yes I typed "january 1st, 2022"
had a new year's day sort of new year's day, where I slept in until 10 and nominally spent time doing something in a new year's haze
had cold soba for lunch - soba is usually not my go-to noodle (that'd be ramen or udon) but it felt proper for new years. honestly dipping noodles might sorta be my thing because I have an extreme cat's tongue so cold food is a lot easier for me to eat
(I'm not good at dipping tho) big fan of being handed some broth to pour on the dipping sauce to make a little soup to drink after. excellent value.
did what was probably a very new year's thing in staying inside the hotel room and lazily watching some variety TV I wouldn't normally watch. kodoku no gurume was on, which as far as I can tell is a very strict format of 5 minutes of "a salaryman gets in a wacky business situation" and 25 minutes of "he then gets super hungry and spends a quiet, contemplative moment savoring the hell out of a zillion course meal somewhere". food shows for people who love to see food, quietly
late-night variety TV also had a section about people in real life and their food hacks, such as a person who made pancakes every day for 8 years (that's me), people eating oyakodon with 6 eggs worth of egg, and someone who says "booze is my blood" pouring a bunch of alcohol on top of frozen takoyaki before slamming it on a microwave with a toaster perilously hanging off of it.
it's a little relatable in that sort of "everyone does food disasters" sort of way but also feels just a little mean-spirited in how many of the segments are like "look at how food disaster this person is", especially given that a lot of the food hacks are just "eat cheap food and pretend it's fancier food". give people UBI lmao. I also thought about this because the Toaster Disaster Person had a long section about wanting to be cute and feeling like they were born the wrong gender which, in that late-night-variety-TV way, comes across half heartfelt and kinda gawky, and really, please, fix your toaster and clean up the change on top of your fridge
today's the last full day of vacation out here so hoping to hit Kobe as I haven't been there before