Tonight's dinner was the most moving meal I've had since coming to Japan. I didn't do much research beforehand, just found a highly-rated eel restaurant near today's hotel. Upon arrival, I realized the shop was even older and more worn than I imagined. If you're not careful when flipping through the menu, the whole thing might fall apart.

Since eel cuisine prioritizes freshness, the owner only started preparing after we placed our order. The process involved many steps and was quite time-consuming. After getting the owner's permission, I filmed him working from the side.

After taking a few photos, I sat down to have a drink. While waiting, I inadvertently noticed a yellowed, mottled "Seikin-sho" (Diligence Award) hanging on the wall. Asking AI to analyze the content of the "Seikin-sho," I was surprised to find it was a certificate awarded fifty years ago. In other words, the owner is probably around eighty years old now.

For over fifty years, he has focused on doing one thing every day: eel rice. The existence of this shop and the bowl of eel rice before me are the most concrete manifestation of "shokunin kishitsu" (craftsman spirit).

Boris Cherny, senior engineer at the Anthropic team and creator/head of Claude Code, was interviewed by host Lenny Rachitsky. Lenny asked him, "Once AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is fully realized one day and humans no longer need to write code for a living, what do you plan to do?" Without hesitation, Boris answered that his next goal is to return to Japan, seclude himself, and devote himself to fermentation techniques, aiming to create the most authentic, perfect miso soup in all of Japan, even the world.

After tonight's dinner, I think I have my own answer. If one day I achieve what I consider the "complete Holy Grail" in the field of trading, then my next job will be to come to Japan and learn to make authentic eel rice: "Three years to skewer, eight years to split, a lifetime to grill."