u/Ice_Efficient

I’m posting this however I kind of already know that it would be an impossible task, so I wanted to twist it into a few different questions and just talk about my experience too.

My partner and I were heading back to our airbnb on one of our last nights in Tokyo before flying home, and one of our trains ended up getting delayed for a pretty long while which made things tight on time to make sure we made it to our transfers. Since it was late at night we were worried about missing the last train. The delay announcement kept repeating over the intercom and I was explaining what I overheard to my partner in English.

An incredibly kind Japanese businessman, presumably maybe in his 50’s-60’s walked up to us and started explaining things in more detail in fluent English and tried his hardest to lighten the mood. He even checked up on us a few times while we were on the same train to ensure we were doing okay, and waved goodbye with the brightest smile before he got off at his stop near Shimbashi.

I guess the main thing I’d ask is, it’s basically impossible to find this missed connection right? Tokyo is such a huge place, and we don’t even have his name or any other descriptors. During our 3 weeks in Japan, that was one of the most genuinely kindhearted things someone has done, so I guess I just hope he’s being treated well and is doing okay. As a side question, specifically bigger cities in Japan feel a lot more isolating and individualistic… have you ever had a similar situation with selfless kindness? :-)

I went to Japan with my partner and friends a few months ago and I was reminiscing about the trip when I remembered a really unfortunate event when we were traveling throughout Gifu prefecture.

If you plan on traveling outside of the golden route, please look at the time tables, research how to get the tickets in advance, and give yourself a strict time to take some of these JR trains. Don’t make the same mistake we did.

We were finishing up a 2 day stay in Takayama and had a one night ryokan stay planned in Gero. We were planning on taking the JR Hida line south to Gero. We ended up missing the train we were supposed to take, and we were running out of time to make it to Gero. We essentially missed it despite getting to the station early, as we couldn’t figure out how to get tickets, for some reason this was a lot easier in Nagoya. Buy a round trip ticket if you know when you’re leaving.

Restaurants close a bit earlier in Gero, and our ryokan’s shuttle to take us from Gero station was going to stop service for the night if we weren’t able to get there in time.

So what did we do? We took a bus. We remembered that someone had mentioned on here that there was a bus available from Takayama to Gero. What we didn’t know, is that we essentially shared the entire bus and we were packed like sardines with presumably high schoolers or middle schoolers. We felt very out of place.

Also, these aren’t buses where you can comfortably bring luggage with you. We should’ve utilized luggage forwarding more, but we had only forwarded our luggage to Takayama and had planned to take it back with us to Tokyo as we were jumping through Gero for only one night. I regret that. We didn’t have very large luggage’s but with two people it had made that bus even more uncomfortably packed and we felt extremely guilty.

So just as a recommendation from our mistakes, double check train schedules, purchase tickets in advance if you can, and if you have luggage try to avoid buses.

Just got an part-time job interview for a place downtown inbetween Bath and Paseo Nuevo, Ive lived in Noleta my entire life and mostly have tried to avoid working downtown as I don’t really want to do the 75min street parking shuffle and I’m too scared about getting ticketed. The job market is incredibly tough so I can’t be picky and I’m accepting any job offer that comes first.

Any recs on parking? I heard that some city lots have daily permits for workers that’s pretty affordable, but I wasn’t sure if that was only designated for certain businesses.

I always hear about how the Ainu people historically have primarily lived in Hokkaido and northern Tōhoku, and that Ryukuyuan people lived in the Okinawa area.

Is there history of native people in Honshū? I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be a population living there thousands of years ago if there were people north and south of the main island.

I do not know much Japanese history past probably the 1800’s, so it just piqued my interest a little bit :)

Went to Japan last year around November-December and was super excited to test myself as I had taken about 3 years of Japanese in college and have been passively self studying for fun. I never took any of the JLPT tests but I could probably pass N4 just fine, maybe N3 if I brushed up better and locked in.

I went to a hair salon while I was visiting, as I wanted to get my hair bleached for the first time. It’s expensive back home, and with dark asian hair it just costs a fortune because a lot of stylists are too scared they’ll mess it up.

I booked a salon on Hot Pepper because most people said I’d be fine. The hair stylists were nice, and I was able to communicate with them somewhat. We used translation software for more complicated questions just to make things go by faster.

I told them I understood and spoke an okay amount of Japanese and we had a good amount of small talk, but one of the hairstylists started looking at my hair and while picking a handful of my hair she just said “きも“ to the other stylist, laughed, and then walked away.

They also asked me if I wanted any drinks, I was kind of hesitant and just said tea was fine, and they gave me hot coffee… which I thought was weird but I genuinely tried to just assume it was a mixup and there were no ill feelings. I can’t drink coffee due to the higher caffeine content but idk I felt bad so I kept sipping it, it also just felt increasingly awkward if I didn’t.

I felt babied, but I’ve just kind of gotten accustomed to that already l because I’m aware I’m not that great at the language. My parents also used to be host families for a lot of exchange students when I was growing up, so I also understand the difficulties of talking to someone who isn’t fluent and simplifying things to make it easier on them.

Were they being rude…? It’s weird because I dm’d the stylist a month before asking if it was ok that I wasn’t fluent in Japanese and she seemed so chill about it and said yeah that’s fine???

I’m probably overthinking it, but I thought to reach out here for clearance because it keeps lingering on my mind for some reason.

I’ve had Kyleena for about 4 years now, and I tried getting it removed last year to replace it with a different hormonal IUD but was rejected (I was mostly scared that the current government in the U.S. was going to make it harder to get BC, so I wanted to be proactive).

Before getting Kyleena, I have never had acne to this extent in my life. I’ve had close comedones since I was a teenager, but now I have awful cystic acne and a ton of whiteheads that constantly keep appearing no matter how hard I try. I used to shower every other day due to eczema, but now I have to shower daily or else my acne gets worse. It’s wrecking havoc on my skin and I frankly don’t know what to do anymore 😭

I got the IUD because I can’t be trusted to remember to take a pill everyday, and the idea of an IUD insertion seemed a lot less scary than getting an abortion. I also had extremely painful periods, and the hormonal IUD got rid of it almost completely. That’s one of the main reasons I got hormonal instead of the copper IUD too.

If I get hormonal acne with Kyleena, does that mean I’m just more likely to get acne on other hormonal IUDs? Am I screwed?? 😭

edit: Also just wanted to add that besides the acne, I think the hormonal IUD is GREAT LOL. Insertion wasn’t bad, I’ve had no period for 4 years which is beautiful, and I haven’t had any other side effects (no mood swings, weight gain, etc). The hormonal acne just sucks a ton, and I don’t think I can take spiro because I have low blood pressure already. Might look into topical spiro.

I’ve had Kyleena for about 4 years now, and I tried getting it removed last year to replace it with a different hormonal IUD but was rejected (I was mostly scared that the current government in the U.S. was going to make it harder to get BC, so I wanted to be proactive).

Before getting Kyleena, I have never had acne to this extent in my life. I’ve had close comedones since I was a teenager, but now I have awful cystic acne and a ton of whiteheads that constantly keep appearing no matter how hard I try. I used to shower every other day due to eczema, but now I have to shower daily or else my acne gets worse. It’s wrecking havoc on my skin and I frankly don’t know what to do anymore 😭

I got the IUD because I can’t be trusted to remember to take a pill everyday, and the idea of an IUD insertion seemed a lot less scary than getting an abortion. I also had extremely painful periods, and the hormonal IUD got rid of it almost completely. That’s one of the main reasons I got hormonal instead of the copper IUD too.

If I get hormonal acne with Kyleena, does that mean I’m just more likely to get acne on other hormonal IUDs? Am I screwed?? 😭

My partner and I are going to be visiting SF for a convention in a few months and we booked a stay at the Grand Hyatt in Union Square since it seemed convenient proximity wise! It’s not my first time in SF, had some family living near SFO and we frequently took BART up to the city, but it is our first time specifically staying within the city.

How safe is union square right now at night? We plan on taking muni, specifically the T line. I’m mostly just worried about walking back to our hotel at night.

I have no worries about walking anywhere in SF during the day! I’ve just heard that in recent years SF hasn’t been as safe as it used to be, and I know as a woman I just have to be cautious anywhere at night. Last time I visited was pre-covid, so I feel as though I don’t have a good grasp on how things are right now.