles based on popularity to see what I mean) that I want to get fixed before I start spreading the word about it. It's taken up quite a lot of time this month, but it's reaaaally close now.

On top of the website I've also been brainstorming a little bit about future Language Link products/services and I have a very good one on which I will get started very soon, as well as improvements for the 2nd versions of the website and application.

Qlear Entertainment

The project that I mentioned in my 2014 goals blog post that has the end goal of putting a building in Odaiba(bay area) has been renamed to Qlear Entertainment Project. I'm working together with 4 talented young individuals(and good friends) to make a name for ourselves in the entertainment industry.

This week we've started organizing a valentine's concert. Valentine is very soon and if there are any unforeseen setbacks we will not make it on time, but if that happens we will simply shift it back a little bit and organize an awesome concert in March. If we are able to pull it off for Valentine's though it will be a MASSIVE accomplishment!

After that first relatively small concert to get our feet wet we plan to organize much bigger events in Tokyo, Japan and Asia and plan to eventually become a big player in the market and leverage our position to build a building in Odaiba before the Olympics.

I've taken on the roll of manager, so I'm making sure we meet deadlines, everything runs smoothly, is well organized and so on, and I jump in whenever my help is needed somewhere. Fortunately enough I can rely on my talented friends to do a lot of work as well.

 

Fitness & Japanese

Except for the minor interruptions during the 2 periods where I was ill I've been crushing the gym pretty well. I'm in great shape and as time goes on I will improve and improve even further. This week is the last week of my breathing squat phase, which is a really fucking tough phase with sets of 20 squats with 80+ KG. Toughest exercise I've ever done. Deadlifts are going well too. I'm up to doing sets of 15 reps @ 138.5KG(300+ lbs ^_^ ), but I expect to top 140KG during my last workout of the week.

However, even though it's supposed to be really tough, my workouts are the most relaxing part of my day. There's nights where I don't sleep so well and I wake up really tired, but after I go to the gym I'm SUPER well rested and HYPER relaxed. During my workout it's no different. It's the only moment of the day my mind isn't racing with thoughts and it honestly feels like meditation. Super relaxing and right now I couldn't live without!

Japanese is going decent too. I'm too busy some days, but most days I watch some TV and I am brushing up on kanji knowledge. I want to do more reading though, so I will try and find more reading material soon. However, the fact that most Japanese books use way different (and tougher) vocabulary and kanji from what I'm used to doesn't help to make reading more interesting.

Other Stuff

Last week I got to eat Fugu for the first time and probably the last. I'm really happy I finally got a chance to try it, but to find out why I probably won't eat it again read my other blog here.

I mentioned I bought a new phone, I also bought a 13" Macbook Air, because my other laptop was too heavy and impossible to take with me around Tokyo. Haven't used it much yet, but compared to Windows it seems to have both disadvantages and advantages. Overall it seems a bit worse, but I may change my mind after using it more.

I think that about sums it up. I promise to do my best and take more pictures for my next blog! Hopefully by that time I'll have launched the application!



P.S. Awesome song:

2013 Funny Facts and a look back at 2013

So far 2014 has gone all right. I started off with 1 and a half weeks of insane productivity, but then caught an ear infection which took me 3-5 days to get over(and it still isn't 100%).

I looked forward at 2014 and posted about my goals in my last blog post, but I never really looked back at 2013 to see what I accomplished and at what my highlights were, so here goes. Lots of funny facts and a brief look back at 2013:

Travel

Countries visited: 7
UK, The Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore.

Favorite Country(excluding Japan): Hong Kong

Flights: 12
Amsterdam -> Paris
Paris -> Haneda
Kansai -> Seoul
Seoul -> Narita
Narita -> Seoul
Seoul -> Amsterdam
Amsterdam -> Seoul
Seoul -> Narita
Narita -> Seoul
Seoul -> Singapore
Singapore -> Hong Kong
Hong Kong -> Narita

Favorite Airport: Seoul Incheon Airport
Clean, New, Smoothie King!
Worst Airport: Paris
I don't get lost... ever, except for Paris airport and everybody speaks French!
Best Airliner: Korean Air
Seats, Food, Price, Entertainment, Stewardesses, everything!
Worst Airliner: KLM
Food sucks, seats suck, I don't like speaking Dutch with people I don't know!

Food

Favorite Meal: Ukai Tei Yokohama
This meal was siiiiiiiick!
Favorite Meal Honorable Mention: Sushi close to Nagoya station
2nd best sushi ever after Sukiyabashi Jiro. Kind of want to go back to Nagoya in 2014 to eat here again!
Favorite Meal Honorable Mention #2: 37 Steakhouse Roppongi
Best steak of my life. Better than at Ukai Tei Yokohama, but the overall meal was just slightly less. Still epic though.
Worst Meal: In a tower in The Hague(The Netherlands).
The view on the ~40th floor was nice, especially considering it was in Holland, but half the menu being 'unavailable' today and the other half not being very good made this a bad meal I can't forget :(
Favorite Piece of Food: Foie Gras @ Ukai Tei Yokohama
Best piece of food I've EVER eaten. Better than sushi. It made me cry is how good it was... I literally couldn't speak for 1-2 minutes.
Favorite Cuisine: Sushi
No-brainer.
Favorite Cuisine Honorable Mention: Unagi
Always liked it, really got into it in the last 2 months.
Favorite Restaurant: Midori Sushi Ikebukuro Echika Shop
I've been here over 100 times in 2013. I used to go 3-4 times a week when I lived in west Ikebukuro and now that I live a bit farther away in east Ikebukuro I still go 1-2 times a week.

Tokyo

Favorite Area: Ginza
As much as I love Ikebukuro, Ginza has a slight edge. Marunouchi and Yurakucho also woow me every time I go there.
Worst Area: Roppongi
I don't like nightlife, so clearly I don't like Roppongi.
Favorite Cafe: Suzu Cafe #2 Shibuya
I found a better one the other day, but I only found out about it in 2014. This one in Shibuya is pretty awesome.
Favorite Starbucks: Omotesando B-Side Bldg
Good location, cool staff(although best staff is in Ueno station SB), power sockets and the other people who go here!

Other

Best Day: Fireworks in Setagaya!
Out of many awesome days and nights, this one was #1!!
Worst Day(s): The 14th of June, 3rd of October and the 18th of November
Can't pick one. If I had to, maybe the 3rd of October when I was feeling terrible from food poisoning.
Favorite Month: September
May and March were great too and August ranks 4th. But September was #1 with serious gymming, no illnesses, sweet productivity and many fun meetings/events etc.
Funniest moment: My friend sending some pictures to a girl with my cellphone. Unfortunately enough the pictures came from group chats with my Dutch high school friends and were... it's hard to properly describe them, but let's say they are not pictures you want to see when eating. Made for one hell of a laugh though :D
Biggest Pokerhand: The 250k HKD pot in Macau where I ended up splitting AAxx vs AAxx. I flopped a nfd though and the other guy an oesd!
Best Movie I hadn't seen before 2013: Helpless, Strange Circus and A New World.
Although surprisingly enough I didn't see any movies in 2013 that I'd rank in my top 25 all-time, I cannot pick a favorite movie I saw in 2013 out of these 3 absolutely amazing movies.
Best TV: Code Geass 1 & 2
Admittedly this is the only TV I watched in 2013, but this anime is so absolutely freaking fantastic that I rate it higher than all but 1 movie I've ever seen. The deep, complex themes in here are so plentiful it's crazy. It makes you think about the future of the human race, a 3rd world war, weapons of mass destruction, discrimination, friendship, betrayal, various forms of governments and many many more. Best of all, it's all packaged into an amazing series that never slows down, never has dull moments and sometimes multiple plot twists per episode. Even if you don't like anime, I highly recommend this!


Overall 2013 was a pretty good year. I didn't make that much progress in my life as in accomplishing things in poker or business, but I progressed a LOT in Japanese, learned a lot of things about certain social situations/dynamics and learned many other useful life lessons. Looking back at a year ago, it's pretty shocking how much wiser I feel like I am.

Another area that lacked a little bit was fitness. I only gave it my all towards the end of the year once I settled in Japan, but I got interrupted by having to leave Japan for a month and by a few injuries/illnesses, hopefully this will go better in 2014. On top of that I was traveling a lot more than I like to and busy moving to Japan which also explains the lack of progress with regards to poker/business etc. Now that I'm all settled in though that should be different in 2014.


Hopefully next time I update, I will have a launch date or very close estimation of the Language Link mobile application I'm developing! I'm hoping it will be this month, but it may end up being February.

2014 Goals and Motivation

First of all...

Happy new year!!!

I hope you all had very happy holidays and started off your 2014 in awesome ways today! If you need to get motivated to crush 2014, I suggest you watch either this Youtube video:

Or if you have 4 hours to spare, watch my new all-time favorite movie(I've seen well over 1000 movies), Ai no Mukidashi aka Love Exposure:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1128075/

Language Link

Somebody asked me to explain exactly what I'm trying to do with Language Link. On the about page of the website I'm about to launch I'm explaining it as follows:

If you're learning a new language, there are a lot of things you will need on your journey towards fluency. A lot of these needs are fulfilled by great websites, applications, courses and such, but they are scattered across the internet. Some needs however, are not fufilled at all or in a way that can be improved upon.

Our aim at Language Link is to create a central hub for language leaners, fulfill their unfufilled needs and improve existing language learning resources wherever possible. To accomplish this, we will leverage the knowledge of veteran language learners and teachers over the coming years to create innovations that will make learning easier and more fun for students and teaching simpler and more efficient for teachers.

Basically I'm trying to create more clarity in the language learning market. One place where everything is crystal clear and language learners can go to find everything they need. Be it links to great products by other companies or my own products.

For now I'm focussing on creating a community around my company first through the website and through the language exchange application. The language exchange application I believe will fill the need that every language learner has to practice. I'm making that available for free. After I gain traction and get a big user base of language learners, I plan to offer them other products that will help them achieve their language learning goals.

The website should hopefully be done for a soft-launch in about a week or maybe 2. The application is officially scheduled for launch on the 21st, but it could possibly take until early-February.

Odaiba Project

I believe I've mentioned this project before, but never said much about it. Well here goes:

Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics I and a few others plan to build a building in the Tokyo bay area.

For now, I'll just say that we have a plan involving a number of milestone steps along the way to build a building in Odaiba, the Tokyo bay area, before the 2020 olympics. The building will focus on entertainment. It's a massive project and I'm sure there'll be many challenges along the way, but nothing is impossible and I think we can do it! The first milestone is a valentine's concert planned for February. Exciting stuff!

 2014 Goals

So next up it's time to set some goals for 2014, well actually the time for that was yesterday and so I did, but since I'm updating my blog today, I'm sharing them with the world today. Here's a few of the biggest goals I have for 2014. Some harder than others, but I'm determined to achieve every one of them:

A net worth of 1.000.000$

This will presumably come from Language Link for the most part. So I better work my ass off to build the company as fast as I can over the next year. Application launch in January, market it like crazy, add some extra features and also before mid-2014 have something else ready to start generating revenue for the company. Then in the 2nd half, build upon the momentum I gained in the 1st half and build it big enough to boost my net worth into 7 figures for the first time in my life.

Understand Japanese TV

I live in Japan, but nonetheless I don't use all that much Japanese. I need to make a conscious effort to start using Japanese as much as I can, because I can't improve that much anymore from studying with textbooks. My work is effectively entirely in English, so I will have to get it from non-work activities. I may like Korean movies better, but I'll just have to man up and watch Japanese entertainment and TV instead. By the end of 2014, I want to be able to turn on a Japanese TV and understand 90% of what is going on.

Look like a fitness model

Even if it made me look butt-ugly I may still be going to the gym. I just freaking love it and would be significantly less happy without it. While I'm at it, I may aswell set a goal to motivate myself. This is it. At the end of 2014, I want to look like a fitness model, albeit be it one of the healthy ones and not the unhealthily thin steroid guys.

Complete Sea to Summit in under 15 hours (including the climb down)

I have still not decided 100% I'll do this, but I will decide sometime in the next 3 months. I've always wanted to compete in some insane physical challenge and this seems like a crazy, awesome, over-the-top one that will allow me to try and prove every sane person who will say it can't be done wrong. If I do it, it'll also include running a sub 3:15 marathon as part of training!

Sea to Summit by the way is an event where you go from the sea of Japan to the summit of Mount Fuji in about 24 hours(48km uphill hike and then climbing Fuji). Most people struggle to complete it in 24 hours, I want to complete it in under 13ish hours, so that I have enough time to get back down and get to bed before I start getting too sleepy ;)

Basically... I will simply crush 2014 and make it my best year ever!!

If at any point anyone feels like I'm slacking off even in the slightest, please tell me I'm a lazy bastard and that I need to get back to work!!!

Do you have any goals for 2014? If so, please post them in a comment. I'd love to hear about them and see if you can complete yours before the end of the year!