Latest Posts

I’d rather be in Tokyo, I’d rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh

tl;dr I’m in Tokyo. This blog is ten years old.


Hello!

So for those of you who keep up with me on another social media outlet (or any other medium, really, like IRL), you might know that I’m in Tokyo (!) for the summer.

I’m working as a UX designer, and so far my experience has been good, if not a little routine:

6AM: Wake up at this hour, every day without fail, FOR NO REASON AT ALL other than the fact that my body clock is a bitch???
6AM-9:30AM: Make a futile attempt to go back to sleep. Suck it up.
10AM-7PM: Work.
7PM-9PM: Grab dinner with my limited Japanese skills. This is usually ramen or soba or some other noodly variant.
9PM-11PM: Watch a World Cup game. (Interchangeable/negotiable, depending on the match)
11PM-12AM: Get ready for bed, but debate internally if I should watch the next World Cup game
12AM-2AM (?): Decide screw it, I’m watching the match! Sometimes I can stay awake through the first half. Sometimes.

That said, it’s not my first rodeo when it comes to Japan, though it’s my first time being here for more than 2 weeks. Hell, the last time I was living abroad for more than a few months was back in 2008, when I studied in Beijing during the summer. Fun fact: this blog started because I needed a way to update my friends on my whereabouts with LiveJournal being banned in China. It feels weird coming full-circle a decade later, but here we go.

Anyway, I’ve been here for ten days. I don’t think I’m quite settled yet, though the amount of times I have eaten an egg salad sandwich from my neighborhood Lawson or run to the 7-11 in search for a workable ATM show otherwise. I haven’t even used my camera yet. But that’s ok — I’ve got a good amount of time to explore this city and country (I’m lookin’ at you, Hokkaido and Okinawa).


Let me tell you, being in a country whose national team just landed a hard-fought win in the World Cup is An Experience. I remember going to a block party in Vila Madalena the night Brazil defeated Chile in the knockout stages of the 2014 World Cup, and to this day, that memory wins all the awards for the biggest moshpit ever. Anyway, Japan had just scored an upset defeat over Colombia, and — well. Pandemonium descended upon Tokyo. I just so happened to be coming back from a watch party in Shibuya, which may or may not be THE BUSIEST INTERSECTION. Just imagine the amount of crowds in Times Square but with a fraction of the space. This photo was taken right before I decided I actually valued my phone and quickly stowed it away before a throng of drunk and (rightfully so!) excited fans could knock it out of my cold, dead hands.

Here’s a live recording. Turn those speakers up for full effect.


Udon noodles with grated yam at Kokuwagata. Despite (or even because of???) the slimy texture, I am ridiculously endeared to grated yam. The name is a pretty poor descriptor of what it actually looks and feels like (who knew that yams, when grated, would turn mucuslike?!), but this was delicious.


Speaking of yams, the KitKat Chocolatery sells purple yam KitKats, and yes, they are as delicious as they are purple.


This is Yodobashi, also known as the world’s largest electronics store. I poked my head in here last Sunday because I needed to replace my broken Fitbit strap, but alas, the world’s largest electronics store didn’t have my size.

getting into the weeds #latergram

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on

gorillaz!

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on

On Friday, I went to the Gorillaz concert, where they premiered their new album, the Now Now. Also, I’m really impressed by how punctual the concerts are. Case in point: The show was done at 9PM. 9PM! Even after the encore! A concert schedule that actually agrees with my old-lady sleeping habits is downright revolutionary.

Minnesota: Minneapolis and the Mall of America

Note: This post reflects my travels from May 2017. I am currently living the grad student life in the good ol’ South Bay. Prior to that, I spent a good 5 months travelling. My first endeavor of my funemployment period was an ambitious 2-month roadtrip to visit all the (US) states I had never been to and everything in between. Yes, it’s been a while, and I’m slowly documenting my travels (keyword: s l o w l y).

Technically, we had already hit Minnesota by the time we made it to Fargo, as the Fargo-Moorhead area rests nicely on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, but without further ado:

Just the facts:

STATES: Minnesota
NICKNAME: The North Star State
FOOD EATEN: Leftover food, breakfast at Al’s Breakfast, pho at Pho Hoa, Indian/Nepalese at Namaste Cafe, cupcakes from Nadia Cakes, coffee from Spyhouse, ramen at Zen Box Izakaya
GOOGLE MAPS ILLUSTRATION: Prince, because WHO ELSE?
PHOTOS: HERE
DATE(S) VISITED: May 16th-19th, 2017

As somebody who had grown up in the Midwest, I actually hadn’t made it out to Minnesota before. “GIRL, how have you not been to Minnesota?!” people would ask exasperatedly when they noticed that it was on my States I Hadn’t Yet Visited list.

Me: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That said, I’ve always heard pretty glowing reviews about the state, especially from those who live and have lived there, and Minneapolis (where I stayed for the 3-4 days) has a charm of its own, cold and drizzle and all.

After being flanked on all sides by Mother Nature and her environs, it felt damn good to finally be in a city with six-digit populations!!! Even though the drive from Fargo led to a pretty intense downpour, which escalated into a thunderstorm. Even though I faceplanted and skinned my elbows while running through the rain to grab my belongings out of the car. This was obviously the Midwest’s way of welcoming me back into their fold.

After catching up on sleep, the first morning in Minneapolis was kickstarted by a hearty breakfast at Al’s Breakfast, famous for its blueberry pancakes and its building size so cozy that NYC-sized closets feel palatial by comparison.

Untitled

No joke, this place is packed tighter than a can of sardines, and the line starts at the very inside of the store, so you can jealously stare and glower upon everybody sitting and eating their pancakes, while you stand in wait.

To Al’s credit though, the line dissipated pretty quickly (unlike the lines in San Francisco, COUGH), and Grace and I snagged two barstools within 15 minutes. No sooner did we step inside were Grace and I treated to a meal of the corned beef hash and blueberry pancakes so comforting and filling that we felt like the Pillsbury Doughboy by the time we left.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

We took a comfortable stroll around Dinkytown (and later, the U of M area) to walk off our blueberry pancake food-babies and take in the industrial sights and sounds of the city. Because it was raining on/off and we had a comfortable 3-4 days to kill, we spent most of our time meeting up with folks and eating. But mostly eating.

A few highlights:

Untitled

Untitled

These are momos from Namaste Cafe. Momos are meat-based (we had bison!) Nepalese dumplings that you typically dip in a tomato-based sauce, and I will forever sing their praises. We also had spicy potatoes, garlic marathi, and almond chicken, and let’s just say after days of eating straight-up carb-loaded American food with where salt is the spiciest ingredient, it was so satisfying to have a break in between. My taste buds cried.

Untitled

This was ramen from Zen Box Izakaya, aka the ultimate comfort food on a cold, drizzly day. My love for ramen is woefully not very well-documented, but rest assured, this was so good.

However! We did other things besides stuff our faces with food. Minneapolis, perhaps by virtue of being host to MCAD, has a pretty bitchin’ art museum: the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). And get this:

Membership was free.

While I appreciate free shit as much as the next person, what made the MIA pretty bitchin’ was actually its (– look surprised –) art.

Untitled

del toro exhibit = 10/10, would go again ☠️ #gdtatmia

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on

We immediately made a beeline for the Guillermo del Toro exhibit, which has various art from his movies, from Hellboy to Pan’s Labyrinth (my forever fave, FIGHT ME) to Crimson Peak. Sadly, this exhibit was curated a good few months before The Shape of Water had even been released, but we still spent a good amount of time poring over the dark magical beautiful gothic romantic fantasy aesthetic of del Toro’s works.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

👼 #gdtatmia

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on

The snaps below aren’t del Toro, but rather, other works we found while wandering the MIA.

🐼🌼🌺🌸🌹🌷💐💠

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

finally made it to mt. rushmore! ✌️

A post shared by cindy! 🙋🏻‍♀️ (@cindypepper) on


Fitting, considering that I was just at Mt. Rushmore only a few days prior to taking this photo.

By the very last day of our Minnesota adventures, my Midwestern raised-in-the-90s teenaged self was curious about the Mall of America, because that place is a gargantuan representation of my childhood weekends of hanging out at malls. 11-year-old me would have loved MoA. Now, I get that millennials killed the shopping malls, just like they killed a lot of other culturally irrelevant things we knew and loved so dearly, but my past self would have hated me if I didn’t go.

That, and I needed new eyeliner.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

South Dakota (Part 2) and North Dakota: Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Maah Daah Hey Trail, Fargo

Note: This post reflects my travels from May 2017. I am currently living the grad student life in the good ol’ South Bay. Prior to that, I spent a good 5 months travelling. My first endeavor of my funemployment period was an ambitious 2-month roadtrip to visit all the (US) states I had never been to and everything in between. Yes, it’s been a while, and I’m slowly documenting my travels (keyword: s l o w l y).

When I was younger, I was a big fan of The Baby-sitter’s Club like no one’s business. 90s-era #squadgoals — what’s not to love, right? In one Super Special, BSC in the USA, the girls embark on a cross-country road trip, and while they’re in the Badlands, they run out of gas and are stranded in what feels like the literal middle of nowhere.

If anything, I can blame that book for making me think that South Dakota was the epitome of the middle of nowhere.

In reality, the Badlands are pretty dope, but I’d highly recommend going with a full tank during the day when you can actually see stuff. Because you will not be stressing over gas and instead you will be gifted with rugged landscapes like this:

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

While the terrain is so rugged that it looks like some higher power decided to take the desert and implode the ground to oblivion, it’s flat and makes for great (albeit very sunny) hiking.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

However, like I mentioned eons ago, South Dakota is a mix of nature at its most breathtaking and rugged …. and tourist kitsch at its most egregious.

On the drive out of Badlands, it’s impossible not to notice the 43892485 billboards for Wall Drug.

Untitled

Untitled

Wall Drug Store claims to have everything under the sun, from ice cream to 5-cent coffee to every material object you can think of to dinosaur replicas. An onslaught of Western kitsch in South Dakota, it’s unmissable and you’re inundated with so many billboards that you’re practically compelled to check it out.

In BSC in the USA, Claudia Kishi buys a painting that looks awfully Georgia-O’Keeffe-esque, only to find out by the end of the book that it’s — SPOILER ALERT — a real Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Unfortunately, I didn’t get so lucky, but I only went for the milkshakes (listen, I was hungry!) and braced myself for the long drive through North Dakota.


Just the facts:

STATES: North Dakota
NICKNAME: The Peace Garden State
FOOD EATEN: Whatever we could find in Medora (aka CLIF bars from the C-store and taffy from the Taffy Shop) and later, knoephla soup and milkshakes at Kroll’s Diner
GOOGLE MAPS ILLUSTRATION: A beekeeper
PHOTOS: HERE

Driving through North Dakota was something else, though.

First of all, there were no lights. When it’s the evening and you’re driving into a void of nihilist-level nothingness with only your car lights for assistance, IT IS SOME NEXT-LEVEL BLACK HOLE SHIT.

I literally had no idea what North Dakota looked like until I woke up the next morning in Medora, a quaint town and centerpiece of Theodore Roosevelt National Park:

JK, this is what T-Ro actually looks like (click for a larger view):

Untitled

And here’s a replica of Teddy Roosevelt’s crib back in his Rough Rider days, when he called the park home:

Untitled

Secondly, when you stroll into Medora during the park’s off-season, you’ll find that most businesses, from the saloon-like restaurant to the convenience store (aptly named the C-Store), operate on severely reduced hours, if they’re even open at all. Hell, when we walked into the taffy store, we were asked if we were looking for employment, as opposed to buying a bag of saltwater taffy (which we did!).

Even the park rangers were surprised to see visitors, especially out-of-state visitors.

If the morning was spent wandering town and figuring out which businesses were actually open in May (answer: Very Few. Medora is very much a Bring Your Own Food locale in its off-season.), the afternoon was spent mountain biking! MAD-MAX STYLE. The Maah Daah Hey Trail is not a mountain-biking trail engineered for the faint of heart. The trails are unforgivably thin and winding and you will turn into a human jackhammer as you jump over rocks and careen downhill.

Untitled

The actual trail connects the north and south portions of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and extends for 144.7 miles (there’s a great NYT writeup here on biking half the trail), but given that I only had an afternoon before we needed to haul ass over to Fargo, I rented a bike from Dakota Cyclery, and my wonderful guide Jennifer took me out for a spin.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

As we pedaled up the mountains, my attention was gripped by the unspoiled landscapes above. I’m such a sucker for the color palette of the Maah Daah Hey: pale blue skies, splotches of dark green sagebrush, dusty prairiegrass, and light brown earth. The landscape goes on for miles and miles, with little end in sight, as if to speak to the immense size of the state.

Untitled

Isn’t nature the best?

We even made friends with this little buddy below (also known as a short-horned lizard):

Untitled

The ride was the pick-me-up I needed before the five hours of driving from Medora to Fargo. As somebody who has yet to discover the appeal of podcasts, I was limited to the bleakness that was radio in the middle of North Dakota. This might be the origin story of my hatred for “Shape of You”. Either that, or I was inundated with religious sermons. After hours of listening to nonstop NPR, we whizzed by Bismarck and the majority of ND and finally made our way to Fargo by midnight.

Tired from yesterday’s one-two-punch of mountain biking and driving, we slept in the next day alongside this adorable doggo:

Untitled Untitled Untitled

Because we were hungry and we hadn’t really eaten much in North Dakota other than whatever snack foods we managed to scrounge up at C-stores and rest stops, Bailey took us to eat some good ol’ North Dakotan comfort food at Kroll’s where we indulged in knoephla (aka the Lumpy Yellow Soup), which is like the culinary equivalent of a warm hug. Listen, chicken noodle soup doesn’t hold a candle to this.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), no lutefisk was had, but if the HECK NO license plate was emblematic of South Dakota, then I’m going to humbly nominate this T-shirt as Peak North Dakota.

Untitled