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Tokyo Is the New Paris
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- seaal 3y agoMost of my city experience being in NYC made it so my first trip to Tokyo that much more special. Everything was so clean, the public transit always on time, the food always fantastic, felt safe while walking at night.
- tempsy 3y agoI always find comments like this a little awkward, because how much of Tokyo and Japan being "safe" is because it's largely racially homogenous, politically/socially conservative, and anti-immigration compared to other first world countries.
- spankalee 3y agoYou're pointing out differences, but they're not why it's safe. Are you claiming the immigrants and other races cause crime?
- decafninja 3y agoNo, but throwing disparate groups, each with their own interests, into the same pot, is not as conducive to harmony versus everyone belonging to more or less the same "in" group. Both a melting pot society and a homogenous one have their pros and cons. I love the former, but I also don't pretend to think there aren't serious cons to a melting pot and pros to a homogeneity.
- spankalee 3y agoYou still have no proposed link from "melting pot" to crime. You're just stating some demographic difference between the countries. Meanwhile there are some differences, especially in policy, that are very easy to link to crime: Japan has practically no guns. Japan has universal healthcare. The US has a poverty rate of over 10%, while Japan has a poverty rate of under 2%. Japan builds housing. Japanese public education is much more equitable and supported by the national government.
- jameslk 3y agohttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- decafninja 3y agoMaybe it's a chicken and egg question? Why is Japan able to do that, and the US isn't? When practically everyone is a fellow Japanese, you don't have people griping about universal healthcare (or social safety nets in general) benefitting the "other" who "don't deserve it". Or feeling that you need to own guns to "protect yourself from the other".
- spankalee 3y agoThere's an easy link from guns -> violence. You're proposed link from homogeneity -> gun control is completely unsupported.
- decafninja 3y agoConsidering most developed countries have strict gun controls, the US is unique and you can't really apply the issues of guns to anywhere else. But a lot of pro-gun advocates cite that they want guns to protect themselves. My general point stands. If everyone around you is part of your "in" group, you're more likely to be willing to help them out and less likely to see them as a threat. I would like to believe that most people are able to transcend racial, ethnic, religious, or even national boundaries to help their fellow man. However, reality shows me this is not the case.
- rayiner 3y agoLook at the homicide rates in some Latin American countries with no guns compared to similarly disarmed, poorer Asian countries.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago> No, but throwing disparate groups, each with their own interests, into the same pot, is not as conducive to harmony versus everyone belonging to more or less the same "in" group. This is not true, and not possible in practice. In any seemingly homogenous group there are various subgroups, often at odds with each other for whatever reason. It's just human nature. Harmony has more to do with local culture, the economy and other quality of life issues. Have a look at a place like Australia, which has little conflict overall even though it has a large and growing immigrant population. That has to do with an egalitarian culture and being a fairly wealthy country with nice weather.
- tempsy 3y agoI'm not really seeing where the racial diversity is in Australia. The 2021 census data shows majority of Australians are White/European and then some Chinese/Indian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Australia
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoThat's because you think in terms of White and Black, which is a US centric view. The diversity is by ethnic background, skin colour is irrelevant. A more enlightening statistic is that about half of Australians have a parent that was born overseas, which means they have an ethnic background. https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-nearly-half-australians-have-parent-born-overseas https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-cens...
- decafninja 3y agoI can't speak specifically about Australia since I'm not familiar with it. But what is "local culture"? It's made up by the local people. In a homogenous society like Japan, it's Japanese culture. In a melting pot society like the US, it's a mix of the product of old European immigrants that have mostly merged and assimilated with each other, African Americans forcibly brought over via the slave trade that emerged with their own culture, and finally combined with more recent arrivals from Asia/Africa/Latin America who are much less assimilated. When one or more cultures meet, sometimes they adapt positively. Sometimes they adapt negatively. When you have so many cultures mixed together, there is bound to be friction. That doesn't necessarily mean violence, but it can be something more subtle - like certain races or groups resisting interacting with each other beyond the bare necessities. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true in Australia too. I'm Asian American, and I am ashamed to admit I have zero African American friends (I have Black friends, but they are all more recent African/European/Caribbean immigrants). Cultural norms and upbringing has a lot to do with it. At the risk of sounding too clinical, one of my goals is to genuinely befriend more African Americans.
- sofixa 3y ago> how much of Tokyo and Japan being "safe" is because it's largely racially homogenous, politically/socially conservative, and anti-immigration compared to other first world countries. Citation very much needed. For instance Russia is socially and politically conservative, mostly "racially" (everyone is "white" because according to you that matters) homogeneous, anti-immigration (outside of limited amounts of labourers from the former Soviet republics), yet... it's not safe nor clean nor developed. Same can be applied to a host of different countries across the world.
- HNhottakeIdiot 3y ago[flagged]
- jansan 3y agoHmm, I looked at the list of the world's most dangerous cities, and even scrolling all the way down did not reveal a single Russian city (its mainly South and Middle America, South Africa and the USA). Can you give a citation for your claim?
- sofixa 3y agoJust because Russian cities aren't among the most dangerous in official records doesn't make them in any way safe. If nothing else, the complete lack of rule of law, with arbitrary detentions, should be enough of an indicator of an unsafe place.
- skulk 3y agoRacial homogeneity doesn't necessarily explain why you don't get mugged at night. A mugger doesn't see race; a mugger sees money, or lack thereof on their own part. Threatening someone with violence is their path of least resistance, so maybe there's an alternative in Japan (a working social safety net perhaps?).
- decafninja 3y agoRacism exists everywhere. Often, one or more groups are downtrodden, and that leads to the social grievances that result in things like crime. Racism exists in countries like Japan too. Except the number of non-Japanese (or non East Asian who can often pass for Japanese) are statistically so insignificant that it is far less of an issue than say, the US.
- blululu 3y agoI've seen comments like this in a number of places and I'm sure the high degree of social cohesion is a big factor but I think that this list is perhaps too narrow. I would also add that the high degree of social cohesion is supported by high wages and a strong labor movement. Japan has a constitution that was written by New Deal Democrats that gives labor and unions a lot of rights. Labor is strong and well paid (Japanese CEOs are also strong and well paid but nothing like CEOs of American companies who feel no shame in taking a 10% pay bump while firing 16% of their workers). Japanese politics are simply different. American pundits would look at a mainline LDP and variably call him a fascist or a communist depending on the issue.
- honestly876 3y ago[flagged]
- agd 3y agoThere's a certain group think among right wing bloggers that the answer to the housing crisis is to completely liberalise zoning/planning rules, however all these people (as far as I can tell), choose to live in areas with highly regulated planning restrictions. I am sympathetic to making it easier to build, but we have to be honest about the trade-offs that have been made in some of these hyper dense asian cities. Namely, ugly buildings, and lack of green space. It's also worth noting that these places rely on significant, long-term, investment in public transport infrastructure of the kind that they don't make in the US. This is something that's often missing from the debate. Edit, I think people are misunderstanding my comment a bit. Personally, I'm favour of making it easier to build housing - I don't own property because it's too expensive and would love it to be cheaper. I'm merely saying that I've seen a strand of thought amongst the right/wing VC crowd who believe in very aggressive liberalisation (pretty much build anything anywhere), which I don't think is practical or politically feasible.
- bee_rider 3y agoI’m happy to hate on right-wing bloggers, but I’m suspicious that your “as far as I can tell” might be doing a bit too much work. Do you have any reason to believe that sentence is correct?
- agd 3y agoI don't hate right-wing bloggers, in fact I follow many and respect their opinions. However I think the debate around housing often lacks nuance, and a pure free market approach feels like it comes more from dogmatism than practical policy making. It's possible that the bloggers I follow fit in my filter bubble, which is based around the California/London regions so there's likely selection bias.
- hammock 3y agoI imagine the bloggers you refer to would find a lot of resonance with some form of the statement “At the federal level, I’m a Republican. At the state level, I’m a Democrat. With my close friends, I’m a socialist. And with my family, I’m a communist.” Are you perhaps missing a bit of nuance?
- rayiner 3y agoEven better—Tokyo is Paris without the Parisians. And you can get croissants that are just as good as in France.
- dmix 3y agoSounds like my fantasy Canadian city, Montreal but without the hardcore Québécois
- ta20211004_1 3y agoouch.
- WastingMyTime89 3y agoThe issue with Paris is not the Parisians. It’s the bloody tourists. Covid was great. Please stop coming. Thank you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mjhay 3y agoI've had one negative experience with a Parisian ever - everyone else has been very friendly - and I'm a dumb American that maybe knows a couple dozen French words.
- localplume 3y ago[dead]
- reustle 3y agoI've just wrapped up a 6+ year stint in Tokyo. It is my favorite city in the world, hands down. Maybe similarly to Paris, Tokyo is a great place to _visit_, especially for a few weeks or months, but a difficult place to live long term. My hope is that, with all the gentrification pain that this recent tourism push [0] is bringing, we will see a much larger and more stable international community settle in Tokyo. Currently, long term Japan life is best enjoyed by introverts (generally). [0] https://www.nippon.com/en/ncommon/contents/japan-data/2229738/2229738.png https://www.nippon.com/en/ncommon/contents/japan-data/222973... * 6mm~ to 32mm visitor increase in the past 10 years. Gov target is 60mm by 2030.
- edandersen 3y ago> Currently, long term Japan life is best enjoyed by introverts (generally). And long may it continue.
- ZephyrBlu 3y agoCould you elaborate on "long term Japan life is best enjoyed by introverts"?
- artsytrashcan 3y agoAFAIK Japan is a high-trust, high-context society. It is difficult to break into social groups or make new acquaintances, while the infrastructure necessary for living a "solitary" existence (supported by service-providing strangers) is extant and quite sophisticated.
- reustle 3y agoI have a slew of thoughts I still haven't completely fleshed out in a publicly sharable form yet, and are from the perspective of a western-raised person, but the summary would probably look something like: - Most of your socially active friends will most likely leave within 2-3 years of arriving - If you were raised in the west, family and culturally similar communities are likely quite far away (both in flight hours and timezone changes) - It is notoriously hard to break into Japanese social circles, regardless of language competency. Acquaintances are easy, but I'm talking about deeper connections.
- charles_f 3y agoIs the end of the article behind a paywall? The only two arguments I read are 1) skyscrapers are growing quicker than 3 other cities, and 2) it happens to contain the author's favorite cocoa shop. Surely I'm missing the bottom of it.
- markstos 3y ago3. It’s fun to fly around the world with friends!
- bookofjoe 3y agohttps://archive.ph/vgiNk https://archive.ph/vgiNk
- charles_f 3y agoOk, so that's the full article. I think it's a bit short on explaining why Tokyo is replacing Paris. I fully honour the author's preference. There are so many ways of judging a city, and looking at cocoa bars and speed of building construction seem very arbitrary to me. Are we talking about travelling? Living? A mix of both? I can imagine that some of the similarities with Paris could be the size, a certain authenticity and history mixed with modernity, some kind of atmosphere, a food culture, lots of tourists amd crazy busy transportation systems? I've never been to Tokyo, so it's hard for me to judge. But I've lived in Paris for a few years. Beautiful city to visit, atrocious to live in (by my standards, I know lots of people love it there, but also 3/4 of my friends kept explaining how they hated it there and would move, without acting on it... How Parisian!). This pretty much cured me against large cities. I can imagine that you can do much better in livability, maybe that's what Tokyo achieved?
- throwaway4good 3y agoTokyo is a nice city but this is a weird article. Is it cut-off by a paywall?
- bookofjoe 3y agohttps://archive.ph/vgiNk https://archive.ph/vgiNk
- throwaway4good 3y agoOk - apparently it is the full article. It is not a very good article.
- bangkoksbest 3y agoI'm assuming there is a fuller post behind the paywall because the one that I see seems extremely short. I'm also going to assume the author is referring to the mythical Paris of the early 20th century for its artist/creative opportunities. If that's the case, a couple things: 1. None of us actually experienced early 20th century Paris, so we judge it romantically on the output (particularly in English/Spanish) of creatives living there. 2. Do we have (or the author have) evidence of a similar kind of creative output (particularly in English/Spanish) from Tokyo? My sense is no, even though I like Japanese food and Japanese punk. I don't like or follow anima/manga so maybe that is a blind side for me to see such evidence. 3. Tokyo is cheaper than Paris/NYC/London, but it's still not super cheap, and Japan is not the easiest country to move to. I'm not aware of many "creative" foreigners moving semi-permanently to Tokyo in anything comparable to Paris, 20th or 21st century.
- bobthepanda 3y agoJapan has a pretty hefty cultural presence with notable directors, and is pretty influential in terms of fashion, interior design, and architecture. The usual issue is that Japanese culture is pretty understated, so the streetwear, the architecture, etc. is not something that immediately grabs attention like New York, Paris or Milan. But see Zaha Hadid’s Tokyo Olympics stadium [1] vs the Japanese design that it got replaced with [2] [1]: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/07/17/japan-scraps-zaha-hadid-tokyo-2020-olympic-stadium/ https://www.dezeen.com/2015/07/17/japan-scraps-zaha-hadid-to... [2]: https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/28/japan-national-stadium-kengo-kuma-tokyo-olympics/ https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/28/japan-national-stadium-ken...
- bangkoksbest 3y agoI suppose I should have thought of that—I'm wearing Japanese raw denim jeans right now—but I forgot all about fashion, so good point bringing that up. I don't know if there's much "you have to be in Tokyo" for, given the exportable quality of clothing, but it's a fair point on cultural output.
- simula67 3y agoPretty soon, the French visiting Tokyo will report Tokyo Syndrome: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
- decafninja 3y agoI've heard there is already something similar that occurs with anime fans when they first visit Tokyo.
- hokkos 3y agonot this fake syndrome again, for reference : https://www.slate.fr/story/47495/folies-voyage-paris-choc-realite https://www.slate.fr/story/47495/folies-voyage-paris-choc-re...
- musha68k 3y agoAs a life-long admirer of Japan’s history and culture I’ve actually been consistently putting off visiting for somewhat related reasons (cueing Italo Calvino’s “Le città invisibili” [1]). There are probably fewer differences between Tokyo and where I’m from than between it and its modern self in the 70s, 80s or 90s even. I’d be delighted to learn that that’s really not the case. Though even so, I would probably keep on being hesitant as in my head it’s still peak 80s in Japan [2] and I’d really like to keep it that way. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities [2] https://youtu.be/4dR_KHXcu9w https://youtu.be/4dR_KHXcu9w
- et-al 3y agoLife's short; burst that bubble. I wish I had your background when I visited because there was so much beneath the surface I probably didn't grasp.
- rawgabbit 3y agoNot knowing your expectations, I can only give my own subjective opinions about Paris and Tokyo. Paris - The cultural capital of the EU. - Despite the amazing metro, the traffic is horrendous. If you drive a car you cannot go anywhere. - Cost of living is driving many Parisians to leave. That and all the petty theft. - If you can afford it, Paris is a great city. Tokyo - Amazing livable megalopolis. Besides it’s ubiquitous shrines and temples, Japan doesn’t keep many old buildings around and usually rebuilds on top. Their museums while notable cannot compare with Paris - Amazing metro but the main train station Tokyo Station is a hopeless confusing maze albeit fun clean but god help you if you’re coming from the Narita Express and trying to find the exit for the metro. Not to mention that many old maps/diagrams are oriented not by NESW compass directions but wherever the imperial castle is relative to you. - Despite being a top tier city, it is affordable. If you don’t mind the concrete jungle , you can raise a family there. - If you want to fully embrace the Japanese culture and language, Tokyo is a great city.
- ilamont 3y agoI couldn't read the whole article. Is he talking about 1920s Paris, or 2020s Paris? There's a lot to like about Tokyo, but there is a tendency toward conservatism in nearly all aspects of Japanese society as well. Ian Buruma - a former bit player in Tokyo's 1970s avant garde art scene who later became a New York Times correspondent - had many observations about this in his recent memoir: What we had seen at Maro’s rehearsal studio was a very Japanese phenomenon. A theatrical method that had been created by a great artist, through sheer daring and experimentation, had become established as a style, passed on by masters of various schools, all with their own variations. This had happened to the tea ceremony, once a spontaneous expression of aesthetic joy in drinking tea, now a rigid set of rules, to be learned by wealthy ladies who pay a fortune to the various tea ceremony schools. The same thing had happened to classical theater and to flower arranging. And now, in a way, it was happening even to a once avant-garde dance form. He also returned again and again to the mostly white expatriates he encountered at the time, and some of the characteristics and frustrations of their existence there: Hovering on the fringes was where I liked to be, neither in nor out, neither one thing nor another, semidetached, a born fellow traveler, a male fag hag, an observer in the midst of sympathetic strangers. It was thrilling, but also a way of playing it safe. Perhaps that was why I was attracted to Japan, a society to which a foreigner could never belong, even if he wanted to. ... He, Donald, felt entirely at ease as an outsider. The great thing about Japan, he said, was that one was left alone. To be Japanese in Japan was to be caught in an almost intolerable web of rules and obligations. But the gaijin was exempt from all that. He could observe life with serene detachment, not being bound to anything or anyone. In Japan, Donald felt utterly, radically free. [Donald] mentioned the “Seidensticker syndrome,” named after his friend, the scholar Edward Seidensticker. Ed habitually spent half the year in Japan. When he arrived in Tokyo, he was ready to kiss the ground. Everything was wonderful. Then, once he had more or less settled down, he began to get more and more irritated by “these people,” until after six months he was quite ready to go home.
- voz_ 3y agoI am rather left of center myself, but there’s something sooo… San Francisco? Not sure how to call it, a sort of special holier than though liberal take like: > There's a lot to like about Tokyo, but there is a tendency toward conservatism Where someone complains about a foreign culture being, well, foreign. At a certain point, I think, it’s critically important to stop comparing like this and instead frame it as a question.
- alexk307 3y agoI had some of the best French food I’ve ever had in Tokyo, and I wasn’t even searching for it. All the food in Japan was given so much respect and care, everything was delicious
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoTokyo isn't even the best city in Japan. Osaka and Sapporo are both much more livable: They both contain most of the amenities and conveniences of Tokyo -- but everything is cheaper, distances between spaces are shorter, and nature and green spaces are nearer to hand. (Much nearer, in Sapporo's case.) Tokyo is very closely analogous to New York City... but nothing in America, and very few cities in Europe or elsewhere in Asia, are anything like Sapporo.
- jefurii 3y agoI lived in Tokyo for a year and Nara for three. Tell me about Sapporo!
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoSapporo is a big city by any reckoning, at around 2M people. It's larger than Kyoto (1.4M) but slightly smaller than Osaka (2.6M), both of which you're surely very familiar with, from living in Nara. The thing about Sapporo is that it doesn't form part of any regional bloc... Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto-Nara is practically a single megacity, at this point. (And you can arguably include Nagoya.) Tokyo-Chiba-Yokohama is a hyper-megacity. Driving from one end of the other can take many hours. But Sapporo is a rather isolated, standalone city. Hop in a car downtown, and you can find yourself in the woods within 20 minutes. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. And whereas Tokyo is a city of neighborhoods -- like the way Ikebukuro, Asakusa, and Shinjuku are rather self-contained spaces -- Sapporo has one primary downtown/nightlife district, which is very convenient. It's not inferior to any of Tokyo's neighborhoods, either; in fact, it's considerably larger than most of them. It also has a system of underground pedestrian paths that's one of the wonders of the world, IMO. So it's a big city, surrounded by nature, without sprawl, with clean and well-defined spaces.
- heelix 3y agoIn my university days, I took Latin. Ended up doing a lot of work and picked up a smattering of languages - but across EMEA, there was a core familiarity. When work had me go to Japan, that lack of any foundational familiarity was shocking. The people were kind and put up with someone slaughtering their language (and practicing their English) It added a level of exoticness that is hard to explain. Best part was work had finally implemented a 'you must bring back receipts' for expenses. 10 pages of something was dropped off to the poor sod in accounting. Their face was priceless. I miss both Paris and Tokyo...
- artsytrashcan 3y agoMy high school language was Japanese. Attempting European languages in adulthood, I'm always thrown off by the object-verb order. My brain subconsciously skips over the action, hears the object and then is left waiting to hear what we're supposed to do with it.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoI respect Noah's opinion on this. But he's also objectively a weeb (not meant pejoratively). The experience of visiting a city can be a sublime one, different things will speak "spiritually" to different people. The experiences that he had in Tokyo and the happiness it brought him are echoed in my experiences of Barcelona, Berlin, etc. Basically this is a matter of taste. One of the best things about globalization and relatively free movement between states is the ability to experience so much in a single life. There is no best city.
- decafninja 3y agoI agree with this. One of my best friends is a huge anime fan. He's also caucasian-American. He finds a sense of wonder and exoticness traveling to Japan, and Asia in general. I'm Asian. While I enjoy traveling to Asia, I don't get the same sense of wonder and exoticness as I do traveling to...Europe. Which coincidentally, he does not.
- NalNezumi 3y agoBeen living in Tokyo for 4 years now with my grandparents being from the Tokyo suburbs. The cool thing with Tokyo is as author says, it build upon itself, chaotically, while maintaining drops of ancient cultures. But compared to the Big5 of trendy mega cities (NY, London, Paris, Tokyo and HK) the biggest thing is just that things *just works* ik Tokyo. Infrastructure is reliable, streets are clean (except maybe Kabukicho), people follow the rules, no Parisians, safe, trains come in time, things are clustered around stations so everything is close. I haven't lived in the 5 cities but talking/working for an extended time with people from there, the big feature seems to be that somehow Tokyo have so far dodged a lot of the issues big cities fall in to. There's some annoying quirks too, such as all the public transport stopping at around midnight, but that somehow added more to color an unique nightlife. The biggest downside, probably compared to NY/London/HK is that it can feel quite lonely at times if you don't look or speak like a local. But there are hard-to-find microcosm of mini-communities, my recent favorite being SF-styled, mostly US expat populated Harry's Sandwich bar. When you come as a tourist you'll probably not find those, and like many of my friend just draw the conclusion that it's a lonely, isolating mega city, from all the "solo-friendly" stores and trains cladded with tired salary mens in suit you'll inevitably walk by。 But I do wonder why the sudden tourist surge? It have been crazy crowded after covid and almost all my friends decided to go to Tokyo this year. Is it really just opening up and the weak yen?
- bobthepanda 3y agoThere is also more flight competition with lower prices, and these days some North American flights even land at HND.
- pwpw 3y ago> Many great cities become museums of themselves, their lack of new development an homage to their glory days. This is sometimes how I feel about Athens. It’s such a cool city, and the Acropolis is a marvelous site to see from a rooftop across the city. Yet I have this desire for the city to properly restore the Parthenon, paint it again, and turn the Acropolis into a public space of gathering. Many would object to that idea for legitimate reasons, but it makes the city look like a has-been, long past its peak. Ancient Greece was an area full of beautiful colors[0] rather than white and brown marble. I would love to see a return to that. I need to give Tokyo a visit. I’m interested in cities that keep their character while also maintaining themselves and driving forwards. [0] https://theacropolismuseum.gr/en/exhibition-programs/archaic-colours https://theacropolismuseum.gr/en/exhibition-programs/archaic...
- fomine3 3y agoLet's visit Tokyo jungle in this July or August. F*cking hot and moist now.
- nojvek 3y agoNever been to Tokyo, but Paris was quite a dirty place, trash on streets, you’d have to keep your belongings safe otherwise they’d get stolen. Eiffel tower was nice but I was quite disappointed, was nothing like how the movies romanticized it.
- majikaja 3y agoTokyo may be big but everything feels painfully mediocre. It might be fun if one is happy to mostly ignore the reality of the locals and treat it as a silly island resort like the stereotype of Thailand (including exiting the local labor force ASAP). If you want intellectual conversations or stimulating work alongside others don't bother.
- rajishx 3y agoI still think Paris is magical and can’t wait going back there (working nomad here)