frozen octopus

By chance, the station where the onsen hotel we booked six months ago was the same station a friend of our opened up a French bistro. We went to it and surprised him and met his wife.

He got married and moved to a big city in Japan and was going to set up a small shop there. After a few months, they realized something wasn't right.

Nothing was a challenge. They weren't learning anything new. So they sought out a beautiful onsen town in the mountains and moved there. They remodeled an abandoned clothing store into a wonderful bistro.

While we were there and talking about their shop he said a thing the stuck in my mind the rest of the trip.

Change really isn't a change if you are just moving you and your stuff to a different place.

They said so far all the good memories they have had opening the place is the learning how to do everything. Learning the new is the exciting part. Keep learning.

I pushed play on the first album of the day and then opened the app where I do my free writing. Found a good way to let the mind ramble about:

• Type the name of the album.
• Take the last word of the album title and use it to start a new phrase.
• Keep going until 200 words.

Seemed to add a lot more variety to the kinds of words that popped up. The repeating word thing “…[last word]. [first word]…” created a nice rhythm which was kind to my foggy, morning mind.

More on the writing exercise: 200 Words a Day for 4 Months