A soft launch, with cats
Why this blog exists, what to expect, and a short introduction to Tuna and Boba (mostly Boba, because Boba has opinions).
The short version: we needed somewhere to put the things that don’t fit in a 39-second Short.
The credit card spreadsheets that explain why a flight to Tokyo costs us $11 in fees. The Taipei restaurant list with the one place that does the milk tea you’d fly back for. The slow, mostly-not-funny thread of being Asian American and quietly building a life that lands us back in Asia. None of it ends up in the YouTube feed. So here we are.
What you’ll find here
Five buckets, same as the channel:
- Travel. Real trips, real receipts, real “we missed the express train and had to figure it out” moments. June is Taipei. November is a multi-city run through Japan. Both will be over-documented.
- Credit cards and points. Chase, Amex, Bilt, transfer partners. The strategy we actually use, not a card-of-the-month carousel. Affiliate links will be present and disclosed; we’ll say so above the fold and link to the full disclosure.
- Lifestyle. The grocery store hauls, the slow mornings, the things that make a Sacramento apartment feel like a Taipei one.
- Cats. Tuna is calm and photogenic. Boba is chaotic and survived a street life. You’ll meet them both. Mostly Boba.
- Identity. The through-line. Why Asia keeps pulling, and what it actually costs to plan a soft landing back there.
Two things about the cats
Tuna will sit politely in any photo you ask her to be in. She’s the one we put in the channel intro because she looks like a children’s-book illustration.
Boba, the second cat, was a stray on the Sacramento City College campus. She knocked over a glass of water this morning while looking us in the eye. She is the reason this blog has a comments-disabled policy in spirit, even if it has one in actual settings later.
What this isn’t
It isn’t a card-churning blog. It isn’t a “ten things to do in Tokyo” SEO mill. It isn’t influencer-glossy. We will not be doing a haul of products we don’t own.
If a post here helps you book a trip on points or pick the next cat food brand, great. If it just gives you a quiet ten minutes between meetings, also great.
Stick around. The next post is the Taipei prep list, and after that, the Chase Sapphire Reserve breakdown that explains why we keep paying the annual fee.
— softpawsedlife