Baristas & Breakpoints

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Trip Report – Tokyo, June 2019 – Part 4

It’s June 21st- the longest day of the year. Not that you’d know that in Tokyo, where the sun was still insistent on setting a little after half-past six every night. I’m jolted upright at 7:30 sharp, thanks to the capsule hotel pod’s alarm, a feature I was only just getting used to. I have a quick shower before heading down to the lobby for some breakfast as always, this time treating myself to a couple of curry-filled pastries and a lukewarm cappuccino. I think I’d just finished up when we’re all interrupted by the shaking of a tremor deep underneath our feet, an occurrence much more familiar with Tokyo natives than the startled tourists nestled on the fourth floor of a tower block. But, as soon as it had come, the earthquake subsided and we all got back to whatever it was we were doing. I hit the streets a little later, with some retail therapy in mind.

See I’m a fan of Hideaki Anno‘s Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the plethora of merchandise the franchise has spawned since its 1996 release, and seeing as today also happened to coincide with Netflix finally releasing the show on the streaming platform, I thought it was about time I visited the famous Evangelion Store. This was no easy feat though, as it’s located way further North than I’d previously ventured, in the district of Ikebukuro. Nevertheless though I topped up my Pasmo card and hopped on the metro, ready to take whatever the day threw at me.

I emerged from the station to be met by yet another bustling city street, though distinctly quieter than those I’d just left back in Shibuya. Shop advertisements adorned every tower block window in sight from karaoke bars to cat cafes- a sight I’d become quite familiar with over the past few days. I head down an underpass just tall enough to accommodate my height, and as I emerge at the other side, I see what I’ve come all this way for. The Evangelion Store is tucked away on the first floor of the PARCO shopping centre, and after spending an hour or so gawking at all sorts of clothes, water bottles and everything in between, I decide on getting a bag for uni when that starts back up again in September. I leave the shop 5000 Yen lighter and thinking it’s probably a good idea to get back to the hotel before I get caught up in any rush hour chaos, making sure to stop by the Sanrio store in the SHIBUYA 109 department store on the way home to try and talk myself into getting an Aggretsuko onesie (spoiler: I didn’t).

Getting back to the hotel at 4pm gave me plenty of time to have another shower and freshen up, before making the most of the hotel’s free beer happy hour. I spend the 60 minutes trying to cram in as many free beers as humanly-possible, and head out into the streets once again, in search of some good grub. On the recommendation of one of my friends who’d visited the city just a few weeks earlier, I was heading out to a Yoshinoya (All he had to say was “It’s like Spoons, but Japanese”), where I tried a pretty delicious bowl of chicken, egg and broccoli, vowing to return for some more food very soon.

With dinner out of the way, I wanted to settle the score when it came to the Tokyo pub scene. Not being put off by the meager offerings of last night, I came to google to see if there were any more authentic offerings on the table, and as luck would have it, there was one, called THE ALDGATE, just two minute’s walk away from the Yoshinoya. I headed over to it after finishing my food, to find it up on the second floor of a building down a narrow alleyway. I assumed it was quite popular, as the people I took the lift up with also happened to be going to the same place, and my suspicions were confirmed as I entered into what appeared on the inside to be an old fashioned tudor inn, complete with wooden joists overhead. I took the last remaining stool at the bar and ordered an Abbott Ale, slightly shocked they had even heard of it, let alone had it on tap.

After seeing off a few pints, I headed back to the hotel, though not before grabbing an Asahi from a 7-Eleven on the way back. It had been a bit of an uneventful day, but that was all set to change tomorrow, with plans to visit World-Famous Tsukiji Fish Market, Nezu Shrine, and my first experience of a gig in Japan. Stay tuned to see how it went!

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Trip Report – Tokyo, June 2019 – Part 3

When I last left you all I’d spent my first full day in Tokyo, having explored the area around my hotel over the course of the day. Today though I was feeling adventurous, finally deciding to get to grips with Tokyo’s metro system, and do some proper adventuring. Today’s itinerary would see me visiting the Yayoi Kusama museum, while also stopping off for some coffee along the way.

After having some breakfast at the hotel I decide to again venture back down to the familiarity of Meguro and its peaceful sidestreets. This time however, I was taking a detour from the Starbucks Reserve Roastery I visited yesterday, and was instead heading to somewhere much more independent. Just a few blocks down from Starbucks lies Good People & Good Coffee – a pretty tiny, yet no less homely, coffee house. The whole place has a sort of workshop-like feel to it, with tools hung from the wall and various bicycle parts strung up from the ceiling. I ordered a cappuccino and sat in to get some much needed rest from the sun. Sitting at one of their three or so tables made me appreciate just how cosy the place felt, though I could imagine it being rather stuffy in there at full capacity.

After holding off on buying some Good People & Good Coffee merch, I headed back up to Shibuya to make an essential purchase for any traveller coming to Toyko: an IC card. I had a quick chat with the lovely people at the help desk before deciding the Pasmo card would be better-suited for my needs (although they’re both pretty similar, to be fair). I then topped up my card, and went up to the platform to get my very first taste of the Japanese metro system. I had almost haunting visions of being crammed in like a sardine, but much to my delight this was never the case on my travels. Due to the location of the Yayoi Kusama museum, I’d have a fair bit of a walk from the station if I didn’t want the hassle and added expense of transferring to another metro line (which I didn’t), so I opted to get off at Iidabashi station and take a 25 minute walk through a previously unexplored part of the city.

Stepping out onto the street at Iidabashi provided some pretty different scenery to the views of Shibuya and Meguro, being situated right on the Kanda river. I headed through a public garden with what I can assume would have been a rather scenic stream running through it, had the warmer weather of recent not dried it up. After a pretty uninteresting remainder of the journey, I arrive at the museum with plenty of time to spare before my allotted visiting time. I head up the winding staircase of the museum, to be greeted by a wall of colour. Every surface visible was covered in Kusama‘s work, with a dazzling array of colours and styles spanning several decades. I was unfortunately not allowed to take any photographs on this floor so you’ll have to use your imagination for this floor. After spending a while on the first floor, I decided to ascend the stairs once again, this time being greeted by a neon ladder, which appeared to continue infinitely, with the assistance of some cleverly-place mirrors of course. We were quickly ushered up to the next floor to allow for more people to come and see the ladder though. It is here that there lies one of the artworks most synonymous with Kusama; an impressively shiny, polka-dot covered pumpkin, set against the Tokyo skyline. It was at this point that my time slot was coming to a close, so I took a few quick pictures before heading back to the metro station, this time opting for the slightly closer Ushigome-Yanagicho station. I arrived back at the hotel after getting a little lost and taking the wrong train, but that’s part of the adventure, right?

After freshening up at the hotel again I head back out for some dinner, in search of the curry shop I was so close to finding on the previous day. Having looked closely on Google Street View though, I was sure not to make the same mistake as yesterday. I found Joutoukare pretty quickly this time, and ordered a pretty delicious chicken katsu curry, made fresh to order. Feeling brave, I thought it was time I paid some of Tokyo’s drinking establishments a visit. I was still kind of homesick though, so I figured an English style pub was a happy medium. I decided on a chain of pubs that seem to be everywhere over there, called HUB, and happily strolled through the door of the first one I could find. As soon as I entered though, I could tell this was nothing like the locals I tend to frequent back home. After navigating my way through the smoking section of the bar, I ordered a pint of Heineken, perhaps the closest thing they had to anything you’ll find on UK bar taps. The Japanese hospitality more than made up for this though, and I ended up chatting to two local apprentices for a couple of hours, about everything from Fish & Chips, to my experiences of solo travel so far. I think this was one of the highlights of my trip, and it really made me feel welcome as a tourist in Japan. At the end of the night we parted ways, strolling back to the hotel close to midnight for some much needed sleep.

The next day was another lazy day in Shibuya, exploring the many clothing stores and music outlets, topped off with attempt number two at finding an authentic British pub in the world’s largest city. Be sure to follow the blog for the next part!

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My Week in Music #01

Music is a part of this blog I’ve not really touched on a great deal so far, so let’s fix that. While never having studied music, I’m somewhat of a person with a passion for songs and artists alike. I’m an avid collector (read: hoarder) of vinyl records new and old, which I actually play on my turntable, unlike some record collectors of recent. I take part in music discussion and aid people in discovering new music, as well as also finding tonnes of new music myself on a regular basis, and I’m also the longest-serving host of Hull University’s Salad Days radio show- a show which boasts the university’s highest ever listener count. It’s no wonder this obsession with music has seeped into the blog.

In this post, and the others that will hopefully follow it, I’ll post a collage of my listenings, as well as some of the albums I’ve been listening to outside of the scope of streaming. If you’re lucky I’ll even talk about recent purchases and gigs I have lined up, so let’s crack on.

This week has been a bit of a quiet week as far as streaming is concerned; I’ve been busy settling into my new uni digs, so my streaming numbers have taken a decline as a result. Still though, I’ve managed to cram in two albums I’ve been meaning to listen to for ages: Flume – Hi This Is Flume and Carly Rae Jepsen – EMOTION. In addition to that is Kero Kero Bonito‘s TOTEP EP, a firm favourite of mine. Beyond streaming, I’ve also been revisiting some of Jeff Rosenstock‘s discography on my turntable.

I’ve been fairly busy purchase-wise recently, ordering the Kero Kero Bonito Flamingo 7″, as well as their 10″ pressing of TOTEP. Straying away from the Bonitoverse and you’ll find I’ve also preordered a few records: 1000 Gecs by 100 Gecs; 2814‘s Birth of a New Day; and Frank Ocean‘s Channel Orange– an eclectic mix to say the least.

That’s it for my week though, it’s been a busy one! What have you guys been listening to recently?

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Trip Report – Tokyo, June 2019 – Part 2

It’s been a while since the last post, sorry about that! I’ve been so busy over the weekend moving into my new house that I just haven’t had the time to fit posting in. That’s all sorted now though, so let’s get back to it. When we last left off I’d touched down in Japan and spent my first night in the city, feeling equal parts hesitant and excited. This was all going to change though, and after a solid 14 hours of sleep, I set off to spend my first full day out there.

After waking up a little before midday, I hopped in the shower to freshen up and headed out into the late-morning sunshine. Today I felt like exploring the local area, which took me around the district of Meguro, before returning to become more familiar with Shibuya, it was my home for the duration of the stay after all. Being the coffee nut I am, I decided to check out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Meguro – Heralded as the world’s largest Starbucks and boasting a range of coffee experiences spanning four floors, this was a must see on my travels.

I left the hotel and wound my way through the narrow side streets and alleyways of Shibuya, before crossing under an overpass and making my way into the distinctly more residential roads of Meguro. I took a break to grab some Pocari Sweat from a park vending machine, before soldiering on with my journey to the fabled purveyor of caffeine. After reaching one of the Meguro river’s many bridges, the sight I’d been searching for loomed into view. It’s a little odd at first, seeing a building that wouldn’t look out of place in the centre of Toyko, nestled in a quiet little residential district. Nevertheless I pressed on and strode through the hulking glass doors at the entrance. The sight I was met with was something akin to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; with its big copper roaster towering over everything, taking pride and place in the centre of the building. Extruding from its chestnut exterior are pipes, wound intricately across the building ready to dispense freshly-roasted beans to each level, like a brown metallic leviathan.

I soon learned each floor had its own purpose, from the bakery on the ground floor, to the thoughtfully-designed space dedicated to Japan’s passion for tea on the first floor. There’s even a meeting room on the third floor, for all those hard-hitting coffee discussions we all have on a regular basis. Perhaps my favourite floor though, was the second floor: a place devoted to coffee’s influence in mixology. Here you could order a whole array of caffeinated cocktails and mocktails, and best of all, you could sit out and enjoy them on their open air terrace. I ordered an Emerald City Mule, some kind of mocktail splicing together cold brew and ginger ale, along with cinnamon syrup and fresh lemon, topped off with a slice of apple. It’s not the kind of thing I’d usually go for, but given the searing Tokyo sunshine I wasn’t quite used to yet, it was just what I needed.

After Starbucks, I caught the metro round to go pay another coffee house a visit. This time it was to Glitch Coffee & Roasters, in Chiyoda. This was my favourite spot for a drink across all my time in Japan, and for good reason too. The whole joint felt much more personal and friendly than any chain cafe could ever manage to, with its team of passionate baristas and it’s inventive touches you’d struggle to find anywhere else. I ordered a cold brew coffee, which was served on the rocks ala a fine whiskey, with a trendy tasting notes card accompanying it. Like with the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, their cast iron roaster was on full display for all to see, enticing passersby in from the street. After finishing my drink I headed back to the hotel, to rest my weary feet and freshen up before heading out for the night again.

Heading out into the Tokyo night revealed that Shibuya’s iconic scramble crossing gets no less busy after the sun goes down, with hoards of people still making their way across the painted strips of white tarmac every 90 seconds. I was in the mood for katsu curry and had seen a highly praised local place not too far from the hotel, by the name of ‘Joutoukare’, though this has since changed on Google Maps. I searched hard for the right place, but ultimately ended up going into a ramen bar on the same street (I would later find out this was right next door to where I was trying to go…). After parting ways with ¥850 I was ready to experience my first authentic bowl of ramen, and it did not disappoint. There was a decent balance of pork, onion and seaweed, with a decently balanced, if a little plain, broth. I headed back to the hotel once more to retire for the night, still not completely over the 8 hour time difference.

In the next part, I’ll be visiting the Yayoi Kusama museum, as well as finding yet more coffee shops and getting more than a little bit lost. I decided to check out what Japan considered an English pub, as well as much more. Hope you stick around! Be sure to follow the blog to stay up to date with all the times I post here.

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Trip Report – Tokyo, June 2019 – Part 1

Like most people, I’m partial to a bit of travelling as often as my wallet allows. I’ve been all around the world satisfying my curiosity, from the panoramic views atop Chicago’s Willis Tower, to the crumbling city blocks of Pripyat and Chernobyl, but never have I set foot in Asia. It’s no wonder given how far away it is from the UK, but given my fascination with Japan and its rich culture, it was only a matter of time before I touched down in the land of the rising sun. This blog post is all about my time in Tokyo back in June, meeting so many new people and sampling so much hospitality on my first ever venture into the world of solo travel. I’ve got far too much to write about for just one post, so I’ll split it up over the course of the next week or so.

Getting to Tokyo meant a whopping 14 hours of travel time- a daunting prospect to even the most seasoned of travellers. First flying from Manchester airport to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle, and then on to Haneda made the journey somewhat less arduous, but still not something many look forward to. I arrive at baggage drop off late in the morning of the 17th June, a welcome change from the 5am arrivals I’ve become accustomed to. After sending my luggage over to be inspected I send it on its way to be hauled on the almost 6000 mile journey I too will be embarking on. I glide through an uncharacteristically quiet security checkpoint with my pride intact and my hair clay un-confiscated. I have just over an hour to kill in departures, meaning it’s time for an overpriced pint (it’s never too early when you’re on holiday, right?), and an opportunity to cram in as many free samples as is reasonably possible. Time flies by and before I know it I’m boarding the first flight with a belly full of lager and smelling like a Year 11 prom. Just over an hour later I’m touching down in Paris, feeling a little miffed the inflight snack we were promised didn’t amount to anything. I navigate through a few more security checkpoints and do a little more windowless window shopping before boarding the second leg of the journey; the 11 hour stint being eased slightly by bagging an exit row seat with a little more leg room.

Taking off for the second time proved just as uneventful as the first, though being in the middle of a wide-body aircraft like the Boeing 777 meant I wasn’t able to see the little towns and villages go by below like I could on the flight in. With it still being the afternoon when we departed, I opted to not get any shut eye yet, despite the 8 hour time difference awaiting me in Tokyo. Instead I make the most of the inflight entertainment, and catch up on a few films I’ve been meaning to watch- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse– two drastically different films but still films I’ve been meaning to watch nonetheless. I’m no film critic so I won’t go into the details but I thoroughly enjoyed them both, and would happily watch them again. I’d been informed by a friend to go for the Hindu meal option for a rather delicious inflight meal, but I think Air France had yet to get that memo. While I was first delighted to be served before everyone else, the food left much to be desired. Perhaps the people in charge of Air France’s special meals need to learn a thing or two about proper seasoning… The rest of the flight was rather uneventful, I slept for a few hours before waking up somewhere over Russia. I filled in my customs form and prepared to land in Asia for the first time, it was a warm June afternoon in Tokyo. After navigating the miles and miles of Haneda airport’s corridors, I make my way through customs and meander through to arrivals.

I spend the next hour or so traipsing up and down the terminal with my newly-reunited hold luggage, in search of the best way to get into the city. While the metro system was the cheaper (and marginally quicker) option, I wasn’t yet comfortable with the prospect of lugging my bags through public transport. After getting the essentials to survive the next couple of hours (and becoming a little too acquainted with the toilet situation in Japan), I made the decision to take the airport coach service to Shibuya, which was were I was staying, and making the rest of the journey on foot. On the coach ride in I got a great view of the city, crossing the iconic Rainbow Bridge before weaving through the bustling streets of the world’s largest city. We make a few stops periodically to let people off, before I myself depart at Shibuya’s Mark City, a place I would soon learn to be a shopping centre. Once finally out of there, I took a short stroll to The Millennials Shibuya, a trendy capsule hotel that would serve as my base of operations for the next 10 days. Its modern stylings and spacious capsule interiors were a welcome sight after spending the past 14 hours cooped up in the delights of economy class air travel. I had a quick nap before heading over to the burger joint on the first floor of the building the hotel was in, the American diner themed J.S. Burger Cafe. After a pretty tasty chicken karaage burger I retreated back to my bed, ready to catch up with a whole continent’s worth of sleep.

I think a combination of the language barrier, and it being my first time travelling alone in a foreign country really made me feel quite intimidated on the first night in Toyko. Such a drastic change of scenery for me really took me out of my comfort zone, and the social stigma around doing things like dining at restaurants alone really got to me at first, but I soldiered on and fought past the anxiety in no time thankfully. In part 2 of this trip, I’ll go into more detail about the first full day in Tokyo, as well as getting by once the initial jitters pass. There’s plenty of sights to see and coffee shops to review, so stick around, okay? It’ll be fun I promise!

If you’ve been to Japan before, what was your biggest challenge when you first arrived? If not, what do you think is the greatest difference about daily life in Japan compared to back home?

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The Cold Brew #01 – Two Gingers

Coffee plays a pretty major part of my life. Whether it’s keeping me awake through an all-nighter or just to cool off on a hot summer’s day, I’ve become somewhat of a coffee addict over the past year or two.

It’s because of this obsession that I couldn’t resist it’s advances into the blog- hell it’s even in the name after all…

The Cold Brew is going to be a series set out to review the many cafes and coffee houses I visit both in my travels and at a bit closer to home, from the greasy spoons to the world-renowned roasteries. While it won’t quite be a weekly feature, I’ll be sure to do a write up whenever I visit somewhere I haven’t covered before. First up is a local favourite of mine, Two Gingers Coffee House.

Situated under the ornately-styled Victorian arches of Paragon Arcade sits this cute little hideaway, voted one of the 7 best places for coffee in Yorkshire by Big 7 Travel. It’s run by Luke and Mayo (you’ll get no points for guessing their hair colours), two mates who take immense pride in the local area. Doing everything from brewing locally roasted beans from The Blending Room, to sourcing their furniture from local independent craftsmen, it’s clear Hull takes pride of place in every aspect of this shop.

I took the opportunity to catch up with one of my friends over an iced latte or two; a wise decision given the warm weather of recent. The current coffee on rotation worked great pulled through their espresso machine, and poured right onto a refreshing glass of ice cold milk. They offer a reasonably priced selection of all kinds of coffee, from V60 filter coffee to their more adventurous summer drinks like espresso and tonic. This varied selection of drinks alone sets it apart from the crowd.

The marbling of the coffee into the milk really looks great in these tall glasses

Sitting by the front window lets you watch the little community contained under one shared roof coexist. It’s not uncommon to see neighbouring shop owners nip across for a coffee and a quick chat between customers, and really gives you a sense of the close knit community they’ve all worked so hard to develop over the years.

It’s this combination of drink selection, people, and the overall sense of community that helps root this cafe as a firm favourite for myself and many others, not just in the city but across the whole region.

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Why I Code

Being three years into a four year Computer Science degree, it’s pretty apparent I have a passion for coding and working on loads of different projects involving computers. In this post I’m going to try to go back to the start of this fascination, and hopefully get the full story leading up to right now.

From an early age I’ve been obsessed with all things tech. I think it first started when my parents got a swanky new iMac G4, with it’s bold metal arm atop a sleek, hemispherical polycarbonate shell, it caught the attention of anyone to walk into our living room. Every inch of this machine was painstakingly designed, from the feel of every keystroke on the keyboard to the smoothness of the CD drive opening. It was this striking space-age design that inspired me to take up interest in the digital world.

Skipping ahead to secondary school, I studied ICT throughout the five years of compulsory study. This helped expand my knowledge of all aspects of the connected world around us, from video editing and image manipulation, to understanding the fundamentals of the internet and its uses. I came out of Year 11 with an A in ICT overall. A year prior to finishing my GCSEs, I was successful in applying for a week’s work experience with Barclay’s, working at their Radbroke Hall networking infrastructure centre. This was an eye-opening experience, and helped confirm that I was pursuing a career I had a lot of passion for.

In college I began exploring the options available to me as a future Computer Science student. My Sixth Form college didn’t offer any kind of programming or coding courses when I was there (though this has since changed, thankfully), so I took matters into my own hands and learned the basics of programming in my spare time, with the help of Codecademy. With its help, I became familiar with the Javascript programming language. Looking back I think that was one of the best languages I could’ve chosen, as most universities cover Object-Oriented languages such as C# and Javascript in their first years, and so I believed it would be better for me to be familiar with an OO language before beginning my studies. I looked at the University of Liverpool and Swansea University, before ultimately opting for an unconditional offer at the University of Hull. I’ll talk about Hull as a city in another post, but after living here for three years now I have nothing but praise for the area and the lovely people who make it what it is.

In my three years at Hull University, I’ve gone from strength to strength expanding my understanding and knowledge of the impact computers have in all aspects of life. In my first year of study I got to grips with C#, first creating a console applications for word searches, before delving into WPF applications and creating an inventory management system. In addition to the programming side of things, we also covered human-computer interaction and basic software engineering principles, as well as recapping many of the quantitative methods I picked up in the two years I studied maths in college.

Second year proved more challenging, as transferring from C# to C++ was a noticeable step up in complexity. I was again working with word searches, with the difference this year being the additional requirement to create algorithms to solve the puzzles. While I still passed the module, it taught me that perhaps C++ wasn’t what I wanted to work with going forward. Second year was also a time for us to practice Agile development methodology, with groups of five being tasked with creating a theatre booking system. In this module I took up the role of Scrum Master, as well as handling front end development for the application we produced. I rather enjoyed this task, as I’ve rarely been the one in charge of things, so it really gave me quite the confidence boost in a position like that. Second year also had me learning SQL and database logistics, interfacing with microcontrollers like the Arduino, as well as going further into the software engineering principles.

Third year was one of my favourite years at university, and was perhaps the most useful of the three so far. My dissertation project involved using OCR technologies, such as Google’s Tesseract engine, to recover historical code documentation for some of the world’s first computer systems. I really enjoyed this task, as it allowed me to manage much more of my time throughout the year, and progress at a rate I was more comfortable with. As well as the dissertation project, we also covered data mining techniques, and the meticulous nature of its processes. One of the final modules I studied in third year was advanced software engineering, teaching the methodology behind software safety and risk assessment, as well as the structure of software testing. It’s thanks to this course that I now know I want to ultimately end up with a career as a software engineer rather than a developer, as I much prefer the workflow and style of work involved.

So that’s pretty much everything up to present day, I know I’ve written way more than I thought I was going to but once I get going I just can’t stop sometimes…

This post was supposed to be published yesterday but something came up last night, so you’ll get another post later today if you’re lucky.

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Hello World!

Original title, I know. This is the introductory post for all you lovely people who happen to stumble upon my humble little slice of the blogging world. It’ll have all sorts of fun facts about me, and about the direction I want to gently steer this blog in over the foreseeable future.

Now let’s begin, shall we?

I’m Lucas and I’m a Masters student at the University of Hull, studying Computer Science. Besides all things nerdy, I happen to be quite the hipster in my spare time, indulging in everything from beard care to listening to my ever-expanding record collection. One thing’s always certain though- whatever I’m doing, I’ll be doing so with a coffee in hand.

Join me on my journey as I delve into the evolving world of technology, and see things from the perspective of someone who favours the path less travelled…

Topics I’ll be covering:

Computer Science, and kick-starting a career in the industry
Coffee, with everything from the latest gadgets to reviews on my travels
Film Photography from a beginner’s standpoint
Travel and experiences in new places
Side Projects, from gaining 10,000+ followers in a few years to making thousands in online sales

If any of those topics sound like the kind of thing you’d love reading about then stick around! I’ll update this blog as regularly as my schedule can allow, and hope to inspire and intrigue every single one of you who sticks around.