I’m sneaking away from work I’m using my 15 minutes tea break at work to quickly bang out this post. The idea has been in my mind for a few days and I would like to catch it before it slips away entirely. Because April is traditionally the season for a new start in Japan… Read More What do we (I?) do now? (A repeat question?)
Warning: as indicated in the title, this post will have MAJOR spoilers for the ending of A Simple Favor (both the book and the movie) and I wouldn’t recommend you read this if you hate spoilers and want to either watch the movie or read the book, or both. Recently, I watched the movie A… Read More Is a Happy Ending more Satisfying? Discussing the Book vs Movie versions of A Simple Favor
“What we may find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.” A long, long time ago, I had to read The Art of Travel for school. Expecting something on travelling, I remember feeling disappointed that it was more on the philosophy of travelling. But since I recently read The World… Read More Book Review: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
This post is a follow-up (of sorts) to my review of the book The New Tourist by Paige McClanahan. While The New Tourist took a broader look at the tourism industry, its impact, and how we view ourselves as tourists, The World in a Selfie takes an even broader look to consider what tourism says… Read More Book Review: The World in a Selfie by Marco D’Eramo
Is there more to folklore, even if the folklore isn’t from your own specific region? For Merrily Watkins, the new Pastor-in-Charge at Ledwardine, it’s a old folklore tradition (from Derbyshire) that leads to the first death she encounters in the village. As Merrily and her daughter, Jane, settle in, they have to deal with a… Read More Book Reviews: The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman
After a long time, I’m easing back into tea blogging with a review of this simple but delicious tea. If you drink Japanese tea, you’re probably familiar with houjicha, the roasted green tea that was originally created to minimise waste (you can even turn any stale sencha you have lying around into houjicha – that’s… Read More Tea Review: Bouhoujicha from Ohnishien
I first heard about Dr Gwen Adshead when she was the lecturer for the BBC’s Reith Lectures. Her four talks on the problem of violence were so insightful that after I immediately put a reservation for a copy of her book: The Devil You Know. For me, the book and the talks complemented each other.… Read More Book Review: The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead
Recently, Krysta from Pages Unbound posted about whether it’s worth starting a book blog in 2025 and her points about community and freedom from the algorithm were two that resonated with me. As you know, I’ve been pretty much off social media and blogging, but over the many years I’ve been on the internet, I’ve… Read More Thoughts on Blogging, Instagram, Lemon8, Substack, and all that
A few years back, while I was working in a tea and tech-based startup, I went for a Japanese food fair. There, I heard about Sayama tea for the first time, and as someone who was already interested in Japanese tea, I took the chance to talk to Kajishima-san, the lady who was running the… Read More My Visit to Sayama ‘Teas’neyland
Hello friends! As you know, I’ve been tired lately, and I even talked about how I think I’ve piled too much on my plate. This is a bit of a recurrent topic for me, so I’ve been doing some reading on what I can do about it, and today I want to share five book… Read More Five Books That are Helping Me Slow Down and Refocus
