Throughout the Decade

I don’t usually write yearly review posts, but maybe it’s time to start. It’s the end of a decade, after all.

Here are some of my old Instagram pictures I found deep in the recesses of my external hard drive. The past 10 years has seen me graduate high school, get my first job, subsequently get six more jobs, travel farther than I’ve ever been before, spend way too much time in university, attend various weddings, make many new friends, stick by old friends (since elementary school!), and temporarily move to China. It’s no joke that your 20s are where everything seems to happen. It’s hard to imagine the next decade being so busy – is this all there is from here on out?

  

  

  

  

No, I won’t let it be.

Life has been rough for the past little while. There’s an unimaginable amount of awful that’s been crammed into the past couple years. The universe is cold and uncaring so that means I have to care out of spite.

Secret Garden

Despite the recent plant mom trend, my username, and my appreciation for all things green, I haven’t invested too much on plants. Plants are easy to kill. Plants spruce up a room but can be quite finicky and ultimately you’re putting in all this effort for something that’s just pretty. I’m much more of a cat mom.

However, I got a few succulents because they are pretty kill-proof so they get along marvellously with my general neglect. The only way you can kill them is by caring too much ie. overwatering.

I attempted to propagate my succulents for the first time due to necessity. No, really. Literally all the leaves of one of my succulents fell off when I forgot to adjust my watering schedule with the changing seasons and one succulent got so overwatered to the point that its leaves fell off with barely a touch. The original plant became a stick and died shortly after.

So I Bing-ed* how to propagate succulents from a leaf and tried to salvage my succ with this last ditch effort.

Honestly? Propagating succulents is so exciting! Mainly because it’s actually working. For about 2 weeks, I had no idea if anything was happening. Then I saw something coming from the leaf. Then the sprout turned red and I started panicking – was I watering them too much? Not enough? So I decided to remedy this situation by doing nothing at all and now they’re doing pretty good! (Turns out the red thing was a root.) Like I said: kill-proof.

I’m so proud of my little sprouts. I check on them every morning and I like playing them plant music. My favourite album is “Plantasia” by Mort Garson. I like to think it makes them happy.

*There’s no Google in China. By the way, I am currently living in China.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Tokyo

Reunited with the comforting glow of the ubiquitous vending machine.

We didn’t have a lot of time in Tokyo – we spent a full week here last time – but we started and finished our journey here. I ate a lot of food and also did a lot of shopping here, which probably was unwise because it was literally our first stop and I had to lug everything around with me for the rest of the trip. But Don Quixote was calling my name.

One of the highlights was the Mori Digital Art Museum. I was definitely stressed when I first got there because the lineup was huge and I had to leave for the airport in about an hour! Part of that was due to the fact that our shinkansen ride back from Hakone got delayed because of a bad storm. But we managed to get through after not that long a wait and we split up quickly because 1) it was crowded, and 2) I needed to rush through the museum because, yeah, I only had an hour. I wish I had more time here.

And then I rushed back to the airport and sailed atop a sea of clouds.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Hakone

Hakone was rushed because we only had a day there, ended up arriving late, and also just had unfortunate timing because the ropeway was closed due to volcanic activity. I suppose that is a good reason to be closed. We also got there so late that hiking via the replacement bus just didn’t seem worth it because that would require an additional chunk of travel time. We decided to settle for the Hakone Open Air Museum and onsen.

This was my first experience with an open air museum – it was lots of fun! I’m so jealous of the children that got to go into the more interactive installations.

Hakone was also my first experience with an onsen. I have no pictures from the onsen, for obvious reasons, but it was actually pretty easy to bare all because it was so relaxing in there. We needed it because when we got off the train to go to the onsen, we found out that the rain had changed from drizzling to pouring over the course of 30 minutes. And so we were running in the downpour, frantically trying to locate the onsen, except then we went the wrong way because we don’t read or speak Japanese so we were thoroughly soaked by the time we figured it out.

And here is an excellent sandwich I had in Hakone.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Kyoto

Kyoto was something else.

I loved so much of Japan so it’s hard to call one city my favourite city, but Kyoto definitely made an impact. The old-style architecture really transported you somewhere else.

I’m glad we got to spend a lot of time doing the classic tourist activities: bamboo forests, monkey parks, the imperial palace, and of course, Fushimi Inari Taisha.

I saw this orange shrine so many years ago, back when I thought I’d never get to travel anywhere in Asia at all. It all seemed so unattainable in the past. I loved Fushimi Inari Taisha. It’s obviously super crowded at the beginning, but as we walked further and further along – we were determined to walk it all – it thinned out and I got to enjoy the stillness of the forest. We spent hours walking along the different routes. I was exhausted from all the stairs, but it’s easy to keep going when you’re surrounded by moss-ridden statues and ample komorebi. And then when we finally made it back to the beginning, I saw the most beautiful sunset.

The picture doesn't do it justice.

I’m glad we were able to spend two full days here because Kyoto was breathtaking.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Nara

Nara! My love! 

I was ridiculously excited to visit Nara. We hit up the shrines, ate good food, bought lots of souvenirs with that adorable deer mascot… but my primary focus was the actual deer. I really wanted to bow and feed them crackers. Yes, we got swarmed and deer don’t seem to realize just how pointy their antlers are, but eventually you learn to only feed the deer standing by themselves and it was so much fun! 

People were giving them teeny tiny pieces of crackers but I decided to be generous and often gave them the whole thing. Predictably, I tore through 3 packs of deer crackers, but they were only ¥150 each and feeding and petting and bowing gave me so much enjoyment. It was well worth it. 

I loved seeing the deer wander freely throughout the city. They’ll walk right by you, casually hanging out along the side of the road, and even wander into some open shops. My backyard in Canada opens into the forest so we occasionally have deer that wander in, but of course they scatter as as soon as they become aware of your presence. 

As I’m typing this now, I realize I forgot to taste the deer crackers myself. I guess I have to go back.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Osaka

Aptly named the kitchen of Japan!

We did a lot of shopping and a lot of eating. We stayed near the Dotonbori-Shinsaibashi area so we ended up spending a lot of time here. We started off at the end of Shinsaibashi, the shopping street, and it took us so long to get through it because we kept stopping to buy snacks and souvenirs. Then we emerged at the end to Dotonbori and ate even more: takoyaki, matcha soft serve, gyoza, okonomiyaki! I wish I had a greater stomach capacity.

It is so bright here. There’s so many flashing signs and I got to see the man of honour: Glico Man! Then we wandered among the giant food sculptures, from stall to stall. It was a bit rainy but the reflection of all the lights on the water was actually pretty beautiful. And it was here that I discovered that the clear umbrellas of Osaka are akin to the black umbrellas of Toronto. (Refer to Figure 1.)

Osaka was so exciting with all its flashing lights. The nightlife is something else, it seems like the city never sleeps.

CANDANRAN IN JAPAN: Shinkansen Edition

Recently, Can & Ran & I reunited across three different continents for a whirlwind adventure in Japan. We spent a week riding the bullet train between five different cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Hakone, and Tokyo again!

We took the N700 from city to city. I can appreciate the punctuality of the shinkansen, even though once we were literally sprinting through the station (with luggage) to make our train. Usually I was pretty exhausted and promptly fell asleep during the train ride. But when I was awake, it was beautiful. Japan is full of lush forests and mountains.

And I got to try the ekiben! Ekiben stands for “eki” (train station) and “bento” (boxed lunch). The shop was full of people and so many different bentos, but I carefully pored over the rows in search of the perfect ekiben. In the end, I found a double-decker bento that seemed to be one of the more popular ones because there was barely any left. And it was so good! There was so much variety in one bento.

Japan is beautiful – beautiful shrines, forest, cities. We definitely didn’t have enough time in each city, but I'm glad we got to sample it all.

Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen

Life advice from Valen many moons ago.

DIY Beeswax Wraps 🐝

Reusable beeswax wraps are super appealing to me, mainly because they are super cute, but the price is not-so-appealing at 20-something dollars for 3 wraps that would last 8-12 months. Luckily, they're pretty easy to make: get some fabric, grate some beeswax, and then melt it over the fabric with an iron (and parchment paper). After 8-12 months, simply apply more wax.

Lessons learned:

• Fabric will get a slightly yellowish tinge from the beeswax, which isn't necessarily appealing. Choose your fabric designs carefully, especially white fabrics.
• Let the grater soak in hot water to help get the wax off.
• You'll have to gain some judgement about how much wax is necessary: too much makes the entire fabric feel very waxy but too little means it won't be as moldable.
• I didn't have fabric scissors so I decided to take my chances with straight edges because I figured the wax would help keep it from fraying. We're good so far.
• Make sure you have enough parchment paper if you're ironing it because if the wax accidentally spills over you've ruined your ironing board cover thus eliminating any savings from making it yourself. :( No one wants waxy clothes.

While saving the environment is nice and all, the main reason I wanted to make some beeswax wraps was because I had some really beautiful fabric I wanted to immortalize. However, the wraps have actually turned out to be surprisingly handy because you can mold them to any shape you want by using your hands to warm up the wax. I've been using it a lot, for simple things such as covering open drinks in the fridge or closing the opened ends of packages for cheeses and deli meat. I like that they also give more structure than plastic wrap. 

This was a relatively simple DIY project - there are several steps, but nothing particularly difficult. However, I might just get beeswax beads next time, to skip the step of having to actually clean the grater.