Monday, 31 March 2014
States of Mind
There's 2 both quite psychological topics I really want to write about. Which one shall I choose to write about first... I guess I will pick the one that I think will be the shortest, because I'm still hyperbusy.
Since I went to the onsen a few weeks ago(trip report still to come I hope), I've been thinking a lot about the different states of mind I've noticed I can be in. The onsen wasn't the first time I noticed and thought about this topic, but laying in the onsen trying to take a break from everything and trying to relax and calm my mind, I tried to banish all thoughts from my mind and focus intensely on my 5 senses.
I was alone in the onsen late at night and listened to the noise that the water was making during it's various stages going from it's origin into the bath and eventually out of the bath. I also breathed in the air and tried to focus on the smell of the onsen water. Of course I also felt the sensation of the warm water and the currents throughout the bath. And not to be left out was the sight of the dimly lit onsen at night.
The day after I found myself thinking about different states of mind and the possible importance of balance between them like I had done a few months before. For myself I've been able to identify 3-4 different states of mind:
1) Consciously Active
This is the state of mind I was in when I used to play poker and when I am working nowadays. My mind is full of thoughts and doing it's best to do all it's tasks as good and efficient as it possibly can. I assume that especially the left side of my brain(logical side) is extremely busy in this state. I do really like this state of mind and I think I spent the vast majority of my waking hours in this state of mind, but if I'm not careful I get stuck in this state of mind and it becomes hard to turn it off and relax. If I'm still in this state of mind with thoughts racing through my mind when I go to bed, it takes a long time to fall asleep for example.
2) Unconsciously Active
This is when I'm watching TV or when I'm browsing through FB on my phone when I am on the train. Basically, I'm not consciously thinking about anything and it's sort of a nice break from #1 and very necessary every now and then to let your mind rest. However, although there's no conscious thoughts going on in my mind there are still many unconscious thoughts flying around. It's still active.
3) Consciously Inactive
State #3 is when I'm very focussed on my senses, like I was in the onsen. I focus on 1 or 2 very simple things like sounds or other sensations and have it block out all the rest in my mind. I get the feeling people aren't in this state very often nowadays(lives being busy and all), even though our senses are really the essence of what we are and what is the most real. All the other stuff we think about and what goes on in our head is just stuff we make up based off of these senses. I'm not nearly done experimenting more and thinking more about all of this, but I get a feeling a good balance between these 3 could be important. Sort of related to life/work balance, but not quite the same.
Then there's also social activities, which I'm not sure which state to put in exactly, I feel like it's sort of inbetween #1 and #2. Fitness also I feel like is probably #2, but definitely flirts a lot with state #3.
Probably labeling them as these 3 states is thinking too black and white, however it makes it easier to think and philosophize about these subjects for me and allows me to create a framework and possibly learn something from it.
This is pretty abstract and unfinished, but simply something I've thinking about and experimenting a bit with as of late. For example, trying to focus on my senses more and almost doing some semi-meditation on the train instead of playing with my phone as well as trying to spend some time in state #3 before going to bed to quiet down my mind and unwind after a long day with thoughts racing through my mind.
Monday, 17 March 2014
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:
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
These are probably the 2 weirdest sayings I've ever come across. Kyushu-ben... people in Kyushu clearly have an awesome sense of humor:
More Great Unagi. I had been here before, but was happy to be back!
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:
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!
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:
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:
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!
Weird language I'm studying...
It actually makes sense in a way..., but woow!!!
Pickles
Soup
Unajuu(Unagi)
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)