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Backyard Coffee and Jazz in Kyoto

(thedeletedscenes.substack.com)
592 points wyclif | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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mtalantikite ◴[] No.44359410[source]
> I suppose, religion aside, that that feeling is wonder. That is not a feeling I often feel running errands and going out in America. But it’s a feeling that the Japanese business landscape and built environment is able to spark frequently.

On our Friday stand-ups we generally chat for a few minutes about what we're up to for the weekend, and my update is usually something along the lines of "I'm going to go outside and let New York happen to me". I'm feeling that wonder less and less here in the city as all the quirky, niche things have been driven out due to rent increases and are being replaced by their private equity owned, multi-national versions. But the ability of the city to spark wonder certainly exists in our environment here more than in most in the US since we navigate by foot and not typically by car.

I'd prefer optimizing for wonder than most other things.

Edit: Actually there used to be a Japanese cafe in my neighborhood called "House of Small Wonder", which was attached to an omakase spot. They had a big tree growing out of the middle of it, going up out the roof, with space for maybe 15 or less. It's now a Glossier makeup store.

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cg5280 ◴[] No.44361260[source]
NYC is the only "real city" in the US (that I have visited; Chicago seems similar) and yet NYC is not an easy place to live unless you make a lot of money. I have traveled abroad extensively (including to places like Japan) and think the state of American cities is a genuine shame. We are missing out on so much.
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1. mtalantikite ◴[] No.44367988[source]
Absolutely. And whenever you bring up wanting to build cities more like NYC the discussion inevitably devolves into people clutching their cars and complaining it would be tyrannical to make people walk and take public transit. It'd be great if we had more options here, rather than everyone that wants to live in a big city piling into just NYC (which is still a small city in the global scheme of things).