This is news to me.

I was hungry, and it was 5:30 in the morning. So I looked into my coin jar, pulled out five quarters and headed to the minimart across from my apartment complex to buy a snack. Something meal-like but hopefully not terrible. I figured I’d kill about fifteen minutes deciding what to buy.

As it turns out, you can’t by anything with five quarters. I don’t mean the pickings were slim, I mean exactly what i said: you can’t buy anything.

I go down to the minimart from time to time when I’m up late, sometimes just to get out of the house, sometimes to satisfy an instant noodle craving, sometimes because nothing else is open. Maybe I’m going to the wrong convenience store but I was floored that there wasn’t a single thing I could buy with my five quarters.

Not macaroni and cheese. Not cup of noodles. Not an ice cream cone. Not a sandwich. Not a candy bar. Not a piece of pizza. Not a granola bar. Not a bag of pretzels. Not chewing gum. Not a pack of cigarettes. Not even a can of soda or a cup of coffee. Not even a hard, green banana. Nothing in that store totaled under $1.25 with tax.

Uh… what?

I used to think it was just vegetarians and vegans that had a hard time finding food we could eat when convenience called. I was so utterly wrong. Apparently omnivores can’t either because not even spam costs less than $1.25. This is a deeply disturbing discovery. Sure dads today must give their kids two dollars for a snack instead of the one our dads gave us, but that’s not the bit that bothers me. I’m bothered because there was only option left: McDonald’s Dollar Menu.

Call me crazy, but a hamburger — a whole patty of meat, two pieces of bread, and condiments — must cost more than a banana. It has to. Even if it’s just a plastic and corn model of a hamburger, logically it should cost more than a banana. Look at the raw ingredients. And yet, I couldn’t afford a slurpee at the 7eleven but I could afford a hamburger in ten minutes when the fast food joint next door opened.

There is something seriously wrong with this picture. It goes back to that whole real price of food rant I gave a while ago. I get it now, I understand why you’ve got no options when you’re from a low SES bracket. I get it. If I lived next to a 24 hour grocery store, the story might be different. But it might not. My options were already pretty limited at that hour but the choice is overwhelmingly one-sided. It’s math I’m not sure I really understand.

I went home hungry and scrounged up enough ingredients for half a cheese sandwich instead.

It’s that time of year again when the men on the subway do nothing but talk about how hot it is. The rags to mop your sweat start appearing in every woman’s hand instead of her purse. Uniqlo is sold out of quickdry and linen. 　夏です。It’s not a surprise really, since all the classic literature I can drum up bemoans Japan’s hot and muggy summers in great detail, and yet, it always seems to catch the Japanese off guard, like the heat wave is rolling in earlier and earlier each year.

So how does one deal with the oppressive heat of such a summer? With seasonal drinks at the kombini? With unagi-don on the Day of the Ox? Or with ice cold somen noodles in front of a fan on full blast?

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The Japanese will not give up their noodles, and I must say, I agree with their priorities. So even in the dead of summer, they’ve devised a way to eat ramen without getting a face full of steam. It’s called the tskumen set. In one bowl will be a pile of chilled noodles. In another bowl will be tepid broth. On a plate will be all the usual accouterments. This brilliant invention can be applied to any noodle of choice: ramen, soba, udon, and even somen.

Somen. These thin, soft, very chewy noodles can be tricky to eat, but if you keep at it, you’ll be rewarded with a satiation in summer that doesn’t leave you heavy and uncomfortable. After a day of sweaty sightseeing, I needed some relief, and when you’re in Nara, you eat the Miwa Somen. So I ate the miwa somen. It was delicious, by all means, and when it was followed by shaved ice, this cold luncheon was nothing short of pure bliss. I’d highly recommend giving miwa somen a try if you get the chance.

Top Chef has been in DC for some time now, and it got me thinking about challenges in the kitchen. While we like to think no one’s ever asked us to cook a five-star meal composed entirely from canned goods in under thirty minutes, there are plenty of quickfire challenges much closer to home. Whether an unexpected house guest or an in-law to impress, we’ve constantly had to avert disastre or pull a jackrabbit from a pot in culinary crises of our own. It made me think about what really makes one creative in the kitchen.

Top Chef would have you believe the fruit of Hawaii or the innate genius of the chef at hand are responsible for the final product, but in reality, the celebrity guest star is never the one to inspire the contestants. It’s the thirty minute time limit and the fifty dollar shopping budget. Or in my case, too many tomatoes.

My pilot garden this year has been an incredible success. Every plant has popped up lighting fast and produced the goods faster than I can pick them. It takes me longer to decide whether to pickle or roast my peppers then it does for new peppers to mature. Unfortunately, it also means that I’ve wound up with more peppers and tomatoes than I know what to do with.

Think baskets. Big, overflowing baskets. Every week. This is a problem I’m happy to have, but after the usual caprese salads it’s forced me to be more and more creative with my tomatoes lest they all go to waste before I can figure out how to squeeze them into every nook and cranny of my fridge. So far: tomato-apple chutney, sweet tomato relish, homemade ketchup, cold packed tomatoes, fresh salsa, pasta sauce, and of course all the soups, salads, and sandwiches I can muster. After several weekends caught in canning frenzy suddenly I was tomatoed out.

I had reached the ceiling, the upper limit of my known tomato territory. After the usual suspects sounded totally unappealing, the real creativity happened. This is when the experimental tomato stuffing started to happen, the round of ever-improving tomato breakfast cakes, my dabbling in panzanella, even that awful tomato smoothie I tried, until I was reacquainted with an old flame of mine: gazpacho.

Oh gazpacho, with your summertime swagger, your refreshing cool, your avoidance of the stove top, you are simply charming. You play well with the other garden buddies, the spring onions and the cucumbers especially, and while you are unsure of cilantro, you and Manchego cheese certainly hit it off at first sight. I am quite fond of you, gazpacho, and to be with you, on a breezy night with a slice of french bread, these are the moments I think cannot get any better. You look good all dressed up with white grapes or watermelon just as nice as you shine with avocado, and while sometimes your acid qualities burn my mouth, you always leave a pleasant taste behind, no matter how many times we fight.

Gazpacho in its many incarnations helped me keep the tomatoes under control. But whether or not you like raw vegetable soup as much as I do is unimportant. Point is, if I had never run out of tomato preparation methods, I never would have thought to make my own gazpacho. If I hadn’t ever hit the tomato wall, I would have a ton of rotting tomatoes in my pantry. In more general terms, limitations enable creativity, not prohibit it. The confined materials force you to find unconventional avenues and the limited working space allows you to focus on action rather than on vision.

Ever wonder why the final challenge of Top Chef produces the most boring dishes of all? Because they’re allowed to cook whatever they want. Turns out, when there are no limits, ultimate creativity is actually pretty difficult. That’s part of what makes the kitchen such an exciting place. It requires patience and passion in equal measure, but quite a bit of problem solving as well. Sometimes it’s the milk you don’t have or the cornmeal you need to get rid of that help you write your best recipes yet. So next time you run into a culinary tangle, remember that creativity might just be at the centre of it.

On my plate: assorted greens from my coworkers’ garden, herbed goats cheese from the Del Rey farmer’s market, vinaigrette using balsamic fig glaze from Borrough Market, and fresh cracked pepper. When it’s this good, you don’t need much else.

Note: I didn’t mean for this post to turn into a lecture on sustainability, but I’ve been looking at our food system differently since I began gardening. As I ate that delicious salad I thought about where it came from, how it got here, and how the true cost of food is a lot higher than the prices we pay at a supermarket. So here are my un-edited thoughts, for you to chew over yourself.

One of the most important culinary questions you can ask yourself is “does what I’m doing make a difference?” Fortunately I’ve the luxury of being picky about what sorts of food I put in my mouth and what sorts of goods go in my pantry. Recently I find myself caring more and more, and sometimes that puts me in a bit of a dilemma.

First it was the public transit, then it became the cycling everywhere, then I went a little nuts on our electricity consumption and subscribed to a CSA, all of which might have been a little eccentric, until I went totally crazy and changed all my toiletries and cleaning products, started gardening, composting, and now, canning.

It’s our world, and I want it to be a garden of eden. We foodies can no longer afford to ignore the problems with American agriculture, and neither can your tastebuds or your wallet. For a long time I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it, like every proactive step I could take was either a useless waste of energy or a tiny grain of sand on the endless coast of Australia.

It’s not just about people like me. It’s about your health, your taste, and your immediate future. Luckily, you don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian or raw foodist. You don’t have to only eat at home. You don’t have be an extreme green geek. The rules for making a difference are simple: do what you can when you can. The specifics of your actions will sort themselves out as long as you’re on the lookout to make a change. Some ideas…

Note: why is Whole Foods so expensive? Some of the food is more expensive because it’s not commonly found, or it required a lot of transport to get there. Whole Foods also offers a lot of products that aren’t ideal. Mostly Whole Foods is expensive because it’s fair trade, and it values certain kinds of relationships with distributors over others. Whole Foods simply makes it easier to make good choices. This is why I like Whole Foods, but the brand tends to elicit some incorrect assumptions. That’s the point of this whole post: your purchasing power is not to be taken lightly. What you do matters, and whether you’re aware of the choices you’re making or not, they’re definitely happening, so being an informed consumer really is the best way to make a difference. Otherwise you’re writing a check for thousands of dollars to companies you might not agree with.

This is a very important point: boredom is a good thing. It’s a clear indicator that you’re doing something wrong. Laziness is a good thing. It means you could be doing something better. Stop vilifying and start listening. Let me explain.

First, laziness. We Americans use laziness as an insult and force discipline on ourselves like it’s mother’s milk. Only laziness tastes like Tang and discipline tastes like rancid wheat-grass so not only do we always choose laziness, but we then spend hours making ourselves to feel bad about it. Take the recent phenomenon of people searching for “passive” income. Are they looking for an easy way to make decent money? Yes. Are they being lazy? Yes. The really important question is why. Most of us want to make easy money so that we can quit the jobs we hate and spend more time doing the things on our “someday” list. We don’t want to make more money so we can sit at home and eat bon bons, we want to make more money so we can travel the world, or spend more time with our kids, or fix things around the house, or buy our wives fancier Christmas gifts. Of course you’re lazy about your job. You don’t like it very much (sadly, it’s statistically true). And really, life requires enough of your willpower already as is, so why do you want to go making it harder by spending time perfecting the things you don’t particularly care about perfecting?

That’s why Tim Ferris is able to be Tim Ferris. Because he isn’t lazy, he’s lazy about the things he doesn’t care about. In her article bashing Tim Ferris, Penelope Trunk brings up one excellent point about the fallacy of The Four Hour Work Week: it isn’t four hours, it’s longer. Tim does a stellar job getting lazy people into tips and tricks to pick up his book, but it’s a misnomer. He only spends four hours a day managing the business he spent days, months, and years building. And he only spends four hours a day on the thing that “makes him money.” But he spends many many more hours on the things that have now become his job: writing his newest book, training to deadlift large weights, or practicing for a tango competition. He’s an incredibly hard worker when it comes to the stuff he likes. That’s how it should be, isn’t it?

Here’s the point: laziness isn’t a bad thing. It’s a litmus test. If you feel too lazy to go to the gym, well then your workout routine needs a huge overhaul. If you’re too lazy to eat breakfast, then you’re eating the wrong things. You should care pretty intensely about what you’re doing, otherwise why are you doing it? Laziness is an indicator that the task at hand isn’t good enough for you, not the other way around. If you feel lazy, it’s for a good reason, so stop beating yourself up about it already. Make the job seem more appealing or decide that you don’t really care enough about this thing to EVER do it. As Khatzumoto would say, “You still need help, you’re just not helpless.”

It’s the same with boredom.

If you’re feeling bored, think about what that really means. Boredom is a symptom of something much more important: your engagement with the task at hand. Remember grade school? There were always really cool volcanoes to build and guessing games to play and Lincoln Logs so even when you had to learn math you were rarely bored doing it. Flash forward to high school where there are no games, no independent study projects, and definitely no Lincoln Logs. Suddenly, you’re a lot more bored than you used to be. Is that your fault? No. I think it’s the teacher’s job to engage you in learning. But I work for an educator’s association. Think about every TED Talk you’ve ever watched. People that were truly great were truly great because they cared about what they were doing, not because they were trying to be truly great. this brings us to the golden rule of study hacking: you must enjoy the means in order to reach the end. That’s right, you’ll never get what you want unless you enjoy the journey getting there.

In practical terms, this means that if you’re bored, you’re doing it wrong. You’re focusing on the wrong things. You’re making it totally dry and dull. And I promise, it isn’t supposed to be. Even the stuff like your job, which you need to pay your bills, doesn’t have to be boring. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (da-SHING-a-ma-holly) has this whole theory about Flow Experiences that make you a happy, fullfilled, ultimately engaged person. There’s even a chart he made to explain his theory, but I’ll simplify it even further (the original one is still worth a look).

It’s all about the ratio of how sure you are you can accomplish a task in proportion to how hard you think the task will be. Are you panicked? Then you’re trying to do something too hard for your current skill level. Are you apathetic? Then what you’re trying to do isn’t hard enough to capture your attention. The golden zone, the optimal flow experience, can only happen when you balance your competence at a skill and your challenge at the task. The sweet spot is when they are even. So if you’re bored, the ratio’s too small, and if you’re terrified, the ratio’s too big. Most people know that if they’re freaked out, they’re doing something wrong and they try to change it, but rarely do we have such a strong reaction to the other side of the problem: being too bored.

That’s what I’ve really gleaned from learning Japanese. It’s most satisfying when you can just barely figure it out. It’s most motivating when you’re good enough to advance, but there’s still loads you don’t yet understand fully. Most importantly, you have to enjoy the process. You have to be interested in the stuff you’re doing, in Japanese and in everything else in life. It’s generally accepted that in order to master anything, you’ll have to put in 10,000 hours working on it. That’s an awful lot of time. I don’t know about you, but I can muscle through a few hours of something I don’t care for, like running track hurdles or taking long exams, but there’s no way I could get through seven solid years of becoming a hurdles master, which is about the time it’ll take you if you practice 4 hours every day. So if I’m in it to win it with Japanese, I better figure out a way to be entertained for the next 10,000 hours or as the case may be, 10,000 sentences.

Here’s the best part: the beauty of only trying to keep boredom at bay is that 10,000 is only the beginning. After you’re deep enough in, you forget about the goal because SURPRISE! You’ve been living a satisfying, fulfilling life for the last however many years doing what you love. Sounds pretty great, right? And it all started by being lazy and bored.

There are plenty of gear reviews out there for backpackers, but not a lot out there for jetsetters. We aren’t endless nomads, but we pack like them. We have hubs from which we escape out to far flung destinations, and we’re ready for anything, but we don’t need to bring the kitchen sink. Out of all the videos I’ve looked at over the years, I’ve yet to come across a good packing one. So I made one myself. It’s a bit long, but you get the idea. We’ll start with the clothing.

Clothing:

1 pair thongs (Rainbows)

1 pair mary janes (Me Too)

1 pair canvas shoes (Sanuk)

2 pair socks (Smartwool)

2 t-shirts (Uniqulo QuickDry)

1 tank top (Holister)

1 oxford (Northface)

1 raincoat (Mountain Hardware)

1 dress (polyester)

1 pair jeans

1 pair shorts

1 pair athletic pants

1 sun hat

1 weeks worth of undergarments

Ladies, please, I beg you, stop with all the extra nonsense. I know you want to look good, we all want to look good, but you have to make some concessions. Why? Because there won’t always be a porter to carry around your bag. Expect stairs in subway stations and expect small luggage racks on the train. Prepare for rain and prepare for long hauls to the hotel. You should always be able to carry your own baggage, and if you plan accordingly, it should be no problem when you have to carry it with you all day. Start counting every item in terms of ounces and you might find you “need” a lot less.

I am bringing a lot of electronics, and that’s okay. I’m planning on doing some work on the road, and for me, work requires a large arsenal of materials. It’s heavy, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to have my entire studio essentially mobile. I do have a few rules though that keep me from bringing all my gear. If my trip is over ten days in length, I’m allowed to bring my laptop and my dSLR. If it’s under ten days, I just make do with my Stylus Tough and my iPhone. That way I never worry about documenting everything as I go, I just do it when I return. Over ten days, and I need to keep in contact with the rest of the world. It’s a pretty good system.

Electronics (full list including those not in video):

laptop and powerbrick (15″ MacBook Pro)

portable hard drive (500GB 7200rpm LaCie Rugged)

wireless router and Cat5 cable (airport express)

waterproof rangefinder (Olympus Stylus Tough 6000)

dSLR and extra battery (Canon 30d)

extra lens (10-22 extra wide)

tripod (Joby Gorillapod)

headphones (Bose QuietComfort 2 and iPhone earbuds)

mp3 player (iPod 160GB Classic)

journal (Moleskine lined)

wireless mouse

reading material

travel documents

toiletries

To me, this packing list seems like a lot, and to be honest, it’s a lot more than I usually bring anywhere. To most people though, this seems sparse for a month long trip. So how does one manage to live for an indefinite period of time on so little? By buying it there. It’s a three step approach. 1) Don’t bring if you can easily buy. If, instead of preparing for every occasion by bringing something for each occasion, you were to bring only what you couldn’t easily buy there, you could significantly lighten your load. Think of it as paying 400¥ for the convenience of not having to lug around your own. For example, I’m going to buy an umbrella and shampoo when I’m in Japan rather than worry about checking them in my luggage. 2) Do without. Don’t bring an evening dress just in case you need to go to a fancy restaurant. Chances are you can get by without that cocktail dress. You’re going to Paris for ten days, do you really need that face cream or can you live without it for a week? Don’t bring when you can buy, and don’t buy when you can borrow, and don’t borrow if you can do without. For example, I rarely bring guidebooks, since most hotels or guest houses have maps and offer recommendations. You can probably rent a hair dryer at the front desk. Rest assured that if you really need it, you can find it. 3) Bring multi-purpose goods. Don’t bring anything that only does one thing. Bring items that you can mix and match to satisfy many needs rather than many things that each suit one. For example, I bring shoes that I can dress up or dress down. I bring cameras that can also take video, and mobiles that can check email in a pinch. My body wash even doubles as laundry detergent. Most importantly though, I make sure I bring clothes that are high-performance, so they may fit in well as city clothes, but they hold up well when I take them to the hiking trails, and I wait until something gets worn through to replace it. That way I cut down on my load but am prepared for everything.

In addition to the usual suspects listed in the video above and the text below, there are a few other odds and ends that I consider travel musts. They’re pretty unassuming, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I don’t always end up using them.

Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-one Castile Soap
Dr. Bronner might have been crazy, but his all purpose castile soap is a godsend for us travellers. With just a small three-ounce bottle of the stuff I can go for two months without any other toiletry. It’s olive oil based, so it won’t dry out your skin, and it’s mild and safe enough to use on anything and everything, and it’s non-allergenic, organic, free of additives, and comes in a varietal of flavors. Essentially castile soap is an ultra concentrated soap you can use to clean floors and counters, faces and hair, clothes and dishes, bodies and teeth, and pretty much anything else that needs cleaning. If you can’t find Dr. Bronner’s anywhere, go for the biodegradable CampSuds available at any sports/outdoor store or camping catalogue, and you can stop searching for shampoo, body wash, laundry detergent, dish soap, disinfecting wipes, and other liquids in general.

Vaseline
Few people truly understand the wonder of this petroleum product. For under a dollar, a tiny tub of vaseline will last you the better part of a year and it functions great as a lubricant for squeaky doors and chairs, a super strong balm for chapped lips and skin, a protective barrier for cuts, scrapes, and burns, as a means of keeping dirt and dust out of the eyes, as a water repellant for goods that need to stay dry like matches or swiss army knives, or even as a fire starter in a pinch. This stuff is invaluable, especially for cold-weather travel.

Microfiber Pack Towel
The microfiber pack towel is about the size of a hand towel but absorbs enough water to dry off your car. This thing is small, super lightweight, ultra absorbent, and will air dry in the space of two hours. As Douglas Adams taught me, I always know where my towel is and I never leave home without it. He was right too, because there are an infinite number of uses for a capable towel, from beaches in Australia to sento in Japan, from avoiding towel rental fees in Italy to cleaning up spills in Mexico, and everything in between.

Liquid Bandage
I do allow myself one other liquid/gel, and that is liquid bandage. There are some things my trusty mini roll of gaff tape (a cloth tape as strong as duct tape, but leaves no residue and reflects no light, another must-have for longer term travel) can’t mend, and when gaff doesn’t do the trick, liquid bandage inevitably does. Think of them as your one-two punch combo of repair. Liquid bandage can mend the fiddly bits otherwise impossible to suture: things like knuckles, zippers, behind the knee, thread snags, calluses, hair cracks, and the like. Plus liquid bandage disinfects before it hardens, and is fully waterproof for every body cut and gear gutting the road can dole out.

Airport/Airmac Express + Retractable Cat5 Cable
This one is an invaluable tool for the flashpackers. I don’t always use it, but there are many hotels I stay at where a hardwire ethernet connection is free, but the cable rental costs money. Many places simply don’t have wireless, and if you’re travelling with others, fighting over who gets to use the internet gets old. Enter the Airport Express, a square piece of plastic that, when wired to the internet and plugged into the nearest outlet can turn any land line into a wireless network. It even remembers settings from plug in to plug in so your internet-ready devices will be connected the moment you plug it in. Pair it with my retractable ethernet cable, complete with adaptors that turn one cat5 outlet into two, or can turn a male-male cable into a male-female or female-female cable, and you are a serious travel hacker.

Surge Protector
Most of us have more than one gadget these days, and there are never enough outlets available to charge everyone’s gear. I always travel with a surge protector for a few reasons. Firstly, I never know where my next working outlet will be, so I fill up everything I can with juice when I find one. Secondly, some countries have highly unreliable internet and a twelve dollar investment is well worth protecting the things I use to support myself. Lastly, whether I’m waiting in an airport or attending a convention, staying at a hostel or a hotel, there are many times when other people brick block your outlets. Having a surge protector helps you make an awful lot of friends in these very situations. I even rented out my extra outlets once for magazines on a particularly long layover in Fiji.

(And for the Ladies) The Diva Cup
Google this, google it now. This is a product made for travellers, hippies, and yuppie business women alike. You, like me, may have heard horror stories but I am here to tell you firsthand that any horrors you’ve heard are false, and any hesitation you may have will pale in comparison to the benefits of using this one little device. There are so many reasons to switch, I could write an entire post about it, but in an effort to not turn off all of my readers, I’ll stop here. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them directly via email. Otherwise, the internet offers many more success stories to convince you dropping the $40 is well worth it. And boy is it.

A cursory glance at the menu will reveal one an only one option. Do not be distracted by the myriad toppings on the table in front of you, or the cheery staff trying to convince you cold noodles are the best choice. Do not get caught up in deciding how you’d like your noodles cooked, since Hakatatenjin will cook them to order. Do not spend forever debating whether you want the thin, somen-like noodles, or the slightly thicker spaghetti-esque noodles. Do not be afraid to pay the extra 50¥ it costs to dip that ladle into the vat of pickled eggs and call one your own.

Or rather, do. Do all of this. Do, because you are at Hakatatenjin Ramen in Shinjukugyoenmae and any carb coma you might induce can be averted by a long stroll in the massive park nearby. You are safe, so go ahead and put on those extra pickled ginger shreds, and go ahead and finish off those menma. You’re in good hands.

Hakatatenjin Ramen is serious black pork ramen for seriously hungry patrons. In a country where hundreds of noodle shops line nearly every street, it can be difficult to pick one out of the crowd. Hakatatenjin’s boisterous staff and dirty yellow awning are tell-tale signs that old-school quality is not far behind, something so often amiss when it comes to the more modern, vending machine ramen spots. Even harder to find is service like this, with a staff that will try to make you giggle no matter which language you speak, and a policy that will dish up more noodles when you’ve finished your first batch for the same price.

大きな地図で見る

Ah and the noodles are why you’re here, aren’t they? The thinner, chewier cousin of the dime a dozen ramen chains in Shinjuku come in a tangled mess, compacted into the bottom of a chipped, cereal bowl. But the soup packs a flavour stronger than any cocoa puff or lucky charm, and when all is said and done you may find yourself never wanting to leave. If only that thick soup with beads of fat swirling round the surface could stretch on forever you could call Hakatatenjin home, because for all intents and purposes, when you’re here, you are home.

Hakatatenjin Ramen（博多天神 ラーメン）
Nearest metro stop: Shinjukugyoenmae

Every city divided by an important riverway has a south bank whether it goes by that alias or not. But even now, when a river as infamous as the Thames of London, once the lifeblood of the city, retires itself to little more than a historical artifact and a pleasant landscaping element, a certain richness is lost. I was sure that South Bank would be an irreverent part of the city, like so many other neighbourhoods that easily dismissed the river. Yet my day in South Bank convinced me that the Thames does not lay by the wayside in London, rather is given a place of prominence, a cultural reminder that the city has a lot to be thankful for.

The London Eye draws tourists from far and wide, and its 3.5 million visitors per year prove the largest ferris wheel in Europe is definitely worth a visit. And that’s just the start of South Bank’s bounty. Passing over one of the Thames footbridges will start you off on an epic walk along South Bank, where you’ll pass pubs, eateries, theaters, museums, and so much more.

The Queen’s Walk is one of the best walking tours of London that takes you straight past the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre. It’s positively chilling to think that underneath the renovations and constant upkeep, the very cobblestones you’re walking upon have been trafficked by thousands of residents, visitors, and passing businessmen for thousands of years. This site has been here since medieval days and you may be standing where some royalty or author stood years ago.

And then the walk dead ends at Borrough Market, a hub of fine food and specialty sundries. You don’t have to be of the foppish sort to enjoy the goods on display here, whether it’s the myriad flavours of Turkish delight that tickle your fancy, or the endless array of seafood curries that curl your toes. Either way you’ll find something to indulge in at the market.

After I tired me feet from walking and wore out my eyeballs from staring, it was time to sit on the outdoor patio of the many pubs lining the river, enjoy a pint or a Pimms cup, and take in the glory that is South Bank.

Kamatama Udon-ya is an unassuming little shop halfway between Hase station and the daibutsu in Kamakura. Like so many small noodle joints in Japan, you’ve only got a handful of choices, and even less elbow room to boot. Still though, the smell alone is all you need to be assured of its quality, and even then, if the smell wasn’t enough, there’s the tray of flour-speckled udon clearly just made today, the flying hands behind the counter chopping minuscule green onions, and the faint sizzle that can only mean tempura-battered something or other. You will not be disappointed.

It may seem crass to us foreigners, but eating the face of Buddha in your noodle soup is pleasantly kitschy in Japan, and in Kamakura especially, mere minutes from the great metal Buddha, such a gimmick is fitting. The soup itself is far from gimmicky. Perhaps it’s just been too long since I’ve had a proper bowl of noodles, or that my American sensibilities are so easily impressed by the delights of properly prepared Japanese food, but in any case I may have come close to reaching nirvana in that very shop.

大きな地図で見る

The noodles are thick, but light, not dense like some fall varieties of udon tend to be, and of a completely un-uniform nature that points to their handmade authenticity. Your smiling buddha udon can be served hot or cold, depending on the season, in a scalding or a lukewarm dashi stock, depending on your preference. Alongside the standard noodles and broth is a large soy bean (Buddha’s third eye), a fried fishcake (his nose), and one of the tastiest cured eggs I think I’ve ever had: a hard boiled, just set mix of salt and age that one could only hope to duplicate. Needless to say, I licked the bowl clean.

1. Automatic Backups. The OS has an automatic backup utility built into it called Time Machine and it’s pretty slick. Always protected, all the time.

2. Easy data management. If you pay the mac store reps $89 they’ll migrate all your info over from your old computer to your new one. Once you go mac, you can use the built-in Migration Assistant to move your info from your old mac to the new one with the click of a button.

3. Macs require no maintenance. They don’t get viruses, they don’t require defragmenting, they don’t need security software, and every utility you need is already included in the software. The only thing you’ll need to buy is Microsoft Office. The OS doesn’t come with stupid trial software (called bloatware) and you’ll never have to reinstall your OS. No bluescreen of death, ever. They’re just a hell of a lot more stable and secure in general.

4. All the compatibility issues of yesteryear are no longer issues. Macs can read any PC-formatted drive, they can read any open file format (.doc, .xls, .pdf, anything you can think of). PCs on the other hand, can’t read mac-formatted drives. And if you really really needed to, the new macs are intel based, so you could install windows on your computer as a dual-boot (but really, why would you? OS X is so much better!). The mac store reps call it Boot Camp.

5. These puppies are wicked fast. Scary fast. Snow Leopard, the OS is lightweight and the machines are so locktight. When you buy Apple, you’re buying a brand, yes, but you’re also buying a format. So everything Apple makes is custom built to work with everything else Apple makes. PCs are cobbled together by competing manufacturers and so you get driver problems and hardware incompatibility issues, but because Apple makes every component in their computers, it all works seamlessly inside that little silver case. This means it will all work seamlessly with your iPod too.

6. They last forever. I had a roommate that had her mac laptop STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and it still ran for four years. Mine is going on six years old and it still runs great. It just couldn’t keep up with the demands of HD video playback, a notoriously resource intensive codec and for work, I really need to be able to edit HD in real-time, without waiting around for stuff to render. I’ve converted my old mac into an entertainment system. I got a free OS upgrade, a free battery replacement, and lots of patient genius representatives that spent a good two hours trying to figure out why my USB bus suddenly stopped providing enough power to spin a 7200rpm drive (they fixed it, by the by).

7. Freebies. The Apple summer deal is going on, so if you buy this month or next you’ll get a lot of freebies. A free printer, a free iPod Touch, a rebate on MS Office, they do a lot of summer deals at the apple store and god damn if the iPod Touch isn’t a really fun little machine. Think of all the travel you do!

8. They’re incredibly usable. They’re just fun. They come standard with a lot of really fun features and you can do anything you want right of the bat really easily. You can make movies, download music from iTunes, stream netflix, record your own songs, make photobooks, all sorts of fun stuff. They’re pretty, they work well, and most importantly, they’re easy to use. The biggest thing you’ll have to learn how to deal with is using the command button (the cloverleaf) instead of the ctrl button. Other than that, almost everything else is the same nowadays.

9. Mac developers are awesome. We’re a passionate bunch, and the cocoa development group is incredibly dedicated to creating awesome, well-formed, elegant programmes and solutions. They’re so much out there that’s mac only and near-perfect software. The Panic team has some amazing applications, Daylite changed my life, and everything from Adobe to Skype is just so much prettier on a mac. The devloper base alone is reason to switch.

10. They’re cheaper. No joke. If you put a Sony Vaio, a Gateway, a Dell, and an Alienware PC with the exact same speeds and specs side by side, you’ll find Apple’s version is actually a better value. Sure you can’t get a mac for cheap, but you also can’t get a bad mac. I can find several $400 laptops that, pardon my french, blow chunks and are impossible to use. But even the $700 mac mini, the cheapest mac you can buy, runs like a dream. That’s what I call value.

There’s more too, the amazing possibilities it allows, the premiere software it offers, the de-facto status among creative professionals, but for now, 10 reasons are enough. You fanboys and girls out there, any other important reasons I’m forgetting?