9:00

I slept with my AC on last night. And today I have a sore throat. I can barely speak. I have a hot shower, drink some hot tea, everything helps but I still feel miserable. I go to Shibuya, do some work but have a persistent headache.

16:00

I visited the IDEO office to chat about my work and get to know the firm a little better. I spoke with Gregory and Evin. We talked about how the Japanese digital product design industry is old fashioned and failed to evolve with times, even as Japan evolved into a modernist product and graphic design era. And in product development there is resistance to an agile approach. I never thought of Japan as a place for me to work exactly because of these reasons—it is not a pioneer. Innovation is happening elsewhere, mostly in San Francisco. But IDEO is working hard to move Japanese design forward. And maybe I can help them do that.

8:00

I’m at the Starbucks in Sangenjaya. The usual place to start the day. I've set my goals and I'm ready to start work.

15:00

I went to the gym after lunch and met up with Marina at the Tsutaya in Daikan-yama. Daikan-yama has an appeal from the moment you step out of the train at the station. This is a designer-friendly group. Nice shops and cafés. I wanted to visit almost every single place. We had coffee in Tsutaya. We worked for a few hours. She looks nice. Everyone in here looks well groomed. Before the end of the day we walked in the area. We visited Saturdays NYC, a lifestyle brand that sells coffee and clothing at their Daikan-yama store. We walked past Ivy Place. She showed me Log Road, a beautiful wooden path surrounded by wooden and concrete buildings. I spotted Grigio’s Italian Restaurant and Spring Valley Brewery during this safari. And overall most of our time was spent chatting and gazing. We ended the day with a donut at the Camden’s Blue Bar Donuts before walking back to Shibuya.

22:00

I’m playing with the idea of not speaking English or Portuguese or any language apart from Japanese in 2016.

14:00

I’ve slept all day. I’ve booked a table for Christmas but I have no one for the date. Ups!

I took this photo at the phenomenal Afuri ramen bar in Sangenjaya.

18:00

I took the photo above outside Streamer Coffee Company in Shibuya at the end of the afternoon.

This was before I meet Johnny and Mark for coffee. I explained Mark my ideas in the notebook, one by one. He gave me a lot of good feedback and said positive things about some of the ideas. I will write more about them another day. Mark also recommended me reading Hooked by Nir Eval, a book about building products with an addictive habit-creating mechanism. Sounds like dark user experience to me, but it's OK.

6:00

We went to Womb for the best club night in my life so far. We didn't have a plan when we met. But we had VIP friends, got in the VIP line, went to the VIP floor with a VIP bar. I've barely been drinking lately and took it all in completely sober. Dixon was playing in the main stage.

12:00

Today I have purchased tickets for the try! Swift conference happening in March 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th 2016. Many well-known developers will be attending and the line-up of speakers is incredible. Now I have to work harder on my Swift studies.

10:00

I took this photo in Toranomon after meeting Takako for coffee. “I visit my mother every time I have a day off. She used to live with my sister, but now that my sister married and moved in with her husband she's always alone. I always cook for her.” I haven't learnt how to be less selfish yet.

23:30

I’m watching the first part of the two-part Japanese movie Parasyte.

20:00

This is another photo around Shibuya. I forgot about how great the sun feels after 7 years living in London. I don't want to do the work I'm doing every day at the office in the Hikarie (ヒカリエ) tower. This work is the last string I have to break from my past in order to start a new life.

I want to go back to who I was before I started working for someone else's company. Passionate about learning and building new things. To have the motivation to build great products driving me forward, rather than someone else's agenda and a pay roll.