This fall, I went to Tokyo with Joe and our friend Jeremy, and we met up with another old friend once there. It was one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on, and while I did not read on the plane as I had planned (thank you, melatonin tabs and free in-flight HBO) I do still have some content for this blog: we had coffee every single day of our trip!

So, here’s my personal ranking of the coffee shops we visited while in Tokyo. (While Tully’s and Starbucks are also available in America, there are some key differences in their marketing and products for Japanese consumers.)

1.) Tully’s Coffee

This one tops the list by quality and proximity. There was one located downstairs from our AirBNB, plus they opened early and closed late. The Royal Milk Tea, Honey Milk Latte, and Green Tea Swirkle are all excellent. Bonus points because, as mentioned, the proximity is king. There is a Tully’s on nearly every major city block, and at every train station. We also consistently managed to get Wi-Fi here to check our maps and iMessage our local friend.

2.) Starbucks

Not as prominently spotted as Tully’s, Veloce, or some other shops we didn’t get a chance to try like Dotour, but one I wanted to try since I could make such a clear comparison to its sister stores back home. We stopped at a very nice one in Ginza and watched the sunset over Nihonbashi Bridge. Their distinctive Japan-only holiday flavor is strawberry cake rather than peppermint, and I am 100% won over.

3.) Caffe Veloce

The service is very fast and the drinks are quite good. I had the Matcha Float a few times but was *shattered* to learn that acquiring their promoted holiday cat-cup-hanger was a very involved process. To console myself, I bought a bear keychain. At Tully’s.

Honorable Mentions:

Suntory Vending Machines

Many bottles of green tea, milky coffee, and sodas were the benevolent result of Japan’s expansive vending machine system. You can buy drinks with coins or by tapping your train card. The USA needs to get on this level.

Tower Records Cafe

We stopped here after walking from Harajuku to the epicenter of Shibuya — about eight miles. We were very tired and the drinks were some of the most expensive we bought while in the city. My companions tell me the coffee was good. I bought a really elaborate cotton candy Ramune drink and retied my shoelaces several times, trying to improve the circulation. It makes the list for being highly photogenic.

Season’s greetings, book lovers. It’s been a while. I am prone to long hiatuses on this blog, but this one’s been a little different. I noticed that my last review was in the late summer of 2017. This shouldn’t have surprised me, and yet it sort of did.

I started school full-time that semester, picking up a second major in graphic design. I started a new job, a part-time contract position that has now become my full-time career in a place I love.

It was also the last season I would have with my mother. She passed away on December 29, 2017. She began exhibiting symptoms of her decline in late September, the colon cancer she had courageously fought for eight years finally migrating and finding root in her brain.

My mom was an incredible person, and part of the inspiration for my vow to read 25 books a year. My dad is also a lifelong bookworm. We even had a competition that year to see who in the house could read the most; I think Mom would have caught up to Dad and Joe if she hadn’t been so ill. My mom loved to read, and I have vivid memories of her throughout my entire life sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee (black, preferably Gevalia, never ever artificially flavored) and a hardcover book, a Danielle Steele novel or a devotional or just something she saw at a book sale that looked “neat.”

Part of the way I processed my grief during that time was to stay busy. I added a certificate in web development to my degree track and started interim/winter break classes just a few days after her funeral. My husband and I moved into a new house. Admittedly, I made myself busy in ways that didn’t involve the most emotional and artistic bandwidth. I took up coding in Python. I watched the same three or four TV shows over and over. I stopped drawing for a while, except for school assignments. (I still haven’t quite gotten back into it as much as I did when I was drawing at my parent’s dining room table, chatting with them while I worked on charcoal homework and doodled forest animals.)

I did keep reading, though. In fact, in the year after losing her, I read almost 30 books. I read nearly nonstop. It was the thing I did to get back into my head while sorting through my strange new life without her, and I will forever be grateful to John Darnielle, Jeff Vandermeer, Aaron Mahnke, and many more for reminding me that sometimes, it will feel like the end of everything. The worst thing happens. The world becomes incomprehensible to you, and you have no idea what is next. But you just have to keep going. The story won’t finish itself. 

I have updated The Books section to reflect the last few years of books. My favorites, in no particular order, have been Foe by Iain Reid, 14 by Peter Clines, The Terror by Dan Simmons, The Institute by Stephen King, Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, Mindhunter by John Douglas, Universal Harvester by John Darnielle, My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, the Lore collection by Aaron Mahnke, the Area X trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, and I’ll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.

I wrote an essay about my mom’s tiny superstitions in early 2018 if you’d like to know a little more about her, or really me, too, I guess.

If you have lost someone close to you, I am so, so sorry for what you have experienced. Griefshare and other support groups exist in many communities at no cost and can be an amazing source of comfort and motivation. Additionally, The Order of the Good Death is a death-positive online resource that provides a lot of information about death, grief, funerals, and society’s understanding of mortality. There is a blend of light-hearted and deeply insightful content, and its founder has several books out on the subject. These are some of the things that have helped my family.

Lastly: Read. Talk to people whose company you enjoy. Cook fun things. Stay healthy. Say their name. Say it as often as you’d like, and remember them with joy.

And always, always drink good coffee.