logs

It’s only been one week, and I’m already not great at writing these logs just from habit. Going back through and catching up a bit here, I am backfilling much of these from memory.

Overall, the theme of this week was catching up with people, enjoying NYC for the social and alcohol that it’s so strong at, and spending most of my mental willpower on planning my Japan trip (researching guides, figuring out flight plans, etc.).

Day 8: Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Looking through my schedule (this is the last date that I didn’t fill in), weirdly enough I had nothing on my calendar. And perhaps my memory sucks, but I don’t actually remember what I did on this day.

Ah I lied, now I remember why there wasn’t anything actually recorded. I started the morning with a bit of unproductivity (playing video games) before my friend asked me if I wanted to go and hang out to watch the England Argentina game. I found this one German bar I have liked in the past (Bierhaus), where we stood and watched the game (like true Englishmen). Afterwards, I met up with a former coworker for dinner/drinks at our old haunt, and another former coworker came and joined us! So overall, it ended up being a very fun social day, but with very little actual planning/productive items to anchor my calendar (hence the little lag in remembering). But I can’t say I thought this day was a waste–quite the contrary.

Day 9: Thursday, July 16, 2026

Unclear what I ended up doing during the day, probably just cranked out a bunch of Japan planning and other productive habits (like working out). For dinner, I caught up with an old friend, and an even older friend reached out randomly to grab drinks afterwards! I’ve actually never had back to back social catchups like that before, I’m really turning into a social titan these days haha. But actually, I think after this initial salvo of catching up with people in NYC, I’ll be better in Hawaii having a chiller time in a house, studying Japanese, enjoying domestic life and eating good food.

Day 10: Friday, July 17, 2026

Another day of focusing on planning my Japan trip, learning Japanese, and working out before going to meet my friend for dinner. His flight ended up being quite delayed, so we ate at roughly midnight (we definitely way overordered). It was nice to catch up but also to finally have an unblocked chunk of time to sit down and get through some of the planning stuff that had been sitting on the backburner stressing me out.

Day 11: Saturday, July 18, 2026

I met up with a friend for coffee in the morning, when a thunderstorm started out of nowhere right as we ended. In order to wait it out, I thought it would be a good idea to just go to a Vietnamese restaurant around the corner. Literally around the corner. Needless to say, I got absolutely soaked through on my lower body, and I barely made it there. While I was sitting there, another friend saw me through the window, so I met up with them afterwards and worked in a cafe. Before ending the hangout, we also went to an art gallery, where there was this Japanese artist sitting there counting leaves. We left right before he got to 96,000 which was slightly unsatisfying but my friend dropped their phone loudly so perhaps it was the right play.

Afterwards, I hopped on a call with one of my fishing guides, where we chatted about our plans which got me even more excited for the trip. I sent out a collection of emails to various guides before I turned my focus to packing. I am going to be in Hawaii for 2 weeks, but since I’m staying at my girlfriend’s house I think I can use the washing machine quite liberally worst case. So I spent most of my packing space on bringing stuff home for her rather than packing things that I needed.

Day 12: Sunday, July 19, 2026

Today was my flight day, nothing too notable except for the fact that there was no way for me to charge my devices. So I ended up just spending a lot of time studying Japanese, which did help pass the time. Honestly not sure what happened to the rest of the time.

After landing in Hawaii, I hung out with my girlfriend’s parents all night and I also caught a handful of fish which was fun. I surprisingly was able to stay awake for a good chunk of time, but eventually decided it was probably a good idea to get some rest. I think I’m still recovering from a decent chunk of sleep debt, so although I woke up in the middle of the night, I was able to fall back asleep after getting some water. Overall, I’m hoping that this is going to be a restful vacation although I am still a bit stressed because of all the planning stuff.

Day 13: Monday, July 20, 2026

My first full day in Hawaii, I opened up the day by writing yesterday’s logs in a cafe. Truthfully, I’m now writing this log on August 3, so this’ll be a bit of a lesson in recollection. I gotta rethink what happens when I get this far off track.

After the morning, I went to a local fishing store and picked up a bunch of fishing equipment! The idea was that I would go back to the house and try to clean up a few rods to take fishing out in Hawaii at some point. But in general I picked up enough gear such that I was able to go if I wanted to.

In the afternoon, I went with my girlfriend to the mechanic to get her new car checked out. The good news is that it was all good, and she’s going to keep the car with minimal maintenance costs! While our car being looked at, we just explored the surrounding area (Petsmart and Ross) which was surprisingly fun. I haven’t been to a Ross in a hot minute.

Day 14: Tuesday, July 21, 2026

I’m not gonna lie, I don’t actually remember much of what happened this day. It was probably a lot of grinding away at fishing in Japan planning (haven’t had a ton of time to just vegetate to be honest but that’s probably a good thing). There was this funny incident where there was a Facebook post on the IMO Gold medal winner Alexander Wang and his story, but they accidentally used my LinkedIn photo.