Ueno Park was full of surprises, but some of them came at head height.

If you spent enough weekends there, you eventually encountered them. Street performers sitting very still, dressed in traditional-looking clothing, wearing impossibly tall, exaggerated towering headpieces that made you stop and stare. They looked calm. Respectable. Almost ceremonial.

This was a trap.

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I’ve never climbed Mt. Fuji.

I’ve thought about it many times, and I know so many people who have done it, but somehow it never quite happened.

What I have done, though, is collect a surprising number of Mt. Fuji–shaped things.

And recently, this very precise little yokan.

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This week I learned something both comforting and slightly alarming: my long‑standing obsession with cats is not just personal. It is economic.

After reading about Japan’s so‑called catnomics, the term used to describe the very real money generated by the country’s feline fixation, I had a small moment of clarity. All those years I spent surrounded by cat‑themed everything were not simply the result of weak willpower and good design. They were the outcome of a system that understands exactly how culture, emotion, and spending intersect.

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I have a confession to make. I have a sock addiction. And more specifically, a tabi sock addiction.

It started innocently enough. One pair became two. Two became a small collection. And now, opening my sock drawer feels a bit like flipping through a travel journal of Japan, told entirely in patterns, colors, and split toes.

Tabi socks, with their distinctive separation of the big toe, are practical by design, originally meant for traditional footwear like geta and zori. But in Japan, practicality never excludes personality. Over time, tabi socks have evolved into canvases for creativity, seasonal motifs, regional humor, and quiet elegance. And somehow, I keep finding reasons to bring home “just one more pair.”

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It’s Fun Friday, and today I’m celebrating two small things on my desk that quietly set the tone for my day.

First up is my perpetual Totoro calendar. Solid, cheerful, and endlessly reusable, it sits there calmly marking the date with its little wooden blocks, completely unbothered by deadlines or meetings. There’s something deeply comforting about it. No flipping pages, no pressure. Just a gentle reminder of what day it is, delivered with Studio Ghibli charm. Totoro has a way of making even the most ordinary morning feel a little softer.

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Some people measure domestic happiness in flowers or love notes. I, apparently, measure it in how fast a pot of kinoko gohan disappears from my refrigerator.

And this all started because I was browsing JustOneCookbook.com again and finally tried their kinoko gohan recipe. I’m so happy I did, though I’m beginning to suspect the ripple effects are going to keep complicating my leftover planning for the foreseeable future. And yet here I am, a week later, marveling at how this humble mushroom rice keeps sabotaging my meticulously choreographed leftover strategy. I had plans for that next day bento. My husband, evidently, had other plans… namely, opening the fridge at odd hours and quietly “just having a little bowl,” a ritual that has left me with an increasingly abstract relationship to portion control.

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A few weeks ago I shared my excitement about finding Chocorooms at Costco, which felt like a tiny wink from Japan hiding in the middle of an American warehouse. I honestly assumed that would be the highlight of my snack discoveries for a while.

I was wrong.

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Whenever I travel between the US and Japan, I am reminded of how the same global brand can feel completely different depending on where you are. McDonald’s is the perfect example. In Japan, it is simply tastier. The food is fresher, the presentation is neater, and the Japan only items feel genuinely well executed instead of gimmicky.

Even though it is fast food, the Japanese sense of care shines through. The lettuce is crisp. The fries arrive actually hot. The burgers look intentionally assembled rather than rushed. And everything is seasoned with this magical just right balance that feels almost respectful.

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