Personal work (the weird stuff)

everybody’s a critic

I write movie reviews on Letterboxd. I try to keep them short and succinct, AKA the opposite of recipe sites. If you like movies, this is the content for you!

If you don’t like movies, maybe you’d like my other work (see below).

The Japan Diaries

From February to mid-March of 2019, I embarked on a trip throughout Japan, traveling all throughout the country. Via Mailchimp newsletter, I invited folks to follow along to read about the food, cultural practices, and fascinating places I encountered.

This was my second trip to Japan after studying abroad there in the summer of 2007. Since then, I continued practicing my Japanese and also worked as a reporter for the Tokyo and Chunichi Shimbun, two Japanese regional newspapers. It had been about 12 years between trips, so I had a lot to catch up on in the country. Using the Shinkansen (bullet train) tourist discount, I bought a two-week pass to head up to Sapporo and as far south as Fukuoka, visiting many friends along the way.

email one, sent January 29, 2019: [Bentobox Travels message #1: why Japan and how will she... Japan]

email two, sent February 7, 2019: [update: I can see Russia from up here]

email three, sent February 9, 2019: [greetings from Nagoya, where everything is MISO]

email four, sent February 12, 2019: [when the world hands you lemons, you go to pray at a shinto shrine]

email five, sent February 17, 2019: [Björk said to play dead so I did...]

email six, sent February 22, 2019: [sapporo snow, earthquake country, east side of the world]

email seven, sent March 2, 2019: [north to south, east to west, and now in the pit stop]

email eight, sent March 7, 2019: [showa era more like SHOWER era]