thoughts

Rather recently, I did a thing where I stopped eating meat. This is the second time I have done this in my life (unless you count the time I declared becoming a vegetarian at a family gathering and then promptly stuffed my face with salami as a tween). Round two is a little different to the first time though, because, as I am sure you know by now, I'm living in Japan. I tried to find a picture of me stuffing my face with some sort of meat product. This is the closest I could get; me taking a picture of a bean burger at burger liquor in Wellington a few years back. I have always leant towards the meat-free options. So, why does my dietary change in the context of Japan warrant its own blog post? Many, many reasons my sweet fren. And a lot to do with food culture. It's fascinating! Who knew that conceptions of food and health would be different in a country that is not where I am from (shock horror). Firstly, the cultural conception of a well-rounded diet in Japan much mor...

Let's get personal today on Emily's blog. I am here to announce that I am leaving Japan in August, official and everything. I am going, but strangely, I still have 4 months left. I will get to the whole 'reasons' part of why I'm only here for a year later, but first, let me tell you about how this whole moving to Japan thing has really messed with my perception of time. At various points over the last 8 months, my time here has felt like it will be over in an instant, and other times felt like it will never end. I look through photos and archived instagram stories and I think 'wow, that thing happened three months ago?', with 3 months emphasised as being short, or long, depending on the context. People saying 'wow you're only there a year', or when I'm planning for last destinations to get to in Japan before leaving, it does feel so short. But then I think, oh I have 4 months left, it feels like such a long time. It's a third of a yea...