Indeed you must

Every crowded Under Armour store in Tokyo & Singapore was a dagger to my Oregon pride

Shots fired!

I watched the Coppola movie on the flight home. It is still great, and only a bit racist I think, but it was newly odd to me how much time Charlotte’s Japanese friends seem to spend in large buildings

I am home but am now reading Emergent Tokyo to better understand the most interesting place I visited this spring 🧵

Glad to have my takes validated! Yeah Kyoto better for biking, Tokyo for walking I thought

We will continue to make two-dimensional maps. Because your mind can't handle the truth.

False, Barney has not taken to either of our music. Yours is just cool

least favorite part of coming home: service workers being paid mostly through tips

I don’t think I dare attempt the Kindly Brontosaurus. Have you ever? slate.com/human-intere...

3) get the apartment industry on board as the messenger to business lobby
4) find something lefties want that the status quo lacks & give them a clear win too

That was the approach I’ve been chasing, first locally then regionally since 2018. Couldn’t have worked without Sen. Pham totally getting it

Daww. But other folks too!

The politics of this in OR were so very specific that I think it’d have to be different elsewhere. But I think the top level strategies might apply:
1) escspe IZ vs not IZ by framing good IZ vs bad IZ
2) unify left & center around the shared goal of # subsidized (not %)

Sorry Matt, I think this is the second or third time I’ve forgotten! I’ll get it someday

It’s waiting for me at home already! Eager to flip through it tonight

Laura definitely coined “four floors & cormer stores.” I think “ages wages & stages” was a Portlander? Jennifer or Heidi?

We have @ronpdavis.bsky.social’s insight to thank for this wonderful fact

It’s worse than WA’s but the question is whether it’s worse than CA’s

Singapore airport: nice, but overrated. (Maybe I’d feel different if the waterfall had been on before my flight left.) If you must be in an airport, it’s pretty good.

Americans should just focus on making clear that LaGuardia and LAX suck instead of praising this one.

But no expensive cross-cultural learning or “hey I’ve seen that in a movie” travel thrill compares to the priceless learning about humanity, or to the “hey I’ve seen that in a movie” thrill, of building a beloved community & raising a family in it.

Glad to have been gone; gladder to be home.

5/5

This trip (first with wife & kid, then with parents, then solo) has been a huge luxury and I’m so lucky & grateful to have had the chance to do it. It took a great employer, years of saving, a year of planning, and kidcare support from friends & family back home.

4/5

Singapore: bsky.app/profile/ande...

Japan: bsky.app/profile/ande...

Quick thread of my three sabbatical travel threads, followed by an earnestpost. First, New Zealand: bsky.app/profile/ande...

Article is from 1993, interesting about him but seems unreliable as a judge of his current state

Re: nostalgia for VHS tapes and other analog media, I saw someone say like "a VHS tape never sold my information to a nazi" and yes that's true! But the reason it's true is actually because Congress passed a law in 1988 specifically making it illegal for video stores to sell your rental history

All things considered, my review of Singapore is captured in this photo

I asked why the gates and walls. Not for security, Paul and his wife said; for status.

Paul called Clark Quay, a converted river warehouse district (those are all original facades) touristy. Very true, but still a hell of a place.

Don’t miss the artificial tree canopy overhead

My least favorite part of Singapore was the walking. I give the city a C- and a little handwritten note about how it’s not living up to its potential.

Public trees and greenery really are everywhere, a huge contrast with Tokyo and a great amenity for a city on the equator.

I said “they must cost a fortune for the city to maintain” but Paul pointed out that when thousands of people live within a block of each one, the math comes out pretty good

And also inside my hostel. Paul said the one we got was fresh enough to be “less pungent”