The Monday Read: Off to New Waters
Ten days in Shikoku might be the cure Just finished work (Saturdays are brutal in the eikaiwa world -for most schools that is by far the busiest day). Heading off to Shikoku tomorrow morning. Back in a week and a half. See you then? YouTube Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. […]
The Future of RetireJapan
Where do we go next? I started RetireJapan in 2013. It’s been an amazing 10+ years. I have learned so much and gotten so much value from running the blog, then the focum, the social media accounts, and now the YouTube channel. Hopefully I have helped some other people along the way too. The last […]
The Monday Read: Shikoku Calling
All work and no play makes Ben… It’s my 20-year wedding anniversary this year. We had a ridiculous trip to NYC and Iguazu Falls for our 10-year anniversary, and were planning an even bigger trip for this year but… life got in the way. Rather than a Star Alliance round the world ticket in business […]
Life is a game of resource optimization
But you need to know what phase of the game you are in Games and resources I enjoy playing games. Board games, video games, tabletop strategy games, role-playing games. Today it occurred to me that life is basically a resource optimization game. In resource optimization games, players need to decide how to use their scarce […]
The Monday Read: Back to Work
For everything a season This Golden Week has been wonderful. We’re kind of used to them now, so we planned things in order to completely avoid crowds. And it worked: Stayed at some cabins run by a town near Sendai on the evening of the 29th (next day was not holiday, so it turned out […]
Two steps forward, one step back
Investing in a time of strong stock markets and a weak yen In the real world, progress is seldom linear. You are more likely to see forward movement, the odd lurch backwards, and lots of sideways drifting. I have seen this in exercise, creative endeavors, business, relationships, learning, and of course investing. People think the […]
The Monday Read: Swimming Upstream?
When life is hard, keep going This week I published a quick blog post on a topic I have been thinking about for a while. For a laugh I gave it a clickbaity controversial title, and of course it has become the most successful post I have ever made on social media, getting hundreds of […]
Don’t move to Japan
And if you’re here already maybe you should leave Coming to live and work in Japan could be a grave mistake for young people now. And if they are already in Japan, unless they are already 100% committed to living here, it might be better to leave while they still can. The weak yen, stagnant […]
The Monday Read: Golden Week approaching
The longer I live here the more I appreciate Golden Week For anyone on the Japanese annual schedule (year starts in April), these first four weeks are exhausting. So the gods (or previous Japanese governments, I guess) have given us Golden Week to make up for it. It is perfectly timed, arriving majestically just at […]
The Monday Read: Take a deep breath
Halfway to Golden Week Today was glorious in Sendai. Wonderful weather, warm, cherry blossoms are still out. Went to jiu-jitsu in the morning and had an okonomiyaki party at the in-laws’ in the afternoon. We’re halfway to Golden Week. These first couple of weeks of the year are always brutal (classes at my wife’s school […]