Case in point wrt my last post: walk between the Yodobashi Camera buildings in Nishi-Shinjuku and you’ll see scads of people standing still, sitting on hand rails or on the benches provided by the store, all silent tapping on their phones—sometimes 2 phones! This is the Pokémon Go Square. Wild!

When I first came to Japan, at age 18 with a backpack and a guitar, I came to Tokyo at the end of February in 1997. That is almost 30 years ago! I am sitting in this little park drinking a canned coffee just watching the people like I did back then. And yet so so much has changed.

Lovely 20° day in Tokyo

Chad selfie in front of the Mode Gakuen building against a clear blue sky. He is wearing sunglasses and a t-shirt.

Sure picked the wrong day to have a quiet walk around the neighborhood: it’s Tokyo Marathon Day! Already seen some mad costumes and all the streets are being blocked off.

Made it to my hotel in Tokyo. What up Famichikis! Been a few months! Gonna hit the konbini and then crawl into bed. Wiped… Cannot believe how many people were lined up at immigration.

Sent my monthly newsletter early since I am about to get on a plane to Japan. See you next month!

buttondown.com/chadkoh/a…

Started Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky 📚

A little audiobook for the plane ride

Birthday hangsang! 🎈🎂

Many many small plates of Korean food absolutely covering a table

This aside from Ben Evans recent newsletter:

(A very successful Silicon Valley VC once told me never to invest in a company called ‘labs’ because “they don’t know what they want to build”.)

This is me chuckling in has two shutdown labs in my work history. 😅

Omg it’s past midnight. I been watching that King Los freestyle reacts for hours! 🔥 🔥 🔥

He’s a lyrical zodiac killer. 🐏🐂👯🦀🦁🌬️⚖️🦂🏹🐐🏺🐟

2025 is gonna be a good year for #hiphop 😊

Vancouver Art Gallery 🎨

panorama of the Vancouver Art Gallery building which has large canvas displays depicting a figure with fiery red hair against an ocean scene in an oil paint style. Atop the building are different kinds of boats mounted to the gallery. The exhibition is called FIRELEI BÁEZ

Started listening to the long Samir Amin essay from 2004 The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World which seems appropriate after finishing the latest Pankaj Mishra book. 📚

In an area of downtown Vancouver that I don’t frequent very often, and has changed significantly since I used to live in the area 25 years ago

Black and white image of a modern tower that is thinner on the bottom than the topPillars at the entrance of a building with large silhouettes of people in different poses. Hard to explain what I am seeing here. One pillar shows two people kissing. Another of a figure with elongated arms. Wall art pattern in relief. There are lots of indigenous symbols radiating from the center with here there the words “IN” and “EXIT”. I need to look this up to figure out the meaning.

Been dreaming and looking at old photos from Hawaiʻi and India. I had some memorable hotel experiences there, and would love to to go back.

Finished The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra 📚

I’ll need time to process this. Pankaj Mishra’s righteous teardown of Western tradition (racism, slavery, colonialism) puts Gaza and the Shoah in a wider context as he tries to wrestle it away from politicians with narrow agendas. Astounding work.

I am going to this! In fact, there will be a couple of open social Chads there. Come join us!

lu.ma/3rjg60rc

website design inspo (sound on) y-n10.com

Started reading: The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra 📚

Had this on pre-order and it just dropped. One of my fav authours so I couldn’t wait to start!

AI Energy Score: ranking models so developers can choose based on energy consumption

huggingface.co/spaces/AI…

Currently reading: The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay 📚 #AmReading