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Rubenerd

Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Ikebukuro and home This post has been back-dated a day to fit in the timeline properly. Last post also incoming this...
yesterday
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yesterday
This post has been back-dated a day to fit in the timeline properly. Last post also incoming this weekend. I’m sitting now in our Sydney apartment after half an hour on the train and airport monorail in Tōkyō, a ten hour flight due south, navigating Australia’s immigration and...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Exploring Akiba and Kinshichō Those of you who remember when I used to blog things that weren’t about travel, rejoice! This was...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
Those of you who remember when I used to blog things that weren’t about travel, rejoice! This was our last full day in Japan before we travel back to Australia, with heavy hearts and significantly heavier baggage. I’m at our local Doutor having a coffee and thinking back to how...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Hokuriku Shinkansen Back to Tōkyō There are five things I love about being a traveller in Japan. Okay, there are many more, but these...
3 days ago
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3 days ago
There are five things I love about being a traveller in Japan. Okay, there are many more, but these are the big ones. One is the traditional art, music, and architecture. Two is the food, both local and their interpretations of international cuisine. Three is the hospitality....
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Toyama Port and Glass Art Museum Yesterday we spent our last full day in Toyama Prefecture, so named because it’s Toyama and it’s a...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
Yesterday we spent our last full day in Toyama Prefecture, so named because it’s Toyama and it’s a prefecture. We spent it in the beautifully serene Toyama Port on the Toyama Tram in Toyama, then head to Toyama City to see the Toyama Glass Museum in Toyama, surprising though it...
Rubenerd
Ten pointless facts regarding me David over at Forking Mad+ did one of those blog post challenges I thought looked like fun. Do you...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
David over at Forking Mad+ did one of those blog post challenges I thought looked like fun. Do you floss your teeth? Yes, several of them! An accident when I was a kid left me with crooked teeth and little choice. Tea, coffee, or water? That’d be great, thanks. Footwear...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Ending up in Shin-Takaoka Yesterday was probably our first proper rest day on this trip, so we mostly hung around the hotel...
5 days ago
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5 days ago
Yesterday was probably our first proper rest day on this trip, so we mostly hung around the hotel and surrounds. It always feels like a waste loitering in an amazing place, but sometimes you need some downtime or you feel exhausted! Or maybe that’s just us. We started the day at...
Rubenerd
Australia’s and Canada’s Elections We take a quick break from #Japan2025 to mention the results back home. Clara and I both submitted...
a week ago
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a week ago
We take a quick break from #Japan2025 to mention the results back home. Clara and I both submitted our postal votes before we left, and largely ignored the news while we tried to enjoy our holiday and break. My sister messaged last night to tell us it was safe to check now, and...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Toyama Tower, Castle, and French Pentax Yesterday’s wanderings around Toyama were a bit all over the place, but there were a few highlights!...
a week ago
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a week ago
Yesterday’s wanderings around Toyama were a bit all over the place, but there were a few highlights! I’m starting to feel the self-imposed effects of running around every day, so this post will be briefer. After breakfast at a local Doutor we went to get… wait for it… another IC...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Toyama wanderings I’m doing something a bit different today, and writing about yesterday’s adventures on the Ainokaze...
a week ago
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a week ago
I’m doing something a bit different today, and writing about yesterday’s adventures on the Ainokaze Toyama Train in… wait for it… Toyama. That wit won’t win me a spot on any of the late night Japanese variety shows for which Clara and I currently harbour an addiction, but is a...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Off to Toyama and Takaoka When we were first planning our trip up to Toyama, the original plan was to take the scenic train up...
a week ago
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a week ago
When we were first planning our trip up to Toyama, the original plan was to take the scenic train up from Nagoya like so many of those NHK travel documentaries we’d seen. We laboured for days deciding whether we had the time to stop in Takoyama along the way; and if so, whether...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Hida Folk Village… eventually! I start this post about our second day in Takayama with a confession. If you’re a weeb and/or otaku,...
a week ago
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a week ago
I start this post about our second day in Takayama with a confession. If you’re a weeb and/or otaku, you’re likely familiar with convenience store bundle offers. In exchange for buying from a list of items in store, you can redeem a piece of anime merchandise. I’ve long thought...
Rubenerd
Image loading times I apologise that the site has been a bit slow since it suddenly turned into a travel blog. My plan...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
I apologise that the site has been a bit slow since it suddenly turned into a travel blog. My plan was to roll out my poor man’s CDN before we left, but I ran out of time. It’s definitely not just a nginx GeoIP lookup that refers image requests to a different cloud instance...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Nagoya for the first time Yesterday we took the Shinkansen fron Tōkyō to Nagoya, a city I’ve never been to before. Clara had...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Yesterday we took the Shinkansen fron Tōkyō to Nagoya, a city I’ve never been to before. Clara had been for a brief stopover, but hadn’t seen much of it beyond its port. Much of yesterday’s post may have been spent extolling the virtues of high-speed trains before I even got to...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Cameras, and Ninomae Ina’nis I’m typing this today as we travel from Tōkyō to Nagoya on the Shinkansen, the best form of...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
I’m typing this today as we travel from Tōkyō to Nagoya on the Shinkansen, the best form of transport in the world. It’s fast, quiet, convenient, smooth, spotless, punctual, and the booking system is even understandable after you’ve made a bunch of mistakes! The seats in the...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Around Jinbōchō and Akihabara Yesterday was our first full day in Japan again! It was so much fun getting back into the routine of...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Yesterday was our first full day in Japan again! It was so much fun getting back into the routine of konbinis, train station jingles, wanderings, and spontaneity. It really hits different to anywhere else in the world, a fact I’m sure you don’t find shocking. The urban landscape...
Rubenerd
#Japan2025 Flying into Haneda Yesterday we flew into Haneda Airport in Tōkyō to start our Japan trip! Non-stop Japan Airlines...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Yesterday we flew into Haneda Airport in Tōkyō to start our Japan trip! Non-stop Japan Airlines trips used to fly from Sydney to Narita, but this seems to have switched to Handea after COVID started. JAL remains one of my favourite airlines. It doesn’t have that premium feeling...
Rubenerd
Heading out for long service leave I’m heading off for a long service leave trip. Tickets are booked, bags are packed, anxiety about...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
I’m heading off for a long service leave trip. Tickets are booked, bags are packed, anxiety about whether we’ve missed anything is once again running rampant. We’ve had to postpone this four times owing to factors outside our control, so we can’t believe it’s finally happening....
Rubenerd
Stefano Marinelli is expanding his blogging presence I cannot overstate what a gem Stefano Marinelli is to the BSD operating system community. He’s kind,...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
I cannot overstate what a gem Stefano Marinelli is to the BSD operating system community. He’s kind, clear headed, and curious. He operates several Mastodon instances from the delightfully-named BSD.cafe server, from which I follow a significant number of people, and we’ve DM’d a...
Rubenerd
The Firm’s photocopiers, by John Grisham I’ve been a massive John Grisham fan for years, but I never read his first book The Firm. I’ll save...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
I’ve been a massive John Grisham fan for years, but I never read his first book The Firm. I’ll save my review for a future post, but wow! I’m so glad I saw it in one of those Street Libraries and decided to give it a try. No spoilers, but in chapter 18 our protagonist Mitch is...
Rubenerd
Postal voting in the 2025 Australian election The 2025 Australian Federal election will be taking place when Clara and I are outside our...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
The 2025 Australian Federal election will be taking place when Clara and I are outside our electorate, so we opted for a postal vote. This means no democracy sausage on polling day, but we’re still able to perform our civic duty. Well, that and the fact voting is comulspry in...
Rubenerd
South Park got big-box retail mostly wrong I watched a lot of South Park as a kid growing up, because it’s what you did at the time. I think...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
I watched a lot of South Park as a kid growing up, because it’s what you did at the time. I think I’d cringe if I saw much of it today, but at the time it was side-splitting. For every dreadful episode, there was a Tugger and Russel Crowe. The stuff of legend. But they did get...
Rubenerd
Brolific R.L. Dane enquired about how one maintains a regular blogging habit, and counted my number of posts...
3 weeks ago
5
3 weeks ago
R.L. Dane enquired about how one maintains a regular blogging habit, and counted my number of posts with a simple bash script. I wouldn’t say I have a specific recipe for a successful blog, though there are always a few points to keep in mind: Never write filler. People can tell...
Rubenerd
Over/under with Lazybear Your favourite bear and mine recently posed a series of topics to me, and asked me to evaluate if...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Your favourite bear and mine recently posed a series of topics to me, and asked me to evaluate if they’re either underrated, or overrated. This immediately reminded me of the lyrics to that OK Go song, which is now almost a decade old. Upside down and inside out…! Anyway, to the...
Rubenerd
I’m on the Ye Olde Blogroll! Speaking of James, I saw he linked to blogroll.org: You are viewing a humanly curated list of 633...
3 weeks ago
5
3 weeks ago
Speaking of James, I saw he linked to blogroll.org: You are viewing a humanly curated list of 633 fine personal & independent blogs and sites that are updated regularly. No algorithms ever! And I’m on there! This made my morning. Whomever submitted me to that, thank you. Alas,...
Rubenerd
Blog questions challenge: TV shows The imitable R.L. Dane tagged me in this blog post challenge, which I will not take sitting down....
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
The imitable R.L. Dane tagged me in this blog post challenge, which I will not take sitting down. That’s a blatant lie, I’m 100% sitting down as I write this. I’m also drinking coffee, in case that was never obvious. What TV character from a beloved show do you wish you could be...
Rubenerd
Australian airline refunding overcharged passengers SBS News: Tens of thousands of Virgin Australia customers are in line for refunds after the airline...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
SBS News: Tens of thousands of Virgin Australia customers are in line for refunds after the airline found a system error that overcharged travellers for years. Some 61,000 customers will get refunds averaging $55 for the error, which occurred between April 2020 and March...