Things I Love Thursday – Vicarious trips to Japan. #TILT

JC is in Japan right now (for work), so for the last few days he’s been on the other side of the world, and I have been in Toronto. While I would have loved to go too (and wish I had,) I had agreed to cat sit for a friend, we’re in the middle of making plans for our new home, and of course someone has to tend to Kes & Emmie, & a bunch of other excuses like money and meetings and projects and all that usual boring day-to-day stuff.

View Vegan in Japan – Customized for my favourite human in a larger map

Before he left I put together a tiny list of vegan friendly places for him to potentially visit around his hotel. I’d been given the impression from almost everyone that I asked online that it was difficult or impossible to find vegan food in Japan, and thought that seemed a little strange. And also thought… “I used to hear the same thing about Alberta.” Which PrairieVegan has proven isn’t true!

Some people recommended just shopping at grocery stores for vegetables (not so helpful) and after asking the VVC crew on Facebook, I was encouraged in the right direction reading Christy’s blog posts from Japan in 2010. Ultimately, I realized… why am I asking other people? I love hunting down things to eat in places that people seem to think are impossible. This is my scene. So I put together a list of Japanese options and restaurants, and it wasn’t even that difficult. Hopefully when J get’s back he’ll feel like blogging about his time there.

Tokyo is full of vegan stuff. I’m not even there and I managed to find great stuff for J to check out, he’s there and found more options too. Sure, there is bonito or fish in a lot of stuff, but there is also a great many opportunities to eat totally vegan. Here is a mini language lesson

So why is this trip super vicarious? It’s simple, because of our iPhones. We’re linked by the magic of technology across the ocean.When he takes any picture (and vice versa) it’s shared on our collective photostream,  so I get to see it much faster than if I was to wait for him to upload it himself (i.e., never…).

While he’s looking at high speed trains, or walking around the nerdy awesome technology district (there are many – but the one I’m thinking of is Akiba (aka Akihabara) and eating at the Hawaiian-inspired vegan Japanese place (yes – this exists – Cafe Olu Olu) I was super excited about, I can check it out too.

While I’d love to be there, I’m enjoying his joy at finding and exploring interesting areas of Tokyo, because even thought I’m not “feeling” it. I’m seeing so many interesting and exciting things anyway, and get a lot of happiness that he’s having fun there.

Other “Things” I Love:

JC

It probably goes without saying after this post – but JC is at the top of my list. Mush. I do really like having him around, so while I’m glad he’s having a good time and doing work stuff, I’m also happy he’ll be coming home soon.

Cat Sitting for friends

…that leave me delicious food presents. Live in my favourite neighbourhood. And have a veranda, and a hammock chair.

S&B have three rescue cats, one of which I’ve known since all of us lived in Edmonton and I’ve cat/house sat for them before but this time it was even mutually convenient since we were in the process of selling our condo (p.s. that was a success!)

Also, related to my above post about Japan, they also have Elizabeth Andoh’s Kansha Cookbook: a Celebration of Japan’s vegan and vegetarian traditions.

This is Griffin. No one really knows exactly how old he is. But he is an old kitty.

What do you love?