CryptoBlades: Just another game economy heading for a cliff?

TL;DR: The numbers simply do not add up.

I have played video games for over two decades now, and whilst the genre and development budget varies greatly, pretty much all games I tried have one thing in common: Their economy sucks in the long run. Earlier games were not really concerned with this. Most games that even had economies were single player and story line driven, so you just put it away when the story was finished, and bought a new one. I call this economic hotfixes by reset. From Pokemon and Skyrim to Cities: Skylines, most single player games still rely on this. 

Then, with the internet came multiplayer games with persistent servers. These games have an incentive to build an economy that encourages the players to keep playing, because the playerbase itself is a valuable part of the game content. However, many of them do not even try. I spent a fair portion of my childhood in World of Warcraft(WoW), and through 4 expansions and countless content patches I realized that WoW actually relied on the same economic hotfixes by reset that single player games do. What they did try was to implement money sinks, but these were in the form of overpriced fluff items that you only need to buy once. I mean, only once per character. Inevitably this did not solve the underlying issues with their game economy, it only extended our walk towards the cliff a little. The result is an endgame where nobody needs anything because they have everything, and we jump around the mailbox while waiting for new content.

There is one game that at least tries, and it’s called EVE Online. Sci-fi and half automatic gameplay is not my cup of tea, but I spent some time in the game just because it plays the economic aspect of their world so much better than other games. EVE is hardcore because if your spaceship blows up it is gone, even in PvP. This means you have to buy or make a new one. This does in turn help fuel a long lasting economy where both resource gatherers and crafters play an important role. I will admit, even EVE has severe inflation because they print massive amounts of currency through quests and the like, but they get points for effort, at least they do not resort to periodic resets. 

Finally, the most recent development is crypto games. Crypto games, especially those that market themselves as Play to Earn have very strong incentives to get their economy right. If you market yourself as Play to Earn but the players cannot profit, you are basically a scam. And we do not want to be scams, right? Right?… Games are naturally unable to create physical value, they can only extract value from the value chain. This value first and foremost comes from the pockets of players who are looking for leisure. However, if you cannot offer more than a reskinned dice roll simulator that can only be played for about 5 minutes a day, then it is hard to claim that you are delivering in this aspect. This brings us to today’s protagonist, CryptoBlades. It is only with a stretch that I allow myself to call this a game in the first place, but that is a topic for another day. Today I want to talk about why I think CryptoBlades cannot last, at least not without tweaks. By the way, did I mention their token is called SKILL, that is some quality irony for a dice roll simulator.

So, what challenges do crypto games need to deal with? First and foremost they need a plan to combat inflation. If your in-game currency is a crypto token the value loss from massive inflation will hurt your promise of earnings. CryptoBlades seems to simply implement a supply limit for this purpose. This might solve the problem or inflation, but it complicates the next point: They need to ensure payouts to the players. Most games just print in-game currency when they want to reward it, but CryptoBlades promises not to do this. Instead, they have a wallet address that holds the funds a player can receive as reward. It becomes obvious that this address needs to get funding from somewhere, or else it will run out of SKILL. From what I can tell this funding comes from 2 sources. First, the character minting costs SKILL, and the SKILL paid is returned to the reward fund address, but you can only have 4 characters per account, so this is a rather minor contribution. Second, weapon minting and reforging works the same as character minting, and because of the way weapons work this will be the major contributor to keeping the reward fund address topped up. However, even weapon minting does not last forever. Just because you can own as many weapons as you want, that does not mean you want to. In fact, you only need a single weapon per account. Surely, farming for that perfect weapon takes a lot of dice rolls, but once you have it you are pretty much done. This basically means that CryptoBlades is entirely dependent on new accounts being started, and new weapons being farmed continuously. In other words, they need to up their endgame.

A critique is not complete without a suggested solution, so I will share my thoughts about what I think CryptoBlades could do to alleviate their endgame issue. The flaw in their money sink stems from weapons being eternal. I suggest changing the durability mechanic on the top tier weapons to not replenish automatically like it does now, but rather require a “repair” that costs SKILL. Another idea is to implement an aging mechanic on the characters so that at a certain level they start growing weaker, eventually becoming useless so they are forced to retire. That said, my assumption is that implementing both of the above ideas probably would not be enough. Their economy is bound to fail unless they change their approach entirely, because they are essentially trying to make a perpetual motion machine. I predict that one day we will simply be unable to harvest our SKILL rewards, because the reward fund address ran out of SKILL.

This post was written based on information from the CryptoBlades wiki and my experience with the game, please let me know if I have erred. Even for such a simple subject I was not able to cover everything in a single post, but I tried to include the most relevant points to provide context for my thoughts. I don't really want to spread FUD or anything, but can anyone explain to me how this could actually last?

If you found this post useful you can tip NANO to the following address, it's feeless and instant: nano_1nj4in1w5tekqjotqtgphgh79zibztcg5uxpr7bnesgq44jfhamr8pjj45pf You can also tip Banano to the following address, which works the same way, but transfers more potassium: ban_3rdqxfqsdh9f9s79uqomfgyy5jzk8f1io99ipnamim73tc4zaczhcnwzr9e9 No pressure though, I'm not starving.

PancakeSwap: More or less ponzi than fiat?

TL;DR: CAKE is indeed inflationary, but much less so than fiat. PancakeSwap appears to look solid long term, but as anything on BSC, it hinges on Binance not engaging in game breaking shenanigans. 

1. PancakeSwap is no doubt the most popular DeFi platform on the Binance Smart Chain(BSC) right now, but their pools and reward schemes present APRs that may seem a little too good to be true. In this post, I will try to explain how PancakeSwap could remain profitable, and how it could collapse entirely. This is not a shill post, and of course it is not financial advice either. If you already know how PancakeSwap works, you could skip right to the 7th paragraph.

2. First, to understand the gist of how PancakeSwap works, we will take a brief look at its history. It started as a Uniswap clone on BSC, which means an AMM platform where people can provide their assets as liquidity in return for a portion of the trading fees. However, PancakeSwap goes one step further, and provides staking pools and yield farms. They have also been adding more features later on, like a BNB price prediction game, and a lottery, slowly building themselves somewhat of a casino. They have their own token called CAKE.

3. It feels a bit weird to call the PancakeSwap staking pool “staking”, but I will roll with that terminology for lack of a better word. With occasional exceptions, the staking pools on PancakeSwap let you lock up your CAKE in return for more CAKE, or some other token. The CAKE to CAKE pools are fed CAKE from the minting cycle, and are therefore eternal. The CAKE to TokenX pools are temporary, because they need an external source of TokenX. So, when the pool runs out of tokens to reward the stakers, the fun is over. This post is mostly concerned with the CAKE to CAKE pools, because these tie directly into the CAKE tokenomics. I mentioned there is minting of CAKE, and indeed there is. On every block, which for the BSC means every 3 seconds, 40 new CAKE is minted. Looking a bit at that number, our old friend DOGE comes to mind, but I would like to emphasise that both DOGE, and here CAKE, mint a static amount of new tokens per period of time, which means inflation rates decrease over the long run, as opposed to fiat where they just pump harder and harder to keep their rates up. Additionally, most of this freshly minted CAKE actually does not even enter circulation. At the time of writing, 10/40 goes to the staking pools, 9/40 goes to the farms, and the rest is burnt. 

4. Apart from the staking pools we also need to consider the farms. Farms also reward CAKE, but you need specific LP tokens to stake in them. These LP tokens are the ones you get when you provide liquidity to a trading pair. Important to note here is that when you provide liquidity you also get a portion of the trading fees. The trading fees are paid in whichever tokens you provided, and work completely separate from the farms. Not all token pairs have a farm, and some farms are only temporary, so apart from the impermanent loss that everyone is warning you about, some additional care is required when choosing which pair to provide liquidity for on PancakeSwap.

5. To summarize, PancakeSwap provides two ways to earn passive income. Just like Uniswap, you can lock a pair of tokens in a liquidity pool to earn trading fees, rewarded in those tokens. Additionally, you can stake the LP tokens you get when providing liquidity in a farm for additional rewards in CAKE. You can also stake CAKE in various pools for more CAKE, or some other token. But, doesn’t this just cause massive inflation in CAKE you say? Yes, indeed it does, and that is exactly what we want to look closer at next. 

6. To prevent hyperinflation of CAKE, PancakeSwap performs token burns, i.e. they remove CAKE tokens from circulation every week. To do this, they need to gather CAKE from the end users, which is naturally done through fees. Part of the trading fee that users pay when using the DEX is used to burn CAKE. This is also where the casino comes in. Through the casino, PancakeSwap generates fees that can be used to burn CAKE. When the fee is collected in CAKE it is simply burnt, but when the fee is collected in some other token they do what they call “buyback and burn”. Pretty self explanatory, but that just means they use whatever token they collected in fees to buy CAKE from the market, and then burn it. I only have a BBA, so what do I know, but my hunch is that this “buyback and burn” is rather effective because not only does the burn reduce supply, the buyback also generates artificial demand. However, this is the kind of system that only works as long as it works, so let’s remember to consider how it could stop working.

7. The most obvious threat to PancakeSwap is something happening to Binance. There is not really that much for us to do about that though, so I will just recommend everyone who keeps funds on BSC to have an escape plan that does not involve the Binance bridge. It is a rather unlikely scenario, but the consequences could be massive. Then there are hacks, rugpulls, or anything else that would ruin their reputation, but this is the same for pretty much any project.

8. Second, given the burn mechanism I explained above(6), PancakeSwap is reliant on keeping platform traffic up to keep inflation down. If the bear market hits and traffic drops substantially, the inflation could spike. With the market already on a downwards trend that could get nasty. 

9. Finally, CAKE as a token really only has one use, yielding more crypto. It also works as a governance token, but that is more of a secondary utility. Due to the way CAKE minting works(3) the APR on the pools is steadily creeping downwards along with the gross inflation rate. This makes staking CAKE seem like sort of a prisoner’s dilemma. A krill like me is not going to make a difference, but imagine a pancake whale suddenly deciding the APR has dropped too low, and deciding to dump his CAKE. This would of course cause the APR to rise back up, but if the price suddenly dumped notably this could cause FUD and panic selling, further dumping the price to a point where it is not able to recover.

10. In conclusion, PancakeSwap might not qualify as a ponzi, because your profit is not so much from the investors coming after you, but mostly from the users of the DEX, or the casino, both of which are legit products. In fact, the more value is invested in a pool the lower the APR gets, so from a yield perspective we would prefer people to burn all their CAKE on the lottery. 

11. If I have to make predictions, I would say that PancakeSwap is going to survive a bear market, if only because it is by far the biggest DEX on BSC right now. The price of CAKE will drop more than the average top 50 coin, but not so much that the pool APRs cannot compensate for the difference. They will see a new ATH at roughly the same time as BNB during the next bull run. Now I just need to wait 4 years to see how well these predictions are going to age. 

If you found this post useful you can tip NANO to the following address, it's feeless and instant:

nano_1nj4in1w5tekqjotqtgphgh79zibztcg5uxpr7bnesgq44jfhamr8pjj45pf

You can also tip Banano to the following address, which works the same way, but transfers more potassium:

ban_3rdqxfqsdh9f9s79uqomfgyy5jzk8f1io99ipnamim73tc4zaczhcnwzr9e9

No pressure though, I'm not starving.

Stakeable cryptocurrencies comparison

What are they, and what do they want?

In this post, I present a highly subjective ranking of Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies. My inspiration stems primarily from a couple of shower thoughts. The first being that Proof of Work is indeed unsustainable. Obviously, this is not an original thought of mine, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be true. Whilst I do not think Proof of Work will die before I do, it feels natural to look for alternatives, which brought me to discover Proof of Stake. Again, that is not my idea, but it is a charming idea, so I will roll with it for now. My second thought came when my wife and I were looking at stock savings accounts, and I realised that the Bitcoin I have mined with my new GPU has even worse interest rates than the Yen in my bank account. Sure, Bitcoin is projected to rise in value, but the same is true for most cryptocurrencies. Rather than just sitting on the Bitcoin and then see how far it can rise, or converting the Bitcoin to Yen, pay taxes, then invest the remains in an index fund or the like to get returns, perhaps staking can be a good option. However, even if we look only for Proof of Stake options, there are still heaps of cryptocurrencies to choose from. That is where I had my third thought, that money for the sake of money is rather lame, so I would look at the story behind the numbers. Why are the cryptocurrencies here? What is their purpose beyond profits? Why pick this one over the next one? In addition, I will look at the staking process and its requirements to say something about how difficult, or easy, it is to stake your coins once you have them. This is a relevant question for a scrub like myself. One thing to keep in mind is that most, if not all, coins can be staked using staking pools, a solution that can circumvent most of the barriers that make staking difficult. However, I will not look at third party staking pool services in this post, rather I will consider the native staking options built into each platform.

Note that this ranking is not intended as a guide for those who are looking for the quickest way to get rich. Currencies are listed by their sense of purpose, and ease of staking. This is of course highly subjective, and opinions in this post are based on information from the different currency’s official web pages. Considering this is the internet, it is possible that the developers, or their marketers, are full of crap and do not even intend to live up to their promises, but this post is based on the bold assumption that they are decent people with the best intentions. With that in mind, on to the ranking.

1. Reddcoin

What is it?

Reddcoin markets itself as “the social currency”, and the idea is to integrate a tipping feature in social media platforms so that anyone can send a tip to anyone as a reward for a great post, or comment. To facilitate this microtransaction behaviour the blockchain has fast transactions of one minute, and low to zero transaction fees. The absence of both mining and transaction fees is compensated by a yearly inflation of 5%, with no supply limit. These 5% are distributed as rewards to the stakers.

How does one stake it?

Staking Reddcoin is as simple as downloading their latest software wallet, the Reddcoin Core Wallet, and putting some Reddcoin in it. First, the wallet needs to download the entire transaction history. This took my old laptop about 2 days, but uses surprisingly little disk space. Coins will “mature” 8 hours after you put them in the wallet, and the wallet will stake mature coins automatically as long as the application is open, and the transaction history is fully up to date. Keeping the wallet open uses very little resources, so one can stake on any device with a stable internet connection. A mobile wallet with staking functionality also seems to be on the horizon. If your wallet goes offline, it simply stops staking until it gets back online. 

Why this rank?

Reddcoin tops this ranking simply from ease of staking. Just download their wallet, add funds, and wait, it does not get simpler. Whilst still pretty much unknown to the public, I like that they have a clear niche, which could be an advantage over the many other chains that seem to compete on pretty much the same field. Another thing that counts positively for Reddcoin is that they are the only entry on the list that is upfront about their monetary policy, and how staking rewards are distributed.

2. Polkadot

What is it?

Polkadot is a blockchain that is interesting exactly because there are so many other blockchains to choose from. Simply put, Polkadot aims to be the connection between different blockchains. Through something called a Bridge, Polkadot is able to connect more tightly to external networks than blockchains normally are, which allows for richer interaction between the different systems. They also promote something called Parachains, more or less independent blockchains that run in parallel to their main Relay Chain, whilst sharing the security of the Polkadot network. This can be a great idea, because the security of a blockchain depends on the size of its network.

How does one stake it?

The Polkawallet, Polkadot’s official wallet, is a mobile wallet that seems to have all the functionality required to stake your DOT. One thing to note about Polkadot is that their consensus mechanism is not plain Proof of Stake, so the staking options might be a little different from other currencies. 

Why this rank?

Polkadot scores well on concept. If any number of networks do well, there will be a need to harmonize their interaction. If Polkadot can deliver on this promise, they should have a bright future. Also, full staking features in the native wallet count positively.

3. Cardano

What is it?

Cardano is a blockchain built on science. Whilst it is built on many of the same principles, and with a similar purpose to Ethereum, it aims to do better through more scientific methods of development, and more democratic processes. Their purpose is to make the world a better place, and to empower the many. Their currency, Ada, is much like Ethereum’s Ether, meant to be used with the variety of applications that will be built on the Cardano network. Additionally, since Ada is a stake in the Cardano network, it can be used to participate in votes on the future direction of the network. The issue for Cardano is probably how to distinguish itself from Ethereum. It puts a lot of emphasis on being the best, as in the most secure, the most reliable, built on the most well grounded theories, and so on. However, a layman like me has no way to tell if this is actually the case, I can just take other people’s word for it. So it seems to be a better version of Ethereum, but the question is whether the improvements will be enough to make up for Ethereum’s head start.

How does one stake it?

Cardano promotes two ways to stake your Ada. You can set up a Stake Pool, or join a Stake Pool. The easiest way is of course to join an existing Stake Pool, and both of the native wallets recommended on Cardano’s official site appear to have built in functionality to help you find a pool, and delegate stake to it. Setting up your own Stake Pool seems to be a somewhat complicated process, and staking on behalf of others comes with a certain amount of responsibility, but it is also possible to run a private Stake Pool just to stake your own coins. If you want to create your own pool, you might be incited by the fact that there is no lower limit on your own stake, the pool requires very little hardware resources, and there appears to be no economic penalties for going offline, apart from loss of potential rewards. Rather, pools are ranked on various criteria to promote the best performing pools, so if your performance is inconsistent you are likely to attract less stakers.

Why this rank?

Cardano is perhaps doomed to be compared to its older brother Ethereum, but at least on this ranking it comes out on top, much because the staking features seem a lot more matured. The low threshold for setting up one’s own Stake Pool also counts positively.

4. Binance Coin

What is it?

Binance is a big cryptocurrency exchange platform that also handles exchange from and to fiats. They have their own currency, Binance Coin, native to the Binance Smart Chain. It actually looks like they have two blockchains, the Binance Smart Chain, and the Binance Chain, not smart edition. On the smart chain, Binance Coin can be used with various apps that reside on the chain. As Binance is an exchange, their coins can also be used to pay for transaction fees on the network.

How does one stake it?

Binance has made a slight twist to the consensus algorithm, so that it runs with only 21 Validator nodes on the entire network. These 21 Validators are elected from the available Full Nodes based on who has the most stake in their pool. Setting up a full node seems to require some technical skills, decent hardware, and a minimum stake of 10000 BNB. The easier alternative is to Delegate your stake to an existing Validator. This seems to be a relatively simple process, available from several wallets, and the Binance official page has guides on how to do this. The only thing to keep in mind here is that staking locks your coins for a period of time, so you need to wait before using them for something else.

Why this rank?

Whilst Binance Coin seems very legit in isolation, it sort of just comes across as “we can do our own blockchain too” kind of exercise. The fact that they can might be some of the charm about cryptocurrency in general, but I just do not feel it on this one. Considering Binance is already pretty big their coin might be a pretty good investment, but for the purposes of this post they end up a little on the weak side.

5. Ethereum 2.0

This is sort of the elephant in the room here, but the list would not be complete without Ethereum. I say this because Ethereum is not really Proof of Stake yet, it still relies mostly on Proof of Work, but the transition to Proof of Stake started with Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 in December 2020, and staking Ether is already possible. 

What is it?

Ethereum is actually a software platform that comes with blockchain technology and its own currency, Ether. The idea seems to be that one can create and run entire applications on the Ethereum network, and our imagination is the limit. This could for example be used to provide banking services to people who do not have access to conventional bank accounts, a noble goal indeed. Applications built on Ethereum pay a fee in Ether to give the network incentive to run them.

How does one stake it?

To stake Ether one sets up a Validator Node. In order to do that it is required to make a deposit of 32 Ether, and then perform various setup operations, by the looks of it the client is not plug and play. The recommendation is to use dedicated hardware, and that is somewhat understandable when they point out that the current blockchain requires about 400GB of storage, where they recommend SSD, and this is estimated to grow by as much as 1GB per day from now on. It is also worth noting that after the Validator is online you will receive penalties for going offline, roughly equal to the rewards for staying online. A final thing to consider is that the stake cannot be withdrawn before the current Mainnet has merged with the Beacon Chain, a process that is supposed to take place within a few years, but the date is not fixed yet. It is probably safe to say that running one's own Validator is not for everyone.

Why this rank?

I am tempted to say “unfortunately”, but Ethereum staking just does not seem to be for the masses, yet. Most people cannot afford 32 Ether, and their approach to pools is very hands off. Additionally, there is the fact that we do not know when we can withdraw our funds. In its current state I simply cannot recommend staking Ether, unless of course you are hellbent on sitting on them for years anyways.

Closing comments

As I explore more blockchains and currencies, I will add more entries to this post. If you have a suggestion, please leave a comment and I will take a look.

From zero to 英雄, a comprehensive Anki deck for Japanese

This post is made to receive feedback on my Anki deck for Japanese learners. Please leave your feedback in the comments below. The following description is largely the same as the one you can find on the deck download page at https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2079503898

Release: Template released (01/08/2020)

The first version of the template, and deck, was uploaded.

Update: Finally "completed" the template (07/03/2021)

After using the deck for a while I found that the card feels a bit "narrow" in portrait mode on AnkiDroid, so I ended up moving the tags to their own "row" on the answer side, that way cards with many tags, or long answers and hints, will look a little more natural. I also realized that the very round edges didn't blend in with AnkiDroid as intended, so I made everything square again. Also made the perfomance timer "adjustable" by setting it with an easily modifiable variable in the script. Finally, I made a simple implementation of the LaxAnswer field, but this requires all Answer fields to end on semicolon(;) to not break the script. That's a point I might have to review later.

TODO:

• Add quite a bit of basic vocabulary that wasn't included in the old deck because I wasn't a complete beginner when I started making it.
• Add grammar cards.
• Add hints to all but the most basic cards...
• Add and improve explanations.
• Add word class tags to Adverbs
• Add tags for JLPT levels
• Reduce the amount of alternatives presented as the answer, especially on ambiguous cards that have a ton of similar alternatives, to make a more concise QA that strengthens the meme. Ideally simplify each visible answer to no more than 3 alternatives.
• Fix a layout issue where wide tables stretch beyond the card and look stupid.

The template can also be used as a base to make your own deck.

The main feature is a timer function in the deck template that gives you a hint about your performance. If you flip the card within 4 seconds the background will be blue, 4-20 seconds will make it green, more than 20 seconds will turn it orange. The idea is that you can "easy" your card if it's blue, "good" it if it's green, and "hard" it if it's orange.

There is also a function that checks your typed answer and makes the background red if you made a mistake. The comparison is case insensitive, and checks against each alternative on cards that have multiple correct answers. In case you don't want to type, the function is designed to ignore blank answers.

Tags:

Hiragana: Single characters that are a part of the Japanese hiragana syllabary.

Katakana: Single characters that are a part of the Japanese katakana syllabary.

Kanji: Single characters that are defined as a kanji aka. Chinese character.

Radical: Shapes that make up a part of a kanji, but is not used as a symbol in itself.

Vocabulary: A word, that is an entity that can convey some meaning on its own, and be conjugated where relevant.

Expression: A fixed expression that conveys some meaning it is relevant to remember as an entity. What separates an expression from a word is often that it already contains conjugations or other grammatical elements.

Kunyomi: Marks that the note is read using only Japanese readings.

Onyomi: Marks that the note is read using only Chinese readings.

Noun, Verb, Adjective: Mark their respective word classes.

HiraganaWord: A word that is written entirely in hiragana. This tag has some technical implications, it marks a note for random sort.

KatakanaWord: A word that is written entirely in Katakana. This tag has some technical implications, it marks a note for random sort.

Readme:

The notes in the deck are ordered the way they are for valid reasons, please learn the notes in order added. However, I bumped into an issue that cards cannot be reordered in a feasible way. Because of this, cards I added after the inital release does not show up where they are supposed to.

Fields names that end with "Req" mark required fields. The script will likely die without them. 

Answers, and LaxAnswers are semicolon(";") separated, and can therefore not contain semicolons. The Answers field needs to end on a semicolon for the typed answer to be displayed if it is correct. This has to do with how Anki displays the output of type fields, and how I implemented my LaxAnswers functionality. Just make sure to terminate Answers fields with a semicolon.

Tags are space(" ") separated and can therefore not contain spaces.

There is a field called LaxAnswers. The idea is to add common typos and lazy spellings that we might want to allow (things like "its" for "it's", "favor" for "favour" etc.) in this field, then these will be considered correct answers by the input check. This way we don't have to litter the backside of the card with almost identical definitions.

Why I went to Japan of all places

Apart from the obvious "What is your name?", and "Where are you from?", the question I am most frequently asked by people I meet in Japan is "Why Japan?". Usually, I jokingly reply something along the lines of "The weather is better", or "I grew up with Pokemon", considering there is rarely time to go into detail. The full answer to this question is of course a long and complicated one, but I will try to spell it out today, mostly for my own sake since no one is listening anyways.

In reality, I probably had the dream about going to Japan ever since I realised this is where all my favourite anime came from. Also, my favourite video game series, Gran Turismo, is Japanese. This was however, not enough to tip the scale far enough for me to take action. It was probably some time last fall when I realised I was nearing the middle of my twenties, and I would finish my bachelor by the next summer, that I started thinking seriously about what I actually wanted from my life. I also realised that the time of sitting on the fence watching life pass by, kicking pebbles around the yard waiting for my time to come, every summer thinking "just another school year until summer", was nearly over. I realised that the time I had been waiting for all my life was right around the corner, but I had no idea what to do about it.

A considerable amount of thinking later, I came to the conclusion that the natural place to start was figuring out where I wanted to live. Considering I had lived my entire life in Norway, a country time and time again receiving awards(UN rankings) for being the best country in the world to live in, the list started out by looking at which countries share many of the same attributes, like a good education system, good health services, and low crime rates. I also considered other important attributes that are not reflected in these rankings, like local humour, probability of encountering good looking women, and the weather. In the end the list came down to basically just Japan, what a lucky coincidence.

My first week in Japan

So far during my stay the weather has been really warm. This warmth is a totally new thing for me, considering my home town Ålesund is roughly 25 degrees Celsius colder than Osaka in this moment of writing. Certainly, we also have warm days at home, but they are rare. The biggest difference however, must be the humidity. Whilst a warm day in Ålesund is practically always accompanied, or likely even caused by a strong southern wind, the warm days in Osaka seem to have no wind at all. The feeling is best explained by comparing it to a sauna, everything is hot. The sun is hot, the air is hot, and the water is hot. For the most part, I feel no difference whether I am in the sun or in the shade, it kind of feels like walking submerged in a hot bath of very light water. Additionally, the tap water is so hot that it is probably hotter than the exercise pool at the swimming hall back home. On my first day here I showered without turning on the heater, and although a little colder than my liking, it was totally doable. This is not to say that I miss the weather I left. If I had to pick between a little too warm, and a little too cold, my choice would still be the warmer. Mostly I am just happy that I was able to try some real warmth before fall sets in for real.

The road to Japan

Last Monday, I woke up at 4 AM to eat breakfast. I ate my usual two baguettes, one with ham and cheese, the other with cheese and jam. This was also the last time I had coffee. After breakfast my mom was kind enough to drive me to the airport, and two undersea tunnels later I entered Ålesund airport Vigra, ready to get on the morning plane bound for Amsterdam. My transit time in Amsterdam was 5 hours, 5 long hours. In the end my departure time was creeping closer, and the other passengers started arriving at the gate. During the next hour I probably grew 15 centimetres taller. The flight itself was not only long, but also horribly cold. I wore a shirt, a sweater, and covered myself in a blanket, but still spent most of the trip freezing. On the bright side they kept bringing us food and drinks. My original plan was to sleep as much as I could during the last half of our flight, but in the end I only managed to sleep about an hour. On the bright side we arrived at our scheduled time.

The moment I set my foot outside the plane an incredible heat welcomed me, the contrast to the freezing plane could not have been bigger. It felt like stepping out of a cold Norwegian winter day and into a sauna. First up was the immigration control, a somewhat tedious process of waiting in line for some immigration officer to look at my documents and print me a resident card. After I got through this despite not being able to communicate with the non-English-speaking officer in any meaningful way, I went to the arrivals hall where I found my luggage waiting for me next to the conveyor belt. Then I waited in another line for the toll declaration check, and then at last, I could step outside after 23 hours of travelling.

Except it was not over quite yet, I was now at Kansai Airport, but my pickup point was Nagai station. First, I needed cash, a peculiar thing I normally only use if someone for some reason gives me cash instead of doing a bank transfer. So I found an ATM, probably my first time using one in several years, but I got my Yen without any issues, and went on my merry way looking for the train station. When I found the train station I was met by a route map that looked kind of like the one I got from the school, but at the same time not. I tried to find Nagai station on the map, but was unable to locate it. I did however remember that I needed to swap trains at least once, so I looked for the station where I should swap, and found something that looked familiar. Bravely I went up to the ticket machine, inserted some Yen, clicked the fare that was listed under the station I thought I was going to, and waited a brief moment. A ticket came out, followed by a large pile of change. Then I had to look for the actual trains. I first walked into something that appeared to be a staffed ticked office, thinking to myself that I should probably have gone here before I bought my ticket, I walked back out. Then I found something promising, a line of ticket gates. I slowly approached them, apparently looking like a big question mark, because a man in a uniform gestured at me for attention. I walked over to him and coughed up a sentence supposed to mean "Do you speak English?", to which he answered "Little." in distinct Japanese accent. I said "Nagai?", and he nodded, guided me over to the another route map and started pointing, said something about express train, local train, swap. After some minutes of him trying to explain me where I was going, and me trying to explain him that I might have bought the wrong ticket, we arrived at the conclusion that everything would be okay if I got on the next train from the platform directly underneath us, as long as I remembered to swap. I would like to thank this man for not letting me get on the train I thought I was looking for, that would have taken me in the opposite direction. When I sat down on the train, still not entirely sure if this was the right one, I noticed that I was the only foreigner in sight. Actually, this entire week I have seen a total of two foreigners who are not going to the school. It turned out got on the right train, and luckily there was a route map and a sign that always showed the next station, so I managed to find the station where I was supposed to swap even though I forgot the name the man at Kansai had told me. In the end I got off at Nagai station where I found a ticket checkout machine. It said insert ticket. I looked around for any signs of human life, but saw no one, so I tried to do as the machine said. After a brief moment the machine spat my ticket back out and started beeping. A man quickly came out from a door at the other side of the hallway, pointed at the window next to him, and ran over to the machine. I walked over to the window and waited. When he came back, he looked at my ticket and said "Okay.". I looked back at him and said "Okay?", and so he repeated "Okay." and pointed at the exit. A little puzzled I walked out towards the street, where, luckily, a school employee approached the only foreigner in sight. She then guided me to the school office, which turned out to be so close to the station that you could probably throw stones in between, if you are a little better at throwing stones than I am.