Together, Alone, Pour Out Your Soul and Wander Home
21:30. The countdown begins.One hundred minutes, all you can drink, a meagre ¥3,000 (around £15.50), a steal. Conversational Japanese lessons online average around ¥4,000, so through misguided mathematics this all makes sense to me. Sit at the counter that seats only six, and see where the sweet night sends you. Imperfect strangers brought together by…
“Write.” – 02/04/25
Write. For the love of all that is just… Just write. Pen to paper, fingers to keys, rattle and scratch and let it all out. This is my new mantra, speak it slowly, speak it over, mumbling memoranda as I limp sullenly, petulant and pitiful, into my fourth decade on this accursed Earth. Sapporo Wednesday April…
At Christmas play and make good cheer…
…For Christmas comes but once a year. Recently I’ve had to make a very difficult decision, one that has brought me little joy. Do I return home for Christmas and the new year, or do I see through my favourite time of year on my own, on the other side of the world? Choosing the…
Seven Summery Months – A Summary
It’s mid-November and I’m sitting at the laptop at 8:51am in Sapporo, in Japan’s soon-to-be frozen north. A faint dusting of snow fell yesterday, however the cold, dry air is preferable to the 24 Hour Steam Room/Max as Mosquito Buffet climate of Thailand and Malaysia. Japan, England, Malaysia, Thailand… The summer has been long and…
Osaka, Aishiteru 2: The Lost Weekend… (No, wait, there it is)
A recap then, as it’s been a while and my posting schedule is all out of whack. I got off the flight, embarrassed myself, went to a 7-Eleven, embarrassed myself again, and then… Wait, I didn’t travel very far at all, did I? This really is tedious. I checked in to Guest House Izumi (Guest…
Monte Erice – Ups and Downs, or, How I climbed a big ol’ hill™ and just about managed to get down again
This beautiful lump had been staring at me from the terrace for two whole weeks, tempting me with its luscious peak (phwoar etc.). I am still somewhat at a disadvantage walking-wise, due to a bad knee (long story, third dislocation last year, turns out healing is much slower when you’re advancing in years) but I…
A Look to the Future – Postulating Prospective Pursuits
Everything online is a glimpse of the past, a slice of time, a moment caught digitally, preserved for posterity, forever, or at least until a great solar storm EMPs the entire electronic world into oblivion, plunging us into deadly chaos, foraging for scraps, warring for resources and succumbing to every illness and injury we’ve thusfar…
Sicily Part I – Palermo
After a rollercoaster Christmas and New Year back home (Northampton, UK, for anyone unsure), I fled to Sicily. My Stansted to Palermo flight was ludicrously cheap and Ryanair did a fine job getting me there in one piece. England was grey, unrelentingly damp and colder than a witch’s teat so I thought, ‘Flee to the…
Osaka, Aishiteru: A Japanese Photo Diary, 2022 (Part 1)
I started this writing project to entertain myself and to keep anyone who happens to be interested in my meanderings updated on my progress. I quickly, as with many things in my life, stopped writing, and started doing something else. It’s an odd, frustrating quirk of mine, and one that I hope to conquer one…
Airport Blues, Osaka Soon, Reflections on Four Weeks in Vietnam
I made a massive handwritten list of ‘Fings Wot I Av Learnt’ over the last four weeks. Here’s some of them, with colourful pictures to keep you enthralled. 1- You can’t run away from your problems, or run away from yourself, but you can be a confused mess in a warmer climate where pots of…
Neglecting the Blog is Bad for Everyone (Tay Ho, north Hanoi)
It’s been a good couple of weeks since my last missive. In that time I’ve had fun, met some cool people, been to some great clubs and done a lot of personal reflection. Why am I here (geographically and metaphorically)? What am I doing with my life? What will become of me? Where do I…
Various Photographs of Things I Have Seen and Done (Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Thiền Quang Lake, Old Quarter, Hanoi)
I can’t muster the energy to relate in wordy detail all that’s gone on over the past two days, so have some photographs instead, that’s what you like anyway, nowadays, isn’t it, all pictures and no real content. The menu had some great hardcore/post-post-punk band names. At this point, a man, sat with his two…
Bia Phượng (‘Bia’ means ‘beer’, for those at the back)
Bia Phượng (2RPX+62H, Hàng Đồng, Hàng Bồ, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam) I heard tell of the freshly brewed, daily beer of Hanoi. Brewed fresh each day, anything unsold by close is no longer good and is thrown out (a sin, unforgivable, I must prevent this crime). Cheap, plentiful, the wise choice, considering I was…
The Hangover Gods Deliver (Takosama Takoyaki)
Takoyaki is the true food of the gods. The Osaka street food speciality is the perfect blend of hot goo, chewy meat and savoury sauce. I have had the finest, freshest takoyaki in central Kyoto during Hanami and the very worst over-fried, frozen disgraces from central Milton Keynes (for shame). Takosama Takoyaki (6 P. Nhà…
24 Hours in Hanoi
It’s been twenty four hours and I’m smitten with Hanoi. The people are wonderful, the coffee is delicious, the cyclo drivers are dissuaded with a simple wave of the hand and the beer is plentiful. This is a very short initial post as I have little to say right now (neck deep in a powerful…
Max Lawrence Writes 