home away from home
not much of a blog post today. the above is the only photo i took all day. i wont even do an email for this one.
today i went back to tokyo proper. i originally had plans to stay at a fancy hotel in shinjuku until the 13th.
every time i come to japan, i have stayed with my friend shinobu-san. she has multiple airbnb’s in a beautiful and peaceful area of tokyo called hatanodai, in shinagawa. her place was my first destination when i came to japan for the first time in 2024. she is the nicest person on planet earth, and i don’t think i would love visiting this country nearly as much as i do if not for her.
there was some communication issues with planning the trip. since there were 3 of us at the start, we booked a different place that would have enough room for all of us. i originally planned to stay with her after the lads left. but the plan got shuffled around a couple times, and it took me way too long to determine which dates i would be in tokyo.
i completely messed up our conversation about dates, and assumed she was busy and did not see it. it turns out she did see it and planned for me to stay from april 5 to april 12. this was not going to work for our trip, since on april 5 we would already be in osaka.
i was actually a little sad that i wouldn’t get to stay in hatanodai during my trip this time. its become sort of a home away from home for me. i’ve spent like 35 days of my life here (sorta).
but we chatted some more and i was able to cancel the fancy hotel in shinjuku and stay in hatanodai from the 10th to the 13th instead. it really worked out perfectly.
it’s funny, i love this area of tokyo so much, but over the entire course of my time staying in hatanodai, that image above is the only one i took. i’ve taken a ton of photos of this area in 2024 and 2025, and didn’t feel like taking the exact same photos again. its a beautiful quiet place, just far enough away from the tourism.
i hung out in the room for the rest of my day today, kinda still tired from the 22k step day yesterday.
