NZ 'lost' the cricket last night and it was a good lesson in humility. Even though we drew, there was a rule that mean England got through on having scored more boundaries than NZ. Whatever. Water under a bridge. The thing that really struck me today was seeing that absolutely no one I met had […]

I guess I should be pleased that Japan has a minimum wage, they're all but screwing over the minimum wage workers so it helps to have some respite. This low minimum wage means that a lot of jobs we don't have in NZ can exist here. Such as the multiple workers in banks or carpark […]

Long story short, Espresso isn't suitable for coffee tasting at all, it takes out a lot of the subtleties of the beans, essentially ruining them with the hit of pressure, mizudashi I still very much enjoy but you need a darker roast to get enough flavour to judge from, and simply paper drip leaves the […]

Being the only non-Japanese around in the decision making process puts a bit of pressure on me, and I am often uncertain about my thoughts and beliefs in regards to whether they are true or not. I am being relied on to provide perspective, but my perspective is severely limited, it's n=1, so perhaps one […]

What's my takeaway for today? Too many to count. But one thing is that having more responsibility as a Sendatsu assistant really felt like moving up from midget to junior cricket. It's one of those things where you know it's better for you, but there's something that holds you back from trying, some sort of […]

Buddha didn't learn the things he knew. He came to a realisation. When it comes to teaching, we aren't teaching, we're providing the environment for students to have a realisation. That is one thing that Master Hoshino got right. Yamabushi are not the teachers, Yamabushi simply set up the environment for our students, our fellow […]

Let them be offended. If someone doesn't like what you're doing does it matter? Some people are easily offended. Well, I would argue everyone is easily offended by something. The thing is we all think differently we all have different opinions and different thoughts on the same things. For millennia, humans have lived in communities, […]