Since when did we become the managers?

- She doesn’t even go here (to the office)

‘My Gen Z direct report makes me feel like an ancient relic. I am suddenly uncool, behind the times, and all my cultural references are cringe. Turns out a Wellness Action Plan is not taken seriously because of the acronym and you can’t ‘hold space’ for a meeting anymore.’ - Anon 

I’ve noticed the tone of my voice notes changing in the past year or so. Whereas before, I would be getting a rundown of people’s sordid weekend escapades (I cannot divulge many details through fear of getting censored), I’m now discussing the benefits of compassionate leadership versus the tough love approach. Gone are the days where I get 3 am voicemails of friends singing Rihanna’s Umbrella down the phone, I’m much more likely to get a 5 am pre-workout monologue about how many cashmere jumpers are needed to rotate in a work wardrobe. Apparently, Mongolia is the best for cashmere, if anyone is interested. 

As an anxious millennial who was pushed out of the nest (and crawled back in again several times to get more degrees) just after the financial crash of 2008, it seemed insurmountable that we’d ever be anything but lowly lackeys in charge of stationery orders. But after fifteen years of surviving the girl boss and lean-in era in our pit-stained Topshop blazers, we’ve finally climbed the ladder enough to add ‘senior’ or ‘manager’ onto our job titles. Technically, although I’d rather be violently sick into a bin than say it out loud, I’m a CEO, but even writing that sentence has made me squirm, and I’m not confident it will make it past the edit. 

When I first started my career many many moons ago, I remember that deep feeling of exhaustion that descended after leaving the office at 6 pm every day. I’d glance at the commuters who collectively looked as defeated as I was and wonder if films like ‘13 Going on 30’ and ‘Legally Blonde’ were propaganda tools to prevent the spread of communism. This couldn’t be the same ‘work’ they were depicting, surely? Why wasn’t I sprinting around a capital city in 5-inch sparkly Manolos and instead crying in the M&S loos, eating a discounted prawn mayo sandwich?

- Any science girlie knows you can’t get a perm wet for 24 hours

Credit: So, Have You Scene That?

Millennials are the municipal punching bags for all generations. We’ve been avocado toast munching knobheads who can’t afford a deposit, and the reason why the global population is declining. Millennials had the audacity to ruin the napkin industry, because who can afford napkins when you only buy food with a yellow reduced sticker on it?

We were also part of the last vestiges of the hazing culture at work (although I think this practice is still pretty widespread in finance and law), and I was regularly reminded what an utter piece of garbage I was for simply existing in the same space as my managers. One of my core memories of working a corporate job was being berated in front of the entire office for not CCing all the participants of an email thread, which is the reason why I still feel a sliver of terror whenever I click send on any email chain with multiple people in it. 

Accounts like _businesscasualty on Instagram parody the contradictions of millennial managers who simultaneously try to protect the boundaries of their team, whilst burning themselves out in the process. Because we know all too well what it’s like to be chewed out and spat back out over the slightest of work faux pas. 

- ‘Actually, we can’t and I don’t want to’

Credit: _businesscasualty

Laura*, who’s recently experienced the ascension to manager, says she ‘feels so much responsibility to be a good manager’ and wasn’t ‘prepared for the interpersonal difficulties of trying not to become ‘work mummy’ but also being a compassionate leader’. And what happens when you do need to have a tough conversation? Laura explains she finds it difficult to ‘sit in the space of a ‘horrible boss’ whilst crying inwardly because you hate the lack of inclusivity in the policies and procedures’. Once you become part of the managerial machine, it can be increasingly tricky to rage against the system you used to slag off when making a cup of tea in the communal kitchen in your Zara twinsuit. 

Corporate girlies don’t organise unless it’s for the good of Q2

Credit: Meditationsfortheanxiousmind

Meditationsfortheanxiousmind, a keen sociological observer, takes a more cynical standpoint on the millennial manager, a subset he refers to as the ‘corporate girlie’. Corporate girlie is matcha and muted aggression towards her subordinates. Corporate girlie is a forty-two-page slide deck edited on the Jubilee line, between 7 pm reformer pilates and a zero-waste supper club in Hackney Wick. Corporate girlie is ‘feminism that’s HR-approved, stripped of structural critique and turned into a hashtag.’  

One brief scan of the corporate girlie hashtag has me wishing I’d never looked at it in the first place. Like Meditationsfortheanxiousmind suggests, ‘it’s not girl power, it’s famine mindset’, her bio might read ‘be kind, even though last week she made an intern cry in the WeWork toilets’. Perhaps we’re more like Maggie Thatcher than we care to admit – we’ve got a seat at the table but locked the door, swallowed the key and pushed the other grindset girlies down the stairs.

Wake up, journal about manifesting, hun hustle whilst getting in 10,000 steps and repeat

And what of the men? If we’re replicating the power structures they created, they probably shouldn’t get off scot free. Mark*, a millennial manager in tech, says: ‘I tell my team verbatim, ‘If you get your work done on time and at quality, I couldn’t care less how you did it.’’ He also doesn’t believe in a ‘gold standard’ and instead encourages his team to ‘aim for bronze’. 

Trevor Bardsley*, a manager in one of the biggest companies in the land, laments how: ‘I used to be told exactly what to do every day and now I’m telling everyone what to do.’ He now ‘uses LinkedIn more than Facebook’ and tells his friends he’ll ‘circle back when asked about Friday night pints.’ Corporate lingo has now seeped into our authentic selves, blurring the lines between manager and mere mortal wanting to let off steam with a seven-quid Punk IPA; a watered-down version of your prior ability to conjugate verbs not related to action points.      

Round of pints: £36. Filling the emptiness in your soul for 2 hours: priceless.

To return to Laura* (truth be told, I could have just published her response and left it at that), if we chip away enough at the fallacy of corporate, we’re left with the rubble of our perceived inadequacy in our sweaty hands. 

‘How on earth have I ended up in this role? I feel like I’m barely functioning as a person in my personal life, but somehow I’m responsible for a budget and a team. It feels really strange because I’m searching for an adult when I feel uncertain. But I’ve now become the ‘adult’ to go to.’ 

The evolution of humanity has gone from hunter-gatherer to Google Meet in the space of 10,000 years. Maybe we were never met to ‘jump on a call’ or have ten people editing one piece of evergreen content that nobody’s going to read. Perhaps the reason we’re feeling so anxious is that we can’t biohack any more productivity into our gut biome without overdosing on kefir and sauterkaut. 

But actually, could you pass me the pickles, please? The C-suite awaits. 

* All names are fictionalised for the sake of people’s career trajectories.

Why a Cholesterol Check Has Got Me Thinking About My Impermanence

Fats, glorious fats

Perhaps I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I’m a secret hypochondriac. With every unexpected ache and twinge (which after the age of thirty ramps up in frequency), I tend to start writing my will in my head, wondering which of my nieces would like my first edition copy of A Hundred Years of Solitude and if I did enough writing to consider it a ‘legacy’: spoiler, I didn’t. 

I also automatically assume that every plane I get on will crash, despite the likelihood of this happening being around 1 in 13 million, as well as thinking that I’ll be one of the seventeen people who die in lifts each year. My Google search reads something like: 

“Why does my left side hurt?

Are tingling toes normal?

Can a headache be a sign of cancer?

How do you know if a lift is faulty?
”

— MYSELF AT 3AM

However, low-level hypochondria doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I have a fairly legitimate reason to be concerned; hearts in my family seem to have an expiry date of between fifty and sixty years. My Granddad had a heart attack whilst he was in Portugal on holiday, to be precise. My Dad had a heart attack whilst he was in a meeting at work and didn’t tell anyone until the meeting had finished; his PA had to perform CPR on him. Luckily, he was able to get to the hospital in time for emergency surgery, but my Granddad wasn’t so fortunate. And to top it all off, my brother has recently been told his cholesterol is unusually high for his age and is taking statins at age thirty-something. 

I’ve always felt as if I had a ticking clock in my chest, with the hands slowly corroding and the face starting to melt– not to be overly dramatic or anything. But faced with all this empirical evidence (and with my brother’s insistent WhatsApp messages that we’ve drawn the short straw with dodgy tickers), I was compelled to stare the prospect of my mortality right in the eye. Because once you know about your cholesterol levels, you can’t unknow them; it’s a Schrödinger's cat of arteries, both possibilities are true– one box contains a Rebecca surrounded with custard tarts, parma ham, and chocolate eclairs, the other box is a despondent Rebecca reluctantly shoving dry quinoa into her face, shedding a singular tear.

Rebecca in happier times surrounded by pistachio croissants and full-fat milk lattes

Due to Sam’s and my nomadic lifestyle, I am somewhat of a medical tourist these days and have gotten various parts of my body scrutinised across the globe (if you’re in Vietnam, I can recommend an excellent dentist), so I booked a full medical screening as I’m now approaching my mid-thirties and I did enough binge drinking in my early twenties to kill a herd of wild horses. If someone is taking my blood, then they might as well run it for all markers of early death and give me something else to worry about in the dead of the night when my brain’s playing the top hits of all the embarrassing things I’ve done in my life: yes – thank you brain – I do remember in A-Level English when I said gonorrhoea instead of Goneril in front of the whole class when we were studying King Lear. 

I couldn’t help but see the irony of my situation when, as I was consulting with my doctor, she gave me a handwritten list of all the food I needed to try in Melacca. This wasn’t an official part of the medical screening, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. However, it was evident that most of the foods on the list were either deep-fried or high in saturated fats; in fact, the roti canai (one of Malaysia’s best breakfast items, in my opinion) is probably 85% ghee and 15% more ghee. It was the Schrödinger’s cat of arteries slinking into the room again, tail covered in triglycerides. I was standing at the precipice of having a life with reduced roti canai consumption – and was this a world I even wanted to inhabit? Perhaps the unknowing of my cholesterol levels was a happy oblivion. But I couldn’t help but wonder (with my best Carrie Bradshaw impression), would the sacrifice of knowledge lead to twenty years from now, where I’m in a meeting about AI corruption of water supplies on Mars, pretending I’m not having a heart attack like my Dad? 

Food recommendations free of charge

I don’t want to bemoan the chronic underfunding of the NHS, but I was able to get an appointment within two days, and my test results came the same day, so I didn’t need to mope around being overly existential about butter. I was sent a PDF via WhatsApp with the advice I needed to make lifestyle changes. The results were in, and they weren’t dreadful, but they weren’t brilliant either. Anxious to see everything through the lens of academic success, I compared my scores with my brother, and I’d done better than him on every lipid profile. He was in the E minus territory, whereas I was a D to a C plus; my good fats were well within the healthy range, which I would like to attribute to my stalwart determination to find porridge in whatever country we’re in. 

But it was a slight cause for concern, and deep down, I know I have a penchant for ‘treats’, except they aren’t really ‘treats’ and more just commonplace in my daily routine. Emotional eating is my go-to coping mechanism, I’ll have a white chocolate cookie when I’m stressed, I’ll have a pistachio croissant when I’m sad, I’ll celebrate it being Wednesday with a mango sticky rice, and then, because it’s the weekend, I’ll travel to some obscure bakery because it sells milk chocolate buns with eyes on. I’ve been living on borrowed treat time and the truth is finally out in the open, quinoa-munching Rebecca needs to emerge from her box-prison and ask what aisle the chia seeds are in.

Would travel upwards of an hour again

Butter now has to be regarded as a foe and not a friend, only to be fraternised with on a weekly basis at best. I can’t use kaya toast to plug the void in my existence anymore, and I’ll need to find a replacement; something like ultra-marathons or learning how to ferment pickles should do the trick. Expect me to start posting my Strava maps on my Instagram stories imminently, saying things like: ‘great pace for the first 5km but dipped after my achilles heel twinged’.

And I can’t even return to binge-drinking because that’s also bad for cholesterol, and not to mention increasingly exhausting these days. Hangovers now last half a week and come with crippling anxiety and thoughts of my A-level English class when I confused a Shakespeare character with an STI. I much prefer activities like looking at particularly nice trees and birds, and endlessly doomscrolling Instagram Reels, because I’ve banned myself from TikTok after spending up to 5 hours on the app each day. 

‘In moderation’ is not something that’s synonymous with my personality. I swing from obsession to drought and back around again. I’ll read entire books in the space of a day and then not read anything for two months; I’ll take up hobbies like painting and draw jellyfish and rabbits for a week straight, buy all the equipment and then never pick up a brush again. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything ‘moderately’ in my life, so having one custard cream from the packet instead of eight doesn’t sound that fun to me.

Sorry Sachertorte, I’m breaking up with you

I’ve got six months before I need to be retested. As a recovering ‘gifted and talented’ pupil (although I got kicked out in year seven because I wasn’t very good at Maths), I feel the inherent need to ace my cholesterol scores – now all I can think about is oily fish and avocados. I’ve implemented a training regime where I’ve ripped off a popular brand of interval training classes and now shout things such as:

“One minute of burpees, followed by squat pulses. Rest period in three minutes. Can you go any faster? Climb that hill, everyone.
”

— Aerobics instructor reincarnation

Sometimes being insufferable is preferable to the alternative. I guess it’s marginally better to be the kind of person who gets up at 5 am to go barefoot running, than a person slowly filling their arteries with profiteroles. 

Look Kirby Car, we were never that serious anyway

These words are part of Crash Rhino’s Rhino Revelation series. They are completely free of charge, however, we would love to be paid for our craft by other means.

If you need of any words, strategy or campaigns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via our contact form and Sam or I will get back to you ASAP.

5 Travel Content Creators Worth Following

- Life’s a beach and then you die

With the world seemingly on fire (metaphorically and physically) at the moment, I’m more than a bit guilty of doom-scrolling on my phone for a bit of light escapism that doesn’t involve me thinking about the downfall of humanity. 

With the endless sea of content out there, it can be hard to grab anyone's attention for longer than seven seconds – but it’s still possible to find travel content creators doing something different than regurgitating a feedback loop of viral Instagram cafes. The echo chamber of eight-pound ceremonial-grade matcha lattes can be deafening at times but if you look hard enough, authenticity (whatever that means these days) is still alive and well in the travel niche.

So if you want to pretend you’re somewhere else, here’s our list of travel content creators worth following that we recommend you subscribe to immediately – if you aren’t already. 

Mark Wiens

Stats: 11 million +  subscribers on YouTube 

Niche: Food tours and travel 

Mark Wiens is a god-tier travel content creator – he started his YouTube channel way back in 2009 and has over 1400 videos that span the globe. He’s been everywhere and eaten everything so when Mark recommends a place, you know it’s worth detouring to. I’ve eaten at probably 15 restaurants or stalls that Mark has featured on his channel and every single one has been sensational. 

In Singapore, there’s one hawker that has a picture of Mark’s face pinned up on the wall because he’d eaten there. This is the extent of his fame in the travel and food community, I’m not saying he has the same level of notoriety as Bourdain – but if Mark gives you the seal of approval then expect your sales to go through the roof. 

Some of my favourite Mark Wiens playlists are his village food series where he goes to local villages and learns about the food of local families and communities. Another great series is his street food tours where he checks out some of the best street food stalls in a city over the course of a day, often eating for 10 or 12 hours – I don’t know how he does it without getting heartburn.

Emily Lush 

Stats: 14K on Instagram, 9.2K on Facebook and owner of blog Wander-Lush 

Niche: Expert on Georgia, Caucasus and Balkans travel

Every time Emily Lush posts something I stop what I’m doing so I can properly focus on it. Her careful and thoughtful views on travel, especially her love for Georgia are evident through the photos she takes and her detailed blog posts.

Originally a journalist from Australia, she now lives in Kutaisi full time and she often gives her followers unique insight into some of rural Georgia’s history and traditions. 

On her website, she states that she’s been striving to ‘make Wander-lush the most comprehensive and reliable resource for travel in Georgia’ and with over 250 travel guides I think she’s done just that. 

When we visited Georgia back in 2023, her blog was one of the main sources of inspiration we used to plan our trip. And she was even kind enough to recommend a great guide for Tsukalbo when we emailed her asking for advice. 

Last year she was also published in National Geographic detailing the best wineries and restaurants in Georgia – if you don’t know anything about Georgian wine (it’s the best in the world) I recommend checking it out.

Jonesw0rld 

Stats: 10,000+ on Instagram

Niche: Long travel challenge without flying 

If you enjoy chaotic vlogs that feel like you’re watching someone’s drunken Snapchat story, this is the account for you. Jonesw0rld is currently travelling from the UK to Australia without flying and is self-proclaimed to be ‘not that good at editing’ videos. 

What he lacks in editing, he makes up for in humour and showing an honest account of his travels – this includes his love for roaming around abandoned buildings and how many pints he’s drunk. At the time of writing this article, it’s 632. There’s also been a recent scandal because he realised he needed a visa for China that had to be processed in the UK. This is the kind of unpolished, disorganised content I live for.

My prediction is that Jonesw0rld will be a viral travel content creator by the end of the year, but at the moment I’m enjoying feeling smug that I discovered him (along with the other 10,000) before everyone else. 

Omar Nok

Stats: 742K on Instagram, 13.9K on Youtube, 288.9K on TikTok

Niche: Backpacked Egypt to Japan without flying 

In 2024, Omar Nok travelled 46,796 km without taking a single flight from Egypt to Japan. He left his finance job in Germany, documented his journey and shared it on his socials where it quickly gained a following for his focus on the kindness and people he met along the way. 

Omar has a passion for slow travel and seeing places that aren’t typically on the tourist track, he says “I don’t want to skip anything. I want to see the world, will all it has to offer”.

Even though he’s completed his challenge, I’d recommend you binge-watch his entire series on your chosen social platform. There’s also rumours of a new challenge starting April 2025 which I’m very much looking forward to watching, whatever it is. 

WhereintheworldisElshu 

Stats: 215K on Instagram

Niche: Traveling the world solo on a budget 

WhereintheworldisElshu is an unapologetic traveller who rejects the idea women should be settling down in their late twenties/early thirties and having babies. This also makes me feel a lot more secure in my own life choices, so thanks Elshu.

She’s an advocate for ‘diversity in the outdoors’ and started sharing her journey after realising there was a lack of black content creators in the budget-friendly travel niche. 

Elshu documents the good and bad from her experience travelling and often shares in-depth information about how much her stays, transport and food cost. It’s helpful for those who want to see a more realistic version of budget travel and a breakdown of how much you can save or spend per day. 

5 Travel Content Creators Worth Following: The Roundup 

These are the 5 content creators worth following in my humble opinion, but I’m sure there’s plenty more out there if you’re willing to put in the scrolling time. But let’s not dwell on our screentime hours, despite my phone reminding me every week that I should go outside more and touch grass.  

With most people having access to editing software and a decent camera in their phone, content has never been prolific but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth watching. 

This is another one of the blogs in Crash Rhino’s series of ‘Blogs You Might Actually Read’. These words are free but we also write words that help pay our bills and keep the lights on. 

If you’d like some words of your own in a variety of different formats – think blogs, business plans, white papers, reports or social media posts – then please get in touch via our contact form and we’ll get back to you ASAP. 

Three Alternative Places in Tokyo You Have to Visit

Serenity matcha latte and sakura snacks

Once you hop off the plane at Narita airport there are several places eager-eyed tourists always gravitate to. The Shibuya Scramble crossing, Akihabara and, for some reason, the ramen chain Ichiran where people wait for up to two hours in the cold despite there being 10,000 other ramen shops in Tokyo.

Let me preface this blog post by saying I hate the phrase ‘hidden gem’, it’s one of my least favourites – alongside the dreaded ‘moist cake’ and the excruciating nature of ‘circling back’. There’s no such thing as a hidden gem in the vast expanse of Tokyo, but there are places often overlooked by international tourists who might not realise there’s more to do than knock back sake in the tiny bars in Shinjuku.

So here’s my list of three alternative places in Tokyo you have to visit when coming to Japan:

1. Jimbocho - The Town of Books 

Perusing the special edition James Bond booklets

A street filled with independent bookshops and cute stationary? I don’t need to say much more, but I will. Jimbocho has a whole host of specialty bookshops where print media still reigns supreme and you can find pretty much anything if you’re willing to sort through the endless labelled boxes speckled with dust.

Recently Sam spent over an hour raiding the archives of one book shop and came away with an original copy of a 1980s wrestling pocketbook that listed all the champion wrestlers from the year 1984. He assures me this is akin to discovering the Philosopher's Stone. The perfect day in Jimbocho would look something like this:

Head to Cafe Ataraxia for a special-origin coffee. 

When a coffee shop in Japan looks like this you have to make a detour

One of the best things about Tokyo is the endless supply of amazing cafes where the cafe owners take immense pride in brewing their wares. My tip is that the longer they spend making the coffee, the better it will be. Some of the best coffees I’ve ever had are in Tokyo and I’ve waited up to 15 minutes before for a single cup. I can assure you it’s worth the wait.

Cafe Ataraxia also has classical music playing on an old-school gramophone and some delicious snacks like a four-berry cheesecake and homemade chocolate cake. It’s a special and authentic Japanese experience that can’t be replicated by some of the more ‘Instagram-leaning’ cafes that all feel a bit soulless after a while. 

Check out the Independent Book Stores

Books lining the streets of Jimbocho

I can’t stress how many bookshops there are in Jimbocho. And if you’re a bookworm like me then this can easily take several hours to really make some headway, especially if the bookshops have a cafe attached to them.

Some of my favourites are Jimbocho Book Town, Kitazawa Bookstore, Book House Cafe and they even have an entire bookshop dedicated to cats called Anegawa Bookstores Nyankodo. So if you’re a feline lover with a hankering for some cat literature then this is definitely the shop for you.

Go to a Historic Tempura Restaurant for a Lunch Set 

A crispy batter thing of beauty

After traipsing around the bookshops, you’ll have worked up an appetite so I recommend heading to one of the best tempura restaurants in the city, Kanda Tempura Hachimaki. It’s always busy (a good sign) and the fact that the grease build-up from 80 years of frying can be seen coming out of the vents shouldn’t deter you in the slightest. 

The full tempura set which has conger eel, two shrimps, vegetables, fish and squid will set you back 2200 yen (around £11 in January 2025) which is for the ravenous diner, whereas the lighter option will cost you 1200 yen (approximately £6 in January 2025). 

2. Shimokitzawa - The Town of Vintage Clothes 

Feelings of inadequacy and vintage clothes

If there’s one place I definitely didn’t feel cool enough to be walking around it’s Shimokitzawa. Filled with artisan shops, highly-curated 2nd hand clothing stores and plenty of delicious food options and cafes – it’s where stylish people go to make themselves even more stylish than they already are. 

You can easily spend a whole day wandering the little lanes, pausing to snack on a Totoro cream puff at Shiro-Hige’s Cream Puff Factory or get a vegan (yes vegan options do exist in Japan!) french toast at Universal Bakes and Cafe. Some of the unmissable spots in Shimokitzwa are:

Ten to Sen.

I think about this bowl of ramen at least once a week

A ramen place that specialises in curry soup ramen which is a cross between ramen and all the favours of a Japanese-style Indian curry. Ramen purists would say this breaks about 15 rules of what a proper bowl of ramen should taste like but as someone who’s always waiting to have her next curry, this is the kind of fusion I can get behind. 

The broth is spicy, complex and has a depth of flavour which smacks you in the face – and the addition of the array of vegetables and spicy nuts gives you texture that sometimes I miss in a standard bowl of ramen. Vegans and vegetarians are also able to pull up a chair at this establishment, as there are plenty of customisable options allowing you to omit any meat or animal products if required. 

It’s a very popular place and opens at 11.30 am so my advice is to get there a few minutes before it opens to ensure you aren’t waiting too long for this excellent bowl of noodles. 

Sujigane Coffee Roaster

Don’t you dare ask for milk - especially almond or oat milk

When I say the guy who runs this place is a true artist, I don’t mean it lightly. I’ve never waited so long for two coffees and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Looking at the Google reviews, a lot of people agree with me. 

Kimm thinks he probably takes coffee a bit too seriously

Tyrone is a fan of their ‘punk coffee’ that punches you in the face

It’s the type of place that looks a bit intimidating at first. They make it very clear that THEY DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ADD MILK OR SYRUPS to any coffee apart from the lattes. I expect the owner doesn’t even want to make lattes, but this is his way of compromising. He hand selects each bean that goes into every cup and will discard any that don’t meet his high expectations. There’s also nowhere to sit down and they have skull-and-crossbones on their cups – this is truly the rock and roll equivalent of coffee making.

They have slogans on their merch like ‘Coffee or Die’ and ‘Hardcore Beanz’ and I expect the owner truly believes this philosophy. Watching him make my drinks was akin to watching Monet paint waterlilies or Maya Angelou recite ‘And Still I Rise’. 

Any of the Second-Hand Clothing Stores

Yes, I know this is a photo of toy fish - I forgot to take any picture of the clothes

It’s difficult to say which are the best shops for vintage clothes, as it’s dependent on a person’s individual preferences and style. There are so many places that when I first went I got a bit overwhelmed by all the choices and bright lights. 

Some ones that stuck out to me were TreFacStyle Shimokitazawa for vintage 1980/1990s stuff, Big Time Shimokitazawa for unique pieces and Kinji Shimokitazawaten for more general thrift items. The fun of thrifting is you never know what you’re going to come across so I’d be prepared to do some rummaging. 

Prices range from £30-£100 depending on the type of clothes you’re looking for. On average I’d say most items were £40-50 so it’s not the same as charity shop prices, but the quality and range of clothes is much better in Shimokitazawa. There are also several much cheaper places if you hunt for them. There’s a particular leaning towards 1980s/1990s style clothing and also Americana-inspired items like sweatshirts, jackets and jeans.

3. Shibamata - Town of Tora-san

The very famous Tora-san

Popular with domestic tourists, Shibamata is famous for its beautiful temple complex and also the fact it’s home to the character of one of Japan’s most popular film series ‘Otoko wa Tsurai yo’. It’s the longest- running film series in history with a single actor, with 48 films being made between 1969 and 1995. 

The films follow ‘Tora-san’, a travelling salesperson who’s searching for love but is never able to settle down — it’s something of a cult classic in Japan. There’s even a statue of him in Shibamata as soon as you exit the train station. 

Some fun things to do in Shibamata are:

Get a matcha at the Yamamoto-tei Tea House 

Budget matcha but not when it comes to taste

One mistake I always see tourists making is to pay over the odds for a Japanese tea ceremony that’s catered to Westerners. There’s a beautiful tea house in Shibamata that has great views of a zen garden where you get practically the same things in a tea ceremony but at a fraction of the cost. 

We paid 700 yen each for a matcha and snacks (£3.50 in January 2025) at Yamamoto-tei and it also granted you access to look around the house and gardens as well as your drinks. I’ve never known serenity like sipping a matcha whilst looking out on a perfectly sculpted Japanese garden and I highly recommend doing this at least once if you’re doing a Tokyo trip. 

Pay the robot dragon for a dance at the Shibamata Taishakuten Temple  

This dragon can certainly dance

One of my highlights of Shibamata was finding out they had a robot dragon where you pay 200 yen for a number of different dances. And I was certainly impressed by the range of movements this dragon could muster. 

In Sakura season (cherry blossom season) I imagine the temple complex gets incredibly busy with domestic tourists but it’s a stunning complex that’s well worth a visit any time of the year. 

We visited at New Years so they also had an incredible range of street foods including gyozas, candied fruits and massive squids on a stick that were all around 500-700 yen. 

Some of the street food around some of the bigger temple complexes can be a little on the pricey side. But the more local spots tend to be cheaper and have more interesting snacks to try.

The busiest street food stand in Shibamata was actually the jacket potato stand, with the queue snaking far down the street. I have witnessed the slow ‘Jacket Potatoification’ of the world in the past year or so and my theory is jacket potatoes are the new smash burgers of 2025 and beyond. You heard it here first. 

Anything can be improved by putting it on a stick

Visit Shibamata Haikara Yokocho - the old sweet shop 

Perfect for any sugar rush

If you like the old-time allure of a sweet shop and wondered what the Japanese equivalent is, this is as authentic as you’re going to get. The shelves are lined wall-to-wall with all the sugar highs you could possibly imagine and in any form you could possibly think up.

I’ll confess I don’t know too much about Japanese confectionery items apart from the ever-looming presence of the 10,244 different flavours of KitKats they have, including one that they recommend grilling in the oven. 

But if you’ve got a sweet tooth then this is the one-stop-shop for you. My personal favourites were the shinkansen-themed lollipops and the Kirby gummies, but alas I didn’t purchase anything due to my fear of already consuming 500 grams of sugar that day through various bakery items. 

Three Alternative Places You Have to Visit in Tokyo: A Round Up

If you’ve gotten this far, my advice is that out of these three alternative places you have to visit in Tokyo… visit them all. With many tourists opting to do the Japanese holy trinity of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto over two weeks it can be hard to plan out your days and feel like you’re packing enough in and not missing anything vital. 

Some of my best days in Tokyo have been places that aren’t so popular on the tourist circuit so don’t be afraid to veer off the beaten track a little. 

As long as you're close enough to a metro stop or JR Line (5-10 minutes walk is ideal) then you can reach practically anywhere in Tokyo in under an hour.

The train system is one of the best in the world and as long as you know what exit you need – although don’t talk to me about Tokyo Station, that's a whole other beast – then you’ll be fine. 

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Crash Rhino’s Top Seventeen Books of the Year (2024)

Introduction by Becky:

If I wasn’t married to Sam, I would hate him on the sheer fact that he reads too many books that it makes me feel bad about myself. Whilst I can average a good 20-30 books a year depending on how fixated I become on certain topics (for 2024 it’s been dictators, ‘supporting women’s rights and wrongs’ and the lives of male authors and how badly they treated their wives), Sam will have his nose in a book all year round so that he clocks up an impressive 52 books a year. Insufferable, I know.

So I can hand on my heart say that this list of Crash Rhino’s top seventeen books of the year isn’t one that has been cobbled together for the purpose of SEO. It’s a list born of countless hours spent at airports, on trains, on buses, and has some absolute bangers that will have Lee Child or James Paterson quaking at their laptops, crying about their nonexistent plot arcs.

There’s also some slight shade thrown in this blog post so strap yourself in. My favourite bit is when Sam refers to Tom McCarthy books “as thinking they're just a little smarter than they actually are.” Ouch.

And am I really that surprised that the number one slot is a literary epic that spans 900 pages? No, but at least it’s not another Thomas Berhardt which makes Sam incredibly morose and existential for about two weeks afterwards.

17. Terminal Boredom

An uneven collection - I found a couple of the middle stories a real slog. But the standouts here are fascinating, and ridiculously ahead of their time given they were written in the 70s.

The title story is one of the best creative looks at "screen culture" I've read. You May Dream is another highlight - Izumi's general vibe revolves around groups of broken youth desperately struggling through their post-universes, and it's a great vibe.

She's maybe a bit too strange and dark to get a true anglophone resurgence amidst the ongoing boom of Japanese women in translation (though Verso finally published one of her novels in English this year so hopefully I'm wrong) and that's a shame because there's a unique eeriness to Izumi's work, well worth a read if you're looking for experimental sci-fi.

16. Orbital 

I’m very conflicted on Orbital. There are flashes of gorgeous description, real life-affirming stuff, and I love how compact it is. 

The characters are however practically nonexistent, and it became quite repetitive for me despite its short length. It's a great concept - each chapter being one rotation around the Earth in space is brilliant - but I felt a lot was missing in the execution. Worth a read, I just don't quite understand the levels of hype surrounding it.  

15. Remainder

Predates it slightly but this is essentially Synecdoche: New York if it was a novel. A guy wins a massive payout after an accident and decides he wants to pay people to recreate things he can half-remember. 

Lots of very precise repetition going on here - spending pages to describe the cracks in wall plastering, that kind of repetitive. I'm a weirdo so I like that sort of thing, but I recognise it's an acquired taste - you'll find the narrator mildly to majorly insufferable depending on your tolerance level. 

McCarthy's novels always come off as thinking they're just a little smarter than they actually are for me. But I liked the themes he's playing with here, worth a read if you're looking for some light existentialism. 

14. Convenience Store Woman

Transports you to Japan's many konbinis with their immaculate shelves, bright lights and plastic wrap. I loved the narrative voice throughout. 

I tried Earthlings first and it wasn't for me - I couldn't gel with the childish narrator and how the abuse scenes were described from their perspective, it made me very uncomfortable. This was still odd but it felt much more controlled, with a clearer purpose (deciphering Japan's insane work culture and its results like Hikikomori) that didn't outstay it's welcome. It’s a great weekend book that you can fall into for a couple of days.  

13. Island of Missing Trees

A surprisingly cosy book despite some of its more harrowing plot points, focused on the history of Cyprus through the perspectives of a relationship across the Greek-Turkish divide, a London-based descendent and a fig tree. 

Adored the descriptions and any extract focused on Cypriot food and culture. The Happy Fig taverna is such a beautifully realised setting. Dialogue here is however terrible, and the London timeline was far weaker for me. Still a great book though, its strengths far outweigh any shortcomings. 

12. Wild Thorns

One of the most important Palestinian novels, first translated into English in the mid 80s. It actually got a bit of criticism at the time for being too generous in its depiction of the working conditions in Israel for Palestinians. 

A great book firstly for its deft focus on class relations between Palestinians under the occupation - it offers a very nuanced angle of the realities at the time. It goes beyond the idea of resistance - it asks whether there's a right way to protest, and explores how an apartheid regime like Israel's impacts the relationships between the innocent people who live under it. There's also some interesting insight into masculinity and how resisting through its lens can end up creating even more issues. Worth reading in the 80s, absolutely worth reading today.

11. Broken April

All about centuries old blood feuds and revenge killings between Albanian mountain tribes - the unbreakable cycle of death, passed down through generations via an unwritten code. 

Can pinpoint the exact moment I realised there was something incredible here with this description - "The world shone like glass, and with a kind of crystal madness, it seemed that it might begin to slip at any moment and shatter into thousands of tiny fragments" 

A brief but fantastic book, deeply unsettling. Have come to love what I've read of Ismail Kadare so far.  

10. Paper Menagerie and Other Stories 

A stunning collection with some of the most important short stories of the last couple of decades. The title story is obviously incredible, but the man who ended history is the standout for me - it should really have ushered in a new faux-documentary way of writing. Perhaps it still will. 

Very few misses in here that I can recall to be honest, both Mono No Aware and the Perfect Match are also impeccable, but the whole collection is worth reading. 

9. My Year of Rest and Relaxation

A woman decides to try and sleep for an entire year to essentially reset her life, and does so by continuing to escalate her prescription drugs intake.

This is a wild ride and I loved it. Treads the fine line between darkly witty and just a bit fucked up incredibly well. The dialogue is stupidly good but it's the strength and unique depravity of the narrator's voice that drags you in and refuses to let go. I need to seek out Ottessa's other work.  

8. Homegoing

Two sisters and their descendants are tracked across hundreds of years of the slave trade and its impact in West Africa and across the US. 

Hard to cling onto who's who here - I appreciated it more as a set of loosely connected short stories that often end too soon. In fairness I think there's something there thematically, in that I wanted to spend more time with most of these characters but their stories and voices were cut short. An excellent novel that deserves most of the lofty praise it's received in my opinion.

7. Greenwood

A generation-spanning eco-narrative about tree-felling in British Columbia. This comes close to something really special - it faltered for me with the pacing (without spoiling anything the structure is very clever, but falters a bit with a couple of sections really dragging for me) and far, far too many tree metaphors. One of the characters is called Willow - there's not a lot of subtlety. 

I still thoroughly enjoyed it though - there's a lot of variety given to each character's narrative, and some of the better-realised ones stuck with me for a while. Also devoured it, it's very readable. 

6. The Obscene Bird of Night 

I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and it got a new translation this year, so no better time to dive in. An utterly depraved book in both concept and writing style, where narrators shift without any explanation and the experience of reading is less experiencing a story and more being trapped in a labyrinth whilst simultaneously falling into an abyss. 

There's a few important through-lines here though, about the crimes parents commit on their children, the ramifications of Chile's colonial past, the importance of the imbunche and other folk monsters to Chilean psyche among others. Wouldn't recommend it to most but if you want a challenge it's a rewarding nightmare. 

5. Lord Jim at Home

Similar to what happened with Stoner a few years ago, in that this was first published to relatively minimal acclaim in the early 70s and has recently been "rediscovered" - hasn't quite reached a wider audience yet but I'm hopeful it will because it's excellent. 

Adored it - such a deeply weird novel, it's a bildungsroman mixed with a dark fairytale, and it's weird in that uniquely British way, full of unspoken expectations and stupid upper-middle class eccentricities. Unlike anything else I've read. 

4. To Live

It all comes down to the flow here. To Live progresses so perfectly, drags you so seamlessly from one altercation to the next that you're never bored for a second.

Yu Hua narrates decades of Chinese history, from land reform to the communist revolution and its aftermath, with some brutal scenes along the way. No word is wasted, it's just masterful in its precision. Essential reading if you're interested in Chinese history.

3. Giovanni’s Room

Ridiculous that I hadn't read this before now really, such a beautiful novel. 

Baldwin has that clear talent reserved for only the true greats where you'll read a couple of sentences and what he's saying is so painfully true to your experience of the world —but in a way that you've never seen communicated or managed to express in your own words before that you catch your heart in your throat. 

2. The Dispossessed

The hardest of hard sci-fi and all the better for it. I had a bit of a fascination with anarchism as a teenager (I know, hard to believe) and of all the reasonable critiques of the ideology one I could never stand was the small-minded retort that it simply wasn't possible on a societal scale.

The Dispossessed imagines the potential reality completely. It's an extraordinary achievement in world building anchored by an Oppenheimer-esque protagonist, and I catch myself thinking about it all the time now. Ursula is untouchable - she's a force of nature, undoubtedly one of the best to ever do it. 

1. Demons

Unfair to compare everyone else to Dostoevsky really. I've now read 3 of his great 5 and yeah Demons is indescribably good, perhaps my favourite of his to date - adored TBK but the depths of human evil that this dredged is something else entirely. 

So few writers, if any, can write people so completely - we're all too complex. That's what really sets Dostoevsky apart for me. It isn't just his impeccably precise style, it's the fact that all his characters, their feelings and motivations and the nature of the inexplicable corruption inside each of them, feel frighteningly real. Not an easy read, but the best things in this miserable life aren't always easy. 

The Idiot next, but I might wait a few years.

Crash Rhino’s Top Seventeen Books of the Year Recap

So there you have it, another seventeen books to add to your never-ending TBR pile. I also read a smattering of the books on this list and my absolute must-reads are: ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’, ‘Homegoing’ and ‘Greenwood’. Ottessa Moshfegh is officially my new author crush and I’ll be getting my hands on all her books in the New Year because I’m a bit obsessed with how good her writing is.

This is the first in Crash Rhino’s blog series of ‘Blogs You’ll Actually Want to Read’. We’ll be putting out some blogs each month on a whole range of different topics that don’t just focus on marketing and copywriting.

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