2025-12-26 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
Hi there from Sweatpantsland, population: me. Merry Christmas! I almost forgot it was Christmas. This is emblematic of my recent days, and maybe even my recent years — a disembodiedness in which, if not reminded, I seem to fall out from the flow of time. It’s foggy and kinda weirdly warm here in Japan today; the Christmas surfers are out, bobbing in the water, Mt. Fuji is somewhere out there in the distance. My sweatpants are cozy. (Now sending this out the day after Christmas and it’s freezing and crip and Fuji was plainly visible all day; “real” Japan December is finally here.)
2025-12-18 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
I’ll die on my dumb hill, the one where I say: the best time to visit and walk (most) of Japan is the end of November and the start of December. I think a lot of folks have a kind of North-Eastern-American mentality, where by the time December hits New York City, snow is falling and there’s a too-sharp bite to the air. Not so in Tokyo, or anywhere else west and south of the city.
2025-11-29 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
(Originally published in Japanese in Esquire Japan, October 2025)
Some twenty-three years ago in Tokyo, I used to eat at a funny little tendon shop called Imoya. I was a student at Waseda University back then, and this place was a campus staple. Tendon, when done well, can be divine, and Imoya was divine through and through.
The shop was run by the crankiest husband and wife you ever met. The whole place was just seven or eight counter seats around an open kitchen. The husband apparently lived in the attic of the shop. A little hatch in the ceiling opened and down fell a ladder. Up he climbed like a spider. (So went the college kid lore.) The wife lived down the road a few miles away in Iidabashi and walked back and forth each day. But together they had decided that their community role — as a cantankerous duo — was to provide as many delicious bowls of tendon to as many students for as cheaply as they could. I forget the precise cost, but it was probably about ¥500. Boy was it voluminous. And I think a fat ōmori heaping was free. But they had rules, and you had better obey those rules.
2025-11-28 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
Ahh, it’s nice. The outside. The outside is nice. Finally, very nice. The best season in Japan. The leaves, they change. Out yonder, Mt. Fuji performs foojalicousness on the horizon as I type these very words. Being a bit coy, hiding, peeking, hiding once again. The usual Fooj, all snow capped and sweet.
’Tis the season to Buy Things, apparently. So says every website in the world. Black Friday, now also a Japan Thing. Our faces are being smashed by sales. If you’re going to buy anything, I say buy books:
2025-10-27 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
Hello from the other side of my ~220 kilometer walk through the Kiso Valley.
I sent a shorter version of this newsletter as the last issue of the (the entire walk is) Between Two Mountains pop-up newsletter. This version is quite expanded. The archives of the B2M pop-up are available to SPECIAL PROJECTS members on the members’ site. And if you’d like to follow along in my digital footsteps, the GPX file of the walk is here.
2025-09-26 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
It’s time for another walk. A walk down a valley — a valley I’ve walked many times before (not a metaphor!), but one I love and so one very much worth: A rewalk. A double rewalk, even.
I’m heading out to walk 100 kilometers south-north along the Kiso-ji in Nagano, and then turning around and walking 100 kilometers back, north-south along the same route. Of course, I’m running a pop-up newsletter connected with the walk. It’s called (the entire walk is) Between Two Mountains and you can sign up here.