JAPAN - Halfway Hakuba Happenings

Wowee, it’s been a hot second! And it’s HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! Another group episode for all your travel ramblings and, of course, the reveal of who topped the brick rankings for the past three months. The four of us are finally reunited (however briefly) for meandering shenanigans - involving saunas, cherry blossom festivals and hitting the spring snow slopes in the Japanese Alps. Also, we have a guest on the show: our friend Drea, whose contributions are the highlights of the show. We’d listen to them all day any day, make a podcast Drea (ironic seeing as they don’t listen to podcasts, this is the first one of ours they’ve heard!).Anyway, some of the pertinent info we promised in the show:The Chinese spirit is called Baijo. It is insane. We also had a lot of shochu, sake, umeshu, and lots of Asahi, seeing as we travelled through the town Asahi.Our book recommendations are: The Membranes, a novel by Chi Ta-WeiDiscipline by Randa Abdel-FattahThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne FadimanWater, Wood and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah KirschnerTechnofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis VaroufakisWe hope you enjoy the show! Click the bell, leave a comment, subscribe, it boosts our serotonin if not our outreach. Lots of love, all us beans.