In Praise of getting lost
There is no better plan than having no plan at all.
In my life, there is generally no plan, I know where I’m going but I don’t plan the way. And I don’t plan because I don’t want to be tied down to anything, I want to be free enough to only focus on the finish line.
That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the process, on the contrary, I live my life as if every day was my last. Which means that I fucking LIVE every day. But just as I only buy one way flight tickets, because I never know when or where I’m going next, I don’t give that much thought to my everyday either.
I wake up most of my days with no set schedule or routine. I try to cram most of my meetings in two or three days of the week, which are usually pretty hectic, but the rest, I can do whatever I’m in the mood for that day. Most of them are still spent working, but with since what I’m looking for is always creative energy, that means that I try for most of them to be different.
Most of this year I started every day in a coffe shop reading for an hour or two, definetely one of the best investments I made all year. Have so many books that I want to share, but that will be another post. This was for sure my year of learning.
Though I don’t plan my days, I have certain routines for every city that I spend any time in. In Tokyo, where I’m currently at, I start my day at Blue Bottle Coffee in Roppongi, I know, terrible, so many amazing coffee shops and Kissaten’s and I’m in a Blue Bottle, but from here I’ll usually go explore the coffee scene.
So anyways, back to my day, on my list of places to go to there’s tons of coffee shops, vintage Leica stores, jazz bars, vintage whatch shops, but weirdly enough, up until now, no architecture, museums or galleries. But no surprise, on top of that list are bookstores. So today I headed to Tsutaya Books in Daikanyama T Site.
I put in the destination in google maps and it was either a 28 minute subway ride or a 50 minute walk, so obviously, I started walking. My walk started on some beautiful Roppongi alleys. There is an inexplicable sensation of walking in an alley that has no sidewalks, a sensation of intimacy and proximity.
I don’t know if intimacy comes from scale, but I’m definetely obsessed by the scale of things in Tokyo, not just it’s streets and buildings, I feel like everything has a very special scale. Yesterday I got served an espresso in the nicest cup ever, a tiny handcrafted porcelain cup.
After a few minutes, google took me walking on a sidewalk of a major road and was keeping me there for most of the way. Which got me thinking that AI is not that intelligent, having so many beautiful streets and alleys, who would want to walk for an hour in a noisy and polluted major road, there should be an option in which it doesn’t optimize for time but for expirience. That’s when I decided to get lost, figured that I needed to head southeast, Daikanyama is south of Shibuya and east of Ebisu, somehow I would get there.
Put on my Meze headphones, beautiful walnut audiophile headphones and proceeded to get lost in between music and buildings. That feeling of getting surprised by architecture around every single corner, and no, not the architects architecture, but the architecture of it’s users, the architecture that only time and patina can achieve, while listening to Vivaldi’s Concerto in F minor or Max Richter’s In the Garden is enlightening, somehow gets me into an altered state of mind.
After one of the most memorable walks I’ve done, I made it to Daikanyama. Was super hungry and ended up eating in a shitty brewery, but after that, I randomly ended up in what is now one favorite coffee shops, Cafe Garcon, a three floor super thin building where they toast they’re own beans.
After three espressos, adjusting to the time difference has been brutal, I finally made it to Tsutaya. What a fucking bookshop, insane ! In their car section, not only did they have every Porsche book imaginable in both english and japanese, they even had the body of a 356 in the middle of all the books. Not much more to say about their food, music, photography or art selection, all amazing.
By 7:00 pm I was falling asleep, so I decided to get a nightcap somewhere close to where I’m staking in Akasaka. Somehow that turned into what is now my third negroni on the 45th floor of the Ritz Carlton. What a fucking view !
In NYC you have amazing north or south views, here it’s 360 degrees of endless buildings. Crazy that two hours ago I was praising Tokyo for the intimacy of it’s streets, being up here now, looking at this urban dynamic seems overwhelming. But then again, three negronis down while listening to some beautiful live jazz with this view, I guess nothing is overwhelming.
