![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250422_2156588748358852144625494532-1024x768.jpg\")
DW: I can smell the discontent in Caitlin in situations like this. I walk into a room and instantly know the triggers and have to pre-emptively start fighting them with a cheery mood.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250422_220145672182785500968514961-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: Caitlin has said apparently if she could become a housewife I would get a spread like this every morning. Somehow I doubt it. The breakfast feels nourishing and healthy without being heavy at all. I suspect it takes longer to make than the 2 minutes for my oats.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250422_2325012745131723263680768567-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: His schedule was actually perfect. We had the right amount of time at each location to amble around and poke at things without getting bored or being rushed. This was one of three maps\/schedules he provided us (we had the cultural map, the food map and the schedule map). He checked multiple times that we had this data with us prior to allowing us to depart. It was actually very helpful.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0029459122926301465733447017-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0116445023972185831902022211-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: These houses were all around the 150 year old mark I believe. They all had an L-shape with a stable on the leg of the L that allowed the family to see the horses at all times (they were part of the family).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0033416038584482550270213993-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: I’m not sure where Caitlin-chan was looking for this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0048534032706221882447353192-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0119559484725407533767182259-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: The phone is for opsec reasons and to mitigate against single points of failure where I lose all my 2FA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0123476108131318034551991863-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0219295844938257672350792083-768x1024.jpg\")
CR: Dad, I have witnessed something alarming that I must report. Declan had 500 yen coin. Bus fare was 200 yen each. He did not want to use the change machine (seperate to the payment machine), so he put in the full 500 yen coin to pay for our fare. Both the bus driver and I are astonished about this. Why not keep the 100 Yen (A$1.10)? I am horrified. This is one third of the cost of a gatcha that might not be a hamster.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/screenshot_20250423-1240551170608167271717301-498x1024.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0344369695096329471789730001-768x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0416064671181729919857249606-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0753373182020566330218072340-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0800046333886402044073259589-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_0900150366973875266453649502-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: I don\u2019t understand any of the economics of these shops. They can\u2019t be bringing in more than $20 AUD an hour (before you take out costs and labour!) at best and often less.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pxl_20250423_1028116836632298978707737932-768x1024.jpg\")
DW: These photos are obviously telling a unique and interesting contextual story. Also, I needed to annoy Joe with my positive attitude. This Izakaya was recommended by our host and was great. At the end of the night (after I had recovered our honour from Caitlin\u2019s social \u201cincident\u201d), our host asks (all discussions here are occurring via Google Translate) where we are staying. I tell him and he says he will get someone to drive. Unclear of this situation, we say no, a taxi is OK. He provides us with words to the effect of \u201cI will get you a taxi, OK?\u201d. We accept and chill for a few more mins. His wife then lets us know the taxi is here. Upon initial inspection I am thinking this is some unlicensed taxi as it lacks plates, funny ball on top, etc. I place my confidence in the high-trust society (and the multiple plum-wine sodas I have enjoyed) and we get in. The driver offers us an ice cream, we are confused. I look again. The chef is driving the car. The cogs start turning. I understand and accept my magnum ice cream. We make the trip slowly with the mandatory TV that every Japanese car has on in the background. Every few hundred meters, he sort of pulls over and asks us a question. \u201cWhy are you visiting Tono?\u201d he asks. I tell him. \u201cThat is amazing\u201d he responds. \u201cI love Tono\u201d he says. I tell him we are going to do the coastal hike. \u201cThat is amazing\u201d he responds. We pull up at our hotel and make a feeble attempt to ask if we can pay, it is refused. We depart and enter our hotel bowing to him as we do with our little head bows. At that point I realised I left the umbrellas in the restaurant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kappa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japan-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1850"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}