Creative pursuits
2025-05-09 permalink
In December 2018, I was living in Hokkaido. I was having a sad and miserable few months and going through a rough time. Some friends that I had made while living in Yokohama happened to be in town in Sapporo at the time, so we hung out. It really cheered me up so I ended up going back with them to Tokyo over the winter break. We had a lot of fun. I saw friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. We went on a tour bus to Utsunomiya, which is a small town outside Tokyo that’s famous for gyoza dumplings and strawberries. The tour included trying dumplings and a strawberry picking thing. It was a lot of fun and is still a memory I cherish.
On the same trip, I ended up going to one of those hedgehog cafes. I was pretty excited before going, cause I really like hedgehogs. But the place really sucked. It was loud and crowded and bright and kids were screaming - the complete opposite of the kind of environment hedgehogs thrive in. It was really depressing. I felt really bad about having given money to a business profiting off animal abuse.
I remember standing on the train that night, looking at my own reflection in the window. I felt empty. I was overwhelmed by the feeling that all I was doing was consume. I was trying to feel better by having interesting experiences, but all these “experiences” were just consumption and not real.
I was drawing a whole lot after that. I even made an art account on instagram (that I ended up abandoning pretty quickly lol). I started learning Cantonese more seriously. It was fun.
As you know, I spent a week in New York a while ago. Toward the end of the trip I started having that overwhelming feeling again, that I was just consuming. Trying foods, seeing beautiful places, it’s all great. But something was itching below the surface. So as soon as I got back home I dove into creative pursuits, including this quick drawing:
And more stuff I won’t show cause it’s secret (like gifts to people)^^