”The worst and the best day of my life” by Ryu Aomi

   My favorite investment is gold. But my best reason might be different from the answer you get from Google. During the pandemic, my financial situation wasn’t very good and I needed money to pay my workers. I was selling my belongings, which were sold for a fraction of the money I bought them.  It helped very little. Looking back it was a good experience learning that my belongings I thought were a lot less valuable than I thought it was. But the only one that were priced more than when I bought it, was gold. Gold on an emergency In Japan we have a saying, "有事の金" which can be translated to “gold during an emergency.” I remember gold coming down like every other investments during the pandemic, but then there was a timing when gold surged.  So like I said earlier, many things I thought were valuable lost its value during an economic slowdown.  But one good reason you need to sell your valuables is in a financial emergency. Gold was the only thing that increased...

Deciding I need to cut my losses and close my company was the worst day of my life. I lost a lot of things I thought were valuable, and in return I had debt to pay off.  But after 3 years, it's no joke that it was one of the best experiences of my life. The reason is that I was able to gain a good habit to stay out of debt for the rest of my life. And if it weren't for the failure of my first business, I probably won't have the habit of keeping a surplus every month. Today I want to share my story about how I picked up the habit of staying on surplus every month. What I learned in the live-in construction job I needed to figure out how to get cash to pay off the debt, but at the time was during the pandemic so jobs had limitations. When I was searching online, I found a job opening for a live-in construction job. Pay is daily　which was what I needed so I picked up the phone and applied. Despite what I imagined the president of the company had a generous voice and told me th...

What helped me the most from meditation is that I'm a lot better handling things. Especially to the bad things that happen. When bad things happen, we tend to be upset, angry, worried... The mind usually travels towards the negative. But when you practice meditation, it helps you not to let your mind travel to the negative. It tries to go in that direction, but goes back to neutral. Because things happen, but how you view that situation is up to you. When I started to realize this, it made a huge impact on my outcomes. Off to a temple in Bangkok Awhile ago, I flew to Bangkok to go to this  Vipassana Meditation Center.  I had just went through the worst day of my life from a business failure.  I'm originally not really a meditation guy. I didn't really want to fully commit to meditation yet, so I found a free session of the Vipassana meditation and I just needed to make a donation after the 2 hour session. When I experienced meditating at the temple, my mind would wonder a...

The worst thing that could happen to you can really be the best thing that has ever happened to you. For me it was failing my tourism business during the pandemic, and I had to start over. I lost my money, my girlfriend. Even lost faith. Japan was the last to open its ports from the pandemic so when Southeast Asia started to open its ports, I closed my business, and went on a food trip around Southeast Asia. It was like going through a dark tunnel My trip around Southeast Asia was interesting, but to be honest I wasn't able to enjoy myself to the fullest. I had to cut my expenses, so I stayed in basic Airbnb accomodation, went for street food, walked and read books a lot. It's nice, to see different things to where I was born in Japan, or where I grew up in San Francisco, or where I worked in Singapore and some parts of Europe. But at the back of my mind I knew I'm lost without much meaning in life. The color I see is gray and dark at the time. But three years have passed a...

  Back during the middle of the pandemic, I was lost.  I was so mentally broke I remember sleeping 20 hours, eating something, then going back to sleep for another 20. I could really tell my health had gone broke. I could barely move but knew I needed to start something, even the smallest habit that could get me up. 3 years have passed and I could never imagine how far I could come from that small habit I started. Sticking to just 1 good habit leads to more good habits At the time, I read that one small habit and sticking to it is what I needed to do, but I doubted that just one habit could change anything. But there really wasn't anything I could do. We were all locked down as well. So I played a HIIT exercise video on Youtube and told myself I could sleep 20 more hours if I finish just one exercise a day. No need to go outside. I can do it beside my bed. For a few days, it was really one exercise, eat, then go back to sleep. But sticking to that somehow led to another small ...

Working in Tsukiji I am asked this frequently,"where is a good sushi restaurant to try?" It's actually a difficult question to answer because it really depends on your preference and budget.  I think going to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant will satisfy most people, as it does for Japanese locals including myself.  But my family prefers going to the higher end sushi restaurants especially on special occasions like family gatherings or with friends both business related or just private. We specifically have reasons why we will choose conveyor belt sushi or the higher end Edomae sushi. So let me recommend you how to distinguish the two types of sushi restaurants, and few of my recommended sushi restaurants! First consider conveyor belt rotating sushi Conveyor belt rotating sushi restaurants or "kaiten sushi" 回転すし restaurants are usually budget sushi restaurant chains that buy seafood in big quantities, thus being able to sell the sushi at a very affordable price....