Atami airbnb, Japan (October 25, 2025)
Every 7 to 10 days, we schedule a “down day.” That’s been my rule since starting the world tour about 4 months ago. Today is no exception. In fact, it’s a perfect place for a down day. Elena and Violet purchased a puzzle in Tokyo and are excited to dig into it. With the rain coming down HARD, it’s a perfect inside activity for today.
Violet and Elena immediately begin the 1,000 piece puzzle
I take the time to catch up on some emails, write some blog content, and watch a movie. That felt glorious. I haven’t watched much content since I began my trip around the world. Sitting down to watch a full movie is a wonderful way to turn off my brain and fully shut down for a nice long stretch of two hours.
And while I didn’t take any pictures of it, I cooked two out of the three meals. We had a nice steak and broccoli dinner and a chicken ramen lunch with additional vegetables. After eating out meal after meal, it was fun to cook in my own kitchen space and eat the kinds of foods we could make ourselves.
I just hit 300 consecutive days of meditation of at least 30 min per day
For the past 411 days, I’ve been meditating every day. But when I was first figuring out how to use the Insight Timer app, sometimes I would accidentally hit “discard” instead of “Finish” and it wouldn’t track my time consistently as a streak. 300 days I figured that out and began what is now my longest running streak on the app.
The streak I’m MOST proud of, however are the 959 days I’ve remained sober (that’s 2.62 years, over 31 months and broken down by the hours, that’s 22,996 as of this writing). And believe me, when I first began my sobriety, I was working in hours, not days, so nearly 23,000 hours is a hell of an achievement and in just 41 days I’m looking forward to hitting my first 1,000 day milestone.
I share this part of my journey because back when I was drinking and when I was in an airbnb like the one I’m in with Elena and Violet (the number one thing I would do on a day like today is get wasted). Today, I’m aware that this is how things used to be for me and that I’m happy to be fully present with my wife and daughter fully sober; and that “doing nothing” is a hell of a luxury out here in Atami, Japan.
Today’s words of affirmation from one of my many sober friends
Even as I travel the world, I am connected to my home group and sober fellows who check in with me from time to time and at least a text a day (like the one above) which are great reminders and help me in my sobriety.
And then, there are really funny and strange things in this airbnb like this tissue holder. I both love it and think its so bizarre. But hey, it works!
“Please hand me a tissue” takes on a whole new request with this guy
And so, today as my wife and daughter work on this 1,000 piece puzzle, I feel my deep gratitude to be with both of them writing this blog post. I’m a very lucky man, husband and father. To show my deep appreciation, I’m going to do some laundry and clean up the dishes in the kitchen. These small acts of service feel like I’m back home (even if it’s just for a relaxing day in Atami, Japan).
