What I learn everyday through my morning walks!

-







Back when I was a uni student almost 20 years already, I had an opportunity to work with a private banker in Singapore.

He would take me to events that are organised by his team or ones he was invited to, every weekend.

Then he would ask me, "So Ryu, you met a lot of people today. My former boss who invited me to join banking would ask me, what did you learn today?"

20 years down the road, I often ask myself the same question.

"So, what did I learn today?"

I learn a lot through walking

I now place myself in a small city in Karatsu, and the ocean is right by my house.

I try to walk everyday around sunrise to get my momentum of the day.

Today, I met a highschool student that was fishing before he goes to school.

I usually am the first to say Ohayogozaimasu or good morning when I do my morning walk, but he was one of the first ones that was faster than me to say so.

So we talked a little about fishing in the area.

The place I met him is where a fishing expert told me to go study how the tide changes. If I learn the tides and can predict how fishes move around the area, then the higher chance of me being able to fish what I aim for.

The highschool student taught me what he knows, and I shared what I experienced so far. We followed each other on Instagram, and he had to go to school. We'll meet again soon in the same place.

A local who moved back to his hometown

When the highschool student and I were talking, another elder man joined and asked us if we're able to fish anything.

He shared that the area changed a lot, and that it's probably a lot harder to fish. But he shared some tricks that he knows, and also about the city when he grew up.

He moved to Tokyo to study and work there for decades before coming back to Karatsu to take care of his parents. Now that both of them have passed away, he is looking for something to do.

So we exchanged what we know. He is probably a journalist or writer.

We walked back together towards where we both live, which seems pretty close. So, again we'll see each other again in our morning walks.

I shared that I bartend at Choko Bar which is also nearby where I am in charge every Thursdays.

There is a Kintsugi event coming up 

The morning walks are something really quiet but I learn something everyday. From nature, from people I come across, from fishes, too.

I'm now a little busy as there is a Kintsugi event coming up this weekend.

KIntsugi is the process of lacquring the cracks and chips of ceramic kitchen wares.

Karatsuyaki wares are very traditional wares that originally was brought from Korea. A Samurai lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi who gathered his troops in Karatsu with his Daimyo assistants wanted to expand to the continent, and named this place 唐津(port to the continent)

These wares spread down south to start the very famous Arita and Imari wares, and also way down east to Hagi which is also a famous pottery town.

I heard that Karatsuyaki breaks and chips more easily than other ceramics, but that developed the technique of Kintsugi.

So when potters complete the wares, it's said that it's 80% complete. When it chips, kintsugi adds another story to complete it. It allows people to value the wares more, and use it for a long time, even generations.

So that's what I've been learning through interpreting and working with Ichibankan Gallery, one of the biggest Karatsuyaki gallery in Japan.

There will be a Kintsugi class coming up on Mondays starting October, which is exciting for me as the material used, urushi漆 has relations to my family background. My ancestors are Urushi painters in Toyama Prerfecture.

So, looking forward to learning more about Kintsugi, Karatsuyaki, and the food culture Karatsu and Saga has. It's been amazing so far, and I am excited and engaged for more to come.

What did you learn today?

So what I wanted to point out is that the only important thing you should focus on is asking yourself, "So, what did I learn today? What next?" and go step by step.

To learn something new everyday.

That's what I tell my students at Genyou Restaurant where I teach English, to go step by step. No need to be overwhelmed with English as many do in Japan.

So I say that to my students, while I ask myself the same question, just like my boss did back in Singapore when I was a student.

And it probably just passes on like that.

So share me on this blog, or my other SM, or in Choko Bar when we can meet and share me "what you've been learning, and what excites you in this world."

And I'll share you mine.

See you soon-!

Thanks for Reading! 

Follow me on my journey discovering the best fish dishes of Japan. I will open a fish laboratory in my akiya abandoned house I'm going to live soon.

I would love to connect with people interested in fishes, cooking, and Japanese food. Share me your interests, and let's hang out!

This will be my long game, and I look forward to sharing what happens.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I will continue to invest in gold

-
Image
   My favorite investment is gold. But my best reason might be different from the answer you get from Google. During the pandemic, my financial situation wasn’t very good and I needed money to pay my workers. I was selling my belongings, which were sold for a fraction of the money I bought them.  It helped very little. Looking back it was a good experience learning that my belongings I thought were a lot less valuable than I thought it was. But the only one that were priced more than when I bought it, was gold. Gold on an emergency In Japan we have a saying, "有事の金" which can be translated to “gold during an emergency.” I remember gold coming down like every other investments during the pandemic, but then there was a timing when gold surged.  So like I said earlier, many things I thought were valuable lost its value during an economic slowdown.  But one good reason you need to sell your valuables is in a financial emergency. Gold was the only thing that increased...
Read more

How my view towards failing changed

-
Image
  My first business didn't work out well. It did take me a while for me to recover mentally and financially. But 3 years in and I look back that it's not a big deal to make mistakes. It actually helps you to reflect on it, and gives you hints on how you could improve. Without failing it's difficult to improve and become better. It's about how you view and act towards failure that is crucial.  The more mistakes you make earlier in life the better Before starting the business, I always seemed to have the pressure that I had to succeed. Or to be right and correct all the time. But actually it's the opposite. I need to make a lot of mistakes, and learn to get back up as fast as possible for the next challenge. I realized this when my mother kept repeating that "I failed my business" every time we talked on the phone. My mom sounded like it was the end of the world while I was beginning to think it might be the start of something new. Well, when you lose a lot ...
Read more

The one habit you need to get out of debt

-
Image
Deciding I need to cut my losses and close my company was the worst day of my life. I lost a lot of things I thought were valuable, and in return I had debt to pay off.  But after 3 years, it's no joke that it was one of the best experiences of my life. The reason is that I was able to gain a good habit to stay out of debt for the rest of my life. And if it weren't for the failure of my first business, I probably won't have the habit of keeping a surplus every month. Today I want to share my story about how I picked up the habit of staying on surplus every month. What I learned in the live-in construction job I needed to figure out how to get cash to pay off the debt, but at the time was during the pandemic so jobs had limitations. When I was searching online, I found a job opening for a live-in construction job. Pay is daily　which was what I needed so I picked up the phone and applied. Despite what I imagined the president of the company had a generous voice and told me th...
Read more