Girl in Japan

Since Covid happened, I've been getting more into makeup, and that includes lip products. So I decided to do swatches and reviews to help anyone who is considering buying these shades. I have a mixture of drugstore, midrange and high-end lip products. I will

This is actually my first Coach bag. I'd been looking for a satchel-shaped small to medium-sized bag for a while, but didn't know of this bag until I passed by the Coach boutique in Shibuya Scramble Square. It caught my eye immediately because of

It's been a long time since my last post. I changed teams at work to a backend team, which is something I've always wanted to do. And then, of course, the pandemic happened. Since everyone's gaming a lot more, and some people still can't

This post talks about how I refactored a Flask application and subsequently ran into a gotcha with Google App Engine's defaults, and how to resolve it. Backstory: I previously wrote about creating a Slack app in Python. At the time, the app was pretty

Upon moving to Japan, a phone number is one of the first things you need to obtain, as you will need it to obtain a bank account or rent an apartment. The 3 major carriers are SoftBank, Docomo and AU. Check this article for

MobSF (Mobile Security Framework) is an automated mobile penetration testing framework. You upload a build to it, and it informs you of security issues that it finds. There's a great tutorial on how to run it in CI, but the script it uses is

I've been to a few onsens, but never a sento (public bath). I did go to Oedo Onsen Monogatari many years ago, but that's more of a theme park. But since I live in Japan now, I decided to do as the locals do

I recently signed up for a DnD session on a Saturday afternoon, after seeing the event posted in a Meetup group. I dug up my dice and old character sheets to bring along. In the half-filled-in log sheet were the last few adventures I

As you may have guessed from the title, I love bubble tea. I used to have it on a near-daily basis when I interned near a Koi Thé outlet. My metabolism doesn't allow that nowadays, but I still make it a point to try

If you're in tech, and especially if you're an engineer, you've probably heard of the term Imposter Syndrome.  I've experienced it in large doses, and still do sometimes. I was a nondescript CS major in university. I wasn't failing classes, but I wasn't doing

Japanese food is great, but sometimes you want a taste of home. I wanted to make certain dishes, such as lotus root soup, which my local supermarket didn't have the ingredients for. So I went to check out Asian grocery stores in Shin-Okubo and

I recently created a Slack app, and was thinking about how to publish it. I wanted to test out some changes, but I didn't want to affect the live app. That was when I realized I had to set up dev and prod environments.

I've not written a post in months, so I'll restart my blog by setting out my goals for the year. Pass ABRSM Grade 2. I've started taking private piano lessons at UK Fields. I initially chose them because their rates were cheap and their

I've been playing otome games for about 2 years now, and I've acquired too many a couple of husbandos. Since I'm in Tokyo, I want to attend otome-related events in the future. So naturally, the best way to show my love is by making

In this post, I'll recount my experience relocating to Japan after accepting an offer from Mercari. The first step was getting the Certificate of Eligibility. It's a document that is a prerequisite to getting a visa to Japan. Mercari contracted a relocation company, who

I attended TGS 2018 over the weekend. It was first Japanese event that I had attended, and it was a blast. Even if it was predictably very crowded. I purchased advance tickets online on the TGS website for a small discount of 200Y compared

In this post, I will discuss my experience with Mercari from applying to getting the offer and what came after. I applied to Mercari in February of this year. I found out about them through a job post emailed to me by ConnectJob (formerly

Obligatory title? Anyway, hello. I’m a software engineer with Mercari who just moved to Tokyo. I created this blog to chronicle my time in Japan, and hopefully provide some useful information and  perspective to anyone who wants to move here or be a