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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • If this is about a personal relationship, all you should focus on is minimizing harm. Assume that any fear on one party is valid, and help to keep them separate from a potential attacker. Don’t invalidate the feelings of either party - we may not always get to learn the truth, but many times we have to mitigate with incomplete information, but also that it is not your responsibility to fix alone. Remember that your strength is for protection, not destruction. Everyone sees things differently, including you, so there might be red flags that one party sees clearly that you missed - assume their judgment is right. If you are super positive, double checked, super sure that there is no risk of harm, then you dont need to directly intervene, but you can still emotionally support both sides without invalidating the other one, and it’s their loss if this is only about turning you into the rope in a tug of war for attention. Make some different friends if this is only about manipulating you.

    If this, however, is about politics, then you must remember that the only true natural law is that the biggest army wins, therefore, there is no such thing as neutrality. You cannot stand for all sides, nor should you stand for nothing and you should move to protect your family, friends and community from acts of hatred. Use your strength for protection, never against the weak and powerless, lest your own alliances and friendships be short lived; History shows repeatedly that movements formed from hatred are weak, short sighted, make poor allegiences, never learn from history, and are self destructive. Distrust any source of information that makes you feel scared and angry - especially if they use stereotypes to do so - since these are wedges to separate you from your community and to keep you addicted to propaganda. Keep your sources of information as varied as a healthy diet would be. And never ever, no matter how bad things seem to get, lose your faith in humanity. In the art of trying to be well informed, you will stare into the abyss. And the 1/3 of the human population made of evil hearts will dominate this information. You wont hear any of the other 2/3. Especially that last third made of good hearts. Hold onto this hope, and you will know any voice against the whole of society is wrong.




  • Oh, I just got back from there.

    For a vacation less than 90 days, you only need a passport from your home country, and proof of your return flight in less than 90 days. Drugs were covered in another comment, but dont bring veggies or meat products into Japan, even if its like a Slim Jim thing you got at the airport, they’ll give you a hard time over it. The trip can be long, so its worth planning it out to give your future tired self less things to think about. Expect to be sleep deprived your first 2 days.

    Travel agencies are good for booking hotels in advance, which i highly reccomend to do 1 month before. I stayed 2 weeks and that I think was a great amount of time. I booked the hotels and plane in advance, then had $2000 in savings to convert to cash yen for the actual trip. Use cash, Japan is very cash heavy. That was way more than enough spending money actually, i probably could have done it with half that amount. Fall time has great weather, and I avoided the more expensive spring season / cherry blossom bloom. That sounds nice, but tickets are more expensive that time of year.

    Travelling in Japan, there’s the fast way and there’s the cheap way. For trains, they have the shinkansen and the regular regional trains, and for roads theres the side streets and the expressway. Beware expressway tolls. Getting out of Osaka wasnt too bad but getting back in beaned my wallet for ~$90 USD. Theres toll gates less than 5 minutes apart there. If you have 4 or more people in a car the expressway might be cheaper than the shinkansen, which you need individual tickets for each person. Using the expressway isn’t required, you can take side streets the whole way.

    I had local friends who knew the language and could drive. They made my trip amazing. I tried to study some japanese language but when it really came time to interact with people i could not cut it. I really needed my friends to do anything more than sightsee and shop outside of tourist traps. My appearance and dress alone indicated me as an Obvious Foreigner and so people were quick to help and give me menus to point at. Even if your speaking skills were terrible, manners make up for it. Learn the local customs and formal etiquette, and people should forgive awful broken sentences and be patient with you. If you remember only one phrase: sumimasen. It’s excuse me / sorry / can i have your attention all rolled into one phrase.