Rusty returns, remote temptations, and urban decay

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open post-hiatus, reflecting on burnout, disconnection, and the surreal feeling of a Tokyo that never went back to “normal.” Reverse culture shock hits hard. Japan’s post-COVID energy feels off—tourism-heavy, pricier, less alive. We wonder aloud: why would anyone move here now?

Shifting gears, we compare cost of living in Canada and the U.S., vent frustrations with tipping culture, and talk about how global decline makes location feel more like coping strategy than aspiration. Japan in the 90s required guts and physical dictionaries—now a Pixel phone handles everything. The romance is gone.

We unbox old phones and revisit the weird charm of slider models and early smartphone gimmicks. Japan’s domestic phone market once had style, now lost. In public, people used to be in reality—not doomscrolling. Post-COVID, it’s like we handed out AI tech to people who hadn’t even recovered socially yet.

From there, we drift into immigration policy, multicultural idealism vs. reality, and the permanent-under-construction energy of Canadian infrastructure. Canada’s vast emptiness and low density feel like a curse. We compare it to Australia’s ring-of-civilization and resource-rich interior that no one wants to live in—but where you can quietly get rich or go insane.

That leads into a meditation on isolation: fire tower jobs, remote cabins, the strange freedom of nothing to do. We debate the appeal of mountain homes vs. coastal hermit life, and how Japanese countryside infrastructure (stone baths, manual water heaters, kerosene stoves) complicates romantic rural dreams.

We dig into the quirks of various Japanese regions—Fukuoka’s California vibe, Osaka’s energy, and why some smaller cities feel like shittier versions of better places. Some have ghosts of community past, others never quite clicked. The centralization of Tokyo has left ex-urban networks hollowed out.

Finally, we reflect on how places like Toronto feel more alive than their population stats suggest, while Japanese cities sometimes feel empty despite being full. Discoverability is dead. Events are hidden up stairwells. Before the internet, you could just walk around and find something. Now? You’d better already know.

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