The Monday Read

The Mountains Look Nice Edition

Last week I went to Mount Kurikoma with my wife. Unfortunately, half of Japan had the same idea… apparently it’s one of the best places to see the autumn foliage, and we went bang slap in the middle of the ten days or so when the leaves are perfect.

We left a bit late and got there around 11am -only to find a line of cars stretching 4km down the mountain.

Turned around and went to an onsen we’d passed a couple of minutes before, had a bath and tried again at 1pm. Mangaged to get up, get parked, and walk up and down.

It’s a stunning place and we got some great photos (most of the crowds were gone by mid-afternoon) but I don’t think I want to climb mountains as crowded as this in the future.

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (16,162 posts to date). Here are the latest active threads:

Podcast

I was on the Japanese with Friends podcast recently, talking about RetireJapan and personal finance. Check it out here.

RetireJapan Online Conference (save the date)

The inaugural RetireJapan online conference will be held on Labor Thanksgiving Day (November 23rd). It will be free and held through Zoom. More details nearer the time. Recordings will be made available for people that can’t make it on the day (where possible) but do come and join us if you can.

This week’s books

Spent too much time on Twitter this week so no new books. I’m still reading Dune Messiah.

This week’s links

  1. I love the idea of this, haven’t managed to implement it yet: Working in Seasons
  2. US stock market looks expensive: What could go wrong?
  3. He seems nice (I mainly know of him from the Hulk Hogan/Gawker lawsuit story): Peter Thiel’s Origin Story
  4. This is really impressive: Changi Airport deploys new technology for cleaner air in passenger terminals
  5. Kishida government considering rasing capital gains taxes: 金融所得課税の引き上げ検討
  6. Japanese income slips from #5 to #30 worldwide: 日本人は国際的に低い給料の本質をわかってない
  7. I went to a private secondary school, and I came to the opposite conclusion: The True Cost of Private Schools
  8. This might be a good mind exercise: CDs and Cemeteries
  9. I think I have a decent handle on most of these: Tools for modern citizens
  10. RetireJapan blog post from the past: How to approach problems
  11. Wow. Tech progress is accelerating: The robot that can make pasta and sauce
  12. Heh, this is a great send-up of NFTs: I collect cashflows
  13. Straight out of Dune: In dry California, some buy units that make water from air
  14. Interesting to see the process: Becoming a naturalised citizen of Japan
  15. Can’t wait for all vehicles to be electric (as a cyclist and someone who lives next to a main road): Electric vehicles: the revolution is finally here
  16. Aspiring FIRE blog in Tokyo: September/October Portfolio Update
  17. Nihonpolitics write-up: Kishida Fumio, LDP President & Prime Minister of Japan

What do you think? Anything good in there?

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9 Responses

  3. For #1, working in seasons, the first thing I thought of was being a uni part-timer: work (hard?) during two 16 week periods thru the year, with complete time off between, when you can do whatever you want.

    1. The issue here is that many universities pay per Koma and not yearly. That time off often has to be spent filling in this missing income with other jobs.

      1. Sure, but when I was ‘full-time part-time’ at various universities, I just took my annual pay (paid per koma, as you say) and budgeted off that. Doesn’t really matter when the money arrives as long as you understand and work around that. And of course you would need to find more work if it wasn’t enough (it was for me doing 13 koma a week).

    1. Thanks for the heads-up. I had skipped it because I thought it would be about some NFT nonsense. It’s brilliant!

  5. #6 reads as another criticism of “Abenomics” but I am unclear about what Abenomic policies are believed to have suppressed wages here. Working from within corporate Japan it increasingly seems to me like there are too many regulations in employment law and the near inability to fire workers means companies invest in ways that grow employment outside Japan instead of domestically. Is there something I have misunderstood about how Abenomics suppressed wage growth?