Between Beginning and End

The current ongoing adventure is uncontrollable, erratic sleep patterns. But, since that in and of itself is not particularly interesting, let me instead paint a picture of my daily life in Tokyo.

I wake up sometime between 9:30am and 4pm. This literally changes dramatically from day to day. I then spend a few minutes checking all my online conduits to the free world (several email accounts, Facebook, and maybe Linked In), and a few more minutes chatting with various people (you know who you are) for both personal and professional reasons.

After 30 - 60 minutes of sitting on my floor mat (where I sleep) with computer in hand, I have a 30 - 45 minute yoga session. I cannot over express what an excellent way this is to start the day. It rids all the aches, pains, stiffness, sleepy cobwebs, etc., and gets the breath steady. It also recalibrates physical, mental, and spiritual attentiveness for all that awaits in the new day. This is followed by cooking a hearty breakfast - cereal, fruit, potatoes, tofu "scramble", toast, V8, and coffee.

The rest of my "day" is a mosaic of various activities. I am spending many hours working, which currently consists primarily of building web pages, but also includes a bit of establishing marketing relationships for clients. I work from home and in different cafes throughout my general area in Tokyo. On one hand, I prefer to be out integrating with the culture of the city around me. On the other hand, the only cafe that does not permit smoking is Starbucks, and they don't have wifi. Without wifi I can't work. So, I work in other cafes as long as I can stand the smoking, and then I work from home. By the way, if you are a smoker - please quit.

Besides work, of course there are the usual household chores: grocery shopping (which I do frequently because we have a tiny refrigerator), mailing letters, I don't know... whatever chores you do around town, I'm doing them too. Of course, I use a bicycle to get around when I'm doing them. And for that matter - you should too.

In the evening, I've also been going to a rock climbing gym a couple days a week. But, when I'm not doing that (which is most of the time), I usually just cook some Asian themed dinner (some combination of noodles, beans, mushrooms, and seaweed - just add sesame seeds!) and then either work more, go out drinking, or study (yoga, web programming, zen Buddhism, Japanese language are the main topics currently).

I was feeling a little guilty that I haven't been doing more shopping or sightseeing. I will do those things (and have done some already), but that's not the kind of experience I came here for. I really wanted to know what it's like to live here - not be a tourist. It's basically a lot like my life in America, except filled with new insights and a lot of asthetically pleasing details.

At the end of it all I manage to hit the sack sometime between 4am and 8am.