Author: Chad Kohalyk
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2020NYinJapan Part 4: Iki
That narrow corridor of water between Japan and continental Asia, the confluence of three seas — East China, Yellow, and the Sea of Japan — is called the Korea Strait. It is about 200km wide, and is bisected by the long and narrow Tsushima Island. From Tsushima, on a clear day, it is said one…
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2020NYinJapan Part 3: Ise
In a time before time, the sibling deities Izanagi and Izanami (who were married, but that is a different tale) stood on the Floating Bridge of Heaven. They had a jewelled spear which they dipped into the ocean below. After pulling it out, the drops from the spear formed the islands we know today as…
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2020NYinJapan Part 1: Tokyo
We spent less than a day here, getting up early on Jan 1st — known as gantan (元旦) in Japanese. A friend who I had not seen in many years picked us up from the hotel, and we all went for hatsumōde together. My friend lives mostly in Dubai where his three kids go to…
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Fear not the Blank White Page
Writing is how you complete your thoughts. An excellent quote from a piece on writing by Drew Magary. He writes about how he keeps a notebook of as-yet unformed thoughts so he never starts with the dreaded Blank White Page. Once you have collected all that primordial material: Then you get to catalog it, tinker…
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Symphonic society
In many Buddhist traditions monks and nuns depend on the support of the surrounding community to survive. Thai Forest Monastery monks will walk to the local village with alms bowls in which villagers will place rice and fruit — which will be all a monk will eat for that day. Furthermore, monastics are not allowed…
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The best of 2019
It has been a couple years since I did a year-end roundup of books and film. This year was one of ups (finally travelled to India) and downs (lost my last living grandparent), of self-reflection (learning about leadership, going on retreat again), and of coming to decisions for closing out the decade and kicking off…
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Considerations for planning out your online portfolio
I am looking for advice from online creatives. How do you organize your various projects online? Let me give you some context. I have a couple of ongoing projects I am planning to start next year. I would like to blog/photo/video/post the progress of these projects, but I don’t think doing it on my main…
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To witness excellence
This past weekend Skate Canada International was held in my small city of Kelowna, BC. It brings together some of the top figure skaters in the world. I am not really a figure skating fan, but thought this would be a great opportunity to see some amazing athletes at the top of their game (and…